Let us do not raise our voice against loved ones…spouse, children…
It harms feelings and cause unhappiness, not happiness.
It is against having love, harmony and unity…
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I am grateful able to teach Gratitude to children, some between 3-4 years old.
When I met them again, I asked them “What is Gratitude?”.
The reply: Gratitude is for Everything.
When I asked them “What is Absolute Gratitude?”.
The reply: Absolute Gratitude is for God’s Blessings.
They learn fast. Good memory. So grateful.
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Materialistic world…and pollution…
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If human beings persist in following a materialistic way of life [the horizontal aspect, and continue to create severe pollution against the environment] that is divorced from the spiritual realities of life [the vertical aspect, for all lives to thrive and survive], the world will become a living hell, no matter how hard humankind pray.
Mankind needs to reunite the material [horizontal aspect] and the spiritual [the vertical aspect] so that God, the Creator, Lord God Su may reappear on earth. {Source: PB page 176}.
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Life, materials, money..Clinging to materials and money..
The most important thing in life is life itself.
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People today are still very much preoccupied with money and materials. If we were to ask ourselves which is more precious, money and materials or our life, it goes with saying that our life is more precious.
Nevertheless, there are still many people who make the mistake of clinging to materials and money until the last moments of their life.
Regardless of how many material things we may have, it all comes to an end for us when we lose our life.
As the saying goes, “The most important thing in life is life itself.”
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Living in accordance with the principle of spirit first, mind next, body follows entails transcending our preoccupation with money and materials.
If we can achieve that, we become purified and end up naturally attracting materials and money that are “pure”.
They become truly lasting assets.
{Source: SMIJ June 2022 page 21}.
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When humans send their inner consciousness and conscience to the dogs, what will human beings become?
Humans will end up no better than dogs?
Do humans know why dogs have tails and why dogs shake their tails when happy? Do we see the message in a shaking tail?
More on this in my Blog.
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Some do not like others to make comments on posts by them?
When others post repeatedly, I post repeatedly.
When others stop, I stop.
When they post, I post.
Some even ask me to close my FB account, asking me to disappear.
If I don’t comment, it will be by default to let others do what they want on the Internet freely without restraint, some with malevolent intent.
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Prayers and words will not be enough.. will be hollow, shallow or even fake, and worse a deception. If prayers and words are enough, it would have transformed the whole world by now. It does not.
Gratitude for everything must be backed by concrete actions and deeds that pleases God, not pleases human beings.
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First Command for all mankind: Gratitude.
Be absolutely grateful [Gratitude] to the Parent God, the Creator God, for everything, day and night.
The rest of the Commandants are secondary and will fall in place one by one. It is as simple as that.
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How are: spirits, True Light, disease….connected, and inter-related?
In PB, 97-6. “Resentful spirits hide and wait for an opportunity to take revenge. The art of True Light is the means to eliminate their negative influence before they are able to cause diseases or other unhappy phenomena.”
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PB, 97-5, “You may have tried many paths of healing without any of them bringing you salvation. However, now, thanks to the art of True Light, human beings can free themselves from misfortune.”
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PB, 98-5, “The more I manifest my gratitude to God, the greater the happiness God grants me. Who would have thought that such boundless happiness could be granted to a human being?”
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PB, 101-2, “I unceasingly express my sorrow to God for the fact that we have brought on an age that is filled with people who give no thought to using God or stealing blessings from Him.”
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PB, 101-6, “Pity those who do not believe in the precious Light of God.”
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PB, 102-3, “Surely those who have learned how to repay God will one day shed tears of joy for the blessing of true happiness.”
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PB, 102-6, “When you offer prayer of gratitude for everything from the bottom of your heart, you will be showered with so many more blessings that you will want to offer even more prayers of gratitude.”
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PB, 103-1, “Pitiful is he who knowingly neglects to offer gratitude to God, for he thus foolishly blocks the path to his own salvation.”
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PB, page 99, the first command of inner most attitude for all mankind, “Be absolutely grateful to God for everything, day and night.”
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Gratitude for everything… Prayers & words not enough.. Gratitude must be backed by concrete actions & deeds that pleases God.
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Let us live in absolute gratitude for everything, day and night. Not all human beings can.
There are very strict rules for these for humans to have Absolute Gratitude for everything.
Some do not even offer gratitude for their teeth when brushing it morning and night; or have gratitude for their slippers or shoes that they wear for them to walk comfortably. Me too.
Humans are far from being grateful for everything as all gratitude must come with concrete actions and deeds, not only words. Words and prayers alone are never enough.
Gratitude like buying something for someone.. It is a gift of gratitude in concrete form to express one’s prayers or wishes manifesting in action.
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Ironically, some human beings love their pets but not their own parents/family members/siblings.
Why?
Some even have deep grudges and hatred, and some do not forgive or have compassion even till their deaths. They bring the unhappiness with them at death. Why?
Who planted the bad seed of unhappiness into their lives, and be placed together to form a family unit to settle our scores/accounts?
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Do pets and humans have a soul?
Some humans believe the human beings have no soul. Nothing. Only the physical body, like animals with flesh and bones.
Some believe there is no God, that God does not exist.
Do they believe that they have no ancestors too, and that they do not exist too?
How should humans pray and respect God when they have not prayed and respected their ancestors first? Do they see the links from one level to another and know the correct order of lineages?
We are below our ancestors as descendants, and our ancestors are below God, or below at least many of our other ancestors over the millions of years back to the beginning of the creation of the human race on earth. None is missing in the lineage. Otherwise, we will not have our parents, and we will not be born as humans on earth this lifetime. Our gratitude to our parents should be as natural as one has chosen to love one’s pets.
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Some do not believe Life = Death; and Death = Life.
Some do not believe in reincarnation and transmigration. Who told them so, this belief? Their beliefs and their religions told them so.
Some 50% of the world population will get it right, and the other half could be wrong. Or, all could be right. Toss a coin.
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Gratitude… Not all can. Some love their pets more than their family members…. Why?
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When a pet deserves more than just a hole in the ground
Maltese Julio died on Dec 2 last year when he was just eight years old.ST PHOTO: RAUL DANCEL
PUBLISHED
JAN 30, 2022, 5:00 AM SGT in Straits Times
MANILA – My dog Julio, a Maltese, died on Dec 2, 2021. He was just eight years old.
It was all so sudden, so random, so jarring. He was run over by a car just outside our home, a little after midnight.
I had let him out of the house to go about his business, while I stayed inside to feed the cats.
My house is in a cul-de-sac, so hardly any cars pass by, especially so late in the day. My neighbours would watch out for him whenever they drove by. I was away from Julio for less than five minutes when I heard a car speeding away. It was moving too fast, I thought.
I ran outside and saw what till now breaks my heart. Julio was sprawled on the pavement. I picked him up, but he wasn’t responding. His body was still warm, but I could see in his eyes that he was slowly slipping away.
My son drove us to a 24-hour pet clinic. The doctor there tried CPR and injected steroids directly into Julio’s heart. But it was too late. He was gone.
I scooped my little dog up from the cold metal table, wrapped him in his favourite blanket, sat on a bench and sobbed.
What should we do now, I thought. Dig a hole in the ground?
A clinic employee approached me and handed me a brochure. “Call that number,” she said.
It was the number of a pet crematorium. She said someone from there could come and pick up Julio’s remains in two hours to prepare him for a proper send-off.
The clinic attendant advised us to get some sleep, and go to the crematorium later that day for a brief funeral service. We could collect Julio’s remains after he had been cremated.
The place was called Pet Valley. I didn’t know anything like it existed. But I was glad it did. It helped me process my grief over a profound loss probably only pet owners would understand.
A number of pet burial services like it have sprung up in the Philippines in recent years.
The intention for setting them up has been the same: to give pets who were our constant companions, antidepressants on four legs, non-judgmental listeners and just warm pillows on cold nights, the send-off across the rainbow bridge that they deserve. A “closure ritual”, a lovely urn that doubles as a music box or a pendant – not a hole in the ground, with a makeshift marker made of rocks piled on top of one another.
Pet Valley has been around since 2006, when veterinarian Manuel Reyes, whose family owned a funeral home, realised there was a demand for a pet burial service.
Pet Valley is about an hour’s drive south of Manila. ST PHOTO: RAUL DANCEL
It has since become a vocation, said Dr Reyes, 50. “The personal satisfaction I get is knowing that I helped a family deal with their loss,” he told The Sunday Times.
He said he once turned down a client who just wanted to dispose of his dead dog and offered to pay for it. It was not about the money, he said. What put him off was that the man was not willing to give his dog the send-off it deserved.
“Some of us look at our pets as a utility. They guard our homes. They keep us safe. They don’t know a life beyond the length of their chain leash or the four corners of their cage. The least we can do is give them a solemn, respectful burial,” he said.
Pet Valley sits on 15,000 sq m of land at the end of a dirt road, amid rolling hills, lush gardens and farm land. It’s about an hour’s drive south of Manila, in an upland town where the air is much cooler and cleaner than in the city.
Pet Valley sits on 15,000 sq m of land at the end of a dirt road, amid rolling hills, lush gardens and farm land. ST PHOTO: RAUL DANCEL
It has the peaceful atmosphere of a sanctuary. Pigeons roost in the trees, and butterflies and bees flit from one flower to another.
In the middle is a chapel-like building with glass doors.
Services are held in a basement, inside a dimly lit room filled with the scent of burning candles.
Carved into one wall is a large, rectangular cavity where the recently departed pet – now cleaned, brushed and posed as if it’s just sleeping – lies, covered in a shroud from the neck down, on a cushioned platform.
Services are held in a basement, inside a dimly lit room filled with the scent of burning candles. ST PHOTO: RAUL DANCEL
A chaplain recites prayers, then gives the family a few minutes to mourn and say their goodbyes.
After the service, the pet’s remains are then hoisted up towards an unseen upper chamber. The cremation process takes two hours, following which the ashes are put inside an urn.
“We offer a place where you can cry your heart out. It’s just you and your pet. Hopefully, after the service, there will be closure,” said Dr Reyes.
Pet Valley uses part of its sprawling estate as a cemetery. Thousands of pets are buried there, grouped into sites with labels like “hyper”, “affectionate” and “loyal”.
There are also four columbaria where urns can be kept, and a bamboo forest that serves as a mass burial site. But many opt to take the ashes of their pets home.
Thousands of pets are buried in Pet Valley, grouped into sites with labels like “hyper”, “affectionate” and “loyal”. ST PHOTO: RAUL DANCEL
Pet Valley handles mostly dogs and cats. But turtles, snakes, birds, fish, wild boar and pigs as heavy as 100kg have passed through its furnace as well.
Ms Luisa Bautista, Pet Valley’s spokesman, said on a busy day, there could be as many as nine cremations. The cremation fee starts at 5,000 pesos (S$132) for a pet that weighs 1kg or less. At 100kg, it can run up to 25,000 pesos.
Sometimes, special requests are accommodated, like those from some Chinese pet owners to burn paper money as well.
“We stop at paper. Some asked if we could put in the furnace their pets’ favourite things. But we’ve stuck to just cremating the bodies,” said Ms Bautista.
Urns come in the form of ceramic jars, terracotta or bamboo cylinders, flask bottles, musical boxes with tiny, glass-encased circular slots where a lock of hair can be inserted, or a pot with a plant rooted in soil mixed with the pet’s ashes.
Urns come in many forms including a pot with a plant rooted in soil mixed with the pet’s ashes. ST PHOTO: RAUL DANCEL
For snakes, the memorabilia is a scale or two; for turtles, the shell. A goldfish’s body was once imprinted on clay, and the imprint mounted on a small wood panel.
Dr Reyes said these arrangements may seem elaborate and unnecessary for those who’ve never loved a dog, cat or goldfish. “But you just have to put yourself in their paws. If you die, how would you want to be treated and remembered?”
I’d never cried so hard in my life as during Julio’s funeral service. He looked like he was just sleeping, and I thought that if I shook him hard enough and shouted loud enough, he’d wake up. But he didn’t.
The urn that contained Julio’s ashes was a wooden box shaped like a doghouse. ST PHOTO: RAUL DANCEL
I played You Are My Sunshine on my phone, a song I always play when I need a pick-me-up. And that was that.
After the service and after waiting for two hours, we collected the urn that contained Julio’s ashes. It was a wooden box shaped like a doghouse. I noticed a small crank on its side. I turned it, and out came the notes to You Are My Sunshine.
Complaining is fun and is stamped into the human DNA, but giving thanks pulls us out of negativity and has a powerful purpose.
Rohit Brijnath
Assistant Sports Editor
Humans are oddly configured, for we respect gratitude but prefer whining, says the writer. PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: PIXABAY
PUBLISHED JAN 9, 2022, 5:00 AM SGT in Sunday Times.
The doorbell rings, a frown appears. Was it the middle of the day, it doesn’t matter. Grumpiness is my full-time occupation. I shuffle to the door with a scowl painted on my face. But it’s only disarming strangers bearing kindness.
A young woman from upstairs wears a quiet smile. Her son hands me a gift bag.
Merry Christmas, they say.
It made my day because it was a sweet, generous, old-fashioned gesture, a bit like the thank-you notes people would hand-write in my mother’s era. I felt grateful and it reminded me of something I read recently, which is that so much that is lovely comes from outside ourselves. Things given to us, not objects necessarily – though, thanks kid for the chocolate – but time, for instance.
Like my pal, V, who is teaching me to make salads and mix dressings and rescuing me from a pitiful cooking repertoire. V is loving and patient, though she did ask, “You have got a peeler, right?” in a tone sharper than any knife I own. Do married women reflexively think single men are incompetent? (And yes, I did have a peeler.)
Humans are oddly configured, for we respect gratitude but prefer whining. It’s just easier and is stamped into all human DNA. It’s how we begin blind dates and start family reunions, with a complaint thrown across the table. Traffic, bosses, nose-picking uncles, airline staff who forget the third cube of ice in your fourth whisky, a friend’s slow draw of his wallet, Manchester United’s form, phone-reading pedestrians, we can moan about everything.
And, of course, Covid-19.
But – and this is as much an instruction to myself – let’s have a moratorium on whining this year or trim it to 20 minutes a day. Yes, life is testing but if you put on your TV and witness the suffering out there, it should subdue most carping. If your family is safe, your job intact, your home secure, the football on and Kinokuniya open, then just let complaints go.
Maybe instead, like I did on Tuesday, think about gratitude because it’s like a friendly hand which pulls us out of negativity. It’s like Adele singing at the end of an exhausting day, art piercing the gloom, a sound we’re just fortunate to hear. Appreciation always draws out the better parts of us and, anyway, it is said that gratitude is good for my health. A sort of vitamin for the brain.
So, for fun, I made a list and here it is.
I am grateful…
…for Anthony Doerr, who writes sentences that set me alight with envy and David Simon, who creates TV series – The Wire, The Deuce, Show Me A Hero – which illuminate his craft.
…for Desmond Tutu, because in his death has come a retelling of his life and it sparkled with decency. He, who we are grateful for, understood gratitude himself.
At a church in Connecticut in 2010, as Chris Davis recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal, Tutu said “he wished for ‘the most refined kind of surgeon’ to open up the hearts of his people and show their ‘deep, deep gratitude’ to all who helped ‘break the shackles of apartheid from our wrists and our ankles’.”
…to readers, some of whom write to me, opening small human conversations and sharing ideas. Last week, one of them quoted from William Wordsworth’s Lines Written In Early Spring, which led me to read the poem. It was a gift.
…for my body, which deep into middle age has some residue of athleticism left in it. It creaks, it winces, it pounds on the pedal. Ageing is scary, fascinating and humbling.
…for Bruce Springsteen. No one does melancholy more tunefully. You put him on and he’ll take you down the roads of your past. Wistful is a lovely place.
…for my friends. To P, who drives across Singapore to drop me at the airport. To J, who rises at 4am to meet me in Delhi for a quick breakfast as I pass through. These friendships are as creased and comfortable as an old couch, their affection as firmly fixed as the roots of an ancient tree.
…to journalists, the investigating ones, who walk through the lanes of hardship and sift through reams of paper to discover the truth and hold the foul accountable and reveal to us the voices of the persecuted. We have to listen. We should feel enraged.
…to the saw-wielding surgeons for overlooking the three trees outside my window, for now they’re rich with leaves and as untidy and beautiful as nature should be.
…for sunshine Sundays, the friendly women at Cold Storage at Greenwich V, large slices of any chocolate cake, acrobats, mountain climbers, Eliud Kipchoge and Fort Canning Park.
…that I don’t have a car because it means taxis and buses and walking, it means watching people, seeing a city from another angle and talking to strangers.
…to scientists, explorers, activists, Greta Thunberg and all those who are giving a damn about a bruised, battered planet while most of us incredibly don’t.
…that I’ve never felt the urge to read self-help books. But, then again, how come I never thought of writing The Subtle Art Of Not Giving a F***?
…to time because it’s taught me a little. Lizards mean no harm and are deaf to my shouting. Best to make a shopping list in your 50s. Holding hands never loses its sweetness. The salad spinner is an underrated invention.
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…to anyone who speaks up on mental health for it’s only through conversation that we erase stigma.
…to the workers, who were on a recent flight with me to Singapore, who dig, clean and build in the sun so we can preen about our shining city. Just lonely folks trying to make a living, who don’t need to be patronised at airports or on flights. Most don’t speak English, just like you can’t speak their language. Communication often arrives from understanding.
…to my seven-year-old granddaughter, who might require a little prodding from her mother, but who sends me a video saying she loves me and, well, it does profound things to the beat of the heart.
This list feels indulgently long but as an exercise it was instructive because you discover you are grateful for more than you know. If a final word is required, then it is best left to a poet. Long ago, in the middle of May in the different world of 2013, the late Maya Angelou sent these words dancing out into Twitter:
“This is a wonderful day. I’ve never seen this one before.”
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In hard times, gratitude has a place Complaining is fun and is stamped into the human DNA, but giving thanks pulls us out of negativity and has a powerful purpose. Rohit Brijnath Assistant Sports Editor Humans are oddly configured, for we respect gratitude but prefer whining, says the writer. PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: PIXABAY PUBLISHED JAN 9, 2022, 5:00 AM SGT.
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Everything I know about hope I learnt from my dog
A natural pessimist on the lessons offered by the four-legged optimists in her life
Margaret Renkl
In any household, the true master of hope is the family dog, says the writer, who describes herself as a pessimist. PHOTO: REUTERS
PUBLISHED5 HOURS AGO on 11th July 2021 in Straits Times
(NYTIMES) – The bad-luck streak started when I got Covid-19 and then it escalated: health troubles, deaths in the extended family, frantic worry about loved ones, too many of whom were struggling in the pandemic. All of it backgrounded by dire news about the natural world and my own beloved country. There have been times during the last 16 months when I wondered whether grief and fear were all I would ever feel again.
“When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions,” Hamlet’s perfidious stepfather observes, failing to note that his own crimes are to blame for the rotten state of Denmark.
I can’t discover any way in which I am the source of my own pandemic sorrows, but I don’t need to search far to find others whose struggles are far worse. So with every new setback and every new worry, I remind myself to be grateful for what is going right, to stop enumerating all the things that are going wrong.
That coping strategy worked pretty well until my dog died.
As a writer, I try to call attention to the goodness people are capable of. I comb the headlines for promising news about social justice, the environment, the body politic. But in real life, I expect trouble to lurk beyond every corner, to emerge from every shadowed doorway. I have always felt a closer kinship with darkness than with light.
“Fantastic!” my father would say whenever anyone asked how he was doing during the 2½ years it took him to die of a cancer. Even when the pain and nausea were at their worst, dad was certain that being alive, no matter how much misery might be involved, was incomparably better than the alternative.
My husband, too, is the kind of person who trusts that good will prevail after every anguish, who believes so thoroughly in the happy ending that he later forgets the anguish itself. Recently I mentioned a scare we’d had this year, and he didn’t even remember it. “You must not have been as traumatised by that as I was,” I said. “I’m not as traumatised by anything as you are,” he said.
I grew up with an optimist, and I married an optimist, but even the sunniest human being is barely more than a neophyte where hope is concerned. In any household, the true master of hope is the family dog.
Dogs regard any delicious smell emanating from the kitchen as a meal they can reasonably expect to share. An elderly dog may have been fed only kibble in all the years of his long life, but he will nevertheless haul his arthritic self to his feet and wander into the kitchen, confident that this time the lasagna sitting on the counter will be his.
Our Lab mix, Scout, taught me that a dog who has never caught a squirrel will keep chasing squirrels the same way a dog who is not allowed on the bed will climb under the covers the second a bed is left unattended. Betty, a small mixed breed, who had never been taken to school even once, would wait hopefully beside the back door every morning, just in case it was Take Your Dog to School Day at last.
A UPS delivery driver once tossed a dog biscuit to Clark, our rangy old hound, as she turned the corner, and every day for years, that dog would wait in the yard for his biscuit, no matter how many delivery trucks rounded the corner without a pause.
In my own life, the apotheosis of canine hope was Emma, the miniature dachshund we inherited after my mother’s death. Emma believed she could climb the bookcase where dog treats are kept, never mind that her legs were all of two inches high. She believed she could open the closet door where the dog food is kept, despite her lack of opposable thumbs. And damn if she didn’t manage both feats. For a dog, hope is self-reinforcing.
Our last dog, Millie, taught me that dogs carry trauma with them, just as we do. Millie, a terrier mix, didn’t know why she feared what she feared, but she knew that my response to her fears would be kindness, patience and, often, a delicious chicken treat. Whenever we passed a big scary dog on our walks or a giant rumbling truck, she would look up hopefully, almost skipping when she saw my hand reaching for my pocket.
The triumph of hope over irrevocable trauma – is it any wonder that Millie’s unexpected death was what finally broke my conviction that better times would soon be on the way?
As much as I hate living in a house without a dog, it was months before I felt ready for a new one, and by the time I finally started looking, it had become much harder to adopt. Everyone, it seems, wants a pandemic companion. There are six new puppies on our street alone, with two more due from breeders this summer.
I understand why rescue organisations are so careful about pet placements. Many year-old dogs available for adoption today are pandemic puppies who turned out to be more work, or more costly, than their adopters bargained for. Every day volunteers look into the desolate faces of pets left at the shelter by the only families they have ever known – or, worse, abandoned on the streets – and that’s why these organisations work so hard to avoid approving a home that isn’t an ideal match for that particular pet.
It is also why so many dogs I applied for went to younger people or runners or families with children and other dogs or homes with a large yard or some other requirement my household didn’t meet.
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Then Rascal appeared. A pandemic-born mixed breed with a ruinous case of fleas, he was exactly the size and age we were looking for: small enough to travel with us, young enough to be part of our family for years. There were more than 40 applications for him. By some miracle, our home was the best match.
Two hours after he arrived, Rascal was curled up in my lap. A day later, he knew his new name, a name he lives up to in ways that make me laugh out loud: stealing shoes from the shoe basket and hiding them around the house, grabbing the book I’m reading and running away with it, sneaking a sip of iced tea when my back is turned.
Every morning, he likes to perch on the top of a chair in our family room, watching birds through the window. He cannot possibly catch a bird through that glass, and I think he surely knows it. He keeps hoping anyway.
• Margaret Renkl is the author of the books, Late Migrations: A Natural History Of Love And Loss and the forthcoming Graceland, At Last: Notes On Hope And Heartache From The American South.
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Greenland’s minerals.
The world’s highest land mass continent is the Antarctic.
This continent has the greatest amount of minerals all frozen in time.
Will the South disappear? Will the Antarctic disappear? Ask the Buddhists. Why? Ask what is in Nammo?
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The world wants Greenland’s minerals, but Greenlanders are wary
Jack Ewing
A view of Inneruulalik, Greenland on Aug 22, 2021. Greenland has rare elements needed for electric cars and wind turbines.PHOTO: NYTIMES
PUBLISHEDOCT 2, 2021, 9:26 AM SGT in Straits Times.
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NARSAQ, GREENLAND (NYTIMES) – This huge, remote and barely habited island is known for frozen landscapes, remote fjords and glaciers that heave giant sheets of ice into the sea.
But, increasingly, Greenland is known for something else: rare minerals. It is all because of climate change and the world’s mad dash to accelerate the development of green technology.
As global warming melts the ice that covers 80 per cent of the island, it has spurred demand for Greenland’s potentially abundant reserves of hard-to-find minerals with names like neodymium and dysprosium.
These so-called rare earths, used in wind turbines, electric motors and many other electronic devices, are essential raw materials as the world tries to break its addiction to fossil fuels.
China has a near monopoly on these minerals. The realisation that Greenland could be a rival supplier has set off a modern gold rush.
Global superpowers are jostling for influence. Billionaire investors are making big bets. Mining companies have staked claims throughout the island in a quest that also includes nickel, cobalt, titanium and, yes, gold.
But those expecting to exploit the island’s riches will have to contend with Ms Mariane Paviasen and the predominantly indigenous residents of the village of Narsaq.
Until she was elected to Greenland’s Parliament in April, Ms Paviasen was manager of a heliport that provided one of the few ways to get to Narsaq, a village at the mouth of a fjord on the island’s south-west coast.
The forces reshaping the planet – extreme weather caused by rising temperatures, and rising demand for electric vehicles and other green technology that require bits of rare metals – converge at Narsaq, where fishing is the main industry and most people live in brightly coloured wooden houses with tar paper roofs.
Because of climate change, the nearby fjord no longer freezes so solidly in winter that people could drive their cars on it.
But rocky heights above Narsaq, population about 1,700, also contain what may be some of the richest concentrations of rare minerals anywhere.
The lodestone attracted an Australian company backed by Chinese investors that had hoped to blast an open-pit mine – until it ran into Ms Paviasen.
The mine would bring jobs and tax revenue to the village, but it would also produce radioactive uranium. That alarmed Ms Paviasen, who in 2013 formed a protest group she called “Urani? Namiik”, Greenlandic for “Uranium? No”.
“I was aware that this thing would affect us,” she said. “So I had to do something.”
Ms Mariane Paviasen, a member of Greenland’s parliament who is against mining, in Narsaq, Greenland, on Aug 21, 2021. PHOTO: NYTIMES
Ms Paviasen is a guarded person who speaks softly and chooses her words carefully, at least when speaking English, which is not her first language. But she also has a reputation in the region for implacability whose opposition to the mine has made her into a figure of some renown.
In April elections for Parliament, Ms Paviasen and her protest group overcame a determined lobbying effort by the mining company, Greenland Minerals, and swayed public opinion in favour of a party that promised to stop the mine.
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The victory for Ms Paviasen and her alliance of sheep farmers, fishermen and other residents sent a signal to all those eyeing Greenland’s mineral wealth.
The lesson was that any project that threatened the environment or livelihoods was going to run into trouble from local people who were quite capable of standing up to powerful interests.
She is also aware that foreign money is still circling. “The mining companies know what we have in Narsaq,” she said with a frown. “We are not safe in the future.”
A view of Narsaq, Greenland on Aug 26, 2021. PHOTO: NYTIMES
Greenland’s moment
With 58,000 people in an area half the size of all of Europe, Greenland has been a mecca for prospectors since the 1800s because of its geological history. Because there are almost no trees and sparse vegetation, it is much easier for geologists to read the rocks and find likely places to dig for valuable ore.
Climate change has exposed more potential deposits. Pacific-bound ships carrying ore can now sail across the top of Canada much of the year, shortening the trip to processing plants in Asia.
Reflecting Greenland’s newfound stature, the United States has recently stepped up its diplomatic presence.
Mr Antony Blinken visited Greenland in May, four months after being named US President Joe Biden’s secretary of state, meeting with members of the newly elected Greenland government.
Last year, the US opened a consulate in Nuuk, the capital, for the first time since the 1950s. A delegation of US officials visited Greenland last month and pledged aid to improve trade, education and the mining industry.
Anglo American, a British mining giant, has staked out swaths of an island believed to have lucrative deposits of nickel, essential for most electric car batteries.
In August, KoBold Metals, a California company backed by Mr Bill Gates and Mr Jeff Bezos, formed a joint venture with Bluejay Mining, a British company, to search for minerals in Greenland using artificial intelligence to pinpoint deposits from mountains of data.
At the moment, only two mines in Greenland are active, one producing rubies and the other anorthosite, used in paints, plastic coatings and special varieties of glass. But dozens of companies have exploration projects underway, and five have licenses to begin digging.
Leaders of the new government in Greenland see the country’s ore as a means to work toward financial independence from Denmark.
The glacier at Narsarsuaq in Greenland, Aug 23, 2021. PHOTO: NYTIMES
Greenland has a Parliament that oversees domestic affairs, but Denmark determines foreign policy and subsidises the Greenland budget with 3.9 billion Danish kroner per year, or about S$826 million.
No one believes that Greenland’s reserves are big enough to make it the Saudi Arabia of nickel or titanium. Denmark would take a big share of any mining royalties.
Mining ‘the right way’
Mining executives say they are aware of the need to pay attention to climate concerns. In August, rain fell for the first time at a research station at the high point of Greenland’s ice sheet. It was a topic of discussion wherever Greenlanders gathered.
Some mining companies see a chance to establish Greenland as a reputable source of the raw materials for emissions-free power generation and transportation.
“You can do it the right way,” said Mr Bo Moller Stensgaard, a former Danish government geologist who is the chief executive of Bluejay Mining.
He pointed to Bluejay’s plans to begin mining ilmenite, an ore that contains titanium, from a site hundreds of miles north of Narsaq. The ilmenite can be separated from the black sand that contains it using magnets rather than toxic chemicals, Mr Stensgaard said, and the sand will be restored after mining is complete.
‘A lot of money for local people’
Greenland Minerals has kept a low profile since the April elections brought an anti-uranium government to power, but it has not given up on mining near Narsaq. The company is looking for ways to address local concerns, for example by shipping the minerals somewhere else for processing rather than separating out uranium in Narsaq.
Greenland Minerals promised to train local people to work at the mine and to buy from local suppliers whenever possible. It also commissioned studies showing that radioactivity from the mine would be negligible and that there would be minimal impact on the environment.
Fishermen from Narsaq, Greenland on Aug 27, 2021. PHOTO: NYTIMES
The project would “bring many benefits to Narsaq and southern Greenland”, Mr John Mair, the managing director of Greenland Minerals, said in an e-mail. “It would be a significant economic stimulus for local businesses.”
Greenland Minerals’ largest shareholder, with a 9.4 per cent stake, is Shenghe Resources, which has close ties to the Chinese government.
Mr Mair denied media reports that Greenland Minerals is a stalking horse for Chinese interests, saying Shenghe plays a crucial advisory role. “There are no Western world groups that can match Shenghe’s proficiency and expertise” in rare minerals, Mr Mair said.
Some local people support the mining project, though they tend to be less visible. “It’s about jobs, work, a lot of money for the local people,” said Mr Jens Karl Petersen, a cook in Narsarsuaq, a former US air base about 48km from Narsaq.
A league of sheep farmers
On a sunny day in August, Ms Aviaja Lennert, who raises sheep on a farm farther inland from Narsaq, steered her battered four-wheel-drive station wagon up a precarious gravel road to the crest of a high ridge and braked to a stop.
Below, icebergs slowly drifted in the blue-green water of the fjord. The only sound was the wind and the occasional “baa” of a sheep grazing on the steep, rocky slopes.
An iceberg that feeds the fjord near Narsaq, Greenland on Aug 21, 2021. PHOTO: NYTIMES
Ms Lennert, who also works as a schoolteacher and rents a small house on her farm to tourists, walked briskly up a nearby rise and pointed at a slab of dark gray mountain above.
“That’s where the mine will be,” she said.
Her sheep, raised for their meat, graze at the foot of the mountain. “I’m worried about my family,” said Ms Lennert, who is married and has three children. “I’m worried about my sheep.”
Ms Lennert and other farmers in the area, one of the few places in Greenland warm enough for agriculture, are among the most fervent supporters of Ms Paviasen’s protest group.
Ms Aviaja Lennert with her sheep on her farm near Narsaq, Greenland on Aug 22, 2021. PHOTO: NYTIMES
They are afraid that people would stop buying their meat, believing it tainted. The organisation’s symbol, a smiling orange sun, is painted on the side of Ms Lennert’s barn.
Sheep farming in Greenland is not an easy life. The roads are so rough that some farmers’ children sleep during the week at their elementary school in a nearby village. A daily commute would be too arduous, even though their homes may be only 16km away.
In the spring when the lambs come, the farmers sleep for weeks in their barns to deal with difficult births. The rewards of such a life are impossible to put a price on.
“This is one of the most beautiful places in Greenland,” Ms Paviasen said. “It’s worth fighting for.” “We will stop the mine.”
MORE ON THIS TOPIC
Five Eyes alliance urged to forge ties with Greenland to secure minerals
Blinken confirms the US does not want to buy Greenland after Trump proposal
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Are human beings blind due to their ego …?
Do we know see the messages on the walls?
End of Materialism?
Even end of Capitalism?
Many thought their way of life, career, chasing wealth and materialism will be forever, and that it will never come to a stop, or will never end.
Do they not sit back and ask is it for real, and that there will be a strong come back more than normalcy?
Ponder.
Be in awe.
Be in humility.
Be in gratitude for every situation and condition.
Those with ego will not accept or agree. They will want to struggle on no matter what or how miserable, painful, unhappy, and some with angst, grudges and hatred.
We know not the types of bad seed we have planted. The harvesting is real. The principle of Echo is real. The principles of Reap and Sow are real. The principle of balance is very real.
No humans can alter these fundamental principles governing the lives of every human being, dead or alive.
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End of Materialism. PB pg 186 We will offer V126-1 to 5 at the 9am morning prayer today, 5Jun.2021.
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First sentence in V126-1: “The profit-driven tourist industry is a thing of the past.” I read it in 1994 but it did not appear to me for it to be possible. Impossible is the word. Now, the messages are on the walls. Do we see it? When will planes fly again? When will many of the travel-related businesses [travel agencies, hotels, airports and seaports, tour buses, entertainment centres, cruise vessels, sight-seeing facilities, etc,] will survive [not folded up], and able to come back in a big way like never before? Billions of dollars are lost in the worldwide economy daily. It is a frightening thought. When will it stop and how? We wait.
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Tomorrow morning at 9am, we will offer V127-1: “The time is past when the main purpose of industry [businesses, economic activities] was to make money. Now is the divine era when all must work to establish a divine government.”
And this morning on 5th June 2021 we offered V126-5: “The time is past when medicine [like vaccines for Covid-19] could be practised just to keep the medical and pharmaceutical professions in business. Now is the divine era of spiritual medical science, which must work to make humankind eternally free from disease [like Covid-19, etc].”
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F1 and the Singapore night race have come to a stop. Who will ever imagine that the 300kph race can roll to a standstill? When will F1 return? We wait.
Be grateful for everything, day and night, even for the oxygen, and our ear lobes [part of the ear] designed for wearing face mask. Cleverly created for us.
If we have no ear lobes [part of the ear], how are we to wear face mask in this pandemic madness?
Ear lobes [and part of the ear] have been designed so precisely for this purpose and for us able to hear. Look at all that we have. We cannot be grateful enough, day and night for everything that we have been given.
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Those with the PB: ‘Repaying our Debt of Gratitude to God”
We offered these verses in the past few days at morning opening prayers. PB page 142-153:
“Dedicating our lives to serving God with gratitude for the salvation that God grants us brings great heappiess.”
“Pitiful is he who knowingly neglects to offer gratitude to God, for he thus foolishly blocks the path to his own salvation.”
“God has granted us not only life but also the wisdom that we need to provide ourselves with food, clothing, shelter, and other necessities.”
“A true child of God is a person who understands that human science is tentative and uncertain and unable to create things out of nothing.”
“Our gratitude is real only when we express it through deeds.” ….
Note: Have deeds that will please God not please fellow human beings…But, one has to attain purity of soul for God to be pleased. God is displeased with: human ego, dissatisfaction, grudges, hatred, self-centredness and selfishness. When God is displeased with all these, can we expect blessings from God?
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Purity of soul….
“Unless people become purified at the level of the realm of soul, the human mind/heart cannot totally control the person.”
“Although your mind is functioning based on the Divine ‘source’ of your individual character, you cannot correctly and fully capture these vibrations unless your soul is pure.”
“This relationship is described as the ‘law of spirit first, mind follows, body belongs’..”.
Source: MAAJ Feb 1995 pg 4.
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We have been told: “Laziness or simply wishing favours from God will come to nothing.
Keeping in mind that God’s power is primary [the main], and human power is secondary, it is important to strive to practise the teachings on Divine Principles in an accepting manner [straight forward manner].
The great difference in the progress of a person, spiritually, who is always dissatisfied and constantly complaining compared to a person who lives with joy and gratitude [..the difference between the two will be vast, very wide and miles apart]. [Source: primary text page 4].
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As Yokoshi [children of God], please do our best in rendering our services [love and duty.. having love in our work for God…, please read this in page 21 of August 2011 SMIJ International Journal English version], and on the importance of going towards God faith without asking anything in return…nothing in return .. Nothingness.
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When humans pray to God, mankind is permitted as a matter of expedient to pray and ask for God’s help in the age of the transitory teachings and age of expedients, that is , the age during the middle ages, and the age during the industrial revolution up to the 1960s.
However, it is different now in this different age after the 1960s. We cannot continue to pray and ask God for this and that like in , the old days. Time has changed.
This is the world that we are now in for those who make effort with the desire to help others and who have the desire to work for the happiness of others unconditionally, although they may undergo setback or suffering, shall truly be saved without even praying or asking for it.
Humans should empty themselves willingly and gratefully by accepting hardships, and wholeheartedly be of service to God and others, think only of the happiness of others, and the happiness of the future of all mankind, and be of service to God by using and through their livelihood in the fields of commerce, business and occupation.
When humans become able to ponder and reflect deeply in awe to the things around them in Gratitude, the world will become one where all things could be arranged that which humans seek shall be given to them naturally.
[Above is a summary, an edited version on Prayers. We have been told to read HW, page 255]
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Prayers…
I hope more people in religions, sects and religions will pray by adding in:
apologies [add words, ‘sorry, sorry, sorry’ in the prayers],
offer gratitude [be grateful for everything from morning till night, nothing is bad, everything is good],
humility,
and acceptance [we are provided with all things to live on earth comfortably, happily and safely, but many of us make a mess of it bringing self-invited sufferings and unhappiness not only to the self but also to others].
We are spiritual being first, and all are children of God.
Know that just as people voice their requests to the Creator God in their prayers, God on his part also has wishes that He wants to see fulfilled.
Never forget. Just as a person has his or her own wishes, God also has His own wishes.
Source: PB page 171
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How do we pray?
Few religions, sects or denominations have asked their followers to pray [say sorry in their prayers] to God, and more importantly to their child/children, or to those whom they look after either as nanny, guardian or caretaker, domestic helper, etc.
Because of that lacking in our prayers [adding sorry in it], some parents become muteki to their child, some hate their child, some hardly give them love and attention, but more complaints and dissatisfaction.
We have been told the difference between muteki [no enemy] and suteki [wonderful].
The difference is so fine: mu and su.
Some become muteki parents without knowing how important it is to go down on their knees to offer sorry prayer to God and for the child/children given to them to become part of their lives for them to nurture and grow up with.
Those who lack suteki could eventually become muteki.
I shall continue to share in joy with those in various religions to pray and say sorry. The God in this fire age is waiting earnestly for humans to say sorry.
Human logic will tell us the vast difference between the millions praying for protection, blessings and asking for goodies as compared to the handful praying with sorry in their prayers. The effect of their prayers cannot be the same.
It is like children asking parents for this and that selfishly except one child, who does the opposite. The love of parents know no boundaries but there is a limit to their love, unless it is great love and not small love for their children no matter what they do or behave in the eyes of their parents.
I sincerely hope the tide will change where millions will offer prayers of sorry and only a few will pray asking for goodies, protection and blessings. Time has changed.
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Gratitude for everything day and night is the first Command for all mankind to attain true happiness. A simple path lies in Gratitude. [please see PTF format below on Gratitude].
It is not the 11th Command. It is the first, the foremost. The most important.
It is the key to unlock all unhappiness among humans. The Gratitude Key.
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Prayer is good, but will not be enough, and it might no longer be effective in many religions when the human innermost attitude of the soul is still in conflict and unhappiness.
Humans have to purify the soul back to purity, free of doubts, no more unhappiness and conflict, and no more self-invited loneliness. Tikong, and all other religions and practices must remember to unite with the Core of purity, and guide all disciples and followers to purify their innermost soul back to attain purity as a true human should.
The words we used last year, and the words we intend to or plan to use this year, should be of purity and more dignified than last year. I hope all followers of religious faiths will use purer and purer words this year that will make the Creator God happy, not make fellow humans happy, but make the Supreme God, the Creator God happy.
Making fellow humans happy is of no use when the Creator God is unhappy. It is shallow thinking and shallow practice when humans aim to make one another happy. It is not enough.
Making the Creator God, Tikong, Allah, Buddha, etc. happy is the most important, the highest of highest practice. If not, all that we do, all that we pray for, etc, and hope for will come to nothing. Be blessed. In Benison. Be bright like the sun.
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Is the world headed for a commodity supercycle?
There are compelling arguments – both for and against – a multi-decade boom.
Vikram Khanna
Associate Editor
Over the last year, there has been a commodity price surge, which has been broad-based.ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI
PUBLISHEDMAY 12, 2021, 5:00 AM SGT in Straits Times
One of the big debates these days among economists is about whether the world is entering a “commodity supercycle” – a secular rise in commodity prices that will last a decade or more. Many economists think so, but some are doubtful. It’s worth exploring both sides of the debate.
Supercycles are different from cyclical upswings that peter out after a year or three. They happen only every few decades, amid transformational events.
Over the last 150 years, there have been barely half a dozen commodity supercycles: during the American railway boom from the 1870s to the 1890s; amid the rearmaments in the run-up to the first and second world wars; then with the post-war rebuilding of Europe and Japan in the 1950s; the huge fiscal expansion to fund anti-poverty programmes and the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s; and most recently, during China’s rapid growth from 2001 to 2012, after it joined the World Trade Organisation.
In between, there have been several commodity busts and mini-booms. For most of the last decade, commodities have been depressed, barring brief spikes in oil and food prices in 2007 and 2008.
The proponents of the coming supercycle, which include analysts at Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and other Wall Street firms, contend that commodity prices bottomed out in early 2020, and are now headed for a multi-decade boom.
Commodity price surge
Over the last year, there has been a commodity price surge, which has been broad-based. Besides crypto-assets, commodities have been the best-performing asset class, surpassing equities and bonds.
The London Metals Exchange index, which comprises six key industrial metals, is at its highest level since 2011.
Copper prices have risen more than 120 per cent since their March 2020 low. Iron ore and steel prices are at their highest levels in more than a decade. Niche commodities such as lithium, cobalt and rare earths have gone up.
There have also been sharp hikes over the past year in the prices of lumber as well as a range of agricultural commodities, including wheat, corn, soya beans, sugar, dairy products and palm oil.
These giddy increases are reflected in commodity-based securities. The S&P Metals & Mining exchange-traded fund is at a nine-year high and the share prices of major commodity producers such as BHP, Rio Tinto and Glencore have been soaring.
But the big question is whether these rallies mark the beginning of a commodity supercycle.
There is a case for this. On the demand side, there are strong forces that could fuel commodity demand for a decade or more. First, there is the largest fiscal expansion since World War II – close to US$20 trillion (US$27 trillion) since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, mostly from developed countries – which will boost demand, especially after economies open up. The expenditure plans of governments will, in particular, boost the demand for commodities.
In the United States, the Biden administration has announced a total stimulus of about US$4 trillion, which will be spread over a decade, half of which will go towards building infrastructure, including roads, bridges, public transport networks and housing.
Governments, including in Europe and China, are expected to spend lavishly on green infrastructure, including energy grids and infrastructure for electric vehicles that will translate into multi-year increases in demand for commodities such as copper, steel, nickel, aluminium, platinum and lithium.
Copper, which is a highly efficient conductor of electricity and heat, will be in especially high demand given its heavy use in batteries, electric vehicles, solar panels, energy grids and 5G infrastructure.
Supply shortages
For many commodities, existing supply is not geared up to meet the coming boom in demand. During the commodity bust of the last decade, investors avoided the sector and most commodity producers cut back on their exploration. For instance, between 2012 and 2020, capital investments declined more than 50 per cent in the oil and gas sector and more than 40 per cent in copper.
As prices go higher, more supply will come on stream, but adding capacity can take time – it takes about seven years to get a copper mine up and running. Meanwhile, prices will continue to run up.
MORE ON THIS TOPIC
China’s surging factory prices add to global inflation risks
Markets tumble in Asia as inflation fears haunt trading floors
Another impetus for higher commodity prices could come from a rise in inflation. The near doubling of the US Federal Reserve’s balance sheet since the pandemic, coupled with the outsized fiscal responses from governments as well as rising long-term bond yields, has encouraged some economists to believe that higher inflation is inevitable. Indeed, market measures of inflation expectations have been rising sharply in recent months and even US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen last week warned of possible “overheating” of the economy.
Higher inflation is normally associated with higher prices of real assets such as commodities, rather than financial assets such as stocks and bonds.
A secular weakening of the US dollar could also translate into higher commodity prices. Most commodities are priced in dollars, so when the dollar weakens, the price of commodities rises in dollar terms. Given the prospects of lower-for-longer US interest rates and a deteriorating US current account deficit, some economists have a long-term decline in the US dollar as their base case.
The consequences of a commodity supercycle would be profound.
It would push inflation even higher, as production costs rise and companies pass on the increases to consumers. Major US consumer companies such as Procter & Gamble, Kimberly Clark, General Mills and Coca-Cola have already given advance warning of price increases because of rising input and transport costs.
Extended higher commodity prices – especially if accompanied by higher inflation – would also lead to a major reshuffling of investment portfolios. The supercycle in bonds, which has lasted the better part of 40 years, would end (if it has not ended already) and many equities would be hit – although there would be a stampede for those tied to real assets such as commodities and real estate.
The commodity boom would benefit commodity-rich countries such as copper producers like Chile and Zambia, oil exporters, major metals producers like Australia, Brazil and Canada, as well as other commodity-based economies in Africa and Asia, including Indonesia. The losers would be big commodity importers such as China, India, Europe and Japan.
Supercycle naysayers
But not all economists are convinced that a commodity supercycle is in the works. Some suggest that the commodity euphoria is part of the “everything rally”, together with stocks, art and crypto-assets and is likely to fade after economies reopen and people start spending more on services rather than commodity-intensive goods. Many will need to pay down debts accumulated during the pandemic.
How large a presence China will be in the commodity markets is also uncertain. During its big infrastructure boom of the past, it accounted for about half of the global demand for many metals, but that boom is now winding down and it is shifting its economy to be more oriented to domestic consumption, including services.
Moreover, its growth over the next decade is likely to be slower than over the last 20 years. If China’s demand for commodities becomes more subdued, a commodity supercycle is unlikely to follow.
The ambitious infrastructure spending plans by the US and Europe – though positive for commodities – will play out over a decade, which would be long enough for more supply to come on stream. Although the prices of some individual commodities such as copper could spike, the case for a secular, broad-based commodity boom is overblown.
The uneven global recovery, in which the majority of economies – hard hit by the Covid-19 pandemic – are not participating, also does not bode well for a secular commodity boom.
Nor do all economists buy into the inevitability of prolonged inflation. Currently elevated inflation in the US, which was around 3.2 per cent year on year in April, is biased by the base-year effect – it was exceptionally low in April last year, a time of lockdown.
MORE ON THIS TOPIC
Iron ore turns ‘very, very hot’ as prices jump 10% in minutes
Commodity rally sparks jump in emerging currencies but fuels inflation concerns
Looking ahead, some economists doubt that inflation will make a comeback. For example, Professor Mark Blyth of international economics at Brown University points out that inflation has been running below central bank targets since the 1990s, despite close to full employment over most of that period.
With trade union power eroded, more globally integrated markets and hundreds of millions of more low-cost workers from China, India and other parts of the developing world, there is no wage pressure to speak of.
There may be temporary price increases because firms ran down inventories during the Covid-19 recession and because of supply-chain disruptions and spikes in technology demand, as in the case of semiconductors – but these are not long-term problems.
As for the thesis about the secular decline of the US dollar – which bolsters the case for a commodity supercycle – the difficult question is: What alternative currency or asset looks more compelling? The euro? The Japanese yen? The Chinese yuan? Gold? Crypto-assets? For many investors, the answer will be “none of the above”.
So while it may be tempting to bet on a commodity supercycle, it’s also worth being mindful of why it’s unlikely to happen.
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Let us be grateful for all material things that have been given to us [on loan to humankind] to live on earth comfortably, happily and safely.
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Material things include food and water, the clothing we wear, and the land we use for construction of our dwellings, and for cultivation of crops to provide us with food.
Human runaway greed for materialism will cause grave harm to the environment. No environment, there will be no life on earth. It is as simple as that.
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Planet earth does not charge us for the use of the land we occupy. Humans’ greed has caused conflict over land. It has now gone to sea.
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Reuse, Reduce, Repair and Recycle
Runaway materialism has caused pollution, which affects land, sea and air.
The greatest impact of pollution on all three comes from industrialization and transportation [due to demands from a materialistic way of life], which can be addressed and fixed with Green and Clean Energy to bring environmental degradation to a halt, and end, and to re-establish a new civilisation based on Reduce, Repair, Reuse and Recycle [the four Rs in this 21st non-materialistc civilisation].
A new century where humans have awakened and accepted that when there is no environment, there will be no nature, and there will be no life.
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Hippocrates said some 2400 years ago:
When humans stay further away from nature, mankind will go nearer to disease.
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The main message of Covid-19 to mankind is for them to end materialism and pollution.
Pollution means that mankind is getting further away from nature. Mankind is self-inviting diseases upon themselves.
Let us stop and end COVID-19 now. Wear a mask.
No environment but pollution, there will be no nature, but more diseases [mankind will be closer to disease], and end of life.
The 21st century is for mankind to live a non-materialistic way of life, which is to stop diseases, ill health, and sufferings.
Every human life is precious from the day of birth till the last breathe on physical earth. Protect all life must be mankind’s foremost mission to have more happy people.
So long as a child is born deformed with congenital issues it means that the unseen has impurities and sufferings.
It means man’s pollution and contamination of nature and human beings due to materialism have not ended but only lip service.
Unless the new born is healthy no deformity, the suffering of humans continue. This unfavourable situation must be reversed, and stopped. It is in man’s hands to stop it.
The main mission of mankind is to bring all newborn into this world free of birth defects and deformity. It is in man’s hands. Mankind’s attitude and deeds have a great influence on this outcome.
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The time is past when the main purpose of industry was to make money. Now is the divine era when all must work to establish a divine government using materials preciously. [PB page 187].
Whatever your profession, you will not be able to avoid failure if you do not harmonise with others to create a divine government. [page 188].
Humankind is now facing a great turning point in human history. Humans must start to make efforts to correct the errors of history in light of the Truth. [page 189] and pray for divine government to be established for all mankind. [page 189],
Now is the divine era of spiritual medical science, which must work to make humankind eternally free from disease. Past practices just to keep the medical and pharmaceutical professions in business will not be sustainable forever. [page 187].
Ideology, another name for mankind’s one-sidedness, is over. [page 188],
Democratic governments of humankind centered on human, demonstrations, protest, friction and conflict as the foundation cannot last forever. It is destined to collapse.
.Disease on humans, and the fate of all mankind:
Resentful spirits [in the Unseen world] hide and wait for an opportunity to take revenge [on an individual, a family, a group, a community, a nation or the whole world, an entire mankind]. The art of True light [John 1:9] is the means to eliminate their negative influence before they are able to cause diseases or other unhappy phenomena [on the physical world].
PB: page 145.
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In this new era, it is essential, before all else, to serve Su God. This is the path to eternal and indestructible happiness.
PB page 143
Dedicating our lives to serving Su God with gratitude for the salvation that He grants us brings great happiness.
PB page 144
To serve Su God is the responsibility of a child of God. What could we have to regret if we wholeheartedly dedicate ourselves to serving Him?
PB page 149
The true spiritual path is to joyously remain in the world and to maintain harmony with those around you as you strive to perfect your soul.
Know that your dream to live in health, harmony, and prosperity cannot be realised if we ignore the principle of spirit first, mind next, body follows.
PB page 244
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Divine Songs at Dojo:
1. Intellectuals who follow weak and pale light have allowed themselves to become blinded by materialism. They take pride in academic study based on human wisdom, which can cause self-inflicted suffering and pain.
2. Numerous tragedies has been caused by mistaking materialistic wisdom for true wisdom, but those responsible for these tragedies have yet to realise this.
PB pages 258 and 259.
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The Innermost Attitudes of Practitioners of the Divine Light, True Light. [please see copy below].
Out of the eight, the First Command is:
Be absolutely grateful to Su God [the Creator] for everything, day and night.
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Let us add in apologies [sorry, sorry, sorry as apology is not enough without the word Sorry] when we offer Gratitude.
And add in words of ‘sorry’ in our apologies. Me too.
“I am sorry” is in the NY Message 2021. ref. page 11, SMIJ Feb 2021.
As far I can remember, this is the first time I read “I am sorry”.
Apology word could be hollow unless it is spiced with “I am sorry”.
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Become a person who can receive God’s arrangements
At the study class on God’s arrangements “2014 New Year’s Message – SMIJ Feb 2014 – page 6”, I took down the following notes.
Would like to share it here. We are guided to read:
Prayer Book pg 59-60:
“Out of His great love, God undertakes to wash the trinity of the spiritual, astral and physical bodies of human beings. This cleansing eliminates your spiritual impurities and reveals your radiant souls. The phenomenon of cleansing is a realty, but disease is not. Unhappiness and misfortune should not be viewed as such. but as arrangements to change a situation for the better.”
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Holy Words:
Pg 111/112:
“God’s law of balance is immutable. Therefore your kumite who accompany you, by offering meritorious deeds toward you, can become God’s true kumite. For this reason, reward shall be given by God. This is because the path for the flourishing of all can be opened. Since it can open, arrangements can be given. Since God knows who is two-faced, you shall pretend as if you know nothing. Avoid judgement”.
Page 157:
“It is false [that is an empty prayer] to pray without being able to tun e one’s vibrations of mind with God – or rather, one’s vibration of soul.”
“There are many suspect priests and monks who flatter God and pretend to others as if they were in communion with God. Swarming are those who yearn to make people think highly of them and who swagger among humans rather than help seriously reform human souls. People are the ones to be pitied.”
“There are many who make use of prayers, ceremonies and sermons to make a profit.”
Page 158:
“God is great love, and His patience is incomparably strong.
God has been keeping deities patient. However, people who do not unite with God are fated to perish, after all.
Unless one follows up prayer with practice and practice with prayer in order to help God construct the new world, and help God’s will be done on earth – in other words, unless one helps in accomplishing the goal of God’s plan – one cannot harmonise with God.
The age is coming when this will become evident If the condition existing up to now should remain unchanged hereafter, God will regard this instead as making a fool of Him, as having faith in Him for one’s own convenience, and as having a false faith of trying to deceive Him.
This world will be totally filled with deities who have negative roles, and humans will suffer more and more.
God will have no choice but to intensify spiritual discernment in every aspect and carry out the judgment.
In the principle of harmonisation, a principal deity appears to a righteous person, and a deity with negative roles appears to an evil person.
If one prays only for food, a deity who provides only food appears, even though one’s prayer may be righteous.
A truly good deity who can ‘feed’ one does not appear. Instead, one will bring a time when he will be devoured [eaten up] by the deity.
The deity of giving does not truly appear. If you humans really desire the deity of giving to come forth to you, you should elevate your souls to the level of being able to devote yourselves to God with the heart of giving [Yo].”
Pg 159:
“If you desire a great arrangement from God, it is important to elevate your souls to ones that can offer great recompense. First, your heart should be pure, noble, and rich. You should first completely abandon the impure, petty, and miserly mind of sparing your energy and materials in service to God and make it a joy to do meritorious deeds by realising, accomplishing, and spreading God’s will.”
Pg 222:
When those who have a particular spiritual relationship with God can be turned to the divine principles, they will become the jewels [souls] of happiness. This is because they become ones who can easily receive God’s arrangements. You shall not let them neglect their devotion. You shall not let them become off-guard; you shall help them become ones whom you can trust and let be on their own thereafter.”
Pg 256:
“I have taught you to abandon yourself for God and others. Because the principal deities cannot overlook people’s sacrifices, when you abandon yourself for the sake of the world, you will be changed into the one who will receive arrangements of salvation. You shall become one upon whom deities can easily descend anytime, and you shall become such a one that you and others do not notice the a deity has descended upon you.”
Pg 295/296:
“Let conscientious…will be given to by God.”
Pg 402:
“Humankind’s path toward glory…with God’s arrangements and blessings.”
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At the study class on “2014 New Year’s Message – Become a person who can receive God’s arrangements” last Friday night, we were also guided to practise:
Convert worry into Gratitude.
Convert suffering into Gratitude.
Convert cleansing into Gratitude
These are opportunities for us to offer Gratitude to Su God.
Quote: “When we take our worries, suffering, and cleansings as opportunities to offer gratitude to God, everything changes for us.” –
in SMIJ Feb 2014 – page 11.
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And, let us add in ‘Apologies’ when we offer ‘Gratitude’.
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Oshienushisama has mentioned the following in the 2021 New Year’s Message: “A World of Love and Harmony – toward Unity”
“This year, let us keep in mind the theme a world of love and harmony and advance our practice of faith directed toward God as we visualize Aiwakan in all its splendor.”
“Let us become people who vocalize words of gratitude day and night, saying thank you very much as we express our thanks to God, our parents, and each other as children of God. Let us help each other and rejoice together as we commit completely to becoming people of love and harmony.”
“In Sukyo Mahikari Centers, we need to have an attitude of cultivating unity based on a foundation of gratitude, love, and harmony, between the Center Director and role bearer, as well as between role bearers and all Kumites.”
“Unity cannot truly be achieved without a forgiving heart and innermost attitude.”
“In other words, true unity will emerge as we practice humility from the heart through making compromises and mutual concessions.”
“In short, words of gratitude have the power to transform our destiny. Although unseen, an innermost attitude of gratitude will manifest as words that have the power to bring about mysterious and wonderous arrangements.”
“From the beginning of the new year, let us Yokoshi strive to achieve spiritual growth as we unite around the mottos: A world of love and harmony, bright greetings and Yokoshi, let us get along well with each other!”
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Practitioners of the Divine Light offer “The Innermost Attitudes of Practitioners of the Divine Light, True Light.” daily. [please see copy below].
Out of the eight commands, the First Command is:
Be absolutely grateful to Su God [the Creator] for everything, day and night.
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Practitioners of the Divine Light also offer ‘The Holy Prayer of Gratitude” to the Lord God, Su God [主, the Creator God].
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Cultivating an innermost attitude of gratitude, and offering gratitude for everything has the power to transform the whole world. [Please see full text here below]:
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One will not lose out when one practises more and more gratitude.
No one will lose out by practising gratitude, which will transform the whole world to become positive.
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Gratitude for everything day and night is the first Command for all mankind to attain true happiness. A simple path lies in Gratitude.
It is not the 11th Command. It is the first, the foremost. The most important.
It is the key to unlock all unhappiness among humans. The Gratitude Key.
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Prayer is good, but will not be enough, and it might no longer be effective in many religions when the human innermost attitude of the soul is still in conflict and unhappiness.
Humans have to purify the soul back to purity, free of doubts, no more unhappiness and conflict, and no more self-invited loneliness. Tikong, and all other religions and practices must remember to unite with the Core of purity, and guide all disciples and followers to purify their innermost soul back to attain purity as a true human should.
The words we used last year, and the words we intend to or plan to use this year, should be of purity and more dignified than last year. I hope all followers of religious faiths will use purer and purer words this year that will make the Creator God happy, not make fellow humans happy, but make the Supreme God, the Creator God happy.
Making fellow humans happy is of no use when the Creator God is unhappy. It is shallow thinking and shallow practice when humans aim to make one another happy. It is not enough.
Making the Creator God, Tikong, Allah, Buddha, etc. happy is the most important, the highest of highest practice. If not, all that we do, all that we pray for, etc, and hope for will come to nothing. Be blessed. In Benison. Be bright like the sun.
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End of materialism.
End of runaway overly consumption of materials and things is the answer to not only littering but also pollution.
Reduce cravings for more materialism is the answer.
It is a grave misconception and social chicanery that others are responsible and not the self.
How many shoes, shirts, etc. do you have, and how many things are in the kitchen, living room, bedrooms, etc. that the family has not used for over a year?
All things that you have, is it necessary, and do we know we are the cause of materialism, production, pollution, and littering when we buy on impulse and selfishly?
Consumers are the cause not the industrialists, not the manufacturers creating the demands for more production.
Not them, but ourselves, our selfish attitudes towards materialism are the cause of the pandemic today.
No environment, no nature, there will be no life on earth. And there will be no materialism and littering to talk about too.
Will all humans wake up? Me too.
Will humans return to pre-Covid-19 level of pollution once danger is over chasing for more materialism?
Do we ever learn? Me too.
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Littering…solutions?
Half of the people in Singapore are not Singaporeans. Who litter more than the other? Do we?
Is it a behavioural issue for both or more for us not them?
Learn from Colombo. But Sri Lanka does not have half not Sri Lankans.
Half of the people in Singapore are not Singaporeans. Who litter more than the other? Do we?
Is it a behavioural issue for both or more for us not them?
Learn from Colombo. But Sri Lanka does not have half not Sri Lankans.
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Find new ways to break bad habit of littering
PUBLISHED6 HOURS AGO on 15th Sept 2020 in ST Forum
The Forum letter by the Public Hygiene Council offered no new insight except to repeat what has been tried and found ineffective for a very long time (Littering the most critical public health challenge, Sept 11).
To achieve a breakthrough in our efforts to tackle some people’s careless behaviour that impacts public health, we must question our long-held beliefs, assumptions and approaches.
A good place to start is in re-examining the stance that “the Public Hygiene Council has long been advocating a carrot and stick approach”.
Perhaps the council could consider doing a rigorous review of the literature and consulting professional bodies that specialise in behavioural change to adopt more effective methods of intervention beyond the carrot and stick approach.
by Thomas Lee Hock Seng (Dr)
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Littering the most critical public health challenge
PUBLISHED9 HOURS AGO on 11th Sept 2020 in ST Forum
I refer to The Straits Times report, (Keeping S’pore clean a priority, says Grace Fu, Aug 22), as well as the Forum letters (Over a third refuse to return trays, clear used tissues at hawker centres by the National Environment Agency, Aug 21; and Dangers of bad habits at hawker centres not taken seriously by Ms Susan Tan Lin Neo, Aug 13).
The Public Hygiene Council (PHC) has long been advocating a carrot and stick approach, and supports the announcement by Minister for Sustainability and the Environment Grace Fu to introduce amendments to the Environmental Public Health Act this year to institute a regime for proactive cleaning at premises.
We also reiterate our belief that businesses in food centres should improve their premises by building tray return stations in more convenient locations and upgrading public toilets.
We share the sentiments expressed by NEA and Ms Susan Tan, and agree that good cleanliness and hygiene is a basic necessity of life.
The PHC has over the years conducted many outreach campaigns with community partners and schools to foster a litter-free environment.
We have repeatedly stressed the need to practise good hygiene habits, such as returning our crockery and trays, binning our trash, and keeping public toilets clean and dry.
Littering is the most critical public health battlefront. If we lose this battle, our efforts to wipe out Covid-19 and dengue will be much harder.
Underscoring this, the PHC’s annual Keep Clean, Singapore! 2020 campaign, which will be launched on Sept 19, aims to raise public awareness of the potential health hazards of littering.
Litter can attract disease-bearing pests and also create stagnant pools of water where mosquitoes breed. Even used tissues and masks strewn about can transmit germs and viruses.
We hope all Singaporeans will join us in this campaign against littering.
It is ultimately up to all of us to help keep Singapore cleaner and safer for one another and our families.
Edward D’Silva
Chairman
Public Hygiene Council
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End of materialism
End of runaway overly consumption of materials and things is the answer to not only littering but also pollution.
Reduce cravings for more materialism is the answer.
It is a grave misconception and social chicanery that others are responsible and not the self.
How many shoes, shirts, etc. do you have, and how many things are in the kitchen, living room, bedrooms, etc. that the family has not used for over a year?
All things that you have, is it necessary, and do we know we are the cause of materialism, production, pollution, and littering when we buy on impulse and selfishly?
Consumers are the cause not the industrialists, not the manufacturers creating the demands for more production.
Not them, but ourselves, our selfish attitudes towards materialism are the cause of the pandemic today. No environment, no nature, there will be no life on earth. And there will be no materialism and littering to talk about too.
Will all humans wake up? Me too.
Will humans return to pre-Covid-19 level of pollution once danger is over chasing for more materialism?
Do we ever learn? Me too.
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Three-pronged approach to litter management more effective
PUBLISHED7 HOURS AGO on 18th Sept 2020 in ST Forum
Tackling the problem of littering by recalcitrant offenders through a carrot and stick approach is surely not the best solution (Find new ways to break bad habit of littering, Thomas Lee Hock Seng, Sept 15).
We have become a consumptive society, used to the convenience of disposables, where one-time use of articles has become the norm.
Just witness how food takeaway has become so prevalent now.
What is unfortunate is that the disposables used are mostly non-biodegradable and, even if cleared by our efficient disposal system, end up at the landfill, as pollutive smoke after incineration or ocean trash. It may be out of sight but the problem has simply been transferred somewhere else.
Consumer behavioural patterns may, of course, be moulded by education campaigns, but bad habits creep up again once enforcement slackens.
It may be better to tackle litter at the stage where goods are produced, where consumers discriminate against socially irresponsible manufacturing processes and adopt the habit of purchasing better-quality, longer-lasting and more environmentally friendly consumables.
As an added incentive, perhaps there could be tax reliefs pegged to such purchases.
We may not be able to become a zero-waste society, but taking a three-pronged approach to waste manage at the production, consumption and disposal stages is always going to be more effective than just focusing on the consumer, which is the weakest link.
by Yik Keng Yeong (Dr)
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Emanating smiles will transform the world.
Also important, let us have Gratitude for everything to attain happiness, the opposite will invite unhappiness or even grief.
Christmas joy today, 25th Dec.
It is advisable we do not wish someone we do not know [as the person could be a Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, etc] ‘Merry Christmas’.
For sure, I will not wish someone with a tudung or a songkok ‘Merry Christmas”. To me, it is not appropriate.
Smiling all year round is our practice for this year, and it will end in six days from now.
I hope many will get to welcome and see 1st Jan sunrise in joy.
I extend my Merry Christmas greetings on FB to Christians relatives and friends around the world, those who are Christians.
Those who wish me Merry Christmas, I wish to thank them. TYVM.
Let us have a blessed 2019 with lots of Divine Light, which is True Light in the Bible John 1:9. I googled and noted:
“The true light, which gives light to everyone was coming into the world.”
How we treat our shoes or slippers [footwear] would be a good indication of how we respect materials that have been given to us [to all humankind] to live on earth comfortably, safely and happily.
Footwear gives us the comfort and for us to walk around safely.
Do we ‘ill-treat’ or ‘show scant respect’ for our footwear? Do some of us kick it or throw it around after use, or drop it hard on the ground before we put it on? Let us start to respect our footwear gently with gratitude.
When we can easily ill-treat what we put below our feet [the footwear giving comfort to our sole], what else can we expect the self and others to respect or have a heart of gratitude for material things that we use above our feet when we can treat footwear loosely with scant respect?
When we fail to respect materials, we can expect that mankind will enter into an age of material limitation sooner or later.
All these are linked to our respecting others from the bottom of our heart.
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If humans are grateful [have gratitude for everything] to be polished by your surroundings, you can naturally be purified, and God’s Divine Light [True Light, John 1;9] will more easily flow through them.
Humans will be purified from within by the Divine Light, be polished , and be cleansed [cleansings for humans to be pure] to become ones with pure and bright souls and spiritual bodies.
Consequently, God can use them fully, since they are free from impurity.
Negative spirits, who intend to harm them, will go far away, and they can be allowed to becomes ones who will go quickly into heaven because they do not ask for it for themselves.
God is watching the extent of humans’ apology [sorry prayers and actions] and He has the art of the last-moment salvation on hand to cause the reversal one moment before the complete destruction, the art of the convulsions of heaven and earth, which will once again greatly overturn the world and change it into the sea of fire and sea of mud.
This comes from God’s Great love. God does not experience an impasse.
All will be destroyed if humans live only with transitory teachings, pseudo teachings..
Source: HW. pages 256 and 257
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Human beings have been provided with everything – life itself, an earth to inhabit, sunlight that nurtures all, the stomach and intestines, the 10 fingers on our hands, and so on.
Furthermore, God’s science, not human science, has created everything, from the resources that foster all industries to the sources of food.
In spite of these abundant blessings, human beings have carelessly used materials to excess, without even a hint of gratitude.
Thus, human beings must now awaken to a sense of gratitude for the blessings that we receive from God and consider how we can go about repaying our debts of gratitude to God.
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It is only from this starting point that humanity will be able to succeed in welcoming a holy century.
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This is our natural duty as members of humankind, which will need to receive the blessings of God even after this holy century.
Source: page 30 of SMIJ Nov 2019, Issue No. 208.
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BG4ET = Be grateful for everything.
Reference to PB page 152:
“Let us be mindful of the need to offer gratitude for everything to achieve eternal salvation as one goes through the cycle of death and rebirth.”
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Health, Harmony, and material well-being…..
We have been told that:
Many tragedies have been caused by mistaking materialistic wisdom [i.e. overly indulged in chasing after materialism] for true wisdom [opposite of materialistic wisdom], but those responsible for the numerous tragedies have yet to realise this, and they have yet to take corrective actions in remorse, repentance, and contrition offering deep apologies in words of sorry, very sorry, very sorry.
Mankind has to wait for those responsible to repent.
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Some want to own their land for life.
However, there is a different in price we pay for the land we use depending on whether it is freehold or leasehold, and the length of lease whether it is 99 or 999 years, etc.
If we want freehold land, the price is different from that of 99 years. It cannot be the same, and the 99-year lease cannot be cheaper than freehold land.
Some want to pay at 99-year lease rate but want to have freehold rights. It cannot be so.
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When we use material things, and there is unhappiness or when events have turned for the worse, what does it mean?
It means one has to have reality check and inward self reflection when one’s lifestyle has turned from “comfortably, happily and safely” into opposite situations.
Unhappiness will lead to some finding it difficult to have health, harmony and material well-being. Limitation in materials will come about in the human world.
In most cases, unhappiness are due to ego and conceit, which will bring about dissatisfaction, negativity and complaints [friction and even conflict] into one’s way of living and life.
When self-destructive or self-hurting practices and way of life continue, it would be like plunging a sharp knife into one’s own heart, hurting self. It will bring even more negativity, desperation and despair in one’s life and affecting the lives of loved ones.
When one is negative and has lots of dissatisfaction and complaints due to ego and conceit lacking gratitude, it is the opposite of positivity and cheerfulness.
When positivity and cheerfulness reside in one’s positive inner-feeling and attitude, one will change to using more positive words, and positive actions by practising Gratitude, Apologies [filled with lots of sorry], Humility and sincere Acceptance [the four great virtues]. These four virtues combined will become the four keys that will unlock the door to happiness, which we all seek in life.
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We have been told that heaven and earth [some call it nature] provide all the material things and blessings for mankind to live comfortably, safely and happily in this physical world.
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But sadly many humans lack gratitude, and some even have a heart of constant complaints and dissatisfaction. It will lead eventually to a gloomy way of life that is filled with unhappiness.
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Food and Water…
Be aware and beware about this:
A person will lose out even more when that person continues, for example, to waste a grain of rice on the plate or a crumb of bread on the table uneaten, but at every other breathe or opportunity, the person would curse at or have dissatisfaction directed at others [the rich, powerful and opulent houses?] for wasting wine and meat [letting meat not eaten and turning bad, and wine going stale], while the poor and hungry died leaving their bones frozen by the road side.
Materials include our food and water, the cloth we use, etc.
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Do I qualify to comment on others wasting materials, including food and water, etc?
“Red wine and meat smell whereas the road has frozen bone”
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All material things, including money or wealth in whatever form, are given to humans.
Humans must be Accepting.
Even a crumb of bread will get less or disappear from one’s plate when one is not accepting, or become one who is filled with lots of complaints and dissatisfaction against what have been given.
We have been told when the heart of giving is miserly or small, like a small container, it cannot take in a bigger thing when it comes, or when given. It does not fit.
I heard from someone that her boss [small business, an SME?] does not pay her the 13th month; and the employees have to pay for the medication when they fall ill.
I said to her: When a boss has a small heart, his/her business cannot be expected to be big either. It will be small too. It is the principle of balance, a principle of matching.
On material things or wealth, I wrote on Accepting:
Sadly not all can accept what they have been given in the course of their lives to live comfortably, happily and safely.
Due to selfish ego, some even judge others, some even judge the whole community or race due to some trivial or a few irritants.
Such negativity [more so judging on every little thing, or even judging bigger issues like the whole community or race] will eventually turn what is given for us to live “comfortably, happily and safely” into opposite situations.
The is the principle of balance. This is the principle of the Echo.
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Among some of the top political and religious leaders, who use IT products, like iphone, ipad, WhatsApp, Tweeter, Facebook, radio, camera, watch, etc, there are some who do not. Do we know who do not use any of these things?
How many humans know that many of the materials things that they use, be it a head scarf, shoes, clothes,, socks, food, drinks, etc., could have used IT technology in the production processes?
When one dislikes or hates a particular religion, race, community, country, etc. please be aware the product you or your loved ones use [from the top of your head to your foot, or things that you use in your daily life, transport to move around, materials of all kinds, food and drinks, etc.] could be made for you with IT technology, and could have been made or assembled by people from a community, nation, or religion, or belief, etc. that you dislike, despise or hate.
Be aware and beware of our thoughts, words, and deeds when we project it. Is it always positive?
Very few of others can truly be God-centred, one who is not material-centred, or human-centred to live like a true human should.
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The processes of production of a product would include the use of IT to transport the products to the end consumers.
Examples: The use of IT technology from manufacturing, making electronic payments, making purchase orders, delivery of every parts from raw materials to finished product, the exploration and extraction of fossil oil and its use, the methods of transportation from making of every parts of a car, ship, lorry, container truck, etc., all could have used IT technology.
All production processes of a product could be connected to someone who is of a different religion, belief, no belief, etc, including the supply chain, the manufacturing chain, the delivery chain to make it possible for the finished product to be sold and used.
The world is inter-linked from research, raw material extraction, production, delivery, use of the end a product, and disposal of the used product.
Millions of people are inter-linked in the whole processes till the end product reach the consumers, and final disposal of the used product that we discard, some still wet after use.
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Let us offer gratitude for all the people who have participated in making the things we use or consume. Let us offer gratitude for the energy of fire and water that have made it possible for us to have the things we use and eat.
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More than that.
Gratitude for everything day and night.
The oxygen…sunshine, rainfall, the earth, the wind, the thunders…
Let us be grateful to heaven and earth to provide the materials, and the people involved, and the spiritual energy of fire and water to make it possible for us to partake in each meal.
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How many people are involved to produce a grain of rice grain to reach our dinner plate?
How many grains were not eaten last night?
How many grains are wasted due to each grain not eaten?
Please google how many grains are wasted from a single grain?
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If we add from the farmers, transport systems, and transport people, packers, sellers, etc, etc., the list will run into the thousands of people or even millions. Ponder deeply before you waste a grain of rice at dinner tonight…or at breakfast tomorrow.
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I should say our Gratitude should have no limits, far deeper than the oceans, and far higher than the mountains….if we include the weather and environment for the rice to grow, gather it into barns, transported, sold, …and eaten by us. Me too.
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When humans have gratitude, peace will appear. Conflicts will reduce. Hatred will lessen, and love for one another will blossom spiritually…. It has to start from the self…with Gratitude, and endless gratitude.
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The more gratitude we have…from being conceived in the womb, to being born after nine months, being nursed and fed, wiped, clothed, helped to walk, run, taught, etc… etc. ..we will understand life that we have never being told or knew before as a true human should.
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When one encounter unhappiness, what does it mean?
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I hope many will self-reflect, check their ego level, and not continue filling their lives with more unhappiness affecting self and loved ones.
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It will be like plunging a sharp knife into one’s own heart. It is not worth it to fill one’s own lives with unhappiness due to ego and conceit.
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I hope many will have reality checks when unhappiness appears in their lives.
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Unhappiness is like a shallow stream having ripples created by water flowing over rocks and pebbles.
Judging [on all issues, situations, circumstances, one’s likes or dislikes or one’s preferences or thinking] is not given as a right to humans.
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Judging fellow children of God infringes on God’s Authority. Beware.
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This may sound familiar to those in Christianity: “Thou Shall Not Judge”.
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As humans, isn’t it very hard for a human to practice not to judge others?
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Ego and conceit will block anyone who wishes to practise not to judge others, who are fellow children of God.
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It has been said that even Heavenly deities [gods] fail when they have Ego and Conceit.
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What about humans, children of God, when they have small ego and conceit, petty ego ?
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Will they fail eventually and ultimately, some ending up in grief, facing dead end and deadlock?
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Truth stares in the face but it might hurt….
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We have been told:
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“You must respect the person who gives you ‘straight words’ all the time. You need to always have someone like this around you who can be very frank with you.”
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One who can receive direct advice is the very happy one.
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Ego and Conceit. And Humility Practice….and facing the Truth…
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Judging [on any issues, situations, circumstances, one’s likes or dislikes or one’s preferences or thinking] is not given as a right to humans.
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We have been told:
People today accept only the good of what others say about them. If someone points out something negative to them, they don’t accept it. This means they are already poor in the mind.
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On the extreme, be a person who listens only to what is said negative about you, don’t listen to the good aspects.
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Whenever you are criticized by someone, all you have to do is to appreciate that person. “Thank you very much!” You must say thank you from the bottom of your heart.
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The person, who can be told to improve his or her shortcomings and accept criticism whenever it appears, is happy. You must transform yourself into such a person as soon as possible.
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You must respect the person who gives you ‘straight words’ all the time. You need to always have someone like this around you who can be very frank with you.
. One who can receive direct advice is the very happy one.
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Therefore, choose friends who can criticize you quickly. Especially young people need to practise it early in life.
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However Ego and Conceit will block all humility for one to put it into practice.
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Beware and be aware.
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We have been told that in all situations of unhappiness, like a flotsam that is stuck midstream unable to move or unable to float further to the downstream, it will be dislodged one day when when one is accepting.
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This is the way of nature, and it is the way in all arrangements that govern human lives too.
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When one becomes more accepting in humility, in contrition, in repentance and remorse to one’s situation like having been served with a bad hand or a bad card, one’s situation will turn less negative, and become more positive.
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We have been told that one should practice acceptance by living one’s life positively, with sincerity, and cheerfulness.
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There is a cause and reason for all situations in the life of each human being. There is no mistake about one’s conditions and the conditions yet to come, good or bad.
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It is arrangement.
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There is nothing bad, everything is good when we accept the Bigger Picture in apologies [offering words of sorry to all things and happenings] and be grateful to all things.
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Heart of complaints will not allow us to see the Bigger Picture clearly.
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Ego and my Acceptance Practice
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Ego will block the Practice of Acceptance.
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I have to re-read EGO on pages 314, 315, 316, 329 and 330 of the HWs.
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There are other pages too: 36, 54, 248, 249, 255, 283, 284, 294, 320, and 429.
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Also in the PB, pages 113, 196, 296.
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Someone posted in my FaceBook that it is ego when I share my Blog on www.
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My comments in response:
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My Blog has more than 500 posts in 42 categories, and 35,779 viewers [19,620 visitors] since 1 March 2015 to 24 Sept 2015.
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There are many visitors to my Blog from all over the world. My Blog is not for Singaporeans only.
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My Blog has my letters, which I wrote to the MSM over 30 years, and I wish to pull out more from my files to share it with others far and wide freely and unconditionally.
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I do not wish to let my letters go to waste. There is no boasting, but a joy for me to share my Blog with others.
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Those who do not wish to read my Blog, please skip and do not click on the link to read it.
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I say thanks to those who do not agree with me as not all of us are the same. Not all of us are on the same wavelength.
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We are different in many respects, in many situations and circumstances.
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It is understandable to receive negative comments from people who have various beliefs or have no belief [the atheists].
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I was asked to stop my Blog. Some have advised me not to.
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I shall continue to share my Blog. It is a joy to share.
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If I don’t share, it will overload me, becoming like an overfilled cup of stale tea.
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When that happens, a new brew of tea even if it is coming will not be able to be poured into my ‘ego’ filled full cup.
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A full cup cannot receive a new brew of tea.
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When full, I have to continue to pour it out, empty self, and be ready to receive a new brew.
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Holding the old stale tea, refusing to share it unselfishly without ego with others, will lead to building up ego.
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By sharing it with humility, I shall be able to get a fresh new brew of tea. I have to become a person who is able to receive even without asking for it.
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This is the principle governing the lives of all humankind for all to live their lives comfortably, happily and safely on earth as given.
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But sadly not all can due to selfish ego, and some even judge others turning what have given in “comfortably, happily and safely” arrangements into opposite situations.
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When one encounters unhappiness, what does it mean?
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I hope many will self-reflect, check their ego level, and not continue in filling their lives with more unhappiness affecting self and loved ones.
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It will be like plunging a sharp knife into one’s own heart. It is not worth it to fill one’s own lives with unhappiness due to ego and conceit.
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I hope many will have reality checks when unhappiness appears in their lives like having ripples of a shallow stream that is covered with rocks and pebbles.
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The Innermost Attitudes of Practitioners of the Divine Light, True Light.
Out of the eight, the First Command is:
Be absolutely grateful to Su God [the Creator] for everything, day and night.
It is a joy to share, and the more I share, the more it comes back in many ways and forms. Most of what I shared are not mine. I borrowed and shared it on my Blog.
If you like any particular post in my Blog, please feel free to share it far and wide with your loved ones, friends and contacts.
You may delete my name before sending it to them.
You may also use the articles to write on the same topic or extract and paste any part of it in your article.
My posts are available to all, young and old, students too.
If they wish, they can extract or plaglarize any of the points to write their articles or essays with it. Np.
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I share what I wrote worldwide with Facebook friends and contacts, not with Singaporeans only.
I share it by pasting the link method as it is easier and a shortcut rather than copy paste my comments in full text.
Some want me to stop posting. I shall stop giving comments and/or my link when others stop posting. When they stop, I stop.
When they continue to give comments, I shall continue to give my short-cut link, or a short cut-and-paste comment plus the link.
If I stop giving my link or comments, it will by default be letting others a free hand to give possibly a one-sided comment without anyone giving the other perspective on an issue.
If I stay quiet, it will be considered my failure not to give the opposite perspective.
Some want me to be silent, and to stop posting.
If I accept their demands, it will be a failure to my Facebook friends worldwide by staying silent.
I owe it to my Facebook friends and to the society to comment and give an opposite perspective on an issue.
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My contact: tankoktim@yahoo.co.uk
6 Responses to Gratitude. First Command: Be absolutely grateful for everything; Gratitude for materials. Is it the end of Materialism? Even end of Capitalism? Commodity super cycle? Have gratitude for everything, day and night;….even oxygen, our lives, time and space we occupy; We own nothing; All materials are given for humans to live healthily, comfortably, safely and happily…be grateful for everything; No environment, no nature, there will be no life, but more diseases; When will new diseases strike humankind, and how? Grateful: Why dogs wag their tails? Humans do not have to;
tankoktim 
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