Friday, March 11, 2005

An Introduction: "THE NIGHT OF ANGELS"

You are about to enter into something extraordinary--into something special and unique experience. If it is not, then it must be my own failing or the failings of things and circumstances that are beyond my power.

There is none that I would appeal to you but to your common senses and yet this must be my greatest struggle---the struggle of this desire to fully impart to you an enlightenment of the soul, in order that my visions will also become your visions.

Something magical has happened to me and the new reality that was laid upon me is one that even in my wildest dreams did not happen. If it would only be up to me, I would call this experience the most important phenomenon ever to happen to humanity in this present day, while we breathe the air of this mortal world. And perhaps, if circumstances allow, I would call it “the new sensation”.

To believe or not to believe my revelation is upon your own discretion. But this is what the truth as it is laid before me.

The angels appeared to me---and still appearing every now and then---often as the night sky is still early into the evening, and while the wind is very fragile yet gentle upon the weather. They first appeared to me sometime in the year of two thousand two, sometime and somewhere in the month of July while I walked the streets of Manila to pursue a career in law. They roved among the clouds to tromp in gaiety, wandering from one part of the night sky towards another, turning the horizon into a giant movie screen, in order to exhibit their plays and meanderings. They made signs not conversation---pure pantomime---but they were as lucid and evocative. If I read the signs well, that would be a question of faith and credibility.

I saw them enacting the man clearing a drainage with a long wooden pole. I saw a man holding the hands of another with others following in line, holding each other’s hands and walking towards a destination. There was the image of a traffic officer pointing also towards a place, in an upward direction through a line of cloud leading towards the sky, while just beneath him was a long line sloping downward.

They came through the clouds from one end of the sky towards another as more visions appeared before me such as the winged horses trotting thru and fro, the swords of the angels, a giant mushroom cloud and an ancient ship with sails swept by a strong wind, traversing an ocean that was then the night sky. I saw repeatedly a huge wooden face similar in features to the figure we see on totems and masts of ancient tribes.

If any one would have been at the same time looking towards the sky, they would have observed that the clouds were so dynamic that at any one point, images of many articles and objects appeared, and they appeared to me to be messages from the sky. This must have been how ancient people developed their alphabets, by signs and symbols that evoke a certain thought or fact.

The angels made crossing signs with their arms, as if to seek recognition of their presence that I also made the same gestures—like a handshake perhaps. And there was a bearded man, with long hair sitting on a huge throne, with the widest grin in his face, seemingly orchestrating the entire show in the night sky.

It was on those nights also that my mind seemed to be awake while I sleep. In slumber, my mind would become a colorful movie screen that I have dreams so vivid that I felt I was almost living in those dreams—alive and breathing. One of those memorable dreams was about a handsome young man standing on the side of a pool, with many women wading their legs in the pool. This particular dream started when a man in black turban and black robes was climbing a low barren hill. My sight was behind this turbaned man and I was sort of floating just above him. As the man reached the top of the hill, he peeked towards the other side, using stealth and care, as if he was wary of probable observers. The hill would lead to a depression of land in a semi-circling shape, like a bowl, that at the bottom was a large pool with many women wading in it.

There was this handsome man standing at the farther side of the pool, to the upper-right corner from where my sight was positioned, his skin was bronze and gleaming and he wore a measly garment covering his lower body. The man stared back so intensely towards the direction of the turbaned man, with brows furrowed signaling his apparent disgust over an ascertained intrusion. Despite the relative distance of the hilltop and despite the use of great care made by the intruder, the man by the pool had known exactly where the turbaned man was and had an inkling of the wicked intention to invade his silences, as if the handsome man had a power of sight and premonition. And the dream faded away.

In one of those dreams, I saw a bearded man also looking towards the sky while standing upon a hill, with a turban in his head, and robes in a beautiful black hue. Like me, he was also looking towards the sky, sifting the horizon for declarations. This was a relatively short dream that it felt like the snap shot of a camera.

In one of those dreams, I saw soldiers riding wild stallions as the horses furiously trod a desert to vanquish the enemies waiting ahead, ready to do battle. I saw this particular vision while I was floating above the wild stallions. It was a noisy dream that I felt somewhat rattled by the rumblings of horses’ hooves threading the earth so furiously and it was so real that I almost felt the ground tremble upon the ferocity of the stampede.

In another dream, I was in the middle of a gathering of monks wearing bright orange robes, walking among them in the crowd, readying eagerly for some forthcoming ritual or important ceremony. Each one of them was up in spirit, going thru and fro, minding each other’s concerns, shouting and belching at one another to straighten up this and rearrange that. Generally, there was a great feeling of excitement as the sun was full in the morning and because of such fullness, the sunrays had a glow that was a little bit yellow.

In one of those dreams I had found myself standing at the head of a huge ship, with many other ships on the wayside, approaching gradually a wide shore where the land was barren that I could see no greeneries whatsoever. Smoke and fog rises from the arid ground as the water was so still that as we sailed along, there was a silence that was uncanny and the little splashes of waves, as gentle wind swept by, was the only sound we hear. There were many persons aboard with me in that ship, all silent and sullen like there was a great tragedy that awaits us the moment we went ashore. They must have been soldiers anticipating a pre-destined battle---full of bloodshed, full of mayhem.

These dreams were so different from each other that I could not tread them together in order to come up with a single message or series of messages. All of the dreams seemed to speak of events happening in the ancient past, like memories hidden somewhere in the mazes of my mind. They were almost real that I could remember the details even as I write this and they were so clear and lucid that I have searched my waking memory for movies that I may have seen in the past, assuming maybe that some of those dreams were merely repetitions of scenes that I have witnessed in the near past. And there was no particular movie in my mind.

Unlike the visions, the images of my dreams did not have a clear message to declare.

Then came the most memorable night of all---the night when I saw an angel danced. There was the angel in long white robes with a hair length that reaches downward to its feet, with wings so lengthy that it filled half the sky that was in my view.

The angel danced with its hands swaying thru and fro, from left to right, and towards other directions, the hands in circling motions. It was a beautiful dance that it was almost familiar to me. The dancing angel instructed me to follow the dance and I followed it. First the angel kept on extending its arms so wide as if to invoke my repetition. I replicated its extended arms and the angel nodded. Then as the angel made each movement, I followed. When all the motions of the dance was finally revealed to me, the angel made a crossing sign with its arms, signaling the end of a lesson.

Until now, I recreate the dance over and over again. The dance was so magical that each time I recreate it I could feel an overall lightness of my being, of my body and soul, that it was sort of addictive, clearly a propagator of habit.

As I dance the dance of the angel, there is a force in my hands that startled me at first but to which I have grown accustomed to as days went by. It is a force that I could feel somehow strongly that it is impossible to disregard it or deny its existence. It is a force also that moves my entire body or at least interfering with the usual movements I make. It is such a palpable force in my hands that almost I could catch the wind. My hands until now seem to float above the wind whenever I put my open palms against any parallel surfaces.

This experience is so magical that in fact, as I make my every move, I could feel a force within and without me, sort of behind me, sort of apart from me and yet somehow also inside me. I developed a queer movement of my body since.

And there were also the little men on the wall in front of my reading table. There were actually two men aboard a boat, one sitting in front while the other one is sitting at the back. They made movements and signs in order to relay messages and they are contained in this book, as well as the messages from angels I saw in the night sky. This a book about the messages from the angels, those divine beings that are apart and certainly above us, ultimately coming from the Father of Angels, God, the Creator of All Things. How I was able to impute these messages to God is a matter of utilizing my common awareness upon the nature of angels. This is also a book on things that comes upon my realization, as I look into myself in consequence of the visions in the night sky. I will relay them to you while imploring upon the guidance of the divinity---whether they are of wisdom or of fallacy.

There is a message that the angels wanted to impart to us all. And this is the message as summarized in one sentence: “There is a voyage towards life hereafter and every one is invited”. To fully understand, please read on my brothers and sisters, so that we all may be aboard the ship that would take us to the Promised Land. Follow my footsteps.

Those who have eyes let them see. Those who have ears let them hear. These are my visions and let it be your visions also.


Chapter 1: The Night Beckons Me



It is in the early hours of the night that they come amidst the marching clouds, when the wind was fragile and the moon was
somewhere out of sight. Clouds of all sizes and magnitude swayed like sailboats and ships in an ever-moving sea. They remain vague to my naked eyes until I train it a little further until I gain more focus. Then the clouds would take shapes of all sizes, of men with great wings of the widest span---the images of angels appeared to me, as we know them in lore and stories of old, handsome in their white robes and wings white as pearls, signaling to me the messages that they desired to convey, in beautiful and graceful pantomime, vividly staging what to me was the greatest show ever witnessed by my mortal eyes. In some instances, winged horses appeared in the sky, just as handsome and nearly as graceful. And to emphasize their messages, the clouds would also take the form of other things, such as ships with giant sails, a traffic enforcer directing an intersection, a man clearing a canal, a beautiful woman adorned in a bridal gown, and a giant mushroom cloud. And the most enigmatic of all these vision was a very endearing bearded man, with hair lengthy and full, with a big grin on his face, sitting on a huge throne. If I was not mistaken, the bearded man on a huge throne was Jesus Christ Himself.

The cacophony of visions came through a span of many nights that until now, as I looked towards the sky, night or day, the clouds would take shape and there would appear “the greatest show on Earth”, to repeat and reiterate the messages, to make known that they have come to fulfill a promise that was given to us in a time that was so long ago. The angels have come indeed.

They have these wings with span nearly double their heights, and physical features that could easily be described as epitomizing the perfection of the human body. Indeed, the sight of them is so invigorating that I could feel a certain surge in my heart whenever they appear---such feeling of happiness and lightness.

There is also a feeling of being overwhelmed by the sight of an amazing grace, a view of an unparalleled beauty whenever the angels appear. A feeling of being subdued by a higher being that in my mind I vowed and declared full obedience to them and sought their utmost consideration. I asked for understanding of my being a lesser man, for the sins of my past and of the present, nearly confessing all my sins where my memory could reach them and seeking forgiveness as I avowed repentance.

The angels came through the clouds in order to impart to us a message so full of hope and promises, a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow---to lead us towards a place and time that had been murmured and whispered to us from the beginning until the end of times. They have come to invite us all to follow their footsteps towards a voyage that would take us to a land full of joy and happiness, towards an everlasting life, in a world in which all men are brothers and sisters to each other with no regard to race or creed. Where conflict becomes a thing of the past. “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”
[1]

The Creator of All Thing---God---have prepared for us a new Earth, a paradise reborn somewhere in one of the constellation found in the universe, and there would be many worlds to dwell, as well as mansions in the clouds. The worthy shall have wings of great span where the entire universe is a place for us to wander upon, an infinite territory for us to dwell, without the limitations of our present habitat.

One may ask, why have the angels come? Why at this point in time? Is the end of the world nearly approaching? Have they come to punish us? Or have they come to bring the graces of the Lord?

The message is but singular, of a voyage towards a life hereafter and everyone is invited. Those who are chosen shall be aboard the ship and theirs is the rewards of Heaven.
Underlying the invitation towards the Kingdom of God is a message for us to follow the way of the righteous and not that of the blind. It is a time for spiritual reawakening to the true meaning of our faith and the meaning of our existence here on Earth. It is a wake-up call for all of us, to work for changes and to heal this world from the many evils that holds it down like a monkey wrench. It is a time for us to prepare our souls for the coming voyage.

A spiritual renewal and reawakening of humanity must come soon and a world of understanding and harmony must be pursued in order that humankind shall be cleansed of the many evils that have pervaded within and around us. It is for us to thwart the many evils that had enveloped our everyday lives as well as the many great evils that give the peace of this world its present fragility.

Global terrorism and racial wars are stains to the very idea of a livable world, as God had intended it to be, as men nowadays kill in the name of false pride and false dignity, upon groundless assumptions and flawed conclusions.

Jews are greedy many say and soon conflict arises. Arabs are bloodthirsty and discrimination easily prevails. America is the great evil some say and upheaval takes place violently while the real evil permeates somewhere else. Europeans are imperious, they say and isolation results. Asians are too close-minded, and prejudice takes strength.

And ultimately, one Christian is against one Moslem and one Jew would be against one Christian.

These are causes of conflicts that are hounding us today and many times in the past and these causes, if we examined them closely, are grossly specious and unwarranted; when the truth of the matter is that many great conflicts that the world faces today merely arises from the basic evils each of us suffers. The envy and hate of one man injures another man. The envy and hate of many men injures the peace of the world. In order to repeal the great evils that harms us in a global scale, it is but time to heal ourselves with the many and “common” evils we face everyday. To stave away the great prejudices in this world, we have to take away first our personal prejudices.

If we could not defeat the evils in each and every one of us, then how could we aim to defeat the great evils that hound the entire humanity? All great evils come from the small evils in each man. For the devil implants in us a seed of evil and this seed would grow into full fruition if we do not stifle them with great faith in God and in the righteousness of man. In order to change the world, it is essential to change the self first.

In our everyday lives, many evils occur around us that their incidence have already reached a certain level of acceptability, as if they are merely part of our everyday life---a routine, a culture, and a habit.

Men in government steal everyday and we say there goes just another government man. Men gossip against another everyday, and we just say there goes another gossiper. Men lie in order to gain advantage almost every time, and he is just another opportunist.

There are many in our midst---a neighbor or a co-worker---who covet another man’s wife or lust upon another man’s daughter or son, and yet they are not so much already as a surprise to us all. And everyday many lives are taken due to the violence of some men; and while indeed killing is ever contemptible, we could not anymore escape their seeming ordinariness.

We must repel these “common evils” and rebel strongly to their occurrences. To lie and to gossip may be small faults and yet does a gossiper enter the Kingdom of God? Of course not, for a habitual gossiper would only disrupt the peace and harmony in Paradise. Therefore, gossiping then is just about similar to stealing and that to killing. If to gossip is never to enter the Kingdom of God, then what makes it less detestable than to steal or kill? (A lesser punishment perhaps for a lesser crime.)

There might be the cognizance of lesser crimes as compared to graver crimes but why should we risk losing the Kingdom of God with lesser sins when both the gossiper and the murderer shall be cast away from the Promised Land and thrown into “the vengeance of an eternal fire”
[2].

What we need today is a total cleansing of our spiritual selves, to go back to the roots of basic ethics as declared to us in countless ways and in too many instances, over and over again, whether in The Torah or in The Holy Bible or in the Noble Qu’ran. For all these books, no matter the discrepancy in their roots, declares adherence to the same basic concept of ethics, a code of conduct that is uniform regardless of religion or creed for every religion is very similar in their propagation of good and the casting away of evil deeds, where stealing is intolerable as well as gossiping and where fornication is ever abominable. If every religion despises the thief and the fornicator what difference does it make then?

Let us go back to the dictates of the Holy Bible, of the Noble Qu’ran, of the Torah, or of the teachings of Buddha and Confucius. All religion preaches the propagation of goodness and the avoidance of evil and in them our salvation is secured and the dictates of the Lord God, as declared in many times and in many forms, are far too clear in fact for us to ignore them. The desires of God on how to go about our conduct were simple that to feign ignorance is almost criminal. Even if you have not read any book on religion or hear the sermon of any preacher, you could always determine what is good and what is evil by invoking the discretion of your heart and mind, and ultimately the inquiries of your consciences. For example, the act of murder is absolutely disdainful to anyone and wherever it may happen for it takes away the right of another to live and causes intense sorrow and difficulties to the kinsmen of the dead one. You do not have to read the Bible or the Qu’ran in order to know that murder is wrong. We feel a burden in our hearts whenever we commit wrong. It is like a microchip imbedded to us by God so that we may not be led astray and yet many among us have opted to disregard this mode of self determining the propriety of our conduct, preferring to lavish their earthly instincts by disregarding the callings of our consciences, leading them ultimately to no other place but their own perdition.

Stealing is abhorred in every religion. Killing is always heinous. Adultery and fornication are pure abomination in whatever religion. Gossiping is vice always.

On the other hand, sharing is ever enriching. Helping the poor and the needy a must to us all. Every religion teaches us to love our neighbors and to have the greatest faith in God---the Creator of All things---these are the usual works and traits of a man with great faith whatever religion he may profess.

All these dictates (in whatever book they are contained) are all very simple and easy to comprehend that we do not need extraordinary intelligence in order to know what is good and what is bad. It does not matter if the dictates came from Jesus Christ, from Abraham, from Moses, from Prophet Mohammad or from Buddha; for if we examine closely all their teachings, they are very similar to one another, that is, the propagation of the good and the avoidance of evil.

Every religion may be peculiar and unique on its own ways that certainly many differences arise. However, these differences are what we call marginal and does not often comes in the nature of substantial matters. These variances often come in social conducts and customs like the food we eat or the rituals of prayers yet the basic ethical dictates are generally similar. At the bottom of it all is that, it is not how we have faith in religion but how we have faith in God.

We need merely to realize the undeniable fact that God existed long before any religion arose, before the word “Roman Catholic” or “Islam” was conceived. And God has no religion. God loves the proper and obedient may he be a Chinese, a Russian, an American, a Jew or an Arab. The Christians pray while kneeling. The Moslems touches the ground with their foreheads. The Hindus does not eat cow’s meat. The Buddhist meditates for long hours. These are differences merely in the conduct and practice of religion. For Americans eat potatoes as staple while Asians have rice on their table everyday. Europeans have wine upon every meal while many of us have water instead. These differences are not reason for us to kill each other and be separated by prejudices for in fact the differences among us were meant to make this world more livable, to have synergy and diversity in our existence, so that a true brotherhood of man could be attained, where there is the acceptance that your brother may not look like you but still he is your brother.

For how could we ever imagine a world of Catholics all in faith or of a world of Asians all in race? The world then would be an existence of monotony, without assortment and diversity, and that would be a boring and insufferable world. When variety does not take place, no one would travel anymore in order to learn the unknown, for the conditions in other places and continents would just be the same as the place where one is coming from. And all the things that are found there are also found in the place where you are. Trade would not prosper if every civilization in the past produced silk, mine gold, molded porcelains and grow spices, olive oils, cotton and tea---all at the same time. There would have been no Spanish galleons and Chinese junks crossing oceans in the past. The Spaniard would not have met and known the existence of the Chinese man half a world away.

No one would have asked questions on the nature and peculiarity of other men if all of them looked the same, with the same facial features, the same body structure, the same culture, and hence the same character. Why would I be interested in you if in fact you are just the same as me? I would not have the usual motive to know you and to get acquainted with you, in order to inquire more upon your conditions in life, about your family, and your occupation if you are just the same as me. I would not have converse with you with the same level of interest as when you have blond hair and stand so tall while in contrast I am short and have brown skin. I would not be able to understand you as much, for our monogamy in person would make me inquire about you lesser.

Let not the differences in race and creed divide us but instead let them allow us towards unity and enhanced understanding among people of different roots and credos. We are brothers and sisters all, born from the same Creator, the same Maker. We all must agree that all things come from the one Creator, the only one God. We are all the offspring of the Lord.

Indeed, the rewards of the obedient are bountiful and aplenty beyond expectations and the punishment for those who have been defiant to the dictates of the Creator shall be of suffering that is also beyond the boundaries of our human comprehension. The reward is an everlasting life of joy and happiness in the Kingdom of God while the punishment is never-ending suffering and castigation in hellfire.

[1] Revelation 21: Verse 4. (King James Version Bible)
[2] Jude 7. (King James Version Bible)

Saturday, March 05, 2005

"THE ORIGIN OF MAN": ChapterXIII

Let me venture into matters of pure philosophy, into a territory that has been explored by even the brightest of scientists, and yet remain greatly unconquered upto now. From which and from whence did man come? Even with utmost effort, we could not come to a point of conclusion but what is certain, man, like all other things, come from a being ever greater than man, The Creator of All Things.

In our religious life, it had been inculcated to us the idea that we all come from Adam. In our scholarly pursuits, we were taught that we evolved from a creature closer to apes. In both pursuits of knowledge, there would be no conclusive evidence. Even in the scientific world, there is the missing link between Homo Sapiens and the closer previously known specie of man or man-like creature. But any which way, if we believe in the concept of a Creator of All Things, the sources of all existence, then man comes from one source of life. Man comes from and born out of God.

Being of one source, we are but one then. We are like a root whose veins have spread out into many veins, like water coming from a single mountain spring flowing to the arid and curvaceous ground and then finding myriad courses, to pursue different paths. Of being white and black, or brown or yellow, is a matter of circumstance. White men have paler skin for they lack melanin while black men needed a heavy dosage of such to protect their skin from too much sun glowing over Africa. Differences in features are matters of pure circumstance, a matter of adaptation to the environment. Giraffes have developed their long necks through centuries of reaching out to a food source that is placed so high that they have to reach upwards in order to fill their hunger. This is the theory of evolution, a protracted adaptation to the environment.

As the giraffe adapted well to its environment and so are men, for men adapts highly to their environment that comes in the form of culture and tradition of the nation of his birth. A French man would have not much choice but to drink wine because man has to adapt to his environment. A baby born in China would surely become oriental in attitude and more or less practice Buddhism for he has to adapt in order to survive. An Arab youngster could not be expected so much to be a Christian in Arab lands for he would find many difficulties in the form of culture clashes. If the giraffes have not adapted, they would not have lived to this very day.

To be outside the religion of others is not a matter of choice for many of us but a matter of pure circumstance--a seemingly forced circumstance of environment and culture. If an American baby for example would depart this world too early without having religion, would it go to hell? A Chinese man may live and grow too old and die in the isolated region of China without coming across a single word of Christianity or of Islam, but did good works mostly, by being the most steadfast of a farmer, by being so responsible as a head of a family, by having cared and loved his brothers and sisters, and his wife and children, and relatives, and yet we ask: Does he deserve the punishment of hell?

And perhaps we ask: Do we need religion then? But I say if without religion, could we be like that China man? Who did all good works without committing the abominable things that God had instructed us to evade?

It is to recognize the concept of man coming from one source that would allow us to appreciate more keenly the idea that we are but one and the same. Our differences are just a matter of circumstance and should not be a source for brutal conflict and desolation, for envy and prejudice, and for contempt and discrimination. If we realize these facts to be universal, then we could attain the real brotherhood of man.

Unlike the poem “The Voyage”, I have written a work while looking into myself, of how a river usually comes from one source to flow towards different direction, where all these directions pursue a path that is surely to the sea. This is the poem I call “The River of Mesopotamia”.



The River of Mesopotamia

In the ancient valleys of Tigris,
in the days of still molt and rock;
a river sung the serenade
of the beginnings of life,
as it moved in crystalline fluidity,
to brim with sparkles and light,
and come across upon a rock reckoned in time,
a moment set forth as a matter of design.

And the river became two,
the great parting of waters
in the dawning of the Earth,
to thread two different roads
and two different eras,
one found in the East,
another in the West,
to spread further and further,
until the sound they hear were
merely of their own
and nothing more.

Rushing in vigor and strength
each alone in the wilderness,
among the great wars of the world,
through the ashes of kingdoms burnt,
the mischief of kings and emperors,
through scorched earth of conquests,
of kingdoms and empires
both the fortunate and the inopportune;
as they run feverishly,
one oblivious to the other,
welcoming merely the beatings
of their own hearts
and of no other,
and every other beating of the heart they hear
was of the enemy and the enemy merely.

Amidst the rage of their marathon,
seemingly unending and without destination,
and with a ferocity so great that
even rocks of great prominence
would crumble into dust--
by the sheer strength of their pursuits,
or by the wave of their hands.

And then, another time was set forth,
Where for once while they looked heavenward
the journeys they threaded
finally found a single star,
to speak the truth in their own hearts
that in their own glorious runs,
no matter how magnificent and forceful,
still the Heavens are their own navigators,
upon the comets and constellations,
so that the rivers would find a path to travel,
a road set forth from the beginning of time
as they go nearer and nearer,
as they begin to hear the same beat
not merely of their own separate hearts,
but of two hearts moving as one
faster and faster,
like stallions in the hills of a desert
where in the beginning of time
there is only one river
that became two,
and then becoming one again.

Friday, March 04, 2005

"Of Vice and Virtue": Chapter 6 of The Night of Angels.

Of vices and virtues of men, who am I to enquire upon and much less to elucidate upon? Such aspect of humanity is they say the territory of wise men and sages. Am I a prophet? Am I a messenger? Not me to answer these queries yet it is The Lord that has called upon me to be the bearer of His messages.

Man is but an imperfect creation of God. This imperfection seems to have been implanted to us as part and parcel of our nature for as we have discussed earlier, no man is perfect. But to this I say, the imperfection of man is never enough ground to accept that man is a grievous sinner. We err at times but to sin must not be one of our intention or purpose. To err is human but to sin is evil.

We are sinners by nature not because we intend to sin but we have merely erred. For every whole or being, there must always be a margin for error. For every creation, there is always a chance for imperfection.

It is error that precedes every sin that redeems the man, which is to act without evil intent, where there is in fact no instance of sin but that of a mistake. It is not a sin to have done something wrongly without intending to cause harm or without knowing its consequences. There would be error and sin is unlikely in such instance. It is the intent that counts and not the outward actions of men. There are those for example who prays each day and yet in their homes, they are fornicators. On the other hand, there are those who are less pious in the eyes of men but in their secret lives, they are great philanthropists. “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man unclean; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him unclean. It is not to defile a man to eat with an unwashed hand, but what defiles a man is the evil that comes from their hearts.”
[1]

When sin precedes error (to commit error upon the premise of intent to sin), pure evil permeates. To take something without knowing fully well that it does not belong to us is an error. But to take something fully knowing that it is not ours is sin at its purest form and an error no more and never an excuse for being merely human.

It is not merely an error anymore for a man to cause harm and injury upon others with malice in its mind for is never justified except in defense of person, country or of faith.

The occurrences of evil are never justified by our admittance that man is imperfect by nature for this would encourage the conduct in men where many are prone to sin because they believe that to be human is to sin always. They would go on saying “ I am only human” and this declaration becomes the end-all and be-all justification for their sinful ways. The Lord does not see in grace men who circumvent the divine law. Despite His greatest of mercy, He had punished men before who gravely defied His edicts and judgments most notably the men and women who were caught in the sulfuric fire that descended upon the Cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Our imperfection merely allows us to err but never to sin. Therefore, it is foolishness to justify our misdeeds by invoking to the Lord that we are sinners because we are only human. That would be undermining the very complex and reliable human processes of determining what is right and what is wrong—the workings of the mind and heart. We underestimate the intelligence of human beings by saying man has no logic and common sense as well as a conscience by admitting that we are sinners by habit, that being left alone upon our own devices, we could not be relied to do good and avoid evil.

On vanity this I say: Vanity is one of the test of us being humans. Vanity is already present in each and every one of us the moment we came out of our mother’s womb and is but part of our human nature. We comb our hair and that is vanity. We iron our clothes and that is vanity. It is vanity that leads us to become better persons, to be more presentable to others so that others may relate to us with ease and not to maintain a close door to every man’s face.

Vanity is virtue therefore.

But vanity had oftentimes become a vice to many of us nowadays. It is vanity that leads us to steal so that we could have a better bungalow than our neighbors. So that we could wear designer clothes just as others do for without the Italian leather shoes, we feel nothing in front of our friends. This is destructive vanity, a kind of vanity that takes control of our will and not us taking control over it. As a virtue, vanity propels us to go forward and work harder and strive further, to be more progressive in mentality so that we could be like others who had fully earned things without committing any mischief, and achieving upon pure ability.

If we could use our vanity properly, it could be the wind beneath our wings, allowing us to scale higher grounds and thereon makes us better persons, driving us towards exhausting the possibilities of our potentials, to strive for nothing less than the best we could be.

But when vanity becomes a vice (especially when envy complicates matters), men are often led to commit malice to attain things they do not deserve. For example, if I see a colleague who had become so successful as a salesman. For certain I would admire him and relish at the things he have. In my mind, maybe I could also be a salesman and earn as much as he do. But if I lost my spiritual balance, I would certainly feel so much envy at his very enviable position. And that envy upon the vanity of others and upon my own destructive vanity would lead me to do things otherwise unacceptable to me that at worst I would already steal so that I could attain his level of fortune. I would more or less put him down in other men’s eyes so that he is not that as enviable anymore.

Vanity as a vice brings forth evil in the scale of small and great. It had oftentimes led many of us to gossip against our neighbors and in extreme cases it had led some to kill or injure others. Vanity had led countless personages in history to instigate war among nations great and small, to prove who is the better nation or the nobler race. It had led to the rise of many empires and the destruction of the same and along the way as the blood of thousands of men, women and children poured upon the tarmac of battlefields upon the mere cause of vanity.

And so is it the same with envy. Envy is also a virtue but at most times it is a vice.

Envy is a nature of man that could not be set aside. It is already in us at the time of birth. If we use envy as a virtue, it is a wind to our will to go forward and strive in life so that we would have things others have. As a vice, it would lead one to destroy the person of another so that he or she may not have that too enviable position anymore.

Envy is a feeling of want and lack of possession, material or otherwise. It is the nature of man to feel so lacking and wanting the moment he witnesses the greater fortunes of others---in abundance of wealth and comfort. The sight of a friend driving a brand new car would elicit the immediate feeling of envy. But it would foretell the kind of man you are on how such envy affects your person. In some, it would be good envy for they would feel the need to scurry for more and to work harder for if a friend could attain such possession, I could also. In others, it would lead to gossiping and the doing of misdeeds to attain such fortune in the most convenient manner. Like vanity, envy could lead us to do evil things in order to catch up with the rich neighbors, to have that state-of-the-art cell phone or to have that fancy car. Like vanity, envy had led also to many great wars even from the time of emperors and kings, to the woe of their subjects and people trampled to the ground, bludgeoned and sacrificed for the reason of envy.

And so is the feeling of anger. Anger is but a nature of man that is as clear as the sun rising from the horizon. Anger is a nature that is also undeniable in each and every one of us. In fact, it is more undeniable as a nature of man than vanity and envy.

To be angry is not to sin per se and not altogether to cause harm or malice against others. In its barest form, the feeling of anger is a defense mechanism of our personages, to enable us to thwart and purge things and condition that are injurious or unacceptable to us. To have anger is to warn others that my own self is a universe of its own, a universe which I protect and shield from the menace of others. My body is my temple and nobody shall encumber or pierce it against my legitimate will and desires. My body is a kingdom by its own, a whole cosmos which I could at least have control of. When my enemies stage a siege against this kingdom, I have no choice but to defend it and lead it away from harm’s way. In so long as my path is in the way of righteousness, my anger is my shield and when everything fails, it also becomes my sword.

In connection with the feeling of anger, the feeling of hate is at the same time both beneficial and deleterious to us. To hate is not to sin at all for to hate is to be human. But many times we hate for baseless causes or reasons, and that is the kind of hate that leads us to sin. Our hate and anger is never justified if we hate others just because of their faces or the color of their skin.

To be human is to feel the feeling of hate for we are indeed but a creature of emotion, an emotion that is in perpetual motion. We were not created as robots moving upon a set of mechanism.

To know the feeling of love fully is to know the feeling of hate fully. To see light is to come from a point of darkness. To rise above the level is always to start from a lower ground.

Like anger, hate provides us a mechanism in which to thwart all things unacceptable to us. It is a wall that no one should pierce by his or her own mischief. For certain, when evil approaches us, we exhibit hate in order to warn others from not pursuing such evil act, as we turn them away and repel them immediately. When our concept of good and evil is healthy and proper, our hate becomes the most formidable shield against the menace of evil that we could easily maintain the level of goodliness that is acceptable to the Creator above. That another man is capable of hate is a fact we should always assume as we carry on with our relations with others, so that we must always ponder upon our every actions and deeds, not to be hasty in words and shall by no means abuse the persons of others. It is the existence and capacity for hate that no man should treat others without pondering upon each action and deed. A man has hate that is why another man should always take enough caution in relation with him. This may be summed up with the Confucian edict that declares, “Do not do unto others what you do not want others to do unto you”.

Upon the feeling of hate still, while this a part of human nature, existing even at the time of birth, such sentiment is often times manifested today through prejudice against another man’s race or creed, to discriminate merely by reason of race, to explode the fragility of the differences in man. I am white and you are black. I am a Catholic while you are a Muslim. I am English and you are Irish.

The conflict of the white man against the black man in the days of old, is not as we thought diminished by the many changes in our modern society. Of course, there is no more slavery and no more White South Africa, but still the same issues rage amongst that many conflicts still hounds our world today. The civil war between the North and South states in the Americas may be just a part history now but the same element of prejudice exist amidst the recent ethnic wars in the Balkan Regions, in the seeming annihilation of the Kurds in Iraq, the ferocious Middle East conflict between Arabs and the Jews, the segregation of Chinese descents in parts of Southeast Asia, in the war that tears Southern Philippines for decades now, the Islamic movement in Indonesia, and the Irish revolt against the Queen of England.

Through burning crosses and ethnic cleansing, hate continue to permeate in our world today, to pursue volatility in the differences of men instead of allowing these differences to unite men. Even in our everyday surroundings, hate and prejudices abound upon causes entirely self-indulgent. There are the rich who would not touch any poor man’s hands. There are the bourgeoisie looking down on the masses. There are the greedy capitalists abusing the fruits of another man’s labor. There are the huge landowners who give pittance to the hands that cultivate their land. There are the college frat men who sneer at others just because they are nerds. There are the Muslims who hate Christians and Christians who hate Muslims just because of difference of religion or culture. It is groundless hate that results into conflicts, conflicts that are both small and great.

The sentiment of hate is a defense mechanism that we should employ against the abuse and mischief of others but never to perjure others. Hate is often dangerous and volatile that if you multiply the hate of a single individual into the number of the people in a population, it becomes disturbing to the point of harming the world order. The Holocaust happened because the hate and prejudiced of a few men were multiplied into many that such massive lose of lives resulted. When we use the feeling of hate improperly, it is disastrous and destructive.

Then there is pride. Pride is also a nature of man that is already obtaining at the time of birth. And what is to be human if being human is not to have pride. Man is proud by nature and it is not wrong to feel pride. Pride is also a wind beneath our wings, propelling us to become better persons. I have pride so I have to look out upon my own devices and not depend upon other’s beneficence. I would strive upon myself to do things that are expected of me and along the way I would realize that I could do things that I thought not possible before. It is the feeling of pride that harnesses our potentials so that we may feel proud in the eyes of others. To be proud is to feel good. There is no denying a man’s prerogative to feel proud for to be human is also to feel proud. A man needs to feel proud in one way or another in order that he or she may live meaningfully. I also have what you have. I am at the same level with you. I am with you. I am one with you. And therefore embrace me as I embrace you.

Pride frees us up from the grasp of mediocrity and shoves us to find our true worth by leading us to exhaust every potentiality of our capabilities, and thereon allow us to live a full life without regrets. Pride makes us enjoy the true meaning of life, to be a force by our own selves and a force to others, in order to affect the lives of many.

The author who is proud of his writing continues to entertain many through the stories he tell. The painter so proud of his works continues to delight the sight of others. The singer so proud of her swooning voice endears herself to others by her soulful meanderings of love and devotion.

But the pride of an individual is at many times false.

False pride would certainly lead us to a life of misdeeds, leading us to commit transgressions that are otherwise unacceptable to us. In order to be proud in the eyes of others, many would steal in order to gain approbation.

It is also false pride to feel more worthy than others on the basis merely of race and creed. I may be a doctor but without the fishermen in the sea, there would be no fish on my table. It is not wealth that makes us prouder than others, but the works we do for others and the society as a whole. What good does it do to be proud in the eyes of man and yet lose the graces of the Creator above?

Pride as a human nature propels us to become better persons, a wind beneath our wings. But false Pride kills and destroys not only others but also our own persons, leading us to steal and kill and to manipulate others so we could be proud in the eyes of other men, a kind of manufactured and artificial pride and not a pride well-deserved. Therefore, we must learn to use our pride in the most balanced manner.

Upon the sentiment of greed, it is also both a virtue and a vice.

Greed is a vice or a misdeed, as we know it today. We despise Mr. Scrooge for his selfishness and for being such a killjoy. We hate the conceptual fat and greedy businessman, full of fatty wealth and profits. We abhor the child friend who does not let us play with his toys.

And yet, if we examine ourselves, the feeling of greed is somewhat instinctive to all of us. We do not usually part with our things as easily. We ponder at length before we give them away. Even the most venerable philanthropist would feel this way because greed is a nature of man that we could not dispel.

Upon the other hand however, the feeling of greed allows us to survive, coming from a point where human has great instincts for survival and self-preservation. It is a virtue to be selfish sometimes. It is a mechanism instituted in our nature as a method of survival. The cave men protected their territories from the infiltrations of strangers in order that they may have the grounds from which to hunt and harvest their food without limitation and therefore protecting themselves from the pangs of hunger and the consequential risk of extinction of their tribe. They would protect these hunting grounds to the hilt, with blood if need be. These were also apparent in the natives of lands like the historical America and the old Philippines where blood stained the grounds in defense of territory, in protection of lands to which they live and allowed to live with unbounded and unguarded mobility. To feel greedy is not at all a vice or sin if it is towards self-preservation. You must not take the food out of our table in order for us to live. You must not take away my work through mischief and self-aggrandizement for you would take away my daily bread.

Nowadays however, greed propels the motives of men who merely look out for their own interest. There are the wealthy capitalists and huge landowners who take advantage upon the fruits of labor of their workers. You may have a thousand acres of land but without the workers to help you create wealth from such land, it is useless to you. You may have discovered the formula for soothing liquor, yet without the hands of the men and women that works in your factory (in order to produce your discovery in mass number) there would be no great wealth or benefit for you. You could implore the help of all your family relations, of all your friends and neighbors and yet you would not get so rich even if you have a thousand acres of land. You may just have to sell it to get compensation but tilling it is of no benefit to you without the help of hundreds of farmworkers.

The need to fill our greed have become insatiable that many today have so much wealth and yet they become the more greedy and continue to pile up wealth which they could not bring to the grave, a wealth so vast that even their great-grandchildren would not be able to expend it. As the biblical verses remind us all, what good does it have for a man to have faith and yet do not have works?

What is faith to a man when there are many sleeping in the coldest part of the streets with barely a garment above their shivering bodies, where some are living in ultimate squalor of the slums and dying in piles of garbage? Can faith alone save him and gain the graces of the Creator? What good does it do a man to have pleasures here on Earth if he shall lose the graces of the Lord? For certain, God would not allow greedy and selfish people into the Kingdom of God. For God is like a father who has many children, some children became wealthy and there are some who languish in poverty. As a father, you feel sorrowed to watch some of your children suffering that you call upon your more fortunate children to give a helping hand to the less fortunate ones, for the suffering of my children is also the suffering of the father.

All in all, it is the acceptance of the fact of the very imperfection of man that should impel us towards “perfection”, to be closer to the ideal self, the righteous self. It is not to be perfect that God wanted us to become, but it is merely to be righteous for in life there are many temptations and traps of morality, and yet the righteous man is fortified by his strong faith in the Creator. His will is good and temptations of life’s excesses are of no match to him or her.

It is undeniable that to be human is to feel anger, hate, greed, and pride. We are also vain by nature. But to be human is not to feel improper anger or hate or to be so greedy that you take advantage upon the labor of others or to be so proud that you encroach upon the persons and possessions of others to assert your false pride---building empires of your own so that you may alone take the richness of lands not of your own roots.

Today, men monopolize businesses so that they may have all the wealth and opportunities merely for their own. Men put down others so that they alone could be employed or be promoted. Landowners fail to share properly the fruits of the land so that they alone become benefited. What does it do to you to have faith and yet others lay naked in the streets? Does faith alone enough to save you and gain the rewards of the Creator? “…and though I have all faith, so that I can remove mountains, and have not loved, I am nothing.”
[2]

You could feel proud with humble clothes on your skin. You could be vain if you are merely a farmer or a fisherman that you do not have to steal or kill to further your need for vanity and pride. Vincent Van Gogh died so poor that he died with a messy look on his person and yet no painter could claim more vanity than him. Leo Tolstoy defied his wealthy heritage and decided a life of humility and yet only a few writers are more influential than him.

Life in this material world is but a temporary sojourn or foray for all of us that ultimately, we should realize that the existence of man does not cease with the decay of the flesh. Moments after death takes the breath away from our mortal bodies, our soul would merely slide into another world, to face judgment as to what world you have prepared yourself to be with—either in the blissfulness of the Kingdom of God or in the suffering of an Eternal Fire.

Life is too short many say and none could be truer than this. What does it do to you to gain so many pleasures in this temporary world, even to the extent of committing misdeeds, when after your foray in this world, you gain everlasting sorrow and suffering anyway? Why fret upon the suffering brought about by poverty and a life of want and need when after all, after this sojourn on earth, you would gain everlasting life of peace and harmony in the Kingdom of God that the Creator had prepared for us. “But many who are first shall be last, and the last first.”
[3]

To be human is to be imperfect but to be imperfect is not a reason for us to sin, but merely to err.


[1]Matthew 15: Verses 19-20.
[2] I Corinthians 13 : Verse 2.
[3] Matthew 19 : Verse 30.

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

A MEMORY OF PARADISE

“In my dreams, those memories came, of old things that reminds me of the gloriousness of salvation, in countless times and in countless ways. They are dreams full of colors-of castles and temples; of radiant valleys and hills; of splendid gardens that seeing them makes the heart sigh.”

There is a form of bliss that one never feels on this mortal Earth for it is beyond imagination. It is a kind of bliss that makes the eyes teary-eyed with overwhelming gratitude-a thankfulness to the Mightiness of God.

There is the harbor of the clouds, the road towards Heaven. Above is sky so clear that it is very cool to the sight. The sight gives a feeling of enlightenment, like having been doused by a pail of ice. In the clouds, we could float and navigate it easily. The feeling of flight itself is so exhilarating that it will make you wish that you should have not waited so long to reach the place. As you flow through the thickness of foamy clouds, you would hear the sound of music, more particularly the sound of strings from a guitar and that of a violin. The moment you hear this music, a mixture of emotions enveloped you that once again you would feel overwhelmed by the supernatural form of existence in the afterlife. There is indeed a kind of bliss so powerful that one loses his or her self into it.

Then there is the white castle that we shall approach, with turrets red as red can be and you could not miss them, for it shall enthrall your sight like no other and shall amaze you, for how come there are castles in the clouds?

In this castles and temples, the angels roam. You could see them playing games and enjoying musical concerts. Everyone is up and about in merriment and joy. There are many eventful happenstances there that existence there is a continual labyrinth of celebration and joy.

Paradise is a place prepared for us by the Lord, a new Eden somewhere in the constellation apart from us. It is Earth reborn. An Earth more beautiful a hundred times over. It is the return of Eden.

There are radiant hills and valleys and forest that look like giant gardens sculptured into perfection and symmetry. There are exotic birds that roam and four-footed animals that clatters above it. The flowers are so beaming with beauty that they are like no other. They are the reddest of red and the greenest of green. Where the color yellow is the yellowest and the color blue is the most blue. It is a world full of vivid colors that enchants the sight to no end.

The air we breathe there is thicker than the one we breathe here on Earth and that every time you breathe them, you would feel exhilarated by an overwhelming joy, a feeling of well-being that never ceases.

The rivers and brooks are so clear that they shine, to glow like crystals and to reflect the skies like a colossal mirror.

This is so far my memory of Paradise; a memory that is so long past that somehow recurs to me every now and then, in my dreams as well as in my mind whenever I close my eyes.

Let us come to the Garden of The Father.