Reflection 100 (messy)

Messy

Sometimes our life gets pretty messy
Stress at work,
a runny nose,
your teenagers act like teenagers,
your closest friend struggling with severe illness

But then, even if it 'd get a lot more messy than this,
if you think about the miracle of your eye sight
and you see the wonderful colors of the sky
if you think about the miracle of your hearing
and you hear the most beautiful song of a bird
if you think about the miracle of walking
and you make this walk in the purest of nature
if you think about the miracle of love
and can still hug these teenagers of yours
if you think about the miracle of thought
and start to think these wonderful positive thoughts
that messiness becomes small.
we cool down and take some time
chill out and appreciate the lessons often to be learned in the most messy of periods.

Reflection 99 (violence in the sky, peace on earth)

Violence and Peace

Lightning and thunder
Violent skies
Peace on earth

Nightly garden
full of secrets
lovely sounds

Lightning and thunder
Violent skies
Peace on earth

Love in heart
Love in mind
Love in soul

Peace on earth

Reflection 98 (entering the boat)

Entering the boat

There is this famous story about the man who was caught in a flood.

When the water reached his waist level, a jeep came by and asked him to enter.
He thanked the driver but said that God would come and save him
When the water had forced him to be on the first floor of the house a boat came by
He was asked to enter but refused for the same reason.
When he was standing on the top of his roof, a helicopter came by but again he refused to enter
Finally he drowned and appeared in front of God. He was a bit upset and claimed that his strong belief had remained unanswered. God's reply was: I sent you a jeep, a boat and a helicopter but you did not want to enter. 

This sounds like a clever story but there is so much to it.
How many times we pray to our Creator for love, peace, patience and strength.
We expect a miraculous event to happen, giving us these things.
But all love, peace and patience can be found just around us.
Like fish are swimming in water, we are bathing in the love of the Universe, in the peace of God.
All we have to do is open up, tune in.

All we have to do is make our ego a bit quiet
Look deep in our conscience, our soul, that small flame of unextinguishable light iside
Feel the goodness around us, open up and tune in again and
step in the boat that will save us from drowning in another bout of anger
of suffering another bout of frustration of engaging in another fight.

Reflection 97 (struggle)

Struggle

Many times we experience this life as a struggle
and quite often a struggle it is.

We come into life and already we start to feel huger pangs, making us cry or scream
Luckily our parents were equipped with lots of love and responded to our needs promptly

We grow up and learn to explore. We explore the world
We hurt ourselves, we are unhappy about the things that are forbidden by our loving parents
We have to struggle for attention. All too often we get negative attention. Our siblings, our friends, we struggle with them.

The better we prepare ourselves to struggle, the more victories we can book Ego feels good about any victory. But deep inside there sits a conscience and a soul. Our soul and conscience does not feel good about every of our victories. If we have victories at a dire cost for others, the compassionate self of us, deep in our heart feels not too good about it. We manage to ignore it for a while but in the process we store this piece of info in our subconscious mind and it may come back

As a matter of fact if we think deeply about ourselves, it is possible to give up so many of the struggles. If we think for awhile what is it that really, REALLY matters in life, many of our struggles may be foregone

I think most of us would put happiness very much in front of a list of what is really important.
If we want to obtain happiness through power, we need to struggle
If we want to obtain happiness through wealth, we need to struggle

I think the recent suicide death of actor Robin Williams, has shocked the world
Here was an extremely wealthy successful actor and still he got so depressed, to the worst possible level of depression.

If we would all be just a little more knowledgeable about how we function and about what brings us real happiness and peace of mind, so many struggles could be avoided.

Reflection 96 (so much more)

When I walk on the grass
When I walk on the sand 
and feel the millions of blades of grass
and feel the trillions of grains of sand
under my bare feet
I wonder
So much more

I wonder
about the grass, how did get that cool
about the sand, how did it get so hot

I wonder
about the grass, how did it grow so green
about the sand, why are its grains so small

the grass at night
with the moon's light
So pleasing

the sand during day
with the bright sun's rays
So pleasing

I love the grass, I love the sand
but much more still
I do love you, my fellow human being

I love each moment of harmony
between two persons
I love each little kindness
between two people

I love the grass and sand
But so much more,
I do love you

Reflection 95 (100% trust?)

100% Trust

Trust and love go together so much.
Sometimes we love people we cannot trust.
This means perhaps that the love is not reciprocal?

Are you really 100% trustworthy to the ones you (think you) love
If the answer is no, it may well be that your love is not too real.

Reflection 94 (wow)

Wow

This afternoon I met with a group of nurses and caretakers involved in a recently started project of home nurse care to the poor.

I heard one story that truly had a deep impression on me. All i still can say is Wow! Fantastic.

Here is her true story:


A nurse told about the frustration she had experienced when she visited a family with a person who was in dire need of palliative care but she was not welcomed to deliver this care. The family was very strongly believing in traditional healing methods and thought she was just sent by the hospital to deliver more painful treatments to the patient. She talked nicely to the family expressed her sincere intentions and gradually she was allowed to take care of the bed sores of the patient and in the end her work was very much appreciated by the family. 

When asked how she had achieved this remarkable success, she mentioned that she got the motivation from the knowledge that this work she was doing was blessed by our Creator. She was confident that our Creator would show the way to her and the family if it was meant to be that she should alleviate the suffering of the patient. 

And this was just one of the many fantastic things I have heard this afternoon.
I got really convinced that we have a group of superb people who will make this project of home care (YOKUK- Sayang home care) a huge success.

I thank our Creator so much for bringing together such a group of enthusiastic talented people.

Reflection 93 (long time)

Masa Panjang

This is the Malaysian language equivalent for a long time
Our thoughts have to be long term (at least some of them)

We do live in the present and actually whether or not we are happy in our lives depends on whether we manage to be happy in the present. So in one way, all that matters is now.

But if what we do now has a negative impact on our future, our future nows will not be happy nows and our life will not be happy. So, yes long term thinking has a definite place in our lives as well.
The younger we are, the more important and the bigger the effect of what we learn and labor now on our future.

So we need to have enough wisdom to look at all positives, present in our 'now' and enjoy and be grateful for all these positives, but at the same time we have to be industrious and clever enough not to neglect to make a good future for us to become a likely event. We never have any certainty about anything but we can plan and the better our planning the better our chances to be enjoy a comfortable and happy future as well. Quite often we need sacrifices for the future and if we succeed in these sacrifices these often become the sweet successes in our life.

You may wonder what I am writing here, but just now I was talking to my son. He tends to take a very short term approach. Without taking away a good sense of the present, we have to teach our children also to plan for the future.

Reflection 92 (dissatisfation or grace)

Dissatisfaction or grace, a choice that is ours.

If we look deep inside of ourselves, we find an ego and a soul
The more we listen to our ego, the more we get dissatisfied with our surroundings
The more we listen to our soul, the more we become grateful for all the wonders around us

If we are aware of our soul's, our conscience's presence most of the time, we can create often enough a bit of silence to listen to their whispering voices. We do not have to do away with ego, that would be superhuman. We can let our ego be guided by our soul. Our soul will guide us invariably to a higher level of awareness and peace of mind.

Ego tends to look down on things and people, Soul tends to look up. Let us see as often as possible both perspectives but choose grace over dissatisfaction

Reflection 91 (chocolate)

Chocolate

This morning I attended a "ceramah" by one of my good friends and a story about 40 year old man and his 4 year old son was told. They went to visit the grandmother and as usual the grandmother had one bowl of chocolates and one plate of fruits. The child went straight for the chocolates and the father encouraged the child to eat the fruits. Then he compared the material wealth to the chocolates and the fruits so spiritual wealth.

I like the comparison. Big house, big cars, huge bank accounts, just like chocolates: sweet but we never get really filled by them, we cannot build a healthy body if we only focus on them. It is nice to have some chocolates but without the fruits life tends to be not fulfilling and prone to disease. Likewise mentally if we only focus on material wealth we tend never to be really satisfied, never to have real peace of mind; while if we focus on spiritual wealth, we will experience a much happier, healthier , more peaceful state of mind leading to satisfaction. Real success in life is more related to have a good spiritual life than to have merely material wealth.

Not only the similarity between the chocolates and material wealth was so nice and striking but also the age of the child versus the adult. Those who focus only on material wealth certainly are not too mature. It requires a certain level of maturity to obtain the true appetite for spiritual wealth as well.

Altogether a great story. I am happy to share it and many thanks to my good friend, Suhaimi Wahab. 

Reflection 90 (on love - again)

Isn't there enough hatred in the world? What can still be written on hatred?
On love

Isn't there enough greed in the world? What can still be written on greed?
Is there enough love in the world? Almost everything needs still to be written on love.

Can we love a beautiful person?
Can we love an ugly person?
Can we love a sports champion?
Can we love a man without limbs?
Can we love a tetraplegic?

Of course it is easy to love beautiful person or athletes
How about the ugly persons or the persons with disability?
We can still love them, perhaps not in the same way
But we will not hate them because of their disability
We can love them and our love will result in compassion,
in feeling together with them

If the above seems a bit difficult, let us make it really difficult in the next paragraph:

Can we love the Palestinians?
Can we love the Palestinians, even those who fire rockets?
Can we love the Israelis? Those who drop the bombs?
Can we love the Zionist standing there laughing at explosions?

Most of us will answer with a few no's at least.
When it comes to wicked people, love seems to have no place.
We chose hatred instead

And yet wicked people are crippled in much worse way then any physically disabled person.
Wicked people have lost their capability of being human.
Those laughing at explosions on civilian targets have lost the capabiity to think
to feel human emotion, to feel compassion. Is that not the worst possible crippling disability that one can be struck with? Wicked people are really the worst of among any of us.
Shall we choose to hate them or shall we feel an immense pity for such extremely poverty laden souls
This is difficult and if we still choose to hate that is a perfectly human reaction
Giving in to hatred however does not contribute too much to a solution
If we remember how people like Ghandi could make colonialist withdraw without blood shed.
We cannot be silent, we have to oppose wickedness, but can we do it without hatred in our hearts?

I know it is difficult but if we look deep in our hearts and consciousness, hatred tends never to feel right.

Before writing this, I was quite convinced of the points I try to make but while writing some doubt crept in.

Anyhow, if we cannot avoid hatred for the extremely wicked people,
we must be able to avoid it for or neighbor who talks behind our back
for our colleague who does something we don't like, for our family member who is greedy, for any of the people we live with whom we don't like. We can continue not liking them but instead of hatred develop an attitude of compassion for their personality twist. (????)

Reflection 89 (gold)

Gold

My mug is full of gold
and i am not happy
It is love that I need

I try to be loved
But no one loves
It is love that I need

I try to give love
Many give back
It is love that I need

Gold is fine, beautiful
I want it, I love it
But it is love that I need

I need love

Reflection 88 (miracle)

Miracle

The fact that I can walk is a miracle
The fact that I can talk is a miracle
The fact that I can see is a miracle
The fact that I can hear is a miracle
Isn't all our life a miracle?

Reflection 87 (unstoppable caring community)

Good ideas are unstoppable. 


The current good idea is to replace blind capitalism based on greed with a caring society based on kindness.

Many of my friends cannot believe this is possible even though deep in their heart they long for a caring society more than anything else. The escalation of violence in Gaza, in Ukraine, in Syria, and the Wall street gurus cheating more than ever to amass trillions of dollars while hunger rages on, makes them disbelievers. Crooks get in the news, corrupt politicians reign.

And yet if the time for an idea has come, nothing can stop it.

How many slaves could believe that slavery would soon be something of the past
How many women believed that they would have equal rights in many parts of the world
Other ideas that had come and were unstoppable include the non-smoking in pubic areas, anti segregation, apartheid and so many more.

We can see so many signs in the social media that a very fast growing strong community is condemning violence, praising random kindness. Peace ideas are snowballing. The days of corrupt politicians are counted. The days of Extremist Jews, Extremist Christians and Extremist Muslims are counted. We ARE moving towards a caring society. Hunger WILL be eradicated. Kindness IS on its way to become the major value in our society.

Please keep believing.

Good ideas are unstoppable and the idea of a caring loving society based on kindness is an idea whose time has come!!!

(This reflection is highly inspired by a book titled inspiration by W. Dyer)

Reflection 86 (silent blessing)

Silent blessing

(This reflection is inspired by a book titled Inspiration (W. Dyer)

Whenever we meet someone let us send him or her a silent blessing

This may be easy if we meet our spouse or our children, our sisters or brothers, our parents.
But still how many of do it?

This may be difficult if we are meeting a driver of a slow car in front of us
But still we can do it. Bless you and thanks for slowing down my frantic pace and perhaps saving me from having another speeding ticket. I try to understand you just take your time. Even if I like you to drive a bit faster, I still send you blessings.
Wow, difficult. But possible, isn't it?

Wouldn't it change the world for the better?