YELLOW PAD: Humanity's Team Philippines Newsletter JULY 2008
YELLOW PAD NEWSBYTES
HAPPINESSLOVEPEACEJOYWEALTH
TOPPP NOW ON HUMANITY'S TEAM PHILIPPINES CALENDAR
The HT Philippines yahoogroup calendar, which is used to remind its members of weekly study groups, now alerts everybody about its latest addition - the Temple of Prayer, Peace and Prosperity meetings every Sunday. HT Philippines decided to include the congregation led by George Sison, the Philippine International New Thought Alliance ambassador. For more information on TOPPP, please visit: http://m-reality.blogspot.com/2007/10/george-and-temple-of-prosperity.html and http://www.toppp.net
GIFT IDEA: LOVE WITHOUT CONDITIONS
Paul Ferrini's book "Love Without Conditions" is still available for only Php 200 at Als Restaurant/Dates Café, Als Building, Aguirre Avenue corner Presidents Avenue, BF Commercial Center, BF Homes, Paranaque City. HAPPINESSLOVPEACEJOYWEALTH
WHAT'S MORE IN YELLOW PAD:
- The Philippine Government and You
- Why There is Enough
- Cry of a Pinoy Scribbler J
- Blessed are the Fearless for They Shall Know God
- The Emancipation of Ra
HAPPINESSLOVEPEACEJOYWEALTH
HAPPINESSLOVEPEACEJOYWEALTH
By Sandra S. Alzona
Makati
"Politics is not in my line: I have always confined myself to doing my little best to make men less foolish and more honorable."
"I am tired of all these people who govern states from the recesses of their garrets."
"...these legislators who rule the world at two cents a sheet;... unable to govern their wives or their households they take great pleasure in regulating the universe."
~ Voltaire
Most cab drivers I've encountered had something to say about the government scandals that shook the country in recent months, most of all the painstakingly technical ZTE deal scandal, the rice shortage, and now the oil price hike. There are overworked and underpaid honest men and women in government and there are those who are motivated by being clever about their positions, so to give due respect to the unheard of honest persons who would be otherwise putting their lives, friends and families at risk, it is wiser, if not more hopeful to assume that the government is not entirely corrupt despite unspoken and unwritten systems. It's obvious, however, that being too clever says nothing at all about one's educational attainment or religiosity, it is simply about being clever. If your self esteem depended on the government, you'd be demoralized today.
As creators of our lives and shapers of our community, we usually get the same results by choosing the same thing with the same attitude all the time. We must revolutionize the clarity and healing of our hearts and minds. Neale Donald Walsch, author of the Conversations with God series, presented three factors to the process of creating anew:
1. Relativity - a system wherein you could exist as a thing in relationship to something else.
2. Forgetfulness - a process by which you willingly submit to total amnesia, so that you can not know that relativity is merely a trick and that you are All of It.
3. Consciousness - a state of Being in which you grow until you reach your full awareness, then becoming a True and Living God. Creating and experiencnig your own reality, expanding and exploring that reality, changing and re-creating that reality until you stretch your consciousness to new limits - or shall we say, to no limit.
It can't be emphasized enough that consciousness is everything in this paradigm. It is no flaw that there exists several paradigms. In this paradigm we know that we chose everything and that we can choose again. If we choose to play a game in life, we want to know how this game is played and what's in it for us. It could be the game of money, business, love, sexual encounters, war and national governance. At the same time, we don't enter a battlefield crying out for people to forgive us otherwise it is their weakness, karma or fault based on the paradigm of consciousness when we entered the battlefield with every intention to deceive, hurt or abuse. Yes, you can, you can commit what Neale termed the "new age bypass" such as the logic "it's relative" or "there's no right or wrong anyway" when used inappropriately and without the intention of your gurus in mind. There's more integrity, even more heart, in a real mistake for our lessons come energetically and we turn out to be more completed in being. A study groupmate, post-modern philosophy professor Nid Magno Anima, once told me, "When you encounter each moment completely, totally... without holding back, in total abandon - then life has a certain beauty, has a certain intensity... which gives birth to a supreme sense of understanding and freedom."
The second time I saw her, in person this time, I didn't even recognize her. She was sitting quietly in a corner on the top floor of the Tibetan refugees reception center in McLeod Ganj, Dharamsala in northern India, home to the Tibetan government in exile and the Dalai Lama. She was looking after a group of children who just arrived several days before from a treacherous journey out of Tibet. She was fervently chanting her mantras and counting on her beads with admirable devotion. Once in a while, a child would approach and shyly show her a drawing which she would affectionately acknowledge.
And so kindly Ama Adhe must have been surprised when this total stranger, a foreigner at that, began sniveling in front of her. She was just sitting there, radiating a glow of peace and compassion, and the last thing she expected was this strange girl bursting into tears.
So much for the so-called journalistic impartiality and detachment. My main purpose for being there was to interview children refugees and to understand the whys and the wherefores of their flight from Tibet. And even then, while listening to their stories - their fear of being caught and taken to jail, the bitter cold and the lack of food, their hiding and sleeping during daytime and the grueling hike at nighttime to escape Chinese border guards - it's difficult to remain stone-faced. While 11-year-old Chime Dorjee recounted his experience matter-of-factly, tears started welling up in the eyes of another Tibetan teacher and mine.
Lhamo, who years before also made the dangerous journey out of Tibet, clearly remembered her own experiences and couldn't help but become emotional, seeing what these kids had to undergo. As for me, I cried because I didn't think children deserved to have these experiences. It's just not fair to have children pay for the problems created by a supposedly civilized society. In retrospect, I knew that different emotions passed through me then, as a 'merry' mixup of sadness, grief, anger, guilt, helplessness, compassion, love, respect, admiration, joy and hope paraded right before my heart and mind.
"Although I am worried and I miss my parents, I am happy too because I know I will be able to study here and also because I saw His Holiness the Dalai Lama," said Chime, his face clouding a bit before bursting into a bright smile.
These young refugees' ages range from 6-1 and to see them being separated from their families out of dire necessity is heartbreaking. The fear of not seeing my parents again when I was a child when they would leave for a business trip, for instance, was nothing compared to what Chime and company had to endure. It was a very humbling experience indeed.
As if the emotional roller-coaster ride with the kids were not enough, another moving sight was that of the many drawings pasted on the walls of the center. A cursory look at the crayon-colored pictures would reveal human figures in handcuffs, being shot at by gun-toting figures in police uniforms, lying unmoving on the ground - images forever imprinted in many a Tibetan child's mind.
Amid such haunting images and stories made all the more powerful by the sound of prayers being chanted in unison by a huge crowd passing on the street below to protest the violent crackdown of Tibetan protesters in Lhasa by the Chinese government, I prepared to leave.
I was going to pass by Ama Adhe and, out of respect, I bid her goodbye by greeting her with our very own 'mano'. It was then that the dam broke. I hugged her tight while weeping unashamedly on her shoulders. Surprised, Ama Adhe hugged me back and said something in Tibetan, which was oddly comforting. I tried to smile amidst the tears and she made this Tibetan hand gesture which I would like to think as a blessing.
I tried to regain my composure and started to leave, feeling much lighter. But, of course, I was kidding myself. I was affected, period, and no amount of denial, justification and hiding behind the journalistic mask could change the fact that something happened to me right then and there. Don't ask me what it was because it's something that I still can't put my finger on although I'm pretty sure it's there, cocooned deep within. I know it will take a while to process each and every bit of this 'something' but it does not matter. What matters is that I left that place a new person.
Why There is Enough
by Kit Soriano
Quezon City
I am guided by Jabez’s prayer: “Oh that you would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that your hand would be with me, that you would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain.” 1 Chronicle 4:10. Believing this and finding that Humanity’s Team is espousing there is enough, I must say, panic amidst the rising cost of fuel and inevitably high cost of food, it seems remote. The scramble to invent the most efficient and smallest vehicle there is seems irrepressible, let alone, post haste.
Once during our Conversations with God (CWG) group meeting, there was a presentation of The Inconvenient Truth in video format. It was quite scary the first time for most because Al Gore pontificated with some scientific accuracy what will happen if we do not pay heed to global warming, which looked more like his political statement for the approaching
While I enjoy seeing innovative ideas come to play, there is an implosion of faith in much the same way that I would not take things in stride. There is essence in the economics of enough that challenges conventional economic wisdom. When realization of the fragility of the environment surfaces, along with the consciousness that any endless economic growth hypothesis always results in impossibilities, we can take stock of the Cuban experience, why they have low birth mortality rates, and of Bhutan, why they are rated high in gross national happiness. As we embrace a new order of austerity, an economic model that is not only consistent with Buddhism but also builds an awareness that there are limits to growth, should prompt a paradigm shift. We should be estopped from worrying that if the
The
Amidst the furor of finding the best solution to these crises, there seems to be a mightier hand, a superior Being who looks after our welfare. Al Gore’s statement, which won a Nobel Prize, was clearly delivered in his The Inconvenient Truth and widely accepted. He may be right about his predictions, but they certainly will not happen in our lifetime. Indeed there is enough for everyone, especially peace, harmony and love among nations, and it all begins from the truth – that we are all created equal. Namaste!
In the meantime, Kit is getting in touch with her creative side and exploring scriptwriting for film.
(L-R) Lhamo, Ama Adhe, Chime and Lynette. Ama Adhe was featured in the film "Cry of the Snow Lion" where she narrated her experiences in her 27 years of incarceration in Tibet.
by Bisataoling
Cebu
That means you must be fearless enough to drop what you think you know about God.
You must be fearless enough to step away from what others have told you about God.
You must be so fearless that you can dare to enter into your own experience of God.
And then you must not feel guilty about it. When your own experience is violating what you thought you knew, and what everyone else has told you, about God, you must not feel guilty. Fear and guilt are the only enemies of man.
Never ever feel "guilty" about anything. What is there in that? It only allows you to not love yourself - and that kills any chance for you to authentically love another.
There is no such thing as "wrong.' There is only that which does not serve you, does not speak the truth about who you are and who you choose to be.
Guilt is the feeling that keep you stuck in who you are not.
Jonathan Uy a.k.a. Bisataoling, is part of the group Agoyangyang. He dearly hopes that it creates a wonderfully loving ripple effect in world consciousness.
By Glenn Ala
Quezon City
You are like the sun
worshipped by primeval entities,
revered even in the deepest recesses -
in caves of stone and forests deep.
Creatures rage and bask as they forage
under your eternal fire.
You are like the sun
and I lie scorched, counting irregular
blotches and scars on my body that's
as bare as the oceans and
helpless as the seas.
Even the stars die out under your blinding
light. The moon draws its illumined countenance
from you, oh glorious King!
You are like the sun, raging and majestic,
towering and nurturing.
Do not go! Do not let the cold of night rule
in your stead. Burn instead and lick the earth
with tongues of fire. Burn incessantly and sear
my calloused heart, for I fear the enveloping
darkness of your absence.
Stay. Stay forever. Then we shall lie in the
comfort of our love. For I am like the earth
and you are like the sun
and between us there should be
only void.
Glenn wrote this poem for Elias in 2001. A journalist, poet, linguist, actor, singer, songwriter, percussionist-in-training, guitarist-in-training, sports lover, traveler, videographer, photographer and event director, all Glenn really wants to do now is find love.
