... the light seekers society and mang benny gantioqui ... (life coach, counselor, psychotherapist, clinical psychologist, psychiatrist, osteopath, quezon city, manila, philippines)

being a practitioner of pranic psychotherapy (pranic healing for emotional/ psychiatric disorders) for 2 years now, i have always been intrigued by choa kok sui, the Filipino founder of modern pranic healing and arhatic yoga.  unfortunately, he passed away 5 years ago so i never got the chance to meet him.  

choa kok sui

thus, when i got word that mang benny gantioqui, the illustrator of choa kok sui's books held regular discussion groups at forest grill restaurant on sundays, i was thrilled and eager to attend.  I didn't want to pass up the opportunity of learning from mang benny, who is founder of the light seekers society.  

mang benny gantioqui

mang benny is the sort of grandpa everyone would want to have- friendly and warm, knowledgeable and wise, philosophical yet grounded.  before meeting him, i thought that he would be a woo woo type of guru, but to my surprise, he really was very down-to-earth and pragmatic even as he talked about esoteric stuff.  in fact, listening to mang benny was like being with a grandpa who also happened to be a philosophy professor.  i thoroughly enjoyed his stories culled from his own personal experiences.  for instance, he amusingly shared how back in his teenage days, he would correspond with girls through snail mail and patience was indeed a virtue he developed because waiting time for each other's mail took forever.  

mang benny's is a "stream-of-consciousness" type of discourse wherein he simply shares whatever comes to mind.  attendees can interrupt him anytime to share their own ideas or to ask him questions.  if there were two ideas from mang benny that made an impact on me, they were (1) the reminder that the struggles and hardships we have in life are meant as aids to facilitate our spiritual evolution, and (2) we can only know the "Unknown" by approaching it freshly- with a "beginner's mind" so to speak, wherein we let go of our preconceived notions and biases.  

thanks for the christmas gift aurea (javen)!

thank you mang benny and the light seekers society! it was an insightful morning and being with all of you felt like i just attended a warm family reunion! God bless all of you richly!