Creativity and Dream

There must be a correlation of my reading " A Billion Customers" and my dream of being in China experiencing various situations. As I contemplated what I have dreamed, everything seemed to be logical and there was no peculiar dream sign that I can reckon with. So, this was an ordinary dream with no signpost pointing to the possible lucidity.

Dream is fleeting! Without catching it in a nick of time, it is almost impossible to remember after a full day's work. It is a good habit to write it down as soon as we are conscious and aware right after getting up in the morning.

If we ask most people about their creativity, we usually get the answer that, "No, I am not very creative" unless you are a bonafide artist. I will say the same of myself. But if you have ever kept a journal of your dreams and look back several years later, you will be so amazed that you even were able to come up with so many different dream scenarios. Dream is a creation of our own mind. It is not only our conscious mind that generate those interesting scenes, brilliant conversations, and mind-boggling theatrical scheme, it is a reservoir of human collective unconscious that we are able to tap into the creating process. Now, wouldn't you say you are most creative in your dream?

It is very well documented that many famous scientists, inventors, artists or best-selling authors credited their most creative Masterpieces to their insightful dream scenarios. To cultivate remembering dreams and to learn to be conscious and aware of our dreams do have practical uses in our daily life. In our dream, we are truly unlimited!

A Boat Ride? - A Dream

I am practicing my usual meditation routine by getting up 4:30 am, took one and half hour meditation to 6:00 am and went back to sleep and set alarm to wake up 6:45 am. I got several fragmented dreams.

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I got up early in the morning to discuss something with my son. I noticed that the floor of my home covered with gravel, as if I was walking on a country road. It was just overnight our Pergo floor disappeared. I was shocked and very much rattled to hysteria. I asked him what happened to our floor. He just casually said that he yanked it out last night, and he said the gravel floor is more natural. It was unbelievable....

*****
We were on a sightseeing tour, one of my brother-in-laws offered ride for us to go around town. He suggested that there were two routes to the other side of the town and he knew the fastest route. We will across ocean and can get there in ten minutes. Good, I like boat ride! So, we were waiting for him to somehow arrange a boat, but instead he asked us to get into his car. We looked at each other quite amused! We are going to across an ocean with a car? He said, "Don't worry, I have done it many times". While we hanged on our dear life, he was easy sailing over the calm, blueish ocean. When we got to the shore, he said "All right, you can hop out now". We all jumped out of his car and into the water that led us to the sandy beach! Well, we made it all right and nobody got wet either!

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I got up with alarm buzzing off. At first, I did not remember any dreams but as I thought a bit harder, these dreams came up. I was happy that I remember anything at all.

In reflection, these two scenarios can be triggers for my lucidity, but like many dreams that I had in the past, my critical thinking faculty was completely turned off. I failed to recognize the impossibility of its happening in real life.

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Dreams are a reservoir of knowledge and experience, yet they are often overlooked as a vehicle for exploring reality. In the dream state our bodies are at rest, yet we see and hear, move about, and are even able to learn. When we make good use of the dream state, it is almost as if our lives were doubled: instead of a hundred years, we live two hundred."

-- Tibetan Buddhist Tarthang Tulku

Cell Phone, my dream sign

At the end of the day, a lots of people waiting outside of our office anticipating the announcement of Real Estate sale. One of my coworker was also there waiting. I asked the organizer what type of houses were for sale, he said in a strong accent that there were town homes for sale. Well, I said I was not interested in Town home. So I walked out of the area.

I walked toward the parking lot, the more I walked the more I was confused of where I parked my car. While I was searching for it, I took out my cell phone, looked at it and ready to dial for help. I noticed that my cell phone had a block of red markings on it that I did not recognize it before. At that moment, I suddenly realized that "I am dreaming". I was really excited. I thought to myself, I need to find a way to know this is really a dream. It happened that next to the parking lot, there was a booth carrying all kinds of merchandise for sale. I thrust my fist several times trying to smash the displayed merchandises. Well, the merchandise weren't breaking. The lady watching the booth was completely oblivious what I was doing. As if she did not see me at all. Well, the proof was irrefutable that I was dreaming.

"So what do I do in this big dark parking lot?" I thought I like to float up to the sky, immediately I floated up to the dark sky, it was dark, and everything on the ground got smaller and smaller. I noticed there was white dressed angel floating along with me, we spun around several times. Since I did not know how to sustain the lucidity, gradually I found myself fully awake and back to my normal sense.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

This was the first time that I recognize the change of appearance of my cell phone as a signpost of my being in a dream.

" All things are of the substance of dreams"

Ego, my final frontier

As I work day and night on my personal evolution, I find that ego defense is somthing I have been trying very hard to let go but as always it is not without constant inner struggle.

I am in the stage of personal development where the lesson presented to me in the form of daily interaction with other people requires my attention to how I react or proactive in my perceived stressful situation. I have created a buss word to repeat whenever I am in the process of falling to my ego-self "it is all right, it is ok, there is no issue, non at all cause we are one". Well, it does not always work, but it works for fairly good percentage point.

Ego is our final frontier to conquer before we can expand our consciousness to accommodating all things and all people. Believe me, it is one thousand times easier said than done.

An Exerpt from James Blanchard Cisneros' "You have Chosen to Remember"

The ego is a limited belief system within your mind that you have molded and identified as being the real you. The ego survives by establishing boundaries, borders and limits on everything it sees. The defining of such boundaries, borders and limits gives it the illusion that it can tell you what is right and wrong, all in an effort to control you by instructing you on what you are and are not, how you should act and not act, and why you should judge those who challenge it; the status quo. You are taught the right and wrong way to do things, the right and wrong way to react. Because you learn from the outside world, you believe that truth lies outside of you.

Judgment and fear feed the ego, generating numerous perceived weaknesses and limitations you believe you must defend as real. The more time you spend in defense of the ego and your limitations, the more you believe that this is who you are. And because you see this ego as real and representing yourself, you defend it against anyone you perceive as attacking it. In your mind any view that does not support it attacks it.

You perceive the attacks (disagreements with your belief system) on your ego and its illusion as real, and so you become defensive. The more time you spend defending your false or ego-self, the more you reaffirm its reality. The more you reaffirm its reality, the more willing you are to come to its defense. The more you defend the illusion of the ego-self as real, the more concepts and ideas you will encounter in the world that don’t fit into your reality. You perceive different concepts and ideas as assaults to your reality. You defend your ego-self, through the act of judgment. The exercise of judgment separates you from your fellow brother or sister causing stress that may be conscious or unconscious. Stress creates confusion, and a build up of confusion ultimately leads to chaos.

You feel that by defending your beliefs, you strengthen them. Yet the more you defend them, the more they weaken you. The more time you spend in defense of your ego-self, the more time you will exist in a state of confusion. You might give your state of confusion a hundred different names, such as annoyance, anger, stress, sadness, depression, but they all exist because of your belief in the ego’s reality. They all exist within your mind and are fed and kept alive by your belief in your ego-self.

Your tolerance for pain may be high but your acceptance of your ego-self is not without limit. You will come to a point in your life where you will tell yourself that there must be a better way, a more fulfilling way of living that this just can’t be what it’s all about! These thoughts begin the process of awakening yourself to the knowledge of who you truly are.

Exploration is really the essence of the human spirit - Astronaut Frank Borman

In the "Adventuring with Boldness", the author, Bruce Paton, took us back in time to America's wild wild west and the Arctic region in 19 century, where there were uncharted regions with vast area of desert and wasteland, sub zero frozen mountain, treacherous water, horrendous barren, places that tested humans endurance and determination to the hilt. The exhaustion and starvation are constant companions for courageous explorers, and sometimes food is so scarce that cannibalism was unavoidable for survival.

Now that we are in a civilized twenty first century, everything is handed down to us in a golden platter. We have all the amenities of money can buy, most of the land or water has been mapped out, but behind all these achievement there were stories of human suffering, utter most endurance of harsh environment, and sheer determination to explore the vast land. Some did it for fame and fortune, others for pure human spirit of discovery and adventure.

As far as cannibalism, the thought of it is inconceivable for us sitting comfortably at home surrounded with plentiful of food and entertainment. But out there in the barren desert and freezing mountain where there are no hope of getting any food supply, cannibalism is the final and probably the only means of sustenance. The author indicated that in animal world, cannibalism is common and natural, there is no morality attached to the act. But for human, the survivors of cannibalism experienced profound psychological effect that are deep and long lasting. Often the sense of guilt, remorse and horror lingered for life. That goes to say that survival is the strongest instinct in animal kingdom including us human. Yes, society may condemn the act of cannibalism, but walked with those explorer's moccasin, we might do the same at the circumstances.

Mother Teresa

Up until I read the biography of Mother Teresa, I really don't know anything about her. I only know that she won a Nobel Peace Prize on 1979, and she served and helped the poorest among the poor in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Much of her interior and external life of details was not something that I aspired to follow. After all, I believe my inner work is more toward the practice of Juana Yoga, Yoga of knowledge and contemplation.

She was aspired to the calling from God to serve humanity while she was twelve years old, an age most people will like to just play and have fun. But there was a very distinct family influence on her vocation, at the least her mother was devotional, and as a family they prayed together at all times. She was an Albanian, but most of her life was spent on caring the poor and the under privileged in Calcutta, India. I admire her absolute faith on the Divine.

The author of the biography told, "What one has to understand about Mother Teresa is that she sees Christ in every person she encounters." It is one thing to acknowledge this statement, yet entirely another to live and breathe the statement. She was literally taking the verses in Bible by its face value and incorporate it to every aspect of her life. She saw the poor and the sick as Christ distressingly disguised. In a way, she reminded me of St. Francis of Assisi. St. Francis would approach, touch, embrace and care for lepers while most would shun away as quickly as possible.

Mother Teresa's life is exemplary, but only one among many millions will walk the noble but lonely path.

A Path of Self Discovery - quantumquests.com

Since I do not have any inner experience the last several weeks I went back to review my blog posting. I am actually amazed of how much wiser and confident I was a few years back. Now I am just wondering, am I de-evolving in my spiritual progression?

I was in a "beginner's luck" a while back. Nature has a way to encourage new paradigm shift. I had many interesting dreams, I astral travelled, read a substantial volume of conscious breaking books, I also experimented different types of programs like Holosync, Gateway, Shapeshifter's DNA Activation music and other meditative technique. Boy, was I busy the last few years!

It comes to the point of my study that I have a wealth of knowledge of spiritual teaching but without substantial inner experiences to validate or confirm the knowledge that I have accumulated. Do I really just rehash Dr. Jonathan Parker's teaching? Have I truly understood and experienced his teaching? The answer is yes and no.

I remember the first time that I listened to his "Enlightenment Series", it resonated with my core being. I immediately realized that I have walked into the vault of esoteric teaching that will start a long and meandering journey to self discovery.

As in every learning process, I occasionally stumbled into some difficult courses that took me many months to get it clear from my head. One of them is leaving the past behind by understanding why things happened and how it was merely a lesson to learn. One of the most profound teachings from Dr. Parker is that of seeing life as a staged play with actors, actresses, supporting roles pre-arranged and the script, the background have all been known to each of us in different level of consciousness. To top it all, each of us plays a starring role with our family, our coworkers, our friends either play as good guys or bad guys all dedicated to help us grow.

Come to think about it, it makes a lot of sense. There are billions of people currently living in the planet earth. How that each one of us congregated to a particular circle of family, friends and whole different kind of life experiences? Even a twin are unlikely to experience the same life scenario. Our experience in life is unique to us. Even though it is unique, I do sometimes feel that my life is pretty boring, nonetheless I have chosen to live this way either consciously or unconsciously for a reason.

The Bad Guy

I now on my sixth month of metaphysical study from University of Metaphysical Sciences.
There are courses very fascinating and informative, but there are some I will procrastinate until the time that I need to do my homework. "Crystals and Gemstones" is one of them. I myself like crystals, I have several of them that I wear regularly, but I am not inclined to study further for their uses. I figure that inanimate objects will not be the essential components to elevate our level of consciousness. Ultimately, it is our own thought and attitude that is the key to enlightenment.

In an article written by Dr. Christine Breese, the founder of University of Metaphysical Sciences, I found the section of " Note of caution about the meditation" from "Reincarnation" course very much resonant with Dr. Jonathan Parker's "Enlightenment Series". The following narrative from Dr. Breese serves as a reminder for me to be open, forgiving, and accommodating to myself and others in all circumstances because we are all been there, done that even if we do not consciously remember them.

----It is not unusual to remember a string of lifetimes of suffering and victimization, and then remember the "bad Guy" lifetime that started the whole process. Every one has a bad guy lifetime, if not many. It is required study on the earth plane and no one can complete the reincarnational cycle unless "Misuse of Power 101" has been taken. This might not be your favorite "class", but like most degree obtained, there are a few classes in the curriculum that aren't as fun or as pleasurable as others, and might require more perseverance to get through. You would not graduate from the earth plane with true wisdom if you had not experienced being the bad guy. You must experience the bad guy's point of view if you are to truly understand what this reality is offering to the soul. You must experience what it is like to abuse your power and free will, misuse it, and then experience the law of cause and effect in action. It is one thing to be told about the law of cause and effect, but it its quite another to experience it.----

Lost in Philadelphia - A Dream

I was back on Temple University campus in Philadelphia. For some reason, I lost contact with my sister. I do not have transportation to go around the campus.

It is getting dark and I have been carrying a shopping basket full of stuff walking on the city street. The inner city of Philadelphia is not exactly safe. So, I left an urgent message to my sister but then I remember that she is taking classes at night so she might not be able to give me a ride back to campus.

What a dire situation that I let myself in ! Even worse than that, my sense of direction is terrible, I can not remember where I am just five minutes ago. I am desperately need some help, or else I will be left homeless in the danger looming inner city. My mind is in over drive, I can sense stress and nervousness swelled up in my body.

After walking aimlessly for a while, I notice there are still some people walking around in this late hour. I tell myself that I can not walk aimlessly, I need help. I finally get enough courage to ask several people that I need protection and direction to get back to campus....That was when I woke up.

When I open my eyes, I found myself in meditative sitting position. That means I was dreaming while meditating.

Lately I have experienced a little strange phenomenon. I will close my eyes and relax in various location, not necessarily to meditate. After a while, I will have inner dialogue within myself, as if I were talking to a person, addressing some urgent issue or just chit chatting away. Several times I will wake up from the brief relaxation and ask myself, what is going on there? I have a tendency to dose off when I am too relaxed! The dialogue may be a condensed, short dream!

Earth School

This post is not intended to reveal me in an ordinary sense. Long since I have walked the path, I have examined and decided that whoever I am from other people's point of view could not and should not disturb me in any circumstances. In a way, I live with this philosophy on a daily basis. I no longer try to impress others, and I no longer feel sorry for people who have psychological or mental difficulty, cause I for one live very closely with this situation. Basically, I understand that I may be playing a role of villain for all to see, but each of individual soul has a hidden agenda that is not apparent in the midst of hustles and bustles. Sometimes let it be is the wisest approach.

My take on the people that I deal with is that I know fundamentally we are part of this cosmic consciousness. Everyone comes in the world has spiritual help whether one is aware of it or not. With this knowledge, I tend to err in rendering free will as my strongest belief when dealing with others who have rough edges. I usually do not impose my view, my way of thinking or doing as absolute and uncompromising. I leave plenty of room for people to experiment and to make mistakes. As a result, the outcome that shows to the world is not too pretty. But then again, given the illusory nature of the world, and the possible eternity of our existence, what is the hurry to get it over and get it perfect the first time or the first 100 times?

Nothing that happens is truly random. It may seem that way from our naked eye for our naked eye can only discern very limited range of perception. Our naked eye can only see the tip of the iceberg, while the masses of iceberg is beyond our detection.

As far as I know we are here to learn lessons whether we are old or young, a parent or a child. A parent isn't necessarily wiser than a child. A position in a company or in society isn't indication of one's spiritual level of achievement. A homeless people that we see lying on the grand central station could be a old and wise soul incarnating into this lowly social status so that he or she is able to invoke our sense of compassion and help raise our level of consciousness. In a way, the homeless is helping us evolve, not the other way around as normally perceived. I know to some people this is completely against conventional wisdom, and does not make any sense. Well, obviously I can't prove my point here, at least not until I have evolved to certain level of mastery, but there are infinite ways that we can learn, conventionally and unconventionally.

A good meditative session

I got up as usual time of 5:am and meditated for one hour and forty five minutes. I consider this morning's meditation a fairly successful one. I was focused and fleeting thoughts were less intruding than what I had experienced last a couple of weeks.

I have been working on meditation a long time, but to reach a state of no thought is still a "once in a blue moon" kind of deal, rare and spontaneous. Although I did not have astral travel experience this morning, but just to have a good session of meditation is in itself quite satisfying. I got up feeling happy and upbeat!

St. Francis of Assisi

After I read the book "My life with the saints", I felt like to know more live stories of some of the saints mentioned in the book. The first book I got from the library is "God's Fool - The life and times of Francis of Assisi". It was written in French @ 1983 and was translated in English @ 1985.

Francis was quite eccentric and extraordinary in his path to sainthood. He was born in a wealthy , middle class family. His father owned a clothier store that had clientele included medieval nobles and knights. Because of his well-to-do, pampered life, his youth and adolescent was filled with comfort and indulgent with wine, women and songs.

The story told of how he had dramatically changed his perspective of life and the world was every bit fascinating. I suspect there was inner transformation taking place gradually that was inconceivable to other people. One day he traveled and stayed overnight in San Damiano church and God spoke to him and asked him to restore the rundown churches. That was the spark that eventually ignited the holy fire of his renunciation of the worldly pursuit.

His vow of poverty, chastity and obedience was quite extreme from our modern measure. But he was a man of action and a man with tremendous faith, he lived by what he preached. All his life he had never wavered from his own harsh discipline.

Most of us have read or heard a famous St. Francis Prayer. Although I do not know it came from St. Francis until I read an article from my metaphysical study introducing great spiritual teachers.

Peace Prayer of St. Francis:

Lord, make me an instrument for your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy;
Grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled, as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving, that we receive,
it is in pardoning, that we are pardoned
and it is in dying, that we are born to eternal life.

In a Golden Pond - A Dream

I felt agitated when meditating. After about forty five minutes, I thought I can't continue, so I lied down.

After a while, I noticed that my left hand was lifeless. I poked it with my right hand, lifted it and dropped it down. There was no sign of life. I started to panic.

At that very moment, I had the floating sensation, I was round and round floating all over my room. It was just about running out of steam, I floated out of the window, and next thing I knew, I was floating in a pond. I saw red, yellow and blue fish swimming by me. I thought to myself, since I was in the water I might as well swim. I was awkwardly splashing with my two hands a few times. The water was yellowishly clear, seaweed and other sea plants swirling graciously in synchronization with the movement of water current. It was beautiful and refreshing, then the scene gradually faded...

This is the first time that I astral travel to a pond. I have no trouble breathing in the water. As a fact, It seemed natural enough to breathe in the water. In the real life, I don't swim, and never know how. I will probably drown if I did. But I was not panic while in the pond. Thanks to astral travel, I got the experience of swimming even just a little bit.

May be I should go bungee jumping next time !

Heaven and Hell

If someone deserve to go to hell, then that could be me. However, hell is not a place, but a state of mind and environment that we surround ourselves. If nothing that happens is truly random, then I deserve all the hellish experiences that unleashed last several years until now and on going. This is not to condemn myself, but to acknowledge that there is a reason of why something happens to us. Whatever happens to us is not as important as how we react or how we proact to the situation.

A story told by Dr. Jonathan Parker conveyed vivid picture of what is heaven and what is hell.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
There was a Samurai visited a Zen Master and asked "Does heaven and hell really exist?"

Zen Master said, "who are you? How dare you ask this question?"

The Samurai said: "I am a Samurai, a warrior"

"A samurai ? !" Zen Master exclaimed. "Why, you have a face of a beggar."

The Samurai was very angry and ready to draw the sword!

The Zen Master said: "So you have a sword. I bet your sword is too dull to cut off my head!"

The Samurai drew the sword!

The Zen Master looked straight into his eyes and said: "That is Hell !"

Understand what Zen Master is trying to teach him, the Samurai humbled, bowed and withdrew his sword.

The Zen Master said: "Now, this is Heaven"
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

"All you may know of heaven or hell is within your own self" - Edger Cayce

Enrique's Journey - The story of a boy's dangerous Odyssey to reunite with his mother!

This is an astonishing, gripping true story of a Honduran boy who braves unimaginable hardship and peril to reach his mother in United States. It was heart breaking reading this book. Due to the grinding poverty in Central Americas, mothers are willing to sacrifice the family's separation and journey into US soil to work as manual labors so they can send money home for their young children to survive.

The story do not end with Enrique's finding his mother after treacherous ninth attempt. After the reunion, years built up of psychological problem surfaced and caused friction and depression between mother and son. Happily ever after only exist in novels and in movies. In real life, the psychological trauma of abandonment for those young children stay with them through the adulthood and beyond. It is the emotional scar that will not easily go away!

On his epic journey, he was robbed by Bandits, tortured by notorious Central America gangsters. He dangerously rode on the top of the freight train and constantly in fear of being discovered and deported back to Honduras after so many arduous attempts. Enrique is not a lone case. There are hundreds of Central America young men and women taking up this journey each year either looking for work in US or wanting to join their mothers. Some make it , but some got killed along the way.

It makes me wonder, what these kids did that deserve this kind of hard life? I also wonder is "God" in any of these?

Hong - Sau method of meditation

My meditation practice gets very erratic lately. There are good, long undistracted practices, but most of time I will abandon the practices half way just becuase too much random and distracted thought.

I started the "Hong-Sau" method taught by Self Realization Fellowship , and found that it is useful but also difficult to implement in the meditation. Here is the abbreviated version that I think I can live with it.

1. Breathe deeply to get body and mind in relaxed state. Inhale count to 5, pause count to 5 and exhale count to 5 for 6 to 10 times

2. Focus attention between the eyebrow ( the third eye)

3. Inhale and mentally chant "Hong", exhale and mentally chant "Sau" while focusing on the third eye for the next 10 to 15 minutes

4. Let go and still focus on the third eye, stay calm and quiet for the rest of the meditation.

I found it difficult to stay focus between eyebrow and mentally chant "Hong" "Sau" at the same time. I sometimes abandon the chant and just focus on between the eyebrow.

This morning, I have one hour and forty five minute meditation. It is the longest time I spent in the last month.

All the Catholic Saints that I have met

I am so delighted that I took up reading the book: "My Life with the Saints" from James Martin SJ. The whole last week that I was off from work I was and still mesmeric by the story and life of the saints that were introduced to me by James.

The book is entertaining, engaging and humorous. I don't have any western religious background, normally I have no desire reading Catholic Saints. Somehow, I was drawn to the book that afternoon while casually browsing on " new book " section on Rowland Height library.

Some of the Saints were not ancient, there were fellows from contemporary nineteenth and twentieth century. Therese of Lisieux and Bernadette Soubirous were from nineteen's century, Thomas Merton early twenties century, Pedro Arrupe and Mother Teresa from mid to late twenties century. I never knew that Catholic church sponsored many programs to help the poor and the underprivileged all over the world.

"Preach the Gospel, use words if necessary" ! It demonstrates that Catholic missionary teaching is action oriented, using thought, speech and action to do good for humanity all around the globe. The Jesuits will travel to Africa, Asia or any troubled spots of the world as part of their spiritual training. I found out surprisingly they are much more open, loving and actively engaging in the world community than the Buddhist monks.

I used to have a very rigid view about Catholic church. Consider the scandals happened in the past of catholic priests, I have stereotyped the catholic churches or similar organization as a powerful political organization that using God as a shield for their worldly gain. By reading this book, I have somewhat broaden my view about catholic church.

All these Saints are alive and well in author's prayer. It is amazing that sometimes the author's prayer was instantaneously answered. I wish I had half of the response rate from my long drawn meditation. I will guess in some way God is discriminative in answering prayer.

I found some of the sayings are very true:

• For those with faith no explanation is necessary; for those without faith no explanation is sufficient.

• God write straight with crooked line.
  

A flight out to beach - A Mind Travel Experience

I got up this morning at 5:00 am and meditated focusing on the third-eye, our spiritual center for about 70 minutes. I then lied down and intended to take a short rest for half an hour. In a short while, there was sensation of separating my etheric body and I floated out of window. I flew to a big tree, looking at massive leaves and I consciously holding on the branches for several seconds just to experience how it felt. I then moved on to a beach like open space. While I was flying, I saw a row of huge orange color rock formation beneath, I reached down of my hand and touched it and indeed it was solid, the next scene I landed in a little town and the scene slowly faded....

When I was back to my senses, I checked the clock, it was only 10 minutes passed before I lied down after the meditation. This would be the first time I intentionally touching the objects while etherically travelled. The sensation was just as real as when I am fully
conscious.

My etheric travel is always short but just having the experience make me really happy.

A change of plan

Not much inner experience happening last weeks or so for me. I attended my niece's wedding on 23rd of June. Seeing so many lively, gorgeous looking young people laughing and dancing I felt refreshed and invigorated by their upbeat, happy spirit.

I had arranged for Yosemite trip with my mother and my sisters after the wedding ceremony. I was fully committed until Friday before the trip that my son told me that he needed to start his full-time job on next Monday. Since then, I was debating whether I should come home with him to lend some psychological support or not.

Saturday night at about 2:00 am I contemplated the situations and I decided to go home with him. I knew it was crazy and I also knew that I would be scorned fast and hard, and others might not be so forgiving for changing the plan without consulting them first. There was no time to inform or consult anyone in the middle of the night and I had to call Southwest Air to see if I can get a seat on the flight of 9:35 am, and I also need to call Yosemite Reservation to see whether or not I need to be present for checking in because I was the one making the reservation. There were whole series of ramifications came with this decision. On top of that, I will make some people very mad. I knew the consequence of this change way before hand, it certainly would be very inconvenient to my family. But at the time, it was the right thing to do.

Thinking that he is going home to an empty house, starting a new job, with psychological and physical problems, I thought I need to be there. It is not a matter of trusting him to do the right thing, it is a matter of support and companionship in time of need.

My family did not go on the Yosemite trip partially due to my change of plan, instead they went to an interesting place like Napa Valley winery. I trust my two sisters can think of something interesting to do and I am sure they will have good time no matter where they go.

Trial of Life

I have hard time quieting and focusing during my meditation, I thought I am losing it. Since November of 2005, I stopped to have any insight and inner experiences during or after meditation. Because my morning meditation is not working so I compensate it by doing it rigorously during lunch hour.

In spite of not having any mystical experience, I am still upbeat, happy and positive as I slowly and deliberately walking my path. As I mentioned on previous posting, I have what most people will agree a nightmarish home life recently due to the accusation and anger toward the decision I made more than 15 years ago. I sympathize other people's suffering, but deep down I know that there is a reason for my playing a villain in someone else life. There were lessons to be learned and karma to be paid. No one escapes the immutable law of cause and effect.

In the midst of these trials and tribulations, I hope I have maintained my poise and dignity. I simply refuse to play a role of victim. I know that I have made a choice long ago that lead to the current state of affair. I am responsible and no one else. I have assimilated Jonathan Parker's teaching in most areas of my life. I have learned the truth and nature of our being. The wisdom, knowledge and experience that I have tugged under my consciousness hopefully will enable me to brave the storm of life graciously.