Apr

2

Since a boy, I’m always curious about everything. Some stupid things I did was to cut my finger with a knife as a result of watching suicide movies, you know those cut wrist type? Also there was a time where I poked a 3-pin wall socket with a metal piece, and I can honestly tell you that I learned the word ”electric shock” from experience. I slept with my grandmother when I was young, most probably before kindergarten. I remembered always peeking out the room windows to watch what my relatives are watching. I found out much later that those were porn.

Besides all those useless experiences, but experience nontheless, I was also into discovering deeper truths. When I started schooling, I was very interested in star constellations, the bermuda triangle, time travel, among others. There was a time when I have a theory that time travel is not possible. The reason is that if it is possible, people in the future already did that. I’m so proud because I read the same theory somewhere (newspapers, magazine? I can’t remember), but not published by me of course! Another theory is that even if time travelling is possible, there might be existing policies in the future that prevented them from using it.

That was a very long time ago. Now, I see the concept of time as a different thing altogether. I no longer see it as a linear concept, like how our life and community based them upon. I now see time as a static concept, and everything that happens, happening and will happen is a branch from this static time concept. This concept is very complicated to explain, but most people call this “The Power Of Now”.

The Real Buddhism

As a kid, I am very curious into why different people have different kinds of belief, and hence, different Gods. To know them better, I need to know more about my own religion to start with, which is Buddhism. Buddhism was founded by Siddharta Gautama, who was born a prince, shielded away from sickness, aging people and suffering by his king father. Siddharta Gautama at the age of 29, having seen the first old man, was explained by his charioteer that all people grew old, he decided to embark on a journey far beyond the palace. Having experienced an ascetic life, a life of begging for alms (money and food) and also a period of food depravation that almost lead him to die of starvation, he finally achieved enlightenment at the age of 35. He was then known as Buddha, or the Enlightened One. Buddhism is a teaching and not of worship, it is one of the few religions that does not have a god. Buddha once said “Do not worship me, for the god is within you”.

This finding strucked me hard. This meant that what I’ve been doing, the worshipping of those idols at the altar at home is wrong and I’ve been doing that for 20 years! At that moment, I felt like I’m the biggest fool in the world! From that point onwards, I’m a true Buddhist, refusing to worship anything else but myself.

The Benefits Of Religion

It is true that I felt like an idiot when I found out that Buddhism is not a worshipping religion but of a teaching one, still it gave me a good structure to grow at a young age. Starting from the first day we are born, the environment or the community is shaping us towards a certain direction. With a religion, we have a guide on how we can live our lives and how we can lead a happier life. This is true until religion is not capable of improving us anymore, in other words, until we outgrows our religion. This is not a surprise because most religios materials are made out of writings from a thousand years ago, and to make things worse, those first written books or scripts are from words passed down orally after hundreds of years. This is like giving future Microsoft Windows 5000 user our Windows XP manual. It surely are not 100% relevant but still provides a good history background. Same goes to religion, one day, you will need to start finding your own truths, because religions can only offer that much.

The Effect Of Religions

After finding out the truth about Buddhism, I went further to understand more religions and the impact they have on the community and the world at large. The findings too, are not good. As a Malaysian, living in a country of multi-etnics, multicultural and multilingual society, I have a better view of what religions can do to a community. It’s really cool when people takes religion as guides, but things can turn really ugly when they are obsessed with it. They are the reason why communities of different race and religion doesn’t mix with each other, they create a transparent barrier between them.

Exorcism

Let me use exorcism as an example to explain why religion is man made. Recently I watched the movie The Rite, it’s an exorcism movie where those priests perform exorcism on patients suspected of being possessed. Imagine this, Father Lucas tried to coerce the name out of the of the demon as part of the exorcism process :

Father Lucas : Demon! Speak your name! Speak your name!
Demon : Argh… *$^)**@
Father Lucas : Speak you demon! Tell me your name!
Demon : Giong Siiiii….. (Vampire in Cantonese)

Father Lucas (calling Master Wong) : Hi Master Wong, this demon is a Chinese demon! Crap, not my department! Can you follow up?
Master Wong : Sure Father Lucas, let me know the details, I’ll be right there.

This was made up with some humour, but still the point remains. According to Wikipedia and Religious Tolerance there are around 40 religions in the world. So in the worst case scenario we need to forward that poor soul being possessed by demon 40 times around the world?!! Is that even logical?

You tell me…

Dec

19

If you observe well enough, there are only two kinds of people in this world. Either that they are a creator or a follower. This closely resembles the 80/20 rule, where 80% of the world’s population controls 20% of the world’s wealth, and vice versa, 20% of the world’s population controlling 80% of the world’s wealth.

From this rule, the 80% are the followers whereas the 20% are the creators. Creators gains more wealth by giving and sharing more value and the followers often follows these creators and have less wealth. This sounds very disproportionate but it is a very balanced system.

Accepting Social Conditioning By Default

The reason for this happening is what I call accepting social conditioning by default. Most of us are born with parents, and it is from them that we learn our survival or living skills from. We will accept and inherit by default things like religion, god, behaviour and social practices (celebrating christmas, new year, birthday, etc) from our parents. This is what experts call “external factors” of social conditioning.

As we age, we will learn, accept and inherit social conditions from our colleagues, friends and mentors. Without realizing, you are already categorized as The Follower, and the more you follow, the more uneasy you will feel as this will restrict The Creator inside you from being able to express themselves. Wealthy people like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs realized this at a very early age and rebel against the Social Conditioning System, they dropped out of college and went on to fulfill their goal as a Creator.

Dropping Out From The System

I’m not sure what got into me but I’ve always been a born rebel. When I was a kid, I always questioned why my family has a worshiping altar. They have idols like Guan Yin and Guan Gong but I don’t find them cool, at that age (I think maybe 5 years old?), I prefer to worship Ultraman, and I think many would agree with me!

As I age, I saw and found more flaws in the system, very much like how Neo felt in the Matrix. Having lucid dreams was one of those experiences that brought me to the edge. As a result, today I am a person that don’t believe in Demons (I won’t be afraid of them even if they exist), I don’t worship Gods (I will not respect them even if they exist) and I don’t believe in fear (I will try to conquer them one at a time).

What I believe is myself and myself only. I’m not saying that everyone should start worship me instead of God, but what I’m trying to achieve in this lifetime is to have as many people believing in themselves like how I believe in me.

The Follower In Us
Believe me, being a 24/7 creator is a very tough job that even I think isn’t worth it. The reason we are living now is for us to have a chance to enjoy life. We do that by being both the creator and the follower. The follower in me loves Lord Of The Ring Trilogy and still finds that the best movie so far, and I enjoy listening to Rap music. You follow on areas that you do not excel in.

The Creator In Us
Every individual is unique. This statement is true even if you are born as a twins, you might have similar biological structure but your soul and mind is truly unique. Being unique guarantees each and every one of us to have the chance to do something that nobody else is able to achieve. Since I started believing in myself, I’ve shed many fears like fear of the dark, fear of heights, fear of approaching females, fear of roller coaster rides (no matter how high, fast or whatever), fear of correcting superiors/customers when they are wrong, fear of losing a job and many many more.

I think I excel in the fear of demons department, so much so that even if they exist they will fled the very moment they see me because I will tear them apart and send them to hell again. The problem is I’m not sure if they can die twice. With this kind of courage, I’m able to help friends close to me to shed their fear of demons and spirits. Even my most timid friends are doing quite well now. Somehow they are able to rub on my fearlessness and benefit from it. One of my dreams are to be able to sleep overnight in a morgue full of dead bodies, so if you know of anyone who can assist me, please let me know. I’m even willing to pay for the experience!

Living Life To The Fullest
In the end, what matters most is everyone is able to live their lives to the fullest. We are all Creators from the first day we live and have the right to create whatever it is that we want, so stop being a full time follower and for once follow your heart and gain the courage to create. It will not be easy, but the Creator will always be there to encourage fellow Creators and will reward those with persistence.

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