The world is our country

I read recently the following piece by the late William Lloyd Garrison 

(19th century famous champion of the emancipation of black people) 

"We do not acknowledge allegiance to any human government.  We
   recognize but one King and Lawgiver, one Judge and Ruler of
   mankind.  Our country is the world, our countrymen are all
   mankind.  We love the land of our nativity only as we love all
   other lands.  The interests and rights of American citizens are
   not dearer to us than those of the whole human race.  Hence we
   can allow no appeal to patriotism to revenge any national
   insult or injury..."

I enjoyed so much the beauty in this text that i want to share it here with you.

I tend to agree very much that all borders of nations are so artificial and unnatural.

If we believe there is one God, why not believe the whole world is just one land.

The concept may seem hard to swallow at this time but

as any lofty ideal, if it is kept in front of the eyes of 

enough people for long enough it may come about. 

Slavery has been abolished in many parts of the world.

May have seemed impossible few centuries ago

Women have been emancipated 

May have seemed impossible few centuries ago

Hopefully soon we can say:

"The world has become borderless"

"May have seemed impossible ten years ago"   

What now seems impossible may become reality 

if enough champions keep the ideals of a unified world 

very much alive...

and how about enjoying this:

 "He who attacks  another and injures him, kindles in the other

a feeling of hatred, the root of every evil.  To injure another 

because he has injured us, even with the aim of overcoming evil,

is doubling the harm for him and for oneself; it is begetting, or
at least setting free and inciting, that evil spirit which we
should wish to drive out.  Error can never be corrected by error, 

and evil cannot be vanquished by evil."

The one from the heart...

I read a message on facebook about the perfect way to pray.
Lots of instructions.
It made me think of a story by Tolstoy.

I searched for it and found the story by Tolstoy on the net.
It is titled: the three hermits
Here is the link:
http://www.online-literature.com/tolstoy/2896/

I hope you enjoy the story as much as I do.

The perfect prayer may be the one that comes truly from the heart.

You and me and him and her

You and me and him and her
Each of us may follow another religion or be an atheist
and all of us are yet close friends

You and me and him and her
Each of us may be so different
and yet we work together in harmony

You and me and him and her
Each of us have different opinions
and yet we talk together so much

Let us shun the wicked people
shouting that anyone who differs from them
will burn in hell as infidel

These wicked guys know nothing
nothing about the Over-Soul creating this world
Grace and love and forgiveness they know not.

So stop letting anyone scare you with hell
threats to hell are the tools of the uninspired teacher
threats to hell reflect only arrogance of the preacher

Many of us believe death is nothing final.
And to me, that is likely to be very true

but then what happens after death,
the only thing that's certain:
No preacher, no teacher will have single say.

Teachers and preachers are supposed to  inspire
Gain followers by inspiring others

Teachers and preachers are not supposed
to claim knowledge they do not have
and scare potential followers with hell

The ones who cannot inspire people
use threats instead
but they do not deserve our ear.

Just my honest opinion about the preachers of doom
(feel most free to disagree)

Poems

Give me poems,
Give me more poems,

Give me not the poems of sadness
Not the heart broken ones of egocentric lovers
Not the complaining ones

Give me the poems that inspire
The poems that give us all hope
Hope for a better world

Give me the poems that encourage
encourage us all to to seek truth
to live truth, to love truth, to be truth

Give me the poems that exude love
love and kindness and friendliness
not childishness but child-likeness

Give the poems that touch on the impossible
and use fantastic images to create picture of compassion
sweet feelings boiling in a soft heart

Give the poems full of soul
Give me poems
Give poems
Poems...

Here is one for you:

Huge 

A billion metric tons of friendliness
sit in the heart of everyone on earth
An inexhaustible sea of kindness
Resides in our hearts since birth

Why only milligrams, we use,
a few droplets at a time?
There is really nothing to lose
If we let what's in our heart just shine.

Stinginess with water from a sea?
Stinginess with metric tons from that heart of thee?
Let's set all that friendliness, all that kindness free
Let's shower a bucket full on friend and foe, why shouldn't we?

Aufie Zophy/

YES!

I wrote the small piece below a few years back.
The longer and the more I dream of a world full of kindness,
the more certain I become that a world like this will become a reality soon.
So, yes, yes, yes, a firm YES

A Firm Yes

In a wonderful cartoon, i had the pleasure to read:
A lonely person stood on the corner of the street
He was pulled to one side by a good-hearted soul
He was pulled to another side by a good-hearted soul
Each wanted to invite him for dinner, a good deed

Could it ever be, that there is a lack of lonely people in the world?
Will it ever happen that more people want to invite lonely people
than there are lonely people?

I 'd answer with a firm YES
'cause we are living in a spiritual world
and more spiritual it becomes!

Please click on the author name of 

Aufie Zophy

which is the "nom de plume" I use for my poetry on PoemHunter

if you 'd like to more poems.

not crying

As a specialist for children, I want my students to have the skills to make children cooperative with them while they are doing a physical examination on a child.

There are a few techniques that they should know.

1. Toys
Toys used wisely can be really helpful. I see students give the toy often too early. During history taking there is no need for toys. That is the time for building rapport with the mother and the child. If we give the toys too early to a child, the child will get bored with the toy and throw it on the ground. The mother gets upset because the child throws the toy on the ground and the child may start to cry, something we really do not want. The wise use of toys in a doctor-child encounter is to reserve it for when the child becomes uncooperative and even if the child takes only a few seconds to stop crying while looking at the toy, these seconds will be the time we fully use to get some important findings.

2. Examination on the lap of the mother.
Most things can be done on the lap of the mother, including general examination, auscultation testing of reflexes and many more. A child feels comfortable and somehow protected when he is that close to the mother.

3. Build that rapport with the child.
A giant truth is that if we are friends with the mother, it is likely that we will be friends with the child too. It is very important to involve the child from very early during the history taking. NOT to ask questions to the child, which may scare them but by simply talking to them. When I ask my students how they talk to a 1 year old, the answer is simple: they don't.
And that is a big mistake. Children love to be talked to but only in certain ways. They do not like questions. Even simple ones. They do like to hear the name they are called at home.

They do like to hear praise. At home, gandma and grandpa are giving praise relentlessly to the children. If we manage to talk like them, it really works in our favor. To be able to really talk like them, first we have to feel like them. We have to love the child genuinely. If we manage to do so, it will be easy to find things we like. We voice them out, et voila, we praise them like the grandparents do.
Even at a young age the children will recognize praise as praise even if they do not grasp the full meaning of it.

A second very positive effect of praise to children is that the mother will be instantly your best friend. She will transmit these feelings to her child and the chances that child likes you and cooperates increase exponentially.

The whole thing about praise, is that it has to be genuine. Simple flattery does not work. We have to put ourselves in such a loving mood, that it becomes easy to love certain things about the child. Then voice them out. Perhaps the voicing out of something we like about other persons is something so difficult for all of us.

We don't have the habit of praising. We like to criticize, point out mistakes, and criticize again. If we want to work with children we need to learn how to praise.

From within

Early in the morning
Still dark outside
From somewhere deep within
A spark shines some light

The spark flares to a flame
Shining for my lovely wife
Oh my God, to her I want to be kind

Slowly the light becomes more bright
Enveloping our children in the house
Oh my God, to them I want to be kind

Now the light is gaining more might
Shining on neighbors, on colleagues of mine
Oh, my God, to them I want to be kind

And brighter and mightier gets the light
Starting to envelop the globe so wide
the world so kind

Then, the sun started to rise...

Read more poems from Aufie Zophy at
 poems by Hans (Aufie Zophy)

Outing

Today I went with my son, Johan, and two of his friends to Bukit Keluang.
I think I have written before about the magic of that place,
where there is a stony hill right on the beach with several caves.

We had a walk on the beach, between the rocks, over the rocks,
on the rocks and again in the sand and took some amazing pics.
The boys took numerous selfies.

We rested a while, and before returning we had some Kerupuk, fish crackers,
freshly fried and fish balls with a drink in a road side café.

And it was nice
And it was nice
And it was nice

If your children are with you,
make an outing with them today
If your parents are around
make an outing with them today
If this is impossible,
make an outing with an auntie
If that is impossible,
the old folks home has lots of wonderful aunties
If you cannot do it today,
fix it for tomorrow or at the very latest next weekend
Please not later than next weekend
Fix the date today.

You will enjoy it
The other person will enjoy it
and the world will be different,
PERMANENTLY

A bit of love

A bit of love in my heart
moves and increases the beat

That bit of love sits there

and makes me roving

a rainbow on a dark cloud

a firefly in a dark, dark night

a spot of red on black and white pic

a moment of silence in the middle of a thunderbolt

a small piece of silk woven into a large cloth of burlap 

A bit of love sitting 

inside my heart

part of me wants to keep it

to guard it with all my might

part of me wants to give it away,

give away for free to anyone I see 

'cause that part knows that whatever we give
is a pure gain to the soul

'cause that part knows
about that wonderful piece of magic:
by giving away a bit of that bit of love,
the bit will grow so fast, so furious
that it won't be a bit anymore

Remembering

Remembering what is most important in life can help your day be a lot brighter.
Today I went on an outing my son to a nearby exotic coral island.
The weather was bright and the day started well.

Along the day, there tend to be always some small imperfections.
I almost fell in the temptation to let these small things spoil our outing.
Luckily I remembered what was most important to me today:
to have a nice outing with my son and enjoy each other's company maximally.
I managed to swallow or spit out whatever what not so perfect
and taste the full enjoyment of an outing with my son.

Life can be beautiful
It is easy to let it be spoiled by small things
With a bit of wisdom, we can maintain the beauty of it all.

Enjoy the beauty, while it is around.

Soul

A big heart!
A fantastic intention!
Outcome unsure.

Sometimes we give;
we give things to the poor;
things they do not use.

Our heart is good.
Our intentions are good.
The outcome unsure.

It is great to have a good heart and good intentions.
However if we manage to make it on and off silent,
to make some time to listen with our soul,
the chances of a great outcome do increase.

Let us continue to have a good heart,
to have the best of intentions.
Let us add some soul and silent reflection,
let us make a small prayer
and sometimes the universe will guide.

Let us do good
with our heart,
with our mind
and also with our soul...

Have some fun

Society has shaped the world around us.
We accept it, try to fit in, make some sacrifice
try to have some fun.

And then, after a while we get restless.
We want something more.
We are not happy to fit in and have some fun.

A giant truth dawns
We were given talents
and these talents demand to be used

Talents to make a positive difference
in this world, in our society.
We taste the sweet peace of mind of creativity

The sweet peace of mind of random kindness
the satisfaction of helping another person just like that
without expecting anything in return

We discover we were not meant just to fit in
not meant just to have some fun.

We were meant to use our talents
We were meant to make a positive difference

Abominable choice

If a friend makes an abominable choice.
Will you let him?

I think here is a dilemma.
Within his or her own frame of mind, it must sound a logical thing to do.
Within our frame of mind it sounds abominable.

Respecting the choice, while you are quite certain it has a high chance to bring misery.
Or try as hard as you can to bring him or her to his or her senses?

You know, I have an anti-vax friend.
It is sooo hard to see him err and put his child at risks that are completely and safely preventable.
I have talked literally hours to him
No effect
Today i told him he was irresponsible as a parent.
Some part of me regrets it, some part of me feels it was the right thing to do.

I don't know, but sometimes the ones who hurt your feelings
may be the ones who really care....

Peace is ours

Imagine the world in peace.
Hard to do?

Let us start with ourselves.
Make it quiet

Let there be some silence.
Only the breeze

Thoughts of anguish or anger
 All gone

Thinking only peaceful thoughts
or no thoughts at all

Peace is here now, just enjoy
Peace, peace, peace

Now imagine again all people
in the same peace

Imagine the whole world in peace
Not so hard to do


JJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJ

Actually my friends,
peace is a natural state
A gift of our God.

But what do we do with it?
Within our small own world
We kick it out.

Peace keeps coming back to us
But every day we kick it out
A gift we refuse

Our small self, our ego,
thinking the world is not fair.
Peace gone

Our small self, our ego,
talking harshly instead of full of love
Peace gone

Our small self, our ego,
feeling hurt about almost everything
Peace gone

Our small self, our ego,
thinking we are better than the rest
Peace gone

But the gift keeps coming back
Our God keeps giving it to us
day by day by day

One day we will accept it
Choose friendliness and kindness
no matter what

Peace will be ours
and we will spread it to those around
and they will spread it too.

No need to wait for tomorrow.
let us start today.

JJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJ

A small wish from me
of peace to you
of peace to your family
of peace to your friends
of peace to your colleagues
of peace to your world
of peace to our world
of peace to the world.

A tear

A tear in my brown right eye

was ready to leave and roll.

A heart with a small crack

leaked some precious blood,

some precious love

Life 'd been harsh;

self control not easy.

The tear was rolling now

down slowly, down.

Tumult in my soul;
revolt becomes humble
 

 Turning to God.

Strength seeps in.

The tear dries up,

the crack heals,

love flows

Dream

When I silently pray,
I know somewhere deep inside
that I still have a mission in my life.

When I was young,
my mission and vision
were inspired by Albert Schweizer
and by mother Teresa



Now I dream of inspiring people
I dream to become a writer
To become a speaker,
capable of inspiring many people

I can see in my dreams
a kindness revolution
A huge evolution
enveloping  the world
in a huge wave of kindness.

Let us dream together
Perhaps one day,...

Hard to believe

If you read the news,
it is so full of disheartening stories
of falsehood, corruption, decadency
that it would be hard to believe
that the world is changing fast for the better.

And yet it is!!
An idea whose time has come is simply unstoppable
The idea of random acts of kindness has come to the world
Anyone trying it, feels so fulfilled with peace and love
that it is spreading fast!

Slavery, women's rights, non-smoking,
all these things have changed so dramatically
over short time periods.
A few years before the change,
no one could imagine that it would go that fast.
Now all these have changed

So will it be with kindness in this world
If now you have a hard time believing kindness
is increasing fast everywhere all the time,
you will be amazed in a few years.

Hold on tight
A completely disruptive
enourmously gigantic
kindness revolution
is on its way

It is unstoppable
It will blow away all hypocrites
Lying leaders will fall deep and hard
a world of truth and sincerity lies before us
Hard to believe?
Believe!

Black dot

Here is a shortened version of an amazing story I found today on fb

A professor gave an exam paper to students
When the students looked at the paper, it was an A4 paper with a small black dot in the middle.
The professor asked the students to write an essay on what they saw.
At the end of the exam, all students had given their potential interpretation of the black dot.

Logical it is indeed to focus on the abnormality
No one had written anything about he whiteness of the rest of the page.
All focused on the one black dot.

At the end of the story, the writer gave some comments:
Is it not like this in our lives too?
We get health, love, wonderful sunrises.
But a few black dots like the troubles in traffic, a story from the news
get so much of our attention that we forget to enjoy all the good things
and blessings in our life.

Amazing story, isn't it?

Quotations, citations

I read about an Indian master dealing with a celebrated expert in religion as follows:

<A celebrity expert had been citing and reciting passages from the holy scriptures for about half an hour when the master said "I am waiting to hear you." as if it had been completely silent. The religious expert was puzzled.

"Quotations there have been, in superabundance." "But what original commentary can you supply, from the uniqueness of your particular life? What holy text have you absorbed and made your own? In what ways have these timeless truths renovated your nature? Are you content to be a hollow victrola, mechanically repeating the words of other men?">

I think here we strike a very important piece of truth.
What is the use of reciting holy scriptures without understanding?
I have encountered numerous people just doing that.
In many schools in the place where I live, students are learning to read Arabic
without any effort of the teachers to teach the meaning of the words they read.
Many children at a tender age have as such recited large volumes of scriptures
without understanding at all what they recite.

How much time is put in these efforts?
How much better the time could be spent in teaching the children good values?

Vax and anti-vax

In France and Italy certain immunizations are mandatory.
Refusal has bitter consequences in these countries
These countries rightfully put the importance of the health of children and the public above the so called freedom to refuse vaccinations.
Refusal of vaccinations puts innocent children at unnecessary risk of dangerous diseases. France and Italy give parents who refuse to understand science and live in a childish imagined world of conspiracies, not the right to endanger the life of their own children. It is high time that more countries take proactive action to counter the lack of intelligence of the anti-vaxers.

Expect

Expect the best.

So often we are afraid to expect the best.
As a child we were expecting the best but when it turned out to be not,
the disappointment was big. So to protect us from disappointment,
we started to expect the worst.

In the mean time we have matured into adulthood.
We are aware that everything is possible
However we do not want to give up the old habit of childhood
We keep expecting the worst in order to avoid disappointments

By expecting the worst, we prepare ourselves to receive the worst.
We tend to think and behave in ways that make the worst come true.

Let us today give up the bad habit of expecting the worst.
Let us live in a thoughts and action world reflecting our positive expectations
By doing so, we will see more of the positive.

Love and peace to you.

Choice

Sometimes we are full of self pity
All the problems we face
we tend to blame on our parents
on our circumstances
on what happened around us.

And yet, it was us who had made choices
Choices that were basically not the bet ones.
But taking responsibility
for our choices of the past
is a hard, a very hard thing to do.
It is so much easier to blame others
and to end up in a flurry of self pity.

I hope we can find the courage
to see that the choices we made in the past
have resulted in where we are now.
But that is the past
The past has no power over the future
unless we give it such power
The future will depend on the choices we make today

We can choose to continue self pity
and allow the past to continue to determine our future
or we gather the courage
and take responsibility.
We see that the past is over.
Today we have again freedom of choice.
if today we choose the right thing
our past will not have any power over our future.

We have to live in the present.
the past has passed and cannot be changed
The future is not yet here.
Making the right choices now will help the future
and will make the present so much more pleasant.

A Pleasant Present

I wish you a pleasant present

The past has permanently passed

We can nurture the future

but the only moment

we enjoy is the present

We do not have to let the past

having negative effects that last

Let us be aware and become mature

make new choices for a brighter future

Let your present

be truly pleasant

Free

I want to start this reflection with a giant cliché:
The best things in life are free.

I know it is a cliché but it is so good to remember it.
Simple friendliness is one of the biggest gifts we can receive.
During my recent travel in Japan, I asked a passerby the directions to a certain shop.
He stopped in his steps, explained to me and went back about 100m with me to show me the shop.

This was such a big gift to me.

When I remember doing something similar for someone asking directions in our hospital,
I know that the gift is not only a present to the one on the receiving end of the kindness.
The good feeling, a present from our Creator, is as big for the giver of kindness and friendliness as for the receiver.

Simple acts of kindness, friendliness, FREE
No money! A huge gift for the one on the receiving end
A much bigger present still for the one on the giving end.
~truly, the best things in life are free~

Quake

Today arrived in Osaka, Japan.
After check-in in the hotel, a bit tired from traveling.
Taking a nap.
Our room on the 31 floor, which happens to be the top floor.

Not yet fully asleep suddenly our beds are shaking
and so does everything in the room.
The light hanging from the ceiling was moving vigorously.

We did not know what to do
We were afraid but did not panic
Lots of thoughts flashed through my mind.

After a few seconds which seemed like eternity
the shaking stopped.
I called the reception of the hotel.
They related that this was a minor quake which happens quite regularly here.
Nothing to worry about they said.
They said it very convincingly.
I was not too convinced but chose to believe them. 

Reflecting on the event,
I think whatever we do, there is some fate.
If that quake would have been a major  one,
there was nothing we could do.
Hide next to the bed and hope for the best.

It reminded me of our own mortality
It can happen any time,
any moment of the day.
If you read this, at least I have made it until the end of this writing :)

Just a few reflections ago (can click here), I was thinking about readiness in our lives.
Today I was a kind of forced to think about it again.
I hope at any time the balance of me making people smile versus me making people sad is tipping over to the side in favor of the making people happy but we are never sure. We may unknowingly make many people upset. On the other hand sometimes a small gesture may have unexpected positive effects on people as well.

Whatever happens, I hope that balance described in  the above paragraph is favorable.
I ask again to our Creator, please let me live my full potential.
I have a few more big ambitions
I am willing to work hard for them
and hope that "fate" is on my side....  :)
 

Magical bandage

All of us are now and then wronged in major ways.

It hurts, it stresses, it distracts, it hurts more, it presses

It hurts more than a wound in our skin

When we feel being wronged,

hatred, feelings of revenge put salt in the emotional wound

It hurts more. 

And yet our God has given a wonderful healing bandage

A bandage we often refuse to use, for far too long.
it is the magical bandage of forgiveness and loving anyhow.

life

Oh my God,

Sometimes the most important of life's questions are playing in my head.
If i would be soon to die, would I feel I have lived a full life?
Would I feel I have lived and achieved my highest potential?
Would I feel satisfied with what I have done in my life
or would feel more regrets for things done or not done?

I surely have tried to be good at many times
but did I really succeed in doing as much as I could?

Did I give in to my tempers and laziness too often?

Reflecting on this, I remember the story of a man on his deathbed saying to his son who had renounced all wealth : my only regret is that i have not lived more like a saint...

When I reflect on questions like this, I feel I can offer a lot still to the world.
I still have a deluge of love and creativity flowing through my veins
I hope our Creator gives me the strength and opportunities to
achieve my next few big ambitions in the near future.... :)

Water

I have a body weight that I feel is way too high for me.
I am currently at 88 Kg for a length of 183 cm.

I do exercise but not enough and after exercise I feel extra hungry.

I just got this idea to try to lose some weight:
Any time between 10 and 2 minutes before a main meal,
I will drink between 0.5L to 1L of water
Then I will eat normally.

I expect a few effects.
1. My stomach will feel full much earlier and I may end up eating less.
2. The water will dilute my food and allow a faster passage through my gut, less time for full absorption of all calories
3. The water will be absorbed or at least part of it and help circulate all good things in my body to reach even the most remote corners of my body. This will make me feel good, less tired, more keen on exercise

I expect a lot more effects but If even part of the three above are coming true,
I WILL LOSE SOME WEIGHT.

Who wants to try the water diet together with me?
I will report on my progress in a week. :)

Not good

What happened yesterday in Brussels is bad, very bad.

Wicked people.
It is easy to be drown up by emotions related to the event and reply with equally wicked comments. Stupid politicians like Trump and Cruz could not refrain themselves from doing so.😠 They respond exactly in ways the perpetetrors want them to respond.

Let us all be at least a little bit cleverer than Trump and Cruz. These two seem to be so infantile.

Ghandi. Dr M L King Jr. I think we can get inspired by these guys to respond in a much more proper way...😐

Not bad

Today, I went to Bukit Keluang,
a beach near a rocky hill,
a wonderful pearl of nature.

I went there with a team from the UK that had come to Malaysia as a charity to do cardiac surgery on children who need it most. Their efforts have saved the life of multiple children.

I am in full admiration of their efforts and thought:
After all the world is not too bad
There is so much charity going on
So much kindness.
So much love
So much selfless sacrifice

The world is NOT BAD

Purpose

When we travel, we first choose the destination.
Then we carefully plan the best way to get there.

To compare our life to a travel is a bit of an oversimplification
Life is so much more complex and so much more multifaceted.

Yet many of us give not half the thoughts about our destinations
and our journey of life compared to how we plan our holiday traveling.

Our life is indeed so multifaceted:
We have a physical life (body) with needs and purposes to be fulfilled.
Then we have a mind that hungers for knowledge and development.
We have an emotional life with hearts, yearning to love and be loved.
We do have also souls, appreciating moments of quiet and blissful happiness.

If in any of these areas of our life, we have no destination in front of our eyes,
we may become just aimless wanderers as a traveler who sets out on the road
without knowing where he is going, taking randomly turns on winding roads,
perhaps hitting the very same place where he departed after a long long travel,
or even a place worse than the place where he left long time ago.

Sleep

I am currently traveling in Europe
Weather is cold
And my nose seems to have caught a cold.

I really think the best medicine if we do not feel well is rest and sleep.
Last night I felt not well at all.
I went to bed really early and slept through the night.
A good long rest works curative for many diseases.
That is at least what I believe.

The solution?

What is your problem?
I am quite sure that every person walking on this earth has a few problems.
What is your blessing?
I am quite sure that every person walking on this earth has a few blessings

Quite often we give soooo much attention to our problems
that we do not have a lot of attention left for our blessings.
That makes it soooo easy to forget our blessings

For sure we pay attention to our problems because we want to solve them
We have to pay attention to them.
But if we fail to pay attention to our blessing, our mind may get soooo blurred
that we do not find the solution.

A small suggestion:
Keep paying attention to problems
But try to balance it by paying
an equal amount of time attention to our blessings

The solutions of our problems
lie often in our blessings.

Daily blessings

Just arrived in Europe yesterday.
No longer used to the cold weather.

While living in Malaysia  we take the wonderful weather often for granted.
Sometimes forget to be grateful for our daily blessings.

Today, I want to say Thanks for
the safe trip we enjoyed.
the love and friendship we met
the fantastic communication with home
the wonderful sleep
the food
and so much more....

I pray today for love and peace
for compassion and sympathy
for beauty and softness
for health and safety
but most of of all,
let me be an instrument
in our Creator's hands
to create some of the above for many others too...

Stinking

(inspired by Vishen Lakhiani)

If you try to smell the person sitting next to you on the bus,
you may very likely not smell anything or a specific brand of perfume

None of us would go out without taking a shower
to prevent anyone smelling our body
We use perfume and so on.

We really take care of our body

How about a stinking personality
When we are doing ward rounds,
so many times people  (including sometimes :( myself)  display a stinking personality
scolding nurses, scolding junior doctors in front of patients.

Are we not worried about people smelling our personality?
Let us take some care of that in the morning too.
A short time for reflection, for some gratitude and some good intentions
may make a world of difference.

A shower for our body
A shower for our soul :)

A bit of gardening

A little bit of gardening
A little bit of picking up litter
A little bit of planting
A little bit of pulling weeds

Can make a huge difference in quite short time
not only in the way your garden looks
but also in your own feeling and state of mind

Just a little connection to nature
can do wonders for anyone.

Enthusiasm

I had this class on medical ethics today with our final year students who are almost at the end of their pediatric posting. The concept is of the class is quite simple. I ask them beforehand to reflect on the 10 or so weeks they have already spent in pediatrics postings and pick up one moment or few moments when they encountered something not quite right, not quite ethical happening in the pediatric wards.

The students share the moments and then we have a bit of a discussion about it. It is often interesting and quite fun to talk about their experiences and hear their own thoughts on how to improve it or avoid the problems.

Today I got more than just that. At a certain moment in the class there were two girls who got so excited. They were thinking at the same moment of the same woman they had seen in the clinic. It was a teacher who had only a very limited number of days she could take of from her teaching days and she had to come quite often to the clinic. To be able to do that she went to "buy" an MC (Medical certificate) from a private clinic. The doctor seeing her child had refused to give her MC and just had produced a standard time slip which was not accepted by the school principle.

Buying an MC is quite problematic from an ethical point of view (both for patient and doctor) but why not the pediatrician writes a letter to the principle explaining the need of regular follow up and the need for the teacher to have her leave to do other things. I have written letters to support parents in many ways and do not recall a single time when the employers refused to cooperate with the requests made.

I truly enjoyed today's session and the enthusiasm and excitement of these students was making the whole session so special, I think. If we can get people excited, enthusiastic about ethics, I think this is something nice to achieve. If this happens, you feel it as a gift of God, a gift of the students, and a little bit also a gift from yourself.

A mile

A mile
An extra mile
To walk the extra mile

Can make
a huge difference
in our life
in the life of others

People who walk the extra mile
tend to be supremely successful
successful in generating wealth
successful in generating love
and kindness and happiness
and peace and satisfaction

Lollipop

Does happiness affect your productivity?

Science says it does.
Shawn Achor at Harvard, has done experiments with children
Four year old children performed twice as fast in a task required thinking
when they were primed by happy thoughts.

Now here comes the real interesting part: an experiment with doctors!
The doctors were given a manuscript based on which they had to make a diagnosis.
Half of them were given a lollipop to make them happy before they were given the task.
And guess what! Yes they arrived at the correct diagnosis twice as fast as the others.

So, please, if you have a spouse who is a doctor,
make them happy before they go to their clinic.
If you have a relative sitting for an exam,
make them happy just before the exam

A simple lollipop may do :)

Here is a link to a video of Shawn in you-tube

Generosity

A beggar
It could be a lazy fellow

She passes by

She thinks and regrets,
Returns
Gives a penny

Feels OK for a while
Was it enough?
Returns and gives some more

Feels OK for a while
Thinks about her salary
returns,

Gives a bit of her time
A small talk, a pat on the back
Feels OK now for long.

Silence 1.01

Silence

Contemplation, searching for my soul 
Silence encompassing all 
Alone but not in solitude 
Silence giving fortitude 

My ego-thoughts trying to prop up 
Silence makes them stop 
Soul is what I’m searching for 
Silence, silence I adore 

Connecting to my soul 
Silence winning after all 
Thoughts connect with high above 
Silence fills my soul with love 

Conscience conquering my mind 
Silence makes it look so kind 
Soul and conscience hand in hand 
Silent wish to never end 

Grateful heart joins in 
Silence makes it all akin 
Thanking God for this silent contemplation 
Thanks for silence, thanks again

Aufie Zophy

Note:

Above is perhaps one of my ten best poems. I had written it and a few weeks later I found that a therapist from New York had put it up on her website. Initially I was a bit confused if this was to be called plagiarism or not. She had not contacted me, not asked my permission. On the other hand she had put the author name, I use, under the poem of Aufie Zophy. 

I made up my mind to not put any copyright on whatever I publish online. I think we get ideas and talents from our Creator to be shared with the whole world. What is created in our mind, is not solely ours, it still belongs to our Creator and is there to be shared with each and everybody. So, I decided to be proud instead of upset about anyone sharing poems on their website written by Aufie Zophy (me). If I now google 'Aufie Zophy' on the web, I find more than 600 websites that have used my poems. Somehow it makes me happy even though the vast majority never sought permission to share these poems. I think the warmest feeling I got when I read a website that related about an event with children who recited one of my poems on peace and considered as one of the highlights of the event. :) . Some poems have been put on music :)

The above poem is written in 2010, the year I started to write poems in English and put them up on the website PoemHunter. I have received quite a number of good comments about this particular poem and I still like it as a poem among my 10 best. In the mean time I have written and published on PoemHunter about 220 poems (or sometimes I prefer to call them attempts at poetry, rather than poems). Please visit the website to read more of them: http://www.poemhunter.com/aufie-zophy/ (simple and safe link)

How can I serve

the more we deliver service
to humanity, i.e. to our fellow human beings
the more peace of mind

If we make selfless service
one of our main aims in life,
our life may be full of peace
and happiness

Surely not all of us
actually perhaps none of us,
is always in a situation
where we can serve,
where we can lend a helping hand.
I think all of us go through
times when we are the ones needing help.

Whenever we are in a position that allows us to serve
in a position that allows us to give a helping hand,
we should do so.

If more people would be continuously aware of the
good feelings and the great peace that is brought about
by rendering selfless service,
less people would have to wait a long time to receive the help they need.

:) 

Being humble

How many times do we say:
This guy does not know what an X is?
X standing for whatever the subject or object of our interest.

How much more psychologically sound would it be to say:
This guy's perception of X is quite different from mine.

True experts tend to be aware of a level of grayness of most matters
and even if they are very convinced of their own truths,
they always maintain a certain level of doubt and humility

Doubt does not always feel comfortable.
Nevertheless, it is quite often preferred since
certainty is often too close madness.
 --------------
If you enjoyed this,
You may also like the poem hard is the fall
and the essay: humility

Soooo different.

We were all born with a heart full of love
As babies we were generous with our smiles
People were loving us back

Somehow along the way
we got a few bad experiences
We gave love and our ego somehow got hurt in the process
Our ego got hurt, but not our heart, not our soul.

Our ego told us the huge lie:
Better be stingy with your love
so, I the ego does not get hurt.

Somehow along the way
we got a bit wiser as well.
We try to find soul and heart in most situations
and become a bit less ego dependent

But the big lie of our ego
Better be stingy with your love
persists.

NO matter how people react,
if we just decide to share the abundant love in our heart
if we manage to share it and do not care too much if it comes back or not.
It will give us so much soul happiness.

It is sitting so abundantly in our heart.
Let us share and care for our family, friends and strangers alike
if we get a cold shoulder, it is affecting not our soul
It affects the soul of the one giving the cold shoulder in a negative way.
His ego may get a false boost but we do not have to allow it to affect our own ego

Give love,
It sits abundantly in our heart.
If people react negatively because they themselves lack love,
Still give love
We have an abundance to share
Not long after we start to persistently to give the love,
our live will be sooooooooooo different.

Let us give up today
the lie of our ego to be stingy with the abundant love in our heart
let us start to live
the truth of our soul to share, share, share the abundant love in our heart
We will never regret it if we persist
and soon our live will be
soooooooooooo different.

The ones who are negative or do not respond
are the ones who  need our love most
So just keep giving from the abundance of your heart
Soon they will respond so differently and
our life will be soooooooooo different

Before I close my eyes

Today is almost gone

Soon I will go to bed

and close my eyes

I want to, before I do so,

say a warm word of thanks

a word of thanks

to our God,

a word of thanks

to my family

to my friends

to my staff

A very warm thanks

for all  the love that came my way

Thanks

The extra step (sonnet)

Every now and then, we feel satisfied

So satisfied with what we feel and do

We have a good heart and are often kind

Occasionally some charity too.

But my God, my good Creator, today

I want to take at least one extra step 

Or an extra mile on that golden way  

Please God help me to run an added lap 

If every day, a few new steps we take

One more small kindness and a loving phrase 

An enormous difference we would make

Towards a better world in many ways

Let’s commit each day to a little more

Soon harmony will reign on every shore


-------------------------------------------------------
Note:
Sonnets are poems of 14 verses with rhymes
ababcdcdefefgg
each verse contains 10 spoken syllables

I have written three other sonnets (under author name of Aufie Zophy):
My first attempt: The golden key (perhaps the one I still like best)
My second attempt: The song of heaven
My third attempt: The most beautiful poem
I think my first three attempts are more worthy of the name sonnet,
since they contain a bit of a message of romantic love, dedicated to 
my lovely wife, to whom I am married this year for 25 years...

 

Rituals and scriptures

Religious teachings can truly inspire
as long as we do not allow the preachers of hatred
to putrefy our loving hearts, 'cause hatred is like toxic waste,
that kills all the magnificent flowers in the garden of the mind.
Hatred, always coming from the ego of the preacher,
never coming from a majestic omnipotent Creator.
Hatred is trying to lure our hearts into condemnation,
misjudgement, arrogance, a false feeling of superiority.

Enjoy religion but do not hate

Rituals can help us to get closer to the Divine
As long as we do not make them a purpose in themselves.
Blindly following rituals, may flood and oxidize the wires of our mind.
Rusty wires may prohibit everyone of us to tune into the music,
into the divine melodies containing fantastic truths
into the roaring cry of nature
to render selfless service to all humans
and to become truly humble.

Enjoy rituals but do not allow an absurd focus on them
to blind or deafen you from the music of God

Holy scriptures are great guides to human life,
As long as we do not allow the books to petrify
into large rocks inside the stomach of our soul.
Large rocks may obstruct all further nurture
from the manna of divine wisdom
from the nectar of unconditional love
that is found throughout human nature
in the spirit of all humanity and the spirit from above.

Holy scriptures, Rituals, Religious teachings
are great tools for humanity to use
As long as they do not become tricks that are abused
to please our ego and silence our soul

Invisible Thread

Inside our heart
there is some blood
being pushed
under high pressure

Inside our heart
there is septation
valves and
parts of muscles

Inside our heart
there is also
this invisible thread
of love and kindness

That thread that allows us to appreciate
the charm of a pulchritudinous woman,
the appeal of an exquisite bird,
the allure of a statuesque tree

That invisible thread
that allows us to see
not only with with our eyes
but with compassion and empathy

That invisible thread that softens our voice
when anger inside boils
That invisible thread that allows us to give
when our hands want to take

That invisible thread that makes us soft
when we wanted to be tough
That invisible thread that takes away the fear
when we talk try to talk to our God.

That invisible thread
worth more than gold
Thanks, my God,
for this fine invisible thread
that sits inside our heart.

A fable

A man was blind
‘cause he kept his eyes closed all the time
He had not seen any light
He did not believe in light

A man was deaf
‘cause he kept his ears closed all the time
He had not heard any sound
He did not believe in sound

Another man
Kept his mind closed all the time
He had not received any wisdom
He did not believe in wisdom

Another man
Kept his heart closed all the time
He had not felt love
He did not believe in love

Another man
Was not aware of the beauty of his soul
He had not experienced God
He did not believe in God

And then it happened that

The blind man opened his eyes
The deaf man opened his ears
The other men opened their minds and hearts
Connected to their beautiful souls
And all became believers
And the world leaped to harmony

Aufie Zophy