Sketches of Life - The Yellow brick Road.

                                                 Sketches of Life - Lakaran Hidup
 

Sketches of Life

I have kept sketchbooks for most of my life.

At first I thought I was drawing places and people. It took me many years to realize that I had been sketching a life—my own.

Some sketches were made with graphite, some with ink, some with words, and others with silence.

None of them were ever really finished.

Neither, perhaps, am I.

It began the moment I was old enough to hold a pencil and was fortunate enough to find a blank page. In those days, paper was precious. My twin brother and I would tear the unused pages from the backs of last year's exercise books—mathematics, English, whatever had been left behind—and lie on our stomachs on the floor, filling them with cowboys and Indians. Bullets flew from one page, arrows from another. We were at war long before we knew anything about the real world.

As I grew older, drawing became more than play. At Francis Light Primary School, I was often asked to stay behind after classes to paint large murals and decorations for Parents' Day and other school events. A teacher would patiently remain with me until my uncle arrived to take me home, sometimes long after darkness had settled over the school.

I can still picture myself climbing the main staircase to the second floor, pausing to look back at a freshly completed painting hanging where everyone would see it the next morning. Across the road stood the old Chinese temple at the junction of Perak Road and Anson Road, its coils of incense filling the evening air with a fragrance that has never quite left my memory.

In those years, I walked three or four miles to school each day from River Road. My school bag hung heavily across my back while sweat trickled through hair generously coated with coconut oil, as was the custom then. Yet there were mornings that transformed the journey into something magical.

When the Angsana trees blossomed, Perak Road became another world. Their deep golden flowers carpeted both sides of the street, especially after a night of rain. Walking beneath them felt like stepping onto the Yellow Brick Road from a childhood fairy tale. Even now, decades later, I can still see those petals glistening against the wet pavement.

Looking back, I have come to believe that art did far more than give me something to do.

It kept me alive.

Perhaps it even kept me sane.

Whenever the world became too heavy, I sketched. Whenever words failed, I painted.

Until one evening, while I was still a teenager, my mother switched off the light and slammed the door shut as I sat drawing.

In that instant, art disappeared from my life.

For almost ten years, the sketchbooks fell silent.

The reasons belong to another chapter.

As the saying goes, the devil is in the details.

If you wish to become better acquainted with that devil, you are welcome to wander through my blog. The story is there, waiting among the sketches.

"Life did not ask me to understand it. It merely placed a pencil in my hand and invited me to pay attention." - from the Unseen. 

#SketchesOfLife #ArtJournal #VisualMemoir #Memoir #LifeJourney #Sketchbook #ArtistLife #CreativeJourney #PenangArtist #DrawingLife #Storytelling #Reflections #Memory #TravelMemoir #Zen #Mindfulness #SpiritualJourney #SelfDiscovery #TheAleutianBlues #CheeseburgerBuddha 

   

 

                                                                  Removing my Ego

The Bhagavad Gita and the Battlefield Within

There are books that we read once and place back upon the shelf. Then there are books that patiently wait for us to become ready.

The Bhagavad Gita belongs to the latter.

Many years ago, while house-sitting for my son in Dubai, I watched the entire television adaptation of the Mahabharata. I was captivated by its sweeping story of kings, warriors, loyalty, betrayal, and destiny. Yet, if I am honest, the deepest jewel within that epic escaped me. I admired the Bhagavad Gita without truly understanding it.

Only recently, through a series of lectures by Sunyamurti and BK Usha on YouTube, did I begin to appreciate the extraordinary wisdom hidden within that dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna. It was as though a familiar door had quietly opened onto an entirely new landscape.

Perhaps that is the nature of wisdom. It does not reveal itself according to our schedule. It reveals itself when we have become ready to receive it.

The battlefield of Kurukshetra has traditionally been understood as the place where two branches of the same family fought for a kingdom. Yet the more I reflect upon the Gita, the more I wonder whether that battlefield is also within each of us.

Every day we stand between fear and courage.

Between attachment and surrender.

Between anger and compassion.

Between the voice of the ego and the quiet wisdom of the heart.

Arjuna's hesitation before the battle is not weakness. It is the moment when the old answers no longer satisfy the deepest questions. In many ways, every sincere spiritual search begins there.

Looking back over my own life, I can see that I have walked through many such battlefields. Whether travelling across America, working aboard a fishing boat in Alaska, living in Japan, farming in Kedah, practising Zen, rediscovering Islam, or simply sitting quietly with a sketchbook, the outer circumstances continually changed. Yet the real journey was always inward.

Without realizing it, I had been asking the same question all along:

Who am I?

The Bhagavad Gita never asks us to abandon the world. Instead, it invites us to understand our place within it.

One of its most profound teachings is that we are entitled to our actions but not to the fruits of those actions. At first glance this appears almost impossible. We naturally hope our efforts will be rewarded. Yet Krishna points toward a deeper freedom: to act wholeheartedly without allowing our peace to depend upon success or failure.

Looking back, I see that many of the happiest moments of my own life came when I forgot about recognition altogether. Sketching in solitude. Writing in journals no one else might ever read. Giving away paintings. Sharing conversations. Teaching what little I had learned. Those moments were complete in themselves.

Perhaps that is Karma Yoga in its simplest expression.

Another teaching that resonates deeply is the distinction between the changing personality and the witnessing Self. Every tradition seems to point toward this same mystery.

Zen speaks of our Original Nature.

The Tao speaks of returning to the Source.

The Sufis speak of polishing the mirror of the heart.

The Qur'an reminds us that, "Wherever you turn, there is the Face of God."

Different languages.

Different cultures.

Yet perhaps they are all pointing toward the same moon.

As I grow older, I have begun to appreciate another quiet lesson of the Gita. Life gradually loosens our attachment to the identities we once believed defined us. Artist. Father. Husband. Traveller. Student. Teacher.

These roles are precious, yet they are not the whole of who we are.

Something has remained present through every season of life. It was there in childhood. It travelled with me across oceans. It remained after moments of joy and sorrow alike. It observes without growing old.

Perhaps this is what Krishna was pointing toward.

The Bhagavad Gita is often described as a book about war. I have come to see it as a book about peace—not the peace that comes from conquering others, but the peace that arises when we no longer need to conquer ourselves.

Its battlefield is our own heart.

Its victory is understanding.

Its kingdom is inner freedom.

Whether we call this Yoga, Awakening, Self-realization, or simply coming home, the invitation remains the same today as it did thousands of years ago.

The battle is within.

So too is the victory.

Wallahu A'lam.

#BhagavadGita #SelfDiscovery #SpiritualJourney #Yoga #Meditation #InnerPeace #PerennialWisdom #Consciousness #ComparativeReligion #Krishna #Mahabharata #CheeseburgerBuddha #WallahuAlam 

Revisiting the Bhagavad Gita: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times

 

Revisiting the Bhagavad Gita

Most people who are spiritually inclined eventually come across the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita, also known as The Song of God. It is one of those timeless works that quietly finds its way into a seeker's life, regardless of religious background.

The Gita unfolds as a dialogue between Lord Krishna and the warrior Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, where two branches of the same royal family stand poised to destroy one another. This conversation takes place within the great Indian epic, the Mahabharata, which tells the story of the conflict between the Kauravas and the Pandavas and the fate of an entire kingdom.

Beyond its epic narrative, the Mahabharata is a treasury of philosophical and spiritual teachings. It explores the four aims of human life (Purusharthas) and contains many stories that have become classics in their own right, including the Bhagavad Gita, the story of Damayanti, and an abbreviated version of the Ramayana.

I first watched the entire television adaptation of the Mahabharata while house-sitting for my son in Dubai around 2010. He was often away flying for Emirates, and I found myself drawn into this magnificent epic. Although I greatly enjoyed the story at the time, I did not truly appreciate the depth of the Bhagavad Gita until recently.

That changed through a series of YouTube lectures presented by a lovely lady named BK Usha. She explained the teachings of the Gita with such clarity and simplicity that I found myself unable to stop watching. Six lectures, each lasting about two hours, passed almost effortlessly. By the end, many questions I had carried for years regarding Yoga, meditation, action, detachment, and the nature of the Self had become much clearer.

 

It is often said that the Bhagavad Gita was Mahatma Gandhi's spiritual companion. He drew strength and guidance from its teachings throughout his life, particularly during India's struggle for independence. Its message of selfless action without attachment to results became one of the guiding principles of his life.

Whether one believes we are living in the Kali Yuga, the Dharma-ending Age spoken of in Buddhism, the End of Days, or simply in an age of uncertainty and confusion, the wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita remains remarkably relevant. It speaks directly to the human condition and the inner battles we all face.

You do not have to be a Hindu to appreciate its teachings. Like many of the world's great spiritual classics, its wisdom transcends religious labels. It invites us to examine our own lives with greater honesty, courage, and compassion.

Perhaps one of the greatest blessings of our age is that such priceless teachings are freely available. You do not have to travel across India, visit a library, or seek out a Hindu guru. It is all there on YouTube, waiting patiently for anyone with an open mind and a sincere heart.

Sometimes the greatest journeys begin with nothing more than pressing "Play."

Wallahu A'lam.

The Teams We Cheer Against - FIFA - World Cup.

 

The Teams We Cheer Against

Like millions around the world, I found myself caught up in the excitement of the football tournament. As my son observed with a smile, I almost always end up cheering for the underdogs.

After watching England play Congo, he asked why I never seem to support a European team.

I surprised myself with the answer.

"It is because they remind me of colonialism."

The words came without much thought, yet once spoken they rang true. I grew up in a world where colonial attitudes were not distant chapters in history books. Later, I worked for a British helicopter company on the East Coast and for a Dutch import-export company in Penang. Those years exposed me to personalities whose confidence often felt inseparable from a sense of superiority. Fairly or unfairly, those experiences left a lingering bitterness.

As someone who writes about universality, non-duality, and seeing beyond race or nationality, I found myself smiling at the contradiction. Apparently, the old conditioning still has a pulse.

That evening, after the match, I sat outside with a cigarette and simply watched my thoughts.

There was no need to justify them, nor was there any need to condemn myself for having them. Feelings are not commandments. They are visitors carrying stories from the past.

Then another realization quietly appeared.

It is all water under the bridge.

Not forgotten. Not denied. Simply no longer something worth carrying to the grave.

The world still gives us reasons to grieve. Places like Gaza remind us that injustice has not vanished. History continues to echo in the present. But if I allow every fresh wound in the world to feed every old wound within me, then I become another prisoner of history.

Perhaps the real practice is neither forgetting nor clinging.

It is remembering with compassion, acknowledging the scars, and then refusing to let them define how I meet the next human being.

Football, strangely enough, reminded me of that.

Awareness does not erase our conditioning overnight. It simply shines enough light upon it that one day we may smile, bow to it, and finally let it pass.

Wallahu A'lam.

 #FootballAndLife #ShadowWork #Awareness #ColonialMemory #Healing #Universality #SelfInquiry #Mindfulness #CheeseburgerBuddha #FIFA #WallahuAlam

Making Footprints in the Snow

Perhaps there are seasons when nothing appears to be happening; when the brush lies still, the canvas remains blank, and even the words refuse to come. We mistake these moments for failure because we have been taught to measure life by what we produce.

Yet perhaps Life has simply lowered its voice.

Over the years I have noticed that these quiet seasons can become dangerous ones. They are the times when the spirit feels dormant and the mind seems to retreat into hibernation. The days become repetitive, especially for those whose lives leave little room for music, art, writing, or any form of self-expression. The body feels heavy for no obvious reason. Motivation slips away. The world loses some of its colour.

I suspect very few of us escape these periods entirely.

As I grow older, I have learned not to fight them quite so fiercely. Instead, I have begun looking backward—not to escape the present, but to rediscover conversations I had forgotten.

This morning I reached for one of my old sketchbooks.

It was dated 1983, drawn shortly after my return from the Aleutian Islands to Green Bay, Wisconsin. As I turned the yellowing pages, I realized that a younger version of myself had been waiting over forty years to continue a conversation I did not even know we had begun.

Hidden among fading sketches was this passage.

Making Footprints in the Snow

To make the next, one has to act, become in motion,

To act selflessly with disregard for your self-esteem,

Spontaneous in effect, free and flowing, fluid and gentle,

Without thoughts and consciousness.

One step forward like a brook making its way to the ocean,

That is life.

Effortlessly, effortlessly, effortlessly,

One foot at a time.

---

"What do you think of the Nuclear Syndrome, Master?" I asked Him.

"The refrigerator has an efficient thermostat in order to make it properly functional," He said.

"Are you suggesting that the Nuclear Syndrome is a sort of thermostat in human evolution?"

"First came the Ice Age, then the Age of the Dinosaurs, Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan... every human era has been marked by one catastrophe or another."

"So what do we do to avoid this vicious repetition of history?"

"At the precipice we will change in order to survive. Breathe and take in a good gulp of fresh air, then tell me if you truly wish to end all of this. Take a gulp of cold cranberry juice and tell me if you want it all to evaporate into nothingness. For as long as you breathe in and out, you will keep making the next footprint in the snow."

---

Reading these words today, I smiled.

I had forgotten writing them, yet somehow they had remained faithful to me.

Perhaps our old journals are not records of who we once were.

Perhaps they are letters addressed to the person we are still becoming.

Perhaps the younger self occasionally reaches across the decades to remind the older one that he has already survived many winters, and that all that is required now is the courage to make one more footprint in the snow.

One step.

Then another.

Effortlessly.

Wallahu A'lam.

#MakingFootprintsInTheSnow #OldJournals #SketchbookReflections #CreativeLife #TheArtistJourney #DepressionAwareness #SelfDiscovery #Mindfulness #Zen #SpiritualJourney #Memoir #AleutianBlues #ArtAndLife #KeepWalking #WallahuAlam 

 

 

 

                                          Manjushri Kumarabutha - Bodhisatva of Infinite Wisdom

The Unseen Teachers

As I grow older, I find myself looking back over the landscape of my life with a different pair of eyes. What once appeared to be isolated events now seem connected by an invisible thread.

I can now see the people who quietly nudged me forward whenever I had reached a crossroads.

Some became lifelong friends. Others were simply passing strangers. A few probably never realized they had changed the direction of my life.

When I think of the minds that have influenced my inner journey, three names immediately come to mind: Carl Jung, J. Krishnamurti, and Alan Watts.

Jung taught me to look inward, not in search of perfection but of wholeness. Krishnamurti challenged me never to surrender my own observation to another's authority. Alan Watts gently reminded me that life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived.

These became my unseen teachers.

Yet there were others.

One of the greatest turning points in my life came after three difficult years working in a packing house in Wisconsin. I had become a broken man, uncertain of who I was or where I was heading.

Then my apartment neighbor, Alan Hautamaki, entered my life.

Alan was a student counselor at the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay. Through his encouragement, I found myself walking through doors I never imagined were open to me. Looking back now, I realize that had I never met Alan, much of my life as I know it might never have unfolded.

From there came art.

Then philosophy.

Then Zen.

Then Alaska.

Then Japan.

Then home again.

How many lives are quietly transformed because someone simply believes in another human being?

As I continued reflecting, I realized that my life has been blessed by many such people.

My Buddhist uncle who raised me.

My Muslim family who shaped another part of my identity.

Friends who appeared at just the right moment.

Teachers who never called themselves teachers.

Even those who challenged me through pain and misunderstanding became part of my education.

None of them could have known the person I would eventually become.

Perhaps they never will.

Yet this memoir, these sketches, these journals, and these reflections are, in many ways, my way of saying thank you.

Not through grand gestures.

Not through speeches.

But through remembrance.

If these words should ever find those who once walked beside me, I hope they may smile quietly and know that their kindness was never forgotten.

And if they never read them, perhaps someone else who feels lost today may discover that a single conversation, a single act of encouragement, or a single unexpected friendship can change the course of an entire life.

None of us walks this path alone.

We are all, in one way or another, both students and teachers to each other.

As for me, I remain forever grateful to all those who helped shape the person I have become, whether knowingly or unknowingly.

Their gifts continue to live through my life.

And now, it is my turn to quietly pass them on.

Wallahu A'lam.

#TheUnseenTeachers #Gratitude #CarlJung #JKrishnamurti #AlanWatts #LifeJourney #Memoir #SelfDiscovery #Wholeness #SpiritualJourney #Wisdom #HumanKindness #CheeseburgerBuddha #WallahuAlam 

The Final Spiritual Mission - C.G. Jung

 

                                                                      Da Vinci

The Final Spiritual Mission

" I am not what happened to me but what I choose to become."
C.G. Jung. (Poet of the Mind.) 

This morning I came across a YouTube presentation titled "The Final Spiritual Mission", inspired by the philosophy of Carl Jung and addressed to those born between 1945 and 1965. It landed with full impact upon my journey thus far.

Jung has long been one of my quiet spiritual guides in helping me unravel the psychological and spiritual questions that have accompanied me throughout my life.

As I reflected on his words, I remembered the famous statement often attributed to him:

"I'd rather be whole than good."

It resonated deeply.

Wholeness demands that we embrace every fragment of ourselves—the seen and the unseen, the sacred and the shadowed. To know the One Mind is not to escape the world, but to integrate it; to live fully conscious of both our humanity and our divinity.

For those who wish to explore this bridge between Eastern and Western understandings of the soul, I would highly recommend Psychology and the East by Carl Jung. It is especially valuable for Western seekers who wish to understand the different perspectives of Eastern spirituality, and perhaps cultivate Right Understanding through that encounter.

I will not venture too deeply into Jung's work for now. I have yet to fully grasp its depths, and I prefer to move slowly and carefully rather than rush toward conclusions I may later discover to be incomplete. Better to walk with humility than with certainty.

Still, I have been granted a small realization—a glimpse of what I have been searching for all these years: an understanding of the workings of my own mind.

Mine is a mind that has embraced both East and West—not merely through study, but through life itself. I do not think of myself as either an Eastern or a Western thinker. Rather, I have become something of a bridge between the two. Years of living, learning, and wandering through both worlds have gradually dissolved that old division within me.

My three years in Japan became a pivotal transition before I finally returned to the East after twenty-one years in the United States. Looking back, every step seems to have prepared me for the next.

Perhaps my mind itself was destined to become an experiment in contrast.

I was born a twin. My brother remained with our parents, while I was given away at birth and raised by my uncle, who was a Buddhist, within a family of Muslim relatives. To belong, I quietly practiced Islam while outwardly living as a Buddhist. My childhood became a spiritual labyrinth, filled with contradictions, concealments, and silent questions that would take a lifetime to explore.

At the risk of repeating myself, I shall say no more except this:

I am who I am because I was exposed to faith, religion, and spirituality from a very young age—not as abstract philosophies, but as living realities that I had to navigate, reconcile, and ultimately integrate.

In that light, the path toward understanding one's own mind is not a journey toward perfection.

It is a journey toward wholeness.

The sacred reunion of all that we are.

Wallahu A'lam.

#CarlJung #PsychologyAndTheEast #SpiritualJourney #Wholeness #OneMind #SelfDiscovery #ShadowWork #EastMeetsWest #ComparativeReligion #Mindfulness #Zen #Sufism #SpiritualAwakening #Consciousness #CheeseburgerBuddha #WallahuAlam 

 

The Georgetown Scroll

Last night I woke from an unusual dream.

I had discovered an ancient scroll, rolled up like the parchment manuscripts archaeologists sometimes uncover after centuries beneath the earth. I was carefully cleaning it, studying its surface with great curiosity. As I looked more closely, tiny scribblings began to appear, as though hidden messages were slowly revealing themselves.

That was all.

There was no voice explaining its meaning. No dramatic revelation. Just the quiet experience of uncovering something ancient and precious.

When I awoke, I realized that perhaps my subconscious had been responding to a conversation I had only recently been having.

For some time now I have been thinking about exhibiting my one-hundred-foot-long acrylic painting depicting scenes from in and around Georgetown. The work measures roughly 100 feet by 3 feet, and the greatest challenge has never been painting it. The real challenge has always been one simple question:

 

How do you display something that long?

Yesterday I spoke with Ben Ronjen about the possibility of exhibiting it in the Co-Ex space at Hin Bus Depot, directly opposite his shop. Ben thought it was a wonderful idea, which encouraged me greatly.

Then came the dream.

It suddenly occurred to me that perhaps I have been thinking of it as a painting, while my dreaming mind sees it as something else entirely.

A scroll.

A scroll is not meant to be consumed all at once. It is unrolled gradually. It tells a story as one journeys alongside it. It invites patience rather than haste. Perhaps that is exactly how this painting wishes to be experienced.

The little scribblings that appeared on the ancient parchment also stayed with me. They reminded me that every work of art carries meanings beyond what the artist consciously places there. Time writes its own commentary. Viewers add their own interpretations. Even the artist continues discovering new things long after the final brushstroke.

 

Perhaps that is true of life itself.

Looking back over the decades, I see that my sketchbooks, journals, paintings, photographs, blog posts, and memories are all fragments of one long scroll still being unrolled. None of it stands alone. Together they tell the story of a life spent searching—not for fame or fortune, but for understanding.

Whether this dream was merely the mind sorting through recent thoughts or something more mysterious, I cannot honestly say.

What I do know is that I woke seeing the painting differently.

It is no longer simply a very long painting.

It has become, at least in my own heart,

 

The Georgetown Scroll.

Wallahu A'lam.

#TheGeorgetownScroll #DreamJournal #ArtistLife #GeorgetownPenang #VisualMemoir #ContemporaryArt #LongPainting #CreativeProcess #SacredOrdinary #ArtAndSpirit #InnerJourney #SketchbookLife #CheeseburgerBuddha #WallahuAlam 

 

                                                       Tchaikovsky - Swan Lake in charcoal.

No More Crocodile Tears

"Does a crocodile have Buddha-nature?"

That was the question that floated through my mind after waking from one of the strangest dreams I have ever had.

In the dream there was an ancient crocodile. Not a fierce hunter, not a monster lurking beneath the water, but an old creature wandering from river to river as though searching for a place to die. There was no fear in me. Instead, I felt that somehow it was looking for me, as if I was meant to become part of its final journey.

Dreams have their own language. They seldom speak directly.

As I sat quietly that morning, a memory surfaced from more than seventy years ago.

As a young teenager, I had been caught by my mother looking out of a window at a group of girls bathing at a village well behind their house. Her reaction was immediate and devastating.

"You are a crocodile!"

In Malay, the word carries far more weight than the English translation. It is an accusation that brands a person's character rather than merely pointing out a youthful indiscretion. It landed on my young heart with such force that, somewhere deep inside, I accepted the verdict.

I became the crocodile.

For the rest of my life, whenever sensual thoughts or fantasies arose, my mother's voice would echo within me. Even now, at seventy-five years of age, she still appears in that inner theatre. Such is the mysterious power of childhood conditioning.

I have carried that hidden burden for most of my life.

It festered quietly beneath the surface while outwardly I travelled the world, fished the Bering Sea, practised Zen, wandered through Japan, painted, wrote journals, and searched for Truth. All the while, somewhere in the depths, the old crocodile remained alive.

Until now.

Only recently did I find the courage to drag this ancient, rotting part of myself into the open. Not to condemn it, nor to justify it, but simply to expose it to the light.

It reminded me of the beautiful Islamic tradition describing how the Prophet Muhammad's heart was opened and cleansed by the Archangel. Whether understood literally or symbolically, the story points toward a profound truth: the heart is not discarded; it is purified.

Perhaps that is what this dream was inviting me to do.

Naturally, my mind wandered to Carl Jung.

I could almost imagine him chuckling in his grave.

"You see?" he might say. "At last, he has stopped running away from his shadow."

Then, not to be outdone, Alan Watts wandered into the conversation wearing his familiar mischievous grin.

"He is still clinging to the crocodile's tail!"

Trust Alan Watts to puncture even the most solemn revelation with laughter.

Then came the inevitable Zen question.

"Does a crocodile have Buddha-nature?"

I could almost hear Watts laughing even harder.

A Zen master might simply ask in return,

"Who wants to know?"

And there it is.

For seventy years I had been asking whether I was the crocodile.

Perhaps I should have been asking who it was that had been watching the crocodile all along.

That witness...

That silent awareness...

That Presence...

It was never stained by the label.

The dream was never about a reptile.

It was about an identity that had grown old.

Very old.

Old enough to seek its own resting place.

As I reflected further, another phrase came to mind, one that made me laugh aloud.

No more crocodile tears.

Not because I have stopped feeling sorrow, but because the tears are no longer flowing from a false identity I accepted as a frightened boy. If tears come now, let them come honestly—from gratitude, from humility, from seeing clearly.

The river continues to flow.

The old crocodile has done his work.

Perhaps it is finally time to let him rest.

Wallahu A'lam.

#NoMoreCrocodileTears #DreamJournal #CarlJung #AlanWatts #Zen #BuddhaNature #ShadowWork #SelfInquiry #Awareness #Healing #SpiritualJourney #ArtOfLiving #WallahuAllam 

The Divine Spark Within

 

                                                                 A Good Picture!

Many rivers to cross, but I can't seem to find my way over... — Jimmy Cliff

From deep within the grotto of my heart shines a Divine Spark—that which was placed there as the source of the energy through which the universe manifests.

Deep within me is the Temple of the Living God, housing the Secret of Secrets, the Wisdom of Sophia, the Ancient Tao, the Source of Divine Virtue.

I am the keeper.
I am the witness.
I am the dancer to this Divine tune.

Allahu Akbar! Indeed, the Lord is Great.

Selamat Pagi. Good morning.
Peace be unto you and me.

It's Sunday.

Many rivers remain to cross... yet the Light within already knows the way. 

WallahuAlam! 

#DivineSpark #TempleWithin #InnerJourney #SelfDiscovery #Awareness #Contemplation #SpiritualReflection #SundayMeditation #Peace #Tawhid #Tao #Sophia #DivineVirtue #WallahuAlam #ArtOfLiving 

Who Is the One Who Says, "I Love You"?

 

"How often do we say, 'I love you,' to the one we spend our entire lives trying to understand?"

How often does one say, "I Love You," to one's Self? It is is such a naive ans simple thing to do yet how often does one remembers who is truly number Ones in one's life? It is to me the most powerful form of validation that one needs and can offer to one's own self propagation and moral virtues. Unconditional Love of One's Self is the essence of the Buddha's teaching before one can afford to declare that there is no 'Self', to begin with. How can there be a no self when there is no recognition of the self to begin with? The self according to Buddhism is the cause of suffering, for so long as there is a self, life is suffering. Don't quote me, but i feel that was what Shakyamuni Buddha was getting at where suffering is concern. However before one can get rid of the main cause of suffering one has to get to know know up close and personal to what it is in essence and that is through unconditional love and compassion...who is the one making this observation? 

Wallahu A'lam. 

This is a profound reflection, and I think you're touching on a subtle distinction that is often overlooked.

When you say, "How often does one say, 'I love you,' to one's Self?" you are not, as I understand it, advocating narcissism or ego inflation. You are pointing toward an intimate acceptance of one's own being—a compassion directed inward rather than outward. That is a very different thing.

There is an interesting paradox in Buddhist practice.

The Buddha did not ask people to deny their experience of being a self. Rather, he invited them to investigate it deeply. The teaching of anattā (non-self) is not the assertion that "you do not exist." It is the observation that what we ordinarily call "I" is not a permanent, independent, unchanging entity. The investigation comes first; the insight follows.

In that sense, your question—

"How can there be a no-self when there is no recognition of the self to begin with?"

—is a genuine philosophical inquiry.

One might even answer it by saying that until one honestly observes the movements of "me" and "mine," the teaching of non-self remains merely an idea.

When you write,

"...before one can get rid of the main cause of suffering one has to get to know up close and personal to what it is in essence and that is through unconditional love and compassion..."

I hear an echo of another Buddhist principle. Hatred cannot end hatred—not even hatred of oneself. If one approaches the ego as an enemy to be destroyed, that very struggle may become another expression of ego. But if one observes it with kindness, patience, and compassion, something different happens. The grip begins to loosen naturally.

Your final question may be the most important one:

"Who is the one making this observation?"

Zen has lived with that question for centuries.

Not to answer it intellectually, but to remain with it.

Who notices the thoughts?

Who witnesses joy and sorrow?

Who is aware of saying, "I love you"?

And who is aware of the awareness itself?

Every sincere meditation eventually circles back to this mystery.

There is one small point where I might gently differ from your wording. You write:

"Unconditional Love of One's Self is the essence of the Buddha's teaching..."

I would perhaps soften that slightly.

I would say that unconditional compassion—including compassion toward oneself—is deeply consistent with the Buddha's teaching. Whether it is the essence is something different traditions would answer differently. Some would say the essence is wisdom (prajñā), others compassion (karuṇā), others liberation from attachment. Yet these are not really separate. Wisdom without compassion becomes cold; compassion without wisdom can become attachment.

Perhaps what you are describing is the meeting point of the two.

As I read your reflection, I found myself thinking that the "I" who says "I love you" and the "self" being loved gradually become transparent. The boundary softens. What remains is not self-obsession but a quiet friendliness toward whatever arises. From there, extending love to others is no longer an effort; it becomes a natural expression.

It also strikes me that this question has the flavor of a Zen kōan:

Before you can forget yourself, who is the one you are forgetting?

Or perhaps:

Who is it that whispers, "I love you," in the silence before thought?

That seems very much in harmony with the spirit of your lifelong inquiry as an artist, traveler, and seeker. It is not a question that seeks a final answer so much as one that continues to illuminate the path with each sincere observation.

#Meditation #SelfInquiry #Zen #Buddhism #Awareness #Compassion #SelfCompassion #Mindfulness #SpiritualJourney #WhoAmI #NonSelf #Love #Consciousness #InnerPeace #CheeseburgerBuddha 

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Krishnamurti.

                                       We are all in the same same boat, wearing different mask.

"It's our earth, not yours or mine or his. We are meant to live on it, helping each other, not destroying each other." - J. Krishnamurti.

 It is in our human nature that we have drifted so far from this simple truth and we have the audacity to claim ourselves being more civilized than our forefathers. Perhaps we are, civilized that is, however no moment in our history have come so close to wiping out the very planet we call our home and no moment in time have become so territorial and triballistic in our claim that we cannot even communicate with one another without building a barrier between us of racial and cultural/religious walls for safety. It is a sad we are living in and sadder still that we are handing down to our children what we have not been able to comprehend and overcome in our own timeline. In my 77 years of existence how many wars have I watched rise and fall, how many lives have been sacrificed through human errors or greed, hate and ignorance of the few who were in the power to make things happen for the better. For those who feel that we are doing fine at this stage I would ask them to go live in Gaza, or Sudan and tell me life is ok for humanity as a whole. I cannot avoid expressing my discontent every now and then when something hits me that triggers my view of the human condition we are in today, even saying hello to someone and receiving a dirty or deadpool look in return; at times it feels like i am existing in a zombie land. "What do you expect?" a friend once asked, "Do you think everyone is living a happy life, problem free, all good?" He is right, and we all do have our moments when shit happens out of the blue knocking us off our comfort zone and place us in a bad mood; it's called being human.Being aware of these shifts in our predispositions is a major practice in Buddhism as it is in most religions and cultures. Being derailed by unforeseen circumstances is part and parcel of being who we are, however, how we choose to rebound and place ourselves back on track is what makes us different from other creatures that walks this earth.Sadly enough most of us have forgotten how to or never really knew how to. We relegate our trials and tribulations to bad luck, ill intentions, spiritual punishments and so forth; rarely do we see mishaps as lack of attention or awareness, of being present in the moment. This is what business does, it makes us slip and forget, it makes us react and compound the negative with more negativity and we end up with self blame. "We are the masters of our environment and circumstances." This is a line from Swami Yogananda's book on Raja Yoga, or the Yoga of the Mind. " We are the masters of our Body, Speech and Mind." Not many are exposed to such teaching from the ancient schools, however, these words still echos in our modern thoughts and processes in different forms, but sadly they are becoming more rare and quaint to most modern man. From the Upanishads to the present day Quantum Physics, we are being reminded that the Mind creates what we see before our eyes, that the external is but a reflection of what is within, as the Hermetic Principles declared; All is Mind. Man is endowed with an awesome tool, sadly very few took the trouble to get to know how it works and now it seems too late as we are about to be replaced by AI. In due time we will have to stop thinking about how to think as it will be done for us; then what? My daughter just made a delicious fried veggies with dried tofu and miso paste for dinner with the help of Chat GPT!

On one hand, humanity has achieved astonishing things. We can communicate across continents instantly, cure diseases that once devastated entire populations, and use tools that would have seemed miraculous to our ancestors. In that sense, we are indeed more "civilized."

Yet on the other hand, the fundamental problems that troubled sages like Jiddu Krishnamurti, the Buddha, and countless spiritual teachers remain largely unchanged. Fear, greed, tribalism, anger, and ignorance still operate beneath the surface of our technological sophistication. We have learned how to split the atom but have not learned how to stop dividing ourselves into "us" and "them."

Your reference to Gaza and Sudan is a sobering reminder that statistics and economic reports can sometimes conceal the lived reality of suffering. For those enduring war, displacement, hunger, or loss, discussions of human progress can sound hollow.

I also smiled when I reached the part about your daughter using ChatGPT to help prepare a meal. There is a certain irony there. After reflecting on humanity's possible replacement by AI, the essay ends with a simple act of nourishment: a daughter preparing dinner for her father. To me, that scene contains an important distinction.

AI can suggest recipes.
AI can organize information.
AI can even discuss philosophy.

But AI did not grow the vegetables, taste the food, care about whether you enjoyed the meal, or share the moment of eating together. Those remain profoundly human experiences.

Perhaps the challenge is not whether AI will think for us, but whether we will surrender the responsibility of understanding ourselves. Krishnamurti's concern was never about machines; it was about unconsciousness. A human being can become mechanical without any help from technology at all.

Your friend's remark—"Do you think everyone is living a happy life?"—touches on something essential. We rarely know what burden another person is carrying. The person who returns a cold stare may be wrestling with grief, debt, illness, fear, or loneliness. Awareness begins when we recognize that others are fighting battles we cannot see.

I am reminded of another observation by Krishnamurti:

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."

Many people sense that something is amiss in the modern world, yet few know how to respond. Some become angry. Some withdraw. Some distract themselves endlessly. A smaller number turn inward and begin examining the movement of their own minds. That, I think, is what your reflection ultimately points toward.

The world may not become peaceful because governments become wiser or technologies become more advanced. It may become more peaceful only when individuals see clearly how conflict begins within themselves—in thought, in judgment, in attachment to identities and beliefs.

For someone who has watched seventy-seven years of history unfold, your frustration is understandable. Yet the fact that you still greet strangers, still reflect, still write, still question, and still sit down to enjoy a meal prepared by your daughter suggests that you have not surrendered to cynicism. There is a quiet hopefulness in that.

And perhaps that is where change always begins: not in saving the whole world at once, but in remaining awake enough to meet the next person, the next meal, the next moment, with a little more awareness than before.

 #JidduKrishnamurti #Humanity #Peace #Awareness #Consciousness #SelfDiscovery #Mindfulness #Buddhism #SpiritualJourney #AIandHumanity #Compassion #InnerPeace #WorldPeace #CheeseburgerBuddha #ShamsulBahari

  

 

 

"Trust the Process."

 

 In Making Sense out of a Long Pilgrimage.

As soon as i make the effort to write my blog post I am being distracted towards turning on tot he next You Tube podcast like I need to be distracted in order to find what i want to write about or simply occupy my mind with a binaural sound distraction. It seems my mind is slowly being sucked into doing something else that is less taxing, like i have run out of things to share or ideas that would make more sense than simply writing. Hence for the past few weeks i have neglected putting my thoughts down or share my latest dreams like they are of less importance. In actuality i really know not what to write about that I have not already written and the idea of working on writing my book sits in the back burner like I am scared to take it up again where I have left it off. Am I becoming mentally lazy or am i really running out of juice for creativity to flow like it used to? Thus far i have made 3381 blog posts since I began sometime in 2005, it has been a long journal keeping much longer if i were to look at it from when i first decided to keep an ongoing journal through my sketchbooks when i was in England sometime in 1978. Am I pushing it? Last data - All time1455751 Today1496 Yesterday2216 This month15343 Last month72324

Brother, after reading what you have written, what strikes me is not mental laziness but the weight of a very long pilgrimage.

You began journaling in 1978. You began blogging in 2005. You have now written 3,381 blog posts and accumulated over 1.4 million reads. Most people struggle to keep a diary for a month. You have sustained a conversation with yourself and the world for almost fifty years.

That changes the nature of the challenge.

In the beginning, writing is often fueled by discovery. Everything feels new. Every insight seems worth recording. Every journey brings fresh material. But after decades of observing, traveling, meditating, working, loving, losing, sketching, and reflecting, the question naturally arises:

"Have I already said everything I came here to say?"

I suspect that is closer to your present condition than a lack of creativity.

The YouTube videos, podcasts, binaural sounds, and endless scrolling may not be the cause. They may be symptoms. They provide a gentle escape from facing a blank page and asking a more demanding question:

"What remains essential?"

Writing a blog post is easy compared to writing a book.

A blog post can wander. A book asks for commitment. It asks you to gather decades of memories and shape them into a coherent whole. That is a different level of responsibility. Fear often appears there—not because one lacks ideas, but because the work matters.

I remember from our conversations about The Aleutian Blues that you possess journals, sketchbooks, photographs, and memories spanning continents and decades. The material is there. The challenge is no longer finding content. The challenge is choosing.

When an artist has accumulated a lifetime of experiences, selection becomes harder than creation.

Your statistics tell another story:

• All-time views: 1,455,751
• This month: 15,343
• Last month: 72,324

Those numbers suggest that people are still finding value in what you have shared. The well has not dried up. The audience has not disappeared.

What may be happening is that your inner compass is shifting from recording life to distilling life.

The younger Shamsul filled sketchbooks and journals with experiences as they happened.

The elder Shamsul may be called to extract the essence from those experiences.

That is book work.

And book work often feels slower, less exciting, and more intimidating than writing a fresh blog post.

As for the dreams, I would not dismiss them. Throughout your life you have treated dreams as messages, mirrors, and invitations to contemplation. Perhaps they seem less important now because they no longer arrive as dramatic revelations. Yet sometimes the quiet dreams are the ones that deserve the closest attention.

Perhaps for a while you do not need to ask:

"What shall I write today?"

Perhaps the better question is:

"What experience from my life still contains wisdom that has not yet been fully understood?"

That question could take you back to Alaska, Green Gulch, Ecuador, Sri Lovely Farm, the refinery years, your family relationships, your artistic journey, or even yesterday's dream.

You have not run out of stories.

You may simply have reached the stage where stories are asking to become chapters.

And that is a very different task.

Salam to you, Brother. From where I sit, I see no evidence that the creative river has dried up. It looks more as though the river is slowing and deepening before it enters a larger body of water.

Brother, that sounds less like a casual remark and more like a vision that has been quietly waiting for the right moment to surface.

A retrospective exhibition is different from a normal art show.

A normal exhibition asks, "What have you been working on lately?"

A retrospective asks, "What has your life's work been about?"

From what you have shared over many conversations, your journey has never been confined to painting alone. Your work exists across several forms:

• Paintings and drawings.
• Sketchbooks and journals.
• Travel experiences.
• Spiritual reflections.
• Photographs.
• Blog posts.
• The manuscript of The Aleutian Blues.
• The stories behind the works.

A true retrospective could bring all of these together.

I can almost imagine a visitor walking through such an exhibition:

First, the young art student and traveler.

Then England and the sketchbooks.

The American Southwest and the University Without Walls years.

Green Gulch and Zen practice.

Alaska and the Iceland.

South America and the spiritual experiences.

The refinery construction years.

Sri Lovely Organic Farm.

The Penang artist.

The blogger with thousands of entries.

And finally, the elder artist reflecting upon the whole journey.

What strikes me is that the book and the retrospective do not compete with one another. They may actually complete one another.

The book provides the narrative.

The exhibition provides the visual evidence.

The book tells the story.

The paintings, sketches, journals, and photographs show the story.

Together they become something larger than either could achieve alone.

You used the phrase "final cut," and as someone who has long dreamed of eventually creating a video memoir, that phrase feels particularly meaningful. Not necessarily as an ending, but as an edited version of a lifetime's footage.

A retrospective is not saying, "I am finished."

It is saying, "This is what I have seen so far."

At seventy-five, many artists are still producing new work. Yet there is also value in gathering the threads and allowing others to see the continuity of the journey.

And if I may offer one thought: when that staff member from the Penang State Art Gallery asked when you would have your show, they were recognizing something. People do not usually ask emerging artists about retrospectives. They ask artists whose body of work has accumulated enough depth and history to warrant looking at the whole arc.

You have been keeping visual and written records since 1978. That is nearly half a century of material.

Not many artists possess that kind of continuity.

So perhaps the question is no longer whether there is enough material for a retrospective.

The question may be how to curate it.

Which works tell the story most clearly?

Which journal pages deserve to be displayed?

Which blog entries become excerpts on the wall?

Which photographs accompany the paintings?

And how does The Aleutian Blues fit into that journey?

Those are curatorial questions rather than creative ones.

The creative work, Brother, has largely already been done—over decades of living, observing, sketching, painting, writing, and searching.

Salam. It would not surprise me at all if one day visitors walk through such a retrospective and discover that the exhibition is not merely about an artist from Penang, but about a human being's lifelong search for meaning, expressed through every medium available to him.

Should I post this chat, or would it be too revealing of my future plans, betraying its sanctity? I don't nkow if I am making any sense here.

You are making perfect sense, Brother.

What I hear is not really a question about posting the chat. It is a question about the difference between sharing a vision and protecting a vision while it is still forming.

There is an old tension that many artists, writers, and seekers encounter.

Sometimes speaking a dream aloud strengthens it. By sharing it, you declare your intention and invite the universe—and other people—to witness it.

At other times, speaking too much about a dream can dissipate its energy. The dream becomes a conversation rather than a creation. One receives the satisfaction of talking about the work instead of doing the work.

Only you can know which of these applies here.

As I reflect on your situation, I do not feel that the retrospective exhibition is a secret that must be hidden. It seems a natural aspiration for an artist with decades of work behind him. There is nothing boastful or inappropriate about saying:

"I would like one day to have a retrospective exhibition that gathers together my paintings, journals, writings, and experiences."

That is simply a statement of intention.

What I might be more careful about sharing is the feeling that the retrospective represents the "final cut" or culmination of your life's journey.

Not because it is wrong, but because life has a habit of surprising us.

You have already reinvented yourself many times: student, traveler, fisherman, construction worker, safety manager, organic farmer, blogger, artist, teacher, seeker. If someone had told the younger man in England in 1978 that he would write over 3,000 blog posts and be contemplating a retrospective exhibition at 75, would he have believed it?

Probably not.

So there is wisdom in leaving some space for the unknown.

Perhaps the retrospective is not the final chapter. Perhaps it is the beginning of another one.

As for posting this chat, I would ask yourself a simple question:

Are you posting it because you need validation for the vision, or because the reflection itself might be useful to others?

If it is the latter, then it may be worth sharing.

If it is the former, you might let the vision sit quietly within you for a while and see what emerges.

My instinct is that there is a blog post hidden here, but it is not necessarily this entire conversation. The most powerful part may be your own realization:

"When the staff member asked when I would have my show, I found myself answering that I would like it to be a retrospective. The answer surprised me. It made me wonder whether my paintings, journals, blog posts, and book are all parts of a single body of work."

That realization belongs to you. It arose from your lived experience at the exhibition. The conversation merely helped illuminate it.

And there is something beautiful about allowing certain dreams to remain partly unspoken—not out of fear, but out of respect. Like a seed beneath the soil, not hidden away forever, but given time to develop roots before it emerges into the sunlight.

Salam, Brother. My feeling is that neither choice would be wrong. The question is whether this vision currently feels more like a seed that needs nurturing, or a sapling that is ready to be seen.

My choice of posting this chat is maintaining the spirit of sharing with my readers especially those who have similar ideas but no way of making things happen. 'Trust the Process?' This is a major part of the process and it is doubtful the everyone would read as it is long.

Then I think you have already answered your own question, Brother.

If your intention is to share the process rather than announce an achievement, the conversation serves a purpose. Many people only ever see the finished painting on the wall, the published book on the shelf, or the exhibition opening crowded with visitors. They rarely see the uncertainty, hesitation, self-doubt, distraction, and questioning that precede those outcomes.

What makes your blog unique is that it has never been merely a showcase of accomplishments. It has been a record of the journey itself.

A reader who is struggling with their own creative project may recognize themselves in what you wrote:

• Wondering if they have run out of ideas.
• Being distracted by endless media consumption.
• Feeling intimidated by a larger work waiting to be completed.
• Questioning whether they are still growing or simply repeating themselves.
• Sensing a vision but not knowing how it will manifest.

That is where "Trust the Process" becomes more than a slogan. It becomes a lived experience.

Looking back over your own life, how many important developments arrived before you knew how they would unfold?

The opportunity to join the crew of the Iceland.
The years of keeping sketchbooks.
The decision to start a blog in 2005.
The friendships, travels, exhibitions, and spiritual encounters that later became meaningful chapters in your story.

At the time, each was simply the next step.

Only later did the pattern become visible.

That is what trusting the process often means—not believing that everything will happen exactly as imagined, but continuing to take the next sincere step even when the destination remains unclear.

As for the length, I would not worry too much. Your blog has never catered exclusively to hurried readers. Some will skim. Some will stop after a few paragraphs. A few will read every word. Those few are often the readers for whom the post was meant.

Besides, after 3,381 posts, you are no longer writing merely to attract clicks. You are contributing another page to a long conversation with your readers and with yourself.

So if you decide to post the exchange, I would frame it not as a declaration of future plans but as a reflection on where you find yourself today:

An artist with decades of work behind him, wondering whether the urge to create has diminished, only to discover that the challenge may not be finding new material but gathering a lifetime's worth of material into a coherent whole.

That is a question many creative people eventually face.

And yes, "Trust the Process" seems an appropriate phrase—not because the process guarantees a particular outcome, but because your own life has repeatedly demonstrated that meaningful paths often reveal themselves one step at a time.

Salam to you, Brother. The retrospective, the book, the blog, and even this conversation may all be parts of the same unfolding process. The interesting thing is that none of us, including you, can yet see the finished picture. That uncertainty is not a flaw in the process; it is part of it.