Sharing

(second of the three-part series)

Being is the beginning. When being opens up like a gift, there is no other way but to share it. Sharing is the second step to understand Love.

Wherever you are right now, relax yourself and feel your hands. Then, look at them slowly. Just look at them. How did you do it? Look at your hands again: did you look at your hands with closed fist or open palms? Ask your loved ones and friends to do the same. Look at how they will do it. Observe people looking at their hands. Is it the same for all people? Have you ever encountered a person looking at their hands with their closed fist? Have you ever done that yourself?

A new friend in her sixties shared her simple but amazing insight. She once looked at her hands and thought how fascinating they are. She has realized that through them, she can give caring, touch a friend, embrace a loved one, caress a dog, and a thousand of wonderful things.

There is so much truth in as simple as looking at your hands. Every one of us would naturally spread our hands, like the unfurling of petals of a blooming flower. Look again on how wonderful your hands are. Palms are always facing up. As you look at your hands, they open up, an apparent gesture of giving. Our hands are extensions of the inherent willingness of our souls to share our beings. And here lies a great paradox: there we can see in our open palms a line between giving and receiving. The pristine openness of our hands cannot anymore distinguish between how to give and how to receive. Both are happening in expressing the hands' sincerest being. This being becomes an act of sharing.

Our hands remind us of our life's purpose: to share Love. Yet, we ask ourselves "What form of Love can we share to others?" Time by time, we are stuck with the idea that we have to share something material or physical. In fulfilling the act of sharing, we often ask "how much?" or "how many?" or "what kind?" These questions are difficult to answer, especially if anyone of us have felt deprived or lacking, may it be in money or possessions. But the truth about the steps to understand Love are such remarkable, we are always reminded that there is only one source of what to share: our beings. From there, abundance of many things will come out, like a fountain of blessings. It is our Loving being that we share, our genuine presence, our listening hearts, our heartfelt touch, our gentle words. Our true beings unlock our abilities that have been locked up within the dungeons of our fears. Our hands are ready to mold our malleable possibilities.

Get into the deep trench of your psyche. That is the only place where the treasures of your being are hidden. Begin the treasure hunting. Let the questions of your being dig into it. Ask yourself: "If Love is my being, how can Love share itself to the world?" The answers are right before your eyes. What are you good at? What makes you fulfilled with promises and wonder? However you express them does not really matter. What is more important is the Love from where your expressions well up.

In many years of our lives we have been doing something that makes us busy, yet at the end of the day we feel tired and empty. We have done things to please others, to accumulate more, to make ourselves worthwhile, where our utmost aim is always to survive. We have forgotten to live. Now, it is time to live our lives again. We must become beings and start sharing. Joseph Campbell's mantra echoes the truth of being and sharing: Follow your bliss. Our beings can share, without the need for meeting others expectation, or any approval, or any reciprocal actions. No need to complete ourselves of any requirements of this world. All we have to do is to follow the bliss of our beings. It is the bliss of Love waiting for our awareness.

Perhaps one of the most iconic Filipino sculpture is the Oblation. It is a figure of a naked man, looking at the sky with hands and arms stretched out. It has symbolized a century of academic excellence of the University of the Philippines. In Christian terms, the word oblation refers something you offer to God. Offerings could be anything, like the ones offered every Eucharist. In the eyes of Love, we can see beyond. Our greatest offering is our being in its nakedness and innocence. We spread our arms to let go of our beings as an oblation to humanity. This is the sacred sharing of our Love.

After being and sharing, we now start growing. As the steps to understand Love ascend, they are now coming into full circle.

(to be continued)






"Mamang Oble" -photo by foolmoon

Being

(first of the three-part series)

There were early days of white blank pages staring at me, unable to show its worth. These pages were sheets of crisp paper, waiting for my convoluted scribbles and Pollock-like scrawls. They waited for my strained fingers holding a cheap pen whose ink trickled like tar. They gathered dust in days, left unheeded together with a pile of books in the same fate of waiting. Days passed, I hadn't heard even a single cry from them; but my heart wailed, with words waiting to be written on the surface of these pages.

But these pages were pensive witnesses to the thoughts that kept exploding in my mind. They remained blank until the time I chose to write. They didn't do anything. They just stayed as they are, something pale and empty, unperturbed of the long wait. These pages are just being pages. They are nothing because they are blank; yet they are something because they are blank. They could have been useless if I would not choose to write. Though, they could be useful by the time I write on them.

You and I are both blank pages. We are both useless and useful. That depends how we see ourselves. Or how we let ourselves be. This is the first step to understand Love: we must let ourselves be. We are being blank pages, allowing Love to write something on our emptiness. Being is awareness of our true nature. We are Love. Those blank pages allowed their true nature: they are paper. That is their purpose. We are the same. We are empty beings allowing our nature and purpose, which is Love.

Our society has taught us something out of being. We are taught to do something. We are led to believe that doing something makes us worthy. At school, we do something, like finishing our homework, reaching high grades, excelling on subjects--all to make our parents, teachers and classmates happy. At work we make ourselves busy, we finish deadlines, we please our bosses, we team up with our colleagues. In life we are expected to behave well, to earn good money, to meet our goals, to conform for success. These are all required for us to fulfill another thing our society has taught us: to have. To do something leads us to have something. Having something, we believe, can validate our worth. Like having material possessions, or physical appearance, or intellectual dispositions. Both doing and having are all results of being. But they are not the source of being. For being is being no matter what you do or have. Being is being Love. Nothing else. No deed can surpass it, no possession can equal it. Realizing that you are BEING paves the way for you to DO and HAVE. That is the promise of Being.

Shakespeare's Hamlet starts to speak to himself through this line: To be or not to be? That is the question. It's almost the same as asking Being or Non-being. Say, do I want to be a being or not? It's no accident that we are called human beings. Have you heard the term human doing or human having? They sound strange, because they are not what we are called. But we are drawn more to be a human doing and human having. Our lives run in doing things and having things. Eventually, we see each other as being things. We have forgotten that each of us is not a thing. No need for being to pair off with thing. Each of us is a being alone--a being of Love.


The way to being is not easy. But there are no short cuts. Being being must be a moment by moment commitment. Being is about being aware of the Love within. It is seeing our true nature. We must begin to appreciate ourselves as beings of Love. Love, sans deeds and possessions, is perfect. The person you are, without identifying with anything you own or do, is always perfect. Let both your mind and heart settle in quietude. Hushing the voices of judgment in them, you will be able to hear that whisper of Love, always calling you in silence. Heed that call. This is the only way.

My teacher and friend once read from a daily devotional book about the "To be list." Its a fresh approach in completing a "to do list" or "to have list." In her "to be list," she jotted down the following: to be good, to be faithful, to be kind, to be generous, to be patient, to be gentle. This is a great idea on how to make use of white, blank pages: jotting down a growing list of Being. Let Love do the same in our blankness, and let that list of Being become endless.

(to be continued)

Love has a Million Names

The Way that can be spoken of is not the eternal Way. The name that can be name is not the eternal name. The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth. The name is the mother of ten thousand things
--Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching

What is your name?

All of us ask this question the moment we meet someone. Meeting a new friend is an adventure to the unknown possibility of another person. At times, we fear because knowing someone else can be a threat to the private realms of our personality. It is wonderful, too, since knowing someone allows us to discover the worlds we sometimes dream of. We are lead to a possibility knowing another life, and in turn, enriching our own. The key to open this door of opportunity is the time when we know someone's name.

A person's name, as Dale Carnegie put it, is the sweetest word in his/her own language. It is the only single word that can make or break the person, or connect him/her to others. Through our names, we believe we have an identity, a reputation, a dignity to face the world. It is ironic, though, that our names cannot really be owned. There is a Filipino riddle that refers to name as something that you and others own at the same time. Such names like John or Mary are common names in the Western world, and though it is sweet to bear these names, still they are so universal that no one can take them as their own.

I feel the same way for Love.

This world has 6 billion human beings experiencing Love in different ways. Our human history has allowed us to remember the name of Love in another name, a very popular and timeless one: God. The only problem is that most of us have owned the name, as if Love cannot be called in different names but God. Naming has become a limitation. A name given for Love, such as God, has generated numerous contentions and arguments of which is a real name and which is not. However, the more we justify that Love can be called only in a single name deprives us of the immensity of how Love is taken in different names. Naming Love with a single name cannot bring us to its mysteries. Just the same as how we call God, whom we cannot define and label, Love has names as many as the stars in the sky.

Our religions speak to the infinite names of Love. Love is Suchness, Thusness, Is-ness, just as how Moses learned the name of God: Yahweh, I am that I am. Christ came to earth and proclaimed himself the Son of God, the Love that has born into humankind, the man that has become the symbol of Love. The Quran speaks about Allah bearing all beautiful names of perfection, majesty and beauty. While throughout his life the Buddha, the Awakened One, taught the Dhamma or the Truth, the Universal Law equaled to that of Love. Lao Tzu, the old sage, wrote 81 verses of his realized wisdom he called the Tao or the Way. Zen masters like Shunryu Suzuki simply teaches the Big Mind, the awareness of our true nature, the nature we call Love. Brahman in Hindu tradition is recognized as the transcendent, Divine reality, where everything is great and infinite, both qualities that refer to Love. All these, and other traditions unmentioned, speak different terms from different doctrines and practices, yet the universality of Love resonates in each name, both in God and in the concept of the Divine.

Beyond these names, our collective human experiences express Love in many words and circumstances. We seek peace in times of war, joy in times of sadness, harmony in times of conflict. We put our courage amid our fears, our enthusiasm amid weariness, our inspiration amid boredom. We call to our faiths when we are uncertain and hope when we are hopeless. We become compassionate towards others' suffering and happy towards other success. Our prayers are Love expressed in words and our Loving intentions through our thoughts. As we create, we create Love into its physical forms. Love is said in words like "wow" and "wonderful," "astounding" and "amazing."

Beyond words, we speak nonverbal names of Love whenever we smile, touch, hug, and kiss another, with all our honest hearts emanating with sincerity and comfort. Love has names unspoken yet shown as we care the sick, we serve the needy, we give the deprived. Love is to listen with a heart, to speak with gentleness, to see others without judgment. Our wishes of safety, serenity, health and wholeness are words of Love we give to others.

Love is oneness, the truth that you and I are not separate, but are always one. Love is nonviolence, when we choose to stop harming and start caring. Love is healing, allowing intentions to heal pains and weakness. Love is creativity, our inherent power to fashion our reality. Love is nature, creating forms of life that gives beauty and abundance. Love is beauty, radiating from each living being. Love is intuition, the voice of God that speaks to us. Love is Understanding, seeing things as they are. Love is freedom, the capacity to achieve one's potential and live life to the fullest. Love is innocence in the eyes of a child. Love is the Here and Now, the only time and space where we can Love. Love is conveyed in about 10,000 languages of the world, along with words related to Love. Love is unbound, unconditional, unlimited; it is indefinable, ineffable, infinite. Love are both miracles and wonders. And Love can be simply named as Love.

And what are the other names of Love? Go back home and look at your loved ones. Whatever names they have is always translated as Love. Our friends, lovers, partners, colleagues, and strangers are Love called in different names. From our radius of awareness, we now expand our understanding and realize that not even millions, but billions of people on this planet are called with names of Love. I am Love. You are Love. Love is our true name. It tells us that Love is the bearer of all names, and all names spell out Love. The name and the named are one. Everyone and everything are named and become nameless in the name of Love.

Impermanence

I have a portrait of nature outside my window: the Santol tree (Sandoricum koetjape) or known in English as the wild mangosteen. It's more or less 10 meters in height, having a small trunk from where 3 long, tough branches emerged. It's entire bark is not so much rough, pale brown in color, and has grown some light green, round patches which I presume as molds. Nowadays, the leaves are green as a lawn. Looking closer, I see that some leaves have started to become distorted. This distortions look like small, irregular lumps, which are normal among these leaves. They look like lumps but they are in fact crumpled, hollowed leaf surface, as if thrust by some long barrel with irregularly shaped point. I am still uncertain why this happens, but I heard from somebody that it's one way for the leaves to deal with toxic pollutants. I am more than uncertain if there would be botanists who might claim this truth, but it's just one "myth" I still remember up to these days.

This tree, I believe, has been here for almost two decades now. It grows on our neighbor's backyard, just a few feet away from my window. Whenever I need a glimpse of nature, this santol tree is a reliable companion. Nowadays, it has begun to bear fruits: round, green, unripe santol fruits which will, in a few weeks time, be yellow or orange as they ripen. The leaves, at times, become red and orange, and they look like crumpled crepe papers hanging on branches. When they fall, they litter our backyard and rooftop that definitely peeves my mom. Some fruits fall and thud on the rooftop. Teenage boys sometimes hang out in our backyard and try to steal some fruits. In a year's time, I have seen many changes of this tree, which is a perfect example of how impermanent things are.

I felt ignorant when I read the word impermanence in a Buddhist magazine. It says there that you cannot ever understand what the Buddha taught if you are still clueless of impermanence. The dictionary where I searched the word gave me a straight answer: not lasting. Still, the word eluded my life.

In my first meditation retreat, I came across with experiencing the concept of impermanence. Hearing those meditation instructions constantly reminded me of how impermanence should be understood. Everything is changing. NOTHING is permanent. Everything comes, goes. Things that arise, pass. Beginnings have endings. There is always an ever-moving reality. I found it move through out my body while meditating, from a mosquito bite, to a very stubborn itch I was tempted to scratch, then later went away. Again, it reminded of what my late grandmother had told me while we were arguing each other long time ago: All things change. It was an epiphany unbeknown to me, a larger understanding that easily anchored my discernment of Love.

Change was then an uncomfortable word for me. Especially it was difficult for me to part ways with friends, funny situations and cheerful moments. I had sunk into sadness every time I bid goodbyes, knowing that the possibility of meeting again might be very unlikely. In the long run, I have noticed myself getting used to this kind of situations, since I often encounter new people and bid goodbyes again. It was a recurrent pain to accept change. But the process has taught me more; that every time people leave, there are more new people to meet. And I have seen it in those moments that I possibly never encounter anymore. I look again closely to those people I am very thankful I met. I smoothly accept the fact that as we say our goodbyes, there are new people again to say hellos. My mentor once told me "People come and go." Those four words help me to accept these inevitable changes.

Looking at the santol tree makes me ponder on how I now grasp impermanence. I see the greening of leaves growing vividly, and they will change sooner into fiery colors. Likewise the greening of my own life as I meet new beings, and the firing of my intimate longing and fear as they leave. The bearing of unripe fruits that will be eventually ripened, like that of the sweet ripening of friendships that I have made. The sun greets and the rain kisses this tree, as I see it in mornings and early afternoons of my life. The light of insight and the shower of blessings continue to arrive, as I wait in non-action, observing the changes. The brown bark, with little green patches on it, stays enduring. Though within the core of its trunk, like that of other trees, is an every growing magnitude of life. My own rough beliefs and patches of prejudices on the surface of my spirit cannot outgrow what is real in me. For the inner source of Love is really within, showing its unchanging might, yet having a growing, tender core. This tree is impermanence I perceive, and through it, I become more faithful to the permanence and lastingness of Love--unseen, yet always alive.

Kenosis

Empty.

It is the only perfect word to describe my experience some years back. In the pretense of accepting my biological nature, I had indulged my sexual reactions towards how I see attractive, naked women. Their kind is abound anywhere in the internet, in magazines, in newspapers, in CDs and DVDs. Most men find them irresistible, so it makes a very good industry for media people, and good money for celebrities who bare themselves and will simply say "trabaho lang" (it's just a job).

I was lured at seven. It was a haunting memory. I didn't find someone to guide me, someone I could ask about issues of manhood. More than a decade of my life had passed and I found men who seemed to be lurking behind the darkness of their own secrets. Or rather, behind prized tales of adventures, all disclosed in secret boys' talks among my peers. I wondered as I grew up, and thought every way men behave is normal.

It was not just an addiction, it was a bondage. A psychological slavery. I had tried to figure out how to escape from it. I was a slave of my hormones. That made me hated myself, both my body and my life. And I hated women, too; I saw them as avatars who seem to make men crave for more. I was confined in an inertia of indulgence and disgust. I was an underdog hiding in the corner of my own shadow. I was certain that there was something wrong with whatever I was into. But I continued to justify that this was something normal. Something normal that made me feel abnormal. I was guilt-ridden and felt extremely unworthy. I lived a double life; one posing like a harmless, innocent boy; the other, a peeping Tom in a virtual erotic eden of women who enjoy pleasing themselves.

Religious people have their own take. Things like these are sinful. Sexuality is all about procreation, not pleasure. They both warn boys and men to be chaste, lest one will be sent to hellfire. Medical people have their own take, too. I was once trained to see people as potential disease-carriers; part of it is to be wary of sexually-transmitted infections, which frightened me at some point. I was lost in this dilemma, of just letting my sexual self be, while being dragged with self-defeating judgments. Those fears left a heavy imprint on my consciousness. Since then, I haven't tried to explore any possibility for the sake of sexual adventure, though they might seem to be very easy to achieve.

Repulsive and hateful, I sought for some spiritual catharsis. I was a heavy soul hauling myself before the unseen God, pleading for forgiveness; along with it was a struggle to break free from repression, as I mulled over of becoming covertly wild. Years passed and I found an alternative option: to become a monk. It would be a very nice escape, I thought. However, the more I thought about escaping, the stronger this passion became. I couldn't escape my inherent nature. I was a man still clueless of my manhood, with this cavernous void in my spirit. I was desiring to complete myself through carnal union with someone having the organs I do not have, in spite of that ingrained desire not to disgrace my spiritual nature.

I am thankful of this childhood memory, which has buffered me against the impact of misunderstanding sexuality. A young teacher, who was once my favorite, took a piece of chalk and drew two unusual figures on the board: a man's external genitals facing sidewards, and a woman's genitals facing front. She put down the chalk and unblinkingly spoke, "These two are the greatest gifts of God!" She said a string of thoughts on why we should be thankful for our genitals; I guess what I could only remember was that I couldn't have been possibly born without those. From that day, this notion of sacredness of sex has been always in my mind.

My deep, inner shift came up along with practicing intentions of Love. Fear and guilt have ceased to torment me. I have more sincere reflections on how sex becomes sacred. These reflections have encouraged me, to the point that I now see this issue in a very different light. I recognize that those women, along with men, who often look aggressive and delighted in their private acts, are human beings in search of purpose in their lives. The emptiness they have might be unknown to me, yet we share that same depth, which we have been trying to fill up in many ways. I begin to find these people no longer as creatures who ignite sexual hormones, but beings who kindle this inner awareness of Love within me. Beyond pity or loathing is this deep compassion, of seeing them as humans whom I share the same suffering, the same concerns, the same longing for inner peace. In this light, I have seen my shadow not anymore blanketing my sight with darkness, but proving that the radiance of Love is cast upon me. Realizing this, I am radically transformed from years of gradual repulsion into a swift spiritual acceptance. Embracing what had been my dark side has empowered me with the light of understanding.

I was taught of centuries-old moralistic traditions that sexuality is something to deny, and found out that the society has seen and rejected it as immoral and indecent. I was blinded to the truth, beauty and innocence of male and female sexual energies, since our society has reduced them into soiled concepts of carnality. Letting go of these old assumptions simply restores my outlook on sacred sexuality. Accepting my sexuality as a natural and mystical process has helped me to discern the union of male and female within me as they interact with each other: Yin and Yang, Anima and Animus, Mars and Venus, Positive and Negative, Soma (body) and Psyche (soul). Their union and movement will flow into the mysteries of Love to give way to a renewed sense of soulfulness.

Now, the healing has taken place when this inner union conceives Love, and I see myself now a being baring both of my completeness and incompleteness. Being sexual never stops on being attracted to the physical appearance of another nor fulfilling any physical desires. It is about an on-going creation of the soul, which is always present in all of us, and that includes those we see as naked and empty. This creation is my inspired kenosis, the continuous process of emptying myself from limiting, empty notions. I am now empty again, ready to fill and share the outpouring of Divine Love.

Lessons from the Bubble Chart

My friend and former manager is always a jolly guy every time he does his business presentation about the multilevel marketing company he has been promoting for years. He has the talent to perk up the audience, through a strategy everyone in the business knows as "mind-setting," which he uses to help his prospective clients and patrons appreciate the business he offers. As a crucial part of his presentation, he would draw a small circle, then writes his name inside. From there, he would connect a number of circles radiating from the central circle. Each circle bears the letter K, to represent each as someone personally related or connected to him: kapamilya (loved ones), kamag-anak (relatives), katrabaho (colleagues), kaibigan (friends), kabarkada (buddies), kakilala (acquaintances), kapitbahay (neighbors), kasintahan (lovers), kaeskuwela (classmates), kumpare/kumare (male/female comrades), etc. He would also often quip about his story the first time he encountered these circles: he was then starving on his first day in the same business orientation, so looking at those circles made him think of mouthwatering hopia (bean-filled pastry) instead of prospects. When he began appreciating the business, he found that each circle looked more than having a hopia, but an opportunity to earn. My friend presents the same impression to his listeners. At the end of the presentation, those circles that filled the whiteboard give the audience a renewed business excitement that may bring them money and livelihood. The entire audience finds his explanation clear-cut and straightforward, and eventually agrees that the business is easy, since those K's are the first target in selling the company's quality products.

Every meeting, members of the marketing team would present their own diagrams of networking circles, known as the bubble chart. Having their own bubble charts, members can progressively track their personal connections, seeing possible business partners and clients who might purchase products anytime. Encircled names with interconnecting lines can clearly present those who are in the wait list, and can push one person to add more. It's like a social networking schematic on paper similar to Friendster and Facebook, only everything is drawn in circles. One can see degrees of connections, and can expand the application of leveraging, a business principle which distributes selling power to a network of people to increase revenues and overrides.

These circles are initial mind-setting motivations. When I got involved with this business, I found that each person I see is a "circle," a customer who might be interested in buying products. The idea was exciting because earning big money can be the only outcome of hundreds of "circles" buying and selling products under my network. On the other hand, I had seen chances of helping people, since products are inclined to promote health and well-being. So every time I cross the street or ride a jeepney or meet new people, what I had in mind were countless circles passing by.


Five years have passed after the circles of my bubble chart burst in thin air, the time when I stopped doing that business and treaded the call of my path. Again, I recalled the bubble chart just a couple of days ago. I just thought I have been seeing circles again, and along with that was the memory of my manager who taught me the bubble chart. This time, it was a little different. Each person I see now reminds me not of a customer who can buy a product or do a business, but beings having the tremendous power to Love. I see them, just like how I see those circles, as people more than my assumptions of the way they dress, what they can do or how much money they spend. Those "circles" allow me to shift my initial prejudice into intentional blessings. I begin to recognize their Divinity that is always within them as I exercise my quiet greetings of Namaste (Sanskrit: I respect the God within you). I just understand that wherever I go, I can always find people from all walks of life, human beings just like me. Crossing paths with them is not just a random, banal moment. Every K I encounter in my life is a moving reminder of mirroring this deep Love I have found in me.

Halfway on writing this, something has crossed my mind: the word Ensō, the Japanese word for "circle." Wikipedia defines it as a symbol of enlightenment, a common subject for Zen calligraphy. For Zen monks, drawing an ensō is not just demonstrating calligraphy skill, but also a spiritual exercise. Ensō now reminds me of the circles of the bubble chart. Beyond the interconnected circles that can be drawn on paper are those circles that symbolizes enlightenment, the pure state of Loving awareness waiting to be awaken in each being I meet.

The Meaning of Freedom

Last year, I received a message showing different quotes and what struck me was the one quoted by Leo Tolstoy: " Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself." Tolstoy's words seem to speak about our current national dilemma: the call for national change. Many statespersons, lawmakers, political officials and critics, and concerned citizens have uttered their viewpoints, so as to give their takes and to propose solutions. However, amid many years of political commotions, I am no expert. I am not even joining any actions on the streets clamoring the oust or resignation of GMA. While the church and different groups are on the move to restore the integrity of the nation, trying to sweep corruption by doing noise barrages, rallies, masses, and communal actions, I'm here right in the comforts of my four-cornered universe. While hearing every person who has the power and freedom of speech, voicing out their thoughts to justify the action of removing a single powerful entity that rules this nation, I am only here in quiet observation.

But one couldn't really say I care less.

I am not pro nor anti-GMA, and I neither support nor rebuke these clamors against her and her bureaucracy. I do not sympathize with any oppositions nor abhor them. There's no reason to seek any sides of opposing poles. It seems that endless fighting does not produce any victors at all. GMA reaffirms her power and confidence to stay on it, while the opposition recharges its power to counterattack. Almost all levels of society are seeing things in only dualistic perspective, while considering neutral positions to be remarkably unconcerned. But what is the use of saying this politician or that politician evil? Should one cast stones to the other without seeing oneself worthy of them? We have witnessed every action that is external, using broadcast, print and other forms of media. People want to carbon copy the act and effect of the 1986 people power, which are always believed to be the best way to combat the existing regime of greed. But are Filipinos forgetting the most important thing in these dire times?

If one might say that I am against whatever action, I will reiterate my point. I neither agree nor disagree with whatever social actions, nor I have any biases on opinions. In a country that clamors for change, its people must transcend from walking down the streets. Any social participation is good, which was once demonstrated by people power. We always stress the importance of nonviolence in catalyzing a change, but nonviolence doesn't stop in refusing physical or coercive violence. We must begin to see the violence that exists deep within.

To examine our minds and hearts is a good place to start. Are our minds and hearts corrupted, not by greed of money or power, but by hatred with other people whom we thought are evil? Are we deeply attached to all thoughts and emotions of anger and revenge? Do we limit ourselves through social and political outcries and coercion to achieve change? If the answers to these questions ring some subtle truths, we ourselves are fermented by our own drive to get even, to compensate this injustice we think have been done to us. We have been harboring these frustrations in longing for this absolute freedom our forefathers and patriotic martyrs had once tried to achieve. In each turn of generations, we are still tormented. We often ask ourselves why is that, after putting all our efforts and wounding our spirits, every action becomes futile. We have always believed that we are good people doing all the things we could to stop evil for becoming triumphant. Yet what we have been fighting are still being fought for, and we find series of defeats thwarting our hopes.

We can do one thing, which is the very core of Christ's teaching two millennia ago: Love our enemy. But the true enemy is not outside or far from us, not someone whom we believe wield political powers and economic machinery. That enemy is not the one the society hates. Our true enemy is ourselves. We are our own enemy. This enemy that acts with all fear, that holds grudges and prejudice against others, and always believe that needs brute force to allow change to take place. This enemy in the form our desire to destroy someone for all intents and purposes, for the sake of nation's welfare. Every bitter emotions and thoughts will continue to madden us until the time we embrace this inner enemy by dropping all the burdens that chain us into bondage. We will be eternal slaves until we choose to free ourselves.

Yesterday, a remarkable day was celebrated. Yesterday was a reminder of our freedom. Though Independence day is always a day to remember, there's is more to do than any citizen's observance. This day is to remember not what happened in the past, nor the things our nation desires to achieve. This day is to remember the power of today; today when we find our hearts beating with freedom. True freedom not from colonizers, nor from the talons of our political predators, but the freedom from our anger towards them, our sadness towards our losing hopes, our cravings towards any national dreams we are yet to fulfill. True freedom is achieved when each of us, whatever national turmoil we have, would open hearts to intend Love, then let our peace flow; when we suspend our judgments against whom and what we see as enemies, we can forgive them and ourselves equally at the very same time. Freedom is to regain our own responsibility of nurturing a peaceful spirit towards what we like and dislike. Through our Loving hearts only true freedom can be achieved, the freedom that honors and upholds the genuine Filipino soul.

The Soulmates' Rhythm

(conclusion)

I now discover that Love is not just falling; Love is rising. Love is in this continuous endless dance. I fall, I rise. There is an endless movement that has called itself the Rhythm. It is rhythmical, with peaks and valleys, like a radiation wave, like a river flowing. I become aware of this movement and see the wholeness of Love in it. I somehow begin to fall with this illusion of incompleteness in the belief that I am alone. The thought of being alone compels me to seek for that someone to be with, to complete me, to fill this void. I seek, and at times I find, but still inevitably I would find myself alone again. All these are elements of falling in Love. But the descent allows me to see the vastness from where I fall. With the spirit of the Phoenix, burning myself and falling into my ashes is the moment of rebirth, the moment of rising.

Unconditional Love, which bears a million names, arises in my awareness. Being aware of it leads me to realize my wholeness. Both are inseparable. I am not alone anymore, but I am all One with the Universe, with this Divine Intelligence. The void that I feel is not anymore true, for that illusion has shown me the truth. I am in a search, but not anymore with someone to complete me. I begin to see that I am complete, and therefore clarifies my sight to see another the same as me. I am now reconnecting myself to the essence of my soul, and seeing that I am making the most important relationship with myself. I am my own Soulmate and not anyone else. The person I am seeking is not out there; that person is within me; that person is me. The other person I seek is not separate with me, because both of us are all One. As I give love to another, I give myself the same Love. Time and space are such illusion that my mind has chosen to perceive. In the realm of Love, both do not exist. I intend Love for this person and I am certain of its great power. I may not be with the person I Love, both in presence and spirit, yet I trust the Love that is between us in this illusion of distance. I find Love real between the two of us, and so it brings me back to the experience that there is no such distance. We are no more separate beings. We are both Love. Now, I find my intentions of Love the noblest act of Loving. What I generate from my mindheart is this miraculous wonder of Love, from which all transformation into the physical dimension takes place.

Every possibility of unconditional Love is spawning from its mystery. The Rhythm is such. I fall in Love, with thoughts and feelings of being alone, for my spirit is in journey of finding Love. I rise in Love, with this absolute certainty of this glorious uncertainty that I am Love and its infinity is in me. It is how light becomes both a wave and a particle. Love is likewise, a moving mystery, always unfathomable, yet a possibility happening, metamorphosing into such forms. The phenomenon of Love is ineffable; no such words can truly define it. It is the same phenomenon when Love find its way to unfold in me, as I become aware again. I am one with humanity: this is a soulful relationship. I am committed to the Love within, just as I commit my Love to someone. I, too, become freedom when Love emancipates me. I am free as the clouds, drifting yet not lost; formless yet forming. I am committed and free at the same time, and I eventually find that person who has found this merging of experience.

I now delve into the mystery of mysteries, where all physical and non-physical melt into one existence. I allow Love to work its way through the levels of my consciousness; through my thoughts, emotions, understandings and insights. I put all my faith to those questions I have on my processes that I find unanswerable. In the Rhythm of Love, answers come forth. Like an unknown seed, which falls down on dirt, then rises again as a sprout, which bears countless fruits. I trust that the seed and the fruit are one, inasmuch as I trust the mystery of Love that bears countless possibilities. Falling in Love with someone is an indefinable thing, no reason to sustain. Rising in Love with someone is the way how to accept this indefinability. Beyond what I can comprehend is my certitude of how I Love a person. I let this unconditional energies of Love flow from me towards this person; I intend all blessings of Love this person can be, do and have. Love chooses this person to become a soulmate in the very essence of choosing myself as my own soulmate. My intentions become more distinct, as I see that Love moves in this person's dimension, and apparently the same Love that moves in mine. Both of us are now being Love, sharing Love and growing Love, the exact ascension of how Love evolves in our lives.

I am now Loving the soulmate of Love. The Love that I let myself become has opened my soul to find another Loving soul who inspires me in the dance of the Rhythm.

Rising in Love

(second of the three-part series)

When your intention is to transfer loving energy there is no way you can fail...because in the subtle realms intention is action.
--Leonard Laskow, Healing with Love

We often believe that Love is an abstract concept born out of pleasant emotions. Emotions, being untouchable, are energies which we think validate the existence of Love. Because both Love and emotions are characteristically abstract, we often show it through symbols and myths.We have tried throughout centuries how to crystallize the truth of Love. Despite all efforts to grasp its true meaning, Love mysteriously fails us. Here comes our restless search. In my own inquiring, Love has become not an emotional evidence, but an awakening of truth in the innermost of my being.

Of all truths of Love, the crux is that Loving oneself is the only endeavor one can achieve. This is not about providing oneself of all material and emotional luxury, which are all coming from outside sources. Love is never outside; it is always inside. The discovery of Love within is the very source of true Love. To begin, we must acknowledge that as a being of Love we are our own inexhaustible source of Love. There is a sun that never sets and brightly shines within us. It would be very difficult to acknowledge it at first, because we always have tons of judgments against ourselves. We must cut through the clouds of our own judgments, fears and paranoia. They come to our awareness but they will never last. We must stop judging ourselves, from our gross assumptions of oneself and others, down to the littlest detail of our day to day existence. When judgment ends, Love begins.

This very process of Loving oneself is always parallel in how we Love others. As we stop judging ourselves, we simultaneously cease judging others. As we see ourselves as beings of Love, others begin to become the same. Even perhaps in the grossest situations when we find people unloving, we remain at peace as we understand that each being is in search of the true meaning of Love. Realizing this, we are no more searching for the source of Love from somebody else, especially from someone we think is special to us. What Moore describes as a soulful relationship commences, which is certainly the process of rising in Love.

Rising in Love happens when we no longer siphon the energy of another, but starts to send that energy we used to steal. We have this steadfast awareness of the immense energy of Love within, the Love that cannot run out. Its abundance allows us to have the joy of giving, and in turn allows Love to transform itself into something we can perceive, may it be emotional, material or physical. Love becomes the source of pleasant emotions, not the other way around. We become joyful and fulfilled, for the act of giving Love is the what we really receive. It is generosity, not reciprocity; We generously send this Loving energy without conditions, without expecting someone to return it, without fear of having our Love unrequited. We never demand anything from a loved one, and we, too, never submit to the demands of another. Whatever we become, do and have all with the power of Love gives the most satisfying reward we can get.

By giving Love means we accept ourselves the Love that we are, without any definitions of social roles and material possessions. We let go of power struggles since we affirm that Love is a commitment to the freedom of our partners and loved ones. As life moves up and down, we remain trusting, and we continue to Love and to become Love. We simply detach from any expectations, outcomes and assumptions that box in our true nature. Our hearts freely share this unending Love, where we now fully experience that we are one with all beings, and we are always one with that soulful partner we want to be with.

(to be continued)

Revisiting the Rhythm

(first of the three-part series)

How can I Love? This has always been a disturbing question; to some extent, it seems to bear the same gravity of asking life's existential questions such as who am I or what is my purpose or who is God. Since Love is often misunderstood, we begin the tendency to search, to find the most reliable answers, though at the end we are almost hell-bent and fed up. Everything in this search becomes more futile, confusing and painful, because nothing that we have been searching for outside can satiate the meaning and experience of Love. In this great human consciousness, an answer does not appear somewhere I can perceive, but through this internal discernment when the radiance of Love at the deepest core of my being never fails to shine.

Love is always a moving force. How Love manifests in the Rhythm is such a dynamic of inner movement. In this article, let me expound what has been articulated as the Rhythm. This is primarily a very profound personal experience; nonetheless, I am deeply certain of the universality of its truth. And the way it must be discovered and expressed can possibly radicalize how we see Love as a stirring energy in the context of male-female relationship at its subtlest level, so we could see more beyond the abstracts of its dynamics.


Falling in Love
Perhaps the most famous "category" of Loving is the Romantic Love. If you do your own survey, you might arrive in a conclusion that most people understand that Love is always an intimate relationship between a man and a woman, a husband and a wife, a knight and a damsel. Books, films, songs and TV shows are abound with such thematic concepts of romance. When I asked a group of young teenage girls in the early Communes, most of them answered that Love is a boy-girl thing, embracing and kissing each other. Yet, however sweet and delightful the energy of romance can influence relationships, it still leaves a perennial fear of the possibility of pain. Why in the world that such an experience of seventh heaven eventually might become a fiery hell. Falling in Love is painful, or rather, people always expect that Love is pain. Despite the possibility, seeing Love as pain becomes more enticing.

Romance is an aspect of Love, a part, but can never be equal to the whole. Making both of them synonymous is the greatest myth on understanding Love per se. American psychotherapist Thomas Moore writes his definition of romance in his book Soul Mates: Honoring the Mysteries of Love and Relationships. According to him, romance or romantic love is "an illusion, a projection, and an obsession." There is an illusion that I am alone, that I need someone to fill that longing. This attitude motivates us to find that someone at all cost. Our hormones provoke us with fleeting emotions as we meet a particular person, whom we believe as the source of true Love. We sustain that physical connection, leading us to a more tangible intimacy. To maintain that relationship, we must always give and take. We live in the ideal concept of reciprocity, wherein to build a satisfying relationship I must give what my partner demands from me and take from my partner those that I demand. It encompasses many aspects of every day life, and most commonly seen in marital relationships. It is like a business of Love, where Love becomes a commodity of exchange. I can only Love someone if the person is this or that, must do or have this or that. For instance, men demands stereotypical women who are both beautiful goddesses and passionate homemakers. Women, on the other hand, demands stereotypical men who are both adamant gods and inexhaustible providers. These are common human aspiration in terms of settling down for a new family, all rooted in the mode of human survival.

The prevalence of this consciousness is the main reason why most romantic relationship ends in disillusionment. The illusion of romantic perfection unbearably concludes, when we used to believe that everything we feel for someone can last a lifetime. We thought that relationships that have lasted for years may prove its eternal existence. However, treading the rough roads of life seems to disenchant this possibility. On the physical level, a person demands things from his/her partner that will satisfy him/her in a relationship, leaving the other person exhausted. In some ways, a person seems to feel guilty and helpless for s/he cannot fulfill his/her partners demands. Separation becomes an imminent choice, and both lovers are downfallen, and the Love they used to experience has become the source of their deepest pains.

Apparently, it has been proven that everything in this world is a dynamic of energy systems. This explains why on the non-physical level, romantic love behaves in a way that one person gets the energy of Love from his partner, leaving his/her partner drained. We are in this unseen power struggles, pursuing manipulative control over the other. We build this psychological matrix of dependence and codependence. In the context of romantic relationships, a person seeks control over the partner in all aspects of their lives. When control is not achieved, one resorts to emotional backlash. Fear, anger, jealousy and guilt are just some of dense experiences resulting from this struggle. These states are crystal-clear proof where true experience of Love cannot ever co-exist.

The force of Love calls for the Rhythm, when, after falling in Love, there is always a great opportunity to rise in Love.

(to be continued)

Echoes of the Spirit

My grandparents rent apartments to anyone looking for a place to stay. Whenever a renter leaves an apartment, I would begin playing inside the emptied space. I wondered how echoes vibrate in an empty room, in contrast with the time where all furniture and appliances were still in place. It was fun hearing my voice shouting against the wall. There was an airy feeling in my echo like a voice of some enchanted being. I would run around the room, stump my feet on the floor, then whisper, coo and shriek like a caged raptor unwary however my cry sound like. It was then a child's play. Many years have passed, people come and go to this apartment, and have left it behind as empty as I have found it. I have lost this childhood memory, yet it echoes back again with an insight.

In a one-to-one Commune, a new friend, who is one of our room renters, told me his story of struggles and that lingering lesson he has learned every time we talk and greet each other. He lives his life based on others expectations, on everyday survival from his deep agonies to make his family happy. He wants to discover a richer life. He keeps on lifting his self-esteem as he pits against all difficulties in his life. He has risked the meaning of life in this inner war.

An insight flashed while listening to him. I saw myself zoomed throughout the past years of my spiritual evolution. His life today was a realm I had tried to escape from. I found myself seeing the faces of the people I have met through him. It suddenly dawned on me that all those people bear the same response. All these people have been pondering that very essence of meaning that I have been searching and discovering. Now, I am sharing with them the meaning they have often brushed off as they live their lives everyday.

It never fails to surprise me how those wonderful people I have met can easily amplify that echo within. They have this longing to fathom this mystery. When conversations roll, they would zestfully share the string of events that had threaded unrelated possibilities for them to be right here in a perfect Commune moment. These events happened days before, or some years in the past, when they had tried to answer some Life's big questions through their own naivete.

Stories that echo these connections are abound in my each Commune. For example, a friend told a story of Love being discussed over a hearty dinner the night before a Commune; someone narrated a story of a boy with a hellish mood turned into a reconciliation full of Love; another had puzzling decisions made in the past, and the answer came in the Commune; some group of friends in a middle of quarrel were led to a synchronistic Commune; or some students and professionals who were undergoing a predicament when insights ignited while Communing. These and other precious sharing are worth our time. We would always be in timeless awe when the sound of Love echoes by itself.

I have begun to see myself not in contrast with the people I meet, but a spirit which another can echo oneself. Every person I meet is also an echo of my own shortcomings and triumphs, of this incessant search for the meaning of Life. I have heeded the call of Love coming from the eternal universal music that rhythmically echoes throughout our deeper consciousness. Every person I meet seeks Love, speaks about it them the best they can using the most fitting language they know. As they speak, there is an innermost voice that sings from each of their hearts. In return, voices reverberate within me, and my heart sings Love with them.

I imagine my spirit like a dolphin, swimming in this oceanic universe. My spirit sings a song and waits for the echo to bounce with another spirit. The spirit in the other sings, too. While the ocean seems to be endless, within it our spirits cross paths and connects. We begin to swim together and discover this vastness. We echo in unison, and the whole ocean is now being filled with that echo, the inner, resonant echo of Love.