Societal Systems

Theory and Practice

Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D. – April 5, 2021

Insights are of no use if we can't bring them down to the level of action. They are of no value if they stay mainly up there in the level of the mind. You like meditation? You want to be compassionate? You want to balance your masculine and feminine energy? Practice it daily.

Whose World Are We Trying to Build and Maintain?

Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D. – May 25, 2021

We can only utilize the lessons we learned then and harness them as our foundation for building a new world today and which we hope will be realized tomorrow.

But whose world are we looking back and learning lessons from? Is it our own little world or the world built for us by others through the ages? Knowing this makes a great difference.

Alone, we can never transform the world that has been built by others for us. We are simply a drop in a bucket. No matter how much we will dream to transform the external world, our dream will always remain a dream, a product of our fantasy that only nourishes the builders of our nation. We are simply doomed to fail. There's no such a thing as a world flowing with milk and honey, a land of promise, or an American dream.

We must look first and foremost at the world we shaped for ourselves in the past. What kind of world was I living in the past that led me to where and what I am now? How was that world of mine shaped? Was it a result of my conscious acts and free will or choice? Or, was it a product of some external impositions?

Today, we are going into a long process of sincere self-questioning in order to know where the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats were. In the past, we may not have been able to do this, maybe because, at our tender age, we may not still possess the skill and awareness to seriously examine our life. Or, if we did, we failed to do so for some valid reasons perhaps.

But we should now be able to do this. We can now recall our elementary days, high-school days, college days, and so on. We can now examine the force and energy that impelled us to build the kind of lifestyle we live then. We can now do an honest-to-goodness, soul- searching examination of our past life.

This is different from the examination of conscience that we must have learned from our teachers in the past. We are now searching for the entire dimension of our past that includes our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that we failed to do so then.

We can't just change our life today by starting from zero. We have to be grounded. We are a product of our past, as a result of our own action or some admonitions from our parents and elders. We are not trying now to blame others for what we have become today.

If real and genuine self-transformation is to be realized, we ought only to blame ourselves or get the erroneous tendency of kneeling before others, bowing our heads, kissing their feet, saying Namaste, and allow them to enlighten us and forgive our sins. In many ways, though, these gestures are necessary as a form of our respect to others. But the burden of forgiveness primarily rests on ourselves. We can either forgive ourselves or not.

Our recollection of the past is not one of finding faults alone. Our role now is something bigger, by exploring a wider horizon of our own little world in the past--our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that we failed to do so then, but now we will examine more deeply why we failed to do it then.

Alone, in silence and solitude, we need to do a long process of self-reflection. We need to start today, not tomorrow. This is an inevitable necessity, though may not be necessarily always correct because times and circumstances always change, and they require new responses.

We have to start here and now, not there and hereafter. We need to start today so we will be able to resurrect the various lessons we learned from our past life. Making them alive today can reenergize our life anew and trigger us to move on, and, by our strong resolve and conviction, we can do it resolutely, no matter what.

But this is not also an assurance or a guarantee that we can be better off today than yesterday. It will entirely depend on the value and worth of these lessons to our own personal life. It will also depend on how we will relentlessly pursue them in our daily life from moment to moment.

In the final analysis, life is primarily learning lessons from moment to moment and it is from what we learn daily that we will be able to transform our little world today and, hopefully, our future.

A new important edited portion in my article had to be done because I believe in the power of confession. As Jesus told his apostles, “‘As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.’ And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained’” (John 20:21–23). It's the Holy Spirit that does the forgiveness done in a ritual form through the priests as the emissaries of Jesus.

Here is the edited portion.....

"If real and genuine self- transformation is to be realized, we ought only to blame ourselves or get the erroneous tendency of kneeling before others, bowing our heads, kissing their feet, saying Namaste, and allow them to enlighten and forgive our sins. In many ways, though, these gestures are necessary as a form of respect to others. But the burden of forgiveness primarily rests on ourselves. We can either forgive ourselves or not."

Interpreting the Signs of the Times

Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D. – June 26, 2021

We must be conscious in order to arrive at an accurate interpretation of what is true and real. We need to be aware of what's going on around our surrounding to be able to choose one from among the so many possibilities. Short of this, we miss everything. Our life is amiss. We need to lift that veil of darkness before us, that foggy mist of tiny dusts and clays covering our cosmic eyes, the Cloud of Unknowing.

Full-On War on an Invisible Enemy

Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D. – October 21, 2021

We are living at a time when we are surrounded by a Corona of death and its cumulative effect is now taking its heavy toll on us. We have not yet flattened the curve and no governments, no scientists, no religion have yet been able to come up with a sure cure so far, except for some empty promises and false hopes.

And the conditions are worsening as days go by. We are still being experimented. The number of people infected by the Coronavirus daily continues to increase by the millions, aggravated by the helplessness and inability of our political leaders to respond effectively to the safety and welfare of the people.

What a frightening predicament we are in today. Expecting the worst that may happen to us anytime, anywhere is not extreme pessimism. The statistics are terrifyingly staggering.

The end of a full-on war on an invisible enemy, including the other global pandemic that are mercilessly killing us softly, is still nowhere in sight, and we are all left on our own devices to fend for ourselves, while at the same time, resigning to the fact that, alone, we cannot really change the conditions around us.

Here's wishing you for the best.

Social Norms

Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D. - December 3, 2020

There's no normal, new normal, abnormal, or paranormal. To be normal means to conform with the social norms. Violating these norms is considered abnormal. But social norms vary from one culture to another. They also change over time. What's normal today can be abnormal tomorrow. What's left then? Our Consciousness, who is not normal, not new normal, not abnormal, not even paranormal.

To fit or not to fit to the system! 

Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D. 

There are only a few choices for us, namely:

(1) - To fit into the system or status quo by unconditionally supporting and giving the new administration all the chances during its term to correct the system;

(2) - Critical collaboration, principled cooperation, but peaceful coexistence observing all democratic processes and moral standards for resolving conflicts and tensions; and

(3) - Undecided and silent. “I-don’t-care” attitude: “I’ll just do nothing”; “I’d rather focus on my own personal transformation”.

It’s our choice. I choose #1.

What Did the System Do to You?

Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D. - October 30, 2020

What did the system do to you? It took advantage of your silence and indifference. It devoured you whole so you would perfectly blend into the system. But you didn't want to be enslaved within. You worked hard to liberate yourself from its prison cell. Now that you're out, you experience how far free and happy you are than when you were totally inside the system.

We are living in a world of make-believe

Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D. – September 9, 2001

It is unreal, a fantasy, a fairy-tale, imaginary, illusory, fake, and a figment of wild imagination, created by others.

It is not our world. It's their own making. They want us to believe that it is the only true and real world. We are simply forced to live into their world, herded like lambs led into their slaughter.

Every nation is building their own phantom world, in a race to rule over other people: the United Nations, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Great Britain, the USSR, China's Communist Party, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Indian Continent, the African Union.

Every nation is all-out to subdue and conquer the other, politically, economically, religiously, culturally, militarily, and geographically.

We, the lowly people, are simply to accept their world, the inhumane kind of work they impose on us, the minimum pay they give us, the kind of education they offer, the kind of community we are to live, the laws and regulations they enact for us, and so on.

Failure to accept their world means penalty. Grudgingly, we are forced to accept. For violation can mean starvation, incarceration, marginalization from the mainstream society, or even death.

We, the poor, have no choice. Live and let live is the rule of the game of life. It’s not a free world. There’s no freedom, only slavery, dictatorship, authoritarianism, and militarism. Take it or leave it.

Our battlecry....

Arise ye people of the world! Unite and be awake! Let’s be the masters and creators of our own destiny and future. Let’s lord over the universe as it was intended and designed by its Creator from the very beginning of time and space.