Here is my secret

And now here is my secret, a very simple secret:

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

Quote from "The Little Prince" written by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

The Lord's Prayer

Our Father, Who art in Heaven,

Hallowed be Thy Name.

Thy Kingdom come,

Thy Will be done,

On earth as it is in Heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses,

As we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

But deliver us from evil.

For Thine is the Kingdom, the power and the Glory,

For ever and ever.

Amen

Veggie Food Fair Update

I attended the Vegetarian Food Fair at Harbourfront, Toronto, on Sunday, September 7 and had a great time. It was rainy earlier in the day but the sun came out later and it was fun to be outdoors. Not as many folks and exhibitors as last year though. I picked up some good deals and some basics and will be trying out some new products that I bought.

Also, there were new products available including miniature cassava breads that are like small, rounded crackers. That was sooo cooool!!! Plus I had a vanilla cupcake with vegan icing, cost was $2.00. It was great having just a plain, vanilla cupcake. One word, AWESOME! Currently, the baker (she) is only catering for special occasions.

Anyway, if you missed the food fair you will have to wait until next year.

Vegetarian Food Fair - Toronto, Canada

Okay every one; it is that time of year again. Summer is nearly over, and it is back to school in less than two weeks. It is time for the 24th Annual Vegetarian Food Fair hosted by the Toronto Vegetarian Association. Their website address is: http://www.veg.ca/. It is one of the largest vegetarian food fair of its kind in North America. Please see details below and/or you can visit their website: http://www.veg.ca/content/view/52/83/

See you at the Food Fair!!!

2008 FOCUS: THE ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS OF VEGETARIANISM

Date: September 5, 6 & 7, 2008

Time: Sept 5, Friday 4 pm to 9 pm

Sept 6, Saturday 11 am to 8 pm

Sept 7, Sunday 11 am to 6 pm

Place: Harbourfront Centre

235 Queens Quay West, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

All venues are wheelchair accessible, and admission to all events is FREE to the public.

100+ exhibitors

cooking demonstrations

free food samples

workshops

music and performances

all-veg world café,

and much more!

BYOR! Bring Your Own Reusables (plates & cutlery).

FREE ADMISSION!

SOS - Climate Change Flyer

According to a United Nations report, meat eating is a major cause of global warming. We need to change our diet to a vegetarian diet since it is a more healthy, economical, ecological, more noble, peaceful and a compassionate diet.

Please change your life, change your heart, and change your diet, no more killing. Be healthy and loving.

To Save our Planet, we should:

(1) Go Veg.

(2) Drive hybrid Vehicles.

(3)Plant More Trees.

(4)Change to sustainable Energy.

(5)Pray.

Please feel free to share this flyer with family, friends and others around the planet. Please link here http://suprememastertv.com/sos for flyer.

For more languages, link to http://suprememasterchinghai.net/sos.htm

Solutions to Global Warming

Please check out the global warming mindmap above. It is all about solutions to combat global warming. It gives you ideas about changes we can make in our daily lives, in order to reduce our carbon footprint on the planet.

Please go to http://live-the-solution.com and you can also find these mindmaps in Indonesian, German, Spanish, Vietnamese, Mandarin and Japanese.

SOS - Go Veg! Be Green!

Make good karma. Be loving.


Go Veg! Be Green!
Save the Planet.

Please check out this link with respect to global warming. The Arctic ice at the North and South Poles are melting very quickly. Please help save the planet by adopting a vegetarian diet. A United Nations report has said that meat-eating is a major cause of global warming.

LOVE

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.

Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Corinthians

Chapter 13:1-13

Where The Mind is Without Fear

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by
narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the
dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening
thought and action;
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

by Rabindranath Tagore(1861-1941)

I was introduced to this poem when I was in elementary school.
We would copy the poems from  the black board and transcribe
them in our copy books. We were also expected to memorize
and recite them in our class. This was one of my favourite poems.
It brings back fond memories of my childhood days.

Global Warming-Time To Act

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKuVJhXPoTc&watch_response


"Global Warming-Time To Act"(above video) is a response to "Devour the Earth"(previous post). It was originally seen on Supreme Master Television.

"Report on global warming, highlights UN report that Livestock production is major cause of greenhouse gas emissions and the NASA report stating that the Arctic ice could be completely melted by summer 2012. Includes information on warning signs, natural disasters, rising sea levels, toxic gasses, ocean dead zones, human health, species extinction. How to help: vegetarian diet, recycling, plant trees, alternative energy."

Devour the Earth - English with subtitles

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b2k98YLSnk


This video is narrated by Sir Paul McCartney and the soundtrack is by Reza Ganjavi. It is dedicated to the countless innocent animals.

Help Save our Planet! Go Veg! Go Green!

The Serenity Prayer

"God grant me the serenity to accept

the things I cannot change;

courage to change the things I can;

and wisdom to know the difference."

--Reinhold Niebuhr

I first became aware of the Serenity Prayer in the seventies. My parents had purchased a small plaque with the above prayer while holidaying in Toronto, Canada on their first visit. Apparently, it was a very popular prayer at that time in Toronto. It is still used for many 12-step self-help programs including Al-Anon. When they returned home they did the honour of placing the plaque on the dining room wall.

I recall now that when I was younger my outlook on life was totally different. You are young and you are supposed to make a difference to make the world a better place. Reflecting back over the years, I believed very strongly in working hard (a strong work ethic), playing by the rules, etc. I wish that I had had the foresight, understanding and perhaps the guidance and direction to be more accepting of how the world was and not how I wanted it to be. You know a perfect utopia, better for everyone. But then there was so much we did not know about and could not have predicted.

Wars have not ended; the Green Revolution has apparently been a failure, since world hunger is ever present (apparently food shortages are occurring globally). Wheat prices are skyrocketing, which means bread prices are on the rise globally, which could lead to more social unrest. Oil prices have reached an all time high of US$110.00 per barrel and the same is happening to gold, which has traded at a high of US$1,000.00 per ounce. Not to mention diseases like AIDS and avian flu, resistant bacterial strains, world poverty, hunger, environmental disasters, global warming, etc. The scientists and all the experts had predicted these things would be a thing of the past. These issues were high on the agenda during my university years during the eighties. Everything was supposed to be better in the future they said. Sometimes it seems worse than ever. There are many things I thought would have changed over time.

I am no longer young, naïve and trusting of those who say they will effect change. Many of our politicians, leaders, academics and experts have continued on the old paths that lead to dead ends. It seems as if the blind are leading the blind. They do not have the answers or the solutions to the problems facing us. They seem ill equipped to resolve the problems that we are facing globally. I am just getting tired of seeing all of the environmental disasters, and the sad and hungry looks of children, who stare back at me from my TV in my living room.

I have learned over the years to put my trust in God and to rely on my common sense and wisdom that are an integral part of me… (In the United States, the national motto is, “In God We Trust.”)… The serenity prayer advises us to accept things that we cannot change, and to change the things we can. So using our common sense and wisdom we are asked to change the things we can. So on a personal level, I will continue to try to do so and for good measure I am going to keep my hand written copy taped to my bedroom wall a bit longer. Lest I forget!

You are a child of the Universe!!!

"You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should."

Those words above have been embedded in my consciousness since I first encountered the Desiderata years ago. It has brought me peace and comfort when others have seen fit to exclude, isolate, marginalize or exclude me by race, religion, gender, ethnicity and nationality or for social, economic or political reasons. It is worth remembering the power of words. As they say, "The pen is mightier than the sword."

My advice to others who encounter difficulties or obstacles along their life journey is to remember the above few lines and to take comfort in them. When others dehumanize, ridicule or try to humiliate you, keep your faith in God or your Higher Power. All of creation is here for a purpose and we must understand and respect the Divine Plan. Loving and respecting our fellow man and woman is a noble ideal.

Make love not war.

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let not this blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore, be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams; it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful.

Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann, 1927

I have posted the "Desiderata" above, attributed to Max Ehrmann. I fell in love with this poem when I first heard about it during my senior year in high school. I also heard the recorded song version, which I found very inspiring. I think Les Crane originally did it.

It is such an inspiring and encouraging poem. Sometimes we all need a gentle reminder to keep us on track during our very busy lives.

Happy New Year... 3 times over!!!

Hello everyone!!!

Happy New Year three times over.....Happy New Year.....Happy Muslim New Year.....and.....Happy Chinese New Year!!!!!

I hope that everyone is having a great year so far.

I have been very busy and have not been contributing regularly to this blog. I hope to post more often and will try my best to do so. There is so much to write about and so much to share. The only thing that I don't have enough of is time to do so.

Sometimes, one starts out with the best of intentions, and sometimes life happens and distracts us from what we really want to do. But as you know, c'est la vie!

As always, please know that I will always try my best.