Wishing you a Blessed Easter

Happy Easter Greetings from the Websnacker Crew

Not exactly the religious kind but Easter is fun; full of hope, dollops of happiness (even if some of it is rather forced) and a great time to unwind with friends and family! Have a happy Easter! 

Jim Vierra & Friends

Great Country Rock with a Gospel Touch

For truly beautiful gospel country rock that breaks stereotypes of contemporary christian music, you must checkout JIM VIERRA & FRIENDS, the No. 1 band on the ReverbNation Christian - Gospel -Country charts for Tracy, CA. 

With inspiring lyrics, stellar musical workmanship, memorable tunes and great vocals like those found on "You're So Beautiful" and "We All Fall Down", this is high caliber country rock music with a divine  gospel  touch spearheaded by the multifaceted Jim Vierra, well known songwriter and producer for both Christian Contemporary and Country Music. 

You can hear/share it all on their Reverbnation page and also on the new website in the works! The exact link on the website is the listening library page! Dont fail to shower your love by liking their fanpage too! Support Independent Artists!!!

Learn how to get your music noticed at ReverbNation.com

Happy Eid Wishes !!

Wishing all readers and fans, a safe, happy and blissful Eid! Let the feasting begin!

Sacredly Unholy

Can we cross the Sacred line ?

Let’s have a sacred discussion. Is anything sacred and too holy? Should anything be sacred at all? On one hand, there seems to be certain things that should reasonably deemed sacred simply because it would be in bad unholy taste otherwise. 

Take for instance, our regular concept of Hell. Instead of strictly adhering to the usual biblical spin, let’s consider a new perspective. I am not talking about Hell in the religious sense of being Satan’s playground nor as the proverbial tool of manipulating the gullible masses either. I am proposing something else. 

Imagine Hell as a separate dimension – a different plane of existence of pure chaos - very much like what you might have seen in years ago in Paul W.S. Anderson's sci-fi flick - Event Horizon (1997). Anything that resembles Order in any way would be grossly mocked and inconceivably tortured. Things would include the human soul or anything that is not pure chaos. 

Let’s face it, the mind functions on electro-chemical energy. Emotions, love, hate and all other feelings are all chemical reactions of the brain's response. Change the environment and the mind produces bizarre and ultimately nightmarish realities. Why just consider Hell? If there indeed is an afterlife. This would be the worst possible scenario. 

So, does holding on to sacred beliefs - whole portions of our concepts of reality as untouchable - really safe for logical reasoning? Don't call me an atheist but shouldn't even the most sacred beliefs be unlatched from our firm grip and spread out for intense scrutiny? If so, if indeed doing this is more beneficial, then what is the point of holding things sacred and why do we keep doing it? 

Many will say it all depends on what our goal is. If it is to seek knowledge, then unlatching sacred beliefs for scrutiny is absolutely necessary. However if we wish to merely hold onto those sacred beliefs for the sake of false gods, insecurity, hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty... then well, then perhaps holding onto sacred things is necessary... its up to you.

A Poem - Dark Skies

On Violence, from the Websnacker Archives

As I stare out the window, hoping a new day to dawn,

I wonder how destructive, we’ve really become.

The daily violence has colored the grime,

the view of the sky seems darker this time.

Day in and day out, I see the same scene,

it only gets worse, when our world could be pristine.

The buzz of the gun, the red of the sky,

the taste of the dirty air, the burn in my eye,

the pain in my chest, and my throat feeling rough,

when will we say, enough is enough?

Do we accept violence as a matter of change,

and days like today are things that seem no more strange

What is the price we’re willing to pay,

and will we just stop, to stop having days like today?

I wonder if ever the world will stay clear,

if there will be peace and happiness near?

I worry that we may have stretched our world too thin,

This is a battle that no one can ever win.

We need as a people, to be more aware

to really pitch in peace and to do our fair share.

The life we kill is our society as a whole,

the world is damaged; it’s now bloody out of control.

I ponder these things as I sit here and stare,

stuck on the highway, and going nowhere...

Fasting During Ramadan

What a Typical Day during Ramadan Entails!

Picture yourself experiencing the humid heat of scorching summer without any chilled coolers to cool you off. Envision missing your daily breakfast, lunch and your favorite cup of coffee at 11 post noon daily for 30 full days. Imagine having to miss that fat five- star Sunday brunch that your friend has invited you for or envisage having to give up that free trip to Thailand. Imagine all these together and not lying, being good, honest to yourself and others around you and much, much more! Well, these are just some (and many) of the things Muslims around the world (including me) will be sacrificing the few weeks to observe the piously sacred month of Ramadan.

The ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar year, Ramadan or Ramzan, is acknowledged as the month of fasting - a period that signifies a time to be still, a time to become aware spiritually and a time to submit to complete subservience to Allah through personal sacrifice. It is also the month in which the Holy Quran was sent down (from the heavens) to Man.

I have often been asked whether it is hard to desist from eating and drinking for a whole month, especially in summer. I’m surprised when I always find myself replying “no” - for through being raised as a Muslim, fasting inescapably becomes embedded in one, a part of one’s being. For those who’ve come into Islam, fasting is undoubtedly a trying experience at first, I’m sure. Though, as soon as you realize what the health and religious benefits are, together with the feeling of being united with Muslims worldwide experiencing exactly the same, it makes for a rather awe-inspiring feeling.

The most captivating part of fasting during the month of Ramadan is the self-denial from food, drink and any sexual activity (both mental and physical) – especially to those who’ve never experienced a fast before. Here I see it fitting to add that the abstaining applies only from the break of dawn until sunset. No food or drink is to pass the lips; nose etc. meaning that taking a sneak dip in the pool is also a taboo! Smoking is prohibited as well.

It gets a bit more intricate and demanding… other senses are also under commitment to fast. The eyes (from wandering to that which is considered to interfere with your spiritual upliftment); ears (from gossip etc); tongue (from lying, backbiting etc); and other limbs should also, with the complete objective of pleasing the Almighty, be restrained if the faster wants his/her fast to be accepted. And I can hear you ask why?

The above mentioned is fundamentally two of the three vital elements required for a fast to be worthy of full acceptance. The third element is preventing the heart and mind from dwelling on anything other than the remembrance and praise of Allah.

And with these three aspects of one’s being combined, it makes for a rather perfect recipe for divine cleanliness and leaves the door wide open to a path that can lead to a higher spiritual plane and an awareness of others’ suffering… for the hunger pangs will certainly make you think back to that homeless person, that sick child, that frail old woman and the countless destitutes and poor orphans who cant even get a proper meal a day.

Fasting has always, across the religious spectrum, been an accepted way of cleansing the body (and strengthening the spirit). And with the health-conscious mindset reigning supreme in this age, it is fast gaining momentum.

A fast can easily last up to approximately 12-14 hours – starting at about four in the morning and ending at around 6.30 in the evening. The fast usually starts as early as three thirty in the morning when you have to wake-up and eat well ( but not gorge) to help you fast for the day. After performing the morning prayers at around five, it’s almost impractical to squeeze in any more sleep. Chances are I won’t hear the alarm if I try to sleep again…yet, I do fall asleep at around 7 and I arrive late to work at ten.

As the day carries on, the air-conditioned confines of my office becomes my shelter. Energy levels slip steadily, a wave of drowsiness constantly distracts and the stomach is rumbling. Personally, I find that minus the next meal on my mind, it is quite astounding how empty the brain feels. What else to think about if I don’t have to decide where to go to eat during my lunch hour and my energy levels are too low to go shopping. You really have no option then but to become conscious of why you’re fasting – which then leads to the kind of divine consciousness you are supposed to dwell on anyway. It’s all really a sanctified chain reaction.

The fast ends at sunset, preferably broken with a sip of fruit juice or water, and dates – a natural and copiously rich source of sugar – and the evening prayer, in the hope that the fast will be accepted. Tradition comes under analysis again… those deep-fried mutton samosas, chicken cutlets and fish fingers can’t possibly be healthy when one is aiming to purify the body but actually most Muslims end up feasting everyday – both during the morning pre-fast and post break sessions. The final prayer of the day is performed at around 8.30 in the night followed by the special prayer for Ramadan, which takes a bit more time and requires one to go to mosque and perform it with your fellow Muslim neighborhood.

This is in a nutshell is a typical day in the life of a working, fasting Muslim man or woman during Ramadan. For the archetypal Muslim housewife or women with children, and the extended circle as is quite common in Muslim families, the burden is actually tenfold. Yet, you’ll be astonished at their strength and their unvarying juggle between the no-nonsense and divine. Okay, I got to go now. It’s almost three o’ clock again!

Does God Exist?

Keeping the Faith

I happened to be at an interesting debate today organized by a scientific think-tank that dabbles in psychiatry and neurology, mostly new-age research on the power of the human brain. Pretty hi-tech deep science stuff but something that has always interested me. And if you are a fan of Discovery or National Geographic, easy enough to understand.

The debate’s topic was what had taken me there. It was about God or rather if God Exists? this was the million dollar question that was being debated. Stretching to more than 3 hours from 90 minutes the invite originally promised, it was time very well spent.

Is there a supernatural being watching over us? An omnipotent force, all powerful in command reigning over the universe or is it just an imaginative invention created by the human brain as part of our evolution. Or is God the manifestation of society’s needs to set and maintain social order – a mental redline to preserve morals and ethics as humanity evolved. With members of the Christian and Islamic clergy besides Hindu priests & Buddhist monks on one side and atheists and the scientific community on the opposite side, it was indeed an incendiary mix for a humid hot afternoon.

I won’t take sides here cos I am a believer (who periodically suffers from a loss of faith only to be brought back on line by some divine intervention that’s indeed truly divine). By definition, spiritual experiences are of a personal nature. A person's search for, explanation of, or relationship with God is a very private thing. It doesn't affect everybody in the same way. There is no archetypical measure by which you can say 'I just made contact and that was my spiritual experience number 8 on the spiritual Richter scale’ just because I went to the church today or I survived a car crash or I hit jackpot in the tele lottery.

And with all due respects, the Bible, the Quran, the Torah, the Bhagwad Gita or the hundred other holy books can never be proof of God’s existence. In fact, these gospels have been in decline as a source of truth in the minds of average people for some time now. And not because there is no truth in them but because humanity has discredited their sanctity and undermined their real essence.

And the blame for this is not on science as you might think, but on the major religions itself and its wrong practitioners. They have undermined Gods truth with misinformation, and buy using it in a manner that it was not intended for. It is the same principle that the Govt uses in discrediting any particular story that they do not want told. They encourage all sorts of misinformation to be put out, by anyone, even the nut cases, so that when people hear it, they will close their mind to it.

And you only have to turn on your TV to see all sorts of misinformation. The most common phrase used by TV preachers is that “The Bible says or the Quran says ..And then they proceed to tell you that it says …if you send in your seed money, God will bless you with all the money you can spend. And at the other end of the spectrum, an other will tell you that in order to go to heaven; you must walk on fire, kill an infidel or drink poison to prove your faith. All that these preachers and teachers on TV really yell for is their love of the almighty MONEY. Needless to say, all of this dilutes the truth of these holy books and makes it harder for people with open minds to ever take them seriously.

And because of this, I never tell anyone that they prove anything, but only relate my personal experiences in a way that I feel are accurate to describe God’s presence. I have to admit though that this proof is personal and can never be transferred to others. I could relate how that proof came to me and describe it perfectly, but they could never give it the same weight as if it had happened to them.

What matters is that each of us have a certain level of understanding based upon our ability to think and our willingness to believe. For many, Gods proof depends a lot on how much we ask from him, on how much he gives or rather how "satisfied" we are with the worldly rewards we get. For example, if I pray for a promotion or a big house or a fancy car and I get it, I am a happy believer but if I keep praying and he does not seem to fulfill my shopping list, I get disappointed. This frustration soon turns into disillusionment and I either turn into a non-believer or jump from one religion to an other hoping the other god would hear my prayers.

What we fail to understand is that God speaks to us in many tongues, through many men, and at different times. He speaks to us through the sun and the stars and the birds and the animals…through our five blessed senses, through our love for one another. He spoke through Jesus, through Moses, through the prophet Mohammed considered the greatest Man ever born on earth and through countless other prophets and myriad other great men the world has seen. You need to connect at a deeper, spiritual level to understand God's language and you don’t need to be a die-hard believer to do that.

Unfortunately, what we have left of God's love now is all gone, substituted by adulterated religious nonsense that has been further subject to the corruptions of man's ignorance, greed and avarice and love of power and worship of self.

You cannot see God, hear God, touch, smell or feel him to realize his existence. To believe in God, you need to have faith. After all, with so much bloodshed and sadness all around, its time to have some faith or perhaps like the Bon Jovi, its time to ‘Keep the Faith’ alive! Godspeed.

An Inner Journey

A Spiritual Journey for the New Year

Its a New Year and this is a Journey I intend to take. Intend? Time For a little Websnacker philosophy

We travel to discover new worlds and experience new environments. We travel to experience ourselves in different ways, free of the normal constraints of our lives. We travel to see ourselves mirrored in other people and cultures in the world - at some deep level recognizing that we are all brothers and sisters, and reveling in our diversity, our uniqueness, even our eccentricities. We travel to face our fears-and to overcome them. We travel to test our mettle and expand our own boundaries. We travel to seek fun and excitement. We travel because, at our core, we humans are explorers and yearn for adventure. We long to break the monotony of our civilized, ever-so-rational, planned-out lives.

Discovery and adventure are also accessed through an inner journey, however, and, because it ultimately holds the potential fulfilment of all our desires, the inner journey is the most exciting, challenging and rewarding one there is. It is a sacred quest fraught with challenges and opportunities for growth disguised as obstacles. So many of our wisest teachers tell us to "know ourselves" and to "go inside" to search for the answers to all our questions. Jesus said, "the kingdom of heaven is within". The Hindu sage, Nityananda, said, "the heart is the hub of all sacred places-go there and roam". Religious historian Elaine Pagels said, "when you know yourself deeply, you will know God, because you will discover that the divine is within you". In the highest sense, knowing ourselves means getting a glimpse of our ultimate divinity. Our main responsibility in life is to go within to discover who we are and then become the best "us" that we can be. Only we can do that; no one can do it for us. This is a universal imperative, regardless of gender, race, color, nationality or religious background.

So let us travel within-fearlessly. Inside is a fountain of courage and a source of infinite strength. Inside we finally find the relief of self-acceptance, the peace of understanding, the joy and humility of living with purpose. When we "come in" we are energized and enlivened by an inner resolve, a potent inner force. Inside is where we recognize our essential humanity-and connect to the spark of divinity that we all contain. It is also where we come to the realization of our oneness, where we find self-respect and, consequently, the respect of others. It is where we touch a love both tender and vulnerable -a love that hurts for the tragedy of the human condition and for our abused and neglected Earth. We discover a universe within as unfathomably limitless as the one without. Passion makes its home there, as do dreams.

On this journey we must also face our inner demons and nightmares-our shadow side that we have attempted to suppress. Throughout this never-ending journey of self-discovery, we must strive to remain open and integrate all of ourselves, the good and the bad-no longer rejecting parts of who we are. While inside, we discover how much we have become conditioned. The inner quest prompts us to analyze and often deconstruct entire systems of belief-not which we have previously interpreted reality- and which no longer serve us or fit who we are becoming. Inside we regain our lost innocence. We discover that the fear holding us back is only an illusion-a self-imposed imprisonment as pathetic and vulnerable as the Wizard in Oz trapped behind his razzle-dazzle effects, his curtain of smoke and mirrors. Inside we tap into the source of our creative expression; we discover and deepen our innate intuitive sense. Inside we find the only thing that will really fulfil us: our selves.

There are many paths leading us to the inner world. Meditation, in its various forms, is one of the most effective. The main goal of meditation is to quiet the mind, so that we can temporarily halt its constant thinking, analytic and problem-solving functions. In meditation we strive to focus the mind in the present moment, rather than giving it free rein to obsess about the past or fantasize about the future. When we learn to free ourselves from the mind's constant schemings and preoccupations, the result is an abiding peace-an indescribable scene of relief-as well as flashes of insight, increased clarity of thinking and unanticipated solutions to our problems.

In some ways, breath work, which may be considered a from of meditation, could be though of as the autobahn to the inner world. It works very fast, and even new practitioners can attain high meditative states the first time out of the pit. Traditional Indians have been using their breath for healing and as a means of reaching altered states of consciousness for thousands of years. Besides their healing effects, conscious breathing techniques, such as rebirthing or holotropic breathing, can generate a profound sense of spiritual connectedness.

Chanting is another meditative practice that helps quiet the mind, potentially leading to deepened levels of inner peace and heightened states of being. Chanting works best when done for a substantive period of time (at least 30 minutes to an hour) and helps us to allow free expression to our innate feelings of devotion. For those who are physically inclined or who have short attention spans, meditative practices involving movement may be most effective; these include yoga, tai chi, qi gong, walking the labyrinth and ecstatic dancing.

Yet another way of going within is communing with nature. Solitary moments in beautiful natural settings can lead to profound inner peace and a deep spiritual connection. Our bodies quiet and relax as they become more attuned to the cycles of nature.Besides the many benefits gained from these and other spiritual practices-such as deepened insight, an expanded sense of self and a richer awareness of our oneness with the universe-a life that works better is the icing on the cake.

It is important to realize that a likely result of exploring the inner landscapes is a propulsion into action. Having faced our inner demons and dropped our old identities of woundedness and vicitimization, we reemerge transformed as the beings that we really are: empowered compassionate, loving, ready to make a difference in the world and fully able to embrace the totality of life. In this sense, coming out means emerging as who we are really are.

Having discovered who we are at a deeper level and experienced our connection to all life and to the divine, we often emerge as spiritual travellers, environmental activists, moral leaders, change catalysts, social reformers and justice workers. In a sense, going within and coming out are two sides of the same coin, the inhale and the exhale. For, as James Allen says in As we Think (new world library), "You cannot travel within and stand still without". Once we reestablish our rightful place in relationship to nature and the rest of the universe, everything else falls into place. We begin to treat the Earth, its resources and its other inhabitants with respect.

In terms of taking action, the single most important thing we can do in life is to go for our personal best. Tom Waddell, the equal gender activist, once said, "To do one's personal best is the ultimate of all human achievement", Whether we stretch toward personal excellence step by step or leap by leap, the move forward is the ultimate goal. In making our own unique contribution, we will find fulfillment.

It all begins with the journey within. Inner space: the final frontier. This is the ultimate adventure, the real test, the answer to our questions, the resolution of problems. Therein lies our happiness and our life's fulfillment. So, start your journey today.