Happy Independence Day, USA! As a US citizen, I have tremendous gratitude to be afforded the opportunity
and freedom to live the free life I live, make the choices I make, and create a
life filled with my dreams. My story is very
much an “American Dream” story, with a beautiful, mystical twist of adventures
in the Far East, lands unknown to many who remain in the West. While I uncover deep history residing in
Eastern cultures, I find there are equal amounts of Western-infused
entrepreneurial spirit at heart and I fit right in.
“Today is finish business plan day”, for P.R.A.Y.. I have been saying this for nearly one month
now. Lazy is not an adjective one would
use to describe me when in work zone; if anything I am typical type A
personality: work hard, play hard. Walking
by me at a coffee shop, one is daring if they try to break the impenetrable
bubble around my focused concentration, although the beautiful kind ones try,
and, bless their hearts, do at times. Somewhat
of a perfectionist nearly to a fault, finding my purpose and passion in recent
years is blessing and has overtaken my life in the best possible ways. I have found my way of expressing my
obsession with truth, knowledge, history of esoteric, ancient cultures,
exploration of inner self in a form that heals others and generates abundance
for me and those who co-create and wear PRAY.
Result? The past months it is 14+
hour days at my computer working on every aspect of building PRAY brand. Well, today turned out not to be the day to
finish my business plan, it ended up being a day to connect with powerful Thai
female sisters and entrepreneurs, to inspire and be inspired, and dig deeper
into topics of Buddhism, prayer, blessed amulets, mystical protective powers which
are infused in PRAY.
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| Angel Carving, Streetside, Chiang Mai |
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| Buddha Altar in Jungle |
There was a moment last fall, after first developing the
PRAY line and shooting film in Bali of Balinese Priests, blessings, sword
makers, that I lost sight of my vision, ran low on courage, lost hope, belief
no where in sight. At the time, I did
not have the same inner strength as Top has maintained his entire life, now a 26-year-old
Thai billionaire stocking 7-11’s in 27 countries around the world with his
seaweed. That said, I had only been wearing
my PRAY talismans for a few weeks and the transformative, awakening powers had
not begun to infuse with my dreams. I
was also still caught in a process of “awakening” to the reality that we CAN
create the life we want. Heavily steeped
in old brainwashing that life is safer, more secure and only doable when
working for someone else, I listened to the tape recorder in my head and went
back to teaching yoga for a time. It was
what I needed to do. Money coming in, there
was time to focus on building the base of what was to become a more widely
recognized brand via the Kickstarter crowd raising platform. Teaching a few times a day or less, all of my
energy poured into creating a Kickstarter campaign, including video for PRAY
2013 line. Belief began to pick up. Any crucial crossroads in his business, Top,
in “Thai Billionaire”, did not think twice to follow his intuition and go for
it. His inner strength was so powerful he
knew without a doubt that whatever he did would be successful, even as he was
told “no” time and again, as he failed over and again. Top kept pursuing his dream of saving his
family from debt.
A lot of Top's strength and belief stems from traditional
Thai culture and history steeped in Buddhism.
Much of this ancient power I am learning from my Thai angels, Nong and
Jiaranai. The Thai are a strong people,
exceptionally successful in business and spiritual simultaneously. Today on our journey the gals are exemplars
of this powerful combination. These two
are becoming are spiritual sisters to me, offering a porthole into the ancient
culture and spiritual world of power from which PRAY flows. Conduits for the history behind the powers I
am infusing in PRAY, our connection is no accident. Nong herself, one of the forces it seems now assisting in
the evolution of PRAY partially because of who she is as a person and what she
believes in her heart, has a rags-to riches story similar to Top in “Thai
Billionaire”. She and Jiaranai explain
to me that Thailand culture is to take care of others, to give, to take care of
parents first because if not for them, a person’s soul would not have the
opportunity to re-incarnate into this life and become a human; the highest form
of evolution. Nong was quite poor most
of her life, although you would not know it meeting her today: houses, condo,
business in Pai, global clients, iPad, iPod, truck, you name it she has
it. Once she opened up about her story,
her life, her stuff, perspective changes.
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| PHRA/ Amulet Education from Nong |
She has always maintained the Thai way and took care of her
parents from a young age. Nong went to
work very young for only 500 Bhat per month.
She used to send all 500 Bhat ($17) back home to her parents, herself
sleeping and eating at her place of work for free. As she built business and gained trust from
clients around the world, people began gifting her things. She has not bought much. She believes everything in her life has
unfolded the way it has: abundance in happiness, family, gifts, community,
success, because she PRAYs every morning.
Nong wakes up at 4:30am, chants Buddhist prayers for 1.5 hours. She said, “maybe (this is all) because I
pray, maybe it’s for another reason, I’m not sure”. One client gave her the iPhone, another her
iPad, another practically gifted her the truck; discounted ½ off, yet another
clothing when hers was ripped. She
states all of this with complete humility and gratitude. She is not ostentatious. 6am every day she prepares food from homegrown
vegetables, which is shared with friends and co-workers throughout the day. “You never know if your car might break down
in the middle of the highway. If you
have food or bananas, then it makes life easy and it’s a good day,” she
explains with her sweet smile.
Today is the day I was gifted higher-level education about
the sacred Thai PHRA, ancient amulets worn by most Thai’s and Buddhists. These are the visible form of “black” magic
in Asia; energies held in physical form which are conduits for protection,
transformation, manifestation, and in essence, awakening if one so chooses. The reason these are classified under “black
magic” is they are not purely “benevolent”.
They may be used for a person to increase success, gain abundance and
wealth. I choose to view the perspective
of realizing one’s dream. White magic is
used only for pure healing and never to do with success related to money and
may only be used in extremely special circumstances.
Monks, benevolent in nature working in the healing arts,
bless all amulets, including PHRA. It is
simply a matter of niche energies and usage. The PHRA are also worth quite a lot of money because of their power.
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| Nong's PHRA Collection: Worth A LOT of BHAT, and Luck! |
Very little surprises me anymore regarding incredible
connections. It was no surprise when
Jiaranai and Nong shared with me they know a gentleman by the name of Master
Chai, intimately connected to the PHRA and its’ origins. Master Chai houses a Burmese Buddha statue 8
feet high, said to hold great power. It
was so powerful, apparently, that the revered, famous, Thai monk Kruba Noi
(portrayed in my film), personally visited this man’s house to bless the Buddha
statue for 2 hours. The Buddha statue
must soon return to Burma because of its’ said massive powers.
Master Chai is a legend himself. Everyone he meets is gifted a Thai amulet, or
two depending on the soul. Since a young
age he was drawn to Buddhist temples for reasons unknown to him, compelled to
collect these beautiful protective coins.
He continued to collect them throughout his life without any specific
reason except intuition, selling some and making good money. Most, though, he gives away to people upon
initial meeting if he deems them worthy.
For example the first time Jiaranai met him, he gifted her two Buddha
pendants along with another amulet. After
his grandfather passed away, Master Chai found out that his grandfather was the
person making these coins for the Thai Royal Family. His grandfather crafted them for the royal
family, while also keeping a collection of his own in buckets under his house. Master Chai’s grandmother passed these two
buckets full of powerful, protective Thai Buddhist amulets on to Chai. Chai passes them on to divine souls he meets
to share the magic and wealth. I was the
blessed recipient of this story while sitting by the river over dinner with
Jiaranai last night after we watched “Thai Billionaire”. Now today, sitting in a pristine coffee shop
in the middle of the jungle, we were once again listening about Chai’s powerful
Buddha and amulet collection while Nong brings out her amulets to show us. A coincidence that she has them with her? I think not.
I feel all of the power in the Universe conspiring to point me in the
direction of PRAY energies, history, and supporters.
Somewhere in the
depths of my heart I have known since developing PRAY that this is my path, my
truth, my purpose. I will find a
way. I maintain belief in myself, even
if I lose sight of it for a time. Awakening
is a process, and I have had to explore darkness in order to come to the
light. It is in the dark spaces, vision
clouded, that creative energy pours out, and determination and pure strength go
into overdrive. The path of the Shaman,
the White Wizard: to go to the darkness, pain, suffering, loss, in order to
heal and come to heal others in the light from with depth and wisdom. The most recent experience I had, working in
a way that squelched my creativity and personal freedom, will be the last. It was enough for me to wake up and realize
that I have the potential inside to thrive, to create my vision, and to help
others create theirs.
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| www.purerockangelyogi.com |
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