My Path to Enlightenment

What are we?

2010-08-23T05:15:00.000+08:00

People have been asking these questions for ages: who are we, what are we, why are we here? The people who have been contemplating the answer to this question have either gotten the answer or died without knowing what the answer is. There are many default answers. The most obvious answer is that we are human. Taxonomically, we are homo sapiens. Biblically, we might say we are God's creatures - created in His image and likeness. Whatever our default answer might be, the answer will always come from knowledge that we inherited, not from direct experience. This does not invalidate our original answer, it just classifies the answer under the realm of "belief". Again, there is nothing wrong with belief - I'm just pointing out that belief is something that was handed down to us, not something that we arrived at as a result of direct experience.

People who claim to have arrived at the answer through direct experience are classified as enlightened beings, or have at least experienced some moments of enlightenment that allowed them to transcend the limits of human reasoning to arrive at an experience that probably can not be put into words. I can't claim that I have had such an experience, but I can say for sure that I am in the process of inquiring into the true nature of human existence.

A few years ago, I heard someone say that I am not my body. I found that to be odd considering I've always seen myself as my body. And then he went to say that we have a body, we have thoughts, we have emotions, but we are not our bodies, thoughts, or emotions. Who we are is the one who is aware of our bodies, thoughts and emotions.

I came across this assertion again while reading Peter Ralston's "The Book of Not Knowing". He said the eye sees things outside of itself, but it will never really see itself. At best, it might see an image of itself, but it will never really see itself. We are like that eye, we see things outside of us, but we truly do not know who or what this thing is that we call "us". And there is nothing wrong with not knowing. Most people would quickly come up with a belief or memory to try to explain what we are, but that would be just that - a belief or memory, not a statement of what is.

Two weeks ago, I sat through a seminar (not the whole thing, just a few hours of it), and the leader asked the audience to look at the words "is" and "I". The word "is" brings a certain permanence to things. I could say that something is odd, or someone is mean, and instantly, the word "is" equates the two together, locking them into a usually fixed state, thus precluding the possibility that that something or someone can be perceived in some other way. For example, if I say that my boss is a slave driver, I begin to look for evidence that he is a slave driver, and doing so creates a filter in my mind. With that filter in place, all I would see now are the instances when he is being a slave driver. My mind will edit out the instances when he was actually being nice and caring. This view will then cause me to relate to him as a slave driver, and my actions will produce outcomes that would be consistent with my view that he is a slave driver. In short, the word "is" just created a prison for me - one where my boss IS a slave driver.

The word I" is another thing that has the power to limit us. Ironically, what defines us also has the power to limit us. If I see myself as someone who is weak, I will then behave in ways that are considered weak. And why would I see myself as weak? For the simple reason that I have lived through several experiences where I did things that would be considered as weak. All those experiences crystallized my self identity of being weak, again, reinforcing the view that "I" am weak. In this case though, the "I" that I am referring to, is a conglomeration of memories and conclusions that I have formulated about those memories. In short, "I" is nothing more than a concept. And it is one concept that has the power to limit what is possible.

At this point, let's summarize what we've covered so far. I am not my body, I am not my thoughts, I am not my emotions. I can even honestly admit that I have no idea who or what I am. I have tried to define who or what I am using words like "is" and "I" but doing so did not really empower me. If anything, doing so limited what is possible for me.

So if I am not this "thing" that people call Arvy, what am I?

I can begin by looking at the words "is" and "I", and see that what ever usually followed those words in my sentences are really NOT the incontrovertible truth. Just like printed words on a blank sheet of paper, they just showed up in the white space. Wherever I go, they show up in the space. They are things I can perceive, but just like the eye, they are not really the eye.

Really, I am not a certain way all the time, and I also see that the "I" that I hold on to so dearly is NOTHING more than a concept. I am not a thing, i am no thing, I am nothing. I am the space with which concepts, experiences, thoughts, emotions, and even this body show up. And what shows up? Whatever I say. If I say I am weak, that's what shows up - weakness. If I say otherwise, that's what shows up. If what I say is what shows up, we can begin to see the possibility that who we are really is our WORD.

And then we begin to see why we have been called "co-creators". The word becomes flesh, without fail.

Goodbye to Cafe World, Farmville, and Mafia Wars

2010-04-02T22:04:00.001+08:00

Why am I saying goodbye to Facebook games? Simple - while I'm doing very well in these games, my success in leveling up has come at the expense of my failure to make other aspects of my life work.

Unlike some people who have been playing games all their lives, I'm a newbie when it comes to computer games. I only started playing Facebook games last year. I was surprised at the amount of time and effort that I found myself putting into playing these games.

I have paid money to get stuff that I needed, I have spent hours in front of my Mac to really understand how the game is played, and I have watched some of my holidays vanish into thin air as I spent some of them playing these games. There were moments when I couldn't bring myself to stop playing, even if it meant I'll be late for some appointments. In short, I have been behaving like an addict.

And again, unlike people who have mastered the art of balancing their time between playing virtual games and attending to real-life concerns, I seem to have merged the two worlds together in such a way that my achievements in playing games were giving me the sense of satisfaction that I probably could be getting by achieving some real life goals instead.

While I would undoubtedly miss the interaction and the sharing that also happened between players of these games, I have to wake up to the fact that some of the my life goals are not getting done as a result of my addiction to these games.

To all the other players that I have interacted with in the past, thank you for the gifts you sent. I believe that if we truly wanted to, we can still find some other way of interacting on-line outside of these games. As I complete my involvement with on-line games, I wish you all the best in doing whatever matters most to you. Have a great weekend!

(Posted as a note on my Facebook account, April 2, 2010)

Translucence

2009-10-14T17:06:00.003+08:00

In his book The Translucent Revolution, Arjuna Ardagh introduced the word translucence to refer to someone who has seen the light but continues to function in the world that he is a part of. This is in contrast to someone who has completely abandoned all his attachments to live in some secluded spot in the Himalayas, or someone who is so stuck in the pursuit of material success. It's meeting life wherever you are.

I haven't finished the book yet, and I guess it's partly because the concept of enlightenment is much older than the concept of translucence, and so I'm still slowly absorbing it. The book lists down and tells the story of people that the author considers to be translucent.

Choose, choosing, chosen

2009-03-27T02:36:00.004+08:00

I can't believe I've had this blog for almost 4 years, and after all that time, I can't really say I have become enlightened. I can say that I have become 'transformed' - and I use that word in a Landmark Education sense, which to me, means that I see my automatic responses to life and how they run my life, and how at times I can go beyond those automatic responses and make the impossible possible. All well and good, but I also see how at times I get hopelessly stuck to the meaning that I assign to some events in my life, and therefore refuse to create from nothing. Of course, everything that I've just written will sound weird to someone who has never been exposed to this kind of work, but I am not writing this to drive home a point. I am really just documenting what's going on in my life right now. That's it.

And speaking of my life, I guess I have come to choose this lifetime. This is the only one that I got, and there's no point wishing that I got something else. This is it - I am here on planet earth with this body, in this era, with all the circumstances that I have. I choose them all. And for once, I can simply be.

I am not my circumstances. They do not define me. Who I am is whoever I create myself to be.

Hello world, this is Arvy, who from this day forward, has finally chosen the life he's in.

The Present Moment

2008-11-28T18:39:00.002+08:00

This quest for enlightenment seems to be a never-ending thing. There's always something out there, some point in the future that I have not reached. Instead of hoping for something to happen, I now choose to enjoy the moment, the present moment, whatever it brings and whatever is going on. Life is happening now, not at some distant future.

Nothing

2008-09-28T06:38:00.003+08:00

Today, I quit looking for enlightenment. Really. This quest for enlightenment has been one big ego trip for me. The motivation behind the original quest is an attempt to fix something - if I became enlightened, I'd be so much better than other people. If I stopped eating meat, then I'd be purer than other people. If I attended all sorts of esoteric courses, I'd know stuff other people don't know. It's all about being better, and today, I quit the quest to become better. No more feng shui, no more chanting of mantras, no more past life regression sessions. I can't even understand what I can see, and worrying about things that I can't see just seems like a weird thing to do.

Why strive for enlightenment when I don't even exist?

So Human

2008-08-11T15:53:00.002+08:00

I'm beginning to realize just how human I am. Okay, so I've tried all sorts of stuff that are meant to make someone advance spiritually, whatever that may be, but it seems the more I try to make myself different from non-spiritual people, the more I see just how I am so much like everyone else. Just like everyone else, I want to eat whatever appeals to me, I get a crush on some cute people, I get upset and angry, and I don't always want to do what other people consider to be the right thing. So for now, I just choose to embrace my humanity. Instead of rejecting it and pretending to be a profound person, I just choose to be with it and see what's so.

No Mind

2008-07-17T05:55:00.002+08:00

A small cup can't contain all the water in the ocean. The human mind can't contain all the knowledge in the world. We don't see things for how they are. We see things for how we are. Since we are finite, our view of the world is also finite. And this is precisely what limits us from holding the infinite.

There is so much freedom in not knowing. Being empty of all preconceived notions or views makes it possible for us to access the realm of no mind where a higher intelligence can take over.

Expansion

2007-07-13T02:07:00.000+08:00

So much has happened in the last few months. I have really done so much for other people in ways that I could never have imagined a few months back. My concept of self has expanded to include other people. And while I'm writing this, I saw myself in the mirror. For the first time in decades, I like what I see. I actually like my nose now. It's not as flat as I imagined it to be.

I am Nothing

2007-05-23T00:14:00.000+08:00

I am consciousness. I am love, creativity, and power. I create the future with every single moment. I have a body. I have thoughts. I have feelings. But I am not my body, my thoughts, nor my feelings. I am my WORD. I am who I say I am. I am who I'm being. I am.

The Vessel

2007-03-15T20:07:00.000+08:00

I'm on to something new again - Kabbalah! And no, it's not because Madonna is so into it.

According to Kabbalah, humanity is the vessel that God created for the sole purpose of receiving the light. The vessel absorbed not only the light but also God's characteristics, and so the vessel stopped receiving the light. More than anything, it wanted to be like God - to share, to give its own light, to create. And thus, our universe was created. It is in this universe where things could go wrong that we humans are able to express our divinity.

So what does that mean for me? I'm not about to go to a Rabbi to learn more about Kabbalah. What I did learn about Kabbalah makes me understand the Landmark Forum more. I see Landmark Education as the key for humanity to begin expressing their divinity. Instead of reacting or receiving for the self alone, people see the value of creating with their word, and sharing the work with other people.

Something big is coming out of this. I don't know yet what it is but I'm taking things one step at a time.

Confused

2006-10-15T23:36:00.000+08:00

I attended the Landmark Advanced Course last weekend and the message I got was loud and clear - I am not the body, I am not the thought, and I am not the emotion. Among the three, I identify with my feelings the most. If something feels good, I plunge right into it. If it feels bad, I do what I can to avoid it. I saw this as having the freedom of choice, when in reality, it also meant that I was ruled by my feelings. Rachel, the forum leader, pointed this out to me. She added that since we are not the body, thought, and emotion, the only thing that we have is our word. This had a powerful effect on me. Everything I've ever read about spritual paths point to one thing - that we are all divine and that the power of the word is what we use to create.

While this was dawning on me, I was also reading a book by Osho who claims that there is no God. This really disturbed me, and for the next few days, I did behave like everything depended on me. It felt really empty. The Arhatic Yoga course of WPHF restored my sense of connection to the divine with a simple exercise of scanning the downpour of divine energy whenever we reconnect to God.

I'm still a bit confused today. I know now that I have something divine within me, and that I have the power of the word. I don't know yet what the extent of that power is, or if belief is even necessary to tap into that power. I do know that I'm on to something that would really change the course of my life. What I'm beginning to explore though marries the two realizations together. There is something divine in me and that I need to use it to move mountains here on earth. And on top of this, there is a power that I can tap into, and this power is the ultimate source of power for everyone else. I don't know yet what that power is, or if that power is God as we know God from books. I need not limit my concept of God though to what I have read from books. What I do know at this point is that I am not what the mirror says I am. I am not what my memories say I am. And the most delicious realization of all is this - that I have my whole life ahead of me to discover who I truly am and the possibilities that lie ahead when I start creating that life ahead of me.

Books

2006-09-19T23:44:00.000+08:00

In case you're wondering why I'm writing about these books ... my friend Irene wrote about books in her last blog and she wanted me to do the same.

1. One book that changed my life - Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield

The author had a great way of explaining coincidences and how they're not really coincidences but synchronicities that have a hidden meaning. This is what started it all. This is what got me interested in supernatural stuff.

2. One book that you've read more than once - 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

I really didn't understand it the first time I read it. 7 years later, I had to read it again, because it was required reading for work. Second time around, it made so much sense, specially about how we need to spend more of our time and money sharpening the saw.

3. One book that you'd want on a desert island - Mind of Clear Light by the Dalai Lama

Is there even such a thing as a desert island? Shouldn't it be deserted island? How could you have an island in the desert? Of course I'm revealing my ignorance about natural land formations. Anyway, if you're stuck in an island and there is a very real possibility of dying soon, this book teaches you how to die, or what to do when you're dying. Of course, you really can't do much when you're dying. This is a mental exercise. It reminds me of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. It teaches you what to do so that you set the stage for a future incarnation where you could further pursue your spiritual evolution, or to be forever freed from the cycle of death and rebirth if you have reached a very high level of enlightenment.

4. One book that made you laugh - The Far Side

This is a compilation of one-frame cartoons about animals and how they perceive the world. It goes deeper than that but hey, I was in it for the humor.

5. One book that made you cry - Harry Potter

Can't remember which one but I do remember one scene where Harry Potter conjured up a patronus or something that saved his life.

6. One book that you wish you had written - Sleeper Awaken (Atlantean Secrets Part 1) by Samuel Sagan

I interpreted this question as what book did I love so much that I wished I was the ONE who wrote it. This is an elaborate novel about a man's quest for enlightenment during the time of Atlantis.

7. One book you wish had never been written - Updating

This is one weird book about how you could end up dating people you perceive to be out of your league. The mere fact that I added this book in the list means that I have read it. Hahaha. I wish it hadn't been written because it's just not very enlightened. It might have been well researched but it just seems misguided.

8. One book that you are reading at the moment - Inner Teachings of Hinduism Revealed by Master Choa Kok Sui

It tells you who the Hindu gods are - Shiva, Brahma, Vishnu and their avatars. Ita lso tells you why Ganesh has the head of an elephant and why some gods are blue. Very interesting.

9. One book that you've been meaning to read - How to Read a Person Like a Book

Meaning to read - I take that to mean as feeling the need to read it but not finding the time nor the motivation to do it. It tells you how to interpret body language.

10. Five people that you would like to answer these questions:

Eduardo, Jon, Pam, Pia, Mark

In or Out

2006-08-19T02:19:00.000+08:00

It's been almost 2 years since I first took an active interest in the supernatural. While I have always been reading all sorts of books about it since 1999, it was only sometime in 2004 when I actually paid an enrollment fee to attend a course on awakening the third eye. That course was the first of a series of courses I took, from something as relatively well accepted as feng shui to something more esoteric like removing entities from one's energy body.

It seemed like my goal was to sample everything that was in the buffet table. As soon as I tasted something, it didn't take very long for me to find something fishy with a guru or expert. All that sampling gave me quite a lot of esoteric knowledge from Tibet, Australia, the US, the Philippines, and India. But strangely, enlightenment still seems so far away.

Could it be that I have listened to so many people that I have forgotten to listen to that inner voice of intuition? Could it be that I don't really need to accumulate more books, attend more classes, and listen to more people, and that what I need to do is to simply stop searching for what's out there and find what's in here? Could it be that I should pick one school from all the esoteric schools that I have seen and dig a little deeper before sampling something else?

Curing a Crazy Woman

2006-08-10T20:57:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, a crazy woman decided to sit in front of our gate, thus preventing it from opening fully. Naturally, I had a hard time bringing the car out of the garage. Our driver tried to make her go away by talking to her, and when that didn't work, I suppose he tried to pull her away but she screamed - in English, "Don't touch me!".

I didn't really know how to react to this. Should we call the police to have her hauled away? Should I throw something at her so that she'd run away? It dawned on me that the most enlightened thing to do was to heal her of her psychological disorder - at least enough to make her realize that she should move on.

I took a class on pranic psychotherapy a few weeks before this, and reviewed the book a couple of nights before this happened, so I somehow knew that I could do something to help her. Since I was ina hurry to go back to work, I made a mental note to try to heal her later in the day. Of course, I forgot all about her when I started working.

Just before midnight, I was told that she was still there, and that meant I was going to have problems parking the car. It became really necessary for me to try healing her psychologically. Armed with the knowledge that you can heal psychological disorders with the use of electric violet light, I cleaned the crazy woman's crown, ajna, and solar plexus.

Then I began the drive home. I didn't know if the crazy woman would still be there but I remember saying something to myself that this is all an experiment. If she's gone, then I would have some proof that what I did works. If not ... ooh ... the mere thought makes me worry so much! What if it didn't work?

When I reached the gate, the crazy woman wasn't there. I looked around - the neighbor's house, behind some bushes - no crazy woman in sight! This doesn't prove for sure that it worked, but not finding her there gives me a reason to believe that it might have worked.

So maybe I'm a skeptic. I do know that I am now in an experimental mode. I've decided that before I dismiss an idea, I owe it to myself to at least give it a try.

Summer Heat

2006-04-12T19:19:00.000+08:00

After 3 years of sleeping with the AC on, I did the unthinkable - I gave my split type aircon away. The summer heat gets pretty excruciating around noon time but I don't seem to mind. At night, I even sleep without a fan! It's all part of my new healthy lifestyle. I've read it in books, saw it in movies, and heard people talk about it - it's best to sleep with an open window that lets in fresh air. So what has this got to do with enlightenment? I'm slowly learning to live with nature. Instead of fighting it, I'm learning to live with it.

The Skeptical Self

2006-03-15T10:00:00.000+08:00

I attended a healing workshop a couple of weeks ago. We were taught how to clean the aura and chakras and heal with colors. Of course, I tried it right away on a few people.

Ate Merly was the first to get healed. She had been coughing for several days and I wanted to see if what they taught us would help her - and it did! When I got home, she was feeling better. She was even singing again. (She loves to sing but couldn't because she was coughing really bad.)

Next, I tried it on Bernan and he claims that the was able to sleep soundly that night. Before that, he had been tossing and turning in bed because of excruciating pain. I tried it on Jackie S and she claims her back pain disappeared instantaneously. I tried it on Joann F and Claire G but I'm not so sure if it worked on them. I tried it on Jaymii who had an asthma attack but I'm also not sure if it worked because they took him to a hospital where he was given a lot of drugs.

For the most part though, it seems to be working. There is just that skeptic in me that questions what is happening all around me. I'll continue to test this healing thing and see if bigger things continue to happen. If I later find out that the results speak for themselves, then maybe the skeptical self will just naturally fade away.

I have a Blog?

2006-02-25T02:07:00.000+08:00

It just occurred to me that I had completely forgotten that I had a blog. February is about to end and it would have been tragic if I had not posted at least one entry in the month of February. Needless to say, I am posting this for the sake of posting something, and not necessarily because I had an epiphany leading to enlightenment.

Frankly, I have read way too much about enlightenment that I no longer know where to begin. My recent interest in Osho, feng shui, Del Pe, Landmark forum, and Clairvision have completely turned my familiar Catholic mentality upside down. I need a mentor - the real thing, not a faker.

Or it could also be that I am making progress but in very small increments, too small for me to see. One thing that has changed is that I am now completely vegetarian - no fish, no chicken, no tiny morsels of animals that once roamed the earth or had parents. Gee, I really don't know. This quest for enlightenment is filled with so many questions.

Taking Life Too Seriously

2006-01-03T01:25:00.000+08:00

Nikki, a friend from college, said something today that really struck me. She said, "the people who know how to have fun in life have the best luck of all." She said that after we talked about feng shui and other stuff that's supposed to bring good luck in your life.

The first thing that came to mind as soon as I got home was that although on the surface, I may look like I'm having fun - my being a joker and all - the truth is there are many things that I take way too seriously, causing me to miss out on all the fun that I could have in spite of, or maybe even precisely because of the things that I'm taking way too seriously.

For example, worrying about credit card bills after all that Christmas merrymaking ... piece of cake. It simply means I have to spend less in the next few months. With a little sense of humor and some creativity, I could look for new ways to have fun in the next few months without having to spend too much money.

When I wake up tomorrow, I will try to be aware of what I'm feeling all throughout the day, and if I catch myself worrying again, I will try to look beyond the situation and see how I can have fun with the situation.

Without the heavy baggage of worry, I feel that I will really attract good luck. I will soon write about the concrete results of my application of this new theory.

2005 was My Year

2005-12-28T02:27:00.000+08:00

After going through Covey's 7 Habits, I realized that I had totally neglected myself. I didn't exercise, I ate too much, and I was just basically waiting for a way out of this life. How I wished life had an escape button, similar to what you press when a computer game gets too boring. Robbie Williams best expressed it when he sang, "I don't want to die, but I ain't keen on living either."

I don't really remember how I swung from wanting to die in a plane crash to being very concerned about self development. One day I just realized that I had spent the whole of 2005 trying to reinvent myself. Imagine, a whole year dedicated to myself! I tried all sorts of things to improve myself - spiritually, physically, and mentally.

Travelled to Upper Lake in California to learn how to meditate. Sought the advice of a Tibetan master on lots of practical issues. Tried to develop my third eye using methods developed by a French doctor. Explored existentialist philosophy. Renewed my gym membership - and actually used it. Adopted a new way of eating. Rearranged my room according to feng shui principles.

What have I become after all of these? Gee, I don't know yet. I am still feeling the effects of everything I did. What I do know is that I had a lot of fun this year. It was a year for ME. I didn't spend the year trying to please everyone. I didn't waste it on things I didn't want to do. For the first time, I actually acted on MY impulses.

I can't believe the year is almost over! I can't believe that I had a year all to myself.

Feng Shui

2005-12-11T23:12:00.000+08:00

Karen Kingston, feng shui expert in the Western world, writes that the clutter in our homes can severely affect our energy, and consequently impact our lives in areas like our creativity and relationships. In her book Creating Sacred Space with Feng Shui, she tells the story of a man who had a lot of old books in the area of the house that corresponds to relationships. As a result, he did not have satisfying relationships. What he had essentially was a relationship with books.

That really hit me like a lightning bolt. I looked at my room and instantly saw that I had a lot of junk in the corner that corresponded to relationships. Immediately upon waking up the next morning, I launched an offensive on clutter. I threw away everything that I haven't used in months, cleaned my room, and moved my books in an area of the room that corresponded to friendships. It was my way of telling my books that we can still be friends, but I didn't want to have a relationship with them.

In a span of a few hours, I have thrown out something like 10 bags of junk - old books, clothes, electrical wiring, and 10-year old documents that I will never ever need again. It felt so good to get rid of them. I instantly felt lighter after doing that.

Incidentally, I also discovered, much to my surprise, that two weeks after getting rid of that junk, my own body weight dropped by 8 lbs. Karen writes that it can be a natural consequence of getting rid of clutter.

Getting rid of clutter takes quite some time. I know that lurking inside some of my drawers are more things that I no longer need. My goal is to be completely free of clutter by the end of the year so that I can have my room space cleared sometime after the new year.

For more info on Karen Kingston, check out http://www.spaceclearing.com/

Supernatural Powers

2005-11-06T10:47:00.000+08:00

As far back as I can remember, I've always wanted to have supernatural powers. Wouldn't it be cool if you could make things levitate (Yoda) or burn things at will (the little girl in Fire Starter) or create matter (Green Lantern)? When we grow up, we of course relinquish the idea of ever acquiring these powers because reality just has a way of making us realize how immature it would be to expect that there are supernatural things in our natural world.

Lately though, I have come across some people who seem to possess other-worldly abilities, nothing too flashy like what we see on TV but nevertheless unusual. It seems our neighbor who bakes really sinful sweets also has the ability to heal people. Then there's the psychic who can read you like a book. It seems all around me, there are many people who are sensitive enough to pick up vibes from other people that they can predict how others will react to certain events. Could it be that everyone else is psychic and I'm the only one who's not?

Dr. Peter d'Adamo, author of the Blood Type Diet, says that people with blood Type AB tend to become intuitive and spiritual. There apparently is a connection between blood type and personality. This makes me wonder even more why in spite of the fact that I have blood Type AB, I feel that I am still not intuitive enough. Could it be that I'm expecting too much? Could it be that because I expect supernatural powers to come in the form of something really flashy like what we see on TV, I fail to recognize the gifts that I have been given?

The phone rings and I sometimes know who's calling even before I look at the caller ID or answer the phone. I know who's naturally scheming and evil. I sometimes know when something is about to happen. But sometimes, I don't know shit.

So here's the plan - I'll stop wishing for powers that I don't have and I'll just enjoy life as a normal human being. I'll just accept who and what I really am. I'm human, not some demi-god who's in this world by some cosmic mistake.

It's Killing Time

2005-08-30T23:38:00.000+08:00

There was something about the movie Kill Bill that resonated with me deeply. It wasn't the character's determination or her cunning. It wasn't the way the movie revealed each piece of the puzzle bit by bit. It was the way the heroine plotted her revenge and killed her enemies without guilt.

At some point, we must have all SAID we want to kill somebody. Your friend does something annoying, and you blurt out, "Stop it or I'll kill you!" but you don't really snuff the life out of them. A co-worker in the office starts spreading rumors about you and destroys your reputation in the process and you secretly wish they'd die in some really deliciously grotesque way, but you don't really slash them yourself with a scalpel and hang them out in some window with their guts spilling out. No matter how badly someone might have hurt us, we don't actually create some elaborate plan to kill them, really kill them, literally.

I have a friend who is convinced that he was a soldier in a past life because he likes guns and is not afraid to use them to kill someone if he had to. I know someone who'll instinctively unleash a karate chop on anyone who tries to hold him up or touch his hair. The reflex is strictly automatic. But I don't really know anyone who has actually killed someone through some premeditated way and talked about it like it was the most natural thing in the world.

I remember how my dad used to wish that people came with built-in self-detruct mechanisms that activated whenever they went evil beyond a certain threshold. That would be fun! You see a politician deliver a speech on TV, and just when they utter their 427th lie, you see their head explode in a thousand pieces. A rapist abuses a minor, and just when he's about to enjoy the moment, he suffers from a massive heart attack. The writer of your favorite Tagalog telenovela thinks about adding another twist to an already convoluted plot and instantly drops dead like the many characters he killed whenever the actors that played the part decided to be primadonnas.

So how come thoughts of killing found themselves into a blog for spiritual enlightenment? Gee, I have absolutely no idea. I'm just typing away without a plan to make this look like a well crafted essay. I just know that even though I have decided to follow a spiritual path, I am still human. Things like bad roads and crazy people still get to me. In a way, I'm glad that I don't have special powers to kill people just by thinking about it, because if I did, the number of mysterious deaths will surely rise.

The Plan

2005-08-15T21:56:00.000+08:00

Somewhere in my mind is a plan as to how my life should be lived. I don't know who put it there or when exactly it was hard-wired into my brain. All I know is that it was there since I was a kid.

The plan specified that I should finish college, get a good job, go up the corporate ladder, and try to earn more so that I could spend more. Done. The plan also specified tasks such as get married and have kids, but I seemed to have completely ignored those steps either because I was too busy focusing on work or maybe because on some level I knew that having a family just wasn't for me. In a way, this is a form of failure because just about everyone I know expects me to get married and have kids. But that doesn't bother me. Deep inside, I seem to be seeing a completely different plan, one that calls for being absolutely free to follow a different path.

This plan that I am seeing only now (let's call it the emerging plan) makes me see the world differently. Instead of wanting to earn more so that I can drive a BMW X5 or wear a Techno Marine, I find myself longing for something that will last, something that will mean something a hundred years from now, something that will genuinely make me happy. Instead of wanting to become a CEO so that I can have so much clout, I find myself longing for a life-long pursuit that will develop and make use of my innate talents, something that will help me to evolve, something that will bring to fruition the very reason why I was born.

This emerging plan is not as defined as the one that was originally implanted in my brain a long time ago. I don't see maps, blueprints or timelines specifying what I should be doing at any given moment. It's more like a voice that gently whispers in my inner ear when what I'm doing doesn't seem to support the emerging plan. I don't see where this is headed or what will be asked of me. All I know is that it is asking me to become an entirely new person, one that I have absolutely no idea how to become.

It's an exciting time. Phases in your life when you undergo dramatic transformations are always exciting. A near synonym of the word exciting though is frightful. If the excitement is coming from something that you can't explain, it can even be downright scary.

What is this emerging plan? I really don't have the answer. All I can do as of the moment is to pray for guidance, to meditate, and to continue looking for signs from the world around me.

Pimples

2005-08-12T21:41:00.000+08:00

I don't understand why at the age of 33, I still get pimples. I have three pimples right now, one on the bridge of my nose, one on my right cheek, and another one on my chin. I have not had pimples in months, and then voila, I got three right now. Did they conspire to appear at the same time? Do they know that I'm going through some tough emotional upheavals right now, and that maybe their presence would somehow drive me closer to insanity? Have they run out of new teenagers to victimize that they chose to attack one who has supposedly outgrown them?

I guess pimples are a lot like our deep-seated psychological traumas. Just when you think you're finally rid of them, they come back to haunt you when you least expect it. I recall how I felt when I regularly had more than 20 zits at any given time as a teenager. I felt so ugly that I didn't want to make friends with anyone. How could people possibly like me when I looked like the personification of planet Mars?

I realize now that there are times when I still feel that way. This time, it's not the extra pimple that I worry about - it's the extra weight. I can't pinpoint when it happened. I just woke up one day and realized that I had become fat.

This is another reason why I don't like being human. Humans grow pimples, and if they're not careful, they can grow fat when they stop growing pimples. And sometimes, they can grow fat and have pimples at the same time. That's when the heavens come crashing down.

Pimples and fat at the same time - that's the ultimate human tragedy. Then it hits me - pimples and fat are caused by the same culprit - chocolates. So now I can't eat chocolates too? Correction: it's not just the heavens, the whole universe is collapsing. There is no way that I can possibly conclude this posting on a positive note. To have pimples, to be fat, and to have to live life without chocolates has got to be my definition of purgatory.

So Many Questions

2005-06-25T16:24:00.000+08:00

What is out there? What is enlightenment? What happens to us when we die? So many questions that the mind can't answer. Just thinking about it generates more questions, such as, "Do we even need to know the answer?" Anyway, in case you're reading this, just know that I threw this question to the universe, and I believe that someday, I am going to know the answer.