Black and White of Life

please, make it easy

Posted by Sofia On Tuesday, June 12, 2012 0 comments

Mendengar kabar, ayah seorang teman meninggal. Mungkin memang bukan saya yang berada dalam posisi ditinggal, tetapi saya bisa membayangkan bagaimana kacaunya perasaan dia. Saya pun ingin meluapkan perasaan saya, tapi rasanya kok saya bukan orang yang pantas untuk meluapkan perasaan.
Jujur, hanya ketidaktenangan yang saat ini saya rasakan. Saya ingin tahu bagaimana dia, tapi saya juga harus mengerti kacaunya perasaan dia saat ini. Tuhan, buatlah kejadian ini lebih mudah dilalui, bantu saya mengatasi ketidaktenangan ini.
Mungkin perasaan ini adalah akumulasi dari semua perasaan sedih yang saya alami beberapa bulan terakhir. Saya akui bahwa saya merasa sangat bahagia menjalani kehidupan saya beberapa bulan terakhir ini, namun saya pun tidak bisa membohongi diri bahwa ada kekurangan signifikan dalam kehidupan saya dan saya harus berjuang untuk menghadapinya. Terkadang, hal ini mudah untuk dihadapi, tapi tidak jarang hal ini sangat sulit untuk dihadapi.
Melalui tulisan ini, saya setidaknya bisa meluapkan perasaan saya, kegelisahan dan kecemasan saya terhadap teman saya. Dan sebagai teman, saya harus bisa membantu dia melalui masa sulit ini, dengan, setidaknya, saya tidak menjadi orang yang salah dalam menempatkan emosi saat berhadapan dengan dia.

Dia dan/atau dia

Posted by Sofia On Friday, March 9, 2012 0 comments

Ketika harus memilih . . .

Menurut saya, gabungan antara kebahagiaan spiritual dan mental/psikologis merupakan kebahagiaan yang utuh.

Pada usia yang menurut saya relatif muda, sekitar 18 tahun, saya harus dihadapkan pada situasi dimana saya harus memilih. Bukan merupakan keputusan yang mudah untuk memilih. Keduanya memberikan saya kebahagiaan. Jika saja bisa disatukan, tentunya kebahagiaan saya akan menjadi sangat lengkap. Memang kebahagiaan bukan ditimbulkan oleh pihak eksternal, namun saya harus mengakui bahwa cara saya 'menilai' pihak eksternal-lah yang akan menentukan kebahagiaan saya. Maka dalam memutuskan kebahagiaan tersebut, saya harus melibatkan kognitif saya disamping emosi.
dia adalah salah seorang yang hingga kini masih saya nilai sebagai teman yang mampu mencukupi saya, bukan secara fisik/materi, tetapi secara mental/psikologis. dia adalah sosok yang pintar dan memiliki pengetahuan yang sangat luas, terutama untuk bidang seni dan psikologi. Kedua bidang tersebut merupakan bidang yang sangat saya cintai. Maka dengan penguasaannya pada bidang tersebut, dia mampu menginspirasi dan membuat saya lebih termotivasi untuk banyak belajar. Yaa, mungkin karena adanya kesadaran akan keterbatasan pengetahuan dan keinginan untuk lebih banyak berdiskusi. Dengan demikian, dia mampu memberi 'makan' psikologis/mental saya.
Dia, sosok yang sangat penting bagi saya, Dia mampu mencukupi saya secara spiritual. Sangat tidak terbatantahkan bahwa Dia mampu membuat saya merasa bahagia.
Jika saya memilih Dia, maka saya harus kembali menanti sosok yang sekiranya mampu memberi saya kebahagiaan secara mental/psikologis dimana sosok ini sangat sulit ditemukan. Tetapi jika saya memilih dia, maka saya harus mengorbankan kebahagiaan spiritual saya dimana hal ini juga akan sangat penting bagi saya dalam melanjutkan kehidupan.
Harus memilih diantaranya, merupakan pilihan yang berat, meninggalkan salah satunya akan menyakitkan saya. Tetapi jika saya memilih keduanya, saya merasa bahwa saya akan menemui kesulitan besar untuk mengaktualisasikan diri saya. Masalah mungkin akan berkutat pada kedua hal tersebut dan masalah yang lain mungkin akan tertumpuk rapih pada lemari pikiran bawah sadar saya. Dan yang paling penting kebahagiaan saya tidaklah utuh.
Tetapi saat saya berusia 18 tahun tersebut, saya sudah mengambil keputusan. Saya memilih Dia dan mengorbankan dia. Saya sangat tidak menyesal pernah memilih dia untuk bersama dengan saya dan saya bahagia, sangat bahagia. Dia memberikan banyak inspirasi dan nilai-nilai hidup yang saya internalisasikan.
Saya bahagia dengan dia yang sekarang, dia masih mau membagi pengetahuan dan dia masih peduli dengan saya. Setidaknya, kebahagiaan mental/psikologis itu, masih bisa saya rasakan.

Kita semua ingin merasakan kebahagiaan yang utuh, demikian juga dengan saya.

A Warrior of The Light

Posted by Sofia On Wednesday, February 8, 2012 0 comments

A warrior of the light values a child’s eyes because they are able to look at the world without bitterness. When he wants to find out if the person beside him is worthy of his trust, he tries to see him as a child would.

The warrior knows that he is free to choose his desires, and he makes these decisions with courage, detachment, and–sometimes–with just a touch of madness.

A warrior of the light knows what he wants. And he has no need to waste time explanations.

A warrior doesn’t spend his days trying to play the role that others have chosen for him.

A warrior of the light doesn’t waste his time listening to provocations; he has a destiny to fulfill.

Anything of importance will remain. Anything useless will disappear. It is not the Warrior’s responsibility, however, to judge the dreams of others, and he doesn’t waste time criticizing other people’s decisions.

In order to have faith in his own path, he doesn’t need to prove that someone else’s path is wrong.

He has learned that the reason the tiger doesn’t fear the hyena is because he is aware of his own strength.

He tries to establish what he can truly rely on. And he always checks that he carries three things with him: faith, hope, and love. If these three things are there, he doesn’t hesitate to go forward.

Through his generosity, he tries to show each person how much they are capable of achieving. He encourage others because this is also the way he encouraging himself.

When he is tired or lonely, he doesn’t dream about distant men or women; he turns to the person beside him and shares his sorrow or his need for affection with them – with pleasure and without guilt.

He must act, but he must allow room for the universe to act too.

He is not intimidated by silence, indifference, or rejection. He knows that behind the mask of ice that people wear, there beats a heart of fire. He is constantly seeking the love of someone, even if that means often having to hear the word “no”, returning home defeated and feeling rejected in body and soul.

Because he believes in miracles, miracles begin to happen. Because he is sure that his thoughts can change his life, his life begins to change. Because he is certain that he will find love, love appears. Now and then, he is disappointed. Sometimes, he gets hurt.

People are shocked; they have forgotten that a child needs to have fun and to play, to be slightly irreverent and to ask awkward, a childish question, to talk nonsense that not even he believes in.

A responsible warrior is not someone who takes the weight of the world on his shoulders, but someone who has learned to deal with the challenges of the moment.

And he knows that regrets can kill; they slowly eat away at the soul of someone who has done something wrong and they lead eventually to self destruction.

The cup of suffering isn’t the same size for everyone.

When you have managed to overcome grave problems in a relationship, don’t spend time remembering the difficult times, concentrate on the joy of having passed yet another of life’s test. When you emerge from a long period of medical treatment, don’t brood on the suffering you endured, think instead of God’s blessing that allowed you to be cured.

Carry in your memory, for the rest of your life, the good things that came out of those difficulties. They will serve as a proof of your abilities and will give you confidence when you are faced by other obstacles.

The warrior of the light concentrates on the small miracles of daily of life.

The world is, after all, is doing its best help him, even though everything around him seems to be saying the opposite.

There are two types of prayer:

- The person asks for certain things to happen & attempts to tell God what he should do. This does not allow the creator either time or space in which to act. God – who knows perfectly well what is best for each of us – will continue to do as he sees fit. And the person praying in left with impression that his prayer went unanswered.

- The person may not understand the God’s intention, but he allows his life to develop according to his creator’s plan. He asks to be spared suffering, he asks for joy in the good fight, but he never forgets to add: “Thy will be done.”

The fool who gives advice about someone else’s garden is not tending his own plants.

A warrior knows that the ends don’t justify the means. Because there are no ends, there are only means. Life carries him from unknown to unknown. Each moment is filled with this thrilling mystery: a warrior does not know where he came from nor where he is going.

If he thinks only of the goal, he will not be able to pay attention to the signs along the way. If he concentrates only on one question, he will miss the answers that are there beside him.

by: Paulo Coelho

Thou

Posted by Sofia On Monday, January 23, 2012 0 comments

Yes, you!! Kau sudah mulai memasuki mimpiku. Mungkin memang karena aku yang mengizinkannya atau mungkin Yang Lain yang menginginkan kau untuk memasuki mimpiku, atau mungkin hidupku.

Jika memang karena aku yang mengizinkanmu menyapa kesendirianku, mungkin karena kau mampu mengalihkan duniaku sekejap atau mungkin karena aku menginginkanmu, atau bahkan aku membutuhkanmu.

Kalaupun kau mampu mengalihkan duniaku, tentulah kau adalah seseorang yang menarik. Kau membuatku menyadari bahwa kau lebih dari ‘ada’ di hidupku. Atau jika karena aku mengingkanmu, tentu alasannya karena aku membutuhkan teman untuk menemani aku, berbagi kisah hidup, tawa, sedih atau mungkin hanya cerita tak penting. Atau bahkan jika memang aku membutuhkanmu, mungkin karena kau adalah salah satu sosok yang bertentangan dengan kepribadianku, maka kau mampu mengisi kekosongan yang ada dalam diriku dan melengkapinya.

Hingga kini, aku tak tahu apa yang terjadi pada diriku mengenaimu. Aku tak cukup mengenalmu, begitupun denganmu yang tentunya tak cukup mengenalku. Jika memang diri ini dan dirimu layak dipertemukan, tentulah kita telah siap dengan pertemuan itu, tentulah kita sudah siap untuk berbahagia dan berbagi kehidupan kita bersama, dan tentunya kitapun sudah siap untuk berduka bersama.

Ku hargai dirimu, dengan segala kelemahan dan kelebihanmu. Setidaknya, itulah yang ku ketahui kini.

Aleph - Part 3

Posted by Sofia On Friday, January 13, 2012 0 comments

THE CHICAGO OF SIBERIAN

The sun rises in obedience to a universal law. God is always close to us, whether we pray to him or not. If you don’t pray, God may be near, but you won’t fell His presence.

THE PATH OF PEACE

The art of peace is unbeatable, because no one is fighting against anyone, only themselves. If you conquer yourself, then you conquer the world.

BELIEVE EVEN WHEN NO ONE ELSE BELIEVES IN YOU

We can never wound the soul, just as we can never wound God, but we can become imprisoned but our memories, and that make our lives wretched even when we have everything we need in order to be happy.

Forget who you are now and got to the place where the person you always were is waiting.

TEA LEAVES

Only children believe they’re capable of everything. They trusting and fearless, so they believe in their own power and get exactly what they want. When children grow up, they start to realize that they’re not as powerful as they thought and that they need other people in order to survive. Then the child begins to love and to hope his love will be requited; as life goes on, he develops an ever greater need to be loved in return, even if that means having to give up his power. We all end up where we are now: grown-ups doing everything we can to be accepted and loved.

NEUTRALIZING ENERGY WITHOUT MOVING A MUSCLE

Not everything in life is a long train with tickets available to all.

Spiritual growth doesn’t always arrive hand in hand with wisdom.

THE GOLDEN ROSE

Not the love of a man for a woman, not the love of a father for a child, not the love of God for his creatures, but a love with no name and no explanation, like a river that can’t explain why it follows a particular course but simply flows onward. A love that asks for nothing and gives nothing in return; it is simply there. I will never be yours, and you will never be mine.

FEAR OF FEAR

You’re wrong when you say that other people have recovered from the trauma; they’ve simply hidden it away in a place they never go to. The power of regeneration is in your hands.

Things aren’t always they way we expect them to be.

Is it possible to deviate from the path God has made? Yes, but it’s always a mistake.

Is it possible to avoid pain? Yes, but you’ll never learn anything.

Is it possible to know something without ever having experienced it? Yes, but it will never truly part of you.

THE CITY

I’m not a foreigner, because we are all traveling, we are all full of the same questions, the same tiredness, the same fears, the same selfishness, and the same generosity. I’m not a foreigner, because when I asked, I received. When I knocked, the door opened. When I looked, I found.

THE SOUL OF TURKEY

No one who truly loves someone would destroy them or themselves.

We will meet again in the future, when your life and work will be dedicated to those who are so sorely misunderstood today.

Any return to the past with no knowledge of the process can have dramatic and disastrous consequences.

- Paulo Coelho -

Aleph - Part 2

Posted by Sofia On 0 comments

THE ALEPH

Either 2 people can spend their whole life living together or they can meet only once and say goodbye forever simply because they didn’t pass through the physical point that triggers an outpouring of the thing that brought them together in this world. So they part without ever quite understanding why it was they met. However, if God so wishes, those who once knew love will find each other again.

DREAMERS CAN NEVER BE TAMED

Anyone who knows God can’t describe Him. Anyone who can describe God doesn’t know Him.

LIKE TEARS IN THE RAIN

We learn in the past, but we are not the result of that. We suffered in the past, loved in the past, cried and laughed in the past, but that’s of no use to the present. The present has its challenges, its good and bad side. We can neither blame nor be grateful to the past for what is happening now. Each new experience of love has nothing whatsoever to do with past experiences.

I haven’t been married for more than twenty years to the same person, because neither she nor I have remained the same. That’s why our relationship is more alive than ever. I don’t expect her to behave as she did when we first met. Nor does she want me to be the person I was when I found her. Love is beyond time, or rather, love is both time and space.

We are not the person other people wish we were. We are who we decide to be. It’s always easy to blame others. You can spend your entire life blaming the world, but your successes or failures are entirely your own responsibility. We can try to stop time, but it’s a complete waste of energy.

It takes a huge effort to free yourself from memory, but when you succeed, you start to realize that you are capable of far more than you imagined. You live in this vast body called the Universe, which contains all the solutions and all the problems. Visit your soul; don’t visit your past. The universe goes through many mutations and carries the past with it. We call each of those mutations a ‘life’, but just as the cells in your body change and yet you remain the same, so time doesn’t pass, it merely changes. Everything has changed; it’s just that we can’t see it.

We never lose our loved ones. They accompany us; they don’t disappear from our lives. We are merely in different rooms. For example, I can’t see who is in the next carriage, but it contains people travelling in the same time as me, as you, as everyone. The fact that we can’t speak to them or know what’s going on in that other carriage is completely irrelevant. They are there. So what we call ‘life’ is a train with many carriages. Sometimes we’re in one, sometimes we’re in another, and sometimes we cross between them, when we dream or allow ourselves to be swept away by the extraordinary.

We still can communicate with them. Every night we shift onto another plane while we’re sleeping. We talk to the living, with those we believe dead, with those who live in another dimension, and with ourselves, with the people we once were and the people we will be.

Love always triumphs over what we call death. That’s why there’s no need to grieve for our loved ones, because they continue to be loved and remain by our side. It’s hard for us to accept that.

We shouldn’t underestimate any of our enemies who pass to the other side. I’m not saying that they can do any harm here–they can’t, unless you let them. Because the fact is that we are there with them and they are here with us. On the same train. The only way to solve the problem is to correct mistakes and resolve conflicts. And that will happen at some point, even though it may take many ‘lives’ before it does. We carry on, meeting and saying goodbye for all eternity. A departure followed by a return, and a return followed by a departure.

We do exist, but in the same way that a cell exists. A cell can cause a destructive cancer to invade an organism, but at the same time it can send out chemical elements that produce happiness and well-being. But the cell is not the person.

We’re stuck eternally on the same train, until God decides to stop it for reasons known only to him.

- Paulo Coelho -

Aleph - Part 1

Posted by Sofia On 0 comments

KING OF MY KINGDOM

You can’t measure time the way you measure the distance between two points. Time doesn’t pass. We human being have enormous difficulty in focusing on the present; we’re always thinking about what we did, about how we could have done it better, about the consequences of our actions, and about why we didn’t act as we should have. Or else, we think about the future, about what we’re doing tomorrow, what precautions we should take, what dangers await us around the next corner, how to avoid what we don’t want and how to get what we have always dreamed of.

Right here right now, you are beginning to wonder: is there really something wrong? Yes, there is. But at this precise moment, you also realize that you can change your future by bringing the past into the present. Past and future exist only in our memory. The present moment, though, is outside of time, it’s eternity.

There’s no point sitting here, using words that mean nothing. Go and experiment!

If I did something wrong, I can put it right or at least ask forgiveness. If I did something right, that leaves me happier and more connected with the now.

Our life is a constant journey, from birth to death. The landscape changes, the people change, our needs change, but the train keeps moving. Life is the train, not the station.

Whenever I refused to follow my fate, something very hard to bear would happen in my life. And that is my great fear at the moment that some tragedy will occur. Tragedy always brings about radical change in our lives, a change that is associated with the same principle: loss. When faced by any loss, there’s no point in trying to recover what has been; it’s best to take advantage of the large space that opens up before us and fill it with something new. In theory, every loss is for our own good; in practice, though, that is when we question the existence of God and ask ourselves: what did I do to deserves this? Anyone truly committed to life never stops walking.

CHINESE BAMBOO

I am in all the people surrounding me and they are in me. Together we write the Book of Life, our every encounter determined by fate and our hands joined in the belief that we can make a difference in this world. Everyone contributes a word, a sentence, an image, but in the end it all makes sense: the happiness of one becomes the joy of all.

We simply have to trust and follow the signs and live our Personal Legend; sooner or later, we will realize that we are all part of something, even if we can’t understand rationally what that something is.

We are all redeemed and free to follow the path that has no beginning and will have no end.

SHARING SOULS

Inhale deeply and ask for all of the blessings in the air to enter your body and fill every cell. Then exhale slowly, projecting happiness and peace around you.

9,288

To live is to experience things, not sit around pondering the meaning of life.

- Paulo Coelho -

Pages