A Course in Miracles Explained

My continuing spiritual exploration leads me to the topic of vegetarianism. After all, we are what we eat – what we put into our bodies has a big impact on us, physically and emotionally. Watching this video – Meet your Meat – affects me greatly. (Warning: It contains scenes of an extremely disturbing nature. However, I think it is a fair representation of the way meat arrives on the table for most of us, and thus should be required viewing.)

The more I read into the topic (The China Study is a great book), the argument for going vegetarian seems more convincing. It makes a lot of sense on moral, ‘spiritual’, health and environmental grounds. I’ve always thought that keeping pets – cats and dogs, while eating other animals was illogical – a form of moral hypocrisy really. Going vegetarian is thus a way of being congruent with that logic. Why add extra suffering in the world by killing animals if humans can live adequately on a properly planned vegetarian diet?

Convinced, I decide to go vegetarian. The cooking group I am part of with three of my other housemates disbands because of my decision – my housemates are less than pleased. Trying vegetarianism is one of my first few steps into ‘coming out’ with my spiritual self – making real changes into my life after all the research and theory.

It is around this time that I make another resolution – to gain weight. I’ve always been cardiovascularly fit from running, but scrawny. (I’m 172cm and 55kg at this point, close to borderline underweight) I’m aiming to put some muscle on. Imperial College’s excellent new gym has just been built – it fits in nicely with my plan. For a couple of months, I do little but workout, eat, study and sleep. I’m also taking supplements – mass gainers, protein powders, creatine and  megavitamins.

(Caveat: Like many people, I have a healthy resistance against taking anything ‘un-natural’, but I see supplements as an efficient way for busy individuals to get quality nutrition, especially protein. I also think nutritional science has developed to a point where certain supplements from reputable companies are safe and can be very beneficial in moderation. Needless to say, discretion, research and common sense are always key.)

If there’s one thing about me – I can be very determined, but in the face of impracticality (especially with basic things like eating), I tend to waver. With all the gym time, my appetite increases tremendously – I am eating 30-50% more than I did before. Even with the supplements, I am finding it difficult to find good, tasty vegetable protein. (Also, there are only so many beans I can eat without feeling bloated)

I find it socially difficult – explaining my choice to go vegetarian all the time. Chinese dinners are the worst – everything is shared, and the veggie options are usually not great. (OK, that’s a mass generalisation – I’m referring to dinners in London’s Chinatown)

My difficulty in finding good vegetable protein leads me to go pescatarian – I start eating salmon. I realise how much I miss eating fish. Grilled teriyaki salmon! Yum. Then I eat meat occasionally. Not long after, I more or less give up on the vegetarian thing. My attempt to go vegetarian in total lasts about 9 months. I get made fun of by friends who think I’m a cop-out, but I don’t really care, because I’ve tried it and I know it is not for me. I do, however, eat a lot less meat than I used to. Deep down, I know that my choice to eat meat or not doesn’t matter in the ‘big’ scheme of things. What I have learnt is that almost everybody can do to increase the amount of fruit and vegetables in their diet.

Note: My (current) view on meat-eating? Humans are omnivores. In this third density world we live in, humans are built to eat meat, as part of the food chain. Also, ‘killing’ does not strictly equate to being ‘bad’. ‘Bad’ and ‘good’ only exist as human moral judgments. Vegetarians kill millions of cells, micro-organisms and vegetables every day. As ACIM and Buddhism tell us – there is no death. Consciousness only transits from one state to another, from the physical to the non-physical. All aspects of individuated consciousness – plant, animal or human – choose the moments of our passing. Viewed from the highest cosmic perspective – the victim and victimiser are one – it is all part of the grand dance and the big illusion that we call life. Ultimately, all of us come from the Earth and will return to the Earth.

What I do think is important is whenever you eat meat, to spend a moment to honor the life of the animal, as the native Americans did.

Honoring my inner female

I begin to start feeling real changes in my personality / psyche because of all the spiritual, inner work I have been doing – whether it is meditation, forgiveness, or being in the moment. I actually do have a very gentle and loving side to me, which I have always been afraid to express, for fear of being labelled ‘gay’ or ‘sissy’.

One big problem with mainstream society is that most people have an immature understanding of what true masculinity really is. (No doubt, due to the strong, global patriarchal influence over the last few centuries, portrayal of male roles in the media, etc) Men are forced to be in two (imaginary) buckets:

1. Beer-drinking, football-watching ‘blokes’ who love fast cars and supermodels, emotionally stunted, never talk about their feelings, never admit they have a problem, never uses moisturiser. Macho. Insensitive. Equates sex with f**king – banging as hard as you can, for as long as you can.
2. Gay. (Regardless if you are actually homosexual or heterosexual) The SNAG (Sensitive New Age Guy) Spiritual. A wimpy push-over. Always willing to listen to his many female friends (all strictly platonic) whine and complain about their boyfriends who are all jerks. No clue about sex.

Of course I exaggerate and create these caricatures, but you know where I am going. There is much stigma attached to any behavior which does not agree to the first group – especially in highly ‘masculine’ environments – such as the Army or the trading floor.

Nonetheless, I have no doubt to the importance of the ‘yin’ personality arising in me. It is also my heart chakra awakening. I sense that it is the divine – the personality that receives inspiration. It is the personality that recognises beauty, art and dance. It is the seat of Love and Compassion.

I realise I am evolving – in no way am I losing my heterosexuality and my love for women – I am merely becoming more balanced. David Deida expresses this superbly in ‘The Way of the Superior Man’ (which I think should be required reading for all men):

This newly evolving man is not a scared bully, posturing like some King Kong in charge of the universe. Nor is he a new age wimp, all spine-less, smiley, and starry-eyed. He has embraced both his inner masculine and feminine, and he no longer holds onto either of them. He doesn’t need to be right all the time, nor does he need to be always safe, co-operative, and sharing, like an androgynous Mr. Nice Guy. He simply lives from his deepest core, fearlessly giving his gifts, feeling through the fleeting moment into the openness of existence, totally committed to magnifying love.

Introduction, The Way of the Superior Man, David Deida

The uncovering of my inner female opens an entire new world – an appreciation for Art and Music, especially Classical music and Jazz. I have an epiphany listening to Mozart on my iPod on a pair of high-quality earphones, doing nothing but just listening – being totally, completely, 100% present with the music.

Such beauty! Such complexity! Such mastery! Dimensions which I had no doubt scratched before by listening casually or on the street, but never really penetrated. It was as if I was a swimmer who had always stayed on the surface of the ocean, and had now been given a scuba-tank to dive deep down beneath the waves.

To me, the ‘inner female’ is inseparable with the topic of right-brain / left-hand / creative / intuitive ability – also an area in which I have had tremendous interest in over the past few years. Some of my favourite activities to jog my right brain are mirror-writing and juggling. A great book on this topic is: The Power of Your Other Hand: A Course in Channeling the Inner Wisdom of the Right Brain by Lucia Capacchione

Interestingly, honoring my female side makes me better with women. It may sound surprising, but it makes complete sense. The secret of the Yin/Yang symbol is not the obvious black/white interplay – it is in the little dots. To be truly Yang, you must have a little bit of Yin in you. To be truly masculine, you must embrace your femininity. If you want to figure out what women want – you have to think like a woman. It makes you a better dresser. It makes you a better dancer. It gives you a whole lot more to talk about with women than football and cars.

The first breakup

On the surface, J and I are the model successful couple. Both of us are ambitious and intelligent, and are going on to ‘bright’ futures in the capitalist world: banking and management consulting. Both of us are great planners – we have discussed marriage, how many kids we are going to have, which schools we should send our kids to, etc. We talk about our dreams all the time – making it big in our careers, and amassing great wealth to help the needy, through organisations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

By this time, J has completed her studies, and is back in Singapore to start her new job at a management consultancy. We are back to being a long-distance couple – it is not great. What is worse is that we don’t know how long it will be before we are in the same country again. It is a source of concern – J wants to be in Singapore, whereas it looks like I will be working in London.

Perhaps more so than her, I have changed tremendously over the last 6 years. I am no longer the same person when we met. A simple model I like for evaluating relationships (from this book, Instant Intuition) is this – compatibility in four areas: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. J and I are matched fantastically on all levels, barring one – the spiritual dimension.

It is the spiritual dimension which is perhaps more important to me than any other at this stage of my life. While J does not criticise the spiritual books I read, I know that she is uncomfortable with many things which I am exploring – psychic ability and the esoteric for example. She does not share my compulsive search for the answers to the big questions in life, which I understand – there is nobody that I know in my peer group who has the same interests as me.

Another issue: she is the one and only girlfriend I have ever had. I don’t know what it is like to be with other women – something which I wonder about frequently but squash down beneath the surface. Being in University where there are many attractive girls is highly distracting – it certainly doesn’t make monogamy easy.

Beyond monogamy, it also made having close relationships with women difficult, regardless if they were platonic or not. Whether it was self-imposed (due to my self-consciousness) or J’s jealousy, I tended to avoid having close female friends. It’s a frustrating feeling because I am beginning to find that communication with women is a lot more comfortable to me than men – I am discovering my balanced masculine / feminine nature. My relationship with J feels like hard work – all the restrictions of monogamy and little physical intimacy.

Troubled, I have a psychic reading at the College of Psychic Studies to help clarify my thoughts. It is just before my Year 3 final examinations – the most important set of exams which I am about to take so far. By now, I have had a couple of readings, which I have come to regard as an extremely useful tool. I have found that a good psychic reading helps penetrate the surface layer of my mind to bring about insight about the root of the problem. Although I know all the answers I need are within me, I have many internal blocks which prohibit me from accessing them – consulting a psychic is a good way for my intuition, guides and higher self to bypass the conscious mind to give me information.

Perhaps it didn’t take a psychic to vocalise what I never dared to think, but the psychic says, ‘I wonder if this relationship is right for you at this time.’ It throws my mind in a spin. It might sound strange, but in the last 6 years, I had never considered breaking up with J – until now. I had always assumed that I would marry her and share my entire life with her.

I can see my life has come to (another) fork in the road. On one path, I can choose to stay with J, get married, have 2 kids, a great career, social acceptance and prestige, a nice big house and a comfortable existence. But it also means that my repressed sex drive will always be a time bomb waiting to go off – perhaps resulting in affairs or me cheating on her years down the road. It also means that whatever I really believe in will always have to take a backseat to what is socially acceptable. I can choose to neuter myself – sexually and ideologically – in exchange for a comfortable mundane existence.

The other path is ‘the one less traveled’. There is no telling what this future holds. But in it I sense there is a glimmer of something magical. Something truly extraordinary. Something truly mind-blowing in its meaning, creativity and uniqueness. Something that is only possible by leaving the herd and venturing into the unknown.

The choice is obvious. I cannot deny my true nature to explore, to go beyond, to grow. As much as I still love her and know it will be painful for both of us – the best thing I can do for her is to let her go. It is unfair for her, for myself and our future family to endure a messy divorce twenty years down the road when my inner volcano finally erupts.

Summer Internship at Goldman Sachs

Somehow, I make it through my exams. But there is hardly any time to grieve – my internship at GS starts soon after my exams end. All of the preparation has come to this critical 10 weeks. 10 weeks of networking, politicising, strategising and selling myself as a shiny new hire at the Bank.

If I were to pick one word to summarise the summer internship at GS, it would be: competitive.

The internship is loosely structured. While there are desk rotations, lectures and compulsory networking events, a lot of free time is left for interns to make their own connections within the firm.

The best analogy I can give of the hiring process is that of dating. For those who appear to have it all – personality, good looks, charisma – there will always be a disportionately large number of suitors. The same is true for the popular ‘desks’ (read: desks making the most $$$) – usually the Proprietary trading desks. On the flip side, there are the interns that every desk wants to hire. These are the MIT whiz kids, the chess champions, the hardcore quants who have been doing internships at hedge funds since they were 14. Or the really attractive girl from Cambridge who seems to know the right people and always says the right thing at the right time.

For the majority of the interns though, getting noticed is hard work. It means learning as much as you can, networking as much as you can, and using whatever advantage you have – connections, shared commonality through diversity events (eg. Black / Asian / Female / LGBT), or alumni events.

In my case, being a Spring intern gives me a slight advantage – I immediately hit the ground running with the contacts I already have. I am also sure I want to be a trader – I have no need to put on a persona for a sales role. I’m also getting the hang of this networking thing, in my own way. One of my favourite tactics in a crowded situation where everyone is trying to get noticed by a star trader or partner is to just move into the swarm silently and listen deeply. In really trying to understand what he is trying to say, and really locking into his ‘energy’, I often manage to say something genuinely insightful that sets me apart from the rest of the intern swarm.

Some parts of the internship are absurd – one time during a lecture HR is standing in front of the intern class, taking note of who’s talking or falling asleep. It’s like being back in kindergarten – but with real consequences of not getting an offer. Once a week, there is an ‘Open Meeting’ – where the intern class is grilled one by one by a trader / salesperson on the economic events of the past week, with all responses taken note of. But perhaps worse than the HR feedback is the public shaming: ‘Oh my God, I don’t believe she didn’t know where the FTSE was.’

It all seems to be a big game, largely fake and artificial, but I am determined to win at it.

Leaving for France

This period is a whirlwind of change – just as one chapter ends, another immediately starts. The week after the internship, my university term in France starts. I have to pack up all of my worldly possessions in the UK and ship it to France in one weekend.

I am in the Ecole Central de Lyon – a Grand Ecole in the small town of Ecully, in the outskirts of Lyon. In place of the fourth and final year at Imperial College, I am going through the third (and final) year at ECL. My French by this time is far from fluent – I can manage a basic conversation at best. Having all classes in French is especially difficult. But the French professors are lenient towards exchange students, and I manage to get by with the help of online dictionaries.

I get the offer from GS. It is a joyous, happy moment – a dream of a multimillion dollar future come true – but feels bittersweet now that I don’t have J to celebrate it with. In fact, I don’t really have anybody to celebrate with. Nonetheless – it’s what I really wanted, and now I have it. The Law of Attraction really does work!

Being in France is a bit surreal – I did intend to be here and here I am – but in many ways it is so far outside my comfort zone. I have my moments of ‘be careful of what you wish for, you might get it’. It’s exciting but scary to be in alien environment. There is a sense of not knowing who I am any longer – so much has changed in these few months.

If I could represent on a scale of 1-10 of how difficult it is to integrate into another country, moving from Singapore to the UK would be a 3. France would be a 8. It is one thing to visit France for a holiday and an entirely different affair to live, study and work in it. France is an extremely unfamiliar environment to me – linguistically, culturally and socially. It is a country of paradox – where

• The concept of ‘race’ supposedly doesn’t exist (according to the French Constitution due to its anti-communitarianism stance), but xenophobia and racism are such big issues
• The country is blessed with beautiful weather, countryside, mountains and beaches, but where the people are always complaining and never seem to be satisfied
• The diet is so rich – wine, buttery croissants, cream sauces, cheese, desserts, foie gras, confit de canard – but the people never seem to get fat
• They can be so logical and left-brained (eg. strong emphasis on Math) but are so creative and irrational as well (eg. haute couture, art, behaviour)

Stranded in the Alps

My feelings towards the French take a nose-dive after an eventful ski trip.

A bunch of friends and I are skiing at L’Alpe d’Huez, having woken up at 5am to catch the coach. Sarah, a friend of mine, is an inexperienced skiier. We’ve been skiing for hours and are rushing to the coach, which is due to leave at 4.15pm. Thankfully, we reach the bottom in the nick of time, 5 minutes before departure. Because Sarah has rented her ski equipment, she goes to return them while I tell the coach driver to wait for her. Putting down my equipment, I let the French driver know that Sarah is returning her equipment and will be here any minute.

He gives me the classic French ‘I-don’t-know-not-my-problem’ shrug and retorts, ‘C’est comme le train, hein? Nous partons à l’heure, c’est exactament comme le train.’ (‘It’s like the train – we’re leaving exactly on time’) I am really annoyed by this. But somehow I am not surprised – it is classic French behaviour: fanatical adherence to rules, no matter the consequences.

The clock on the bus dashboard says 4.13pm. It looks like he will really leave without Sarah, and it doesn’t look likely that she’s going to be back in 2 minutes. I have several options – stand in front of the bus to stop him from leaving, punch him in the face (really tempting), or go out and get Sarah. Although I’m dead tired and really don’t want to leave the comfort and safety of the coach to go out into the cold again (it’s snowing heavily), I do the sensible thing and run out to get Sarah.

About 5 minutes later, Sarah and I come back running to where the coach was. Its nowhere to be found. It’s chaos central at the carpark – all the coaches and cars are leaving at this time. As we run round the carpark trying to find our coach, it finally dawns on me that the coach actually left without us. He actually decided to drive off, with the full knowledge that he would be leaving 2 foreigners to make their own way home, up in the mountains, in horrible weather, 200 kilometers from home. And what’s more – nobody else on the bus stopped him!

We do some asking around – it appears the last public bus to any nearby city has already left. There is a possibility of us staying at the resort hotel, but it would be very expensive. We decide to try hitch-hiking – but there is no time to lose – if we want to hitch-hike, we have to ask quickly as the sun is setting quickly and everybody is driving off from the resort.

In our broken French, we run around explaining our situation to people and try to get a ride as near to Lyon as possible. Thankfully, we find a couple who is driving to Grenoble who is willing to take us – we are immensely grateful and relived – we can easily catch a train from Grenoble to Lyon. We buy a train ticket at Grenoble and arrive at the Lyon train station a few hours later.

At the Gare de Lyon-Perrache train station, my nightmare of a day kicks into its second phase.

I am horrified. I have no idea what is wrong – either immigration has not put in my name in the database properly, or the police officer is intentionally misspelling my name. We try several variations of my name, go back and forth explaining myself, but end up going nowhere. It goes on for half-an-hour. At this time, it’s about 8.45pm and they announce that they have to close the office by 9pm. If they can’t find my name in the database in 15 mins, I will have to spend the night in the lock-up and continue the case tomorrow.

Thankfully, but this time Sarah has managed to place a phone call to a friend on the bus, who gets my ID number from my card. The police officers finally manage to find my name on the database. Apparently immigration has input my surname wrongly – instead of just ‘BOK’, they have entered ‘BOK CHEK KWONG’, having included my middle name. I am released. They almost seem disappointed.

At this point, I don’t know to be pissed at the immigration department, or the police, or the bus driver, or the people on the bus. I am so utterly exhausted on all levels. I just want to go home. I am so bloody grateful to be going home. I collapse on the bed – feeling like Jack Bauer after a season of 24.

Mentally reviewing from the comfort of my bed – it seems as though the entire sequence has been arranged for me like a play. On some level, I know that I have experienced this nightmare of a day because of all the judgements I have made towards the French, and that I have manifested what I have wanted to see. I asked to see the worst of French society, and got my wish fulfilled.

I want to forgive, but it’s so damn hard. It’s hard enough to forgive one person – now I have to forgive every French person!? I nonetheless try my best over the next few months.

Buddhism

After recovering from my traumatic experience, I read Steve Hagen’s ‘Buddhism: Plain and Simple.’ Having an aversion to religion of any type after my experience with Christianity – I have never explored Buddhism properly. But Buddhism is a theme that seems to come up in many of the spiritual books I have read and it seems natural for me to look into. I am intrigued when Pursah, in The Disappearance of the Universe, describes Buddhism as ‘the world’s most psychologically sophisticated religion’. (DU, pg. 32) ‘Buddhism: Plain and Simple’ seems like a good primer to Buddhism – small, concise and jargon-free.

Buddhism: Plain and Simple turns out to be a great book. Again, there is a sense of remembering with this book – and with all the associated themes in Buddhism which I never got when I did go to temples in Singapore. There is such deep reservoir of wisdom within Buddhism. I like the fact that this Zen monk is saying that Buddhism is not actually a religion but actually a philosophy.

In particular, I am struck by the pithy wisdom of Buddha’s one liner: ‘All suffering comes from attachment’. It’s not a statement to be made or taken easily. He’s not just talking about some suffering, for some people – he’s talking about all suffering that every bloody single miserable human in the history of the world has ever experienced. I mean, wow, what a statement to make!

Over the next few months in France, I undergo an intense, almost monastic period of self-inquiry. What is this “I”? What is this indivisible, immutable kernel of identity that “I” is supposed to be? Does it even exist? I know that the “I” cannot just be this body. I know that I am not Chinese. I know that I am not male. I know that my name is but a label, a construct. I know that of this will pass away. But what is this I? Who is the observer? Who is the thinker?

I am systematically destroying my sense of identity. The seeker in me has the single-minded focus of a child tearing through layers of a meticulously wrapped present, eager to get to his toy. I have many moments when I get tired and frustrated at not being able to open the hard parts of my inner self, and am forced to to take a break. It’s at these moments when I survey what I’ve done – a half-broken box, shreds of wrapping paper scattered all over, a half-functioning sense of self, and I think to myself, ‘Shit, what have I done??’ To make things worse, there’s so little to grasp on to, for a sense of the familiar in France.

There is a part of me that wishes I had never started – that I had just left my present alone in its shiny, pristine condition. That I never started on this spiritual journey, that I could be unafflicted by this primal need to question everything, that I could just be… normal.

I happen to be back in London to visit a friend, and am browsing through books about Buddhism at Borders in Soho. Zen is especially appealing to me – why, I cannot explain exactly. There is something about Zen which is so clean, so simple, but yet so profound. The Zen section is filled with books by a Vietnamese monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, and I am quite liking his style. In many of his books, he mentions a community called Plum Village, which I discover is located near Bordeaux in France. It looks like a really beautiful, chilled out place. Interesting.

I decide to go to Plum Village for 2 weeks over the December holiday period. If nothing else, it would be a novel way to pass Christmas and New Year’s instead of the usual trite and commercial festivities. I feel mysteriously drawn to Plum Village, by the the set of circumstances that I am in – the isolation, me being in France, the increasing intensity of my inner searching, the winter chill, my attraction to Buddhism. It just seems… right. It’s not something that I tell friends and family – that would involve too many questions, to which I am not sure I have the answers.

As I sit at the boarding gate at Lyon airport, waiting for my flight to Bordeaux, I am struck by the strangeness of it all. Nobody here knows who I am. I’m not sure who I am any longer. Why am I going to a Zen monastery in the freezing winter?? Little did I know that my life would never be the same again…

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