#2

June 23 2010

Each One of Us Represent the World.Ever since I moved away from my home country, Japan, when I was 19 years old, I became conscious about what I do because of the thought I had, which was that each person represent his/her own country. That thought developed over the years, and I started thinking that each one of us represent not only the country we are from but also the family, ancestors, and our own past and the future. Then I started to think I should live as an earth being as a person and a being without borders.

One day near the end of the year 2008, I was hit by a taxi on the way to a restaurant after the MFA show at the Hunter college. The taxi driver drove away and I was carried to a hospital. I was stuck with very expensive hospital bills. Some time after the accident, I spent my days in the state of a shock. In those disorienting days of my life, I had a chance to talk toGuru Prem Singh, one of only two masters appointed by Yogi Bhajan.

Being the posture master that he is, he told me a few thing about my posture and the alignment of my body. Surprisingly, he was knowledgeable about healing properties of stones, and told me to get a carnelian to heal my wounds from the accident. But the most interesting and eye opening thing that he said was something that sounded very familiar to me.

What lead him to say what he said to me was my black T-shirt with a x-ray drawing of a gun. As a customary, Kundalini Yogis wear white clothing. I remember clearly before I even went to see him, I was thinking to myself that I can not wear this T-shirt in front of him. But somehow in that morning, I was left with the black-gun-T-shirt because I had already worn other. So I reluctantly wore it thinking that I need to take off when I go to the appointment to see him in the evening on that day. My work day was stressful and went way longer than I expected. I almost missed the appointment with him. By the time I got to the appointment, I was not in my center. I felt very uneasy being late to come see him. I was mad at my work being so time consuming and making me late to the appointment. When I was facing the posture master himself, I was reminded by him that I wore a wrong T-shirt to see him. He said that he was exactly the wrong person for me to wear that T-shirt to. And he was right. I said to myself almost exactly the same phrase in that morning. About the T-shirt, he told me to think about what it represents. Following that, he also gave me an insight that our appearance, actions, what we say, all of those represent something in this world. And all of those representations combined, that becomes the impact of the person to others. And he calmly added, "You may think you only represent yourself, where you grew up, your family, or ancestors, but you actually DO represent this world." I was speechless for a moment. And repeated this question silently inside myself, "Did what he just said to me come from him or he somehow got in my brain and reminded me what I thought once?"

Just about 1 and half years have past since my meeting with him. Back then, I was struck by the coincident of him mentioning exactly what I believed that time. But now, those words came back to me like an echo. Only this time, it came back to me as a full-on impact that I can not even doubt that it was just a coincident. It was meant to be heard.

With all those human conflicts that happen in this world, and all those devastation that we bring to the environment, we need to evaluate our own recognitions of our places. We, each, represent the world. We, each, have responsibilities as a member of the world. If we want peace to this world, we should act peacefully. If we want to breathe clean air, we should not pollute the air. If we want to realize our own dreams, we should realize others' dreams as well. It is our time to project how we want this world to be and represent what we believe.