I am always attracted to the elements in my art: Earth(Nature), Water, Fire(Light) and Space. They make up the core of what I see and experience in the world.

There is so much wonder involved in a small thing like a candle-light flame. Every cycle of the flame is a new flame and because it flickers so fast, it gives the illusion of a continuous flame. In some ways it is like us, we are renewing every moment. We might look like we are the same person but every moment the body changes. How can we know the child we used to be is the same person we are right now? Everything has changed and nothing remains constant. The child lives in the past, he or she might just be a dream, a memory. The past and the future will always be an illusion because the only reality is in this moment and in this moment, you are not the same flame.

The human being is also resilient; we adapt to circumstances, no matter how harsh it is. The flame also has similar characteristics. The tear-drop shape of the candle-light is caused by the gravity of the Earth as the warm air moves up and the cooler air rushes in from the bottom to replace it. In 1990, NASA scientists have conducted an experiment to test how the flame burns when it is in microgravity. The results are, even without gravity, the flame continues to burn in a more spherical shape. There is just so much wonder to discover in the world. With all that’s said, I wish that this photo will bring light into your awareness.

In this post, I am going to touch on something a little more sensitive—sensitive in a sense that it depends on your beliefs based on your culture, religion or teachings and it also depends on your non-belief if that is what you choose. I am sharing my understanding of the word “God”.

Since this is a sharing of my own spiritual path, it is inevitable that I have to touch on this subject sooner or later. I do not belong to nor am I speaking on the behalf of any religion. The purpose is to get you on the right page with me as I discuss what I meant when I use the word “Source” in some of my blog posts. Source, God, Tao, Consciousness, Awareness are just some of the terms use to describe the same thing. It doesn’t matter what are your beliefs system or which culture you came from, they are just words used as a signpost and the signpost has no significance if they do not point you to the truth.

I have purposely refrain from using the word God in my writings for the simple reason that most people are bound to misunderstand. This word meant different thing to different people depending on your beliefs and I used to say that the truth is simple, if it is not simple it usually isn’t the truth. If we can find truth in a single word, the word must mean the same thing to everyone. It is not so because we are all guessing what God means; we can only guess because we have no direct knowing and experience of the same thing. We do not need to guess the word “Life” nor do we need to guess the word “Sun” because we all know what those words meant; it is only as real as your own experience of it. Most people in the world treat God as an external person or as an external object to be worshiped, it might be due to how the concept is portrayed in movies or certain teachings that this is deeply engrained into the hearts of many. We like to think God as this one almighty person wearing a white suit and comes down from heaven to help you when you are in need. What people do not understand is that God is referring to an intelligence that resides everywhere within and without. It has no visible form, if it has—we would be drinking coffee right now as I would have lots of questions for him.

It wasn’t only until a few years ago that I started looking into what a spiritual path is. “Spirituality”, something that has no logic, no form that we can grasp, how do we even know what it means? It is like trying to describe the qualities of love, desires and purposes; it cannot be taught, it have to be experienced. I like to describe being spiritual as something that is similar to the quality of light. There is this story: once there was a philosophical blind man who have no experience of light and totally have no idea what it was. He can only speak his own truth and to him, light was something unfathomable . The whole village is trying to explain to him that there is this thing called light and it usually ends up in a long debate. He would say,” if there is this thing called light that all of you have claimed, show it to me! Let me touch it, let me smell it or at the least I should be able to taste it.” Naturally everyone was at a dilemma because no one can prove it to him. It so happened that Gautam Buddha was heading towards this village and all the villagers were so excited to bring this challenge to him. If the Buddha is who he claim he is, he should be able to bring this awareness of light to the blind man. When this matter was brought to him, the Buddha exclaimed that how it was a terrible and uncompassionate thing to do, to speak of light to a blind man. It was a blessing that the Buddha had his physician with him during that journey and the physician was instructed to help cure the man of his blindness. After months later, the blind man was finally able to see. He knelt before the Buddha with such gratitude and said,”thank you for not being philosophical with me like the others have and thank you for showing me what light really is.” Gautam Buddha replied,”it was never about the light, it was about having the eyes to see.”

So how can we prove something that cannot be proven? I like to use the word “Source” as it is the closest word I can find to describe the source of where all things came about; it literally means the source of all creation. We need not know where that is, we can see the results of creation for ourselves. I also use the word “Source” to describe the higher intelligence that is flowing in the universe; an intelligence that can be seen, touched and felt by the creation of all things around us. It is like the conductor of the orchestra of life. This very intelligence resides in the deepest core of your being, how else can you explain what pumps your heart, regulates your blood and digest the food you consume to give you the energy needed for the functioning of your life? If we depend on the mind for sustaining life, all these would have been impossible; what if we forget to breathe while we are sleeping, since the mind can be pretty forgetful sometimes.

The reason we are not experiencing this intelligence is because most of us has lost the wonder to see in our lives. We depend on the conditioning of the mind so much that we think we know it all. When you think you know, the wonder is lost. You cease to be curious and losing that curiosity, you stop searching. Life comes to a standstill. In order to regain back this childlike wonder, one has to get in touch with this intelligence and experience gratitude for the flowing of this intelligence through the life that is you. That is the very core of your existence. Using the word “Godlike” is still not enough to describe this phenomenon. It is said that you have two choices in your life, you can live as though nothing is a miracle in life or you can live as though everything is a miracle in life. The choice is yours. Choosing either of these paths will greatly affect the quality of your life.

When one is on the spiritual journey, one realizes the futility of the egoistic mind. It has to be dropped sooner or later. When the dropping starts, one embarks on the journey back to the source, back to where it all began—life becomes a full circle. You begin life as a child and in old age, you become like a child again. Everything in the world would make their way back to their source eventually; it is like how rain falls into the sea and is evaporated back up into the skies or how a flower have bloomed and having completed its cycle, withers and returns back to Earth. Everything seems to be the same on the surface; you came back to where you started, only this time round—experiences have given you a different set of eyes.