If this was just a dream, then please let me wake up right now. I want to know what is real and what is not. Like what Descartes had said, everything can be doubted. I hope that I am not one who is trapped inside this illusion. [Image on left from Dreamsleep]
Remembering the movie "Beautiful Mind", the question about reality and appearance popped out of my mind. What if I were like the person in the film- John Nash- who had the disease? Life seems to be normal out here and nobody thinks that I'm crazy. But what if these were all just a part of my illusion? It might be that I'm still inside a dream, being deceived by an evil genius according to Descartes. I wake up from the bed yet I'm still asleep in the real world. This is just another dream. I cannot trust my senses- what I see, hear, feel, smell and taste. Even if my brother told me that the best way to know reality is through hurting the self (for when one
feels pain he would wake up from the dream), all of these, including the pain, might only be created by my mind..my imagination. As what the Allegory of the Cave said, people such as me can be ignorant of reality and knowledge. I may still be trapped inside the cave, seeing the shadows that I thought were the only things in this world. A person could have escaped from the cave, but that might not be me. How then can I see reality? How can I ever be sure that I don't have the disease that the person in the movie had? Am I still dreaming? [Image on right from Crazyaboutmovies]
Maybe I won't be able to answer that problem. I'm not as great as the philosophers in the past. When my prof in philosophy raised the topic about Descartes' methodic doubt, I suddenly thought that I might be unconscious right now.. perhaps a sick person in a mental hospital who is trying to type on an imaginary laptop. But there's one thing that I can be sure of. There is something that makes the doubting possible. I agree with what Descartes had said. This subject matter which enables one to doubt is no other than the mind itself. It is an indubitable fact. If the mind exists, it follows then that I exist. I just hope that I would soon escape from this illusion..this state of ignorance (if I ever was). To those who know that they are not dreaming right now, please wake me up..bring me to the state of consciousness..if it were true..
Taking out the word Love
Just a while ago during the LEAP (Lasallian Enrichment Alternative Program), I attended my very first and (as far as I think would also be the) last German class. I sat inside the room with my blockmate for three hours, listening to the foreign exchange student and a woman as they teach the class how to speak the basic German words. The words seemed really hard to pronounce, however they are worth the practice.
Das ist es. The teachers indeed forgot to mention their names even after the class. They immediately started by asking us why we chose the German subject over all the others for our LEAP. *No offense to them, but the real reason why I chose German was because I was left with 0 slots in baking and I don’t like afternoon classes.* And so the classes began. I sang the German alphabet together with them like an innocent nursery kid. The song goes like this:
A (a), B (be), C (se), D (de)…Wunderbar! 
Too much for the song, I also learned that the smiley face that I used to make when texting was a special letter in the German language. Hmm…so that’s why we have these characters in our cellphone. Then, phrases on how to introduce yourself to someone were taught~ Mein Name ist Abby. Ich komme aus Philippinen. Und du? (My name is Abby. I came from the Philippines. And you? / What about you?) [Picture on left from Smiley but currently unavailable]
The class consumed only two hours, giving us an earlier dismissal. I was somehow disappointed for I didn’t learn how to say the word “love” in German. Thinking about that, why love? What is love?
Love in Different Points of View
Love. I gave away many of this to the people around me. Indeed, it is a complicated thing to define. We can only feel it but not see it with our naked eye. Some might say that it is all about feelings- the passion that one has to another. For in love, emotions are involved. More than that, love is a thing that can be said to be about God Himself. Reading the book of John in the Bible, it says that “God is love” in the sense that all the characteristics that we find in love are the characteristics that we can also find in God. Therefore, through God alone can a person get love. [Picture on right from Old Time Candy]
According to the famous philosopher named Plato, love is a desire to own something good. And in this case, it is a desire to get wisdom. Love is not about the physical; love is more than that. It is BEYOND the physical (also called as Platonic love). Through it, a person can learn and improve. The love between men or the “uranian” love, as he had called, is the highest form of love. His teacher, Socrates, in fact had students who are also his lovers at the same time (which really sounds disgusting if we base it in an erotic love...-_-).
What is erotic love? As I could remember back in highschool, there are actually different kinds and levels of love. The love that we have for our friends, the love we have for eating, the love that we give to our partners...they are all not the same. Love can be classified into three groups and these are the Agape, Phileo and Eros. Agape is about God’s love which is unconditional and sacrificial. It is considered to be perfect and is the “extension” of the other two kinds of love. Phileo then is about the brotherly or sisterly love. It is the love that we give to our friends and family. Eros is the physical love. It is the kind of love that is said to be selfish with sexual desires for each other.
We, being humans, are under the Eros and Phileo kinds of love. For we are unlike God, we can only love conditionally. I somewhat agree with these for only God has the greatest love. Being able to die in the cross to save us all is enough to prove that. So why can we only love conditionally? Why can we not love in the same way as God did? Can we really love unconditionally?
Love in its simplest form is not simple at all. The reason why we cannot love unconditionally is because we always expect the person we love to also love us in return. Although not all the love that we give returns to us, the fact that we expected it from the person makes our love to be conditional. We can never be like God. The love that we give to others cannot be compared to the love that He gives to all of us. By the way, God's love cannot be measured.
Love and Fire
Just like some people, I usually compare love with the fire that lights up by the time that someone find his other half. When will one find his other half is still unknown. Sometimes on a person's way to find love, accidents might happen. The person can bump into other people and think that he/she is the right one for him. He may get hurt if he is wrong, leaving some scars of love (like the burns we can get from the fire). Who is the right one? No one can tell. Only God knows the answer. [Picture below from RedFish]
Experiencing God
Talking about God, the first time that I've heard things about Him was when I was seven years old. That time, all I knew was that He is the one who gave me my parents and siblings. He is so great that He was able to make the world full of life. Whether He is real or not, I didn't bother to know the answer. I just admired Him for what He had done to me and to everyone. Until one day when I felt His presence, I started to believe and fully understand who He really is.
God. The One that we pray to every morning and ask for forgiveness and guidance. The truth is HE EXISTED IN THE VERY BEGINNING. I myself believe so. I came to know about Him when I was once lost in the darkness. Indeed, I was a problematic child. I had a lot of fears inside me that I couldn't explain. I would cry around the corner of the classroom most of the time during my first grade. I really hated school and everything related to it. The teacher herself couldn't solve my problem. All I have wanted was the feeling of being secure from something and that includes my mom and dad back there, always watching at me. (Picture on the left from God Focus)
The news spread out (it became some sort of an issue- quite embarrassing*) and the principal soon came and called my mom. Nobody in fact (even my parents) could understand the thing that I 
was afraid of. The hope of being able to encourage me to study again was getting smaller and smaller. Come to think about it, nobody would really eat me so what was I afraid of at that time? Well, I was afraid of being left alone. Everytime that my parents would drop me at school, there's always a part of me that would think of being abandoned or thrown away by them (yeah I know this looks a bit silly). I was desperately looking for someone to cling on. My parents then decided to bring me to a “faith healer”. I was too young to know what is real and what is not so I believed in the “faith healer”. She gave me a tiny stone and told me to put it inside the classroom. She said that the stone will soon sublimate and my fears will be gone. (Picture on the right from serpent hand sample)
The stone indeed disappeared. I was so amused by it and I felt a lot happier. However, what made me have the courage to enter school again was not that. It was actually God who gave me hope and courage. I was given much more like a second chance. I was able to continue studying. I accepted God and learned many things from Him. A strong faith to Him was built inside me and my life eventually changed.
Proofs of His existence
Admit it or not, it's really hard to convince a person to believe in God. If it was just an easy task, then there would be no atheists, skeptics and agnostics today. As true Christians, it was usually said that we don't really need to look for proofs of God's existence. But without proofs, how then will we able to make someone believe in His existence?
One might say that the best way to know if God really exists or not is through having experiences with Him personally. I would love to agree that. I myself was changed after I’ve met God. I met Him not in the sense that I saw Him before my very own eyes, but I’ve felt Him. He opened His arms to me. He gave me hope, courage and love. Realizing this, the strong faith that I have was the result of it. However, before He changed my life, I was in fact the first one who made a move to accept Him and believe in Him. If it were not for that, I would not be what I am right now.
So to be open-minded and to believe should be made first. 
As St. Anselm of Canterbury had once said, we must believe in something in order to understand it. Faith is important to achieve Wisdom who is no other than God Himself and with faith comes the reasons. Therefore, each one of us needs to have faith in God. Through faith, we will be able to answer the questions we have about God. This thread of faith, as I believe, must not depend on what we see (the appearance), but rather on what God wants us to see (the reality). We being true Christians must look at a different point of view in order to see things more clearly. For God wants us to believe in Him without letting us know if He really exists, we must prove to him that we really have complete faith in Him. (Picture on the left from Anselm Institute)
