2009-01-07
2008-08-30
2008-08-29
2008-03-06
the de facto president
Gloria’s appeal to the intelligentsia and religious leaders to support her in efforts to weed out corruption and promote good governance is but a last ditch effort to trick all of us to give her another chance. She says one thing and does another. Gloria’s decision to scrap EO 464 now that the damage has already been done on our institutions is too late and too empty to be of any substance. The Supreme Court leaves only the principle of issuing EO-464 constitutional, but everything else is rubbish as it has already junked (much earlier) the constitutionality of all but two provisions of the controversial E.O. 464 which have been used in covering up for the Venable Contract, Hello Garci Scandal, Fertilizer Fund Scam, NorthRail Project and the NBN-ZTE deal. Even before the EO was scrapped, it was toothless and rendered inefficient so that other weapons are now used to achieve the same effect – invoking presidential immunity, the right against self-incrimination, and executive privilege – this is a clear indication of saying one thing yet doing another. Malinaw sa taong bayan na ang administrasyon ni Gloria ay sinisikil ang katotohanan at umiiwas sa pananagutan.
TAMA NA, SOBRA NA. Seven years, and nothing but saliva, Gloria’s moves are not part of a sincere struggle but a blatant hypocrisy that seeks to insult the intelligence of the Filipino people and disrespect our laws and the constitution itself, along with every principle of ethics and morality, in her administration’s quest for political survival and dominion over all that is left of the Philippines.
the de facto president, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) has lost all sense of decency and consequently has lost any remaining respect of the Filipino People. She has repeatedly become the centerpiece of scams and scandals that represent the wide range of corruption and dishonesty she and her allies have ventured into. It is an understatement to say that the National Executive branch of the Philippine government has virtually become the exclusive enclave of Gloria and her allies, becoming in fact the Great Arroyo Mafia. (OR, the Great Mafia of the Arroyos, still GMA. Note that JdV was kicked out of this, thanks to the war-drum beat of the three Arroyos in the Lower House, confirming earlier suspicions of further consolidation of power with the election of 3 Arroyos and the explosive growth of ka-KAMPI.)
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is the Titular head of this mafia; while we now all know, like Renato de Villa has known way ahead of us, that Big Boy, Jose Pidal, the First Gentleman is its real boss. So in analysis we can surmise that there are two GMAs: one is Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the sincere and hardworking populist president; the other is the Great Mafia of the Arroyos, the underground under-the-table system of alliances developed and aggressively pursued by the First Gentleman, his sons, brother Iggy, and their loyal servants like Abalos, Nograles, and you get the picture. The Great Mafia of the Arroyos is, of course, not complete without the backing and loans from crony capitalists, and the one we know most is Enrique Razon. Who knows how many more of this cabal of conspirators have turned against their own people for financial gain. What we know from erstwhile allies (Manay Gina de Venecia, and the Hyatt 10 like Dinky Soliman) is that the other GMA, the Mafia, has been in virtual control of the Office of the President since its survival of the Hello-Garci Electoral Fraud Scandal.
TAMA NA, SOBRA NA.
If the president stays, she will remain an object not of respect, but an object of national scorn and international shame for us!
The only way out is for the chief benefactors of the rigged 2004 elections to resign immediately and unconditionally, to prepare the way for a snap elections. All the mess done by the current regime has unconsciously dug its own grave and in its effort to cover-up, this grave has become deeper. Of course, Cha-Cha (or charter change) has always been the first aid kit of LAKAS since the Ramos regime. Its recipe has been perfected by JdV himself perhaps out of fervent hopes to become the First Prime Minister in this new Charter. But now this recipe has been stolen from him as GMA poises to transform herself into this new blended vastly reinforced top position. Sorry JdV, but you can’t make it right, probably (GMA hopes) the lord will grant this to her at the right time (after 2010).
Speaking of the lord, please be informed we do not pray to one and the same God. (Remember FG could be heard saying, “god bless!” in the hello-garci recordings.) While also monotheists, these corrupt elements obviously have one god but its name is Mammon, not Allah, Yahweh El Shaddai, or any other supreme deity, but Mammon. So the next time you hear Gloria saying she talked to god, you know which god hears her prayers.
SHE has excelled above all men in theft and perjury.
Her reward will be great in Mammon’s haven. Bahala na si lord sa kanya
2007-10-26
Microsoft's $240 million says Facebook no fad after all
2006/Aug/22 - http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/aug0 ...
2006/Aug/23 - speculation - http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archi ...Microsoft and Facebook Launch a Partnership in Visual Studio http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/express/bb510381. ...
May 24, 2007 - Microsoft + Facebook Web Partnership - http://blogs.msdn.com/danielfe/archive/2007/05/24/ ...
2007/Sep/18 - Facebook fun in Microsoft Popfly - http://popflyteam.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!5101802 ...
2007/Sep/25 - Microsoft, Facebook talking - http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_6991866i am seeing a direction where Facebook serves as a web platform for Microsoft development, parallel to its own Popfly
read more | digg story
2007-10-25
the Rubber Ducky explanation of String Theory
Columbia University physicist Brian Greene recently chose the winner of the String Theory in Two Minutes of Less user-generated video contest. Watch video below to see Greene introduce the winner. They also have the results of the viewer's choice poll.
2007-09-28
2007-09-12
crying on the 6th floor
but cry all they want, this is no ordinary criminal proceeding
this is a tinderbox political case, so what do you expect
Asa ka pa!
as long as the reigning queen of philippine politics seats on her throne, ERAP,
never even dream of freedom, TANGA ka
as expected, the ball has to stay in the court to keep it out of the streets
exactly the opposite of Their desires way back impeachment days,
haaay, Buhay,
haaay, Realpolitik,
2007-09-03
unknown entry event
that we may never cling to this life
we are given a greater gift--
for this life was never our own,
we should not seek to make it our own
let it go--
what is ours is a new Humanity:
where I is not just mine
and you are not just for you
Illusions will not be called Reality
and Injustice will not be called Morality
this succulent fruit has fallen on the ground,
torn by ravaging winds from its canopy
let it be, let it rot, let it roll
let the seeds roll
2007-08-28
the Seeking
Like every normal human person, there was a wild manic phase in my life.
At least two, if I remember it right. The last one was 4 or 5 years ago.
And yes, that was when my son was conceived.
I felt so helpless, absurd, manipulated, abused. I could blame anybody for my wretched condition. I was that lost. I hated everyone. I hated myself most of all for being helpless. But never have I hated "God" I never blamed him. But I don't care about him, either. It's like he never existed. I know there is God, but he doesn't matter. Like fart. I didn't matter to him, I thought. So why should he matter to me? Logical.
Because life had been void of meaning to me, I did everything that lay outside of the accepted life. And yes, it included ALL fantasies I have abhorred in myself before. No thing, no man or woman escaped my eye for beauty. And everyone who consented got a taste of me, or I got a taste of, whichever way you liked it.
One nurse on her way to Canada got in my way. And I got in her way, too. We just found ourselves in each other's arms, in mindless sensual pleasure. I think it's more of boredom for her, and she found herself carried by that wild wind that swept past her, I was tempestuous. But as I said, I got in her way. As soon as she got a hold of herself and of a college diploma, she disappeared. More than a year later, I found out from mutual friends that her aunt adopted a child, and she flew to Canada to be with her family, and probably practice her profession there. One more year passed and I am sure the child adopted by her aunt had his inquisitive eyes from me and his curly locks from her mother, the nurse. The child was running around the garden with the one he called "mama" and neither of them knew me. My son, he even looked up to me, and I know those eyes are mine. And I am staring at nothingness.
And again, I remember the roots of my individuality and lost innocence. Memories flood back.
The physical and verbal phase of my rebellion has ended. It has gone on to a moral and intellectual plane. I graduated from denial to resolution. There is no one to blame. Not myself, and not my mother or father; not the first lad who abused me or the first woman who sought my help to get over her heat; not any human person. And of course, not God, he allowed this to happen but did not want me to suffer, I think what he wanted are the fruits of our suffering. He gave us free will to make sense of our own lives. I think it is our most precious gift that life has no pre-ordained meaning. We choose the meaning we want to live. This was when I first read the Bible again after my perdition. I used to read the Bible before, but those were better times. We can afford to believe in a mighty generous God when everything's alright. To know Him beyond the Santa Claus figure we send our wishes to, I learned, is tough. But it's one way of knowing Him. The Real Him.
Now, I am in that unique position where I perfectly understand the most sexually depraved person and the most reclusive religious authority. Hmm.. Which makes me think of an even more distant past that has shaped me, that part of life most people associate with innocence. I never had the luxury of having my innocence beyond the first four years of my life..
[to be continued..]
Eclipse and Today's Outlook, SUS!
 | Today's Outlook for A |
Lawrence Cyre,
Virgo: Change may be in store for relationships ...
ghmm... anu ba yun??
the most important astro fact is the Total eclipse TODAY, mamayang gabi baka makakahabol tayo
Skywatcher Alert
 |
Watch a Lunar Eclipse Early on Tuesday |
 Skywatchers should set their alarms early for the morning of August 28 to see the year's second total lunar eclipse before sunrise. It will be visible from the Americas, Oceania and parts of Asia. - Observing and Photographing a Lunar Eclipse - Space.aol.com: Stargazing Info |
What Causes An Eclipse?
A
lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes through the shadow cast by
the sunlit Earth. When the Moon enters the outer penumbra, where just
part of the Sun's light is blocked, it becomes only slightly dimmer.
Only when it passes into the shadow's core, the umbra, does it look
markedly darker. (Gregg Dinderman)
Total Lunar Eclipse Chart
During
August's total lunar eclipse, the Moon passes through the southern part
of Earth's umbra, or shadow core. The eclipse is partial while the Moon
is moving across the umbra's edge. Less noticeable will be the first
and last stages of the eclipse, when the Moon is only in the penumbra,
the shadow's pale outer fringe. To match the view in your sky, turn the
diagram so the "north" label is toward Polaris, the North Star.
(S&T: Gregg Dinderman)
North American Eclipse Visibility
Find
your location to see whether the Moon will rise or set during any stage
of the eclipse for you. Because an eclipsed Moon is always full, the
Sun sets or rises at almost the same time on the opposite horizon. This
means that moonset or moonrise happen in a bright sky. (Gregg Dinderman)
Find your location to see whether the Moon will rise or set during any stage of the eclipse for you. (Gregg Dinderman)The Next Lunar Eclipse
First
it was easterners’ turn, now westerners’ — but on February 21, 2008,
all of the Americas will get a fine view of a total lunar eclipse high
in the dark evening sky. That event will end a series of three in less
than a year.
After that, the next total eclipse of the Moon won’t happen until the night of December 20–21, 2010.
2007-08-23
German even the Germans don't like - Los Angeles Times
read more | digg story
2007-08-07
was Rizal wrong in saying that the Youth is the hope of his country???
' I do not have to be what my father was. I do not have to obey my father's rules
or even believe everything he believed. It is my strength as a human that I can make
my own choices of what to believe and what not to believe, of what to be and what not to be. ' "
---Leto Atreides II, the God Emperor of Dune (from Frank Herbert's Dune Chronicles saga)
Initiative for innovation. This is the promise that every new generation brings to an ailing society.
Rizal, above all, is desirous of change for the better. The society of his time presents a dead-lock that education is the only key. A vicious cycle of ignorance, undesirable social habits, and systematic exploitation led to the deplorable situation that Rizal knew in his time. So, in desperation of his own generation, he pinned his highest hopes to the people not yet touched by the sins of a decadent civilization: the Youth. The Youth should be educated in a way so that we will not grow up as slaves in our own land and in other countries. The Youth should be educated in a way that social vices will be but a thing of the past, worthy of review, but not to be relived. But in his time only the privileged few can afford to send their children to school, while others continued to live in ignorance and hopeless exploitation. What Rizal deplored the most is that the very few who were presented with this opportunity to be part of the educated Ilustrado class and become a member of the Intelligentsia are not motivated to fill in the role of becoming saviors of our motherland.
More than a hundred years later, we are still not that far from the social condition that Rizal deplored.
While I do believe that the Youth is the only hope of our motherland, I am grossly disappointed with my own generation. They are not at all that different from Rizal's contemporaries, like them, most of my beloved compatriots only seek to enjoy their lives and enrich themselves, while our nation suffers in dire poverty, being exploited by a new class of oppressors. They fall into the same old vices inherited from our past, while new vices are created to lure even the most talented men and women to fall into the promised life of self-indulgence and wanton pleasure.
But Rizal was never wrong in his analysis. We, the Youth, are still the hope of our times. We are the potential for a new consciousness, that precious chance to break away from the old habits of our society. There are young minds out there that can still make that leap into the unknown and abandon the comforts of security in search of enlightenment of self and the upliftment of society.
I am one of those minds eager to explore the possibilities of a future not centered on myself but on the betterment of my people and on the resolution that we should end the suffering of millions, or die trying.
I have a long-term plan to accomplish this. First I must gain financial freedom for myself and help my family in our immediate needs. When this is done, then I will be free to live by my principles. I will associate with like-minded compatriots whose love of self is not greater than their love of country. We, the Youth, should get our acts together because alone, even the greatest mind cannot succeed. The Youth should be self-aware and alert to its own role in the transformation of our nation.
In the area of science and technology, effort is not enough to venture to ambitious projects like investing in research for alternative food and energy sources in the countryside. We have more than enough natural resources and human talent to make this possible. For example, meat is a good source of protein and we all know it tastes good, but it is expensive. And with differing reasons there are vegetarians/vegans who refuse to eat the meat of a slaughtered animal. Moreover, the cost of meat production and distribution is so high that alternative sources of protein should be availed. Legumes, beans and mushrooms are known to be better sources of protein than meat itself. Community education and cultivation of these products should be one of the priorities of our society along with the development of home-grown resources of energy, like solar power, wind, geothermal and natural gas energy sources. We should be exploiting these gifts of nature.
We, the Youth should have significant representation in mainstream politics so as to affect valuable decisions; politics is dirty because we leave it to those who are dirty and greedy for power, influence and money. The influence of personal relations in policy-making and administration of our People's needs should be kept at a bare minimum, and an efficient system of check and balance should be transparent to all. We should do everything we can to streamline our bureaucracy. And we should always raise the standard of efficiency high, despite the protests of bureaucrats. There is little that bureaucrats hate more than innovation, especially innovation that produces better results than the old routines. Improvements always make those at the top of the heap look inept. There should be no room for mediocrity and ineptitude in serving the People. We cannot expect the government to be efficient on its own. It needs our active participation and constant vigilance. And it is the same with the country at large, we, the Youth, should always be ready to jump at the opportunity to fulfill our great promise. Although we have to thank him for pointing us in the right direction, we do not have to be Dr. Jose Rizal to know that.
2007-07-31
Senate Dynamics
Senators aligned together as the Majority Block have their names coloured Maroon.
To have a CLEAR view of the current Dynamics in the Senate Today, I also prepared a separate table considering the new landscape of political tectonics:
Of the 13 Senators of the Opposition, only 8 voted for Pimentel and rightly so.
Pimentel is obviously being dragged into this by Ping Lacson, and whatever alliance they may have,
Lacson will surely gain the upper hand.
5 Opposition Senators sought to counter-balance the immense influence of Lacson in the Opposition by aligning themselves with Villar and the quasi-Administration block. I say quasi-Administration, because of all these Senators in the Majority today, only one Senator is sure 100% loyal to Gloria, of course, Zubiri. But that, too, might change. As the tide of opinion is surely to go against any incumbent, when the time comes for Gloria to go, would the Young darling Zubiri go out of his way to ruin what could be a luminous career ahead of him? Let the lesson of Mike Defensor work for him.
| 2004-2010 | 2007-2013 | |||||||||
| Biazon, Rodolfo G. | Pong | Angara, Edgardo J. | ||||||||
| Pimentel, Aquilino Q, Jr. | NENE | Arroyo, Joker P. | ||||||||
| Cayetano, Pilar Juliana S. | PIA | Lacson, Panfilo M. | PING | |||||||
| Estrada, Jinggoy E. | Pangilinan, Francis N. | KIKO | ||||||||
| Gordon, Richard J. | Dick | Villar, Manuel Bamba | MANNY | |||||||
| Lapid, Manuel M. | Lito | Aquino, Benigno C., III | NoyNoy | |||||||
| elected Mayorr -x- | Lim, Alfredo S. | Cayetano, Allan Peter S. | ||||||||
| Madrigal, Jamby A.S. | Escudero, Francis Joseph G. | CHIZ | ||||||||
| Revilla, Ramon B., Jr. | Bong | Trillanes, Antonio F., IV | ||||||||
| Roxas, Manuel A, II | MAR | Zubiri, Juan Miguel F. | Migz | |||||||
| Enrile, Juan Ponce | Honasan, Gregorio B. | Gringo | ||||||||
| Defensor-Santiago, Miriam | BRENDA | Legarda, Loren B. | ||||||||
2007-07-24
"God, forgive them, for they know not what they do." -- Akshya Upanishad
The ultimate truth is not far away, it is not distant. It is near you, close, closer than you are to yourself, but still you go on missing it.
This continuous missing has become a habit.
Unless this habit is broken, the closest remains the most distant; unless this habit is transcended, God, truth,
or whatsoever we may call it, remains just a myth, a theory, a doctrine, a belief, but not an experience.
And unless the divine is your experience, the belief is futile. It is not going to help you; on the contrary it may hinder you, because just by believing in it you deceive yourself that somehow you have known it. The belief becomes the deception.
It doesn't become an opening, it closes you. It makes you knowledgeable without knowing it; it gives you a feeling of knowledge without any intimate experience of it.
Remember, untruth is not such a great hindrance as the belief in the truth.
If you believe you stop seeking; if you believe you have already taken it for granted.
It cannot be so. You will have to pass through a mutation; really you will have to die and be born again. Unless the seed that you are dies, the new life cannot sprout out of it. Belief becomes a barrier; it gives you a false assurance that you have known -- but that is all you have got. Belief is just borrowed. A Buddha says something, a Jesus says something, or a Mohammed, and then we go on following it, believing in it. This can create such a situation within you that the distant will appear close and the closest will continue to appear distant -- it creates an illusory mind.
Sometimes it happens that the closest, the nearest, is so obvious that you can forget it. The nearest is so near that you cannot look at it, because even to look at something a certain distance is needed, space is needed. And there is no space between you and the divine; there is no space between the fish and the ocean -- no gap. The fish is part of the ocean, just like a wave; or the ocean is just the infinite spread of the being of the fish. They are not two; they exist together, their being is joined together. The same is the situation with us.
We go on asking about God – whether God exists or not – and we argue much for and against.
Some believe, some disbelieve; some say it is just a myth and some say it is the only truth, but they all depend on scriptures, nobody has an immediate experience. When I say immediate experience I mean experience that has grown into you, or into which you have grown... intimate, so intimate that you cannot feel where you end and that experience begins.
God cannot be an object of any search; he remains the very subjectivity. You are not going to find him somewhere because he is everywhere, and if you start looking for him somewhere you will not find him anywhere. All that is, is divine. God just means the whole existence, the totality, the ocean that surrounds you, the ocean of life.
The first thing to remember before we enter into this intimate search and inquiry, into this intimate experience that people have always called God, or Buddha has called nirvana, or Jesus has called the kingdom of God – names differ, but the experience indicated is the same -- the first thing to remember is: it is not far away, it is where you are. Right now you are sitting in him, breathing in him, breathing him, through him.
This has to be continuously remembered, constantly remembered; don't forget it for a single moment, because the moment you forget it the whole search becomes wrong. Then you start looking somewhere. Maintain it; remember it continuously at least for these eight or nine days -- that it is exactly where you are. The very center of your being is its center also.
If this is remembered the whole search will become qualitatively different. Then you are not in search of something outside, but something inner. Then you are not in search of something which is going to happen in the future, it can happen right now; it is already happening. And then the whole thing becomes very relaxed. If the truth is somewhere in the future then you are bound to be tense, then you are bound to be worried, a deep anxiety is bound to be there. Who knows whether it will happen in the future or not? The future is uncertain; you may miss it -- you have been missing so long. But if the divine is here and now, the very existence, the very breath, the very you, then there is no uncertainty, then there is no worry, no anxiety.
You may have missed him for so many many times, but really you have never missed him because he has always been hidden there, waiting for you to turn within. You have been looking outside, you have been focused on the objective world, and that which you are seeking is hidden within, it is your subjectivity.
God is not an object; God doesn't exist as an object. Whatsoever theologians say, they are absolutely wrong – God doesn't exist as an object. You cannot worship, because he is hidden in the worshipper. You cannot pray, because he is hidden there from where the prayer arises. You cannot seek him without, because he is your within-ness.
The first thing to remember is this, because if it is remembered then the whole effort becomes qualitatively different. Then you are not going somewhere, then there is no hurry, then there is no impatience. Rather, on the contrary, the more patience that happens to you, the easier becomes the search; the more you are not seeking him, the closer he is to you. When you are not seeking at all, when you are just being, not going anywhere, after anything, you have reached, the thing has happened. This search is going to be qualitatively different. This search is, in a way, a no-search; this seeking is, in a way, a no-seeking. The more you seek, the more you will miss. If he was far away then it would have been alright. He is here, he is now. This very moment God is happening to you, because you cannot be without him.
So don't be in a hurry and don't be impatient. There is no goal; the very effort is the goal. We will not be meditating to gain something, to achieve something; the very meditation is the goal. Meditation is not a means, it is the end. So don't force yourself; rather, relax. Don't run after something, some ultimate, some God, some x, y, z; rather stand still. The moment you are in a total standstill you have reached. Then there is no more. And this can be done any moment. If you understand, this can happen this very moment. God is life, God is existence, God is the case.
BUT there are problems; theologians have created them.
The first problem they have created, and because of which this remembering becomes impossible -- “ to remember that you are already divine becomes impossible" -- is a very deep condemnatory attitude. You go on condemning yourself: you are the sinner. They have created guilt in you. So how can a sinner be, right this very moment, the divine? He will have to get rid of the sin; he will have to suffer for his sins, and time will be needed. He will have to pass through purifications, and only when he has become holy, a saint, will he have a glimpse of the divine.
Particularly in the West, Christianity has given everybody a deep guilt complex. Everybody is guilty -- not only about your own sins that you have committed, but also about the sin that Adam committed in the very beginning. You are guilty for it. You carry a burden, a long burden of guilt, so how can you think, imagine, conceive, that right this very moment God is happening to you?
The Devil can happen, can be imagined, but not God. You can think of yourself as the Devil but never as the divine. This creation of a guilt complex was needed not for you, but for religions. Their business can continue only if they create guilt in you. The whole business of religion depends on the guilt feelings that they can create in the masses. Churches, temples, religions exist on your guilt. God has not created them, your guilt has created them. When you feel guilty you need a priest to confess to; when you feel guilty you need someone to lead you, to purify you.
When you feel guilty you have lost your center -- now somebody can lead you.
You can become a follower only when you have lost your center. If you are right in your center, no question of following arises. You can become part of a crowd only when you are not yourself. So you belong to Christianity, or Hinduism, or Mohammedanism -- these "belongings" are simply guilt feelings. You cannot be alone. You are so guilty you cannot rely on yourself, you cannot depend on yourself, you cannot be independent. Somebody, some great organization, some cult, creed, is needed, so under its blanket you can hide, and you can forget your guilt.
This is the second thing to remember: don't condemn yourself, otherwise nothing can be done. Don't reject yourself, don't be an enemy to yourself. Be loving, be friendly, and accept whatsoever you are. I am not saying that there is nothing wrong in you. I am not saying that you don't need any transformation. You need it, there are many wrongs, wrongs done in your ignorance of who you really are.
When you commit a mistake you don't condemn yourself, you try to understand why you committed it. The mistake is condemned but not you. When you call it a sin, you are condemned -- you are wrong, not an act.
Your acts may be wrong, but you are not. You are totally accepted as you are.
Your being is the highest flower that has happened to this earth. You are the salt of this earth.
Howsoever erroneous, you are the very glory of existence.
Not that there is going to be no transformation, but that only through this acceptance transformation becomes possible. Once you accept your being there is no suppression, once you accept your being the whole being comes into consciousness. There is no need to hide and to push some parts, fragments, into the darkness, into the unconscious.
The unconscious is a by-product of Christianity. There is nothing like the unconscious. If you accept yourself, your whole mind will be conscious. If you deny, reject, condemn, then the condemned parts will move into darkness.
Not that they will not act now, they will act more, but their action will be now hidden, perverted, disguised.
It will not be apparent, it will take a hidden course.
You cannot face it directly but it goes on working.
The unconscious is created by guilt.
Once you accept that there is no unconscious, the barrier has gone, the boundary disappeared, and the conscious and unconscious become one -- as they are really, as they should be. And when your conscious and unconscious are one you can meditate, never before it. Once your inner divisions disappear, once you become one inside, a deep silence descends upon you, a great blissful moment is reached -- just by the disappearance of the boundaries, divisions, fragments.
When you become one you become healthy; when you become one you feel a silent wellbeing. Moment to moment you feel grateful to existence, a gratitude happens to you, and this gratitude I call prayer. It is not a prayer to some god. This gratitude is an inner attitude towards existence which has given you life, love, light; towards this existence which has blessed you in millions and millions of ways, and which goes on showering upon you more and more blessings -- but a unity is needed within.
So this is the second point to remember: don't feel guilty, don't feel that you are wrong. If you were wrong you would not have been. You are there because God wants to preserve you. You are there because God loves you. You are there, that's why the whole existence supports you. You are there because you are worth the trouble. Accept yourself, have a loving attitude towards yourself.
Jesus says somewhere:
"Love your enemies as yourself."
But no one loves himself, so how can you love your enemies as yourself?
You simply hate yourself.
If you love yourself, to me you have become religious.
And a person who loves himself, only he can love others;
a person who hates himself deep down cannot love anybody.
There should be no division, not within you, not in the community of human consciousness.
The Mission of our Lord Jesus Christ is a Mission of Love and Unity.
Accept who you are, as you would accept your enemy. Only then can there be forgiveness,
when we have stopped condemning each other and ourselves.
If you cannot love yourself how can you love anybody? If you cannot accept yourself how can you accept anybody? So your so-called saints who go on condemning themselves, they go on condemning the whole world – they are condemning everybody. The moment they condemn themselves they condemn the whole world. You are the nearest; if existence in you is condemned, then how can you accept existence that is far away from you, existing in others? No guilt, no condemnation.
"God, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
Wrongs are there, but those wrongs are not in your being but in your doing;
in your acts, not in you. And your acts are wrong because you are not aware.
Those wrongs exist because you are not alert.
Those wrongs exist because you are not alert to the Divine Consciousness which is in you.
Drops of Divine Consciousness is asleep in you, fast asleep;
sometimes you can even hear the snoring -- fast asleep.
My effort in this camp is to wake that Consciousness, to disturb the inner sleep, to help him awake. It is not condemnatory. And once you start being alert, you have started being different. Perfectly aware, you are reaching to yourself; perfectly aware, you are in nirvana, in the kingdom of God.
The third thing to remember: in this camp we will be doing many things,
many techniques, many methods, but hidden behind every technique and
method is the basic thing and that is, search for awareness, search for more
consciousness. So whatsoever you are doing here, remain alert, remain
conscious, remain a witness. Doing meditation remain conscious, remain a
witness. Doing meditation, dancing, doing kirtan and singing, remain alert,
don't become unconscious.
Whatsoever is happening, a center within you goes on looking at it, a center remains a watcher. Your body may be going mad, your body may be jumping, shrieking, screaming, your mind may have become a whirlpool -- but a watcher remains. Go on constantly remembering that you are watching,
because that watcher is the thing. That watcher has to be brought more and more into force. So while your body is doing many things, your mind is doing many things, one thing deeply hidden within you goes on looking at it all.
Don't lose contact with that.
___________________________________________________________________
thus, I share what I discovered, an English Discourse
Vedanta: Seven Steps to Samadhi
Talks on the Akshya Upanishad
Talks given from
1974!!!
2007-07-09
Scientiam Astrale Sinica per Natalis mea
| Birth Date: | September 15, 1984 | |
| Birth Hour: | 20 |
Your Chinese Astrology Signs:
| Year | Wood Rat |
| Month | Water Rooster |
| Day | Water Rat |
| Hour | Metal Dog |
Table of Contents
Introduction
Section 1 --- General Information
Section 2 --- The Five Stages of Life
Concluding Remarks
Appendix: Chinese Astrology -- An Overview
Appendix: The Chinese Calendar
Section 2 --- The Five Stages of Life
The five stages of life are Birth, Youth, Maturation, Adulthood, and Retirement. These represent the time from conception to the beginning of formal education, the years of formal education (not including going back to school later in life), the period of full transition to adulthood, the mature stage of adulthood, and a person's later years. Before addressing how you fare in each of these periods, here is some general information on the Rat:
The Rat's carefree style and willingness to test the boundaries of their environment fit in perfect with childhood. These are thus likely to be happy and exciting times for you. Your likely propensity to take risks shouldn't get you into too much trouble, as your responsibilities are not that great at this stage of life.
You could find your middle years to be trying times. Life is not a game any more as it was in childhood. It is likely that you will experience some failures due to the relatively frequent risks you take. If you're an entrepreneur, bankruptcy is a definite possibility. A failed love affair is also more than a little likely.
In the end things usually turn out well for Rat-sign people. At least one of your schemes for making money should bear fruit and result in a comfortable life. Peace and happiness are yours if, during the years, you learn how to harness and channel your restless, mental activity into pursuits that bring you pleasure and relaxation.
In the following discussion you will often come across the term, chi. This concept is very important in Chinese thought. What you need to know is that it refers to your energy level or life force.
Birth
The first stage of life, includes the time beginning with your conception and lasting until you begin your formal education, that is, to about age five or six. Since you can't do a whole lot crawling around in your crib, some of the following comments pertain to your potential rather than what you might achieve at this time.
This is an extremely low chi period for you. You will find it difficult to take advantage of opportunities and to deal with problems. This makes for a rough start in life and could lead to slow development.
By the way, normal, strong and weak in this context refer to your chi. Think of chi as energy or life force. This can vary significantly throughout your life and has a major impact on your ability to achieve your goals at each stage.
Fire rules this stage, which is also under the influence of Recognition. Normally this suggests respect, if not renown, deriving from service to your community. Here it may portend the future. This is a very weak indicator, however, given an absence of Fire in your chart. Also, your sense of self worth is vulnerable and could be hurt if you are not given a lot of encouragement.
You should also know that elements in combination can be either constructive, as in this order: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water, Wood, etc., or destructive, Wood, Earth, Water, Fire, Metal, Wood. Adjacent elements in the first list are favorable and those in the second unfavorable.
Your ruling element, Wood, is also the natural element for this stage of life. This is the most favorable possibility. Furthermore, this situation exists at each stage, thus ensuring you benefit from the various forces operating at different times in your life. It can more than make up for a low, element rating.
i wonder if somebody can buy me this reading? 
for only $19.95 14.55
2007-07-05
Tagalog: through the Centuries
TAGALOG THROUGH THE CENTURIES (Part I)
by Michael L. Tan
How did Tagalogs count in the 17th century? You’d think, well, just like we do today: isa, dalawa, tatlo, etc.
That commonsensical answer is only partly right. I checked the Vocabulario Tagalo, a Tagalog-Spanish dictionary dating back to 1624 and found the numbers were pretty much the same except for some variations in spelling (“dalaua”, “ualo” and “sampouo”).
Besides these spelling variations, the dictionary did reveal other differences. It didn’t occur to me, until I read Vocabulario Tagalo, why we say “labing-isa” for 11. To create numbers beyond 10 in old Tagalog, you used the suffix “labi-“, which means “more than”. So, “labin-isa”, or the number 11, means “one more than 10” while “labin-walo”, “eight more than 10” gives us 18. It gets more complicated when you get to the hundreds but the early Tagalogs managed that quite well. Labi sa daan isa was “one more than one hundred” or “101”. Count on to “labi sa daan sampouo” for “110” then draw a deep breath to say “labi sa daan labin-isa” or “eleven more than a hundred”.
I’m going to stop counting here and explain what I’m trying to do. I had to give a talk the other day at the Filipinas Heritage Library on the evolution of Tagalog and while doing background research I realized so little had been written about how Tagalog has evolved across the centuries. What has been written appears in inaccessible academic journals or books so I thought of doing a summary in non-technical language.
Why bother to trace origins, you may ask? Well, because it’s National Language Week and the national language, like it or not, is Tagalog-based. A more important reason though is that by understanding the origins and evolution of Tagalog, we’ll see how it’s always been a rather cosmopolitan language, borrowing words left and right. This extensive borrowing means a search for “pure Tagalog” (or “pure Filipino”) will be futile and silly.
Let me point out we shouldn’t get an inferiority complex because of this penchant for borrowing words. Languages are like living organisms, their vigor coming from interactions with other languages. English itself is a hybrid language filled with loan-words from all over the world, reflecting how original English speakers explored and colonized the world.
This takes us to the third, and most important reason for tracing Tagalog’s, or any language’s, origins. A language’s evolution tells us of the kinds of social and political relationships within one culture, as well as between cultures. I’m not referring to colonialism alone. We’ll see how linguistic analysis can shed light on what day to day life was like among early Tagalogs.
Linguists are able to draw family trees of languages, and determine which ones are older, by comparing words, across languages and across time. In recent years linguists have started working with geneticists – putting linguistic data together with information about the DNA of different groups may give us a family tree that accounts for both biology and culture. But that’s for a column maybe five years from now. Let’s concentrate now on what we know about Tagalog.
Linguists classify Tagalog as part of a huge Austronesian (or, to use an older term, Malayo-Polynesian) family with more than 1200 living languages. The earliest Austronesian families probably emerged out of New Guinea and then spread out across a large geographical area.
Today, Austronesian languages are found from Taiwan in the north down to New Zealand in the south. Austronesian languages stretches eastward across the Pacific, to include the Hawiian islands and on to Rapa Niu (Easter Island) off the coast of Chile. West of the Philippines, we don’t find Austronesian languages except, curiously, on the island of Madagascar off the coast of Africa, because many centuries back, the island was settled by people originally from what is Indonesia today.
The Austronesian family has several branches, including a large Philippine division with more than a hundred languages. (The Summer Institute of Linguistics, a missionary group that specializes in translating the Bible, counts 171 languages, excluding dialects, for the Philippines.) The number of languages reflects our tendency toward “tribal fission” – early settlers were nomadic and constantly splitting into new groups. When two groups are isolated from each other – often by geography as in the case of the Philippines with our islands and mountain ranges -- they develop new words, diction, accents and intonation, grammar.
Intially, the variations may be minor – for example, the difference between Manila Tagalog and Batangas Tagalog – which means we now have separate dialects. Eventually, however, the differences become more radical, making it difficult for two groups to understand each other, as in the case of Cebuano and Tagalog. We now have two separate languages rather than just dialects.
Tagalog is a fairly young language, not more than a thousand years old. It belongs to a “Central Philippine” group, bearing more similarities with languages in the Visayas than those of Luzon (e.g., Ilokano and Kapampangan). Linguists say the Visayan languages are older than Tagalog so we can conclude that today’s Tagalogs are descended from settlers who originally came from the Visayas. Eventually, the settlers’ Visayan-based language evolved into Tagalog, new words being coined, others borrowed from the settlers’ new neighbors, for example the Kapampangan.
Through the centuries, Tagalog absorbed many words from other non-Philippine languages, reflecting the extensive contacts that came with trade and, later, colonization by Spain and the United States. We’ll continue with this linguistic tour next Tuesday but here’s something to keep you busy – how would a 17th century Tagalog have said “722 million dollars”, the amount of money Ping Lacson and Erap are said to have salted away in the States?
Note: This article was sent by Mr. Tan via e-mail to nmorada@niu.edu after a follow-up request after Part II of this article (below) first appeared on the online edition of his column in the Philippine Daily Inquirer dated 28 August 2001.
TAGALOG THROUGH THE CENTURIES (Part II)
by Michael L. Tan
LAST Thursday, we began a tour of Tagalog through the centuries, tracing its origins and evolution.
Toward the end of the article I asked readers to guess how a 17th century Tagalog would say "722 million dollars"--the amount allegedly salted away in overseas bank accounts by Sen. Panfilo Lacson and Estrada.
While several readers wrote in asking for more specific information about Tagalog’s evolution, no one attempted to answer the 722-million-dollar question.
I suspect many got it right with the start--pitong daang dalauamput dalaua--properly spelled in the old style, but were stumped with "million" and "dollars."
If we rely on the Vocabulario Tagalog of 1624, a Tagalog-Spanish dictionary, it seems there were no words yet for "dollars" or "millions" at that time.
Nevertheless, the Tagalogs did seem to have words for rather large numbers: libo for thousand from the Malay ribu, and the Sanskrit words lacsa for ten thousand and yota for hundred thousand. (Yota originally meant "million" in Sanskrit but somehow got devalued when it was incorporated into Tagalog.)
Those terms for numbers are among the many loan-words Tagalogs took in from diverse languages.
There are many reasons people borrow words from other languages. Often it is a simple matter of cultural contact, often because of trade.
New goods, especially food items, come with new names. Other cultural exchanges may be more profound, involving science, religion and philosophy.
In the case of the Philippines, colonialism added another dimension to language, the dominant cultures bringing in or even imposing new words.
Let your imagination run wild now. Think how 16th century Tagalogs would have expressed their sorrow over a shattered relationship.
A commoner would have sighed, "Kay lungkot!"--lungkot being a hoi-polloi Kapampangan-Tagalog word. A datu’s daughter would have etched out a poem on bamboo, expressing her sorrow in Malay-tinged Tagalog: "O dusa! O dukha! O dalita! O dalamhati!"--all four words derived from Malay.
A datu’s daughter could have visited Brunei, with which Manila’s aristocracy had close ties, and picked up words from Malay, considered a high-status language at that time. "Dalamhati" was only one example, the intensity of sadness expressed by two Malay words: dalam (inside) and hati (heart, although it can also mean liver).
Note that luwalhati, a feeling of euphoria, is generated from the Malay luwar (outside) and again, hati.
Words have a life of their own, sometimes changing meanings as they move from one culture to another.
"Dalita" was originally derived from the Sanskrit dhrta (borne), becoming the Malay derita (to endure) and dalita in Tagalog, where it means great suffering.
The association with suffering produced extended meanings in Tagalog: dalita and dukha, both Malay-Sanskrit words for suffering, are also used to refer to poverty and the poor.
The Malay and Sanskrit words that entered Tagalog related to philosophy and religion. They were also languages of learning, as we see in the borrowing of the numerical terms I mentioned earlier.
Terms like lacsa and yota suggest that we conducted a lot of trading with our neighbors in what are today Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia.
Later, Arabic traders entered the region, bringing in not just material goods but also Islam, and new words. To give just one example, aqala, Arabic for intelligence, was transformed in Tagalog into "a concept, a notion, a hunch."
Curiously, some Arabic words may have come to us from the Spaniards, who themselves were once colonized by the Arabs.
Thus, the Arabic kafir, for an unbeliever, became the Spanish cafre for a savage and eventually became kapre, a mythical giant.
The Hokkien Chinese, who didn’t just come in as itinerant traders but often stayed on, introduced hundreds of other terms into Tagalog covering more mundane items and activities from food (siopao, tokwa, petsay) to household products (bakya, siyansi) to gambling (huweteng) and trading (suki, pakyaw).
Under colonial rule of the Spaniards and the Americans, Tagalog went through even more modifications. Hundreds of Spanish words entered Tagalog, their system of counting (uno, dos, tres, as revived recently by singer Ricky Martin) often displacing the earlier Tagalog system.
Some Spanish words we adapted as is but many others mutated, both in form and in meaning. Como esta became kumusta; hacer caso (de), to pay attention to, became asikaso.
We borrowed the Spanish pobre, meaning poor, but spinned off another word, pulubi, to mean a beggar, to whom we give alms or limos, originally alimos in Spanish.
Then there’s English, which we’ve been using in the last 100 years because of the American colonial period and, today, because it is a new global prestige language.
Listen to people speaking Tagalog in the streets and you’ll hear many English connectors--"so," "but" "and then"--as well as the occasional "shit" (or "syet") when discussing our senators’ latest "gimik."
People sometimes complain that we are captives of a colonial mentality, relying too much on English. But another perspective, often expressed with alarm by Americans and English, is that we’re colonizing the Queen’s English, gobbling up words and regurgitating them in new forms.
Just look at how English nouns have been transformed into Tagalog verbs, complete with conjugation (nag-text, mag-che-chess, makikipag-Internet).
Languages evolve because of cultural contacts, people meeting as tourists, traders, teachers, whatever. It’s not just a matter of the Tagalog language borrowing words from the world. You just wait and see.
Courtesy of the many Filipina yayas caring for the children of the world, someday we just might hear a British prime minister ordering Parliament to come to "votation"--but only after very properly offering a 10-minute break for people to go to the ‘‘See Ah.’’
Philippine Daily Inquirer Online edition
28 August 2001
2007-07-03
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