Living every moment worthy of our existence

The days are getting warmer, the sun sheds its light longer by the day. Spring is just a few weeks away! I can feel the energy welling up from within me. All the energy accumulated during winter is now anticipating the gates of spring to open and release its living forces!

The building of the tiny house is progressing steadily, there are some small problems here and there but they are not something to get stuck on.

After placing the insulation(glass wool), I also spread a layer of vinyl to make the walls water proof. Before placing the finishing wall, I placed another layer of plywood. Let me state again that I am no pro! I am simply doing things by following a book and thinking by myself.

I am now working on the bunk beds and the dining area. I will create a separate post for those parts.

While I was progressing on my tiny house, during the silent nights and the breaks during work, I experience moments where I cannot express anything in words. I am simply filled with deep satisfaction of experiencing life as I am experiencing it. There is no deep philosophising of life, society, culture or anything. I am simply happy, well, and satisfied with what I am experiencing. It was as if I was embraced in the bosom of nature and felt no agitation or any negative feelings or thoughts. It has been a while since I experienced this and feeling it again gave me a little more boost to build my kin's domain. Recently, there were turbulences within me that I cannot divulge here but the silence brought me messages that can only be felt, not heard. I felt again that our Creator made this world originally so that we can experience Co-creation and Joy- simple as that. Our dogmas and philosophising are not needed as long as we are connected to the Oneness with the Creator. I thought that Life, as we thought we knew it, is not something that should be given too much hard thinking if we can only feel what the Creator is calling us to do. Simply Co-create and live in Joy. Co-creation means giving birth to a fully-fledged human in a space created with pure Love and out of this creation, Joy is felt by all that perceives it. Live in paradise as what the Divine dream wished for us. No matter where we are in our lives right now, be Joyful, try to focus your attention on what brings happiness to you and to others. This is an important first step to our liberation. You don't have to have a specific plan on what you are going to do in life, as long as you carry the strong foundation on what your purpose is, your specific mission in life will unfold naturally.

From overthinking and too much contemplation, I now feel that I am leading towards simply enjoying what I am experiencing. Live every moment joyfully, with high spirits, as how our Parent-Creator dreams for us to live. I encountered the Hawaiian word "Aloha", and the historian Serge Kahili King describes its meaning as a "...joyful sharing of life energy in the present". May we emit this energy in our everyday lives amidst the chaos and troubles. May our lives be the proof that there is Joy, Goodness, and Love in this world and all it takes is a confident step towards the bosom of Nature. May you be filled and overflow with life force so that those around you can receive it and share it. May the nutriments that go inside our bodies be helpful in preserving and improving our bodies and not lead us to hastened decay. Lastly, may you be blessed with an extra strength to defy the dark forces tempting to lead you astray again. 

I may not be able to post another one for a while now. I am giving less time online and more time on those presently around me. I will be back with better posts and I am hoping to start a youtube channel where I will share the events in the family domain.

Aloha!

Love and Peace,

Ekashi

The Sun is roaring with gentle rays as the promises of spring arrives.

Making Everyday a Valentine's day

Hello friends!

Allow me to ride the bandwagon of Valentine's day so that we can all get out of its misrepresentation of Love and get off from that bandwagon.

Love, as we are all aware of, is a tremendous energy, a driving force. Love is very sensitive to lies and deceptions and it leaves as its purity is tainted. Love then is turned into senseless drama, misguided passion, and reckless decisions.

The true energy of Love is one that aspires to Co-create, spread goodness, give birth to inspired actions, make one closer to Oneness. Unfortunately, the current construct of society and media has turned it into a perversion of romance and selfishness.

True love is not fickle and requires effort and a good soil to grow. 

True love is a seed that sprouts and grows only into True Love. Think of it as planting an apple seed. Once you plant an apple seed, only an apple plant will sprout not an orange, or anything else. Like a seed, True Love will never sprout into hate, lust, passion, and others that it is not.

True love may sprout but it requires effort and deep looking and understanding. Even on a sprout growing slowly and bound by the laws of nature, our efforts and understanding will nurture its growth. True love is not lazy and is not indifferent. It requires practice such as the mantras that Thich Nhat Hanh shared with us. You may practice this with anyone, anytime, and anywhere when the situation permits.

These are the five mantras that Nhat Hanh encourages us to practice. Before saying these mantras, calm yourself first, breathe, and dwell in the present moment and focus all your being to the one in front of you.

1. "Darling, I am here for you."

2. "Darling, I know you are there and it makes me happy."

3. "Darling, I know you suffer and I am here for you."

4. "Darling, I am suffering and I need your help."

5. "Darling, this is a happy moment."

(source: http://tnhaudio.org/tag/four-mantras/)

Practice these to your loved ones everyday. Find time to appreciate them and show them True Love.

True Love like a seed, needs a good soil to grow. This soil is similar to your faith, or where your faith is grounded upon. Faith, I believe, is not a matter of Religion. It is a matter of an individual's complete trust to his or her experience of the truth. If a person has experienced God, then by all means, place your complete trust on God and let it not be shaken by struggles. Faith crumbles once it is founded on simply what others say or what a book says. Faith must come from our own experience and our own direct feeling of the truth. True love, as I have mentioned does not dwell in lies and deception. If your Love is grounded on such faith, it will also crumble with your faith and will cause you great suffering. 

Maybe we can practice True Love everyday. Not only on our object of romantic love but also on our family, friends, society, plants, animals, earth, stars, on all Beings of this Universe!

Let's celebrate Love everyday!

Even a simple rainbow can be an object of our Love. All it takes is to feel sincerely happy that it is there.

My Visit to the Philippines and the Candlelights that Illuminated my Way

Hello my dear good friends!

I visited the Philippines with a few objectives. One is to pursue a business that can help both Filipino farmers and Japanese health conscious consumers. Second, meet important people in my life. Third, share my thoughts, feelings, and aspirations to a larger audience.

Before visiting the Philippines, I prepared myself to stay grounded and be still despite the rampant aggression and chaos. As I stepped outside of the plane, I felt it, not the aggression, not the chaos, not the hopelessness, but I felt the light, the hope, the aspirations, the life force, the happiness. Yes, there was chaos and aggression and dark energies but my eyes and soul was immediately focused and attracted to the positive energies that a few people carry. The smiles and the laughter that I am hearing were sincere, were hopeful of a better future. Maybe it is I who have changed and now I see everything in new light or maybe Philippines is indeed changing. 

I usually utter the phrase "Malayo pa ang tao (Humans are still far)". Far from what? From the truth, from Goodness, from the Oneness, from the Source, from God. My visit here in the Philippines led me to trust otherwise.

There are amazing people hiding like mushrooms hiding under the shade, humbly spreading their roots under the fallen leaves, but they are spreading millions and millions of spores and further spreading their network. I met people who are starting their gardens, people who have read Anastasia and are now looking for land, those who are spreading the awakening of people, those who are sincerely trying to change their community in their own ways. 

I have also seen the University changing. I have always seen education institutions as dogmatic and closed to new traditions but when I visited my alma matter, I felt the complete opposite! The institution allowed me to share about Co-creation, about Family Homesteads, about Anastasia, about Kin's Domain, Spaces of Love- words that have subconsciously never been allowed to be heard in the institution! Professors, farmers, gardeners, retiring overseas worker, students- the audience was a mixture of beautiful people from different roots but carrying the same core. I had a talk with my past thesis adviser, who is now a director of the institution, and I was pleasantly surprised as to how the vision for the institution is slowly changing. There is definitely something significant going on here.

When I finished all of my business in the University, I went back home using our public transportation. Many are already aware of the situation of the roads and transportation in the urban area. The Philippines is losing time, money, and energy everyday just because of the situation of traffic. I rode the provincial bus going back to our house in the city and the situation remained the same. The roads were congested, people were crossing the road without care for the rules, and there were countless private vehicles. I saw people desperately trying to get ahead of one another, pushing, shoving their way through the traffic of both vehicles and people. Once you see an image like this, the common reaction would be to get stressed and wallow in the darkness or give up and accept this as hopeless. I thought that this would be a great opportunity to practice deep looking and listening. What I experienced was something that can only be explained once you felt it. I felt that many are suffering from an affliction that they themselves are not aware of. It's like you have a disease and you do not know it so you don't go to the doctor to get yourself healed. Like a tumor that has spread all over your body yet you do not feel or you ignore the symptoms. Many people are unaware because of their surroundings, the way they were raised, their experiences, the media, and their own choices. Layer after layer of suffering has covered the seeds of truth within us. The image is grim and bleak and if you allow yourself to succumb to it, your light and hope may also fail you but when I witnessed these images again, I immersed myself to beautiful images and my attention was directed immediately to the small candlelights within my reach. I saw the children, carrying tremendous potential to change the community, sleeping beside their mothers who are placing all of their love to their children. I saw people who are trying to change themselves and improve despite the great economic hurdle that must be overcome. I saw people cleaning the streets, picking up trash, no matter how ubiquitous the plastic rubbish covered the streets. I saw in the faces of some people the living force that exudes through their will. The dire situation of the city can either further darken the character or it can steel the mind and heart of an individual and become an unwavering light.

It is always easier to give up and let the darkness consume us but it takes greater courage, faith, and trust to be the candlelight that illuminates the expanding darkness. These people that I met are flickering candlelights who have the limitless potential to become stars that can brighten the the sleeping universe. Their humble lights attracted my light-seeking spirit and allowed me to meet them and obtain a deep insight to the situation in the Philippines. 

There is goodness. 

There is goodness, just look for the candlelight. 

We are all wading through darkness with our eyes closed. We just have to open our eyes to be guided by the humble light radiated by these people.

A new mission has sprouted within me but there are proper steps and infinite doors or ways to be a light in this world. 

I think I will be saying "Malayo pa ang tao (Humans are still far)" less for now.

"She is waiting, for an unimaginable long time, for us to return to her bosom and live in paradise. All it takes is one confident, mindful step of trust to the door opened by Mother Nature."

(Photo of Mount Makiling taken at People's Park in Tagaytay, Cavite, Philippines)