REQUIEM FOR AH TAK beloved cousin brother Ah Tak, remember the song Ive gotta get a message to you

u by the Bee Gees, one of our favourite songs during the brief Ramblers Band days? The Chow Kit gang has a message for you. We will not hold it against you for suddenly departing without a farewell karaoke session as is our custom and tradition. And it is rather unexpected of you to leave just when Hong Chuan has booked his ticket for a Chow Kit gang reunion in Chinese New Year 2014. He has been longing to see you. So in sadness and grief we now in your presence or in absentia face you to bid you farewell. We think about you and become despondently sad; for you are still living within our hearts dont forget. We cherish the relationship and friendship shared; in all the good times, in troubled times and the bad. We were relatives, neighbours, playmates and companions, in joyful Chow Kit childhood days, which was like heaven. Unlike when we were grown men, someones husband or father; life became a struggle, just a case of working harder and harder. Most of the Chow Kit we knew are gone, memories of the past. Ah Yang, Ah Siew, also departed and gone, familiar faces, past. There are people we meet and without regret soon depart. Others we remember with our mind rather than our heart. But you are remembered because of the beautiful memories, that you have left behind in our hearts, and in our reveries. You are endearing and obliging no matter and what who says. You are gone, we cannot bring you back or the fond old days. Your smile we will never see again or your laughter we again hear. We will however cherish memories of days that used to be and dear. Your parting leaves a sadness within us that is difficult to heal. Sweet memories of you we have and will no one can ever steal. Funny how when you were born you cried and your family smiled with delight. In death your family cries, and you are in eternal blissful repose in our sight. Tomorrow will have to start without you, we are afraid to say. Unlike you, tomorrow we have to face another uncertain day. But please do not be silly to even think that we are ever apart. For when we think of you, you are right there within our hearts. Ah Tak, farewell good brother and everlasting friend. Rest in peace, as we sing you our parting song by Gerry and the Pacemakers:You'll never walk alone When you walk through the storm Hold your head up high, And don't be afraid of the dark. At the end of the storm Is a golden sky And the sweet silver song of a lark. Walk on through the wind, Walk on through the rain, Though your dreams be tossed and blown. Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart And you'll never walk alone. You'll never walk alone.

Chow Kit Gang/The Ramblers [Say Chuan, Ah Seng, Hong Chuan, Boon Hooi, Thean Cheong, King Kong, Ah Piau, King Chuan] Say or Victor, maybe you might organise for the Requiem for Ah Tak to be printed by Kelvin for distribution at Requiem Mass or its equivalent. 24/100/13 Say, I trust the Chow Kit 'cousins' liked the requiem to Ah Tak. I am making this special discourse after reflecting deeply on Ah Tak's death. I am dedicating this very special and all revealing discourse in his memory and honour, as an apology for not making it to his funeral and to pay my respect. I write with total veracity, as if today might be my last day on Earth, and this discourse is by way of my testamentary disposition. First, please always remember that I am a devout Jesuit Catholic. If I or it were not so, I would not be reading the Bible (the Gospels, the actual words of Jesus that is, which I am thoroughly versed in, as Seng and you should know by now) incessantly nor would I have the temerity to be writing Jesuit discourses without fear of committing blasphemy. Other than the Gospels I would only read the spiritual wisdom found in Old Testament Books of Ecclesiastes, Wisdom (of Solomon) and Sirach. I seek spiritual understanding and wisdom and not a worldly religion like the Pharisees and the Sadducees. I seek spiritual faith in meaningful eternal good and bliss and not in the rote and ritual of a worldly religion. As a Jesuit, I seek by seeing 'God in Everything and Everything in God'. God is therefore a 'seeking' of what you have lost and not a religion as such, for religion is a worldly concept or idea or doctrine concocted out of fear and despair, at different phases of human civilisation. Fear and despair make you invoke or pray or plea for solace or salvation or hope outside of or external to yourself. Hope should be within you rather than without. One is definitely without hope if there is no hope in within us, if you know what I mean. When you understand this you suddenly realise what spiritual wisdom is! When spiritual faith is practised as a worldly religion, it inadvertently becomes a stringent judgmental code of law of worldly rules and rituals. God does not judge! Otherwise the Jesuit term - 'Universal Salvation' would be meaningless or a lie! Between Spirit Father and spirit sons of God, the father-son relationship is not based on the 'Letter of the Law', but rather on the spirit and intuitively on filial love and devotion. God should just be a faith of love or longing within for what we must have been and still are, rather than what we worldly are now and can become, for otherwise, all, including our Chinese ancestors, before Jesus came, have no possibility to be in or of going back to Heaven with the Spirit Father! It is all simply about filial faith and devotion to the Spirit Father. Viewed from this perspective it becomes a search or longing for something deep spiritually within ourselves that has been around since time immemorial. This is clear when we realise the profundity of the words of Jesus - "before Abraham was, I AM" (John 8:58). Eternally, therefore we must similarly originate or go back before the beginning of time. You must grasp this spiritual fact to show you fully understand the wondrous spiritual being (or angel of God) we actually and truly are! It is so simple and yet inconceivable in its truth. But would Jesus lie? Most Christians do not even know God! I contemplate and think about God, the Spirit Heavenly Father, all the time. I have dedicated the rest of my life to help people understand God. I want to eradicate this mysterious hokey pokey nonsense that prevails in people's spiritual understanding. I want people to understand why we are existing as we are and why we have to die as we are. I want people not to fear death. I want people to take comfort that there is always a rainbow at the end of the storm, that 'somewhere over the rainbow' we have a permanent home of eternal bliss to return to, where there will be no more birthing and death. Why? Jesus said so! Would Jesus lie? The Buddha said the same thing, in a slightly different spiritual language. Would the Buddha lie?

Making ardent fervent prayers as a Christian in good faith is not about mundane invocations to make our present worldly mortal human life better but for God to open our hearts so that we can learn to (spiritually) love, and to open our eyes so that we can (spiritually) see; or else we would earn the rebuke of Jesus that when we (worldly) see, we are (spiritually) 'blind', which is what John 9:39-41 means. John 9 is all about whether a blind man's blindness was due to 'sin' (past sins). To understand the words of Jesus addressed in parables, we must be able to spiritually see! To cut it short, Jesus was saying that the eternal spirit son of God in us did not and does not sin; rather it was the temporal worldly false self-ego in us that sinned (in this age (life) or in earlier ages (lives)), going up and down the proverbial Jacob's Ladder. That is why there is 'no marriage in Heaven' (Matthew 22:30); and the explanation of Jesus therein clearly proves that what is in or goes to Heaven is the spirit son of God and not the worldly false self-ego or persona that we identify ourself as; and the respective worldly husband, father or son that we are on Earth. Please continue to bear this in mind as I proceed further with this discourse. You have to separate the 'sheep' (eternal spirit son of God) from the 'goat' (temporal worldly false self-ego son of man) in you! Of course, we can only spiritually see if we are awakened or reborn in the 'spirit'. Obviously with worldly eyes we can only worldly see! The greatest sin is the 'pride' of the worldly false self-ego. Humility is the direct opposite to pride. But salvation requires more than humility. For when you are humble you will still have an ego! The exact opposite to 'ego', is 'egoless'. Being selfish or 'not caring' or 'chiki ku chiki' are all within the whole range of possible characteristics of being obsessed or infatuated or infected and dominated and controlled by one's pride of an ego. In Christian terms you are 'egoless' when you love God the Spirit Father with all your mind, heart and soul and you love your neighbours like yourself; i.e. like as you were and still are in your original eternal 'spirit' self. To say that we need the persistence in our prayer to God of the persistence of the Persistent Widow (Luke 18:1-8 Parable of the Persistent Widow and the Unjust Judge) or the quality of humility in our prayer to God of that of the contrite Tax Collector (Luke 18:9-14 - Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector) are just precursors to the essential requirement that we be 'reborn' in the 'spirit', that of becoming 'egoless'. Adam when he tasted the 'Tree of Knowledge' ended up with the promised inflated sense of ego by Satan. He was besotted with the urge to play God. Thus befell the Original Sin and the Fall of Adam. Because of Adam playing the surrogate God he became Son of Man; and we are his sons of man, sons of Adam. Unbeknownst to Adam, this 'role acting' as God was only all in Adam's false self-ego mind. Adam's mortal Son of Man and our being as mortal sons of man are all just in our respective false ego looney mind. We are all in the afflicted 'mind' of Adam 'after' the Fall. To be more exact, we are all in the egoistic 'dream' of Adam the Spirit Son of God! We do not exist outside the 'Ego role playing god', within Adam's mind as his dream. The eternal Adam Spirit Son of God is the dreamer that exists eternally outside his temporal, transient, ever changing, elusive dream! I repeat, Adam the eternal Spirit Son of God (who by deduction is 'egoless' because he was and is egoless before the tasting of the Tree of Knowledge) is the dreamer and he remains eternally and forever outside the dream; whereas the Ego that is the mortal Son of Man (the failed experiment of the metaphorical temptation of the apple) is only existent within this fickle rabid rambling kaleidoscopic dreaming of Adam. Correspondingly or vicariously our being the mortal sons of man are within the dreaming; and our being the true eternal spirit sons of God are conversely outside that illusionary dreaming. As Jesus kept repeating in John 17:14-16, these are two different worlds! Read that passage again and again, so that you are familiar with what Jesus kept reiterating. This passage that I have just written about Adam's Dreaming, requires your utmost spiritual thought and contemplation, for otherwise you will not understand the multidimensional or crossdimensional aspects of 'Seeing God in Everything and Everything in God'. Otherwise you will not understand how the 'spirit' crosses over or transcends 'beyond the beyond' of worldly 'time' and 'space' and 'matter' and 'relativity'. I have used the term 'relativity' to simply encompass all aspects of 'duality' in all the different realms within Adam's Dreaming; in contrast with the Unitary

Absolute Truth of God outside of Adam's Dreaming. Heaven has no duality. There is no 'birth' or 'death'. There is no 'you' or 'me'. There is no 'marriage'. There is no 'want' or 'repletion'. There are no comparisons or grades or classifications or differentiation or discrimination or distinction or separation. There is just the Unity of One of the Holy Trinity - the Father and sons in the 'Spirit'. Please do not dishonour or deny the ancient wisdom of our Chinese ancestors in the Tao or the Zen or the Analects, or disown our Chinese values and traditions, as much as you have become a 'banana' in many ways. The Taoist 'Yin-Yang' (duality) dichotomy and the Buddhist Zen 'Brahma Jewelled Net' (all in one and one in all) imageries and the Confucian tenet of 'filial piety' and 'ancestral reverence' (unrequited and unconditional love) are all comprised in the spiritual wisdom that comes from God. Be proud to be Chinese. We are as ancient as the stars. We, as a continuing 'civilisation state' and homogenous people, as distinct from a nation state and its citizens, have survived and lasted since antiquity. The Jews go back only to Abraham. The Indians are Indians only since the British colonisation. The Indians (and Pakistanis and Bangladeshis and Nepalese) are neither one people or one nation or one religion or one culture or one philosophy. We Chinese are a living holistic antiquity! Sinophobics are ignoramus to our spiritual significance to humanity. Please do not go 'bananas'! White men speak with forked tongue, as the Red Indians would say. You need the ancient spiritual wisdom of an ancient people to truly know God! Do not laugh or sneer at the Australian Aborigines or American Red Indians when they talk spiritually of the 'Dreaming'! They are ancient people like the Chinese. As Lao Tze said, if the Tao can be spoken, it is no longer the Tao. The mystery of the Tao is to be personally realised not taught. You know it when you know it. And when you do, it is beyond words. It is inconceivable and beyond description. My meagre efforts here are a child"s babbling in the context of what the mysterious inconceivable Tao really is. But no books in the bookshops will tell you what I am telling you now intimately as my twin brother. If you understand it you will hear the wondrous sounds of the lute and sitar and flute and church bells played by angels in Heaven. No, there are no drums in Heaven! Just joking! Please focus on how old we are now. We are not getting any younger! Time is short. Death could knock on our door anytime! We do not have much of a window to be reborn in our eternal spirit son of God being, which we absolutely have to, to make the journey home of the Prodigal Son to the Spirit Father. Trust me when I say that once we are reborn in the 'spirit', we will immediately get out of the grasp of the web of deceit of Satan. Read again what Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3:6-8. Remember that I have died once before! I am back here to help and guide my loved ones, particularly you, my twin brother, through that proverbial 'narrow gate', the 'eye of a needle' to heavenly bliss. Of course you still have unfinished business from your ego-centric selfishness or uncaring or 'chiki ku chiki'. In worldly terms and in terms of the worldly perspective of the problem, you need to personally seek forgiveness from those you have hurt. That is a worldly problem. God cannot do that for you as I have explained so many times. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's (do in this temporal transient mortal world what is the right thing to do in this temporal transient mortal world); render unto God what belongs to God (in the 'spirit' be filial to the Spirit Father). Note that you are at the other end of the stick in terms of the exhortation of Jesus in John 20:23 - "If you forgive anyone's sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven." Accordingly, if those hurt by you do not forgive your sins, your sins are not forgiven, in this world, that is, simple as that. So, in worldly terms you end up with un-remitted trespasses. If you should remain in this world in your next life, you shall have to pay! But that conundrum might be resolve at the spiritual level. In spiritual terms the spiritual part of the problem has to be resolved spiritually. If you (that is your eternal 'spirit') remain (trapped) in your false self-ego in temporal worldly existence, you will naturally be subject to the worldly 'Law of You Reaping What You Sow', and you will definitely suffer the karmic consequences of your ego-centric selfishness or uncaring or 'chiki ku chiki', like a 'trapped' 'angel' going up and down the proverbial Jacob's Ladder. But salvation is close at hand! We Jesuit Catholics have a half-way house called a 'purgatory'.

There is in fact a purgatory even though it is not quite explicit in the gospels. See Matthew 12:32 where Jesus refers to the 'sinner' who "will not be forgiven in the age (one lifetime) or the age (the next lifetime or lifetimes) to come". Obviously the 'sinner' in the form of the worldly false self-ego of son of man will persist in going up and down the proverbial Jacob's Ladder. But that has nothing to do with the eternal spirit son of God that is awakened or 'reborn' in us. Refer also to Wisdom 3:1-7 - "1 But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them. 2 In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died, and their departure was thought to be an affliction, 3 and their going from us to be their destruction; but they are at peace. 4 For though in the sight of men they were punished, their hope is full of immortality. 5 Having been disciplined a little, they will receive great good, because God tested them and found them worthy of himself; 6 like gold in the furnace he tried them, and like a sacrificial burnt offering he accepted them. 7 In the time of their visitation they will shine forth, and will run like sparks through the stubble." What the biblical Jews describe as a 'soul' is what we call a 'spirit'. Carefully note that even though these 'spirits' are 'punished' in the eyes of men (for their worldly misdeeds), nevertheless God sees them as 'righteous', as the Spirit Father would through the eyes of a father for his child. The righteousness of a Prodigal Son is in his spirit son of God simply saying goodbye forever to Sin City, to his worldly false self-ego son of man. That is not self-righteousness because it is righteousness by way of a son's faith in the undying and unconditional love of God the Spirit Father. It is righteousness by way of glorification and exaltation of God the Spirit Father through being humble and pious and filial, even though one is the undeserving useless son of a loving understanding father! This means that if you are reborn in the 'spirit' and makes the decision to take the journey home of the Prodigal Son back to the Spirit Father, you might possibly or should I say allegorically, arrive home suffering from amnesia, fatigue, ill-health or in a coma or even mentally impacted or whatever way your spirit body might still be afflicted (shell-shocked or battle-scarred) by the trauma and experience of past worldly journeys as the 'unclean spirit with his seven more evil companions' (Matthew 12:43-45); and the unexpired karmic consequences of your ego-centric selfishness or uncaring or 'chiki ku chiki'. This is only the worse case scenario. Whatever your state or condition, when you are back in the spiritual home; the Spirit Father will take care of you and protect you from the ravages of Satan. You will be in 'purgatory' in the form of a metaphorical rest home, clinic or hospital. You could be in intensive care if you were the worst murderer, and obviously you are not, for as you said, you were just like the Rich Man Dives in the Parable of Lazarus the Beggar and the Rich Man, who was chiki ku chiki. In short, your very 'common' spiritual illness that plagues 99.9% of the sons of Adam will be treated with spiritual medicine (the undying and unconditional love of the Spirit Father). If you were left to remedy or resolve past worldly indiscretions in the jungle of the world of Adam Son of Man, the worldly medicine given to you will be tapered, tailored and measured by the Law of Cause and Effect, the Law of You Reaping what You Sow. God has no influence on that score and in fact warns us that this immutable Law applies indiscriminately across the board in Sin City. Please make use of Jesus' get out of jail pass. Whatever the 'cross' you have in terms of unexpired karmic consequences, that we have discussed above, just let your eternal spirit son of God carry it all the way back home from Sin City to the Spirit Father. Do not leave it and its retribution to the law of the jungle of the world of man, which will be the case if you are still entrapped as a temporal worldly son of man. Let the Spirit Father 'kow tim' everything for you in heaven. That is what faith is all about! Have faith in the Spirit Father. Go home! The Spirit Father will take his spirit children as they are, out of his undying and unconditional love as the Spirit Father. You do not have to be totally clean and pristine. None of us are perfect! No children are! That is why we have our 'cross' to individually bear (all the way home!). That is why the hymn expression is - 'Come as you are'. Repent like the Lost Prodigal Son and you are immediately on the way home! No other conditions! Previously when I regularly resorted to using the terms 'sheep' and 'goats', you were slighted and thought my methodology sinister in purport or intent. Maybe I had been presumptuous in thinking that my style of writing is easily understood, on the false premise that my English is very good.

We are all 'fused' 'sheep' and 'goats' or more correctly eternal sheep lost or entrapped in temporal goat's clothing. When in Matthew 25:31-46 Jesus spoke of separating the 'sheep' from the 'goats' he was merely talking about separating the eternal spirit son of God (sheep) from its alter ego the temporal worldly false self-ego of the proud arrogant self-righteous human being (goat). This is the spiritual and absolute truth. Only the 'spirit' can go through the 'eye of a needle'! The mortal human being or its persona of a false self-ego (an idol before God) can never enter heaven! Flesh is flesh and spirit is spirit! But there are no good or bad sheep as such, just simply sheep. The Spirit Father loves all his children (sheep) equally and take them individually as they are, no matter how lost, how prodigal, how vagrant, how remissed, how delinquent, how profligate, how sinful, or how demented and corrupt they are or have been in their dream or fantasy as a worldly false self-ego. A Father's love knows no bounds. Thus the expression that "parents cannot see their children's faults or ugliness". Similarly the expressions - "a face only a mother could love" and - "every mother sees her baby as the most beautiful in the world". Let Ah Tak's death open up our eyes to the 'beyond the beyond'. Let us be baptised, be 'reborn' in the 'spirit'. God bless and Love always. Have faith in the Gospel Truth! Chuan 27/10/13