Meditation - All Conditioned Things are Anicca

"Anicca vata sankhara, uppadavaya-dhammino;

uppajjitva nirujjhanti, tesam vupasamo sukho."
All conditioned things are impermanent; They arise and pass away.
To live in harmony with this truth; Brings the highest happiness.

This meditation is aimed to:

• practice to attain harmonious mind
• release negative reaction from your body, cells, molecules, till the smallest part
• be healthy and prosperous
• be calm, peaceful from within, and balance
• reach mindfulness and discernment

- G U I D AN C E -

• sit in a meditation posture (relax your head-neck, shoulder-arms, chest-tummy-sex, both feet, buttock and back)
• pray as per your beliefs
• emanate “May All Sentient Beings be Well and Happy” from your heart to 12 directions (this exercise is effective to expand your mind in a broader level):
1. entire body
2. entire place we're residing in (the house, meditation center, on the plane, etc.)
3. surrounding neighborhood
4. upward
5. downward
6. frontward
7. backward
8. right direction
9. left direction
10. the earth
11. the earth surrounding (solar system, milkyway, surrounding galaxies, etc.)
12. the entire universe

I. BREATHING / HEALING MEDITATION

1. Concentrate in observing breath when breathing in and out and be aware of Anicca (impermanence) → FEEL the breath characteristic on each nostril: warm/cold sensation (fire element), breath length/expansion (wind element), smooth/pause (water element), heavy/light (earth element); there are 12 breath characteristics.
2. FEEL the 36 body parts and 7 Chakras (while progressing, you may go back to concentrating on breathing at any time if you feel uneasy during releasing negative reaction from your physical body, indicating that your body requires more oxygen): head (+2 chakras); front neck (+chakra); right shoulder; right upper arm; right lower arm; right palm; right lower arm; right upper arm; right shoulder; base of the neck; left shoulder; left upper arm; left lower arm; left palm; left lower arm; left upper arm; left shoulder; chest (+chakra); abdominal (+chakra); sex organ (+chakra); right tight; right leg; right foot; right leg; right tight; sex area (+chakra); left tight; left leg; left foot; left leg; left tight; buttock (+base chakra); lower back; middle back; upper back; back neck.
3. To focus on the pain / not healthy / sick / uneasy part of your body, FEEL the respective chakra and the area.
4. To finish step 3: with your mind, wipe the entire front body from head to base, continued to back part from base to head (this is like the sensation of feeling water flowing from top to bottom of your body).

The 7 Body Chakras

II. LOVING-KINDNESS MEDITATION

1. Concentrate in observing breath during breathing in and out (no need to observe Anicca)
2. Exercise to expand loving-kindness wave: "May ... be Well and Happy" (I myself, 5 closest relatives, 5 closest friends, 5 neutral persons, 5 problematic persons; and consecutively back to I myself); mention the name.
3. Emit the loving-kindness aura to the entire universe
4. Emit the loving-kindness aura to the loved or the deceased ones or any particular target of being
5. Go back to observing breathing in and out
6. Recite 3x "May All Beings be Well and Happy"

"Train your muscles with heavy materials (dumbel, barbel) to make them stronger;
Train your mind with the lightest material (breath concentration) to make it sharper" (Ada, 2013)

Reference:
Bali Usada

Buddhist Teaching, The Essence

"Sabba papassa akaranam
Kusalassa upasampada
Sacitta pariyodapanam
Etham Buddhanasasanam"
To abstain from all evil
To cultivate the good
To purify one's mind
This is the teaching of the Buddhas

Jangan berbuat jahat
Perbanyak kebajikan
Sucikan hati dan pikiran
Itulah inti sari ajaran Buddha

Eye to Eye

This essay was written after I finished reading my two books, Power vs. Force and Zero Limits. The two books have interesting explanation about eye contact. Here I try to present what I understand from the books.

In the recent modern science, behavioral kinesiology is getting more and more popular and well investigated. One aspect in the study of behavioral kinesiology is to examine the strength and sensitive response of our muscle towards any object. Different qualities of similar object cause different responses to our muscle. This study reveals that muscle response and strength can be measured accurately*.

*) For example: An experiment was conducted where a group of examinees were given two sealed envelopes; one was enclosed with vitamin C and another with artificial sweetener. All examinees were not told what inside each envelope was. During the test, all examines gave exactly the same response. They showed positive response when holding the envelope with vitamin C, whereas the envelope with sweetener caused weaker muscle strength to them.

In Power vs. Force, Hawkins applied behavioral kinesiology technique to calibrate the state of human awareness to muscle strength. He found that level 200 (calibrated between 0-1000 in logarithmic scale) is the critical point for awareness shifting. At level 200 or above is obtained when people experience happiness, excitement, joy, peace, and universal love. Apparently, the highest state of human awareness which is calibrated at level 1000 is the universal love (Jesus, Lord Buddha, Muhammad, Krishna were the ones who had attained level 1000). Below 200 people emits weak energy aura. This is where humans experience all the negative state such as angry, sad, discontented, and desperate. Unfortunately, people nowadays are mostly under this critical limit!

In Zero Limits, there is a particular passage that really draws my attention: eye contact. What I found is that the ability to maintain eye contact is strongly related to the state of human awareness. It is showed in a behavioral experiment where a group of participants must stand up face to face toward their own partners who are completely strangers, and see right through their partner’s eyes for certain period. Apparently, not all participants were able to maintain eye contact within the defined period. The instructor said that the ones who are filled with love won’t get any problem with eye contact to a total stranger. People who are not in peace, not having pure heart, lack of love, having prejudice and all sort of negative thinking (below level 200), will not stand to maintain eye contact even for short time.

The ones who failed to maintain eye contact were asked to release their negative energy using ho’oponopono technique by saying I love you repetitively, emitting universal love towards all beings including their stranger counterpart. Some even dropped tears unconsciously during the progress as they felt embarrassed or guilty for having negativity that contaminated them selves as pure beings. The ho’oponopono was successful. Eventually they were able to hold eye contact with their counterpart. This indicates that our eyes can’t hide what inside our mind is. Eyes can't lie. That's why we have to release our negative energy and fill ourself with love. Wise men say, the purpose of life for every being is to love and to be loved.

Additional comment:
In Western culture, when you are talking, you have to maintain eye contact. You can tell that a person is lying or telling the truth from his/her eyes. Yet, it is a different situation in Asian culture where looking at someone straight in their eyes can be considered rude or impolite.

As someone who was raised in Asian culture, I have to adapt and get myself used to with maintaining eye contact when speaking to someone. This is an important cross cultural learning especially for Asian students who study in Western countries. The Westerners often misunderstand them because they don’t maintain eye contact when they speak. Luckily, now I am used to with it. It does help me to see whether some one tells a lie or truth. Eyes speak, and never lie.

References:
Power vs. Force (David R. Hawkins)
Zero Limits (Joe Vitale & Ihaleakala Hew Len)
Pictures from http://kingtay.blogsome.com/

Faith: accept and let go off

keywords: acceptance, power, force, grateful

Things which are meant to be for us will surely come to us. It’s a matter of time. Just be patient to wait for the right time!
Every time I had difficulty I always pray to get inspiration to solve the problem. Lately, it seemed that all answers to my pray have been provided through books. The books came out to me in various ways: through recommendation from my friends; through recommendation which came out from a stranger out of nowhere; through sudden intention to take a specific book when I browse in a bookstore.

When giving suggestion to my friends who have similar problematic situation that I had, very often I recommend them to read one particular book which, I think, seem to be appropriate to solve their problem. Yet, very often the book doesn’t suit them in term of its philosophy or overall content. And very often I heard most comment from them is that they can’t understand the main messages from the book even though they have read it over and over.

That is why I truly believe that things which are meant to be for us will surely come to us; on the contrary, things which are not meant to be, we won’t get it, we won’t understand it. For other persons with similar problem like what we had, maybe the universe has prepared another way to overcome their problem to make them able to draw the life lesson over such situation. We can help by sharing our experience in dealing with the same situation, but again, sometimes it may help to one person, sometimes it doesn’t work at all. One thing for sure, they will find the best way to overcome such situation. And the way out to the same problematic situation can be unique to every person.

Holding to that philosophy, now I can face everything with more acceptances. I realize when the thing I want can not be achieved, or the thing doesn’t work as I plan or aim for, I simply think that maybe it’s not meant to be for me at this time. Thus I have to work harder, I have to introspect and improve myself, and most importantly I have to let go off any negative thoughts for not meeting the expected target at this time. Maybe later, I deserve something better than before, something that’s meant to be best for me in the right time.

Previously, I realize that I used to apply force instead of power to get something. When we apply force, it has “tension of the opposites” (I borrow this term from Mitch Albom’s Tuesday with Morrie, as this is explained well about why we should use power instead of force). Imagine when you push a spring from its balance; you will get contraction and expansion. That is what happens when we use force. When I targeted on something with constant force, yes I can achieve the goal. But it takes most of my energy. Furthermore, it is also very exhausting to maintain what we get for using force.

Power on the other hand, encompasses everything. It doesn’t consume our energy, it recharges our energy instead. We can use power only when we are in line with our heart and in fully acceptance to the situation at any moment we live our lives. Initially, I felt a bit difficult to accept some situation in my daily basis. But when I can align with it, everything suddenly seems to unfold for me so easily. I am grateful to know this universal secret that we should work with power. Now even small things works perfectly for me as long as I’m in line with any situation in my present moment.

I still need to practice acceptance to any situation in my present moment. Sometimes, I still complain for unwanted situation I must face. Sometimes, I use force to deal with it. But then I realize, when something hectic happens, it alerts me to go in line again with my present moment, and not to use force to agitate the balance, the yin yang of the universe.

I thank all respective authors for all precious books.

References:
Power vs. Force (David R. Hawkins)
Tuesday with Morrie (Mitch Albom)

How to control our emotion and be spiritually conscious?

After dealing with some crucial life experiences and applying philosophy from several guidances about accessing spirituality, I feel that I need to share what and how I feel about my new prespective about life. A new chapter of my life has just been started.
Human beings might have advantage over other living beings in this world in the extent of having ability to be aware of their emotion, or “to be conscious” spiritually speaking. However, most human beings are not aware of this ability. Consequently, they don’t know how great the effect of this ability when it is being implemented.

Ideally, we have to be able to control our emotion and not the other way around; no matter it is driven by good or bad things in response to our surrounding environment. When it is stimulated due to good thing, we don’t lose control for not being overly excited. On the other hand, when our emotion is affected by bad thing, we don’t drag ourselves into deep despair.

The state of our emotion of being balance and not being affected by external factors is what in Buddhism is well known as Equanimity (Uppekha). It is “a spacious stillness of the mind, a radiant calm” (Salzberg, 1999), where we dwell in our peace and tranquility, emitting our highest aura and greatest inner power which can affect our surrounding environment in return (Hawkins, 2002).

Unfortunately, most people do not know how to apply this ability, and if they know, they don’t really put this into real daily practice. This fact has been confirmed in Hawkins’ investigation about the level of human consciousness where he found that most people in current modern days are below the consciousness threshold, i.e. below point 200 in logarithmic scale (the scale is between 0-1000, less than 200 is heading to chaotic state, 200 more is getting affirmative, 1000 is fully enlightened). Even in our daily life we can see that very often people are occupied with their own emotion. They become the slave of their own emotion. Consequently, a lot of people do erroneous acts, thoughts, talks, and other sort of irrational things.

Concentrate to pay attention to observe our emotional states

The question is how to control our emotion; how to perform our innate ability to be aware of our emotion and be spiritually conscious? The answer is simply to pay more attention to observe our emotional states in every moment. Paying more attention requires concentration. So, just concentrate to pay attention to observe our emotional states⁽*⁾. When we apply this once, we will experience a glimpse of tranquility; the awakening has just started. Practicing this every moment, our mind awareness becomes more and more conscious.

*) Practically, this is just the same as meditating. Meditating doesn't necessarily mean that you have to sit down like Buddha's posture closing your eyes and stay silent. Meditation can be done anywhere anytime as long as you concentrate to access the present moment, that is to pay attention to what you are presently doing.

Dwelling at conscious state offers several benefits. It does dissolve any emotional disturbance. Conscious people have acceptance to acknowledge that every single emotion influenced by external factors is only temporary, no matter good or bad. Since the power of being fully conscious is much greater than any state of world duality (good-bad, happy-sad, rich-poor, etc), it can also recharge our energy effectively and optimally. In contrast, drifting with our emotional flux consumes our energy a lot.

The pristine state of fully conscious beings is peacefulness. This is the last stage to achieve for every being in the universe. This is the highest state which is everlasting and unaffected by external environment. There is only peace inside. So, practice to observe your emotional states, be the witness on your emotional flux, and keep your heart at peace.

Life Journey: Evolution of Spirituality

Source: Zero Limits (Joe Vitale & Ihaleakala Hew Len) & The Power of Now (Eckhart Tolle)

After reading and reviewing several literatures regarding self-improvement by visualization, affirmation, self-awareness technique, EFT, etc; I must say that I totally agree with Joe Vitale’s concept that the evolution of spirituality among human beings in general can be summarized into three different stages:

We are as a victim
In this stage, we are the typical ordinary people in the daily life. We feel that we don’t have influence, totally powerless. This stage is often characterized by people complaining, blaming, judging easily, which are still considered acceptable as ‘normal’ behavior in our life. We act almost entirely based on our ego, unconsciously.

Start gaining control
In this stage people start to know about the power of intention. With a powerful visualization of affirmative mindset, they start to attract good thing as expected. True, it is the law of attraction that works behind this as they emit high vibrating energy due to excitement. Recently, more and more people practice “The Secret” to attract better things in their life. Yet, such technique is not necessarily always successful. It really depends on the degree of intense craving and how strong they can visualize the thing they want to attract. Sometime, a person is not “thirsty” enough to empower the attracting force towards the thing he or she wants. Apparently, this power is still based on human’s ego, only in a more controlled form which is performing intense visualization of what a person wants.

The common characteristic of people is never feeling satisfied with something. Moreover, we all have things we want to posses. However, after one thing has been fulfilled then we start craving for another thing, and so on. Sometimes we push the situation by applying the power of intention to satisfy our craving. Yet, when the thing doesn’t work as we expect, we tend to find a more powerful way to fulfill our own needs.

It would be very lucky enough if people, with time and experience through different life situation, can shift into higher awareness which is the very last stage of spiritual evolution. That is to realize that it is not by letting our own craving always be satisfied to get true happiness. We can achieve the true happiness only when we get rid of our own ego and craving. Hence, there will be only peace inside. That is the highest state of happiness. (For more information, read Power versus Force in which Richard Hawkins has scientifically investigated about the lowest to highest level of human energy in relation to the state of mind).

Awakening
In this very last stage of spirituality, people start to realize that their own intention is the limiting factor to access the greatest power of life. People in this stage look inward them selves; enjoy every single present moment of their lives. They start to feel deep peace inside, the peace that comes from within, not because of outer environment. When this is happening, the power of forgiving, forgiveness, love, gratitude simply emanate from inside towards the universe, affecting people, animals, plants, things, and all beings. This is where the law of paradox begins to happen, i.e. the universe unfolds for you when you surrender, agree to each moment of life, or what is referred as you are inline with God. Hence, you start receiving miracles. And you simply enjoy the miracles you receive with gratefulness as you already know that you are going to receive it.

* * *

Regarding my life journey, if I look at back through my life experience, at the first stage of my life I realize that most things I did were not based on my conscious mind, but were ego-based instead, an extremely determined ego-based. I labeled anything good or bad according to my limited own beliefs based on my ego’s importance.

The second stage was started when I encountered one very crucial life problem that made me so desperate. Just by chance, a stranger had a little chat to me and mentioned about “The Secret”. So, I bought the book. After reading it through, I was so excited to try this technique. As recommended from the book: keep practice to sharpen this power, start by visualizing small thing in our daily life. So, I did that excitedly. I remember that on one particular day I was out of town, I had seven small tasks done using the Secret technique. I felt so great! To some extent, I had experienced the power of intention which had been successfully worked for me due to my intense craving. Nevertheless, not every life task can be easily accomplished with it despite I have developed my mood enhancing technique. When I feel down, I hardly can visualize the “happy” thing that I want to attract or achieve. This seems to be the weakness of this method.

Under my confusion and sickness of life, I kept looking for an answer. It was in the bookshop I browsed for a good book about life. I simply grabbed The Power of Now. This book really helped me to open my mind and to look at life situation with clearer perspective. Thank Eckhart Tolle. I felt so blessed that I got the answer to my prayer. It provides me guidance to enter the last stage of spiritual life. The book might be kinda “heavy” reading, but the principle is simple and very logical. Till now, I practice to live my world in every single present moment. At least I can start to feel at peace. And I try to keep that state anytime anywhere.

For that reason I feel very grateful, that I’ve experienced each stage progressively. I was wondering why not since a long time ago I’ve found the book. But then I think I should experienced each stage gradually, otherwise I won’t have capacity to understand on what has been explained by Tolle in The Power of Now.

By reading such literature, I have also revised and sorted out many of my ego-based philosophies. Previously, I really admired and implemented Julius Caesar’s famous Veni Vidi Vici as he expanded his empire and conquered his enemies. But now, I feel that such principle seems to be impractical in current life situation and no more appropriate for me to apply.

Thus far, I considered my self very lucky because I was born and raised in a very conservative Chinese ethnic descent family which is strict in applying Taoism and Confucianism principle, combined with typical Chinese norms of living in a transitional period toward a modern millennium life. Moreover, to me, living as minority among indigenous Indonesian people is considered as another blessing since I can learn how to position myself within any community to avoid racism issue and conflict upon social strata. Another lucky thing I have in my life is being associated with Buddhism which initially I learned during my previous 12-year basic formal education. The teaching is very useful and influential in guiding me to understand about what’s happening in this world, a world which is full with chaos and unconsciousness. Finally, I am so grateful because I had opportunity to experience living in a very complex modern big city to a small simple little town and quiet suburban village, in developing and developed country, in western, eastern, and multiracial culture. Living in various dynamic places, interacting with people, and encountering various life problem play a very important role to open my mind, identify my weaknesses, find out my strength, improve my tolerance and adaptability skill during social interaction, enrich my learning, and eventually gain deeper understanding about universal life.

Supporting References:
-A New Earth (Eckhart Tolle)
-Power vs Force (David R. Hawkins)
-The Law of Attraction (Michael Losier)
-The Power of Now (Eckhart Tolle)
-The Secret (Rhonda Byrnes)

God, The Creator, The Divine One, The Source…or Energy?

All material in this universe consists of molecules. Each molecule has atoms that consist of nucleus with its orbiting electrons. Within the nucleus there are protons and neutrons. (Quantum Physics).
Now compare it to our universe! It’s a very similar pattern.

The space contains billions of galaxy clouds. Each galaxy cloud contains billion of galaxies. Each galaxy contains billions of stars. Each star has its own system consisting of orbiting planets with their own orbiting satellites. (Astronomy-Cosmology).
So, ever wondered who creates all of these?

Scientifically, people will point out ‘energy’ that maintain the system balance. Energy can’t be created or destroyed. It moves its form to another form. Energy enables the big bang that forms the galaxy system in the empty space... Theologically, people will say ‘God’. God can not be created or destroyed, just moving into form, through form, out of form.” (James Ray, the Secret pg 159). So, it is the same essence, only different terminology. If I use the following equation:

God = Energy = mc²; where m = mass, c = speed of light in a vacuum

It does make more sense now to a scientific explanation-minded type of person like me to see what people mean by God is everywhere and within your selves!!!

All materials have mass in this physical universe. Therefore, they have potential energy, or so-called God essence in a spiritual context. I’m not saying that we have to worship any material as they have God essence (read: potential energy). To me worshiping is more into religious culture and habit. And I’m not talking in a religious context, but in spirituality instead.

Talking about energy in relation to human being, ever wonder how we produce heat? We get energy from foods so then we can produce energy to act. It’s all about energy transformation. Every time, our body also emits energy. In the spiritual context, it is referred as the aura of our body that emanates towards the universe.

The emitted aura is strongly influenced by the state of mind. So if our mind is happy, compassionate, and always positive, then we emit the positive aura. Similarly when we are imbued with bad thoughts, unhappy feeling, resentment, and other kind of negativity, we’re emitting bad vibration.

When we emit bad energy vibration, we attract bad thing; good energy only vibrates to good things to attract. This is what is defined as the universal Law of Attraction. So, when we’re aware that we’re in negative state then we must immediately dissolve our bad energy.

It is not an easy thing to overcome our negativity. At worse, most people are not even aware enough when they’re doing something negative. Thus, it really takes lots of practice until we find the best way to lessen our negativity along with improving our affirmative thoughts and developing positive mental attitude.

The way I deal with it is simply to apply the principle of LET IT GO into my daily practice. It here refers to things that might trigger my negative thought; those are things such as my bad experience or dissatisfaction in the past that might lead into potential resentment, hatred, depression, personality disorder, or even taking revenge. Despite the fact that such things exist no more in the present moment, very often they come back again and easily pop up in the mind of most human beings. So, there is absolutely no use to keep such memory in our mind. Just LET IT GO! And only by doing that, I can access and enjoy my present moment peacefully.

Once our mind is in the present moment, it is easier to bring acceptance and forgiveness within our self. These are the acceptance and forgiveness on any condition that has happened to us, particularly past occasion that may activate our bad mood or self-blaming, which is known as painful memory. Only by focusing on the present moment, such memory can be dissolved from our mind, hence less and less painful memory popping up in our mind and eventually gone totally.

Another benefit of living in the present moment is that you are more aware of any thing in your surroundings. People mostly talk, act, and think about something without being fully conscious! But when you are totally in the present moment, you will be conscious enough to witness that any things around you has God essence that always reminds you to return back to God’s path, leading to deep peacefulness and enlightenment.

In this state, any inspiration can easily come to us. Inspiration is the creative thinking. And only with creative thinking, we can easily unlock anything in our life: career, wealth, good health, and many other life tasks. That is to say, the universe unfolds for you as you’re in God’s path. You’re returning to God, back to zero. And that’s where you are experiencing the truth happiness.

Key:
God is within you means God dwells in you, this you can sense only when you’re at peace, or at transcendental state.
God is everywhere means that every single thing around you will remind you to return to the universality of God.

Source:
-A new earth (Eckhart Tolle)
-Power vs Force (David R. Hawkins)
-The Law of Attraction (Michael Losier)
-The Power of Now (Eckhart Tolle)
-The Secrets (Rhonda Byrne)
-Zero Limits (Joe Vitale & Ihaleakala Hew Len)

Images:
quantum: http://www.quantumenergywellness.com/
atom: http://www.bartleby.com/
milky way: http://www.dailygalaxy.com/
solar system: www.gcsescience.com
solar sketch: http://fascinatingly.com

Dear Friend, Life Must Go On

It’s always good to hang out and get together with friends. As we’re getting along with our friends, we must still keep focusing on what we want to achieve in our life. While each of our friends has different goals in their life, we must also focus on ours, otherwise we will be left behind in our life.

Our friends one day may leave us to reach their dream, or it could be the other way around. It is such a common phenomenon in life. Have you ever thought about your old friends in elementary school, high school, or university? Where are they now? ... Yes, it is great if we still meet up or keep in touch with them. But some might have been disappeared from our radar. And again, that is just perfectly normal. They have to continue their life journey, and so do we.

Often I found very good friends in different places. But after some period of interaction, it is time to say good bye again. I’m not regretting that. To have such a high-quality friendship is a precious gift in this world. It’s a matter of whether we can deal with the sudden change of a situation where we have less and less time to interact with our friends. After all, true friends will always be close to our heart although they are separated thousand miles away from us.

The wise saying tells us that we should not have too much attachment to our friends in many respects. Indeed, experiences teach me that too much attachment to our close friends eventually causes more emotional pain when thing doesn’t work as what we expect. Unless, you are spiritually awakened enough to control your emotion, or in other words to say, you are free from attachment, that would be great! However, most people suffer “gloomy” period due to this emotional pain. It may take one week, a month, or even longer to dissolve such feeling.

“You may not know that you’re attached to something until you lose it or there is the threat of loss” (Tolle, 2005: A New Earth)

My colleague, Y. Apriliansyah, gave me a very good advice on how not to be overly attached to our fellow friends. Follows are the paraphrase on what he said: Attachment is caused by strong emotional bound, i.e. love, implicitly. Therefore, we must prioritize the distribution of our love. The first two highest priorities are to our Creator and to our parents (My comment: Most Indonesian believes that God is supposed to be the 1st priority to love then followed by our parents, but in India is the other way around. Despite different reasons in each country, both still agree that God and parents are the first two highest priorities to love. This is typical in most Eastern countries). Then we can dedicate our love to our spouse or sibling. Apparently, friends are relatively the last priority to love. The closest our bound with someone will be the more painful we suffer when we break up. In that case, only by shifting our love to the higher priorities we can dissolve such emotional pain.

My very personal suggestion is to be grateful always for those who still have good friends around. Be communicative and open to your good friends to avoid any misunderstanding. And ideally, we should not have overly attachment and too much dependency towards our friends, then we can enjoy our friendship without any prejudice, jealousy, and other kind of negative attitude.

So in this chance, I’d like to say to all my dearest friends: I’m sorry for my negative thoughts that have caused any problem and misunderstanding between you and I; Please forgive me; I love you; Thank you for being my friends and becoming part of my life (Ho'oponopono Teaching).

Many thanks to Mr. Thayalan and Yudi Apriliansyah

The Greatest Blessing

It was typical for me not to tell my family, close friends, or anyone about my big project before I reach my final goal. Good though, to some extent! Despite the high pressure I had when dealing with the task, I learn to be strong to stand up on my own feet, and not to depend on other people, an absolute single fighter very often!

The moment I announce that I have achieved my ultimate goal, that would the most euphoric climax for me. I love to surprise my family and my close friends. I really enjoy that moment with all joy and excitement!

However, it's not easy to accomplish every single task. It requires big effort and wouldn’t be as easy as snapping finger. Perhaps I just realized that every task I do will run more smoothly when I ask my mum for her blessing. I believe that mother’s blessing to her children is absolutely powerful in any situation. So every time I have chance to tell my mum about my tasks, I’ll ask for her special blessing.

Dare to Dream

Edensor, a popular Indonesian novel by Andrea Hirata, tells about the author’s life reflection in attaining his dream. The story begins in a little village in Belitung, Indonesia. There lived a boy who had strong will in which his life journey led him to end up in France to study his master higher degree. France was the place of his dream, inspired by the old picture of Eiffel Tower hung in the almost-broken class room wall during his early school days.

Through his effort, he got a scholarship for his post graduate program. This was his starting point of his life adventure. A boy who previously lived in a low-level-society district, who thought that going overseas is only for someone economically capable, eventually just started to experience the world thousand miles away from his village. He learnt lots of things from his journey. There he realized that whatever he dreamed about during his early days, it would come true. Even by chance he found the most beautiful scenery of Edensor, a place that he could only see and imagine from a book given by someone important in his life when he was just a kid.

***
This novel of Edensor inspires me to write this essay, an essay about having dreams in our life. Many people don’t want to realize their dreams. They think that the world is such a threatening place. That's why it’s better to be secure by not taking possible risks to chase what they really want to do, what they really dream about. Once you have a thought like this, then that is your world going to be. (Coelho, from the Alchemist)

It is very true that in realizing our dream, there will be lots of obstacle blocking up our way. But the essence behind that is how we learn to overcome such blockage by applying patience, hard work, effort, and persistence, so that we become a better individual. Unfortunately, most people give up in that situation. They don’t want to live their “personal legend” in making their dreams come true.

“Personal legend” is a term mentioned by the alchemist to refer to several processes that must be accomplished by someone to achieve the goal of their life. (Gee...I really like to refer to Coelho’s work. Coelho is such a genius!)

Regarding achieving our dream, here are best notes that I quote from another Coelho’s work “By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept”, part of the wisdom saying from the padre to Pilar:

“Follow your dreams, transform your life, take the path that leads to God. Perform you miracles. Cure. Make Prophecies. Listen to your guardian angel. Transform yourself. Be a warrior, and be happy as you wage the good fight. Take risks” (River Piedra, pg 132)
I would add a bit of my own interpretation and note.
Listen to your heart to chase your dream. There will be so many miracles for you to experience on the way to reach your dream and be grateful for every single miracle you receive. Be brave and take risks in moving forward to make the dream comes true. How soon your dream can come true depends on whether or not you move your step toward the realization of your dream.

So have your big dreams. Enjoy the journeys in achieving your dreams. Finally celebrate the moment when your dreams come true!

A Review: The Alchemist (Coelho)

This book is very challenging to read! Coelho is such a genius!

What I understand from this book is that an Alchemist is basically a person who gets fully awakened spiritually. The main character, Santiago, seems to have this “talent” which allows him to become more aware on things he deals with.

He learns thing very fast from his surrounding. That is why through his journey he eventually understood the Alchemy principle which is the basic philosophy of life. It’s a deep understanding he got from his learning that was inspired by his sheeps, the sea, crystal, fire, dessert, and other things he encountered in his journey. When he got inspiration, he became silent and impressed by the aura of each element around him. Such a trance condition he experienced!

Follows are several quotes I like from this book:

It is "old and wise" to learn lessons from any thing you experience in your life (Santiago's thought, pg 73)

"If you can concentrate always on the present, you’ll be a happy man" (phrase from camel driver, pg 85)

"The fear of suffering is worse than the suffering it self" (phrase from the Alchemist, pg 130)

Don’t be scared, coz when you are, you won’t be able to listen to your heart (paraphrase from the Alchemist saying, pg 141)

The Secret Concept; the Power of Positive Thoughts

It seems that nowadays The Secret becomes a popular tool to achieve someone's dream and goal in their live. The concept is to use affirmative thoughts to emit the powerful positive vibration of our energy to attract what we want to achieve. Here, I found several examples that apply The Secret and how The Secret works.

Paulo Coelho, a very famous writer, seems to understand The Secret well. Many phrases in his books are the manifestation of The Secret concept. In his book, The Alchemist, he keeps emphasizing that, if you want something, the whole universe will conspire to make it true. He refers that in Alchemy discipline, the universe will unfold all things for you, this principle is known as "the Soul of the World" i.e. when you want something with all your heart, your soul will be the closest to the Soul of the World (the Universe), and it is in the form of positive force (the Alchemist, pg 78). This positive force will attract anything that corresponds to it.

He also raises a good point on gratitude; that we should be grateful for whatever things we receive everyday; that the things we receive everyday are miracles. So be grateful on miracles you receive everyday, otherwise you have wasted your life!

I presume that anyone who can successfully achieve their goals using The Secret concept, no matter obtaining small or big thing, can be assumed as an Alchemist. Anything can be achieved with your pure heart. That's why in Alchemy discipline, according to Coelho, the process of achieving can be analogized as the power that is able to transform from no value thing into gold.

Another book of Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept, he also highlights a similar phrase, "The universe always conspires to help the dreamer" (pg 53). In this book, he also proposes that in realizing your dream, you must tackle all forms of your own worry and fear, which he refers this as "the Other" of yourself. Thus, by controlling the Other, your motivation to achieve your goal will be synergic between your thinking and your heart. There is no more paradox within your self. It's all pure motivation with faith. He suggests that even tiny faith as a grain of sand can move a mountain (pg 82). Hence, your goal your dream will definitely be fulfilled.

Second example of the power of positive thought: Loving-kindness meditation. During this practice, first we have to relax our meditation posture, scan the whole body, then start emitting loving-kindness vibration towards all sentient beings. Initially, it is much easier to emit this positive energy to people whom we love, people close to us, then to someone whom we are not familiar with, eventually to people whom we have problem with, upset with. Once we can do that, then we can emit this loving-kindness energy to all sentient beings. It gives such a peaceful feeling wherever we are. Also, it will be much easier next time we deal with people whom we have problem with. Simply keep blessing them to be well and happy. We can reduce and eventually remove our negative thought on them, and replace it with loving-kindness instead. It is the power of positive thought that makes us a better person.

I realize that blocking our negative thoughts is not an easy thing to do. It requires lots more practice. The more we practice will be the better. The animation movie, Kungfu Panda, also inspires me that the most powerful technique to learn to be the greatest kungfu master is to be able to conquer our self. It's how we can control our fear, worry, and all sort of negativity. That's all reflected in the forbidden parchment: nothing except the shadow of our own. The truth of the greatest power we can achieve is simply within our self.

Even in Harry Potter, the scariest nastiest creature in the wizard world, the dementors, can be defeated using the warm-happy spell Expecto Patronum, simply by concentrating to the thing that makes you happy, then the spell will work effectively. This idea is the analogy where any form of fear and worry must be directly expelled by shifting our mind using mood booster which makes us feel better. The mood booster is something that makes your mood better and happier. Mood boosters could be any memories that make you laugh, favorite things you enjoy to do, or anything that can alter your mood into a better stage. (See my other essay on Mood booster).

To summary, be grateful for anything you get in your life, it's all your miracle. Keep blessing to people, all sentient beings, the universe, to be well and happy.

About "The Secret"

The Secret really affects my life. After reading it through, I feel that I become more optimistic in dealing with anything in my life.

I suggest anyone who has not experienced the outcome from reading The Secret, DO read it one more time! Try to understand the essence and apply it into daily practice. It's easy to understand though. The most important thing is that you must read it open mindedly! It's not discrediting God, any beliefs, teaching, nor any religion.

I'm sure that The Secret is not against any beliefs. Even in Christianity and Buddhism, the two teachings which are so different, The Secret seems to include both phylosophies appropriately.

Christianity emphasizes on faith. Simply, you must believe in God. God is everything related to positive things!

At first, I was a bit difficult to accept the "you must believe" kind of teaching. But now, I can understand the concept of having faith to ourselves. We are creators of our universe. God is living within our selves. When you have affirmative faith on yourself, then everything will work to fulfill what you want to achieve positively. So, trust yourself, believe in your own capacity. Accordingly, you'll have no more negative sequel in your life dictionary.

This is just like in the Christian teaching, "You believe in God (positive), your sin will be washed away". Or I can say in other words: Once you do things positively and live yourself in a positive attitude (as they call it "to live in God's way"), then you are not going to think of doing sin nor to live your life with sin, hence no more sin (or "washed away").

Whereas Buddhism is more into "Ehipassiko": come and see you'll know (You'll prove it by yourself). There is no such doctrine to insist on people to believe in 'something'. Just prove it (the teaching) by your self! This is the reason why Karma becomes a very famous teaching in Buddhism. Whatever you do, it will fruit to you.

The bad things happened to us were simply the result of our own Karma. You were the one who created that scenario of bad thing. It WAS your OWN THOUGHT which you can't control in the past, creating negative thinking or imagination or visualization or even just a pretense, which eventually fruited to you. That's why how the bad thing happened to you.

***
In practicing The Secret, I realize that sometimes I can't concentrate well, my thought goes deep melancholically, my fear or worry comes especially when I'm tired physically or mentally. Thus, the ways I practice The Secret are:

1. When I'm on my happy or good mood, I concentrate to emit my energy to the universe and focus on what I want to achieve
2. When I have my disturbance (tired, which causes worry, which eventually causes fear), I stop emitting my energy. Scream out loud "STOP" to my mind. I use my Samatha meditation* to concentrate on the present moment. Hence, my negative thought won't pop up in my mind.
3. Once I'm able to control my mind, then it's the time to change my mood again to "good state". To do this, I use my mood enhancers. And I have heaps of mood enhancers: listening to my favorite music, talking to my close friends, etc.
   

*) Samatha meditation focuses on cultivating high levels of concentration. There are 40 different themes you can choose. Each person has their own suitable theme. I always focus on the white light that enlightens my body and mind. Thus, whenever my mind thinks something negative, it will be burnt down by the very bright white light.

Some people may comment that what The Secret tells you is just something persuasive. I think, as long as this can lead to a better mood and positive energy, then what's the big deal?! It brings more positive aura, more confidence, eventually rises up your energy! Once you are on your optimum energy, everything is going to be much easier to achieve!

The essence of The Secret book is simply to keep you doing affirmative thought, thinking, attitude, imagination, inspiration, and positive aspect to look at things in our lives. Simply like that! No discrediting God, any beliefs, teaching, nor any religion.

Thank You Rhonda Byrne for sharing The Secret.