WHY GERMANS AND FILIPINOS VIBRATE ON THE SAME FREQUENCY

Language and cultural barriers may seem to be of a major consequence to both English-speaking Germans and Filipinos, but it appears that Germans for all their vaunted fastidiousness for perfectability nonetheless find Pinoys especially the women, fascinating in terms of a subtle mysticism that's seeping through a consciousness level that's not even conscious. Here's an apparent mysterious force that would call for an adequate rational explanation if it can be had. Here we were gathered, a cozy group of eight people including a German journalist for a discussion on this exalted topic at a friend's living room condo.

After initiating a healing-inner dance session that would put us all at ease, Troy, our gracious mystic and host, signaled me to start a talk on Filipino-German relations that has nothing to do with international trade and politics dealing with the superiority of Daimlers, Mercedes Benz or BMWs or the fact that Beethoven's and Mozart's sonatas are simply out of this third dimensional world soaring into the higher, unseen realms of pure Light symbolizing the spirit of the church builders of the 12th century that inspired the construction of the magnificent precision of Cologne cathedral's gothic spiraling pointed arches (see image above)... But that would probably compute with our attempt to explain German-Filipino relations to unravel this mystery. I would grope for light, and had to seek for Bong's own light to get the talk well articulated and take off ground. Bong would jolt me by saying he had sought my own vibration to clarify his alleged mish-mash of images at times, throwing a glance at Troy to acknowledge how the latter's quiet penetrating gaze had illumined too, the same percolating jostle of images in his mind's headiness. Bong is a visionary.

Later we would be joined by a Filipina friend married to a German who flew in from Westphalia, Germany, to visit her old family in Manila for two weeks. Yoly, my astro friend, would invigorate us with her own concept of why it is not really difficult to describe the good living she found being a resident in Rhineland. I don't know about the ease or lack of ease in describing a German-Pinoy marriage for it could be explosive in terms of quantum energies if not well handled. It would take a good understanding of why there are flames engraved over the head of German St Hildegarde's statue that represent the gifts of the holy Spirit given so abundantly to her, as well as to the similarly intensely spiritual German people of contemporary times who would deign follow in her footsteps.

For over 800 years Hildegarde was not widely known outside of Germany. Recent interest in the role of visionary women in religious history, and discovery of her remarkable creativity in so many areas, have made her today one of the best known women mystics. St Hildegarde of Bingen's life and writings attract many people today because they speak of contemporary interests such as holistic living, care of the environment, and creation-centered spirituality. Her mysticism promotes everything that is life-giving.

How do Filipinos factor in with Germans like Hildegarde? Perhaps when Pinoys promote everything that is life-giving in their tasks here as millions of overseas contract workers seem to overflow the planet in terms of dedicated service, many are seen to be giving without counting the costs, particularly in healing service as the compassionate yayas, caregivers, hilots, nurses, doctors, and as engineers, construction workers, drivers, sailors are all servants of the Lord. Because as Jesus Christ said, when he washed the feet of his disciples on Holy Maundy of his passion, "He who is first shall be last." Christ is the Servant of servants.

On the downside of the Shift in consciousness, the Philippines has been called by an HK columnist the "country of servants." and because of public clamor for ethical fairness, later apologized for it. On the upturn spiral of the Shift, the Philippine economy is consistently held aloft by the increasing amount of remittances coming from services rendered around the world while there is a persistent meltdown coming from the traditional exchange of trade and commerce.

To know the Cosmic Christ we will have to Shift from obedience as a prime moral virtue to creativity as a prime moral virtue. That means we will learn to be a co-creator with God without depending so much on a guru or spiritual teacher. Why? Because we will have to know who we are. Why we are here, remembering that we came from the Spirit, the Absolute.

Now a little review of medieval history is needed to cast a light on German mysticsm.
Beside the orthodox theology of the great Latin Catholic church, and amidst the clamor of scholastic philosophy, we find the secret theosophy of the magician, the Kabbalist, and the alchemical adept borrowing directly or indirectly from this prolific fountain of exalted mysticism.

The traces of its influence are discoverable in Augustine, Albertus Magnus, in St Thomas, and in other shining lights of western Christendom, while the metaphysical principles of Erigena, as early as the close of 9th century, were an actual revival of the Neo-Platonic philosophy that were perpetuated through the whole period of the Middle Ages. This Platonic and Christian tradition was largely circulated and held in the highest repute, in Germany especially, where the Aeropagite was appealed to as an authority by German Eckhart on the onset of 14th century, who was the perfecter of its entire development.

The philosophy of Mysticism was perfected in Germany and started from there to spread through Europe and world-wide. Master Eckhart taught that the creature apart from the Absolute, that is God, was nothing that "time, space, and the plurality which depends on them," are also nothing in themselves, and that "the duty of man as a moral being is to rise beyond this nothingness of the creature. And by direct intuititon to place himself in immediate union with the Absolute".

As an eminent preacher and writer of his age, the so-called Medieval Ages of Burning Faith, for Eckhart, and I find his words deeply profound... "A really perfect person will be so dead to self, so lost in God, so given over to the will of God, that his whole happiness consists in being unconscious of himself and its concerns and being conscious, instead of God in knowing nothing and wishing to know nothing except the will and truth of God... This kind of person is so unified with God and in union with His will that he wants what God wants and wants it God's way."

How do we Filipinos attempt to rise to such heights of contemplation? Perhaps some unschooled Pinoys in the bundooks or even in the plains of Luzon have tried to find expression of German Master Eickhart's otherworldly thoughts by doing flagellation during Holy Thursday and Good Friday walking on the streets carrying the cross of Christ and a few have ended in actual crucifxion without really ending life, and this happens every Lenten season to the unspeakable amazement of certain foreign travelers who have professed not having seen anything like this happening in all of the places they have traversed in this planet. Filipinos would do it in utterance of their love for the Absolute and in thanksgiving for a miracle of life, for healing a loved one or oneself and thus the vow or "panata" to follow Jesus Christ's suffering without dying each Lent.

Scientists have turned away shaking their heads. They have not fathomed the depths of such a mystery in the Philippines in terms of what they learned in medical schools here and abroad. "All creatures are the utterance of God, Meister Eickhart continues to speak. "If my mouth speaks and declares God, and so too does the being of a stone. All creatures wish to echo God in all their works, but they can reveal Him only a little..." Many of the natives of these islands in their utter lack of school knowledge and in childlike simplicity with nothing to show but only utter love of God who is all good, have tried to reveal like Meister Eckhart and the German mystics who flocked to hear his electric sermons would regard that "God's supremely glorious nature can only mean that God is fully transcendent and fully immanent, entirely behind all and yet completely within all, as the One who alone Is, pure Spirit, the groundless Ground or Essence of all."

In the way the simple Filipino souls who flock and overflow the churches of Quiapo, Baclaran, Sto. Domingo in Manila, and wherever they may be in the work they do overseas, filling up empty churches in Europe, Asia, etc., they apparently vibrate to Eckhart's concept of God as the Essence of all, and some have succeeded in transcending or going beyond the gross karmic levels of disease and death by doing the job of crucifying themselves on Good Friday without seriously harming their bodies.

It is difficult to describe adequately the deep and rich spirituality of a mystic who is in direct communion with God through intution without recourse to the use of logic and reason. In her time, a Benedictine monk Guibert, who knew Hildegarde of Bingen well, tried persistently to get her to describe her spirituality, her mysticism. Finally, she said simply that she felt like a feather carried by the wind, the breath of God.