I remembered that during one of the difficult periods in my life, he was there encouraging me. He would say, “E, you’re still young, you have plenty of good things waiting for you, so don’t let this thing bog you down, never give up on yourself”.

He would go on to share with me, the various episodes of his life and how he carried on despite the overwhelming odds he faced, illustrating that life sometimes confronts us with difficult choices. Though not all choices we make might necessarily be wise, we can only hope to grow wiser and stronger in the future. He never gave up on anyone, he believed in people and the potential for goodness in humanity. He knew that unpleasant things sometimes happen to good men and it should never be an excuse for us to betray or compromise our conscience.

This friend and brother was a most remarkable man with a strong sense of purpose, determination and the capacity to care, which impressed me deeply. He would share his dreams and plans of what he would like to do for his fellows, and he would work to execute it.

His charity, concerns and the capacity to care, never failed to leave an indelible impression on those whose path he crossed. He would make sure you always felt welcome in his presence, regardless of your worldly status (or lack of, as in my case). He would visit an old friend to see how he was doing, and even arrange for any medical care out of his own pocket selflessly. Such was the magnanimous nature of the man.

I am most honored to have known him and called him my Brother, and I will miss him. In closing, I quote from a proverb “Good men must die, but death cannot kill their names”.

Photo by T. Keller.

Often, when we are faced with any rejections or disappointments, we are all too likely to take either the route of self-loathing, coming up with reasons to feel inadequate and hating ourselves for it, or start to heap blame on the other party. Both ways eventually lead to destructive behaviors.

By allowing that to happen, we effectively lose ownership of our core, halting our growth and capacity for love and thus leading to an unfulfilled life plagued with unhappiness and hate.

It is alright to feel angry, dejected and even hate, we are all too human, the important thing is we must find our own ways to channel these out and know that these are not the end. At the end of the day, we must still pick ourselves up and stand firm in the face of adversities to embrace life.

I like to believe that it’s probably part of some grand plan for us to grow and eventually evolve beyond the mere average level of being. I believe that no one is inadequate and nobody should ever make us feel so. Every single one of us has all the resources and potentials for anything, if only we allow ourselves to realize it on the conscious level.

And it is these times of trials and tribulations that offer us the opportunities to look deeply within ourselves. It is true that we are all not born or made equal, in status, in wealth and even physically, yet we all are given life here right now so that we can polish ourselves through the hearth-fire of existence to be the best we can be. Life offers us an unlimited spectrum of experiences, depending only on whether we have the courage and the will to take it and live fully.

I have often come across as an intensely passionate and aggressive man. I love passionately, always losing myself in the ecstatic embrace of love. I fight aggressively for what I believe in, pursuing my dreams, hopes and mission in life intensely without apologies or compromise.

While I am aware that it is perhaps difficult for many to understand and may be too fearful for them, that is how I can live and die with myself, living and dying without regrets or remorse as a warrior, a lover and a man.

I have been through tons of disappointment, rejection, pain and betrayal and dare I say, probably much more excruciating than anyone can imagine. I have literally been thrown to the deepest depths of hell, which some of you who know me are aware of (and I cannot even begin to express my gratitude for your support and generosity during those heart-wrenching periods), and came out of it alive, here standing strong still. I can only pray that what had happened to me will never ever happen to anyone else, as no one truly deserved it.

Of course, the easiest way to deal with it for a lot of people is to heap blame on others for what happened but that is not the way for me. I cannot and will not blame anyone for what had happened to me, I only have my own foolishness and naivety to blame, and be glad that I am still very much alive to learn from it.

I also do not and cannot hate anyone for all that, because I do not want to come from a place of hatred. As a man, I have to take responsibility for my decisions and the outcomes resulting from it, regardless of good or bad. I will not allow all that to make me a jaded, cold and mean person, for then I would have failed in my duties and responsibilities as a human being, shutting me off to the precious gifts that life has to offer.

I prefer to come from the place of love, and I’d like to inspire the same in others to live fully, give generously, and love wholeheartedly.

One of the most recent questions posed to me was an age-old popular one: do I believe in God and is there a ‘divine plan’? It’s a loaded question that requires some clarification instead of a “yes” or “no” answer.

So do I believe in God? Yes, from my point of view, I believe in a Universal Supreme Intelligence that is Omnipotent, Omniscience and Omnipresence. I do not, however, believe in the typical religious point of view.

By the Law of Analogy, we can take a human being for example, since “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…”. A human being, as we are aware, is a sentient creature, made up of millions or billions of cells with each functioning on its own level and purpose. With regards to the Universal Supreme Intelligence, we are its cells, existing and functioning at various levels.

Like the cells in our own bodies, we have a purpose for our existence even though we are typically unaware of the part we play in the grand scheme of things, or even the existence that we are a part of, consciously. As our own thoughts can affect our health or even our being at a molecular level, there are some people who are affected by imprints from the Supreme Being. The Gnostics, Sufis, Jewish mystics and oriental philosophers are classic examples.

There is a constant nudging at the back of our mind that there is “something” out there behind the mysterious veil of life, something that is more than what we are shown. This is usually the first awakening: a sense that there is something out there, something perfect we have lost.

This searching is what I would call, romantically, “The Quest for the Ideal”, immortalized in the various ancient epics, such as the Legends of the Grail, the Egyptian myth of Isis searching for her murdered lord Osiris, and Ceres searching for Prosperine in the Eleusisian Mysteries. Note how we are unconsciously enamored by these legends.

This primordial quest stirs in us from time to time, and some simply shrug it aside, being contented with some form of philosophical fallacy or comforting faith, while others feel it so strongly that it affects their lives to a deep extent. For them, it stirs what Jung would call the “religious instinct” in the deeper psyche, driving them actively in the search.

For most of us, however, we just exist in this cosmic dream, wandering aimlessly, being swayed back and forth by the tides, as onlookers instead of partakers of the mysteries and wonders of the universe and life.

Since the Supreme Intelligence is Omnipotent, at our current stage of evolution, we can have but partial knowledge or gnosis regarding this Supreme Intelligence, where we have our being. The various attempts to anthropomorphize the Supreme Intelligence have resulted in many inadequate and gross misunderstandings, which reflect more of the character of its adherents than anything else.

Nonetheless, it is an ideal for those of us actively engaging in the quest, to hope to come to a full realization of this Supreme Intelligence, just like Sophia longing to be re-united with the Pleroma.

What transpired above may have whetted some of your appetite, and you may ask “So how do I go about this Quest?” In the following articles, I will outline some general pointers and hazards that may give those of you who are interested guidelines and pointers for consideration.