My Very First Blog

We have all heard about planes crashing. But a plane disappearing? That is an extremely rare occurrence!

No one knows what happened to flight MH370 which was traveling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on the early morning of March 8th. The Malaysian Airlines (MAS) plane suddenly disappeared from the radar screen and lost all contacts with Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) at 1.30am, which was about 45 minutes into its flight.

Somewhere over the South China Sea, off the coast of Vietnam, the Boeing 777 jetliner carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members just vanished. There was no distress call, no indication of any danger or malfunction of any kind. Nothing. Search parties from Malaysia, Vietnam, China, and a number of other countries had been trying to locate it for the past 48 hours without success.


Image courtesy of The Star Online

This incident must be one of the most puzzling mysteries of the year! Why puzzling?

1. The Boeing 777 is one of the safest planes in the world today. Except for a botched landing that killed 3 people in San Francisco in 2013, there have never been any crash fatalities. And MAS has one of the best safety records of all airlines in Asia.

2. The most dangerous part of a flight is during the take off and landing. But this incident happened during the safest phase of the flight that is, while it was cruising!

3. The plane did not run into any violent storm. The weather was perfectly fine!

4. There was no distress calls from the pilot. Given that the plane was cruising at that time, the pilot would have plenty of time to report any mechanical malfunction or problems. Even in the unlikely scenario where both of the plane's engines shut down, the plane could still glide for about 20 minutes, giving the pilot lots of time to radio for help.

5. The plane's inbuilt tracker (known as flight transponder) should automatically update its location to Air Traffic Control but in this case, it did not! The transponder data mysteriously showed no change in altitude or course.

6. A sudden bomb explosion due to terrorist activity would explain why there was no distress call and no update on the transponder device. An explosion at such an altitude would cause the plane debris to spread out over a wide area but so far, no debris has been found.

7. Even if it's due to terrorism, why up to now, no one is claiming responsibility?

8. The plane could possibly being hijacked, but then again, why would anyone want to hijack a plane and dive it into the sea? Wouldn't the hijackers land it at the airport so that they could voice their demands?

9. There were reports that the plane did an unusual turn back moments before it disappeared from the radar screen but why would the pilot not made a distress call in such a case?

So many questions and no definite answer. For now, there are only theories and speculation. You can read up on more of the theories on what happened to MH370 flight HERE.

Meantime, I pray that the search parties from all the different countries will be able to locate the missing plane soon. If no survivors are found, this will rank as the deadliest airline disaster since November 12, 2001.

Continued from Part 1

According to feng shui expert and world's best selling feng shui writer Lillian Too, there are 3 dimensions to feng shui. They are, as mentioned in Part 1, the Space dimension, the Time dimension and the Spiritual dimension.

Spiritual Feng Shui is all about engaging the beings of the cosmic realms. Who and what are these beings? This is what we are going to delve into in this post.

Basically, there are SIX different realms of existence. We are in the HUMAN realm. We are somewhere in the middle as there are higher and lower realms than us.



The Upper Realms are made up of the God realm and The Asura realm. These consists mostly of the Protectors and Guardians like Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and wisdom beings.

The Lower Realms are made up of the Ghost realm, the Animal realm and the Hell realm.

Within the spirits realm, they have their own different levels and hierarchies. Even the Protectors and Guardians have different ranks of their own. Those of the lower levels are afraid of those from the higher levels, or to put it more nicely, the lower level beings respect those that are of higher levels than them.



According to Lillian Too, the HUMAN realm is the best realm to be born in. It is only in the human realm that one can have the potential to achieve enlightenment, meaning a state where you can truly understand everything about the true nature of your existence, so that there is no more learning.

Also, in the human realm, one can appease and control the spirits, which makes one's life smoother and happier.

It will be most unfortunate if you were to be born into the Animal realm as animals do not have the intellect to understand such profound wisdoms or to achieve enlightenment. And even worse, is to descend into the Hell realm, for you will be one of those hungry ghosts that are only allowed to roam the earth during the Hungry Ghost month!


A hungry ghost image source

As such, the Human realm is seen to be very precious. Lillian therefore advised us against taking our own lives. She even said that people who harm themselves are stupid beyond words! The message here is to take good care of our lives for as humans, for we are indeed very precious and at an advantage compared to the others.

Now there are billions and billions of spirit beings! And they are not just of this world, but of other worlds too, in fact, the whole Universe. So who really are these ghosts and spirits?

According to Lillian, ghosts and spirits are beings that are trapped in the BARDO. What is the Bardo? The Bardo is the in-between world between realms!



This is how it works. When we die, we spend 49 days in the Bardo. That's exactly 7 weeks! This is also why the Buddhists and Taoists pray for 49 days for people who have passed away.

3 things can happen when you are in the Bardo ...

1) You get reborn (either into human, animal or hell realm)
2) You stay trapped in the Bardo
3) You become enlightened and go on to the higher realms

Most spirits get reborn, but some get trapped in the Bardo. How does one get trapped in the Bardo?

Well, when you are too attached to life on earth, you will get trapped in the Bardo. When everyone cries and mourns your death, you may find that you are not able to let go. So it is important to say good bye and not cling to your past life when you die.

If not, you will be a slave to the King of Bardo. But what is worse since you are so attached to life on earth, is that the King of Bardo will tell you to pull in another relative. That's one reason why you notice that sometimes when a person dies, 2 or 3 weeks later, his close relative or family member also dies. This is also why a lot of prayers are needed for the dead so that they do not stay trapped in the Bardo.


Wandering in the Bardo image source

How did Lillian know about all these? You are probably thinking she invented it all right? Well, according to Lillian, she got all these knowledge through lots of research and by learning from the Tibetan lamas and also from reading the sutras, which are the direct teachings of the Buddha.

Personally, I think it's way more complex than what Lillian explained to us during the seminar. But then, I think she did a great job in simplifying and making it easy to digest for the layman.

Lillian's advice is to live in such a way that when you die, you know HOW to die. But in the meantime, those of us still alive have a life to live. We all want a happy, smoother life and one way to achieve that is to have good feng shui. Besides good feng shui, we also need to have good Spiritual feng shui, in other words, we need to appease the spirits around us.


The Diamond Sutra image source

Now every space has its own local spirits. They are neither good nor evil. KL has its own local spirits, Mid Valley (Lillian mentioned this since we were having the Spiritual Feng Shui seminar at The Gardens next to Mid Valley mall) has its own local spirits, and your house has its own local spirits too. Lillian said her house is a paradise to her because she always keep her local spirits happy.

In Part 3, I will share with you what kind of harm and obstacles these local spirits can do to you, and how you can actually appease them so that instead of harming you, they turn around to protect you from harm!

Possibly also in Part 3 (if the post is not too long), I will share some of these interesting stories like...
- how Lillian's guru, Lama Zopa Rinpoche changed the direction of the fire raging through the forests of California (is it magic?)
- why the Indonesian haze plaguing Malaysia may be spiritually related...
- how Lillian created the rain to wash away the haze! (magic again?) and...
- all about black magic, and which country has the deadliest black magic of them all! Can you guess?

Don't miss all these and more, in Part 3 coming soon! : )

"There are many spirits in the hall today. If you are psychic, you can see them..."

Those were among some of the opening words uttered by feng shui expert and world's best-selling feng shui writer Lillian Too during her Spiritual Feng Shui Seminar at the Gardens Hotel Ballroom in KL on the 28th July 2013.

It was a full day event and a very interesting one too! Interesting because for the very first time in Malaysia, Lillian Too were talking with us about ghosts, spirits and the cosmic world!

If you are wondering why I took such a long time to blog about this event, well, that's because I had wanted to first read Lillian's ground-breaking new book called Spiritual Feng Shui - The Vital Third Dimension. I needed to gather my thoughts too before writing this post as there were simply too many things to mention.



It would be highly impossible for me to reveal every single thing that Lillian had talked about that day. So I shall just try to keep it simple and to the point.

But first, what is Spiritual Feng Shui? If you think Spiritual Feng Shui is all about ghosts and spirits, you are not very far behind. Yes, it's about that and more. Googling about this topic did not prove to be  very helpful. There were not many websites or information on the Internet regarding Spiritual Feng Shui.

In Lillian Too's own words, Spiritual Feng Shui is about engaging the spirits around us and living in harmony with them. If this sounds scary to you, Lillian made it worse initially by saying that not everyone can see these spirits (although she can), but it's better not to see them because some of them look very fearsome and horrific. Yikes!!

However, she was quick to tell us that first and foremost, we must NOT be afraid. Ghosts and spirits - they do exist - but we must not be scared of them. She also dispelled fears that this was about religion, that we need to convert to Buddhism to practise Spiritual Feng Shui. Instead, Spiritual Feng Shui has nothing to do with religion, but more about having faith in oneself.

For the uninitiated, there are basically three dimensions to the practice of feng shui. They are the Space dimension, Time dimension and Spiritual dimension.

Most of us who study feng shui or have some interest in feng shui are already familiar with the first two dimensions ie. Space and Time feng shui. Honestly, I had no idea about the third dimension ie. the Spiritual dimension until Lillian mentioned briefly about it during her Feng Shui Extravaganza in KL back in 2011.



However, Spiritual Feng Shui is not a new fad or something that Lillian just discovered by accident. It was in fact, being practised by many good old feng shui practitioners especially in Hong Kong - it's just that they never talk or reveal about it. When Lillian was at the height of her career in Hong Kong back in the olden days, she noticed that many developers called in the feng shui master before they start construction work on a new building. Many thought the feng shui master was there to do the Space and Time feng shui but the truth of the matter is, he was there to bless the land and appease the spirits so that the construction could continue without any obstacles.

We have often heard about accidents and deaths happening at construction sites. Could it be that the developers had offended the spirits of the land and the surroundings when they started to dig and build?

According to Lillian, the REAL secrets to feng shui is neither the Space nor the Time dimension as practised by many modern feng shui practitioners today, but the Spiritual dimension. To her, Space feng shui is easy. It's all about compass directions, landscape, formulas, the art of placement of furniture and decorative objects, and arranging your physical space to improve the energy flow. When she first started writing her first feng shui book more than 15 years ago, Lillian talked mainly about Space feng shui.

Later, when people were familiar with Space feng shui, Lillian started to introduce Time feng shui in her books. Time feng shui is about the changes in energy with the passing of time. Most of us who were practicing Space feng shui began to realize that energy changes with time and does not stay the same forever. In other words, we have to keep updating our feng shui from time to time.

Unbeknownst to many, Lillian was already practising all three dimensions of feng shui long before that. Her meeting with Lama Zopa Rinpoche in India in 1997 was also the turning point where her interest in Spiritual feng shui was fuelled. From this very high lama of Tibetan Buddhism, she learnt many things that helped her share with us all the secrets of Spiritual Feng Shui.

According to Lillian, it was difficult to talk about Spiritual Feng Shui. Writing the book on Spiritual Feng Shui was not easy. A lot of research and years of disciplined practice were necessary before she could bring herself to share with others. I certainly have no regrets attending her seminar as I think she had successfully put it all together in a way that is comprehensive and easy to understand for the layman.

During the seminar, Lillian explained the powerful role of Spiritual Feng Shui - how it enhances the Space and Time dimensions so that our practice of feng shui is complete and is more effective. There were some interesting moments when she said she could feel the energy of the hall was very heavy as if it was crowded with spirits who were also there to listen to her talk. Lillian said this always happens when she gives all her feng shui talks. To our amusement, Lillian then proceeded to ask the spirits to give her some space, so as to lighten up the energy in the hall.

Next, Lillian introduced us to the topic of King Gesar and the Spirits of Shambhala. She equated Spiritual Feng Shui with the Spirits of Shambhala. To the Tibetans, Shambhala is a mystical paradise that is supposed to be located somewhere in Central Asia. King Gesar is the King of Shambhala.

King Gesar is also widely revered as a manifestation of the 4 Buddhas - the great Guru Rinpoche, Avalokiteshvara (the Buddha of Compassion), Vajrapani (the Buddha of Power) and Manjushri (the Buddha of Wisdom). Invoking King Gesar and chanelling the Spirit of Shambhala will help you fend off evil forces and learn profound spiritual truths. It also make your inner spirit essence or 'lung ta' strong. A strong inner spirit will prevent you from getting bad luck, being disturbed by spirits and falling victim to black magic!

Lillian also mentioned about the Kalachakra symbol. It is a principal protective symbol that keeps you safe. When worn, the Kalachakra can be seen by spirits and they will leave you alone. Lillian mentioned that The Dalai Lama, who is considered a warrior of Shambhala, has been spreading the knowledge of the Kalachakra to the world.



Spiritual Feng Shui involves connecting with various kinds of spirits and invoking different levels of Protectors. How do we connect with the spirits? How do we invoke the cosmic protectors to protect us from harm? Lillian promised to teach us that day.

But before that, we need to know who these spirits and protectors are. We need to understand how the cosmic realms work. And THIS is where it got really interesting.

Don't miss Part 2 where I will share with you what Lillian Too taught us about the parallel worlds and the different realms of existence.

To be continued ....

Jerry glanced at the table clock beside his bed. It was 9.15 pm.

Yesterday afternoon, I had some free time and decided to go watch a movie. It had been some time since I watched a really good horror movie, so I thought why not watch the newly released The Conjuring?

This is a true story.

It's that time of the year again! Yes, I am talking about the Hungry Ghost Festival.

For the benefit of my Western readers who may be unfamiliar with this event, Hungry Ghost Festival is  a period during the 7th month of the Chinese lunar calendar when souls and spirits of the dead are set free to wander the earth. It's a yearly custom for people in parts of Asia to appease these spirits with certain rituals and feasts.

This year, the Hungry Ghost month begins on August 17th and lasts till September 15th. To the Chinese, there are a number of taboos that are observed during this period.

Read More : 10 things NOT to do during the Hungry Ghost month.

Although the Hungry Ghost Festival peaks on the 14th day of the 7th month of the lunar calendar (or August 30th, 2012 according to Western calendar), the ghosts are already walking amongst us. Be afraid, be very afraid.....

How did I know that ghosts are already wandering the Earth? The proof lies in these unexplained photos which I took the past week.

I took all these photos using my iPhone 3Gs, so please excuse the poor quality.



The above is a picture I took from Casa Damansara condo in PJ. It shows the back part of Tropicana City Mall. Nothing wrong with the picture until I took another one, but a closer (enlarged) shot.



Can you see a lady standing there? Looks more like a ghost to me!



What do you think? She looks sort of transparent to me. More like a ghost than a human, no?

Last week, I was chilling out at a cafe at Mont Kiara in the evening when I noticed someone peering from outside the glass window. The person looked rather odd so I secretly snapped a photo of him.



I have to say he looked more like a shadow than a real person but from inside, it's hard to really see.

I brushed it aside, and forgot about it until a few moments later when I looked up and got a shock of my life! The same person appeared to be looking directly at me!!



Despite being chilled to my bones, I managed to take a snapshot of him. I did not know how long he stared at me, but it was really, really long. I could not even remember what happened after that. Somehow he disappeared while I was still in a state of shock.

Now I have driven past the nice waterfall at Bangsar South many times and had admired it each time. But last week, while waiting at the traffic light near this waterfall, I decided to take a snapshot. When I reached back home, I looked at the photo I had taken and noticed something.



Can you spot a face peering out from the waterfall?

What do you think? Was it just my imagination?



The worst experience I had was while at a shopping mall in PJ. Or more precisely, inside the shopping mall's toilet. They say never go to the toilet alone at night.

Well, I was washing my hands after doing my business in one of the cubicles when I saw this!

 

What will you do if you see this? Will you freak out?

If by now, you are still thinking I saw these ghosts, then you are too easily fooled! Hahaha!! Let me make a confession - NONE of these photos are true.

I created them using the Ghost Capture app in my iPhone. LOL!

Those of you who have read my blog post Ghosts In My Photos last year would know very early on that the ghosts here are all fake. That's why I named this post 'More Ghosts In My Photos' - some sort like a sequel. I hope you had enjoyed reading it. Haha!

Now here's a YouTube video of the HauntedFace app in my iPhone. Enjoy! Make sure the volume is turned on.



Scary? Well, you can take anyone's photo and change him or her into a horrible looking ghost with this app. But I would not dare try. Haha!

When Jam, his friend and I visited Phnom Penh in Cambodia for 3 days, we stayed at this hotel called Asia Hotel.



Guess what? Our stay here was fully paid for by a nice friend in Phnom Penh. He also acted as host and tour guide during our 3 days in this capital city of Cambodia. When we entered our hotel room, I saw something on the table.



Wow! They were fruits and tidbits courtesy of our good friend! Nice.



The room was huge! Too huge for just 3 people. But I loved it!



The room came with two bathrooms so we did not have to fight when it was time to shower or use the toilet. I did not take any photos of the bathrooms, though but they were clean.

There were three beds in a row. Beside each bed was a pair of slippers. One pair for each of us.



My stay at this hotel was pretty pleasant. Except for two interesting events that took place in this room. The first is the case of the three female hookers, which I shall blog about in a future post. The second is the case of the missing slippers.



Every night, before we jumped into bed, we would leave our slippers by the bed side. One morning, right after I woke up, Jam complained that his pair of slippers was gone. He searched around and eventually found his slippers in the waste paper basket near the bathroom!

Jam immediately asked if any one of us had thrown his slippers into the waste paper basket. His friend denied doing any such thing. I of course did not do it so replied in the negative. Instead, I jokingly told Jam that perhaps he had a bout of sleep-walking during the middle of the night and threw away his own slippers!

Jam's friend then suggested perhaps someone came into our room while we were sleeping during the night and did it. But we had locked our door from inside and it was not possible for anyone to come in. And even if it's true that someone had managed to enter our room, nothing was stolen from us. Why would he or she went through all that trouble just to throw that pair of slippers into the waste paper basket?!

It did not make sense. The only conclusion we could come up with was this - it was the work of a mischievous ghost! What other explanations are there?

The next night, we had an interesting case of the three female hookers in our room. More about that soon. Luckily, none of our slippers went missing that night.

Over the years, I have taken many photographs with strange and unexplained objects or entities in them.

Since it is the Hungry Ghost Festival this month, I thought it would be the perfect time to show you all those "ghostly" photographs. It is especially timely as at the stroke of midnight tonight, the Gates of Hell will be thrown wide open to let all those hungry ghosts roam the earth!

Yes, if you do not already know, 12am tonight marks the 14th day of the 7th lunar month in the Chinese calendar, which is the peak of the Hungry Ghost Festival. Be afraid. Be very afraid...

All the photos shown here were taken either with my old Sony Ericsson C902 mobile phone or my current iPhone 3Gs, so please excuse the not-so-good quality photos.

This is a photo I took last year at the KL Convention Centre. Those of you who have been there will recognize this long corridor leading to Traders Hotel. I and my friend had gone to SkyBar at Traders Hotel that night and on the way back, we walked through this corridor.

My friend had gone to the toilet and while waiting for her, I snapped a picture of the corridor just for fun. It was only the next day I noticed there was something unusual with the photo. Can you see it?



That dark figure on the right side of the photo - what is that? It looks as if it's someone dressed in dark robes walking towards me. But I did not see such a person when I took the photo!

They say many cinemas in Malaysia are haunted. If it's the cinema in Summit Subang, I will be quick to agree as I had felt uncomfortable the last time I went there. But do you believe if I tell you now that GSC Signature in The Gardens is haunted?

Look at this photo which I took inside the GSC Signature lounge. Can you see someone standing at the end of the row of chairs on the left?



Or was that just the light playing tricks on my eyes?

And how about this picture which I took on the same night in the GSC Signature lounge?



What is that ghostly white figure flying out from the chair near the curtain?

That's not all. One night my friend and I watched a late night movie at GSC Signature. If you have been to GSC Signature, you will know that on leaving the cinema hall, you will pass by this glass window overlooking the Gardens Mall below.

It was past midnight when our movie ended. As we walked out of the cinema hall, we passed by this glass window and I decided to take a photo. As I was taking the photo, I suddenly saw that face reflected on the window! Can you see it?



I quickly turned around but there was no one behind me! When I turned back to face the glass window, the face was gone! Somehow I managed to capture that haunting face in my iPhone. My friend freaked out when she saw this photo!

Two years ago, I was at Genting Highlands with another friend. I was waiting for my friend who had gone to the toilet at Highlands Hotel near Starbucks. While waiting inside the lobby of the hotel, I snapped this photo. When I reached home, only did I see it! Can you see it - that white female ghost at the ceiling?!



Another time - probably 3 years ago - I visited Genting Highlands with yet another friend. We were resting at the lobby in Resort Hotel late one night. There were not many people at the lobby at that time. I accidentally snapped this photo where a white figure was crawling on the floor.



Surely that can't be my imagination? This reminded me too much of those "japanese" or "korean" horror movies so needless to say, I was totally freaked out!

I love to go jogging in the park. One of the parks I frequent is Taman Lembah Kiara in Taman Tun. I dislike crowds so I normally go when there are not many people around.

One afternoon, I went there to jog. There was no one around at the time. As I reached the suspension bridge, I saw this blue figure standing at the bridge!



At the sight of the blue figure, I froze in fright. It appeared to be slightly transparent. Luckily I managed to regain my composure and quickly snapped a photo of it before running the hell away!

After seeing all these photos, do you believe in the existence of ghosts? Did my photos freak you out?

OK, I have a confession to make.

None of the photos above are true. Haha!!!

Yes, perhaps I have tricked some of you but I am pretty sure I did not trick all of you. If you have been using the Ghost Capture app on your iPhone, you will know how I created those ghostly images on my photos! LOL!



It was quite a fun app! All you need to do is to snap a photo or retrieve an existing photo from the picture library in your phone, add in the ghost you like (there are over 30 ghosts to choose from in the paid app), manipulate the size and position of the ghost, adjust how sharp or blur you want your ghost to appear and voila! You have a ghostly picture to share with your friends!



The only qualm I have about this app is that all the ghostly images they provide are Western ghosts! I would have preferred some Chinese or Japanese ghosts as they are more scary! Haha!

There is another app which I would like to share with you all as it is quite a scary app. When I first downloaded this app on my iPhone, it gave me quite a fright. There was a picture of this girl.



I don't know about you but this picture of the girl already seems to frighten me. She looks like a person who is dead, don't you agree?

And then as I looked at the picture, it began to change...in a horrible way.



The face then turned hideous and it was accompanied with ghostly wail and screams that were too terrifying to describe!



If you have a weak heart, do not ever download this app! The girl has now changed into an ugly ghost that will send chills down the spine of anyone who look at her!



Now the fun part of this app is you can take anyone's photo (including your own) and change the face into a horrible looking ghost! Not that I want to do any such thing! No thanks! Haha!

The app is called HauntedFace available for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.

Although all the ghosts in the photos which I took and shown earlier in this post are fake and were created using the Ghost Capture app, there is however one photo in my collection that is genuine. I took this photo while walking the suspension bridge at FRIM 2 years ago.



Is that my imagination or is it a long haired lady in dark glasses wearing a robe or something on the tree trunk? What do you think?