Am I not afraid of being alone at night?

Fear of  the unknown has always been man's natural infliction that takes many forms in as many different cultures and in no culture is this phenomenon more apparent than the Malay culture. Perhaps there are other cultures more paranoid when it comes to dealing with things that goes bumping into the night or the presence of Jins and Shaitans, this hantu (ghost) or that as there as many different ghouls out there according to the Malays than meets the eye. Talk to any Malay friend and he will definitely have a story to tell, an experience to share when it comes to having to ghosts and happenings.
I have one or two to relate myself, un-explainable occurrences that till this day still I have yet to understand and accept as a rational explanation. Sometimes these experience returns to haunt me especially when i am faced with being in places and moments when it is deemed to be the 'Twilight', times or places where one gets the hibbie -jibbies, when your hair rises and your body send out cold shivers signalling the something is just not right. Being in the places that i have visited the last two months I have come to again face these feelings of fear and trepidation, as though my life was being put to the test by the unknown. Yes later i realized perhaps it was just feelings, my own weaknesses and lack of faith in who I am. The Malays believe that you are most susceptible to being 'haunted by ghosts' or spirits when you have a weak predisposition, a weak mental state and negative self image and you have a lack of faith in the Lord. I have all of these every now and then although not all at once, but every now and then I have feelings that I am being targeted by the unseen forces just for the hell of it.
My personal 'Ghost Related Experiences' like the one I had while driving through New Mexico into Colorado of Highway 666, (narrated in my earlier entries) and my experience of "The Ghost ship' while piloting the Fishing Vessel 'Iceland' while commercial fishing in the Bering Sea, off the Alaskan Coast, (also narrated earlier) were among some of the vivid experiences of my getting too close to the unknown; that dimension which most men would rather deny or chose to lock it out of their consciousness if they can. Without knowing it I have place myself time and again in the path of danger of being exposed to the spiritual elements that live in their own dimensions parallel to ours and more than once I have had the privilege of witnessing an event or an apparition or manifestation of what seemed to be all i can say is 'Ghosts'. I have no other explanation otherwise or what to call what i saw as.
The experiences i had on my first two nights camping at the Muda Dam in Ghubir, near Belantik was something I would not want to go through again but I could have avoided the pain I suffered had i followed the instinct and left the camp site the second night, no, I decided to take it as a challenge and suffered the consequences. Perhaps it was all in my head, that there was no one or nothing taking a stroll around my pitched tent and running its finger nails along the canvass as it stroll by. Perhaps it was just pure coincident that I fell asleep like a log as soon as my head hits the pillow in my tent to wake up to my tent about to burn down by the two candles i had place nearby my feet to read because i thought i was going to face yet another sleepless night. I ended up burning my three fingers at exactly midnight, what are the chances at that?
When I was married the first time my sister in law came to visit my wife and i from the United States and we took her to Port Dickson and stayed at an old Hotel that could have been a colonial building at one time. Three of us slept in the same large bed and in the middle of the night i woke up seeing that my sister in law was leaving the room to go to the toilet or so I thought. Then i fell back to sleep but before i dozed off i noticed a lady with long black hair sitting at the edge of the bed and looking at me. I looked to my side and noticed that my sister in law and my wife were asleep and when i looked back at the figure sitting on the bed it was no more there. I did not think much about it nor did i tell the to women about it till we left the hotel the next day.
There must also be something about me that is as equally strong in nature that has repelled any extremely dangerous situations, something that threatens my very life. I noticed that i have been spared on many occasions of what could have been a fatal incident causing harm although having fire in my tent and burning my fingers came close, but i attributed it to my own carelessness. Over the years I believe that I have for lack of better explanation a guardian angel watching over me if not the All Mighty Himself as i always evoked His aid whenever I feel the threat of the unknown and it has helped me more than anything else. I always say out loud that i take refuge in the Lord of Power and 'The lord thy God is Power' as a verse from the Quran reads. "La hau;la wala kuwata illa Billa"

Bismillah.

"You should know that the most comprehensive and inclusive formula for expressing the repudiation of one’s own claim to power and ability is La hawla wala quwawata illa billah (there is neither power nor ability save by Allah)."

 This is my shield, my personal power especially against any situation that i cannot deal with physically but have to rely on the laws of divine faith or the spiritual laws. I truly believe in it and on many occasions has put it into action. I surrender myself completely into this 'Mantra' and let come what may as death is the only final consequence and if my time is up there is nothing i could do to avoid it. But i surely would not die without standing up to my right as a man, as the son of Adam at the hands of that which I cannot see, I cannot die with my tail between my legs, in other words. But all these thoughts and ideas are foreign to those who are already dfeeply buried int he world of dreams and senselessness, those whose lives lacks the awareness of the existence of that which is beyond human perception. Those whose lives are totally dominated by the egoic time space plane where the mind has become petrified by the pursuit of material gains and worldly pleasures.

I try to walk in all worlds.as it makes my life a little more exciting if not challenging. This is why i live as i do always on the fringe of life itself as most knows it.

As a friend once said, "I fear what I can see than what i cannot." 
The element of 'Compassion, Right understanding and self confidence through experience is the key towards being free from fear itself. Through the destruction of the forest and thus the ecosystem of the seen and unseen one cannot help but feel infinite compassion towards the denizens of the forest in all its shapes and forms. being in touch with one's own feeling of love and compassion and seeing the bigger picture of man's compulsive sense of destruction one develop a sense of being a part of the whole which includes ghosts and demons and what have you that often creates havoc in your imagination and fear of that which you fail to come to grip with. By not seeing or encountering the paranormal realms and entities does not mean that they are not there, you are fortunate in some way not to be able to encounter such events.
My brother Lee asked me one evening "Why is that Malay girls are most succeptable to mass hysteria?" I had no immediate explanation and this is in fact a real phenomenon in this country especially among school girls in dormtories  My rationalization over the matter is that Malay girls are mostly spiritual, in that they are practicing Muslims..Hence they are more conscious of or in tune with the spiritual realm of existence than most other races .The western dominated thinkers would brush off the spiritual nature of mass hysteria as superstitions but not to most Malays. To them mass hysteria is the cause of spirits that possesses the young victims often 'Jumping from one to another' causing a chain reaction of a kind.. A spiritual healer, a bomoh or an Ustaz (religious teacher0 is called to  expel or remove these spirits. often the cause is being attributed towards the general surrounding environment where the school was being constructed or the fact that spirits like to have fun sometimes too. However the more serious of these incidents has resulted in a permanent damage to the victims psyche often turning her into a vegetable or zombie like.
When I was visiting Bali I had the opportunity to attend a 'Kacak' performance whereby at the end of the performance there was a group of performers trying to pierce their chest and stomach with the Kris or daggers. They were collectively being in a state of being possessed according to a Balinese friend. The human-spirit world connection is much more prevalent among the Asian especially the South East Asians societies albeit in the form of mutual aid or aggression. The unwritten rule of thumb is that there is mutual respect and acknowledgement of each enttitie's presence where the protocol is observed for each encounter in the forms of rituals and in some cases offerings. Islam prohibits such practices according to the Ulama's or religious authorities..