Anger my old friend -revisited.

Anger will tear your spirit down like no other emotion can for when it hits you even if you manage to allow it to settle down and not explode in negative acton, it will still remain with you for a length of time until every trace of its cause and effect is removed from the mind. A few days back i found out that i could not get into my car because someone had kicked the door and the dent has topped me from being able to open it. Ever since I have to squeeze myself sideways in order to enter the driver's seat and worse when getting out, but such I have a good idea of who would have done it because the car was parked and visualize the ev in my parking space and the car parked next to mine seems to have an issue about something that i have no idea about as yet and what is more weird is I have yet to meet the owner of the car or the two motorcycles that is often parked there. So what gives i ask myself, is this another racial crap that I have a Chinese who thinks malays do not deserve to live in the same apartment building as them? Yes one tends to assume the worse  dream of even worse forms of retaliation as only a sick mind can.

Although I am trying to drop the whole matter and make believe it all did not happen, t is futile until I get the door fixed as it is a constant reminder every time I have to use it to get in and out of the car and the ugly dent that is now a pain to look at and the same question that floats in my mind, how or what did i do to cause for such a retribution from someone i have yet to set my eyes upon. Then yesterday I found an expensive pair of sun glasses drop by the owner of my next stall neighbor. my initial reaction was, payback! But I decided to hang the glasses by a rain gear that was hanging by the and walked away. Not worth it, more karma creating stuff, I don't need at this point in my life, let the world win in this cases and so long as i can drive and get to wherever it is that I need to go, I will be happy to put up with the inconvenience. off course God is to be blamed! Ha! ha! who could have allowed for such a transgression to happen but the Lord of Test. Yes the Lord decided to take a poke at me because I was having a few good and am forgetting to be grateful of something like that, or simply that shit happens!

Do and be good, the Buddha is said to have said and that is all you have to do to clean up your past karmic actions. Allowing the world to be as it is, is not a defeatist attitude but a self realization that,one cannot change the world for what it is, but one can change oneself to transcend what is. Easier said than done? Not really, not today at least as there are lessons to be learned everywhere you care to look and if you care to take up a practice and master an art of self discovery and self empowerment, to be able to say, enough is enough i do not need you to aggravate me to feel alive. I will be an unwilling, unattached, witness to all your vexations and nothing more; I have my God you have yours and right and wrong is still a sickness of the mind.

Feliz Navidad! - Selamat Hari Natal!

1. Celebrated Christmas by attending two churches for the Christmas service, the first church was a mistake of venue while the second was the actual venue where my friend LeeKhai had invited me to attend. As my daughter decided to tag along we ended up spending Christmas morning among the predominantly Chinese Christian population at two different churches. Merry Christmas indeed from the Baharis! It is our intention to celebrate life in all its forms and, faith and fancies.  if nothing else it will be a memorable experience for my daughter and I something to reflect upon when it is all over; what did we do on Christmas day of 2018? Cannot remember what names the churches were now, but it does not matter now, just so long as they were celebrating the birth of Jesus- A Very happy Birthday JC!

Some of the most beautiful moments of my life were spent on Christmas Eve in the winter nights of Green Bay, Wisconsin. A Bottle of Red wine and a blazing fireplace while curled up in a bean bag after a hardy dinner of T'Bone steak with sauteed mushrooms and sliced white onions. Baked potatoes and steamed asparagus all collected from the fields around the farm. A gentle jazz of Hubert Laws and Grover Washington Jr. Bob James or John Pierre Rampal. Ahh... those were the Christmas I miss much. I miss the beautiful Christmas mornings at the Green Gulch farm Zen Buddhist community in Sausalito, Marin County, California. After a delicious breakfast of steaming hot Miso soup with fresh loaf of Bread freshly baked from the kitchen by none other than the Master Baker of the Tassajara Bakery of San Francisco, A few of us would take a slow walk down through the fields towards Muir Beach to sit and watch the waves roll in and out over the Pacific Ocean. From behind us, the sun would be rising over the Tamalpais hills bringing the Green Gulch Valley to life. 

Today Christmas was spent among a bunch of Christian Chinese folks, it is a little .not so alike, but it was an event nonetheless. A very merry Christmas to all who read this and may the new year brings you loads of Happiness and may you be free from suffering. 

Where is Buddha when you need Him?

The drum roll from Kitaro's, Matsuri, sets my heart in rhythm within and without,  and my body sways to the floating sound of the flute and the acoustics I am drifting into my inner sanctum where only I am allowed to be. It is my retreat from the onslaught of external stimulus and vexations. Thank you Maestro, your music has been my source of inspiration ever since i was introduced to you, Kitaro San! If my memory does not fail me, I think i first listened to Kitaro' Matsuri when i was driving towards Kuala Terengganu in a car driven by my late Brother in law Syed Ahmad and his two sons Syed Faisal and Syed Harman sometime in the 80s, I fell in love with what i heard and has been one of my long time favorite.  I might ever call,it my spiritual picker upper when I am feeling low in form and energy as I am now. Music to me is indeed food for the sol, : I know mine is bathed in the music i choose to listen at the moment in time and space; it is meditative or leads to a meditative state of mind.

Yes I could use just about anything now in order to get my mind to quiet down from so much hankering over nothing and giving me so little space to reflect with clarity at what is truly happening or should happen. I keep losing track of my intentions towards becoming more awakened from this zombie state of being in limbo. I need a Kitaro's, Matsuri or Hans Zimmer's Pandora, to bring my mind back from its wandering. The egotistic mind will never give up from demanding to be heard and reckoned with, it is part and parcel of being human, this is where the laws of cause and effect takes it roots, the ego is an insatiable parasite that feed upon each and every episode, event, experiences mental phenomena and so forth; it is its inherent nature. It is the wise that sees this and learn to navigate through life without letting the ego have the upper hand all the time; silence is the antithesis of the egoic mind. To bring the mind to s silence is the practice of every man looking for liberation from this cyclic existence of life, death and rebirth, I did not make this up, it came from the Buddha.

It's Depression that is killing us. he said to me.

An Imam from the mosque  i usually pray at in Sungai Pinang sat at the table where i was having lunch and in a brief conversation stated that 'murong' or depression in Malay is at a worrisome level in our community.  Coming form a man who does not see me eye to eye to begin with was quite a wake up call, he was serious and concerned and it was written all over his face. What do i say to such a person? Hey open the mosque doors air it out let the community come in and out at any time they like and  provide more positive entertainment for old and young! Stop the heavy of brimstone and hell fire, share more stories that are uplifting and those that inspire and promote good health and spirits. Provide food and refreshments to attract the poor and needy to the mosque yard so that the mosque is always alive! No! Not at our mosque as i see it, it always locked up except when comes the prayer times and as soon as the prayer is over wham! bam! The mosque becomes a tomb again!   

The causes of depression is very easy to discern, what makes a man depressed is primarily because he has no connection to or a good companionship with the community in the form of friends that he can sit and listen or talk to. He is isolated even from God when he runs out of things to ask for or words to praise His Maker and most often getting no response whatsoever. He can only hide behind the belief that it is all a test from the All Mighty of his faith and so forth before his common sense kicks in and say, Bullshit! Depression is an illness that inflicts itself upon those who have run out of ideas and imaginations, those who has very little or no understanding in their inherent nature of being a productive and awakened spirit; depression finds victims in those who have spent their lives entirely self centered and self serving for when there is no more to crave for or to hoard for the self, there is only an sense of dissatisfaction or incomplete, like something is always lacking. Have I earned enough, accumulated enough, accomplished enough, what am I missing? Depression is a by product of loneliness, of the desire for a sense of belonging, of feeling having wasted time in life and not being able to change one's lot. Depression is a self inflicted illness that we all suffer from off and on and it is better to keep it off than on as much as possible. 

Join a dance club even if you cannot dance worth a dime or become a traveller and leave your home, get out there and see what the world has to offer, take up fishing or volunteer as a substitute teacher sharing your hard earned expertise while at the same time enjoying a relationship with other,s. In essence, throw open your doors and windows and step outside and invite into your life the world out there and share life for better or worse. You were not created to become a self serving self aggrandizing entity, while at your later wallowing in self pity or feeling not appreciated for what you have achieved all your life. We are being conditioned by society to live in such a way as to go through certain stages like schooling, working and retirement, primarily, after which we are to fill up the empty spaces in between and at the end and so what do we have to do this with is what we create out of the conditioned state or out of the box we have been bred into. What we create for ourselves that has no intention for profit or gain is what will sustain us through our times of need spiritually , psychologically and physically; so take up Yoga!Take up Tai Chi, take up Karate or Kung Fu, take up Art! It is never too late nor too early to do so.

God Is Blue!

Had a long conversation with an Imam from the nearby masjid over lunch yesterday and I was doing the questioning while he was patiently answering me about some basic tenets of Islam. We talked of basic laws governing the afterlife, as to who gets to be in heaven and who does not and the bottomline is that he who submits to the will of Allah by the virtue of his professing the Mushahadah will eventually end up int heaven even if he has transgressed in his lifetime. By acknowledging that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is His messenger, one becomes a Muslim and observes the five pillars of islam and refer to the Quran as a guide in daily life, as a revelation or word of God. Islam is a very simple religion which is made to seem as a harsh and demanding one by some who practices extremism. We talked of the performance of the Haj and he was very excited of this for the fact that once a person has completed his/her pilgrimage, the slate to his life is wiped clean; all sins are forgiven. I kidded like that's why there's millions who wants to get there every year, the world is full of sinners.

One of my question s was, how does one knows that God has forgiven or accepted our repentance? he said that when you start feeling you are incontrol and sinning less, like drinking or gambling lesser and lesser and it has not more control over you and you finally kick the habit for good, God has accepted your repentance. Being in relationship with God or being religious is  more of a feeling rather than perception. You feel God's presence when you call on Him, less than what you see happens or does not happen when you call upon Him. Often when you witness an extraordinary sight in nature you feel awed, and your hair stands at the back of your neck and you whisper to yourself, there is a Divine presence here. God is everywhere but most of all is within you; you are the temple of the Living God. 

Why is it so difficult for man to accept the fact that he is in essence of a divine nature, that he is not just an evolved amoeba that has taken a long time to become human. Is it ego? Is it pride? In the Quran it is mentioned that Pride is the origin of evil. Why is it so hard for man to bow before that which has been proven over the ages to be the all Encompassing all Knowing Lord of Creation by almost religions giving It different names according to geographical and cultural and historical heritage if not by the spoken language itself. Perhaps what is hard for us to do is to discard the image of God that our minds has created by virtue of a specific culture or description of a certain scriptures; we have created a humanlike God and thus endowed with human traits; an angry God, a jealous God, a wrathful God, a compassionate God etc. A God we can depend upon to ask anything of and lay the blame on, a God that is fair and negotiable with; a God of reward and punishment.


Now that we have pegged and pigeon holed the The All Mighty Creator, analyzed and dissected every aspect of His condition, what do we do? We run around claiming whose God is, The God, Whose God merits worship and total faith, in simple terms whose God is the right one and we are willing to kill for our stand on our believe in our God. Hallelujah!, God is Great! Is this all there is to it? Are we merely victims of our own delusion as Richard Dawkins claimed. We will have to wait till afterlife to find out, because God is not going to come out of His mountain and give us any clear sign more than he has already been giving  us all through our human history. This Internet for instance is a Miracle of Miracles unless we are too blind to see it as such and take it for granted as just another human collective intelligence putting together yet another tool for our usage in dealing with our daily lives. Perhaps this is the tool that is supposed to reconstruct the Tower of Babel, undo the schism that was wrecked upon humanity for our arrogance in thinking we could outthink God!  

"If you ask me what or who God is, I would say God is Blue and plays the bamboo flute." - A Hare Krishna Devotee. 

Tying up loose ends - Is the universe what they say it is?

As scientists gropes around for the answers to the creation of the universe and its inherent nature many are coming to grips with the fact that the universe has a Creator. Although most are still hiding in the corners from making any form of commitment as to the final say whether yea or nay, there are those who are seeing the light as to the possibility that there is some form laws and principles that governs the basic mathematical order of the universal structure from the molecular levels to the cosmic grid and this laws are governed by an intelligence that in the spiritual sense man would call God, Brahman or Allah all meaning the same entity or Being. The Universe is in and of itself is a living entity that breathes and has its own consciousness that is connected to the whole of its being governed by the basic laws of attraction and interdependence as metaphorically described as Indra's Net of pearls in Buddhism.

Indra's net (also called Indra's jewels or Indra's pearls, Sanskrit Indrajāla) is a metaphor used to illustrate the concepts of Śūnyatā (emptiness),^[1] pratītyasamutpāda (dependent origination),^[2] and interpenetration^[3] in Buddhist philosophy..
Wikipedia.

Perhaps when God said "Let there be Light!" The Big Bang happens spontaneously, manifesting a universe of splintered whole, like shattered glass being hit by a thunder bolt. Bits and pieces are thrown far and wide in all directions, large and small in all kinds of shapes and forms, solids and gasses and just pure energy. The concussion perhaps was so immense that it generated a high amount of energy strong enough to convert matter into vapor and vice versa and restructured elements from one into another causing fusion and manifest new elements that fills the whole space continuum as the universe expands outwards for eternity. Like planet, suns and stars, like the galaxies and the dark matter of space itself, we are a part of this ongoing process. We has evolved from the very atoms that was once floating about into who or what we are today as a result of this whole process of Creation - the Big Bang - the Divine Will. As Deepak Chopra said, we are made out of cosmic dust that originated from  the explosion of a super nova or something like that, can't remember his exact words and they made more sense than mine no doubt.

I am no scientist nor am I a highly religious person but I like to know, I like to understand, I like to discover for my own how and what makes it all tick like a clockwork. Having accepted the fact that there is a Creator, a Mastermind, a Planner and call it by whatever name you will  , the next question I, like most others have to ask is what is my purpose and relationship to this 'Creator'? How did I evolve to be able to come to this level of consciousness whereby I am able to ask this primal question, who am I or what am I? Perhaps science will find an unequivocal answer as to what it is all about in some distant future, but till then I will have to keep on asking if not science or religion, philosophy or logic, to come up with an acceptable equation. I realize that to most it seems like a waste of time to even think of there issues, but I feel like I am coming to at the end of the road and it is a loose end I need to tie up with before I exit this life.

And the Truth shall set me free...or not.-like what truth?

   We are a spiritual being having a human experience not the other way round, it is often said by the Gurus and Saints, wise men and spiritual minds. Moksha, Enlightenment, Samadhi is already inherent in all of us; we are here simply to remove all the notions that we are in bondage. We are free and nothing is holding us except for ignorance of this realization  that we are free from any form of bondage other than that which we create for ourselves. I am a consciousness whereby space and time is included within the whole equation of being me, however when I cease to exist, space and time are just illusions of my state of being in this physical realm, for in essence the 'I' itself does not really exist as the teachings of the Buddha had revealed. 

Transmigration of the soul or better known as incarnation is the belief common to almost all the Hindu, Buddhist, Jain and various other Indo religions. A man or his soul goes through an evolution from one stage to another whether for the better towards the divine or the worse spiraling downwards towards the lower forms of life even to that of worms and microbes. Each according to the karmic consequences that the evolving soul had accrued through its existence. This human form that I am in is considered to be the most auspicious and conducive towards attaining to the highest level of existence in this cycle of life, death and rebirth, for it is only in this form that we are able to become liberated from the state that we are in which ultimately is the state of suffering. It is through being awakened from the sleep of Maya or delusion, that we set ourselves free from the laws of karma and to attain this we are here as we are making every effort towards our own salvation, as is said, there is nothing and no one that can do it for us but ourselves. We can listen and  follow the guides and teachings of all the wise men of old and contemporary alike but the final step is still dependant upon our own self discovery. We can only liberate that we have come to understand as who we truly are; this is the journey of life itself, this is why we are here.

In the Bhagavad Gita it is said that we are governed by three influences, that of goodness, passion and ignorance. Each of these causes us to gravitate or plunge into heaven or hell accordingly. It gets a little complicated after  you go a little deeper into the matter with all religions; the details. based on how heavy your karmic consequences happens to be you might end up in a Buddhist or Hindu hell too.

For those who have been born and raised as Jews. Christians and  Muslims or the Abrahamic faith and religions, the story of life itself is different and can be considered as the reverse of the earlier statement that. we are spiritual beings having a human experience. It is more appropriate perhaps to say that we are human beings having a spiritual experience in this short span of life we have on this Planet. As a Christian, a Muslim or a Jew, we are trying to understand fully our relationship to a Divine Being that had created us and this universe. We are subjected to the laws and doctrines of The Book or the Scriptures and revelations as handed down to us from the day that Man was first conceived. In the Abrahamic religions, man's existence is pretty much spelled out for him and having an unwavering faith in the One God, the Creator of All, is the key to the KIngdom of Heaven and life on this plane is made easier while it last. It is said that the soul before it was released into the physical realm of existence had made a covenant with God, to worship none save the Lord, thy God. In the Holy Quran it is said that God,(Allah) created the Jinn and man for no other reason than to worship Him, failing which there is hell to be reckoned with in the afterlife.

Then there are the non believers, the Atheists and the worshipers of modern science, to whom nothing of these matters at the end off the day as in essence nothing really exist and death is just a dissolution of the physical form after it has lived its time out. There is no heaven or hell, nor an awakening or enlightenment to talk or think of, man lives his life out just like a rat in the lab waiting to be made and experiment of in order to discover what it is all about. Man is nothing more than a bunch of atoms and molecules strung together by the laws of nature and physics, biological as well chemically equated elements found in the universe. Space itself is said to contain the energy that runs the whole structure of the universe including the keeping of man alive. As soon as this energy is no longer present in the human form, life for that form comes to an end and all the elements is returned to the whole or the universe to be recycled?

This in a nutshell is my understanding of who I am in relation to the whole of the universe, humanity and the cosmos alike. None of these concepts are right or wrong to me as they all have parts and parcel of the whole and they are all pigments of my own imagination and understanding. Right and wrong is still a sickness of my own dual thinking mind. Spirituality, religious beliefs. faith and understanding is to me very personal in nature and at the end of the day only I can   come to a complete acceptance of what the truth and reality of the matter is. In the meantime it is my complete responsibility to pursue this life long quest of self enquiry to the end of its course; like holding a burning ball of fire till it becomes ashes in my hands...and the Truth shall me free. 

The Buddha's Big Mouth.

There comes a time in ones life when you have to make a stand and say enough is enough to those who has been trying to bring you down or put you in place where they think you should be. This, 'they' can be close friends and people one has tried to look up to or treat with respect in friendship or as colleagues, even brothers for that matter, perhaps in my case especially elder brothers. I have for most part of my life acted pretty much in a defensive role when it comes to my relationship with others mistaking it often enough as a sign of humility or humbleness or in short as a precaution against  self arrogance, aloofness or a show off. Perhaps i have been over doing it that often enough i found that most of the people i shown this trait to have reacted as though I am afraid, a weakling or a push over. 

Yesterday evening while attending an art show I found myself actually acting with a more aggressive role without even trying to. Most of the characters that were at the show were people or fellow artists who in the past I had treated as i mentioned earlier with respect if nothing else and now they have practically walked all over me,treating me with disdain.What was uncanny, now that I look back at the scenario, the 'they', were practically all there!  I was surprised at myself and even felt a twinge of guilt as i greeted each one with a deliberate sense of arrogance like saying no I don't really need you or your presence no matter your status or position in life as it is, but I greet you nonetheless simply because I happen to know you in the past. There were two caucasian expats at the show and I knew both of them and in essence had an axe to grind against for one reason or another. One was a Britisher who decided to shake my hand with his left and when he did this something inside me snapped and i almost shouted into his face the f word saying that I wipe my ass with my left hand and why should i take yours! The other  was an Australian if i am not mistaken married to a local Chinese and he has an attitude about him like he runs the town council ever since I have known him, I walked up to him and called him, hey! white man! into his face and it turned red perhaps from the free wine he was sipping too: I felt good and right. 

I had a good rapport with the gallery curator and told him that it was about time I had a show at his gallery and when I would like it to be, which to my surprise he immediately cancelled a name from his calendar which has been fully booked for the next three years to fit me in for a show in August next year. The opening date would be on the eleventh of August, a choice he made not knowing that the twelve would be my 70th, birthday which also happens to fall on the same date as the Eid Mubarak which is the most celebrated day in the Muslim calendar. However thanks to my big mouth now i have to start working on some new paintings for the show in seven months time. It will be a good challenge that will keep me on high alert for the next few months beginning with looking for money to get me my materials. It is begging time! Ask and ye shall be given, knock and it shall be open and  get the Buddha's begging bowl out, Bahari!  

As I have said before....I am that, I am

"In theosophy and anthroposophy, the Akashic records are a compendium of all human events, thoughts, words, emotions, and intent ever to have occurred in the past, present, or future. They are believed by theosophists to be encoded in a non-physical plane of existence known as the etheric plane. Wikipedia.

My Blog is not quite the Akashic record of my life, thoughts and deeds, not quite as elegant and immense, however it is still my effort in trying to keep up to date as to how my mind function and my body behaves in my daily activities in relationship to the rest of the Universe,(out there). This Blog is my way of keeping tabs on the what ifs and how come, the such is and the whatever, as I step one step at a time into the next moment in time and space; it is my record of my journey of self awakening. I am now more than ever am in touch with what I have been seeking as my own 'reality', one that i can say is it for me. I am looking at myself from inside out and from out, within, I feel much closer now to the end of my journey for whatever it is worth; I am coming home. If I were to die tonight, it would be a blessing as I am as happy and contented with who I am as I can possibly be. What happens from now on is just added bonus, to my health and wealth and I am grateful to the source of my being; I am that, I am. The Eternal, the Unborn Buddha Nature, the Supreme Consciousness of the Cosmos , the manifestation of the Divine - Lord of Creation.

“Simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world.” 
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

Lives that are being pushed out to sea.

For more than eleven years I have been hanging out in this area of the local fisherman's jetty. I enjoyed the friendliness and respect shown to me by those who come and go here eking out a living in one form or another, from fishing to drug dealing and gambling, running a restaurant/ coffee shop to selling the local brew called  ketum or biak in Malay. 

The area has been raided by  the narcotics department of the police force on numerous occasions and has become their place of training any new intakes on how to make drug and gambling arrests. As much as there are arrests made there is also rampant police corruption when fines a being pocketed by the law and enforcement officers according to the victims who were arrested.  

The fisherman's jetty is home to predominantly Malay fishermen who had been here for many years making it their get away home to hang out with friends and the freedom from being cooped up in an apartment building. Here they have the chance to let it go and do as they please after getting their jobs done.. The stench of the polluted sea and the garbage strewn all along the shore is the constant sight . 

This is the epitome of the life of the local Malays on the Island of Penang. Being driven out into the sea and deprived of even the meagre sense of freedom from the authorities. Their is a life of adjec displacement and neglect especially by the previous government for which they had staunchly supported to the end. Where would they go after this who knows and who really cares!

I am the Universal Soul.

And so what transmigrate after you die? If you are a believer in Incarnation and trans migration of the soul or life after death, the question is what or which part of you transmigrate or lives on to another dimension of existence whatever that may be. As a Muslim or a Christian i am to believe that i will end up either in heaven or hell. Science has not really come up with any conclusive answer to this riddle as yet except for those who have declared themselves as being atheist and thus when there is no soul to speak of then there is no transmigration of the soul can take place. In essence death means the end of the physical as a whole where nothing is left to be reckoned with. In this case life is meaningless in reality as we come, eat sleep. shit and die with no trace of who we are after we are gone. We will be remembered for a while by those who knew us or for whatever deeds we left behind good or bad for posterity, but after a while we are buried into oblivion. Atoms back to atoms perhaps to be pieced together again into another mass of an entity given the correct set of circumstances like that which  had happened before; if not well...floating around in the void of space is not bad either.

But what happens to consciousness, this that is making all the observations, mental, physical and spiritual, not to mention the psychological, emotional aspects of our human attributes or characteristics. It is rather hard to imagine that all these will simply fold up and disappear as though nothing had really transpired for the past seventy to eighty years. I am no scientist and as a matter of fact detested anything to do with math or science when I was in school, but I have a very imaginative mind that can envision my life and the universe without a single equation in the mathematical sense or scientific formula to have an insight into what makes the world goes round. Being raised and exposed to the ancient texts and religious values of the East and in my adult life being exposed to scientific understandings of the West, I am more than capable of coming to my own terms of   writing my own conclusion as to how and why the universe is created or what my connection to this whole state of existence amounts to. 

I am whole, complete and perfect, strong and powerful, loving and compassionate, harmonious and happy and I can do what I will to do, so help me God. This statement is made as an affirmation to myself, my mind and my soul almost every day of my life, just so i do not forget that i am more than meets the eye even to myself. I can read and listen to all the arguments and discoveries made by religions and the sciences throughout history and accept that all are a part of my wholesomeness, complete and perfect even those thoughts and ideas that are wrong or in errors, these too are a part of who I am; I manifest these for as long as I am living and perhaps when my physical body is dead. In my universe of existence nothing is lost and nothing is gain they merely appear and disappear just like clouds in an empty sky. The basic laws of cause and effect governs all and space and time are but an illusion that my mind has created in order to coexist along with the rest of the whole while I am in this state of consciousness, this realm. this dimension of existence. 

I am the Dancing Nataraja or the Cosmic Dancer, I am the selfless being of the Buddha, I am a conglomerate of atomic particles bunched together due to various laws of physics, biology and chemistry...I am that I am. I possess the Divine Nature, the Highest state of Consciousness, the Dharmakaya Buddha Nature and I am made out of the star dust of the universe, but all in all i realize that I am this entity this soul this infinite being that has existed and will continue to exist eternally along with the rest of the universe and souls like me. Whether an Einstein or a Picasso, Vladimir Horowitz or whether an Attila the Hun or a Stalin, these are all a part and parcel of my own complete whole as manifested from my own conditioning and evolution and is still in progress as more will come to fill up the empty spaces of my consciousness to completion, until I attain self realization or enlightenment; this is who I am. I am the sum total of what the Universe is in all its aspects a complete whole As the Universe is expanding, so is my consciousness; living life itself is just the taking care of the details in this realm of my existence.

This human life is precious as it is through having this form that I can liberate myself from the bonds of ignorance and impermanence consciously, just as I know I am going to die, I know i have to do all I can to transcend death by understanding life. The great teachings of the ancient masters and the scientific discoveries of the modern day combines together to pave the way for me into my self discovery of my own immortality; my eternal Being, my Cosmic Consciousness, my Divine Nature, call it what you may, but rest assured i will not accept being dubbed as an unconscious, soulless dust in the wind lost in the ever expanding universe; I am the soul of the Universe, I am the universal soul. 





   

Atoms to atoms-Dust to dust.

What am I under an electron microscope but tiny atoms bumping around against one another in an empty space; I am nothing. At least this is what science has to say about my physical status in this universe, I exist as I am in this physical form when all the natural elements come together in a cosmic balance and connects into each o, ther to form this material body I call my own body. When God created man out of clay and water and fire and wind all fused together and blown into life by the Divine wind, He created man out of His own image and endowed man with the mind making him capable of thinking, of feeling, of emotions and with the knowledge that man's life is impermanent; man will die one day. Thus man is , the only creature on this Planet who has the knowledge of his impending doom or  to be reborn into immortality after his physical death. Science is still grappling with the question of death and man's ability to think, to feel and so forth. No doubt under the microscope i am nothing but a gathering of atoms, mentally and psychologically, spiritually and in consciousness I am still an enigma. Science will proof what i am not, but what I am is a mystery yet far beyond the reach of scientific conclusion.

Perhaps one day into the future science will declare it has unravelled the mystery of God's finest creation but it will never be the whole mystery as if the whole truth is uncovered man will have ceased to exist only atoms remains, ashes to ashes, atoms to atoms. The question is where does the soul of man fits in this whole theory? I mean there has to be a programer or a n observer to this experiment; where does the 'I' fit into the picture? 

I am manifested Energy.

The Chinese calls it Chi and the Korean and Japanese calls it Ki and Hara the Hindus calls it Prana, in Malay it is known as 'angin' or wind and we call it Energy and it is what makes us who we are for without it we are as dead as a piece of driftwood. We are a bundle or a sack of skin, flesh and bones that allows for energy to flow in and out of ourselves like a hollow reed that allows for the breath of God to flow through us to make music that soothes the world. We are the machines and tools that the Universe employs in order to express itself and manifest its intentions. When fine tuned, we can manifest a whole lot of manifestations albeit good or bad, just an electrical conduit is capable of delivering maximum amount of electricity form one source to another when there is not obstruction along the way. Hence it is in our nature that we strive for an open channel with as little obstruction as we possibly could for energy to be delivered all through our entire physical as well as mental system.

Thus it is up to each and everyone of us to fully comprehend the workings of our body and mind in relation to the whole if not rest of the universe itself. It is imperative that understand our inner workings more acutely in order to become not merely as conduits and channels but also as boosters and impulses to generate greater energy out put of energy for the universe to operate. When all of us are able to become perfect conduits, channels and vassals of energy flow. collectively we can shape the universe according to our collective intentions. We can achieve this through making sure that our consciousness is not affected by any negative obstructions, like negative psychic energies in the form of anger or envy, greed or simply laziness. We owe it to ourselves to make an effort in keeping a well maintained mind and body status that is fluid and flawless, with all the channels open to receive and deliver energies that flows within and without; it is our practice our discipline.

In the practice of Kundalini Yoga, the energy flows through seven nadis or chakras upwards and downwards these are like your valves that helps to regulate your energy levels and intensities, where each level triggers a different frequency of energy the manifests different kinds of manifestations, such as sounds and colors. In the Chinese healing method of acupuncture and acupressure each point is a valve or a circuit relay that can cause a problem if in any way obstructed and thus has to be released through the piercing of the needles or the application of the pressure and sometimes heat as in moxa treatment. In short the flow of energy in our physical system is crucial just as in the external universal system as when energy flow is faulty it can cause harm to the body like a back pain or a stomach ache or a migraine. This is why it is vital that we make it a practice to move our body in exercises such as Yoga, Tai Chi, Chigung and various other methods and techniques to ensure that our energy flow is uninterrupted, fluid and smooth. 

We need a Saviour!

Things are happening that is leading us further and further into the depth of unhappiness as a specie; humanity is on the brink of self destruction as never before. On top of the climate going haywire and the sea rising and what with all the killing and starvations all around the globe, we are looking at a bleak future, or so it seems. Here at home the political situation is not getting any better with government trying hard to balance the budget and get as much back from the robbers and thieves that had robbed the country blind. Now the trend is racial discord rising as religious mania is being aroused as a tool for getting things done in the name of development. Yes we have to move forward and create more for the well being of the nation while how we go about it is questionable. In the Buddhist view it is called creating karma to destroy karma. The Hindus are up in arms over the attack by a group of hired thugs made of Malays mostly and this is all because the temple in question is located on a piece of land belonging to the developer or so I understand from the News Media. Then some pork meat was discovered in the compound of a mosque in another state that has nothing to do with the Hindu temple incident and so the snowballing  is gathering momentum.

What is it about us humans when it comes to suffering? It seems like we cannot have enough of it. Rather than enjoy what we have we would rather go all out to turn a good thing into a load of crap. We cannot simply rest and take it easy from creating more chaos than that has already been created and what we already have we are rarely thankful for cause it is never enough. We cannot see our neighbors having more or enjoying life better than we are without accusing them of one thing or another and most of all we do not really know how to share what we have with our neighbors which makes them feel envious of what we have in the first place. It gets more and more complicated as we think about how sick we have become as a specie and by right we should be removed from this planet like a cancerous virus that is out to destroy its host. 

And we pray, yes we pray to all our Gods, Hindus, Muslims, Christians and the rest of us so that we are spared from the suffering that others are going through in other parts of the world. What a hypocrite we have become claiming that ours is the true faith while others are damned to be thrown into hell and we are willing to die in the name of our Gods, like we will be rewarded for killing or maiming our fellow man and throwing the country that is barely making it from an economic meltdown into a free for all chaos. What is it with us that we cannot collectively live out our lives to the best of our abilities with what we have and make the best out of even the worse of our situations? We are a sick society that somehow refuses to give up the very thing that is making us sick; Greed,Hate and Ignorance.

Let's go fly a Kite!

A close friend passed away today, I felt a lot of mixed feelings about myself in my relationship with others especially those who I have known do more than ten years here in Georgetown. This friend whom everyone calls Nona, passed away last night and was buried this afternoon and I did not know about it until just now, about midnight tonight. None of my other friends told me or called me about it, so I missed my chance to bid my final farewell to this man whose life I had shared over the years. I feel like i have deserted him in his finals days by not being with him in his hours of need. I will miss him now that he is gone but I also felt it was time to for him and there was nothing I could have done and worse give some false hope. My bad Perhaps I was not being compassionate enough, this is my guilt feeling of losing someone and being hopeless and helpless to do much about it. I will have to live with it. Every now and then death knocks on your neighbor's door and you are reminded that your turn is not too far away from the same knocking.

It does not take much to trigger my mind into all kinds of mental discussions when it comes to death and the same question has always presented itself, am i ready for it. The answer is as always i do not really know the answer to that but I do look forward to it when it happens. What must it feels like to be set free from this physical body, to be formless and yet to be conscious of one's beingness. To be liberated from the confines of this breathing in and out, of being trapped in a mental conditioning that is afraid of death and dying. I hope when I die I will be accompanied by the musical score .Pandora conducted by Hans Zimmer in my mind's consciousness, Kitaro's . Heaven and Earth is no bad either. It is said that the sum total of your consciousness is exposed to you at your first moment of death , it is so overwhelming that it is just like a blinding light, a flash of lightning that erases all that you think of who you are and leaves you hanging in the limbo of emptiness.

Maybe so, scary to think of it but interesting nonetheless like the vision quest of the Navajo Warrior, one can never be prepared for what one is going to encounter on the other side. Perhaps nothing, you simply ceases to be and that's it, end of story, no more traces of tell tales of who or what you once were. the 70 to 60 years of your so called life just up and poof! Gone! Would be a great waste after all that has been shared, educated and impressed upon you as you get to where you are on the last breath, is all for nothing.  On the other hand you could be listening to the monk or Lama's voice as he leads you from your moment of death state to the end where you reincarnate after 49 days of your Bardo state that precedes death; this is according the Tibetan book of the Dead. Or you could be facing the two angels of Munkar and Nakir, who are designated to ask you several questions of your faith in order to ascertain where you will end up or how you will be treated henceforth the moment the last of the last of your mourners have left your graveside; this is the Islamic view of what happens when you die. 

We will all one day end up in the Happy Hunting Ground sooner or later and how or when it is a matter up for grabs as none can tell except when it is happening gradually as in a sickness or through a mortal wound of being shot at or an accident. But the human mind has been preparing for this moment from the day he understood that he will one day die whether he knows it or not. Morbid as it may seem, I have never passed a day without imagining my own death and how I would ride it as it happens to me; yes to die fully conscious of the event happening and beyond. 

Can I too, like the Buddha declare to myself, "I, Am No More." 

Who is the true Malaysian?

Among the concerns that I have of late is this need for development all over the City of Georgetown and it seems like developers are having a field day trying to get more and more projects going in order to reshape the island and its landscape to look more like a Singapore or a Hong Kong. Land reclamation along the shoreline has redrawn the outline of the Island from its original shape and new condos and apartment buildings have sprouted almost everywhere you look, the skyline is no more the same. Who is going to live in those apartments you wonder, how many Penangites are there that an afford these expensive homes? What happens to the environment with so many unites of housing being built and very little done about sewage management. I get tired just thinking about it much less writing as I am quickly finding out making this post entry. But it is happening and it is happening everywhere, we are building and building more and more like there is no tomorrow, "they keep on building higher till there's no more room up there, but tell me, where do the children play...?" (Cat Stevens).

Then there is the racial bigotry and who has the right to be the citizen of the country tripping. You cannot fart the wrong direction without having someone accuse you of being a racist in this country and when all fails politically, the racial card is played to the max to win. For the past past 60 odd years we have lived alongside each other, the Malays Chinese, Indians an the rest of the ethnic groups too many to name and what have we learned? Zip! Nada! Not a bloody thing. We are still short fused when it comes to racial issues, someone is always stepping on our toes where our race is concern. No time in the history of this country are the Malays more Malays, the Chinese more Chinese and the Indians...etc. Ethnic identity has become pandemic among all the races in the country, each claiming to be better and more relevant than the other, sad, but true and getting worse. This racial bigotry is being played by the politicians from both side of the divide all along to set ablaze hatred in the effort to divide and rule or gain support. For so long as Malaysians allows for this to go on, we will know no peace as a nation.

Then there is the religious idiosyncrasies that is inherent in all the various religious denomination that makes up for this nation. Each is crying out louder than the rest from the rooftops and mountains that their faith is the true faith, that their religion is the true religion and so forth and this has been going on for ages like it will never see the end of it at least not in my lifetime and perhaps not even my children's or theirs; it is like we will never ever learn.. The rights to worship, to have temples and churches, mosques and what have you has become an on going issue since the day, God said, build me a home, now we have hundreds and thousands of God's home all over the country and ironically with a growing number of homelessness among the population, while God is seldom home. Religion has become a commodity and like racial bigotry, it has also become a potent tool for politicians  who has ran out of juices to pander their ideas. If and when all else fails, lets throw down the religious card, it never fails.

Then there is education and this is an even more confusing issue that plagues the government of the day as just everyone if not every ethnic group has an axe to grind about it. I feel very fortunate to have been among the last of the educational system that was pretty much the British standard of educational system.    

  After I left the secondary school the educational system went through some major revamping starting with the National Language as the medium of delivery.Then came the rest of the systems of education catering to the different races with the demand made such that the mother tongue is not lost and so forth, Chinese, Indian and Malay schools became the norm. While on the one hand we are screaming nationalism and devotion to one flag and one country, on the other hand we are demanding that our each and every racial identities be preserved at all cost and are willing to kill or die for it. As the saying goes, we want the pie and eat it too. No individual race in this country is willing to make the sacrifice of giving up their racial heritage and fully embrace the New Malaysian identity; it would be a lie if anyone admits to it except for those who are by birthare of mixed nationality; perhaps these are the true Malaysians.







  

Do you see what I see/

See if the experiment is making any more sense so far approaching to becoming a schizoid as I allow for my life to happen with accepting the moment to moment experiences and manifestations before me. I realize that I am nowhere near to the complete detachment of the Buddha's teachings, but suffice to say even at this distant I can already feel the effect of in the moment in space and time, to empty of your own being, to dissolve and merge into emptiness. No, I am very far from being able to give up my souls and step over to the other side just as yet, especially, fully conscious. No Sir, not I. I have a whole lot more to complete before I can call it a date, but it is happening.In small doses i am starting to see what lies beyond the veil, I am beginning to appreciate the beauty of my mind even in its impossible state. How the mind works cannot really be fully explained by any other great or small minds. The mind is the creator of all minds or better known as mental formations, no mind, no Buddha!

If you hold your breath long enough, you will change whatever mental formations thoughts. ideas and so forth in your mind at the present moment. Try to stop your regular breathing while watching  what the mind is up to. Let go of this as you blow out your breath and watch if your are still thinking of the same thing as before. Chances are that you are either in between thoughts or you simply forget what the were before you stopped breathing. This pause between two thoughts is  where you, the 'manager' can influence what kind of thoughts should arise next. As a true practitioner one would off course rather not have any more thoughts to arise for as long as possible, but the mind has its own will to exert new and more dramatic scenarios to counter this effort, I still don't have a clue as to why just yet but i kn this much, that nothing is more illusive and unpredictable than the human mind.

It takes a thief to catch a thief and so it is with the mind, To liberate the mind from incessant thinking it is necessary to employ the mind itself. By what is known as skillful means in Buddhism the mind is subdued and become subservient to the dictates of the soul or spirit or the observer, the witness, atman, call it by what name you will, cause you are it; you are not the mind nor are you the body. These are your vehicles, your tools, that which you express and project yourself and manifest your desires into the world at large. Realizing that you are the master over your faculties is a major step in the direction of self realization. Knowing that you are the charioteer and not the chariot or the horses, you are the puppeteer and not the puppets and that you pull the strings is paramount towards  becoming endowed with your inherent divinity. Most of us are fully aware of these aspects of our being, however not too many are deeply concerned in making it a belief or even a practice in our daily lives. Do you see what I see? Do you feel what I feel? Are we on the same page about who we are what we are capable of?

Life is an Experiment- I believe so.

All there to being an enlightened being to simply realize that you are an enlightened being and no two ways about it! You are an awakened  consciousness that is manifesting itself into the physical and the mental formations on this planetary realm of existence this is how I see it for myself at least. I am not saying that  am an enlightened being like the Buddha or Jesus or Muhammad, (PBUH), no Sir, I am my own enlightened being. I am not saying this to be smart either, nor to endorse any form of religious or spiritual practice nor am I trying start any new religion. No sir, I am at the age where writing my conclusion to the experiment of this practice I call life, is paramount and before i kick the bucket it is my desire that it be know how far or how near i have come from becoming one with the whole, the Cosmos, the One, the Infinite and The Ultimate Divine Mystery some call God while others Brahman. some call The great Spirit, while others Jehovah, but give It whATEVER NAME YOU MAY: TO BECOME ENLIGHTENED IS TO MERGE INTO THE cOMPLETE WHOLESOMENESS OF BEING; i AM THAT, I AM, (typo error being kept.)

The sum total of my entire journey inner and outer has been to arrive at this point of being able to say it to myself, that I am, that I am. Beyond what the mins is capable of manifesting and beyond what cna ever been imagine, there is no more doubt in this mind that it has at a point of no return, it is unleashing all that is the content of this individual DNA and spiritual unconscious realms or dimensions out into the open and it is time to write the conclusion to this lifelong experiment with life inner and outer beingness. Unravelling the mysteries of the ancient teachings from the cultures that makes up the human race, I am able to say to myself that I 'see the light'. the wisdom the wholesomeness of being awakened being alive and being aware of being alive; it is nothing special at all. When you are able to drop the mask from your face and show the real you to the world, the world looks at you differently; with a sense of awe if not fear. That is why we all wear masks in our daily lives that we may feel secure  within ourselves that the external world have no idea who we truly are! A coward at heart wears the mask of a bloodthirsty villain, a merciless soldier or a zookeeper. The brave at heart dorns the mask of a teacher, a chef or a carpenter, a priest of a a pauper even; the Brave at heart is timid and compassionate.

I shed my mask every so often and i realize that I have done this without making too much out of this although on looking back I now realize that i have become conscious of wearing and dropping my masks all along. I am the call it what you may, entity that does the donning and doffing of the masks that I wear. It is the slipping in and out of one's multi-personalities that one has accumulated along the way in order to cope with the external stimuli of the time and circumstances the I face. Today I was an uncle giving advice to a nephew and niece and a father to my son and daughter and a blogger jotting down my thoughts and feelings, trying to make sense out of the nonsense of this life. Mahatma Gandhi is said to have said that, Life is an Experiment: I believe so.

One for the road.

At  the very edge of the precipes I stood wondering if there is any more questions that need be answered or anymore unfinished business that needs to be completed; should I or should I not take this one last leap of faith into the unknown. I have traveled this road in many guises, of a father, a brother, a friend, a lover, an artist, a writer, a singer and a host of many other personas that had adopted along the way, and often I would arrive at yet another gateway that stands before me beckoning me to enter. I feel like I am standing before a Tori Gate in the Japanese mountain village about to enter into the sacred while leaving the mundane behind me. I have always wanted to make one final journey as an artist traveler before I call it quits, I would like to visit Myanmar or Burma as it used to be called. This is one country that has intrigued me, it is one of those countries that would to me be a challenge to visit in more than one way. Spiritually it is a predominantly Theravada Buddhist country and social and culturally it is quite a mystery yet as it has not really been exposed to the west as much as other Asean countries has been. If possible I would like to do a short practice period of  a Vipassana retreat at one of the monasteries there.

Oh well , I can dream and envision myself being on the road again, but whether my health and my financial status can make it happen is a matter of contention.  Today travelling without money or proper credentials is not healthy especially to countries that is still in a state of emerging from long periods of restlessness and under developed. In the late sixties my third oldest brother was sent to live in Burma as a ward to the drug lord there. My brother Gina as we used to call him was a drug dealer and one of the most wanted criminal in Penang. He was adopted and raised by the Chinese and in his young adult life became their drug dealer and loan shark collector; he was most feared by the criminal underworld or so i    was told. My brother who died some years back told me of his trip to Burma to escape from the law and how he was adopted by the drug lord Khun Sa a Shan tribal warlord who later became one of the most  feared drug trafficker in what was known as the Golden Triangle. Perhaps my late elder brother made up all these stories to brag about his exploits as a tough guy growing up among the Chinese secret societies and drug syndicates. I believe most of his stories as i was witness to a few of what happened to him in his later years and met a friend  or two of his that validated my brother's claims. I met a few Chinese who shuddered at the mention of his name  and who treated me with care and respect even though I was young then while looking for my brother. One of the things Gina had told me back then was that I should one day go to Myanmar for a visit, it is a beautiful country, however this was way back in the sixties.

So here I am, should I or should i not make this one final trip to find out? I am not as keen about visiting the holy land or going to India and visit all the ancient temples as much as i would like to catch the final glimpse of the jungles and rivers of Myanmar and savor the culture and religion of the land. As I stand on the precepes and looking into the future at this point in my life i feel like I have yet some strength and breath left to make this one final journey, as they say, one for the road.

Choose well... or it will come back to haunt you.

All good things and bad , must come to an end, as this too shall pass, nothing stays the same and nothing last forever, this the fate of man; impermanence. Clinging and hoarding on to what is is futile and a waste of good karma as what is available for one to transcend this transient realm of existence is to become enlightened and becoming enlightened means; Become light in the sense it means just that; become light To become light in its physical nature as in weight and light against dark property and in its spiritual nature of good and evil, positive and negative spiritual states. These are merely the opposites or the duality nature of the states of being or the dual thinking mind. The Buddha in His quests for answers had thoroughly  delved into this state of being and recognized it as being one of the root cause of human suffering. The mind acts in relation to what it perceives externally with a sense of choice, this or that, right or wrong, good or bad and the choice has to be made in order for the mind to process further that it is perceiving. Hence some religious practice has what is called free will, the freedom to choose.

The choice we make will have its effects and consequences and these will manifest further down the road as we progress towards our destination, whatever or wherever that may be. So you sow and so shall you reap is the dictum that is most common in most all religions. Most of human beings are oblivious to these simple equations of choice- effects-consequences- manifestations.=free will. In order that we may become more aware of the choices we make in order that we will end up with better more positive results at the end of the day, we have to get to know up close and personal of who is making these final choices; who is saying yes, this is my choice. Through intelligence and through wisdom, having experienced and made observations in the past, I make my choice this over that, it is not unlike a chess master making the choices of his moves three or four steps ahead of the game when he becomes good at it. For a Way seeking Mind, a Mind that is on the way to becoming enlightened, a mind that is free from mental and spiritual formations, free from distractions and vexations caused by the external stimuli, for this type of mind, there is no choices to be made; for this type of Mind there is no chooser.

The ultimate nature of Sunyata or the emptiness teachings of the Buddha is that that there is inherently no self to talk of, there is only a state consciousness of being and this is not subjected to the laws of cause and effect as this state of being has no form to be considered as a permanent nature. A state whereby that cannot be subjected to time and space and the causation of  time and space. This perception of the non existence of an entity called 'I', the self or the personality, is what sets apart Buddhism from most other religions even Hinduism. It is a very tough act to follow for most of those who cannot fathom the ramifications of the Buddha's teaching on this ultimate truth. For so long as there is an Individual, an identity, to be identified with, life will contain suffering...you suffer,birth, death and rebirth.

It is the I that makes the choice, that clings on to ideas and perceptions, that allows for the mind to create more and more mental formations to choose from in the course of a lifetime. It is the I that becomes blinded by the emotional states of pain and pleasure, of good and evil, it is the mind that sees itself beyond redemption other than being saved by some higher divine grace or miracle. It is the I that is lost in fear and ignorance and it is the I that acts out of self aggrandizement and wanton disregard for the well being of others. When the i becomes egotistical in nature than it is subjected to karmic consequences that had to be dealt with in the course of a lifetime or the next.  In the realm of the existential there is time and space to be content with while in the karmic realm time and space ceases to operate; shit can happen at any given moment and in any given form.  
  




    

The Way of the Sword - Miyamoto Musashi.

Shinmen Takezo or better known as Miyamoto Musashi embarked upon the journey of self discovery through wielding the katana or the long samurai sword.; he was a truth seeker to the very end of his life. Throughout his illustrious life as a student of the martial arts, Miyamoto developed his own philosophy about life depending on no one but his own determination to live despite all the challenges that could have ended his life  as a student of the samurai sword technique.  From every worthy opponent he met along his journey he learned the deeper meaning of life as a swordsman. One of his mentor was a Zen monk Takuan Osho who had him tied hanging from a tree as a punishment for killing a man and later became his spiritual guide throughout his life. Through this relationship Miyamoto was honed to the spiritual side of his nature. 

At his younger age Miyamoto was a very reckless and angry young man whose childhood days was spent growing up on his own as he was abandoned by his father. He grew up with the believe that he was dependant upon no one and nothing but his own strength and fortitude. With an unquenched anger in him he called his path with the sword as the path of carnage.In one of his most famous of battles was against the Yoshioka school in Kyoto where he had to kill a ten year old boy set up as the head of the school, a ploy to deter him from winning the fight. Heartless as it may had seemed, Miyamoto went on to become one of the most celebrated if not feared samurai in Japan.  When asked why he killed the child Miyamoto replied, 
"A swordsman cannot loose a match. As long as i killed the commander- in chief I would have been victorious even if I had died fighting later at the hands of many... to a swordsman, loosing means death."
This was the passion and commitment that Miyamoto had towards his quest to understanding his own nature. The fact that death was a constant equation in the Way of the sword the outcome justifies the means; there is only one way and that is to stay alive to Musashi Miyamoto. The Way of the swordsman in Japan was similar to that of the Way of the Gunfighter in the Old West of the American frontier and in modern days it is in the Ways of the extreme sports like the racing cars and motorcycles or the mortal combats in the ring. It is the ultimate test of human endurance and discipline. In the life of Miyamoto Musashi and the likes of him, it was walking the razor's edge between insanity and enlightenment and few in history survived to be hailed as the supreme victor of man over his dark nature and fewer still has survived to be revered as historical figures. 

Sometime in the early eighties I was introduced to the life of Miyamoto Musashi when I stumbled upon his book entitled, A Book of Five Rings." and one of the quotes from the book Musashi wrote,

 " Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the World." 

“there is nothing outside of yourself that can ever enable you to get better, stronger, richer, quicker, or smarter. Everything is within. Everything exists. Seek nothing outside of yourself.” “Do not sleep under a roof. Carry no money or food. Go alone to places frightening to the common brand of men. Become a criminal of purpose. Be put in jail, and extricate yourself by your own wisdom.” 

― Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings:  Quotes from GOOD READS.

From the life of an outcast of his village and living in the woods by himself as a child growing up, Miyamoto Musashi grew in fame to become a household name in the Japanese culture and an artist and profound thinker in human history. 

An Honor to a great Artist of my generation.

An honor to have made an acquaintance of a 75 year old master painter , educator and a although a humble and gentle man yet a very solid individual whose art works were celebrated at the Penang State Art Gallery today. The retrospective exhibition  of  Dato' Tan Hon Yin's paintings more than 70 of them covered two galleries, works that span over the years of his career and what a career it has been for this mild mannered gentleman. Ever since I first met him some year ago I felt his warmth and friendliness towards everyone he dealt with, Chinese malay or Indians. This to me is a man who is truly a Malaysian at heart and it is felt by most who has had anything to do with him. I rarely am easily taken to admire a man without finding some small fault to gripe about and very few in my life measures up to my expectation, my fault, not theirs, however Dato' Tang won my admiration. He is an inspiration and I am honored to have met this artist in my own backyard.

Most of my peers as an artist I find promotes their art in every which way they can and selling their works is a mark of success, perhaps they are right. It is my fault perhaps that i do not do enough to sell myself and make my name through making a good living as an artist and as a result i am as I am financially in need. Dato' Tang Hon Yin is one person that I know of who keeps a very low profile of his talent and great accomplishments which to me is one facet of his life that I admire; he lets his works does the promotion themselves. This is what i admire in great masters like Hokusai and the likes of him. I raise my hat to this gentleman for his lifelong accomplishment and his humility towards those who benefitted from him.      

Life has no meaning until you give it one.

After all the trials and tribulations, upon reaching the summit of the mystique mountain, after all pleasures and pain, after all that is said and done, what else is there to be experienced in this life? 

" Listen ye children of immortal bliss,
There is an infinite being that I have known,
Blazing forth like the rays of the sun.
Forever beyond darkness, 
Knowing that alone, one transcends death...
This infinite Being is who you are."
                                                        Advaita Vedanta

Or something like that, believe what you may according to your faith, but believe you must or you will allow humanity to dive into the pits worse than the animals.My personal mantra has alway been; I am Whole,
          Complete and Perfect,
          Strong and Powerful,
          Loving and Compassionate,
          Harmonious and Happy!
          I can do what I Will to do,
          So help me Lord.
For as long as i can remember I have carried this mantra within me, this affirmation  that I recite to myself every time I sit to meditate or when mind impose upon me thoughts of discord and vexations. If it works or not remains to be seen when I arrive at the final completion of my journey. This mantra I use to hone my mind if not my brain cells to work towards self realization, that I am more than just a bag of skin and bones existing in space and time, existing like a cork being buffeted down the rapids of consciousness to the ocean of reality. What is it worth or how does it benefit me as a human being? I ask myself, what have i got to loose? How does this helps towards healing myself and humanity at large and what do i hope to gain in the long run? The answers have been this whole process of  self discovery through Blogging, through daily trials and errors, through meditation and yoga, through prayers and contemplation, through the gathering knowledge and wisdom. through my relationships with others and through  the desire for liberation and enlightenment. 

I would deem this life a waste of time and breath if I have no understanding of who I truly am in the scheme of life or how i am a part and parcel of the Whole. I would consider my life  unworthy of being a member of the human specie living off the Planet like cancer cells eating away at it's host; merely a parasite. Like every human being I fully realize that I will die sooner or later, it is imminent and am I prepared to face this eventuality, perhaps like everyone else, No! The unknown that lies ahead are explained to me by numerous scriptures and revelations on one kind or another, they may be true or they may be just human imagination at its best, but they are just that, the truth is yet to be seen. Yes, fear is the key and I am afraid for what I cannot yet explain or have yet to experience first hand and out of this fear I grope for the ultimate truth and understanding failing which I have accept what has been foretold. But death is not the issue at the moment in time, not while I am still breathing and in this physical form and mental states, a the moment I have to lie my life to a completion. Before i close my account I have to make sure that it is all in balance, the good and the bad, the light and the dark etc. Before I write my conclusion to this life's experiment albeit religious or faith, scientific or philosophical, I intend to end this journey with a thorough understanding if not awakened mind of a Buddha, or as an Al insan kamil of the Prophets and Saints, short of these i have failed my experiment and perhaps in the Buddhist sense will reincarnate to the next life and return to carry on the next phase and the next.

What is the meaning of life? Life has no meaning until you give it one.      

God is Out there somewhere! Is he?

Man was created in the image of the Divine and in this most all  theistic religions concur and in Vedantic Hinduism it is even taken a step further to the declaration man is God incarnated in physical form or the Ultimate Being in Consciousness itself. This is who we are, our true nature our Birth Right, but most of man fails to see beyond his physical and mental formations and declares himself as and entity existing in form, time and space; we become who we think we are. Our thoughts and perceptions are the instruments of our Mayavic or delusional understanding of our state of being, we become enamoured by our upbringing and conditioning and through our erroneous thoughts and perceptions we manifest ourselves as 'human beings', subjected to the laws of cause and effect; the laws of karma. We have forfeited our divine nature for the impermanence and the ephemeral and transitory, we have hidden ourselves behind the veil of ignorance from seeing our true and inherent nature; our Divinity.

Through the ignorance of our inherent nature we have created the 'I', the me and the mine nature and thus causes us to become subjected to suffering in this life. In the effort to overcome this self manifested suffering we have created Gods and Deities, believe systems and religions in order to make sense out of all that we are confronted with throughout our life on this plane of existence. We create angels and demons in order to assist us and something to blame on our errors. We live ourselves in bondage at the mercy of the unknown stuck with crutches to help us stand and blinders to narrow our visions of the whole before us; we are afraid to see the larger picture of our own destiny like at the stars through a telescope. With the conception of the 'I', we have become removed from the whole state of beingness and we see the world with a dual thinking mind, the world out there and the world within. Within and without, light and dark, great and small, pain and pleasure, our lives is subjected to striving to make the right choices between opposites. This primarily the cause of our suffering, we are an entity that is subjected the laws of our own creation and not being aware that we are.

All over the world we build churches, temples and mosques calling them the House of God to satisfy our religious needs and to please our Maker and yet we commit heinous crimes against our fellow man in His name. Man women and children becomes victims to our insatiable appetites in demanding more and craving for power and dominion over others. Our God is nailed to the cross, has his abode in the Holy Lands, we perceive Him out there somewhere watching over us and making judgements over the choices we make in order that we may be judged at the end of the day and yet we lie our lives by all standards worse than the animals; we worship a new God, the God of Materialism. The teachings and wisdom of the great minds of our ancestors has lost our interest, we are in the pursuit of happiness in acquisition of fame and fortune at the expense of our fellow beings. The 'I' has become more than God in essence; I am number One, I take care of myself first. Our churches, mosques and temples are mostly empty except on special days and we have our brothers and sisters sleeping on the street for lack of a place to call homes. Our Gods out there is still watching over us to see how much more can we exist with our ignorance until we destroy ourselves remaining oblivious that we are taking our divinity to our graves with us.

I am writing as I always have done to remind myself of who I truly am for whatever good it may do, but I feel deep in me that the'Temple of the Living God is in me, not out there. With the faith in materialism man is creating his hell on earth, he has lost his divine birth right through worshipping what his mind has led him to believe. Man is living is a dream state that will end up in a nightmare that he will find hard to wake himself up from unless he wakes up to the reality and claim his inherent right as a divine entity of Love and Compassion; man is headed for a rude awakening.