Serendipity

I was sitting inside.
I was looking at you-tube on my phone,
had found some very old fashioned Flemish songs
from local singers, singing in my very own dialect.

Then came out the sun, from behind the clouds.
My eye caught the sunlight and there was such a strong nudge inside
to go outside and enjoy the beauty of the sun shining in the garden.

I went outside and completely unexpected on the leaves of the first tree i met
was sitting a butterfly with wonderful wings. I stopped in my steps and admired the beauty.
The butterfly slowly opened its wings and showed me the other side of his wings,
different but also amazingly beautiful. I went on walking and saw a few wild white small flowers
which must have grown overnight. They contrasted so beautifully with yellow wild flowers that were there all the time.

Serendipity, such a nice word. It means something good happening unexpectedly. Encountering something good that we did not fully expect. If we manage to walk with an open mind, an open heart and our eyes widely open for beauty, we can encounter so many things. Sometimes all it takes is to listen to that little voice inside, that little voice that is inviting you to make a walk outside :)

I remember just last week. It was about 11 pm. I felt the desire to make a walk to the beach. My rational mind protested. Usually if I get these kind of crazy ideas, I invite my eldest son and he is almost always ready to join me on a little crazy adventure. Sometimes he says to me, we like to do crazy things, don't we? And it gives me a smile. But that night last week, when I went to his room, he was tired and did not feel like going out. I put the idea aside but as I was in my room again the idea to make a nightly walk towards the beach came back. I thought, well, perhaps I just need some fresh air and made the walk alone. When I reached the beach I got so much more than fresh air. There were fireflies making the most wonderful dance in the air. At first I saw one and then another one and then more and more. It was so nice. It made me think of a small poem (in-the-dark-of-the-night-) I have written quite some years ago about a single firefly that was giving me so much hope for a wonderful sunrise. Here I had in front of me not one but so many. Somehow it kindled my hope for humanity and I went to sleep in such a peaceful state of mind.

Serendipity, something nice, meeting something nice that we were not looking for. If you were not familiar with the word, let us make it something familiar. If we follow our small nudges inside (some people call it intuition), we tend to meet things we never had expected.

Many mornings, I ask our God, please my God, let me follow your path. Then I think for a while what that means to me, but I always end with: or something better. And surely our Creator knows what is best for us, and many days, we get opportunities to do good, far beyond our imagination. I love the word serendipity. Just celebrate the word today with me :)

Potassium's wonder

Potassium, Kalium (K), that amazing element.
Inside our blood we have 5 mmol/L of it
If it would drop to 2 or rise to 8, we would be very likely be dead.

And yet in our cells, all our cells, we have close to 150 mmol/L of it.
98% of our bodies' potassium is inside the cells.
The membranes of the cells in our body work 24/7 in a most wonderful way
to keep the potassium inside the cells and to prevent us from dying of too much K in our blood.

Now at this moment, all the membranes of each cell in your body are working hard and throughout the day and night they go on! How they handle this element is a miracle

Then how our gut and our kidney regulate the total amount of K in our body,
is still more amazing, more unbelievably complex and superb.
A miracle of the highest order.

Please my friends and my students,
take the effort to read everything about potassium and its most wonderful physiology.

Then take it one step further and see how it interacts with H+
and the H+ and K+ with with Na+
and all of these with Ca++
and Cl- and the proteins
and the hormones

If we study from a point of awe, studying is a true pleasure.

Who still thinks this extremely extreme miracle of our body managing just to have enough of everything is a mere random event ?
Even for ones not believing in a God, it is logically undeniable that there is a creative force in the universe steering evolution. And please my friends, take a while to think about this. If we think we are regressing in today's world because of Trump or any real or would-be leader or politician, then think twice. We rarely see the positive changes in our world . But think or read about just 100 years ago. Think how people died of infections, how people treated others in research, how people treated orphans or children born to unmarried women, how many demons of the mind were kept alive by scholars to keep themselves in their powerful positions,...

Just think and see how fast we are moving forward.
Just think how much wisdom is shared daily and how much we tend inspire each other
Did this happen two hundred years ago?

Definitely we do still have plenty of problems in the world.
But how big, really, are our problems if we consider all
the good in the world, the superb beauty of the nature
and ...
the wonder that lies in potassium :)

A K-word

Music of Kindness
is playing a pleasing piece
pleasing peaceful song;

Colors of Kindness
are painting masterly art
drawing peace at heart;



Fragrance of Kindness
smell of indulgence
softer, sweeter than Jasmine 

Pleasing heart and mind
Kindness is kindling the soul
spirit filled with peace.

Today we had a fun-event for underprivileged children.
The kindness displayed by all was superb,heart warming.

Let us celebrate kindness today!


 

Big things

'Many big things have started with a small dream.'
That was the answer of a friend of mine when
I had posted my dream of a world without money.


Somehow he was correct.
Whether it is a car or a house
or a revolution or movement
everything starts with a thought
with a small dream of someone thinking
a bit different from mainstream.

I would like you to read now one of the small prayers for a big world:
http://smallprayersforabigworld.blogspot.my/2016/09/a-dream-of-world-without-money-where.html
You can click on the link above and read some other small prayers too.
If the link would not work, I have pasted the content of it below:

I dream of a world without money
where each of us serve
according to our talents
just for the pleasure of serving.
Money was made to ensure fair trades
so that everyone gets compensated
according to the level of work they deliver
But this is not happening.
Money is not fairly distributed
Money is not fairly paid
The financial world has become
a huge parody, a mockery of fairness and justice
So let us forget about fairness and justice.
There will be always people who do not want to work
There will be always people who serve less than others
The world may be never fair.
But isn't it about time that we get out of the slavery of money
Isn't it about time we start fully enjoying the pleasure of selfless service
Isn't it about time we give up our enormous hunger for money.
IF enough people would give selfless free service,
the need for money would disappear.
It would be a world much fairer than anything we have today.
Those who do not participate in the service will enjoy the service of others
without rendering service themselves, but they will miss out on the great pleasure
that selfless service brings. They will be actually on the losing end.
May sound like a wild, wild dream,
but somewhere deep inside there is a spark of hope, my God,
that enough people will get inspired by Your great Love.
The world is changing and it is changing fast.
Let us take this unlikely turn towards
a worldwide united loving society
I dream about
I pray for
I long for
I visualize
I believe in
a world where money lost all value
a world where all contribute to the good
of each other

Lilies of the valley

A baby as tender

as the fragrance

of lilies of the valley

A toddler, good boy

as the perfume

of a jasmine flower

A child doing his best

as strong as the smell

of a stormy sea

Dreaming of a princess

as beautiful as the sight

of the skies at dawn

Studying, working hard

as hard as the touch

of a polished diamond

But then

becoming aware

that what counts is:

To be loving and tender

as the fragrance

of lilies of the valley

 ---------------
Note:
I have a sister blog with inspirational quotes
If you have time, please pay this little sis a short visit:
http://quotesfromhans.blogspot.my/
I have also a brother blog with small prayers for the big world
If you have time, please pay this little bro a short visit:
http://smallprayersforabigworld.blogspot.my/

A world full of love

If the world would be full of love 
there would be no need for a bill of rights

I remember wondering as a child why the world was not full of love.
It was so nice to be loved, it was nice to love, why would one choose not to.
Why would one choose to steal and be called a thief,
live a life of anguish and fear and perhaps regrets?

When I was growing up, I was immersed in the world
and at a certain moment I felt a bit ashamed to have ever thought like that
What an illusion, what an naivety, what a stupid dream!

That was my mind talking, my ego wanting not to look stupid.
Somewhere deep inside, perhaps the quarks sitting at the core of my heart
were telling me that a world filled with love would be the most logical thing
My soul kept believing that the future was not bad.

Actually a world full of love is the only way to go.
It may take time but wisdom is definitely on the increase.
Of course there is still a lot of greed
but unlike as in times of old,
nowadays the wisdom literature is written in plain language
We can understand the simple truths of life better and easier.

The only true happiness, peace of mind and bliss
lies in altruism and slowly at first we become aware of it
but soon exponentially we will experience a giant kindness revolution.

Sometimes I catch myself thinking like a child a bit again .
But I think it is child-like and not childish. :)   :)

Mango juice

(inspired by a talk from W. Dyer)

Have you tasted mango juice?
There are people who never tasted mango juice.
If we try to describe to them how mango juice tastes,
it seems like an impossible task.
Mango juice tastes like mango juice

We could say something similar about love.
If we try to describe the experience of love
it is almost like an impossible task to do so accurately
We can become poetic and people who have experienced love
will get the meaning of the most beautiful love poems
but they may be of little help to those who haven't known love.

And then it is like that with spirituality too.
If we ignore spirituality (the presence of God)
No one can explain to you how it feels.
The more one would try, the more it may seem unreal.
We just have to open ourselves for some spritiuality
and experience it, taste it.

once we tasted mango juice, we will never forget how it tastes
once we felt love, we will never forget it
once we felt the presence of God,  we will remember it forever

A calling

Yesterday I was in Penang and on the way back I was with my good friend Teguh.
Somehow our conversation went about how we ended up in Malaysia (Teguh is from Indonesia).

Here is my own little story.

The first month I had arrived in Malaysia, I was staying in a real 'kampung' house.
There were lots of people everywhere and privacy was at a strict minimum.
It was in the middle of the raining season.

I remember so well the afternoon, we had come back from a trip to Kuala Lumpur. We had rented a relatively cheap car, an old Proton Saga that had broken down along the way.When we reached "home", it was raining cats and dogs and the relatively narrow access to the house had been completely flooded. Some wood had been placed in the water for people to walk on towards the house. Coming back with our bags, with my only pair of "good" shoes on, I walked on the wood and slipped into the mud. The children who had thought all the while I was a kind of attraction, thought it was very funny.

These moments, I really thought that my parents, the rest of my family, my friends who had thoroughly advised me against moving out from Belgium had been right. I agreed that I had done a major thing in my life that really went against reason. Why leave a place like Belgium where everything, including quite a predetermined career as paediatrician would have been easy; and go for the unknown?

But I truly had no choice. I had no choice because right inside of me there was something that people call a calling. An inside determination that you HAVE TO do something. It had started when I was 11 years old in 6th grade. Our teacher was a bit of an idealist himself (if Mr. Stevens of that time or his family happen to read this, I think he was perhaps my best teacher ever) and he told us with such passion the story of Dr. Albert Schweizer who had been an extremely successful doctor and philosopher and who had sold all of his belongings to create a hospital in Lamberene in Africa, where he spent the rest of his life caring for the sick. When I heard that story, something inside had clicked: that is what I want to do in my life.

After that, puberty had been a bit of a tough ride. I was not a popular kid during puberty, but the one thing that really rendered even that period quite bright was my bright ideal, my calling to go abroad and help where help was necessary most. Whenever I talked about it with family or friends, they were not breaking it down too much but definitely they were not approving it either. Often I heard the comments there was so much good to be done in Belgium too. I remember seeing a documentary on TV about a Belgian doctor who had gone to the south of Thailand and did fantastic work there for the poorest of the poorest and I had envied her, because a job like that would have been a dream coming true for me.

As life unfolded, the "calling" remained. I did not want to go abroad alone. I wanted to go with a wife who had the same ideals. I knew, not many girls had ideals like that but somehow I knew that perhaps in medical school I would be able to find people thinking alike. I thought I was quite right because in the first year of medical school there were many of us who talked about Médecins Sans Frontières, but nothing really happened that time in terms of getting into such a relationship. When I was in the second year of medical school, a group of Malaysian students joined our University. One of them stood out in beauty and it was not too difficult to think, that this was like a "God-made" arrangement for me to realize my "calling".

As I grew more and more adult, my logical thinking brain grew stronger, my parents really advised me against moving out of Belgium, and it made so much sense. But somehow that calling remained. 
A calling, an ideal, can make us do the most illogical things, but deep inside we know for sure, that this is the thing we HAVE TO do.

No matter how tough my first month in Malaysia has been, I can see clearly now that it was the right thing for me to do, to follow my calling. I have done here the work, I had always dreamed of doing. My work here has been like a huge hobby. Of course nothing is perfect and sometimes stress goes quite high taking care of the smallest premature infants, but my work with the babies, the support I can give to the parents, the work with the students, the many international contacts, my social life in Malaysia; I have truly no regrets up to now. Looking back, I still feel that this was the path that I had to walk, perhaps a road not very much traveled. 

I have a small message for my younger friends: if you have an ideal, a calling, please follow your calling. You may be choosing the more difficult path but following your calling, somehow the universe or our God will take care of you and let you thrive in the work of your dreams. I wish you all the very best in achieving your calling.  

PS: Some time ago, I wrote a small poem on calling: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/y-calling/ 
and please read the comments below it from spiritual seeker and Martin O'Neall 

 

 ---------------
Note:
I have a sister blog with inspirational quotes
If you have time, please pay this little sis a short visit:
http://quotesfromhans.blogspot.my/
I have also a brother blog with small prayers for the big world
If you have time, please pay this little bro a short visit:
http://smallprayersforabigworld.blogspot.my/

Strength

A praying soul
does not always get
what the heart desires

But it always gets
the strength to face
whatever is happening

Today i counseled some parents who had a newborn baby with trisomy 18.
Down syndrome is trisomy 21 and associated with a reasonable life expectancy.
Trisomy 18 on the contrary is called Edward syndrome and the huge majority of babies
die within 1 month after birth

The parents were praying for the child to be cured
They very most likely cannot obtain this impossible cure
But in the process of prayer, they are likely to find the strength
to face the things that will happen.

We do not understand the reason why babies are born with such problems.
Perhaps our brains are too small to understand all.
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/y-the-story-of-why/

One thing, I think I do understand:
that a perfect world would be more of a curse
than a blessing to creative souls
http://reflectionsbyhans.blogspot.my/2014/04/reflection-3.html

Good night

When at night I make it silent
and I try to stop my thoughts
my heart eyes perfect peace


my sleeping soul awakens
a spark becomes a fire
my mind so quiet.

I say a little prayer,
Bliss sitting on my shoulder
I open up and let it in.

Good night my friends

World Smile Day (first Friday of October)

Today is world smile day.
So if you read this on 7.10.2016, which is the day of this writing,
make sure you smile a thousand times more than usual.

If you read it on any other day,
make sure you smile a thousand times more than usual.

:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

From the heart

What I write here in this blog,
comes from my heart.

And somehow it feels good
to share what's inside.

To put it up in the open
for your friends, for absolute strangers

The thoughts that move me
The impulses that inspire me.

Just sharing what is inside
It brings some joy and some peace.

When I was 18,
I started a thought journal
It was only a wild dream
that ever my thoughts would be read

by people from all over the world.

From so many countries in Europe
From USA and Russia,
From India, Australia
And of course from Malaysia where I live

But it is no longer a dream
People from all these countries
have read some of my thoughts
Not millions, but quite a few thousands,
Perhaps each read not many thoughts
But what moves me
what inspires me
may move and inspire some others too

and it may be exactly that,
that generates the peace of mind,
that puts the joy in sharing these thoughts.

I hope many people
manage to express what moves their deepest center
All of us have our talents and deepest convictions
our unique experiences.
If we share what is in our heart,
it will make us feel good
and perhaps a few others in this big world will feel good too.

Wishing you peace
and love and harmony
and abundance and kindness
and bliss and excitement
and a wonderful expression of your thoughts and feelings

Car of life

When I am choosing my car of life
It is not a Ferrari, I want to drive
Porsche or Merc are not what I am
Nor Tesla or Lambo, and neither BM

For my car of life, I 'm ignoring all class
What I want is just a big bus made of glass
A huge glass bus for all to fit in
my family and friends will all be within

We will drive along roads tremendously nice
We'll enjoy our great journey to paradise
Come, join the bus now, it is absolutely free
Your place is reserved in that big glass bus of me 

---------------------------------------------
 Note:
Hope you enjoyed this little poem. 
My other poems (author name Aufie Zophy) can be found at 
http://www.poemhunter.com/aufie-zophy/ 

I have also a sister blog with inspirational quotes
If you have time, please pay this little sis a short visit:
http://quotesfromhans.blogspot.my/

I have also a brother blog with small prayers for a big world
If you have time, please pay this little bro a short visit:
http://smallprayersforabigworld.blogspot.my/

Gladiators

The people of ancient Rome organized gladiator fights
sometimes between two humans,
sometimes between humans and animals
It was disgusting.
One because of the sacrifice of human life for pleasure
Two because people paying to see it.
I think two is what was driving number one.
and two may be even the most disgusting part of the equation

Today we do not need to have gladiator fights.
Number two of the above paragraph is nowadays easily fulfilled by TV.
People still crave to see others suffering.
Accidents, disasters, we want to see the most cruel images
Media, TV, newspapers pay big money for these images
If we stop buying their services, and stop craving to see suffering,
the whole madness of the mass media focus what goes wrong may stop.

Any disaster, we get glued to our news channels
and that is why they thrive.
Every minute gone is a part of our life gone
If we spend 30 minutes watching the news
we waste each day so much of life

Oh, yes, "the news keeps us up to date".
Do you think you would lose touch with what happens in the world
if you do not look at the (most often very skewed) tv news on CCN or on your local channels?
I doubt it.

My suggestion.
Let us all instead of looking at the tv news
read for 30 minutes a day something that helps in our development.
In our knowledge, in personality building, in character building,...
Many truly inspiring texts are freely available on the internet


We do not need gladiator fights
We do not need the TV news either
Whenever we feel the need to see the cruel images coming from areas suffering natural disasters,
let us think back about how the ancient Romans paid and jeered for the suffering of gladiators and how disgusting we find it.

--------
One objection to the above point of view could be that these cruel image may awaken the compassion of our fellow humans and be at the origin of world wide campaigns of organized relief efforts.

As with most things, there are always two sides of the coin.

No matter what,
I truly hope and pray that our world moves soon and fast
away from the greed, envy, hatred and egotism,
towards a world of compassion and kindness
towards a world of love and humility
towards a world of reverence and respect
towards a world of sincerity and honesty
towards a world of selfless service


I wish you all a peaceful day,
filled with love and beauty.


---------------
Note:
I have a sister blog with inspirational quotes
If you have time, please pay this little sis a short visit:
http://quotesfromhans.blogspot.my/
I have also a brother blog with small prayers for the big world
If you have time, please pay this little bro a short visit:
http://smallprayersforabigworld.blogspot.my/