Before you know what's in my mind, I have to say that most of shopaholic will find this writing to be very irritating and against their term of enjoying themselves :D ..... Well, I don't feel bad about it, because I'm not against those who love to shop till they drop. I mean yesterday (actually it was sometime on April when I was in Bangkok), I had to accompany my sisters and friend to go to MBK, Amari and Siam Paragon to look and buy (some) items on sale as soevenirs for our family and friends. For me, because my purpose was to meet a friend from the past who happened to be a Thai man (well, last time he was a boy), then we headed to different directioin. After quite a walk to find pottery products which we couldn't get, we returned with big water guns for my nephew to get ready for the Songkran Festival in Bangkok on 13 April. Anyway, it was fun. to meet an old boyfriend after 22years, especially when we tested the gun. I felt like wanting to start the festival earlier by spraying the water to him hahaha... just for the fun of it :D
Ok, now is the supermarket and shopping time :)
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| Be wise! with what you really need in this life |
As I looked around the shopping areas, especially the wholesale dept. stores on clothing, I saw a huge quantity of clothes in different kinds of colors, models and sizes. I think they are not only in Bangkok, but also in Jakarta, Singapore, New York, Paris, Hongkong and so many big and small cities around the world. And as I looked at the people and the clothes there, I couldn't help myself to start thinking about something else. About The Life that resides within, clothed with the thing called The Body. Then something inside told me, that we have clothes a lot more than the total number of human population on the face of this earth. Even with those many of clothes they have, they can only wear a set of them.
I say a set because people have their difference ideas about what is a set means. It can be one layer, or two or three layers. Anyone ever wear more than three layers of clothes?! I'm not sure. But the truth is when a human died, maximum that they will wear for their burial is three layers for women and two layers for men. That is the islamic regulation on the shroud. Other religion I believe may have similar ideas to that.
Already as I started to relate to this, just mentioning about the shroud without further elaborate what's in my mind, my friend raised a comment 'That was scary!'. And I have to smile and soothe her that it's alright. I don't know what she would think if I told her about this hehehehe.... To respect the mind of any shopaholic.
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Of so many clothes we have bought,
how many will be with us at the end of our life? |
But if we look deeper, what do we see when we go to shopping centre, mall, or any big market?
We have so many choiices to pick and buy. Not necessarily we need them. Some are for our stock, which is alright. But then I don't know if those end-users really realize if the items they buy aren't always used. So often they end up unused, rotten, wasted and thrown away. Such a waste.
Can we see our life in the same line? When we're not aware of our raison d'etre in living this life, I'm afraid that at the end of our time, the same thing will happen to us. For how many clothes have been made and how many have been wasted and ended up being one that is thrown away - do we realize that it happened also to some of most beautiful dresses ever made. Because some disaster had caused the owner to hate that beautiful clothes that they used to adore.
We as human, being given the brain to think and the heart to realize should utilize them both to see into our life and make it meaningful not only in term of other people's wish and ideas but most importantly in term of our truest core. Because so many people have met their worldly achievements, but couldn't find contentment with them all. How many people turned to drugs, almost or even committed suicide in their peak of worldly achievement. Yet, how many people who in their simple life found peace and contentment. One that I just recently visited his tomb is the javanese saint - Mr. Sosrokartono. I wrote about this in another article under title "Menapak Jalan Sunyi".
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Anxiety, fear, confuse
are the signs of getting lost |
Back to the main topic: this is because the fulfillment of our truest core called the heart of heart isn't from the world or any worldly achievement. Our truest core is from something else. It wasn't isn't and will never be content with anything from this world. Its term is made such a way that no matter how hard people tried to fill it with anything made from this world, it will never find contentment. And when people can't understand this or realize the existence of Life in their very core and its purpose, at the end of their day, they will be like a piece of clothes that has been put in mannequin but no ONE ever buy it, keep it and consider it worthy. And ONE I'm talking about is ONE that resides within each one of us.
How will that ONE buy us, when we don't even want to trade with IT willingly?
How will that ONE keep us in safety and harmony, when we don't care to fulfill ITS needs?
How will that ONE consider us worthy, when we don't consider IT important?
This supermarket of Life is so crowded and enticing. We need to be wise in spending our currency called Time. When our shopping time is finished and we don't pick the right items, we may end up going home with so many meaningless items because we forgot to pick the one we truly need at home. Worse come to worse, instead of going home we were trapped in one of the change room at the time of trying this and that.
