January 4, 2012

The Dance of Life

By P.B. Masdal | Comments (0)

Posted In : Personal and Family, Religion & Society, Philosophy

I pondered upon the significance of the vision of the dancing angel. Was it another message? If it were, what would the message be when by all means of analogy, the graceful movement of the angel’s hands does not bring to mind any symbols or signs that declare some fact or issue. It was merely a combination of movements, some sort of calisthenics.

I went to bed that night heavy with thoughts. I had felt so strongly that somewhere in my memory, the sight of the dance had already occurred to me. It was a familiar display of movements that it was not that strange to me anymore to witness such spectacle. I was pretty sure of that, as if everything was a memory, a sort of a déjà vu. There was wonderment that spawned a glee in my heart. A giddiness resulting from a discovery of something that I never thought could happen before. The divinity was starting to reach out to the mortals, and this reality finally kicked in.

The following morning, while the air was still pregnant with heavy mist and early dawn enveloped the still hushed streets of Manila—while many eyes were still shut in deep slumber—I stood up and recreated the dance of the angel that I have witnessed in the sky the night before. I made the movements to the left of my body and then towards the right and then towards the middle, my palms were open and my arms were extended. I repeated and repeated the movements that the angel had made. It was sort of surprising that I was recreating the dance all too easily as if I have been dancing it routinely before, as if it was my own dance, except that the complicated movements were harder to recreate. It was like putting on a very familiar cloth, merely feeling a second skin.

As I made the movements again and again, I could feel a palpable surge in my spirit, an embalming feeling of lightness that I could not stop moving my hands. After some moments, I could feel a certain force in my hands, a kind of magnetic field to be more particular, that I just left my hands to move on its own. And my hands would indeed move independently by themselves! I merely let them sway to the will of the force that controlled it and then my hands were finally able to recreate the complicated movements of the angel, the ones that I found difficult to remake. It was purely magical, an out-of-this-world experience. My hands were floating and my spirit rising.

It was indeed an awakening for me, a sudden realization that the new reality set forth before me was something I did not expect even in my wildest dreams. How do you expect anyone to really believe in angels, anyway? There are mythical things that I had easily disregarded before, to be merely staple of fantasy movies, of fairy tales, and one of such beings are the angels. And then they were happening and I had to accept it. For how could I still deny that phenomenon when there was already a palpable force in my hands, a force that is already controlling to a certain extent the movements of my body? Tears flowed from my eyes like a river for I felt an overwhelming feeling of enchantment and of being so fortunate of having been given the privileged to feel these very unusual but all too beautiful experience. As a result, I was already conversing to a one that I call “My Lord”, in whispers and in my mind.

I kept saying, “Thank you my Lord for letting me have these enchanting experience and if it goes away tomorrow, or disappears from me altogether, I would still be forever grateful to you for now something has been fortified in me; that is, my faith in God, the Creator of all things great and small.”

Day after day, at dawn and at near midnight, I kept recreating the dance and continue to feel the enlightenment that it afforded my inner self. Addictive is a word I shall use if I have to describe it. It is also habit forming that at times when my guards were down, I made the movements even if I was in the law library of San Beda, the school where I was reviewing for the bar examination, reading law books after law books endlessly. It was very useful to me that whenever I felt the stress of too much reading, the movements had refreshed my mind and body. There were those that had been able to observed me doing the movements showed immediate curiosity with some hidden smirk on their faces thinking perhaps that I had gone insane. But still many of them showed genuine interest and inquired about it and I just tell them that it was a meditation which I use to manage stress and that I have learned it from a book I’ve read about ancient Chinese meditation. The “meditation lie” was a comfortable white lie.

Upon its enriching qualities, I have on myself inquired on the very nature of the dance. As a student of laws and as an avid reader of many established philosophies, I always had the inquiring mind ready whenever I am faced with questions that have no ready answers. I have always approached every premise upon a hypothesis, attacking every unknown idea with scientific processes, a mode that I have learned through years of education. I have exhausted all possible explanation and yet I could not find any established notion to explain the nature of the dance, in concordance with the vision of the angels. The only explanation I had then was that divinity is a reality and that it is now setting forth its presence at this point in time, reasserting its existence and dominion where for many years and centuries, it had gotten lost in the great advancement that man had achieve in so short a period of time. Reasserting its existence in a time when humans can already be cloned and computers are nearly reaching the point of independent thought; a time of extraordinary progress for human intelligence.

I looked further into myself for explanation to these visions while quelling any hope of explaining it scientifically, for no scientific processes could dissect it properly. As I danced the dance of the angel, I studied the beautiful movements I was making, what they evoke and what their purposes are. I took faith in my own notions and my head kept nodding independently as if someone invincible was saying, “Go ahead, your notions are true”. So I looked deeper into myself and interpreted the dance as the manner of creating Heaven and Earth, as the Divine One had done in a time before us.

The hands evoked earth, wind, water and fire. I had called the dance, “The Dance of Life” since.

The dance on another view connotes the harmony of existence of life here on Earth. An earth there, but not too much earth. Water thereat, but not too much water. Fire in this part of existence, but not too much fire. Wind that blows from all directions, but not too much wind.

Everything that is lacking has desperation written on it but on the other hand, whatever is in excess is scoffing by its nature. There must be balance in life. When this balance ceases, everything falls down.

Indeed, the dance speaks of the balance and harmony of existence, of how the world and the existence in universe should be. So every man would do himself or herself the greatest good by treating his or her person as a universe of its own, putting a balance to it, therefore attaining harmonious existence within and without him.

In every action, the man should have a ready instinct of inquiring upon every act, whether this would harm the body and soul or would it harm others. How does my action affect the harmony of my own existence as well as that of others? If I harm others, would it be possible that they would also harm me? If I speak against this person, would he or she not speak of me also in a bad light?

This is a mode inculcated to us by nature, this questioning mind—the very spirit of our conscience for that matter. But somehow, through years of conditioning, we dispel them as easily, in order to look out merely for the greatest benefit to the self no matter how they harm others. As we propagate this kind of mode of action, our world becomes limited because we are always hiding from someone we harmed before. We deviate from going to places where others whom we have harmed or injured before may pass along. And the ones we harmed would limit their universes as well, trying so earnestly to evade us. And the self becomes a limited universe, a disharmonious existence, and an existence of disarray. Nobody wants to live in this kind of universe. And ultimately God would not want to grant a boundless existence to those who by their own mischief and indiscretion had limited their own universe because the Universe of God is boundless and infinite, and no one who is full of mischief would be allowed to enter this Universe that God had promised us even at the beginning of times, for they are a threat to the harmony of a limitless, boundless, and unending Universe of God.

For it was often said before that in order not to fall to the wayside, a man must have balance in life to be able to stand up straight. Even the physical act of walking, balance must concur or else the man walking would stumble. It is undeniable that the existence of man today (in his temporary sojourn in this material world) is a perpetual traipsing between good and evil, between the excessive and the wanting, between love and hate. He had to maneuver carefully to retain the balance; a condition that is desirable; for the road ahead is always fraught with temptations, those excessive pleasures of the devil, that form the manholes of our morality.

The balance of man that I speak is not too similar to the bodily balance a man must attain in the very physical act of walking. This balance of man has an unusual fulcrum because the more you go to one side (that is, towards the side of goodliness) the better balance you would have. It is the balance of man between the good and the evil. The balance of a man is an idea that propels us to believe in our selves, of our being human, the most beautiful and glorified creation of God, for it has been declared time and time again that “man was created in the image of God Himself”, and thence its purpose of being is to become the exemplification of the ideal creation, closer to the perfection of God.

The material world is a training ground for us, a milling factory of the soul, a litmus test for every man that whomsoever attained the qualities that our Creator had dictated to us as the ideal human being, as often relayed to us in old lore and holy books, and through many examples, like the Parable of the Good Samaritan, the life of the Enlightened One known to many of us as Buddha, the adventures of those knights in shining armor, the travails of Robin Hood, the diligent boy scout that assist the old in crossing the street, the courage and valor of the revolutionary hero fighting the cause of an oppressed people, the causes Martin Luther King, Jr. stood for, the sacrifices made by Indira Ghandi, the gallantry of Joan of Arc, the charity of Mother Teresa, the genius of Jose Rizal, and the liberty and freedom of Abraham Lincoln. They are the goodliness of man that had been attained before by mortals like us and there is no reason that every man could not attain this level of humanity even while in his or her daily existence.

The balance that the man has to attain is a shield against the mischief of evil, for evil is ever present and ever threatening in the present world that we live in, in order to sway us to the dark side and pull us down towards everlasting suffering and pain in what was termed in the Bible as “the vengeance of an eternal fire”.

Evil will permeate in us if we lose the self—the ideal self—that there are times that we feel the urges to commit things we instinctively feel as abominable. And because these urges are at most times irrepressible, we would indeed commit these abominations. For as angels are supernatural in form (material at one time and spirit at other times), and so are demons that whenever they find a imbalanced man (due to his lack of faith in the Creator and in the ideal self), they come in and conquer the fragile self, to dictate the will in order to lead the person to commit acts and deeds that defile the self. They feast upon the man’s primordial feeling of envy and prejudice and upon other human instincts and imperfections, and propagate their culture of madness, a culture of irresponsible pleasures and of impatience. Often we feel so discontented and frustrated that we often come to the point of intending and committing defiant acts such as gossiping, stealing and fornicating in order to satiate our impatient urges, desires and pleasures. And there are those who would even kill or harm another man’s life just to satisfy their frustrations—such is the nature of evil. There are many who would covet their neighbor’s wife or daughter to satiate the irresponsible dictates of the flesh, to use authority to gain flesh from some innocent victim. There are men who would fornicate upon irresponsible desires of the flesh. Lust is an instinct of man that is often used by demons to sway the soul towards the fold of darkness for it is in lust that men have the greatest weakness.

Many would kill for no other reason but prejudice and envy, many would steal to present themselves falsely as more worthy of wealth than others or to falsely present themselves as more privileged. This is the nature of evil.

The demons are very invasive that they come into our persons like water into a vessel and urge us to commit abominations. As the man possessed takes pleasures from these evil acts, the demons, which have conquered him, take the more pleasures from it. After we committed these misdeeds, we often feel a feeling of resentment (as we somehow regain our human self after the demons flee our body), realizing the very nature of the acts we have committed, to realize so belatedly the nature and consequences of such misdeeds.

But if we have the strength of faith, the fortitude of God’s teachings and dictates, and the belief in the ideal self, the demons would never succeed in pushing us to fall on the wayside, to lose our balance, and the Kingdom of God is for us to dwell after we leave this temporary world.

There are already many among us however, who do not feel any feeling of remorse after the commission of a misdeed, however grave they may be. It is a condition attained where the conscience have already been numbed and stunted due to repetition of misdeeds, over and over again. The thief would certainly feel the pangs of remorse the first time he would commit the evil act of stealing. On the second commission of theft, there would still be remorse but not as heavy as the first time. After committing the act of stealing over and over again, the thief would lose his conscience altogether and starts to feel that it is but all right to commit such act and so thieving becomes ordinary for him.

The murderer would also feel in the same manner. His conscience would be numbed with repeated acts of killing. The first time he killed, the face of his victim would hound him until he toss and turn in his bed, but after many more commissions, there would be not as much qualms, and he would take life as if he was just strolling in the park.

The fornicator who commits such abomination over and over again would also have a numbed and stunted conscience. The first time that the adulterer ravished the flesh, he must have felt so burdened by such act of abomination. But after repeated commission of irresponsible sexual conducts, he would have no more conscience to bear with.

There would be no more conscience to speak of in a highly imbalanced man for he had already allowed himself to be a follower of the devil, where as a result he and the demon who had perturbed him becomes already of the same breed and of the same kind. And both shall indeed be cast into the “vengeance of an eternal fire”[3].

It is the evil that haunts us that we should always look out for. For example as to the sin of flesh (the temptations of lust), the doers of fornication would surely feel the heaviness of his or conscience the moment the commission of such abomination takes place and to commit this confusion of man, they would have to take in alcohol and drugs in order to numb this heavy conscience. And with repeated commission of such confusion of the mind and heart, the fornicator would entirely lose the checking mechanism of the heavy conscience. Such is the nature of evil.

But to the man who takes great faith in the Creator, and believe in the very purpose and nature of man, as he was created, in order to do good and avoid evil, demons could not conquer and deceit them. Every attempt to disturb him with deceit would be futile and useless when he has the strongest faith in his human self and in the Creator who had born him. And he shall be allowed to persist in an everlasting life of peace and harmony in the life hereafter—a life full of joy—sliding over just moments after he perishes from this material world. He shall reap the rewards of God and he shall have wings of the greatest span where Heaven is an infinite universe for himspread his wings. There would be many mansions to choose from, castles in the clouds, a Paradise reborn, and many worlds of different kind to visit, for indeed it is an entire universe of existence in which for us to dwell—-this Kingdom of God.

Those who cultivate their hearts, their sympathy for others, and their faith in the Creator, to follow His edicts and judgments shall have wings of the greatest span. The balance of man is rooted in the sympathetic heart, a pure and loving heart, and a rational and understanding heart. When we cultivate our sympathy for others with love, faith, hope and charity, we create a footing on the ground beneath our feet, where no storm could shake it and no evil could transgress such valiant stand. “Though I may walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil.”[4]

From my free ebook: "The Night of Angels"    Download it HERE

August 20, 2011

The Classification of Persons

By P.B. Masdal | Comments (42)

Posted In : Personal and Family, Philosophy

What’s my classification? I often have thoughts about myself – whether am I a rich man or a poor man. Am I of wealth or not? Of religion or of apostasy, holder of knowledge or merely bestowed by empty notions of a monotonous mind? Of race and ethnical considerations, among kindred spirits and brethrens, within circle of affiliations and aggrupations, these also become further considerations to this particular questioning.

There is a universe of wandering, as I thread upon these thoughts, lost in detail and exactness for these premises does not become susceptible to ubiquitous deduction, merely by intuition and perception.

There is that notion I’ve learned just recently that persons often interact in terms of actions and inactions, in gestures and signage, more intensely at times than with the spoken word.  This is Symbolic Interactionism at its keenest, as ushered in by social philosophers Talcott Parson and Herbert Blumer, a primal social concept that I’ve learned from my attendance to doctoral classes in most recent days.

In the principle of symbolism, persons act towards things in terms of how they ascribe thoughts and meaning to these specific things, as if upon organisms relating merely in action and reaction, but not in conversation.

The first instance that I have come upon this specific premise of human action, I have exhibited immediate reversion to such, not being able to fathom the very idea that humans could be assimilated with beast and organisms even merely as to the manner of social interaction and communication. I regretted this concept in fact, and have decided to set it aside.

But on the second and third instances, relinquishing a more focus thought on symbolism as a principle in human interaction, I have come to fully appreciate its main intention and direction of thought.

I have realized thereupon (upon daily observations and examinations of how persons relate and converse between and among each other) that indeed, we are full of gestures and signage that relays the manner in which we have thoughts on certain objects, events and persons.

My observations did not in fact end on such notions of symbolism, for I have reckoned that upon these premises, I could build upon further theory and principles on some notions of human interaction and social orientation. I have thought that the social theory of symbolic interaction can serve as a vigorous anchor for the philosophical determination of the classification of persons, for I have come upon this thoughtful undertaking so very lately, for what classification am I as a person.

Let us not be in denial, for I am of awareness that I am not merely alone in these thoughts, for there would be myriads out there that have come upon this particular questioning of the self.

I am lost sometimes about myself; this is not to be an understatement. And I am like a wanderer lost in a vast wilderness at times when it comes to this specific thought, not knowing what direction to follow or thread upon.

There are times that I feel that I could be so evil in person that is engrossed with evil thoughts; so strong these thoughts that I retreat from the outside world just examining and weighing the things that I have become or could become. I fully regret these thoughts of course, and this specific orientation of the mind and self. For a person should be full of goodwill at most times, of good thoughts and intentions. We should all be that way, that’s the most ideal state of persons, keen to relate and decent in words and actions.

But often, this is the hardest thing to do.

At most times, I can believe that I am mostly of good intentions. I could not help but forward this notion to the others that I often interact with.

To this vacillating ideas of my person have thence come forth this particular notion that one could determine one’s classification of the self  through the manner of social interaction, in the way that Symbolic Interactionism have proposed the ways of persons to be.

That is, in positive gestures and signage, one could determine the aggrupations and association of the self. In negativity, one could determine the non-classification of person—- as simple as that.

But of course, this particular social concept of mine is still of nascent roots. It needs further study.

From my blog "THE CITIZEN ON MARS" 

August 12, 2011

The Meaning of Life

By P.B. Masdal | Comments (49)

Posted In : Personal and Family

( A repost from April 13, 2007: A favorite for me… )

I was walking the downtown streets some days ago, feeling a little bit restless for reasons unknown to me specifically, at least to the one or those that I could not pinpoint to with reasonable certainty. Perhaps this is one sort of a malady that I have read about once before in some old decrepit medical book stacked in my mother-in-laws deteriorating wooden cabinets, those that were partly eaten by termites, looking so fragile that a simple disturbance on it would let spew a handful of mashed-up and grounded wooden particles—-which I find to be so repulsive knowing that they were the end results of some crawlers’ eating frenzy.

This malady is sometimes called depression or anxiety problems (they go by many names depending on the author of the medical book I read) and once in a while I retreat into this state and like water, I just have to let go of it for I could not rein it in my hands—-no matter what.

I passed by the new barbershop just in front of the old Ever theater—one that had seen better days—-and I thought I might get my hair done. I stared at a glass partition from a nearby store and had an inkling that my hair wasn’t as disheveled as I thought it was. I even saw it to be fitting to me despite the general rugged look and I had thought then that moviestars have lengthy hairs even if they were males, having that blown away look. I was a little worried that if one sports a blown away and rugged crown of hair and at the same time not being a moviestar, one might be easily taken for a madman walking the streets at high noon. But that sidewalk mirror was good to me and I felt that my uncut hair would be fit for a star. Some mirrors are good to me ; mostly they are not—-especially those in my bedroom.

So I passed with having a quick haircut that day and hoped that the blown away look would be fitting enough for me for quite a number of days more. I then strolled farther down the city sidewalks and came towards a crevice full of DVD stalls and I felt a little blown away after seeing so many titles available and on a dirt cheap prices at that, considering that for 80 bucks, one can get a DVD disc that contains 8 to 12 movies in it, and most of them were blockbusters and of very recent release. Some of them were not even shown yet here in local theaters. That’s how tempting it was for movie aficionados like me. I could not say now that I haven’t had scored myself some pirated items before (I had been smoking a brand of cigarette smuggled from Hongkong when I was in college) and of course, it would be unthinkable for me to not have seen a pirated movie before. I had of course.

But while I was glancing on stacks and stacks of DVD disks, my mind was swinging between the forthrightness of not buying a pirated item and having a devilish pleasure on filling my hunger for movies at throwaway prices. I could always remember that video clip that goes with every movie I rent from video stores and the loud, thundering reminder that says: “You Don’t Steal A Car! You Don’t Steal A House! You Don’t Steal A Movie!”, and somehow my inner conscience is disturbed by such that whenever that clip goes in every movie I rent, I wanted to shout at whoever that guy behind the thundering voice and belch, “Stop It! I Heard You. You Don’t Have To Remind Me That All The Time. You’re Not My Mother!”

My inner conscience had gotten the better of me that time so I just slowly walk away from stacks and stacks of salacious movies and guilty pleasures. I then remember that a new Video City branch had opened just a block away and I headed immediately towards it. The moment I had gazed through the available movie titles, I felt an immediate surge of gleefulness inside me since I hadn’t expected that the new video store could offer such voluminous number of titles, especially of recent ones. The video store where I usually get my dose of movies is so miserably lacking in inventory that I guess I won’t be visiting it from now on, except perhaps in some momentary lapse of reason in the future.

I felt like a child lost in a sea of movie titles and I almost picked up every disk that had caught my eye, until I reached the “Drama” section and there in front of me was a copy of Wong Kar Wai’s “2046” and I was excited to high heavens. It had been much talked about in the net world about how good it was and for a long time, I was trying to get my hand on a copy of it, and for a while there I thought I wouldn’t be able to see it for it would be unthinkable that it’d be exhibited in local theaters considering that it was released about three years ago. And I haven’t had seen any trace of it in every video rental store I went before.

I had anticipated this movie ever since I have grown a special fondness for oriental art films, especially those of the legendary filmmaker Zhang Zimou, whose film “Farewell To My Concubine” was so wonderfully entertaining and had primarily introduced me to other notable movies from China or Hongkong. Before that, ever since I was in high school, I had been delighted by the magic of Akira Kurosawa’s masterpieces like “Ran” and “Dreams”.

And so “2046” was about a writer who had become so engrossed about his own written piece that he saw himself being dragged into it, and feeling the pains and longings of the characters he had made himself. “2046” was a work about a train that once in a while travels towards the year “2046” and no one who goes there ever came back, except for one, the male protagonists. It is said that those who journey towards this strange destination are those who are longing for love, perhaps a kind that could not be found here at present, for how come they have to travel towards a point of no return just looking for it? What love is there out there that some have risk even their own mortal existence just to gain it? It was written by the writer that nobody actually knows how long for one to get to “2046”, for some it would be faster, but sometimes, to those unlucky travelers, it might take so long that they would start to lose their senses and sanity while inside the rain, having nothing to do except sit down and wait for the arrival time, one that is not definite and without any sign of coming. The main male protagonist in the novel had such kind of journey, one that was so lenthgy and seemingly unending that he fell in love with an android, an artificial human being stewarding the train.

The writer had his own life in the movie “2046”, a life lived sometime in the 1960’s where according to him “he just found himself to be in”. He earn his meals by writing columns and kung-fu stories for local dailies and billeted himself in a room with a door number that states “2046”. That was where he had sourced the title for his novel, a number which in his own mind had taken his fancy and unusual interest.

Along the way, he met a wife of another man named Bai Ling, who had runned away from her husband for having another woman and had rented a room just across his own. They slowly fell for each other and started a torrid affair filled with nights of passion and unhindered bliss. Until one day the woman asked him if ever he wanted to stick it out with him. But the writer wouldn’t agree to be exclusive to one single woman and stressed that he was seeing other women while he was having an affair with her. Bai Ling was furious and ended their relationship with tears flooding from her eyes and agitation painted all over her face.

They both started seeing other people and whenever they passed each other in public gatherings, they both pretend not to know each other and according to the writer, it was difficult to pretend and not notice her. It was clear that it was more difficult for Bai Ling to pretend and it showed so much in the utter sadness that found harbor in her teary eyes.

Six years later, the writer was in a relationship with a woman that had a similar name to a woman he had an affair so many years ago. It wasn’t Bai Ling, but another one who had resembled Bai Ling’s general appearance, a circumstance that had led me to ponder whether or not Bai Ling and Su Lizhen was one and the same person. The new woman eventually left the writer for some undeclared reason for she said, “she just have to go away”.

And inside a car—-drunken and weary—-the writer finally realized that he is starting to lose ‘the meaning of life’. He was thinking to himself and thought that six years ago, he had a chance to find the meaning of lifewhen the beautiful Bai Ling offered herself to be his long time partner. But he had other ideas and now regretted it.

He met Bai Ling for one more time but the feeling was never the same aagain and it had seemed that in the end, he had entirely lose grasp on what in his mind was “the meaning of life”.

The movie “2046” eventually ignited in me the question about life and its meaning. I try to see myself in the writer’s own predicaments and evaluate if I had what he call as “the meaning of life”. Have I lost it? Or I am living it? Or perhaps, the meaning is just not clear at all.

One way or another, we all are trapped within the world we now dwell, sometimes embroiled in raucous routine everyday conducts, sometimes just swaying to where the wind blows, and often forgetting that at the end of the day, we might not be able to entirely grasp the so-called “meaning of life”. What’s in store for me when I grow old? Where am I heading? Am I happy or am I miserable?

Am I that sort of individual who would jump into a train and head to “2046”?

These are just questions and I hope that this momentary bout with depression would vanish like thin air. And then I’ll have in my full grasp the so-called “meaning of life” by then. Whatever that means.

from my blog : "The Citizen On Mars" 

August 10, 2011

The Fruitful Basket

By P.B. Masdal | Comments (55)

Posted In : Personal and Family

“Then there was a pageant of men that I saw in the sky, as the clouds formed their images, holding each others arms as an image of an angel appeared out of nowhere in order to reach out for them and led them towards a direction that pointed upward.”

Among the most beautiful and most delightful symbols that I have seen from the sky was the scene of men holding each others hands, as if they are brothers to each other, not letting go of another, while a man with a span of wings on his back appeared out of nowhere in order to extend his hand, and in order to lead them towards a place full of hope and promise.

My brothers and sisters, there is no far greater purpose in life than to seek the oneness of all men, as we are all created equal, no matter how we were created differently. Nothing far more heroic in the eyes of men and mostly in the eyes of Our Lord, than to seek the fellowship of other men, although these men may be of different race or creed. Nothing is greater than a love to one who differs from us, for they differ not of their own intentions, but merely the intentions of nature and circumstances. For the Arab is man of the dessert while the Asian is mostly of the plains.

And yet to this mission, nothing could be far more daunting, for while we seek the peace among ourselves we are continuously haunted by our unpeace. We see with every eye and we hear with every ear how we wear many shades of skins and how we speak in many tongues, we are not blind to this. We are never blind also as to how the differences in us give rise to conflicts and arguments, and even to bloodshed that in one man’s hands lies the blood of his brother.

Far too difficult this task may be and yet we do not take heed to the weaker side of our minds and hearts. We shall strive to seek peace amongst us no matter how the storms may shatter our resolve, for it is the will of the Lord God Almighty, that we seek now the Brotherhood of Man.

We must fill the basket with apples and oranges; and then we still have to fill it with peaches and mangoes; and then further, we still have to load it with mangosteens and bananas. And we shall carry this basket no matter how we realize that our load had become heavier. We must strive harder, for sooner than we know, we shall reap our rewards in the end, and savor the basket full of fruits of many kinds.

We are like the river that threads many paths and yet to end merely in the same ocean. We all must thread the same path in the name of Our Lord God, for whomsoever conflicts with his brother, also conflicts with Him.

For He is like the Father who has many children and does not in any manner leave any child to suffer the weather, out in the coldness of the night. And He whispers gently to the ears of the older and wealthier children in order to persuade them to seek out their poorer and suffering siblings, for He suffers also when one of His children suffers.

He is the Father who suffers the wounds of His children.

How blinded have we become by our prejudice? How we take others aside for lack of knowledge that all men are seen as equal in the eyes of God. He did not deem it that He shall favor some and disfavor others, for He is the God of All Men.

Could you honestly believe in your hearts that He had allowed many other men to be borne only for them to lose salvation, just because they have not come to the folds of Christianity or Islam? There are just too many of them that we could never be blind.

Have you actually expect the china man to speak the white man’s tongue? Shall the African drink wine on his daily table when he grows root crops to drink some other beverage?

Shall you ask why the Jew did not become a Moslem when all his life he was tended and made to learn his own scriptures? Could you blame anyone? Blame is never in the side of the Lord.

We may imbibe a Hindu to seek your own creed, by teaching him all the books that may be at hand and yet you could go for a thousand days and a thousand nights and you would soon find out that you were only made to imbibe a few of them, if ever there would be learners of your kind of faith. It would take a millennium for you then to imbibe most of them, a task nearly impossible.

In so long that any one remains in the righteous path, to follow the basic teachings of the major faiths—-Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism—-then there would be no more argument for every religion seeks the righteous path, seeks the goodness in every man.

For a Moslem is blameless if he professes to Allah, the Most Merciful and the Most Omnipotent because mainly, he had been thought by his forefathers in the learned ways of Islam, until he had embraced genuinely the faith of his forefathers?

In so as the Christian, he remain blameless in the eyes of other men, for mostly he has learned in the way of Jesus Christ even from birth, and even until death comes to him.

And so is with the Jew, for he was born a Jew in the first place and learned mostly the teachings of Abraham and Moses. How could blame be upon him?

For faith can be bared to its simplest form and that is, in order for man to pursue the goodness of our hearts and to dispel wickedness. What is evil is the grave things that men do-fornication, adultery, murder, thievery, the wantonness of the tongues, the propensity to conflict, selfishness and apathy to the plight of the unfortunate. These are the things we must take issue and not the differences of our faith.

We must seek the unity in our faith rather than make war with the differences, for it is like upon seeing the rose then hating upon the thorns rather than being enamored by the beautiful red petals.

For a man may be rich in faith and yet in the confines of his own home, he is wicked and evil in his heart, faith then is of no essence to him.

Yet a man you see on the street may be of another faith aside from your own, and yet he is kind in his heart and light towards his other fellow men—-his faith is of the greatest essence to him and to the whole world.

It is foolish now to believe that we could all be harbored in the same singular faith. Let be what could be let be. In so long as Evil does not reign in this world, then live and let live.

It is childish and at times foolish if we should expect the china man to speak the white tongue from his birth. We knock on empty doors if we should seek that in the end, men should speak the same tongue and believe in the same creed. Without our differences, existence in this world would be insufferable for its monotony. The world would not turn and revolve.

Our differences allow people to roam and explore the unknown, to be interested in the other. Men traveled in the past to find things different from what they have. They road the waves and braved the great ocean waves in order to find porcelains and spices in some faraway land. If spices were all abound, we would have not reached these level of understanding amongst people of different nations for men would not have traveled in the past. It was differences that brought men of different race closer together in the past and until now.

Prejudice put a seed of viciousness in our hearts that often we are led to hate and violence towards other men whose only pain was to be born different from us. To seek prejudice is to plant a seed of conflict, to seek the weapons of war, instead of fellowship.

We see the thorns and not the flower.

We must now realize that the Lord had intended it that we are born different. Our differences are for a purpose, even our differences in faith. If all religion seeks the path of righteousness, then there shall be no point of dispute.

Let not prejudice put you at risk of the Judgment Day for whomsoever conflicts with his brother, conflicts also with Him, Our Lord God Almighty.

There shall be no argument as which is the greatest of faith for even if we debate for a thousand days and thousand nights, no one could ever claim the truest faith with irrefutable evidence. The words would not end and the arguments would not cease. Let be what should let be and live so that others may live.

For righteousness is never the monopoly of any faith. In so long as we are all righteous and prayerful to the Lord God, we shall be rewarded with our peace in the Hereafter.

For those who shall make peace shall be called the Children of God.

From my collection of essays: "The Voyage" 

June 17, 2011

In the Middle of Nowhere

By P.B. Masdal | Comments (40)

Posted In : Personal and Family

It was a huge disappointment to find out that although dried fish processing was rampant in our island hometown, there was just too much buyers of the goods that I could not possibly penetrate the cartel in so short a time. Traders from as far up north in Pagadian City, about five hundred miles from Zamboanga, would come and negotiate with the local fishermen and cornered the market there. I was advised that seizing a sufficient amount of the goods would entail some patience and a lengthened stay in the islands. This was an untenable idea for me. The urban man in me would be so hard pressed to slide into the virtual desolation of rural life, to be "the man called Friday" and away from the honking noise and pollution of the city. While the serenity of the islands provided me a great breather, it was imaginable for me then to succumb into general silence of a rural environment. There would be just too much silence that it would border the deafening.

The wide and miles and miles of stretch virginal beaches consoled my frustrations and led my mind away from the profits that I nearly counted already and yet the ones that would not be obtaining, at least not with that trip. We took small boats and scoured the nearby islands. The breezy seascape had regained my trust in nature, quelling every suspicion that nature has finally and absolutely lost its battle against the industrial advancement of humanity.

There was this over-stretched patched of sand in the middle of two islands that really caught my amazement. It was not of course very unlikely that such natural accumulation of sand would concur in an area full of shores in the first place; but have you heard of a beach in the middle of the sea? One could not help but surmised that Atlantis might have been similarly situated as that particular beach, once rising to the surface before it got sunk into the pit of the ocean.

I walked almost the length of the half-mile patch of the whitest of sand and wondered why nothing grows except some marine plants attached like mildews to rocky corals. I picked some shells and stones and felt somewhat mesmerized that there were sea stones that were embroidered with the most perfect shape of a star. My cousin King told me that they sell well with Japanese tourist, the ones they make into beads. My eyes squinted to examine the stones more forcefully and I almost concluded that God must have some industrial factories up there that stones like those could be sculptured with some design that only machines could afford. The perfect symmetries were there and the lines were straight.

I stared upward and the sky was clear of any cloud and it was the kind of place where you could view the entire sky from one end, towards another, at any angle you gained sight. Funny that I felt reassured that in that place, I would not hear the sound of radios, nor the cacophonic slur of television, neither the honks of cars and motorcycles. There was no smell but the salty fragrance of the sea and I was assured that any fumes or dusty accumulations of factories would never ting the air. No matter how trivial was such realization but I could not help appreciating the newfound belief that despite of everything, there is still a place where the hands of urban life, with its many gadgets and equipments and convoluted industrial mazes, could not reach.

From "A Prophet’s Life". Read more 

April 22, 2011

The Universal Jesus

By P.B. Masdal | Comments (23)

Posted In : Personal and Family

(Repost from  4-14-2006)

In these days of Lent, I share the occasion with our Christian brothers and sisters, as I likewise bring myself before the solemnity of faith, in the manner that I see fit. In this connection, let me present to you an article that I have read some years ago in an issue of Newsweek Magazine. It was titled “The Other Jesus” and was written by Kenneth L. Woodward in the March 27, 2000 issue of the said magazine. I have been a voracious reader of many periodicals in the past—-both local and international—-and of all the articles that I have read, this one turned out to be the most memorable for me and the one that I have especially kept not only because it was about faith and religion (which magazines like Newsweek and Time rarely venture into), but mainly because it was a very informative and insightful piece of writing. There is something about this article that I could not point to, which is the reason why I always go back to it every now and then, every time I go rummaging through old issues of magazines and newspapers. I don’t know why I always do these things. Delving into old papers and documents had become an annual ritual for me that without doing it even for once, my year is not complete. I like the feeling of going through old things that I have piled in boxes and huge envelopes because they almost always remind me of past things that endear to me, that I could go all day excavating through old books and photographs and the dust coming from them gives such a unique and amorous scent. This year, at this particular point in time, when the kids are mostly home for the school break and summer provides a lot of empty hours for empty pleasures, I went backtracking again, through piles of old magazines and found this one magazine that contained the article that became my favorite of all time.

Due to copyright restrictions, I won’t be able to present here the verbatim content of the article “The Other Jesus” but I am giving you the synopsis, as best as I could. The online archives section of the Newsweek Magazine have this article stacked but it isn’t free. If you have online subscription to it, you’ll have free access to past issues.

In Catholicism, Jesus Christ is revered as the Son of God, the most recognized member of the trinity and He is the Redeemer of Mankind. In Pope John Paul’s own words, “Christ is absolutely original and absolutely unique…” The Gospel Christ is the most well-known personage of the Messiah and many of us had learn to know Him as the man who was born of a virgin, who healed the sick and made the blind see; One who brought back to life a man who had already gone dead; who once walked on water and calmed the storms in the sea; and who gave His life to humanity in order that the sins of the world may be taken away.

But Jesus Christ is by Himself a universal icon that is also accepted and embraced by many other religions of the world.

For instance, Jesus Christ is one of the most revered prophets in Islam and His name is mentioned in the Quran in the most respectful of manner. Moslems fully believe that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary through a miraculous birth under a palm tree and that he had already spoken words when he was still an infant to the effect that He was indeed sent by God. What was a little unusual is that when there came a time that many doubted the birth of Jesus by a virgin, many Moslem scholars came to the front in order to defend and affirm this miraculous birth. If in the Gospels Jesus Christ was crucified and died on the cross, to resurrect three days later, the Quran on the one hand declared that He did not die at all and was in fact saved by Allah before He was crucified and was ascended directly to heaven. Moslems of all sects believe that Jesus Christ is the one prophet that will come back when the end of the world becomes near and will defeat the anti-Christ. To them, among all prophets and messengers, only He and Mary were untouched by Satan.

In Bhuddism, many Zen practitioners see both Jesus and Buddha as brethrens in their quest to spread the teaching of “universal love”. Parallels in their lives are reiterated as they were similarly born in a miraculous manner to chaste women, and both left home for the wilderness and were tempted by a Satan figure. Like Jesus, Buddha also work wonders and preached compassion, selflessness and altruism and had challenged the religious establishments pertaining to his time. A Russian anthropologist had once postulated that Jesus had one time in His life paid a visit to a Buddhist seminary in Bhuttan and His short sojourn there was even recorded in one of the documents written by monks there. These “findings” has gone largely unconfirmed of course, but this was clearly an attempt to inculcate the person of Jesus Christ into the context of Buddhism.

In Hinduism, Jesus takes the form of a legendary shaman that once journeyed to India and learned the ways of attaining god-consciousness. Many Hindus are drawn to the figure of Jesus as an image of compassion and non-violence—virtues that are taught in Hinduism. For them, Christ-consciousness, Krishna-consciousness, and God-consciousness are one and the same thing. If Jesus Christ had propagated the singular teaching of “Love thy neighbors”, Hindu philosophy adheres to the notion that says, “You and I are the same things.”

Jesus Christ as a revered icon is a more complicated affair in Judaism because for one, Christ had challenged its very norms and principles when He was here on Earth. For generations, the teachers of Judaism had tried to isolate Jesus Christ as a trivial revolutionary that spoke of heresy and religious rebelliousness and had caution every Jew to distance from Him. But in time, many reformists in Judaism had started to accept Jesus as an “admirable teacher” and one who personifies the sufferings and redemption of the Jewish people, through many struggles like the Holocaust and statelessness. And besides, Jesus Christ was a Jew Himself and that fact is undeniable by itself and therefore, Judaism remain to have a claim on His greatness.

This is the “Universal Jesus”; a figure that transcends not only geographical partitions but also penetrates the restrictions brought about by the differences of faiths in this world. He may not be seen in the same exact breath by every religion in this world, but a closer examination shows that He had become so revered by many that not only Christianity has a claim on Him, but also Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and even Judaism. All great religions of the world embrace Him as a religious icon, one way or another, in their own respective ways.