8/27/2015

Be My Friend

 At times I covet material things to impress others, but quickly realize those impressed are as superficial as the things themselves.

6/18/2015

Lost & Found

When lost, the best place to look is inside.

6/18/2013

Ambitious Denial

The more we deny who we are, the less we will be who we want.

4/07/2013

Honest With Our Feelings

Love is a beautiful word to conceal our lust.

3/31/2013

The Courageous Life

It's easy to live the life you don't want and difficult to live the one you do. We too often settle for the easy life, letting the one we want pass us by, forever dancing in the back of our mind, teasing us with what could have been, taunting us with what is. 

It is never too late to be courageous; to trade the cowardly life we accepted for the valiant life we dreamed of. One single day pursuing the life we dream is greater than an eternity escaping the life we dread.

11/28/2012

Only Today

Nothing is done tomorrow, only today. Too often we escape today with the hope of tomorrow, leaving our lives unlived, our dreams unfulfilled. Today is our last resort, tomorrow our retreat; surrendering to the future we become stagnant and dead.

If we want to change, if we want to be, if we want to live the life we dreamed, we must act today, we must act now, for tomorrow never comes and today will always be.

8/15/2012

Tick, Tock . . .

As time ticks by, we sit back and wonder why, we let it move so fast without enjoying every moment like the last.

7/05/2012

A Fateful Lesson

So long as we leave our lives in the hands of fate, we will long for the life we had not the will to create.

6/08/2011

The Ideal and the Reality

Upon reflection, one realizes one has few friends, but many users.

6/02/2011

Knowing and Seeing

The moment one claims to "know," true seeing ceases and illusion begins.

2/03/2011

Our Own Best Doctor

A walk a day keeps the psychologist away.

1/28/2011

The Scared Ego, The Sacred Nobody

The ego arises from our fear of being nobody.

1/20/2011

Lust And Love

I believe in lust at first sight, for love requires none at all.

1/13/2011

Strike At The Root

Ignorance of self is the root of all hate.

1/06/2011

The Best Medicine

Love is the gateway drug to life.

6/02/2010

Manifest Destiny

To believe destiny is written by any other than thee, is to fall victim to monotony and make life mere lottery.

To stake our life on the roll of dice, to sacrifice our will to satisfy our vice, to become experimental mice of an imaginary poltergeist, is the greatest heist orchestrated by man-made device.

It is blaspheme to leave our destiny in the hands of fantasy, and our responsibility to will our dream to reality.

5/12/2010

Once Upon a Time

Our ancestors feared and worshipped gods; we fear our humanity and worship ourselves.

3/27/2010

Happy Birthday

Every day we awake from the womb of sleep resurrected from the death of yesterday, born again to the life of today. Every day is our birthday; a day to rejoice, to celebrate, to dance.

Too many of us are caught up in ritual, tradition, and our own ambition; too many of us make the extraordinary ordinary, our every day everyday; too many of us leave the living for the dead.

Each day, for our birthday, the cake of opportunity is baked, the candle of being is lit, the gift of Life presented; but we spit on our cake, blow out our candle, and curse our gift.

Like a spoiled child we pull our hair, cry our eyes, and scream for more, more, more! Our pulling only causes suffering, our tears only blur beauty, our screams only express our wildest fear of emptiness, emptiness, emptiness.

What more can be given to us who have it all? What present, what gift, is more precious and valuable than life itself?

We do not wish to understand, instead, we the spoiled children of the world work jobs we hate to buy things we don’t need, marry people we don’t love to save us from being alone, and let our whiny roar for more, more, more tear us apart like an internal civil war.

We must treat the child like an adult, we must listen to our emotions and thoughts; we must watch as they are created and destroyed, understand how and why they come and go.

Only then can we give birth to a new us, a new child, who is not spoiled, but feels spoiled with all the wonder and joy life offers. Who shares one’s cake with one’s enemies, who kindles others’ candles with one’s own, who blushingly, with gratitude and humbleness, accepts the gift of Life.

Only then will we realize that every day is truly our birthday. That birthdays don’t just celebrate the yearly anniversary of coming from the womb, but the daily regeneration of life’s bloom.

3/24/2010

The Fountain of Youth

Dear explorer, the Fountain of Youth flows neither in the East nor the West. Its sunny spring hides not in the tropical forest or on the mythical island. Its gushing waters are neither bound in the pages of a book nor sealed within a drug.

The Fountain of Youth rests within our body, its waters waiting to be tapped by our heart; unleashed with the disillusion of the mind and freeing of our being; its spring let loose to swim in our blood, circulate through our body, pulsate under our skin, and emanate from our being.

So throw away your ships, my explorers, and set your sails within, for the greatest exploration exists not across the deepest ocean or in the farthest reaches of space, but in the bodies and minds of the explorers themselves.

3/22/2010

The Greatest Book of All

We are the author of the book called Life. We write its story only once with the pen of our actions and the language of our being. Performed by the heart, not the imagination; written in blood, not ink; upon the soul, not paper; from our birthly beginning to our peaceful ending, we control the swift movements of our actions upon the soul, determining character, deciding whether, Life be a tragedy or triumph.

The greatest stories are not remembered for their length, but for the truth and being emanating from their each and every sentence. The yearly chapters order the chaos, giving structure to the beautiful masterpiece, making Life a wholly book. A wholly book authored not by destiny, but by ourselves; a wholly book which is not just any book, but the greatest book of all.

Do not let Life's pages go to waste, my brothers and sisters, for each and every square inch is a testament to Humanity.

3/17/2010

Concrete Belief

Truth cannot penetrate walls built before the ear, for bricks of belief do nothing but make the mind concrete.

3/16/2010

The State of Heaven

Heaven is not a holy state, but a state of mind. It exists not in the clouds, but on earth. It requires not a journey of flight, but a journey of mind. Ruled by oneself, not by one god; reached by the sacrifice of the Ego, not the Savior. A state where all present are loved as one, not where all loved ones past are present; a state of satisfaction derived from overcoming sensual pleasure, not a place where one is overcome by sensual pleasures and satisfied.

One need not look up for Heaven, nor down, but inside; one need not search the skies for a god, nor the seas, but the body; one need not believe in myth, nor in legend, but in oneself; for Heaven is an earth, and Earth is a heaven.

3/11/2010

True Love is Not Love

True Love is not a kiss on the lips, a sexual embrace, the ring on a finger. True Love is not fragile as to swing like a pendulum from love to hate, hate to love. True Love is not selective as to pick, like a contest, one among all. True Love is not dependent as to cause withdrawal like a drug when a lover is absent. True Love is not violent as to be guarded like a possession coveted by its owner. True Love is not temporary as to flee like a thief when attraction fades. True Love is not limited as to be expressed like an idea in a word.

True love is not separation, but cooperation; True Love is not hindrance, but dance; True Love is not love, but an all encompassing state of being that unites this and that, us and them, I and you.

3/09/2010

The Sleeping Dream

We sleepwalk through life and awake in our dreams, never fully living life and awakening our dreams; discouraged by others; transformed in time; from a child of hope and wonder to a grave of despair and expectation.

Our dreams can wait till we sleep or our life can act out our dreams, the choice is ours, to dream life away or live the life we dream.

3/04/2010

Universal Reflection

We all want to change the world, but no one wants to change oneself.

I hear many of us say why can’t there be peace in the world when there’s no peace within ourselves. I hear many of us scream stop the wars when there’s a war ongoing within ourselves. I hear many of us say there’s too much hate in the world when there’s too much hate in our heart. I hear many of us yell stop the violence when we are violent ourselves.

In order for there to be change outside, there must be change inside. In order for there to be love in the world, there must be love in our hearts, in order for there to be peace without, there must be peace within, in order for the world to be one, we must be one, for we are a reflection of the world and the world is a reflection of us.

3/01/2010

Waiting is the Easiest Part

We are always waiting; waiting for someone, something, some moment, hoping that they or it will make life worth living. And sometimes they or it do, sometimes we feel alive again, we feel our heart beating, our blood pumping, we feel full of life. But then it goes, out of nowhere our heart runs cold, our blood runs dry, the joy we felt dissipates and in its place is a hard emptiness like before, but worse, because now we are without that person, that thing, that moment which made us feel so free, so in tune with life.

This is the cycle of humanity, these are the peaks and valleys we subject ourselves to each and every time we look outside ourselves for happiness. And then we pass it on to our children hoping that maybe our life was a failure and maybe they will find that special someone, something, or time that will make them feel alive forever, that will never go away, never flee when you need it most. But this is a serious mistake, a way of perpetuating sadness and suffering to our children and their children’s children.

We must stop waiting; we must stop looking outside for happiness. No matter how many people tell us this, no matter how many cute quotes we read, no matter how much we realize the truth of it we still fail to apply it. We are not serious.

We are serious about getting a job, buying a home, starting a family, but we are not serious about solving our problems, finding out who we truly are, what this world truly is. If we could see and touch our happiness, walk it around in a baby carriage and show it off to the world, we would be serious about it, but because it is intangible we leave it for the supposed “holy men” of the world. Medicine can be left to the doctors and food to the farmers, but we must not leave our happiness for someone else to supply because it will always be insufficient.

Waiting is the easiest part, it is time we get serious and take action. It is time we stop waiting for someone, for something, for some moment to breathe life into us. It is time we breathe life into ourselves. For that someone is us, that something is Love, and that some moment is now.

2/24/2010

One Who Knows

One who knows is like a fish who swims around its tank and thinks it’s swam around the universe, like a blind man who claims to see all the colors in a rainbow but sees only darkness, like a man who puts a number on infinite and an end point on a circle.

2/23/2010

Nature's Lesson

Before we help someone we ask what can they give us, how can we be repaid? But what if the sun ceased shining and stopped heating our planet because we didn’t love it in return? What if the wind stopped blowing and providing us with energy because we missed a payment? What if the rain stopped pouring and watering our crops because we couldn’t advance its career? What if the oceans stopped flowing and providing us with drink because we were poor and had nothing to give back? What if the trees stopped releasing oxygen and cut off our air supply because we did something they didn’t like?

“What if” is not “what is”, and “what is” is the sun, wind, and rain help humanity and ask for nothing in return. We pollute the ocean and destroy the forests, but still the ocean and trees take care of us. Every day nature is teaching us simplicity, showing us love, telling us without telling that true love needs no reciprocation, true giving needs no return, and true being is universal harmony.

2/18/2010

Gaining the World

One can spend a lifetime trying to change the world and gain nothing; one can spend a day trying to change oneself and gain the world.

2/16/2010

The Propaganda of Without, The Truth of Within

We believe the more money we have the happier we’ll be; we believe that the right person will complete us, will cure the emptiness inside, will make life worth living; that the right set of beliefs, the right home, the right community, the right children, the right family, will make us happy and fulfilled. This is the propaganda of the ignorant, the belief of the confused. Nothing outside ourselves will ever make us feel truly fulfilled, truly happy. True happiness can only come from the self, from an inner self-fulfillment.

It is not the man or woman who possesses all the flowers in the world who is happy, it is the man or woman who feels a connection to all the world’s flowers, who sees possession as a barrier and knowledge as a hindrance. Money can make living easier, but it cannot make one live. A partner can make us feel less lonely, but they cannot make us less alone.

We search the whole world for our happiness, we climb the highest mountains, cross the largest oceans, all the while happiness rests within us, waiting for us to climb the mountain of our mind, to cross the ocean of our heart.

12/10/2009

The Cost of Pleasing

If we do only what people want us to do and say only what people want to hear, we become everyone’s best friend and our own worst enemy.

11/26/2009

Embodying the Universe

Somewhere along the way from wearing diapers to reading newspapers we forget how to love, how to be compassionate; as our identity comes to life, our love for all dies. But this does not mean it is “human nature” to fall out of love, for even to walk we must learn. And like walking, we must learn how to love. For hate need not be learned, hate is the by-product of ignorance, of a lazy humanity which wishes not to learn love, but to soak in hate; which fears a life of love, and so, clings to one of hate.

Do not be lazy and do not fear. As babies we were empty of fear and full of vigor, though we fell time and time again in learning to walk; due to our perseverance, due to our faith in our bodies, we now are able to walk and see the universe. So be empty of fear, be filled with vigor, learn to love. For though we may fall time and time again, though we may stumble and trip on the stones of hate; through our mental perseverance; through our faith in the good of ourselves; we learn to love, and no longer need walk to see the universe, for we embody it.

11/23/2009

The Deciever and The Gravedigger

A life of deceit deceives no one but the deceiver. Blinded by ambition one believes through their lies and dishonesty they are erecting a monument to one’s life, but in truth one is only digging oneself a grave; a grave in which the digger be one’s blind ambition, the shovel one’s will, and the dirt which buries one’s life one’s lies. Lies told not only to others but to oneself; lies which hurt no one more than the liar themself; lies which bury no one but the liar alive in their self. Through deception one may gain fame, money, and power, but of what worth is that when one loses one’s self in the process.

11/19/2009

The End In Itself

When all our actions become means to an end, life loses meaning and living comes to an end.

11/17/2009

The Pangs of Hate, The Wonders of Love

There need be no punishment for one full of hate, for the inability to love is plenty punishment itself. Hate is a deadly poison which starts in the heart and pumps through the bloodstream. When left untreated it consumes one’s body and mind; sharpening the tongue, blinding the eyes, and deafening the ears. It is one full of hate that stabs and slices with the tongue; that judges beauty and condemns it as ugly; that hears truth and calls it ignorance.

One full of hate does not deserve hate in return, for the hate which consumes them is far too much hate for one. One who hates deserves to be loved, for it is through love that hate may be cured; for hating one who hates only sharpens two tongues, blinds four eyes, and deafens four ears. It is through love that the hateful tongue is blunted; that the hateful eyes see; that the hateful ears hear. It is through love that song is brought to the tongue; that beauty is unveiled to the eyes; that truth is bestowed upon the ears.

11/14/2009

No Present Like the Present

The past exists in our memory; the future exists in our imagination; the present exists. Where we choose to exist determines how we live our existence. A life spent in the past is a life that gets passed by; a life spent in the future is a life imagined but never brought to fruition; a life lived in the present is a present to life itself, a sacred gift that keeps giving to the one who keeps living.

11/11/2009

An I For An I

An eye for an eye may make the whole world blind, but an I for an I makes all humanity extinct.

11/09/2009

The Man and the Tree

A man told me ignorance is bliss. A tree told me wisdom is.

11/06/2009

Elusive Beauty

Beauty is seeing beyond the label, beyond idea. Beauty is seeing without thought, without words. Beauty is.

11/05/2009

Change Knows No Tomorrow

We say we want to change, that we want to be a better person. We say tonight I will be better, tomorrow I will be all I can be. But tomorrow never comes and tonight is too late; if we are serious about being a better person, about finding joy in a life that seems to have had all its joy sucked dry, we must act now. At this very moment and never look back.

We think that tomorrow our minds will somehow be different, that over the course of the night, through our dreams and nightmares, our minds will have suddenly learned how to be this better person, and like magic, we will be this great human being full of joy and compassion. But we, our whole body, not just our minds, must take that first step now, and from that step leads a path never walked before by another, a path in which we find ourselves alone, but a path in which we find ourselves; in which we become that better person we have always wanted to be, but never had the courage to become.

This all starts with a step, a baby step, a step that anyone who was once a baby can step, and it must not be taken tomorrow or the next day, because such days exist in theory and not reality. We must take this first step now, at this very moment, and continue stepping on our path to discovery and enlightenment.

There will be days, moments, where we want to stop walking, where we wish to turn back because it is hard and we are alone, but it is precisely at these moments where we must find the courage within us to take that same baby step that started it all, and continue on, ever learning, ever evolving, ever being that better person we so dearly wanted to be.

11/03/2009

The Golden Way

When we gaze at ourselves in the mirror of life and see our neighbor’s reflection, the Golden Rule ceases to be a rule and becomes a way.

10/30/2009

The Internal Butterfly

If we focus as much attention on our internal beauty as our external beauty who knows what humanity can achieve.

10/26/2009

A Nursery Rhyme

There is no devil underground, no angel flying Earth bound, on our shoulders they do not rest, but inside they do reside behind each and every chest. To nurture the angel or rear the devil is our choice, but there are consequences to who we give voice. An angel sheds constant tear, a devil thrives on others’ fear, for the angel lives off compassion and the devil on destructive action. Most of us linger in-between, growing half a wing and a horn so lean, but why not let our wings spring, soar above the material thing, and leave the devil in his crib, never to rise and tell his fib.

10/25/2009

Holding Out For Heaven

Heaven on Earth will never be so long as we believe in a Heaven in the sky.

10/21/2009

Knowledge is Impotent

With each passing day a wise person knows less than they did the previous day. For a wise person sees that knowledge is illusion disguised as truth, and mystery the key to unraveling it.

10/19/2009

Made in Our Image

We know nothing and in our insecurity we create faith. We know not what will happen when we die, and in our fear we create Heaven. We don’t understand the meaning of our lives and in our anxiety we create God.

10/14/2009

We Fear Who We Are

We fear realizing we aren’t who we think we are. Yet it is precisely from such a realization that we become who we want to be.

10/12/2009

The Right State of Mind

The more present we are in life, the more life we beget. The more conscious we are, the less we regret.

10/10/2009

The Solution in the Problem

A problem arises within and immediately we look outside for help. We devour so called religious books, consult renowned doctors, and beg almighty gods for the cure to our suffering. But no matter how much we read and are psychoanalyzed, no matter how much we pray, our problems persist. We must learn to believe in ourselves, to answer our own questions, for the solution is found in the problem and nowhere else.

10/07/2009

The Cliché and the Medical Examiner

There‘s a cliché which says, “You don't know what you have until it's gone,” and for the most part it’s true. But there’s one thing we have which life doesn’t give us the luxury of knowing once it’s gone, and that’s life itself. When we die we’re no longer able to reflect on the value of life, nor return to it. Which is why we must examine our life now and not wait until the medical examiner is doing it for us, and far too literally.

10/05/2009

The Ultimate Art

We are the painter before the blank canvas of our life. From our color palette of seemingly infinite choices and opportunities we dip the bristles of our brush and paint our masterpiece. Each stroke unique, each mark a focal point, every painting a testament to humanity. For we are artists and our greatest creation, our ultimate art, is our lives.

10/01/2009

War and Peace

Those who want war should fight it, those who want peace should live it.

9/29/2009

Fantastic Saviors

We are all looking for a savior, a savior who will do for us what our mothers did when we were toddlers; provide the answers, wipe our ass, and make us feel secure. But the truth is we are our saviors.

Buddha, Laz Tzu, Jesus, Muhammad, and Yahweh cannot save us. Their stories have been around for more than two thousand years and yet there is more hate and war than ever in the world. We constantly look outward for the answers to life and they are consistently unsatisfying. Medication provides us a temporary band-aid, entertainment a momentary escape, and religion nothing but self-deception. We must learn to look within ourselves, to be our own Jesus, our own Buddha, if we ever wish for our children to live in peace.

The choice is ours, but if we remain lazy and apathetic, waiting for others to figure out who we are as a people, we leave behind a world where our children and their children will be forced to fight in violent wars to prove silly things such as whose religion or nation is superior. Our children may return home from these idiotic wars unable to walk, or worse, in a coffin. And for what? The laziness of their ancestors? Such is the seriousness of our propensity to throw the responsibility of our lives on the shoulders of fantastic saviors.

9/28/2009

Modern Time

We worship the past, pray for the future, and abstain from the present.

9/24/2009

The Love of an Addict

We claim to love a person and yet the moment they don't love us back, we become angry and bitter toward them, the love we once felt becomes hate. But the truth is we never loved the person, nor saw them for who they are, we wanted to possess them, to make their image our drug. And once they declined to be our addiction, we sacrificed all that we found beautiful in the person to salvage our ego. We are experts in hate, but do not know how to love. Maybe it is time we learn.

9/21/2009

World War I

All the Karate, rifle training, and nuclear weaponry won't overcome our worst and only enemy, our self. We fight our wars externally trying to evade the internal war, but the real World War is inside. Peace will never be until that war is fought.

9/06/2009

The Human Family

In this life we live it is easy to disconnect and separate, to live only for our self and the select few we call family. But in reality, we as a people are responsible for ourselves and one another; we are each others’ mother and father, sister and brother, daughter and son. To ignore our responsibility is to ignore the existence of society.

8/27/2009

Go To School

School taught me greed, envy, and fear. It trained me to compete, to blindly obey authority, and to do things I hate doing. School left me well practiced in racism, sexism, and heteronormativity; well versed in ethnocentrism, nationalism, and monotheism; and well fed the mantra, “happiness is success, and success is money.”

Life taught me school is the propaganda of the powerful, the worldview of the ignorant. Life taught me that school is a dangerous place for children, a place where one can lose one's humanity.

8/20/2009

On Lovers

A possessive lover is no lover at all.

8/07/2009

What is Life's Point?

Giving life a point is a human creation. The dog, the tree, the rose do not live with a point. They simply live. They don't live for, like us humans do, they just live.

It is in our "living for" that we find perceived happiness, but that happiness is only temporary. When what we "live for" dies (literally and/or metaphorically) we fall tremendously, unable to exist without that thing which we depended on so heavily for our happiness.

When one can live, not trying to achieve or gain anything, without a point, then there is that happiness that can not be taken away.

8/05/2009

We Are What We Are

We are not the image in the photograph. We are not our names. We are not the thoughts, ideas, feelings, emotions and images that fester in our minds and others. We are what we are in the moment, before interpretation and analysis.