Happy New Year!

Here we are, standing on the edge of a new year that is coming. Can we hear it now? can we hear the calling for our collective awakening to a new era?
Life is a series of cycles revolving once and again, change is the core. And our human story is about to bring that change in a revolutionary way…we are gazing the future of our unsustainable present, and we are finally waking up.
This year was intense; every human heart could intuit the change in the next corner. War, hunger, and the worldwide financial breakdown, it reached to a point of despair for many and panic for others. But what if we stick to the old saying?: every bad has a good inside?. Can we trust?, can we really trust that something good is going to come up from the circumstances we are living?. I will bet that we can, and the reason is that no other living being has our capacity of believing. We do believe in something that keeps us going, no matter what but we all do.
And the most optimistic between us say that the moment of “external change” will bring finally “internal change” as well. That the external circumstances will end up affecting us from within, in a positive way.
That there will be a rearrangement of priorities and that those priorities will start from our spiritual, soul-wise growth instead of our material pursuit of happiness and comfort. That we can grow and finally evolve if this happens is where our hopes are finding another light. So let us start this New Year in the verge of change with a different perspective. Let us start this New Year with a serious, deep meditation of what really matters and find a way to create it.
What really matters?...is it our survival?, our comfortable lives?, our profitable jobs?, our successful careers?, our powerful influences?...what really matters?.

Japan is going "green"

Just few weeks ago the "garbage disposal system" changed in almost all Japan. New rules, new system for sepparating the garbage and new schedule for the collecting was applied in many municipalities. In the start it can be a nuisance not knowing how, when and what to dispose.
Some people were dumping the garbage in the wrong timing and got a warning, others got so confused that kept the garbage at home for a while (until figured out the right way).

But the truth is: Japan is displaying all efforts on rising ecologic awareness among its citizens.
We can see from tv commercials, to all kind of programs using different media around the country. I must say: I am amazed and applaud the initiative.
Off course is not a unique and pioneering idea, several contries all over the world are giving serious attention to the ecologic impact of human settlements.
But I will like to talk about the way Japan does it, be it different from other countries or not.

• First, the classification of garbage:
  
  Burnable waste (moeru gomi)
  Non-burnable waste: sprays, aerosol, et (moenai gomi)
  
  
  Containers, plastic packs, cups, wraps (youkihousou, purasuchikkukei)
  Cans, Glass, Plastic bottle (kan, bin, petto botoru)
  Large waste (sodai gomi)

• Second, the schedule for garbage collecting: (before 8 am. the scheduled day)
  

Non-burnable, cans and glass, sprays and aerosol, containers and so on are collected twice a month (for example: the 2nd and 4th monday of every month).

Burnable wastes are collected twice a week.

And large waste need propper treatment so usually one has to pay a fee for disposal of large wastes.

• Third, every municipality has special garbage bags for every type of garbage and must be disposed in the correct one. They are found at any supermarket or convenience store.
  
  
  
  
  

• Fourth, the prohibited items: large waste (sodai gomi) are prohibited to be disposed directly in the garbage containers. Every company started recycling the wasted (old, non used) products so they must be contacted for propper disposal.

THE “WHAT-CAN- I- DO” PRINCIPLE

I was out for a while, on a trip where I obtained more than a round-fare air ticket, pocket money and commodities. I obtained something I value so much: human wisdom.And it came in tons, at simple and trivial moments, from all sorts of sources and within the soul of such a wonderful team. In repeated single moments, a pure and simple philosophy of life was leaking among many of the presenters.And I started using it in my personal life, I must testify now that it brought a lot of peace and a more relaxed approach to the several moments of turmoil I am passing through. It is a moment of transition for me, the momentum previous to change. I have an inner clock that is similar to everyone, but the difference is that I am more aware of its clicking. And I can sense whenever a change is about to happen.So we all have these issues in our lives, huge changes. Change of environment, moving out, social and familiar challenges, future fears, et. Including the daily amount of worries, small and big we can at a point consider that we are never in harmony. Peace, homeostasis, balance is so hard to attain with the loads of external pressures right?. So I started using a simple principle, something that is a sort of a mantra that can bring tranquility in moments when adrenaline is triggering all the stress reaction.It helps me more, when I think about the conflictive points in my future goals. Whenever I think of the many things I want to achieve for myself. I ask this simple question: what can I do for others?, instead of what can I obtain for my self?. I realized that the more I am concerned with all the possibilities that something goes wrong, the more ineffective I become in solving them and the more obsessed I become about the “bad omen”. And the more I focus on my projects that include reaching every soul in every corner of this world, and aid, help, assist in something; whatever small I could help I become effective, empowered and motivated to persist and never give up.Interesting huh?, lets all try it sometimes. Maybe it could be a hidden engine that ignites the change in all of us, and the world at large.

Por fin una buena razon para leer el periodico!

Diálogo interreligioso pide tolerancia entre culturas. Conferencia se realizó en Nueva York

U.N. interfaith conferencehttp://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/religion-belief/interreligious-dialogue/12024000.topic (for english)

Saludo. El rey saudita Abdulá estrecha la mano de un obispo cristiano ortodoxo durante la reunión en la ONUAFP. Nueva YorkUna conferencia sobre el diálogo interreligioso al servicio de la paz culminó ayer en la ONU con una declaración en la que se reafirma el apoyo a la promoción del diálogo y de la tolerancia, así como al respeto de las diferentes culturas y religiones. Los asistentes han "subrayado la importancia de la promoción del diálogo, de la comprensión y de la tolerancia entre seres humanos, así como del respeto de sus distintas creencias, religiones y culturas", señaló en una declaración leída a la prensa el secretario general de la ONU, Ban Ki-moon. También "afirmaron su rechazo del uso de la religión para justificar asesinatos de inocentes y actos de terrorismo, de violencia y coerción, en contradicción directa con la adhesión de todas las religiones a la paz, la justicia y la igualdad".El presidente estadounidense, George W. Bush, dijo ayer en la cita interreligiosa promovida por Arabia Saudita, que la posibilidad de cambiar de religión es un derecho humano fundamental.Bush felicitó a su aliado, el rey saudita Abdulá, por su iniciativa, pero al mismo tiempo planteó un dilema al estricto reino árabe, que tolera solamente la religión islámica en su territorio."La libertad incluye el derecho de cada uno de practicar la religión que quiera", dijo Bush ante los asistentes al encuentro.La conferencia fue convocada para discutir la forma de evitar las divisiones religiosas y sociales que han sido calificadas como ‘choque de civilizaciones’. Los oradores europeos hablaron de la supremacía de los derechos humanos individuales, en discursos que contenían veladas críticas a los gobiernos islámicos. Entretanto, los representantes de los Estados musulmanes se refirieron repetidamente a lo que describen como la intolerancia occidental al Islam.(Una buena noticia para aquellos que deseamos ver un mundo unido y el verdadero sentido de la Globalizacion a un nivel mas humano y efectivo)

Are you going "global"?

I am about to cross the borders of Japan for the second time this year.Next week I am traveling to China to attend a Future Leaders Retreat, to be held in Beijing for 8 days. The core theme: “Building the Common Good in Asia”.Many people (at least those who know my backgrounds) will inquire me about why me, being a Bolivian, a physician, am going to put my efforts towards Building a Better Asia?. It is not because I am a Japanese descendant (though it was the key). But because coming from a developing country, I want to broaden my mind and cross borders as much as it takes me to reach my own, personal goal in this life.I realized how much focused we are in our countries to only fulfill basic needs. And it is understandable and logic, giving the way we live on the edge.But what about those, who can afford a better comfortable life?. Do we make an effort to assist others to overcome the “basic needs” zone?.Or are we also focused as them in keeping our selves in the “comfort zone” and continue pursuing more without thinking about our neighbors?. These were questions I started to make myself since the moment I was presented to a project. I joined a group of international students who were selected by a Japanese organization, and we knew later that the main purpose of our selection was to get involved in active planning and projection of solutions for the Nikkei community.We made a difference and we are still starting. We have potential and high hopes for bigger impacts and changes in a near future. And without noticing maybe, even unconsciously, we are being prepared and trained to a higher and broader scope.This is what I felt lately, we are learning a lot about leadership and we still don’t know it. We are bridging a gap between a past of non hopes to a future of dreams for a community.Isn’t this exciting?, 5 years ago I was me and my 5 meters of personal space!. I was the doctor, the public health worker, the dreamer.Now I am walking toward this big screen of our Now a Days, and God…I am going global!. I am getting interested and now involved about learning, pursuing information and knowledge of present time’s world issues as I never did before.What do I know about economics?, about politics?, about national security?...honestly, I did not know until I got involved and impelled to learn, to research, to analyze.And yes, it gets more and more interesting and motivating as much as we understand.This is for today, and before my closing a piece of advice: go global, go holistic, and don’t stay in your comfort zone forever. We don’t need too much to learn and get educated, it is jus willingness and a click away…

Collecting laughters

SMILE*

Simple*Moments*Impels*Life's*Energy

“Our powerful minds”: how much true is in that?.

A Quantum Physics Statement on “New Age” ideas.

I think the majority of people all around the world are familiar with the idea I want to meditate today. But before I “dive in”, I will make use of a resource I found in a book some years ago. This way, I was open to a new perspective by a simple scientific test.If you stare at this picture for a few seconds you will see it facing in a different direction after a while.

This is the Necker cube, a clasic visual illusion. The retina perceives it as a 2-D pattern of ink on a background, but the brain “plays” switching its direction as if it was a 3-D cube. My point is that, a “switch of perception” or “change of perspective” is not impossible for our limited human brains. One day we can have an idea, the next we can have a new light over it. And of course, no 2 minds have the same mindset over an identical issue.
With this intro, I will like bringing some reflection over an up to date controversial argument.“The power of our minds”, “The power of thought”, “Believing is achieving”, “The law of attraction”, et. With all the variances it might have, the core concept stays the same.This idea has been following the evolution of human kind, hand in hand.There are several implications, from religious stand points to ethical opinions in the matter. But one thing is clear: believe it or not, is not the issue anymore.Humanity is starting to change its own perspective and attitude towards life it self.If you don’t believe me, just enter this single word in any search engine of your internet provider: God. And you will have a never ending list of sites talking about God, life, human kind, et.So one thing is that we don’t want to acknowledge this reality and another is that it is happening anyway.As for me, a common individual with nothing unusual than a never ending inquirer mind, I have been telling my self about this reality since I can remember.It is not that I agree with everything I hear, I just acknowledge and respect other’s believes. And when something sounds familiar, I get attracted.This way I was dragged in to a Physicist’s Statement that I happen to found few weeks ago. I found my self getting goose bumps, seriously!. Because one thing is believing in what we want to believe, and another is being presented by a scientific proof of it…that changes a lot for someone who has been raised by pragmatic ideas from the very beginnings of a physician’s life like mine.The article titles: Are Quantum Physics and Spirituality related?, written by Ian Thompson from the Physics Department of the University of Surrey, U.K.I will not go on copy-pasting all the article in here, just draw some punctual theories and leave the rest for who ever might be interested in reading it thoroughly.

1. The spirit is an essential means in the creation of nature. Nature is not created immediately from the Infinite, but is created by means of the spirit.

2. There is a correspondence between energy and intention.

3. Every time any smallest thing evolves in time, we see the same triadic pattern.In the soul: we have celestial, spiritual and spiritual-natural.It is repeated in the mind: we have an interior rational, an exterior natural, and a sensory mind.

4. So intention, understanding and effects produce, and correspond to, energy and wave forms.

5. We know that the influx from the heavens is essential for us to even think, to even get our understanding working, and to operate our plans.

6. Virtual processes help prepare the kinetic and potential energies, and hence help prepare the tendencies. There are virtual processes appearing even if there is nothing actually happening.

7. According to Swedenborg, if we are in the spiritual world, we know that the space and time in the spiritual world are very flexible, let’s put it that way. Space depends on our mental state and our spiritual state. We know that if two people’s loves are similar, then they are close together in the spiritual world.

8. Energy > wave > event, which corresponds to will, thought and action. The role of energy in the body corresponds to the role of love in the spirit.

9. The role of action events corresponds to decisions in the spirit, which are the effects at the end of the physical.

10. The loves which remain with us must be the loves which produce the actual events in our lives.

11. Quantum physics tells us that the things in the world are spread out fields which act in a unified way to give one actual outcome. It because that is the way we are. When humans think, we have an intention which thinks about many different possibilities, and then acts on one of them. That is what life is.

So here I was presented and pass again the same theory in our relativistic world. The chain of knowledge and proper education must include open-mindness (if there is such a term like that). Now I might add a final word: is there more than the strictly evident than?.

Follow the link for more insights on quantum mechanics:
http://highermeaning.org/Authors/IJT/QuantumPS-B.html