The Sacred Ladder

"And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up upon the earth, and the top of it reached to the heaven and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And behold, the LORD was standing beside him." Genesis 28:12, 13. The ladder is also called Jacob's ladder. Jacob was in the wild, asleep on a stone which he used as a pillow when he had the dream. When his ego was away, while he was with nature, the ladder appeared. What is this ladder? My interpretation..

Giovanni Francesco Bernardone, also known as St Francis of Assisi is the patron saint of Ecology. He saw every creature as sacred. The world in which he lived or Nature was not something evil to be rejected but a sacred ladder by which he could ascend to his Creator. He saw the sacredness of life even in an ant or a bug. He saw God in Nature. Nature reflected God. His sacred ladder- his compassion for all things in Nature, in the world- kept him in communication with angels, messengers of God, who brought him intuitive wisdom and joy, a profound bliss which is only possible when one is at one and harmony with God, with Mother Nature, as reflected in his prayer-

Canticle of All Creatures

Most High, all-powerful, all-good Lord,

All praise is Yours, all glory, all honour and all blessings.

To you alone, Most High, do they belong,

and no mortal lips are worthy to pronounce Your Name.

Praised be You my Lord with all Your creatures,

especially Sir Brother Sun,

Who is the day through whom You give us light.

And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendour,

Of You Most High, he bears the likeness.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars,

In the heavens you have made them bright, precious and fair.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air,

And fair and stormy, all weather’s moods,

by which You cherish all that You have made.

Praised be You my Lord through Sister Water,

So useful, humble, precious and pure.

Praised be You my Lord through Brother Fire,

through whom You light the night

and he is beautiful and playful and robust and strong.

Praised be You my Lord through our Sister, Mother Earth

who sustains and governs us,

producing varied fruits with coloured flowers and herbs.

Praise be You my Lord through those who grant pardon

for love of You and bear sickness and trial.

Blessed are those who endure in peace,

By You Most High, they will be crowned.

Praised be You, my Lord through Sister Death,

from whom no-one living can escape.

Woe to those who die in mortal sin!

Blessed are they She finds doing Your Will.

No second death can do them harm.

The environment deserves our reverence and compassion as it is part of us. It is alive. Mother Nature has been around longer than us. She sustains us. She is sacred. As we continue to continuously cut down forests, pollute the rivers and seas, pollute the air that we breathe with technology never known before in the history of the world, we are recklessly efficient in causing many species to go extinct. We too may become extinct soon. We are descending spiritually. There will be no peace for the wicked. In my mind, wilful actions or omissions on our part in inflicting harm to Nature is mortal sin - we cause unimaginable torture, pain and suffering to our innocent and helpless fellow brothers and sisters in the forms of fishes, insects, birds, wolfs etc. There is no end to our selfishness and greed in depleting our natural resources. No wonder why God seems so distant from us No wonder why we have so much misery in the world and the many natural disasters that increases by the day. We are heading towards the pit of darkness and gloom because have ignored the sacred ladder. See also the website of:-

Global Disaster Watch - Natural Disasters

Sodomy

Last Tuesday morning i had a pleasant surprise when i entered the office. I saw a very attractive sexy malay girl sitting on the sofa. She was one of my secretary's friends. She was on leave for the day and decided to spend the day with my secretary (yes i am a good boss- what harm is there to allow my secretary to chat with her sexy friends as long as she does her work?). I later found out from my other employee, Mr T, that the sexy lady was not a she but a he - 'a transvestite', a 'pondan'. Then the devil put thought of sodomy into my mind. Now i think the apple in the garden of eden was not an apple but sex, perhaps sodomy sex. Or 'Jijian' the mandarin word for sodomy. 'ji' meaning 'chicken' and 'jian' meaning 'rape' - 'chicken rape'. With sodomy being the hot topic in Malaysian politics these days, i thought i would analyse the law on sodomy.

Section 377A of the Penal Code states "Any person who has sexual connection with another person by introduction of the penis into the anus or the mouth of the other person is said to commit carnal intercourse against the order of nature".

Section 377B, the punishment section states that 'whoever voluntarily commits carnal intercourse against the order of nature shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may exceed to 20 years and shall also be liable to whipping".

As can be seen from the section, oral sex is also carnal intercourse against the order of nature. Most couples have oral sex..The males can be charged with carnal intercourse against the order of nature. If oral sex is acceptable why not sodomy? It's no big deal. These sexual offences are outdated. Artists, fashion designers, gays, the Roman armies and the Greek armies all enjoyed sodomy sex. The only difference is these days the gel used is more potent. You've got the normal gel, the sensational gel and the extra sensation gel - yes my pharmacist told me about that and wanted to sell me some - God forbid. So why is the government so obsessed with sodomy? Just amend the Penal Code, abolish these outdated laws and start governing the country.

Lessons from George Harrison

Ex Beatle George Harrison (25.2.1943 – 29.11.2001) came to my mind this morning. What did the man, whose life was cruelly snatched away by cancer about 7 years ago, to teach me? The best way is to look at his quotes. Here are some of them:-“All the world is birthday cake, so take a piece, but not too much” – Well if everybody would follow this advice, there would be no greed in the world.“As far as I'm concerned, there won't be a Beatles reunion as long as John Lennon remains dead” – Loyalty is a rare thing these days. Just look at the Christiano Ronaldo saga. Everyone’s loyalty is to money and materialism. We should be loyal like George Harrison and… George Best.“As long as you hate, there will be people to hate”. Try this out now and we see how profound it is.“The biggest break in my career was getting into the Beatles in 1962. The second biggest break since then is getting out of them” – Nothing is permanent. All things pass away…We all change. We all have experienced how something so good at first can turn out so wrong in the end.“Try to realize it's all within yourself no one else can make you change, and to see you're only very small and life flows on within you and without you”…a lesson in humility. “When you've seen beyond yourself, then you may find, peace of mind is waiting there’. Good one George.. The ego is always the stumbling block to peace of mind. Let go. Let it be. Let it go…Let there be peace. Peace of mind is what we all need to bring peace in the world.“With our love, we could save the world” – This is what all great Teachers taught...“You've got as many lives as you like, and more, even ones you don't want” – Don’t know about this George. I have not had much experience of past lives before. How do we know? I once had a vivid dream about me being a Japanese Astrologer in the Japanese navy during the second world war in my past life. The other astrologer got us all killed with his wrong calculations during an intense battle at sea with the allied forces. The ship was bombed, sank and we all drowned. This one life i would not want again. But I need more experiences to corroborate that experience. Please George, I pray, ask Lord Krishna on my behalf to send me angels with more messages about my past lives, if any.

Well did George have anything to say about the law and lawyers? Surely he did not…Out of curiosity I did my research. To my surprise he did! He wrote a song “Sue me, Sue You Blues!! I did not know that! Here are the lyrics:-

You serve me

And I'll serve you

Swing your partners,

all get screwed

Bring your lawyer

And I’ll bring mine

Get together, and we could

have A bad time

Its affidavit swearing time

Sign it on the dotted line

Hold your Bible in your hand

Now all that’s left is to

Find yourself a new band . . .

We’re gonna play the sue me, sue You blues

We’re gonna play the sue me, sue You blues

Hold the block on money flow

Move it into joint escrow

Court receiver, laughs, and thrills

But in the end we just pay

those Lawyers the bills

When you serve me

And I serve you

Swing your partners, all get screwed

Bring your lawyer

And I’ll bring mine

Get together, and we could

have A bad time

Were gonna play the sue me, sue You blues

I’m tired of playing the Sue me, sue you blues

He must have had quite an experience with the law and…lawyers for him to write this song. Pity he did not give us an alternative to law suits which give us all A bad time.

Finally George’s last words before he left this world, –

“LOVE ONE ANOTHER”

George Harrison, God bless his soul…Hare Krishna.

A Good Quote

I met a new client last friday. She's a very highly educated foreinger and wanted me to defend her in a matrimonial matter. I had decided i had enough of matrimonial cases as it can be very draining and emotional. But this case was a challenge. So i decided to take up the brief. She wrote me a long brief and put in some quotes into it. This is the first time any client of mine has ever inserted quotes in a brief to me. Uncanny, yet a most pleasant surprise. I myself am a fan of quotes as can be seen in my past writings on this blog. I thought this quote merits a place on my blog:-

I believe that every right implies a
responsibility,

every opportunity an obligation,

every possession a
duty - john d rockfeller jr.

Jingshen

'Jingshen' is the mandarin word for spirit and vivacity (this is the best i can do writing. The key is to actually pronounce the word correctly which i can't do writing). Above all things, Jingshen is important in life for if we do not have Jingshen, we decline and die. We also need 'huo li' - vitality and energy - 'Jing li'. To have more 'Jingshen', 'Huo li' and 'Jing li', to add more spice to life, i decided to enrol in a Mandarin class. I did start on the classes some years back but had to terminate it as i had to go to UK for an assignment. The other day, i decided to re start the classes at a new centre near my place of work. The teacher, Miss Wang (I call her Miss Money Penny as she likes talking about money in class now and then and because in the Malay language, 'Wang' also means money), is a tall young lady from China, very fluent in English (her second language) and has a talent for making speaking mandarin simple. There are only 4 of us in a class- limited to 4 students only (this is strange..the chinese being supertitious and all, why did Miss Wang decide to have the unlucky number 4 in class? Hmm..must query her about this). I am the oldest student in the class. The other 3 students being an indian girl in her early twenties, and two young chinese boys (in their early twenties too) who have just started on their first year law course (looks like even in mandarin classes i meet people connected with the law- what a coincidence). Imagine chinese boys learning mandarin...I missed the first class but apparently did not miss much. In Mandarin, its all about phonetics - you have the initials, the finals and the toners of a word. The toners are the important part in speaking the language. Chinese is a tone language. Its all about the sounds- the different pitches (like learning music) - you have a different toner and you get a different word. Mandarin has four basic tones - the first tone, the second tone, the third tone and the fourth tone. The tones are used to distinguish the meaning of a syllable. Different tones have different meanings. For example the word 'ma' with different tones have the meanings of mother, hemp, horse and curse. The word 'ma' is also used in a question - 'Ni hao ma?' - 'How are you?' The interesting part of learning the language is that when one pronounces wrongly, the consequences can be hilarious. In such classes, one can be humbled so as to be polite and not laugh at our chinese brothers and sisters out there who can't pronounce English words that well, despite trying their very best. So i imagine very funny moments in the weeks ahead. Good for dealing with the stress of life and for the heart and health generally.

Miss Money Penny has a unique talent in connecting these different toners with English words that makes it funny. So you have this picture in your mind of the English word and it helps you remember the initals, the finals and the toners of the mandarin word. With only two classes a week, she has to be good and talented to ensure we speak the language in eight weeks time. Jingshen, Huo li and Jing li to all.

Paradox

True perfection seems imperfect,

yet it is perfectly itself.

True fullness seems empty,

yet it is fully present.

True straightness seems crooked.

True wisdom seems foolish.

True art seems artless.

The Master allows things to happen.

He shapes events as they come.

He steps out of the way

and lets the Tao speak for itself - Lao Tze

Be Content

Fame or integrity: which is more important?

Money or happiness: which is more valuable?

Success or failure: which is more destructive?

If you look to others for fulfilment, you will be never be truly fulfilled.

If your happiness depends on money, you will never be happy with yourself.

Be content with what you have;

Rejoice in the way things are.

When you realize there is nothing lacking,

the whole world belongs to you. - Lao Tze.