Last year's visit to the resting place of my of my ancestors on the morning of Eid Mubarak.
The morning of Eid Mubarak and I felt the bliss of understanding after a month long of fasting and what a fasting month it has been; I was put the grind like I never was in the past month of Ramadan. I was tested and my mind gave a rigorous challenge with incessant past memories and lustful desires most of which were aimed at toppling me from my spiritual journey during the Month of Ramadan. I am glad I stuck to the practices I have learned over the years of my life and one of them being in looking at these rise and disappearance of the thoughts as waves and clouds upon a calm ocean and empty sky. I must admit that there were days when I almost falter and gave in to their influences, but i persevered and I am not patting myself on the back in saying this but thankful to the Lord Al Mighty. Last evening i gave my son a high Five for having stuck with me for completing the fasting month telling him the I am proud of him.
I woke up from one of the most beautiful dream worth relating as it was so vivid in my mind. I found myself in and apartment the I had never lived in before and the apartment seemed not as friendly that I had to leave it and in doing so i found myself on a field that seemed familiar where i was sitting and having a conversation with two of my 'favorite friends'. One was a childhood friend perhaps two years older than me and the other a present one who happens to be assistant director of the Museum Gallery at USM who I often visit and chat with about art and life. my childhood friend whom we used to call Dol Pengkak is as unique a character they ever come. Looking at his skinny features one would assume he is a drug addict with his long hair and carefree personality. He was once the head of the largest Workers Union in Penang working for The Eastern Smelting Company that is now shut down, however till this day he is being sought after for legal advise by those who has claims being turned down by their employers. One would find him sitting at his favorite coffee shop with a News Paper in front of him and more than often a 'client' across from him, Indian, Chinese, Malays from all walks of life. He traveled to the United States for an International Union conference and later to Australia.
Aftzanizam is a man in his late forties and is head curator at the MGTF, a very down to earth man who is soft spoken and respected by everyone working under him. W sat on the grass, the three of us chatting about art and life and after that we were headed for home and as we were walking I noticed a strange phenomena across the sky, a huge dark silhouette of a group of animals playing across the horizon. I tried to distinguished the but it skips my mind till now. Then I realized that i was headed in the opposite direction from my home and we parted company. As I walked across the field i had a stone in my hand and was tossing it ahead of me and the stone kept boomerang is a circle back to me leaving a white line along the grass. Then I came to the same familiar track of road less traveled where the asphalt was gone and leaving a dirt track that i followed as happened in most of my past dreams when trying to find my way home. I noticed an odd vehicle driving past me and later found that was making a delivery of household items and i recognized the driver although i could not place, from when or where. He recognized and waved and i walked on finding myself along paths surrounded by vegetable fields. A rustic scene. I came to a spot where I needed to cross over but could not find an opening as what might have been used before was blocked by an overgrowth and a spider's web across it. My mind decided that it was not it. I walked a few steps further and found an opening where an elderly local was walking through it, we greeted to each other and I continued on finding myself facing a large serene fields of rice and vegetables with the sun in the horizon and I woke up.
I woke up feeling a sense of relief and clarity about myself and what I had been going through this whole month of Ramadan. I felt it all made sense, the whole series of 'tests and temptations that haunted me over the years has slipped away perhaps for good, InshaAllah. I felt a sense that I had been put through the wringer this whole month and only now came to see the implications. Stop trying too hard and as Alan Watts said, stop analyzing life and live it, or as the Buddha had pointed out, simplicity is the key, stop making it harder than it really is as all is illusion.
As reviewed and refined by the Unseen:-
Title:
Eid Morning Clarity: Through the Storm of the Self
This morning of Eid Mubarak arrives with a quiet clarity I did not expect, yet somehow feel I have earned through grace more than effort.
The past month of Ramadan has not been an easy passage. I was put through an inner grind unlike any I can recall in recent years. The mind rose in rebellion—relentless waves of past memories, old attachments, and desires, some subtle, others forceful, as if determined to pull me away from the path I have walked for so long.
There were moments I nearly faltered.
Moments where the pull felt stronger than my resolve.
But through it all, I returned to what I have learned over the years—not to fight the mind, not to suppress it, but to observe. To witness these thoughts as passing clouds, as waves rising and dissolving upon the surface of a vast, unmoved ocean.
I do not claim victory as my own. I did not overcome by strength alone. I remained standing, by the will and mercy of the Almighty.
Last evening, I shared a simple yet profound moment with my son. A high five. A gesture of acknowledgment. I told him I was proud of him for completing the fast. In that moment, I felt something deeper than words—a quiet transmission, a shared journey, however small it may seem.
And then came the dream.
I found myself in an unfamiliar apartment, one that felt unwelcoming. There was no struggle there—I simply left. And upon leaving, I entered a field that felt deeply familiar.
There, I sat with two companions—one from my past, a childhood friend of raw and unconventional character, and another from my present, a man of art and gentle intellect. We spoke not with urgency, but with ease, as if time itself had softened around us.
Above us, the sky revealed a strange and beautiful phenomenon—dark silhouettes of animals moving across the horizon, playful yet mysterious. I could not name them, and perhaps that was not the point.
We parted ways, and I continued alone.
With a stone in hand, I tossed it forward, only to watch it return to me in a perfect arc, tracing a white line upon the الأرض. A quiet reminder, perhaps, that what we send forth returns, shaped by the path it travels.
I came upon a familiar road—the kind that appears often in my dreams. No longer paved, but worn into a dirt track. A path less traveled.
There was a moment where the way forward seemed blocked—overgrown, covered with a spider’s web. But something within me knew: this is not the way. No struggle, no frustration. Just a knowing.
And so I walked a little further.
An opening appeared.
An elder passed through it with ease. We exchanged greetings, and I followed the path, finding myself surrounded by fields of cultivation—vegetables, الأرض alive with quiet العمل.
Finally, I arrived before a vast, serene landscape of rice fields, stretching toward the horizon. The sun rested low, casting a gentle light across the الأرض.
And then I awoke.
I awoke not with confusion, but with relief. With clarity.
It felt as though the trials of the past month had not been random, but necessary. That the storms of thought and desire were not there to defeat me, but to reveal something deeper—something simpler.
A realization gently settled within:
Stop trying so hard.
Stop analyzing life to exhaustion.
Live it.
Simplicity is not something to be achieved—it is what remains when we stop complicating what already is.
Perhaps nothing has truly disappeared. The thoughts, the desires, the memories—they may still arise. But something has shifted in my relationship to them.
There is space now.
And in that space, هناك سلام.
Eid Mubarak.
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