quotations from the dalai lama

1. All major religious traditions carry basically the same message, that is love, compassion and forgiveness the important thing is they should be part of our daily lives

2. If you have a particular faith or religion, that is good. But you can survive without it

3. If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

4. There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness.

5. Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend - or a meaningful day.

6. Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.

7. The purpose of our lives is to be happy.

feelings not mutual ( or is it? )

You lay
yourself down
in sweet abandon
thinking I would
relish this gesture
of surrender.

But I know
deep inside
you're thinking
of something else.

Not someone,
mind you.
Something!

I know your minds
preoccupation with words.
Words. Words. Words.

You are making
a poem out of this.

Gottcha!
Frigid woman.
Let's stop this.
Bye.

deja vu

there is no rain there
no longing and no emptiness.
we can do anything
to our heart's desire.

there is only freedom
to love and be loved
in that sacred place
of our dreams.

we have met there
a thousand times before
and will go on
meeting there forever

but today is different
because we have decided
to give flesh
to our imaginings

look around you
everything's oh so real
its alright now
there is nothing to fear

I am here
and you are with me
lets kiss and say hello
this is only deja vu

youre not in love with me

you're in love with a concept.
an image.
a dream.
you're not in love with me.

you dont know me
and its impossible to love someone
you dont know.

No, Im not mad at you.
i can never get angry
with someone i dont know.

Let me tell you this.
unless you come to terms with your illusions
and really try to see the world as it is,
you will never find true love.

dreams are just dreams.
they are not real.
and inventing relationships inside a dream
makes the dream more unreal...

you dont love alan.
youre in love with an image of alan you created.
And no matter how loudly you shout
that name, even in front of my face,
I will never hear you.

The name you're calling
is not real.

It has no soul...

Journey Inwards

ilently in solitude
as I listened to myself
within

gracefully permitting
sopoforic rustle of thoughts
to flow through

I was helplessly
trapped in a whirling eddy
of words.

words building
worlds exploding
quantum leaping

swiftly dissappearing
in unmeasured time
into the void

so taken
by the moment
I felt lost

and as I ease
myself and cease
to hold on

without effort
I returned exactly
at the same spot

where
I was
before


everything
is clear
now

such a good
place and time
to be

everything just fits
no need to change
a bit

from the archives

(Here are some thoughts
I wrote about ten
or so years ago.
I dug these out
from a very old
notebook kept inside
an old unused drawer.)

ALAN K. CAÑA

1. Hello and Goodbye
( January 15, 1996)


The sun woke
Early this morning.

He caught moon
And me unaware.
Seldom has he done it
In the past.

I never saw
Him in that state
Before, yawning
As he stretched his body
To embrace the horizon.
Slowly peeking with
His sweet yellow
Eyes, almost not unlike
Moons soft caress
At night.

Moon faded slowly
Into background,
Smiling.

He left sun
And me to start
A new day.

Goodbye moon,
See you tonight.
Hello sun.
Good morning man.
Whereto now?


2. Ravings of a Confused Pastoral Worker
( March 15, 1995)

Backbites. Ugly rumors. Gossips.
Confusions. Failures and pain. Yes!
Sufferin' painful failures
made us thirst for even more!

Storms. Oh! Strong winds!
Quakes. High intensity quakes!
Explosions! Bursting atomic explosions!

Whats the mattter with you darling,
have you lost your sense of learning?

OUCH!

Oh! Damn all of us masochistic s.o.b's !
Tortured by our own foolish beliefs...
Who are they to tell us what to do?

Damn it!...Beat it! Yeah, we oughta beat
'em with broomsticks. Sadistic wizards,
Opportunistic bastards. Moralistic assholes.
Why can't they do what they preach?
Why even preach at all?
Mind your own business
You goddamn monkeys!!!

But still we come back.

Ah! Smiles. Joys. Laughterss. Handshakes.
Backslaps. Hugs and kisses. Oh! Yes! Hugs and kisses-
Such wonderful things to share.
Words. Ideas and shared experiences.
Wit. Humor. Jokes. Yes, Jokes!!!
OH, my, ,my. Hey, hey, hey,
Could we ever say goodbye
To such wonderful things?

Bullshit!

We are all selfish masturbators, making ourselves
Feel good while the world seethes in agony...
Damn all of us procrastinators -creating ideas without acting them out...

Wa are all the same. Damn us hypocrites!

Fuckin' assholes we all are. Rotten eggs.
Why build an invisible kingdom
In an otherwise visible world?
Inconsistent. Impractical people
we all are.

We have eyes yet we see not, ears but hear not.
Mouths big and loud enough to let the whole world
hear us snore. We have nothing to say and share.

Yet we feel too much. We sense too much
- in our own perverted way. What are they saying?
What are they thinking? Too much afraid of they.
What they might think, what they might not like.

But ouch! Please do it stronger, Slap us. Hit us.
Even kill us...We like it!

Fuckin' bull...We're still here. We keep on comin' back.
Otherwise our lives will be empty of meaning.
What the heck!!! Aren't we following Christ?



3. Absurdity
( january 11, 1996)

Ain't it surprising
If one has
To really think
Why in Heaven
There is
No such thing as
Sex?

Ain't it absurd
If one has to really brood
Why there's no malice there
When someone's nude?

Or are all saints prude
Supressing their urge
To do what they all want
And should
But are afraid to do
What common mortals would?

Ain't it surprisingly absurd?


4. Our Family

Our family
Of six
Is such
A perfect
Mix

Our fourth
Our only girl
Is everybody's
Pearl

Oh if you
Should meet
Our third
He's just
Waiting
To be
Heard

Our second one
maybe next
in command
but in school
He's number
One

And our first
Our very first
So young so bold
Acts as if
He owns
Our very
World

Our family
Of six
Is such
A perfect mix

Could be above
Under or in betwixt
But What the heck
nothing's so bad
We can't all
Fix

The Psychology of Religious Experience

NOTE: THIS IS CULLED FROM, http://www.thinking-allowed.com/smith.html



HUSTON SMITH, Ph.D.
The Psychology of Religious Experience

A transcript from the THINKING ALLOWED Television Series
A DVD of this program is available as a Thinking Allowed Single. The same program is also part of the VideoQuartet The Roots of Consciousness. This video also features Robert Ornstein, Stanislav Grof and Arthur M. Young.
For a complete list of our Huston Smith video titles, go to The World's Philosophies.

JEFFREY MISHLOVE, Ph.D.: Hello and welcome. Our topic this evening is the psychology of religious experience, and my guest tonight is one of America's great scholars of religious traditions, Dr. Huston Smith. Dr. Smith is a former professor of religion and psychology at MIT. He's the author of the great classic, Religions of Man, which has sold over two million copies, as well as six other books on psychology, religion, and philosophy, most recently one called Beyond the Post-Modern Mind. Welcome, Dr. Smith.

HUSTON SMITH, Ph.D.: Thank you.

MISHLOVE: It's a pleasure to have you here. Your background in religious studies and philosophy and psychology is very extensive, and the topic that we're going to discuss is so very broad in some ways; there are so many religions and they're so diverse. And yet ultimately they all seem to reflect the mind of man. Would you say that as a scholar of religion you've become a more religious person yourself?

SMITH: I certainly don't feel that I've become less religious, and I also feel that these studies have deepened and broadened my -- what? -- my beliefs. In that sense I guess one might say more religious. I think I might prefer to say perhaps a little more maturely religious, because I didn't have a strong religious bent from my adolescence on.

MISHLOVE: It's, I suppose, always a little delicate for a scholar, who is supposed to be objective, to study something as intense and passionate as religion can be.

SMITH: Well, some see it as a problem, but I've been fortunate that it's never been a conflict for me, because it seems to me that the opposite would be very difficult -- that if you were studying something you were not really in love with, or you felt that it could not bear the light of careful analysis and added information, now that would be a real tension, a real conflict. But it's been one of my blessings, I think, that I've been able to spend my professional life working on precisely what concerns me most.

MISHLOVE: My first encounter in a personal or a deep way with the psychology of religious experience came from, of course, reading William James's classic --

SMITH: A wonderful book.

MISHLOVE: -- in which he described his experiments with nitrous oxide and other drugs at the time.

SMITH: That's right, yes. Very courageous, adventuresome mind.

MISHLOVE: And also in the mid-sixties, reading a book by Timothy Leary and Ralph Metzner called The Psychedelic Experience, in which they attempted to create the analogy between the pantheon of gods in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions with the dynamic forces working in the subconscious mind.

SMITH: Yes, yes. Well, that was a very interesting and indeed important -- what shall I say? -- happening of our time, because this correlation and connection, it's a very delicate one, as we all know. But between artificially induced paranormal experiences and ones that come naturally, they can have, and do at times have, a great deal in common.

MISHLOVE: An overlap, at least.

SMITH: A huge overlap. And the discovery of these substances -- actually a rediscovery, because knowledge of them goes back at least three thousand years, and perhaps much further than that -- but the fact that we now know how they work on the brain has opened this up as a field of study which it had not been before.

MISHLOVE: You were involved in some of the early work at that time.

SMITH: Well, actually I was right at the eye of the cyclone. That was 1960, and I was teaching at MIT, and I had arranged to have Aldous Huxley come on an endowed program which enabled luminaries in the humanities to come to MIT. So I was his host for the fall of 1960 at MIT, and of course he had written the book The Doors of Perception, which was one of the opening books in this area.

MISHLOVE: Describing his experiences with -- mescaline?

SMITH: Mescaline. Well, it just happened that that September, when Aldous Huxley arrived at MIT, was the exact month that Timothy Leary arrived at Harvard from Berkeley. And on the way -- you know the story; it's part of history now -- on his way, he took a vacation swing down into Mexico, and on the edge of a swimming pool one afternoon ingested -- what? -- seven mushrooms which opened up his mind in ways that totally startled, took him by surprise.

MISHLOVE: Psilocybin mushrooms, I presume.

SMITH: That's right, that's right. He had arrived at Harvard with a blank check. He was a research professor, had accepted an appointment as research professor in the Center for Personality Study, and he could pick his subject, whatever he wanted to work on. And the moment he had that experience, he was of course absolutely fascinated and mystified by how mushrooms could cause that kind of impact upon his mind, but he didn't know what to do with it. But he had read Huxley's book. So I actually had a part in getting the two of them together, and it's true, for that fall the three of us were very much in the ring in this matter.

MISHLOVE: This was at a time, of course, when these drugs were perfectly legal.

SMITH: Not only legal, but this was respectable. It was research at Harvard University. One of the first things that Leary did was to mount an open study in which people would simply report their experiences, but he found so many of those experiences had a mystical cast to them that he began reaching out for someone who might know something about mysticism. And that's where he tapped me and involved me in the project.

MISHLOVE: You had been studying mysticism long before this, I presume.

SMITH: That's true, right.

MISHLOVE: Had you thought about the relationship between mysticism and drugs prior to your encounters with Leary and Huxley?

SMITH: Well, only academically, in that I had read descriptions, also Huxley's in The Doors of Perception, and as he points out there, phenomenologically, which is to say descriptively, if you match descriptions of the experience, they are indistinguishable. I actually conducted an experiment on that in which I took snippets or paragraphs from classic mystical experiences, and then descriptions of experiences under the psychedelics which were mystical. Of course not all experiences under those have that character, but those that did. And then I shuffled them up and gave them to people who were knowledgeable about mysticism, and asked them to sort them in what they thought --

MISHLOVE: Which came from the real mystics and which came from the drug users.

SMITH: Exactly. And there was no reliability in their predictions.

MISHLOVE: That sounds similar to a more recent piece of work I know Lawrence LeShan did, where he took statements of mystics and statements of physicists and compared them, and they seemed almost indistinguishable as well.

SMITH: That's right. I'd like to add one other thing. So phenomenologically, which again means simply descriptively, one cannot tell the difference. But I think I would want to say that that's not the only dimension, because religion is not simply an experience; religion is a way of life. And experiences come and go, but quality of life is what religion is concerned with. So one has to ask also, not only do they feel the same, but is their impact on the life the same?

MISHLOVE: Well, I think especially now that we can look back after twenty years from the original psychedelic experiments of that type, you can see distinct differences between psychedelic cults and real deep religious traditions.

SMITH: That's right. So I think it's important that, having touched on this subject, we not leave the impression that the two are identical in every respect. Simply descriptively they are indistinguishable.

MISHLOVE: What about the original insight that Leary seemed to have in The Psychedelic Experience that the gods really do exist within us? I think what he was saying in effect is that the pantheons of gods from the ancient pantheistic religions are real active forces, even of a paranormal variety, within our own minds, even if we're Jews or Christians.

SMITH: Yes. Well, that's another very interesting development in our time -- that in the religions of the West, up to this point divine forces have been imaged externally from the self. But when one comes to think of it, when one talks about things of the spirit geography falls away, because the spirit is not bound by space and time, and therefore the distinction between out there and in here, which in our everyday life is very important -- once one modulates to matters of the spirit this whole framework of space and time and matter sort of drops away. What we are now coming to see is that this talk about out there has a certain naturalness, but also certain limitation. One can just as easily turn the tables and talk about the divine within. If I can put it one other way: when one looks out upon the world, value terms -- that is, what is good, are imaged as up there. The gods --

MISHLOVE: Heaven.Heaven; and the gods are on the mountaintops, and angels always sing on high. They don't sing out of the depths, the bowels of the earth. But when we introspect -- and by the way that imagery is natural, because sun and rain come from on high too -- but when we turn our attention inward and introspect, then we reach for the other kind of imagery, of depth. You know, we talk about profound and deep thought. All this is leading up to the fact that in point of fact this distinction between out there and in here is artificial and only metaphorical when we're talking about things of the spirit.

SMITH: it. And now I think in our time -- this is one of the changes -- having worked in imagery of the divine being out there, now there is a move towards realizing or exploring ways in which the same reality can be discovered within oneself.

MISHLOVE: Another related notion, I think, is the one originally developed by Durkheim, the French sociologist, in which he suggests that religions are really representations of the group mind of a society, and that the god of each culture is an embodiment of what he called the group mind. He almost described that in ways that seemed quite paranormal to me, when you begin talking about group mind -- something like a Jungian collective unconscious.

SMITH: Well, again, I think it's very useful. For one thing, we are too much given to the notion that the mind is simply attached to the brain, and therefore because the brain has a given geographical locus, then the mind must too. But I remember in a weekend conference down in Tucson a few years ago with Gregory Bateson, he posed to the psychologists Rollo May, Carl Rogers -- all those people were there -- he said, "Where is your mind?" And it sort of took everybody aback. But what he was leading up to is it's quite wrong to think of the mind as lodged inside this skin-encapsulated ego, as Alan Watts used to call it -- that the mind reaches out as far as one's environment extends, in Bateson's notion.

MISHLOVE: And of course we can always go back to the argument of Bishop Berkeley that the entire physical universe, that everything we experience -- your TV sets, for example -- exist only in your mind.

SMITH: Right.

MISHLOVE: There's no other way to identify them.

SMITH: And we talk about ecology of nature now, but the ecology of mind, we're just beginning to get used to that idea. And yet it's an experience. One can walk into the room, and in current terminology, feel vibrations. You can sometimes feel like a wall of anger or hostility, but one can also sense an ambiance of peace, and now the physicists are realizing that physical phenomena really float on networks and webs of relationship. So we're only now coming to see that our minds too derive, they sort of factor out and congeal out of a psychic medium that Durkheim, I think, was quite right in identifying.

MISHLOVE: You know, I notice though in contemporary religions, particularly amongst the evangelistic Christians who are experiencing such a revival, they're very concerned about certain errors that people fall into -- you know, the notion that one might identify oneself with God in an egotistical way. How do you feel about that?

SMITH: Well, I think they've got a point. I mean, if someone comes along and says, "I am God," it's perfectly reasonable to ask, "Well, your behavior doesn't exactly exemplify that fact." God by definition is perfect, and what human being can make that claim? So I think the ministers that you refer to have a good point, but it doesn't annul the concept of the divine within, which remains valid. The distinction can come, even if we think of the divine within, as Hinduism puts it, and they have been perhaps the most explicit of all the great traditions in saying that ultimately, in the final analysis, in their terminology, Atman is Brahman. Atman is the God within, and Brahman is the God without. But then they deal with the point you're raising by saying, well, a lantern may have a functioning light within it, but it may be coated not only with dust and soot, but in egregious cases with mud, to the point where that light does not shine through at all. So both things are true, but both need to be said in the same breath. Namely, I believe that it is true that in the final analysis we are divine and are God, but we should immediately acknowledge how caked and coated we are with dross that conceals that divinity, and it's, one's tempted to say, an endless quest to clean the surface, to let the light shine through.

MISHLOVE: We were discussing earlier in the program some of your experiences with some of the very primitive peoples, such as the aborigines in Australia, in their I suppose naive native religions, their having a real sense of contact with this level of reality.

SMITH: Well, they do, in two ways, Australian aborigines. One is that they distinguish between our everyday experience and what they call the dreaming. The dreaming is another level of experience, in which they participate in the life of their ancestors, and indeed the creation of the world, in I suppose we might call it a trancelike state, but that doesn't quite do it, because even in the midst of their ordinary life, half of their mind, you might say, is still on or in this dreaming state. But then there's another way in which they're in touch with it, and this has to do with parapsychology as we know the word -- telepathy, specifically. I was in Australia, basically giving a series of lectures at all the universities there, but using my spare time to come in touch with the aborigines, and so I sought out at every university the anthropologists who introduced me and put me in touch with them. And I did not in that entire swing meet an anthropologist who was not convinced that the aborigines had telepathic powers. They simply told me story after story, when they would be with them, and suddenly one of the persons would say, "I must go back to the tribe; so and so has died."

MISHLOVE: That's a strong statement coming from anthropologists, who tend to be quite skeptical.

SMITH: That's right. Their theory was, insofar as they had a theory, the presumption was that these are normal human powers, but like any power it can atrophy if unused, and also can be short-circuited if our conceptual mind doubts that it is real.

MISHLOVE: So would you say there are some religious traditions that encourage the development and the cultivation of the psychic side of human beings more than others?

SMITH: Well, it's interesting. I'll put it the other way, slightly differently. That is to say that most of them believe that these powers are there and that they do increase as spiritual advancement occurs. However, they also warn against it, and say if you make this the goal, why, you're settling for too little. And also there are some dangers; for one thing, this is treacherous water where one is not totally benign, but also there's a strong temptation, as these siddhis, as the Indians call them --

MISHLOVE: Powers.

SMITH: Powers, yes. As powers become available to you, people's heads get turned, and they become egotistic in their abilities. And so in that way it can be counter-productive to the spiritual quest. So the greatest teachers are quite unanimous in saying they come, but pay no attention to them.

MISHLOVE: But aren't there traditions -- the shamanistic tradition, the Tantric tradition -- which really do emphasize these powers?

SMITH: That is certainly so. Now, I guess I tipped my hand a little bit in excluding them from the most profound spiritual masters.

MISHLOVE: Perhaps you do have some preferences.

SMITH: Well, shamanism is immensely fascinating, and extremely important in the history of religion. But sanctity one does not associate with shamans. They have immense power, and it can be misused as well as used. I think on balance it's been used. So I value them, but they're neither -- what shall I say? -- saints nor philosophers.

MISHLOVE: Well, perhaps we might liken the psychic abilities in this sense to musical ability, or any other natural talent that could be used in different ways. And some religions cultivate music, I suppose, more than others.

SMITH: That's right, that's right. Most shamans are very much linked with the people, in helping them with practical problems of life. But the aspect of religion that has to do with virtues and compassion and loving-kindness, now, this kind of thing is when I speak of profundity, getting into those waters. The shamans, that's not their forte. They have a different role.

MISHLOVE: Well, as our program is beginning to wind up, I wonder if you could comment on two things. One is a little bit more on how your exploration of religions has affected you personally, and perhaps we can tie it to our viewing audience a little bit. Is there some message that you would have for those people who would be viewing us right now, in terms of what your studies might convey to them?

SMITH: Yes. Well, like any term religion can be defined as one wishes, and if one links it to institutions, I think religious institutions are indispensable, but they're clearly a mixed bag, and we've had the wars of religions; but I tend to think this is the nature of institutions and people in the aggregate. What government has a clean or perfect record, you know?

MISHLOVE: We're running out of time.

SMITH: In one sentence. But I think if one takes a basic religious world view, this is not only important but it's true, and we need to keep our ears open to those truths.

MISHLOVE: In spite of those problems. Dr. Smith, it's been a real pleasure having you with me today. Thank you very much.

# Go to Thinking Allowed book of transcripts

THE DIFFERENCE

by Dr. Arsenio Martin of Fort Arthur , Texas ...


The difference between the poor countries and the rich ones is not the age of the country:

This can be shown by countries like India & Egypt , that are more than 2000 years old, but are poor.

On the other hand, Canada , Australia & New Zealand , that 150 years ago were inexpressive, today are developed countries, and are rich.

The difference between poor & rich countries does not reside in the available natural resources.

Japan has a limited territory, 80% mountainous, inadequate for agriculture & cattle raising, but it is the second world economy. The country is like an immense floating factory, importing raw materials from the whole world and exporting manufactured products.

Another example is Switzerland, which does not plant cocoa but has the best chocolate in the world.In its little territory they raise animals and plant the soil during 4 months per year.. Not enough, they produce dairy products of the best quality! It is a small country that transmits an image of security,order & labor, which made it the world's strongest, safest place.Or Finland a small country with small population who is known the world overas the maker of the cellphone brand NOKIA
Executives from rich countries who communicate with their counterparts in poor countries show that there is no significant intellectual difference.
Raceor skin color are also not important: immigrants labeled lazy in their countries of origin are the productive power in rich European countries.
What is the difference then? The difference is the attitude of the people, framed along the years by the education & the culture & flawed tradition.

On analyzing the behavior of the people in rich & developed countries, we find that the great majority follow the following principles in their lives:
1. Honesty, as a basic principle.
2. Integrity.
3. Responsibility.
4. Respect to the laws & rules.
5. Respect for the rights of others
6. Creativity & Work ethics.
7. Strive for savings & investment.
8. Will ofsuper action.
9. Punctuality.
10. and of course...Discipline

In poor countries, only a minority follow these basic principles in their daily life.

The Philippines is not poor because we lack natural resources or because nature was cruel to us. In fact, we are supposedly rich in natural resources.

We are poor because we lack the correct attitude. Welack the will to comply with and teach these functional principles ofrich & developed societies.

If you do not forward thismessage nothing will happen to you. Your pet will not die, you will not be fired, you will not have bad luck for seven years, and also, you will not get sick or go hungry.
But those may happen because of your lack of discipline & laziness,
your love for intrigue and politics, your indifference to saving for the future, your stubborn attitude.
If you love your country, let this message circulate so that many Filipinos could reflect about this, & CHANGE, ACT!

visibility

First Published

28 August 2009

The Manila Standard Today

In the column

INTEGRATIONS

by maya baltazar herrera

Visibility

Power illumines character

It is almost a truism of management that leaders show the way. Effective leaders paint a vision of the future. Much like the headlights of a car, which cut through darkness or rainfall, leaders make the path to the desired future visible.

Conversely, because of this role of leader as illuminator, a leader is always under some level of scrutiny.

Under a microscope

When anyone accepts a position of leadership, his every action becomes an invitation for comment and analysis by his followers. In certain cases, such as when the organization is a publicly listed company, the leader gains additional publics, such as shareholders and the media.

In fact, the more powerful the position of leadership, the more intense and sustained the level of scrutiny the leader is subjected to. This explains why the true character of a person is often exposed once he attains a position of power. A position of power invites a more focused, brighter spotlight to shine on the leader.

However, not infrequently, some other mechanism is also at work. A position of power brings with it requirements for making decisions that have significant consequences for many people and organizations. Some of these involved individuals or stakeholders may not be averse to offering inducements for decisions that favor them. Hence, a position of power is often replete with temptation. These first moments of temptation become almost a test of character, a test taken under the microscope of stakeholder scrutiny. And even when no inducements are offered, the pattern of decisions a leader makes is often a better exposition of his personal and professional values than any speech he can make. They show his pattern of preferences and relative values.

Power illumines character, showing the highlights as well as the cracks.

Visibility

Leaders set the tone not only through shaping the policies, structures and standard processes of organizations but also through modeling. A leader’s decisions and actions send a message, often one that resonates louder and longer than the words he utters.

This is why those of us who work in the area of governance often discuss the role of leadership in setting the tone for the organization.

When a leader consistently places his ego on the table and makes it a deciding factor in management, he sends the message that the position and even the organization is subordinate to his own personal preferences and objectives. When this happens, he encourages those below him not only to pander to his personal whims, but also opens the doors for those below him to behave in the same manner, suborning organization resources for personal gain, even if not necessarily financial.

When a leader resolves difficult decisions with convenience or ease as the primary decision-making factor, he sends the message that certain values are not worth fighting for. When a leader pursues a policy of appeasement as opposed to true resolution (one that can be fraught with conflict and the danger of making potentially powerful enemies), he sends the message that might makes right and that the threat of visible conflict is an effective method for attaining goals.

When a leader approaches questions of social responsibility with a response based purely on regulatory compliance, he sends the message that the organization places all of the burden of determining propriety and ethics with government. When this approach is combined with a strong commercial concentration, this approach can deteriorate into one of exploiting loopholes and implementing shortcuts, a slippery slide.

On the other hand, a leader who consistently takes the high road sets the standard for the organization. He says to the organization: we will do the right thing, not the easy thing. He says to the organization: our values are real, they are important; we will not only stand by them, we will fight for them. He says to the organization: some things are wrong and some things are right, some lines need to be drawn and held. Perhaps most importantly, he sends the message that this organization is one to be proud of, this organization will stand scrutiny.

A leader, whether through action or inaction, makes his own and the organization’s values visible. A leader illumines the way, throwing light over the preferred path, blocking off the path of danger.

Illumination

The role of leader as model also explains why transparency is a primary pillar in governance. Very often, one of the easiest tests of propriety is whether an action will stand up to scrutiny. An inordinate occupation with confidentiality is very often a sign of fear, either of the unearthing of corruption or of the discovery of incompetence. Hence, a leader’s policy concerning transparency is often a gauge of his comfort level with the propriety of his and his organization’s actions.

Since organization members work within the illumination of the leader’s actions, given enough time, the leader becomes the architect of the ethical foundation of his organization. His own personal character becomes the cornerstone for the organization’s mores.

The final irony, of course is that there is a widely held opinion that the ethical leader has become a rarity. Many people pull out that old adage about how “power corrupts” and “absolute power corrupts absolutely”. The other theory is that (as the FBI apparently teaches) positions of power invariably attract those who will misuse it.

What I believe, though, is that the leader’s character is critical. And the challenge to those of us who must choose leaders, whether as voters in an election or as the board of directors of a corporation, is to ensure that the light of scrutiny is shined brightly on both prospects for leaders as well as on those we eventually choose to lead.

Readers can email Maya at integrations_ manila@yahoo. com. Or visit her site at http://www.mayaherr era.com.

Life's Rules...

( a forwarded message from yahoo group Boomers International)

Murphy's First Law for Wives: If you ask your husband to pick up five items at the store and then you add one more as an afterthought, he will forget two of the first five.

Law of the Search: The first place to look for anything is the last place you would expect to find it. Corollary: It will not be in the last place you expect to find it.

Kauffman's Paradox of the Corporation: The less important you are to the corporation, the more your tardiness or absence is noticed.

The Salary Axiom: The pay raise is just large enough to increase your taxes and just small enough to have no effect on your take-home pay.

Miller's Law of Insurance: Insurance covers everything except what happens.

First Law of Living: As soon as you start doing what you always wanted to be doing, you'll want to be doing something else.

Weiner's Law of Libraries: There are no answers, only cross-references.

Kenny's Law of Auto Repair: The part requiring the most consistent repair or replacement will be housed in the most inaccessible location.

Second Law of Business Meetings: If there are two possible ways to spell a person's name, you will pick the wrong one. Corollary - If there is only one way to spell a name, you will spell it wrong anyway.

The Grocery Bag Law: The candy bar you planned to eat on the way home from the market is hidden at the bottom of the grocery bag.

Yeager's Law: Washing machines break down only during the wash cycle. Corollary: All breakdowns occur on the plumber's day off.

Lampner's Law of Employment: When leaving work late, you will go unnoticed. When you leave work early, you will meet the boss in the parking lot.

Quile's Consultation Law: The job that pays the most will be offered when there is no time to deliver the services.

How to Acquire Power

1. Pray

2. Relax

3. Be patient.

4. Think cool. Act cool. Be cool.

5. Maintain a peaceful and joyous attitude.

6. Practice mental control, concentration, meditation and positive imaging.

7. Don’t make unnecessary movements whether alone or talking to another person. Practice control of your body and senses.

8. Dance your activities. Maintain a rhythmic way of doing things.

9. Dress as if you are important. . Feel good about yourself.

10. Try to see other people first and observe them. Be always attentive and alert. Cultivate a sense of awareness of the present moment.

11. Read. Be well informed.

12. Be slow to speak, slow to get angry, but quick to listen. Try to understand the meaning behind the words ot the person talking to you.

13. Look straight at the person whom you are conversing and keep your gaze on the person longer than he does on you.

14. Keep an aura of mystery. Don’t volunteer information about yourself, your wife, your children and family.

15. Avoid publicity. Be careful to work behind the scene, set things up patiently and quietly –so that what they want is offered you.

16. Don’t laugh too loud but always keep a sense of humor. Tell jokes but don’t laugh at them loudly.

17. Don’t preach, lecture and try to change others to your way of thinking. Try to let other just be themselves.

18. Use everything you have - talents, looks, strengths, effort, time and treasure to improve yourself, your relationships with others and with God.

road to cadulawan

We used to gather and sit at the middle of this road when we, my friends and I , were a bit younger.
This used to be a lonely road where only a few vehicles pass through...
With a bottle of rum, a songbook and a guitar, our evenings were complete
Thats how simple our lives were...

flowering plant

I never expected this plant to flower,
but lo and behold, a yellow beauty
amid the thorns aplenty ! ...

The Whole Community as Guardians of the Youth

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By: Alan K. Caña

There is a problem creeping within our communities. And because people are taking it as an ordinary phenomenon happening everyday as a product of modern culture, no collective effort is being done to counter it. This problem has been here for years and is prevalent in all parts of the world.

Youth unruly behavior and disorderly conduct such as drug abuse, alcoholism, vandalism, vagrancy, and all forms of destructive actions are driving some parents crazy and disrupting lives of family members and even the whole neighborhood where they belong.

All Barangays in our towns is experiencing these problems. All one has to do to know what is going on is to hang around some street corner store or some corner “lantay”where local residents gather, and listen to what the people are talking about. Mostly one will overhear people talking about their children or gossip about what their neighbors’ children are doing.

Who among your neighbor’s children are “shabu” users? Who is going around with whom? Who is the new “sugar daddy” of the neighborhood’s “syota ng bayan”? Who came home so drunk last night? Who is being imprisoned for stealing? etc…

Look at the surrounding fences and walls of houses and buildings in your place and realize for yourself what gangs and so-called “frats” the young people are involved in. Some of our young nowadays have no qualms in advertising their membership in such groups - groups that promote vandalism, drug abuse, drunkenness, sexual promiscuity and violence.

Do you know of a son or daughter, your own or somebody else’s, who is giving their parents sleepless nights and is causing them endless worries and anxiety because of his/her disrespect for the family and society’s rules of conduct? Are the neighbors helping you cope with your problem? Or do you hear snide remarks from other people, un-educated and professionals alike, blaming you of your plight because you are “lousy parents”?

If so, you are not alone. Literally thousands of parents are trapped in this seemingly hopeless situation. You’ve done your best to change your child’s behavior. You prayed. You have asked for help and even tried countless ways to change yourself, believing what your neighbors, the so-called modern psychologists, the clergy and the educators alike are saying - that “the parents are to be blamed.”

Sounds familiar isn’t it? But will subscribing to this kind of reasoning solve your problem? Will looking for something wrong in yourself, in any way , stop your child from doing what he’s doing now, say, coming home drunk and hanging out with local thugs? The truth is, it won’t. Nothing can be solved by self blaming and finger-pointing.

The problem of some of the youth of today should be seen as a community problem having its roots in modern culture. Being cultural, this needs a communitarian solution .It is within this frame of mind that parents victimized by their kids unbecoming conduct should come together to unite and organize themselves and share experiences, console each other, find solutions, and take a stand against what their children are doing to them.

The principles of communitarianism and networking could apply to this. Parents need to be aware who their children’s friends are, what they are doing and where they usually hang out. Once organized, this Parents Group can help monitor each others children and foster links with the police and other concerned government agencies, the local PTA, NGOs and Church Organizations, to get involved and help their cause.

There is no reason for parents to feel alone in their struggle to maintain order in their families. After all, the whole community gets affected whenever any crime is committed by any of its members. Children who disobey and intimidate their families by rude behavior and of conduct unbecoming of a family member and a good citizen should learn to suffer the consequences of their actions.

Parents organizing themselves as a group, supported by the bigger community will be able to take a stand and say, “enough is enough, because the whole neighborhood does not condone what you young folks are doing. The whole community demands respect.”

This is what it means to live in a community - a community that guides its young to become cooperative members of society. Aptly put by an old saying, “It takes the whole tribe to raise a child”.

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you are the creator of your universe

you ar the creator of your universe.