Your mantra for the week: “As I love, I am prospered.”

 

There are four aspects of life that I talk about in IAMISM: health, wealth, relationships and success. The most discussed is wealth, or money and material possessions.

 

Others call it prosperity, but true prosperity, for me, covers all four aspects—meaning there is order and harmony in each aspect. You enjoy perfect health, have enough money to live your desired lifestyle, your relationships are harmonious and happy, and you are successful in all your short-term and long-term endeavors.

 

The reason why money is the most popular taking point is because there are many who believe that it will solve all their problems which, of course, is not so. Money is, naturally important, but I do not believe it is one’s greatest blessing.

 

It is true that when you are sick and unhappy, it is better to have money because financial independence makes it easier to resolve such situations.

 

However, I always keep in mind what my father answered, when he was very ill, after I asked him what he would give up to recover his health. He emphatically said, “I am willing to let go most of my wealth.”

 

In my IAMISM temple I have introduced something called “Will Your Fortune”—which is likened to a wheel, divided into four equal parts, in which we write out our desires in the four aspects of our lives to remind us about their importance.

 

When one aspect is out of order, the wheel looks like a flat tire and would not roll efficiently. We always write health first, believing it’s the essence of having a life worth living.

 

How to attract money

 

Let me then discuss today the most favored of the four life aspects—wealth or money.

 

Here are 15 points to remember with regard to attracting more money:

 

1) Enjoy what you already have.

2) Money thrives on looking good and feeling good.

3) Help someone become rich.

4) Accelerate your riches by looking for someone rich and make them richer.

5) Praise those who have money.

6) Fears are anathema to money.

7) Affirm love, and money comes.

8) Support those who support you.

9) Your fear of not having money causes the lack of it.

10) Tithing is the prosperity secret of the ages. Donations are not tithes, they are gifts. Tithing is giving 10 percent of your income to a spiritual organization or an individual in spiritual work where you get your spiritual inspiration.

11) Order and money always go together.

12) Money comes according to the quality of service you render.

13) The more you pray for others, the greater your prosperity.

14) The greater your need for money, the faster the supply if your attention is not on the lack of it.

15) To have more, you must be more.

 

For a more detailed discussion, you are invited to join us every Sunday at the function room of Old Swiss Inn Restaurant, Somerset Olympia Tower, Makati Avenue, beside Manila Peninsula. You’ll meet people like a balut vendor, who, after attending our sessions for two years, now owns his own house.

 

Two women of substance

 

There are two women writers I truly admire and respect: Carmen Gerrero-Nakpil and Rosalinda “Baby” Orosa. I would like to recommend them to be National Artists, but there is no category to describe their achievements as journalists, authors and advocates of culture and the arts.

 

I will have to ask the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) for advice on this matter regarding classification.

 

This is what my UP Prep schoolmate Boo Chanco has to say about the statuesque stunner (where do you think Gemma Cruz got her looks) that was journalist Carmen Guerrero-Nakpil in her national bestseller book, “Heroes and Villains”: “If there is anything that reading Miss Nakpil’s latest book will do for today’s Filipino, it is to make him feel good about the nobility of its people. Unfortunately, the 400 years or so of Spanish, American and Japanese subjugation inflicted a blow to our collective self-respect. ‘We Filipinos were carefully taught by example, from Spain, sloth and braggadocio; from America, materialism and hypocrisy; and, from both, that corruption was a tool for survival,’ she writes.”

 

That is truly an understatement.

 

For 60 years, Nakpil was a sterling journalist and, for 12 years, wrote a legendary daily column in the Manila Chronicle, “My Humble Opinion.” And in one of those columns, she reviewed my book “In Words, In Color,” and I recall that her title for that particular review was “What People Are Not Reading.”

 

To have been written about in Nakpil’s column was one of the highlights of my youth. She authored 10 books and was a public servant as chair of the Philippine National Historical Commission.

 

All that she has accomplished surely deserves a National Artist award.

 

Above the throng

 

In the meantime, during the same period, another journalist and author’s star was shining just as brightly—the endearing and immaculate Rosalinda Orosa, better known as Baby. She is also recognized as an advocate of culture and the arts, and is responsible for promoting the success of then budding artists like pianist Cecile Licad, classical singer Aurelio Estanislao and painter Manuel Baldemor.

 

Baby personally encouraged me when I first debuted on the legitimate stage with the Avellanas, and continued her support in my three one-man shows of painting poems with Manuel Rodriguez Sr. and throughout my songwriting years. Baby never stopped cheering me on in all my endeavors.

 

In her life as a prolific journalist, she has written for probably all major publications and has authored a landmark book, “Above the Throng,” which has become required reading for art and culture lovers.

 

She has also been awarded the Order of Merit with Rank Officer by the French government; Germany’s Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit, its highest civilian distinction; and a Lifetime Achievement Award given by former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

 

Baby’s latest book, “Tapestry,” is the story of the Orosa family that has been described by National Artist for Literature F. Sionil José as illustrating “how one family can grow and weld, then perform noteworthy achievements while demonstrating a profound sense of nationalism, fructified with nobility and cultural commitment.”

 

Surely, Baby’s credentials more than merit the status of a National Artist. Her book is available at La Solidaridad Bookshop, and Carmen’s book at PowerBooks.

 

‘Meaty’ issues

 

The first two weeks of January are usually quiet days socially, but this year was different. People were in the mood to celebrate for whatever reason.

 

It started with Megaworld’s young top executive Kevin Tan and his lovely wife Michelle hosting an intimate dinner at Marriott Manila hotel’s Kru, which served its signature steaks. The discussion that evening was just as “meaty” and more essentially laughable—which made Megaworld’s acquiring Fundador for P13.8 billion and a commercial building on the side seem unimportant.

 

What can happen

 

Then there was Nedy Tantoco’s dinner in her residence to introduce Rima Ostwani’s fiancé, Lebanese builder and contractor Jihad Najjar, whom Rima is marrying in April, with Diana Jean Lopez and Nedy as ninang.

 

Rima’s mother was also in attendance; Rima surprised us with the tidbit that her mom is a Montilla Oppen.

 

There are more socials on the second half of this month which I will cover next week. You can expect me to write an extra column in another section of this paper on what can happen in the Year of the Fire Monkey.

 

Please note that America was born on a Fire Monkey year (July 4, 1776)—and what America has become after 240 years is a hint of what this Lunar year of 2016 will be like.

 

E-mail the columnist at [email protected]; visit www.GeorgeSison.com and www.iamism.org; listen to his “Positive Session” radio program on DWIZ 882 AM every Saturday, 9-10 p.m.