Tag: spirituality

A Brief Excerpt from Mystical Force Vol. 5

A Brief Excerpt from Mystical Force Vol. 5

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Chiyoko felt her insides churning. She was overcome with sadness, hurt, anger, and betrayal. Even though she should have known this, remembering what Akuma told her earlier, It’s everyone for themselves. If ya git caught, it’s ya own fault for not being fast or strong enough. Deep down, she knew this would have happened but somehow hoped she’d be wrong. She couldn’t help but feel foolish for thinking otherwise. Unfortunately for her, she didn’t have the luxury of worrying about that now, for another feeling was smothering all others; the icy hand of fear and its cold grip on her heart. Just like her family, she had been abandoned by uncaring people. She was left all alone to fend for herself. At least, that’s what she thought.

“LEAVE HER ALONE!” a familiar female voice shouted. Everyone turned to face the door where the survivors had escaped just a few minutes ago. Now another person was standing at the door. It was Shi-ria.

The leader of the cult members turned to face her. He could sense Shi-ria’s powers. “You’re the one the prophecy spoke of,” he deduced. “The one who is not of this world.”

Thanks to her Taman senses, she realized this strange cult was tied into the prophecy about her seeking out the true light within the darkness. “I assume you’re familiar with the prophecy then.”

The cult leader nodded, “‘The descendant of the darkness will cause the shadows to rise, and darkness will envelop the world. Then the one who is not of this world will seek out the true light within the darkness, and the shadows will open the gates to the netherworld,’” he recited. “You intend to stop the Kage Dai Yokai from cleansing this world of the human filth that defiles it. We cannot allow that.”

“What is this Kage Dai Yokai?” Shi-ria asked. She recalled Tokijin once telling her it meant Great Shadow Spectre, but beyond that, she knew very little of it.

“The one who will destroy all humans on this planet so that it may be reborn,” the cult leader explained.

“Why does this Kage Dai Yokai wish to do that?” she asked.

“Because humans are nothing more than ignorant, violent, primitive savages. It was their inner darkness that gave birth to the Kage Dai Yokai in the first place,” he continued. “Hundreds of years ago, in the feudal era, various feudal lords fought each other for control over this land. Hundreds of people fell in battle. The souls of all the dead formed a creature from the darkness of the human heart—the Kage Dai Yokai. He seeks to destroy all humans because that is what humanity seeks—to destroy, maim, and kill. Look at the state of the world: war, poverty, discrimination, crime, disease, famine, climate change, and no one cares. Humans look upon the suffering of others and the destruction they bring upon the planet, and their only thought is, ‘how can I profit from this?’ They willingly destroy their world because the accumulation of currency is more important to them. There is only one true pandemic that is ravaging the world; a disease called the human race! Humans are a cancer infecting this land! A plague to be wiped out!”

Shi-ria was tempted to point out that not all humans were like this; many were trying to save the planet and help solve the world’s problems. However, she felt her words would fall on deaf ears. But more than that, she noticed one glaring flaw in their beliefs, one she was surprised they failed to realize themselves. “You know that since all of you are humans, that means that if your mission succeeds and the Kage Dai Yokai is resurrected, you will be eliminated as well. Are you not, as you put it, the very ‘cancerous tumours’ that are also destroying this planet?”

“Those the Kage Dai Yokai deems worthy will survive to build a new world,” the cult leader boasted.

“Somehow, I highly doubt this Kage Dai Yokai will find you worthy,” Shi-ria countered.

“SILENCE!” the cult leader barked. “You will not interfere in our mission!” The cult members drew their daggers and moved toward Shi-ria. Using her Taman alchemy, she conjured up her sword. She dismissed using this same power to disarm her opponents since there were too many of them. To use her Taman alchemy to break down each of their weapons atom by atom would take too long. Besides, having to dodge multiple attacks would make it even harder for her to concentrate. Thus, as they lunged at her, she let the Taman guide her movements instead. She effortlessly dodged their attacks while using her weapon to deflect theirs. Relying on her kudai chenmol, or “air form,” Shi-ria twisted, spun, jumped, and dodged her attackers like air currents. Unaccustomed to this, her attackers grew more desperate. They began swinging their blades wildly, desperately trying to land a blow on her. As they grew more exasperated, their movements became wild and clumsy. Taking advantage of this, Shi-ria switched from defensive to offensive. Using her sword, she swung at them, striking their blades, forearms, and hands, forcing them to drop their weapons. Then she spun and kicked them, knocking them to the ground.

Chiyoko stood there watching with shock. Shi-ria appeared to also have whatever power Chiyoko had that warned her of danger. Not only that, Chiyoko couldn’t believe that Shi-ria managed to conjure up a weapon out of thin air. Now she was effortlessly evading the assault of multiple attackers. Chiyoko recalled having visions of Shi-ria. Could this be another one of her gifts? Was she predestined to meet this strange woman? Something deep down inside Chiyoko kept insisting that Shi-ria’s coming to save her wasn’t just a coincidence. Suddenly, another feeling arose inside her—a warning of danger. Chiyoko had been so focused on Shi-ria’s battle with this strange shadow cult that she forgot that they still wanted to kill her for “polluting” her demonic lineage with “human filth.” Thus, one cult member turned back to her. She lunged her dagger directly at Chiyoko. Fortunately, Chiyoko sidestepped her attacker. Reaching out with her right hand, Chiyoko grabbed this woman’s arm and twisted it, then pushed it back, resulting in the woman stabbing herself just below her right shoulder. Raising her free left hand, Chiyoko punched her in the face. Another cult member, this one male, turned and began slashing at her. Once again, Chiyoko dodged his swings, instinctively knowing where his blade would be and where to move to avoid it. It was the same power Shi-ria had. Chiyoko wasn’t sure how or why she knew this; she just knew it to be true. Thus, with their strange gift, the two women managed to take down these cultists. In the end, some of the cultists had fled, while most were sprawled on the floor. Chiyoko wanted to leave, figuring that the police would arrive soon.

Shi-ria seemed to sense this as well. She turned to Chiyoko, “Come with me.”

“Why?” Chiyoko asked.

“So we can talk.”

“About what?”

“About your future.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Then I turn you over to Shinjo, and he arrests you for your crimes.”

Chiyoko looked Shi-ria directly into her eyes, which she found difficult since Shi-ria had two pupils per eye. Having never seen such a thing before, Chiyoko found it unsettling. But what was even more unsettling was the fact that she had a feeling Shi-ria wasn’t joking. Ordinarily, Chiyoko would have run, but something compelled her to stay. Was she afraid that if she tried to run, Shi-ria would catch her? Was she afraid that if she tried to fight off Shi-ria, Shi-ria could take her down? Or was she afraid she might run into more of these cult members and wanted to stick with Shi-ria in hopes that she’d protect her? Actually, the more Chiyoko thought about it, it wasn’t fear that kept her from running, but hope. Deep down inside, she felt that what Shi-ria had to offer was something better than a lighter prison sentence. Chiyoko couldn’t explain it, but she felt that meeting Shi-ria would set her life on a new path. Where that path led, she had no idea, but she was more than curious to find out.
Spirituality and Health

Spirituality and Health

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I recently received this in an email. While I’m sorry to say I forget who originally wrote this, what I found here was too valuable, too important for me to simply keep in my email until I read it and deleted. So to whomever originally wrote this, I thank you for sharing this and I’m grateful to get to share it myself. Hopefully you dear reader will find this as insightful as I did. Namaste!

TO YOUR HEALTH:

Everyone has their own, very personal definition of spirituality. No matter what parameters the concept of spirituality is given, science has begun to realize that it plays a very important role in one’s well being.

Numerous studies have shown that spirituality can help improve quality of life for people with chronic diseases like cancer. According to a recently published study, spirituality can also have a positive impact on the quality of life for heart patients. It further concludes spirituality should be considered a potential target for palliative care interventions to improve patient-centered and clinical outcomes in these individuals.

“Patients who have heart failure experience a poorer quality of life compared to their peers, with high levels of depression, anxiety and spiritual distress,” said Rachel S. Tobin, MD, resident in Internal Medicine at Duke University Hospital, and lead author of the study. “Contributing to diminished quality of life is the fact that heart failure, unlike many other chronic diseases, is very unpredictable and can lead to hopelessness, isolation and altered self-image.”

The American College of Cardiology and other major cardiovascular societies recommend palliative care for heart failure patients. Spirituality is a core domain of palliative care, with the goal of identifying and addressing spiritual concerns and providing patients with appropriate spiritual and religious resources. However, limited research has been conducted on spirituality’s impact on patients and there are no known tools designed to measure it.

According to the researchers, spirituality is hard to define, but they reference several definitions that describe spirituality as how individuals find meaning and purpose in life, which can be separate from religious beliefs.

For instance, the Institute of Medicine defines spirituality as “the needs and expectations which humans have to find meaning, purpose and value in their life. Such needs can be specifically religious, but even people who have no religious faith or are not members of an organized religion have belief systems that give their lives meaning and purpose.”

“The literature suggests not only can spirituality improve quality of life for the patient, it can help support caregivers and potentially help patients from needing to be readmitted to the hospital,” Tobin said. “What we have suggested and are now doing is developing a spirituality screening tool, similar to the ones used to screen for depression. This can be used to identify patients who are at risk for spiritual distress. However, this is just a start. More research needs to be done.”

What do we know about humanity?

What do we know about humanity?

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DISCLAIMER: IF YOU’RE OFFENDED BY WHAT YOU’RE ABOUT TO READ, THEN YOU’RE PROBABLY ONE OF THEM…

I received this email which I just had to share. It makes a very profound point:

What do we know about humanity?

That humanity can take literally anything and ruin it.

Take modern day American evangelical Christianity, for example.

They managed to take Jesus-a wine drinking, peace loving hippie who loved the poor and preached about loving your neighbor-and made him into a symbol of hate. They took Jesus and made him a symbol for transphobia, homophobia, and islamaphobia, not to mention not liking immigrants, poor people and being against free healthcare. Which is absolutely insane, considering:

1.Jesus never preached against being trans.

2.Jesus literally never once condemned homosexuality and never taught that gay couples went to hell.

3.Jesus was literally an immigrant himself.

4.Jesus was poor. In fact, he was at times borderline homeless.

5.Jesus literally gave out free healthcare. He never charged for his healing services, not once.

Modern day evangelical conservative Christianity is one big fat lie. It resembles nothing like the true teachings of Jesus, and if Jesus were here today, he would be ashamed and shocked that these people even call themselves Christian.

Jesus preached love, not hate. Remember that.

This statement makes a valid point, even God says so. In the book ‘Conversations with God’, God outright states:

  1. The Bible was written hundreds of years after Jesus died, the people who wrote the new testament never actually met Jesus.
  2. Many so-called ‘devout’ Christians wouldn’t know Jesus if they bumped into him on the street.

This is why I consider myself a spiritualist. God, again in ‘Conversations with God’, says to seek spirituality not religion. Because spirituality teaches us to look within to find the answers. It shows us that the answers we seek are already inside of us, we’ve simply forgotten them. Religion by contrast teaches us to ignore our instincts, our inner wisdom and blindly accept what others say as indisputable truth. The reason many people do this is because it’s easier that way. It means you don’t have to think for yourself.

Now I should point out that this doesn’t apply to all religious people (not just Christians). I’ve met some religious people who are perfectly descent people. People who love and accept others regardless of their gender identity, sexual orientation, race, religious beliefs (or lack there of), politics and/or income level. The one’s I object to are those who feel a sense of moral superiority and feel it’s their right to force their beliefs on others, ironically while using arguments of ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’ to justify it while simultaneously trying to deny that same ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’ to anyone whose views don’t conform to theirs.

Ironically the same can be said about atheists. I’ve met some atheists who are descent people, who love and accept others and don’t care what their religious beliefs (or lack there of) are. I’ve also seen atheists who like these devout conservative evangelicals, think themselves superior for not believing in God and openly mock anyone who believes. People who can’t or simply refuse to see the difference between spirituality and religion and lump them both together. I’ve heard people debate whether atheism should be considered a religion with some arguing that it isn’t because there are no rules to follow. I find it ironic that there are those who would argue in favour of the later because of the lack of rules yet still insist that spirituality is no different that religion when there also are no rules in spirituality.

I suppose what I’m really trying to say here is it’s all about accepting others for who they are. It’s not a question of what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ but ‘what serves you’. If your beliefs serves you than keep them. If they bring you happiness, then enjoy and cherish them. If your beliefs however, cause you problems or distress, then perhaps it’s time to look within and re-examine those beliefs. Also, if others have beliefs or viewpoints that you don’t agree with, that cause you distress, then may you should ask yourself, “Is it because their view is ‘wrong’ or is because I’ve chosen to label it as ‘wrong’?”

“When you see beyond yourself than you may find peace of mind is waiting there. And the time will come when you’ll see we’re all one and life flows on within you and without you.”

– Within You Without You,

The Beatles
Two profound books to read (besides my own)

Two profound books to read (besides my own)

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I received this email from my father and thought it was so profound, that I just had to post it and share it with everyone. The following words are my father’s, not mine, however I do agree with what he’s saying. My own words are the brief snippets in bold, encased in brackets “[ ]”. I wanted to share this with you for the same reason I am writing both “Mystical Force” and “Liberator: the People’s Guard” to help encourage you to think for yourself. As the “Complete Conversations with God” says, most people don’t want to think for themselves. That’s why they follow religion, people on social media and elect certain politicians because it requires no independent thought. We’ve seen it with these Trump supporters/Capitol rioters whose only defence seems to be “I was only following Trump’s orders.” When people choose not to think for themselves, it removes all responsibility from them (at least in their minds). Then they sit and wonder why their lives haven’t turned out the way they wanted. They’re left wondering “where, when, why, how did it all go so wrong?!” Again, as the “Complete Conversations with God” says, It all went wrong when you abandoned your mind, the greatest creative tool you were ever given. Now with my foreword completed, I give you the email I received, courtesy of my father:

“A Journey of Souls” A must read book for those interested in what happens when you pass over to the other side. Why am I recommending this book? Because it verifies, clarifies and explains the things my father-in-law [my maternal grandfather] told me after his visit to the other side [the afterlife/spirit world, call it whatever you like] after his heart attack. Doctors and scientists call it a “near death experience” because they can’t accept the fact that someone can die for a few minutes or 40 minutes or more and then be revived or come back because it’s not yet their time to leave the earth plain. Someone can be clinically dead for a few minutes but have spent hours, days, weeks, or even months in the spirit plain. Time has no relevance between the two realms.

After his heart attack, my wife [my mother] and I went up to visit him. My mother-in-law [my maternal grandmother] came to me and said “Dad wants to talk to you alone in the bedroom and lock the door” He was recuperating from his recent heart attack and so spent most of his time in bed. We had a nice long talk about his experience. He told me “I love my girls (he had five daughters [my mother and four aunts]) but they don’t mean anything to me. They’re not my family on the other side.” That statement intrigued me and this book explains it. There was a women in the book who when she passed over was expecting to be met by her father from this incarnation whom she loved and was very close to. Instead someone else met her and later she saw her father in the background. He eventually came up to her and greeted her, but explained that he could only stay briefly and she couldn’t follow him because she was not part of his family. Once she met her own family (soul group) and her memory of her previous lives returned to her, she understood and was happy to see all her friends and family in the spirit plain.

We had a nice long talk about how the church is all wrong and actually keeps people away from God. The Christian Bible has been rewritten so many time by various ecumenical councils to say what the Church leaders wanted in order to maintain control that it no longer has any relation to what Jesus taught 2000 years ago. For example, the Book of Joshua which is referenced in the Bible and was once part of the Bible has been removed because it told the truth and that was something the church leaders couldn’t allow. In it Joshua tells how Moses and his council (the leaders of the various tribes) decided that they needed a set of rules or laws to govern their people. They went up into the mountains and created a set of rules and decided that in order to give them some authority, they would say these were commandments from God. In “The Complete Conversations With God” (another book I recommend) God tells the author “There is no such thing as the Ten Commandments”.

AMORC (The Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis) traces its origin to Mystery Schools established in Egypt during the reign of Pharaoh Thutmose III 1479 – 1425 BC. According to the Rosicrucian records after the incident at Calvary, Jesus went to the arcane school that the Essenes had at Mount Carmel and taught his wisdom to the students there. He lived a long life and when he passed, the buried him in a secret spot. Jesus did not die on the cross until some centuries after his death when Constantine had the Bible rewritten to say that Jesus died on the cross because the church needed a martyr. The current Christian Bible only has 12 disciples and they are all male. Whereas Jesus had over 120 disciples and almost half were women. The most prominent was Mary Magdalene his partner and wife. I don’t know what Constantine had against Mary or women, but he had the Bible rewritten to say that Mary was a prostitute and so the Roman Catholic churches campaign to subjugate women and relegate them to second class status and servants of man began. How is it that I’m familiar with Rosicrucian literature? I’ve been a member since 1975. [my father is a member, I am not. Also I wasn’t born until 1982].

In the “Complete Conversations with God” there are several discussions about the current bible. The author questions God about the bible, he quotes “Vengeance is Mine, sayeth the Lord” and God replies “I never said that. One of you made that up, and you believed it”. God also discusses about how he is portrayed in the bible. He says “These behaviors are the behaviors historically demanded of their subjects by monarchs – usually ego-maniacal, insecure, tyrannical monarchs at that.” He explains that the God in the bible does not represent Him at all. He tells the author to “Return to spirituality. Forget about religion”. When the author asks why, He replies “Because it is not good for you”. And that is obvious. One only has to look at countries where religion is dominant such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the Taliban in Afghanistan with their control over women. And then you have the Taliban’s Christian cousins the Roman Catholic church and the Evangelicals with their extreme conservative views on controlling women’s bodies. But everything discussed in the book matches what my father-in-law and I talked about.

These two books I recommend for your reading. Why? To make you think, to open your mind, to free your soul so that in can evolve, grow. You have free will. You can ignore this or you can read the books and make up your own mind. Either way makes no difference to me. God says to “Love everyone”, and I love everyone and wish the best for them. And some people I know who mistakenly sincerely believe that they are faithful Christians [“Conversations with God” even states that most so called Christians wouldn’t know Jesus if they bumped into him on the street, even those who wrote the Bible never met Jesus. The Bible was written hundreds of years after Jesus died], I wish the best for them. And the best thing that could happen to them is that they have the same beautiful life changing enlightening experience that my father-in-law had. What their reaction will be when they discover that their church has been misleading and lying to them I can’t say. But it will do them good to learn the truth.

Life thoughts at an approaching birthday

Life thoughts at an approaching birthday

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This Monday, Oct. 19th is my 38th birthday, so I thought I take this opportunity to reflect on my life so far. I’ve always had a gift for creative writing and imagination ever since I was a child. Like many boys growing up in the 80’s and 90’s I had various action figures. From Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, to Power Rangers, to various DC and Marvel characters (just to name a few), whom I’d bring together to fight and/or stop whatever villain I’d pick at random from committing whatever villainous scheme I’d come up with at the moment. I also had various Godzilla action figures which I’d make fight various dinosaur toys as well as destroy my Lego cities. I even had Star Wars and Star Trek starship toys which I’d make have various space battles. Little did I realize that these simple acts of childhood play would pave the way for my writing.

As I grew from child to adult, most of those old heroes and adventure stories gradually morphed into my fiction universe of which Mystical Force is but a part of (you didn’t think Mystical Force was the only series I created did you?) Thus I spent many years planning out various series, characters, story arcs and building a whole constructed universe for myself. I suppose it was in part a means for me to escape reality. I was never the popular kid is school as was often the target of bullying. I remember coming home from school upset by this, only for my mother to tell me “That’s life get used to it!” Thus teaching me that people are like the common cold, you try to avoid them but you can’t so you deal with them as best as you can in the hopes that sooner or later they’ll go away. I guess that’s why I had such an active imagination even to this day, it was better than the real world and real people.

The reason it took me so long to actually get off my butt and actually publish my work was simply fear. Fear of rejection, fear of being the object of scorn and hatred by those who were offended by my work. Let’s be honest here, in today’s age we’ve become so politicized, so divided, so overly sensitive, so intolerant and quick to judge that anytime someone says or does something that might possibly be even slightly offensive, we’re quick to turn online to complain and demand its cancellation. As I mention in Volume 2 of Mystical Force (which I’m currently working on) We claim to value freedom of speech, yet whenever someone says something we don’t agree with, we’re only to quick to try to silence said individual for the crime of expressing an opinion we don’t agree with.

It was this fear that held me back for many years, making me keep my opinions and ideas to myself, in the hope that I would be left alone. For many years I held firm to this mentality which eventually led to depression and anger. It was during this time that I turned to meditation to help try and calm myself and learn to let go of negative thoughts and feelings (and I’ve made much progress in this, though I still have a long way to go). I was also during this time that I read a book my father bought called Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch (which is a great book to read, if you haven’t already read it, I strongly recommend it). God, through this book, mentions that life begins outside your comfort zone and that the purpose we’re here, alive on this earth, is to create and experience our own reality. God also mentions that nothing happens by coincidence. After realizing this, it reaffirmed to me what I often thought, that writing Mystical Force was my “soul mission”, the reason I came into existence. It also happened to coincide with various real world events that have transpired around the same time: the killing of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter protests, Trump’s politicizing and diving of America as well as the rest of the world (indirectly) and the Coronavirus pandemic (which people have also been politicizing). One could even make the argument that “everything fell into place” and that the timing was just right for my book to come out.

Please don’t misinterpret my meaning, I’m not trying to imply that the above mentioned events were a good thing, or that they happened just for my benefit, I’m simply saying that the themes of prejudice, intolerance, self-righteousness (not simply limited to religion) which are explored in my book have become more prevalent in the past few years. While such problems have existed since the dawn of humanity, it’s only recently that they seemed to have reached a boiling point in our society. I didn’t write this book to specifically reference these events, or to capitalize on them just because I thought it would help sell my book. I had begun writing it and Tellwell was in the process of publishing it when the above mentioned events happened, thus making my book’s message all the more poignant.

If you take anything away from this, it’s as mentioned above, “life begins at the end of your comfort zone” and “don’t let fear hold you back”! Because as Conversations with God points out, there is no devil and hell is a concept we create ourselves. As Buddhism also mentions, our thoughts determine our reality. So if you give into fear, anger and negativity, you’re already living in a hell of your creation. I’ve spent many years living in a hell of my own creation, I’ve finally had enough and decided to create my own heaven. I urge all of you to live your dreams, to do what makes you happy and not let fear hold you back. Ask yourself this question:

“What do I have to gain by giving in to fear?”

For as Conversations with God states:

“All human actions are motivated at their deepest level by two emotions–fear or love. In truth there are only two emotions–only two words in the language of the soul…. Fear wraps our bodies in clothing, love allows us to stand naked…. Fear holds close, love holds dear. Fear grasps, love lets go. Fear rankles, love soothes. Fear attacks, love amends.”

I’ve spent enough of my life giving into fear, I choose now to embrace love. I encourage all of you to do the same. Peace and love to you all.

Namaste.