The Noble Eightfold Path

Someone said to me today regarding about the Noble Eightfold Path:
“I am a little bit skeptic about any path. They enforce the ego.”

After writing my response to the person, I decided I should post it here too, just in case someone way may feel the same way.

“The ego wants to be in the center of everyone’s life.
When ever a Spiritual Path is followed with determination, the ego becomes threatened, because now it feels like it is losing grip of our life (body and mind).

The word “enforce” is the perfect way to describe what ego is saying.  Ego says “I do not want to be compelled or forced into behaving in a certain way.”  Ego doesn’t like rules.  Ego likes to live the way it wants to, think whatever way it wants to, and act whatever way it wants to.

But in Reality, the way of the ego is illusory, it doesn’t fulfill, it leaves the heart wanting for more and it will never become satisfied. The way of the ego is like a dog chasing its own tail again and again, going no where, in terms of not living in full potential, and attracting the abundance emotionally, spiritually and materially one so deserves.

Imagine a country without Laws. That country would experience confusion and chaos.  That is the same way in any Spiritual Path.  The Law is like the staff that a Shepherd uses to guide his sheep.  If the Shepherd doesn’t guide his sheep they can walk into harms way and get hurt or killed. Ultimately we have a Divine guidance within us, its like a inner compass, but we cannot see it if ego is present.

Enforcing ego is basically discovering who you are not and who you really are. Think about it….try to go back as far as to when you were a child….with simple thinking….without beliefs….without concepts or ideas….you were just living life, always happy for no reason….that is our True Nature, but its like we cannot see it anymore, its like we lost frequency, due to the things we pick up along the way of this path called adulthood.  Those things we picked up are habits and perceptions, which forms this ego.

The Eightfold Path is a Spiritual Path that uses practical instructions of how to discover your True Nature all over again and live in complete fullness and bliss.

~Namaste~

Strip away your title and what do you have?
Strip away your beliefs and what do you have?
Strip away your differences with other people and what do you have?
Strip away your thinking and what do you have?

Beingness

Why when you were a baby you smiled and laugh more for no apparent reason.

Now as an adult you became so serious?

Where is your funny bone? Did it die and dry up?
Loosen up, join others and socialize not just about politics and spirituality, but about human things and have, like when you were a kid.

Strip away the criticism. Strip away the wanting to always be right or to have the last word.

Let it go.

See a person as a human being, a living being who is a part of you. Do not just see them as a person who shares things that you like or believe in. Learn about them in a human level. Open your heart without any conditions.

We are all petals that form a beautiful flower and let out a wonderful fragrance of love and unity. Do not let mind exclude you from this beautiful flower.

As the birds join together and fly in perfect harmony, let us join without condition, without a judging mind. Fly into perfect harmony.

“One who drinks deep the Dhamma lives happily with a tranquil mind.”
The Dhamma means Holy Law, The Truth, the Way, the Ultimate Wisdom, True Nature, or you can call it God. The Dhamma is described here as if it was water. The holy teachings from Sages are fluent as water, clear as water, it satisfy’s the thirst of mankind. In the old testament, Christ, said “if anyone would drink from this water, he will never get thirsty again.” That water is referred to the Truth that sets mankind free of sin, wrong perception, and ego. The water is also known to clean objects that seem to be defiled or dirty, so in this case it is the mind of human beings that is defiled, which only Dhamma/Wisdom can make it clean and free. Water can also be symbolic to the mind. If the mind is govern by ego, it is compared to being like a roaring ocean with so many waves crashing to each other, thus creates uncertainty, feeling of suffering and despair. When a person drinks deeply or learns deeply the Dhamma her mind becomes calm and tranquil with no waves, still. When the mind is still, then you can see and know God. When the mind is still you can see a clear reflection of yourself in the water, and then say I AM THAT I AM. (I AM is looking at the reflection in the water (which is Dhamma) and sees I AM).

When the mind is still, the Dhamma awakens the mind, it becomes ONE. The mind no longer is govern by ego, but by True Nature/Buddha Nature, it now becomes  heart mind (Bodhichitta).  The Dhamma and Mind are like water, they no longer become two separate waters, it becomes ONE water. Dhamma and Mind become ONE, it becomes Awakened Mind. Jesus said “Me and the Father are One.” The Dhamma comes out from the Awakened Mind, therefore you can say it comes out from the Mind of God. In the old testament in book of Genesis, it said “….the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters..” You can interpret it as “In the beginning the Dhamma moved upon the Mind of God, which when God said, things were created. The Buddha said “…with your thought your world is created.” So when your mind is still and calm you will know the Dhamma, which points to your True Nature, and when you say things it will be created. This also connects to Lord Shiva, in the Dance of Shiva, where Shiva is holding a drum with one hand, which means with its sound HE creates. (This is actually another topic I would like to write about: Mind+Thought+Words+Creation)

“The wise one ever delights in the Dhamma made known by the Noble One (the Buddha).”
This just means, the wise one (You) finds happiness in the Dhamma which was revealed by the Sage/Noble One Lord Buddha.

I hope this has blessed you as it blessed me.
Yours truly your Internet Friend
Namaste~

Its like a cat and a ball of yarn

Thoughts come and go. They appear like a motion picture on the screen of your mind. Are the images real? No. They just seem real. They are like clouds that come and slowly gets blown away by the wind. But you have the power to make the thought go or stay a while and take a seat in your heart. If that thought stays, then you start to feed it energy, which makes it nice and fat. Then the thought decides it doesn’t want to leave, because now the thought says ” I am a part of you now, I am what you feel and believe.” Is it true? No. Better yet, a thought is like a ball of yarn. And you are the cat, sitting there at ease, relaxed, until you see a ball of yarn coming your way. When the ball of yarn comes by, the desires arises to go and pounce on it and start playing with it. And when you do, you realize that you have created a huge mess with the ball of yarn. Now you are entangled with the yarn. It’s wrapped all around your head, your eyes, your neck and body. You become so wrapped up that you cannot move, you become bound. Well, that is how thoughts are. They come through the contact of your senses, through your eyes, mind, taste buds, feelings, and hearing. Certain things can trigger a certain feeling, or image into your mind, because your mind is recalling a certain pass event. You can have a false perception of a person by totally misunderstanding their conversation. And by believing that thought that arises in your mind, which is interpreting the meaning of the conversation you will end up being annoyed or get into a huge debate or fight. By believing or reacting to a false thought like that, it is just like the cat chasing after the ball of yarn and ends up getting entangled with it. Examine every thought, be mindful of what is being generating through your mind, watch the ball of yarn and do not chase and play with it because you will get entangled, thus become bound and lose your energy, lose your happiness and peace. When someone gets you upset, do not chase the ball of yarn, ignore it and maintain relaxed. When some one falsely accuses you, do not chase after the ball of yarn, ignore it and deal with it in a rational manner. When something reminds you of a past addiction, do not chase after the ball of yarn, ignore it and keep on being mindful. Be the Observer of your Mind, be the Master of your Domain, be the Lord of your Mind, be the Thinker, do not let your mind do the thinking for you, direct your thoughts just like the fletcher directs his arrow.

Who is perfect?

Who is perfect? No one is, even if you have discovered your true nature, you will face challenges at times by ego.  It is just like when the Buddha was confronted with mara or when Jesus was tempted by Satan, all people must face their demons once in a while in life.  They do not leave, they remain inside of you. These are your neurosis’s you struggled with in the past and it is still here, dormant, sleeping waiting for the perfect moment to arise. These demons are our addictions or personal issues that like to torment us. So do we mess up at times in life?  Sure we do. But the real question is, what do you do after you messed up? Do you beat yourself up? No.  Do you stay down? No, you get up and try again.  And most importantly we learn from our mistakes and try your best to not to do it again. In our path of enlightenment, we will stumble at times but we must stay in the course.  Never be hard on yourself.  Never blame yourself, just say “I am humbled out of this experience, now I have learned my lesson, I will move on.”  Do not dwell on your issue. You must get up and try again.  Life is like a dance you dance and have fun.  Don’t dance and be so hard on yourself because you tripped during the dance or because you didn’t spin correctly, whats the point of dancing then?  Dancing is suppose to be fun, done with your heart.  Learn how to forgive yourself, then again, who is blaming you? No one is.  You are blaming yourself, because you are hard on yourself.  Be nice and gentle to yourself, like you would speak to a baby.  When a baby drops something, falls or cries, will you yell at the baby or decide to not talk to the baby anymore?  Of course not, that is the same way you need to react to yourself or with anyone that makes a mistake.  If they humbly apologize to you, learn how to forgive and forget.  Human beings can be very unforgiving, even if they are a “spiritual” person.  Having the heart of God, means you are forgiving.  See the word “forgiving” it contains two words “for” and “giving.” Its not called “fortaking,” because in the practice of forgiving you are giving love to the other person or to your own self. Give the person a chance, give yourself a chance, give love back like you would give to a baby.  A baby and an adult are no different, its just a difference in knowledge and age. Every adult is a baby in an aged body.  We are all learning, and if you stopped learning, it is because you choose to not learn, or you are dead.  Learning means you are alive, you are open minded and you are open to change. Learning means we are evolving.  We cannot stay the same, we must learn. We cannot be always right, and if you think that you are always right, then you need to abandon that idea immediately, its poison to your being.  Therefore, learn and smile, move on and see the bigger picture. The bigger picture is that you are receptive to the voice of God, the Source that is guiding you to notice your mistake, not in a condemning way, but to point out the mistake so you can go and correct the situation, so you can learn from it and evolve.  Remember what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. Smile, let go and move on.

Yours truly, you Internet friend
Namaste~

Lately I have embarked in a new journey into the land of Facebook, and it has been a huge blessing. I am meeting new people from all parts of the world and the message of Oneness and Awareness is being spread through this great networking tool. I highly encourage you to visit facebook and join me so we can further our friendship by making it more interactive, where we can share thoughts with each other. I also post several articles, music, videos, news, daily quotes there as well. I will introduce you to all the new inspiring people I have met and I know they will be a blessing to you as well.

Also, I want to apologize for not posting newer articles or writings frequently as I wish I can. Especially with the new addition in my life, my new born son, it has been a bit of a challenge to juggle many things, but I am getting there. I want to let you know, that I did not forget about you!

So come on down and visit me at my facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000430531851 so I can add you into my friends list, so we can know each other more.

I send you peace, love, and encouragement in this beautiful path. Namaste~
Your internet friend!

Be Love, be Joy, be Peace, be that Pure Being that you really are.
Unplug from what you think you are.
Let go of that false perception about yourself.
You are special, you are a Light Child, you are beautiful.
Be Happy, smile, laugh, don’t take anything too serious.
Close your eyes, and see the awareness that is inside of you.
You are that awareness.  You are the observer.
Observe without any dualistic thinking.
Forget about gain and loss.
Be Kindness, be happiness, be trustful.
Let all these things SHINE through you.
Radiate this beautiful Light.
Just observe.  Just Be.
Be who you really are.

Namaste!
Your internet friend,
Phrati Dhamma Danda

I recall the story my mother told me about the day she found that she was pregnant. She said she discovered this after she came back from her trip from Puerto Rico and my father stood in New York during her travel. My father did not believe it was his baby but he accused her of sleeping with another man. My mother in great distressed cried to him that it is his baby and that she prays to God that the baby looks exactly like my father so he can be forever be ashamed for making such accusations. And sure enough, out of all of my siblings, I turned out to be the one that looks exactly like my father.

I also remember a story my mother told me. When I was around 5 years old, I was sleeping in my bedroom at night, the bottom of my mattress caught on fire, because of a short circuit from our electrical space heater. The underneath of the mattress, which was of cotton fabric had caught on fire. But mysteriously enough the fire did not continue to spread, but stop mid way of the mattress. My father and mother smelled the smoke and woke up. My father ran to check my bedroom and saw smoke coming out from underneath my bed and that is when he discovered the fire had some how shut off by itself.

I am going to fast forward time a bit and talk about another story. This time this story takes place when I was around 18 years old. I was not living a Pure unselfish life at that time, but doing whatever I wanted, living dangerously, using drugs, practicing sexual immorality and drinking alcohol. At this time my mother was my only parent because my father had pasted away when I was young. My mother was a faithful follower of Christ since she was a young girl. She dedicated her life in doing nothing but righteous deeds from the heart.

Since I was the only one in my family that did not want to participate in any religious practice, I did whatever I wanted, in fact I was very rebellious. One day I was at my house alone, my mother and siblings weren’t home. I decided to roll a joint of marijuana in the house which I never did before. As I started to roll a joint, I started to feel something that stood in front of me, as if someone was standing there. I got spooked out for a moment, but I ignored it and just continued to roll the joint. As I continued, the presence became stronger and stronger that my hands started to tremble. It trembled so much that I couldn’t continue to roll the joint, I had to stop. I stop and thought about it, and as I did my heart started to beat quickly for no reason. I couldn’t explain this feeling so I just left my house.

Now, let me fast forward some more time, tell you another story that took place a couple of months after, regarding this same situation. I use to be inspired to become a Hip Hop rapper, I use to go to studios with my friends to make beats and rhyme over music tracks. I use to go to parties and rap and battle other rappers. This was my hobby with the hopes that I become a rapper. One day as I was at the studio, me and a friend of mine decided to go outside and smoke some marijuana. Let me mind you, I never mentioned anything to my friend about the experience that I encountered at my mothers house, nor did I ever mention it to anybody before, in fact this is the first time I put this out on the web. As my friend started to roll a blunt, his hands started to shake and then his body too. I started to tremble as well. My body, hands and knees started to buckle for no apparent reason, and let me point out to you that this was during the summertime, so NO IT WAS NOT COLD OUTSIDE! My friend said to me, “this is weird I have never experience this before, I am shaking for no reason and we haven’t even started to smoke yet,” then we both started to laugh. But as I was laughing, I was perplexed about this experience that was happening to me, and apparently people around me can feel it too. I knew that is was something spiritual, much more different that I can imagine.

Deep inside I knew I had a calling from the Absolute, the Divine, but I didn’t want to believe it nor except it. As a child I use to occasionally get dreams or visions that were messages that pointed out future events. Like I saw a vision of the Twin Towers burning when I was around 12 years old when I was in a car when my brother was driving, I saw it through the rear view mirror of the car. When the vision went away I quickly told my brother about it, but we thought nothing of it because it seemed impossible. I remember seeing a vision of a baby girl before finding out my brothers wife was pregnant and then finding out that she was having a girl. I have encountered so many experiences that it made me only believe and seek for the answer and find out why. I mentioned these things not to try to get any recognition, nor claim to be some super spiritual man. I just want to share my past experiences that I always longed to share with people and I believe this is the best place for it.

I decided to study all religions and I found out what this Truth really means, and the only thing I can say it is more real than what our small minds can think. It is more than a simple meditation, it is more than just attending a temple or church, it is much more real and indescribable. Now I know my mission which finally came to me in the beginning of 2009. I once and for all gave up all bad habits and gave up all of my addictions and learn about what Jesus really meant by “Know the Truth and the Truth will set you free.” Now I understand what the Buddha meant when he said, “Free from desire, Free from possessions, Free from the dark places of the heart. Free from attachment and appetite, Following the seven lights of awakening, And rejoicing greatly in his freedom, In this world the wise mane Becomes himself a light, Pure, shining, free.”

My sisters and brothers, it goes way beyond religion and rituals, it goes beyond all the books, CDs and retreats we can go to, ITS WITHIN, the KINGDOM OF GOD IS WITHIN HERE and NOW, and it is more real than that. It is DYNAMIC it is not STATIC, it MOVES WITHIN and MOVES OUTSIDE of US, it is SHAKTI, IT IS the HOLY SPIRIT, it is the POWER OF TRUTH that liberates the captive Soul and enriches the heart with overflowing True Happiness, Peace and Light. By discovering it you will never need to rely on anything on the outside, no mind altering substance, no material object, NOTHING.

Therefore, let us see our purpose in life, let us discover our True Nature, let us live our lives like everyday is our birthday. You are special, you have a calling, you have something so special that you need to share it with the world. Seek the purity, seek the Truth, cultivate it, hold it, love it and guard it like a precious jewel, because it is a precious jewel.

I send you Love, I send you Peace, I send you the Light that dispels all ignorance and pain. God bless, Namaste, Shalom, As-Salamu Alaykum, Peace be unto you, take care!

Yours truly,
Your Internet Friend
Pharati Dhamma Danda

Read or listen to this writing:

Anyone who has ears, hear what Truth says:
Remove all thought of craving and wanting for it is the root of suffering.
Do not follow the path of Light with half intention, let intention be covered, led by pure Light from your entire existence.

What is pure Light? It is the True essence of kindness, compassion and love. It is the reason of our existence, for everything else is just vanity. Everything is impermanent, but Truth lives on for evermore. Truth resides within your heart, hear the voice that calls for the awakening of your inner Light, rise up to the occasion. Depend not on external things for happiness, for it comes and goes but Truth remains. Truth is what will end the cycle of birth and death. Read the writings from the Sages, it is delivered by the same Light that is within you right now. The Light is not something you earn or attain, IT IS and IT WILL ALWAYS BE here. Abandon all paths of darkness. What is darkness? Anything that is of self-indulgence, ego-centric. Don’t stop living life, but live it without the dependance of external objects. Remember the ego sees this all as “do’s and don’ts” it is far beyond this or that. Disconnect and reconnect, the seed must die in order to sprout a plant. Let all that is impermanent dissolve into what it is, and let all that is permanent take lordship.

Experience the fullness by just letting go all that you know and let emptiness take you beyond without expecting it.

Your internet friend! Namaste!

Listen or read this writing:

When I close my eyes, I see and hear images being played like a theater.
My emotions get tossed around like waves hitting against the walls of my mind.
I try hard to fight against these thoughts, but the more I try the more I get tired and want to stop. I hear a voice that says “stop trying and just be, be like a leaf, quiet and still, absorbing the sun’s raze and misty rain, the nutrients for your soul, the leaf has no thought, it is just still.”
So I stop and relax, and let go of trying. Suddenly, I feel the calm and relaxing feeling, like a baby drinking the warm milk from the breast of his mother.
I hear the voice again saying, “look within.”
I start to try to look within, but as I tried to look within, the images and sounds started to play again in the theater of my mind. As I started to pay attention to the images and sounds, I lost focus of “looking within” like losing the frequency from a radio station.
The voice then tells me, “ignore them, they are like the sounds of the wind that blow across the leaf, just continue to look within and just be. Let go and do not attach to anything, not even with the thought of “trying” to not attach to anything forget about that too.
As I start to not focus on the images and sounds, and let go of trying, I start to concentrate on my breathing, in and out.
Suddenly, I went into deep samadhi, it was like I entered a garden where I found a golden gate which only opened when I had no more thoughts, by truly letting go of everything, and then that is when I entered true bliss.
The bliss was hidden inside of emptiness, where there was nothing, no thought, no concept, no feeling, no idea, no trying, no hearing, no seeing, just nothingness. I sat there and felt like I was One with the universe, like I was a new born having no definition of any kind of form, merged into the One Absolute Being.
Now I understand when Jesus Christ said, “I am One with the Father.” Now I understand what the Buddha meant about Nirvana. Now I understand when the Tao Te Ching, said “The Tao is the Great Mother: empty yet inexhaustible, it gives birth to infinite worlds. It is always present within you.” The Way is to be empty from what we know so we can know the Truth (Dharma) which liberates us from ignorance and sin, which leads us to Life which is ultimately Nirvana, Heaven, Self-Realization, knowing God within, becoming One with the Father.

Humbly yours,
Your internet friend,

I apologize for not posting anything new these past few days. My wife has given birth to healthy baby boy this Monday, so we’ve been tied up with this whole beautiful experience. This is something I never imagined in a million years.

From a small embryo to a 8 pound baby is an amazing process. How this creation has everything perfect, an eyes to see, ears to hear, a nose to breathe, legs to walk, everything he needs to live, he has. Life is a miracle in itself.

Staring at my son while he lays in my arms reminds me of the great responsibility I have to point him to the right direction as he grows up, to the path of righteousness. Teaching him all the things that I have learned so he can unfold his purpose in this planet.

Like the Buddha said, “being a father is sweet,” and it surely is!

My personal vow is to help and guide my child to cultivate his True Pure Nature, the pure innocence he is now experiencing, which can easily shut off like a light switch if it is not nurtured properly during the years growing up.

With all the garbage that is playing on TV and radio these days, it is only imperative for every parent to work hard and protect the young children to practice goodness and not follow the crowd of self-centeredness and sin.

Anyway, I hope to get back to start writing some new thoughts and post new great articles and videos soon, until then, stay blessed and encouraged!

Namaste!
Your Internet Friend!

Read or listen to this writing:

Tao Te Ching – Chapter 2

Therefore the Master acts without doing anything
and teaches without saying anything.
Things arise and she lets them come;
things disappear and she lets them go.
She has but doesn’t possess,
acts but doesn’t expect.
When her work is done, she forgets it.
That is why it lasts forever.

Today I want to talk about this beautiful chapter from the Tao Te Ching literature. He first starts out by talking about the Master, which is the Master within You, who ultimately becomes You, because You are One with the Master. Now this applies to the people that are TRULY seeking and following the Pure Path, and I am not referring to that person who is a religious fanatic that has a PHD in Theology or knows all the sutras, or knows the entire bible or has a title like “VENERABLE, I KNOW IT ALL” etc.. Don’t get me wrong, these things are good to know, but it goes beyond book smarts, it just goes beyond that.

Its about LIVING IT on a daily basis, being mindful every second of your life, practicing unconditional loving compassion with a sincere heart, one who has mastered his or her senses and mind, one who is stepping on the head of Maya like Shiva and said NO to the desires or passions of the illusory “I.”

The True Master is within everyone.

It is inside of us, but it needs to be awaken in order for it to become ONE with us. When we are ONE with it, then we realize our TRUE NATURE, which is pure and clean. When we are ONE with it, then we become the Master, without the illusion of ego to taint this experience, by thinking it is your own doing that you have achieved this, thinking it is “I” that is the Master. It is not the I, but the “I AM” that is the Master, (God within, Buddha Nature, Christ Nature, Likeness of God etc). The Master acts without moving a finger, it is motion in the resting. It is not by your human effort (ego) that performs these things, NO! But it is the True Nature that is within you, not the illusion of the “I.”

The things that the Master teaches come from the “Supreme Consciousness” that is within, not from book smarts and memorization, but by the True Nature that contains all Knowledge and all Wisdom, where all Life comes from, where Eternal Life proceeds from, the True Enlightened Big Mind. The True Master sees things come and go without any attachment, without any complaint of losing anything, because the True Master understands the Four Noble Truths, that all things are impermanent.

The True Master has things, but doesn’t have his or her heart attached to it, not relying on it.
And the main text I want to elaborate on is this one, “acts but doesn’t expect.” What a powerful statement! The True Master, the True Enlightened Person, The True Liberated Individual, The True Truth Seeker acts, offers, gives, hands out, anything WITHOUT EXPECTING SOMETHING IN RETURN.

In fact when the True Master has finished what he or she has done, he or she forgets about it, because what he or she has done, knows it is NOTHING SPECIAL. The people who has received from Master may think, “No, what I got is something special,” but the True Master will tell them, forget about me, and know the Master within yourself and then you will know that it was truly nothing special what I have done. I only point to the Truth and its up to you to do the rest.

Many people who supposedly found enlightenment, want to quickly set up a business to start selling what they have learned, this is not enlightenment, but a half filled cup that still contains the works of the ego. They have not yet understand the True Message that was sent by ALL THE HOLY TEACHERS from ALL RELIGIONS. The message is to abandon the attitude of “whats in it for me.” Many people want to sell enlightenment or to sell a technique for healing, but I am sorry to say, YOU CANNOT SELL THIS.

When the Buddha went around spinning the Wheel of the Dharma, he did not have His hand out asking for some money in return, He only ask for some food to nourish His body so He can continue to Spin the Wheel. His concern was to SAVE SENTIENT BEINGS, He didn’t care about how much he can earn for selling the Dharma. In fact He healed people and then He didn’t go around saying “I can teach you about healing for a fee,” this wasn’t important for Him. Human beings that has not cut the ties of the ego will want to profit from the scared teachings, but it will only back fire on them. When Jesus saw the people in the temple selling things, He went into the temple with a stick and started to break all the merchandise and said ” You have made my Fathers House into a den for thieves.”

Don’t get me wrong you can sell spiritual books, videos or audio from your beautiful experiences of enlightenment and liberation that leads to the path of peace, but when you are in the business to GAIN and that is your main goal, then you are in the wrong business. If your intention is to have a Mercedes Benz, and big house then you are in the wrong business. The True Enlightened Person, the True Master is in it with a Pure Heart, to help save the Sentient Beings, not to help get recruits for their Church, Meditation Center or retreats, NO! Not to become the next Oprah or Echart Tolle, NO! Not to become the next best seller, NO! But because when they watch the horrifying news of innocent lives dying and suffering in the world, they cannot help but to have their heart melt within themselves from DEEP COMPASSION to the point they will want to cry, and have a burning feeling in their hearts to spread help and make a change in this world WITHOUT EXPECTING ANYTHING. Some may say, that is too excessive. True deep compassion will move your heart in such a way, you will give up everything to help your brother and sister.

And the ending verses say, “that is why it lasts forever.” As you can see the teachings of Buddha, Jesus Christ, Krishna, Gandhi, , Mother Theresa, etc.. is lasting forever, it is because they did it without an inch of ego in their heart, they did it for the LOVE for the people, to help society, to save the people from their misery, to SPREAD HOPE. The Buddha left His kingdom of riches to learn what is Truth, and once He discovered it, he went to teach it for free. Jesus taught the Truth to the people and risk His life so much that they killed Him for it, He followed His calling from the Heart. All these Holy Teachers showed us how to do it, lets follow it.

Be careful with all the New Age spiritual so called Guru’s who are selling something that is completely free, be sly as a serpent and gentle as a dove.

As the day approaches where my wife will give birth soon to my baby boy, my heart is filled with great joy. In my life, I had many ups and downs, close encounters with death several of times, an abusive/loving father (who I love no matter what), addicted to drugs, alcohol and sex, had no self worth, I hated myself, I was full of anxiety and depression, I finally found peace, the Light that ever so shines so bright within my heart, which made me ready to become a father.

Although I was confused with religion for many years, in which I came to a point I hated it, because the people that represented this Pure Truth, present a self-righteous dogmatic judgmental view that made me fall away from it. But low and behold, it kept on calling me, calling me back to the Original Source, that was deep within me all along. I heard the voice that called my name, telling me where I needed to be. Every time I think about the episodes I went through in life, I can’t believe how I am alive, to see another day, another age, to see my mother, to have a faithful loving wife, and to have a child.

I write this, as this is my main “outlet” where I can release my feelings into the cyber world, and to who ever decides to read it, that one day, when I leave this world, I can at least touch some lives, even if there is only one person that I made a positive impact to. Life is good, its not easy, but it is good and rewarding. Follow Truth, and give your heart to the Path and see the Universe unfold in hundreds fold right before your eyes. May everlasting Peace be upon your heart. Amen, namaste!

Yours truly,
your internet friend!

Please, please, put Haiti in your prayers so they can dig out and save the people that are still alive trapped underneath the rumble. Lets all unite in prayer or send out a mantra from the heart to the land of Haiti, so they can recover from this unfortunate natural disaster.

HERE IS A WAY YOU CAN HELP:

https://re.clintonfoundation.org/SSLPage.aspx?pid=3869

Donations here will be quickly and effectively put to use, with very little overhead or administrative costs (about 4%, which is one of the absolute best anywhere). Haiti needs all of us to help, now. Here it is easy to contribute in a way that will send water, food, and medical supplies to where they are needed.

You can also Text “HAITI” to “20222″ and $10 will be given to the Clinton Foundation’s Haiti Relief Fund, charged to your cell phone bill.

NOTE: WRDZ DOESN’T RECEIVE ANY FUNDS, THIS IS AN LEGITIMATE OUTSIDE FOUNDATION CALLED CLINTON FOUNDATION

May peace be upon everyone this world, and the people of Haiti.

Read or listen to this writing:

I just finished watching a sad, tear-jerking documentary called “Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father.”

Here is a brief description about the movie:
Kuenne and Bagby are childhood friends, and when aspiring filmmaker Kuenne begins making home movies, Bagby frequently appears in them and, as they became more professional in quality in later years, invests in them as well. Bagby is a 28-year-old medical student when he meets Shirley Jane Turner, a twice-divorced Canadian American general practitioner who is thirteen years his senior. Bagby’s parents, friends, and associates are wary of the relationship, but initially Turner seems to keep Bagby grounded and relatively free of stress as he pursues his career.
Eventually, the relationship crumbles and Bagby ends it. Turner relocates to the Midwestern United States but apparently is consumed with anger strong enough to prompt her to drive 1,600 miles overnight to Latrobe, Pennsylvania, where she shoots Bagby numerous times in the parking lot of a local park on November 5, 2001 before returning home.
Bagby’s family and friends immediately urge police to investigate Turner, and after a lengthy investigation in which extensive evidence is accumulated, she is arrested. When she is released on bail, she flees to St. John’s, Newfoundland to avoid prosecution. Soon after she discovers she is pregnant. Thus begins a long legal battle waged by Bagby’s parents David and Kathleen, who move from Sunnyvale, California to Canada, determined to gain custody of their grandson and Turner’s rendition for a Pennsylvania trial while she fights extradition to the United States in the Canadian courts while free on bail.
Turner eventually is returned to prison, only to be released again by Justice Gayle Welsh, who feels she has exhibited no behavior that suggests she poses a threat to society. Turner thus regains custody of Zachary. On August 18, 2003, Turner, carrying the infant Zachary, jumps into the Atlantic Ocean from a fishing wharf in Foxtrap; both perish.[2]
No longer just a legacy for Zachary, Kuenne’s film also becomes a polemical rant against the Canadian justice system for catering to a dangerous sociopath and failing to recognize how dangerous she is.

After I finished watching this movie, it brought tears to my eyes, and reminded me of the potential of committing such an act like murder lies within anybody that has a delusional mind. When a person has allowed manifesting of the thoughts of hatred and anger through physical violence to another human being, their mind is completely deluded and blinded by the darkness of Mara. This movie also reminded me about why is that we practice? What is the reason we are interested in walking a spiritual path?

Well, of course it is because we want to save ourselves from the suffering from the ego and to bring nothing but peace and happiness to our lives. But the problem is, it goes beyond this. The reason behind the reason we walk a spiritual path, is to ignite the Light within us so that we can help ignite the Light within others. There are many, many people out in the world, that are lost and blind with deluded minds, and some are at the point that they are having thoughts of murder, suicide, rape or anything evil that you can imagine. But this is happening because their minds are captive by the delusions of Mara/Satan/False Nature.

As people that follow the path of Truth, we have the power that can unlock their minds out of captivity. The Dharma that we know and understand is the power that breaks the chains of mental and spiritual bondage. It goes beyond with just being a person who likes to meditate and that’s it. We need to become like Buddha’s in order to spin the wheel of the Dharma. We need to become like Jesus in order to preach the word of God. We need to become like Mohammed in order to teach the message of Truth. Whatever religion you follow, and whatever spiritual figure or teacher you follow, we need to imitate them and spread the message of hope. This is the reason behind the reason why we meditate, why we study Dharma, why we visit a temple, church, synagogue or mosque, why we are interested in spiritual things. It’s not just for us to be an enlightened person, and fold your hands and that’s it. Let us pray for the peace and the harmony of the world. Let us seize the opportunity whenever we get, to spin the wheel of Truth so we can help others be free from delusion. Do not hide your Light that you have discovered, let it shine out and spread it.

I am sorry that I sound preachy here, I am just a big advocate for helping to make a change in life, so that when we die, we all can leave something behind, something that will reasonate in many lives, something that will move people into wanting to follow the Truth, the Light that liberates their minds. Spreading the power of morality, of love, of peace, of joy, in this world of pride and greed. Putting an end to moral decay and raise the flag of the true meaning of religion, the religion of love and compassion. I pray that this becomes a firey passion within your hearts, so we can become the change that this world so badly needs.

Take care and be well!
May peace uplift your heart everyday of your life!

Namaste!

Your internet friend!

If curiosity killed the cat, then ignorance led him to it.
If ignorance led the cat to perform his action,
then his sensations were led by his ignorance.
If his sensations were led by his ignorance,
then delusion is what encouraged his sensations.
If delusion is what encouraged his sensations,
then delusion has dominion over his five senses.
If delusion has dominion over his five senses,
then suffering is his ultimate result.

If the cat observes and examines the idea of being curious and
understands that his action will kill him,
then ignorance is not leading him.
If ignorance is not leading him, then his sensations are under control.
If his sensations are under control, then he ignores delusion.
If delusion is ignored, then his five senses are mastered.
If the five senses are mastered, then happiness is his ultimate result.

Namaste!

Yours truly,
your internet friend!

A baby is born.
The baby starts to grow up and learn new things.
He or she starts to mimic everything he or she sees or hears.
The mother stays home to baby sit.
The mother has some hard times baby sitting but she is getting used to it.
The baby is grabbing things, moving here and moving there, not focused on anything.
The mother gives it a pacifier, cradles the baby, sings to the baby and eventually the baby slows down and starts to relax and fall asleep.

Here is the meaning of the story. The mind is the baby and the mother is you.
You are practicing meditation but the mind is like a baby it moves here and moves there.
You cannot get frustrated with the baby (the mind) and try to forcefully control the baby (the mind).
You need to cherish the baby (the mind) with loving kindness and patience.
In time the baby (the mind) starts to slow down, and relax and still itself.

But yes, every time you meditate, it can seem like its a nursery room, where the mind is roaming here and there. Do not detest you senses, do not get mad at your thoughts, or what your ears are hearing, wishing that there is quietness around. Sometimes there may be noise from your neighbors or the streets or whatever it is and you can get agitated, but let go of that feeling, do not attach to it. Observe it with compassion but do not dwell on it, notice it and let it move along. The thoughts are like cars driving by, do not try to identify each car, because you will get overwhelm and tire out your spirit. You become like a dog chasing its own tail, stirring your mind with more mind.

Be patient like the mother that is baby sitting her baby. Just concentrate on your breathing and remember that your thoughts and the sounds you hear are like phantoms, they are like clouds, they are like dreams, they are not tangible, they cannot affect you only if you allow it to affect you, disturb you. The thoughts and sounds are like a little kid next to you poking you on the shoulder for hours waiting for you to get up upset and say something to him, but you patiently ignore the little kid and stay quiet, the little kid will stop and get tired.

The peace and calmness is inside of you and nothing can take that away from you, not even a so called “bad meditation.” Remember THERE IS NO SUCH THING OF A BAD MEDITATION or GOOD MEDITATION, so stop labeling your progress. Forget about loss and gain, because that derives from dualistic thinking and dualistic thinking is sickness to the mind.

Quieting your mind is like baby sitting, the importance is that you take time to baby sit and if you don’t the baby will grow up to do whatever it likes without any discipline.

Meditation is training of the mind.

I hope this was helpful to you as it was helpful to me.

Take care and be well, namaste!

Your internet friend.

I had to write this after receiving a beautiful and inspiring email from someone that visited this blog.

This writing is from the bottom of my heart to everyone that visits this blog.

I give my life to this cause, the cause of trying to help human beings realize and to cultivate their inner peace.
I have nothing to offer you. I only have some humble words that are born within my heart, and that spills out through my soul like a fountain of freedom. I write without knowing who will read this, without trying to “market” these writings, but allowing for the hungry heart to seek and find it on their own. Once I had a dream and heard a voice that said, “Build a City,” and a city I will try to build, I don’t know how nor am I concern on how it is built, I will just do want I feel in my heart, this feeling that burns like a fire, a love that I have never felt before, which I know it is the love from the Divine. I give my body, my hands, my feet, my eyes, my entire life to this cause.

I walk as an imperfect man, but I’ve learned that perfection doesn’t matter at all. The importance is that I TRY, that WE TRY to walk this path, this path of love and compassion. We do not need to force love and compassion, let it flow naturally, because we have this inside of us, because we are pure in heart. Just remember the days when you were a baby, that innocence is your True Nature, reconnect to it because it is still there, we just need to go back to it. Its about practicing to stay connected to it daily, and rewiring our minds from our old way of thinking. Its about awakening our right brain and quieting down our left brain.

Meditate, let go of everything, rely on nothing, just observe your breathing. Quiet your mind, connect with your True Nature. Deep meditation is described as a baby sleeping inside the womb of his or her mother, with no thought, no concern, no worry, no idea, no concept, no religion, no idea of God, no wants, no attachment, just EMPTINESS. Realize that God is in You and You are in God, you are ONE with God, just like Jesus said, “Me and the Father are ONE, I am in Him and He is in Me, WE ARE ONE.” You become ONE with God when you decide to crucify your old self, your ego, your false nature on the cross and seek enlightenment, and then you will resurrect into a new person, you become born again, you go back to the womb symbolically speaking. You awaken your Buddha Nature, your True Self, God within you. A plant cannot flourish and grow unless the seed dies in the ground. Become like a caterpillar that transform into a butterfly.

Its like the analogy of the ball of clay, if I would take pieces of clay from a huge ball of clay and make several balls of clay, each ball of clay is still clay. We are from God, we are pieces of God, we have the mind of God, we have the heart of God, we are Pure, we are Free, we are Peace, we are Love, we are Light.

I am going to end this writing with these last words. The path is not easy but it is not hard, ask questions to a spiritual teacher (Yogi, Monk, Pastor, Priest, Guru) that you know is a true follower of the Truth (by their fruits you will know them). Also you have an inner guru, your True Nature, who is Wisdom. Pray that you can see, hear and learn the Truth. Eventually you will see and hear great Truths either through reading the Dharma, or reading a spiritual book, or listen to a song, or listen or watch lecture recording etc. And you will always have me as a friend for you to reach out and ask a question and I will try my best to answer you and if I can’t answer you I will try to lead to the right resources.

I care for you, even if I don’t know your name, even if I never met you or will never meet you. We are ONE, we are ONE BODY of the Absolute, we are the BODY of the UNIVERSE. Just imagine if 100 million lights turn on from all around the world….darkness will dwindle and slowly lose its grip and uncover the eyes of many of our brothers and sisters minds. Many people out there are living in complete misery, tormented within, having uncontrollable self destructing feelings. Let us practice each one, teach one. It is not about trying to convert someone into a religion, NO! Don’t force any belief down anybody throat, beliefs do not matter here. Just practice LOVING KINDNESS and spread that like fragrance from a flower.

Keep you inner light lit and guard your mind from delusion. I transmit the peace, love and strength from the Absolute into your entire being right now at this precise second, receive it!

Take care and be well. Yours truly your internet friend!

Dhammapada – Flowers
“Follow the awakened and from among
the blind the Light of your wisdom
will shine out, purely.”

One Garden?
First draft. Excuse me if you find any misspellings.

Read or listen to this writing:

Once there was a boy who lived in a beautiful garden that was surrounded with a golden gate. This garden was filled with flowers that had beautiful colors and soothing aromatherapy. He was instructed by his parents to maintain and keep the garden everyday.

His parents also taught him that this was the only beautiful garden in the whole world, it offers the best aromatherapy, it has the most exquisite and lustrous colors. They also taught him to beware of other gardens that reside outside from this garden, those gardens smelled horrific, it offers nothing, it lacks color and were made out of artificial material that appeared like real flowers but were imitation.

Many people like these other gardens but they are fooled and do not know what is the real garden. One day the boy asked his parents, “have you ever saw these flowers face to face?” and the parents replied, “No, there is no need to because because we believe it is as mentioned, therefore it is truth.”

Ever since they taught him these things, the boy always sat in the garden and pondering on that idea and question it in his mind, but it didn’t dare to verbally mentioned his questions.

So one day when his parents were sleeping, the boy decided to venture off on his own outside of the garden to find the other gardens. So the boy grabbed some flowers from his garden and went out on his journey.

He walked for miles and miles. He finally came across a beautiful garden that didn’t have a gate surrounding it, in fact there were people going in and going out freely. This garden had a long field filled with beautiful flowers.

The boy ran closer to the flowers to see if they were fake flowers and if they smelled horrific like his parents had taught him. He went up to the flowers and smelled them. He paused for a second in amazement, because the flowers had a distinctive beautiful smell just like the flowers he knew from his garden. The flower petals were soft and gentle and contained a beautiful color just like the flowers from his garden. He loved the flowers so much that he grabbed a few and put them together with his first batch of flowers and continued his journey.

He walked for miles and miles and came across another garden without a gate.
He went into the garden and discovered the same as the other garden. The flowers were real, they smelled beautifully, and they gave him the same soothing feeling when he smelled them just like the flowers from his garden. He loved the flowers so much that he grabbed a few and put them together with his first batch of flowers and continued his journey.

The boy walked and walked in his journey and came across a several other gardens. He experienced the same thing as every garden he came across, they contained real flowers and they smelled beautifully. He plucked flowers from every garden he came across and created himself a bouquet of flowers.

The boy decided to start walking back home. As he was walking he started to think about the things he learned in his journey. He learned that all of the flowers in the bouquet had a distinctive fragrance, they all had different colors, they were all beautiful, and most of all they were real flowers. He learned that a flower is a flower no matter. He thought to himself, “why would someone say such bad things about these flowers, if they never experienced the flowers personally?”

Once the boy returned back home to his garden, he ran up to his parents and gave them the bouquet of flowers and said, “this is for you, all of these beautiful flowers are for you.” They looked at the bouquet of flowers and said, “I only see our beautiful flowers in that bunch, the other flowers we do not recognize therefore we will not consider them to be flowers.” The boy said “but these are flowers from the other garden, they are real, just smell and touch them and you will see for yourself.” The parents looked at the boy with disgust and said, “we will not smell or touch these fake flowers. Why have you strayed so far from the true garden? You have become delusional.” The boy tried and tried to convince his parents but they will not listen to him, so the boy gave up.

The boy decided to leave the garden and create his own garden filled with flowers from the seeds he collected from all of the gardens in the world. The garden grew up to be beautiful with soothing aromatherapy. This garden attracted many people from all around the world to come and find a place to rest and be happy.

The boy grew up to be a happy and free man. He learn to not accept anything in face value but to exam and question until he found the answers, and that is what he did.

Each garden represents a religion. The boy represents the person that is seeking the Truth. The parents represent the religious teachers or leaders that follow a religion with blind faith and has accepted a concept without questioning anything. These concepts are doctrines and dogmas, that shape the fundamental ideals of a religious organization.

Since most of these doctrines were set up by human beings, it cannot help itself but to contain some “selfish” views that produced discrimination, and division. History clearly reveals the painful results from these selfish religious point of views.

One of the selfish religious point of views that I use as a example in this story is the false perception of uniqueness or separateness. The boy parents was teaching him that there was no other garden like the garden they have, and the boy discovered that this was not true. This scene represents the reality of the many religions that are in this world, that offer the Truth, but some religious groups say there is only one Way or there is only one Truth, and this is not true.

Religions are an expression of who and what God is, or what Truth is, or what the Way is, or what Love is, or what Peace is, or what Wisdom is (I can go on and on with these labels…”of what ____ is”…).

All religions have truth but it is not fully understood with the human small limited mind. So people create or say hard comments or ideas that this is not true, or this is true and they get into a whole dualistic religious debate. Within all these wars, arguments, and debates, nothing but death, anger, division, contention and ignorance has been generated from it.

Don’t use your energy to debate about whether or not God is real, don’t debate about Jesus being a Jew or an African, don’t debate about if Buddha was a false prophet. All of these debates stem from ignorance, which do not lead to anything.

In fact, what we should being doing is acknowledge all the positive things that come out from these religions, see what these religions have in common, and you will realize the answer is “LOVE, COMPASSION, PEACE, PURENESS OF HEART AND MIND.” Forget about the name calling or labeling, I am a Christian, I am a Buddhist, I am a Hindu, I am a Jew, I am a Muslim…WHO CARES about that!!! None of those things matter. What matters is that you become human and join other humans to act like humans and love one another.

To discover the Truth in all the religions requires an open mind, a non-judging mind and as a human being, that is not easy. Us human beings are habit forming creatures. It is hard to reprogram a mind to think differently, but when it is done, it is liberating! That is when you start to feel free.

There was a time where I was following Christianity for many years, with a one sided view of, “this is the only one true religion” view. After the third year, I had a falling out from the religion, where I left the entire faith because I wanted to explore the world at the age of nineteen. After consuming all the goodies the world had to offer, I found no peace in any of those things. I learned that there was nothing in this world that could satisfy my cravings.

My life was in complete mayhem. I smoked so much marijuana day and night to make me feel better, because I was depressed, but I was in complete denial that I was depressed. This cycle of misery was for thirteen years. As years gone by, I got married, I got my own place to live but I kept on with my bad habits. Marijuana took me away from the realities of life, but after the high was gone, I was miserable and I often took my anger on my wife with hateful words. My marriage was so rocky that I was planning for a divorce because I thought I could find peace in another women, but little did I know the problem was within me.

To put a cherry on top on my misery I got laid off from my job. Now I was forced to really stop and reflect on my life. I said the first thing I need to stop is smoking pot, because this is keeping me from seeing reality. So once I stopped I started visiting a psychiatrist and he started to medicate me with pills. One side of me liked it, but the other side of me didn’t want this. So I stop seeing the psychiatrist and I started to go back to my spiritual roots which was Christianity.

I started to read Proverbs from the old testament, and that helped me to gain spiritual strength to slowly pull away from bad habits and quit smoking. I started visiting churches and it helped me a lot, but something was missing. I loved Jesus but I couldn’t see Jesus the way people from the church was seeing Jesus. I didn’t like the idea of this is the only Way and everything else is false. So I stop my visits to churches and stood home. My quest went on for months, day and night, without giving up. I made this my personal mission.

I decided to read other scriptures from other religions like Hinduism, Bahai, Islam, Sikhism, Gnostic, Buddhism and they all had beautiful things. But out of all things Buddhism stood out from the rest to me. The saying from the Buddha that stood out for me was when He said, “Do not take anything as the truth, exam it.” So that is what I did, I exam everything.

One day I thought about a tattoo that I got 6 years ago when I was 27 yrs old. I never stop to think about the meaning of my tattoo. The tattoo I have is a Shambhala Dragon. I started to do a google search on the web, and I happen to find out that in Tibetan Buddhist tradition, Shambhala is a mythical kingdom hidden somewhere in Inner Asia. I never knew this tattoo on my arm had some connection to Buddhism. So it gave me more of a interest to read more about Buddhism. One day when I was staying over my father in laws house, I came across one of his books from Shambhala publications, a book from Pema Chodron about Loving Kindness, and the word Shambhala stood out to me, so I picked it up and started reading it.

I don’t believe in coincidences so I took it as a sign to follow this path. Ever since reading that book I started to buy more books and practice meditation. To make a long story short, I had to discover for myself that there is Truth in all religions, its just explained differently, but you will have to jump over the hurdles of the “selfish” religious views that are found mixed in religion. I have chosen Buddhism as a guide for me in following the Truth, but it doesn’t stop me from reading the bible or other beautiful sutras from other religions, with a more practical and non-dogmatic view.

Removing or dispelling the ignorance from dogmatic views is not an easy thing to do, it requires a lot patience and determination. If this is something that is happening to you, do not give up. There was a time when I almost gave up on religion completely and I was going to believe in nothing because I was sick of it all. But I continued to seek, ask questions, and I found the light in the midst of the darkness. That is the reason I created this blog, to help people in finding their path.

I hope this writing was of some kind of help to you as it was for me in a big way.

We are One, let us walk together, let us shine together and help every brother and sister in this world with this light that is growing within us, second after second.

Namaste!

Your Internet Friend, Happy Holidays!

Read or listen to this writing:

In the Zen poem “Hsin Hsin Ming, Inscribed on the Believing Mind,” written by Sen-Ts’an, there is verse that says “Two come about because of One, but don’t cling to the One either!”
And that is the verse we are going to concentrate on today.

I am coming to a point in my life that, I am not having enough time to do anything especially because my wife is expecting baby soon. The preparation for my son’s arrival, spending time with my family along with taking care of my daily responsibilities, and trying to practice meditation and read/study the Dharma.

It is not easy to balance life with spiritual practice. So far, I am trying my best to not miss a day of sitting, stilling the mind and connecting to the Absolute. There are times that I am not able to practice with the amount of time I would like to have. At times it results in, for me not having such a great day if I do not have a long session of meditation or meditate at all. But one day in my meditation, I reflected on the word “attachment,” and I realized that I was getting attached to meditation, in which I was depending on it too much. If I didn’t meditate or have a long session, my mind will interpret that to a bad day, which in reality it is not true.

I came to a conclusion that from the day I made my vow to follow the path, and by trying my best to live the life in harmony with the teachings of the Buddha, my Buddha Nature doesn’t depend on anything for it to do what it does. Its not what I do that makes me have joy or peace, its all in the mind that paints a false perception or interpretation of what my outcome will be if I do this or not. When we come to a point in our lives of practice, when we reach a certain stage in our lives, we no longer need to depend on anything, in fact, the Buddha said to rely on nothing, not even on emptiness.

The stages are: we first renounce all impure living and make the vow to follow the eightfold path, second is to practice to sharpen your mind with the Dharma which ultimately gives you wisdom to purify the mind, thirdly its to follow the path using the wisdom you have gained but rely on nothing. After all this, we come to a point in our lives that its not about trying to be enlightened, its not about trying to be in emptiness, its not about trying to still the mind, its not about how long we sit for meditation, it becomes about “nothing.”
Yes, the purpose is to understand all these things and to achieve all those points I have mentioned above, but it just doesn’t become our focus, that is not our reason why we practice, we practice because we breathe, because we walk, because we see and hear, its because its a way of life, its nothing special.

Also, in my practice, I notice that my wife use to get upset because there would be times that I totally didn’t spend enough time with her, because I would be occupied in practice. But the problem was I was not attending the house, I was not attending my marriage. I had to learn that there is a balance in everything, because too much of one thing is never good. I have to attend my spiritual house and my physical house in order to find true success within and without. I was learning that it was fine to go and lock myself in a room to practice in complete silence or go to temple. But I also needed to be out there in the real world, where I have my responsibilities as a husband, as a brother, as a son, as a friend, as a son-in-law, as a member of a sangha etc.. I was learning that balance is key for good practice.

Be here in the now, see your family, see your friends, see the outside nature, take a walk, go for a jog, swim, live life, for all this is giving to us to enjoy in a pure way. And if you do not have 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or an hour to practice, just practice mindfulness while you drive, walk, or talk. It is not the end of the world if you do not do it. Do not get me wrong, it is ideal to practice everyday, because it is the vitamins to your spiritual life, it is your fueling station. But if you honestly can’t practice at the moment, practice mindfulness, be in the here and now, think of Dharma, and attend your daily activity. Also, if you notice it is becoming a bad habit that you are not finding anytime, then you should reevaluate your time schedule and see where you can squeeze in some time.

The main thing is that you do not get attached to anything, do not even let practice be a dependent in which you find yourself, feeling sad and feel like you are a bad practitioner if you do not take time to do it. Because then you are listening to mara, the false nature is lying to you and you are buying it.

So do not beat yourself over the head because you do not practice as much as you want, or that you have not reached a level you would like to get to, that is all not important. The importance is your intention. Your drive to do it.

Dhammapada – the man who is awake
“If you wounded or grieve another, you have not learned detachment.”

You can also say, if you have grieved yourself, because you feel that you are not having good meditations or do not practice too much, you have not learned detachment. There is no such thing of a good or bad meditation or practice. Just do it without labeling your progress.

Also in the Zen poem “Hsin Hsin Ming,” it says:
“Never tag after the realm of entanglements.”

Do not get caught up with anything not even your practice.

It also says:
“Leave it! Let things take their course!
In the end there’s neither going nor staying.
Follow your nature, blend with the Way,
be free and easy, a stranger to all care.”

Be free and easy, to yourself, stop being hard on yourself, just relax and just be, let things take its course, and be a stranger to all cares!

Let go of all your cares, all your issues, all your worries, just let it go!

Keep on trying, and live in peace.

I hope this was some kind of help to you as it was for me.
May peace be upon you and your family!

Your Internet friend!
Namaste!

Read or listen to this writing:

Recently, I had a weird dream that had me thinking for a while. Normally I do not think that every dream I have is some great revelation of some sort, but there has been some that have revealed me some great truths. This dream had a message that was trying to make itself known to me.

This is how the dream went…
In my dream I was walking on top of a high mountain with a group of friends.  I knew that this mountain was a mountain that many people have climbed.  In my dream I said, “In order to get rid of my fear, I need to climb down this mountain.”

My friends thought I was crazy, but I just walked over to the edge of the mountain and started to climb down.  As I started to climb down, I looked down the mountain and realized that it was too steep and I couldn’t do it. I was petrified and I felt like I was going to fall and lose my grip. I said to myself, “Why did I do this, what was I thinking, I am going to fall and kill myself.” Then I look to my left side and I saw that there were flatter edges of the mountain that will allow me to place my feet and climb back up. I leaped towards the left and started to climb out, and then I made it to the top.

Finally I stood next to my friends and one of my friends took some photos of me trying to climb the mountain.  As he showed me the photo, I noticed it was a photo of “myself” looking at “myself” climbing down the mountain. I was confused because, how can I be in a photo staring at myself staring at myself. When I woke up from the dream, I didn’t understand what it meant.

After a couple of days it finally hit me, I thought of a scripture from the Dhammapada that made sense of it.

The Elephant
“Awake. Be the witness of your thoughts.”

It made sense to me; I was observing myself climbing a mountain which was too difficult for me to climb. These past few days, I have been struggling with quieting my thoughts and I felt like I was trying to hard which was wearing me out. Lately I have been asking in prayer, that I want to learn more on how to control my thoughts.

This was my answer…I need to be the observer of my thoughts, of my sensations, of my feelings, of my desires.  I need to watch them and understand that is the only thing I can do, watch them as they come and go, without clinging to my thoughts or feelings. It’s like staring at cars driving fast in a highway, you can choose to look and describe each one by one by saying the year of the car, what kind of car it is, what color, what horse power it has etc.. and then do this to every car that drives by.

The problem is there are too many cars driving by in a fast pace, and you will become overwhelm trying to identify each car.  The cars are symbolic to your thoughts and feelings.  As they past by in your mind, do not attach to each thought, do not identify each thought, just see it and let it go without trying to make it go away.

“Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit.”
Old Testament – Zechariah 4:6

Your True Self, your Buddha Nature, your Christ Nature, God within whatever you want to call it, that Divine Nature within you is who does these things. You do not need to force your mind to be quiet, because it’s not by power, its not by might, but its by letting go and doing nothing. Your True Nature lives in total emptiness, detached from trying or forcing anything.

That is why in my dream, I decided to climb down a mountain in order “to get rid of my fear,” but that was by MY might an by MY power, in which I later realized that I couldn’t do it.  I just have to watch and observe my thoughts as it comes and goes.

On the same week I had my dream, I happen to bump into the same teaching in a book that I am currently reading, called “Entering the Stream.” I was reading a chapter called “The Practice of Recollection,” which is also about self awareness.

These are the lines that confirmed my message to me:

“What then is “practice” of recollection? How does one go about it? Recollection is, quite simply, remembering to establish the attention with full awareness on the present, on the here and now. It is the “unsupported thought,” the “fast of the mind,” the true “noble silence.” As each object arises into consciousness, through whichever of the six entrances (the five senses and the imagination), it must be seen as it is, without welcoming it or rejecting it, without clinging to it or trying to push it aside-just “letting it go as though it were a piece of rotten wood,” as the great Huang Po puts it. This is the real meaning of the “Middle Way” of Buddhism, to see each (and every) object as it arises, with a mind that is “alert, fully-conscious and self-recollected, avoiding either attachment or aversion to anything.” Do not like, do not dislike, all will then be clear.”

Summary:
1. Be the observer of your thoughts and feelings, do not force to quiet your mind, just observe it, and it will go away.
2. Be in the present moment, the here and now.

I hope this was some help as it was for me.

Be well, take care, namaste!

Your Internet Friend!

Read or listen to this writing:

The world offers tons of images, sounds, objects, substances, advice and conclusions, but none can satisfy.
None point to freedom.
Is there anything pure anymore? The world is chasing money, flaunting what they have purchased, lusting over uncovered skin, to the point of giving up the sacred vow of marriage.
The animals and plants don’t even know the sickness of war, pride, greed or buying and selling that us humans know.
The youth of the world is immersed into the newest trend and TV and radio has become their ultimate teacher. The people of the world relies on money, sex and power and abandoned the idea of compassion as a useless tool.

The sickness of the ego is sweeping the world. Great powers of the world have cared less for the hungry and homeless. Where is the compassion?

It is time for us to arise! You have been called to make a difference. Darkness is covering grounds, but there is also a huge Light that is sweeping the world. This Light doesn’t contain any dogma or doctrine. This Light is empowered by the pureness practiced and lived by the people. When we meditate, when we pray, when we chant we are spreading loving-kindness, we are spreading the power of the Light all across the world, all across the universe. You are making a difference when you are doing these things.

Spread this positive energy everywhere you go. Let your energy dissolve the negativity that is sweeping the lives of many. Many people are drowning in the sea of samsara and we have a responsibility to help them get out. Yes, it is true, first save yourself, and then save others, but when an opportunity is opened to you, to help, to spread a message of enlightenment, to turn the wheel of the Dharma, do not hesitate.

Do not get comfortable and so relaxed that you have forgot the purpose of all of this. Be that person of change, be the person that makes another person smile. Spread the joy and peace that you have gained in your time of emptiness, in your time of prayer, in your time of meditation.

Become like a tree that produces fresh fruit, where people can come and eat off of you, and maybe sit and rest under the shadow of your leaves. If you like to sing, sing the Dharma, if you like the teach, teach the Dharma, if you like to do art, make art for the Dharma. Use your talents to spread the message of hope to sentient beings. Be an instrument for the Divine. Speak, teach, paint, sing, cook, write, create a blog, whatever it is do it! Spread the Light that is within you, don’t be afraid. Spread it!

I had to write this after hearing the news which is always horrific news, and watching what is being played on TV. My heart always sinks whenever I see how much hate and ignorance is in the world. We as a people need to step up and spread the message of hope, spin the wheel of the Dharma for others to escape the cycle of birth and death.

Namaste!
Your Internet Friend.

Daily, I try my best to walk this Pure Beautiful Path. Meditating and reading the Dharma daily. I am starting to see the changes in my life, from being less anxious and more like the controller of a situation. Not allowing anger to shine through when someone does wrong to me, but brushing it away like dirt and then wish peace unto him or her. Is it easy? No, not at all. I am dealing with my past karma. All the wrong seeds I sowed, I see it coming back to haunt me, but like the Buddha did under the grove tree, I take no heed to mara. The seeds of my past were from pure ignorance. I see it in a dream, I hear it when I walk or drive, but I take no heed to mara. I go into meditation and quiet all my thoughts and make my mind still like the water. I empty myself from all that I know. I study, reflect and meditate on the Dharma and from there I learn how to control my life. I understand in order to gain control or to become the Master of my life, I need to put in time and effort to see a transformation.

I titled this writing, “You can teach an old dog new tricks, but it will cost you.” It is based on karma, conditioning, and dealing with it.

This reminds me of a story about a person who adopted a young dog. The young dog was cute and playful but it barked furiously at anybody that rang the door bell. This became a huge problem for the owner because it was a continuous behavior from the dog. One day the owner thought of a trick to distract and pacify the dog when ever the door bell rings. When ever the door bell rang, the owner would take out a doggy treat and give it to the dog, and immediately the dog would run to the doggy treat and chew on it and forget that the door bell rang. This would pacify the dog so much that the owner had no trouble opening the door and invite his friends or family into the house. Again and again this occurred, the door bell would ring and the dog would get a treat. This went on for years and the dog never knew the difference. So as years went by and the dog got really old along with its owner, the owner stop giving doggy treats to the dog but the dog learned stop barking at the door bell. But the dog was so used to getting a doggy treat when the bell rang, that the dog would salivate all over the carpet when ever he heard the sound of the door bell. The owner would get so angry because the dog would salivate all over the carpet. But the owner realized that he has conditioned his dog to expect a treat every time the door bell rang.

So, we are like this old dog, we have conditioned ourselves for many, many years to think a certain way, act a certain way, live a certain way. That “certain way” is the ego’s way, the self-centered way. We were so accustomed to I want, I want, I want and me, me, me. We have learned how to cheat, how to lie, how to curse, how to lust, how to hate, how to be angry, how to gossip etc.. And now we have come to a point in our lives that we want to change and become a better person. I want to be kind, I want to love, I want to serve and help mankind, and walk a Pure Path. But we will need to face and deal with the karma we sowed. We have to deal with the bad habits we once lived with. All these seeds we planted are in the mind. Now we are putting away our bad habits and saying “Good bye to the bad guy and hello to the good guy.” But the issue is we are haunted by the attitude from our past on a daily basis. Its the voice in us that says, “That person is an idiot,” or “shut up, don’t bother me.” These were old attitudes that once conditioned us and by living it we have sowed those seeds of bad karma.

But the good news is, we can learn new tricks to get us out of this mess. New tricks that will put an end to suffering. New tricks that will eliminate the bad karma, but it will cost you. What does it cost? Time and effort on a daily basis.

Dhammapada -The Way
“It is you who must make the effort.
The masters only point the way.
But if you meditate and follow the law
you will free yourself from desire.”

Freeing yourself from desire is the main goal. You will need to spend time in meditation to figure out what are these conditions that are in your mind and you will have to address them one by one. By meditating and making a conscious effort to being mindful of everything that comes into your mind. By practicing mindfulness we are analyzing all of our thoughts and stopping the stream of the bad ones. The bad thought comes but you must reject and detach from that concept, because that is not you thinking but your false self, the old you. Let go and drop the bad thought like a hot potato.

Yes, it will be challenging, sometimes the thoughts seem to be so thick you do not know how will you be able to cut right through it. And when you are meditating the mind can be so noisy, filled with thoughts and images. Don’t worry, don’t get depressed, don’t get discouraged. It all takes time.

Here is a quote from the book “Entering The Stream” that helped me.
“As meditators, we would be wise not to become depressed or discouraged when faced with these difficulties, but instead to understand that it takes time it change the ingrained mental habits of years. It can be done only by working repeatedly, continuously, patiently, and persistently.”

So no matter how bad our past was, and how many things we were so used to doing, we can change the way of thinking, we can change the pattern. Practicing meditation and learning the Dharma will liberate you. Put in time and effort and be determine.

I hope this was of some kind of help to you as it was for me.
Take care, be well and Namaste!

Your Internet Friend!

Dhammapada – The Just
“The true master lives in truth,
In goodness and restraint,
Nonviolence, moderation and purity.”

Today we are going to focus on the word “restraint.”
Lets see what the dictionary says about this word.
Restrain – keep under control; keep in check; the act of controlling; to close within bounds, limit or hold back from movement.

The true master practices restraint. First lets understand who is the master? The master is you. The master is your true self, the true self is the real you, your Buddha Nature, your Christ Nature, the Likeness of God, Atman, no-self, whatever you want to call it. The master is the pure divine nature that you have once experienced when you were a child. This nature is also described to be your child-like nature. It is the same nature a person experiences when they get enlightened. This nature is also called God. We are pieces of the Divine, that is why in Judaism and Christianity it is said we are made in the image of God and that mage is the nature of God, the likeness, the character, the attributes of God, the Pureness, the Light.

And this nature is always threatened by the ego. Ego wants to conquer and dethrone the true self. How can the true self be dethroned? By having desire, passion and all the false selfish characteristics and attributes of mara, the devil, darkness, the ego, the false self, what ever you want to call it. This false nature lives inside of us all. It’s like the sun and moon, we experience them both everyday. Light and darkness, good and bad, ying and yang, God and Devil, the list goes on, there is many names to this. But it depends on us, who we want to be King, Lord, Teacher, Master to sit on the throne of our hearts. In this teaching, we are talking about the true self, which means we are talking about the person who is seeking enlightenment, who is walking the path of purity, the person who is practicing restraint, who has denounced the desires of the false self.

When the false self penetrates the mind, it is when it dethrones the true self. Have you ever heard the phrase, “Have you lost your mind?” That is when your true nature is dethroned by false self and you start to become a bitter, self-centered person, one without happiness, one that is reacts to the thoughts of mara. The person that has given into the desires and lies of the false self has lost its mind. When the mind has been lost, the mind has been high jacked by deception. When the Buddha mentioned the word “restraint” in the above verse, he knew this is a very important word. Restraining is self-control. Self-control is one of the fruits of the Spirit in Christianity. Practicing restraint or self-control means we are restraining from the angry thought that comes into our mind when someone cuts us off when we are driving or talking, when someone curses us out, when we lose our job or anything we love, when our feelings are hurt. Practicing restraint is controlling our emotions. And if you notice the word restraint, it has the letters “re,” which stems from the action of repeating something. Lets do a little word play and look at some words that use the letters “re.” Repeat, recall, remember, remind, reenter, retake, reconnect, reevaluate and the list can go on. These words are things that describe things that repeat, things that we do again. Lets look at the word strain and its meaning: sift: separate by passing through a sieve or other straining device to separate out coarser elements; or filter: remove by passing through a filter; “filter out the impurities.” Therefore, just like a traffic police we need to direct the traffic of our mind. By noticing each thought we can filter or sift out thoughts that come into the mind. This process is an everyday thing because it is an on-going process until the day we die. But the good news is the notions and thoughts that rise into the mind become less and less effective and influential when we get deeper into our daily practice. That means we are meditating and studying the Dharma on a daily basis.

In the Heart Sutra, the Bodhisattva of Compassion discovers that to remove all suffering we need to recognize and understand emptiness. Emptiness is the key to remove the potential of allowing mara to have access to our minds and hearts. When we empty our life and detach from everything, from our ideas, our concepts, our beliefs, our thoughts, then we will realize that there is no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind. No color, sound, smell, taste, touch, object of thought. When we fully understand this, then we go beyond, way beyond, into an awakening. We know what this emptiness feels like because we have experienced it when we were in the womb of our mother. We had no object of thought. There was no meaning of anything. Our minds were completely still, in complete peace, because we were empty. Can you remember when you were in your mother’s womb? I don’t think so. You had no thought in the womb. Since you didn’t have any thought when you were in the womb, you had no suffering. And since there was no thought in the womb, you were empty, there was no self, and you didn’t have any notion. When there is no-self, then is no suffering. When it is removed, the notions and thoughts that rise into the mind cannot grasp or cling to anything, because there is nothing to grasp, there is only emptiness, there is nothing to settle on, no one is home, your house is empty.

In the Heart Sutra, the Bodhisattva clearly saw and understood about emptiness when he was practicing deep prajna paramita, in other words, when he was meditating deeply on Perfection of Wisdom. This is the perfection of wisdom of the heart. The Buddha said in the Dhammapada – Impurity, “The Way is not in the sky, the Way is in the heart.” In Judaism Old Testament in Proverbs 4:23, it says “Keep your heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” So in this verse we see it talks about mindfulness. Keep your heart; protect your heart, practice restraint. The Way and the issues of Life are within you and you can only see this when you go within and meditate deeply. And once you know your true self, then you can say, “I AM, that I AM.” You are not what your parents named you; you are not what you have defined yourself to be. Peel off everything you have learned and adapted to and empty yourself and look within, into the heart. Know your true self.

In Christianity, Jesus Christ died on the cross, which was symbolic to what we need to do to the false self. We need to crucify it on the cross; we need to let it die. The death on the cross also means “emptiness.” Jesus didn’t live for himself; He didn’t live a selfish life, He lived in emptiness, there was no self. He lived for the cause, to liberate mankind from suffering. Jesus said, “Me and the Father are One.” He didn’t live for himself, He lived for God, He emptied himself. And the resurrection of Jesus is symbolic to the awaking to a glorious body, to enlightenment, to the true self, the pure nature. So when we empty ourselves from all selfishness, we awakening or resurrect our true self, our Christ Nature, our Divine Nature, our Buddha Nature.

You have this pure nature already. You have emptiness already. But you need to rediscover it. You need to reconnect to it. You have purity, you have courage, you have peace, you have love, you have joy. You can also say “I am peace, I am love, I am joy, I am confidence, I AM FREE!” Free yourself from guilt, free yourself from all suffering and let go and smile because you are free!

It’s like in the movie Wizard of Oz, the scarecrow wanted a brain, the lion wanted courage, and the tin man wanted a heart. They didn’t know and understand they had these things within themselves already. They needed the Wizard to point this out to them and give them something tangible so they can believe they had these things.

Summary:
The Buddha teaches us that we need to stop the stream of thought and direct them. Everything that comes to the mind is not true, but you need to know what is true is true and what is false is false. We need to become a traffic police for the mind. We need to direct the traffic of our thoughts. Directing the traffic of our thoughts means we are becoming vigilant of our thoughts. This is called Awareness, being mindful, watching, and guarding our mind. Do not let the negative thoughts infiltrate and gain access to the mind. The main goal of the false self is to gain access to your mind, and then gain access to your heart and then eventually blossom into an action which will result into suffering.
And most of all know your true nature and empty yourself from all of the misconceptions you may have of yourself. Detach from your ego, let it die, and awaken your true nature. Let go of all things!

Keep on practicing restraint and being mindful. Suffering ends when you empty yourself, you can do this.

I hope this has helped you as it helped me. If you have any questions, please send me an email or write a comment. Take care and be well!

Yours truly,
Your Internet Friend.

Namaste!

My heart hurts so much to hear a sad story like this and it brings tears to my eyes. I just wanted to share this story with you, so that I can encourage you, to not give up . Whatever struggle you are facing, I pray that Peace and Love fill your heart at this very moment, if you are facing any suffering. Please do not hurt yourself. Give peace a chance and reach out to a friend or a family member. Do not bottle anything in, seek help. If there is no one you can reach out to, please know that you can choose me to talk to. Send me an email if needed, but just remember please DO NOT GIVE UP you are worth more than any precious thing on this earth! You are precious, you are valuable. Clear your mind in meditation, do not attach to false thoughts in your mind.

I dedicate this song to her and to whoever is facing any suffering right now.

May peace and love be upon you and your family, take care of yourself.
Namaste!
Your internet friend.

Thoughts are compared to a delivery man that knocks on the door trying to deliver a package, but no one opens the door because no one lives in it.

The delivery man never gives up, he will come again and again hoping that someone opens the door.

When “no self” is present, then that means no one lives in the house, it is completely empty.

But if “self” is present, the door will be quickly opened and “self” will accept the package from the delivery man. And then it will receive another package, and another package until the house is full with packages. Since there are a lot of packages coming in, “self” leaves the door open so that it can be easier to receives packages. As the doors stays open day and night, a cat walks in, a dog walks in, people from the street starts to walk in, and then a party breaks out. Eventually there was so much noise with people dancing, talking, yelling, smoking, drinking and fighting. Suddenly a fire breaks out and everyone starts to run out, and the house slowly starts to burn down.

If “self” wasn’t present, the door would’ve never been open and invite all these things to fill the house and eventually burn it down.

When the house is empty, no one can ruin it. The house just remains clean, with sunshine glimmering through the windows, and nothing but sweet quietness. The house is safe when it is empty with nothing in it.

Don’t open the door when the delivery man (false self) comes to deliver a package to you. Usually the package is judgment, greed, pride, lust, hatred, jealousy, fear, anger etc.. Don’t open the door. Stay in deep meditation and let nothing distract you. Stay focus and calm. Remain in peace. The knocks at the door will eventually die out, and you will not hear them anymore, just focus and stay quiet.

Namaste, be well!
Your Internet Friend.

All of these things are fine, but if that is the thing that is going to make you happy, then happiness is really not there, its actually dependant happiness. Don’t get me wrong, be happy for these things, because you are human and we get happy and we get sad over things, its natural. But we cannot depend on these things to appear or happen in our lives in order to make us feel content.

True happiness starts within, it’s in the inside of you. Some people when they are stressed out they close their eyes and try to remember past memories of what makes them happy, like a vacation, a loved one, a time when they felt great happiness, and then suddenly, they start to feel happiness at that precise moment, but when something bad arises that happiness is gone out the window, because it was not true happiness, it has a weak and false foundation. Some people even rely on future ideas or plans to make them happy, like their future home they are planning to buy, or their hopes of going to heaven, but in reality these ideas and plans are not real, its just a thought that you are attached to. Past memories are now just a memory, they do not exist anymore, it only exists in your mind. Future ideas and plans do not exist they are just existing in your mind.

Jesus said the Kingdom of God is within. Buddha said Live in your heart. Seek the highest consciousness. So what is this thing that lives within us? What’s inside that overrides all our earthly objects? It’s the True Self, the Buddha Nature, the Holy Spirit, the Light, The Divine, The Creator of the Universe, whatever you want to call it. This lives within us. Its like we are pregnant and we don’t even know it. This “pureness” needs to be awakened from its heavy sleep. This nature was experienced when you were born. We slowly lost it when we entered adulthood. We started to hear and see, whatever the world offers. We adapted to whatever personality that our parents had. We joined groups and picked up all its teachings, opinions and ideas. Our true nature slowly closed its eyes and went to sleep, because we didn’t depend on it anymore. We choose the things on the outside to teach us. But it’s not our fought, because we didn’t know. No one taught us this. We accepted everything like it’s the truth, without asking questions. Whether it be religion, politics, education, history etc.. We accepted it as is.

In the Old Testament, in Genesis 3:22-23-24,
22 Then the LORD God said, ‘See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever’— 23therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. 24He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.

OK, some of you would say, how is this verse from the bible going to relate to the topic?
Well, when I was meditating, I was thinking about this verse, because I know there is more hidden truth behind it. And then it hit, me! Here are the symbolism behind it:
1) Good and Evil = True Self and False Self
2) Tree of Life = The Dharma (Perfection of Wisdom); And the fruits of the tree are Love, Peace, Compassion, Joy, Patience, Kindness etc..
3) Garden of Eden = The Heart, The Inner World, Nirvana, Heaven, The Kingdom of God, Inside of Us

Therefore, using these symbols, I thought of a simple interpretation:
Human beings has now gained knowledge of what is the True Self and False Self, (Light and Darkness). Other words, human beings have discovered their potential of doing good actions or bad actions. Human beings experienced the True Self, when they were babies. Now as they grow up and gain knowledge on their own, they start to develop their own traits and characteristics. They will be free beings, they will not be controlled they will have “free will,” so they can choose to do whatever they want. They can choose to follow the True Self, or their new self, which is their False Self (ego). This True Self, this Wisdom (Dharma), will be hidden within him or her, (the tree of life) it will be blocked from them according to the accumulation of attachment they have gained in the course of their life. The attachments they collect will be obstacles to them; therefore they will now need to work to discover how to awaken this True Self again (to till the ground from which he was taken.) The word “till” means “work.” This True Self is awakened through meditation and reflection. When we get into deep meditation, our mind starts to quiet down. Thoughts start to diminish and you start to taste the True Self, it is like a peaceful bliss. This experience is like we are entering our mother’s womb again, its like nirvana, its like heaven, and its total peace. When you finish your meditation, the True Self doesn’t disappear. It goes with you wherever you go, in fact its you, its your True Self, its not separate. You are putting to rest the old tired, troublesome False Self. In Christianity, they call this the Old Man, the Flesh, the Sinful Nature.

I do not know, nor does anybody know, why we have to put up with these two natures. Why do we have to struggle with this? No one knows. The only thing I know, that these natures are here, it is true, we need to face it, we need to liberate from it. The Four Noble Truths point this out very clearly. We are habit-forming creatures, we are learning machines, and we need to reprogram this machine and take out all garbage and replace it with Wisdom, the Dharma, The Word, The Truth.

So what makes us happy? The things we have accumulated in our life, in our past lives? If it is not here tomorrow, is our happiness gone? We know the answer to that. So, let us look within. Let us reach out our hand and pluck the beautiful fruits that hang off the tree of life, the Dharma and eat and be merry. The fruits are peace, love, joy, happiness, patience, kindness, self-control etc.. This tree is inside of you, eat the fruits and smile, you do not need to depend on anything. Cherish and appreciate the things you have, but do not attach to it. When we leave this world, when we die, we do not take anything with us. We entered this world naked and we will leave naked.

Dhammapada – Anger
”Let go of anger.
Let go of pride.
When you are bound by nothing
You go beyond sorrow.”

You can also say this verse like this:
”Let go of anger, lust, pride, hatred, selfishness, judgment.
Let go of ALL ATTACHMENTS.
When you are bound by nothing, you go beyond.
Gone, gone, gone over, gone fully over.
Awakened!
So be it!”
Letting go of all attachments removes all suffering.

Yours truly, your Internet Friend!
Take care and be well. Namaste!

One day I went to a Zen Buddhist Temple called Fire Lotus located in Brooklyn NY. The Zen Master instructed the students to naturally come up with an art piece as a Zen practice.  So I created an art piece that is located above, it is called “Silent Ear,” which is based on the story of Siddhartha when he was under the bodhi tree.

As Gautama settled firmly into the cross-legged meditation posture, Mara too realized that the crucial moment had come, and he trembled. He knew that once the Bodhisattva had attained enlightenment, he would be forever beyond his power. Mara first sought to intimidate the Bodhisattva. “Rise up. Siddhartha, warrior prince afraid of death,” he cried. “How dare you seat yourself in my seat. You have ventured where you surely do not belong! You overstep yourself, little man. Follow your proper path and give up the way of liberation. Look after your abandoned family and kingdom!”

The Bodhisattva remained composed and paid Mara no heed.

As we know Mara, is symbolic of the ego, the false self, in Christianity it is called Satan, the father of all lies. I remember somebody told me they had made a definition for the word ego, ego stands for Exit God Out, which is pretty witty, because it explains what ego wants to do. Mara hates anything that pertain to pureness, to freshness, to liberation, to freedom, to any that is True. Mara wants to exit out or take out anything that is godly, anything that is good. Mara wants to be king of your life, it doesn’t want to die, it doesn’t want to let go of its attachment, of desires, of concepts, of self identity. Mara trembles when it sees you are trying to abolish its plans. In this story we find Mara, trembling because he knew it was the moment of liberation for Siddhartha. Therefore Mara cried out several things to Siddhartha trying to intimidate him. The main thing that drew my attention was, that Siddhartha ignored Mara, and kept on to his goal. Siddharthas goal was eventually met, which liberated him from all suffering and made Him the Buddha which Lights up the world from darkness.

The Bodhisattva remained composed and paid Mara no heed.

Going Back To The Womb
Its about going back to the “state of mind” you once knew

Thoughts are described to be like people walking on the street, passing by you. As these people walk by, they whisper things to you to grab your attention.

Suddenly, you become interested in a person that is passing by you, because you are curious to know what they’re whispering to you. You decide to stop and have a conversation with the person, you engage into a deep conversation. Then you start to learn about the person, exchange a phone number or email address and eventually you create some kind of bond with the person. Suddenly, as days go by, this person starts to call and email you a lot, so much that you find it strange. Suddenly, this person gets so comfortable with you, that he starts to ask you for some money and then you end up giving some money to this person. Then this person decides to slowly move into your house and sleep on your bed. Then this person starts to eat everything you have in your refrigerator. Then this person starts to run up your phone bill, your electricity bill, basically this person becomes a complete nightmare and starts to invade all your space.

Well, that is the same way with thoughts that pass by you. You can stop and acknowledge the thought, have a conversation with it, try to make sense out of it, give it a label, play with the idea, feel the emotion of it, get its sensations, and then eventually you end up agreeing with it. That thought will waste your energy, take away your happiness and peace. And then slowly it will manifest itself into an action and speech, that is when you know it has made itself at home in your mind. This is what happen; you did not reject the thought, you did not resist the thought, instead you fell for the lie once more. You allowed the thought work its way into your heart. This is how it works; a thought first hits your mind, then it hits your heart and then it manifests into an action, and then you feel suffering. Therefore, when thoughts pass by you, like thoughts of prejudgment, lust, pride, greed, anger, hate, jealously, fear, inadequacy, anxiety, impatiences etc.. whatever it is, recognize its not your True Self thinking, its actually your false self, spewing some garbage, some ignorant idea for you to believe it. You need to ignore it, resist it, do not agree with it and just say, “Oh its just delusion again” and just see it pass by.

The thought is like a pebble that hits the water, it creates a ripple, that spreads very far, but eventually it just fades away.

Thoughts are like empty puffs of clouds passing by. Thoughts are created by these three things, by things you hear, by things you see or by things you remember whether it be past, present or future events.

I like to also look at thoughts like bubbles from soda. Thoughts come up like the bubbles from the carbonated water. When the bubble makes it to the top of the surface of the soda, it just pops and you can see the fizz, or you can even hear it fizzing. Well thoughts are just like that, you see the bubbles coming up and fizzing, making noise, but you just have to sit there and notice it but without giving it thought, because eventually while you sit there the fizzing will stop and the bubbles will stop coming up and the soda becomes flat. Well of course soda needs to be out side of its bottle, uncovered, for a matter of days, for it to become completely flat without any bubbles or fizz. It is the same with meditation, it can take minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, for you to learn how to train your mind, to quiet down your mind and make it completely flat, calm and smooth. Training your mind is a process. Some people can achieve it quickly, some people can achieve it at a slower pace. The point is that you do not look at it in a time table or a process. This is not a forceful technique, its a natural process. Its about going back to the “state of mind” you once knew when you were in the womb.

When you are in meditation you are quieting the mind, you are entering solitude, its like you are going back to the place where you were a fetus, into your mothers womb. This was the place where you first started life, the place where you had no thought, no doubt, no ideas, no concepts, no delusion, just complete peace. It was like you were in deep meditation, in complete enlightenment, it was nirvana, it was heaven.

Here is another analogy. You are a lotus flower growing on top of mud. Even through this ugly waste, where no one would like to lie on, this is where you grow out of, to become a beautiful lotus flower. The mud is your false self, your ego, mara, which is filled with disgusting, dirty thoughts. These thoughts cannot leave you, because you are intertwine with these thoughts. You are growing on top of these thoughts, it is inside of the mud but its not alive, its just empty. These thoughts hope to take form, but it can only take form if you allow it. So this is how it works…when a thought pops up, like, ” I hate this person,” and then you say within, “Yes, I hate this person,” you are basically agreeing with this lie that the false self is telling you. You are literally shaking hands and agreeing with the thought. So by agreeing with it, the thought takes form, it becomes like a seed that will plant itself into the mud. When this seed starts to grow, it grows into a wild weed who’s sole purpose is to grow, choke and kill your lotus flower. Impure thoughts of greed, pride, lust, jealousy, fear, hatred etc.. is thoughts from the false self, it will try to choke out your beautiful True Nature, your beautiful lotus flower. Control and quiet down your mind, direct your mind to stillness, do not believe the false self, the ego. Do accept these seeds of weed into your soil. Learn what is your True Nature, and cultivate your True attributes.

In the Old Testament, in Genesis 3:22, And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”

We have these two sides in us, its just like Dr. Jekel and Mr. Hyde. You can be the most holiest priest, pastor, monk, nun, pope, yogi etc.. but you will still have these thoughts visit you, you will still have mara visit you, you will still have the devil visit you, what ever you want to call it, these good and evil thoughts are inside of everybody’s mind. But its up to you to put a conscious effort to put a stop to it, to control it, to dominate it with the Dharma, or if you are a Christian or Muslim, dominate it with the Word of God.

If you read that verse completely, it said “…He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever,” this means, as human beings now we have to work to awaken our True Self. Once we passed our childhood, we entered adulthood and gradually our innocence was gone. So now we need to reach out our hand to the “tree of life, and eat the new fruit,” which is the Dharma, the scared spiritual teachings to find the Way back to our Original Source so that we can live forever free from attachment, free from suffering. And once we know the Truth, it will set us free. Once we get to know our True Self we will be set free. That is why Jesus said you must be born again, its like going back to your original state of mind, that means pure, innocent, clean heart, clean mind, empty from all desire. This means going back to the way we were when we lived in the womb. Your natural self, your True Self. If we were computers it means we need to reboot.

The Truth is here, it has been expressed through many spiritual teachers from history, but you have to go and find it and then realize it. You need to meditate to get there because that is the vehicle to your inner self, your True Self. You need to sacrifice and give up all worldly desires, give up selfishness. Its not easy to control the mind, its not easy to be enlighten, its not easy to follow the Eightfold Path, its not easy to carry the cross, but its attainable, when you are serious, its attainable when you make a honest serious vow, and do this again and again everyday, until you let out your last breath here on earth.

It is well worth it because, by doing this, you obtain your True Self, then you will feel what you once felt when you were a baby. You will feel what Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Papji etc.. felt. They discovered their True Self. Going back to that special place, going back to the womb.

I hope this was helpful to you as it was for me. Lets go back to that special place and visit it again and again everyday and take it with us everywhere we go. Peace and be well.

Your internet friend.

Be well and take care. Namaste.

Here is a different interpretation:

“Upon a heap of rubbish in the road-side
ditch blooms a lotus, fragrant and pleasing.”

Dhammapada – Flowers

Let me paint a picture here. We are following the teachings of the Buddha, cultivating each precept, but then Mara attacks us using all kinds of past illusions, trying to awaken our old cravings, our old desires. Images start to pop up, and we feel a little weak, but we turn away and take no heed to Mara, and the army of illusion and then reenact the Stanzas of Victory. We want to do nothing but follow the pure and holy path, but sometimes Mara seems stronger than our determination. See the truth is this, the more you seek the pure path, the more you want and intent to do good, the forces of Mara, the ego, the false self, will try to awaken and try to fight back, because you are killing it softly. In the second verse in the Stanzas of Victory, the Buddha fought using His patience and “self-control.”

SELF CONTROL, what does that mean?

The Buddha used self control, and this is “virtue” a huge and powerful virtue that will determine your success in walking the the eightfold path.

Controlling one self, from not reacting to these delusional thoughts that is trying to awaken your old cravings, your old desires of anger, of lust, of hate, of pride, of fear, of what ever it is, Mara will try its best to make you revisit these bad habits of the false self. And then, lets say you happen to slip into one of these cravings and then you feel so sick and guilty, so discouraged, you even feel sorrow and of course you start to feel suffering because you did something you should have not done.

“Why do what you will regret?
Why bring tears upon yourself?”
Dhammaapada – The Fool

Why would the Buddha write this? Because He knew we will face our cravings again even if we are holy and following the Buddha path. Only because you took a sincere vow to follow Buddhahood, doesn’t mean you will not have Mara visit you. When the Buddha sat in meditation under the Bodhi tree, that’s when Mara saw that Buddha is getting closer to his goal, and Mara try to hit Him with everything. That is the same with Jesus Christ when He went to dessert to pray, the Devil which is the same as Mara, visit Jesus and try to tempt Him.

The more you try to get closer and closer to purification, and walk the path of enlightenment, you will have these wicked visitations, of remembrance of your old self, the false self, or you will get any thought that will try to knock you out from the pure path. In the beginning verse that I used to start this writing, the Lotus grows in the litter, on a heap of rubbish, on a heap of garbage, on a heap of mud or crap! You are not a super righteous person that has no faults, you have imperfections that you are dealing with on a constant basis. 99% of the time we are thinking vexation thoughts. We are full of this mud, this crap, this junk, but the good news is that the Buddha can grow out of this garbage, Christ can grow out of this garbage, God can grow out of this garbage, a beautiful fragrant Lotus flower can grow out of this rubbish.

You are like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, they live in the same house. The True Self and False Self live in the same house but you must decide who will be the master of the house.

“…The wise man directs his mind.”
Dhammapada – The Wise Man

This can also be interpret like this:
“Wisdom directs the mind.”
Because the Bodhisattva, which is you, rely on the Perfection of Wisdom. Remember let understanding fight for you in every trial.

The continuing verse says..
“The wind cannot shake a mountain.
Neither praise nor blame moves the wise man.”

You are the wise man or woman, or you can say nothing can move the wise man or woman, or nothing can move Wisdom. The wind is thoughts, and the wind will always blow, like it will always rain, but when it rains, just take out the umbrella and protect yourself.

RELY ON THE DHARMA, RELY ON THE PERFECTION OF WISDOM.

The verse continues to say this…
“Want nothing.
Where there is desire or craving,
Say nothing.”

When Mara speaks, say nothing, take no heed like the Buddha, just recite the Dharma, remember the Dharma, take refuge, in the Buddha, In the Dharma, and In the Sangha.

No one is perfect, that is why we need “self control.” If you fell, just get back up and try again. Let your Lotus flower grow in the midst of the storm, in the midst of all the garbage that seems to come your way, and say grow Lotus grow!

I hope this has encourage you like it did for me. Be well, Namaste!

Success brings enjoyment, a sense of accomplishment, success makes you feel good inside.  But unfortunately the things mention above is not true success because it does not give everlasting happiness. Don’t get me wrong, those things above are signs of success in a worldly point of view, but the feeling of success will die out and will make you want to obtain more and more, or newer stuff.

True success starts from within, and then it is projected outwardly.  True success resonates, it stays.  True success requires no material object or stimulation.  True success is free.  True success is love for yourself, for others and for everyone.  True success will reflect on your everyday life, in your marriage, in your family, in your friendships, in your speech, in your way of thinking, on the way you act.

Once you have success within, you will then enjoy the successes that you have accomplish on the outside of yourself (goals & careers etc.), because you will then be satisfy with what you gain and not waste your life chasing for more and more success, but use your life and your time helping and saving sentient beings.

Therefore, is true success about only having so much success within? No! You must share that success that you have gained, pass it on to others, spread the love, spread the joy, spread the Dharma.

Wanting nothing is the goal.

Of course thoughts do arise, but I try my best to see it rise and fall, like particles in the water, they just fall slowly down to the bottom. Of course I hear things, like the sound of my wife cooking in the kitchen, the sound of a passing car, by what I’ve learn is not to cling to those sounds, not to classified or label those sounds, like saying, thats a car, or my wife is cooking. Trying to not think about what you just heard, just letting it pass by with out any worry or thought. Its almost like saying hearing without thinking, just if somebody was talking to you and you happen to be thinking of something else while that person was talking to you and the person looks at you and says “hey are you listening to me?”

In reality, you are not really listening to that person for that moment. So in the case of meditation, its not that you are listening to anything else, you can be aware and paying attention to your breathing, counting your breaths, and then you notice the sound of a passing car, but you do not cling to the sound in your mind, just let it rise and fall, that is all. I use to be bothered when sounds happen to pop up when I am trying to meditate, but in reality, its good, because it helps me sharpen my concentration. I look at it like a baseball player who is batting, and he is playing in the competitors home stadium and everyone is booing, but the professional baseball player is so discipline that while he is in his batting stance, concentrating on the ball, that he actually learned how to block out all the distractions that surrounds him, that is what we need to do.

Concentration is a process, but welcome the noise around you, it helps to sharpen your mind. Yes, don’t get me wrong, when I have a quiet place to meditate, I love it because I am able to enter levels in meditation, that is beautiful, but a noisy background is a training ground for the mind. And what I have learned with meditating is, it helps me control my thoughts when I am outside in the public, when things arise, like when I am driving my car and another a car cuts me off or someone tail gates me trying to make move out there way, should I get upset? or should I use the skill of quieting the mind from any thought of anger that tries to manifest? of course use the skill of what I have learned in my time of mind training.

Meditating is not just to make you to feel peaceful when you are in zazen posture at home or at the temple, its a state of mind you carry with you everywhere you go. The power of meditation actually teaches you to not think like a barbaric man or women anymore, but to be absorbed in the realm of peace, compassion, and kindness, it trains you to learn how to deal with your everyday tasks at home, at the grocery store, driving your car, talking to a person etc. I am no expert but this is what I have learned as a beginner student.

Of course since I am learning this beautiful tool, I will slowly evolve in my practice and probably adapt to new techniques while I walk this beautiful path.

I hope this was useful for you, take care, and be well.

I just wanted to thank everyone for visiting my blog. I see there are several people from all around world visiting. So I want to thank and send a special hello to everyone in the US: New York, California, Vermont, Texas, Arizona, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Colorado, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Missouri, and to ALL out of the country visitors: Canada, India, China, Japan, South Korea, Russia, Germany, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, Morocco, France, Italy, Croatia, Slovakia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Egypt, Mexico, Spain, United Kingdom, Australia, Netherlands, Philippines, Malaysia, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Thailand. If I missed you I am sorry, but I think I covered all my visitors.

This actually means a lot to me since, I don’t really have much people around who would think like me or are interested in what I am interested in reading, and to find out there are people out there who have the same interest or believe the same thing, is a a beautiful thing. I never ever traveled that far outside this country, but everyone all around the world are special people. We are brothers and sisters, we are one people, we are to help each other and I look forward to walking with you in this daily life, in practicing the beautiful pure path. This path is not easy, but it is easy, when you let go, and let the current take you far away, beyond.

So again, I personally thank you and I pray that you stay blessed, stay encouraged!

Your internet friend.

May peace and Love be upon you, take care my friend!

Also, if you find this posting helpful, please let me know, post a comment, or send me a message, let me know something, anything. Thank you.

We wake up, and do our daily routine, either go brush our teeth & shower, eat breakfast, do yoga, pray or meditate, read the Bible/Sutra/Gita/Koran or whatever you read, and prepare for our day. Breathing, seeing, walking, talking, living life.

We feel thankful for all these beautiful things, well at least I hope you feel thankful for these simple things, that not all people can enjoy on their daily basis. Some people cannot walk, talk, see or are breathing in a coma at this precise moment. At this precise moment someone is starving having no food or water or even shelter. Some people from other Countries would look at us like Kings and Queens because of all the luxury we have like food, water, shelter and clothes, even if its a 1 bedroom apartment it is consider a luxury for someone that has nothing.

What do we hope for? Some hope for a good day today, a stress-free day, a temptation-free day, an easy commute to work, I hope for a promotion at work, or whatever the case may be. We hope for simple and surface things. Some people suffer from issues that we bring upon our selves, like anger, hate, lack of patience, insecurity, fear, lust etc. All these problems are in our heads!

I ask myself, do we really have problems?

If we would live in a different country without the “luxuries” that we currenlty have for at least a year, and then come back to our home which for me would be the US, would we even think about problems the same way anymore? I don’t think so.

Our problems are small compared to one that struggles to have food, water, shelter or fights to stay alive and not get killed or raped by rebels from the village. I don’t know why I decided to write this, this morning, but I guess it was to show me that I have no problems, compared to the problems out there. Yes, I struggle as a man, as a human, as a person that is trying to walk the good path, the holy path, the compassionate path. I continue to walk this path, not to have people look at me and say “Wow that is a good guy,” NO! I can care less of what people think about me, I don’t need brownie points, that worths nothing. I do it so I can be an example in this world, so I can spread the hope, the love, the peace that no one cares to spread these days. Most people live for money, power and the self, they do not care for their neighbor, their brother their sister.

With this blog I try to spread some kind of help to people that seek and walk the good path. I am not here to promote religion, and if I did, then I might of also promote the “Mets,” but that is just a baseball team. I guess its like I am promoting the baseball game not the team. The game is the path (the Way) the team is the religion, the team doesn’t matter, you can be in any team, but the important part is that you play and love the game.

But the most important part of life is, that we help each other out. Help with a smile to your neighbor, help by holding the door for someone, help someone lift some bags up the stairs, give an encouraging message to someone, give some food out or share your food with someone, give something out for free.

The ultimate law is love. So spread love to everybody you come across, its the Universal Law.

So in our daily life, let us NOT concentrate on our small issues, on our small problems, but rather concentrate on being awake to help others, keep your eyes, open, your ears attentive to help someone today, tomorrow, forever.

Remember its not about Me, Me, Me, its about the people around us. Be a light to everyone around you, lend a helping hand.

We hope for this day to be a good day.

I was holding my baby nephew who is only 8 months old, he is the cutest little thing. Lately his new thing is that he likes to point at things.

While I was holding him, he started the point at these 5 things the stairs, the light, the window, the TV and the living room table. In my mind, I didn’t think anything of it, because he loves to point at things now. But when he pointed at these things, it resonated in me as if it was something I should pay attention to. I started thinking about these things and these are the thoughts that came to my mind about these objects.

1) The Stairs: The stairs reminded me of the story in the old testament Genesis 28:11-19; where Jacob saw a ladder that was connected to heaven. Jacob saw angels ascending and descending on it. Then he heard God say that the land where he stands on will be given to him and that God will be with him.

The stairs is symbolic to the gateway to heaven, to the Way, to the Path, to enlightenment, to nirvana.

The connection to the Source, to the Way is already here, its within. When we seek and walk in the Way we will experience peace, love, joy. The Way will secure us and give us what we need. We have this connection, we connect with the stairs when we pray and meditate.

2) The Light: When we walk on the Path, the Light will turn on within us and we will become a light to the world. It awakens the Buddha Nature, the Likeness of God in us. Our mind becomes illuminated with the Truth, the Light reveals us all the things we need to know. The Light opens our mind to the infinite Wisdom that existed before the ages.

3) The Window: is symbolic to the window of our eyes, which brings light or darkness into the house which is our soul or mind. The things we watch becomes food to our mind. We can either feed our soul, our True Self, or we can feed our ego, our False Self. Its like food, if we eat food that is not healthy our physical will suffer, if we eat healthy our physical will feel great! We can fill our mind with good things or we can fill our mind with not good things that can delude our mind with negativity or delusion which will try to divert us from the Truth. We need to be careful with what we watch or listen to on TV or on the radio. Feeding your mind with good things will create less delusion within your mind.

4) The TV: This one is similar to the third one. The TV is symbolic with our mind. What are the things playing in our mind? Are the channels of our mind playing good programs, or are they filled with anger, lust, pride, judgment, hate, inadequate feeling, depressing emotional movies? We need to be the Master of your TV set, be the Master of our mind, be like the FCC, control the content in your head. Let the Dharma help you.

5) The Table: On the table I saw my wallet laid out. In my wallet I was able to see my ID’s, credit cards, money, and business cards. The wallet was symbolic to mankind’s false identity and the cares for money or any worldly valuable (things that are not permanent).

Jesus said, Matthew 6:19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.” Jesus also said in Matthew 19:21 “If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven (within you); and come, follow Me.”

Basically give up your false identity and worldly desires and passions, and put on your new identity which is your True Self, the Buddha Nature, The Christ Nature, the Likeness of God, The Enlightened Nature, and follow the Pure Way.

What is our main goal in life? To be rich? To be a successful person? It is good to have ambitions, but if it prevents you from walking the Pure Path then it is not good. Do not identify yourself with what you have. Use your life to be a change in the world, because everything you accumulate will stay here and be passed on to the next person. It is better to save a million souls then to make a million dollars. Or if you make a million dollars, use some of it to help the poor, the hungry, the unfortunate people.

Well, this was something that talked to my life and I just had to share it. I hope it blessed you as it blessed me.

Take care and be well, namaste!

Your Internet Friend!

This is a very sad time our nation is facing today, due to the attacks we encountered and had to suffer on September 11th 2001.  I remember the pale and frighten faces of people when I was taking the train on my way to school in Manhattan the next day. Everybody was courtesy with one another, people were trying their best to be kind to one another.  It was a moment of crisis, that drew people closer, reminding them, that everything has its beginning and end, that death is real and we will all have to face it one day.  

As a people we do not have to wait for a tragic event to happen in order to be reconnect to reality, and care for the human race.  We are all precious in Gods eyes, and it should be precious in our eyes. 

Personal Experience
I remember in 1999, when I was 23 years old, me and my older brother were in my fathers station wagon, and we were driving away from our apartment heading to our destination.  As we were driving, I happen to look at the rear view mirror and I was looking at New York City buildings, because from where we lived, we were only like 15 minutes away from Manhattan, so we were able to see the city from or apartment.  So, as we were driving, I was looking at the rear view mirror staring at the twin towers and suddenly I saw a vision of the towers crumbling down in flames, and then I closed my eyes to shake the thought out from my head, I was shock and I immediately told my brother, but we did not think anything about it, because it was just a day dream.  From that time I never ever considered the day dream, so I forgot about it.  When the tragedy happen on September 11th 2001, I recalled my day dream, and told my brother about it over the phone and he remembered it too, it scared us to think, that I was revealed a secret of a future event, in which I had no idea it was a revelation from our Creator.  Now whenever something is revealed to me of any event that will happen, I pray for it and hope that it can be changed or stopped.  

God Has Nothing To Do With It, Karma Is Ours
Our Creator had nothing to do with 9-11 or any tragic future event, although people like to blame God for everything.  We human beings are responsible for everything that happens here on earth.  Karma is real, what ever we sow we will reap.  You do bad, you will get bad, you do good you will get good, its that simple.  So are you saying that the US paid for its karma?  According to our history, we as a nation had to fight and conquer in order to make or have what we have today.  There were many times we had to protect ourselves from enemies, but there also were times where we took what was not ours, and that is called imperialism.   Every country has a good record and bad record, no country is innocent. May God have mercy upon us.

God Was Replaced
Money has become the center of attraction in this world and country, it sort of became the new God. And because the love of money and power, greed has flourished, violence has accumulated, and more enemies are made.  This country has slowly abandon the ideas of our Creator, but the idea of God was approach and established incorrectly in this country, because it was forced upon even through violence in the crusades and inquisition and God did not intend for this to happen, this was intended by human beings.  Human beings fight for labels and titles, and they have the “I’m right and your wrong” syndrome, this divides people and countries and cause wars.  People couldn’t practice any other religion, they were killed if they didn’t accept the new religion. All the crimes and injustice done in the past will have to be paid for and that is a fact that cannot be ignored.  People lost the real meaning of what God was trying to do on earth.  God was trying to send His message of Truth, Love, Purity, Peace and Wisdom to help and save mankind, but mankind took the Wisdom of God and made a business out of it and used it to control people for political purposes.

The Wisdom of God was manifested in many different people all around the world, but human beings put pride, greed into it which caused division and many wars.  I could see God sad about this whole situation and say that many care called but few are chosen. 

Tao Te Ching says:
“The great Way is easy,
yet people prefer the side paths.
Be aware when things are out of balance.
Stay centered within the Tao (The Way).

When rich speculators prosper
while farmers lose their land;
when government officials spend money
on weapons instead of cures;
when upper class is extravagant and irresponsible 
while the poor have nowhere to turn-
all this is robbery and chaos.
it is not in keeping with the Tao (The Way).”

Final thoughts
Lets pray for this country and not just for this country but for everyone on this earth.  
May peace and harmony spread through the world.  Let us make it our responsibility to spread the message of hope and love through the wisdom of our Creator. To show that we are all One body, One people, despite religion or creed and that we are all the same.  Lets make it our responsibility to help and save all sentient beings.   Put away the labels and names and come together, and ask for God to cover this plant with His love and mercy.  

God wants us to do His job on earth, for you to become His voice, for you to become His eyes, for you to help, care, love and make a difference.

So what ever you want to call it God, Higher Power, The Source, The Light, Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Allah, The Creator, it doesn’t MATTER, a name is a name, a label is a label, lets unite as ONE and pray for the world.  Take care brothers and sisters, and God bless!
(I hope that I do not offend anyone with this writing)