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Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts

Sunday, May 25, 2025

Renunciation and dispassion

Siddhartha Gautama Buddha let go or renounced the family life and the worldly way of living, and the title, power, wealth, easiness, enjoyment, or comfort of being a prince as well as the future ruler of a kingdom that he inherited from birth.

Swami Sivananda also let go or renounced the family life and the worldly way of living, and the title, power, wealth, easiness, enjoyment, or comfort of being a Brahmin that he inherited from birth, as well as the worldly profession of a medical doctor that he achieved through academic education, although he continued to provide charitable medical consultation/dispensary to the public throughout his lifetime.

Upon attaining self-realization (after a prolonged duration of retreating into solitude and seclusion), they came back to the world to disseminate the dharma into the world selflessly, until the end of their life existence.

Renunciation from worldly life, retreat into solitude and seclusion, is an inevitable important observation that allows the mind to be engaging in the mind purification and silencing process effectively under right attitude, right attentiveness, and right effort via the middle path, that enables the annihilation of the idea of 'I', egoism, impurities, and restlessness from the selfless modification of the mind effectively, where the selfless thinking and acting mind knows Thyself, and transcends the selfless impermanent existence and function of itself, transcending the selfless impermanent modification of the mind, or the selfless impermanent limited and conditional worldly life existence.

Under the presence of the wise companies, Satsanga, one also needs to retreat into solitude and seclusion (Asanga - the absence of Satsanga and Kutsanga) for certain extended duration (minimum 5 to 6 years, or even longer) to be observing complete silence of physical and mental activity, including both worldly and spiritual activity (The absence of attachment, clinging, longing, and craving towards the presence of goodness, kindness, easiness, joyfulness, meaningfulness, agreement, love, support, acknowledgement, interaction, companionship, or Satsanga), not to say, under the presence of Kutsanga (Being surrounded by the worldly passionate impure egoistic minds and engaging in the worldly passionate impure egoistic affairs, activities, ties and connections, communications, and interactions), that are draining one's energy, and pulling/distracting oneself away from the highest duty of mankind to be looking after one's over-all physical and mental well-being, to attain direct experience and self-realization towards Selflessness and Impermanence, to stop hurting oneself and others and the surrounding environment out of ignorance and the by-products of ignorance.

There is the inevitable necessity of renouncing family and community life/affairs/activities/interactions/communications/ties and connections to be observing complete silence in solitude and seclusion even when the family members and the surrounding community are like-minded and agreeable as well as uplifting with correct understanding (Satsanga), not to say, when the family members and/or the surrounding community (Passionate egoistic impure worldly minded Kutsanga) are ceaselessly draining one's energy and pulling/distracting oneself away from the highest duty of mankind.

None can tell another about what they should do or shouldn't do, or how they should live their life.

None can tell another, "Your daily 'normal' way of life of engaging in family ties and social connections, communication, interaction, affair, and activity with your direct and indirect family ties and connections and the worldly community are the main reason why you didn't make any progress on the path of self-inquiry and self-realization (even when you practice some kind of yoga and meditation practice from time to time or regularly, and that you have the great aspiration towards (and have been) observing a 'healthy and simple' way of living, 'high and positive' thinking, 'good and righteous' conduct, and 'clean and pure' eating), however, you are still very much unwittingly being the slave of ignorance, the idea of 'I'/the ego, egoism of attachment/identification/craving/aversion/comparison/judgment/expectation, worldly and spiritual passionate desires/inspirations/aspirations/ambitions, worldly and spiritual knowledge and achievement, physical/mental/emotional inter-dependence and comfort, pleasurable enjoyments of the senses, the sense of pride/self-esteem/self-worth/goodness/righteousness/joyfulness/positiveness/meaningfulness/accomplishment, all kinds of impurities, and restlessness, while you strongly think and believe that you are the victim of the imperfect physical/mental/emotional genetic inheritance from your parental ancestry lineage, that you are the victim of other people's bad and wrongful behavior and undeserving ill treatment, and that all kinds of bad/unfair/wrongful/hurtful/disagreeable/unpleasant/disappointing affairs in the family/relationship/community/country/world, and all kinds of undeserving experiences or ill treatments from others are the cause of all your unhappiness, dissatisfaction, disappointment, disturbance, resentment, bitterness, hurts, anger, hatred, jealousy, greed, selfishness, shortcomings, failures, painful suffering, as well as your own disturbing hurtful behavior/action/reaction unto yourself and others out of the disturbed unhappy restless state of mind."

None can tell another, "Your ignorant egoistic impure restless way of thinking and behavior pattern that is constantly hurting yourself and others, is no doubt being conditioned and influenced by your family ancestry genetic inheritance, but even more so, by your continuous engagement, connection, communication, activity, and interaction with your family ties and connections that are under such ignorant egoistic impure restless mind thinking and behavior pattern that is highly detrimental to your physical/mental/emotional well-being. You can't change your family ancestry genetic inheritance that gives rise to a particular mind thinking and behavior pattern that are under the influence of ignorance, the idea of 'I', egoism, impurities, and restlessness, but you have the conscious choice of moving away from such conditioning influential surrounding environment, in order to not continuously empowering such ignorant egoistic impure restless mind thinking and behavior pattern in yourself, but even more importantly, to be determined to purify, modify, and change such ignorant egoistic impure restless mind thinking and behavior pattern via many different types of methods or techniques."

None can tell another, "The worldly passionate egoistic thinking/belief/idea/values/practice about 'I need to be proud of myself' and 'I need to make others to be proud of me' and 'I need to be able to be good enough to be qualified/deserving to attain love/attention/encouragement/support/agreement/approval/acknowledgement/recognition/praise/compliment/acceptance/respect from myself, my family, my parents, my siblings, my relatives, my friends, my spouse, my children, my teachers, my students, my employers, my colleagues, my community, my leader, my followers, my country, my authority, and the world' are the cause of why you are what you are (devoid of peace and freedom), or why you are thinking, feeling, and behaving in the way that you are, ceaselessly longing/craving/missing/chasing after towards the gratification of the desires of craving (wants) towards the presence of love, support, accomplishment, acknowledgement, recognition, agreement, approval, acceptance, praise and compliment, understanding, happiness, goodness, positiveness, joyfulness, meaningfulness, easiness, or the pleasurable enjoyment of the body and mind/the senses, and towards the gratification of the desires of aversion (don't wants) towards the absence of all those agreeable and desirable names and forms, as well as the presence of the opposite of all that."

It has to come from the selfless thinking and acting mind itself, having the precious self awareness and basic understanding, to be self-initiative to be renouncing all that, to initiate both conscious and unconscious evolution of the conditioned and limited mind thinking and behavior pattern to be directed towards particular direction, towards attaining liberation from ignorance and the ignorant way of thinking and behavior pattern deriving from ignorance, of the path of wisdom and compassion, under intense will power and determination.

There is needless of renunciation, solitude, and seclusion, if the mind is devoid of ignorance and the by-products of ignorance, where the mind is okay and free as it is, regardless of what it perceives/experiences/knows and doesn't perceive/experience/know, under any condition and situation, that it doesn't hurt itself and others and the surrounding environment, that it is uninfluenced and undetermined (not being over-powered) by all kinds of names and forms that it perceived through the senses or physical/mental inputs.

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The realization towards the truth of selflessness and impermanence, is not depressive at all.

If the mind thinks and believes that it has attained self-realization, or, it thinks and believes that it knows what is selflessness, impermanence, non-self, or cause and effect, but then, it becomes highly depressed, and reluctant to perform any wholesome action, or even, it deliberately performs all kinds of unwholesome actions, as it perceives and understands that, "All and everything are meaningless, life existence is meaningless, because there is no freewill, because there is no 'I' existing to be in control of anything, where it is meaningless of trying to make any effort to be performing any actions to direct selfless impermanent changes/evolution of the body and mind in certain way, as everything is already destined to be and not to be in certain way, as well as to evolve and not evolving in certain way, governed by an existing cause that came into effect. This body and mind and its behavior/action/reaction influenced by a limited and conditional mind thinking and behavior pattern, is being conditioned and determined by inevitable ancestry genetic inheritance to be in specific condition/traits, and being influenced and determined by all kinds of physical/mental inputs that is not in the control of anything, for the mind to think, feel, desire, and behave/act/react in certain way, as well as to be experiencing or not experiencing this or that from the beginning to the end of this life existence, of every single event and happening and relationship, are all fixed and destined. I am a person that I am, of how I think, feel, desire, and behave or not, regardless of whether I am good or bad, happy or unhappy, healthy or unhealthy, fit or unfit, lazy or not lazy, selfish or unselfish, wise or ignorant, peaceful or not peaceful, I have no choice, it's not my choice, as I don't have freewill to make any choices, and I have no responsibility or control towards anything, because it is in my genes and determined by all kinds of existing or non-existing elements. I am changing into a different person also it is because of my genes is evolving in certain way accordingly under the existing cause. There is no freewill to direct the evolution of anything in certain way, because everything is selfless, inter-dependent, limited, and conditional." That clearly indicates that the mind hasn't attained self-realization yet.

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Regardless of whether existing and living (as well as travelling and migrating) in any where in this world, all and everyone have been brought up, or told, or educated, or tempted, or threatened, or oppressed, or being influenced and conditioned throughout their entire life existence about how human beings under specific gender/heritage/tribe/caste/sect/title/social class/financial status/spirituality/religion/culture/nationality should or shouldn't live life in certain way, think or shouldn't think, believe or shouldn't believe, give specific value or give no value, appreciate or shouldn't appreciate, practice or shouldn't practice, should and shouldn't behave/act/react/feel/desire in certain way or not in certain way, of complying to a particular way of living/thinking/reasoning/vision/behavior/inspiration/aspiration, being conditioned not only by a particular family ancestry genetic inheritance (inevitable internal biological influence), but even more so, being conditioned largely by parental upbringing, childhood growing up environment, personal life experiences coming in contact with different experiences, events, conditions, and situations, family/community/tribal/social/national/regional/global affairs, engagements, activities, and interactions, ties and connections, friendships and relationships, cultural belief and values, spirituality and/or religion belief and practice, educational system influence, political and economical system influence, commercialism influence, philosophical influence, story telling/fairy tales/fictions/science fictions/movies/TV series/all kinds of lies and false information influence, as well as higher advanced technology inventions, public and social medias influence, of all kinds of evitable external influence,

where life existence of human beings is all about 'I', me, my self, my existence, my body, my mind, my soul, my look, my appearance, my family, my parents, my siblings, my relatives, my pets, my children, my grand children, my next generations, my friends, my community, my origin, my ancestry, my lineage, my heritage, my culture, my belief, my values, my spirituality, my religion, my ideas, my thinking, my feelings, my survival, my career, my ability, my limitation, my past, my future, my hard-work, my dedication, my contribution, my home, my country, my birth place, my nationality, my world, my pride, academic education, studying, working, eating, sleeping, playing, gathering, flirting, procreating, celebrating, mourning, gossiping, slandering, back-biting, complaining, moaning, arguing, fighting, hurting, intimidating, boasting, pretending, comparing, competing, admiring, envying, story telling, fairy tales, socializing, grouping, plotting, expectation, success, higher success, achievement, more achievement, possessions, ownership, status, title, power, wealth, endless accumulation of wealth, security, control, authorization, rules and regulations, documentation, discrimination, approval, recognition, qualification, acknowledgement, ambition, vision, inspiration, aspiration, meaningfulness, joyfulness, goodness, righteousness, likes and dislikes, agreements and disagreements, holding onto the past, projecting into the future, stimulation and entertainment, endless higher stimulation and entertainment, enjoyment, more enjoyment, higher enjoyment, endless enjoyment, fear, worry, guilt, regret, resentment, endless desire, craving, longing, and clinging, endless disappointment, and endless dissatisfaction.

An extremely limited freedom of existence/being/evolution.

Being a plant/insect/bird/animal/uncultured human being in the wild, has a lot more freedom of existence/being/evolution than being any 'cultured' human being that exists and lives among the 'conditioned' community of so called 'cultured' human beings.

Upon the absence of all or some of those physical/mental/emotional affairs/activities/connections/interactions/stimulation/entertainments/enjoyments, the mind perceives the sense of loneliness and meaninglessness.

The minds are being conditioned by all those passionate egoistic affairs/activities/connections/interactions/stimulation/entertainments/enjoyments in the 'normal' way of living, to think and believe that all human beings need to find out the meaning of life in order to have the sense of meaningfulness that keeps them motivated in life, where they need to depend on something that make them feel nice, enjoyable, deserving, accomplished, proud, good, positive, happy, joyful, and meaningful, in order to be motivated for anything, or else, life is meaningless.

Life is not meaningless, and it doesn't have to be meaningful either. Under the different states of mind under the different impure incomplete understanding (under the presence of ignorance and its by-products), there are many things appeared to be meaningless and there are many things appeared to be meaningful, based on the different thinking, beliefs, values, desires, and practices in the different minds or community. And regardless of whether they appeared to be something meaningless or something meaningful, they all are selfless and impermanent.

If the mind truly understands that (under the absence of ignorance and its by-products), it will be free from the sense of meaningfulness and meaninglessness. It doesn't need to have the sense of meaningfulness to chase away or get rid of the sense of meaninglessness. It doesn't need to chase after and hold onto what appeared to be meaningful, and it doesn't need to be disturbed by what appeared to be meaningless. It is not being determined by something appeared to be meaningful or meaningless, where all are impermanent, all will change and pass away.

Life is neither meaningful nor meaningless. Life is just what it is. Similarly all kinds of names and forms are neither meaningful nor meaningless. All and everything are just what they are.

It depends on the state of the mind (under the presence or absence of ignorance and its by-products) and how the selfless thinking and acting mind makes use of its selfless impermanent existence and function in the selfless impermanent limited and conditional momentary life existence of the selfless impermanent mechanism of a body and mind existing and functioning under the selfless support of the selfless energy and elements, where some minds contribute many constructive and beneficial ideas and activities, while some minds contribute many destructive and harmful ideas and activities, both consciously and unconsciously, wittingly or unwittingly, intentionally or unintentionally, into the surrounding environment or the world that doesn't belong to anyone or anything.

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Ignorance and the ignorant thinking and behavior is not something that can only exist in human beings that are uncivilized and non-educated, that are living in an area that is not being developed, but it also exists in the minds of the human beings that are highly civilized and educated, that are living in an area that is highly developed. Undeveloped poor countries have their own problems deriving from ignorance and its by-products, and highly developed rich countries also have their own problems deriving from ignorance and its by-products. It is not about the different degrees of civilization and education/development and wealthiness of the country. It is about whether the minds of the human beings are functioning under the influence of ignorance and its by-products, or not.

Upon experiencing great physical/mental/emotional painful suffering, disappointment, physical/mental/emotional fatigue, hurts, or despair, some minds might not know what to think or do anymore, and might turn to intoxicants or substances for getting a momentary relief, but that would inflict further physical/mental damages. That is their freedom of choice.

Or, the experience of great physical/mental/emotional painful suffering, disappointment, physical/mental/emotional fatigue, hurts, or despair, especially when the mind thinks and believes that it can't deal with life anymore, that it can't deal with any physical/mental/emotional stress and problems anymore, and that it cannot trust anyone or anything anymore, that can be the precious moment that ignites the intense desire towards liberation in the mind, where it can choose to step back from all those worldly egoistic impure affairs, ties and connections, communications, interactions, and activities, to focus fully onto itself, to be looking after its physical and mental well-being, and embarks on the path of self-inquiry and self-realization. That is not selfishness. That is the highest contribution to the world, the community, the parents, and the family.

Selflessness, where there is no permanent independent self existence of 'I' existing in the body and mind, and non-self, where all and everything are governed by the nature's law of cause and effect, it doesn't mean that there is no freewill of conscious choice making in the selfless thinking and acting mind to direct the selfless impermanent changes or evolution of the selfless impermanent body and mind, or the selfless impermanent life existence towards certain direction.

The cause (action) in this present moment now, that will give rise to effect (fruit of action), is determined by the constant conscious choice making in this present moment now. The past cannot be undone (the seed is fixed) and it influences the present in certain way, but the impermanent changes/evolution in the present can be influenced by the conscious choice making and action in this present moment now (the fruit is what it is, that it doesn't change into another different type of fruit, but the impermanent condition of the fruit is conditional, or not fixed).

The constant choice making in the present moment now, is influenced by the presence or absence of ignorance and its by-products.

Ignorance and its by-products can be present or absent. It can be manifested/formed/existing (non-self, not by conscious choice of the selfless thinking and acting mind), empowered and sustained (by the selfless thinking and acting mind, keeps feeding ignorance out of ignorant choices and actions consciously and unconsciously), or it can be weakened and thinned-out (by the selfless thinking and acting mind, stops feeding ignorance under conscious choices and actions), and be annihilated at its own pace (non-self, upon the absence of elements that give rise to ignorance). Just as a fire dies out itself eventually upon the absence of the elements that give rise to fire.

The selfless impermanent limited and conditional existence and function (mechanism) of the selfless body and the selfless thinking and acting mind is depending on the availability of the selfless support of the selfless intentionless attributeless energy and/or the elements of air/water/nutrients/minerals to be existing and functioning, where the condition of the body (low energy or high energy, and etc) and the selfless impermanent states of the mind (calmed or agitated, and etc) is influenced by the level of energy and the types of influential elements (the fuel and the physical/mental inputs/activities of the body and mind), which can be navigated or influenced by the conscious choice making and action in the present moment now.

The type of food/fuel consumption and the type of physical/mental/emotional inputs and activities is influencing the condition of the body and the states of the mind, but the selfless thinking and acting mind has the conscious choice making of choosing what type of food/fuel consumption that it takes or doesn't take, and choose what type of physical/mental/emotional inputs and activities that it wants or doesn't want to be engaging with.

Poison is just what it is, neither good nor bad, but it can give rise to certain harmful effect. Having the conscious awareness and knowledge or direct experience towards the harmful effect of the poison, one has the conscious choice making of whether to consume it or to stay away from it, unless one is ignorantly consuming the poison unintentionally, or it is being forced feed the poison by some others either randomly or deliberately under the influence of ignorance.

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How the selfless thinking and acting faculty of the selfless body wants to live and make use of the selfless impermanent limited and conditional momentary life existence, is at its own choice. The mind that strongly thinks and believes that, "There is no freewill of choice making, that all and everything are destined to be in certain way by the existing cause and effect, and whatever happens it is not my responsibility," is due to ignorance towards Selflessness and Non-self and cause and effect, but also due to the fear of taking the responsibility towards making the wrong choice that lead to worse, unpleasant, painful, and undesirable consequences, which that itself is also one of the by-products of ignorance.

The mind thinks and believes that, "I would like to live life and behave in my own way, but, my parents and my community want me to live life and behave in their way that is not what I want. I don't want to upset them. I should live life and behave according to the wish of my parents and my community." That is its own choice. Or, "I have no choice but I am 'being threatened and forced' to live life and behave in the way according to the wish of my parents and my community because I do not want to undergo painful punishment being punished by them if I don't live life and behave in the way that they want me to live life and behave." That is also its own choice.

The parents and/or the community that will inflict any kind of painful punishment unto those who don't comply to their wish/desire/command/expectation/control/authorization, are mentally sick, functioning under the influence of ignorance and its by-products. The parents and the community that are not mentally sick, that truly love others whom they love very much, will not inflict painful punishment unto those whom they love upon non-complying to their wish or desire, as there is absence of command/expectation/control/authorization in those who are mentally healthy, and who truly love others, where they will love others as they are, and they will not hurt themselves and others.

If someone will hurt some others physically/mentally/emotionally, either directly or indirectly, out of ungratified desires/dissatisfaction/disappointment/humiliation/anger/jealousy/resentment/bitterness/lust/possessiveness/annoyance/disturbed state of mind, while telling them, "I love you very much. I am doing this to you is for your own good. I want you to be good. Don't make me hurt you. I don't want to hurt you. So, please be good. Just listen and obey to my command. Please do as I wish and desire. Or else, I have no choice but to punish/hurt you. I don't want to hurt you, but it's you that made me hurt you." That is seriously mentally very sick. How many minds are thinking and behaving like that in this world of ignorance? Plenty. In family, in relationships, in community, in schools, in work place. Including some, or even many of those who have high level of power that can make crucial decisions and perform actions that impact the physical and mental well being of all and everyone and the surrounding environment in this world that doesn't belong to anyone and anything.

Just as many kinds of physical sickness, mentally sick or the corrupted mind thinking and behavior pattern functioning under the influence of ignorance and its by-products, is not something terrible, bad, wrong, or humiliating, although one can be constantly hurting oneself and others and the surrounding environment out of ignorance, and more importantly, one can do something about it, to be free from ignorance and its by-products, all by oneself, via one's effort and determination, before it becomes too difficult to do anything about it.

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The states of mind is selfless and impermanent, constantly changing. It can be calmed or agitated. It can be positive or negative. It can be happy or unhappy. It can be active/hard-working or idle/lazy. But the selfless thinking and acting faculty that is aware of the selfless impermanent states of mind under the presence of the selfless conscious awareness can be consciously aware of the selfless impermanent changes of the states of mind without egoistic association, attachment, identification, judgment, or expectation towards the selfless impermanent states of mind, as well as can be influencing and modifying, purifying and silencing the states of mind under certain conscious choice making and action.

The selfless conscious awareness that comes from the selfless universal consciousness, that enables the selfless thinking and acting faculty of the selfless body to be functioning as what it is, to be conscious, to be aware, to perceive, to know, to experience, to learn, to reflect, to inquire, to reason, to understand, to remember, to think, to feel, to desire, and to act/react consciously and unconsciously, is unaffected, undetermined, undisturbed, unchanged, uncontaminated, unhurt, or undamaged by the objects of awareness, or the selfless impermanent limited and conditional names and forms, of the perceiver and the perceived, or the senses and the objects of the senses, or the thinker and the thinking, or the knower and the knowledge, or the experiencer and the experiences. All these names and forms are merely some non-conscious names and forms, or they don't function as what they are, if without the selfless conscious awareness coming from the selfless universal consciousness.

If there is no consciousness or conscious awareness in anything, even if there is the selfless manifestation of all kinds of names and forms (non-conscious living organisms and non-living objects, where there is only unconscious evolution and absolutely no conscious evolution) in this space of the universe under the selfless support of the selfless energy and elements governed by the nature's law of cause and effect, then what is the world and worldly life existence?

What is cognition, intellect, emotion, thinking, knowledge, experience, understanding, and desire?

What is ignorance, the ego/the idea of 'I', egoism of attachment, identification, desire of craving and aversion, judgment, comparison, and expectation?

What is 'I', 'my', and 'mine'?

What is father, mother, brother, sister, friend, community, country, nationality, authority and authorization, oppression and control, rules and regulations, legality and illegality, prosecution and punishment?

What is culture, belief, values, or practice?

What is good or bad, right or wrong, kind or unkind, positive or negative, meaningfulness or meaninglessness, joyfulness or joylessness, superiority or inferiority, pride or shame, selfishness or unselfishness, happiness or unhappiness, appropriateness or inappropriateness, praise or criticism?

What is purity or impurity, strength or weakness, beautiful or ugly, ordinary or extra ordinary, standard or non-standard, acceptable or non-acceptable, deserving or non-deserving, wholesome or unwholesome, constructive or destructive, progression or regression, civilized or uncivilized, cultured or uncultured?

What is easiness or difficulty, painful suffering or pleasurable enjoyment?

What is possessiveness, ownership, discrimination, separateness, exploitation, cruelty, violence, argument, fighting, or wars?

What is dissatisfaction, disappointment, anger, hatred, jealousy, hurt, resentment, bitterness, greed, offensiveness, defensiveness, fear and worry?

What is truthfulness and untruthfulness, lies and betrayal?

What is limitation and disability?

What is permanence/infinite and impermanence/finite?

What is freedom and peace, or the absence of freedom and peace? What is the yearning towards freedom and peace? What is doubt, inquiry, and realization?

What is the presence and/or absence of freewill?

What is actions and consequences of actions?

What is existence and ceased existence, or momentary finite existence and permanent infinite existence? 

What is conscious evolution?

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Selflessness in all kinds of living organisms (and non-living objects), where there is no existence of a permanent independent infinite self existence/identity of 'I' existing in all and everything to be experiencing life existence and undergoing selfless impermanent changes or evolution that are non-self, governed by the nature's law of cause and effect, and depending on the selfless support of the selfless energy and elements to be existing and functioning, it doesn't mean that there is only unconscious physical and mental activities (absence of conscious freewill/choice/action/desire), or there is no selfless conscious awareness for each selfless mind to be perceiving, knowing, processing, understanding, learning, thinking, feeling, desiring, acting, reacting, and evolving consciously and individually in certain way or not in certain way (presence of conscious freewill/choice/action/desire), that can also influence the unconscious evolution.

Regardless of the presence or absence of ignorance and its by-products in the modification of the mind, regardless of the different pleasant or unpleasant states of the mind, the selfless universal consciousness that gives rise to the selfless conscious awareness, is still what it is. There might be impermanent different elements/qualities of goodness or evilness arising, changing, and passing away in the modification of the mind that influence the personality, the thinking, the feelings and emotions, the desires, and the behavior/action/reaction of the mind, but the selfless universal consciousness that gives rise to the selfless conscious awareness for the selfless thinking and acting faculty to be conscious/aware of the arising, changing, and passing away (the impermanent manifestation) of all kinds of impermanent qualities/elements of goodness and evilness in the modification of the mind, is unaffected, undetermined, uncontaminated, unhurt, or undamaged by all that.

There might be good or bad personalities/qualities/elements/traits/ideas/desires/behavior, there might be good mood or bad mood/happy or unhappy feelings, there might be kindness or cruelty, there might be selfishness or unselfishness, there might be wisdom (correct understanding) or ignorance (corrupted understanding), and so on, in the many different minds, but the selfless conscious awareness that enables the mind to be conscious/aware of all that, is neither good nor bad, neither happy nor unhappy, neither kind nor cruel, neither selfish nor unselfish, neither wise nor ignorant, and so on.

Regardless of whether the selfless mind is in the state of awake, semi awake/sleep, asleep, dreaming, or deep sleep, regardless of whether the selfless mind is fully conscious/aware, or semi-conscious/aware, or unconscious/unaware, being fully/partially connected to or disconnected from the selfless conscious awareness, the selfless universal consciousness is still there as it is, neither appear nor disappear, neither increase nor decrease.

The personality and/or the mind thinking and behavior pattern of the selfless mind is the reflection of the modification/states of the mind, and vice versa. Everyone has different states of mind, or different personality and mind thinking and behavior pattern, and has different personal experiences as well as different collective group experiences. The modification/states of the mind is ceaselessly changing, significantly or insignificantly. People's personality/thinking/desire/feelings/emotions/behavior/action/reaction are ceaselessly changing, significantly or insignificantly. The personal experiences and collective group experiences are ceaselessly changing, significantly or insignificantly. But, the selfless universal consciousness that gives rise to the selfless conscious awareness in all and every different minds that come under each of their own particular different personalities, different mind thinking and behavior pattern, different personal and collective group experiences, and different modification/states of mind, regardless of low or high energy level, and regardless of being influenced by what type of food consumption (fuel)/elements/qualities/inputs/activities, is the same, and unchanged.

The selfless existence and function of the selfless body and mind is limited, conditional, impermanent, and momentary. But, the selfless attributeless nameless formless timeless changeless thoughtless intentionless actionless universal consciousness (the selfless silent witness) that gives rise to the selfless intentionless attributeless conscious awareness in the countless different selfless perceptive cognitive intellectual emotional thinking and acting minds of the many different personalities/traits/characteristics/thinking/desires/behaviors/actions/reactions/experiences, is unlimited, unconditional, permanent, and infinite. It is neither 'I', nor 'you', nor, 'us', nor 'them'. It doesn't belong to anyone or anything.

The 'I', 'you', 'us', and 'them', are merely some momentary selfless impermanent limited and conditional adjuncts or mechanisms (names and forms) that inter-dependent on the many different selfless cells/systems/organs/bodily structures/duties/responsibilities and etc, to be working together selflessly under the selfless support of the selfless energy and elements, in order to be existing and functioning as what all and everything are. There is neither superiority nor inferiority.

The selfless universal consciousness isn't something that 'contained' in the names and forms, just as the space. Everything manifested under the selfless support of the selfless energy and elements, where all and everything formed/existing, constantly changing, and passing away in the space, but all that doesn't affect, determine, contaminate, hurt, damage, increase, or decrease the attributeless infinite space.

The selfless universal consciousness 'doesn't control' the selfless impermanent changes in all kinds of selfless names and forms that ceaselessly arise, change, and pass away upon it, and it doesn't initiate conscious and/or unconscious evolution of the living beings/organisms to be or not to be in certain way. It doesn't give rise to the survival instinct in all kinds of living beings/organisms for life maintenance, or the presence and/or absence of ignorance/the idea of 'I'/egoism/impurities/restlessness in the minds. It doesn't create or responsible for the existence and ceased existence of all kinds of names and forms, or the different personalities, qualities, traits, conditions, mind thinking and behavior patterns, desires, actions/reactions, experiences, and the consequences of all that (selfless impermanent limited and conditional conscious and unconscious evolution) in the different selfless thinking and acting minds.

It is coming from each and every single thinking and acting mind itself, having the 'intentionless gift' of the selfless intentionless attributeless actionless changeless conscious awareness coming from the selfless universal consciousness, being conscious/aware, perceiving all kinds of qualities of names and forms consciously and unconsciously, to be experiencing, learning, reasoning, understanding, thinking, feeling, desiring, acting, reacting, and evolving consciously and unconsciously in certain way or not in certain way, influenced by the ceaseless cause or ceaseless conscious and unconscious actions that are being generated by each and every mind themselves.

Unless there is certain deformation, or malfunction, or dysfunction, or damage, or injury in the physical body, especially in the brains and the central and peripheral nervous system (the hardware of the thinking and acting faculty of the physical body that receive and process inputs/information, and give command/signal to the organs of actions for performing actions), where there is absence of conscious awareness, even though there might be some unconscious physical and mental bodily systems/activities ceaselessly happening operated under the selfless intentionless survival instinct, under the presence of the selfless support of the selfless energy and elements, then there is completely no freewill of conscious choice making/action performing of the selfless thinking and acting mind to navigate/direct/influence the selfless impermanent changes of the physical body and the conscious evolution of the selfless impermanent modification of the mind or the mind thinking and behavior pattern in certain way or not in certain way.

The selfless universal consciousness/awareness doesn't perform actions.

The selfless impermanent limited and conditional physical body with the conscious thinking and acting mind has the selfless function of performing both conscious by choice (wittingly) and unconscious non by-choice actions (unwittingly) via the organs of action (under the presence of the selfless support of the selfless energy and elements), that are influencing the conscious and unconscious evolution of the existence (duration of existence/life span), condition, and function (mechanism) of the selfless impermanent limited and conditional body and mind in certain way (effect of the cause, of the conscious and unconscious actions after the body and mind is being formed/existing and functioning).

Regardless of the absence or presence of the different degrees of ignorance, regardless of what are the different personalities/qualities/traits/characteristics/conditions/ways of thinking/beliefs/understanding/desires/behaviors/actions/reactions/states of mind, as long as the selfless organs of perception/cognition/intellect/emotion/thinking/acting, the organs of the senses, and the organs of actions are existing and functioning as what they are, as long as one has the basic function or ability of to be conscious/aware, to be consciously perceiving names and forms through the senses, to experience, to know, to learn, to reason, to inquire, to understand, to think, to feel, to desire, to act and react, and to be performing actions via the organs of actions, then there is the freewill of conscious choice making and action performing to navigate/direct/influence the conscious and unconscious evolution in certain way, under the presence of the selfless support of the selfless energy and elements (non-self, not in the control of anyone or anything).

Just as fire exists under a cause (the presence of certain elements that give rise to fire), and it will die off of by itself eventually upon the absence of the elements that give rise to fire (non-self). But one who has the conscious awareness and the organs of actions can perform certain action under the presence of certain knowledge and understanding, that can keep away unnecessary fire as much as possible. And if one is aware of there is the existence of fire that doesn't need to be there, that can damage the surrounding environment, lives, and objects, one can have the conscious awareness/choice/action to do one's best to put out the fire by performing certain actions before the fire becomes uncontrollable and cause serious damages unto the surrounding environment, lives, and objects, where the fruit of action (whether the fire will ceased existing at certain timing, or not, after actions are being performed to put out the fire) is not in the control of the performer of action. The action is being performed out of one's conscious awareness/choice/effort/desire (freewill), but the result/fruit of action is what it is (non-self, not in the control of the performer of action).

One can do one's best to perform actions/practices to be purifying and quieting the restless modification of the mind, out of conscious awareness/choice/action/freewill, diligently and determinedly, but the fruit of action/practice will be there as it is, at its own pace (non-self).

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x 

A seed needs to be planted either wittingly or unwittingly, in order to have the existence of a matured plant that gives specific type of fruit of that particular type of seed, and how the seed is being nurtured to become a matured plant that gives fruits, can influence the entire condition of the plant and the fruits to be in certain way. If no seed is being planted, there is no plant or fruit. If the seed is damaged or already dead, it won't grow and turn into a plant no matter how much proper care is being given to it. Or, a healthy seed is being planted, but it is not being nurtured properly to become a healthy matured plant of the best condition that gives fruits of the best taste.

How one wants to live life and behave, and what one wants to do with the selfless impermanent limited and conditional momentary life existence, it is at one's own conscious choice/freewill (the ceaseless cause in the present moment), while allowing life to be what it is (the effect of cause), evolving at its own pace, under the seeds and nurture (the cause or the conscious and unconscious choice/action in the present moment) that one has been planting and nurturing throughout one's selfless impermanent limited and conditional momentary life existence.

Existence is only in NOW. There is only NOW. There is neither past nor future in NOW. While everything in NOW, is ceaselessly changing. Time is merely the reflection of impermanent changes and movements. Day and night and year is merely the ceaseless movements of the earth in itself, and around the sun. Age is merely the impermanent changes of the physical body. Timelessness doesn't mean that history didn't exist, and the effect of the history is still lingering in this world in NOW. It doesn't mean that memories of what have been happening/experiencing don't exist. It doesn't mean that everything and everyone before NOW, didn't and don't exist. But, none can undo or change what had happened. Let it go.

Meanwhile, all and everyone can learn from what have been happening and experiencing, and have the conscious choice to be performing actions in NOW, that would lead to constructive consequences, that would help the world to have more peace and kindness and correct understanding, and less unrest/cruelty/fear/suffering/violence.

Inquire what is the 'I' that the thinking in the mind that thinks and believes and identifies as 'my individual independent self existence', and attain direct self realization towards Selflessness and Impermanence (Timelessness), one will be free from doubts and fear, and all kinds of superstitious beliefs, or the many contaminated corrupted incorrect misinterpreted information about this or that in this worldly life existence of selfless impermanent limited and conditional names and forms.

Do not blind-believe, blind-follow, blind-practice, or blind-propagate anything from anyone and anywhere, including all that is here.

Inquire the truth of everything.

Saturday, September 9, 2023

Move away from the conditions and influences that empower the ignorance and egoism in one's mind

If the mind is mentally and emotionally independent, then this mind can mix and interact with anyone, and engaging in all kinds of worldly ties and connections, social activities and interactions. This mind won't be influenced by all kinds of condition and influence coming from everyone and everywhere.

If the mind is not mentally and emotionally independent, where it is easily being conditioned and influenced by the conditions and influences coming from everyone and everywhere that are detrimental to one's mental health, that empower the ignorance, egoism, impurities and restlessness in the mind, where the mind keeps behaving in the way that hurt oneself and those in one's life, unwittingly, and then, telling everyone, "You are imagining all this," or "I am sorry. I want you to know that I love you and I appreciate you very much," or "Get over it. Let it go. We all are not perfect. We all make mistake," while keep repeating the similar behavior, and repeating saying the same sentences to be justifying one's behavior, then this mind really needs to move away from such condition and influence, even if they are one's family, parents, siblings, spouse, or friends.

People talk highly about family love and support, but if domestic abuse is happening in the family, one needs to move away from the family. It's not wrong, or selfish, or unloving, to help oneself, to be kind to oneself, to look after oneself. Unless, one is mentally and emotionally independent, and has already transcended all kinds of experiences, and is not being disturbed or affected by any kinds of abusive behavior, where oneself isn't being determined and influenced by such experiences to also behave in such way that hurt oneself and others, while knowing how to not empowering the ignorance and ignorant behavior in others by covering up and justifying the ignorance and ignorant behavior in others, even if they are one's beloved family.

A mentally disturbed father was being abusive towards his children, while his wife or the mother of the children was covering up and justifying such abusive behavior, and then, the children growing up behaving exactly like the father and the mother. Everyone is behaving hurtfully under a disturbed state of mind, while covering up and justifying for one another's behavior out of family love and support. None can help such family, as anyone who tries to help will be recognized as 'the enemy that tries to hurt the family' by the entire family, where everyone justifies, "There's nothing wrong with our family. We all are good and loving people. We love and support one another very much. You are the one that is trying to hurt our family."

Pretending to be strong, and becoming a bully, in order to stop oneself from being bullied by others, is not a solution at all. One doesn't need to be strong or become a bully. One just needs to walk away from the bullies.

Look after one's mind, so that one can truly love, appreciate and be kind to oneself and all and everyone, while not being determined or influenced by any conditions or influences, and not being disturbed, or affected, or hurt by all kinds of ignorance and ignorant behavior in anyone.

Tuesday, December 13, 2022

Love without attachment and possessiveness

"How can a person being engaged in any kind of relationship with someone, and appreciates and loves that person sincerely, but then at the same time, one is not being determined by the absence and presence of agreeable and disagreeable, desirable and undesirable, pleasant and unpleasant interactions and events that occur in any form of human relationship, regardless of whether it's relationship with family, friends and lover or spouse?"

The passionate minds that are being conditioned by worldly egoistic thinking, belief, values and practice, would have great difficulty in understanding towards "One can love and appreciate some others in different type of relationship in life very much, but won't be feeling "losing/missing someone or something that oneself loves and appreciates very much" upon the absence of that person and/or the relationship."

The passionate minds think and believe that, all kinds of love, can only exist along with attachment and possessiveness/the sense of belonging, where the amount of love is being determined or measured by the degrees of attachment and possessiveness in any kind of relationship.

The minds that truly understand towards the truth of selflessness and impermanence in all and everything, would understand that there's nothing or none belonged to anything or anyone.

One knows how to love all and everyone without attachment and possessiveness, where one doesn't own any kind of existing relationship as well as the person(s) in the relationship with oneself.

Without attachment and possessiveness towards the relationship and the person(s) in the relationship with oneself, it doesn't mean that one doesn't care about or doesn't take the relationship and the person(s) in the relationship with oneself seriously.

One appreciates all the different kind of human relationships existing in the present moment now, as they are, not necessarily all desirable and agreeable, as well as loves the person(s) in the relationship with oneself unconditionally as it is, without the idea of "You are my family," or "You are my friend,", or "You are my lover/spouse," or "You belonged to me," or "You are mine," or "This is my family/my friend/my lover/my spouse/my relationship." And hence, one doesn't loose anything and/or anyone, upon the absence of the relationship and/or the person(s) in the different type of relationship with oneself, upon impermanent changes that are not necessarily being the way that how everyone would like it to be. Upon the realization of selflessness, there's no 'I' being there to be claiming, "I am losing something or someone," or "I don't want to loose something or someone that is upmost important to me," as well as, there's nothing or none to loose, as nothing/none belonged to anyone.

"Loving others unconditionally, as they are" doesn't mean that one should be blindly agreeing with everything and saying "yes" to everything, or one wouldn't be having any dislike or disagreement towards any kind of ignorant thinking and behavior, or shouldn't be saying "no" to any kind of demands, or allowing oneself to be mistreated or abused by other people's ignorant hurtful behavior repeatedly, encouraging and empowering such ignorance. However, one is not being determined by the likes and dislikes, agreements and disagreements, and pleasant or unpleasant affairs and events that occur in any kind of relationship. One can choose to move away from such ignorance, if necessarily, if possible, not to be encouraging and empowering such ignorance.

The passionate minds would react and feel disappointed and dissatisfied, upon one's desires/demands/cravings are not being gratified, as well as would react and feel disappointed, confused and hurt, if someone in any kind of relationship with oneself telling oneself about, "There's nothing to loose in any kind of relationship with anything and anyone," or "You are free to love me, or not, and you are free to stay or leave as you wish," or "I love you as you are, even if you don't love me and/or are not in a relationship with me," as they would interpret that as "You don't love me. You don't appreciate me or our relationship. I mean nothing to you. I am not important to you. Our relationship doesn't mean anything to you," not understanding that, that is unconditional non-possessive type of love.

The minds that feel disappointed and hurt by someone in any kind of relationship because one's desires/demands/cravings are not being gratified by those in any form of relationship with oneself, would react in the way that would hurt oneself and those in certain type of relationship with oneself, out of disappointment, resentment, or rebelliousness. Such minds don't even love themselves, not to say, they don't really love those whom they think they love very much, as they would do things that would hurt anyone, including themselves, upon not getting what they like and want, and/or are getting what they don't like and don't want. They only love their desires of what they like and want.

The minds that know how to love themselves and others unconditionally won't do anything that would hurt oneself and/or others deliberately, out of disappointment, resentment, or rebelliousness, upon the non-gratification of their desires or demands. Such as when the parents reject their children's demands for something, the children might react and behave in the way that would hurt themselves and their parents deliberately, out of disappointment, resentment and rebelliousness. Or, one would react and behave in the way that hurt oneself and the partner/spouse intentionally, out of disappointment, resentment and rebelliousness, upon one's demands towards the partner/spouse and the relationship are not being gratified.

Most minds don't appreciate such unconditional non-possessive type of love, instead, they would rather be chasing after passionate possessive type of love, where there is intense attachment, identification, possessiveness, clinging and craving towards one another, to receive attention, love, care, support, comfort, encouragement, companionship, interaction, acknowledgement, agreement, appreciation, praise and compliment from one another, to boost the sense of self-esteem, goodness, happiness, accomplishment, positiveness and meaningfulness.

The minds that realized selflessness and impermanence transcend all these names and forms, not being determined by all these names and forms to be 'I', transcending the sense of self-esteem, goodness, happiness, accomplishment, positiveness and meaningfulness, where they don't need to feel confident, good, happy, accomplished, positive or meaningful at all, not to say, to be building and boosting the sense of self-esteem, goodness, happiness, accomplishment, positiveness and meaningfulness out of all kinds of selfless impermanent names and forms, being determined and empowered by passionate egoistic attachment, identification, desire of craving and aversion, comparison, judgment and expectation.

Many minds would think and believe that, "Good friends, or friends, are those who regularly meet up with one another, visit each other, spend lots of time together and doing something together, or keeping in touch, talking to and sharing with each other all the time. Otherwise, they are not good friends, or they are not my friends at all." These minds cannot understand that, "True friends are not necessarily have to be regularly meeting up with one another, visiting each other, spending lots of time together and doing something together, or keeping in touch, talking to and sharing with each other." They cannot comprehend that, "friends" are those who will always be a friend even after many years not meeting up with one another, not visiting each other, not spending lots of time together and not doing something together, or not keeping in touch, not talking to and not sharing with each other, either with or without any reasons.

Most passionate egoistic minds have no such understanding, and they would feel disappointed, unhappy or lonely, if they think they don't have any friends to interact, socialize, share and play with, then know that it's due to the attachment and possessiveness towards 'friends' and 'friendship', as well as the craving towards the presence of friends with the interactions and activities, and the aversion towards the absence of friends and the interactions and activities, are not being gratified.

To truly understand this dispassionate unconditional non-possessive type of love, one must perform self-inquiry towards what are "selflessness in all and everything" and "attachment and possessiveness", as well as what is "love without attachment and possessiveness" or "dispassionate unconditional love," to attain direct realization towards all these terms.

"Love without attachment and possessiveness" is nothing to do with the passionate engagement in multiple intimate love affairs or relationships with many different people/lovers/partners on different timing or at the same time, while thinking and believing that that's what unconditional love and care towards all and everyone is about.

Non-attachment and non-possessiveness is nothing to do with non-commitment, or non-seriousness, or non-appreciative, or irresponsibility towards any kind of human relationship. One can be seriously and genuinely engaging in as well as being responsible and appreciative towards all kind of human relationship, as well as being contented with having one single committed intimate love affair or relationship with someone, but without any attachment or the sense of possessiveness, respecting all kind of impermanent changes as they are.

However, unconditional love that is void of attachment and possessiveness is highly being misused by the passionate minds, including some yoga practitioners or yoga teachers, as the 'spiritual' excuse to justify one's irresponsibility towards one's existing relationship with family, friends or lover/spouse/partner, or to justify one's greedy discontented lustful desire to be enjoying or engaging in "many different intimate love affair/relationship with different people at different timing," or "multiple committed/uncommitted intimate love affairs/relationships with different lovers/partners at the same time," or "any kind of sexual misconduct," using the excuse of 'love sharing' or 'spiritual healing' to be engaging in intimate love/sexual affair/relationship with the disturbed minds that are longing to be comforted, loved or healed by some others, while thinking and believing and propagating that, "unconditional love without attachment and possessiveness" means "I have so much love and care (lust) that needed to share with as many people as possible, without being limited by any commitment or responsibility," as well as, using the excuse of "unconditional love without attachment and commitment" to be expecting one's lover/spouse shouldn't be disturbed or hurt by one's greedy lustful desire that needed to be shared with many other different lovers/partners, thinking and believing that it's what unconditional love is about, but not really. That's their freedom of thinking and behavior, however, it's completely nothing to do with yoga.

One can be loving one's lover/spouse unconditionally, but it doesn't mean that one should be encouraging or empowering such ignorant thinking and behavior of the lover/spouse that is over-powered by greedy lustful desires, where one can let go such "relationship" without any disappointment or resentment, loving the lover/spouse as he/she is, being ignorant and behaving ignorantly, thinking and believing that he/she loves his/her lover/partner/spouse very much, but he/she would do things that hurt those whom they think they love very much out of greed, discontentment and lustful desires, or out of disappointment, dissatisfaction, resentment or rebelliousness, due to ungratified desires. One doesn't need to stay in such relationship, but more importantly, one is not being determined or bothered by such ignorance and ignorant behavior of the lover/partner/spouse that is being ignorant towards his/her own ignorance and ignorant behavior. It's only due to the presence of attachment and possessiveness as well as the desire of craving and aversion, most people can't let go and would feel disappointed, hurt and disturbed for being in any relationship with anyone that is under the influence of ignorance with the presence of ignorant behavior, but then oneself also reacting and behaving in the way that would be hurting oneself and those in the relationship with oneself, intentionally, out of resentment and rebelliousness.

"You hurt me, I'll hurt you back" is not love at all.

Some people might not be doing anything hurtful directly to the lover/partner/spouse, refuse to communicate and have better understanding among one another, but then would go behind their back saying and doing many things that would hurt them. That is more evil and hurtful than those who express their disagreement directly to their lover/partner/spouse to communicate about any issues or misunderstanding. However, it seems to be part of certain cultural practice to not express any disagreement directly with the person involved, but to go behind people's back to complain, bitching and hurt the person, to seek support and agreement from other people towards one's disagreement towards the lover/partner/spouse, to relieve one's dissatisfaction and unhappiness. By complaining and bitching about one's lover/partner/spouse whom oneself dislikes and hates so much, with or without the intention of getting other people's support and agreement towards oneself, so that other people will also dislike and hating one's lover/partner/spouse for something that oneself dislikes and disagrees with, while thinking that oneself is a 'victim' of the bad behavior of one's lover/partner/spouse, it only shows that oneself doesn't love the lover/partner/spouse at all.

Yoga practitioners need to stay away from such ignorant thinking, belief, values and practice, while not encouraging or empowering such ignorance.

Many yoga teachers might think and believe that they are doing the right thing or the compassionate action to be 'helping' and 'comforting' other people's unhappy mind by being a sympathetic/empathetic listener and supporter to other people who need to be complaining about what they think and believe is their relationship problem and unhappiness, not being aware of that is actually empowering the ignorance in such minds. These minds themselves don't really love themselves, not to say, they don't love their lover/partner/spouse at all, but they only love their selfish desire and expectation towards their lover/partner/spouse and their love relationship to be in certain way, and out of one's dissatisfaction and disappointment, when they don't get what they like and want, and are getting what they don't like and don't want, upon the lover/partner/spouse and the relationship is not being the way that they expect and desire it to be, they felt 'disappointed', 'unhappy' and 'hurt', and need to be complaining to other people about all kinds of bad and terrible things about their lover/partner/spouse, while thinking and believing that they love their lover/partner/spouse very much, but they are being 'disappointed', 'disturbed' and 'hurt' by their lover/partner/spouse who is bad and terrible, "Oh, I love him/her so much, but he/she is so bad and terrible. I am a victim of his/her bad and terrible behavior, but I can't, and I don't want to let go this relationship because I love him/her so much. I feel so hurt and unhappy because of this bad relationship, and I need sympathy, empathy, comfort and support from other people, acknowledging that my hurt and my unhappiness is due to my lover/partner/spouse is so bad and terrible."

The minds that understand, if one truly loves someone, there's no hurt or disappointment arising in oneself regardless of all kinds of undesirable and disagreeable interactions and happenings in the relationship, and there won't be such 'need' to be complaining to other people, to be seeking sympathy, empathy, comfort and support from some others to justify about "I am loving, good and right, while he/she is unloving, bad and wrong." One can choose to remain in the relationship that is not all desirable and agreeable, or let go any relationship that involved ignorant and hurtful behavior that keep hurting oneself and those in any kind of relationship with oneself out of ignorance, without disappointment or resentment.

If yoga teachers truly want to help the disturbed suffering minds that are under the influence of ignorance to be free from all kinds of disappointment, disturb, hurt and unhappiness due to ignorance, it's not by comforting and supporting their ignorant thinking or incorrect understanding, to be encouraging and empowering their ignorance, but it's guiding and allowing them to see the ignorance in themselves that give rise to such disappointment, disturb, hurt and unhappiness. Even though it's an unpleasant process, and most minds don't like such confrontation to be seeing and acknowledging the ignorance in themselves as well as all kinds of incorrect thinking and understanding that hurt themselves and those whom they think they love very much, but that's liberation for oneself and those in any kind of relationship with oneself.

Sincere yoga practitioners who really want to practice yoga and realize yoga, need to have the basic wisdom to inquire towards the truth of everything, and not being conditioned by any kind of passionate egoistic thinking, belief, values and practice in the world of ignorance and egoism, as well as not being 'deluded' by any kind of impure understanding and intention that exist in the world of yoga.

Friday, August 12, 2022

All kinds of love and connection

Regardless of family, friendship, relationship, community, spiritual or transcendental love and connection, allowing all kinds of love and connection to be present or absent, and being what it is, as it is, regardless of whether agreeable or disagreeable. Without chasing after, longing or clinging towards all kinds of love and connection. Without expectation towards all kinds of love and connection to be or not to be in certain way.

Wednesday, February 19, 2020

My life stories - Part 12 (A new beginning)

My life Stories - Part 12
Stories from my past memories - childhood, family, friends, growing up, poverty, integrity, dreams come true, finding peace and happiness, Buddhism, Yoga, and now...

After more than 10 years living and running yoga retreats in Langkawi, we left Langkawi for good in February 2020. And so, here we are, starting a new chapter of life living on another island in Malaysia.

Now that we have left Langkawi, I would like to summarize some of our experiences in Langkawi as part of my life stories.

We are thankful to the nature of Langkawi which is the main reason we had been living there for a decade, even though there were some 'difficulties' that we had to deal with for living and running yoga retreats legally in Langkawi, that we didn't really talk about in the past. We weren't denying the unpleasant experiences that we encountered in Langkawi. We acknowledged all kinds of difficulty that we had to deal with, and lived with them, but we tried to focus more on promoting the beauty of Langkawi when we were living and running yoga retreats there. Initially, we thought of living in Langkawi for as long as possible, as we love the slow pace of living that is still available in Langkawi, but the time has come for us to let it go and be at somewhere else.

One of the reasons that made me decide to leave Langkawi, is that my dear father and big brother who had gone through many difficulties and hardships in life, who were the very few loving kindhearted and down to earth human beings in my life had passed away respectively over the last two years. My father passed away on the 30th of December, 2017, while my big brother who had been looking after our paralyzed father for many years, passed away on the 30th of June, 2019. They had suffered a lot their entire life even though they took things lightheartedly and smiled through all the hardships. I respect their resilience a lot. My family was my motivation to work hard making a living to support their life. Now that my parents and my big brother were gone, I don’t need to work so hard anymore. This body is not getting any younger as well.

Although I myself had also been through many hardships, I can choose to live life differently from my family. I chose to live a life that has more wise impact. Life doesn't need to be wasted in deliberately dealing with ignorance and the consequences of ignorance in the world. Yoga practice talks about endurance or forbearance towards difficulties, but it doesn’t mean that we should be wasting life and energy dealing with the ignorance and the consequences of ignorance in the world. We can choose to be in an environment that has more wise impact, if possible. If that's not possible, it's okay. We accept the reality as it is, and live with it.

Living in a different environment on another island also has certain 'unpleasantness' or 'difficulties' that we need to deal with. Life and yoga practice isn't about expecting perfection and avoiding imperfection, but it’s about no matter where we are, we learn to allow the world to be what it is, not necessarily the way that we would like it to be.

On Langkawi, the blooming development for tourism might be benefiting many of the plumbers, electricians and metal smiths in Langkawi, but that also means that there's very limited plumber or electrician or metal smith would come to our house to do a little bit of work. Even though more and more new guesthouses and hotels have been building in Langkawi which provide jobs and business for the hardware shop, the construction company, the construction workers, the plumbers, the electricians or the metal smiths, but there are also more and more existing guesthouses and restaurants couldn't survive due to the reduced tourists flow in the past few years.

It's really difficult to find someone skillful enough to do something for us in Langkawi. And when we were able to find someone to do things for us, they couldn’t deliver a good quality of workmanship or service. We couldn't even get a tailor to make a curtain for us. Once a tailor took our order and our cloth for making curtain, and then she went disappear along with our cloth, couldn't be contacted for many years until now. We heard that some rich expatriates on the island import all their building materials and skillful workers from other countries to build their houses that live up to the European standard.

Once a dishonest air-conditioner installer recommended by a 'friend' cheated us by installing a one horse power air-conditioner claiming that it's a two horse power air-conditioner that we had requested. It's our own responsibility for trusting our 'friend' and his recommendation, and we didn’t know much about air-conditioning. And then the newly installed air-conditioner had problem, we tried to contact him for months also couldn't get in touch with him. And so, we went to our 'friend' who recommended him, then only we found out that he had cheated us and were avoiding us deliberately. And it's pointless to bring this issue to the police, which I will explain later.

After that this 'friend' recommended another air-conditioner mechanic to us, and he came once to fix a problem of the air-conditioner, but after that he was too busy to come to do even just a normal routine chemical service. And finally, we got another company from Kuah to service the air-conditioners, but with higher price than usual as they were reluctant to come to our place in the beginning saying that it's too far for them to come.

Another very important reason is that my husband would like to live a healthy lifestyle, cooking and eating healthy vegetarian food, swimming and enjoying some outdoor time and space outside the house, he couldn't do so while we were living in Langkawi. One time he got serious sun burnt (for doing some painting under the shade at the car porch) and needed to be treated in the hospital.

We had moved and lived in three different houses within the last ten and a half year in Langkawi. When we spent some time outside the house, we either suffered from heat-stroke, sun burnt, hornet stung, or poisonous ants and mosquitoes bite. There were countless insects, leeches, rats, poisonous centipedes, snakes, monitor lizards and scorpions coming into the house through gaps and holes of the door, windows and ceiling, or coming in through the drains, where we needed to keep doors closed all the time and putting a brick on top the cover of the drain so that rats, monitor lizards and snakes couldn’t come in from there.

Most of the non-sliding windows in the house were unable to be opened as they were blocked by the mosquito netting, while the entire house was having very low ceiling and non-insulated wall, where constant heat was accumulated in the house throughout the day even when the sliding windows that we replaced some of the non-sliding windows were opened and with the fans switched-on. We reluctantly needed to use the air-conditioner all day and night if we were in the house, or else, we would be suffering from heat-stroke and overly sweating and wouldn't have a proper rest/sleep. The house was like an oven. It built up heat due to the poor structure. We had a thermometer in the house, and if without the air-conditioner switched-on, the temperature could go up above 35 degrees Celsius, even when the outside temperature was actually a lot lower. And if we were cooking, the temperature went up even higher. The room that was less hot in the house was the yoga hall, as the ceiling there is slightly higher, and we had the sliding windows installed that can be opened. Still, we needed to use the air-conditioner during the yoga sessions in the afternoon, as it would be too hot.

There were rats living on the ceiling and snakes living in the post box, in the gap of the ceiling and under the rubbish bin. In the first wooden house, we had to put rat trap onto the ceiling everyday, and every time when we caught one, we would bring it out in the car and release it into the bushes about a few km away from the house. But, this process never had an end as there were so many rats around our neighbourhood. There were a group of scorpions living outside the back of the wooden house, and hence we didn't go to that area unless we had to.

There were tiny insects coming into the house if we didn't have the outside lights turned-on but with the inside lights switched-on at night. I had to 'get rid of' so many insects and poisonous centipedes everyday in order to be able to live in the house, and to ensure a clean and safe practice environment for our retreat guests. My work of constantly cleaning the entire place was ceaseless. We had to ask the cooperation from the guests to keep the place as clean as possible to avoid attracting insects, particularly ants or mosquitoes, into the yoga hall. As once the ants found food in the yoga hall, they will return with many others, and also making their nest somewhere in the house, and it would be more difficult to keep them out.

Being bitten by poisonous ants and hornets is no fun at all. We both, especially my husband, had been bitten by ants and hornets numerous times while working in the garden. I have a few scars on my skin were from the ants bite. And we gave up, in the end. We also told the retreat guests not to hang around at the garden in the last two years, as there were too many ants and hornets that give nasty bites, or even allergic reaction that could lead to death in certain people. My husband had been admitted to the hospital a few times due the nasty hornet stung, where his body reacted badly to the hornet stung. This house was also no longer suitable for running the retreats, if our guests would be attacked by ants and hornets.

There were also too many house lizards in the house that generate huge amount of 'shits' everyday, where I needed to clean up everyday, and sometimes, a few times a day especially when we had the retreats going on. And then there was constant sand mining activity in this area that generates so much dust around the house.

Though the sea is very close to us, only about 5 minutes drive away from our house/yoga studio, and we loved to be on the beach, while my husband would love to swim in the sea, but we never wanted to get into the sea for two reasons. One is that there are too many jelly fish, some of them are extremely poisonous, already with several death cases in the past due to jelly fish stung. My husband nearly lost his life being stung by jelly fish while swimming in the sea of Pantai Cenang not long after we moved to Langkawi from Kuala Lumpur. He had stopped breathing when we arrived in the hospital and the medical people performed CPR on him immediately and gave him injections to be able to breathe again. He was suffering from extreme pain throughout the body for the next few weeks, and wasn't fully recover until more than one year later. Another reason, is that the sea here is highly contaminated/polluted by the drainage and sewage system in that area (Pantai Cenang). Even the dolphins and turtles that used to come close to the seashore also had stopped coming here many years ago. For those reasons, my husband wouldn’t swim in the sea ever again even though it’s conveniently close by. There is no public swimming pool facility in Langkawi. More than a year ago, he started swimming at the pool in one of the big hotel not too far from our house, but the quality of the pool water wasn't great, and half a year ago, this hotel had stopped operating. Then my husband found another hotel that allowed him to swim at their pool, again he only went for a few months and then stopped going, as the pool water was in a terrible condition.

We were paying tourist's price for almost everything due to it's a touristy island. Langkawi depends solely on tourism and almost everything are imported from the main land of Malaysia, or from the neighbouring countries, or even from countries far away. Most of the imported produce are catering for meeting the demand of tourism, and yet, many things are either non-available, or shortage of supply, or commonly out of stock for many weeks/months, or having higher price tags due to supply shortage on the island. Food like chickpeas, sesame seeds, certain brand of muesli, certain brand of jams, cheese (though there are very limited choices of cheese/jams/muesli here) and eggs are often out of stock for some time (from a few days to a few months). Once we couldn't get sesame seeds for two months and muesli was out of stock for half a year, and there's no Parmesan cheese for the last few months. While the big hotels and the many restaurants that cater for tourists might have the priority to be getting their supplies adequately.

The things that are very cheap in Langkawi are the duty-free goods such as chocolates, sweets, alcohols and cigarettes, which we don't consume. The imported cars, dining and kitchen wares are duty-free as well, but how many cars, dining and kitchen wares that we actually need? Before GRAB exists in Langkawi, taxis are the only public transport available on the island and the fare is even more expensive than in Kuala Lumpur. As residence of Langkawi, we were paying the same taxi fare as the tourists.

Whenever we needed to see a dentist, we had to travel to Penang or Kuala Lumpur, as the only dentist that we knew in Langkawi was incompetent, where my husband's teeth and gums were seriously damaged by the dentist after one visit. From then, we would go to Penang or Kuala Lumpur for dental works. We also took the opportunity to do some shopping for things that we couldn't get in Langkawi during our trips to Penang or Kuala Lumpur.

Other 'problems' such as neighbouring cats constantly coming into the garden and the terrace leaving behind dead animals/birds, shit/pee, fur and fleas. Unfortunately, when we asked the cooperation from the retreat guests to not feed or stroke the cats to not encourage them to keep coming to the terrace, some of the cats lover weren't happy about that. We loved to have cows and buffaloes hanging around the paddy field, but they would break the fence from time to time trying to eat the grass from within the garden. We love animals and certainly we don't hate animals, but they gave us too much work to deal with, unintentionally.

The entire family members of the house opposite us was well-known for drug intoxication, house breaking-in and stealing. We didn't know about it until after our house was broken in, as if we had knew before we rented this house, we would look for some other houses. Again, it's our own responsibility for not investigating more detailed about the surrounding neighbourhood. And of course, in order to rent out their houses successfully, the landlord wouldn't mention anything about all houses here were being broken into countless times in the past. But anyway, it doesn't matter which area in Langkawi, most houses had been broken into at least once before.

Langkawi was one of the areas with a high record of drug addicts in Malaysia. Though not many people knew about it due to many happenings in Langkawi were not reported publicly. People kept quiet about happenings that might affect the tourism industry. There were some expatriates being cheated in dealings of 'business start up with a local partner' and 'buying and owning' properties in Langkawi. Usually the local people who cheated were untouched by 'the law'. Someone who had been living in this village for many years in the past told us that almost the entire villagers of all ages are all drug addicts. And due to drugs problems, house break-in is so common in Langkawi. While I was filing police report AGAIN for another house broken-in, the police said to me, "We know them. They are our neighbours and relatives. If we have proof and we will catch them. We will bring them to court, and it depends on the judge whether giving them warning and releasing them immediately, or sending them to prison for a few days or few weeks. And after a few days/weeks lock-up in the prison they are all out again, and will continue doing what they love to do. This process will continue to go on."

Even children in the primary school are already smoking cigarette and maybe some other 'stuff' and are involving with many 'illegal' activities. We heard story about some drug dealers would give free sample of ‘sweets’ to the children outside the school to get them hook on it, and then these children would buy ‘sweets’ from them and/or become one of their runners.

One of our friend's house was broken into four times within a month, and one time, the thief 'carelessly' left behind his Identity Card. When they brought the Identity Card to the police and told them, "This is the person who broke-into our house and stole our stuff." The police took the Identity Card from him and said, "Ah! I will give this I.C. back to him. Thank you for returning the I.C." This is why it's pointless to go to the police.

In the beginning, after we moved to Langkawi living in the wooden house close to Pantai Cenang, we were so naive that we didn't think of locking the gate at all. One day when we came back from the outside, the gate was wide opened and there were cigarette butts left on the terrace. Then we knew that Langkawi people are so 'friendly' that they would come into your house without invitation if your door are not closed or locked. And so, to avoid 'uninvited guests' we started to lock the gate. Not so much to keep people away as they can climb in easily if they want, but to keep cows and buffaloes away as they would damage all the plants in our garden. In less than a year, the wooden house was broken-into when we were away, even with the gate locked. When our friends from Europe came for holiday and stayed at the Airbnb house in the same village, their wallets were stolen when he was in the shower. He even saw the guy running away and he tried to run after him but lost him in the end.

Later we rented another house about 2 minutes walk away from the wooden house, where we used the wooden house only for the yoga sessions and the other house for living and cooking meals for the retreats. We needed to spend a few thousands Ringgit on this house to redo the flooring and the wiring before we could actually live in that house. And the old landlord of this house would walk around our house in the middle of the night with a 'Parang' knife, not so much about being a security guard for us and keeping 'uninvited guests' away, but it's to check on us every night whether we had 'invited guests' staying with us, and whether we did anything that he didn't want us to do in his house, or not. As we were told that we were not allowed to have any other 'guests' staying with us, that we couldn't have non-halal food and drink or activity in the house. One night, he actually knocked on our door holding the 'Parang' wanted to see if there was anything that shouldn't be there. Other than that, he and his wife were nice people. We loved to talk to them from time to time. They told us about their life stories in Langkawi, and some history of Langkawi.

Five years later, we needed to find another house for living and running the yoga retreats, due to the existing 'problems' with the wooden house. The house on stilts was leaning to one side seriously until we couldn’t close the door anymore, plus the issue with the building permit renewal, as well as our landlord wanted to take back the house that he rented to us for their own stay because their house was going to be demolished to make way for the new highway. They were happy about that because they were getting huge compensation from the authority, which later they used it for building a guesthouse. When I went to renew the building permit for 2014, the authority said that they couldn’t renew that permit anymore because the temporary permit only valid for five years. After five years, we need to make new application for the permanent permit, which requires a lot more money (that we didn't have) and all kinds of document from the landlord, which the landlord didn’t have. And so, I went to cancel our business license and was getting ready to go through the entire ‘painful’ process of applying for a new temporary building permit and new business license for the new place.

Even months before the landlord told us that they wanted to take back the house, we had been trying to look for a suitable house to live and run yoga retreats, but it wasn't successful not until a few weeks before we had to move, we found this house beside the paddy field. We had to spend most of our savings to renovate the house and create a garden to make it good enough for living and running yoga retreats. We didn't make a lot of money from teaching yoga, but we managed to save some money because we lived a very simple non-materialistic and non-sociable life.

Not long after we moved into the new place, some kids climbed over the fence coming into the compound, and when they saw us, they said they just wanted to 'see' if they can 'borrow' something from us (after they had climbed in without asking permission.) And we told them not to do that again (for climbing over the wall to come into our compound and 'borrow' or 'take' things as they like.) And then one night, whether it's related to those kids, or not, our house was being attacked where there were broken glasses in the terrace and garden, resulting from someone throwing light bulbs into the garden and the terrace area. We went to the police station to file a police report for that incident even though knowing that the police won't do anything about it.

Even when we first arrived in Langkawi, we received a 'threatening' email from an expatriate who was a 'yoga teacher' and runs a business in Langkawi for more than twenty years, who thinks she is the head of the expatriate community in Langkawi, who wasn't happy that we came to Langkawi to teach yoga and run retreats, and wanted to 'lecture' us about how we should or shouldn't run our yoga classes and retreats in certain way. We didn't want to react or response to that, and continued to do what we wanted to do. Later, we heard from some other expatriates about the annoyance that they were getting from her as well.

In less than one year living there, our house was broken-into. And then, followed by two other attempts of breaking-in, where they damaged the mosquito netting trying to come in through the windows, but after knowing that we were at home at that time, they fled. There were blood drops on the floor during the break-in and the police came and took some sample, but we were never being updated about whether they identified and caught anyone, or not. When we asked the police what can we do to protect ourselves if we would be attacked by the thieves, the police told us that we can try to fight back but never to the point of causing serious injury or death to them, as we will be prosecuted for injuring/killing others even for self-defense.

After that, our landlord asked us to keep all the outside lights and some of the inside lights on throughout the night all the time to avoid house break-in, especially when we were not at home, to pretend that someone is at home. Our electric bill was extremely higher than it should be due to the need to use air-conditioners all day and night because of the house was too hot all the time, as well as the need to have many of the lights on throughout the night for just trying to minimize the chances of getting house break-in.

Because our landlord reluctant to fix the broken grill due to the house break-in, they asked us to find someone to fix it. And so we asked someone recommended by a 'friend' to come to install a new grill. The guy came and took some deposit from us, and he didn't come back to us for a long time, and we couldn't get in touch with him, until we told our 'friend' that we will bring this issue to the police, then only our 'friend' gave us back the deposit from his own pocket, and he would deal with the guy himself. Then we 'found' another metal smith who said he would make the new grill for us, came to our house and took some measurements. And then many weeks later, when we called him as we didn't hear back from him, he told us that the grill was ready and he would come to install on the next day, and we were waiting for him to come on that day, but he didn't show up and didn't call us, and didn't want to answer our phone calls from then on. This was ridiculous, but it's because they all have other more 'important' big projects to do. We were just some small business that didn't interest them.

Within the last 5 years, we had tried to call various plumbers, electricians and air-conditioner mechanics to come to do some plumbing, electrical and air-conditioning works for us, none would come, saying that they were too busy with their respective projects with the many hotels and guesthouses. And those (recommended by the landlord) who would come to do a bigger renovation for the house in the beginning to make the house more suitable for living and running the retreats, they delivered a bad quality of workmanship, where the sliding windows, the paint work, the toilets, the doors, the plastering work, the wiring, the car porch and the terrace were of low quality and had lots of defects. And there's nothing much we can do about it unless we spent more money on it to re-renovate it again, which we couldn't afford.

In Langkawi, either you might have the money, but you can't get anyone to do things for you, or, you paid the money and have the people to do things for you, but they are incompetent to deliver good enough quality of workmanship. The guesthouses and restaurants owners whom we knew, were all frustrated about the working quality and attitude of the local people that they could get in Langkawi.

The low quality wooden doors of the house were being affected badly by both the dryness/heat/sunlight and the humidity/rain, where the door repeatedly going through a process of shrinking or expanding causing it couldn't be closed properly/at all or couldn't be opened smoothly/at all, and as time goes by, the doors were rotting away. The house was built on refilled rubbles on top of the paddy field, where the flooring and the wall is seriously uneven and cracking through time, and the cracks on the wall and the flooring were widening/deepening in an incredible speed within the past five years. And the owner was being acknowledged about all the problems, but didn't want to do anything about it. He said, "Oh, that's normal-lah. Every two years the intense vibrations from the LIMA airshow will shake the house a bit." There were moisture coming through the ground leaving stains at the lower parts of all the walls in the entire house as well. We had tried to repaint the wall to cover those stains, but very soon, the stains built up over the new paint. It's pointless. This is due to the bad foundation of the house that they didn't do right when they first built the house. And that's common in most of the local houses in Langkawi.

And then, there were many 'hassles' that we had to go through yearly for just trying to live a life as well as to be running yoga retreats (legally) in Langkawi.

In order to have a business license and permit to run yoga retreats legally in Langkawi, I had to bear ongoing hassle of 'threats' coming from 'the authority' and 'the law of rules and regulations', where I had to go through the 'painful' renewal process repeatedly every year. Not just that I had to pay expensive fees for getting the initial application paper work done (more than 8 thousands Ringgit for the two different houses) and the yearly renewals for the building permit and business license, but I was being 'threatened' legally to bear all cost where the building or the house that I rented for living and being legalized/permitted to teach yoga and run yoga retreats need to be demolished, if I want to stop running yoga retreats and cancelling or discontinue renewing the building permit, or if for any reasons, the authority stops renewing the permit.

They said it's their 'fault' and 'mistake' in the process of granting me with the building permit under my name, where it should be done under the landlord’s name (which no one told me about that), BUT, even though it’s a mistake from them, it's still law binding that being the permit and license applier and holder, I am legally obliged to demolish the house/building, and be responsible for all the cost to demolish the house/building if I ever cancelling or discontinued to renew the permit, or if the authority decides to stop renewing the permit, and that it's my responsibility that I had to negotiate any existing compensation to be paid to the landlord/house owner for demolishing his house or building under that rule and regulation, where the landlord/house owner wittingly rented the house/building to me, acknowledged and allowed me to run yoga retreats in the house or the building, and was aware of this 'ridiculous' rule and regulation.

The entire process of applying for the building permit and the business license took more than nine months. And from the very beginning, the authority, the owner and I, we all knew that I was only renting a house and simply just want to apply for a business license to be running yoga retreats legally in Langkawi. And the owner had to sign a paper granting me with the permission to teach yoga and apply for a business license to teach yoga legally in that house. In order to apply for the business license, I needed to apply for a temporary building permit for the house, which had cost me thousands of Ringgit each time. And if without the permission letter from the owner, the authority couldn't process my application. And so, they knew that I am only renting an existing house, but they only have one application format, which is "Application of requesting permission to build a yoga studio on this land." I told them, "This isn't right, because I didn't build the house, the house was already existing and I am only renting the existing house to live and teach yoga there. I am not asking permission to build a new building of yoga studio on that land." They said, "We know. But it doesn't matter. This is the only format that we have in order to grant you a temporary building permit that allows you to apply for the business license. We are here to help you."

And so, every year, I had to renew the building permit in order to renew the business license. And then when I wanted to renew the temporary building permit for year 2018, the authority asked me to signed a legally binding acknowledgement about I will have to demolish the building and bear all the cost and compensation to any party, if I, or the authority, decide to cancel the building permit. I wasn't comfortable with that, and told them that I didn't want to get involved with such 'trouble' for just trying to do things legally. I was ready to let go everything and stop teaching yoga in Langkawi at that time. My father had just passed away a few days ago. I was quite emotional. Then they told me, "Hey, don't worry. It's just some standard paper work. It won't affect you because we have the permission letter from the owner. The owner will be responsible for complying with the rules and regulations. Not you. When you stop business or stop living there, you just go. If anything, we deal with the owner. No problem."

"But then, I am the one who had the name and signature on that legally binding document. It doesn't matter what you say, I am the one who is legally bound by this." Then they asked me to contact the owner to explain the situation to him. They also said that they would help me by changing the holder name of the permit to the owner's name, as it was their mistake in the beginning where they should have use the owner's name to apply for the temporary building permit, and not using my name. And when the owner came to the office, the owner asked the officer, "What happen if she had to demolish my house as requested by the authority?" The officer said, "Oh! That depends on your rental agreement with her. You can request and negotiate compensation from her." What?!

Does this hurt your brain as well? And this is the system that everyone who wants to do things legally in Langkawi has to comply with.

That means, either I didn't want to demolish the house as I was only renting the house, the house doesn't belong to me, but then I would be prosecuted by the authority for not obeying the rules and regulations, or, I obeyed the rules and regulations from the authority, spent money (that I don't have) to demolish the house (which is illegal for me to do that), and then be sued by the owner and had to pay compensation (that I don't have) to him for demolishing his property that he rented to me.

Even though they had created a letter for me and the owner to sign stating that we requested to change the holder name for the temporary building permit, but when I wanted to renew the permit for year 2019, the name hadn't been changed at all, it was still under my name, but they accepted the legal binding document was being signed by the owner, and not me. Even so, I was really uncomfortable with the whole affair. I just wanted to do things legally, but it's so difficult and complicated and PAINFUL to do things legally in Langkawi, while there are so many illegal businesses and tourist yogis teaching yoga classes on Langkawi illegally didn't need to go through all these ridiculous hassles that I had to go through for trying to do things legally.

On top of that, we had to pay higher rental than what the local people are paying as my husband is a European and I am a Malaysian Chinese. Normally the locals would pay only half of what we paid for the similar house.

The three houses that we rented for living/running yoga retreats were rundown and unmaintained by the owners, where we needed to spent quite a lot of money to renovate and maintain the condition of the houses in order for them to be functional and good enough for living as well as to run yoga retreats. When people came for attending the yoga retreats and said, "Oh, what a nice place you have for living and for hosting the yoga retreats." that is because we had spent most of our savings into making the space suitable for running the yoga retreats and comfortable enough for the people who come to attend the yoga retreats.

Anyway, when I went to cancel the permit before we moved, unsurprisingly, they gave me a letter stating that I am being requested to demolish the building/house. The officer said to me, “Your permit is successfully cancelled. My boss said you need to demolish the building.” while pointing to the respective sentence. But then, he immediately said to me, “You can ignore this sentence. You don't really need to demolish the house. You are just renting the house. We won’t do anything. Next time if the landlord want to have a permit, he can do so with the existing file.” I told him, “Really? This is a legal binding document that is directing to my name, how can you tell me to ignore this sentence? Why don’t you give me a letter that is without that sentence?” He said, “This is a standard order from the boss. We can’t change that.” There’s nothing more I could say. I can't change the system. I left and let it be.

The village also has another issue. There is serious rubbish problem. The locals are not keen on keeping the surrounding environment clean and rubbish free. They throw rubbish everywhere as they like. In the beginning we went out to the street around the village to pick up all the rubbish. And then, we realized that not just it didn't bring awareness to the people, but we were actually encouraging them to throw more rubbish everywhere, as they feel it's okay for them to throw the rubbish everywhere because there were two 'stupid' people living here now will clean up the rubbish for them. And so, we stopped doing that.

We would try our best to keep the front of our house as clean as possible by picking up any rubbish being thrown by random people passing by. But somehow, our next door neighbours weren't really helpful as they would just throw anything over their fence into the paddy field. The paddy field is no longer being cultivated but had turned into a rubbish dumpsite full of food waste, plastic wraps, bags, containers and bottles as well as unwanted old broken furniture, and etc. We had talked to the neighbours a few times requesting them that maybe they could stop throwing rubbish over the fence like that. But, they still do what they want to do. The paddy field in front of our house used to be so picturesque but it wasn't anymore. And then from time to time, the other neighbours would burnt some rubbish with all kinds of plastic material that generate toxic fumes.

Another reason is that on the 1st of July 2019, I could have been injured or losing my life on the highway towards Kuala Lumpur for attending my brother's funeral because of the 'dishonesty' and 'incompetency' of the car workshop that I had been bringing my car for regular service and repair in the past 10 years. Somehow, they installed expired and non-compatible tyres to my car where they were in so bad condition that they could have exploded and caused serious damages to myself and/or others during my long driving journey from Langkawi to Kuala Lumpur that day, which I only realized how lucky I was when my second brother saw the serious damages of the tyres and immediately brought the car to a nearby tyre shop near the funeral place to change the tyres immediately. Everyone said that it was incredible that the tyres didn't explode when it could easily have, while I was driving at a fast speed on the highway that day. Again, it's my own responsibility for entrusting the car to that workshop and have limited knowledge about car and tyres.

I told my husband, "Okay. That's enough. We leave Langkawi. I want to appreciate the remaining life time in peace not being threatened by dishonest people and the ridiculous system of this island." I am not fear of death, I am ready to leave anytime, but if possible, I do not want to suffer unnecessary suffering due to other people's dishonesty.

Despite all the mentioned difficulties, we did have a very good long term grass-cutting man who would come to cut the grass for us once every two months in the past 10 years. We are thankful for that. And the good thing about living in Langkawi is there's no traffic jam (yet) and there are nice waterfalls, even though the locals have the habit of leaving rubbish everywhere and maintenance is not great. And we are thankful to Langkawi and the houses that we lived in, allowing many retreats had been happening and people from all over the world came to be learning and practicing yoga with us there, allowing us to share yoga with so many people. Thank you for all the supports.

We chose to move to Penang Island for start, and then we will see what happen. If we have to move somewhere else, it really doesn't matter. The system in Penang Island could be worst or maybe better than Langkawi, we don't know yet. And many parts of the world are going through certain difficulties. I don't need to have a yoga studio or retreat centre. I don't need to teach yoga restricted to a particular place.  I don't need to teach yoga at all. I just want to have a place to live and do my own practice, if possible. If it's not possible, I live and practice as I am. As a writer and editor, my husband can live anywhere. And in terms of the writing and reading scene, social, music, arts and cultural development, Penang has a lot more to offer than in Langkawi.

Finding a place to rent in Penang also wasn't easy for us. We had to spend quite some money coming here twice to be looking for a place. We met some 'good' people helping us in certain things, we also met some 'helpful' people who only interested to take advantage of us. Anyway, we found a good enough place and paid the deposit to reserve it, even though the owner has some issues and doesn't want to give us long term contract. As the moving out from Langkawi is the most complicated difficult part. We need to have a place secured even if it's temporary. Once we arrived in Penang, then even though if we have to find another place later within Penang, or if we need to move to another place in Malaysia, or even outside Malaysia, it will be a lot easier in Penang than in Langkawi.

In this new place, my husband can swim everyday at the 50 metres well-maintained swimming pool, we seldom use the air-conditioner as the place is well ventilated, the windows can be opened and closed, we don’t have to keep lights on when we are not at home or when we go to sleep, there are security guards, there’s convenience of getting grocery and fresh produce, there’s no lizard shit, no cats leaving behind dead animals/shit/pee/fleas, no snakes or centipedes coming into the house, there’s a balcony to sit out comfortably without being eaten by ants and mosquitoes, there’s nice hill view and sea view from the windows and balcony, we can cook if we want with many choices of fresh produce available, or there’s plenty of restaurants or food courts nearby that have plenty choices and good quality of food at reasonable price (not tourists price), the people working in the shops and restaurants are friendly and courteous, my husband can read and write under proper lighting, there’s fast speed internet, there are many reading, writing, arts and cultural events in Penang for my husband's interest, there’s hiking trails nearby, there's good rubbish management, I found a car workshop where the people are really helpful, and many more, so far.

All is impermanent.
 

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About Yoga

Know thyself. Everything is impermanent and selfless. There is no 'I'. There is no 'I am selfless'/'I am not selfless'. There is no 'I am hurt'/'I need to be healed from hurt'. Non-blind believing, non-blind following, non-blind practicing and non-blind propagating, but be open-minded to inquire the truth of everything. Be free. Be peaceful. Be happy.

About Meng Foong

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Inquire the truth of everything.

Link to Yoga Now Malaysia website

Link to Yoga Now Malaysia website
Yoga retreats and yoga workshops in Malaysia

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