In case, you are wondering – who is Amy Cheong?
She is a senior executive of National Trade Union Congress (NTUC) in Singapore who recently created a nation-wide sensation due to her online rant with a racist Facebook posting regarding Malays. She was sacked within 24 hrs after she made the post.
She wrote that Malay weddings held at the void decks of HDB flats should be banned and also went on her rant with offensive post to the Malays. Her comments went viral and drew a torrent of criticism, even threats from the public on both Facebook and Twitter especially in a multi-racial Singapore where racial tolerance is very much advocated. Within 12 hrs, she apologised on Facebook for the comments which she attributed to her being “upset with the noise” from her flats. By then damage was already done. A police report was lodged against her and she could be charged in court. She has since fled to Perth, Australia where she is a citizen.
Amy Cheong may be going through the suffering of losing her job and the public backlash from the impulsive and offensive remarks. But she still has to pick up the pieces and continue with her life. If she is intelligent, she would look in and contemplate on the important life lessons from this whole episode so that she does not make the same mistake again.
I would like to send her a healing note so that it brings a new consciousness in her. She may or may not get to read this note; it does not matter because the most important thing for me is to send my healing thoughts out there at the collective consciousness. We need to understand that our thoughts are very powerful as it can influence everyone on planet earth. Another important note is, for the rest of us, learning from some else’s mistake is definitely an intelligent way of learning from life.
Dear Amy,
Life is teaching you some big lessons right now; do not escape from the reality which is presented to you. May you have the clarity and courage to ride through this rough patch and emerge stronger and wiser. At Your Presence Heals, we sincerely hope that the universal intelligence be awakened in you and leads you to transformation.
Here are some insights for you to contemplate:-
- Bring acceptance to reality without guilt or anger. When you encounter problem or setback in your life, it means there are some aspects of life that you have yet to fully understand. It means you need to expand your current understanding and embrace a deeper message that life is showing you. The normal response is to withdraw into guilt or harbour hatred for others when the reality presents itself to you. Don’t do either of this, instead, accept your mistake that you made in those moments of unawareness, honestly accept everything and ask for forgiveness sincerely.
- It is time to go beyond the racial & social identities. Unless you go beyond the outer world identities which you are stuck with, you will not find peace and joy in you. It is unfortunate that as a civilisation, many human beings have not evolved from the outer world identities such as the racial, social, religion or community. Do you know that racial/national identity is responsible for communal terrorism and wars? Whether you believe it or not, you are not a separate entity as you think. Deep down, we are all interconnected by the collective consciousness at the Existential level. We may be different from the physical layer in terms of look and the way we live our life as per the Malays, Indians, Caucasian and Chinese etc, but we don’t have an individual entity; we are a part of the collective consciousness. So drop the conditioning you carry about Malays or other races and see them as a part of you. Then you will not be resisting the noise from the Malay Wedding at the void deck near your flats. You will become more tolerant and grow to appreciate the rich diversity of the multi-racial culture in Singapore. Learn to co-exist with each other or else you will continue to create this resentment within you and never experience the real joy.
- Infuse awareness into your life. Do you realise that you tend to react to external disturbances too readily? When you made that racially offensive post on Facebook, did it occur to you that this could trigger a slew of negative criticism and cost you your job? This incident showed you that you are living in low awareness. When one is unaware, he or she gets disturbed by external circumstances and acts out of instinct which causes regret later. You reacted rather than witnessing the happening inside and outside of you. Nothing can disturb you unless you give them the silent permission! Awareness is our original state, but in the process of growing up, you lost touch with this state. Now it is time to get back to your original state of pure awareness. Self awareness can be developed when you start spending time with yourself like taking a walk in the park, practice breathing, do a yoga practice or/and sit in meditation. All these activities work on reducing the inner chatters and create space for you to see things clearly. When you are centred on awareness, healing happens in you – healing of your past and the wrong ideas of you and others.
- Go deep to find the real YOU. Right now, due to unawareness, there are several patterns inside you that constantly drive your subjective reality. The patterns I could identify in you are:- pattern of restlessness, pattern of irritation, pattern of racial superiority, pattern of ego. It is because of these patterns that you are living a superficial life delving only on the periphery of your existence. You think you are this body and mind, you think others are your enemies because you see others as separate. When you work on getting in touch with your core essence – your Being, it will expose your own cunning mind. Take this period of solitude to get back to your Presence and discover the imperishable part of you – the Eternal Spirit. Your Being is whole, so is every Being on planet earth. Go deep to experience the real YOU.
- Everything is auspicious. Last but not least, this incident is a blessing in disguise. There are no inauspicious things in life, everything happens for a reason. This saga has created certain learning for you as well as to teach all of us to go beyond the racial identities and be tolerant of others’ differences. Singapore will be a perfect exemplary country where co-existence of different races is possible. This incident also teaches us to forgive your mistake with love and compassion.
Namaste!