Soon

Quote: Soon humanity will give up greed and choose Love 
(Hans VRo)
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When I manage to make it silent,
a strong belief enters my heart
that soon everyone will know
who and what we really are.

A strong conviction of my soul:
all will understand life and mind.
Cheap pleasure will just be cheap;
values will be just valuable.

A strong faith in humankind:
Honesty, truth, love, friendship,
kindness, tenderness, sweetness,
Compassion sympathy, cordiality.

When I manage to make it silent,
I get absolute certainty
that the world soon make this turn,
that ugliness and greed will crumble 

I wrote this as a poem on 21 June 2016.

I just read it and today it is still my silent strong conviction 

that SOON we will all manage to be wise enough

to live a life filled with love, honesty, truth, friendship,

kindness, tenderness, sweetness, compassion,

sympathy and cordiality. Let us all work together for it 

and perhaps write something similar on your social media. 

If we reach a critical number, it will go truly exponential! 


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Note: this blog is not copyrighted. You can freely use the quote or share the essay. If you do so, please include author at the end (Hans VRo)

Fairy tales

Quote: Kings and queens of the past were mere slaves of their egos, making them among the most miserable of humans. Let's set a different example for the youth of tomorrow.
(Hans VRo)
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Fairy tales have made us believe as children that kings and queens and princes and princesses were living a happy life ever after, after they had conquered some evil forces within their immediate circles. What we believe as children is not always easy to give up, and the longer we believe something the more difficult it may become to change our opinion about it.

I just came back from a trip to Europe and spent some time in the wonderfully beautiful area of the Loire Valley. It has a huge number of castles and each castle has its own story. The more one reads about what is known about the life of royals and the aristocracy in the old ages, the more one gets convinced that aristocrats were really bad people filled with jealousy, intrigue, lust, lies, deception, vice and the like.

None of these (jealousy,...) is compatible with peace of mind and true happiness. So even if they lived in the biggest castles with the most enchanting views on woods and rivers, most likely they were among the most unhappy people, filled with stress, fears and worries.

As we know, the values of humility, truthfulness, honesty, helpfulness, love and kindness are key to true happiness. That is why perhaps every now and then we know about members of the then-aristocrats ran away from it as teenagers or in their early twenties, choosing willingly for a simple life, living the true values. Just remember how Buddha, Saint Francis and many others were born in great wealth but renounced it completely to live lives of simplicity and contemplation.

Today we do not have to go and live in poverty to flee from the complex life of the rich. We can maintain a comfortable life with a decent amount of wealth, and still choose consciously to live the values of honesty, kindness, love, humility, and so on.

Deep  inside I believe that a kindness revolution is just around the corner. Let us start it today.
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Note: this blog is not copyrighted. You can freely use the quote or share the essay. If you do so, please include author at the end (Hans VRo)

Retreat

Quote: it feels so good to on and off ask the question: who am I 
(Hans VRo)
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I am traveling in France at the moment, the almost magically beautiful region of the Loire valley and we are staying at the moment in a very old castle, one that was built in 1520. Small and winding corridors, worn out marble floors, wooden stairs that crack under you feet and paintings on the wall by famous artists.

Before it was sold to the current owner who uses it now as a hotel, it was mainly used for retreat. I remember a retreat when I was in secondary school (highschool). Our whole class was brought to abbey in the center of the city. Behind the outer walls of the abbey lay, wonderful gardens, large with old trees and amazing flowers. We got a small introduction by an inspiring leader and then we were asked to "retreat". Each of us got a room and we had to spend time alone to think about the question:
Who am I?!?

I took the exercise quite serious. It was before the time that everyone carried a smart phone and being alone in that silent room, looking out on these superb gardens felt a bit awkward at first. But then I started to try and answer the question: who am I?

The first thing that came to mind: I am Hans (my name). But then if people would change my name, or if my mom called me a sweet name, it would not really change the me, that I am. On top of that there are so many people called the same name and they are all very different from me.

So, the question, who am I, which on the surface seemed easy, was actually an extremely difficult one. Next I thought about my family ties, that somehow I felt defined me. I am the son of Romain and Mariette, the brother of Mieke. And even if that was quite unique and much more of an identifier then my name, There could have been easily more sons of my parents, that would have created more brothers for Mieke too. Whatever other ties, I had, to school, to friends, to whatever I did, nothing really made me uniquely who I am.

I thought of being my very unique body, but then again if people got amputations, their body is less, but they are still the same being. After quite some thoughts, I came to the conclusion that the values and principles I adhered to, were somehow making up my personality, my character and that that was quite close to who I really was.

And then what makes up my character and personality?
I will write soon a small reflection on that.

(PS: almost three years ago, I wrote a small piece on a similar topic: it was titled, who am I. Can click here  to see it)

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Note: this blog is not copyrighted. You can freely use the quote or share the essay. If you do so, please include author at the end (Hans VRo)

Peace of mind

Dear friends, brothers and sisters,

This is an important one.

Have you ever saved someone's life? Or been involved in such an activity? Or contributed in a big way to the well-being of some persons in need. Do you remember how you were feeling when this was happening. Did you feel pure joy, peace of mind and true happiness?

Have you been to a party where most of the people were drunk or half-drunk. With music louder than comfortable. A few jokes that made you laugh. Perhaps you were popular for jokes you made yourself. Did you truly enjoy it? Did you feel healthy and well the next day? Was this the kind of happiness we are striving for in our life? How does it compare to the feelings we get when we perform some selfless altruism?

I have written something like this before, but I elaborate here a bit more, since this is such an important message. We have experienced the superlatives of happiness through helping others in a big way. We have experienced the small pleasures of life through acquiring things or getting in a position of power or just going to a party. The difference is soooo big in the level of satisfaction and happiness we experience. That is how we were created in this big universe: small pleasures in things that ensure our survival (or were helping to ensure it in the past) and true peace of mind and serenity when we manage to fulfill the bigger purpose of life.

I think, people like Mother Theresa were fully aware of this and chose consciously for the bigger levels of satisfaction. I have tried to be more and more aware of this as well, but so often our little ego comes to interfere. Not only our own little ego but also the consumerism of our society and the widespread advertisements in our media. The media use advanced psychology to lure us into the belief we have to consume to be happy.

The huge fallacy around the consumption of alcoholic drinks is just one example. The almost magic charm people tend to contribute to having alcoholic drinks together is nothing more than a fallacy, an indoctrinated belief for business purposes. I respect people's taste and preferences but having an alcoholic drink is not more cozy or friendly than having a wonderful fresh fruit juice or a cup of coffee or tea together and the latter may actually be more healthy.

We do not need a lot of alcohol, a lot of material things to experience the highest levels of happiness. Sure enough it is nice to have a good level of comfort in our lives, but so many people who have huge levels of luxury in their life do not find true happiness. Living a life of purpose is an essential ingredient to live a happy life. Surely there are other necessary ingredients of happiness, but these three: altruism, gratitude and forgiveness are certainly among the most important ones.

Quite likely, you will like The story of Mr Robot too. (Can click)


Quote:
Making a big positive difference in someone else's life is a source of pure joy and bliss (Hans VRo)

Acceptance

A million flowers bloom today.
But those blooming yesterday,
are right now withering
They are about to die
and yes we do cry
we cry over them and ask why,
why do flowers have to die?

We love flowers,
they are wonderful
but when they wither,
our love is gone.

We keep the wonderful memories of the budding, blooming flower,
but try to forget the withered flower, which we threw away.
Sometimes we choose to hold on to the image of the withered flower,
of the dead flower. We get upset about it, we have a hard time to accept.

I do not understand the reason for the transient-ness of all forms of life.
No matter how much we imagine that permanence would be wonderful,
in reality permanence might be scary.

No matter how we like stability and continuity,
it is change that makes us grow, especially if we talk about spiritual growth.

We can maintain a grateful heart for the wonders of yesterday,
the wonders that have passed and are no longer here.
We can maintain a grateful heart for the wonders of today,
the new beauty, the new good things.

Wow, it looks like a really difficult topic.
It feels good to think about the difficult topics as well.
We may not have the answers,
but acceptance is often  a greater thing to achieve
than desperately trying to understand everything :)

Those little efforts near the end of the day

On and off, it happens that near the end of the day, we still have something quite important to do. We feel tired and consider putting it off until the next day, but there is this little piece of conscience that nudges us not to postpone it, but forget how tired we are and still do it.

It is often during these small extra efforts we make that we encounter the nicest opportunities to do something really meaningful for our fellow human beings or something really useful. I share here a small story of this afternoon from my work:

This afternoon I got a call of one of our medical officers about a child of 1.5 years old, who was connected to a breathing machine (ventilator). It was a ventilator they had borrowed from our unit (for newborn babies) and he asked some technical questions about the settings on the ventilator and the settings (pressure, timing) the child should receive. I give him the advice that I felt best suited the child and promised to pay a visit to the child as soon as my teaching finished. 

After my teaching I was called by my own ward of newborn babies. It was late in the afternoon when I remembered the promise to go and see the child, I had been consulted for. The child was not directly under my care and I felt I had been well informed over the phone and given adequate advice. That was my ego, trying to talk me into going home instead of making the long walk to the other ward. I tried to silence my ego and followed the nudge of my conscience and went to the ward. 

The baby was in a stable condition and had responded well to the suggestions, I had given over the phone. I reviewed the charts and blood results and the monitoring of the child and decided to keep the ventilator settings unchanged. Then the mother started to talk to me. We talked for a while. I think it meant quite a lot to the mother.

Looking back, I am glad I went to see the child and had not listened to my ego. I was reassured that the advice I gave over the phone was OK. And what was more, our universe had given me a wonderful opportunity to relieve some of he worries of a mother in distress. And that gave me truly peace of mind. 

Over time, in my profession as a doctor, I have had quite a few similar experiences, when I went through a small struggle between ego and conscience and whenever I managed to listen to conscience, I have found a sense of peace of mind and often some serendipity (unexpected good things) within the event.

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I hope this little story will inspire some friends. It is not at all intended to boast about myself :)