We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence… We need silence to be able to touch souls. -Mother Teresa

I believe that it is in the pockets of silence throughout our day that we find our true voice.  Amidst the chaos of a whole city clamouring for their dreams, there lies our true authentic selves inside each one of us.

When you get bogged down by the chaos of life, remember that it is all in the mind. Just pause for a moment and listen to your heart, and hear your voice. Ultimately I believe that what we hear in those moments is God’s voice, because our soul emanates from Him. When we listen to it, stripped down of all of life’s rigors, we find our true selves… and it is glorious

Have a great week ahead everyone!!!

Choose joy!  Smile and feel your face grow brighter and lighter.  Do this often specially when you don’t feel like doing it.  You can’t give what you don’t have so dispel any thoughts that bring you down and collect thoughts that make you happy.  Share this joy with others along the way.

I honestly didn’t feel like being joyful when the day started.  Maybe it’s chemical, I feel like it’s almost that.  Or maybe it’s the slow days on end.  I’ve been feeling like I should be doing a lot more.

But of course, as the law of attraction states, I should feel the contentment and joy inorder to attract things and circumstances that will bring me just that.  So I’m doing my best effort here

I hope my caring meter moves up soon

A couple of weeks back, I had a conversation with one special friend, about how to connect with the Infinite Grace that is God’s.  I think that like me, he needs more than the Christian traditions inorder to keep his spiritual connection alive.  Anyway, I answered his questions as best I could.  I just hope that I could shed some light to the path that he feels is right.

There comes a time in our ever-questioning-selves if the traditions we grew up with, in my case the Roman Catholic traditions, are enough to lift us up to that tranquil place.  In each one of us dwells that peaceful place, and when life’s stresses get the better of us, we just have to go back to that place.  According to the book Eat, Pray, Love

This is what rituals are for.  We do spiritual ceremonies as human beings in order to create a safe resting place for our most complicated feelings of joy or trauma, so that we don’t have to haul those feelings around with us forever, weighing us down.  We all need such places of ritual safekeeping…

The Christian tradition is great and holds deep meaning for me.  But sometimes my do-it-yourself resourcefulness needs a personal touch in my everyday quest to the Divine. 

If you bring the right earnestness to your homemade ceremony, God will provide the grace.  And that is why we need God.

I think this is why I was really destined to learn the type of connecting to my own inner peace some eleven years ago in a non-ecumenical retreat (with a Salesian brother nonetheless); because this method is the best for me.

I’m at the most stable and content place in my life right now, in all aspects.  It took a lot of hard decisions for me to get here.  But In the end, when you seek for only honesty, goodness and acceptance in everything and everyone that surrounds you, there’s no other path that the Universe lays down for you but the one that leads you here.

Life isn’t perfect.  It’s not supposed to be, yet genuine happiness isn’t only found in perfection, but in the journey towards attaining it.

A sign of maturity is finding hope amidst the worst of circumstances, and more importantly,  finding happiness in normalcy and peace.

The gift of a well thought-of decision is always the luxury of a peaceful slumber.

I know that just beyond the horizon there are challenges to come.  I feel the ground thumping, and with every beat my heart jumps in anticipation.  Great times lie ahead of us…  :-D 

Have a blessed weekend.

Picked this off Ofaj’s blog today

The sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.
- Blaise Pascal

That says a lot.  For one, it says that YOU should be enough to make YOURSELF happy.  Confused?  Basically what I’m saying is that if a person cannot be happy by just being with himself, then he might not be complete as an individual… and it would be truly sad for anybody to walk around like that - a half-life.

Validation - thats what those words are for me.

Have a great Monday everyone!

I received this comment recently:

Dear Ador,

Missed seeing you when I visited Manila.  Although you and Aki stayed in Digos for a while, I haven’t had the time to get to know you as a person and develop a special bond with you although I consider you part of our extended family.

As you matured, watching you from a distance, I know that you are a special person and a gifted one.

You have achieved so much and still achieving more.  Yet, despite your achievements, you are still alone and lonely inside.  Your blogs (well-written!) revealed your sadness… for a reason.  Yet, I can sense that despite the successes in your career, your heart is still yearning for more.  Try to examine closely the reason for such restlessness.

Like St. Augustine, your heart will always be restless until it rests in Him…. Material things will never replace the comfort that He can give.  We can acquire all the gadgets and bags in the world but we can never be truly happy and serene inside.  Perhaps, you need to open your heart, mind and soul (and wallet…) to the needy.  Perhaps, like Mother Teresa and St. Francis of Assisi (2 of my favorite saints), you will truly find what you’ve been missing all your life…  can’t help preaching… sorry
As the song written by Manuel V. Francisco, SJ goes,

In Him  alone is our hope, in Him alone is our strength.
In Him  alone are we justified, in Him alone are we saved.
What have we   to offer that does not fade or wither?
Can the world ever satisfy the emptiness in our hearts?     In vain we    deny.
When will you cease running in search of hollow meaning?
Let His love feed the hunger in your soul till it overflows
With joy you yearn to know.

As an Ate, I just feel the need to reestablish the lost link between us no matter how thin that link was.  I hope you will get in touch with me and consider me your spiritual Ate…

Despite your distance and deliberate attempts to cut us off from your life, I conside you and Aki as my younger brothers…  I still treasure the picture you had with Aki, Masol, Mama, Tiya Cita at the old Mary Mediatrix Church taken during your recognition day years back….

Finally, you may explore the writings of Anthony de Mello, St. Ignatius of Loyola and St. Augustine.  Perhaps, you may approach a Jesuit spiritual director to become your confidante and counselor.  My prayer is that you will have to grace to have a fuller life with Him…

Take care always and strive to be happy.  Do not think that you are alone because you are not and never will be…

Mizpah.

Ate Joy

I answered her with this comment:

Hi Ate,

Thank you for your generous comment.

I am sorry if I don’t get to communicate with you as much.  Life is indeed busy.  I am riding the wave of my career, of which I believe is because I already paid my dues from the past years.  It simply is foolhardy to stop now.  One thing I have learned about myself is that I tend to have a one track mind, and tend to lose track of how long I’ve not been talking to my relatives.

Regarding my blogs, I am sorry if I tend to show you a refracted view of myself in them.  Despite all the things that happened to me, I am a happy person.  Now more than ever, God has given me all the things that I have focused on: meaningful friendships, love, truth and clarity.  I may not mention it, but I know that I do have a special relationship with God, more than any Sabbath obligation can bring.  It just so happened that besides going to mass and other “traditional” methods of worship, I use my daily meditations to reach into myself and to HIM.  In my blog, when I say “The Universe”, I am actually referring to God in metaphysical terms.
 
Whatever conflict I went through inside, it’s basically a side effect of one of God’s gifts to me - love and all the happiness and hurt that it brings.  Yes, sometimes I am sad.  Sometimes I even feel like I’m stuck in a quagmire.  But all in all, I thank Him for reminding me that I am still human.

I do admit that after our recent loss, I felt kind of lost, then felt formidable.  So formidable that I became unfeeling and shut myself from other people.  But it’s different now, I am breaking down those walls.  I am a very empathic person.  I think that’s one of the gifts that God has given to me.  So empathic that I do know that the material things that I write about are just that: material.  I write about them because I like writing about them, and I like that most of my readers like reading about those.  I buy some of them because either I need or want them.  I do not, in any case, try to substitute them for real emotional gratification.

Thanks Ate and hope to talk to you soon.

/Angelo

I know some people have hearts big enough to give unsolicited advice, and I truly appreciate that.  But know that whatever entries in my blogs are, they are just that: entries in my blogs.  These may be my thoughts, but these are not all that I think about.  I do not think of gadgets and bags all day, that’s what I’m simply saying.  I always thank God and I have a relationship with Him, although I seldom write about it.

I may look unforgiving, arrogant and without faith because I show resilience after weathering the strongest of storms.  But I survived them because I pinned myself against a wall, a Higher Power.

Perhaps my faith is even stronger than those who use the scriptures… because I have already faced the worst of things… of loss… and I stood my ground beside my God… and triumphed.  Now that is beyond scriptures, wouldn’t you think so?

The aura supposedly reflects a supernatural energy field or life force that permeates all things - that’s the definition I got from the internet.  I believe in this.  The belief in auras encompass religions, actually.  Do you know when someone walks into a room and everybody seems to notice?  That person has an extended aura.  They said that Gautama Buddha had an aura that extended to a hundred meters in diameter.

One of the first things a student learns in the Core-energy module is how to see another person’s aura.  In the exercise, two students face each other, each one focuses on the other’s forehead just between the eyebrows (where the crown chakra is).  If you concentrate for a few moments and then close your eyes, you will see the outline of the person formed by the aura in the darkness.

You don’t have to be psychic to see it.  Try it sometime.

Another gift was given to me today as I woke up.  I just realized that after a few weeks, I had regained the ability to silence my mind.  Finally, in the midst of the inner and outer turmoils I have experienced, I can stop for moment and just quell them, as I hone in on a specific thought or purpose.  Even if there is no thought or purpose, I can focus on silence.

Focus.  This is a gift that I have been asking the universe, for weeks on end.  This I regained with my mind’s silence.

I give gratitude to God for this.

A pool of negativity is welling up in me.  I am gathering every ounce of good experiences I can muster just to keep it at bay.  It feels like holding my breath really, for fear that releasing my lungs will also cause the tears to flow out of me uncontrollably.  Articulating it right now, at this very height of feeling, helps me somehow - like digging tiny streams to ease the raging river.

I have never felt like this in a long time.  I never thought that a tiff with co-workers would ever trigger such feelings.  Perhaps it’s more than just a tiff, for weeks now seeds of doubt have been sown about the sincerity of some people I work with.  I assure you that I am not imagining it, for empathy is both a gift and a burden that I carry.  The very moment that they had an opportunity to mock me among themselves, I felt that very feeling.  It sickened me that such ill-will could ever be directed towads me.

I never asked for the position to lead.  I am a leader by circumstance, I tell you.

The prayer of the whole nation has been answered.  The heavens finally poured down its graces.  It has also been forecasted that this weather will prevail for the whole week.  I read on chuvaness that the Church has ask all the people to pray for the end of the dry spell last Sunday.  As the saying in the Old Testament, God has heard His people’s cries.

I remember some years ago, my friend Mayeec looked outside the third floor window of Allied Bank Center and said “Ah drizzle lang yan, tara!” (Ah, it’s just a drizzle, let’s go!).  We ended up drenched in the rain that day.  I think she will never be a meteorologist.
—

In core-energy terms, the united prayers of the people is called the Cone of Power.  It is said that when the intent of the group (In this case, the nation itself) is focused on one thing, results are definitely achieved.

Every core-energy student knows that the navel point is where the energy we call aura comes from.  In one of the earlier teachings I went through, the mentor called it solar plexus.  But the Solar Plexus is located midway between the navel and the base of the sternum.  So logically, I thought that point is the power source.  But for some reason, I felt that there was something wrong with the idea.  A classic case of confusion between your logic and instinct.

A recent research effort straightened out the facts for me.  The Navel point is indeed the battery of aura in the body, but it is not called the solar plexus, just simply the navel point or chakra.  Whereas the real Solar Plexus is associated with the functioning of the aura field.

Most writers refer to only a single point or chakra, located either at the navel or the solar plexus. However, as you can see, these two centres are quite distinct.

Getting the facts straight really helped out my meditations.  The conscious blocking the sub-conscious, what an irony.

Back when I was a senior in high school, we were sent on this three-day seminar called the Core Energy Module. 

The instructor, Brother Obet of the Salesians, taught us the basic techniques in meditating to empower oneself.  In the course we were also taught that negativity can be released through catharsis, for one’s well-being.  This is very opposite from the “western” teachings that is prevalent in Philippine culture, which is to keep one’s feelings inside, and that crying is seen as a sign of weakness.

I cannot remember just how many times these techniques have helped me in my daily life.  The meditation has been a lifesaver countless times in controlling my anger, keeping my nerves and dampening my fears.  The teachings have been second nature to me all these years that I am just thankful that I have these tools to work with.

Today is no different.  At lunchtime I suddenly didn’t feel well as we sat down at the resto.  As a reflex, I started to do a bit of a meditation.  I did not even have to close my eyes (You learn to do that to not get noticed), it was as if I was looking into nothingness.  After a few moments the pain became manageable, and then faded.

I am going to try to track down the Salesian Brother who taught me, many years ago.  I should thank him.