When doing good is not good enough

There was this incidence, that often I share with some close friends,
where my mum was commenting that I donate too much to charities,
to the extent I didn't take good care of myself.
-- obviously it was only her imagination,
I was very comfortable how manage my personal finance.

But my mum did trigger some thoughts in my mind,
her remarks tho' not true, made me ask a question:
how do I donate more to charities and help more people out there.
The salary I earn is a finite figure, but the people who need helps out there
are almost infiite..

Of course, most people would comment,
just do whatever that is within our capacity.
-- this is a very clean answer.

But what if I would like to contribute more?

I didn't get to a satisfactory answer until I attended
T Harv Eker's Millionaire Mind Intensive in 2008.

Harv was illustrating in one of his session,
giving an example of how a sum of money could be better utilised
for the good of the society,
most importantly, in a sustainable manner.

He was asking, if you were to have a million dollars,
how much do you donate away and
how much do you use it for your own consumption?

The participants gave various answers
in term of different percentage that he/she would donate away,
some 10%, some 50% , some 90%..

Harv shocked the entire audience when he mentioned that he suggested
donate none of the million dollars!

He said, nobody touches the million dollars.
Instead of donating away, or using up the money for own consumption,
invest the money in a safe platform (e.g. an established business, foundation etc ),
which will yield a monthly cashflow.
From that monthly cashflow, one may decide the percentage,
one donate and use for own consumption.
That way, the money that we can donate will be infinite!!

The moment I heard that,
one of my biggest burden in life was released.

It's a very simple suggestion,
but often one can get stuck for many many years,
possibly till the end of life,
without pointers from gurus or teachers.

From then on, I had a new perspective on Cielo Sereno,
a non-profit organic education tour company that I set up early 2008.
There is basically no capital investment in this NPO,
but the effort that my partners and I volunteered,
could be converted to an anual cashflow, bulk of which,
we decided to donate to credible charities
and to fund on sustainable vegetarian projects e.g. Vegehub.Org launched recently.

Altho' the amount of surplus and
hence the donation (from Cielo Sereno) isn't a big sum,
but the amount of donation is way beyond the amount
I personally could afford, if I were to fork out from my salary.

Cielo Sereno is a realisation of theory of sustainable donation
I learnt at Harv's workshop
and it is a pride among my partners and myself :)


Sincerely,
Kee Yew
pureland2012-at-gmail.com

p/s: I have just come back from refresher course (3rd time) at Millionaire Mind Intensive, and gathered some new insights in helping chairities and the vegetarian community via my new project "The Veg School" =)

{Learning Holistic Wellness for Wisdom and Compassion}

Vegehub.Org: A new landmark for vegetarian landscape

When Cielo Sereno (CS) was first founded in early 2008,
it was commited to drive healthy vegetarianism to the next level.

During these years (even years before CS was officially registered),
CS have been dedicatedly organising organic education tours
locally and overseas,
giving her best effort to raise awareness of healthy vegetarian living
via fun and interactive tour activities.

In the year 2011 to come, CS continues to organise
meaningful local organic tours with new venues,
and will also be partnering with another VWO
on an overseas tour to Chiang Mai (October 2011, tentatively).

With Cielo Sereno's 3rd Anniversary
approaching in just a couple of months,
it's exciting to announce the rise of a new project Vegehub.org
to mark the blooming vegetarian landscape in Singapore and
to bring local vegetarianism on another quantum leap.

Vegehub is a project that derives support from Cielo Sereno's surplus,
to showcase the commitment of Singapore's vegetarian community towards
a healthier nation,
cleaner air,
greener environment,
more loving society and
more sustainable agriculture.

At Vegehub, you will see
the robust vegetarian blogosphere in Singapore,
established resources for vegetarian education,
a wide array of vegetarian services,
and vibrant pro-vegetarian businesses and events.

It's a one-stop vegetarian online hub for
vegetarians to become more cohesive
via facilated communication and mutual support of vegetarian services.

It's also a convenient reference point for
non-vegetarians to get comfy with the vegetarian world
by knowing the real vegetarian people through their blogs/services and the educational materials.

Please help yourself with this new website.
All feedbacks are welcome and
suggestion of more Singaporean vegetarian websites
are even better!! :D


With love,
Kee Yew
pureland2012-at-gmail.com



{Learning Holistic Wellness for Wisdom and Compassion}

Waking up from Bubbleland

I have been following Robert Kiyosaki's and Mike Maloney's
financial teachings for more than a year now.

Day by day, I am getting aware about the volatility
and impermanence of existing prosperity we are enjoying nowadays,
amidst the rampantly changing financial weather.

The deeper I delve into understanding of
how our financial system works in the modern world,
the more wary I become upon how the financial hypes
have been swarming around us
day in and day out.

Along the past 18months, after reading many of Kiyosaki's C.O.R. blog posts ,
Maloney's newsletters and his most recent compilation of
10-episode Gold and Silver educational video series
I couldn't help but begin to realise that we have been living in economic bubbleland
where the buildings that we see, the luxury beyond our means that we are enjoying,
and money that we accumulate are all 'illusive'...

We have all the way been constructing our dream world
by over-depriving Mother Earth's resources,
by over-drafting our children's and grand children's money (before they are even born),
by encouraging unnecessary spending,
by approving (silently) wastage of materialistic blessings...

The way of life we are leading nowadays is simply unsustainable
and worse, it is devastating to the planet we are living on,
destructive to the future of our next generation.

Every day, I am praying that more people will see through
the illusive luxury (which in fact is just another form of slavery)
and would take the initiative to take one step back to humble lifestyle
before the next tremedous financial crisis falls in.

To cushion from the hard hitting financial catastrophe to come,
gold and silver would be the basic preparation we need to do,
in order to start withdrawing ourselves from the deteriorating financial illusion.

Gold and Silver are expensive now, but the cost of unpreparedness
would a few log-fold more expensive...

Well wishes,
Kee Yew
pureland2012-at-gmail.com

p/s: if in doubt, please do get educated.


{Learning Holistic Wellness for Wisdom and Compassion}

A vegetarian movement that first moved my heart

In August 2010,

I was in another workshop by T. Harv Eker
"Mission to Million".

Like many of the previous workshops by Eker,
it again touched the inner most of myself,
unleashing my true will, my true passion and
my true reason to celebrate this very life.

It was at this session on the second day of the workshop,
through a series of simple writing exercises,
my "mission of life" got contrasted out and became very prominent
(like never before).

The writing exercise actually made the participants to
answer a long list of questionaires,
to dig out the true "intention" in us.
(-- the questions themselves were straightfoward,
but all of them combined, were powerful and impactful!)

When the facilitator went through the questionaires with us afterward;
to my shock, these two words kept re-appearing, many many times, among the answers:
Vegetarian & Teaching.

As the facilitator put it, if a key word kept re-appearing more than 3 times,
it simply means it's something we are inclined to do it.

I love teaching vegetarian, this is something for sure,
and I do it as a hobby and as a happy volunteering job,
but all these while, I could never recognise/acknowledge that
vegetarian teaching
would be the main part of my life -- I have been burying this true intention...

After the exercise, I told myself, I should be honest to myself,
despite some debate in the mind to "justify"
how these two words floating up a few times doesn't mean I have to do it for life.

If it were not the written exercise at Harv's workshop,
I couldn't have sorted out the true self in me,
amidst a lot of distractions from the outer world,
many people's confusing opinions and my own mind fricks.

I then took a deep breath and decided to go up to the stage
to make a public declaration to about 500 participants at the workshop
that I would open a Vegetarian School,
to fulfill my inner will and passion to guide people towards a
sustainable holistic way of living via vegetarianism.

When I came back from the workshop,
I continued to make my public declaration
to > 700 friends in Facebook and
to >5000 readers of Vegetarian Society's e-newsletter.

I wanted to  firmly commit myself to something that is truthful to myself
and didn't want this dream, this passion, this mission of life
fade off through my procrastination or
even get dampened by my own mind fricks
like many other episodes of my life before.

I have now created a Faceboook Group on Vegetarian School to recruit supporters
and have also set up a survey page to collect comments/suggestions
for a Veg School that the People want.

The very next step is to have an important meeting this coming Saturday
to confirm the venue of the school.

I will probably take a few months to design the school syllabus
and likely that this Vegetarian School will open latest by mid 2011 :)


Cheers!
Kee Yew
pureland2012-at-gmail.com

p/s: this Veg School will be one of its kind. Courses will be compiled in the format of intensive full day workshops, blended in with practicals, students interactions, experiments and fun! It's a totally out-of-the-square (or out-of-classroom) type of educational system --not to mention, Veg School will not have a fixed premise to conduct course in at least the next few years to come, so expect the unexpected!!


{Learning Holistic Wellness for Wisdom and Compassion}