Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Orthodoxy

I just found a very nice presention of the Orthodox faith vs Protestant faith. Enjoy:

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

BDay blues

One of these days is my BDay…yay I made thru another year and they seem to pile up pretty fast. I remember reading in some book that we are prone to live our lives around the same people that we encounter in our other lives as wives, husbands, brothers and sisters. When I was just a young pimpled kid in my junior year in highschool, one of my school mates came to me with this very complicated chart where you could calculate what and who where you in your previous life based on the day and time of birth mixed with astrology and blood type I believe. Of course I took it as a joke, but for some strange reason that stayed buried in my memory all these years. I came out as a fisherman in India, which was very odd at the time because I always loved Japan and not India. I expected with my fingers crossed that I will come out as a fierce samurai warrior in medieval Japan. Instead, I came as a fisherman in a poor village in India under the scorching sun of the Hindu gods sometime in the first 1000 years of the known history.
After living in some European countries and managing to get to the North American continent I was always attracted by the West Coast where my inner desire of meeting people from the other side of the globe grew stronger and stronger in me. I didn’t choose California because it is too Hispanic for my taste, so I settled for my beloved NorthWest, where the sky is grey and the trees are green.
For the past few years I am indeed surrounded by Indians and Asian people, not as many Asians as in Vancouver Canada, where they are in proportion of 80% but a fair share. Amongst Indian people many times I feel like home. They have the nice, the bad and also the ugly – remember Clint Eastwood ha, ha. Leaving the joking aside, they don’t feel like strangers to me, they feel so familiar that is scary sometimes. If I met one that is cunning and sneaky, there is an absolute 100% chance that in the next few days I will meet at least two or three that are absolutely nice and caring. I stopped generalizing these peeps long time ago because is really impossible to generalize them.
Asia is still a mysterious continent to me. I feel the call of knowing this part of the world. My busy life never allowed me to even dream about going, visiting and knowing my probable past life lands; however now, I see my life getting shorter and my spiritual endeavor is unfinished. The call of Asia is in me and this year I start a new chapter in my life…the Asian chapter….

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Who am I?

Everytime when I feel that I've learned my lesson I am shown by faith that maybe I am still a novice and that I should continue learning. Undoubtably my human nature makes me always think of people based on their background despite my huge efforts to think otherwise. I am educating myself to take people as they are as individuals and not otherwise...isn't that the reason why I left Europe, where individualism is close to inexistent. Each person IS a person regardless where they come from and thousands of times I was proven right in this aspect. Because of our human weakness we can't stop blaming an entire group of people for bad things happening to us and that is wrong, the saddest part is that we realize is wrong however sometimes we are still thinking it. The solution to this issue I found it in my own life by always lending a shoulder to lean on to people who you otherwise would qualify on the " black list" so to speak. A very dear Indian friend, younger than me I should add, but much wiser, opened my eyes many times in how to look at people - thank you my friend, your wisdom is always missed....

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Life

Very wise teachings from a Shinto teacher " I would say that the purpose of life is to make peace with yourself. In the same kind of environment, one may feel happy and satisfied and another may be unhappy with full of complaints. When you look at an infant, it’s easy to see. In one room, there are many fun toys. One child is playing happily by himself. One child is crying without touching any of the toys. One child might be just chasing after other boys. They all act differently in the same environment. We all experience many different things in our lives. We tend to blame it on the looks, job, talent, destiny… but the real cause isn’t any of these. These factors are changeable.


Whether you are happy or not is determined by how close you live truthfully to your good will (innate god). Good jobs, good looks, etc., doesn’t make you change in a better way. That is an illusion. No matter how many things you attain, your complaints and anxiety will not be erased. No matter how your situation is, if you are in harmony with your true heart, feeling grateful that you are led to live, you will be able to satisfy yourself. And when you are in harmony with the goodness of your heart, you will attract true fortune. "