Your mantra for the week:
“I focus on harmony and all conflicts disappear.”
Allow your mind to relax now. Harmony and peace surround you. In your thoughts, you find only God— the God that you live and move and have in your being.
This God is also called love. Love, if it is real, can never hurt you. What has hurt any one of us is only what we thought love was. Love cannot hurt. It can only heal. It can free your body from disease, discomfort, all illnesses and all that is unlike God Itself.
When you fall in love and hurt comes to mind, please understand that it was not love that hurt you but your expectations, your dependence, your feelings of lack.
For love, if it’s real, prospers you. It attracts God’s riches—money, material possessions, all that you will ever need for your comfort and always a lot more left to share.
Love, if it’s real, heals all disharmonies and relationships. It opens up your eyes to understand, to respond, to reach out. Love, if it’s real, is supportive, is always there when it is needed. Yes, love heals. Love does not hurt.
When your happiness depends on another person, it is not love that hurts you—it is your dependence because you are forgetting that your dependence should be only on God, and what you share in your relationships is an overflow of love.
Love takes courage, it takes patience, it takes faith, it takes trust. All these are necessary to build a true love relationship. Otherwise, it does not grow deeper.
There are 14,000 minutes in a day in which you can express loving thoughts, feelings and words, to show your love, to let the other person know that you have no expectations, that you are there to share the joy you have in your heart.
Love, if it’s real, opens floodgates to greater success in all your endeavors. It leads you to do what you are happy doing, and you are prospered by it.
That’s what love does. When you shower a bit of love on anyone, on anything, it prospers and grows. It blooms. It blossoms.
Every man has four aspects to consider in his life: the physical, the mental, the emotional and the spiritual.
The most important one is the spiritual, for this is where you recognize the God-within and its power which is love.
As you give love, you discover more and more of it within you. As you feel this, there is an urge to give even more. And thus, you discover the Infinite Love that you are.
Frequently, it will tell you: “I am love. I am the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. I am constant, and I am here for you, never judging, never blaming, only waiting for you to call and listen.” At times, when you face a challenge and you are hurt, you sometimes say it is because you loved too much. That is not so, my child, for if you love truly, you will not get hurt. You will understand and, when necessary, you will let go happily.
“As you go through life and love, let go of all your expectations, your dependence, your feelings of lack and possessiveness. Countless people may come and go in your life, but I will always be here. You can never ever be alone, for I am Divine Love and I am in you. You will also remember, my child, that there are times when you give without loving, but you cannot truly love without giving. Give it happily as I give it to you.”
No shame
I would like to thank readers who reacted with enthusiasm to my column last week (“Peping et al.— they’re now irrelevant”). Here are their comments:
“Who are they to speak for the multitude of Filipinos? They have absolutely no shame. Their spokesperson will probably not even win as Barangay Captain if he ran for that position in his community.”
“I really agree with you wholeheartedly. Sometimes people who represent a religion from the lowest to the highest personnel have created a dilemma by making people believe that their personal opinions are the edicts of the Church.”
“These people have no moral ascendancy nor credibility to stand on.”
“In the food chain, they are called the hyenas.”
“Pathetic power-grabbers. They think they have a mandate to form a transformational government.”
P-Noy’s achievements
Someone has e-mailed me a list of 86 items that the Aquino administration has achieved aside from upgrading the Philippines to investment level and enacting the RH Law. Here are some of the positive changes that I really like:
1) Reduced the hunger rate from 21.1 percent (June 2010) to 17.2 percent (December 2014)
2) Did not block the Department of Agrarian Reform in its move to take over Hacienda Luisita. (Sounds like an explanation for Peping’s behavior).
3) Put influential, “untouchable” people behind bars.
4) Appointed Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales, COA’s Grace Pulido Tan, BIR Commissioner Kim Henares and Justice Secretary Leila de Lima.
5) A renewed confidence in the judicial system by impeaching Chief Justice Renato Corona and appointing Maria Lourdes Sereno.
6) Recovered P75.1 billion of the Marcoses’ ill-gotten wealth.
7) The Philippine Stock Exchange breaking all its own record highs.
8) Underscoring that it is more fun in the Philippines. (Because it really is.)
For the 78 other achievements, read comments on my past column (“Our best president, so far,” Feb. 8).
No coincidences
I received an invitation to “Harmony in Diversity,” the 48th annual exhibit of Ikebana International, Manila Chapter 108, from its former president, Architect Nonette Hubilla.
Her husband Johnny, a well-known interior designer, and their children, Franco, a landscape artist, and Arturo, also an interior designer, work as a team.
The exhibit opens on March 6, by invitation only; it will be opened to the public during mall hours at the 2nd Level, Grand Atrium, Shangri-La Plaza, Mandaluyong City, until March 8.
I do not believe in coincidences; it is not an accident that the Bangsamoro Basic Law’s goal is also to create harmony in diversity. So, I suggest to all people involved in the Transformational Council, especially those who believe they speak for God, to please consult the Holy Book which says, “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind(s)…” Their old minds do need renewing.
The ikebana exhibit boasts of a tagline: bursts in colors. On the other hand, the Transformational Council bursts only in colorful sanctimonious posturing.
Winners all
Congratulations to director Francis Pasion whose film “Bwaya” (nothing to do with some senators and congressmen) has just won the grand prize at the 21st Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema in France. He is the first Filipino to win this award. He truly does us proud.
By the way, he shares a birthday with Don Claro M. Recto and P-Noy—truly all winners!
Another winner is the movie “Fifty Shades of Grey.” Many call it a gross movie but gross, like beauty, is really in the eyes of the beholder. See its producers looking glowingly at their gross profits.
Personally, I would nominate the film as one of the best this year, especially when viewed from the psychological level of the story, “I am 50 ways all f**cked up,” which most people missed.
Their focus was on the world of overwhelming and intimidating wealth, or the extraordinary sensuality of the movie when the cinematographer excellently pictured it all.
Two thumbs up to the MTRCB!