Another Victoria's Secrets

Here we go again, videos of Atlantis Empire by Turangga Seta team (of Greget Nuswantara fb page) #19-27. Sit back and enjoy watching!

I am currently staying at Auntie Agnes' place now in Jakarta, waiting for a chance to go back to Bali. I was discussing about the PoM (Power of Mind) with my aunt, and I had a true story that happened yesterday I wanna share with you all here.

I was mall-walking with my aunt and grandma yesterday when I suddenly thought about Paulo Coelho's last book, Manuscript Found in Accra. I was thinking how wonderful it would be if someone would buy me the book, maybe as a late birthday gift. I was imagining the book on my mind pointlessly, just thinking about 'how nice it would be if...'

Not long after (not even 30 minutes after my daydream), my aunt and grandma decided that we stop by at a Kopitiam and had some drinks there. I was just about sitting there for 5 minutes that my friend Frans suddenly greeted me on Whatsapp and asked me which cover did I prefer. It was exactly the very book that I wanted.

He said that he was window-shopping in a gadget store in Bangkok and he didn't know why he suddenly had the urge to go to a bookstore--which was quite far from the gadget store--and simply walked in and first saw this book and thought of me when he saw it. And he just walked back to the gadget store after purchasing the book. Just like that.

So what happens if we know the power of our minds can do? What if we all believe in the power and use the secret formula (as Rhonda Byrne prefers) to align our frequency with the universe (as Paulo Coelho prefers) to attract things we want just like a magnet (as Michael J. Losier prefers)? Isn't it gonna be a positive and productive world (as Foster Gamble prefers) that we can all overcome the obstacles in life just by believing in our own mind's power?

Believing in God means that you are not relying on yourself (modesty) and that you know that there is something out there who has the power to create, run and protect this world (faith). Believing in other people (in a good way) is also good, at least a positive thing if not to attract good things to come--because we are letting out a good vibe--and is also an act of love. But believing in ourselves (hope) is the hardest of all, at least to me.

I haven't master this skill myself, I still need a lot of practice, to be grateful more. I still lose my faith sometimes and I am easily down on myself. I still listen to other people's negative comment on me and choose to trust them on that. I am still lack of confidence, but I am willing to change.

A mentor (which is also my best friend, lover, a big brother, sometimes a father or even a mother to me) injected a great support on me today. I choose to follow his instruction. I choose to use more of my PoM and all the ingredients that had been told to me that are written in the Bible: faith and hope. If I can put these altogether in everything that I do, I'd reap the harvesting in the way I'd never thought of before.

I really have to start to believe in myself and focus on what I want in life. I hope you can all find your soul's lantern (as Nugie prefers) and reach all the dreams in your lives, even the silliest one. I'm gonna list down all my dreams after this and let's see how the universe will bring it all to come true. I believe in that!

It's been a while since my last post here because I was already back in Bali last week but got an emergency call for the project meeting in Jakarta so I went back to the metropolitan and here I am, kind of occupied with urban stuff here.

My friend Herdi informed me that we entered the top 100 Indonesian blogger in the Big Blog Exchange program out of 1173 participants, but failed to be the top 25. It means that we failed to get the chance of 16 bloggers out of 100 to be picked but still have the slight chance with the 2 wildcards. I am still crossing my fingers on that.

Anyway, I want to say thank you to all of the family and friends who had helped voting that made me sit at the rank 174 worldwide. It's already among the top 15% of the contestants and I feel so blessed that many people support me on this, although I had only about the last 2 weeks to gather voters while the others had 4 more weeks before that. I am proud enough to be on the rank 174.

So, thank you and please still pray for my chance on the 2 wildcards to swap life with another blogger's next June! I'm now working my power of mind on it :)

This beautiful 'Diamond Dust' wall painting in Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, VA, which is made with the fingers of the artist Judith Braun dipped in charcoal in just seven days in front of public. Check these out!









by courtesy of KSTB mailing list.

They say it's published now! Yeay!
Not yet in Indonesia, I guess. But this is definitely on my wish list now. Still a dozen of unread books on my rack now but I'll finish them all. I'll just have to have this one!

I just found this new singer from Youtube who covers the top 40s and make quite nice video clips for each of the songs. She also has her own original songs there. I haven't googled her (maybe later) but here are some of her clips.. Very girly!
(Note: I like her version of The One That Got Away and We Are Young, but I am just so into Just Give Me A Reason right now..)


Apparently there are many already covered this song, so I'm gonna show y'all those I've found. Which one do you like most? (my vote goes first to Alvord & Trevor, then Bernal & Milan, but the violin is quite interesting..)

I found this cartoon from a friend's Facebook timeline and I think this is a really good illustration on how to make our dream come true. First thing is to do what you love doing, then everything else will follow...


I wish all of us will achieve our dreams, although so many obstacles and challenges will no doubt be coming in our ways but doing things we love will keep us going. Good luck to us all!

Last night one of my reader sent me an email and we discussed a little about religion. To quote his words: "I really like your openness to all religions, I think I can see from your writings that you are quite a serious Catholic, but it doesn't hold you back from learning things from other religions. I think that is a very good way to look at things and I wish that many people will follow your example on how to deal with religion (maybe from reading your blog)" so I think I'm going to share a little about religion.

As everybody knows, religions are very crucial for Indonesian. It's almost like an identity, as important as the nationality; more important than the ethnic/race, and is a very sensitive matter. People categorize each other based on the religion, and this leads to fanaticism, hypocrisy, and to the extreme: war. While what's need to be understood first here is the meaning of religion.


I am not a theology scholar nor a priestess, but I wanna share what I know about it. My last year in Bali was full of adventure, both physical and mind-and-soul. The life in the island really opened up my eyes to even a broader view of life and world. During that, I learned about Hinduism, although it had never been my intention, but made me understand more about the secrets of life.

The reason why most people (who are raised/learned the Torah-rooted religions/monotheists such as Judaism, Christian/Catholic and Islam) avoid Hinduism is because of the many gods it believe in, like the Greek and Romans. In Indonesia, the first in Pancasila (Indonesia's five basic moral principle), Ketuhanan Yang Maha Esa (the One Almighty Deity), makes people agree to only one God (which also makes most Moslems don't agree with Christian/Catholic with its Trinity).

The lack of knowledge of other religions can lead to hatred and destruction, which happened so many times in Indonesia, especially in the places with certain major religions. An old Indonesian proverb says "tak kenal maka tak sayang" which means you cannot love something if you don't know about it yet. So why not try knowing what other religions first before hating it?


I'll try to simplify Hindu here with my own words (more about it here). I hope you can understand it. Hindu is a very old teaching, which became a religion--and in Bali also a culture/tradition. From what I know, this is the first teaching/religion in the world, came originally from Indonesia, long before it arrived in India. It is true that Hindu got its name from a area in India called Indus/Sindu, because before that it didn't have a name. People just know it as Veda religion, taken from its holy scripture Rig Veda. The difference is that Balinese Hindu (which came also from Java island before) focused more to the upakara/ceremonies/rituals or 'to act', while Indian Hindu more to the meditation or 'to reflect'.

Hindu believes in many gods, but actually it's the same God with what other religions believe in. It's just that each god in Hindu (as also the Greek/Romans) represent a face/character of God. Like when God is creating things, He personify Himself as god Brahma, and when He is angry and destructive He became god Shiva, and when He is taking care and healing He became god Vishnu--and many other faces like god Ganesha (knowledge), goddess Sri (fertility/goddess of rice), etc.

To make people understand better (as we have limited knowledge with our little brain), they create a story out of it. The relations of each god and goddess makes a great tale, which makes it easier to remember (especially to pack it as bedtime stories for the next generations) and to recognize the names and the characters (which one is the creator and which one is the destroyer, and so on..) As Elinor in Brave movie said, 'legends are lessons and they ring with truth', tales are told to remind people about the past in order to make a better future (to avoid the same mistakes and be better).


Just like in Christian's Trinity, where Allah/Abba/Father is actually the same but He personify Himself and 'went down to earth' as Jesus/Messiah/Son who died and raised to Heaven but stays in people's heart as Holy Spirit which also known as human's conscience. I do not know other religions as Indonesia claims only six of it (with also Buddhism and Confucianism/Kong Hu Cu).

The rest of believers (non-religion) believe that there's something greater out there, something so powerful that makes the world exist and who has the force to create such life, catastrophe, death, and everything in between. Maybe they got it right all the way: there is this something greater out there, which we don't know and never see and remains mysterious. The religions call this as God, Allah, Yahweh or gods and goddesses, even this is just a part of that Bigger Something. It's that simple when you can see it in the other way.


Back to the topic, we need to understand religion as a 'vehicle' to get us to a higher place. In Bible God said we have to be perfect, therefore, as Heavenly Father is (Matt 5:48), so we living humans are all on our ways to perfections with various vehicles (both of our own choices or the one our parents chose for us). In one point, our knowledge will expand and we will change, step higher, be enlightened. But most of people tend to seclude these people because they are afraid of differences.

What people need to know better is that religion is man-made. Enlightenment, on the other hand, is a gift given from God. Once a person is enlightened, religions shouldn't be a matter. As we can see the first image I put here, all religions basically teach the same thing (karma) with different languages/descriptions. But the point is all are the same. We are praising and afraid of the same Bigger Something. Only the name we call Him is different, the way of teachings is different, but the purpose is one: human's perfection and 'eternal life'.


The eternal life here is another different topic, another different names/descriptions used by each religions. Some call it reincarnation, some call it heaven or hell. But we all believe in afterlife; a life after death. It's just the perspectives and ways of describing it are different in each religions, based on human's knowledge, because death is something that we don't experience while we are alive.

I am not going to discuss about the afterlife now, just to say that I am open to any teachings and religions, because basically all teach about kindness. As long as there's love and peace in it, then it's a right teaching, because Jesus came to the world to renew the structures and to bring love, and therefore, peace on earth.


I hope people won't bother about religion differences anymore, for it is a personal relationship with our Creator, the Bigger Something out there. What's more important is to keep the peace on earth and give love to each another. Let's get to know and understand more about others and learn to love even more, not just tolerating. Therefore, this world will be a peaceful place to stay. Be enlightened!