The 12 laws of Karma: THE LAW OF RESPONSIBILITY

If I ever save a fairy and she is ever so grateful and she decided to abide by the fairy tale rule of granting me one wish and she considers my first wish (to have as many wishes as I like) as an invalid wish, then my only second wish would be to never forget the lessons I have learned in life.

One lesson I keep forgetting over and over again is to stop playing the victim; to stop blaming others for my misfortunes. It’s me. It’s me. It’s me.

I was talking to someone in her early 80s and he was nagging about his kids and how ungrateful they are. I met one of his daughters later on that evening and the things she said about her dad…well. let’s just say he’s got great kids that they still talk to him!! If what the daughter told me was true.

Then it got me thinking…so when I complain or am upset with certain people in my life, could it be that it’s not them, it’s me?!! Am I just as blind as that old guy. He truly didn’t see that his current situation is the result of his actions (or mistreatment of his loved ones). My question is: How do I know if what happens to me is not the result of my bitchiness?

I guess I got my answer today. I was surfing when I came across the 12 laws of Karma. One of the laws is: THE LAW OF RESPONSIBILITY

THE LAW OF RESPONSIBILITY
Whenever there is something wrong,
there is something wrong in me.
We mirror what surrounds us
and what surrounds us mirrors us
We must take responsibility what is in our life.

No Expectations

I don’t know why for the past few days I wake up with a smile…a deep, light, sincere smile.

I don’t know why for the past few weeks all my dreams of mom are as if she never left. As if 2009 never happened.

I don’t know why my soul started decluttering without discussing it with me first.

I don’t know why my logical side no longer seeks answers.

I don’t know why I no longer feel angry; I hold no resentment against anyone; I no longer loath any thing or anyone.

I don’t know why I am calm; I am light.

I don’t know why I no longer want things, nor need things.

I don’t know why I no longer have any expectations from myself, from others, from god, from life, from destiny.

I don’t know what took over my soul; all I know is I like it.

How or why it happened, I don’t know

3 options

I am reading Echart Tolle’s The Power of Now and came across a sentence I wish I could learn to master:

“Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find you are here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally.” (p82)

Ramdom sentences from here and there

This blog really had become just a cut and paste plagiarism zone….aahhh what the hell…my brain is on hibernation these day….here’s my stolen stuff for this week:

Depressed people think the only reality is their own depressed reality.

If you want to forget all your other troubles, wear too tight shoes.

Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it’s all over.

An angry man is again angry with himself when he returns to reason.

“We Learn . . .
10% of what we read
20% of what we hear
30% of what we see
50% of what we see and hear
70% of what we discuss
80% of what we experience
95% of what we teach others.”

Criticize me, and I may not like you.

Ignore me, and I may not forgive you.

Encourage me, and I will not forget you.

Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.

I’m not normally a religious man, but if you’re up there, save me, Superman! ~~~ Homer Simpson

There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.

Prayer is when you talk to God; meditation is when you listen to God.

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.

You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you don’t trust enough.

Our best successes often come after our greatest disappointments.

When a question is posed ceremoniously, the universe responds.

When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.

Life keeps presenting us with a lesson until we learn it

Happiness for a reason is a form of misery because the reason can be taken away from you at any time. To be happy for no reason is the happiness you want to experience.

Greatest love of all???

My energy level is low…very low these days…except when I am at work…my new job has given me the passion I had long lost in the masquerade parties of my old work place…but since this universe never lets things be balanced, my personal life has lopsided…I don’t enjoy any one’s company anymore…anyone currently in my life…a minute chat with total strangers gives me more energy than a single exchange of words with my so-called friends…they haven’t done anything…it is I who have changed…

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You know how sometimes a song starts playing on your ipod that you have heard a billion times in the past 20 years but have never actually ‘listen’ to it…that’s what happened last night…I ‘listened’ to Whitney Houston’s song “Saving all my love for you’ for the first time and it just dawned on me that she is the other woman in this song!!! How come I had never paid attention to the lyrics before?

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Talking of Whitney Houston, I think her song “Greatest love of all” is gravely underrated…it’s the perfect song…the words should be taught in school…grade one…as the book of life…our manual…yeah the greatest love of all is learning to love yourself?…. Or is it?…what does loving yourself really mean anyway? …A while ago I was thinking whether there’s any truth behind this quote: “If you are afraid of being lonely, don’t try to be right.”…Almost every single person told me yep it’s right…but doesn’t it mean that you would have to give up your dignity for the sake of not being right?…

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THE GREATEST LOVE OF ALL

WHITNEY HOUSTON

I believe the children are our are future
Teach them well and let them lead the way
Show them all the beauty they possess inside
Give them a sense of pride to make it easier
Let the children’s laughter remind us how we used to be
Everybody searching for a hero
People need someone to look up to
I never found anyone who fulfill my needs
A lonely place to be
So I learned to depend on me

Chorus:
I decided long ago, never to walk in anyone’s shadows
If I fail, if I succeed
At least I’ll live as I believe
No matter what they take from me
They can’t take away my dignity
Because the greatest love of all
Is happening to me
I found the greatest love of all
Inside of me
The greatest love of all
Is easy to achieve
Learning to love yourself
It is the greatest love of all

I believe the children are our future
Teach them well and let them lead the way
Show them all the beauty they possess inside
Give them a sense of pride to make it easier
Let the children’s laughter remind us how we used to be

Chorus

And if by chance, that special place
That you’ve been dreaming of
Leads you to a lonely place
Find your strength in love

Windmills of My Mind

Never ending circles

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I want my inner zombies back…

Being blissfully numb is gnawing at my ferocity.. .

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Had been blissful before, had been numb before…just never blissfully numb

Yeah, I want my inner zombies back, this utopia is too drone

Want my dystopia back

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The winds have been turning the windmills of my mind again…

Sleep is laden with illusionary images again…

The reel, the snowball, the carnival balloon, the carousel are all here

Was it something I said, was it something I should have said

Will I ever get put the fragments together, will the puzzle be ever completed

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I want this jangle to irate me, I want this temple to misguide me

I want to trade this blissful numbness for a teacher …for a joker

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First I will break the wings of my angel,

Then I will bury my dancing shoes

How should I drown out the piper I wonder?

Need to inject some toxins in my spirit,

Need to combat the voice within

Need to dry out the sweet rain

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I can’t tell,

Can’t tell where I left my soul shaker

Don’t know,

I don’t know how to throw the dice on the game of snakes and ladder anymore

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Wrote this at wee hour of a Thursday morning after listening to “Windmills of your Mind” over and over again. I first heard this song in music class in grade 2 or 3. The melody was stuck somewhere at the back of my ‘windmills’ for many years. I ‘found’ the song 2 years ago on one the blogs but didn’t quite get it till this morning. Finally the lyrics clicked; now that my mind is entangled in the same whirlpool

The original version of the song and in my opinion the best version

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Dusty Springfield’s version is the best female version of it.

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Lyrics

The Windmills Of Your Mind

(from “The Thomas Crown Affair”)

Music by Michel Legrand
Lyrics by Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman

Round, like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel.
Never ending or beginning,
On an ever spinning wheel
Like a snowball down a mountain
Or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that’s turning
Running rings around the moon

Like a clock whose hands are sweeping
Past the minutes on its face
And the world is like an apple
Whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

Like a tunnel that you follow
To a tunnel of its own
Down a hollow to a cavern
Where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving
In a half forgotten dream
Or the ripples from a pebble
Someone tosses in a stream.

Like a clock whose hands are sweeping
Past the minutes on its face
And the world is like an apple
Whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

Keys that jingle in your pocket
Words that jangle in your head
Why did summer go so quickly
Was it something that you said
Lovers walking along the shore,
Leave their footprints in the sand
Is the sound of distant drumming
Just the fingers of your hand

Pictures hanging in a hallway
And a fragment of a song
Half remembered names and faces
But to whom do they belong

When you knew that it was over
In the autumn of goodbyes
For a moment
You could not recall the color of his eyes

[if a man is singing, this part would be:]

When you knew that it was over
Were you suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning
To the color of her hair?

Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning,
On an ever spinning wheel
As the images unwind
Like the circle that you find
In the windmills of your mind

Penang Hill

As promised here are some random pix of Malaysia:

One of my favorite places over there was Penang Hill. It was soooooo serene up there (about 830 meters above sea level) I remember thinking when I was taking an early morning walk up there (early for me is 8 o’clock) that this must be paradise. I mean, what else could one ask for? If it’s sound: all you heard were leaves dancing in the light breeze, monkeys swinging from branch to branch, and a alluring symphony sang by over 100 different species of birds. If it’s aroma: all you smelt were a tantalizing mélange of the forest, the sweet floras, and the plain freshness. If it’s the view, well here you go:

On the funicular railway on my way up to the hill. The trip up takes about 30 min.

One of the walking paths up the hill. Most of bungalows up there used to belong to Englishmen during the 18th Century (colonial period)

I guess I shouldn’t have reduced the resolution on this pic so much, the info is hardly readable

The canopy walk. Check out the sign: ‘Be silent’ …I’ll post sth related to this later

The stretch of the canopy walk. Well i gotta over my fear of height on this walk

My little companion on the walk

A Hindu temple in adjacent to the mosque below. That’s something i really loved about Malaysia: different religions and ethnicities living next to each other in peace

The mosque

A panoramic view of Penang and George Town. You can see the bridge linking this island to the mainland on the left.

Kuwait, Iran, Malaysia

About 3 months ago I picked up a book called, “Eat, Pray, Love’ by Elizabeth Gilbert at Kuwait’s airport on my way to Iran. It’s a travelogue of a woman in search of herself in Italy (eat), India (pray) and Indonesia (love).

A few minutes ago I was thinking I kinda (albeit an itsy bitsy teeny weeny kinda) had a similar experience. See, the past five years in Kuwait I have mostly focused on attaining my masterdom in the art of the worldly pleasures in all things gluttonous (eat). So Kuwait was my Italy. My last trip to Iran sealed my quest for inner peace, it was purely spiritual (pray). India was Iran for me. So could Malaysia be my Indonesia? hehehe doubt it

Next post, random pix of Malaysia:

The Philosopher and the Fish

Quick question: What is happiness? How can you tell when you are happy? And how can you tell when someone else is happy?

I received an email from an friend with the subject line: Poor woman

Here’s the email:

Mum set for 18th baby

An Arknsas woman is pregnant with her 18th child – and says she plans to have more.

Michelle Duggar, 41, is due on New Year’s Day, and the latest addition will join seven sisters and 10 brothers, including two sets of twins.

All of the children’s names start with the letter J – and they are all schooled at the family’s home in Tontitown.

“We’ve had three in January, three in December. Those two months are a busy time for us,” she said.

The Duggars’ oldest child, Josh, is 20, and the youngest, Jennifer, is nine months old.

Mrs Duggar has been been pregnant for more than 11 years of her life, and she and her husband, Jim Bob, say they’ll keep having children as long as God wills it.

“The success in a family is first off, a love for God, and secondly, treating each other like you want to be treated,” Mr Duggar said.

“Our goal is for each one of our children to be best friends, and everybody working together to serve each other makes that happen.”

The children, in between Joshua and Jennifer, are: Jana, 18; John-David, 18; Jill, 16; Jessa, 15; Jinger, 14; Joseph, 13; Josiah, 11; Joy-Anna, 10; Jeremiah, 9; Jedidiah, 9; Jason, 7; James, 6; Justin, 5; Jackson, 3; and Johannah, 2.

So when I saw my friend, I go:

Me: why did you say ‘poor’ woman

Her: DID you NOT read HOW MANY kids she has??!!!

Me: DID you NOT see her picture?

Her: Huh???

Me: Just stare at her eyes; with a piece of paper cover her mouth and forehead so you can only see her eyes. She is smiling with her eyes, there’s bright joy in those lanterns. Very rarely you can look deep into someone’s eye and not notice any fear; in hers not only I didn’t see any fear, they were kinds soothing as well.

Her: Would you be happy being her?

Me: Me?!! No!! Of course not…well I don’t think so anyway…but the point is I’m not her. The things that make me happy probably won’t make her happy.

Her: I still think she’s not happy. No one can be happy with 18 kids!!!

This conversation kinda reminded me of the story of the philosopher and the fish. Enjoy the story:

A philosopher once said to a fish, “The purpose of life is to reason and become wise.” The fish answered, “The purpose of life is to swim and catch flies.” The philosopher muttered “Poor fish.” Back came a whisper, “Poor philosopher.”

Wanna peaceful state of mind—throw away all your beliefs :D

Quick question: How do you know you are right?

I’m not talking about anything in particular; just in general. How do you know you are right about anything—your religious beliefs, political stands, causes you believe in, or whether chocolate cake truly is much better than vanilla cake.

I used to be a person who thought that my beliefs are strongly rooted in logic and common sense and anyone who didn’t agree with them was a blind stubborn imbecile with a rat’s $hit for brains stuck in the dark ages

Now I say, the only problem with common sense is that there’s nothing common about it!!

As for logic, well logic all depends on how far you tilt your head, your mood, or whether you are pmsing or not.

Logic is an illusion.

Have you guys seen that Facebook Right-Brain vs Left-Brain application that asks you to say which way the girl is dancing? When I first saw it, I thought WTH, of course it’s clockwise; there’s nothing illusionary about it. It’s clear as day. Boy did I get the shock of my life when I saw how many people have said she is twirling counter-clockwise.

What, are these people blind??!!! This is NOT an illusion; she is clearly twirling clockwise; why couldn’t they see it???

Ok, maybe a possible explanation is that it keeps changing directions. But no EVERY time I saw it, it was clockwise. SO WHY COULDN’T PEOPLE SEE IT THE WAY I SAW IT.

Again, I repeat this image is not an optical illusion. See with other optical illusion pictures nothing is clear; the pictures are always half way between something; so I can accept why some see a frog, some a horse; some and old woman, some young; BUT THIS PICTURE WAS CLEAR.

Then it hit me; if I just tilt my head to the left a little bit, I would see her twirling counter-clockwise!!! I practiced till I got her to turn the other way.

But then two days later, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t “see” her turning counter-clockwise. Apparently my mood also affects my perception.

Hmmm, so how often had I been so sure of my beliefs before, how often was I 100% what I was seeing is crystal clear and how often was I shocked that others didn’t see what I saw.

So if all those time I would have just tilted my head, I could have seen what they saw.

Are all our strong held beliefs just like this dancing girl?

PS. If you cannot see her turning in the picture above go here

PPS Also go there to get the interpretation of your test result.

PPPS. Baba, ya ammy, ya amu, ya walek…just go there

UPDATE: A non-virtual friend just sent me this video related to the above topic. Check it out: