Bad Start To The New Year...

Went back to work today after the long Christmas break. Things really sucked on the first day of the working year. No one was in the working mood and well, it was really hard to get my instructions understood. Was in the office talking to some of the other team leads, one of them told me a pretty depressing story of how one of the team leads lost two members of his team to suicide in one project cycle (usually a few weeks). He never saw it coming...

"I mean, how could he know..." she was saying. "We can't read minds..."

A very sobering thought. But he could not have known. It's strange, but its always the people who need help the most who say nothing about their situation. There was this lady in my teams once who certainly was a loner and said nothing to the others. However, it was clear that she had a definite problem. At first, I thought it was a case of some kind of anti-social behaviour or shyness.

As it turned out, through a rather convoluted series of events, I found out that she had a potentially life-threatening physical conditioning. I mean, I understand that there are those who desire privacy above all, and those who want to be regarded the same as everyone else, but surely something like this should be voiced out. I mean, if she had fainted while we were on the job, I wouldn't know what to do, except call for an ambulance.

The preceeding weekend was crappy too. Had a bout of tummy trouble on Sunday that felt like hell and which is caused in part by some kind of very hard mini rice-flour creations I had on Saturday at an experimental cooking party and the fact that on Sunday, I didn't have breakfast and a heavy lunch.:P It was like stomache flu and food poisoning rolled into one. I had a fever and chills most of the night. Couldn't do anything much except lie around and grouch.

Lately too I've had some very strange dreams. I tend to forget most dreams because they are usually not very vivid and pretty mundane. Stuff like running around in Singapore and seeing everyday people down at the commercial district. Recently however in the early morning hours, I've been having dreams about unquiet spirits, strange alien-looking body parts and some organ that looked like it had been preserved too long in formaldehyde or had been sitting in a rotting corpse too long. It was certainly some reproductive organ but it er..... did not look human. I got the feeling it was a female body for some reason.

Today I had another weird bunch of dreams. I dreamt I was in a place that looked Arabic in design and some lady with a large family was at the hotel counter trying to order breakfast for all of them.... presumably to have in the room. Since there was no one around, I helped to take the order... she was a Singaporean Indian lady and wanted 3 different breakfasts.

1. Winter Melon (just the melon, nothing else... yucks)
2. Ampala with curry (I don't know what Ampala was, but apparently she meant some kinda dough bread. I checked it on google. Ampala is either a place in Honduras... :P or some mango-like fruit they use in a drink that is popular now in Penang, Malaysia.)
3. Porridge (I think it was the Chinese kind. Not congee, but more Teochew style where you can see the grains of rice)

Well... i gave the order to the hotel staff, but they thought I had interfered and screwed up the order so they called the lady's mobile for confirmation. :(

I wonder what all of these dreams mean. I don't think I have ever been anywhere like in the dreams, and certainly that whole Ampala thing was new to me.

Remember That They Are Children...

Being in the thirty-something range often means that I get to see my contemporaries having kids of their own. I have a number of friends now who are young parents. I guess when you are a parent, everything in the world changes. Most normal people suddenly get this sense of responsibility and then their entire world revolves around their child.

I recently got to see a friend who had a newborn child. She is such a sweet little thing, but with a very aggressive personality. I really wonder how my friend is going to take it when that little toddler of hers grows to be a teenager... :P While talking and catching up (because we haven't seen each other in years) my friend made a remark that I found rather poignant.

"You know, they are born... already with their own personality," she was watching her own feisty child in a contemplative manner. "They say you can shape a child, nurture a character... but they already have their own personality."

It comes as no surprise to me that children which are born already have a personality. As a believer in reincarnation, I'd say that the personality that comes with a child is a product of eons of life as ... well, somebody. I think that it is possible to shape some aspects of a child's character, and teach him/her important life lessons, but really, some things are beyond the power of a parent to change. There are some patterns... call it the web of Fate or Karma that no amount of nurturing can disentangle...

I do not find it strange if a young person says he or she feels "old before their time" or "was born old". I do think there are those who are... for a lack of a better term "old souls", and their personality seems to show it. And if there are those who are old souls, well, there are also those who are young souls as well, who perhaps have few incarnations as humans or are even experiencing their very first one. It does show in their personality and their nature. I sometimes think that there are those who are created who seem to have an eternally childlike nature. I had thought that with multiple incarnations, eventually the child will "mature into adulthood" so to speak, but it seems that for some, that is not the case.

For some time now, I have been looking into groups of individuals, to see how various incarnations affect what they do and what they become. It seems to me there are some who, despite multiple incarnations, remain childlike. Unfortunately, because of this, responsibility, accountability and stability are not traits that are strong in them. I sometimes wonder why the creator chose for some to be in this state. Perhaps I do not see the complete picture since I am at this level of evolution. But I do not understand why they were created this way.

Unfortunately, (as a friend puts it) I have "chosen" to surround myself with many of these individuals. I have to say that although I can appreciate their endless curiosity and fun-seeking nature, I am sometimes disappointed... very much so... by their lack of understanding... and curiously enough... empathy...

I think to most of them I am a pretty dull individual. Almost like a parent. And therefore not really fun to be around most of the time. There are some who even ask me if it is necessary to think this hard... heh... Also, as I change and grow, I find that my priorities are shifting and I find myself becoming sterner in terms of character. I have tried expressing how I feel, but I doubt that they could truly understand the things that cause me concern.

At the end of the day, I have only this phrase with which to remind myself... "Remember that they are children..."

Problem is, physical appearances are always deceiving.

PS: I know the post is only published today, but I began writing this in December, forgot about it and came back to it. Problem is, this blog program seems to want to backdate my post.

All Alone... So What!

Was watching "Is It Real" on Okto (that's the channel that used to be Arts Central. It's a sort of arts, culture and documentary channel). It's pretty much a documentary that asks if some popular beliefs and claims are real. Topics range from faith healing to vampires, bigfoot to aliens. This week's episode was about life on Mars.

Since I was a kid, I never had any doubt that there is life out there in the universe. As a child, I would point up at the little pinpoints of light up in the night sky and ask what they were. An adult, sometimes a parent or teacher would say thay are stars, stellar bodies just like our sun. Now, in the mind of a child, if there's great big sun-like spheres in space, there should also be great big planets with life on them. There was no question about it.

Of course, when I got to be older, skepticism, the current method of "scientific" inquiry and the crowd I hung around with, got in the way of simple child-like logic. And honestly, I hated believing in a universe where there was no life other than on earth. Actually, I hated the notion of there being no sentient life except on Earth. What a cold, lonely and scary thought. Now, all my life I have subscribed to the notion that some intelligent being probably made all of this. I simply cannot imagine why a creative being would not only stop at only creating life on 1 planet but then go on to make the entire magnificant cosmos completely devoid of any other form of organic sentient intelligence.

However, what really made me sit up during "Is It Real" was not the evidence of some kind of life on Mars or on another planet, it was the stalwat proclaimation of a particular biologist. I can't remember his name, but I know how he looked. He didn't look like a typical academic. He was rugged, craggy-faced (probably from spending a lot of time in the desert sun) and reminded me a little bit of the rough, pioneer-type cowboys of the Old West. He is a believer in finding microscopic organisms on the red planet, but he did mention that in the event that we don't find ANY evidence of life on Mars, past or present. We shouldn't feel discouraged, but go ahead and colonise, terraform the planet - introduce life.

I mean, what have we got to lose?

He later went ahead and said that in the event, we as a race find out that we are indeed alone in this vast universe, we should go forth and introduce life. After all, we don't need the presence of other intelligent life to create for ourselves a meaningful role in this universe. If there is indeed no other like us, and we are unique spot of life in a lifeless void... he concluded that perhaps our role in the great cosmos is to spread life all over the vastness of space.

Somehow, its really really hard to feel discouraged after hearing that statement. To be honest, after years of not seeing any hard evidence of aliens (I also read up the books written by UFO skeptics, it gives a good reality check on the evidence ) I am just a wee bit disappointed.

I guess, sometimes if you get lemons from universe, you might as well make lemonade, maybe you can make a few bucks off it in the long run.

Strange Dreams... Too Much Gaming Or...

I am prompted to update this because I noticed that recently, I've had a lot of very strange dreams regarding religion in particular.

Now, I draw a distinct line between religion and spirituality. To me at least, when I refer to religion its mostly in reference to the form and practice of religion. A person can be religious, but not necessarily spiritual. He or she can go through the motion and process of the religion and attend all the related events, but not necessarily have a deep understanding of the belief or a close relationship with the being/beings associated with the religion.

For me at least, a person is spiritual or waking a spiritual path when he or she makes effort to gain a deeper personal understanding of a certain belief system or makes attempts to build relationships with beings in an associated religion or with the spirit world in general. Spirituality is an internal process of understanding, evolution... and sometimes transformation, according to the belief system the person subscribes to.

So I've had dreams about religion in past few weeks. In particular, I had a dream where I was a kind of investigator... I think... sort of in the whole Sam Spade - Maltese Falcon mood and tone. The dream story started with someone discovering the actual historial site of Camelot. That's right, King Arthur with the knights and the whole hog. They even found the remants of the round table, it was some stone thing that was blacked, withered with age and even broken down the middle. I guess I was there because I felt there was something pretty strange going on with the people who were excavating the site.

And my hunch was right. The excavators turned the site into some kind of theme park. I supposed at first that they were going to do the whole King Arthur thing, but as it turned out, the theme park was one where they featured different systems of belief. The people in the park even built different versions of what each religion regarded as "heaven". Curious and very suspicious, I went to the "heaven" of believers in the Norse religion. It was a house that looked a bit like a rich viking style habitation, but at the same time, it was fake and had the fake theme-park styled trappings.

Oddly enough, there were people going inside who really believed they were in the viking heaven ... some shabby Valhalla... I noticed in corners of this viking style longhouse that there were construction people busily tapping away at the timbers. Because the longhouse was of a limited size, I asked the person in charge of this exhibit what would happen if "heaven" became too full. He said that if that happened, they would throw out everyone who was excessively drunk.

For those of you who don't know viking lore. Viking heaven or Valhalla is somewhere where brave viking warriors go to when they are killed in battle or die in a violent manner. There they drink and feast all night and fight battles in the day forever and ever or until Ragnarok (Twilight of the Gods, or the end of the world...). At least, that's how its supposed to be.

When I heard that people were getting "cheated out of heaven" so to speak, I felt pretty annoyed by the whole smarmy setup and decided to expose the whole theme park at a certain big event. I would show them with my magic what the real world of spirits and incorporeal beings is really like... I thought.

Now, bear in mind, this was my reaction in the dream. I won't necessarily do this same thing in real life.

Just before I was about to step out and "do my thing"... the mask that I was wearing cracked... split down from the top to the bottom. Why am I wearing a mask? It's pretty simple really. Lots of people whom I live and associate with are pretty normal people. They have no idea that I am doing this whole magic and spirtuality thing. So yeah, I do wear a real mask when I do stuff in public that has to do with magic or alternative spirituality.

The dream ended with me trying to repair my mask... unable to go on and expose the frauds... it disintegrated into fragments in my hands...

I told this dream to F, a very good friend who is on a spiritual path as well, but slightly different from mine... she only remarked it was "very interesting" and asked me what my interpretation was as to the whole mask-splitting thing. I shrugged in response. F has on many an occasion before asked me if I am going to continue living as I do ... wearing a mask and pretending half the time that I am not into the whole magic-alternative spirituality thing...

I never give her an answer. I just say... "We'll see..."

I had dream No. 2 last night... or rather early this morning... I don't really remember much of it save that it was very strange. I was in a "resort" of sorts this time. (I'm using the word "resort" because I cannot really remember what the situation in question was about. But it feels like a resort. Although in retrospect, it could have been the compound of some kind of American style cult)

The resort wasn't really built. It was still in the very early stages of construction and mud was everywhere. I think either myself or someone else placed a dead deity on the land. However, I ended up being the one who was shovelling earth around to make sure the being was well burried. I think at one point I was even crushing holy books into little bits and throwing it into the grave. Deep down inside there was something that knew if I kept up the effort, this being would arise and we would destroy everyone. And yet, my lips said to everyone that what I was doing was "necessary". I think deep down I knew I was "growing a god".... so to speak... but at the same time, it had strange religious overtones which .... now thinking about it... I am distinctly feeling a great deal of discomfort.

Eventually, when all the earth was shovelled in the right place and the land was shifted so that it was now very different looking than it was before, the deity arose. It was large, awful and reminded me a little bit of a very large Jabba the Hutt... just with spindy, short legs. I realised in a moment of clarity that I too looked like this this being. I waddled around on my spindy legs, except I was shorter.

In my panic, I got on my vehicle... really a small office-like chair that moved faster than a person can run but not as fast as a car and paddled it with my legs. I think I did backtrack to get some stuff I left behind, but that was not a wise choice as it meant that the being was now so much closer to catching up with me.

I "paddled" up the road and found that the entire world around the "resort" was nothing but a wasteland of crumbling suburban buildings and dried weed spreading in a thick tangle on the road and almost impossible to move through. I then ran to a place where some people were getting into cars and tried to get on one, but they did not stop to let me on. The car I tried to stop was a white station wagon with a Mexican family and kids who were sitting with a large old-style computer monitor in the ample back portion of the car. They stared at me as the car moved off.

At this point, I noticed that the cars had found a way through the tangle of dried weed and there was a highway that stretched into what appeared to be the Arizona desert... going on in infinity towards distant mountains that were wreathed with dark stormclouds.

And that was where the dream ended.

I'm not too sure if the dreams are telling me something about what is going on internally or if I have been reading too much sci-fi and fantasy or playing wayyyyy too many games, but I thought it would be good to make a record of the dreams I've had somewhere.

So Much To Do But...

'Tis the season to make merry, but it's also the time of the year where I make sure that most of my side projects get accomplished. Work with the teams has slowed down so I should have more time right?

There's quite a bit to do, but I'm too lazy to do it :P It could be the cough I'm still having but I kinda doubt it. I really just don't feel like doing anything and I'm not too sure why I feel this way. I mean there's tons of little things to catch up with financially, socially... spiritually... but I'm really just not feeling the urge to do it.

Anyways, currently as I'm here updating this blog I'm also wrapping up some of the work I'm doing with the teams. I really hate the paperwork. I wish people would just get over the need to have lots of documentation flying around. Today is not a good day. Woke up late today and argued with my younger sister, we mostly wake up in the afternoon because we keep late hours and she works the graveyard shift. I guess she isn't in a good mood today since she has to work tonight. Since the day started off with a sour note, I was prompted to get some of my work done :P

Funny, we only get hardworking when things get bad.... well, it could just be me :( That's really a pattern I have to work on this Christmas.

The weekend was pretty good. Had a great night out on Friday, loads of laughs. Saturady was also interesting. Woke up at 4 because I was out all night. But met an old friend who invited me to the opening of his new company... something in events management. Was great, I never knew that Singapore actually had male models and potentials that look good. I guess the younger kids these days have more potential than the guys in my generation.

After that, had "coffee" (we were at starbucks, but never drank any coffee... my old friend is the keep fit type) and I found out quite a few interesting things about him. Speaking with him, I'm reminded of that fact that sometimes the ordinary Joe/Jane that walks down the street might be something that steps out of a fantasy novel.

Heck, I should know this, but sometimes I forget and need to be reminded. I often lament to friends when meeting them, that there is nothing exceptional or special existing in our modern urbanised world, often forgetting that I myself am supposedly something that does not exist. Talking to my old friend I am reminded that once not too long ago, I used to live in a reality where people got possessed, kids (usually kids... sheesh.... why they do it I don't understand) summoned up ghosts and "demons" and some poor sucker found out that he had entered into a contract many many lifetimes ago with undesirable entities and those same beings were now coming to collect...

How soon we humans forget.

I guess once something falls out of our reality for a few years, it also falls out of our mind. I have to remind myself not to forget the reality that once was, because even though I might not be living in it as much anymore, it does not mean that that reality does not exist.

Different Realities... side by side.

Had a talk with a young fellow from the teams today. I always had him pegged for a bit of a joker... he's always full of wisecracks. He likes to pepper our meetings with irrelevent comments. I think once his team got a wee bit fed up and told him to shaddup. He does seem to have run with the rough crowd some years back, got into fights and I suppose some gangs, but I had always assumed his fighting was mostly confined to schoolboy confrontations and petty teenage gangwars... generally silly and mostly harmless...

Thanks to my tendency to slap labels on people I meet. I never really took notice of his comments and jokes - he always joked a lot about there being fights downstairs from where he stayed every night. I never really paid much attention to what he actually said because I thought he was just blowing stuff up, like most "smart alec" types do.

I found out the truth today when I had a slightly more serious chat with him.

He apparently lives in a rough neighbourhood somewhere in Singapore which has some pretty violent gangs in the neighbourhood. Also, he knows people who are into the local illegal fighting scene.... that's right, there is an illegal fighting circult in this dull bubble of a country. Apparently, some guys get into a ring and fight and people bet on them :P Now, I am still feel a bit doubtful about this claim, but he has said that photographic evidence is possible. I wonder if he will bring some of it to our next meeting?

Knowing what I know now, all his comments and jokes seem to take on a slightly sinister shade - a sort of hidden window to his world. He used to make joking comments about how he decided to quit and "turn professional"... I never really understood what he meant before... I kinda guess THAT refers to his current career choice. He said that he'd been in fights and gangs, but it was still better to "turn professional"... certainly I pointed out that gangs don't pay as well.... he laughed.

Talking to him I feel a little sorry for the predicament he is in and certainly, his irritating jokes and smiling demeanour seem like a tragic and somewhat heroic attempt to grin in the face of bad Fate. I just hope that he is not the sole breadwinner in his family or something like that because his old man is currently a jailbird for lopping off someone's arm in a machete fight :P

Listening to his colourful accounts, I sometimes feel that I am probably still semi-sequested in the protective bubble of normalcy that has been created by our system. I suppose something like an illegal circult of fights IS possible in Singapore, but as a Singaporean, I feel the disbelief rising in me. I did question him as to why I have never read about it in the papers, he said that the reporters sometimes suppress these stories because of either lack of interest in them or the need to create a sense that everything is normal...

Sounds like a bit of conspiracy mixed in with a fragment of Twilight Zone...

But when I think about it, THAT ACCOUNT is his view of his reality and if nothing else, metaphysics has taught me that any kind of reality can exist side by side in the same context. For instance, my reality is filled with conniving entities, astounding coincidences and weird magic... If I were to tell it to him, he would think I am crazy as well. I mean just the other day I was telling a friend that someone we know who "came back" (after being clinically dead for longer than the number of minutes they say you can be dead for before your brain starts to turn to mush) is really not the original inhabitant of that body...

So I really can't say his view of reality is fake.... all I can ask for is pictures ....

I think I'm just jolted out of my comfort zone by the thought that the Singapore I know is not quite what it all seems. I thought that THAT Singapore, with the gangs and the dingy one-room flats crammed with families vanished long ago with the world of my childhood. I do still remember the one-room flat we had, dinners of plain rice, soya sauce and tiny fish fried till most of the moisture dried up... (my grandma can't cook)... our odd neighbours... long dark corridors and dirty kids playing on hard concrete.

I suppose anything that has ever existed in time and space never really dies. It just gets swept to one side and keeps on going through other people even if you have left it long ago.

Reality... that does really take on a different meaning now. I have in this lifetime, met people who spend their entire lives travelling from one place to the next. With no idea where they are going to spend the night or what source of income awaits them and yet they march forward along the road without a single care, confident in that they will be able to survive comfortably no matter where they go.

As a Singaporean, I have to wonder... how can such people exist. The notion of a life that has nothing to do with work and saving enough for a nest egg in one's old age is ... unthinkable I suppose for someone of my upbringing. :P I some small way, I envy their carefree existance... and I guess though metaphysics I am able to gain an intellectual understanding of how the universe serendipidously arranges things for them... but trying to actually put that type of synchronicity into action for myself is really a tough call...

I guess it must take instinct to create that kind of reality... or faith..... heh..... well I guess it all boils down to THAT ... in the end.

Flu Again... is this ever going to stop?!!!

Despite my best efforts at self-care, I have caught the dreaded bane of my life... I've got the !&*^$*#&! flu :P Honestly, when I decided to seriously follow a spiritual path in end 2004, I stopped catching the flu every month. I was so happy and proud ... :( well, its now back and I got it the very same day I got it last month the 20th . Currently, I am living a far healthier life than I have lived before. I just found out that I lost some weight recently (hooray!) and I'm certainly looking trimmer than I have in years... but the stupid flu is back... I am pretty sure it's got to do with something karmic. Problem is, I don't know what and I certainly am having a tough time transfering the healing from the metaphysical to the physical realm for this one.

Friends have suggested before that its probably some really really big pattern that I am in... but seriously WHAT THE HECK is this pattern?

I am glad to say that I successfully brought into the physical, healing for a certain part of my physicality sometime earlier this year, so I am fairly sure the method I am employing does work. I am just not sure why its so tough this time. Could it be that I am just blind to the pattern(s) OR perhaps some incorrporeal powers-that-be are getting a jolly snigger over seeing me cough up my lungs?

I'm pretty tired of this. And seriously, I'm no Raistlin (yeah, its the non-stop coughing wizard from Dragonlance... yeah even I have read that stuff) because I don't use my chronic illness like some kind of dramatic device. Also, this time the flu was so bad, it affected both my arms and they SURE hurt like all hell with pain shooting from my shoulders down to my palms.

It took me awhile to remember that the whole arms thing was the result of a horrible ancient corporal punishment that I went through in one of my "colourful" past lives. It should have been pretty duh, its not a lifetime which I really want to delve into... 'cos I did some really stupid things that had huge reprecussions. Yeah, it was even worse than being a witch burning inquisitor :(

I'm stumped. Well, but as they say, life goes on and so does my own spiritual journey. I hope I find out soon what's going on. Seriously, I'm in no state right now to play metaphysical detective. Just trying to make sure that the teams do their work is a big enough chore. I swear, some people have 101 ways of squirming out of doing some work. It's not hard work... so I don't understand why some of them just don't do it and move on.