Enlightenment Part 1 of 3: Hinduism in Yogyakarta

Enlightenment - that was the big ticket item I took home from my recent trip to Yogyakarta, Indonesia last week. Before I go into the enlightenment bit, please let me express my envy for Yogyakarta for it is a state filled with abundance of cultural and historical landmarks. The advent of these landmarks is due to the major fact that the state transitioned itself through 3 different religious monarchy - Hinduism, Buddhism and now, Islam. Touring through the 3 different religious footprint in the state for 4 days was my enlightenment in the state.

Over the course of 4 days, I learned a fair bit of Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam in the context of Yogyakarta. As part 1 of 3, I shall begin with Hinduism!

Hinduism, during its reign over Yogyakarta brought forth the belief of a myriad of Gods / Goddess. There is Brahaman - the infinite manifestation of the universe, Vishnu - the protector, Shiva - the destroyer and many more of which I couldn't remember as my tour guide spoke to us about the deeply etched Hindu beliefs in Yogyakarta. The best part was, I got a crash course of the history of Hinduism in the state at a UNESCO world heritage site - the temple of Prambanan built around 850CE (also the tallest Hindu temple in Yogyakarta).

Before even reaching the entrance of the temple's complex, I was already awed and amazed by the size of the temple. Big would be common adjective to describe it but above and beyond being big, it was majestic and there was hardly any lack of mystical atmosphere surrounding the temple complex. Stepping into the temple complex was like having just exited from a time machine into the past.

There were 3 main temples in the complex, each devoted to an individual God / Goddess - Shiva, Brahma an Vishnu. In each of these temples, there are well carved statues of each of these God / Goddess. Unfortunately I could not catch the statue of Vishnu because the temple was restricted only to external viewing due to restoration work and the fragile state of the statue.

Each temple was the epitome of artistic carving prowess, showcasing a plethora of carvings of Hindu folktales narrating the most of notable tales of Ramayana and Krishnayana. The intricate carvings was the avid display of devotion, belief in the religion and fear of the higher beings. Reading the carved folktale required readers to go around the temple in a clockwise motion in an act of circumambulation. It was history at a mind blowing level!


The other temples in the complexes displayed carvings of deities surrounding the respective temples as celestial guardians of the temple. In a nutshell, the construction of the temple was the display of monarchy prestige, display of monarchy powers, religious belief and a strong devotion to celestial beings that would bring forth peace, prosperity and longevity to the ruler.

It starts with belief

Coming out of injury and trying to go back at doing the things you like doing is a stressful process mentally and physically.

Right now, I know I feel stronger and I know I am definitely stronger than before I got injured, having been working out twice a week in the gym for the past 5 to 6 months.

But despite all the iron pumping and effort, there is this nagging fear in the back of my head that continues to linger. That uncomfortable thought lingering at the back of my head is the fear of injuring myself again. Having had multiple injuries over multiple times, the fear does get to you and I know recovery rate for any person will slow down as you age. I may not be that old but I can definitely know the difference.

In order to break that barrier and try to make up for lost time, I engaged a trainer who helps with my workout for twice a month. He designs the workout for me and makes sure I get my technique right when I workout whilst the rest of the month I just continue the regime that he has given me.

At this point in time, I got to admit, progress is less than satisfactory but at the same time I have to accept the fact that I only have the weekends to workout because my weekdays are jam packed with work and I am most of the time too tired to do any workouts after work anyway. So when it comes to the weekend, I really try to give myself 100% when I am at the gym.

So today, when I was working out at the gym with my trainer, he was starting to increase the weights quite dramatically to increase muscle strength to get me in shape for upcoming squash tournament in a few months time and when I saw him adding up the weights I unconsciously mumbled, "uh oh!".

My trainer heard it and he went, "Don't worry bro. I gotta believe in yourself because I believe in you. You can do this. Come on!". Call it placebo if you may but his encouragement went a pretty long way to spur me on today's session. At the end of my session, whilst I was catching my breath from the weight pumping, my trainer had a grin on his face as he said, "Told you that you could do it! You have to believe in yourself and then you can do it. If you trust yourself, you have already admitted defeat before you even lifted the weights man!"

Whether it's weights, running, swimming or work, you have to have that self belief, knowing you can achieve whatever you are planning to do. Because setting a goal but not believing you can achieve it is already admitting failure before you even pursued your goal. Placebo or no placebo, self belief goes a long way in getting you to your goal.

softer touch to a problem

Last week, I had a fair bit of trouble trying to fix one of my car door locks. One of those central locking systems when you lock the driver's side, all the doors in the car are supposed to lock. Only this time, one of the door lock refused to go back down everytime it popped up. I won't go into the details of how the mechanism in the door works to unlock (pull) and to lock (push) the car door but basically there is this little magnetically driven mechanism that does the unlocking and locking.

It wasn't the first time it has happened to me and all this while it simply involved tightening the screw that held that mechanism in place thinking everything that ages (especially a 24 year old car) will always have a bit of loose screws here and there, which simply requires a bit of tightening. Going on that mindset, I got home from work one evening, pulled out the mechanic portable light, opened up my toolbox and got down to removing the necessary door panels to see what was causing that little mechanism to not work.

Released a couple of screws, pulled out the panel, and I was now looking at the inside of my car door, observing the linkages that set the motion of locking and unlocking my car door to see where was the loose end to the entire mechanical loop. After about half an hour, I finally found out that a particular screw holding the mechanism wasn't holding its place and thus causing the door to be unable to locked itself everytime I used the central locking system. So, when there is screw not holding something in place and you are holding a screw driver, the most logical thing to do would be to tigthening the screw right? So that's what I did, I grabbed my screw driver and tried tigthening the darn screw that was making me go through all this trouble!

So by the time I thought I had tightened the screw, I gave the system a shot and found it working. Satisfied, I put back all the panels, screwed everything back on and gave it another try. This time the door refused to lock itself again. After almost an hour by the time I had the door back in its original state. Fuming, I spent the next hour or so repeating the above steps only this time I realised I think I spoiled the screw. No matter how hard I tried to tighten the screw, it just wouldn't tighten. It pretty much became and infinite screw loose. It just kept turning, turning, turning and turning without tightening.

The next 15 minutes went to searching for a new screw in the pile of spares in my toolbox. Eventually, I found one of the right size and I took a deep breath, thought about it carefully and then tightened the screw but this time, I didn't screw it in too hard but sufficiently hard enough to hold the screw in place. Did a couple of testing and put everything back on the door and tested it again and WOALA! It worked.

Sweating after all the effort in the middle of the night (by the time I was done, it wasn't evening anymore), it dawned on me that not every problem or glitch can be fixed with just hard, punching solutions. Certain things can be dealt with with a little bit more delicate touches instead. Fixing a problem isn't like boxing where you just keeping throwing hard punches, and sometimes even in boxing a light punch can deal a killer blow if you hit your opponent in the right spot.

goodness in simpler things

The Chinese New Year season typically signifies the few things below:-
1. Ang Pow;
2. Plenty of eating and drinking;
3. Gambling; and
4. Companionship, meeting your relatives  and friends after a long while.

Over the last couple of weeks, eating was one of the main things I had been doing. It was always nice, fancy, lavish dinners. As much as I don't get to eat fine dining very often in my daily lives, it was in some way pretty surprising to note that I don't really having lavish dinners in restaurants despite the nice ambiance, service and food - I mean really rich food.

It was nice in the first week, eating some long 8 to 10 course filled craftily served chef's specialty touches and so and so forth. After that, I started to get a little bit dull from all the restaurant food. Not that it didn't appeal to my taste buds. I did but I quickly realised too much of richness in my food, for too often quickly led to a bit dullness in my food tasting experience.

I found myself missing the simpler dishes - prawn mee, friend kuey teow, beef ball noodles, nasi lemak, and the list of local delicacies may well go on. I mean those meals are not cooked up by highly celebrated chefs and neither will you find them in restaurants but these were simple meals. Meals that everyone of every stature and walks of life can enjoy.

What I realised lately that our generation of people are becoming more sophisticated. Eatery places didn't only need to have good serving food but it required the right ambiance and all the other finer details to be matched. In fact, I find it quite surprising that there are some who are willing to pay the extra for what they'd call a "dining experience".

Maybe I have a difference interpretation of the term "dining experience" but enjoying my dinner simply meant, I could wear anything I felt comfortable without any "blink blink" (decent of course) and eat the food I order and not be bounded by massively regulated table etiquette. And most importantly, I'd very much like to see myself giving a good, "aaaahhh!" after finishing my meal.

Not that I didn't enjoy all the fine dining I had over the span of Chinese New Year, but after having all the fine dining meals that didn't come cheap, it was refreshing to know I could find goodness in simpler things in life - cheap, good 'ole hawker food!

Money can indeed buy you good service, expert presentation and chef craftsmanship in the dish that is served to you but when you reflect on your daily lives, you will quickly realise that you can still find similar goodness in simpler things - you can't deny you still love the bowl of prawn mee you order from an old uncle who's probably been running the stall for decades, sweat while you enjoy the spiciness, taking a cold drink to quench your thirst from the sweating and spiciness and it'll only cost you at today's inflation adjusted price of maybe 5 Malaysian Ringgits! That's goodness in simpler things!

Knowing

Have you ever stopped to think about the good things that has happened in your life and wondered if it were ever planned or premeditated?



Now, here's what I learned from a well known CEO. Someone who gets featured in magazines and newspapers. Grab a piece of paper and start listing all the achievements in your life. I am going to assume you are able to list down at least 10 things.



Once you have listed them, take a read through and there is a high likelihood that you'll notice that about 60% more of the items listed had happened without you planning for it.



Of course I don't mean you should just leave everything to chance but it goes to show that not everything needs planning. Sometimes. Just sometimes, gold does fall in your arms.



So.... Sometimes, going with the flow is simply the solution to a good ending. Planning is good but too much planning and you end up doing a lot procrastination only with little action.



Hence, getting on our feet running instead should be the kick start to whatever you do. Then as you run your life's marathon, planning in between will point you in he right direction.



Success isn't about planning it out. It's about doing it and doing it with conviction.

Best regards, Micky

No pain no gain...

Not everyone agrees with the statement, "no pain no gain". I guess it really depends on the circumstance and the level of pain.

Recently, I had one hell of an experience after having injuring my knee for the 5th or 6th time. One of the risks that comes with playing squash as a favourite sport. Thankfully this time it wasn't as serious as before. Last time I had a torn hamstring that left me walking with crutches for a good 4 weeks. This time around I had an inflamed ligament. Walking wasn't a problem but certain angles really hurt.



Thinking the ligament was painful was a very wrong thing to do. The treatment I had to undergo was a lot more painful. A month of physiotherapy and another month of rehabilitation workout at the gym.



The pain is one thing. But what I gained was very meaningful and I learned a lot. All this while I thought I had been strengthening my knee well enough but I never knew strengthening major muscle sets isn't sufficient because even minor muscle sets mattered when it came to explosiveness, movement and stability.



Plus, when we think of strengthening our muscles, the first thing you think of is pumping iron. Surprise, surprise even simple free weight exercises could be pivotal to muscle strengthening.



At the gym, my trainer worked with me to build myself back up bit by bit. Also, despite all the iron pumping, it's when we are resting after exercising that our muscles build up and not during exercise.



I could go on and on about the stuff I learned throughout the recovery period. But the point I want to bring about is the fact that sometimes getting hurt isn't all that bad. There are still things you can learn, improve and impart to others.



So.... Sometimes it is true that no pain is no gain :0)



Best regards, Micky

Everyone wants to save someone

It was a long day for Hank. He had just spent almost 20 hours in the operating theater working on a patient would was brought in on extremely short notice for heart complications. But the patient wasn't just any patient. It was his own brother who suddenly had cardiac arrest while he was halfway running a marathon. A marathon that meant a lot to him because it was a marathon that he trained for for almost a year. Hank fought the full 20 hours trying to bring his brother back. He didn't want to give up, he couldn't give up on his only brother, Jimmy.

As Hank operated on Jimmy, in the back of his head it was as if a video cam was playing back all the good time Hank and Jimmy shared. Jimmy's first birthday, first toy, first bicycle and all the other rainbows of life he and Jimmy shared. Hank fought back tears throughout the ordeal. Jimmy was his only family left after their parents passed away in a fatal car crash 3 years ago. Hank had lost his parents, he wasn't going to lose his brother.

20 hours and eventually Jimmy must have decided to walk into the white light to be with their parents. Hank sat slumped in the outpatient waiting area with his operating mask hanging from his neck, hands covering his face, weeping for having failed to save his only family left. Wrecked and hard broken were probably understatements of Hank's feelings.

After that ordeal, Hank started to lose himself in depression. Every morning dark circles were visible beneath his blood shot eyes. He hardly ate complete meals, he could hardly concentrate when patients consulted him. It reached a point so bad that certain days Hank just didn't show up to work and leaving his nurses in a pinch having to cancel all his appointments. Eventually one day when his nurse, Diana tried to reach Hank on his cellphone and house phone and no one answered, she decided to visit him at his home. She was going to let something this take her crush away.

When she got to Hank's home, she thanked God Hank left a spare key under the carpet and entered into his house which was pretty much in a mess. She called to Hank and got no response. That's when she decided to do a spot check of the entire house. As she reached into Hank's room, she heard running water and immediately went to check the bathroom. To her horror, she saw Hanks slumped next to the bathtub filled with blood. Hank had slit his wrist.

Diana immediately called the ambulance.

Three days later at the hospital, Hank is finally conscious after having lost so much blood. He opens his eyes to see Diana and realises he failed to kill himself. He looks at Diana and turns away not wanting her to see him this way.

After a brief moment of silence, he finally spoke.

"I wanted to join my family. There wasn't much reason for me to live anymore having no one around and having failed to save Jimmy."

"Hank, why did you become a doctor?"

"Save people. I wanted to save people."

"How are you going to save people if you are dead?"

"Doesn't matter anymore. I couldn't even save my brother for Christ sakes"

"Hank. You can't save everyone all the time. Even the best doctors in the world will tell you that. The result could have been the same had a different doctor worked on Jimmy."

"I tried my best! I tried!"

"I know Hank. Everyone wants to save someone. That includes you. But if you decided to take your own life, you'd have failed to achieve saving someone. Saving somone would also mean saving yourself first before you can save someone. Dying is easy. It's living that's difficult, Hank."

With the help of Diana, Hank eventually got out of depression and moved on to be a very established heart surgeon. Today, every time he speaks to a patient in dire conditions, he always says this:-

"Time is never on our side. God took millenias to create the universe that only allows us to live up to about a hundred years old. But you and I probably get only 75 years to live. Everyone wants to save someone, and I want to save you. Please don't give up on yourself because dying is easy, it's living that's difficult."