"I've become comfortably numb...",listening to Pink Floyd at 4;37 am at the Gallery at Kapitan Kling Mosque, drinking black coffee and smoking Sampoerna cigarettes. Hey you with your ear against the wall, can you hear me?...open your heart i'm coming home...", no, no drugs! My drug days were long gone, just feeling nostalgic and reminescing the good old days while a student at UWGB! What else can i do after listening to talks by J.Krishnamurti and Sai Baba on You Tube and figuring out what the hell I am doing here all alone at this wee hour of the morning. Would I rather be home struggling to fall asleep while swiping at mosquitoes every five seconds. "So...so you think you can tell heaven from hell blue skies from pale... can you tell the green fields, what cause the rain...do you think you can tell... your heroes were ghosts... How i wish , how i wish you were here......" 
Number one son is flying over somewhere across Europe (found out he was in Germany) and the second is still MIA somewhere in Switzerland (still mad at the world and his illegit. dad) while the third is in Kuala Lumpur seeking to discover himself (if only he could see himself beyond the mirror!) while the fourth is sleeping at home by herself (after exhausted from reading 'Twillight") and tomorrow is school holiday for her,Chinese New Year. my wife is sitting somewhere in a nursing home in Illinois (Allah, protects her always), smiling her beautiful smiles at strangers and herself. "Shine on you crazy diamond...common you target for faraway laughter...you martyre and shine...", where am I and who is sitting?" No body knows where you are..how near or how far...shine on you crazy diamond...sail on the steel breeze... common you miner for truth and delusion... common you stranger you legend and shine... "
All of us who had at one time or another been exposed to the Pink Floyd phenomena can easily relate to these lyrics and when accompanied by the saxophone and electric guitar of Roger Water and his crew, these words became engraved into our psyche. Most of the lyrics were written like an abstract painting for the listeners to absorb and apprehend at their own levels of intellectual and mental sensitivities. Pink Floyd is still one of my major musical choice when it comes to Hard Rock and Bob Dylon is my individual all time favorite vocalist. Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits took center stage a while later. In my teen years I grew up exposed to the likes of Cannon Ball Alderly and Ramsey Lewis, Louis Amstrong and The Duke Ellington , these were later replaced by the likes of Grover Washington Jr. and Hubert Laws. Bob James and the likes, all Jazz for i grew up exposed to Jazz through my eldest brother had a collection of Jazz albums since i was in Form One at
Sultan Sulaiman Secondary School in Kuala Terengganu.
The earliest vocalist that had a major impact on my musical taste was Harry Belfonte, Ray Charles, Trini Lopez, Elvis Presley, Joan Baez, Peter Paul and Marry and later The Beatles and Bob Dylon followed by The Bee Gees, Simon Garfunkle and Harry Chapin. Today I have no one singer that I can call my favorite and i am loosing touch with the who is who in the music business, I leave it up to my children to keep me informed especially my daughter who would keep me up to date while I am driving. It must be part of the aging process, but listening to the present day Hip Hop or Rap has very little affect on my taste except for a song or two every once in a while when the song sung is within the range of my descern, like the song 'Ghetto" by Akorn? For me Bob Dylon will remain as the genius of a song writer and vocalist, he was ahead of his time for he was rapping before the word Rap came into being.
They say that music is food for the soul but bad music makes me sick to the stomach and today there is an overload of bad music on the airwaves and it is beginning to become overpowering for the olfactory lobe. So these days unless i get good recordings of my old favorites I turn off music altogether, which is a sad thing for without music the soul hungers for some form of entertaiment to occupy itself with in the middle of the night when one is sitting alone and figuring out life in all its immensities and trivialities. Godd music in the background provides a backdrop for creative output as it serves to silence the mind from distracting thoughts which arises randomly to create a sidetrack from what one is working on.
"Spiritual ecstasy, however , is a totally different state, a state caused by the overflow of spiritual energy. Ordinarily, exterior influences- a beautifully recited poem, or the Quran chanted by a beautiful voice, or the excitement brought on by the ceremony of remembrance of the Sufis - and (real good music) may cause this spiritual elavation. This happens because at such moments the physical resistance of the being is obliterated. The will, the ability of the mind to choose and to decide, is overcome. When the powers of both the body and the mind are undermined, the ecstatic state is purely spiritual. To go along with that kind of experience is beneficial to one...
The sweet singing of the birds, the sighing of lovers, are among those exterior causes which move the spiritual energy. In this state of spiritual energy evil and ego have no share; the Devil operates within the dark realms of the doings of the ego and has no say in the illuminated realm of mercy."
The Secret Of Secrets
On Witnessing Divine Truth.
Hadrat Abdul - Qadir Al- Jilani. (May Allah sanctify his secret)
Number one son is flying over somewhere across Europe (found out he was in Germany) and the second is still MIA somewhere in Switzerland (still mad at the world and his illegit. dad) while the third is in Kuala Lumpur seeking to discover himself (if only he could see himself beyond the mirror!) while the fourth is sleeping at home by herself (after exhausted from reading 'Twillight") and tomorrow is school holiday for her,Chinese New Year. my wife is sitting somewhere in a nursing home in Illinois (Allah, protects her always), smiling her beautiful smiles at strangers and herself. "Shine on you crazy diamond...common you target for faraway laughter...you martyre and shine...", where am I and who is sitting?" No body knows where you are..how near or how far...shine on you crazy diamond...sail on the steel breeze... common you miner for truth and delusion... common you stranger you legend and shine... "
All of us who had at one time or another been exposed to the Pink Floyd phenomena can easily relate to these lyrics and when accompanied by the saxophone and electric guitar of Roger Water and his crew, these words became engraved into our psyche. Most of the lyrics were written like an abstract painting for the listeners to absorb and apprehend at their own levels of intellectual and mental sensitivities. Pink Floyd is still one of my major musical choice when it comes to Hard Rock and Bob Dylon is my individual all time favorite vocalist. Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits took center stage a while later. In my teen years I grew up exposed to the likes of Cannon Ball Alderly and Ramsey Lewis, Louis Amstrong and The Duke Ellington , these were later replaced by the likes of Grover Washington Jr. and Hubert Laws. Bob James and the likes, all Jazz for i grew up exposed to Jazz through my eldest brother had a collection of Jazz albums since i was in Form One at
Sultan Sulaiman Secondary School in Kuala Terengganu.The earliest vocalist that had a major impact on my musical taste was Harry Belfonte, Ray Charles, Trini Lopez, Elvis Presley, Joan Baez, Peter Paul and Marry and later The Beatles and Bob Dylon followed by The Bee Gees, Simon Garfunkle and Harry Chapin. Today I have no one singer that I can call my favorite and i am loosing touch with the who is who in the music business, I leave it up to my children to keep me informed especially my daughter who would keep me up to date while I am driving. It must be part of the aging process, but listening to the present day Hip Hop or Rap has very little affect on my taste except for a song or two every once in a while when the song sung is within the range of my descern, like the song 'Ghetto" by Akorn? For me Bob Dylon will remain as the genius of a song writer and vocalist, he was ahead of his time for he was rapping before the word Rap came into being.
They say that music is food for the soul but bad music makes me sick to the stomach and today there is an overload of bad music on the airwaves and it is beginning to become overpowering for the olfactory lobe. So these days unless i get good recordings of my old favorites I turn off music altogether, which is a sad thing for without music the soul hungers for some form of entertaiment to occupy itself with in the middle of the night when one is sitting alone and figuring out life in all its immensities and trivialities. Godd music in the background provides a backdrop for creative output as it serves to silence the mind from distracting thoughts which arises randomly to create a sidetrack from what one is working on.
"Spiritual ecstasy, however , is a totally different state, a state caused by the overflow of spiritual energy. Ordinarily, exterior influences- a beautifully recited poem, or the Quran chanted by a beautiful voice, or the excitement brought on by the ceremony of remembrance of the Sufis - and (real good music) may cause this spiritual elavation. This happens because at such moments the physical resistance of the being is obliterated. The will, the ability of the mind to choose and to decide, is overcome. When the powers of both the body and the mind are undermined, the ecstatic state is purely spiritual. To go along with that kind of experience is beneficial to one...
The sweet singing of the birds, the sighing of lovers, are among those exterior causes which move the spiritual energy. In this state of spiritual energy evil and ego have no share; the Devil operates within the dark realms of the doings of the ego and has no say in the illuminated realm of mercy."
The Secret Of Secrets
On Witnessing Divine Truth.
Hadrat Abdul - Qadir Al- Jilani. (May Allah sanctify his secret)
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