Wisdom of Surrender

To some people, surrender may have negative connotations, implying defeat, giving up, failing to rise to the challenges of life, becoming lethargic, and so on. True surrender, however, is something entirely different. It does not mean to passively put up with whatever situation you find yourself in and to do nothing about it. Nor does it mean to cease making plans or initiating positive action.

Surrender is the simple but profound wisdom of yielding to rather than opposing the flow of life. The only place where you can experience the flow of life is the NOW, so to surrender is to accept the present moment unconditionally and without reservation.

It is to relinguish inner resistance to what "IS."

(Derived from Practising the Power of NOW - p106)

Exercise

This morning I realized how easy it is for us to put aside our scheduled time for exercise when some other appointments come up. No doubt other appointments may concern our work or our business, but come to think about it - are we saying our own exercising is NOT so important? So our own physical health can come second or third or fourth on our priority list? Would it be possible for us to set aside our exercise time to be just as important - if not more so - then our other businesses of the day such that if we have made an appointment to go to the gym (for example) that doesn't get dropped when we are called to a meeting of some sort?

This same goes for prayers I suppose. Can we really dedicate a specific time each day to give to God - so to speak? And the follow these pre-scheduled time "religiously" without allowing for the day to day "distractions" to pull us away from these moments?

With the down in the economy, I've notice (as have many) that businesses are less inclined to spending $$ on self/personal development. It is no secret that many people would put aside this aspect of their life (personal growth and development including spirituality) for many other things. Seems like our "care for ourselves" is always at least secondary. Practically all of us have heard of the trite saying of "We have to love ourselves first before we can love others" or "how can others love you if you don't love yourself" or the many other varieties that speak to the same matter. Yet, while we know this in our head and heart - we (most of us) seem to not practice this.

Are we missing a very important point? I wonder ...

The Joy of Being

Ask yourself: Is there joy, ease, and lightness in what I am doing? If there isn't, then time is covering up the present moment, and life is perceived as a burden on a struggle.

If there is no joy, ease, or lightness in what you are doing, it does not necessarily mean that you need to change what you are doing. It may be sufficient to change the how. "How" is always more important than "what." See if you can give much more attention to the doing than to the result that you want to achieve through it. Give your fullest attention to whatever the moment presents. This implies you also completely accept what is, because you cannot give your full attention to something and at the same time resist it.

(taken from Practising the NOW - p35)

PRESENCE

Something to share from Practising the Power of NOW:

"In the stillness of your presence, you can feel your own formless and timeless reality as the unmanifested life that animates your physical form. You can then feel the same life deep within every other human and every other creature. You look beyond the veil of form and separation. This is the realization of oneness. This is love." (p84)

I am back!

Wow. It has been 3 weeks since I made my last post. How time flies. I wonder how people can do this on a daily basis. Guess perhaps it's just a matter of "discipline" or perhaps simply a matter of habit.

3 whole weeks! WoW!!

Life is still pretty "chaotic" at the moment. Depending on whether you are a half empty glass or half full glass - you would see the "chaotic" as either good or bad. Or perhaps it is just neither. For me - certainly this is some really trying times .. with changes on a daily basis. I guess I need to take what I can from the situation and hope I will learn and grow. You do know that even "Death" is growth, right? :)

Control Issue

Have you ever noticed how some people just love to argue? It would almost seem like the only reason they argue is just for the sake or arguing. Sometimes it gets to the point you don't even know what the heck they are talking about - but they just go on and on arguing their rubbish.

Whoa! Wait a minute - perhaps we all do that to some extent or other, huh? When I consider another person to be arguing up a storm of rubbish - perhaps it is wiser to stop and observe myself. From the other person's point of view - I am probably "arguing for the sake of arguing." Maybe this is what so many great "masters" (Deepak Chopra, Eckhart Tolle, James Redfiled - to name but a few) advocate we stop and observe ourselves. Don't be the "thinker." Be the "observer" of the "thinker."

In his book, The Celestine Prophecy, James Redfield address this in the Fourth Insight. He says "... psychologist were already searching for reason humans sought to control each other." (p.88) He goes on to say on that same page, "... dominating another makes the dominator feel powerful and knowledgeable, but it sucks the vital energy out of those who are being dominated. It makes no difference if we tell ourselves that we are doing it for the person's own good, or that they are our children, and therefore we should be in control all the time. The damage still occurs."

Later in page 121, Redfield writes "Getting rid of this habit (of controlling) isn't easy beacuse it is always unconscious at first. The key to letting go is to bring in fully into consciousness, and we do that by seeing that our particular style of controlling others is one we learned in childhood to get attention, to get the energy moving our way, and we are stuck there. The style is something we repeat over and over again. I call it our unconscious control drama."

E. Tolle in his book, The Power of Now, also refers to this drama. And in his book, Practising the Power of Now, he suggests the way for us to free ourselves from this is "listen to the voice in your head." (p.10) On page 11 he goes on to say, "This is what I mean by 'watching the thinker,' which is another way of saying: Listen to the voice in your head, be there as the witnessing presence."

So continuing to practice the Power of NOW in my own life - I will do what I can to observe my own need for this "power struggle" and "drama" and the act of arguing senselessly just to prove myself right. Who cares at the end of the day whether you were right or not. If you think you are right - and the other person is wrong, it's not my responsibility to prove them wrong. Let's learn to let people live in their own illusion while we live in our own. :) For NOW, I will ignore un-necessary debate.

Learning to accept and respect yourself

Today I realized one important thing. Got some bad feedback this morning .. criticism from some people. You see after a recent retreat I took, I felt like I have been doing much better in some aspects of my behavior. And perhaps my mistake was to assume others would see it too - and they would give some encouragement by recognizing or acknowledging it.

But most ppl (in case Amy is reading - people means all of us including me so need to kutuk) - are so apt at looking at faults only and not forgetting the past. So while I sincerely believe I've improved (well maybe just a little) - it was really disappointing to hear people criticize and say - so short fuse .. so this and that. Sigh. Disappointed me for a while.

But then a voice inside said to me and told me this: the important thing is how u feel about yourself. You would know if u are making improvement or not. Others may be still caught up in their vision of the past and still look for signs of ur old behavior. Don't let their remarks bring u down. This doesn't mean u never listen to feedback from others. Consider what they have to say - and after an honest evaluation - trust your heart, trust your instincts - be kind to yourself. I think I am making improvement - and if no one else sees it .. that's ok. I will keep doing what I am doing and seek to continue to improve even more .. not for their sake .. but for my own well being.

In the famous words from the Love Guru (movie la), "others may say bad about me, but I won't say bad about myself." Hahaha.

That's it for his entry .. tata.

Be Awaken

"The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not "the thinker." The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. You also realize that all the things that truly matter - beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace - arise from beyond the mind. - You begin to AWAKEN." (from Practising the Power of Now - by Eckhart Tolle)

Quote from my mom

Each person must paddle his/her own canoe.

Moral of the "story:" While we may share our views and values and aspirations (for ourselves and for others) - with the people we care for .. ultimately, they have to be the ones to decide for themselves what they want to do with their lives and in their lives. Hence, "each person must paddle his/her own canoe." We can't do it for them - we probably shouldn't do it for them.

Malaysians - Caring or Busy Body

I am sure we have all experienced this before - perhaps some, if not all, of us have also been guilty of this. What's the "this?"

Well this morning as I was trying to rush back home, I suddenly hit a traffic jam on Fed Hwy headed towards KL from Subang. Oh I know u can already guess the cause, right??

Half a km into the crawl I noticed on THE OTHER SIDE of the hwy an accident. There were policeman and a fire truck there. SO - as usual, an accident on the opposite side of the road/hwy led to a "almost stand still" on our side (moving in the opposite direction). And all this because curious drivers have to slow down (some even come to an almost stand still) just to look at what happened on the other side (or maybe to take numbers to buy). Sure enough as soon as u pass the accident, the traffic started moving smoothly again.

I thot to myself - why are people so busy-body? Then an opposing voice said "perhaps they are just concerned." Concerned? Concerned about what? DO they think they can render assistance? Come on, the firemen and police officers are already there? So why do they have to slow down and look. No, I don't think I am being "half empty" in the "half full or half empty glass" syndrome. The final analysis - people are just down right nosy. Ok ok .. a nicer word for this - people are just curious creatures.

Virgin post

Hi. Umm what do I say. This is just my step into the blogging world. My very first blog and my first entry. Umm considering it is 2.41 AM now and this is just the first write-in .. I guess I'll spare everyone and make this very short.

Hah I just realized I wrote "everyone" above like as if there are sooo many readers. Anyway ...........
b4 i digress too much and start writing a tome .. best end here to keep it sweet and short.

I will be back!!! Hahaha