Holistic Sunday

Date: 24 October 2009 (Sunday)

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A 'holistic day' for me...

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1000h-1300h: The Holistic Fair

Woke up early to go to Fort Canning for the Body Mind Soul Fair, also known here as the 'Holistic Fair'. Once a year, such a fair is organised gathering holistic healers, meditation groups, tarot card readers, innovative health products,...etc. Of course discretion is needed when choosing what services to engage. Personally, I would raise a red flag on 'gurus' that display:

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1. Personality Cult

It is not uncommon for gurus to allow their followers to paint a glorious and larger than life picture of themselves. Some of these unquestioning followers work as unpaid volunteers to the guru. Remember you are there to listen to the song and not to worship the singer.

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2. Nerve

A guru would be one who is peaceful and calm. I would be uncomfortable with one with a nervous twitch and volunteer their unsolicited opinions about people around them. (Who asked for your opinion anyway?)

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3. Magic

When they demonstrate 'magic' to capture your belief.

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4. Exclusivity

That only through him, through their method or their product/service can you achieve a higher consciousness.

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5. Content

Strip away the robes, long beard, batik sarongs,...etc and check if there is any content left. For instance, I had heard of a guru telling someone that she was on the right path. Is there such a thing as a 'right path'? Everyone is surely on their own (unique) path, but there is no 'right' or 'wrong' paths. I know of a drug addict and trafficker who had served time in jail, but after that created an enterprise ark to help, train, hire and counsel ex-offenders. Is his path more 'right' than my less dramatic path?

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However, there is sub-conscious evolution and conscious evolution. For the latter, we need awareness to consciously lead the path of self elevation of consciousness (salvation).

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6. Money

Follow the money. Is there a large donation required at some point?

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7. Sex

Follow the sex. Sex sells - even in the 'spiritual business'! For instance, if the yoga school is more into sexy tight fitting fashionable gear and emphasize more on looking good than the true meaning of union of body and soul, then something is amiss.

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1400h-1730h: Tao

This is an excerpt of a talk on "What is religion?" by a Tao master. This post is written as a first person account for readability reasons only and is not an ad-verbatim record of the speaker. Any distortions or omissions are mine and most likely accidental and definitely without malicious intent. As such, please do not quote from this post.

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Life is short, so what is the meaning? Buddha asked if the animal has meaning. The animal like everything here has value, so it has meaning to itself. Hence we can't judge.

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So what is your value? None one else can tell you except yourself.

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What is religion and what is philosophy?

'Philosophy' is a recent name. In ancient times, they are merely wisdom derived from life. Before the existence of 'religion', there was still meaning. From mere survival, mankind has started worshipping nature, mystics and even devil spirits. It is only when mankind's consciousness is reasonably developed then would it be able to grasp the concept of mysticism. Such practices were meant to alleviate sufferings.

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Then came prophets who (perhaps not intentionally) the concept of religion. So the difference between a religion and a philosophy is that the former has a prophet. [ My note: However, according to Wikipedia, the difference between religion and philosophy is that the former essentially involves some beliefs and faith. ]

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Religion led the world before science. There arise different religions due to different cultures and geography. Contemporary religion is more scientific and less ritualistic. There are attempts now by the contemporary religions to offer scientific explanations. This is perhaps to cater for the younger generations (brought up more in sciences) who are generally less religious.

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But science has developed very fast. It is also important to note that science do not operate in a vacuum devoid of the natural laws. On the other hand, traditional religions are too old fashion and could not explain science using the natural laws.

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Philosophy is between religion and science. It is mostly derived from Love and is also not completely scientific. There is also a difference between Western (Greek) philosophy and the Eastern (Chinese) philosophy.

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Greek philosophy is propounded from idealistic thoughts of what life should be, whilst Chinese philosophy is based on the natural laws of being (Tao).

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What is the difference between Buddhism and Tao?

Before Buddha, there was no Buddhism. During Buddha's time, it was known as Buddha's teachings or teaching for enlightenment. Enlightenment is to realise one's true nature.

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Tao is basically true nature reasoning. It is 'the way'.

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Is there any meaning to ancestor worship?

Traditionally, there has always been 'ancestor worship', but they are punctuated with the arrival of Western relgions. There is still a relationship between our ancestors and us, if they (the ancestors) have not reincarnated yet. So they are still able to help us.

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[I asked: So what if they are reincarnated?]

Then they wouldn't recognise the relationship anymore.

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Are religious people better off than atheists?

Traditionally, people merely prayed for peace and protection. Nowadays, there is less need to pray for those reasons, so we pray for guidance. Atheists have no religions, so they have to find their guidance elsewhere, as they don't follow religious morals/ethics and may lack clarity.

[My note: Having no religion, is a religion itself.]

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How does destiny come about?

Some destinies can be read. Those have forms. There are also those that are formless, like our consciousness. Charity work with evil hearts will not work, because it is the 'cause' that will lead to 'destiny'.

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Why are there rituals?

All religions have rituals. They are a submission to a higher power.

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Can Christians cultivate Tao?

If you ask your pastor, he'll probably say 'no'. Conversely, if you ask him if you are a Tao cultivator and he would like to be a Christian, he'll probably say 'yes'.

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So it depends on you. Why do you want to cultivate Tao? Is it because the words in Tao are meaningful to you, is it the experience or is it your quest for enlightenment?

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Jesus asked his followers to seek the Truth. A Tao cultivator also seeks the Truth. Christianity, in Chinese, is translated into 'Saviour's Teachings'. So Christians are disciples of the Saviour. Likewise, in different times and places in history, there were Mohammed, Buddha and others who were to save their people from ignorance. This can be done only by seeking the Truth.

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Is there any difference between a Tao cultivator and non-cultivator?

A cultivator becomes more peaceful, calm and harmonised over time. It is the process of letting you find your true nature.

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I don't belief in Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed or any of those Prophets/Saviours, but I believe in myself. Is that ok?

Ok, as long as you don't fall down. Religion is not a crutch that you must have throughout your life. You can also believe in money. Nothing wrong about that, but that will be limiting. For instance, money alone cannot buy you happiness or good health.

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Without a religion, you can still reach enlightenment. One can be free from the perception of God and from the (perceived) God's control. When Buddha attain enlightenment, he was free from any limitations and perception of God.

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Am I free from Cause and Effect if I don't believe in it?

Try giving a tight slap to someone and you will see if there is an effect. Cause and Effect is scientific. It is one of the Universal Law. You believe this more as you get older and witness people getting what they sowed. Hence the explanation for why some people are born pretty, ugly, rich, poor,...etc.

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What is 'split personality'? Is that good or bad?

Some people have not just two, but multiple personalities. But there is a difference, if it is different personalities within one soul or multiple souls. Many of us behave different in different environments. One behaviour in society, another in your religious organisation, another in the family,...etc. Some people work so long in the jobs that they bring their workplace behaviour into the family. So which one are you? So don't get yourself to become too complicated.

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Famous actors and singers have the problem to remember their true self. As they get famous they are more and more afraid to lose their fame, as deep down they feel that they are merely an ordinary person going on a ride.

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Where split personalities is due to possession, the the person can speak in different voice, sometimes voice of a different gender, a different language.

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A person will a split personality leads a contradictory life. It can be stressful.

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It was an enlightening talk of about 3 hours. It overran, so I had to rush down for my next appointment with a friend from the Eckangkar religion.

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For other posts on Tao, click here.

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1800h-1900h: Discussion with an Eckangkar initiate

I first heard about Eckangkar by chance, amid a conversation about 'soul travel' with my Muslim friend. He told me a friend of his can do that and that friend is from 'Eckangkar'.

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After that, nothing else happened, until about two months later, another friend called me out of the blue to meet up for a drink. During our meeting, this friend wanted me to read his character and behaviour based on his date of birth. (I have learned to do that through the 'Power of Numbers' course I attended recently. For more, click here.) As I was doing his reading, he whipped out a small booklet from Eckangkar. I told him I have heard it before and had visited their website but had not taken the effort to visit them.

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"How about visiting them now? They have a "Hu" chanting session today (Sunday), " he said. And so off we went. It was on that day that I attended the first "Hu" chant. After that session, I didn't go back. Before I left for that day, an Eckist asked me to block a certain Sunday off, as they will be having a seminar and will be delighted if I can attend. So I dutifully put it on my calendar on my mobile.

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Again a few months lapsed and then one day, my mobile calendar beeped and showed that the Eck seminar was to happen the next day. But I didn't even have any confirmation nor the details yet and had to ask the Eck guy to confirm the time and place of the event.

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The next day on the way to the seminar, I had a stray thought that during the seminar, my Muslim friend whom had first told me about Eckangkar, will call me during the seminar and I will tell him that I am at an Eckangkar seminar to surprise him. Curiously, he did call during the seminar and I did tell him exactly that!!!

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During the seminar, I bought a book about "Spiritual Dreaming", I had been journaling my dreams and would like to find out more about the significance of dreams. In it, it suggested some exercises, among which is to chant 'Hu' before the sleep to better connect with the dream. I have been doing that and indeed, it seems to work. ( I have some posts about dreams. Click here.)

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Curiously, there is also a gentle and comfortable resonance through the body when I chant 'Hu'. I can also hear the different frequencies that comes out from the single chant of 'Hu'. Very strange!

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Also incidentally, just today, during the Tao session, I just told another Tao cultivator that I have plans to fast once a week to let my stomach rest. Then surprise surprise, when I met my Eck friend in this appointment, he told me exactly that!

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During the conversation, I asked him about Eckangkar's opinion towards vegetarianism and the act of taking away life. My Eck friend then replied that we can never kill the soul of an animal, because the soul is eternal. Also, we must depart from the emotional aspect of killing the animal. However, if one is to kill an animal, he is stopping the animal in its incarnation to experience its life on Earth. This will have an impact on one's karma. The more evolved the life form is, the bigger the karmic debt. But, it is not necessary to be vegetarian as an Eckist.

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It has been a series of coincidents in my meeting of Eckangkar. However, I believe nothing in life is coincident. We call it co-incidents because we cannot explain it. I mentioned these 'coincidents' just as a matter of curiosity. It is not to elevate that my meeting with Eckangkar is the only thing special in my life, nor are they the only coincidents. In fact, when our minds are still, we will begin to notice more of such 'coincidents'. So keep your eyes open! :)

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The one hour passed very fast and soon I had to rush to the next appointment, which was a talk on Light and Sound meditation, which sounded very similar to Eck.

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1900h-2100h: Talk on meditation on Light and Sound

I managed to sneak into the seminar hall minutes after the talk started. Actually, it was more like a course preview. The speaker did not describe the process to get into the meditation per-se and there was no practice during the talk.

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I have two disagreements with the talk.

1. That in this meditation, the meditator is supposed to abstain (among other things) from spiritual healing because it would be an interference to one's karma.

I find this an overly simplistic explanation about karma. The 'ecosystem' of karma is far more wide reaching, complex and involves an immense number of actions, people and beings. How can it be reduced to a one-to-one action-reaction? Which in this case simply involved healer and person to be healed? The speaker said that allowing ourselves to receive spiritual healing means interfering with our karmic debt. (You can read about Reiki healing here.)

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"So how about medical healing?" I asked.

"That is still an interference, but a smaller one to the karmic debt!" the speaker replied.

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Who is he as a single human being to judge if it is an interference or an act of compassion? This resignation to the fate of karma is one of the reasons why some poor communities are left to rot, because the richer ones in their community abandoned them to suffer.

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This is counter-intuitive! How can turning a blind eye to poverty go with the universal flow of Love? The heart instinctly jumps up to help and yet corrupted beliefs stopped it from doing so!

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I believe that if we put Love first, everything else will be sorted. Also, we must learn to be human first. If we cannot live our life as a loving human being, what chance do we have to live our divinity?

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2. That after meditation, we should do a Self Analysis on our negative characters like: anger, lust, greed,...etc.

Meditation brings us peace and tranquility. When we are peaceful and tranquil, there are no negative characteristic traits in that moment. That is, when there is light, the shadows disappear. So why bother analysing the shadows? Over time and over repeated meditation, our negative characteristics will gently fade away without our notice. There is no need to re-visit them and remind ourselves of them. It wouldn't help, as you cannot remove any shadows by focusing on shadows. In fact, if you continue to focus on your negative traits, they will grow. The thoughts that you feed more will grow and truimph over the ones that you don't feed. So, focus on the light. Just meditate and then enjoy the peace.

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But shadows do have their purpose! It makes us realise the divine aspects in ourselves that we have forgotten. Similarly shadows make a photograph beautiful, without shadows there will be no picture to take, as there is only light.

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I voiced my opinion to the speaker and he replied that perhaps their method does not suit me. To me, it is a refusal to reassess what he believes in, in clearer light.

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It was a long day! I didn't plan it like that, but it just turned out impromptu like this. I had some 'high' moments and 'low' moments.

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However, here are my (harsh) opinions...

I think that gurus should be more responsible and think carefully before they start a 'spiritual group'. If they are half-baked themselves, where will they lead their followers? What value will they add to their students' spiritual journey?

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I suspect there is a lot of ego going around, and in some cases, it has a lot to do with money! *sigh*

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Perception

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We have heard many times from spiritual gurus and motivational speakers that happiness comes from within and that even our perception of the world outside comes from within. To give you more comfort over all these verbose, we have scientists now giving a more rigorous treatment to that perception do indeed comes from within.

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Here is the first one about perception of sound:

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The next talk about the perception of colours:

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And lastly, about how the brain works:

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So, it's all in our mind! :)

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Doubt

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Date: 9 Oct 2009

Time: 7pm

Place: The Buddhist Library

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The highly acclaimed movie "Doubt" was screened this Friday.

Summary:

In 1964 a Catholic elementary school has just admitted its first Black student, a 12-year-old boy transferred from public school. The principal, a rigid disciplinarian nun, and the liberal parish priest are both concerned for the boy's welfare in a predominantly Irish/Italian school. The nun becomes convinced that the priest has, or is planning to have, an improper relationship with the child and is determined to force him to leave the school. A third compassionate person is the boy's mother, who has another point of view. The fourth person is a young teacher who is concerned but confused by the conflict between the nun and the priest.

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I particularly like these two sermons by Father Flynn.

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So if you are in 'doubt' or 'uncertainty' now, do not despair.

And, do not gossip, for you cannot collect the feathers carried by the winds of gossip back.

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And this is the doubt and gossip...
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In Sickness and In Health - Painful Again!

I am in pain again! I have checked my blog and learned that the last time I had this excruciating sciatic pain was thirteen months ago. Then, I took to painkillers.

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This time, I identified the problem and took action early, doing the exercise below twice a day.

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Oh yes, positive thinking also helped. At the bottom of it, all dis-eases are psychosomatic. Proud to say, I overcame that without the help of painkillers and drugs. Many thanks also to the author of the wonderful video.

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Echoes of the Freelance Pathway

I woke up yesterday, the 3rd Oct 2009, to a rude surprise that my old friend Donald Stadler, had a heart attack and passed away on the way to work in the morning in London. He was only 50. That must have happened around 9.30am in London and 5.30pm Singapore Time on the 2nd October 2009. Curiously around that time, I heard Donald saying, "...wonder what happened to Michael's loan..." It was a clear message, but I didn't think much of it other than perhaps he was curious and concern about me. I do have many experiences of telepathy and this I thought was just another one.

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Donald was an American whom I have met during my freelance days in Holland in 1993. We lost contact some years later and then only re-established communications about a month ago. Then, he told me he had just known that he had lost his job and it was hard to find work in London. I was hoping to meet him in London sometime November, when I find time to travel to Europe.

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Life is fragile. If we do not take care of our minds, our bodies deteriorate. Donald was a single child. His father died when he was very young and he was raised only by his mother. He was often lonely and I suspect was also depressive as a result. During our stint in Rotterdam in the winter of 1992, we spent considerable time chatting in Chinese restaurants after work about how cool Compuserve emails were (as the Internet has just started to hit the masses) and how China will become an economic power in 20 years time. Fast forward (gosh!) 17 years, and we were right on both counts. The Internet is pervasive and the People's Republic of China just celebrated its 60th National Day gloriously as an economic power while the US is seriously bogged down in a financial meltdown.

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I enjoyed those chats we had. Donald was a good conversationist and also one of the few Caucasian friend who was adventurous enough to eat what was to them 'exotic' Chinese dishes of strange animal parts.

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Donald's sudden departure reminds me to live everyday as if it is my last (or first), and not put life on 'hold'. Problems and troubles will always be there, but they are not part of us, if we don't allow them to be. The soul is inherently peaceful and I should like to remind myself about that and enjoy life's every moment to the fullest.

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May also you rest in peace Donald. Farewell!

Bucky Group - The Pursuit of Happiness

This movie was in the cinemas in the year 2006. Those who had seen it before said it was still as touching watching it over again at the Bucky Group.

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This is the trailer:

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For the movie proper, click the Playlist.

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Now here is the documentary of the real Chris Gardner:

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There wasn't time for group discussions after the movie, as Joo Hock's Hair Salon has to start.

In the main movie, in the scene outside the child care centre, Chris Gardner corrected the mis-spelling of happiness on the wall (spelt as "happyness"). He said, it is not 'y', but 'i'. Incidentally, it sounded like not "why", but "I" (happiness is inside me).

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Here's a public talk by Chris Gardner:

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Since the Bucky Group didn't have time to discuss about the movie the last session, I would suggest we do so this week. There should be lots to reflect on. There would be more if you are about to be booted out of your apartment!!! Or if you are a man who hasn't broken the cycle of not being with your children! :)