BasBasBas.com

Tag: spirituality

  • The Yambol buscrash and my dream

    Yambol bus crashI should be working on my thesis right now, but I feel I would work more effectively once I get this out of my system.

    Yesterday there was a tragic accident as a 30 year old bus cut its way into a group of tourists in Southeastern Bulgaria. Brake failure. 16 people died. 4 are still in the hospital. For the specifics, see Martin’s blogpost. Now this of course made some impression on me, but not as much as what happened after I learned about the accident.

    I continued working for an hour, maybe two. I decided to take a nap. By now, the newsstory had already left my mind or at least gone to the background. While I took my nap, I had a strange dream. Just before I woke up, we were in a coach pulled by horses. There was one carriage in front of us with two women riding it which crashed into the shrubs in the roadside, but it didn’t look bad, so I didn’t think much of it. What stuck with me most, is what happened inside the coach I was in. We were about 6 people in there, two families – mine and another it seemed. A girl of about my age was on the phone with a friend of her and said: “Sofia is doooooood” (dood is Dutch for dead). She said it in a strange way and her parents commented on it, disapprovingly. Shortly after, I woke up.

    I immediately started thinking… Does this have something to do with the recent tremors and earthquakes here? Will something bad happen to the city of Sofia? But this was maybe 2% of how I felt, because for the other 98% I felt that Sofia was a person… So I thought of the bus accident again. I tried to see if there were any names of victims released yet. Not yet. I became convinced that something happened to Sofia – either in this bus accident, or in some other way. As I woke up this morning, there was a list of names of the casualties.  Including a Sofia.

    Creepy. On the one hand I’m a very logical person, on the other I do have a believe in the paranormal and spiritual. And I have been experiencing a lot of synchronicity lately… Which I haven’t really experienced in nearly a year (and I’m very happy it’s back – it’s a good sign in my eyes).

    Don’t know what to make of it. Given the increase in synchronicity, I have a feeling I’ll be able to put it into perspective through future experiences. For now… It will remain a mystery.

    😉

    How about you? Have you experienced such things before? What do you make of your own experiences?

  • Fasted For 2 Days & Why Fasting Works

    As I wrote in my previous blog post I intended to fast one day in solidarity with the people in Zimbabwe, but mostly by accident, I actually fasted for two days.

    First things first. I fasted for Zimbabwe, because it’s a great cause in my eyes. The South African hunger strikers were strengthened and fortified in the knowledge that they were backed, through action, by 35,000 people from over 190 different countries. I talked about why I was fasting to friends and I pointed their attention towards the disastrous situation in Zimbabwe. Yesterday, Kumi Naidoo, a South African activist and the ‘face’ of this protest shared:

    “We are stunned by the response of Avaaz members around the world. I have not eaten a bite of food for eleven days, but when I speak to the African Union summit tomorrow, I will be fortified by your hope and energy. The press and leaders I address will know that they are contending with a serious global movement that will not settle for anything less than bold action. You are making a difference for millions of Zimbabweans. Thank you.”

    I ended up following Avaaz’ fasting rules of not eating between sun up and sun down, but just drinking water for two days. The first day since I woke up quite late and had a hangover, so when I felt like eating, I figured I’d wait until it was dark – half an hour / one hour. Today, I fasted again… I didn’t eat anything after going to bed on Saturday and didn’t drink any water either until after dark on Sunday. It wasn’t so tough. Although the dehydration started to get the best of me and left me very exhausted after dinner, but it’s nothing compared to what the people in Zimbabwe are going through. My girlfriend stayed with me all day, as I was told in Turkey that if you’re participating in the Ramadan fast, it’s important to be with a friend if you can… The support makes fasting easier.

    Now I’d like to say why I fasted and why fasting works, but be sure to have a look at how Gandhi achieved his goals 5 times through fasting!

    Someone left a critical comment in the StumbleUpon reviews of the last blog post. I really wish they had left it as a comment, so I could reply directly to it, but let me do it now. They said:

    “And that will help how exactly? I’m all for helping and charity, but I loathe people doing stuff only so they could say “I did something” (meaningless) and now I’ve done my part. If you’re going to do something, do it right you conformist bitch.” (Moorwind)

    I’ve heard this view a lot in the past years. My view is the following… If everyone did the least they could do, to change this world in a positive way, to fight injustice, then this world would be a lot better place. Alas, not everybody does even the least they could do, but I will not be a hypocrite, so I will do the least I can do – and if I can I will do a little more. If you want to change the world, start with yourself – it’s the easiest thing that you can change RIGHT NOW.

    Secondly, I wanted to fast for more reasons. No action exists by itself and any action’s vibrations will spread. I hope through fasting, I have encouraged others or at least informed others. Secondly, fasting is an important spiritual practice. I’ve never fasted and decided that now that the call for a fast was there, why not. Thirdly, I’ve always been curious what Muslims have to go through during their holy month of Ramadan (or Ramazan in some languages). I cannot imagine what it’s like to do this for a full month, but at least I got closer to understanding – and I have a lot more respect for it now. Finally, unlike the critical commenter, I do believe these small acts make a difference. How about you?

    Can small acts have great impacts? Do you have examples from your own life? Have you ever fasted? Why? Did you fast in solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe? How was your fast?

    Photo by centralsq, shared under a Creative Commons license.

    BasBasBas.com is about my life abroad. I regularly write about my adventures in Istanbul, Bulgaria and travels in the region, but like to ponder about the future also. If you’d like to stay up to date, you can subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates in your inbox. You can also follow me on Twitter.

  • Reading!

    Since I spend a lot of time on public transport (either traveling or in the crazy traffic of Istanbul), I get to do quite a bit of reading. At the moment I’m reading two books. “A New Earth” by Eckhart Tolle, this one I’m reading for the second time, and “The Inheritance of Loss” by Kiran Desai. I found two inspirational quotes in these books that I want to share.

    Something I find very worrying is the growing phenomenom of antitheism. While using StumbleUpon, I noticed an immense number of sites that are very hateful towards religion. Understandably so, because they feel their way of life is being threatened by religion, but personally, I don’t feel that bashing, mocking, fighting or anything else that comes out of negativity can do any good. In “A New Earth“, Eckhart Tolle expresses my feelings very clearly:

    “In certain cases, you may need to protect yourself or someone else from being harmed by another, but beware of making it your mission to “eradicate evil,” as you are likely to turn into the very thing you are fighting against. Fighthing unconsciousness will draw you into unconsciousness yourself. Unconsciousness, dysfunctional egoic behavior, can never be defeated by attacking it. Even if you defeat your opponent, the unconsciousness will simply have moved into you, or the opponent reappears in a new disguise. Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists.“

    Very wise words. I really admire Eckhart Tolle’s works and can keep reading it over and over. If you really want to grasp the full meaning of his words above, go check out the book.

    A New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle The Inheritance of Loss, by Kiran Desai

    On my way to Bulgaria, I figured that Eckhart Tolle’s stuff might be a bit heavy for a 10+ hour journey and I’d need some novel to read. I found some novels in my apartment (left by previous inhabitants) and found an interesting one about life in Nepal around the time of the Nepalese independence movement in the 80s. I picked it up and took it with me… On the third page or so, I came across this marble of beauty:

    “Could fulfillment ever be felt as deeply as loss? Romantically she decided that love must surely reside in the gap between desire and fulfillment, in the lack, not the contentment. Love was the ache, the anticipation, the retreat, everything around it but the emotion itself.” 

    Taken from Kiran Desai’s “The Inheritance of Loss“. Haven’t quite formed my opinion about it, since the print in my version of the book is quite small and it wasn’t ideal to read in a bus on a Bulgarian bumpy road (and at night), so I had to put it away.

    Have you read any of these books? Thoughts and comments very welcome! I find books are one of the best topics for meaningful and engaging conversations! 🙂

Related Posts Widget for Blogs by LinkWithin