My Story
My Biography
I wrote this biography in a form of question and answer to better describe my bio.
Read or listen to the text in audio:
Who am I?
My Pali Dharma name is Pharati Dhamma Danda which means Spread Dharma Peacefully. I am a male living in Queens, New York. I am a person learning and seeking the good path. In the past I attempted to walk and live a clean and pure life for many years, but I constantly fell off the good path and ended up in self-centeredness. During my years of growing up from a child to adulthood, I always felt the calling back to the path of purity, because everything else was not producing the joy I needed. In the beginning of 2009, when I reached the age 33, I finally decided to make a vow to change my life and follow a pure path. What made me come to this thought was the story of Jesus Christ who according to history died at the age of 33. Since this was a symbol of the ultimate sacrifice for the human race, and I felt the great conviction in me, that I needed to do the same, by giving up ALL my bad habits and get back on the road of purity, and sacrifice my selfishness.
My Quest For The Truth
As I slowly started to give up all bad habits, I felt I needed some guidance. So I picked up the Christian Bible and started to read it, I really found wisdom from reading the book of Proverbs written by Solomon. I started to visit some Christian churches and many people were nice and the purpose behind their services of worship was beautiful because I saw their dedication to the Creator of the Universe, but I felt uncomfortable with some things they taught. See, the reason I went to a Christian church in my quest for the pure path, was because when I was a child I was raised in the Christian evangelical religion, so I went back to my roots.
But now that I am older I have many questions that I needed to find the answers, but nobody in the church was able to answer me without be one-sided. One thing that bothered me was that I was being taught that Jesus is the only Way to God or to the path of purity. And if anybody or I did not accept Jesus as their personal savior then you and I are condemn for eternity into hell. Then I asked a devoted Christian follower, “What happens to a person that lives a pure and selfless life and helped people all around the world, by giving food to the hungry and clothing to the homeless, and what if they were a devoted Buddhist or devoted follower of Krishna all their life, what will happen to him or her when they die? And he answered me, “They will go to hell, because they did not accept Jesus as their personal savior.” That statement broke my heart into pieces and made me so sad of the ignorance.
From that moment, I decided to be open-minded and study all other religions to see what was on the other side. So I studied the Torah, Koran, Bhagavad Gita, Tao Ching, Baha’i, and the teachings from the Buddha. I got a first glimpse on what was being taught outside of Christianity and I couldn’t believe the beautiful wisdom that was out there all along! It was like when I discovered how delicious beans were, all my years I rejected eating beans because I thought it tasted disgusting, but I gave it a try and I loved it!
Therefore, I decided to not abolish the teachings of Christ, but to look at his teachings without the interpretations from churches and organizations, but with an open mind, and from there…I saw Jesus Christ under a different light, I understood him much clearer. In my quest for finding a balance of the truth, I discovered the teachings of the Buddha, as I mentioned above. I grew a hunger to learn more about his teachings, so I started to read the Dhammapada, the Sutras and practiced meditation. I started to also visit Buddhist temples and found a perfect fit. I still believe in God, but differently. In Buddhism they teach about “Emptiness” in which it is like the form of who God is. When you become empty of yourself, you will find enlightenment, and enlightenment is an awaking of your True Nature, which is the child like nature you use to have when you were a baby, that same nature is God’s nature, Buddha nature, your true nature. I can go on with this but it will take too long. Everyone has to find his or her own path to purity. All religions teach it, but you have to exam it, dissect it, chew it, and then you will find it, and ultimately make you free.
My Purpose
I feel I have a personal mission to spread the message of hope, love, peace, and unity to all mankind and the best way for me was to create a blog. I said to myself, instead of trying to force a message on anybody, I will post it here on my blog, those that seek will find it, and those that are thirsty will find water to drink. I am No Jesus Christ, No Buddha, No Krishna, No Mother Theresa; I am ONLY an imitator of them, for they were an incarnation of the Truth. We should use them as examples of how we should live on this earth.
What Do You Believe?
I believe, beliefs do not matter, because when you die, God or whatever you want to call it will not run a list of questions and ask you what did you believed in. It doesn’t matter how much merit you accumulate, or how much you prayed or fast, or if you believed in Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Heaven, Hell, Nirvana etc. The main thing is that you practice a pure life. What did you do on earth when you were alive? Did you try to help and save the sentient beings? Or were you selfish on earth, living a materialistic life and self-centered? From there your destiny will be granted to you. Whatever is after this life is not my concern, but what I do now is my concern. Living right, helping our brothers and sisters all around us.
In the Old Testament in the Bible, Ecclesiastes 12:13 says;
“Now all has been heard;
here is the conclusion of the matter:
Fear God and keep his commandments,
for this is the whole duty of man.”
Instead of saying fear, I like to say “respect” God and follow His commandments, His law, His Dharma, His Truth.
Here my translation of that verse:
“Now all translations and interpretations has been heard by all religions about the Pure Path:
here is the conclusion of the matter:
Know your True Self, your Buddha Nature, the Likeness of God and respect it daily.
Read, Learn, Cherish and take refuge in the Dharma,
for this is the whole duty of man.”
What do I consider to be the Dharma or Truth of God?
All religions have expressed the Truth that leads to the Pure Path. All religions are expressions of who God is. But God, the Creator, the Divine, the Eternal cannot be defined because it is like wind or water, you cannot grasp it with your bare hands. I have read and studied most of all religions, and I understand them all. It points to the same thing, the Pure Path. Therefore, out of all sacred books I choose the Buddhist teachings, but sometimes I read other sacred scriptures like in Hinduism, Christianity and Judaism, but I mainly study the Buddhist teachings. The reason I choose Buddhist teachings is because it was straight forward and clear. Buddhist teachings do not concentrate on beliefs but rather on practice and experience. And the main thing that drew my interest to Buddhism was, the Buddha Himself said to do not take His word for it, but rather question everything. I questioned everything and practiced it and sure enough the outcome was true. I ended up being my own therapist, I no longer smoke, no longer drink, no longer practice the self-centered habits that I was so use to, and now I am more happy, I feel liberated! Now I have a much clearly outlook. My marriage is 100% better, there is no more arguments. I feel like a child again. The biggest obstacle in my life was my mind, it was so difficult to control. Now with the Buddha Dharma I am able to control the thoughts which ultimately controls the way I feel. Now I truly feel like the Master of my Domain. Therefore, I promote this, because I tested it and it transformed me, I am truly grateful for this chance in life to learn the Dharma.
The bottom-line is this: The Pure Path leads to Happiness. In life you need to discover the Way, the Truth, and the Life. All religions point to the Way, but you must found your Way. My Way is not your Way, nor is your Way my Way. Everybody Way is different. It took a while for me to discover my Way, but I found it. Your Way can be in Christianity, it can be Judaism, it can be Buddhism, it can be Hinduism, it can be in Taoism, whatever it is, learn it, love it, and practice it. Its not what you believe in, its about living it, practicing Purity. Once you discover the Way, you will then discover the Truth, which is the Dharma, the teachings, and that is the key to liberation. You cannot just simply say, I believe in such in such, so now I am free and liberated. No, it doesn’t work like that! You have to UNDERSTAND the Dharma, the Truth. By understanding you will gain Wisdom, not knowledge, I am talking about Wisdom. Wisdom is something you experience, knowledge is something you learn and then you know about. Understanding is describe like this: It is your new foundation, it is what you stand on, it is your foundation. You are like a tree, you need soil to be planted. Now that you decided to walk a new Path, the Pure Path, you need to uproot yourself from your old soil and plant yourself into new soil, which is new understanding, and once you TRULY have a UNDERSTANDING, you will gain WISDOM, which will end your suffering and ultimately liberate you. And I will share you a secret, the Truth is in Emptiness, by Detaching yourself, from the OLD YOU. So, once you discover the Truth which will set you free, you will then experience the Life, a new Life, Nirvana, Heaven, Peace, Love, Compassion, Joy, FREEDOM! That is Life.
Name of God?
I don’t even like to call or name God as God, because the word God is not His or Her name, God doesn’t even have a gender, its just the way we’ve learned how to describe this beautiful Power, this Source, but God is not going to say, “Hey that’s not my name, so I am not going to listen to you.” Its like a color, a color is named a certain color, like blue, but in reality, what is color? What is blue? Not even a blind person can see what we see, or understand how this color looks, the blind person only understands what blue is, by his understanding of what is blue, either described and defined by emotions/feeling, for example blue is like ice, or blue is like water. If two blind people get together and start to argue what is blue, none of them have a solid answer to what is blue. That is the same way with who is or what is God. No one knows, we just think we know and understand, we merely know who God is. But I can just say with strong conviction by experience and not with what someone taught me, it is more real than what our small mind can possibly think, and its inside of us, it has a lot of names Likeness of God, Buddha Nature, Divine Nature, The Light, the Angel within, whatever its called, it lives inside of us and we need to wake it up and put away the things that distracts us from waking it up inside of us. That’s what I believe in a nutshell, there is more to write but it would be too long, sorry.
My Testimony
Growing Up
My years of adolescence was tough, since I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, I learned and saw many things that molded my way of thinking. I remember I witnessed at the age of seven a dead body of a man who was shot in the head, in the middle of the street in Brooklyn. I learned about adult movies, when discovering my father’s hidden movies. I was exposed to, too many things that I wish, I never learned.
Learning The Ropes
In junior high school, I met friends that carried guns and box cutters, so eventually I wanted to have the same. I borrowed a 22 pistol from a friend and brought it into my house when I was only ten years old. I started hanging out with thugs and thieves and I easily picked up all of their habits. But my parents didn’t know what I was doing in school or who were my friends; they thought I was still the good little boy they raised in church.
Who My Father Was
My father was a very strict man, who uses to violently beat me because I was very rebellious. I was most of the time afraid of my father, but we did have some good moments, like he took us out to the park to play or I use to sleep in his arms. But I remember the strictness of my father, and he use to beat me with the buckle of a belt, or a telephone wire. I remember once he picked me up by my neck and yelled at me because I was running around, but I was only a child, I was just having fun. I remember I was looking at his eyes, with total fear because I couldn’t breathe and I thought I was going to die.
My Father Passed Away
My father passed away when I was eleven, and I was very depressed for a long time. But gradually I started to feel a sense of relief because I felt free. My years of repression from his rules came to a complete end. As time past, my older brother who was the second in line of command who played the role of a father to me, had gotten married and so did my older sister so both moved out the house to start their own separate lives, my path to growing up was on my own to live with my mother who was not the stronger one in raising us. I didn’t really have someone to rely on, because I felt like my mom was only a nag to me. My disrespect and rebellion grew more and more intense during my time of high school and my mother couldn’t control me anymore.
Self Discovery
At the age of sixteen I discovered what was drugs, alcohol and sexual pleasures. I met more and more friends, and slowly got a street name, which I started to spray graffiti all over New York. I use to sneak out side the house while my mother was sleeping at night, to write graffiti in the streets. My popularity grew quick in the streets. The friends I met introduced me to robbing people for money. My life was going full speed down to the ground without my mother knowing what I was doing. As I started to gain fame in the streets, people knew who I was and girls found me a little more attractive because I was the bad kid. I remember feeling a sense of accomplishment, because I hated being the innocent good church kid.
I Was Almost Killed
There was a time when I started to date a girl who my friend recently broke up with. I didn’t know it was not going to be a problem, but my friend became extremely furious and sent someone to tell me that he wants to fight me. I was kind of nervous because this guy was a good boxer. He also had family members that were in jail for murder. I decided to not show up to the neighborhood where I used to hang out, in which he could find me. Suddenly, the guy had his cousin call my house, and when I picked up the phone, he threaten to come and pull me out of my house if I did not come to the park to fight his cousin. The person who called my house happens to be the one that was in jail for murder. Since, I didn’t want anything to happen to my family, I went to the park to fight.
I went to the park alone, and I saw all my friends there and his friends were they’re too waiting to see the fight. I was so scared because I had no idea what was going to happen. I got in a fighting stance and the kid lunged his punches at me and I was blocking and swinging and getting hit. We exchanged punches and kicks for a couple of minutes, until suddenly, I heard a bunch of girls and guys screaming in the background behind me.
One of my friends ran and grabbed me and said, “The kids cousin has a gun and is trying to shoot you.” I ran and left the park quickly. When I made it to my friend’s house, he told me everything that happen. He said that the kids cousin, aimed a 38-caliber gun towards me and clicked the gun a couple of times, but nothing came out of the gun. He also told me that the brother of the kid I was fighting took out the clip of the bullets before they got to the park, because he anticipated that his cousin was going to try and shoot me. I knew deep inside of me there was something that protected me that moment.
Sign Of Protection
One night my friend and I decided to go to a club in Brooklyn. As we were walking to the club, I kept having a feeling that something bad was going to happen in the club. I told my friend, that I had a weird about this place we are going, he kept insisting me that everything was going to be OK. We went to the club and saw a couple of people we knew and had a drink and talked a little. As we stood in the club for about an hour, I told my friend that I think we should go, so he listened to me, and we left the club. The next day, when I spoke to my friend, he told me, “Hey, you remember the club we went to last night, some guys got killed at the front of the club.” After hearing about this, I was in shocked again, on how I felt a warning about this place. This was a supernatural message within me that was warning me. I knew that someone or something was watching over me and protecting me.
My Conviction That There is a Creator Of the Universe
In 1996, I was at a club in New York, with a friend of mine. That night I took so much drugs and drunk a lot of liquor starting from early in the morning to the night without drinking or eating a meal. Also being anemic, I was feeling very weak through out that day.
My friend kept taking out more and more drugs one after another. I was having difficulty breathing, but I didn’t care I just kept smoking and drinking. While I was on the dance floor watching the people dance, I was having such a hard time breathing, my body started to feel like it was literally going to collapse. I turned to my friend and said, “That I was feeling sick and that I couldn’t breathe, I needed to leave to get some air,” but he insisted to wait later. I continued to stand on the dance floor looking at the girls. I was having trouble breathing, so I kept telling my friend I wanted to leave but he refused. As I stood there I felt my body failing me, my head became very light, my eyes started to get dim and my breath was becoming less.
Suddenly, I heard a clear crisp voice within me that called me by my name, and this voice, sent a great comfort to me. This voice didn’t make me feel scared at all, this voice sounded so familiar to me, it was a voice that I recognize, but I couldn’t put it together. I heard the voice again calling me by my name, with great authority. I looked to my right side to see if someone was whispering to my ear or something, but no one was there. Suddenly, I heard the voice again, it said, “Leave this place right now, you do not belong here! Leave now, something is going to happen to you!” I said within myself, I must have been hallucinating since I am intoxicated right now, so I am going to ignore this thought. After a couple of seconds past, I heard the voice again louder, saying, “Leave now, something is going to happen to you!” I couldn’t ignore the voice anymore because the voice was too loud and clear within me.
So I said within myself, “If this is you God, if you are real, please tell me how can I leave this place? There is no way for me to walk or run out of here, because the club is packed, there is no room for me to leave.”
There was no room for me to walk or run out, because it was wall-to-wall packed with people. I said within myself, how am I going to leave this place? Suddenly, I heard the voice again, saying, “Look towards the right,” and when I looked towards the right, I saw the people moving towards the left and towards the right, like if someone was pushing them out of the way creating a gap. This gap was leading towards the exit door of the club. I starred at what was happening, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. I kept saying to myself, OK, this is real, I have to react right now, and I have to leave. I heard the voice again saying loudly, “Run, run, run now!” So I took a leap and started to run towards the exit door, I ran through the gap very fast. I pushed the doors and ran, and ran very fast down the city streets.
While I was running, I starting hearing voices yelling and cursing at me, I also heard bottles crashing all around me. I started to panic, I looked back while I was running and saw nobody, but I heard footsteps of people running loud and clear around me. I did not understand what was happening, so I just kept on running. As I continued to run, I notice my energy was dwindling and my breath was becoming shorter and shorter. Suddenly I felt my heart stopped, my breathing stopped and body shut off like someone pulled the plug off of me. My eyes closed like I was going to sleep. I just stopped running and fell and hit the ground in the middle of the streets. As I hit the ground, I saw myself, in a dark room, and I was crying and yelling “Oh no this is it, my last day, I am going to die, this is it.” In this dark room I saw myself bound with chains on both my hands and feet. I was yelling out, “God help me, save me, please don’t let me die, I don’t want to die!!” I am not sure how long I was on the floor, but suddenly I felt a jolt of energy run through my body, I opened my eyes and started breathing again, gasping for breath like if I came up from the water. I remember the first things that I saw, the street lamppost on my left, and on my right I saw the tall city buildings and the dark blue night sky.
As I slowly got up and wiped the dust off from my clothes, I looked around because I didn’t know where I was. I saw a man walking towards me wearing a white button down shirt with a tie, and dark slacks, and who looked like a good friend of mine from church. He came up to me and said, “Are you ok? Does this happen to you often?” I immediately saw so much compassion from this guy, even without knowing him. I automatically felt like I wanted to confess everything to him of what I did that night. I did not know where I was, I didn’t know how to get home nor did I have any money. The man asked me if I knew what train to take, and I replied to him “no.” He pointed at a train station that was a couple of feet away from where I collapsed, and he asked me, “If I can take that train?” I answered to him that I could take this train home. He walked me down to the train station and without me telling him, that I had no money, he automatically went to buy me a token and paid for my fair. I looked at him and couldn’t believe him and thanked him and left to take the train.
This special episode in my life anchored my belief with the Absolute, the Creator that lives within me. I am extremely appreciative of what the Creator has done for me, for rescuing me many times in my life. Life is beautiful. I never thought I would be able to see the age of 33. I am blessed to be alive and I am blessed to even write this and have you read this.
Dhammpada – The Wise Man 6
“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.”
