JESUSJAY

The Spiritual Journalist
@JESUSJAY
Magazine Posts Table of Contents

The Opportunity To Exist

Posted 2013-11-14 04:42:20 | Views: 2,970
The Opportunity To Exist, 5 Years Later

In 2008, I wrote my first essay which was published on This I Believe.org, an international organization engaging people in writing, sharing, and discussing stories of the core values that guide our daily lives.

Now, with more than 100,000 collected essays from around the world, I would like to say that expressing our views in writing whether it is published or unpublished, it's a healthy exercise to uplift our consciousness to a higher level.

My spiritual path began on January 2003 when I met in Miami Lakes, Cuban-born author Lillian Monterrey at my restaurant, Sorrento's Pizza & Rest.

Her publishing company was located in the same neighborhood so I had asked her to come for lunch and to bring me 12 books, 6 in English and 6 in Spanish of her latest release entitled “Follow Your Instincts.”

I told her how inspiring was to read a book about things that I was eager to learn, things that your parents might have missed to teach you for whatever reason and I told her that I wanted to become a teacher or guide.

With a beautiful dedication Monterrey opened the doors in my own mind to the quest for knowledge and curiosity walking on the self-help path which I was interested to delve and to inquire into the most precious questions about life and existence.

The path was rough and difficult at first; I was disoriented with no clear focus.

I was already a young business owner who for the last 8 years had a lack of enthusiasm absorbed in the daily duties of running two restaurants and a catering business.

Within 3 months after I met her, I sold the businesses and invested some money in my post graduate studies.

A USGS scientist and FIU teacher and friend of mine named Michael Wacker suggested me to go for a bilingual journalism program, the only one in the nation at Florida International University.

In August 2003, I began my 2 year-study and in March 2005, I obtained my Master of Science in Mass Communication with an emphasis in Spanish Language Journalism.

I learned about NPR and I became a volunteer for over 9 years reading the news to the blind at WLRN 91.3 FM for the Radio Reading Service. I felt comfortable in front of a microphone communicating the printed news from the USAToday.

Years ahead were deeply troubling.

I had invested in Real Estate buying and renting 5 properties throughout Miami-Dade County including a town home in the City of Homestead.

It was the year 2006 and I had launched my first business adventure in the art world becoming an owner of a very small gallery space on Biscayne Boulevard along with partners Ben Abounassif and Sinuhe Vega Leiter.

We were throwing exhibition parties, selling artworks and life seemed bountiful and giving until the Real Estate bubble bursting with fraud and egotistic deceptions suddenly broke experiencing the biggest recession after the Great Depression of 1929.

Psychologically, depression ensued. I was devastated.

I became suicidal and I was attempting with all sorts of escapes that rendered me inept to think  forward with a clear mind about what it meant to lose everything I had made in 15 years, throwing away all the hard-earned efforts of my father who has given me everything I had.

I wanted to leave this planet.

I became financially, physically and morally bankrupt. My Spirit was slowly dying and no one seemed to help out. I began praying to Baby Jesus, a cute little tender figure of Jesus of Nazareth when he was about 4, 5 years old, without knowing how to pray.

In all of those years, I did not go to church because I was totally disconnected; I did not believe in any temple of any block because I thought they were only making a living out the misery of people who were looking for God inside a building.

Unity on the Bay, opened the doors to me with their little cozy library showing me all sorts of self-help books from Osho, to Krishnamurti, to A Course in Miracles and Eric Butterworth. I bought many books and I thought that going regularly to services it would slowly help me to get out of my troubles.

And yes indeed, all of those books helped me to get out of  my problems with thorough mental effort and faith.

While recovering from all sorts of addictions, I was working as a bilingual interviewer for FIU’s Institute for Public Opinion Research from 2008-2011.

One day, during our Sunday 30-min break, a co-worker named Amalia from Uruguay told me “Jesus, you always talk about spiritual teachers that are no longer here, you talk about Krishnamurti, Socrates, or Epictetus, and while its worthwhile information, these people are dead,” she said.

“You need a living spiritual teacher that will guide you and you can relate to,” she added.

I was perplexed to hear such a statement. I had been looking for a Master for the longest time, perhaps since the very day I was born.

Everything I have done in my life has been self-taught.

My vocation, my personal interests, all has been self-taught. I went to school but it was not the school I was supposed to go. Science was not my field of preference but humanities instead, I didn' know this.

The next day, my co-worker gave me a DVD about Prem Rawat, also known by his honorary title Maharaji. Thus, I became a student of his Words of Peace and became a volunteer for his organizations.

I cried of joy many times not knowing why.

I was lucky that I received his teachings for free during 8 months until I obtained the four techniques of meditation that he named Knowledge.

This was during the summer of 2009 and only a year before I had ventured into my first ever spiritual retreat with American guru Andrew Cohen in Lenox, Massachusetts.

With Andrew Cohen, it was a wonderful experience, however, I could not meditate.

I had headaches all the time making the hardest effort to concentrate but I understood everything he said about the Authentic Self and his vision and teachings of evolutionary enlightenment.

It was Maharaji though that ignited the spiritual spark within me, and in Miami Beach during one of his prestige events at The Fillmore in September 2009, I was awestruck by his charisma and profound wisdom.

While carefully listening to him, I was asking myself, how can I help him? I need to do something to tell my family and friends about this honorable man who has been for more than 4 decades teaching the world about the concept of peace!

And thus, La Columna de Jesus was born, my first ever website or blog.

Using my nickname, JESUSJAY I registered a .org domain thinking about the future when things would be financially better so that I could register a nonprofit organization for human consciousness education.

Within two months, another blog was launched which has helped me obtain a credibility as both a journalist and blogger: WHATS UP MIAMI, WUM, the second blog that would eventually help me earn money in the online publicity business.

Five years might not sound enough but I do consider those years very precious in my life because spirituality has become my way of living, my whole Being.

And accepting my reality with compassion and love has opened the door for all sorts of things, creativity, joy and unconditional love.

Today JESUSJAY, The Spiritual Journalist on OWNZEE -a website designed by NYC-based artists Kiki and Humby Valdes- I conclude posting quotes from other websites so that I can focus on two of my most recent creations that are becoming extremely popular, The Spiritual Journalist and El Periodista Espiritual on the BLOGGER platform.

My voice can be heard in Spanish language on JESUSJAY soundcloud.com channel.

The journey continues on a material plane but I already know that my opportunity to exist is beyond my imagination because when you become one with our Father we are One in existence and eternity forever and ever.

Jesus Manuel Rojas Torres, M.S., The Spiritual Journalist

Orlando, November 13th, 2013.

By JESUSJAY

Great Compassion

Posted 2013-11-13 07:08:46 | Views: 1,916
Great compassion is the root of all forms of worship.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama

The Way

Posted 2013-11-12 06:51:12 | Views: 2,053
On the great path of awakened ones, there is always unsurpassable practice, continuous and sustained. It forms the circle of the Way. Throughout aspiration, practice, awakening, and equanimity, there is not a moment's gap: continuous practice is the circle of the Way.
Dogen Zenji
Via Gratefulness.org

Talk About Joy

Posted 2013-11-10 07:58:04 | Views: 2,003
Talking about our problems has become our greatest addiction. Break the habit – talk about your joys.
Rita Schiano
Via Gratefulness.org

Wilderness

Posted 2013-11-07 06:21:57 | Views: 2,134
Wilderness is not a luxury, but a necessity of the human spirit.

Edward Abbey 
Via The Daily Good

Praise to God

Posted 2013-11-06 09:59:15 | Views: 1,887
What is real prayer? Praise to God. And the meaning of praise? Appreciating; thus opening the heart more and more to the divine beauty one sees in manifestation.
Pir-O-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan
Bowl of Saki
Via Gratefulness.org

Rig Veda

Posted 2013-11-02 07:02:00 | Views: 2,024
Via Gratefulness.org
"There is an endless net of threads throughout the universe.

The horizontal threads are in space.

The vertical threads are in time.

At every crossing of the threads, there is an individual, and every individual is a crystal bead.

And every crystal bead reflects not only the light from every other crystal in the net, but also every other reflection throughout the entire universe."
Rig Veda
Read more about psychology, human consciousness, positive thinking on The Spiritual Journalist

Spiritual Blindness

Posted 2013-10-31 11:04:08 | Views: 1,917
"Most humans fixed their attention on healing only physical problems, because these are the most tangible and obvious.

But people do not realize that the real causes of all human afflictions lie in mental disturbances, such as anxiety, selfishness, etc. - and the spiritual blindness that prevents perceive the divine meaning of life." Paramahansa Yogananda on TSJ

Fully Present Mind

Posted 2013-10-31 07:45:15 | Views: 1,924
At any moment the fully present mind can shatter time and burst into Now.
David Steindl-Rast
A Listening Heart
Via Gratefulness.org

God's Handwriting

Posted 2013-10-24 16:01:11 | Views: 1,958
Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God's handwriting - a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Via Gratefulness.org

Bless Your Neighbor

Posted 2013-10-21 06:25:02 | Views: 1,797
Your life ought to be as one long prayer that God's Spirit may work through all your thinking and acting to bless your neighbor.
Peter Reisch
trans. from German by Br. David Steindl-Rast
Via Gratefulness.org

Mastery in Contemplation

Posted 2013-10-15 12:08:41 | Views: 1,959
Gradually one's mastery in contemplation extends from the primal atom to the greatest magnitude.
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, 1.40
Via Gratefulness.org

Image of God

Posted 2013-10-09 11:22:54 | Views: 1,738
"Many people excuse their own faults but judge other persons harshly. We should reverse this attitude by excusing others' shortcomings and by harshly examining our own.

Sometimes it is necessary to analyze other people; in that case the important thing to remember is to keep the mind unprejudiced. An unbiased mind is like a clear mirror, held steady, not oscillating with hasty judgements. Any person reflected within that mirror will present an undistorted image.

Learn to see God in all persons, of whatever race or creed. You will know what divine love is when you begin to feel your oneness with every human being, not before.

In mutual service, we forget the little self, and glimpse the one measureless Self, the Spirit that unifies all men." Paramahansa Yogananda, The Law of Success.

Ego-reduction

Posted 2013-09-29 07:52:15 | Views: 1,938
"Ego-reduction requires intelligence and the grace of God right from the beginning. Courage and willingness to suffer are needed, but they are not enough.

You have to learn how to work along with it as the job is being done.

It is a skilled operation, and the skill can only be acquired slowly, by actual experience, by trial and error.

The practice of the presence of God and the practice of ego-reduction are complementary and mutually interdependent experiences.

If you practice the presence you will find ,as a corollary, that your ego has been reduced. If you work at dissolving the ego, you will find that the presence of God consequently becomes more real to you."
Thomas E. Powers, "First Questions on the Life of the Spirit," 1987, Self-Realization Fellowship Magazine

Repair the Earth!

Posted 2013-09-26 12:01:02 | Views: 2,057
“Humans have made a huge hole in nature in the last 10,000 years. [With de-extinction,] we have the ability now, and maybe the moral obligation, to repair some of the damage."Stewart Brand
Via TED Talks
REPAIR THE EARTH THAT GAVE YOU BIRTH!! The Spiritual Journalist