Letting Go to Let God

THE MIRACLE OF LETTING GO TO LET GOD

Spiritual wisdom facilitates the process of humans’ letting go, and spiritual wisdom comes from faith, which is belief in God.

“Belief in God” means complete trust in Him that has to be expressed and validated by obedience; in other words, let go to let God.

Does the wisdom of letting God sound simple and straightforward?

According to Albert Einstein, knowing and understanding are the essentials of wisdom—they are also critical to attaining the wisdom of letting go to let God.

The mysteries and the manifestations

Have more knowledge of the invisible and the inexplicable that is happening to you and also around you, as well as have better understanding of the mysteries and the manifestations of all things created by God, who is the origin of all things. His Creation has been one of the most controversial, profound, and unfathomable mysteries since the beginning of time, while all the things subsequently originating from His creations are only further manifestations of the mysteries of His Creation.

God-given image and man-made identity

Letting go to let God begins with believing in the mysteries and manifestations of human creation: we are all created in the image of God.

“So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.”

(Genesis 1: 27)

                  

What does that really mean, and what is the wisdom in that?

You may never know why you were created in the first place, but one thing you know for sure is that not only you are different from all His other creations but also all humans are uniquely different from one another in that respect—just like the uniqueness in humans’ fingerprints. The wisdom is that you, just like everybody else, have His image, and this is indeed a blessing. That also means you  have a spirit within you that not only defines who you are, but also connects you somehow and somewhat to and with Him in a uniquely individual way, because your image is a reflection of Him. In other words, we all have a unique identity of our own, which is composed of some of the attributes of the Creator.

Living in the material world, you may also have consciously and subconsciously created another image of your own—a man-made identity, or an ego-self. If you are more aware of your man-made identity, you may then become less conscious of your God-given image. Your attachments that have created your own man-made identity may then slowly and imperceptibly detach and distance yourself from your God-given image.

The bottom line: letting go of some, if not all, of your attachments to your man-made identity may enhance your God-given image within you. Do you always identify yourself with the car you drive, the neighborhood you live in, the social circles you belong to, and the career you have taken up? All these attachments in the material world may have created your own man-made identity, but not your God-given image. Just think about that.

Let go to let God define your own identity.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

BETTER ENGLISH FOR YOU - New Book

 BETTER ENGLISH FOR YOU

WHAT this book is all about:

This book is about every aspect of both written and spoken English.

It covers the basics as well as the essentials of good and effective written and spoken English.

It helps you avoid all the common errors made by both native and non-native speakers of English.

WHY you should read this book:

This book is for every one who speaks and writes English every day.

This book is especially for ESL learners who are not familiar with the use of the English language.

This book is also for native speakers of English, who need to write good English in their education, and throughout their careers.

CONTENTS

ONE: WHY BETTER ENGLISH
TWO: HOW TO HAVE BETTER ENGLISH
LEARING TO SPEAK BY SPEAKING AND TO WRITE BY WRITING
GETTING BASIC TOOLS FOR BETTER ENGLISH
      An English Dictionary
      A Thesaurus
THREE: BETTER WRITTEN ENGLISH FOR YOU
THE PURPOSE OF WRITING
THE ENGLISH GRAMMAR BASICS
     Nouns
     Pronouns
     Adjectives
     Verbs
     Adverbs
     Conjunctions
     Prepositions
     Interjections
THE ENGLISH SENTENCE
     Sentence Patterns
     Different Types of Sentences
     Balanced Sentence Construction
THE TENSES
THE PUNCTUATION
      The Comma
      The Semi-Colon
      The Colon
     The Dashes
     The Period (Full-Stop)
COMMON SENTENCE ERRORS
     Avoid Double Negatives
     Avoid Omission of Key Verbs    
     Avoid Omission of Words in Comparison
     Avoid Dangling Participles
     Avoid Misusing Dependent Clause
BEGINNING TO WRITE
     Paragraph Development
     Learn Commonly Used Difficult Vocabulary
     Learn Commonly Used Difficult Vocabulary
     Learn Idioms and Colloquial Expressions
     Learn to Know the Difference
     Learn to Avoid Wordiness
DEVELOPING THE TOPIC
     Point of View
     Tone
     Planning the Writing
     Writing the Introduction
      Planning the Outline
      Expanding the Writing
      Writing the Draft
GOOD WRITING
      Clichés
      Figures of Speech
      Italics
      Simplicity in Writing
FOUR: BETTER SPOKE ENGLISH

      Slang and Colloquial Expressions

Glaucoma Treatment

Glaucoma is an eye disorder often associated with aging. According to Western medicine, there is no cure, and no reversal of the conditions connected with the symptoms. However, we must also look at the underlying causes of glaucoma, and look at the disorder with a different perspective and with a holistic approach to the treatment.

Below is taken from: Health and Wisdom Tips:

“Glaucoma is an eye condition due to increased eye pressure that may lead to blindness. In conventional medicine, most eye doctors would recommend surgeries and / or eye drops to relieve high ocular pressure in the eye.

However, there is one problem: surgeries and eye drops would also create a chronic condition, ironically enough, leading to ultimate blindness. The use of eye drops may have adverse long-term effects, one of which is the falling off of pieces of iris, causing blockage, and thereby instrumental in increasing eye pressure over the long haul, instead of reducing the eye pressure.

Dr. Leslie Salov, M.D., O.D. Ph.D., in his book Secrets for Better Vision, states that most glaucoma patients are highly intelligent professionals who lead very stressful, busy lives. This finding led Dr. Salov to believe that to improve vision or eye health, you need to improve the health of your entire person simultaneously because your body is a set of interlocking systems that affect one another. Given that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, your eyes are only a small part of your whole person. Accordingly, to heal the eyes, you must heal the body first. It is just that simple!

To have healthy vision, even as you age, you must employ not only the sciences of physiology, biology, and chemistry, but also the healing powers of philosophy and even spirituality. This is no exception when it comes to treating glaucoma. In other words, to treat glaucoma, you need to examine not just your eyes, but also every aspect of your life, including your emotional and spiritual health. Get a holistic approach to healing glaucoma.

The methods of glaucoma treatment recommended by Dr. Salov also include the following:

Visualization is the use of guided imagery to direct blood, oxygen, and leukocytes (immunity cells) to the eye through a mental image of a healthy eye. Essentially, your conscious mind controls the involuntary processes that occur automatically inside your body. Specifically, visualization relaxes the muscles in the walls of your canal of Schlemm (circular channel in the eye that collects watery substance between the lens and the cornea). By relaxing these muscles, extra fluid can be excreted to relieve the glaucoma pressure. Without using eye drops with chemicals, visualization can naturally relax eye muscles so that your pupils become small enough to open up the canal of Schlemm to excrete the fluid for eye pressure relief.

However, it must be pointed out that visualization works only when you use it with dedication and consistency. In other words, you have to practice visualization daily and diligently.

Meditation is the art of thinking of nothing to remove everyday stresses and worries. When you are under stress, you body produces chemical changes within your body, which decrease blood flow and oxygen level to your eye. Practice meditation to de-stress yourself.

The bottom line: eye pressure can be relieved by eye relaxation; it is important to relax your eye muscles, just like you would relax the muscles of different parts of your body.”

Remember, vision has to do with the mind too, and not just the eyes. Without mind relaxation, the eyes are stressed and unrelaxed, and thus raising the eye pressure, which is the underlying cause of glaucoma. Does it make sense?

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Understand How the Eye "Sees"

The eye with good vision and the eye with weak vision do not “see” in the same way. Understanding how normal eyes “see” may help you make your eyes “see” in a totally different way.

Look at a simple illustration of the difference in the process of “seeing” by the eye with good vision and by the eye with weak vision. Here is how and what the healthy eye will “see” when it looks at the following:

A  B  C  D  E

 The eye with good vision will be able to “absorb” or “see” A, B, C, D, and E all at the same time, irrespective of the closeness or distance.

Then, the eye with good vision will subconsciously “select” the one (e.g. E) that it wants to see, and immediately shifting its focus to E. Remember, the healthy eye can “select” its own vision.

In other words, the healthy eye has “soft vision”—it sees everything immediately but without gazing. “Soft vision” is practiced by all martial arts practitioners because they need to know where the attack of the enemy may be coming from—which could be from any or all directions. Therefore, it is important to train your eyes to have “soft vision” so that you can see everything all at once.

Soft Focus 

Train your eyes to “see” and “look” at the same time.

Look at a printed page with a lot of details.

• Become “aware” of what you are looking at, without blinking your eyes for five to thirty seconds.
• Practice soft focus for five minutes at least once a day.

AWARENESS: Look without blinking (soft vision) for 10 seconds or so.

When you gaze, you use mostly your central vision, with little or no peripheral vision (which is side vision); accordingly, you weaken your macula, which is responsible for seeing visual details. Over time, you begin to lose much of your peripheral vision (use it or lose it). Because you cannot see what you want to see, you form the bad habit of “staring” or “frozen gaze,” and thus further weakening your macula. This is how the vicious circle of poor vision is formed. To improve your vision, you must break that vicious circle.

The eye with weak vision will do the following when looking at the above:

• The eye with weak vision will probably look consciously at C first, without seeing the other alphabets (probably due to constant use of central vision).
• Then, the eye with weak vision may probably shift its gaze to B and D, and then to A and E, back and forth, in order to “select” what it wants to see. Finally, the eye may decide that E is what it wants to see, and begins to focus on E (all these happen subconsciously and within only a fraction of a split second).

The above illustration demonstrates how the eye with weak vision may “see.” One of the characteristics of the eye with weak vision is its “frozen gaze,” which allows it to focus on only one object one at a time. To improve your vision, you must overcome the bad habit of “staring.”

AWARENESS: Do not stare!. Blink frequently to stop frozen gaze!

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau