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

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…

.

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?…

.

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

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:

Shoo, shoo be gone you pesky conscience!!

I need a new conscience; I’m fed up with the one I currently have; it’s way too loud, obnoxious and never ever shuts up…oh and the stupid thing never takes my side!!! Seriously, anyone knows where I can get a new ‘inner voice’ or better yet interested in exchanging yours with mine 😀

[Background to my plea]

So around 7:00 pm I logged onto Facebook and I see that there’s a lecture by DADI JANKI on “Secrets For True Wealth” at Salwa Al Sabah Hall at 8:00.

Me: Mom get dressed; we’re going go to a lecture on spirituality

Mom: Ahhhhh what’s the point? They don’t say anything I don’t already know. If you are in the mood to be lectured I can go on the mambar for ya. Here we go: Be good, be nice, be honest, let go of the past, be forgiving, be satisfied, be…

Me: Hahahaha very funny…come on… it starts in an hour.

[Blank look from my mom]

Me: Well, Dadi kinda looks like Lata Mangeshkar

So 30 minutes later we walk into the Hall, and who do I see sitting right on a couch as I enter—the only person I have ever treated not so nicely in my whole life and never apologized to. The same dude I was talking about in this post.

Me: Why, oh why God? Why do I have to see him here..and tonight of all nights.? Is this a sign?

Inner Voice: Yep, come on, this is your chance to be good again.

Me: I ain’t walking over to him…no way!!…and you have been seeing “The Kite Runner” way too many times!! WTH is with “you can be good again”?!!

Inner Voice: Fine, have it your way.

[A few minutes later]

Dadi: Honesty…I myself have never lied…why should I? What’s the point of lying? What are you afraid of?

Inner Voice: See? What are you afraid of?

Me: Shh…I’m trying to listen…hey hold on. I NEVER lied to him.

Inner Voice: Nope you didn’t lie; but you weren’t completely honest with him either.

Me: Huh? Look what I did wasn’t all that bad. Besides I don’t owe him any explanation for my action.

Dadi: Parents have to spend time with their kids to teach them morals

Inner Voice: See, your parents taught you better than this.

Me: Would you please Shhhhhhh. Seriously get off my back. Look this story goes back to my ‘dark’ days, and anything I did during those months cannot be held against me now.

Inner Voice: Do you think you ran into him here by accident? Why of all the nights, do you think you saw him tonight?

Me: Seriously, bug off….I’m trying to listen…ok fine…I’ll talk to him later.

Inner Voice: No you are not. At least be honest with your own inner voice. You never do the things you say you will do later.

Dadi: We have 3 enemies: carelessness, procrastination, and…

Me: ok, that’s it. I am out of here.

Inner Voice: Hehehehe…see I told ya so.

Here a video clip of Dadi…not the lecture she gave in Kuwait though

UPDATE: Thank you Grey for pointing out that I misspelled “conscience” 😀 😀 …opps

Half the world celebrated something on Friday :D :D :D :D

Mom and I will hit the road in about an hour. I couldn’t sleep, got up to surf and came across this article. Brought a smile to my face, thought of sharing it:

“…on this particular Friday, March 21, it seems almost no believer of any sort will be left without his or her own holiday. In what is statistically, at least, a once-in-a-millennium combination, the following will all occur on the 21st:

Good Friday

Purim, a Jewish festival celebrating the biblical book of Esther

Narouz, the Persian New Year, which is observed with Islamic elaboration in Iran and all the “stan” countries, as well as by Zoroastrians and Baha’is.

Eid Milad an Nabi, the Birth of the Prophet, which is celebrated by some but not all Sunni Muslims and, though officially beginning on Thursday, is often marked on Friday.

Small Holi, Hindu, an Indian festival of bonfires, to be followed on Saturday by Holi, a kind of Mardi Gras.

Magha Puja, a celebration of the Buddha’s first group of followers, marked primarily in Thailand.

“Half the world’s population is going to be celebrating something,” says Raymond Clothey, Professor Emeritus of Religious studies at the University of Pittsburgh. “My goodness,” says Delton Krueger, owner of www.interfaithcalendar.org, who follows “14 major religions and six others.” He counts 20 holidays altogether (including some religious double-dips, like Maundy Thursday and Good Friday) between the 20th (which is also quite crowded) and the 21st.

You can read the whole article here: Good Friday! Happy Purim, Eid, etc…

UPDATE: I just realized that Mother’s Day in the Arab world was also this Friday 😀 😀

Hey maybe this is a sign that 2008 is the year of world peace 😛 😛

Goodbye 2007

I just realized that I never published this on this blog. So before publishing my next post, gotta go with this one first:

Most people fall in love with their soul mates, children, pets, jobs, hobbies, or countries. Moi? What did I fall in love with this year? Here it is: This was my beloved:
The year 2007

Yep, the whole year itself. I LOVED 2007. This was the year of rude awakening for me. The year “I” became “me”.

What did I learn this year:

1. Being happy is easy. If you want to be happy, you will be.
2. Most people are good at heart. True once in while everyone will say or do something that ‘hurts’ but one wrong deed doesn’t make the whole world a hurtful place.
3. Life is all about striving to achieve inner peace. We are emotional beings, if we can take care of our emotions, we would be happy. The way to inner peace is to create the person you want to be.
4. There are no problems in life, only challenges and lessons to be learnt.
5. Clear communication not only solves problems, it also prevents misunderstandings.
6. Blood is thicker than water.
7. Savior the moment: When eating close your eyes and feel the ‘heaven’ with every taste bud in you, when listening to music, close your eyes and ‘feel’ the beat with every dancing muscle in you
8. From time to time compliment people to their faces not just behind their backs. I was shocked that the other day a co-worker came up to me and thanked me for the good word I had put in for her 2 years ago. She had just heard it!!! I used to believe that real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody is going to know whether you did it or not–true, but not all the time.
9. Stop living on autopilot. Life is all about creating memories. Don’t let a month go by in which you could tell yourself, hmmm I wish I had done so and so. If you are not truly happy with your life make that change TODAY. Never say, “Soon, I’ll do it.” If you really want to get up and DO IT NOW.
10. True friends and dear ones are the ones who bring out the best in you.
11. Not all relationships are supposed to last. Some people step into your life to teach you something about yourself.
12. Get a daily dose of dark chocolate
13. Karma does exist (scares me how many times I have seen proof of this)
14. Pampering yourself is essential for your spiritual growth.
15. Get out of your comfort zone and try on that dress, dye your hair that color, dance in public, sing in public; DO IT

What else I learnt
16. I love the Baby Blues comic strips
17. I love Subway
18. I love Sudoku
19. I love Jeff Dunham
20. I love Maz Jobrani

What I did do for the first time in 2007 (or after a long time)
21. Smoked
22. Quit smoking
23. [hehehe, tell ya later about this one]
24. Listened to a rock and roll song (‘Radio Nowhere’ by Springsteen) and actually liked it (thanks to Sh.M)
25. Treated a nice dude in a mean bitchy way [stoneface]
26. Went fishing (didn’t enjoy it, way too boring and the dude I went with kept telling me to stop talking I’m scaring the fish away )
27. Walked under the rain (hadn’t done that in 6 years)
28. Jumped in puddles and splash water around (hadn’t done that in ohhhh ages)
29. Resigned (I did that 5 times this year :D)
30. Fixed my most diabolic vice
31. Believed that true love could exist
32. Joined a gym and actually lost 5 KG …in the right places *evil grin*
33. Started reading again (after what I think was a ten year hiatus)
34. Became a believer of the effect of positive energy, ESP, supernatural phenomena. Like a friend put it: I stopped being a “Sculy” and started to be a little bit of “Mulder”
35. Accepted a compliment with grace and patted myself on the back several times
36. Threw away some memorabilia I had been clinging on for over 20 years
37. Made a decision without thinking it over 200 hundred times
38. Got one of my pictures published in a French book about the Safavid period
39. Found inner peace

That’s all i can think of for now. Goodbye 2007 and thank you

My journey on this foggy day

This pic is temporary; till i get off my (beep) and go out and take a pic of the fog)

When I left the house this morning and was greeted by the light morning breeze and the magical foggy weather, I knew that something uplifting will happen today.

On the car drive over to work, I heard a spiritual Hayedeh song I haven’t heard in a long time; and when I came to work I took a trip into Hamad’s World.

His world is beautiful, his world is enlightening, his world is sincere. His world is the message the morning breeze was sending me this morning.

His world is here

Liberating Tears

Today I shed a couple of tears, silent tears, light tears, liberating tears.

Sometimes the traffic light takes longer than usual to turn green, you mind wonders, again the same old question is posed, again the long sought answer is not found.

You sigh, your head tilts slightly to the left; then all of a sudden your eyes become entrapped by what it sees.

This pic was not taken on the same day.

The side mirror reflects an image: A vast canvas of soothing blueness with strokes of whiteness brushed across the sky in message-like patterns. It talks to you. You listen. You feel the message. That feeling throws you into a whirlpool of answers.

The honking pulls you out of the whirlpool, the light has turned green. Unwilling you are torn away from that moment, the dialog is lost, your soul was snatched back by reality.

Your are lost, your are numb, you are dangling in between…in between what you don’t know? Where was your soul heading? What was it leaving behind? You don’t know. All you know is that it is ‘in-between’ and this half-way world is peaceful.

Baraka: A Spritual Film

What a magical night it was last night! The soothing breeze didn’t let go of its embrace all night. With my mind clear, my heart light, my soul at ease it was the perfect night to watch “Baraka”.

Baraka is the first film of a “3 Evening Events” that ‘The Culture Sector Office’ of The Grand Mosque of Kuwait is hosting to promote inter cultural understanding.

And Baraka did exactly that. With no narration, no dialogue, no words, mere images choreographed with an enchanting music, it took your mind on a sensual journey in and out of people’s beliefs, rituals, and vices. Unlike other films where one passively takes in the storyline as it is dictated to them, with Baraka one has to connect to their personal soul, cultural knowledge, and openness to interpret the mélange of the audiovisual messages.

I’m still lost in my interpretation; still mesmerized by the beauty and the “Baraka” of our world, still at awe at our lost souls dwelling in coffin-like “homes”; still perplexed by the skull-museum of genocide victims, still at awe by the connectedness of world rituals-of our collective conscious; still trying to figure out the messages in the eyes of the snow monkey in the hot springs of Japan, in the eyes of the aborigine in Australia, , in eyes of the 3 kids of Yanomami Tribe, in the eyes of the girl from Iran, in the eyes of the monk…and in my eyes.

Still have 1 question in mind: Are we losing God’s Baraka?

More Info about the film:

Baraka was shot in the following countries: Alaska, Arizona, Australia, Brazil, California, Cambodia, Colorado, Ecuador, Egypt, France, Hawaii, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kina, Kuwait, Mexico, Nepal, New Mexico, Peru, Poland, Thailand, Turkey & USA.

PLOT SYNOPSIS (taken from ALLMovie)

Named after a Sufi word that translates roughly as “breath of life” or “blessing,” Baraka is Ron Fricke‘s impressive follow-up to Godfrey Reggio‘s non-verbal documentary film Koyaanisqatsi. Fricke was cinematographer and collaborator on Reggio’s film, and for Baraka he struck out on his own to polish and expand the photographic techniques used on Koyaanisqatsi. The result is a tour-de-force in 70mm: a cinematic “guided meditation” (Fricke’s own description) shot in 24 countries on six continents over a 14-month period that unites religious ritual, the phenomena of nature, and man’s own destructive powers into a web of moving images. Fricke’s camera ranges, in meditative slow motion or bewildering time-lapse, over the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, the Ryoan-Ji temple in Kyoto, Lake Natron in Tanzania, burning oil fields in Kuwait, the smoldering precipice of an active volcano, a busy subway terminal, tribal celebrations of the Masai in Kenya, chanting monks in the Dip Tse Chok Ling monastery…and on and on, through locales across the globe. To execute the film’s time-lapse sequences, Fricke had a special camera built that combined time-lapse photography with perfectly controlled movements of the camera. In one evening sequence a desert sky turns black, and the stars roll by, as the camera moves slowly forward under the trees. The feeling is like that of viewing the universe through a powerful telescope: that we are indeed on a tiny orb hurtling through a star-filled void. The film is complemented by the hybrid world-music of Michael Stearns.

Images from the film (taken from Spirit of Baraka)

Video Clips from the film (From YouTube)

1. The Kecak Dance of Bali Indonesia

2. A snow monkey (at peace)

3. Modern life (maybe why we aren’t at peace)