Death is our Graduation Day from this School of Life.

 I have stood by gravesides on many occasion where i attended the funeral of my departed friends and relatives and being a Muslim I have a good sense of what lay in store for my fellow Muslim Brothers and sisters when  and after one is laid to final rest, at least according to the teachings of Islam. It is the practice in Islam that the physical human is put in the ground soonest possible upon dying. The body is laid in the ground about six feet by three and in a wooden coffin made of the softest wood available. Also the corpse is placed in such a way as to face the Holy Land of mecca and the Kaaba and that it is brought into contact with the earth around it as much as possible unlike the Chinese and other cultures whereby thick an expensive coffins are being used to keep the body from decay much more longer. Death in this physical sense is treated with as little attachment as possible, the whole idea is to return the body to the soil soonest possible, earth to earth, dust to dust.

What becomes to the soul of a Muslim who dies? It is said that after the last three steps away from the grave has been taken by the last person at the site, tow angels would arrive to take care of business of the afterlife; time to work out the registration process. After the whole process of burial is completed, the Imam or Ustaz present will read the 'Talqin' or the recitation of Shahadah and other creedal information or instructions to the deceased. It like the final instruction to the deceased as to what to expect and how react or answer to the questions that will be put to him/her. Much debate has been made over this practice over the years, however in my experience in attending a Muslim burial ceremony, this has been one of the practices common to the Muslim Malays. So as not to incriminate myself in sharing religious knowledge beyond my understanding i would ask anyone interested to Google it. Like Google, what is the Talqin or who are the two angels Munkar and Nakir who will appear to the dead at the moment of being buried. For every Devout Muslim this knowledge is crucial. Muslims in general are by virtue of their daily prayers of five times a day and for many including the zikr or chants of the Quranic verses as an added practice are well prepared towards facing the moments of death. They are spiritually and psychologically in tune with the remembrance of Allah and in taking refuge in His Grace and Mercy when facing the final moments of their lives. The mind in this moments is focused only on God and not subjected to fear or confusion and thus will face death with complete acceptance and surrender in their faith.

To most devout Muslims death is a welcome event as it heralds the end of one dimension of life and opens up a whole new dimension where the well being of the soul is guided by their faithful worship of the Divine and in surrendering to that which is the Creator. I have witnessed many final moments of death happening before me among my fellow Muslim family and friends and the support that was given by those present no doubt aids in the process through reminding the dying person of his or her true belonging and what to hold on to at the final moment. T recitations of the verses from the Quran by family members and friends keeps the mind from being hijacked by fear and confusion. The dying person often leaves the body in peace unless he or she is in physical pain due to some form or ailments. The recitations from the Quran has the vibrational quality that the dying person can relate to even if he or she does not understand what was read to them and this vibes helps to keep away any interference of unwanted thoughts to the individual's consciousness at death. I understand that Islam discourages the act of loud mourning or wailing in the presence of a dying person as this would not help in the smooth process of transition from life to death. I am no mystic or even a devout Muslim and what i understand may not be absolutely correct, so I will stand corrected by anyone who reads this and finds it not true. In the final say, the process of death is as mysterious as that of birth and we all will face it according to our own personal understanding. We can either die with Grace or in Disgrace through how much we have prepared for it in our lifelong existence. If this life is our schooling than death is the graduation; how we choose to live defines how we die.     

How to Die Accorsingly.

For the past few weeks i have been subjected to and old physical discomfort which I had related before in this Blog and that being the rash that has appeared to many parts of my body especially in the crotch area. I have been applying Calamine lotion thus far but it is not quite as effective but eases the burning and itching sensation. I feel like I am still working out some ancient twisted karma having to go through this uncomfortable phenomena. However I have come to a point of acceptance of this discomfort and have surrendered to the higher consciousness of my self nature making it more endurable and even to some extent a rewarding experience as it affects my egoic self. The sense of being subjected to this most decadent pain and suffering in the physical form has become more of a lesson for me to appreciate what karmic consequences are how by the very fact of acceptance has made it much less of an irritation and somewhat more of a lesson to learn from. Getting to know oneself one's own fragility through these aggravation of physical itch and pains like the toothache that i am also experiencing seems to turn pain into pleasure. The migraine headache, the toothache, the itch and burning sensation that the body is going through bring a sense of humbleness to my sense of presence and by their very presence makes being in the here and now more pronounced and vivid.

It is not that I am becoming masochistic or obsessed, hope not, however i do feel much less disturbed by them like when i suffered the same rash when I was thirteen and at one point shook my fist at God for making it so. In those years the pointing of the middle finger was not a fad yet, so I shook my fist at the sky and uttered the unutterable fu word while crying my heart out in the darkness while sitting on the steps of mt home in Batu Buruk, Kuala Terengganu. I wrote about his too in this Blog and so I will not into the details of it here, even if the devil was truly in the details in this case. Now perhaps having aged and wizened a bit i am able to look at these minor irks with greater and more clearer perspective and if it does not hone through I remind myself that it could be worse, I could be in the Gaza Strip having these ailments. At least I now know not to seek blame from the external like I did in the past but in myself, I am the cause of my ailments and none to blame. I find myself not too proud to seek advice and help from my closest friends like Ben Ronjen who was at one a registered nurse in Australia. if there is any blame to be targeted at I place it on my karmic consequences, my own doing perhaps in my past indulgences or even now. 

This skin irritation issue is beginning to get to me as i find myself unable to sleep well and sometimes even to think well, it is like I am headed for a major depression if nothing changes or things gets worse. I am now up in this wee hours of the morning not because of some spiritual calling as many a mystic would have me believe but simply due to pain and discomfort. I keep trying to justify it all away as yet another of the Divine test of my spiritual perseverance, or my ego's upping the stakes towards keeping a good grip on the is running the show, however the constant itch and irritation is beginning to have a toll on me. Not trying to be overly dramatic, this is turning into one of those 'dark night of the soul' for me or so it seems. Perhaps reading a book about Death by a Hindu Mystic is having an effect on my psyche, getting me primed up for the real final trip to the end of the road. No matter I intend to stick to my schedule, my Sadhana, my practice and take this as yet another stumbling block if not another karmic aberration to be sliced off from my consciousness, in the spirit of letting go; how else can I die.   

The Breath of Life - Prana

 I am going through some heavy duty karmic turns as in the last few weeks with and it feels like i am taking a dive in the physical, mental and spiritual sense, it feels like the floor is opening up from beneath you and all the practices and discipline that you think would help you see life through is coming apart. Is it? I have developed skin problem that is reminiscence of something I had when I was a teen ager and which almost drove me insane only now it seems to spread more than just all over my crotch. Yes, I have written of this event in my life somewhere in this Blog, the dark days of my soul and now it is happening again. Then there is the hernia issue that has not been settled, something that sooner or latter will exacerbate into larger issue as i get older. My attempt to get it taken care of in Kuala Terengganu failed because of too many hurdles to overcome and which I could not cope with for one reason or another. Most heavy of all was my fight with my daughter in the wee early morning hours two days ago after sending my son off to Kuala Lumpur at the train station. It was an eye opener for me as a father and an old man who is dependent on his two kids in this life. I will not attempt to justify who is right or wrong and will not dwell into the detail of the matter, however suffice to say that it was something that hurt me very deeply making me realize that the future  will be a long and painful one between us if i hang around too long.

Reading the book on DEATH - an inside story by Sadhguru has also woken me up to a few realities that I had not foreseen before on the soul and spiritual dimension; perhaps what is transpiring on the physical level for me at the moment has to do with my engaging in getting to understand better this path toward death and dying that the book is relating to me. Perhaps it is the culmination of all my past experiences and present conditions into a final trajectory towards the end of my life for what it is worth. It is painful both physically and emotionally no doubt and I have the feeling it will not get any better. All I can see thus far is the fact that it is taking my spiritual practice to a higher and more challenging dimension and my ego is taking the beating from it all in which lies the crux of the matter; my ego. Self fulfilling result of the letting of the ego as a practice and not being attached to body and mind as a prerequisite to achieving liberation is taking a manifestation  in it negative form; the ego perhaps is putting up a fight! Perhaps this is is what happens when you try to stop getting drunk or getting stoned and stop paying attention to women's ass and seek refuge in the teachings of the Buddhas, the Dharma and the Sanga and surrendering completely in the All Mighty Allah }SWT} body mind and spirit; the negative repercussion can be detrimental to your health. Looking with optimism on the other hand, it is said  to better suffer hell on earth than make your reparation in the after life.  

Karma sucks!, then you die! The letting o of life is and will never be easy and suicide is off the question not that i have not tried, twice actually in my past and narrowly escaped death a few times and a brush with death is no stranger to me. But death seems to elude me in the final cut, I keep returning to my physiological form on this planet time and again like it or not. Why I keep asking the same question over and over especially upon waking up from a stroke after passing out while driving and finding I had wet my pants and my whole attire was soaked in sweat and my daughter screaming in the passenger seat beside me, Yes i was dead for a few minutes but no I had to return and continued my driving home. In this Blog I had shared a few events of my near death experiences and the one most vivid and painful was the one tha took place in Corte Madeira, Marin County, California where i had a 'pleurisy' attack according to the physician who used a six inch needle to suck out fluid that had build around my lung due to a Yoga practice accident. As the devil is in the details I will leave it up to those curious or interested enough to look it up on what had happened on the New Year's Eve of 1983?

In facing death, fear is the key. If you can let go of fear, that panic feeling that cause you to loose control of your mind, if you could return as calmly to your breathing even in the midst of utmost pain, you can return from the final disembodiment of your physical life; death. No matter what your Sadhana or practice may be in this life, if and when you stop breathing, the game is over for you. And yet how we take breathing for granted and often are not even conscious that we are breathing except when an occasional sigh or sneeze or being surprised out of our socks by someone and when your utter, "let me catch my breath." As I grow older and less wiser i am constantly catching my breath wondering if I will ever catch up to it eventually or will it leave me in the lurk with death catching up to me. Yoga in India and Tai Chi and Zen in China, these two ancient schools expounds Breath control as the primary goal towards getting our act together. No matter what we do breath! You breath in and you breath out and herein lies the secret to life itself, that only when you stop breathing does it all ends for you in this realm and you become one within and without.  Your breath is the bridge between you and The Supreme it is said that The Lord, The Creator of Life blew His breath Prana or life force into you and lit the Divine Spark as your energy source.   

Sadhguru's Book - DEATH - An Inside Story. - Part One.

 This morning I woke up at three and sat for awhile and saw before me myself standing and facing away into an evening sky or perhaps morning and as i stood there my body started to disintegrate as though blown apart by the wind from head on downwards to my feet. It was a pleasant experience feeling as though I was loosing myself from into nothingness. Not knowing what to do I decided to chant the cosmic sound of OM  and felt my body gather energy from the pit of my belly and slowly rose up my spine locking itself at every points of my chakras until it reaches my head area. I never felt more in tune with my physical form as i did and my mind was just watching the whole phenomena happening, like I was simply an observer watching every movement of my physical form. Then the thought of Sadhguru's book on Death came to my mind and felt at ease like what I have read so far of his teaching had come to expression. I have dwelled on the subject of death for a very long time and had written somewhere in this Blog my thoughts and experiences on the matter almost to a point of obsession at one time and had to give up. Perhaps I was exposed to its negative effect more so than the positive and it was leading me towards a sense of depression and more confused than I was already. 

I had experienced quite a number of deaths in the past of others and the most vivid was the death of my uncle, the man who had adopted me at birth and raised me for twelve years of my childhood life. It was sometime in 1990-91 when i had taken vacation and returned to Malaysia for a short visit. It was almost dark in the evening and I was having dinner at an auntie's house where I had put up and a stranger came to the door and told me that my uncle had passed away and his body was placed at the back of his van and that is should go and take care of it. I took a ride with stranger on his motor bike to the site a bout a quarter of a mile to the junction of Gelugor and Brown Gardens in Penang where we were. There i found the van parked by the roadside and on looking inside found my uncle's deceased body laying on the floor at the back of the van. I had not driven in Malaysia for many years since living in the United States and especially not a van. However I had no choice as there was no one around to ask for help and so I drove the van to his house and upon arrival carried his body into the house. Together with my auntie we undressed him getting rid of his pants that was soaked with his feces and the stench was overwhelming. Together we cleaned him up as best we could and started calling my relatives to inform them of the tragedy.

My uncle had a massive stroke while driving home and I later learned that the had parked the van along the road and stepped out tearing his his shirt open before falling to the ground where a few passer by had picked him up and laid him in the van. By then it was dark and the stranger who knew who my uncle's residence had informed my auntie and she told him to get a hold of me as there was no adults in the house.  Perhaps it was meant to be that I happen to be around when it all happened and that it was meant to be to be that I was the one to take the responsibility of taking care of the man who had raised me in his final hour. My uncle had married late in his life and had eight children and all of them were still too young to comprehend much less took care of the whole situation and so it was meant to be. He was buried the next day laid to rest alongside my grandfather and grand mother. I had to return to the United States soon after with a very heavy heart wondering what was to become of his family. The stench of his dead body remained with me for a long time even after i got to America. The man had raised me as a Buddhist while the rest of my family and relatives were Muslim and he himself converted to Islam when he married my auntie at the age of forty. His life was an enigma in many ways having spent two years as a Buddhist monk in Sri Lanka or Ceylon as it was known before and as the saying goes the devil is in the details and what a phenomenal detail it was for me to unravel. From this experience I had a good lesson about Karma and its consequences; was he punished by God, {Allah} or the Buddha? One thing for sure he was a very heavy smoker and I remember his brand of cigarettes called the Rough Rider, was perhaps the cause of his stroke. Regardless, I loved the man and his demise was tragic for me.

There's two ears and one mouth - listen more talk less...

 Two days ago my two children and I were invited to dinner at the home of my friend Mr. Mahadevan who lives on the fourth floor below us,{we are on the twelve floor.} It was a vegetarian affair and also present was an Indian former school teacher with his 27 year old son. The gentleman is said to be a Reiki Teacher  and according to my friend the Prof. as he is a professor at the the University Sains Malaysia, a mystique man. To me my friend the prof. is more so of a mystique man than most as he has the charm and humbleness of one who has the knowledge and charm of a real Guru. While chatting away I noticed a book on his shelf entitled DEATH - An Inside Story written by Sadhguru and immediately I knew I had to borrow the book. I became acquainted with the teachings of Sadhguru a few years back, two if I am not mistaken when i stumbled upon him on You Tube. I was impressed by his teachings but lost interest after a while when I found that he was another Hindu master spreading Hinduism rather than a Universal Teacher who transcend all religions, my poor excuse. I also had a problem with the manner in which he presents himself which often struck me as an attempt at being flamboyant and somewhat condescending when he speaks, again my bad. I have grown up among Indians in this country and as a matter of fact my Grand Uncle married a Hindu and his children, my aunts and uncles all four of them are all Hindus. As a child i grew up visiting them at their home in the Methodist Boys School where my Grand Uncle was a caretaker until the day he died. hew as known to us as Martin Sia and was the younger brother of my grandfather. The two brothers went their separate ways when my grandfather married a Muslim and was converted to Islam and my Granduncle remained a Buddhist.

The eldest of my grand uncle's children was Ranjan and had passed away a few years back having suffered from Parkinson's disease, he was younger than me although he was my uncle.. Then there is Kamala, Susila and the youngest boy Sugananda. I used to visit the Hindu temples in and around the Georgetown area with Ranjan and assisted him on his Kavadi trip during the Thaipusam once a upon a time when I returned to Malaysia from the U.S. as part my university program, sometime in 1981? I was able to document the whole ritual from the beginning to the end and later presented it to the University in my lecture presentations with the slides I took of the event. It blew the minds of the Green Bay university students who saw the slide show. I was no stranger to Hinduism as my father who was a Goldsmith working for a major jewelry company here was commissioned by the Chetiars to create a one foot tall solid gold statue of Lord Murugan that till this day is paraded from the Little India Hindu Temple all the way to the hill temple in the Botanical Gardens annually during the Thaipusam day. There's a story to this journey, perhaps some other time. My favorite Hindu Deity has always been Lord Ganesha, the elephant headed one. I will always pay my respect whenever i come upon His presence and this too has a personal story attached to it and somewhere in this lengthy Blog I might have told this story and it has to do with the day my first son was born and what day it was.\

I realized that my communication skills has still got to be polished when I was with the beautiful group of host and guest at the dinner, I found myself trying too hard to get my message across turning others off. I have learned that most others have their fixed personality after years of being a teacher or a director like my twin brother and they put forth their status in life when addressing others like don't teach me as i was once a school teacher or I am a director so don't come telling me any better. Letting go of their status is no easy thing to do even when they are in the company of strangers, like you cannot teach a duck how to swim. So I did not really learn much from the Reiki master as he claimed to be and I should have focused on what is Reiki instead of trying to share my own perception of what being on a spiritual journey entails. There is also my own error of judging racial or cultural character like when in conversation with an Indian or a Chinese assuming that they have their own inherit nature in self expression. In this case and Indian man does not like being made to feel like he is being taught a lesson in life by a non Hindu. However i have grown up among these characters and most of them do have their own idiosyncrasies when putting forth their thoughts and ideas that is inherent to their culture. I was a little disappointed and I believe or felt that so was the other guest at the dinner. The things you learn when in the company of strangers tells much about who you are is what I learned from this event.

To be lazy one needs to let go - extinguish the mind.

 Letting go of life itself is the aim of living for those who have realized the futility of being born into this realm of maya or this realm of illusion. The sannyasin and sadhus of India practice this art of letting go to the extreme so as to deny any form of attachment to this physical existence, to grow from childhood to old age like a mule carrying a load of baggage on its back for the benefit of someone else only to die at the end of the journey from exhaustion and frustration, delude and despaired and all simply because of the carrot that has been dangled before our eyes and the conditioning that has been imposed by parents and the rest of society. 'Work hard boy, and you'll find, someday you'll have a job like mine.' Letting go from clinging to dreams and fantasies, from ideologies and the need to stay ahead, to be pious and chivalry, to become famous and wealthy, is the lazy man's path to freedom. Not to get sucked into goal and achievement oriented style of living, not getting pulled and pushed by the competitive struggle to stay afloat and ahead of others is a trap that keeps man in bondage to this illusory existence that is part of the matrix of our existence. The pieces of bones and flesh thrown at us to be chewed upon are the token of appreciation of our eagerness to participate in this game of life as the rich and wealthy wine and dine accepting it as their hard earned privilege. 

Today this hard earned privilege has led us to the brink of self destruction taking along with us the numerous lives of other species of fora and fauna, enough is never enough and we are being led by greed, hate and delusion as our demigods, our manifesto. If you fail it is only because you have not strived hard enough or use you brain well enough in order to grab the opportunities and possibilities to make it while on this super highway of life. Oppression and exploitation is the name of the game if one is to make it big and stand above all the rest and corruption is the ultimate source of short cuts towards being in the limelight. Grab all you can while you can and the hell with the rest of your fellow man and if it all fails violence is the answer to filling up your coffer. Some things, habits and motives are never easy to let go of and man will forever be a slave to his desires, not his needs but his desires. Desires for bigger and larger, for  more expensive and upgraded, for never ending delights life has to offer keeps us tethered to the yoke of our existence as enough is never enough. We accumulate and hoard as much as our garage can hold and if not we will rent a storage facility or have garage sale at the end of the day to get rid of the old and hoard newer and better garbage.  Material garbage is not as hard to get rid of as mental ones as the mind has a great propensity of hoarding more and more garbage as we get older and it takes more effort to do so. letting go mental garbage is a lifetime effort for every second of the day the mind accumulates more narratives and images as it can.

Most of humanity has become enslaved by the very believe in the fact that man can achieve any feat or action if the mind is put to the task and with this believe man has assumed an arrogant deceit that he is the creator/doer of his actions. Man's propensity for self aggrandizement has led him to developed an inflated ego with the tendency to out smart himself by challenging the law of nature itself and shove aside his spirituality in favor of his darker nature or as Jung called his shadow. His desire to outdo himself has become an obsession disregarding what the cost of his actions might have upon the fabric of reality itself.  His ego knows no bounds nor does he care that he has lost his humanity and sense of love and compassion towards his fellow creatures and the planet itself; take care of number one and all else is of no consequences. man takes great pride in being able to overcome his limitations and this collective assumption has led him to build yet another Tower of Babel; he is in the process of defying even the Divine in creating artificial intelligence like Dr. Frankenstein because he can. The monster he is creating in this modern age will be far more foreboding and dangerous than the fictional character of Mary Shelly's novel. Man has abused his God given free will and is on the road to perdition, he is standing on the abyss of self annihilation as a specie and this will be the end of the Kali Yuga where the death of the spirit in man obliterates his connection to the divine nature in him; the age of technology is man's final creative spirit leading to his demise barring Divine Grace. The Super Ego wants to become God but fails to confront understand and overcome his 'Shadow'; the dark side prevails as a result of of this blind ignorance.

Letting go of the 'I' ; " The Great Yogi has extinguished the mind."

   

 

    

The Art of being Lazy -

 

  Contrary to popular believe,  being lazy is no easy matter and it takes a great deal of practice to accomplish a good handle on being lazy especially without the guilt if not shame emotions that it generates. There is no positive quotes about being lazy if you search the Internet, it seems like everyone, every religious practice every warns you not to be lazy as it is born out of pure ignorance. In life it seems one just have to keep being busy, being productive being motivated and living the day full of activities, however what if there is in really no one that needs to be an existential workaholic? What if one has realized that there is really no doer as in the Advaita  or non dualistic view of life is being practiced? I believe in the fact one has to fully understand the art of the Taoist Wu Wei or in active action or being effortless  in every action one performs.

There is Zen saying, "Eat when you are hungry, sleep when you are sleepy and sit and watch the grass grow." man is an automaton, a self driving entity that is constantly looking for the next thing to be done one after another otherwise he feels useless, he just needs to keep being busy as though it is a justification for his existence and not doing anything is a poor excuse for being a man, hence man has his business. In the Zen Buddhist tradition sitting meditation is the primary practice and the more one sits the better it is for self development and to the lay man this seems like the epitome of being lazy, wasting time sitting on the cushion and just staring at the wall all day long. Bodhidharma the Zen master who brought Buddhism to China is said to have sat for nine years in a cave waiting for someone to transmit his teachings to. Perhaps it was just a myth most of it, however it was a recorded event in the history of Zen Buddhism in how it all began for the transmission of Buddhism into the Chinese culture. It is left to our imagination of how it must have been for an Indian Yogi to appear and reside in a remote area in China an was able to convert the inhabitants into the understanding of the teachings of the Buddha which was in Sanskrit and later translated to Chinese. 

By the time Zen Buddhism got into the Japanese culture it took on a more serious identity and Zen upon encountering Shintoism the animistic practice of the Japanese people the marriage became a portent combination of meditation and the respect if not worship of Nature. The Japanese penchant for gardening and landscaping became a strong form of meditation and this led to a practice of  work in general as form of meditation where nothing is too small or too insignificant albeit in farming or fishing, carpentries or the art sword making. There is a ritual to every act from caring for tools and equipment to the manner of presentation of the finished product; all done with complete sense of awareness and that is to present the best of a man's endeavor. It is also to achieve these in the most effortless way as possible so much so that everything becomes a spontaneous act of creation. Strolling in a Japanese Tea garden of a Zen Buddhist temple complex one is easily moved to the awesomeness of the presence of silence and serenity that slows down one's  own busy mind. Tis is precisely the aim of the Tea Ceremony or Cha No Yu and the the Samurai warriors of feudal Japan would ask for a tea ceremony be performed for himself before he sets out to face his opponent so as to calm his inner being or his soul. This meditation in action  especially in the face of an impending death in battle.

What has all these got to do with being lazy? I am still figuring it all out really, connecting the dots making sense out of non-sense so to speak, so bear with me. The essence of this Art of being lazy is to keep everything at a minimal, no hurry, no force for sure and no aim at any accomplishment  to be achieved. Drop all that narratives of being a high achiever or making it big or being at the top of the heap and all that non-sense; the essence of being lazy is to be free from all attachments to be empty of being itself.  No wants, no desires and no needs, just aimlessly drifting from here to there while waiting for the lights to finally be switched off, the end of days to be ushered in and the big splash fills the skies, yes, to be lazy is like sitting and facing the wall and do nothing, wish for nothing and hope for nothing.

Eat when you are hungry and sleep when you are sleepy, Sit and watch the grass grow.

    

  

"THe lazy Man's Club" - Join me i dare you.

 I will throw the bones and see what turns up. Not too much it says in the lay of the bones and I have just completed[almost] my early morning tasks and now taking five listening to the Seventies Oldies on You Tube and a the moment John Denver is calling out to "Sunshine on my shoulder, makes me happy Sunshine in my eyes they make me cry, ..almost always makes me high!.. , almost always ..." " Every time i try to tell you the words came out wrong, So I just have to say I love you in a song..." ...I wonder what ever happened to Jim Croce, how old he might be? Ah just Google it if is that important...what else is there to do...if you are still following me then you are as complicit in the creation of the The Lazy Man's Club. Yes mu next venture is to start my own club out there and see if there are takers to join me in the quest in the Art of being Lazy! Yes, I believe that this is a good idea especially seeing that i am at a lost as to how to spend the rest of the morning as it is. Perhaps having a club of my own online or off might create a much more interactive and active atmosphere for the continuation of my Blogging perhaps I need to  interact more and better with those alike like me in striving to understand life and what it would be like to simply surrender to being pure and simple laziness. A state of being non-interactive and less prone to overwork, a state of taking it easy and not be sucked into the rat race of so called the highway to heaven of life. It is done! 

I suppose the next move for me is to try and write a proposal convincing myself of the feasibility of my intention , the why and how of the Lazy Man's Club. Any philosophical back ground, any physical and mental gymnastics, any sitting and facing the wall daily and asking silly questions to one self while trying to stop the mind from thinking, and then some...what would it take to say Screw it! I am tired of taking all these, I am done, time to move on , time to let go and face what is before me in the here and now and I find the Art of Being Lazy fits this purpose, just simply do nothing, No reason to move from here to there if you don't want to or simply don't feel like it. No ifs and ands, no buts and what ifs, no Sir, its only this the freedom to simply remain in the zone of laziness, immortalized as the Buddha of Laziness! Yes, awakened from the illusory realm of making things happen, the realm of mental projections, the realm the Buddhist call The Nirmanakaya of Shakyamuni Buddha; awakened completely and perfect endowed with the powers of being lazy, laid back and unmoved or attached to what is in the background, existing like a cork floating down the stream towards the river and the ocean, appearing and disappearing like the white clouds in an empty sky, there is no more an entity, no more a shadow or any other form, no more an ego making decisions or analyzing what is, no, only Laziness is present.

So! I call out to all of you who have had it enough with this Cockamamie world and this Ronald McDonald Menu we thrive on, I call to all of you come join my "Lazy Man's Club," I dare you. 

What is my Sadhana - My Practice?

 Dropped my daughter off at the Airport and she is on her way to Singapore, her first flight of the year 2024 she said and not bad, Neh? Not bad at all, I said, an International Flight no less. shades of things to come perhaps! Keep up the good work and look ahead to greater experiences in your career; have fun!, I said.{ in my heart}

What is Pravriti and Nivriti?

Pravriti is the  out flowing of energy from the Source, from God 

Nivriti is the  drawing it back of the energy into the source. 

After listening to one of Shunyamurti's morning Satsang on You Tube at the Satyuga Ashram or Institute, located  somewhere in the foot hills of Costa Rica. I listen to his Satsang quite often, sometimes like three times a day, it helps to keep me grounded and reminded as to what I am focusing on in my Sadhana or practice at this moment in space and time. I keep drifting away from my focal point or my heart center of my being  distracted by thoughts . If you wish to know further what Sadhana is you might Google it, its another key Sanskrit word worth getting to know if you are on a spiritual trip of one kind or another. I would relate the word as to mean simply practice or as a Malay Muslim would call it 'Amalan". having a path or a way towards self discovery and self liberation. Some sort of self discipline that helps to clear the straight and narrow path towards meeting your Maker  when all is said and done. Any form of practice, albeit Yoga or TaiChi or ChiGung, Silat Gayung or Tae Kwon Do or Bujutsu the Sweat Lodge or Zen meditation, any kind at all, helps to keep the mind from running wild, from loosing control from becoming paranoid from feeling insecure, from depression; recognizing one's own Divine Nature is highly recommended among most ancient teaching; Sadhana is the path that leads to the unity or merging into God to become One,{not two}. "Innalillahiwa'innalillahi Rajiun, from Him I came unto Him I return. These are the last words that a Muslim would utter upon his last breath, the return to Al Hak, the owner.

The massacre in Gaza and the rest of Palestine haunts me and try as i may to avoid making any comments or judgement on the matter I am still touched painfully by concern and worry, I simply cannot look away and feel human. I am angry! As angry deep in my soul as I have ever had and I am sad, sadder than not being able to be there when both my parents passed away. I am filled with shame and remorse for my ambivalent feeling towards the plight of the Palestinian People and the ever growing tension all over the Middle East that will inevitably lead to a wider war if not trigger the Third World War, The War of Extinction. Its sad, a sad situation that humanity is facing and the powers that be are playing the same old ego game of whose dick is larger and longer and who can spit or pee farthest. It is almost like humanity is preparing to commit Sepuku or hara kiri, It is like we are choosing our path towarrds self destruction and have no idea of what to do other than up the game, apply more pressure and chest pounding to cower the opponent; what of God given Brain? Whatever happen to our sense of LOve and Compassion our tender mercies towards one another, whatever happened to Being Human, being the Caretaker, Keeper of the Planet as a responsibility bestowed upon us by our  Creator, what of our Divinity? Are we to become the end of history itself as there would be no witness left to document each and every event that had led us to our demise. There would not be anyone who survive would want to or have the need to; a Nuclear War is the mother of all wars as  George Galloway would say.

I have been watching too much You Tube and listening to too much false truths that flows out of the mouths of those whose swore to be the deliverers of truth so as to promote themselves and their Media personality, it is getting into my head. It is my bad. I am allowing my mind to become attached to what i see or hear and it has nothing to do with caring about or not of the  bitter suffering the victims in Palestine. What can I do about it? How do I contribute my services towards procuring peace and avoiding the nightmare that lay before us if events takes their same route towards collective self destruction, what is my role in this precarious moment in the history of humanity. Where were you when they declared war against each other what were you doing while the children of Gaza screamed from beneath the rubbles like voices from Hell. Will it satisfy you ego to be able to sleep at night the rest of your life knowing that you have been complicit in butchering thousands of children so as you can claim your right; what right? You have bloody hands but choose to be blind and exist in self denial, what becomes of your children or theirs when history tells the truth. In this day and age you cannot throw the stone and hide your hand anymore, the whole world is watching you on the screen and off. O' Sons of Israel, you have fulfilled the prophecy of the Quran verses condemning you and your decedents witnessed by the rest of humanity. Ceasefire Now before you cross the line of no return. Even the Gods have limits as the amount of cruelty they allow to be committed by man over his brothers and sisters, it shame them that they too had failed to reign in the anger and vengeance that  is being inflicted over one nation by another as it has been happening throughout human history. It seems like the Gods of Light is loosing out to the Lords of Darkness of the human Spirit/ What can I do?

I can do nothing! I can waste my time hankering over what is already obvious and make nothing out of it except invite depression or i can totally move on with my life being where i am at; keep doing my Sadhanas, my practices, my daily chores, my human commitments towards life as it is and make believe that all is well and as it should be. "Suffering is, None who Suffers." My practice is to silence my ego or at least reign it in from making more mistakes and inviting more attachments to  the causes of pain and suffering. My Sadhana at present is to keep body and mind strong and powerful for as long as they can endure the wear and tear of time and not to neglect to purify my soul from the layers of illusions that I have accumulated for the past seventy odd years of my life. As I have said in the past, humbly with no arrogance, I refuse to die before I learn the whole truth as to why I am here or at least fully understand who I truly am. In'sha'Allah! God Willing?