Graduating above the Clouds

"...when the student is ready, the master will appear. "

The title is a tongue-in-cheek reference to my earlier posting "Soar above the Clouds" (about meditation).

It was Sunday evening, 24th July 2005. Yet another class graduated from the Seven Day Transformation Journey, conducted by the Self Awareness Society, at Tan Boon Liat Building, Outram Road, Singapore.

I could feel how elated the graduates of the class were. Many of them in tears. It was an emotional high. I know how it felt, as I too have undergone the course that has transformed me. That was three years ago! How well has this served me all these three years! A few of them stood up to give testimony of their experiences in the course and how they have benefited from it. Among them were Ben and Alfred, my friends from the Mind Mastery course. I could see that they feel uplifted in spirits.

What's more important here on for the graduates is to remember to meditate regularly for otherwise the spiritual high will gradually erode and it is possible for some to revert to where they started from. However, I believe that one has to be 'ready' to meditate regularly. Somehow, the time must be right, before one will adopt it as part of their regular life. As for myself, I actually started meditation 15 years ago as stress relief. However, once my stress was gone so was my practice. So, I believe that when the student is ready, the master will appear. Hastening such processes are often futile. In fact, I would extend this to other things we do in general.

Doris, another Seven Day Transformation Journey graduate voiced the same opinion and that for her case, her self-realisation arising from the course came much later on when she encountered problems in her daily life.

Trading Options

"...when we have made the money, to remember to thank our spiritual masters for making it all possible."

Started my first day of the Options Trading course on the 22nd Oct 2005 at Furuma Riverfront Hotel, by Miriam MacWilliams, an amazing lady and options trader who started off with US$10k and made US$2.2 million after two years. I am totally new to options. I told everyone in class that I'm so new to options, I can't even spell the word! ;)

At the start of the course, Miriam encouraged all of us to get up and make lots of money and then when we have made the money, to remember to thank our spiritual masters for making it all possible. She also encouraged us to give some money away to worthy courses once we are successful. Good start I think.

As the lecture progressed, I could relate to the investment strategies well and am delighted that much of them correspond very closely to business in general. What was more amazing was the resemblence to energy fields and physics from the perspectives of plotting the line of support and resistance and how the stock curve will repeatedly test the line, before crashing through and changing its behaviour from bullish to bearish and vice-versa.

In all, the course lasted for four days. I felt a little exhausted at the end, but all ready and eager to go... and make some money. :)

Alpha-Teta

Attended the free "The Silva Method" workshop by Nancy Ho at the Renaissance Hotel in Singapore on 19th july 2005. About 40 people turned up to listen to how we can think positively in Alpha frequency to optimise our mindpower. Nancy brought us through a some exercises including a short meditation to let us experience how it feels like being in Alpha state.

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The Silva Method was invented by Mr Jose Silva, born Aug 11, 1914 in Laredo, Texas, USA, into quite a poor family and at a very young age, he became the sole breadwinner of the family. He later became a radio repair technician and was fascinated with frequencies and how the human too think in different frequencies of Beta, Alpha, Teta and Delta, of which he discovered that we all can perform at peak levels if we keep ourselves at Alpha level.

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Looking further into the Silva Method, I was surprised that it is very similar to meditation and reiki. At the later modules of the training course, the student will be thought how to send loving or healing thoughts to others just like in Reiki and also develop ESP abilities. What amazes me equally, is that the method uses mostly psychology to achieve what gurus thought us spiritually. Much the same as Kong's workshop on Mind Mastery.

Vedanta

"It is our intellect that can guide us to a better life."

Realised it is tough keeping up with my blogs. Still several days behind what I want to write. My policy is now to write first and clean up the grammar later. I trust that you are tolerant enough to put up with the rough edges. For starters you are reading writings by an engineer - a profession not known for elegant literary works! Already a struggle in itself writing in plain English devoid of acronyms (we engineers (or Singaporeans) love them. :)

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I attended the talk on Vedanta, by the disciple of Swami Parasarathy on Monday 8th July 2005 at one of the Mastermind's apartment at Tanjong Katong, Singapore. I was told that Swami Parasarathy has an ashram in the outskirts of Mumbai and comes to Singapore only once in a while, as he is already 78 years old.

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The talk is based on a book Swami has written, after 25 years of research - to help people understand why they're so miserable and crack under calamity or adversity! The book refers to ancient scriptures of Vedas, the foundation / principles of the Bhagvad Gita/ ancient Hindu knowledge channeled by the Rishis and yogis in advanced trance state - sort of Universal truths to show you how to face your challenges in your life by giving you the" tools " / or better still, the manual for living.

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The talk was informal and interactive, and we were all sat on the floor while the speaker explained to us what Vedanta is. The speaker said that despite the progress in the material world through a more integrated world economy and advances in technology, people in general are not happier because most of us have not mastered the art of living.

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That means the art of managing ourselves, our minds and therefore our lives. We have to learn to manage ourselves and we can do that by enriching our experiences and learning from them. Knowledge acquired from objective learning improves our intelligence, wherelse knowledge acquired through subjective learning improves our intellect. It is our intellect that can guide us to a better life.

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It was an interesting talk and it was a pity that I had to leave midway for a business opportunity somewhere in the West side of the island. I was notified of the meeting only hours before. I have been getting more and more these opportunities of late - perhaps testimony to the Jewel Visualisation working! :)

Masterminds

"Don't you think some people are easily distracted? "

The lot of us, students of Mr Kong's "Mind Power Mastery" workshop have called ourselves "Masterminds". Emails have flown around amongst us amid the post-seminar high. Some of us (myself included) have experienced the 'coincidents' that Kong has warned us about. This include picking up coins in public, getting new sales orders which I have been pursuing for months, one had experienced a hostile colleagues turned friendly, and one of us got his cashcard stored value topped up instead of deducted at a car park.

I had a bizarre morning encountering dressed up women (who are not delivery persons) driving three different kangoo vans within 1.5 hours. Is that mere coincidence? Don't know what to make out of that bizarre observation, but one classmate was quick to accuse me of 'bird-watching' already. *sigh* Don't you think some people are easily distracted?

I've taken the opportunity to invite them to browse my blog. The curious ones have asked about the "7 Day Transformation Journey" and attended the previews. One of them have now decided to attend the workshop. I'm sure he will enjoy the workshop thoroughly and benefit from it. Yet others have asked me about Reiki and I've invited them to attend the Monthly Share Workshop at Master Parag's Reiki Hut.

Another classmate has invited us to her place for a talk by a swami about the Bhagavad Gita - the song of praise in the Book of the Upanishad. What a spiritual extravanganza!!

I had bought the Bhavagad Gita book from the Theosophical Society and guess this is a sign that I should start reading it. :) The talk will be on Monday 18th July 2005, so I was compelled to read the book enroute to Kuala Lumpur on the midnight bus there. Very 'chim' book indeed!

Karma

"I do good to others, but others are nasty to me! Why?"

Attended the talk on "Karma" by one of the sisters from the Brahma Kumaris organisation on Monday 11th July 2005 at Le Meridien Hotel in Singapore. Three great seminars over three consecutive days! Learned a great deal...

Karma is a concept that explains the common term "what goes around comes around". In its simplest form, it means, "if I do good, goodness will come to me". However, we often hear of people complaining that despite having done good to others, they are still in the unfavorable receiving end of human relationships. That means, "I do good to others, but others are nasty to me! Why?"

In the seminar, the sister explained that this is because the other person has a negative karma that needs to be exhausted. It has hardly any connection with your karma causing his adverse reactions to you. So, in such situations, we should allow the person to gradually exhaust her negative karma. To protect ourselves, we just have to refuse to receive their negative/nasty reactions. If not received, the negativities remains with the other person.

Very enlightening. It almost made me feel better already!

Mind Power Master

"...telling oneself that one is a millionaire every morning isn't going to make one a millionaire if one does not believe in it when the affirmations are uttered."

Two workshop over two consecutive days! What a weekend! This one "Mind Power Mastery" is conducted by Mr Kong Keen Yung on Sunday 10th July 2005.

In a nutshell, Kong's workshop is about creating a belief system in ourselves and once established, we can achieve anything (we believe). In other words, believe in ourselves. We can achieve anything as long as we believe in it! Much similar to the Godliness in us and the Oneness in All taught in Dr Aaron Lim's lecture. It is interesting to find how similar the principles of the two workshops are, despite coming from two facilitators that are so different from each other. Equally amazing was how similar his methods correlate with the Reiki healing visualisations and 'attitude of gratitude' that practitioners adopt; and the power of thought forms as I learned in the Theosophical Society.

There are a few things that are different in Kong's workshops compared to the others I've known. Kong modified some traditional techniques of visualisation to make them effective. For instance, the notion of telling oneself that one is a millionaire every morning isn't going to make one a millionaire if one does not believe in it when the affirmations are uttered. That is because, deep down the person knows for a fact that he/she does not have a million dollars! So, whatever we cannot believe, it is unlikely that we will achieve. Thus Kong's techniques takes the student through careful steps to avoid the pitfalls found in the traditional methods. He takes the students through the steps of building a belief system that is true!

In one of the exercises, we were supposed to guess the time lapse without looking at a watch. The exercise works like this: first I decide to guess how long is (say) 70 seconds. So I close my eyes, say "START", wait for my perceived 70seconds to lapse and then say "STOP". Meanwhile my partner timed me with a clock. Before the technique was taught, my perception of 70 seconds was 80 seconds - an error of a 10 second gap. After the technique was taught, my perception gap went down from 10 seconds to 5 seconds. I was amazed!

Basically, I created an entity "sub-genius", drew an icon for the sub-genius, gave it a easy to remember name, say "EVOL" then gave him a job function of being an alarm clock. I then visualise holding him in my hands and virtually putting him in my head. Once installed in my head, I trust and imagined him to be my servant alarm clock that will 'wake' me up when my 70 seconds are up. After that give your gratitude to your sub-genious. Simple as that!

The other methods he taught was similar to this one. The most important of it all is to 'install' or 'launch' your visualisation when your conscious mind is least active. Perhaps a time when one is driving or arguing some petty matters with the mother-in-law.

It was a delightful Sunday going through these techniques with Kong and also with the rest of the course mates, now undoubtedly feeling more confident equipped with these tools to bring ourselves to greater heights.

Interesting isn't it?