One of the most important early renovation works is waterproofing. Preventive considerations should begin with the planning of the house, even before renovation begins.
Under HDB Rules and Technical Terms and Conditions for Building Works related to floor, it states:
1.1
Waterproofing treated prepacked cement screed or waterproofing membrane must be used in bathroom/toilets areas before laying of new floor tiles. Membrane should be upturned (up to 150 mm) against the walls, kerbs and pipes. For kitchen, the waterproofing membrane is only required around the sanitary stacks for an area of a radius 400mm.
1.2
Flat owner and registered renovation contractor are advised to conduct a water test to bath/toilet upon completing the replacement of floor finishes.
In many cases, homes are subject to more leaking because of the low grade materials used [cement or waterproofing membrane] and shoddy workmanship that caused these materials to contract away from the foundation wall. Water accumulation, from showers and/or kitchen wash, causes long term moisture and create a tremendous pressure forcing it against the wall/floor.
An effective waterproofing is to ensure for long term durability, resilience, quality, strength and effective flooring solutions. To avoid, or minimise, leaking problems - especially to our neighbour's ceilings staying a floor below, a good test must be carried out. It is always good to run this test so that any immediate leakages [or sippage] can be rectified during the renovation period.
The waterproof stress test in Reiki Sanctuary:
Waterproof Stress Test in Kitchen
Waterproof Stress Test in MBR Toilet
Our ID and general contractor were on a 48 hours full stand-by during this period. Our neighbour [downstairs] was informed of the procedure. A check on their ceilings was also carried out before our stess test.
There should not be any other renovation works during the waterproof test in the house.
A good waterproofing test lasts for 48 hours, or more. 48 hours is a comfortable industry stress period and indicates the value of waterproofing materials that can last a long time and the contractor's workmanship.-
Life, for the past three weeks, has been somewhat different. Three weeks ago, I decided on a decision to meet someone whom I felt that I owed him a respect. Of someone whom I had used his gift, since July, to expand my consciousness. The transformation that I had, instantly, felt the day I started his Inner Dance.
I am glad to meet Pi Villaraza when he was in Singapore. And, subsequently, one private session and the few other group workshops.
I am now walking through time breaking free of the bonds that tie me of fears, validation and anxieties to insufficiency and lack. When all the external conditions remain the same - the air is there, all around and so is the vastness of consciousness that adds on another experiences of daily life, yet a subtle sense of life force springs awake. It is a withdrawal feeling of sort. Of a separation to dose dependent of old thoughts and actions. Of alienation washing away deepest tensions and eliminating misunderstandings of true nature to expand with the flow of creative energy and consciousness within.
The gap between what I used to think and how I used to feel draws closer. Inching to draw nearer synonymous immortality. What I used to think that is outside me is now an internal consciousness. God is no longer just an image outside my mind, body and soul but so much alive in God-consciousness in every of my cells. When I think of joy, my heart renders an intensed energy. When I think of love, a gush of forgiveness and acceptance radiates a healing green energy of empowerment. Joy, inasmuch an experience of consciousness with our surrounding, capsulize the feeling into a state of mind. Into oneness in a state of existent actuality. In this consciousness, there is bliss and there is light in which these thoughts, feelings and sensations shine and responses happen. So are the energy of peace. Of love. Of sorrow and sadness. Of freedom. Of earth and heaven. My soul expands in the mastery of awareness freeing myself from the laws of form. I have become more aware of almost every energy. In Mahatma Gandhi's wisdom, "When I admire the wonders of a sunset, my soul expands in the worship of the creator". The characteristics of the universe has no separation, no change of integrity nor any acts of dividing or disconnecting. There is no beginning and end. All that is outside is inside is outside.
Inner Dance is an ocean of laughter and crying. Of light and darkness. Of fire and water. Of earth and heaven. Of yin and yang. Of one and oneness. It has taken me into a higher state of alertness. It opens all consciousness within. I am pretty much aware of my heartbeat, my breath and most of my thoughts in my mind. Of the events around me. Of the people I come into contact with. Of words. Of actions. I can smell the air as much as the grass. All these scents, and sensitivities, of which I had taken them for granted suddenly seemed like a wondrous treat. Life, and to those who knew it, is so beautiful.
I started Inner Dance on the eve of Ruby's one hundred days on June 27. In my previous entry, Since You've Been Gone - The 100 Days, I wrote my thoughts that now have become, somewhat, the fruits of labour of a singular blend of a larger tapestry of understanding. Of new process to connect a common question 'Why am I in this life?' and providing answers and clarity that I have been searching for.
The following excerpt, taken from that entry, gives forth a clear resonant where nothing [in life] is a coincidence. The thought that was written rings true for synchronicity to take place. Inner Dance accelerates the process.
[Quote]
I was moved to go for a healing workshop - an Inner Dance yesterday. There was a subtle force to bring me there. Perhaps, you had observed for all conditions to be favorable for me and opened the path to walk my life ahead significantly. Throughout the whole session, not only that I felt the presence of light around, there was a constant voice - through the people around. The message kept repeating from the beginning to the end of the session.
"In the pursuit of peace and the joy that we seek in life, we cannot be pulled by people who choose - either consciously or unconsciously, to drag away our growth with them. When time had been given, with all the intention to move forward in ONE consciousness, we have to leave those that are not nested in the multidimensional realities for our next waves of energy."
Today, you are now breaking it out and put forward, carrying everything in its right path. You are teaching me that peace of mind comes from not wanting to change others but by simply accepting them as they are. True acceptance is always without demands and expectations. The snow goose need not bathe to make itself white. Neither need me to do anything but be myself.
All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever I can do or dream I can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic and power in it. Begin it now.
[Unquote]
Inner Dance is not a dance. There is no modus operandi about it. Nor it is a dance owned by an individual or an institution, though respect has to be given to Pi Villaraza. Pi is a highly realized and evolved individual who found Inner Dance. It is a movement from within - the soul's inner energy that has been awakened. It is a powerful healing transformational vibration of trust, hope and joy within, from Mother Earth and in the Universe. It weaves threads of pure love for us to receive and give, and healing whatever needs to be healed, restoring balance and harmony. Inner Dance is a teacher of souls; a gift to guide us through life for its meaning ever deepening, ever expanding.
My personal experience with Inner Dance is a powerful spiritual invocation of faith and free grace. It is a movement from within that sets my kundalini free. The very first time I allowed this inward energy to move - fuelled an involuntary bodily movements, and to take control of my soul, I felt comforting heat moving through my lower chakras and filled throughout the fire serpent, and later redirected and refined all the way up to the crown. The heat released some form of a blissful energy; an indescribable and wordless state of awareness of the inherent perfection and divinity in everything, including my own life. It got to a state where thinking was not required, words and actions are spontaneous and perfect.
It was, probably, "Self Realization" unified myself with all that is and a personal development process of becoming uniquely my Self. Of a realization to know myself and loving my own unique individuality.
Everyday, the movements engaged in Inner Dance are different. It can be gentle and slow movements of the whole body today and yet a faster rhythmic movement the next day. There is always a symbolic spark with each move, not only all these dances unfolding a lightness and joyful qualities overall but also of healing the soul. The symbolism goes further with time. Where there is a need for healing, within the body, the movements are directed towards that area intensively. Consciously, as these movements are engaged, without the limits and instructions of the analytical mind, it eases the different aspects of life within. All of the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual bodies are delicately healed to the subtleties with Inner Dance movements.
There is always the magical involuntarily movement. It is guided from a higher consciousness with great intelligence and wisdom. These movements cannot be directed. I have been experimenting a mechanism to move my hand, or my body, in a certain position but it often directs me otherwise. The inner energy, from the dance, magnetizes a very uplifting effect on my whole body, mind and nature with great liberating healing effect. It awakens a divine spark within us.
Further Read:
About Pi Villaraza on Ascension
Inner Dance - Article from Town And Country Magazine [Philippine Edition, Aug Issue]
Ah, and so you think so? And, do you still want to think so?
I think everyone knows, and wants to believe, that: A simple thing is not that simple after all. That, in all the simplest thing that another simplest casts for yet another not-so-simple act or decision. The endless chain reaction of an energy breaking the completeness of another to form parts of an ultimate choice. The division of freewill that loves life till it breaks itself.
We know what is needed is an end to all our untrammeled greed. Only until we are consciously aware of its presence that it surrenders. Of unlimited freedom to end up with our unlimited struggles. Of dominance. Of mastery. Of monopoly. The environment around us, somehow, is much more important than accomplishing the simplest thing. What we can do, one that we owe it to ourselves, is define what 'enough' means and then live it. It does not mean living in deprivation or unplugging everything. We should not let our other voices nattering sales pitches telling us that we are inadequate unless we do certain actions. Or we buy certain products. Or we need to fulfill certain conditions.
A soul rich with meaningful and significant sense of BEing is when we achieve sufficiency. And, discovering what life can be when it is not about having more stuff. Or, perpetually on a continuous search finding for the best, if any. Of choosing for real satisfaction instead of the empty satisfaction of mindless acquisition.
Life is all that simple until we become the slave of our analytical mind. Of insatiable choices, coupled with all our past life experiences, to ultimately choose (or reject) everything regardless of any internal or external conditions relating to the choice. It has always based on a free and personal choice between now and the future.
What separates us with the future is in honouring the act of NOW. A nowist in his nowness stays to experience the fruit of his decision. Or a decision he hears from the [god's] voice of another person. He nurtures the choice expanding every possible ways to get the best from it. Enriching it with experiential experiments and nourishing it with compassion. He embraces the BEing and trusting his own strength, knowledge and wisdom. Consequently, he is not saddled with simplicity and fountainhead in choices.
When simple things are not preserved, everything that happens concurs with an act's effects and promises in which all the uncertainty lies. Struggle and confusion cooperates inasmuch to hinder everything for its welfare and growth. The mind voids of all power to think, to will or to do any good thing. We are a step back into procrastination and rendered a spiritual death from a state of faith and grace.
Look back at how we often not act when there is a simple thought asking ask to do certain things. A simple decision that is able to will and to do what is good. We tend not to act on the source, honouring the blameless sight, but caught in the corruption for what-ifs. Self determination, which is often regarded as god consciousness within us, is incoherent. We tend to think that there is a choice better than other choices; or an action that still lacks sufficient causes.
It should not be thought that this view completely denies the freedom of choice. While we are free to act on our strongest moral impulse and volition, a reconciliation of dual concepts of predestination points to the situation for simplicity. Everything happens for a good reason and we just have to believe that it is so. Everything that happens has a necessary element in the process.
Some things that happen can appear to have no meaning or purpose. We may be loss to understand how war, hunger, natural disasters and human sufferings can possibly have any meaning and why these things happen. It is our limited perspective, especially when we believe our perspective to be the absolute truth, is not able to fully comprehend the meaning of individual things and events in the context of the whole. What we perceive is only an aspect of a tiny little part of the whole. Everything that happens, good or bad, has only one real purpose. It is to provide us with an opportunity to learn and an opportunity to teach; and all these opportunities point us to do good and to be of humble service to life itself.
We exist in an evolutionary exercise for our consciousness to grow and owe it to be of service to it. When we understand our purpose to be that of allowing good to come into the world, of being of service to consciousness, everything that happens in our life is seen as a potential means of the beginning and end of higher consciousness. The everyday tasks and choices that we are faced are simple until we make them hard.
When things do happen and when new situations are brought about or if something goes 'wrong', acting on the simplest thing as they come is an opening for a higher consciousness to flow into and influence us into that situation. More important than any action is the state out of which that action, or non-action, arises.
When we just want to sit on a park bench in a state of peace and presence for the whole day, doing nothing, accomplishes more in the service of consciousness than years of actions and efforts. To see the purpose of all things simple fulfill the purpose of our BEing, nothing spectacular needs to be done. The only thing we need to be concerned with is to meet every situation and every moment in a state of alert presence. We do not need to do anything (but just act) in particular, and we do not even need to figure anything out. The key is absolute surrender and the struggles and internal conflicts will just disappear.
The simple truth is, every situation is an opportunity. We just have to allow simplicity to act on it immediately and not to question its existence. However difficult it is for the ego to accept, and however it is out of alignment with the common views of society, we need to respond to everything with unconditional love. Even when it does not seem, at that moment, to make any sense to do so. Our ego would encourage us to procrastinate, to defend and fight back and respond with negativity.
Every desires to do certain things, to achieve certain results for a higher consciousness is for the extension of love and kindness. Of faith and grace. Of forgiveness. Of a soul to heal. To see the purpose behind everything that happens, it is required to go beyond the limits of our mind. Our mind will usually tell us that it is ridiculous that there is a purpose for all the terrible things that happened and that this is much to simple to be true.
All things are simple. They are just an energy filled with quality of love. To know the truth of this is in the realm of a deeper knowing and banish all our doubts and fears. F.E.A.R. is, after all, an energy of False Experience/Experiments Appearing Real. When simple things are not that simple, a recognition that is stronger than any words can contain, would we rather be 'right' than at peace?
For the purpose of everything to be fulfilled, to act on every [simple] choice, the only thing required is for us to surrender and allow life to flow through to accomplish what it will.
