Everyone has a ghost, or multiple ghosts in their lives. No, I do not mean those spooky white stuff that fly around. I mean the negative thoughts in our lives that will destroy us or keep us in the bondage of fear, shame , guilt or pain - if we do not resolve it.

For me, my ghost is that I suffer guilt easily. Perhaps it has to do with my strict Catholic school-upbringing, a strict father, and going through most of my adolescence years in a system of pain and pleasure, punishment or rewards, accoding to my performance. So yes, for the most part of my life, I DID feel that I didn't measure up to many things. And although I have overcome many of those negative thoughts, there are much work today. Perhaps the bible is so true as to say, that we "got to work out our salvation day and night with fear and trembling" - No, I don't think we got to be scared of losing our salvation, but perhaps it does mean that we really to have make a conscious effort - without taking anything for granted - to find that inner peace and connection with God.

So what is "salvation"? I have been thinking for a long time that Salvation probably refers to some kind of life after we die. We imagine that, perhaps there are streets of gold and diamonds, huge mansions where our love ones could gather in peace and harmony. Perhaps that is my vision of paradise - a place of no pain , no suffering. But recently I got an insight from my brother......who challenged me to those thoughts. He argued , and I eventually gave in, that Salvation is a present-tense state. We all need to be "saved" from some kind of negative forces - Feelings of pain, depression, guilt, shame, lust, insecurity, self-destructive thoughts, etc. So we all need to be saved , and be delivered from our current state (of less-than-ideal-situation) to a state of bliss (ideal situation).

We all need to find that state of peace, love, joy . We all therefore need to be saved, everyday, every moment we face negativity and everytime our ghost resurfaced.