On watching "Interstellar" (2014)

Jans here's what i think about your highly recommended sci fi movie.  

It's amazing how human intelligence endeavors to explain the entirety of our universe. How immense? Astronauts had to sleep for months just to reach Saturn. They had to use a wormhole just to get out of our own galaxy. It's mind blowingly big. Then there's time. Simply awesome to think about it. 

But the best explanation I heard about our universe was from my teacher on spiritual science, who said that Everything is contained in the sacred sound 'Krish-na' (or God's Name). All the spiritual and material worlds, universes, variegatedness, time, space or non-space, everything and everything that is outside of that everything, are all contained in the sound 'Krishna'.

Tonight, I look at the stars, and beyond. I recall the images i saw from the film. The little spacecraft floating in space. Somewhere is Saturn (or whatever it is called by entities there), another galaxy or a blackhole. Somewhere there are planets with life. It's almost scary, the vastness is overwhelming. It tells you point blank: you're smaller than no one. Your concerns--sex, fame, money, power--are shamefully insignificant. And it's true. 

I love the part in the movie where it was said that love can puncture the rigid laws of time and space. True love is transcendental. i may just be a speck in one dark corner of the entirety of everything but i hold on to the truth that i am loved with a love that is absolutely constant irregardless of the effects of time, space or variations in gravity.

I am happy that the film resolved it this way: at the end of science or the mind, love will be our light. Love is that connection from any point in this universe to the pivot, core or source: Krish-na. 

Cc: Jamila

I am not my mind

What's the use of having a "great mind" if all i can think of is sex, what's my next meal's gonna be, how do i best others, how do i keep remaining in this temporary condition-and worst of all-i am my mind?

i believe that what is (still)essential is not the fact that we have great minds, but that we can be able to control our minds, great or dull, from dragging us towards the darkest region of ignorance: ignorance about what life is, what our real purpose is, and above all who we really are. 

the mind is a vehicle, you, the spirit self, are the driver. your mind may run from 0 to 230 km/h in a split second and mine in an hour but what should matter is whether you and me are able to drive it and not the other way around. 

it is said also that the mind can be our best friend or our worst enemy: when you are forced by your mind to do things you know are bad for you then clearly it is an enemy, when your mind helps you in remembering things that can help you achieve the real benefits in life, happiness, peace, self realization, then it is your friend. 

Haribol! _/\_

The Blood Scam

The blood scam. It works under the premise that everything can be inherited: intelligence, holiness, heroism, kindness, etc.There's this guy who became president because his mom and dad were known heroes. If you're born in a family of doctors you're the odd one if you don't become one. A son of a brahmana, a religious leader, guru, inherits the followers of his dad. Thus exist political dynasties, professional dynasties, religious dynasties. Nowadays dynasty is almost always immediately a derogatory term. And it must be so. The hero's son turned out to be not so heroic at all; the doctor's son really wanted to be a butcher; and the pastor's son was a charlatan. The reason is simple: it is based on the false identification of the body as being the self. The self and the body are different, just as a driver and a car are. the self, not the body, possesses the qualities of holiness, heroism, kindness, as well as cruelty, lasciviousness, greed, etc. you may inherit your father's body color or shape, or even his mental capacity, but not your father's humility, or how he cares about other people. It's sad that this scam based on blood has been going on since history. It has been so long occurring that people dismiss it as an inherent trait. Ganyan na talaga tayo. But the reason i think is so simple. we are scammed not because we are idiots or lazy, but because we don't know the truth about ourselves, we don't know who we are, what we are.

The Math of Happiness

The number of people who hates a truly happy person doesn't matter, what matters is how many people he hates: zero. The number of people who loves a happy person doesn't matter, what matters is how many people he loves: every single one. 

May we all be truly happy. Haribol! _/\_

THE NAME GAME

I have always told my daughter Radha that God has many Names even before she started going to school. One can call Him Allah, Jehova, Yahweh, Krishna, El Shadai, or simply Father, Friend, or God. I especially emphasized to her that God has many Names, and not many gods. To have many gods defeats the very meaning of God. When she started taking a "religion class" in elementary, we started having a minor theological issue. Apparently her religion teacher does not agree with the idea of God having a lot of names (millions, I told her initially, but in fact the Names are enumerable, as The Supreme has countless qualities, activities, etc.), the teacher insisted that God only has a particular name, and that name is the only name of God. My wife told me to drop the issue and refrain from indoctrinating our daughter with "weird, new age stuff" at least after Radha finishes her "religion subjects". Radha got an almost perfect score in her "religion subject" exam, so her mother was relieved. I'm not, however, due to a few things. Things like religious wars or wars related to religion, that is actually rooted in in this particular disagreement: The Name of God. Some people worship God because of His compassion, and so they call Him Allah; some are attracted to His might so they call Elohim and El Shaddai; God is all-attractive so He is called Krishna. God is not many. There is no such thing as the God of the Christians and the God of the Muslims, or the Jews and the Hindus. If you call out Allah, referring to some tribal god, then that is NOT the name of God, but if one calls out Allah, meaning the all-compassionate God, then that IS God. It's funny some people can have three to five names, nicknames, etc. but God can only have one or two. I myself, an insignificant dot in the universe have the arrogance to call myself in five to six names, and the Lord can have only have one name. I still tell my daughter the many Names of God, although I have to work doubly hard to scrape away the bigotry she got from school (ironically!). It is sad to think that because God has many Names it gave way to many religions, and from those religions sects and denominations, all claiming their's is the exclusive name of the Lord. Haribol

September 8, 2015

Today is my father's 4th disappearance anniversary. Someone asked if we're going to visit, meaning go to the cemetery. I answered "He's not there." 

But i have to admit that saying that requires mental effort. the conditioned mind, which is so used to identifying the person, my dad in this case, as this short frail guy who looks like Rudy Fernandez, resists to let go of the idea. 

thinking about it i realized that the visiting of the remains, bones and hair and some rotting flesh, is our helpless attempt to cling on to something when pictures and memories fail to fill up the void left by sorrow and lamentation. so if that would hush someone's sadness for a while i have nothing against it. i may even go and light a candle for the sake of familial camaraderie. 

but i choose to cling on to something real. believing that the person is inside that sarcophagus or pantson or whatever for me is blind faith. you have to convince yourself he is there for it is maddening to try to figure out where the person is. let's convince ourselves he is inside that cement box resting in peace. and this candle will be our loving remembrance of him translated into matter. after that we go home pacified ourselves with the thought that we have visited dad in his new address ie land of the dead. then we can go on with our lives. 

I believe he is not there. what's there are what he left. my father was not these bones, or his name on the tombstone. he was part of these yes but after he left these just became exactly what they always were: matter. i mean there won't be much of a difference if i take out all his clothes and light a candle around it, i mean thats less gross than putting candles around his bones right? 

my father is not inside that box is not faith, it's science, it is truth. it's same as saying that he is not his old t shirts and socks and neck ties, he used these but he is not these. this is a long subject and ill jump to the point: i liberated myself from sadness and lamentation by remembering the absolute truth that my father is not his dead body, that he is the person, the spiritual spark of life inside that body. of course I miss him so much but it is not enough to drive myself crazy and talk to the dead ie stone, bone, carcass. because my father never died, he just left his body, that's all. he is somewhere very much existing and alive. i know i may not see him again but that's life in this world: for one who is born death is certain. so there. 

let me close this with a powerful verse from the sacred Bhagavad Gita imparted to me by my spiritual guide Jagad Guru Siddhaswarupananda Paramahamsa Prabhupad to whom i am endlessly grateful for pulling me out of the well of lamentation over the death of my father and the inevitable coming deaths of loved ones:

the Supreme Personality of Godhead Sri Krishna said:

"Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be."

BG v 2 chap 12. 

Jai Gurudev. Haribol! _/\_

A Rose

Everything came from nothing, randomness or chaos, has been the long standing conclusion of science regarding the origin of anything, including life in our universe. As we know it--as they know it. Everything we see in this world came from nothing. Everything just happened to happen. I've thought about it for the longest time, and when I'm in the sterile box of my room full of black and white words on squares it seems to make sense in my mind. But then I see this rose with its layers of intricate petals arranged in a pattern so organized you'd think a machine so complex beneath the ground had manufactured it, that I always return to my heart that says there's got to be someone so supremely intelligent, cool and creative who designed and made that. Come to think of it: everything or most things in this world that supposedly came from chaos or disharmony have harmony, symmetry, patterns: the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, wet and dry season, a woman's menstrual cycle, planting and harvesting, the veins on leaves, the tides, our very aging, birth and death, over and over, again and again, patterns everywhere. If chaos or randomness, had created this rose, then perhaps I can imitate randomness by tearing down this rose, plucking out all its petals, leaves, thorns, etc., put these parts in a box and shake it until all the parts, petals, stem, thorns, scent, fall in the right place and form themselves into a rose. The question then would be how long should I be shaking that box. How many years, centuries or millennia of shaking that box full of petals, leaves, etc., would it take anyone to create one decent rose that the humble earth grows effortlessly? The probability is so slim that I can confidently say it's impossible. I mean, taking randomness aside, who among us or even our brightest scientists who dared explain the universe, with everything our latest technology can offer create a rose just like that?