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.    

Mind Benders.

What is the imperturbable mind? This was what my first Zen Teacher, Jun Po Denis Kelly, threw at me one day while we were driving in his BMW towards Green Gulch Zen Center in Marin County California. Denis today is an Abbot of his own Zen center somewhere in the Midwest. The question or as in the Zen tradition called koan or mondo, has stuck with me over the years and although I never grappled or given it too much attention it is still there in my mind somewhere and keeps popping out every now and then to be noticed. What is the imperturbable mind or what is the immovable mountain, or what is the vast mirror-like ocean of consciousness. The Japanese Movie 'Ran' by Akira Kurosawa often comes to my mind whenever the question of the imperturbable mind arises. It is the image of the Shogun sitting on the hillside witnessing his military in action like a solid mountain, transfixed. The ability to stay still and calm amidst all that is going on around you is the most powerful expression one can have in the Zen tradition; this is meditation in action.

My mind unfortunately is still like four wild horses trying to pull a chariot while headed in four directions simultaneously. I am not a good charioteer and my mind still holds sway over my everyday activity and even in my sleep, especially in my sleep. There is such a thing as trying too hard and I am making too much effort to still my mind and as a result the mind is reciprocating likewise or more so. What is beneficial in meditation is that at least I am noticing what is happening where my mind is concern in relation to being who I am; ! am able to step away from and becoming a witness to how my mind behaves. It is a small step but I hope with more practice I can master the technique and attain to my goal of having a quiet mind if not an imperturbable mind. I would like to become a 'Mind Bender' if I could and I am far from it at the moment, but who knows with practice and persistence, I just might get the hang of it. I think magicians and mystiques are Mind Benders. We should all become Mind Benders.

  

The Pilgrim of life.

Earthquake hit Canada soon after the legalization of marijuana use in the country; ha! ha! that's what the religious minds would have it, the Gods are not happy. Joke aside, I hope not too much damage or lost of lives expected. Not like the one the hit the island of Palu Indonesia a week or two back where thousands lost their lives and homes. Italy suffered from a flooding, while back here in Penang we had a landslide incident which claimed  at least three lives so far with a handful missing. Mother nature is not too happy of late and it is understandably so witnessing all the challenges man has been throwing at her. If man were to go extinct I believe almost all other creatures would survive an live happily ever after. Maybe so, but there is hope yet for us as we see all over the world there are those who have awakened from  this nightmare that we have called life and see life for what it is. People are waking up to the changes that are needed to be made in order to elevate our human conditions from the base ignorance that we have come to accept through conditioning and the powers that be, seeking to dominate and exploit humanity for their own egotistical needs; collectively although small in numbers, they are powerful in resources.

In just about every country today these power mongers holds sway to the fate of humanity, they are like the the virus that eats out its host from within and moves on to the next and the next host through corruption and false flags. The ordinary man has become a pawn in the game of life, he is at the mercy of those that holds sway the power over him knowing or unknowingly. The conditioning of our mental formations has arrive at the most critical stage that we believe absolutely what we see or touch, hear or smell without doubt. we are being led by the nose to accept and obey laws that are meant to govern us but in actuality are meant to control; we are prisoners of our own ignorance of our own inherent nature. We are blinded from seeing the reality that is hidden behind all the shades of illusions that is being manifested to delude us. I may seem like headed towards a conspiracy theory type of reasoning, like the few leading the masses and so forth, I am not. I am talking about the lifelong conditioning that we go through from the home to the educational system, the working conditions, the cultural and the rest of it. We are a product of the conditioning since the day we were born and probably the day we die unless we are awakened from it with a self realization that  we are more than who we think ourselves to be.

It's a pilgrimage this life of ours, a journey towards being fully awakened and liberated from this yoke that has been hung around our necks. It is a pilgrimage that liberates us from being a victim to becoming a victor, from a slave to a master. We are masters of our own thoughts and consciousness, our environment and circumstances, master our own destiny and until we realize this and act on it we will our entire life be an object not the subject. This pilgrimage is dotted with pitfalls and we have to lift ourselves time and again and proceed with greater determination everytime we fall. The more you fall the more you learn to raise yourself back up and the effort of rebound every time you fall becomes your lessons not to fall. 

To become a Buddha in this lifetime.

Why do I do it or why am i doing it still? This self enquiry, self discovery, this effort to answer an age old question that man has been asking himself to no avail; what's the deal here? Have i not wasted so many hours of my time even writing it all down almost daily over the years; why? Have i gained anything out of it? have i made any significant amount of money off of it? Have I made more friends or touched the lives of many significantly through laying it all out in this manner? Perhaps it has become an addiction like most of what i have decided to undertake for myself in the past, I like to drag shit all the way to the end of time and this has been my habitual way. The question of why I am doing it was raised in my meditation at dawn this morning and I decided to let the mind dwell on the answer all out by going through all my old files and antique closets where ancient skeletons still drag their chains along the floor boards demanding release.

The call for the morning prayer came loud and clear from the nearby State Mosque but i did not answer, instead I continued to sit on my bed and dealt with my issues, God has no problem and as far as I am concern God will always reside in my heart and I have  faith in His infinite Grace and Compassion at the end of the day. Praying would only add on to my already convoluted sense of guilt and would raise more questions than answers. I imagine God laughing away at all my ignorance and I take it as a cop out to take refuge in prayer, an escape from having to find out the truth for myself. I had it in my mind that by the time I am called back to my Maker I would have most of the questions i have been grappling with answered and resolved, that i would have lightened myself of my loads of baggage; that i would be en-lightened. Further more had I prayed i would have gone back to sleep immediately after, which i usually do as in the past, taking for granted that God will handle my case; it's how my mind works, unfortunately.

Call it stubbornness, egotistical or call simply dumb and ignorant, but I am bound and determined to see this so call experiment with my life through to the end and for whatever it is worth I hope to be able to keep on my entries as things happens. Its tedious, it often is boring and senseless, but it is my way of keeping a record of my progress or regress as the case may be. I have often said to myself in the past that i would like to fully understand why i was alive in the first place before I die and this I hope will become a reality. I'd hate to think that all my effort had been in vain amounting to nothing and that i would depart this life blind as when i had arrived. What is you heartmost desire i have often been asked and my answer is always to become awakened if not enlightened in this lifetime such that I am able to share the experience with the world like the Buddha did. It is a tall order to be expecting but what else could be a higher goal than to fully come to a realization who you truly are in the course of a lifetime? If you fall short, well, get up and continuing walking what else is there to do? The path the leads to liberation of the spirit is no ordinary path; it is like walking out of a prison you yourself have erected. 

   

The Journey towards Enlightenment.

Woke up this morning with the mind unleashed, like the subconscious the strata of my consciousness decided to turn on the release valve and unload loads of toxic fumes that has been accumulating for some time now ever since i decided to take on this solitary retreat. Like bubbles rising from the fermented waste at the bottom of a bog, thoughts rose from out of nowhere to remind me of how bad a boy i was from way back when i realized that my penis has more functions than just to pee and that my hunger and thirst for self satisfaction knew no bounds and all the people that I had stepped and tromp upon and all the actions i had indulged in has caused untold pain and suffering upon others. I was and perhaps still is incorrigible as one of my friends told me. Nothing new really, these uprising of negative vibes and emotions and i have become somewhat okay with them. I pretty much shelf them back where they belong after letting them run their gamut through my sitting meditation; my ancient twisted karma as the Buddha would have called it.

I have been carrying my past negative experiences in my mind like a worn baggage, often ending up with a depression that twice in the past had caused to take my own life and failed. This has been my punitive punishment to myself and if I were a staunch believer of a certain sect of Christianity I would be whipping my with a cat o nine tails bloodied, but I do not believe in self mortification and so that is that. Through my practice and thus through my practice and discipline I have been trying to heal my splintered soul hoping against all hope that I will be able to forgive and love myself without reservation before i die. It has been a long road as long as it had taken me to walk on the dark side of my life before i made the choice to find my way back from being lost for good. I have to die before i can truly find death in this physical realm or I will die still carrying my baggage into the afterlife and God knows what lies beyond for me. It would be comfortable to accept the atheistic stance that nothing would as i would end up simply merged back into the void of non existence, but I have my doubt about that. Unfortunately I feel deep in me that I will have to answer one way or another for my past transgressions.

Who am I? This is who I am as far as my mind goes and it makes sense in as much as logical deductions goes in the realm of the spirit; as you sow, so shall you reap. What I had been sowing was pretty much weeds and hemlocks and thistles, poison ivies and poison oaks. The only way to remove these is to uproot them from my subconscious bed and till the earth thoroughly before regrowing healthy produce that can become my healing diet. This has been my effort throughout my adult life, as life that began when I decided that enough was enough. It all began when i landed at the San Francisco International Airport sometime in 1983 when i left green Bay, Wisconsin with my bag pack and a portfolio of artworks to start a new life; join a Buddhist monastery was the goal. I had left GB with a trail of good relationships that had ended in bad taste and with the money I had on me it was a one way trip. In Islam it is called a Hijrah or a change of venue if not life. I have had several of these moves which began by being moved to the East Coast of Malaysia from Penang where I frew up for 12 years and then to the US at the age of 25,married and with a child. I then moved to Alaska where I lived for two years in the Aleutian Isles, after which I made the error of moving back to Wisconsin for two years before I moved to SF where I settled down for 10 years. I then moved to Japan with my lat wife and two of my children where we lived for 3 years before I decided to return to Malaysia, another error, perhaps. After five year in the East Cost i moved back to Penang where it all began; full circle.

This too is who I am in my physical existence and impermanence has always been the characteristic of my experiences. It came o my realization that no matter where or in what culture or religious back ground i had grown up till now, I am still who I am, asking the same questions and making the same errors but moving step by step towards my destination into the unknown. my mind has not really grown in any significant ways other than that it has become more acute in seeing the ways things have manifested as I had at one time or another envisioned it to be in my distant past; the seeds i had sown are slowly but steadily grown into my own sense of reality. I have achieved many of my goals in life even if they had not really meant much to brag about, but none the less these were thoughts and ideas I have had since i was a child, to travel, to see the world, to become and artist, a writer of sorts, a spiritual mind, a father to children who were conceived, and  through my own choices of women who bore them and to last but not least to heal my own soul from so much stress and challenges; to become and enlightened being will be the crown of my existence on this earth.     

The Voice of God.-OM

Lessons to myself :

Om is the sound the Universe makes when listened to as a collective whole and it permeates all like an energy source in the form of vibration. Everyone knows this already, at least all those who cared to find out or those who has realized that there is more to life than meets the eyes. As a matter of fact there is a whole lot of syllable and words used as chants, verses from the Holy scriptures, all carry vibrational qualities of sound that reverberates throughout the Universe if not the human physical and psychic system. These sounds sends electrical impulses throughout the body and mind creating jolts of impulses and shaking loose stagnated obstructed channels where energy motion is flawed. The Chinese calls this the block of the Chi and applies acupuncture treatment among others to help with the continuing smooth flow of energy force. Om, the ancient Hindu Yogic Mantra used by the masses of devotees Hindus or otherwise today is a reverberating sound that encircles the planet with it energy force like a protective coating or blanket and acts a a protective shield against the onslaught of negative energies and forces that threatens from outside. 

I do not subscribe any meaning to the sound Om other than for what it is, simply a sound vibration originating from within me and with proper understanding and execution the benefit of its powers can be felt to manifest from within its forms least expected varying from one person to another. However the general feeling one gets from meditating on the sound of OM is one of Peace and often leading on to Bliss. Expect the unexpected or simply do not have any expectation whatsoever when one carry out this meditation, just allow for what comes to appear and disappear, arise and subside, remain just the witness. Initially the mind will insist on playing it roll of upsetting the effort one is about to perform, but the Mantra, Om is a formidable mantra not easily swept aside by mental formations or the egoic demands for attention. Mantras of any kind when utilized as a tool for meditation has its main purpose as tot silence the dual thinking mind or remove any obstructions that the ego lays down on the path. It is like a laser beam that cuts through all the veils and walls that obstructs the  meditator from seeing the light beyond. It also acts as a shield that repels all negative energy charges aimed at the meditator's consciousness as he forges forwards into the inner silence of his Being.

If and when you feel boredom or anxiety, frustration of simply negative, put your ear phones on and listen to the Chant of OM on You Tube. Yes we live in an age where there is less and less excuse we can give ourselves for not acting, for not finding ways and means to counter our negative tendencies, when it is all at our fingertips; but it is more effective if you can do it manually. Muslims have numerous words and verses to utilize such as Allah and Ar Rahman, Ar rahim and so forth; if the word Om is too much of a Hindu word. Christians have a host of verses and psalms to utilize from whil Buddhist has chants from the sutras that can be used, the Native American sings out loud while beating on the drums and dancing; man in all his shapes and forms has long since found ways and means to touch the Collective  Universal Sound and Vibration; the Voice of God.    










  

The never ending search...

To understand beyond any trace of doubt or suspicion in your heart is Right Understanding and for this to happen one has to dig deep and leave no stone untouched without fear or favor. Even if it challenges your very core of belief systems or your faith, it is imperative that you give it your utmost attention and investigate, learn and unravel any and every mystery that comes your way; it is your Divine right to do so. When your soul is in question especially when you are on your last track of your existence on this planet, it is your inherent duty to realize the truth of who or what you are before you can stand before your Maker and declare that you are a true believer and have done you homework and footwork in order to get to Him. Life is not simply the accumulation of wealth and fame, nor is it to be a blind follower of any religion or faith without having earned to right of passage towards the Divine. To remove yourself form the herd does not imply that you defy the Creator, all it is is that you are purifying your path leading up to His presence. Only in the purification of your being from all doubts and impurities is your worship of the Holy most meaningful.

Only you can purify your soul and it has to come from within you  for truth resides within and not from without. The amount of time and effort you give towards searching for the right answers is your worship and devotion towards your Maker. No amount of knowledge or revelations from the holy scriptures, no amount of reasoning or threats you may face in the quest for answers to your longing for the right way is valid until you have discovered for yourself what  the whole truth is where you are concern; they can only be the guide and the pointer of infinite possibilities that is out there for you to grapple with; the absolute truth is from within you, find it and live with it. All that you are exposed to in the form of religions, of ancient wisdom, or modern sciences are guideposts and signs to help you navigate yourself towards the ultimate truth, the truth that only you can accept as your ultimate consciousness of being who you are or what you are; you are the master of your own destiny.

I have studied almost all the religions and as much philosophies as i can in my lifetime as this Blogging has testified and I am still on the path towards my self discovery; I have laid my soul on the line taking chances that I may be in error but at the end of the day only The Lord will decide. Whether I was created in His image or that the 'I' iself does not exist, is yet to be be fully understood and assimilated, but the journey must go on towards discovering what is. Tat Tvam Asi, That Art Thou as the Vedantic philosophy prescribe and the Buddha insisted that the self does not exist and Islam holds you to fulfilling your covenant with the Lord even before you were born in to this worldly existence, the right choice is mine to make and choose I must that i will not die in vain. What is 'free will' if I allow for others to make my choice for me? Whether I am Christian a Buddhist or a Hindu, whether I am an atheist or a free thinker, I make my own choice and the choice will be ferry me across the river or sink me in the middle along the way, but it will be my choice made through thorough and intense study of who I am and why I am the way I am; life is a long process of learning and it is never too late to start even at seventy: The Divine in me is my true guide.  

    

Getting to Understand Vedanta.

Advaita Vedanta philosophy points towards each and everyone of us being Brahma or the Ultimate Consciousness of Being or God in Divinity, at least this is my understanding. How we get to this God realization is the teaching of Vedanta in essence and this is achieved primarily through, as the Buddha would have it, Right Understanding, Right Consciousness, Right Impulses and Right Perception. To understand vedanta one has to have a good sense of Insight into what is Being who we are is all about. Who am I, or what is this 'I' that we call ourselves everytime we talk about ourselves. This close identification of I to the self has to be looked into with a clear and perfect understanding before we can identify ourselves with our inherent Divinity. We have to have a clear cognition of the inner workings of our mind and consciousness, how we relate to reality as it is, The question of what is reality immediately pops up and demands explanation and clarification, but I am not going to attempt it here as it is in itself a whole chapter that most of humanity is still grappling with. I will settle for the answer that reality is relative to each and everyone of us and in a simplistic way I for now accept that my reality and someone else's can never come to meet on common ground; only perhaps at the deepest level and it will take a whole of diving to get there.

The Atman or to put it its most simplest translation, the soul, is the key to   the Advaita Vedanta; the Atman is that which Is the Supreme Being, the God Head hidden in the form of man or consciousness. Perhaps through the manifestation of an enlightened soul we can find this Divinity in essence and thus it is most rarely that we get to experience God in a lifetime as the enlightened soul is as rare as the manifestation of a Buddha or a Christ in history. The ancient Vedic and various other teachings has allowed us to catch a glimpse of what it is to become an embodiment of an enlightened soul. These souls have evolved to the point of becoming Gods in the eyes of the masses who worshipped them. The evolution of the soul or spirit through time is a primary believe in most Eastern Religions and spiritual transmigration or incarnations plays a pivotal role in understanding the teachings of Vedanta philosophy in order to make it work; a man does not wake up one day and becomes a Christ or a Buddha, they evolve on the spiritual level.

It is said that there are as many Gods as there are sentient beings, only few realize their true nature as such as most exist in ignorance of even who they are as human beings. Most who made it to a high level of understanding more often than not succumbs to becoming trapped in their self aggrandizement, egotistical self serving tendencies causing them to fail in their final moments to attain to the highest level of divinity. Through lack of faith and determination, through self doubt and lack of commitment, most  of us slides back into this cycle of existence in an effort to make right what went wrong in former lives. It takes eons of lifetime to finally attain Buddhahood or become a Deity,  so it is said and the journey began from beginningless time and the path it takes is littered with pitfalls from which one rises and falls in order to get from one level to the next; it is a journey of purification of the soul. Most of humanity is oblivious to such notions as it is beyond their grasp in understanding. Hence to most of us,  life is more or less a matter of survival, making the best of what is and than die.  

The cat that believed she is a butterfly.

Well Firby our cat found out the hard way that she is not a butterly when she fell from the twelve floor to the concrete ground below this morning. She suffered a broken front leg so far that I can tell but will see what the vet says tomorrow. When i found her missing I thought she had disappeared a few floors downstairs but i decided not to look for her to see if she returns. The I decided to leave the apartment to have my lunch and when I was on the ground floor I decided to just look around for her just incase she was splattered somewhere on the ground. I found her cowered  against one of the pillars whimpering and wet and I picked her up gently and took her back to the apartment. When we got into the apartment she slowly walked into my daughter's room and laid down in the far end corner under the bed. I left her alone as i knew she was in pain and perhaps in a shock.

Not wanting to trouble her i decided not to tell my daughter just yet, however a few minutes later my daughter called and told me that she had enough with her employer and was coming home definitely. I told her what had happened with the cat and my daughter's mind was made up that she was coming home this very afternoon. It is early in the morning now and both my daughter and her cat are asleep and I am here putting it all down in writing. Earlier I had decided to sit and meditate on my bed before i fall asleep and as i set I visualize healing the cat from where I was. I imagined her as she had always likes to do and that is sit right in front of me and demand my attention. I would stroke her and she would lay very still and then I would my hand and assume the 'Mudra' with my hands on my lap and she would leave. After sitting in this manner for a while I heard my daughter talking to the cat in her room next to mine and a few minutes later I noticed the cat limping into my roof and with great effort lept on to my bed like she always does only this time she peed on the bed in front of me. This was the first time she ever did so, I guess she was holding it back all this while after her accident having fell twelve floors and survived.



   

In defend of Ed Brown.

I found out that one of my former teachers at Green Gulch Farm Zen Community has been barred from giving anymore lectures and classes; in short he has been excommunicated from the Zen center. Edward Brown or better known as Ed, the author of several Zen related books like the Tassajara cook book and Greens cook book in which he coauthored, was found guilty of bad language and morally despicable during one of his latest class at green Gulch. I say these in such harsh words only because this is what it would take to remove a long standing ordained priest of Ed's caliber. Ed was my teacher and friend when i was doing my practice at Green Gulch and I was most indebted to him for his friendship and understanding and accepting me as who I was then without any judgement or condemnation as i was never a good student to most others there then.
Ed gave me his old robes which he said were the first he ever wore and i wore them with pride most of the time  was at GG and he invited me to his home where he cooked and entertained me in Inverness a little north of GG along the coast. At one of our Dokusan or one on one chat with the teacher I told Ed that I was a Muslim by birth and have difficult prosterating to the statue of manjushri on the altar in the Zendo. Ed told me that if i consider the statue as some object of worship I have problem, but if I can look beyond the form,at the emptiness, i might get away with it. He also added that if i were to become a member of the club, I  will have to abide by the rules of the game and I did. I survived almost two yeas at GG through his guidance and friendship and mostly his sense of humour. I never found him to be pretentious about being a Zen Master but loved and respect him for his genuine care for others and their well being. He may seemed shallow in his presentations and lectures about Zen and the everyday life but he was never boring. He gave his students a view of Zen with a touch of simplicity that accords with our modern day quirks.

The year that i entered GG Zen Community was the year that the community was recuperating from the Baker Roshi scandal where most of the activities were put on hold and GG was sliding into neglect. With the leadership of Paul Disco and a few others like Lou and Blanch Harman,Peter Rudnick and wife, Wendy Johnson, Norman Fisher and wife Kathy and the practice group of hardy students under Paul set about rebuilding the GG Zen Community. Initially one hardly found any SF Zen Center, or the City Zen Center as we knew them, visited the Gulch. I started seeing them only after we got The Farm up and running and most of those on the Board of Directors today were among those who showed up to make their appearances known. Ed Brown remained throughout our practice period as one of the Practice Teachers. GG if not the SF Zen Center itself, came back to life on account of these individuals i have mentioned, for if it had not been for them the Zen community would have been dragging their feet like Zombies in Black robes moaning and groaning over the fall of Baker Roshi.  

The Prophet of Allah has a saying which said that, when you are pointing in accusation, just remember that the four other fingers are pointing right back at you.  

The Yogic Way.

I must have watched half the videos on You Tube, listened to talks and spiritual teachings, it is like i am am taking a course in school, but mostly I watched movies. For one who is trying to empty my mind I am embarked on a mission of garbage collecting. I am feeding my mind with more junk than it can handle but that too is part of the experiment. Seeing that the mind likes to think so much, I let it take its flight of fancy and see how far it will go, like see if it will ever get overload. On top of making this Blog entries and listening to lectures on just about any given subject, watching all the movies and reading novels and serious literature, I keep in touch with as many fb friends as i can, talk my cat and keep my daughter and son motivated in their ives. I worry over little things and pt my nose where it does not belong often enough, just to see where it will all lead me to at the end of the day. The human mind, how much can it take before it blows a fuse!

However i tell myself sometimes, hey, you are becoming a good writer if nothing else on top of being and artist, of which i have put in the back burner for sometime now just to let the creative ground take a break. Doing nothing is really and actually doing more than I could have if I had kept myself busy trying to do something just to fill the time or justify that i am not lazy; I get to know myself better than I ever did and am able to fulfill a whole lot more responsibility than I thought I could. I know I might not become a Millionaire or famous like most others, but i discover more about myself that i would not have had i been pursuing life just like what is deemed the norm. Call it what you may,but I am and i feel like I am a better person in more than one way, I feel good about myself more than I have ever felt and a whole lot freer than in the past when i was charging around thinking i was free.

Doing nothing and being free from the hooks that had their hold on me mentally and physically has been an eye opener, it woke me up,  now I am ready to do something and what that may be is yet to be seen. My daughter who has been living and working in Kuala Lumpur will be returning to pick up her life where she had left it; perhaps by being away for many months now was part of the plan for my own experiment. By her returning I hope that it will give some time and space to venture out again towards he next horizon on this landscape of my journey. In the old days man venture into the mountains to find peace  and solace, to meditate and contemplate, I found my cave in this apartment living with a cat that constantly demands attention but a good companion none the less. I am glad I had brought her home as a gift for my daughter; she has been a gift for me.

My own Jihad.

About a year and a half ago when I decided to move in with my daughter into this apartment, I had made a decision not to work for a wage anymore and as a matter of fact to do nothing except whatever chores that needs to be done in and around the house. I cut off most of my relationship outside by not frequenting the places that I would normally visit and hang out and and a few simply fell apart for no apparent reason which I look at as part of the process of what i called non- doing. I realize it sounds lame to most people, an excuse or a cop out from being involved or worse yet earning a livelihood and yes I am being accused by a few who think they have me figured out. But I have persisted and now it has been more than a year as i sit here trying to make some sense out of my experiment;; the Art of Doing Nothing or the lazy man's path to enlightenment.

What i have accomplished can only be testified through my Blogging which is like my report of what had transpired day in day out. Most of what I have written are not worth the time of day but they still reflects my mental state while in dealing with such emotions like loneliness and boredom, guilt feelings and anger leading to depression. The Blog tells of days when I felt like i was losing control over my sanity and how much I wished to leave this comfort zone and become the wandering soul on the road again. On the other hand being in this state also has opened my eyes to my own strength and weaknesses and how I have overcome most without too much difficulty   through continuing my spiritual practice of looking deeper and deeper into my being, Who am I? Who or what are my enemies that stands in my path or threatened to dislodge me from my ground of  being and how do I remove these vexations. Bit by bit I am beginning to recognize the demons and the angels from within me as they play out their roles of building me up or tearing me down. I am beginning to feel a little more lighter as i realize that I am free to be who I chose to be or to become what I chose to become as i allowed for more and more of the garbage that I have accumulated throughout my life to slip away from holding me down. I am beginning to feel a small sense of being able to see through beyond this realm of illusion that my mind has been attached to and making it a reality.

I realize too most importantly that it takes time for an everlasting awakening to happen, at least for me; it happens bit by bit and often without my being aware it is happening. I learn that I have to clarify my expectations and not become greedy for the outcome of my practices. Sitting up straight and breathing is all it is and it is called meditation, nothing special; it helps to watch the mind better, is all it does. Mental formations are the major distraction that one encounters especially when the body is not being fully put to use and so doing a routine of Yoga exercises and working out with the stick and the dumbells, helps to compensate this. It does not only keeps your body in good shape but also keeps the mind from occupying your consciousness for that amount of time taken. The thing is you have to do it and do it without giving in to laziness or distractions. This is the battle you have to wage against your mind, not to give in to negative thoughts and emotions that the mind is ever setting into motion from your subconscious to your external stimuli; anything and everything that arises in your consciousness the mind will attach to it and turn it into a negativity. Being aware of this bit by bit, slowly, one becomes free from mental formations as they arises.

One day I am God and the next, I am the Devil, this is how the mind operates and I just have to be aware of what it is that I am being fed by the mind every single thought of the day. This is the battle that the Prophet of Allah talked about after having won a major battle,"The war that you have to win is the one that is within you, this is your Jihad," something to that effect.

"The best jihad is [by] the one who strives against his own self for Allah, The Mighty and Majestic."