Bali is tourism that is recognized by the whole world is going natural beauty and cultural richness that is very thick, the beach at Balipun is one of the 10 best beaches in the world, where and what are the most beautiful beaches of this retreat?
Padang Bai
The beach is located in the port of Padang Bai crossing Bali - Lombok namely Padang Bai, the beach is maintained cleanliness and beauty. For anglers and divers (diver) really like this beach. Because even adjacent to the harbor but the marine life is still very well preserved. But careful if you want to dive here, sometimes the current is very fast.
Legian and Seminyak Beach
It is located on the north coast beach Kuta has an atmosphere similar to Kuta beach, but beaches at Legian and Seminyak are distinguished by the Kuta beach is clean and the atmosphere is not so crowded. Legian and Seminyak beach is a favorite place of my sunset shoot, because the atmosphere of the sunset each day is never the same and very unique.
Dreamland Beach
This beach is very popular tourist tourists, white sand stretches very wide. And coral reefs of beautifying the beach, one of the white sand beach in Bali is very beautiful and exotic. Only love access to this place because it's rather difficult to enter the luxury housing complex and a very steep downward path, so be careful where they have the rainy season.
Sanur Beach
Sanur and the surrounding area one of the first growing tourist areas in Bali, we can feel the atmosphere of the village with peace than in other coastal areas. Since large scale renovation at Sanur beach is turning into a very beautiful beaches and friendly. The many activities and areas that are resort2 make Sanur Beach Sanur is one of the alternative beaches worth a visit.
Amed and Tulamben
Amed and Tulamben beach is the beach adjacent, almost like a second character of this beach. Amed beach but still very virgin and not a lot of domestic tourists who come here. Tulamben beach is very loved by the diver who wants to dive here. Because here there is a sunken U.S. warships and not too deep. So this beach is one of the beaches exotic retreat,
Lovina Beach
The famous beaches located on the northern island of Bali, the characters here is slightly different sand beach sand beach bali other woods because his black. Also very famous in Lovina Beach is every morning we could see a bunch of Fish Dolphin - Dolphins are playing on this beach, to see this dolphin dolphins we can hire a fishing boat that can be booked a hotel room or directly to the fishermen. Do not forget to bring a telephoto lens and wide, because it could have dolphin dolphins suddenly appeared beside you.
Candi Dasa Beach
To the east of Bali Island and two trips from Denpasar you will find a well-known tourist area of the temple Dasa, and beautiful beaches are very stunning. Many activities can be done on this beach, one of which is snorkelling and diving you can do here.
http://haxims.blogspot.com
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Looking For Atlantis
Cities of the Deep
Is the Case for Atlantis Based on Real Evidence or Not? By William B. Stoecker
The legend of Atlantis has such a powerful hold on the human imagination that it has defied all attempts by the debunkers to eradicate it. We are told that continents cannot sink (true enough; see below) and that there were no advanced civilizations prior to our own, which began some 6,000 years B.P. (before the present). This is not true. Professional archaeologists and physical anthropologists used to believe (on the basis, really, of nothing) that fully “evolved” homo sapiens only appeared on Earth perhaps 50,000 years ago, which would make us by far the youngest of all large animals. Using their own timetable, then, it took us that long to reach our present level of culture. The problem is that Michael Cremo and other writers and researchers have unearthed evidence that our species is far older…perhaps tens of millions of years old. And even the professionals, the mainstream researchers, have been forced to revise their estimates steadily back from 50,000 to 120,000 years and even earlier. Most archaeologists now admit that fully modern human beings date back at least 275,000 years B.P.. Using their own earlier estimates, it is clear that there has been time for civilizations to rise and fall over five times.
But is there any generally accepted evidence of this? There is. We were once told that large stone walls and cities date back only to 5,000 B.P., but now it is officially admitted that the walled city of Jericho is 10,000 years old. We were told that woven textiles and fired ceramics date back only to 5,000 to 6,000 B.P., but now the professionals admit that both these technologies have been found in a site in central Europe that is an incredible 28,000 years old. . . about five times further back than the previously accepted date. We were told that humans did not develop agriculture until 6,000 B.P.; now they admit 12,000 B.P. We were told that people arrived in the Americas fairly recently and that people were not seafarers until, again, 5,000 to 6,000 B.P., but now a growing minority of the professionals think that people from Europe crossed the Atlantic and colonized North America well over 13,000 B.P.
In known historical but ancient times there is evidence of very advanced technologies presumably developed still earlier. There is the famous 2,000 year old Baghdad electric cell and the complex mechanical computer found in an ancient Greek shipwreck. Egyptian wall paintings depict what look precisely (no imagination required) like helicopters and submarines, and they have no resemblance whatever to anything else. In both Egypt and Columbia there are ancient models, “explained” as depictions of birds or manta rays, that more closely resemble airplanes. When these are duplicated in light wood or plastic, they function very effectively as gliders; they are fully aerodynamic. Ancient Egyptian statues sometimes have glass or crystal eyes containing precise, functioning lenses, thousands of years before lenses were supposedly invented.
And yet, one part of Plato’s story, if taken literally, cannot be true. Continents and large islands cannot sink under the ocean, not suddenly, and not even gradually. Continents and most large islands are made of granitic rocks; these igneous rocks have cooled gradually deep within the Earth. They have large crystals and relatively low density compared to the olivine that makes up the mantle (the layer beneath the Earth’s crust) and the basalt which makes up the deep sea floors. The continents literally float on the denser minerals, and no force can sink them. Even if a very large volcanic island were to sink it would take many thousands, even millions of years. If some totally unknown process could sink such a large island suddenly, the heat released would cause massive vulcanism. And while there is evidence of some increased vulcanism in the time period Plato described, there is nothing on that scale.
But Atlantis could have been submerged in a single day. Notice that I did not say “sink.” During the last ice age, so much water was locked up in the immense ice sheets that the oceans were lower than today, at one time roughly 400 feet lower. There was a period of rapid melting and sea level rise at 11,600 B.P., the exact time Plato gave. In fact, there were several climatic and sea level changes. The peak of the last ice age was about 17,000 B.P. Then the climate warmed for a period, with some rise in sea levels. At about 12,800 B.P. there was an event called the Younger Dryas, when the Earth suddenly reversed the warming trend and became colder. Some geologists have found evidence that this was caused by the explosion of a comet or asteroid over North America; the dust from that blocked some of the sunlight and chilled the Earth. This may also be the solution to the long-standing mystery of the extinction of such large animals as mammoths, camels, and lions in North America; and it may, in addition, have wiped out many of the European settlers and allowed the Asian ancestors of today’s Amerindians to take over. Around 14,000 to 15,000 B.P., the climate warmed rapidly (presumably the cometary dust had settled) and sea levels rose rapidly. There was another period of rapid warming and attendant glacial melting and sea level rise from 12,000 to 11,000 B.P., and another 8,000 to 7,000 B.P., a period when the Earth was much warmer than today, and, due to more evaporation of seawater and hence more clouds and rain, much wetter. In fact, the Sahara was, for a time, mostly grasslands, with riverine, mountains, and coastal forests.
A number of writers, like Charles Berlitz, pointed out long ago that if there were coastal, seafaring cultures out on the continental shelves (dry land during the ice age and submerged today), the rise in sea levels would submerge them and explain Plato’s story and the flood legends that are found in almost every culture on Earth. But even this, although the rise was much faster than previously believed, would not explain how such an event could happen in a single day. In my book, The Atlantis Conspiracy, published in 2000, I gave the explanation. We know that as the ice sheets warmed, immense lakes of glacial melt water formed behind ice dams. The scablands of eastern Washington show what happened, there and elsewhere, when these dams finally gave way. Immense floods, dwarfing anything seen in historical times, rushed seaward, destroying everything and everyone in their path. Striking the oceans, they unleashed mega tsunamis.
So imagine what would have happened in a coastal region. As the Earth warmed and sea levels went higher, the inhabitants of seaports, understandably reluctant to leave their homes, would stay as long as possible, hoping for an end to the steady rise. Then, perhaps at night, the tsunamis would strike, killing all who were not on very high ground or far out to sea. The buildings would be largely destroyed. When the ocean settled its level would be slightly higher, and the rise would continue. For a time the ruins would be in the surf zone, battered by the waves, and, finally, submerged to a greater depth, at least partly covered by sand and silt. It is no wonder that, until the modern development of SCUBA diving, side scan sonar, deep submersibles, and ROVs (remotely operated vehicles, or unmanned submarines), no major ruins were found. In his 2005 book, Underworld, Graham Hancock said exactly what I had said five years earlier and pointed out that the seabeds would also lower, due to the weight of the water added to the oceans, a process that would take thousands of years. So an island or coastal region that was just above sea level 17,000 years ago, could be up to 600 feet deep today, due to a 200-foot lowering of seabeds added to the 400-foot rise in sea levels. In some areas, due to a tilting effect, the depth might be even greater. In addition, the study of flat-topped, submerged volcanic islands called guyots shows that they were once above sea level; but, as their volcanoes moved down off ocean ridges, they very slowly sank thousands of feet.
Undersea ruins have, in fact, been found; and their depth, along with what we know of the rates of sea level rise, shows that some of them predate all known civilizations.
Off the Mediterranean island of Malta, where there are mysterious stone buildings dating back at least 5,000 years (and possibly much earlier, given the scarcity of reliable carbon 14 dates), a researcher named Dr. Hubert Zeitlmair claimed that divers he employed found ruins on the sea floor over thirty feet down. Graham Hancock also found and photographed underwater ruins there, including what look like wagon wheel ruts that continue up on land, a stone arch as described by Zeitlmair, and, at a depth of sixty feet, what looks like a man-made canal. When sea levels were lower, Malta may have been connected by a land bridge to Sicily, and Sicily to Italy. Unexplained underwater ruins have also been found elsewhere in the Mediterranean, off Egypt’s port city Alexandria, and they cannot be traced to any known ancient culture.
During the ice age, the islands comprising the Bahamas were much larger than today, and many were joined. The coasts of Florida (especially the west coast) and Yucatan extended much further out than today. In 1968 divers off Bimini, part of the Bahamas, discovered in fairly shallow water what has been called the “Bimini Road;” although, if it is artificial, it was more likely a seawall or mole. Other apparent ruins have been found in the area, including at Paradise Point; and some, investigated mainly with side scan sonar, are as deep as a hundred feet. Marble columns have been found and what appear to be stone anchors with grooves. Skeptics have pointed out that some of the stones could have been ballast from relatively recent shipwrecks; some sea captains were not above pillaging ruins in Greece or Italy for ballast stones. Other apparent stone columns have proven to be hardened concrete that had been in barrels on ships. Skeptics also claim that the other ruins are just naturally occurring beachrock, a kind of limestone that fractures along fairly regular lines, and point out that the sedimentary layers in the stones all point in the same direction, which is consistent with beachrock. Investigators like Greg and Lora Little from Edgar Cayce’s A.R.E. (Association for Research and Enlightenment) point out that beachrock, logically enough, is often used in harbor construction, and that there are rectangular stones piled on top of other rectangular stones, which appear not to be natural. The debate continues, and there have been wild claims of underwater pyramids (not by the Littles), but, somehow, proof of this has never been made public.
In the Pacific, apparent ruins were found off Okinawa in 1995, and, in the summer of 1996, at depths of from 20100 feet, an immense and dramatic structure off the island of Yonaguni, near Okinawa. In 2001 divers from Taiwan’s Underwater Archaeological Institute found what looks like an artificial stone wall about 100 feet down off that island; possible ruins had been found in that area by a Japanese team as early as 1982. But of all these, it is Yonaguni that has captured many people’s imaginations. Geologist Robert Schoch has dived on the structure and thinks it is probably a natural formation; and Schoch, who has stated that the Sphinx in Egypt is probably over 8,000 years old, is a very open-minded researcher, not a debunker. However, he admits that he is not sure, and, given the problems with currents and often poor visibility, he was unable to investigate the entire structure. With its long, parallel straight lines and right angles, it looks decidedly man-made, and its bizarre geometry resembles pyramids I have seen in Peru. Hancock has pointed out that the ancient and fairly advanced Jomon culture began suddenly in Japan after a sea level rise about 16,500 B.P. (which would have driven them out of the now submerged coastal areas). Some of their pottery resembles 5,000-year-old pottery from the Moche culture in Peru. There are ancient megalithic structures in Japan proper and on Okinawa, bearing considerable resemblance to Yonaguni.
Hancock has pointed out that when sea levels were lower, much of the Persian Gulf was dry land; and he has even speculated that this now submerged region might be the location of the Garden of Eden. In India there are the usual legends of floods and drowned lands and cities. During the ice age, India’s coasts extended further out; India and Sri Lanka were once joined, and Australia, New Guinea, and Tasmania were one continent. In 2001 in India’s Gulf of Cambay, the ruins of two submerged cities were found with ceramics and stone implements and the remains of buildings. Other ruins have been found off the coast of southeast India; and, in the west, submerged ruins (where legends stated that the city of Dwarka sank) were found, forty to fifty feet down. The two cities in the Gulf of Cambay, given what is known of the rate of sea level rise, must be at least 8,000 years old. The Indus Valley cultures of Harappa and Mohenjo Darro suddenly appeared 5,000 years ago, and may well be a continuation of these earlier cultures, just as the Sumerians of present day Iraq may have migrated from what is now the Persian Gulf.
Ruins have been found in the Black Sea. Some researchers have claimed that this was the origin of all the global flood myths, forgetting that the flooding of the Black Sea was just part of a larger, worldwide pattern.
But are there deeper ruins, many thousands of feet down? Rumors abound, and pictures of side scan sonar of alleged deep Atlantic ruins have appeared on the web. There are similar pictures of supposed deep ruins off the island of Cyprus; and there is a Russian account of ruins on the Ampere Seamount some 450 miles roughly west of Gibraltar, where Plato said Atlantis was. But these are all pretty ambiguous so far, and, except for the Ampere Seamount, whose depth might be explained by sea level rise and sea floor sinking, the alleged ruins are so deep that their sinking would be hard to explain.
Then, there are the possible ruins off western Cuba. Studied with side scan sonar in 2001, these structures cover at least eight square miles and are at a depth of 2200 feet. Supposedly they have been photographed with an ROV, and samples have been taken, and the stones are allegedly granite. Cuba, and, to the west, Yucatan, are limestone, and the seabed is basalt. If the ruins are real, their sinking might be explained by tectonic movement, as the area is said to be surrounded by faults. The submergence to 400-600 feet could have been due to the glacial melting discussed earlier, and there might have also been a slow subsidence over the last few thousand years; but there is no proof that this is possible, and the evidence for the ruins themselves is still rather weak. So the existence of truly deep cities is still uncertain.
So, does all of this prove the truth of the Atlantis legend, at least in a general sense? The evidence of advanced ancient cultures is very, very strong. There is no doubt that coastal cities were submerged; and there is at least a strong possibility that there was some kind of nation or empire on islands in the Atlantic and Caribbean.
© 2009 William B. Stoecker
http://www.dailyavocado.net/eureka/stumbles/743-looking-for-atlantis.html
Is the Case for Atlantis Based on Real Evidence or Not? By William B. Stoecker
The legend of Atlantis has such a powerful hold on the human imagination that it has defied all attempts by the debunkers to eradicate it. We are told that continents cannot sink (true enough; see below) and that there were no advanced civilizations prior to our own, which began some 6,000 years B.P. (before the present). This is not true. Professional archaeologists and physical anthropologists used to believe (on the basis, really, of nothing) that fully “evolved” homo sapiens only appeared on Earth perhaps 50,000 years ago, which would make us by far the youngest of all large animals. Using their own timetable, then, it took us that long to reach our present level of culture. The problem is that Michael Cremo and other writers and researchers have unearthed evidence that our species is far older…perhaps tens of millions of years old. And even the professionals, the mainstream researchers, have been forced to revise their estimates steadily back from 50,000 to 120,000 years and even earlier. Most archaeologists now admit that fully modern human beings date back at least 275,000 years B.P.. Using their own earlier estimates, it is clear that there has been time for civilizations to rise and fall over five times.
But is there any generally accepted evidence of this? There is. We were once told that large stone walls and cities date back only to 5,000 B.P., but now it is officially admitted that the walled city of Jericho is 10,000 years old. We were told that woven textiles and fired ceramics date back only to 5,000 to 6,000 B.P., but now the professionals admit that both these technologies have been found in a site in central Europe that is an incredible 28,000 years old. . . about five times further back than the previously accepted date. We were told that humans did not develop agriculture until 6,000 B.P.; now they admit 12,000 B.P. We were told that people arrived in the Americas fairly recently and that people were not seafarers until, again, 5,000 to 6,000 B.P., but now a growing minority of the professionals think that people from Europe crossed the Atlantic and colonized North America well over 13,000 B.P.
In known historical but ancient times there is evidence of very advanced technologies presumably developed still earlier. There is the famous 2,000 year old Baghdad electric cell and the complex mechanical computer found in an ancient Greek shipwreck. Egyptian wall paintings depict what look precisely (no imagination required) like helicopters and submarines, and they have no resemblance whatever to anything else. In both Egypt and Columbia there are ancient models, “explained” as depictions of birds or manta rays, that more closely resemble airplanes. When these are duplicated in light wood or plastic, they function very effectively as gliders; they are fully aerodynamic. Ancient Egyptian statues sometimes have glass or crystal eyes containing precise, functioning lenses, thousands of years before lenses were supposedly invented.
And yet, one part of Plato’s story, if taken literally, cannot be true. Continents and large islands cannot sink under the ocean, not suddenly, and not even gradually. Continents and most large islands are made of granitic rocks; these igneous rocks have cooled gradually deep within the Earth. They have large crystals and relatively low density compared to the olivine that makes up the mantle (the layer beneath the Earth’s crust) and the basalt which makes up the deep sea floors. The continents literally float on the denser minerals, and no force can sink them. Even if a very large volcanic island were to sink it would take many thousands, even millions of years. If some totally unknown process could sink such a large island suddenly, the heat released would cause massive vulcanism. And while there is evidence of some increased vulcanism in the time period Plato described, there is nothing on that scale.
But Atlantis could have been submerged in a single day. Notice that I did not say “sink.” During the last ice age, so much water was locked up in the immense ice sheets that the oceans were lower than today, at one time roughly 400 feet lower. There was a period of rapid melting and sea level rise at 11,600 B.P., the exact time Plato gave. In fact, there were several climatic and sea level changes. The peak of the last ice age was about 17,000 B.P. Then the climate warmed for a period, with some rise in sea levels. At about 12,800 B.P. there was an event called the Younger Dryas, when the Earth suddenly reversed the warming trend and became colder. Some geologists have found evidence that this was caused by the explosion of a comet or asteroid over North America; the dust from that blocked some of the sunlight and chilled the Earth. This may also be the solution to the long-standing mystery of the extinction of such large animals as mammoths, camels, and lions in North America; and it may, in addition, have wiped out many of the European settlers and allowed the Asian ancestors of today’s Amerindians to take over. Around 14,000 to 15,000 B.P., the climate warmed rapidly (presumably the cometary dust had settled) and sea levels rose rapidly. There was another period of rapid warming and attendant glacial melting and sea level rise from 12,000 to 11,000 B.P., and another 8,000 to 7,000 B.P., a period when the Earth was much warmer than today, and, due to more evaporation of seawater and hence more clouds and rain, much wetter. In fact, the Sahara was, for a time, mostly grasslands, with riverine, mountains, and coastal forests.
A number of writers, like Charles Berlitz, pointed out long ago that if there were coastal, seafaring cultures out on the continental shelves (dry land during the ice age and submerged today), the rise in sea levels would submerge them and explain Plato’s story and the flood legends that are found in almost every culture on Earth. But even this, although the rise was much faster than previously believed, would not explain how such an event could happen in a single day. In my book, The Atlantis Conspiracy, published in 2000, I gave the explanation. We know that as the ice sheets warmed, immense lakes of glacial melt water formed behind ice dams. The scablands of eastern Washington show what happened, there and elsewhere, when these dams finally gave way. Immense floods, dwarfing anything seen in historical times, rushed seaward, destroying everything and everyone in their path. Striking the oceans, they unleashed mega tsunamis.
So imagine what would have happened in a coastal region. As the Earth warmed and sea levels went higher, the inhabitants of seaports, understandably reluctant to leave their homes, would stay as long as possible, hoping for an end to the steady rise. Then, perhaps at night, the tsunamis would strike, killing all who were not on very high ground or far out to sea. The buildings would be largely destroyed. When the ocean settled its level would be slightly higher, and the rise would continue. For a time the ruins would be in the surf zone, battered by the waves, and, finally, submerged to a greater depth, at least partly covered by sand and silt. It is no wonder that, until the modern development of SCUBA diving, side scan sonar, deep submersibles, and ROVs (remotely operated vehicles, or unmanned submarines), no major ruins were found. In his 2005 book, Underworld, Graham Hancock said exactly what I had said five years earlier and pointed out that the seabeds would also lower, due to the weight of the water added to the oceans, a process that would take thousands of years. So an island or coastal region that was just above sea level 17,000 years ago, could be up to 600 feet deep today, due to a 200-foot lowering of seabeds added to the 400-foot rise in sea levels. In some areas, due to a tilting effect, the depth might be even greater. In addition, the study of flat-topped, submerged volcanic islands called guyots shows that they were once above sea level; but, as their volcanoes moved down off ocean ridges, they very slowly sank thousands of feet.
Undersea ruins have, in fact, been found; and their depth, along with what we know of the rates of sea level rise, shows that some of them predate all known civilizations.
Off the Mediterranean island of Malta, where there are mysterious stone buildings dating back at least 5,000 years (and possibly much earlier, given the scarcity of reliable carbon 14 dates), a researcher named Dr. Hubert Zeitlmair claimed that divers he employed found ruins on the sea floor over thirty feet down. Graham Hancock also found and photographed underwater ruins there, including what look like wagon wheel ruts that continue up on land, a stone arch as described by Zeitlmair, and, at a depth of sixty feet, what looks like a man-made canal. When sea levels were lower, Malta may have been connected by a land bridge to Sicily, and Sicily to Italy. Unexplained underwater ruins have also been found elsewhere in the Mediterranean, off Egypt’s port city Alexandria, and they cannot be traced to any known ancient culture.
During the ice age, the islands comprising the Bahamas were much larger than today, and many were joined. The coasts of Florida (especially the west coast) and Yucatan extended much further out than today. In 1968 divers off Bimini, part of the Bahamas, discovered in fairly shallow water what has been called the “Bimini Road;” although, if it is artificial, it was more likely a seawall or mole. Other apparent ruins have been found in the area, including at Paradise Point; and some, investigated mainly with side scan sonar, are as deep as a hundred feet. Marble columns have been found and what appear to be stone anchors with grooves. Skeptics have pointed out that some of the stones could have been ballast from relatively recent shipwrecks; some sea captains were not above pillaging ruins in Greece or Italy for ballast stones. Other apparent stone columns have proven to be hardened concrete that had been in barrels on ships. Skeptics also claim that the other ruins are just naturally occurring beachrock, a kind of limestone that fractures along fairly regular lines, and point out that the sedimentary layers in the stones all point in the same direction, which is consistent with beachrock. Investigators like Greg and Lora Little from Edgar Cayce’s A.R.E. (Association for Research and Enlightenment) point out that beachrock, logically enough, is often used in harbor construction, and that there are rectangular stones piled on top of other rectangular stones, which appear not to be natural. The debate continues, and there have been wild claims of underwater pyramids (not by the Littles), but, somehow, proof of this has never been made public.
In the Pacific, apparent ruins were found off Okinawa in 1995, and, in the summer of 1996, at depths of from 20100 feet, an immense and dramatic structure off the island of Yonaguni, near Okinawa. In 2001 divers from Taiwan’s Underwater Archaeological Institute found what looks like an artificial stone wall about 100 feet down off that island; possible ruins had been found in that area by a Japanese team as early as 1982. But of all these, it is Yonaguni that has captured many people’s imaginations. Geologist Robert Schoch has dived on the structure and thinks it is probably a natural formation; and Schoch, who has stated that the Sphinx in Egypt is probably over 8,000 years old, is a very open-minded researcher, not a debunker. However, he admits that he is not sure, and, given the problems with currents and often poor visibility, he was unable to investigate the entire structure. With its long, parallel straight lines and right angles, it looks decidedly man-made, and its bizarre geometry resembles pyramids I have seen in Peru. Hancock has pointed out that the ancient and fairly advanced Jomon culture began suddenly in Japan after a sea level rise about 16,500 B.P. (which would have driven them out of the now submerged coastal areas). Some of their pottery resembles 5,000-year-old pottery from the Moche culture in Peru. There are ancient megalithic structures in Japan proper and on Okinawa, bearing considerable resemblance to Yonaguni.
Hancock has pointed out that when sea levels were lower, much of the Persian Gulf was dry land; and he has even speculated that this now submerged region might be the location of the Garden of Eden. In India there are the usual legends of floods and drowned lands and cities. During the ice age, India’s coasts extended further out; India and Sri Lanka were once joined, and Australia, New Guinea, and Tasmania were one continent. In 2001 in India’s Gulf of Cambay, the ruins of two submerged cities were found with ceramics and stone implements and the remains of buildings. Other ruins have been found off the coast of southeast India; and, in the west, submerged ruins (where legends stated that the city of Dwarka sank) were found, forty to fifty feet down. The two cities in the Gulf of Cambay, given what is known of the rate of sea level rise, must be at least 8,000 years old. The Indus Valley cultures of Harappa and Mohenjo Darro suddenly appeared 5,000 years ago, and may well be a continuation of these earlier cultures, just as the Sumerians of present day Iraq may have migrated from what is now the Persian Gulf.
Ruins have been found in the Black Sea. Some researchers have claimed that this was the origin of all the global flood myths, forgetting that the flooding of the Black Sea was just part of a larger, worldwide pattern.
But are there deeper ruins, many thousands of feet down? Rumors abound, and pictures of side scan sonar of alleged deep Atlantic ruins have appeared on the web. There are similar pictures of supposed deep ruins off the island of Cyprus; and there is a Russian account of ruins on the Ampere Seamount some 450 miles roughly west of Gibraltar, where Plato said Atlantis was. But these are all pretty ambiguous so far, and, except for the Ampere Seamount, whose depth might be explained by sea level rise and sea floor sinking, the alleged ruins are so deep that their sinking would be hard to explain.
Then, there are the possible ruins off western Cuba. Studied with side scan sonar in 2001, these structures cover at least eight square miles and are at a depth of 2200 feet. Supposedly they have been photographed with an ROV, and samples have been taken, and the stones are allegedly granite. Cuba, and, to the west, Yucatan, are limestone, and the seabed is basalt. If the ruins are real, their sinking might be explained by tectonic movement, as the area is said to be surrounded by faults. The submergence to 400-600 feet could have been due to the glacial melting discussed earlier, and there might have also been a slow subsidence over the last few thousand years; but there is no proof that this is possible, and the evidence for the ruins themselves is still rather weak. So the existence of truly deep cities is still uncertain.
So, does all of this prove the truth of the Atlantis legend, at least in a general sense? The evidence of advanced ancient cultures is very, very strong. There is no doubt that coastal cities were submerged; and there is at least a strong possibility that there was some kind of nation or empire on islands in the Atlantic and Caribbean.
© 2009 William B. Stoecker
http://www.dailyavocado.net/eureka/stumbles/743-looking-for-atlantis.html
Getting Educated
I have absolutely no idea how the education system works in this country. My niece has just finished her Junior High School (SMP) and she is currently sitting her final exams. She wants to continue to the Senior High School at the same school. It shouldn't be too much of a problem, I thought, considering in the past three years she has always come in the top ten of her class and has been very active organising events for the school.
However, in order to go to a higher level, she has to pass an entrance test again, along with other aspirants who don't come from her school, as if she is a new pupil to the school and of course, have to pay the Senior High School fee. She has sat this test a few weeks ago and is now told that she does not qualify to be accepted for the Senior High of that school. She is given this news even before she sits for her finals in the said school.
Now, as she is stressing out doing her Junior High School exams, she has to think about what school she could go to for her Senior High. Whatever that school is, one thing is clear, she still has to sit a test in order to be accepted to that school. For a teenager who is already in the middle of a difficult phase in her life, all these tests and exams and the uncertainty of which good school she could get into, it is a trying a time.
And it is not just the school children, the parents also get into hysterics this time of the year as they ferry their children from test to test, spending a lot of time, effort and money in between, with more money to spend once the children are accepted into the school which, more often than not, is not of their choice.
May be there is a reason for all this, but if I were that school, it would be in my interest to see how far I've succeeded in educating my charges to develop their full potentials and encourage them to go to a higher level in that school rather than treating them as if I have never dealt with them in the past three years. Surely their performance and contribution to the school are better indicators of their eligibility to continue to a higher level than a short entrance test on a given day and open for anybody?
Unless of course, what the school is looking for is particular test results and the entrance fee from new students rather than being interested in the students themselves.
May be other schools work differently, but I get the impression that there is a lack of continuity between Junior High and Senior High so that pupils end up at having to go to different schools, have different friends, different teachers and different teaching methods that they need to get used to again. Studying is already hard work without having all these additional stresses to take on.
If state schools are highly competitive and each year have increasing fees, private schools are so exorbitantly expensive these days that parents practically have to fork out in entrance fees, monthly tuition fees and other necessary expenses, to the amount that is probably a lot more than what the average Indonesian employee gets in his monthly pay packet.
And this is just at the high school level. We are not even talking about university level, which could cost the parents an arm and a leg. All this without the guarantee of getting a well-paying job that would be able to pay all that investment back at the end of it.
Moreover, these days, employers are not satisfied with just a Bachelors degree, especially if the young hopefuls didn't graduate from the country's top universities. In which case a Masters degree is getting to be mandatory requirement. Otherwise, be prepared to join the queue of the unemployed or be paid a salary that wouldn't even cover a child's school fee at a national plus school in Jakarta.
For people of means where school fees are not a problem, the road to success for the child starts at pre-school all the way to private schools offering IB certificates and costly universities at home or abroad with high quality international level education. While for the indigents it is a lucky thing if they could send and keep their children at school instead of forcing them to labour. Theirs are worlds that are so apart they could be from different planets.
For the majority of Indonesian parents of so-so income however, who desire nothing more than see their children have a better future and more well-off than they are, the road to educating them is a long, expensive and arduous one. It is made even more painful when, after all the effort and the money, the quality of education is not geared for the benefit of the child's development and intelligence in order to ensure their success in the world, but only for the interests of the school.
I could only feel for my fourteen-year old niece. She's having a hard enough time figuring out who she is without having to worry about which school would accept her.
(Desi Anwar: First published in The Jakarta Globe)
http://www.dailyavocado.net/writers-block/92-writers-block/744-getting-educated.html
However, in order to go to a higher level, she has to pass an entrance test again, along with other aspirants who don't come from her school, as if she is a new pupil to the school and of course, have to pay the Senior High School fee. She has sat this test a few weeks ago and is now told that she does not qualify to be accepted for the Senior High of that school. She is given this news even before she sits for her finals in the said school.
Now, as she is stressing out doing her Junior High School exams, she has to think about what school she could go to for her Senior High. Whatever that school is, one thing is clear, she still has to sit a test in order to be accepted to that school. For a teenager who is already in the middle of a difficult phase in her life, all these tests and exams and the uncertainty of which good school she could get into, it is a trying a time.
And it is not just the school children, the parents also get into hysterics this time of the year as they ferry their children from test to test, spending a lot of time, effort and money in between, with more money to spend once the children are accepted into the school which, more often than not, is not of their choice.
May be there is a reason for all this, but if I were that school, it would be in my interest to see how far I've succeeded in educating my charges to develop their full potentials and encourage them to go to a higher level in that school rather than treating them as if I have never dealt with them in the past three years. Surely their performance and contribution to the school are better indicators of their eligibility to continue to a higher level than a short entrance test on a given day and open for anybody?
Unless of course, what the school is looking for is particular test results and the entrance fee from new students rather than being interested in the students themselves.
May be other schools work differently, but I get the impression that there is a lack of continuity between Junior High and Senior High so that pupils end up at having to go to different schools, have different friends, different teachers and different teaching methods that they need to get used to again. Studying is already hard work without having all these additional stresses to take on.
If state schools are highly competitive and each year have increasing fees, private schools are so exorbitantly expensive these days that parents practically have to fork out in entrance fees, monthly tuition fees and other necessary expenses, to the amount that is probably a lot more than what the average Indonesian employee gets in his monthly pay packet.
And this is just at the high school level. We are not even talking about university level, which could cost the parents an arm and a leg. All this without the guarantee of getting a well-paying job that would be able to pay all that investment back at the end of it.
Moreover, these days, employers are not satisfied with just a Bachelors degree, especially if the young hopefuls didn't graduate from the country's top universities. In which case a Masters degree is getting to be mandatory requirement. Otherwise, be prepared to join the queue of the unemployed or be paid a salary that wouldn't even cover a child's school fee at a national plus school in Jakarta.
For people of means where school fees are not a problem, the road to success for the child starts at pre-school all the way to private schools offering IB certificates and costly universities at home or abroad with high quality international level education. While for the indigents it is a lucky thing if they could send and keep their children at school instead of forcing them to labour. Theirs are worlds that are so apart they could be from different planets.
For the majority of Indonesian parents of so-so income however, who desire nothing more than see their children have a better future and more well-off than they are, the road to educating them is a long, expensive and arduous one. It is made even more painful when, after all the effort and the money, the quality of education is not geared for the benefit of the child's development and intelligence in order to ensure their success in the world, but only for the interests of the school.
I could only feel for my fourteen-year old niece. She's having a hard enough time figuring out who she is without having to worry about which school would accept her.
(Desi Anwar: First published in The Jakarta Globe)
http://www.dailyavocado.net/writers-block/92-writers-block/744-getting-educated.html
Birthday Present
A young man wished to purchase a gift for his new sweetheart's birthday, and as they had not been dating very long, after careful consideration he decided a pair of gloves would strike the right note — romantic, but not too personal.
Accompanied by his sweetheart's younger sister, he bought a pair of white gloves; the younger sister purchased a pair of panties for herself.
During the wrapping, the clerk mixed up the items and the sister got the gloves and the sweetheart got the panties. Without checking the contents first, he sealed his package and mailed it to his sweetheart along with this note:
Darling,
I chose these because I noticed that you are not in the habit of wearing any when we go out in the evening. If it had not been for your sister, I would have chosen the long ones with buttons, but she wears short ones that are easy to remove.
These are a delicate shade, but the lady I bought them from showed me the pair she had been wearing for the past three weeks and they were hardly soiled. I had her try yours on for me and she looked really smart.
I wish I were there to put them on you for the first time, as no doubt other hands will come in contact with them before I have a chance to see you again.
When you take them off, remember to blow in them before putting them away as they will naturally be a little damp from wearing.
Just think how many times I will kiss them during the coming year. I hope you will wear them for me on Friday night.
All my Love,
Hollingsworth
P.S The latest style is to wear them folded down with a little fur showing.
http://www.dailyavocado.net/news/avocado-joke/654-birthday-present.html
Accompanied by his sweetheart's younger sister, he bought a pair of white gloves; the younger sister purchased a pair of panties for herself.
During the wrapping, the clerk mixed up the items and the sister got the gloves and the sweetheart got the panties. Without checking the contents first, he sealed his package and mailed it to his sweetheart along with this note:
Darling,
I chose these because I noticed that you are not in the habit of wearing any when we go out in the evening. If it had not been for your sister, I would have chosen the long ones with buttons, but she wears short ones that are easy to remove.
These are a delicate shade, but the lady I bought them from showed me the pair she had been wearing for the past three weeks and they were hardly soiled. I had her try yours on for me and she looked really smart.
I wish I were there to put them on you for the first time, as no doubt other hands will come in contact with them before I have a chance to see you again.
When you take them off, remember to blow in them before putting them away as they will naturally be a little damp from wearing.
Just think how many times I will kiss them during the coming year. I hope you will wear them for me on Friday night.
All my Love,
Hollingsworth
P.S The latest style is to wear them folded down with a little fur showing.
http://www.dailyavocado.net/news/avocado-joke/654-birthday-present.html
An Examined Life
I am reading the speech made by Socrates when he was tried by the Athenians with charges of ‘corrupting the youths’ and for which he was condemned to death by drinking the poison hemlock and I find it amazing how words spoken over two thousand millennia ago could still ring true today. Here was a man put to death because he was a ‘gadfly’ to the state, an affront to the ‘polite’ society who were suspicious of teachings considered contrary to the norm and who was seen as a threat to mores and values of the day.
And what were those values? Socrates was a philosopher whose life was dedicated to asking question and challenging assumptions people took for granted. He was accused of godlessness and yet he was a great believer in the spirits and divine beings. He dedicated his life to the pursuit of knowledge and the improvement of the self and for this the young followed him as a man of wisdom and a teacher who taught them about the need to pursue a life of virtue.
‘Men of Athens, I honour and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy, exhorting anyone whom I meet after my manner, and convincing him, saying: O my friend, why do you who are a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens , care so much about laying up the greatest amount of money and honour and reputation, and so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all? Are you not ashamed of this? And if the person with whom I am arguing says: Yes, but I do care; I do not depart or let him go at once; I interrogate and examine and cross-examine him, and if I think that he has no virtue, but only says that he has, I reproach him with undervaluing the greater, and overvaluing the less.’
For Socrates a life unexamined is a life not worth living.
For the establishment of that time, and for any establishment interested only in maintaining the status quo, his constant questionings and criticisms were unwelcome and, as his influence was far and wide, a threat to the social order that valued wealth, honour and reputation than the search for truth and the pursuit of philosophy. When his appeal fell on deaf ears and he was condemned to death, he said, ‘I made up my mind that I would run the risk, having law and justice with me, rather than take part in your injustice because I feared imprisonment and death.’
Indeed, for the majority of people, in whatever century and in any society, life is so much easier when they could accept things as they are, unquestioned, unexamined and unchanging, even when those things are far from the truth or take them further from real understanding. Life is more palatable when everything is in their proper place, when people conform to the same ideas, do the same things and share the same shallow values that normally revolve around personal comfort, social acceptance and material wealth.
To think, to reflect, to dig deep into the human heart and seek out the truth about existence and its meaning is just too hard for a lot of people, and for those in power and who wield influence, too dangerous to tolerate.
Socrates was a dangerous threat for Athenians in power because he forced people to think, to examine their lives and not to accept truths unquestioningly. He was seen as the corruptor of youth because he taught them to think for themselves and to question authority: he was a ‘bad’ influence because he made the young critical of existing values.
And yet, it was Socrates’ ideas and philosophy that endure throughout the millennia because what he tried to do was reveal the truth. His was the force of enlightenment, answering the fundamental needs of human beings who thirst for knowledge and the improvement of the mind.
Far from being dangerous, Socrates’ philosophy paved the way for the unveiling of the darkness of ignorance and the evolution of consciousness from a state of unconsciousness. This evolution in consciousness a never-ending progress that continues up to this day and will continue in the future. It is the constant struggle between the quest for enlightenment against the fear of ignorance, resistance and denial.
For some the light of wisdom is too strong to bear, too fearful to contemplate and too difficult to attain. For a small number of people it is easier to cling on to a blind belief and fight the encroaching light tooth and nail. For the majority of the population however, it is more convenient to live an unexamined life of shallow values and lazy platitudes: a life of petty comfort and little responsibility.
When finally Socrates was condemned to death, he accepted his fate gracefully and without regrets. He lived and died remaining true to himself. ‘The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways -- I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows.’
(Desi Anwar)
http://www.desianwar.com/writings/journal/110-an-examined-life.html
And what were those values? Socrates was a philosopher whose life was dedicated to asking question and challenging assumptions people took for granted. He was accused of godlessness and yet he was a great believer in the spirits and divine beings. He dedicated his life to the pursuit of knowledge and the improvement of the self and for this the young followed him as a man of wisdom and a teacher who taught them about the need to pursue a life of virtue.
‘Men of Athens, I honour and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy, exhorting anyone whom I meet after my manner, and convincing him, saying: O my friend, why do you who are a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens , care so much about laying up the greatest amount of money and honour and reputation, and so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all? Are you not ashamed of this? And if the person with whom I am arguing says: Yes, but I do care; I do not depart or let him go at once; I interrogate and examine and cross-examine him, and if I think that he has no virtue, but only says that he has, I reproach him with undervaluing the greater, and overvaluing the less.’
For Socrates a life unexamined is a life not worth living.
For the establishment of that time, and for any establishment interested only in maintaining the status quo, his constant questionings and criticisms were unwelcome and, as his influence was far and wide, a threat to the social order that valued wealth, honour and reputation than the search for truth and the pursuit of philosophy. When his appeal fell on deaf ears and he was condemned to death, he said, ‘I made up my mind that I would run the risk, having law and justice with me, rather than take part in your injustice because I feared imprisonment and death.’
Indeed, for the majority of people, in whatever century and in any society, life is so much easier when they could accept things as they are, unquestioned, unexamined and unchanging, even when those things are far from the truth or take them further from real understanding. Life is more palatable when everything is in their proper place, when people conform to the same ideas, do the same things and share the same shallow values that normally revolve around personal comfort, social acceptance and material wealth.
To think, to reflect, to dig deep into the human heart and seek out the truth about existence and its meaning is just too hard for a lot of people, and for those in power and who wield influence, too dangerous to tolerate.
Socrates was a dangerous threat for Athenians in power because he forced people to think, to examine their lives and not to accept truths unquestioningly. He was seen as the corruptor of youth because he taught them to think for themselves and to question authority: he was a ‘bad’ influence because he made the young critical of existing values.
And yet, it was Socrates’ ideas and philosophy that endure throughout the millennia because what he tried to do was reveal the truth. His was the force of enlightenment, answering the fundamental needs of human beings who thirst for knowledge and the improvement of the mind.
Far from being dangerous, Socrates’ philosophy paved the way for the unveiling of the darkness of ignorance and the evolution of consciousness from a state of unconsciousness. This evolution in consciousness a never-ending progress that continues up to this day and will continue in the future. It is the constant struggle between the quest for enlightenment against the fear of ignorance, resistance and denial.
For some the light of wisdom is too strong to bear, too fearful to contemplate and too difficult to attain. For a small number of people it is easier to cling on to a blind belief and fight the encroaching light tooth and nail. For the majority of the population however, it is more convenient to live an unexamined life of shallow values and lazy platitudes: a life of petty comfort and little responsibility.
When finally Socrates was condemned to death, he accepted his fate gracefully and without regrets. He lived and died remaining true to himself. ‘The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways -- I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows.’
(Desi Anwar)
http://www.desianwar.com/writings/journal/110-an-examined-life.html
Less Meat is Better for your Colon
Study: Red and Processed Meats Linked With Colon Cancer Risk
By Amie Ninh Friday, May 27, 2011
Burger lovers may feel disheartened as the case against red meat continues to grow.
Previous data have linked diets high in red meat, and particularly processed meat like bacon and sausage, to ill health and higher risk of death from cancer and heart disease. Now a new study adds to the evidence finding that people who eat more red and processed meats are more likely to develop colon cancer.
According to the report, which uses data from an ongoing project by the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) and the World Cancer Research Fund, people who ate 3.5 ounces of red meat, such as beef, lamb and pork, every day had a 17% increased risk of developing colon cancer, compared with those who ate no red meat. People who ate 7 ounces of red meat a day had a 34% higher risk.
Processed meats, including ham, bacon and sausage, were associated with the biggest health hazard: people who ate 3.5 ounces of processed meats a day had a 36% greater chance of developing colon cancer, compared with those who ate none. The more processed meat people ate, the higher their colon cancer risk.
The findings suggest that eating less red meat and cutting out processed meat entirely could slash colon cancer rates. And by adding other healthy lifestyle behaviors to the mix, such as drinking less alcohol, eating more fiber, exercising regularly and maintaining a healthy weight, some 45% of colon cancers — or more than 64,000 cases a year — could be prevented, the authors said.
But rather than suggesting that people cut out red meat altogether, the data advise moderation. The study found that consumption of about 18 ounces of red meat or less per week was associated with very little increase in colon cancer risk.
Exactly how red and processed meats may affect a person's colon cancer risk isn't clear, but some speculations exist. WebMD reported:
Some research suggests that chemicals called heterocyclicamines, which are produced when meat is cooked at high temperature, may play a role. Processed meats are made by smoking, curing, salting or adding preservatives such as nitrates. The body converts nitrates into nitrosamines, which are known to increase risk of cancer.
No matter the reason, these findings may be especially important for those with a family history of colon cancer, said Alice Bender of the AICR. "If you have family history, it's more important than ever to follow these guidelines because they offer potentially some extra protection," she told WebMD.
Hard-core carnivores won't be happy being told to cut back on their meat-eating habits, but if you can't be convinced to eat less, at least try to add fresh vegetables and fruits and whole grains like brown rice to your diet. And while you're at it, you'd be wise to exercise most days of the week and limit alcohol to one or two drinks a day.
The current study can be found at the Continuous Update Project.
Find this article at:
http://healthland.time.com/2011/05/27/study-red-and-processed-meats-linked-with-colon-cancer-risk/
http://healthland.time.com/2011/05/27/study-red-and-processed-meats-linked-with-colon-cancer-risk/print/#ixzz1OZ6mWDNE
http://www.dailyavocado.net/avocado-world/avocado-body/757-less-meat-is-better-for-your-colon.html
By Amie Ninh Friday, May 27, 2011
Burger lovers may feel disheartened as the case against red meat continues to grow.
Previous data have linked diets high in red meat, and particularly processed meat like bacon and sausage, to ill health and higher risk of death from cancer and heart disease. Now a new study adds to the evidence finding that people who eat more red and processed meats are more likely to develop colon cancer.
According to the report, which uses data from an ongoing project by the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) and the World Cancer Research Fund, people who ate 3.5 ounces of red meat, such as beef, lamb and pork, every day had a 17% increased risk of developing colon cancer, compared with those who ate no red meat. People who ate 7 ounces of red meat a day had a 34% higher risk.
Processed meats, including ham, bacon and sausage, were associated with the biggest health hazard: people who ate 3.5 ounces of processed meats a day had a 36% greater chance of developing colon cancer, compared with those who ate none. The more processed meat people ate, the higher their colon cancer risk.
The findings suggest that eating less red meat and cutting out processed meat entirely could slash colon cancer rates. And by adding other healthy lifestyle behaviors to the mix, such as drinking less alcohol, eating more fiber, exercising regularly and maintaining a healthy weight, some 45% of colon cancers — or more than 64,000 cases a year — could be prevented, the authors said.
But rather than suggesting that people cut out red meat altogether, the data advise moderation. The study found that consumption of about 18 ounces of red meat or less per week was associated with very little increase in colon cancer risk.
Exactly how red and processed meats may affect a person's colon cancer risk isn't clear, but some speculations exist. WebMD reported:
Some research suggests that chemicals called heterocyclicamines, which are produced when meat is cooked at high temperature, may play a role. Processed meats are made by smoking, curing, salting or adding preservatives such as nitrates. The body converts nitrates into nitrosamines, which are known to increase risk of cancer.
No matter the reason, these findings may be especially important for those with a family history of colon cancer, said Alice Bender of the AICR. "If you have family history, it's more important than ever to follow these guidelines because they offer potentially some extra protection," she told WebMD.
Hard-core carnivores won't be happy being told to cut back on their meat-eating habits, but if you can't be convinced to eat less, at least try to add fresh vegetables and fruits and whole grains like brown rice to your diet. And while you're at it, you'd be wise to exercise most days of the week and limit alcohol to one or two drinks a day.
The current study can be found at the Continuous Update Project.
Find this article at:
http://healthland.time.com/2011/05/27/study-red-and-processed-meats-linked-with-colon-cancer-risk/
http://healthland.time.com/2011/05/27/study-red-and-processed-meats-linked-with-colon-cancer-risk/print/#ixzz1OZ6mWDNE
http://www.dailyavocado.net/avocado-world/avocado-body/757-less-meat-is-better-for-your-colon.html
Letting Go
One of the hardest things in life that we must do is to say goodbye and to let go, whether to people, situation or even things. When we’re happy, the happiness is often tinged with sadness because we know that the moment will not last, and already we’re thinking of how much we will regret losing that feeling.
When I was a child I had a particularly sensitive nature when it came to the idea of loss, something that may be older folk would be more familiar with as they are a lot more prone to pangs of nostalgia than younger people. For instance, I remember vividly when I was around seven or eight years old, my mother reprinted some old photos that I had not seen before to stick in a photo album. Some had photos of me as a toddler.
Instead of being amused by the baby pictures, I was filled with an enormous sense of sadness so much so I actually shed tears copiously. The reason was, I could not recollect any of the moments captured in the photos and I was filled with regret there was a part of my life that I lost forever, even as I did not have any memory of it. Once upon a time, I was a little child, and now that child was gone. I was already a big girl.
I went to bed crying and my mother or my sister never figured out why I was so tearful, thinking it was just typical of me who was the family’s cry baby. But there it was. I was seven and my emotions were already full of nostalgia and regret like some old woman mourning her lost youth.
Another time that I could remember succumbing to a similar bout of sentimentality was when I returned home after a long weekend spent in Pangandaran beach, one of the most beautiful and memorable experiences that I had ever felt in my then almost ten years of existence. It was my first taste of real loss that would traumatize my tender emotions for years to come and when I was acquainted with the notion that nothing lasts forever and all good things must come to an end.
I had never been to the seaside before and the feeling of the sand between my toes, the salty smell that permeated everything from my skin, hair and the air that I breathed, the sound of the waves breaking on the shore in the evening, keeping me awake at night, they were new and poignantly beautiful experiences that I treasured during the three short days I spent there.
And then the moment was over.
Instead of savouring the moments and turning them into memories that would provide me with happy reminiscences, every night for over a week after that holiday I would lie in bed crying myself to sleep, upset that I had lost those happy days, sad that I was no longer experiencing them. I wanted time to stop, so I could frolic in the water, hunt for seashells, run barefooted on the soft golden sand, drink coconut from its shell and smell the grilled fish cooked over charcoals in the sunset, forever.
I had fallen in love. And then it was over. My lover was taken away from me and I felt the sadness of separation, the despair of a life incomplete and a happiness wrenched away from me. I had glimpsed paradise and I had to go back to earth. I even wished that I had not gone on that little holiday.
Over time however, the trauma of this childish experience taught me two things. First, is to appreciate the beauty of the moment, to enjoy things as they are without the fear of losing them, and second, to be able to say goodbye and to let go of things without fear and knowing that it’s not the end of the world.
Because at the end of the day, life is but a fleeting moment, a series of events that come and go, emotions that arise and disappear, feelings that develop and wane, moments that spark and fade. It is not a never-ending situation, a game without match point or the blowing of a whistle nor a perpetual film without the credit titles.
As such, life could only be about letting go, for in doing so we create the space for new things, new experiences, new people and new emotions to enter into our lives. Thus we are enriched. For when we hold on to old things, to stale emotions, to habitual thoughts and ageing beliefs, we allow ourselves to be in a constant state of death, of arrested development and of not living a fulfilled life.
As I grew up, I would enjoy the feeling of going away, leaving home to distant shores and delight in being under different skies and bask in unfamiliar surroundings. I would take these new experiences and store them as sweet memories, grateful for the opportunity to appreciate them. And I had long learned not to be sad on the way home, nor feel a sense of loss or regret that the moment has ended.
Instead, I cherish the feeling of wonder and excitement that allow me to develop a sense of anticipation for future journeys and more adventures. This way, life is not about endings, but about new beginnings. Death is not to be mourned or feared, but to be embraced as a necessary part of our constant rebirth.
http://www.desianwar.com/writings/journal/113-letting-go.html
When I was a child I had a particularly sensitive nature when it came to the idea of loss, something that may be older folk would be more familiar with as they are a lot more prone to pangs of nostalgia than younger people. For instance, I remember vividly when I was around seven or eight years old, my mother reprinted some old photos that I had not seen before to stick in a photo album. Some had photos of me as a toddler.
Instead of being amused by the baby pictures, I was filled with an enormous sense of sadness so much so I actually shed tears copiously. The reason was, I could not recollect any of the moments captured in the photos and I was filled with regret there was a part of my life that I lost forever, even as I did not have any memory of it. Once upon a time, I was a little child, and now that child was gone. I was already a big girl.
I went to bed crying and my mother or my sister never figured out why I was so tearful, thinking it was just typical of me who was the family’s cry baby. But there it was. I was seven and my emotions were already full of nostalgia and regret like some old woman mourning her lost youth.
Another time that I could remember succumbing to a similar bout of sentimentality was when I returned home after a long weekend spent in Pangandaran beach, one of the most beautiful and memorable experiences that I had ever felt in my then almost ten years of existence. It was my first taste of real loss that would traumatize my tender emotions for years to come and when I was acquainted with the notion that nothing lasts forever and all good things must come to an end.
I had never been to the seaside before and the feeling of the sand between my toes, the salty smell that permeated everything from my skin, hair and the air that I breathed, the sound of the waves breaking on the shore in the evening, keeping me awake at night, they were new and poignantly beautiful experiences that I treasured during the three short days I spent there.
And then the moment was over.
Instead of savouring the moments and turning them into memories that would provide me with happy reminiscences, every night for over a week after that holiday I would lie in bed crying myself to sleep, upset that I had lost those happy days, sad that I was no longer experiencing them. I wanted time to stop, so I could frolic in the water, hunt for seashells, run barefooted on the soft golden sand, drink coconut from its shell and smell the grilled fish cooked over charcoals in the sunset, forever.
I had fallen in love. And then it was over. My lover was taken away from me and I felt the sadness of separation, the despair of a life incomplete and a happiness wrenched away from me. I had glimpsed paradise and I had to go back to earth. I even wished that I had not gone on that little holiday.
Over time however, the trauma of this childish experience taught me two things. First, is to appreciate the beauty of the moment, to enjoy things as they are without the fear of losing them, and second, to be able to say goodbye and to let go of things without fear and knowing that it’s not the end of the world.
Because at the end of the day, life is but a fleeting moment, a series of events that come and go, emotions that arise and disappear, feelings that develop and wane, moments that spark and fade. It is not a never-ending situation, a game without match point or the blowing of a whistle nor a perpetual film without the credit titles.
As such, life could only be about letting go, for in doing so we create the space for new things, new experiences, new people and new emotions to enter into our lives. Thus we are enriched. For when we hold on to old things, to stale emotions, to habitual thoughts and ageing beliefs, we allow ourselves to be in a constant state of death, of arrested development and of not living a fulfilled life.
As I grew up, I would enjoy the feeling of going away, leaving home to distant shores and delight in being under different skies and bask in unfamiliar surroundings. I would take these new experiences and store them as sweet memories, grateful for the opportunity to appreciate them. And I had long learned not to be sad on the way home, nor feel a sense of loss or regret that the moment has ended.
Instead, I cherish the feeling of wonder and excitement that allow me to develop a sense of anticipation for future journeys and more adventures. This way, life is not about endings, but about new beginnings. Death is not to be mourned or feared, but to be embraced as a necessary part of our constant rebirth.
http://www.desianwar.com/writings/journal/113-letting-go.html
Manipulate Me
When I'm in the US I always love to watch those paid advertisement programs on the television. You know, the long programs that are commercial in nature, and so addictive to watch because you start discovering all the problems you have with your body, your face, your life and other horrific things which, prior to that moment you never knew exised. But now you know you have them, life seems incomplete of you didn't get your hands on the solutions being offered. From things to fix your house with to products that transform your bodies, these ads come complete with testimonies from satisfied customers, a convincing before and after comparison and scientific explanations from experts, that it wouldn't surprise me if everybody on the land didn't rush to get them after watching them. They are that persuasive! Or maybe I'm just gullible.
For example there's one product that purports to change the shape of your body and make those with wide girths drop down a couple of sizes in their clothes. Just by putting tthis so called 'body shaper' on, people with huge, unsightly bulges at the most unwanted places like stomach, waist and behinds, which is quite the majority these days, could suddenly become svelte with an attractive silhouette. Yes, by just wearing this little piece of garment, fat people with big paunches and butts that stick out like a the rear end of a bus could suddenly shave off a good few inches from their waists and wear their favourite clothes again. And all for a mere $39.99 or your money back! Not only that, but if you call to order within the next ten minutes they would throw in extra garments in different colours. If you order within two minutes they would send you half a dozen for free! I could feel myself physically yearning to reach out for the phone and wallet for my credit card. I mean, those big people with ugly bodies that suddenly look presentable are real proof that that the stuff works. And everybody has a problem with unsightly bulges right?
Changing the channel however, there's an offer for a thing called the 'genie bra'. Immediately I'm all eyes and ears. Are you unhappy with your bra? The attractive lady who was a former news anchor asks on the television. I never thought about it, but go on. Do you struggle with hooks and do your bras make you look lumpy, not give you a proper lift and show off your back fat? Back fat? Some ladies unhappy with their regular bras are shown airing their grievances I didn't know bras could produce. And now looking at it, why yes, my bra does indeed enhance the back fat I didn't know I had and is definitely not giving me the kind of lift that I'm entitled to.
The magic bra on the other hand, not only gives the wearer a smooth appearance even with the tightest and flimsiest piece of clothing, but could actually give you the perkiest and gravity-defying silhouette. Without the slightest hint of lumpiness and back fat. Now, what lady on this planet doesn't want that? I certainly want one, or even two or three in different colours. Especially if they are only $29.99 and if you call to order within the next three minutes they will give you extras that will live last for three generations. Plus, throw in a garment that could make your backside look perky for good measure.
My instinct protests. Magic underwear? Why didn't they make a whole ten minutes spiel on the wonders of those underpants that could show off the curves of your behind in a flattering way without the dreaded visible panty lines? I want them. I need them and I must have them. None of my underwear could do any of those things. And here is something that could answer the problems that I have. I'm convinced that with the body shaper, the magic bra and the magic underpants I would henceforth go through life with increased confidence. I make a mental note to have my wallet near me next time. You have to be fast in order to take advantage of the amazing special offers.
But what's this coming up now? It's ex super model Cindy Crawford. And who doesn't want to look like Cindy Crawford, the ex-anchor turned saleswoman on the screen asks. (So that's what happens to news anchors. Old anchors never die, they become TV product endorsers!). Cindy has looked the same way since she was in her twenties. A picture of Cindy at 28 comes up, next to the present one at 48. Yes, indeed, she hasn't aged one bit. I nod in admiration as do all the ladies gathered and clapping in the studio on the TV. So, what's her secret? By this time I have no desire to change the channel.
I want to know Cindy Crawford's beauty secret. In comes the still glamorous model. She's more than happy to share with the world her fountain of youth discovered by her skin doctor. Who happens to be French and rather good looking. Whatever they're using I want it too. The doctor, with his irrepressible smile and irresistible accent, tells the audience the secret lies in the melon. A special melon grown in the south of France that doesn't age. Pictures of juicy looking melon rich with anti-oxidant properties flash on the screen. I want to be that melon! It's the very same melon that has kept Cindy Crawford a real life, female Dorian Gray. And now you too could be like Cindy, because she is sharing the product created for her by the handsome French doctor for you, ordinary mortals, at a price you could afford. Something that ends with .99 and if you call within the next few minutes they would throw in other amazing extras etc.
By now, I've caught on to the pattern of this method of advertising. A bunch of testimonials, a before and after, expert comments and satisfied customers and bingo, I am completely convinced that these are products that would change my life. As a matter of fact, watching these things I could feel myself emotionally manipulated and even physically feel the desire rise within me for these incredible products. What is saving me from reaching for my wallet fortunately, is the sheer number of incredible stuff being offered at the same time.
I change the channel. There's a product called the 'body contour'. It's a belt that gives you the perfect abs...
(Desi Anwar: First published in The Jakarta Globe)
http://www.dailyavocado.net/writers-block/92-writers-block/749-from-the-editor.html
For example there's one product that purports to change the shape of your body and make those with wide girths drop down a couple of sizes in their clothes. Just by putting tthis so called 'body shaper' on, people with huge, unsightly bulges at the most unwanted places like stomach, waist and behinds, which is quite the majority these days, could suddenly become svelte with an attractive silhouette. Yes, by just wearing this little piece of garment, fat people with big paunches and butts that stick out like a the rear end of a bus could suddenly shave off a good few inches from their waists and wear their favourite clothes again. And all for a mere $39.99 or your money back! Not only that, but if you call to order within the next ten minutes they would throw in extra garments in different colours. If you order within two minutes they would send you half a dozen for free! I could feel myself physically yearning to reach out for the phone and wallet for my credit card. I mean, those big people with ugly bodies that suddenly look presentable are real proof that that the stuff works. And everybody has a problem with unsightly bulges right?
Changing the channel however, there's an offer for a thing called the 'genie bra'. Immediately I'm all eyes and ears. Are you unhappy with your bra? The attractive lady who was a former news anchor asks on the television. I never thought about it, but go on. Do you struggle with hooks and do your bras make you look lumpy, not give you a proper lift and show off your back fat? Back fat? Some ladies unhappy with their regular bras are shown airing their grievances I didn't know bras could produce. And now looking at it, why yes, my bra does indeed enhance the back fat I didn't know I had and is definitely not giving me the kind of lift that I'm entitled to.
The magic bra on the other hand, not only gives the wearer a smooth appearance even with the tightest and flimsiest piece of clothing, but could actually give you the perkiest and gravity-defying silhouette. Without the slightest hint of lumpiness and back fat. Now, what lady on this planet doesn't want that? I certainly want one, or even two or three in different colours. Especially if they are only $29.99 and if you call to order within the next three minutes they will give you extras that will live last for three generations. Plus, throw in a garment that could make your backside look perky for good measure.
My instinct protests. Magic underwear? Why didn't they make a whole ten minutes spiel on the wonders of those underpants that could show off the curves of your behind in a flattering way without the dreaded visible panty lines? I want them. I need them and I must have them. None of my underwear could do any of those things. And here is something that could answer the problems that I have. I'm convinced that with the body shaper, the magic bra and the magic underpants I would henceforth go through life with increased confidence. I make a mental note to have my wallet near me next time. You have to be fast in order to take advantage of the amazing special offers.
But what's this coming up now? It's ex super model Cindy Crawford. And who doesn't want to look like Cindy Crawford, the ex-anchor turned saleswoman on the screen asks. (So that's what happens to news anchors. Old anchors never die, they become TV product endorsers!). Cindy has looked the same way since she was in her twenties. A picture of Cindy at 28 comes up, next to the present one at 48. Yes, indeed, she hasn't aged one bit. I nod in admiration as do all the ladies gathered and clapping in the studio on the TV. So, what's her secret? By this time I have no desire to change the channel.
I want to know Cindy Crawford's beauty secret. In comes the still glamorous model. She's more than happy to share with the world her fountain of youth discovered by her skin doctor. Who happens to be French and rather good looking. Whatever they're using I want it too. The doctor, with his irrepressible smile and irresistible accent, tells the audience the secret lies in the melon. A special melon grown in the south of France that doesn't age. Pictures of juicy looking melon rich with anti-oxidant properties flash on the screen. I want to be that melon! It's the very same melon that has kept Cindy Crawford a real life, female Dorian Gray. And now you too could be like Cindy, because she is sharing the product created for her by the handsome French doctor for you, ordinary mortals, at a price you could afford. Something that ends with .99 and if you call within the next few minutes they would throw in other amazing extras etc.
By now, I've caught on to the pattern of this method of advertising. A bunch of testimonials, a before and after, expert comments and satisfied customers and bingo, I am completely convinced that these are products that would change my life. As a matter of fact, watching these things I could feel myself emotionally manipulated and even physically feel the desire rise within me for these incredible products. What is saving me from reaching for my wallet fortunately, is the sheer number of incredible stuff being offered at the same time.
I change the channel. There's a product called the 'body contour'. It's a belt that gives you the perfect abs...
(Desi Anwar: First published in The Jakarta Globe)
http://www.dailyavocado.net/writers-block/92-writers-block/749-from-the-editor.html
Who Am I?
In a recent discussion someone asked why should we bother over things such as trying to know ourselves better? In turn he was asked, what is more important in life than attaining self-knowledge, knowing oneself? I could not agree more.
Yes, there are many things in life to devote oneself to, such as getting an education, having a career and earning a decent salary, raising a family and hopefully being a person of some use to society. As a matter of fact, I’m sure for a lot of people simply trying to get by in a highly competitive and challenging world, is already a difficult enough task they have to face in their lives without having to ask a question whose answer is as elusive as the question itself.
But the question must be asked. ‘Who am I’ and ‘Why am I in this world?’ Questions whose answers would lead one to the quest of finding one self and achieving self-knowledge. Without pausing to ask these fundamental questions about our existence, life could only be shallow, lived on the superficial level, like taking part in a school play and yet not knowing what role you have to play.
Worse. You don’t even realise you’re in a play, thinking that the role is your true self. That the play on the stage is your life. You have no idea who you really are, let alone who the author of the drama is. Stay on the stage long enough, sooner or later you will feel that there is something incomplete about your character, something odd and aimless, something missing.
Then life, or the semblance of life that you’re living is not enough. Fulfilling needs becomes an unsatisfactory objective once your appetite for material possession wanes and the world no longer has its charm. Bit by bit you realise that life is not only an accumulation of wealth, social status or the amount of charity you give.
Moreover, your belief system, the sayings and truism that you’ve taken for granted over the years because they have been instilled in your head by the words of your parents, your teachers and the society, suddenly no longer have the ring of authenticity to it. Your belief system is as shallow as the character you play on the stage; passed on words, borrowed sentences and oft-repeated stories that you have neither experienced nor really understood.
They say there is God. There is heaven and hell. Pray hard enough and you will be saved when you die.
And yet you don’t know what any of these things mean. You’ve never met God or anyone who’s been to either heaven or hell. You haven’t died after all. You could only accept these passed on myths as truths because accepting is the easiest thing to do when things are beyond your capability or understanding. Because accepting is far easier than questioning.
But true knowledge could only be gained when you dare to question, pursue and then discover and experience the truth for yourself. You cannot make God exist for you by simply saying ‘I believe God exists because people say that he exists, and to say otherwise is forbidden.’ This kind of argument falls apart in the face of an argument offered by someone else with a different point of view – a view that there is no such thing as God. Based purely on narrow belief systems – a belief without understanding – this type of belief could only give rise to fear and conflict as it is built on shaky grounds.
You do one of two things. Hang on to your belief, defending it with all your might, thus making its defence your life’s meaning. Or you dispense of it, perhaps with a dose of cynicism, making it another of your means to justify an end. Either way, your life becomes nothing but an accumulation of action without meaning. Your character on the stage a mere puppet pushed around by desires, emotions and the Ego.
But there comes a time when, by chance or accident, you find yourself standing at the brink of an abyss and you’re confronted with that question which, once asked, you cannot run away from. ‘Who am I?’ - three little words that could turn your world upside down and upsetting all the belief systems that you have held on to all this time, as if it were part of yourself and your identity.
And your life will never be the same until you set yourself on the path of finding the answer.
(Life Begins at 40)
http://www.desianwar.com/writings/journal/114-who-am-i.html
Yes, there are many things in life to devote oneself to, such as getting an education, having a career and earning a decent salary, raising a family and hopefully being a person of some use to society. As a matter of fact, I’m sure for a lot of people simply trying to get by in a highly competitive and challenging world, is already a difficult enough task they have to face in their lives without having to ask a question whose answer is as elusive as the question itself.
But the question must be asked. ‘Who am I’ and ‘Why am I in this world?’ Questions whose answers would lead one to the quest of finding one self and achieving self-knowledge. Without pausing to ask these fundamental questions about our existence, life could only be shallow, lived on the superficial level, like taking part in a school play and yet not knowing what role you have to play.
Worse. You don’t even realise you’re in a play, thinking that the role is your true self. That the play on the stage is your life. You have no idea who you really are, let alone who the author of the drama is. Stay on the stage long enough, sooner or later you will feel that there is something incomplete about your character, something odd and aimless, something missing.
Then life, or the semblance of life that you’re living is not enough. Fulfilling needs becomes an unsatisfactory objective once your appetite for material possession wanes and the world no longer has its charm. Bit by bit you realise that life is not only an accumulation of wealth, social status or the amount of charity you give.
Moreover, your belief system, the sayings and truism that you’ve taken for granted over the years because they have been instilled in your head by the words of your parents, your teachers and the society, suddenly no longer have the ring of authenticity to it. Your belief system is as shallow as the character you play on the stage; passed on words, borrowed sentences and oft-repeated stories that you have neither experienced nor really understood.
They say there is God. There is heaven and hell. Pray hard enough and you will be saved when you die.
And yet you don’t know what any of these things mean. You’ve never met God or anyone who’s been to either heaven or hell. You haven’t died after all. You could only accept these passed on myths as truths because accepting is the easiest thing to do when things are beyond your capability or understanding. Because accepting is far easier than questioning.
But true knowledge could only be gained when you dare to question, pursue and then discover and experience the truth for yourself. You cannot make God exist for you by simply saying ‘I believe God exists because people say that he exists, and to say otherwise is forbidden.’ This kind of argument falls apart in the face of an argument offered by someone else with a different point of view – a view that there is no such thing as God. Based purely on narrow belief systems – a belief without understanding – this type of belief could only give rise to fear and conflict as it is built on shaky grounds.
You do one of two things. Hang on to your belief, defending it with all your might, thus making its defence your life’s meaning. Or you dispense of it, perhaps with a dose of cynicism, making it another of your means to justify an end. Either way, your life becomes nothing but an accumulation of action without meaning. Your character on the stage a mere puppet pushed around by desires, emotions and the Ego.
But there comes a time when, by chance or accident, you find yourself standing at the brink of an abyss and you’re confronted with that question which, once asked, you cannot run away from. ‘Who am I?’ - three little words that could turn your world upside down and upsetting all the belief systems that you have held on to all this time, as if it were part of yourself and your identity.
And your life will never be the same until you set yourself on the path of finding the answer.
(Life Begins at 40)
http://www.desianwar.com/writings/journal/114-who-am-i.html
Many Roads to Rome
A recent article in Newsweek caught my eye. Entitled ‘We are all Hindus now’ it quoted a 2008 Pew Forum survey on the way Americans think about God, themselves, each other and eternity. Turns out that although the majority of Americans still identify themselves as Christians, when it comes to spiritual truth, the afterlife and their religion, most are no longer buying into the idea that theirs is the only true way to salvation.
As a matter of fact, according to the survey, 65% of Americans believe that ‘many religions can lead to eternal life’, including, quoting the article, ’37 percent of white evangelicals, the group most likely to believe that salvation is theirs alone.’
Meanwhile, 30 percent of Americans consider themselves ‘spiritual, not religious’ according to a 2009 Newsweek Poll, up from 24 percent in 2005, while more and more people are seeking for spiritual truth outside the church. Moreover, according to a 2008 Harris poll, 24 percent of Americans say they believe in reincarnation in which the body is impermanent while the soul is eternal and can inhabit many bodies in different incarnations.
In other words, Americans are becoming more like Hindus whose scripture says that ‘Truth is one, but the sages speak of it by many names.’ Whether through the paths of Jesus, the Qur’an or Yoga, none is better than any other and all are equal.
I find this finding both enlightening and encouraging. Imagine if everybody in the world starts thinking along this line then we would have so much less religious-based conflicts and a much greater tolerance for the diversity of religious expressions.
People would then not get so hung up on their religion and define themselves by their religious identities, nor would they see other religions as a threat to their existence or an offence to their way of life. There are after all many paths to Rome. The focus therefore, should be on the purpose of the journey and the destination rather than the path itself.
To bicker about which is the best path to follow and which is the right vehicle to take, as we see, only results in conflicts, distrusts and hatred. It does not help in taking us further on the journey. Worse, fighting about whose vehicle is the right one, might even divert us from the destination itself.
This of course, flies in the face of orthodoxy and for many people the idea that you call yourself of a particular religion but then pick and choose what works in a sort of ‘divine-deli-cafeteria religion’ to quote the article again, a rather uncomfortable one.
But then again, why not? The choice is whether one wants to focus on the religious identity itself, the religion most of us happen to be born into whether by accident of birth, race, location, society and moment in time, or whether one wishes to focus on the spiritual aspect, where one’s relationship with the divine becomes also one’s personal search for the truth and understanding of why we exist, what happens to us when we die and the meaning of it all. In which case religion becomes a means that connects the seeker with the truth.
After all, is not the essence of all religions is peace? And is not a peaceful mind, a peaceful heart and a peaceful life what every human being seeks regardless the religion or even when one does not follow any particular religion?
Personally, when it comes to spirituality, it’s a personal choice on whatever works. Whether it’s chanting, dzikir, meditation, attending the mass or Friday prayers, fasting, being a vegetarian or what have you, they are all good as long as they make you feel closer not only to God but to your fellow human beings and make you appreciate life better.
What I find not so good is if your religion makes you feel you have to force your belief on other people, uncomfortable when you see someone else wearing religious attributes different from your own, suspicious when other people build houses of worships next to yours and make religion the end of your life’s meaning and not a means to create a better life.
And if religion is about a way of life, I often find it odd that people can pray so ardently to God for blessing and guidance and yet still treat other people with no respect, throw garbage anywhere they want and engage in other anti-social behaviours.
So if Americans are becoming Hindus, what about Indonesians? It would be interesting to see what sort of results if the Pew Forum survey were done in this country.
When spirituality becomes the end and not the religion itself, then we truly have a recipe for global harmony.
http://www.dailyavocado.net/avocado-world/avocado-soul/501-from-the-editor.html
As a matter of fact, according to the survey, 65% of Americans believe that ‘many religions can lead to eternal life’, including, quoting the article, ’37 percent of white evangelicals, the group most likely to believe that salvation is theirs alone.’
Meanwhile, 30 percent of Americans consider themselves ‘spiritual, not religious’ according to a 2009 Newsweek Poll, up from 24 percent in 2005, while more and more people are seeking for spiritual truth outside the church. Moreover, according to a 2008 Harris poll, 24 percent of Americans say they believe in reincarnation in which the body is impermanent while the soul is eternal and can inhabit many bodies in different incarnations.
In other words, Americans are becoming more like Hindus whose scripture says that ‘Truth is one, but the sages speak of it by many names.’ Whether through the paths of Jesus, the Qur’an or Yoga, none is better than any other and all are equal.
I find this finding both enlightening and encouraging. Imagine if everybody in the world starts thinking along this line then we would have so much less religious-based conflicts and a much greater tolerance for the diversity of religious expressions.
People would then not get so hung up on their religion and define themselves by their religious identities, nor would they see other religions as a threat to their existence or an offence to their way of life. There are after all many paths to Rome. The focus therefore, should be on the purpose of the journey and the destination rather than the path itself.
To bicker about which is the best path to follow and which is the right vehicle to take, as we see, only results in conflicts, distrusts and hatred. It does not help in taking us further on the journey. Worse, fighting about whose vehicle is the right one, might even divert us from the destination itself.
This of course, flies in the face of orthodoxy and for many people the idea that you call yourself of a particular religion but then pick and choose what works in a sort of ‘divine-deli-cafeteria religion’ to quote the article again, a rather uncomfortable one.
But then again, why not? The choice is whether one wants to focus on the religious identity itself, the religion most of us happen to be born into whether by accident of birth, race, location, society and moment in time, or whether one wishes to focus on the spiritual aspect, where one’s relationship with the divine becomes also one’s personal search for the truth and understanding of why we exist, what happens to us when we die and the meaning of it all. In which case religion becomes a means that connects the seeker with the truth.
After all, is not the essence of all religions is peace? And is not a peaceful mind, a peaceful heart and a peaceful life what every human being seeks regardless the religion or even when one does not follow any particular religion?
Personally, when it comes to spirituality, it’s a personal choice on whatever works. Whether it’s chanting, dzikir, meditation, attending the mass or Friday prayers, fasting, being a vegetarian or what have you, they are all good as long as they make you feel closer not only to God but to your fellow human beings and make you appreciate life better.
What I find not so good is if your religion makes you feel you have to force your belief on other people, uncomfortable when you see someone else wearing religious attributes different from your own, suspicious when other people build houses of worships next to yours and make religion the end of your life’s meaning and not a means to create a better life.
And if religion is about a way of life, I often find it odd that people can pray so ardently to God for blessing and guidance and yet still treat other people with no respect, throw garbage anywhere they want and engage in other anti-social behaviours.
So if Americans are becoming Hindus, what about Indonesians? It would be interesting to see what sort of results if the Pew Forum survey were done in this country.
When spirituality becomes the end and not the religion itself, then we truly have a recipe for global harmony.
http://www.dailyavocado.net/avocado-world/avocado-soul/501-from-the-editor.html
Respecting the Body
This has been another eventful week for me, although being in the media I cannot really remember the last time there really was nothing very much going on. As a matter of fact, as I've often pointed out, things are moving so fast these days that there often is very little time to absorb what's going on let alone trying to figure out the meaning.
The one thing that is happening with increasing frequency is the number of people either getting sick or dying around me. Of course, this just goes to show that I am getting on in years or people are disappearing faster from the planet at a younger age than normal.
A cousin passed away barely last week. He was less than ten years older than me and we used to be close when we were young. I hadn't seen him for decades so in my mind's eye he was still the cocky young man who used to get into fights and take drugs because it was the cool thing to do. I remember being very fond of him because he was like an older brother I never had.
He stayed with us during my family's early years in London. He went to some college by the seaside to study English and succeeded in getting himself a string of girlfriends (all foreign students) and not much success in improving his English language! My mother dispatched him back home having decided his sojourn was a waste of his time and his parents money and I never managed to see much of him since then.
I went to his funeral. There he was, all laid out on the floor covered by a thin piece of sarong. I took a peek at his face and did not see the young man I knew. Instead, it was the face of someone I failed to recognize at all - thin and gaunt, not to mention very much lifeless. It could have been anybody's.
According to his sister he suffered a stroke that got worse in the last four months before he finally gave up. It affected his neck and head and prevented him from being able to eat properly. He lost a lot of weight, she said, and also his will to live. His first light stroke was almost ten years before that.
But what did he eat? I asked. She said at one point he ate three helpings of 'Gulai otak' (cow's brains goulash) a big favourite of the Minang people famous for their high cholesterol diet. Besides, the sister added, he seemed to have a lot of things on his mind.
I looked around me. Most of these relatives I had not seen since I was much younger. There were my other cousins, all with their spouses and grown children, much older and a little worse for wear and to be honest, I bare recognized.
There was my aunt (who used to be so imperious and full of condescension if my memory serves me well) now a frail old lady who rambles away seemingly unaffected by the death of her second son, though still with a fiery spark in her eyes and sharpness in her tongue. I have the feeling she will survive all her children for there is still much zest and energy inside her.
And I think, growing older is indeed inevitable, but how we grow older is very much a choice. I may not be able to control the passing of time and the changing of the seasons but I certainly can control what food passes my mouth, how often I move my body and the quality of thoughts I feed my mind with.
Often we treat ourselves much harsher than we do other people - punishing our bodies with regrets, inflicting pain with remorse and torturing our mind with self-criticisms. At the same time we ignore our body when it aches, when it feels pain and when it cries out for our attention.
I may not be able to cure my illnesses but I can learn to listen when my body speaks and thus prevent the sickness before it eats into my cells. I may not be able to control how others treat me or what befall me, but I can control how I respond to their action and adjust my attitude.
But this can only be done if we have proper respect for our bodies, well before anything else. Without this respect we die not because of fate or accident, but due to the body giving up on us because of our neglect towards it. And when our body gives up on us, then all our dreams, our efforts, our pursuit of happiness will be in vain.
http://kickandy.com/friend/4/5/1341/read/Respecting-the-Body
The one thing that is happening with increasing frequency is the number of people either getting sick or dying around me. Of course, this just goes to show that I am getting on in years or people are disappearing faster from the planet at a younger age than normal.
A cousin passed away barely last week. He was less than ten years older than me and we used to be close when we were young. I hadn't seen him for decades so in my mind's eye he was still the cocky young man who used to get into fights and take drugs because it was the cool thing to do. I remember being very fond of him because he was like an older brother I never had.
He stayed with us during my family's early years in London. He went to some college by the seaside to study English and succeeded in getting himself a string of girlfriends (all foreign students) and not much success in improving his English language! My mother dispatched him back home having decided his sojourn was a waste of his time and his parents money and I never managed to see much of him since then.
I went to his funeral. There he was, all laid out on the floor covered by a thin piece of sarong. I took a peek at his face and did not see the young man I knew. Instead, it was the face of someone I failed to recognize at all - thin and gaunt, not to mention very much lifeless. It could have been anybody's.
According to his sister he suffered a stroke that got worse in the last four months before he finally gave up. It affected his neck and head and prevented him from being able to eat properly. He lost a lot of weight, she said, and also his will to live. His first light stroke was almost ten years before that.
But what did he eat? I asked. She said at one point he ate three helpings of 'Gulai otak' (cow's brains goulash) a big favourite of the Minang people famous for their high cholesterol diet. Besides, the sister added, he seemed to have a lot of things on his mind.
I looked around me. Most of these relatives I had not seen since I was much younger. There were my other cousins, all with their spouses and grown children, much older and a little worse for wear and to be honest, I bare recognized.
There was my aunt (who used to be so imperious and full of condescension if my memory serves me well) now a frail old lady who rambles away seemingly unaffected by the death of her second son, though still with a fiery spark in her eyes and sharpness in her tongue. I have the feeling she will survive all her children for there is still much zest and energy inside her.
And I think, growing older is indeed inevitable, but how we grow older is very much a choice. I may not be able to control the passing of time and the changing of the seasons but I certainly can control what food passes my mouth, how often I move my body and the quality of thoughts I feed my mind with.
Often we treat ourselves much harsher than we do other people - punishing our bodies with regrets, inflicting pain with remorse and torturing our mind with self-criticisms. At the same time we ignore our body when it aches, when it feels pain and when it cries out for our attention.
I may not be able to cure my illnesses but I can learn to listen when my body speaks and thus prevent the sickness before it eats into my cells. I may not be able to control how others treat me or what befall me, but I can control how I respond to their action and adjust my attitude.
But this can only be done if we have proper respect for our bodies, well before anything else. Without this respect we die not because of fate or accident, but due to the body giving up on us because of our neglect towards it. And when our body gives up on us, then all our dreams, our efforts, our pursuit of happiness will be in vain.
http://kickandy.com/friend/4/5/1341/read/Respecting-the-Body
Life
Increasingly numbers and figures are becoming the means by which we define our lives. We measure our joy in yields and gains and track our emotions in the rise and fall of capital market indexes. Our sentiment soars when the stock market is high and falls when share prices plunge. Our confidence level is suitably adjusted to the Consumer Confidence Index without which we have no clue as to how we should feel, while bank interest rates play a bigger role in determining our moods than the weather and the total value of our happiness is marked to market.
With the present financial crisis more and more do we obsess about numbers as if the meaning of life rests in the state of the country's macro-economic indicators, the value of our existence in income per capita and the purpose of our being on the planet is for our national currency to achieve the perfect exchange rate – not too high so as to be good for import and not too low so better for export with just the right strength so we could enjoy a foreign holiday every now and then. More and more we give ourselves headaches trying to keep up with and trying to understand the fluctuating prices of everything from oil, precious metals and commodities to share prices. We go into hysterics when commodity prices hit the roof but fall equally into spasms when the trend points downwards. More and more our dreams and hopes for a better future are hostage to the value of our so-called investment.
We put so much time and energy accumulating bits of paper with names like Bonds, Commercial Papers, Stock, Shares, Mutual Funds, Structured Notes which we never get to see or really understand what they are other than diminishing numbers in our monthly financial statements. Even the king of paper, which is cash money, is becoming exactly that, paper with numbers written on it whose value go up and down for no reason other than market sentiment and public confidence.
Even when we peg our wealth to gold, extra property or works of art, still numbers and figures dog us. We only appreciate these things when their perceived values appreciate: when their worth depreciate they cease to be attractive and we lose our appetite for them. We have no real understanding or practical use for them other than following our economic priests' mantra to diversify and the need to appease the gods of our religion called Return on Investment.
And yet when the gods refuse to be appeased, depriving bankers of a good night sleep and preventing traders from enjoying their extra long lunch breaks as the global capital markets languish in the doldrums, perhaps the time is ripe for us to decouple ourselves from the need to define our existence in abstract numbers that fluctuate in value or investment that can disappear for reasons beyond our comprehension and start to invest in things that truly matter: Things that have values with returns far higher than the most aggressive yields and more rewarding than any stock dividends.
There are many such investments and ones that require no brokers or fund managers. We all can create our own portfolios and when properly managed these investments give huge dividends at practically no risks. Moreover, the rewards can be enjoyed not only by yourself but also by those around you and not just for the short term but also for the long term when they are most likely to be needed.
I have my own investment portfolio that I have tried to develop, maintain and diversify over time in a more or less disciplined manner, and which I hope will keep me in good shape in the long term. The first and most important investment in my wealth management plan is Health. 'Health is Wealth' my father would say, for without it, the richest man is poorer than any pauper. I cannot agree more as if there is one form of investment anyone should make in this life, is not by buying cheap shares and have heart attacks over them but in investing in one's health. It does not guarantee a one hundred percent returns in terms of freedom from sickness and diseases and yet it goes a long way in providing one a productive and active life with minimal hospital bills. This is not an easy type of investment of course, as it requires discipline in paying the premium in the form of good eating and healthy habits, but rarely does anyone I know regret making this type of investment.
Another rewarding investment I find is not Time Deposit but in Making Time. For busy executives with targets to achieve this might be a difficult thing to do and yet in the long term this is an extremely good investment to make especially when one has already failed in investing in one's health. Investment bankers who can no longer focus on their strokes in the golf course would do well to make time for their families, friends and loved ones as well as on themselves rather than getting stressed out watching their money disappear down the drain. They will not only make themselves and their friends happy but they will be well cushioned from the possible hazardous effects should their numbers and figures investment fail. For proper investment in relationships rarely fail as their value does not rest in illusory numbers that shift and change, but in true and tangible wealth that no money could buy.
http://kickandy.com/friend/4/5/1319/read/Life
With the present financial crisis more and more do we obsess about numbers as if the meaning of life rests in the state of the country's macro-economic indicators, the value of our existence in income per capita and the purpose of our being on the planet is for our national currency to achieve the perfect exchange rate – not too high so as to be good for import and not too low so better for export with just the right strength so we could enjoy a foreign holiday every now and then. More and more we give ourselves headaches trying to keep up with and trying to understand the fluctuating prices of everything from oil, precious metals and commodities to share prices. We go into hysterics when commodity prices hit the roof but fall equally into spasms when the trend points downwards. More and more our dreams and hopes for a better future are hostage to the value of our so-called investment.
We put so much time and energy accumulating bits of paper with names like Bonds, Commercial Papers, Stock, Shares, Mutual Funds, Structured Notes which we never get to see or really understand what they are other than diminishing numbers in our monthly financial statements. Even the king of paper, which is cash money, is becoming exactly that, paper with numbers written on it whose value go up and down for no reason other than market sentiment and public confidence.
Even when we peg our wealth to gold, extra property or works of art, still numbers and figures dog us. We only appreciate these things when their perceived values appreciate: when their worth depreciate they cease to be attractive and we lose our appetite for them. We have no real understanding or practical use for them other than following our economic priests' mantra to diversify and the need to appease the gods of our religion called Return on Investment.
And yet when the gods refuse to be appeased, depriving bankers of a good night sleep and preventing traders from enjoying their extra long lunch breaks as the global capital markets languish in the doldrums, perhaps the time is ripe for us to decouple ourselves from the need to define our existence in abstract numbers that fluctuate in value or investment that can disappear for reasons beyond our comprehension and start to invest in things that truly matter: Things that have values with returns far higher than the most aggressive yields and more rewarding than any stock dividends.
There are many such investments and ones that require no brokers or fund managers. We all can create our own portfolios and when properly managed these investments give huge dividends at practically no risks. Moreover, the rewards can be enjoyed not only by yourself but also by those around you and not just for the short term but also for the long term when they are most likely to be needed.
I have my own investment portfolio that I have tried to develop, maintain and diversify over time in a more or less disciplined manner, and which I hope will keep me in good shape in the long term. The first and most important investment in my wealth management plan is Health. 'Health is Wealth' my father would say, for without it, the richest man is poorer than any pauper. I cannot agree more as if there is one form of investment anyone should make in this life, is not by buying cheap shares and have heart attacks over them but in investing in one's health. It does not guarantee a one hundred percent returns in terms of freedom from sickness and diseases and yet it goes a long way in providing one a productive and active life with minimal hospital bills. This is not an easy type of investment of course, as it requires discipline in paying the premium in the form of good eating and healthy habits, but rarely does anyone I know regret making this type of investment.
Another rewarding investment I find is not Time Deposit but in Making Time. For busy executives with targets to achieve this might be a difficult thing to do and yet in the long term this is an extremely good investment to make especially when one has already failed in investing in one's health. Investment bankers who can no longer focus on their strokes in the golf course would do well to make time for their families, friends and loved ones as well as on themselves rather than getting stressed out watching their money disappear down the drain. They will not only make themselves and their friends happy but they will be well cushioned from the possible hazardous effects should their numbers and figures investment fail. For proper investment in relationships rarely fail as their value does not rest in illusory numbers that shift and change, but in true and tangible wealth that no money could buy.
http://kickandy.com/friend/4/5/1319/read/Life
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