Kite Runner - A novel

It was a chance encounter that I had the opportunity to read this book. Ever since Starbucks Coffee raised its coffee price, forever conscientious of how I spend my money on luxurious indulgence, I have not set foot to the store for over several months. But on one of the recent Sundays, weather was hot and humid, I suddenly remembered how refreshing and invigorating a cup of ice Coffee would do to jump start my precious, fleeting weekend.

Not only was I satisfied with that particular cup of coffee that cooled and flavored my Sunday morning, I also came away with an introduction of a book called Kite Runner. A story that was so engrossed that I even dreamed of some characters as if I was a part of it. That had never happened before. I have read countless books over the years, but not many books were so gripping that it will occupy my mind almost day and night even after I have finished reading it.

The background of the story is in the war torn era of Afghanistan. The novel brilliantly embodied and illustrated the whole array of human emotion of friendship, acceptance, humility, loyalty, betrayal and redemption in its most vivid and engaging plot that will hold your attention and interest all the way to the end.

Life is a boomerang after all!

Barometer of Spiritual Progress

In the world of money worship, power seeking and success materialization, we mortals tend to measure our worthiness against these yardsticks. I bet most of us will look down some of the following situations as undesirable, unbearable and could consider them outright failure. Are they really?

The following list is unbelievably short and there are as many ways to count our misery and misfortune as of billions of population living in the planet earth.

Let's see what the wise man from India had to say about our soul's progression through adversity.

"Here is an infallible barometer to find out the degree of your spiritual progress. How would you feel, if:

1. Your clean hands or best clothes are stained.
2. You stumbled down or commit a blunder and are laughed at.
3. You are hurt accidentally or stung by an insect or scorpion.
4. You suffer from illness or pain.
5. You do not succeed in your efforts.
6. You do not get a thing that you want, or find that some thing you possess is missing.
7. You are kept waiting for a long time by some other person.
8. You are insulted or abused for no reason.
9. Others fail in their duties towards you.
10. You suffer a loss or bereavement.

If none of these can disturb your peace of mind and you are indifferent to them, you have won the struggle and achieved 50% self control.

God sends trials and troubles to strengthen your character: Greet them and test yourself." Swami Sivananda

The Forgotten 500 - A book

The World War II was an incredibly magnificent event in human history. Up to this day, the war had ended over six decades ago, there are still many untold heart warming stories guaranteed to lift up your spirit and make your day. This is the story that you will not want to miss. "The Forgotten 500" is such a mesmerizing book that it will take your breath away. You will not want to put it down till the end.

The background was in Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia during the war. American airmen were trapped behind enemy lines. An innocent, casual conversation between husband and wife set the stage of major clandestine rescue mission. Author, Gregory Freeman, did an extensive study and meticulous research interviewing the downed and survived airmen, some of them are now in their eighties and nineties. The story unfolded in stunning suspense with heroes being slayed and lies, glorified. While reading it, I couldn't help but shaking my head with disbelief of how convenient that the truth be swept under the rug of propaganda to serve the Superpower's agenda. It is a story that could stay with you for years; a tribute to the greatest rescue mission of World War II.


"Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible"

A Revelation - Fluff's Identity

On one of the beautiful days of Autumn back in 1996, our family welcomed a new member to our home, a lovely yellow-orange colorful hand-fed Cockatiel. it was a gift given by my sister and James cousin. The Cockatiel was boarded on an airplane with my parents flying over 3,000 miles across the US continent in a cardboard box. We in Walnut, California were excited but weren't prepared of what to do.

At the time of his arrival, Fluff was only four months old. We adored him very much but weren't sure how to handle him, and he was visibly nervous and agitated being in an unfamiliar environment. As time went on, we adapted to each other. He loves eating from our palms, hanging out on our shoulders, snuggling and rubbing his head against our hair. He is especially fond of us giving him message on his yellow head and orange cheeks.

Every weekend like clockwork, he will be whistling out loud early in the morning and make sure we take him out of his cage. Time passes and in a blink of an eye, Fluff is now twelve years old. He is always in good health and we make sure he has a lot of exercise by having him flying around the house several rounds a day. Occasionally, James will take him out of the cage and do a wrestling match. We ( James and I) always enjoy several rounds of frivolous provoking of Fluff, the idea is to stimulate his senses lest it should become senile since he is fast approaching the advancing age. On average, the Cockatiel's lifespan is about fifteen years.

Two weeks ago, he started a very strange behavior. He chewed up all the newspaper covering the bottom of the cage and curl up itself in a protective posture. Every time we tried to get him out of the cage, he attacked us vehemently. We thought Fluff was crazy and we joked that Fluff might be depressed since he now entered into the midlife crisis. We simply brushed off his odd behavior offhandedly.

Last Sunday night, while James and I were again curiously observing his behavior, suddenly when he was ready to attack, James looked, Lo and Behold, there were two eggs in the cage. We were both shocked and incredulous of what's happening. Fluff, a "He" that we were so sure of for the last twelve years, laid two eggs. I told James, this is serious. How could a single male Cockatiel lay eggs? We immediately searched the Internet for answer, and it turns out that "he", is definitely a "she", and it was not uncommon for single female to lay eggs at all. The fact that Fluff has very bright, unfading orange cheeks and yellow feather for all these years fooled us all.

5 - Exit Point

Sylvia Browne is quite famous in the circle of psychic phenomenon. She has published many books and I have read some. Despite of the controversy surrounding her prediction or reading about some missing person's whereabouts and their ultimate destiny, I will say her attitude is quite genuine and sincere when comes to impart her knowledge and wisdom of the mystery of life in many of her books.

There are some esoteric knowledge to which the ordinary mind just could not have access. I found them quite fascinating and just plain comforting to know that our existence is not a random, haphazard, dice tossing probability. According to Sylvia, our lives were carefully charted and meticulously planned in minute detail with best intention from our creator, and accompanied by an array of guides and angels overseeing our treacherous journey on earth.

During the planning stage on the other side, we got to choose where we will be born, who will be our parents, how many siblings we will have, what kind of occupation we will hold, what are the challenges we will face throughout the path and ultimately overcome and what kind of lessons we set to learn in this life time. In the soul level, we actually have known all these in advance. All the seeming tragedy and triumph are all a stage play being very well rehearsed before we embark on this journey. It was way back in year 2001 when I first encounter this mystical knowledge from Dr. Jonathan Parker's "Enlightenment Series". I surely need a lot of reminder to stay put on my path.

The other piece of information is about 5 exit points that we planned during the sojourn of our journey. Since we have painstakingly mapped out our on stage play, it seems logical to believe that we should have also planned ahead of how we are going to exit off stage. Well, it turns out that we have five chances during our life to say "enough is enough, I am out of here". I thought it is generous that we are given that many opportunities to say "yes". We heard stories of "close call"of varied life and death situations in many sources. Could it be that, those "close call" may well be one of the 5 destined exit point that we deliberately set up while on the other side? At the moment of crucial juncture, we tell ourselves that "net yet, I am not ready" and we missed the whatever means of exit plan we devised for ourselves so that we can complete our life's mission and purpose. I thought whoever created us is pretty ingenious and compassionate enough that we are given that many choices.

Inner Crisis of a Saint - Mother Theresa

There was a news report a few weeks ago talking about Mother Theresa's spiritual crisis lasted nearly half of a century. In the public eye, she was kind, self sacrificing and compassionately living among the poorest of the poor, but deep inside she was desperate, empty and frustrated longing for heavenly confirmation of her deeds and actions. She captured the heart and soul of millions worldwide, but she thought she failed to capture the attention and encouragement of her heavenly father.

This previously private undisclosed diary of hers has flared up a tiny vortex of debate and discussion, and some atheists use this piece of information claiming that her private thought has proved that religion and spirituality is merely human construct of illusory nature and god do not exist, pure and simple.

That is not so. Over the history, there were saints walking the path of serving humanity all due to the vision that they received earlier in their lives. There are some souls have charted their lives for specific missions to fulfill. Vision or voice of god in dream is one of the many ways of arousing their attention in the midest of their seemingly uneventful daily living. Saint Francis had a dream in which god spoke to him asking him to repair the downtrodden and dilapidated churches in his time. That was the first step that had led him to his life path. There are many ways that we can be awaken to the call and duty of what we are here to do. It is just that some souls have more grander and heavier responsibility than that of the ordinary soul like you and me, at least in this life time.

When everything goes well with us, we don't need god. Life is a wonderful merry-go-round. I have read countless books about how crisis in life disguised itself as an opportunity for us to look at our life from a higher perspective. The vision that Mother Theresa received earlier in her life was a nudge from heaven reminding her to be true to her path. She heeded the vision and the rest is history. During the course, she got several more visions all were revealed when a critical juncture was reached and decision needed to be made at that time. She was so dedicated to her calling, there was no need for god to remind her of what she supposed to do during later part of her life. Her spiritual crisis was not crisis in a practical sense, she just missed and longed for even tiny hint that god approved, confirmed and appreciated what she has done.

It is just human that we all need constant psychological inner nourishment. Once you have a tiny unearthly inner experience like Mother Theresa's vision of calling, the experience is often life changing and life takes a dramatic turn. The soul gets a big boost and there is nothing like it in the whole wide world. As a person heeds that inner calling and walks the path with diligence and dedication, like Mother Theresa did, over time the phenomena become less frequent. The journey of the soul has reached the phase of spiritual maturity. At this stage, the soul is doing its chart and fulfilling its life purpose, therefore there is no need for another (vision) harassment from god. Let me sum up with a mystic's understanding of nature of phenomenal vision.

"As one unfolds spiritually, the inner experiences become less phenomenal. Soul is gradually being led from the phenomenal worlds toward the worlds of true being at the soul plane and beyond", " Yet some feel unhappy when they no longer have the experiences that date back to their spiritual childhood". "It is like a high-school student demanding to become a first grader again because he was happier then. Life always takes us forward if we will go".

Middle East Conflict - The Saga Continues

In a span of about two months, I have read in a succession of three books all of them were related to the topic of Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Each of these three books looked at the situation in a different angle and each presented a valid viewpoint from that particular outlook. As I always believe, there is no good or bad, it is a matter of perspective.

The first book with Ariel Sharon, a former Prime Minister of Israel, as a centerpiece, chronicled his military and political career. Sharon was a controversial figure while on his political stage. Much of his childhood experience biased against Palestinian people has set the tone of how he went about setting the Israeli Administration in West Bank and Gaza Strip trying to systematically and deliberately limit, humble and humiliate Palestinian people's existence. There are curfews, road blocks, separation walls and check points that Palestinian people need to endure every day. In the occupied territory, Palestinian people are treated as sub-human, living in a submissive condition constantly harassed by Israeli's police. The policy under Sharon is that of rapid expansion of Israeli settlement. The goal is to drive Palestinian people to leave the territory out of despondence.

The next book I read is "One Country" by Ali Abuniman, a Palestinian-America. The interesting point is that he proposed a quite radical approach on the problem. Instead of maintaining two states, he proposed one country housing Palestinian and Israeli under one central administration with ample autonomy and equal rights for both camp. I think the idea is good, but it will take a
government with very enlightened top officials and cabinet members to devise policies and procedures equitably to benefit all people. The hurdle is likely to be from decades old of prejudice and cultural conditioning that has become ingrained as part of social fabrics of both people. Apart from Language and cultural difference, we have a formidable religious barrier to contend with. Throughout history, religion is one of the causes of obsession, oppression and aggression of blood shedding and conflict sustaining painful dramas played out in many regions of the world. If we put religious aspect in that Palestinian-Israeli melting pot, we may as well introduce an explosive time bomb in the already delicate and volatile situation. From my humble opinion, the idea is sound and good, but it is decades or may be century ahead of its time.

I thought this book should have caused an uproar if not a mass demonstration on the part of Palestinian people. "My Enemy, My Self" was written in Hebrew by an Israeli journalist and later was translated to English. In order to better understand how Arabs managed to live in the looming shadow of Israeli's tight control, Yoram Binur disguised himself as a lowly Arabic cheap laborer in occupied territories. The book revealed the first hand moccasin walking experience of being an Arab subject to the whim and oppression of his Israeli employer. Throughout the years of occupation, Israeli confiscated most of Palestinian people's properties and its livelihood therefore most of the Palestinians have to make their living employed by Israeli as unskilled cheap labor grossly underpaid and overworked. The Israeli's exploitation of Palestinian people is pervasive and humiliating. I was quite taken aback by his wrenching experience. You have to read the book to fully realize why Intifada uprising was a natural course of action of Palestinian people. It was an outcry of their many years debilitating frustration dealing with Israeli authority. They simply weren't given any chance of dignified living.

I can't help but reiterating the old cliche of "History tends to repeat itself". From the Biblical time, the land of Israel fell under the ruling of many other empires and regions. Particularly, the Roman Empire implemented a systematic and large-scale expulsion of Jews. There was a time that Jews were under the control and conquest of Muslims. Yes, Jewish State of Israeli did not come into its existence easily. It was a cornerstone in human history that through third party intervention a State of Israel was declared of legitimate existence. Now that table is turned in the twentieth century that Israel has become economically prosperous and has superior military presence in the middle east. Now it is their turn to oppress Muslims in the name of survival. How little have we learned from our bloody history!

Are We the "endangered species" ?

History of mankind has gone a long way and we have literally become caretaker of the myriad species on land, in water around the entire planet earth. In the last hundreds of years, mankind's technological knowledge and application surpassed the last many thousands by leap and bound. We have come to the age of quantum physics, Laser technology and nuclear weapon, a point of our advancing civilization where we are at a technological crossroad.

On the other hand, human nature seems to stay pretty much the same throughout history. We are just as easily provoked by our neighbor at the slightest implication as of a cave man fighting for food and survival. It is undeniable that entire human history is littered with bloodshed and conflict. But we have learned a great deal as a species and we are much more conscious and aware of the impact affecting the ecosystem as a result of our actions, our exploitation of natural habitation and resources.

As a naturally warring species, we come to the point of our civilization that we do have the technology to obliterate our very existence if we do not carefully plan ahead of how we are using the technology in the future. I am introducing a book called, "endangered species - How we can avoid mass destruction and build a lasting Peace" written by a former Director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Stephen Younger. His analysis is very well rounded, bringing the forefront of political diplomacy, economic development and military capabilities into the round table of peace initiative intending to stabilize the troublesome regimes in the world. The fact that there are a score of countries now having the capability to construct nuclear weapon of mass destruction is worrisome. Now that the enemy that we are facing is not so much of technology in nature, but that of humanity itself. If we are not careful, We can become a very efficient killing machine having potential to plunge entire human race along with the natural world to the brink of extinction.

Out of these three fronts, I am particularly interested in the illustration of economic factor. Most of us has an inherent desire to better ourselves if given the opportunity. Much of the troubled spots of the world are politically unstable and the citizens are deprived of basic and essential living needs. Ever since the instant communication and rapid transportation become the reality worldwide, no one and no nation can be isolated for long. With the ever expanding information and resources now available to people all corners of the globe, this phenomena is increasingly becoming a double-edged sword for the safety of nation and its people. The book,"endangered species"brings vast knowledge and wisdom to the thorny issue of nuclear technology.

A Parable - Middle East Conflict

The conflict between Israeli and Palestinian has been an ongoing saga ever since the
United Nation's partition plan after the WWII. I read a website using Parable to illustrate the situation very empathically and it seems to bring over half century old family feud a little closer to our heart. Unfortunately, with current state of mind of mankind, happily ever after for Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains a mirage, an optical illusion. Perhaps time, patience and understanding will illuminate the hearts and souls of millions and guide us to a more peaceful and enlightened path.
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R. Jerry Adams, Ph.D. Evaluation and Development Institute

Parable of the Family with an Orphan
A large family takes in an orphan. The house is already crowded so the orphan must share an attic room with a child too weak to protest the intrusion. The parents give each of the two children half of the room but ask each child to share a beautiful cabinet, treasured by both. The parents take a long trip, leaving their strongest son in charge.

When the parents leave, other children in the family attack the orphan and try to get him to leave. The weakest child, in particular, fights unfairly. He waits for the orphan to sleep and then attacks him. The orphan wakes up each time and hurts the weak child; he also takes over more of the room, including the beautiful cabinet.

As the orphan continues to take over more of the room, the weak child continues to take revenge. The strongest son tries to bring peace and sometimes succeeds for short periods. The basic problem, however, is that each child believes that he should have the entire attic room to himself.

Finally, the parents return. They realize that they made a mistake by leaving home while there was such a difficult situation in the attic. They don't just ask the two children to stop fighting, however. Instead, they take immediate action.

The parents decide that the boys need temporary separation, something constructive to keep them busy, and careful supervision. The parents work with the two boys to build shelves and cabinets down the middle of the room, with private storage space for each boy on each side. They install plumbing so each side of the room has plenty of fresh water. Finally, when the crisis is over, the parents set up a way for the boys to share the beautiful cabinet.

The parents do more than just provide better space, however. They provide the love, kindness, and supervision that each child needs to do well. They also make sure that the other children support the solution.

Each boy reverts to his old behavior a few times, but the parents remove his privileges each time and the old behaviors stop. Besides, each boy becomes too busy pursuing his own goals to be distracted by fighting.

They lived happily ever after...with a few disagreements here and there.

The "large family" is the United Nations. The "orphan" is Israel. The "other children" are the Arab states. The "weakest son" is the Palestinian people. Attacking the orphan unfairly means "terrorist attacks." The "attic room" is the territory of Palestine before the United Nations carved Israel into it. The "beautiful cabinet" is Jerusalem.

The "strongest son" is the United States. Alas, there are no wise parents to supervise the boys. The UN Security Council has not been able to perform this essential role.

The "strongest son," therefore, must work with the "other children" to implement peace. If the "strongest son" and the "other children" work together effectively, then peace will spread throughout the entire family.

Recently, this has not happened. Instead, extremist Palestinians have engaged in bombings when Israelis agreed to work on peace. Extremist Israelis have engaged in assassinations or other acts of aggression when Palestinians agreed to work on peace. Israelis are swiftly completing a wall between Israel and Palestinian territory, but the wall is not on the 1967 border. Rather, it snakes into Palestinian territory to unlawfully take land and water rights from 200,000 Palestinians. Extremists from both sides have destroyed the peace process.
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Crashing Through - A Book

Several years ago, I read a book " Shadow Divers" from an author named Robert Kurson. This book ingrained a great impression on me for the adventure of sea diving not for the treasure hunting but for solving the mystery of U-Boat identity of shipwreck in WWII. Robert Kurson took us on this incredible journey of the seven-year search with exquisite detail and suspense. I got the chance to learn a bit about history of U-Boat, but most fascinating is the exciting and painful drama of human spirit intertwining while the story unfolded.

Several years later of today, I got another chance enjoying his second book, "Crashing Through". It is every bit of adventure and exploration considering our hero this time was blind, a victim of chemical explosion when he was only three-year old. But was Mike May a victim? Absolutely not!

As the title indicated, he lived by crashing through life day after day. He has this adventurous spirit that I often thought he was more alive than I am. Ordinary people has all of the five physical senses intact but despite of these "blessings", we often live a life quite ordinary. To May, everything is fascinating, life is literally an adventure for him. After forty some years of full, happy and joyful life, he will be facing another life changing as well as life threatening challenge. Will he dare taking the chance to become ordinary so that he can "see" the sunset and endure all the ordeal that go with the so-called privilege that is normally unavailable for the blind? Well, you shall see!

shining brass horse exhibition - Astral Travel

I have been away from my posting for a month mainly due to the lack of inner experience that was worthwhile for recording. I often have sporadic and vague memory of dream fragments, but most of them were just pure non sense so I did not bother to write them down. Last night's astral travel was the first after six-month of drought.

It started as my routine one and half hour meditation. After chanting the mantra, I laid down for relaxation, and then several minutes later, I felt a spiral and swirling sensation and up I went touring around my bedroom. When I was floating near the wall of my room, the incredible thing happened, I saw thousands of thousands of shining, silvery brass horse images stretching beyond my eyes can see. All the while, a shimmering fog was making these three-dimensional brass images a little more mysterious. I could not believe what I saw, so I turned around and floated to the other side of the wall for confirmation. Again, there were rows and rows of horse images stretching as if there was no more boundary of what we call wall.

Shocking of what I just saw, I swirled out of my window. As I made my way out, I felt that my feet tripped over something as if there was physical part of me banged on the concrete wall. Once I was outdoor, I floated past buildings and trees and made a daring loop so that I floated in the air with my back against a field of gravel road. There were times that I floated so low that I could easily touch the ground. From that position, I could see clearly the blue sky and the lazily drifting cloud. I had astral travel many times like this before, after a while I started thinking to myself, "what is the purpose of this flying?" Immediately, as if responding to my thought, the motion, the sensation of floating and the scenery gradually evaporated into the thin air....
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Perhaps there was no purpose of my astral flying other than that it was an interesting experience. What worth noting is that I had done swirling around my room many times, this was the first that the so called wall was not really a wall when I past through it. It was rather other worldly looking, especially the vivid fog-like mist that shrouded the entire exhibition.

All About Marie - A Dream

I had a young and pretty lady aged around 25 living with me along with her two year old child born out of wedlock. She was easy going, adaptive and full of street smart and uncommon wit.

During the day, Marie would stroll down the neighborhood with her child. Most of the neighbors would play with the child and chatted with her. At the end of the leisurely walk, she usually brought back some household items like bags of candies for the child, mop or broom and pots and pans for her.

She had a not-too-popular habit of borrowing things from the neighbor and then later on insisted that she was given the items as gifts. Since she was a single mom, most of us were sympathetic of her situation and we just let go of it. One day, she told me she was going to shop on supermarket, but when she came back, instead of on foot as usual, she rode on this shining red scooter with all her groceries somehow magnetically adhered to the scooter. I could see cartons of milk, juice, cereal and all kinds of baby foods piled up high on the scooter. I asked her how did she get the scooter, she just beamed with a big broad smile.

I was annoyed with her when she brought some street people into my house and insisted it was a right thing to do. I scorned her for not consulted me first. She usually got away with many things fully aware of her power of charm and wit. All of us suffered from Marie Syndrome. We all loved her and hated her at the same time. The last scene in my dream was that I vehemently argued over her selfish and notorious behavior that generated lively gossip in the community.....

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I awoke from the middle of argument feeling incredulous of why that I dreamed of a person that does not fit into my present life personality. I certainly appreciate the charm of that lady, but no one in my life has this kind of dynamic persona that I can relate to. Well, you can say that dream content is sometimes way out of league with our physical reality. But who knows? I can not be certain that our physical reality is the only reality in the universe.

" The great Taoist master Chuang Tzu once dreamed that he was a butterfly fluttering here and there. In the dream he had no awareness of his individuality as a person. He was only a butterfly. Suddenly, he awoke and found himself laying there, a person once again. But then he thought to himself, "Was I before a man who dreamed about being a butterfly, or am I now a butterfly who dreams about being a man?"

A Wolf Pack - A dream

I decided to change my environment and moved into a remote village. Since land was cheap there, I afforded myself a good sized piece of land. We built a house with screen door and secured yard in place knowing that a pack of wolf was known to be roaming around the village preying on small animal.

I had a partner and a child living with me in the woods therefore the urgency of security was paramount. The house was built in a way that there was an iron-clad screen door separating a 20 feet long patio so that during the day, the child can play in the sunlight without exposing itself to the wild life surrounding it. The door to the house was double lock. I believed we had taken safety measure to the highest level given the seemingly beautiful nearby forest where we lived but potentially hidden danger looming all around.

At night, I spotted two wolves hanging close to our property. They will get close to the screen door and banged on it to test its vulnerability. Then one night, after a day's tiring activities, I suddenly realized that we forgot to have screen door locked tight. I told my partner to hurry and get that door locked before the wolves found out and got in. But it was too late. From the inside of my home, I clearly saw the wolves were jumping and banging inside of our patio. A rush of adrenaline swelled in my heart, a sense of terror and panic coursed through my body. A split second later, I found myself holding and hitting the wolf on the head when it tried to open and enter the door. I hit so hard that its head was bloody and broken and from the strength of wolf's struggle I was wounded myself. After the incident, I told myself that this was not the good place to raise a child, and I can't live like this anymore...... I woke up from my dream feeling very disturbed. I looked at the time on my alarm clock, it was only about 2:30 am.

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It has been quite a while since I remembered my dream a few months ago. Never was I awoke in the middle of night with such a vivid and emotionally draining feeling. I could not make out of why a dream of wolves when things happening in my daily life are pretty much routine and uneventful. I certainly have issues that I am dealing with, but nothing unusually alarming. Dream seems trivial and frivolous but according to the esoteric teaching, a dream is a way of communication among various levels of our consciousness. I hope to understand its meaning and how it relates to my current life situation.

Black Gold - A book

Once in a while I will read a book that is practical and useful for a modern living that is nothing to do with the realm of metaphysical. I found the book "Black Gold"very informative and recommend highly for it informs and educates the reader the urgent issue of rapidly depleting natural resources that so much of our modern living is depending on.

Oil, indeed is a driving force of our economy, modern amenities and comfort. As a consumer, we tend to focus only on the gas pump. About one or two years ago, whenever I saw the gasoline price soared above $3.00 mark, I got a little concern. Now we finally got used to the gasoline price hover around $3.00 to $4.00 range depending on the location and the provider.

Fossil fuel is indispensable for modern living now more than ever. This book gives us the biography and history of fossil fuel, its distribution and current estimated reserve around the world. It addressed the issues of how the discovery and usage of technology and fossil fuel advanced, modernized the world economy. Due to the limited supply can not keep up with the ferocious demand of modern living, the volatile oil producing regions could very well become the focal point of the conflict zone. As a fact it is not too dramatic to say that it is possible that our entire civilization could collapse if one day fossil fuel is completely dispensed and there is no alternative renewable energy source available to replace it. Could it be possible that the next world war will be fought on the ground of nations willing to risk millions of lives to gain control of the precious natural resources? I hope we don't come to see that!

Novel - A Novelty Experience for the Mind

Have you read a good novel lately? For me it has been a long while since I took up the hobby of reading novels a few years back. Not that I don't enjoy novel, but every time when I finished reading it, I felt there was something amiss either in the ending or in the plot. I felt that I did not learn much about it except a momentary thrilling sensation that got me up all night just so that I knew what happened next.

A novel that I enjoy is a mixed blend of ancient mythology with modern technology; a novel that touch base with our mythical side of human nature and yet boggle the mind with futuristic scientific discovery that could radically revolutionize the definition of what is human. I think that is probably one of the reasons I enjoyed so much watching the "Star trek, the next generation" several years ago. It is not just about technology, it is the exploration of human consciousness beyond the present. Much of the concept in the Next Generation was ahead of its time and resonated nicely with the metaphysical realm of human consciousness.

Some mind researchers asserted that mind seeks novelty to explore and expand itself. As much as we desire stability and certainty of our daily routine, the predictability and numbness of some daily chores could be a stumbling block to prevent us from stimulating the brain for creative expression. One of the things that we can do to keep our brain cells properly stimulated and neural pathways strengthened is to regularly engage our mind in some novelty activities that are not part of our daily routine.

Reading a good novel takes our mind off to the land of imagination and visualization. Instead of watching movie with our vision, we take the imaginary ride along the story line with our mind, we savor the vividness of exquisite literary expression, we explore a far out world with landscape and scenery foreign and fresh and most importantly is the conflict, the plot, the battle of good against evil and all the convoluted schemes of story telling that keep us thoroughly entertained. In a sense, it provides us a fictional mind travel experience beyond the confine of space and time.

Breaking A Life-Long Habit

I have been using my right hand doing pretty much everything all of my life. Something simple like holding chopstick, using mouse to surf the Internet, doing accounting work in office and everything in between, the right hand seems dominating the entire landscape of accomplishment.

The truth is I was naturally left handed by birth. During my impressionable young age, my father insisted on training me using right hand to do almost everything because he was afraid that I might be laughed at by other children if I showed my left handed way of doing things. Living in a conservative community like ours, any behavior deviated from the norm of the society is a taboo. As a parent, my father tried to have me fit in to the expectation of normal people. Later in life I began to realize and appreciate his thoughtfulness for he understood that sometimes children could be quite cruel and unforgiving whenever someone stepped out of bound.

However, my left hand is not really idle. Whenever I need to exert extreme effort and strength, my left hand is the commander and chief. It gets things done quickly with power and strength. With my intention to work on improving my cognitive abilities as I am now approaching an advancing age, I surfed the Net and came across several websites suggesting to eliminate or reduce our automatic pilot way of life. With so many of our daily chores fall into the subconscious, repetitive and no brainer activities, our billions of neurons in the brain are also becoming sluggish and rotting in the mud. One of the simple and effective ways to stimulate and awaken the neurons is switch using non-dominant hand for normal daily routine. The idea is that in order to strengthen the connections of neural pathways, we need to engage in activities that involve effort and thinking.

Several days ago when I woke up in the morning, the first thought that popped in my mind was that I need to start training my left hand using computer mouse. So, I followed my instinct and set out to move my mouse to the left side of the desk both at work and at home. There I am starting a trivial task of breaking a life-long numbing habit.

Is it Evolution or Divine Creation?

Are we humans the cream of crops of millions of years biological evolution or that of Big Bang divine creation? This was a question originated when the "Origin of Species" was published in 1859, and the question is still unabated and controversial up to this day.

Back in the nineteen century, the publishing of "Origin of Species" was in a center stage of heated debate among scientists and theologians, I found it very easily accepted concept in the twentieth century from my biology class in Junior High school. We were taught the " Survival of the fittest" as a given scientific fact.

However, in the western Christian world, the notion of putting human in the same category as of a member of animal kingdom and all was the result of evolution from primitive forms was profanity at the least. The concept that we are not favored son and daughter of God, but merely descendants of apes through long and slow evolutionary process is unsettling for Christian believers. The ego of man can be severely bruised by this adamant, unorthodox and blaspheming blow.

I now introduce a book called: "Darwin's Origin of Species - A Biography". Reading the book, I started to realize that Darwin did not really intend to trumpet the origin of human as evolutionary. He was doing the science work making observation and experimentation of natural world, particularly the biology of plant life. During the voyage of the Beagle, he collected and observed many species of plant life and some birds like finch studying their habitat and the surrounding environment. The catchphrase of "The Survival of the Fittest" did not even come from Darwin's writing, it was coined by one of his contemporary in the era. Nevertheless, the publishing of the book aroused and challenged century old idea of man as a intellectually inclined species favored by the God and destined of being ruler of lowly animal kingdom.

I can not say much about the book of "Origin of Species"itself; I borrowed from Library a while back and was completely overwhelmed by its sheet volume. The other factor prevented me from reading the book was (is) my lack of scientific training in this area. It is a futile attempt for a lay person to read through mazes of very dry botanical data.

From my two cents of opinion, I am not shameful of having ape being my ancestor. That goes to say that out of millions of species, through many million years of natural selection and we now emerged as a crown jewel of natural world, on a pivotal top of the food chain. That certainly is a thing to be thankful and celebrated. Darwin was keenly aware of pastoral beauty and harmony as deceiving and pretentious. Nature is a battle ground of life or death every second, every minute of every day. We are now so insulated by the modern amenities that just imagining my being accidentally left behind the Amazon Rain Forest gives me shiver in my spine.

Speaking of the food chain now that our predator is no longer ferocious animals roaming the earth, ironically our most deadly predator is microscopic in size and invisible to the naked eye in the name of virus and bacteria. Throughout history virus and bacteria killed countless human lives in various parts of the earth. Black Death claimed estimated 75 millions, AIDS 2 to 3 millions, Tuberculosis in the ballpark of 20 millions. Nature seems able to find a way to check and balance their inhabitants whether they are prey or predator.

The Plastic Nature of the Brain

The dictionary definition of "plastic" means capable of being molded, modeled, or capable of being influenced, shaped or formed. "Plastic derives from the Greek word meaning "molded" or "formed." It is the tendency of the brain to shape itself according to experience." Our so called "Three Pound Universe" is an amazingly complex one hundred trillions network of neuronal connections capable of performing 200 calculations per second.

I am Introducing a book that I read called, "The Brain that Changes itself". As I am approaching the advancing age, and started to notice that sometimes I have a difficult time remembering the term, place or the name of things I wanted to describe while engaging conversations with others. I would have a mental picture of what I would like to say, but I could not conjure up the name that associate with the picture. It is quite disturbing when that happened considering I am really not that old yet. After reading the book about plasticity of our brain knowing that our brain can be trained to maintain an optimal function for years to come, my mood enlightens quite a bit now that I understand that by keeping active physically and doing brain workout exercise several times a week I can maintain a fairly agile and vigorous mind.

Brain science discovered that every organ and muscle of our body has an address in our brain, something that is equivalent to the atlas, the geography of the mind. Scientific laboratory tested that when some part of muscle is stimulated, the brain area governs it light up like Christmas tree.The law of compensation enables our brain to fully utilize every part of the brain and our brain cells seem to intelligently know that no area of brain should remain idle. We all know that the blind has unusually sharpened sense of tactility and audibility; in other words, the blind has supercharged sense of hearing and touch. Instead of wasting away, blind person's visual cortex of the brain is recruited by the auditory cortex of the brain, therefore the auditory function of the brain is expanded and is able to compensate the lack of visual input and strengthening the audial sensing ability.

Our brain cells seem to have intelligence beyond our comprehension and constantly re-transcribe its synaptic connections to serve us physically and mentally. What I am describing here is only a cursory bird eye's view of this book's content; a tip of the iceberg. The more I read into the chapters, the more I appreciate how wonderful and fascinating the god-given brain is. The macrocosm of a human being is a collective, concerted effort of our countless trillions of microscopic cells. Each cell is fused with intelligence, plasticity capable of adapting and responding to the need of changing environment by reorganizing itself or creating new structures. This book " The Brain That Changes Itself" by Dr. Norman Doidge is a masterful work; a tribute and an honor to appreciate our 100+ trillions brain cells that work tirelessly and diligently serving us.

AHA! Moment Solving Sudoku

A month ago when I was shopping in a supermarket for the following week's food supply, I happened to casually browse around the checkout stand, and saw a copy of Sudoku book so prominently displayed that I can't help but picking it up. I am not an impulsive buyer. In fact I ignore most of the crowded colorful "buy me now" merchandise on the checkout counter. But I figure that anything that can upkeep my mental faculty in good order is worth getting it.

Well, I have been playing it every day ever since. I started with medium two-star level and gradually moving on to three-star and now in the hardest, the four-star level. Even though Sudoku appears to be a simple one to nine number arranging puzzle, solving it can be quite challenging especially when working on the four-star level. On the Sudoku, every number on the board is mutually exclusive and has its unique position, and every number also impacts every other number. If just one number is placed wrong, you can be sure the rest of the board will be wrong.

Often times when successfully placed several numbers on the board and to your surprising delight you find out that the following numbers are just cascading down the board like a waterfall. You are unstoppable and every number seems to fall into its rightful place one after another. This is the "Aha" moment that we sometimes experience when the light suddenly flickers on in the critical moment of realization. Other times, you get stuck in the mud, hit rock bottom and there is no way out. You searched for the solution in every conceivable angle but there was none. Well, that is the time that you walk away from it, take a break and let your ingenious subconscious mind taking over the thinking for you.

What are the benefits of playing Sudoku? The first and foremost is help improve focus and concentration ability. Most of the time our mind scatters all over the place, it loves to chatter away with our daily encounters. When I try to solve the puzzle, my mind needs to be able to zoom in to the level of detail of one number at a time, but simultaneously, it also needs to be able to zoom out to see the big picture of entire board. Since every number is in some relationship with other number, I need to see both the forest and the tree to uncover the correct number.

The other benefit is learn to be patient. One of the strategies of treasure hunting of next number is to fine comb each horizontal and vertical line with a meticulous approach. That would require certain amount of patience. According to some study, solving Sudoku can give your brain a good work out by strengthening our brain's billions of neuronal pathways and connections.

Sudoku is a deceivingly simple game. All that you need is a pencil and a game book that cost only a few bucks. There is no need for electronic gadget. It's portable and it's a lot of fun. When you have ultimately overcome the challenge of solving the mystery, the feeling is indescribably satisfying.

Surrender

Since the NBA games are ongoing into their Semifinal conferences, I am busy keeping up scores and have to compress the little time that I have to work on UMS' meditative session in the small window of over packed daily schedule. The subject of the meditation is Manifesting Skills.

I worked on the first three tracks of Deserving and Receiving, Working With Pre-Matter and Magnetizing & Manifesting. I can honestly say that these are one of the most beautifully guided meditation that I have ever experienced. The background music is incredibly relaxing and uplifting. The narrative from Dr. Breese speaks of time-tested truth of the laws of the universe. Whatever you can conceive and believe, you can achieve!

Then came the ultimate Gemstone of this fourth and final track of Surrender & Being Carried. This is, what I believe, a seldom revealed secret of the Universal Truth. If we know that we are spiritual, eternal beings who voluntarily stepping down to the earth plane to experience various scenarios of theatrical settings, then we know that the world at large is a grandstand of illusory projection of God's mind. After going through sixty, seventy or eighty years of lifetime experience of pain and pleasure, health and sickness, we then fade away from the theater of life and back to our true home from where we came. In this regard, there is little point of desiring and accumulating things that are not lasting. The only thing that we can bring home with us is our experience.

We all wish to manifest what we desire like money, fame, or a lifetime of leisure and comfort, but we might not necessarily get it no matter how hard we tried and we wished. May be in our destiny, the leisure and comfort are not really the highest good for our soul's learning and growing. In our true state of being, we do not need any material things, conquer any obstacles or battle demons in our dark side. But, once we incarnate in the earth plane, we, soul then have to labor continuously in order to sustain our bodily function for a reasonably happy life. No wonder we all want to manifest good things so that we can enjoy life while it lasts.

By surrendering our will to the will of the divine, we are carried by the spirit throughout our life. As Dr. Breeze said it well, we don't really know every aspect of our life, therefore we don't know what is for our highest good. Often time that when I pray for people or myself, I do not pray so that whatever the symptom, disease or problem to go away, but I pray that "For the highest good, I ask Love, Light and Blessings of God be sent to the person" and let the Universal Intelligence take over whatever blessing the person need for one's highest good.