Ahh, the fasting Month is here again.

The fasting month is here and it will add on to what already is a rough road ahead,   however i hope I can fulfill this month long obligation without too much trauma. The month of Ramadan has always been a litmus test for my spiritual practices as it has in the past brought out many forms of weaknesses that i have with regard to discipline. it has also raised a whole lot of issues which is often swept away under the rug under normal circumstances. It is no doubt one of the best forms of practice nonetheless as I will go through yet another regiment of changes in my daily life where not being able to eat or drink is the least of my problem. It is said that the Lord will shut the gates of hell and no evil shall roam free on this planet for the whole month of Ramadan. hence whatever lack of or shortcomings that a Muslim has towards his  observations and the carrying out his obligations during this month will entirely be upon hi own making and none to blame. There will be no demonic or satanic influences to sway one from carrying out his or her obligations, my understanding.One cannot say, 'The Devil made me do it' or not do it.' You are answerable to your own virtues and faults.
The fasting month is also the litmus test for all Muslims whereby the true believers and those who are Muslim in name only are being sieved or weeded out.

Ramadan -a month of obligatory daily fasting in Islam is the ninth month in the Islamic lunar calendar. Daily fasts begin at dawn and end with sunset. Special nightly prayers called, Taraweeh prayers are held. The entire Quran is recited in these prayers in Mosques all around the world. This month provides an opportunity for Muslims to get closer to God. This is a month when a Muslim should try to:

	See not what displeases Allah
	Speak no evil
	Hear no evil
	Do no evil
	Look to Allah with fear and hope

"O you who believe! Fasting is prescribed for you as it was prescribed for those before you, that you may become God-fearing." (The Quran, 2:183)."

Fasting is the ultimate Jihad in reigning in a man's ego, his desires and impulses, cravings and yearnings, it is a potent antidote to egotistical tendencies inherent in man.

"The Sufic view classifies "Jihad" into two parts: the "Greater Jihad" and the "Lesser Jihad". Muhammad put the emphasis on the "Greater Jihad" by saying, "Holy is the warrior who is at war with himself".^{[citation needed]} In this sense external wars and strife are seen as but a satanic counterfeit of the true "jihad", which can only be fought and won within. There is no salvation for man without his own efforts being added to the work of self-refinement."

"A human�s soul is the scene of a struggle of two competing powers. Divine power attracts him towards heavenly spheres, and inspires him to acts of goodness. Satanic power tempts him towards realms of darkness and shame, and invites him to acts of evil. When the divine forces are victorious, a person emerges as a virtuous and blessed being, in the company of prophets, saints, and the pious. When, however, the satanic forces dominate, the person becomes rebellious and vicious and is grouped with infidels, oppressors, wrongdoers and those who are cursed"

One of the more mundane aspect of the fasting month is the preparation devoted in the Muslim households.all over the world where making sure that there is more than enough food to eat when the time comes to break the fast is crucial. often there is more food produced, cooked and sold at bazaars all over the country than at any other time of the year. This is a paradox, nonetheless if one were to travel around the country and observe the Month of Ramadan and how it is being observed or celebrated more like it, one would be amaze at how much is being catered to the food and drinks being made available.This it seems attest to the fact of being deprived of food the whole day creates an even more aggressive appetite when comes time to break the fast and this in both quality and quantity. When it comes time to break the fast at sunset very few emulate the Prophet of Allah and his virtues about how He ate.
The fasting month begins tomorrow and what happens for the next month henceforth for me personally is yet to be seen and experienced again as i have had for this event every year. How i fare through it will be something for me to accept and deliberate upon as a checkpoint  in my development as test to being an abiding or true Muslim or otherwise...Insha' Allah, God Willing.  

Who lit the Fire??!

The haze is back with a vengeance. Driving towards my friend Ah Huat the auto air conditioning master I could barely see the landscape around me, it is like you are witnessing a foggy day in  the San Francisco Bay Area, if you have had the opportunity to have lived there, only allot less healthier. When will they ever learn whoever they are that being healthy in life is worth all the money in the world and with the scorching weather we have been having burning is the last thing we need. While on the subject of open burning a couple of days ago while driving along the highway close to Weld Quay area in Georgetown I was stalled by a traffic jam cause by a borne fire on the roadside with smoke billowing across the road. It had to do with the Chinese ritual of one kind or another where paper replicas of homes cars and whatever is created and burned so that these objects will accompany the dead to their next realm of existence. As much as it is an act of tolerance towards religions and culture that we put up with such events, it is still not cool to burn out in the open especially where vehicles are passing close by and not to mention the pollution it causes and the additional heat it generates on such a blistering day; then again, this is Penang not Singapore.
Religious tolerance is one of the keys towards our very survival, we all know that and what one does in the name of our personal religious belief whatever that may be must be good for God in all religious believe is a very tolerant God, a God who would not mind a little flame here and a little smoke there and piles of coconuts smashed here and there or all in the act of worshiping Him. ^he more mosques and temples you build for Him the more appreciative he would be after all you are building His houses of worship and it aught to keep the devotees happy too knowing that they have a place of worship at every corner of the street and not liquor stores like in some countries. it is good to be made aware of how pious and virtuous we are in this multi-religious society where we can always turn to our Gods when all else fails Religion itself is a lucrative business in this country where there perhaps more houses of worship than there are MacDonald and KFCs and in this alone our citizen will live a more healthier life style than most other nations.
Oh yes, every now and then we do have a religious conflict here and there but who or which nation on earth does not? For so long as there is Islam, Christianity and Judaism in a country there is bound to be a conflict of one kind or another, forget the other religions as it is. These three religions are out to save human souls from damnation, from the wrath of their Gods. Each has been at each other's throat in order to verify their claims to be the one and true religion of this planet and that God is always on their side.But we managed, and throughout my years of existence i have been fortunate enough not to experience to many religious conflicts in my country other than the fact that it has to do do with politics for political agendas overruns religious sanctity, no religion is safe from violence..Hence most of the religious conflicts here in my country is not because your God or my God is the right God but it is more like when politicians runs out of ideas they turn to religions as the antidote a way of creating more smoke to hide the real ignorance of how to manage a country. To pacify they build more houses of worship, to create a violent diversion they call for sanctions and create discords among the religious groups.
Me, i am a Christian to my Christian brothers and a Hindu to my Hindu brothers and i am a Muslim to my Muslim brothers and a whole lot more if and when i am with other denominators. My Lord knows no religions and accepts one and all as His; He is the Creator of all the religions, beliefs and non believers alike..My Lord never in my entire life has told me that He needs more houses of worship or that His name can or cannot be used by one and not the other, My Lord  will always be undefinable and incomprehensible to me and i can only worship Him in faith.and my faith in my Lord is the most personal and sacrosanct possession in this life. Mine is a Lord of Loving Kindness, mine is a Lord of Compassion and Forgiveness, my Lord resides within the temple of my heart and He is looking at you from within. I am but a mere instrument of His just like you and i worship Him where he resides; within me.
I serve my Lord if and whenever i could by serving humanity regardless of their faith and beliefs and stand in no man's path is his way in worship, albeit in a temple or a mosque, a church or a synagogue; your way is yours as mine is mine. Cut my head off and I still am who I am and not what you think I aught to be in the eyes of my Lord.
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Living life without conflict.

I  have run out of things to write about, well things that really worth writing about that is and so i will just ramble on the things that comes to my mind just for the sake of letting my mind has its share of expression and see where it leads. It is in writing that i find comfort from feeling unproductive and lackadaisical at present. I have been going through a whole lot of nothing which spells out for me as living without any sense of intention or motive and hence not accomplishing much in the the fiscal sense either. I feel inept sometimes and in short bored to hell with a sense of low self esteem', it is all just feelings off course and i know this too will pass..
I am my own self critic and the worse kind and there is really no reason for it other than being guilt ridden of one form or another which is really how my mind works, a mind that seems to grow more and more despondent each day. But I have trodden this path many a times along my way over the years and it is nothing new but the only twist, if there is any these days is that i am still experimenting with the so called practice I have imposed upon myself ever since i decided to put my body and soul on the dissecting table and see what gives. It is a mind game of justificating one's ineptitude and lack of energy to forge on with whatever life has to throw on the doorsteps of my consciousness. See how i ramble and has gotten good at it.
No doubt this undertaking of writing my blog has become a diary in form and in more that one ways it has helped for me to gauge my path, my ups and downs over the years. It may make for good reading to some but overall it is still one long tedious form of expressing nothing that anyone else is not going through and most much better at handling the situations better than i have been. I could have chosen to be financially well off or independently wealthy just like my twin or my cousins but i chose to become a hobo running after dreams and making believe I am living the life of a spiritual seeker when i am not in actuality.Even in this pursuit I am flip flopping between doubts and having a strong faith in who I am. My mind I cannot even begin to digest after all these years, it seems to have a mind  of its own more and more so and my thoughts have become so infested with nonsense that nothing seems to make sense anymore the more i think about it.
yes i am living in my own self manifested delusions wasting my time and energy even as my feet are getting closer and closer to the hole in the ground where i hope to find some rest, God willing.
A question was raised in one of my readings perhaps it as was in one of Alan Watts's works, "What is the most elusive thing in life?" and the answer was, "The self'. Like back to square one, "who am i?" of "What am I?" "How far or how near am I?" The answers to these questions lies in parts and pieces among the thousand odd entries i have been loading into this Blogging. Sometimes i felt like I have hit it right on the nail and sometimes i feel like i am drifting so far away from the truth that i am drowning in my own self seeking answers.I feel like i am walking in circles but never getting there and where is there, i still have not a clue Some say that perhaps I am asking the wrong questions while others say that i am dwelling in self delusions and most of them are right in one way or another but the truth of the matter is, I am still who I am from day one, the day I started to ask the question. I have stumbled and fall many a times along the way and made so many errors and regrets that i can fill the entire history of my being with sob stories and yet sometimes i make the right moves and picked on the right choices and came up with some winners that uplifted my being to keep me feeling alive.
Where do I go from here/ I have asked this often enough in my life and I am far from finding the right path towards my salvation, for my liberation, my freedom from the bonds of ignorance and defeat and I am left with this sense of uselessness not knowing where I should or could go to for answers. Oh yes i can keep on rambling and perhaps it would still make for good reading for lack of better things to do but at the end of the day what good does it do when i cannot turn around and look back and say, yes I have done something good, I am close to being who i am or that my existence is meaningful if not for myself , for others.

" We have made life into a hideous thing, Life has become a battle, which is an obvious fact, Constant fight, fight, fight and we have divorced that living from death, we have separated, death is horrible, something to be frightened about, and to us this living which is misery, we accept, if we didn't accept this existence as misery then life and death have the same movement, like Love, death and living are one. One must totally die to find what life is and to go into the question of what is death, what lies beyond death, whether there is reincarnation or resurrection and all that becomes rather meaningless, if you do not know how to live.If human being knows how to live without conflict then death has quite a different meaning."
J. Krishnamurti on 'Living without Conflict' via You Tube.

Living in the Demonic age.

In yesterday's tabloids the immigration department stumbled upon a 15 year old child locked up and abandoned by his mother, he was found looking like the un-dead from zombie horror flick with ribs protruding and his stomach revealing his spinal column. A three year old recently was tortured to death by his mother and her new husband and his screams of horror was heard by the neighbors who took no action until too late. I am loath to take a glimpse of any of these news medias catering to to gruesome and shameful state we live in all over the country, however if it were not for these sensational seeking news the reality of what we are facing would not be exposed and we will go on living in denial. We believe we live in a democratic country when in actual fact we are living in a demonic era, it is an era worse than the state of being an animal. Even animals have a sense of compassion towards one another and an animal kills only to eat or fend for itself, but human beings especially in this day and age kill for pleasure, for money and for the sheer act of killing out of hatred.
As we evolve towards fulfilling out destinies as human beings many of us fall along the wayside not being able to cope with the rapid changes that those capable of generating such moves are imposing on the rest of humanity. The head of the snake is swallowing too much while the rest of its body dies from starvation. We are moving ahead making believe all is fair and alright, just like the guy who drives around in his Mercedes with the tinted windows and the cool air conditioning inside through the slums of a city or the village he had grown up from, removed from the reality of what it is out there and justifying to himself that he has earned it all and it is his birthright to enjoy his life without any care or concern for other less fortunate. Well it is as it is all over the planet and there is little that can be done for so long as we live in this age of ignorance and denials until such event as discovering that your child has been kidnapped and his parts and organs are bring sold in the flesh market, then we have a little wake up call. ( incidentally his too was in the news.).
In the state of Kelantan, recently a 15 year old student was gang raped by 20 to 30 young men who were mostly drug addicts according to the report and many more such cases are reported daily from all over the country along side with the discarding of foetus or still born infants so much so that theses incidents have become such common occurrences that they are no more thought provoking, society have become comfortably numb.
Ours is a reactive society, we react rather than pro-act, we look for a cure rathert than a preventive measure and worse of, we look for someone else or something else to blame for when it all falls to pieces. Whatever is our social welfare services been up to and are so poor that we could not look into these poverty related social ills? No! The Zakat collection alone can handle most of our 'Mlalays social ill related to poverty but it is being run like a business which is more keen on making profits than disbursing its coffers tot the real needy. The National Social Welfare Agency? never heard of it other than when the women who runs it are up in arms for political mileage to make sure they are the most there being loving and compassionate whenever the media is present. We especially the Malay Muslims are among the worse of hypocrites alive toady and we live as though Allah is on our side while we neglect our duties towards the Lord's helpless and destitute and boy are we the first to jump the band wagon in claiming our love and care whenever there an exposure of pain and suffering among our own or point out dirty fingers instantly whenever someone is caught pandering their bodies or self esteem in order that they can pay the rent or feed themselves.
With the money collected from the masses the religious department constructs for itself land marks buildings to house a ladaisical workforce sheltered within a comfortable offices.  For those who needed help it would a a torture in itself just to approach these demigods who requires that they fill up forms and wait for the due processes that is if they can read and write.

Zakat institution is an integral part of the
Islamic socio-economic system. In Malaysia
zakat collection is institutionalized although it
is a state matter. The respective state authority
involved in zakat administration carries out the
following responsibilities: promotion, collection
and distribution of zakat; organized assistance
to the poor and needy; including other asnaf
in accordance to guidelines prescribed by the
Syariah.

Nowadays the Zakat agency has been updated into the IT status with all the latest state of the art fixtures but has that done much in terms of eradicating or even keep the poverty status among the Malays any better/ , highly doubtful, making it worse most likely as most of the money spent on these administrative adjustments stems out of the Zakat collected. The high tech installations made only help to propagate more time wasting habits among the employees who spends a good amount of time on the Internet browsing. I am voicing what i learned from my fellow Malays who has tried to appeal for help in Penang and if i am wrong i stand corrected. However even in Penang there those whose life is mere existence living below the poverty line and having a tough time making it and these are the ignorant and the uneducated who happens to be born and lived in poverty from day one.
It is tragic that in this day and age we still find daily the incidents like the one that just went viral on Face Book about the five year old skin and bones discovered by the Immigration Department officers. had they not been raiding the premises for illegal aliens this discovery would not have occurred and the child would most probably end up dead and this incident is just the tip of the iceburg in the Malay Muslim communities or so i was told.. It is not my place to question how or where the money goes when it comes to the welfare of my society but as one of its members it is still responsibility to make my feeling be heard. We are living in not a democratic but a demonic era where suffering has reached its rampant stage and if left unchecked it will become one of our causes for a decadent society. if there is anything worthwhile for the Malays to learn from the fellow Malaysian the Chinese, it is in how to care for the downtrodden. We have the means but lack the genuine interest in making the impeccable delivery system. We are most of us living in denial and driving our heavily tinted vehicles so others will not know who we are within our luxuriuos lifestyle; indeed we are most of us self serving demons of our society..

Part two of the Trip to KL.

After our visit to the hospital where Zowie's grand daughter was warded for high fever, we set about looking for the house of my cousin's grand daughter engagement ceremony was being held and after yelling instructions on how to get there from Mama Chon from the back seat we got there and spend the afternoon eating and drinking till the late afternoon. I sat and in between reading a novel i brought along called "The Map of Time" by Felix J. Palmer, I listened to more conversations going around me from people i hardly know. I realized more and more that my attention towards what was going on around has become less and less important and I found myself buried in the book or in my breath while the externals dropped off into noises.My eyes roam every now and then checking out the shapes and sizes of the women present and when i caught myself over doing it i return to my book to avoid being sucked into imaginations. My old habit has not left me despite all my efforts, I am still caressing and stroking their bodies in my head imagining how they would feel like. In moments like these i would just give up trying to hold back my lust and desires through all that i have learned in my years of denying myself the act of making love to women through my imagination.
Still lingering old karma hard to eradicate from the imaginative mind but the realization of the foolishness is getting more and more prevalent and the desire to put an end to this nasty habit is always present. What can i say, its my bad.
Jamaliah or Jamie as she is popularly known is the largest and the oldest of the three girls including Mama Chon and Zawiah or Zowie and they have a youngest brother who is pretty much all on his own due to wife and sisters issues never quite settled. Jamie brought with her her new house mate who i learned is going for the divorce court the next day.Oh what a life we live in if it is not one thing it is another and everyone has got their own load of crap to carry in one form or another.This is the moral of this lengthy entry, it is not to capture a boring three days trip driving here and there and visiting the dead, the sick and the getting engaged and getting divorced and last but not least visiting my elderly in Sitiawan, near Lumut, Perak. in the form of my cousin Yahaya and his wife  Yahaya or Pa' Ya as he is known is the 'Pilot of Lumut", the man who took me on board the Russian vessel which he piloted out of Lumut not too long ago an experience that I have entered  in my blog a month ago. I notice that most of men of his age and mine ends up going to the mosque more frequent than ever, more for the company they keep than to really do worship. This is part and parcel of the retirement plan of most Malays and perhaps most of humanity.
The three days of making pit stops at sevaral  homes of relatives and friends was the gist of life among my relatives here, doing my part of "being there for them in times of need, if only my presence alone could be of servitude.It was never comfortable to drive some one else's car but the Waja was comfortable for the journey especially when it was a scorcher outside. I have been with those who have just passed away wit dignity and pride to haves his body laying on the floor with ants paying their respects to it. I did hnot have the heart to approach the body for reasons i cannot till today rationalize about. I have always in the past approached and sometimes kissed the forehead of the deceased body good bye, and i felt the coldness of death on my lips, but this was the first time it seems i just sat there and meditated while praying in my heart the verses i have come to live with for the moment I learned them by heart in my childhood. The Al Fatiahah, followed by the Kolhu Allah and followed by 21 of the Selawat Nabi and then donate theses towards the departed reminding him ofto use these as his guide towards the light of Allah. That is all we do at this moments , is to help the other to remeber his or her practice , belief and faith in life to cross over. This is the journey towards the Lord of Power as according to Sheikh Muhyideen Ibn Arabi as i understood his teachings to consist of..
My phenomenal or the physical perception of it all was allowing the mind to be itself, the ego to become involved into sucked into drawn into all these mini and major dramas of humanity. How fragile we are, how fragile I am. I who have nothing! to speak of materially. In this day and age I am a homeless and a vagabond who lives day to day fulfilling my needs by servitude, a commodity that is of no consequence in the business world today. People like me are the watchers, the seekers and they who live life on the outside, the periphery looking into that which is called life in the normal sense of the word. Who or how many among them have ever heard of The great Sheikh, Ibn Arabi or Sheikh Kadir, (thank you Mr. Mokhtar Holland for the translations,) or the Imam Al Ghazali through the eyes of a corrupted Malaysian, drinker, drug addict, and womaniser with loads of Karmic burdens on his back while quoting Mooji and Papaji and guys with names like Maharishih this and Rajah that, and getting all wrapped up into Alan Watts's version of Zen Buddhism and Ram Dass journey through LSD to attain enlightenment. Who is this guy? Who the hell am I?
Even before the body was washed the men sitting out side drinking coffee were discussing his plots of lands left in Malacca, my mind said this is it, I need to sleep in the car tonight.
These were moment when I take a retreat from situations by less being there in the physical but more in the spiritual level, not attachment nor judgement, non involvement presence., listen to Eckhhart Tolle, or Krishnamurti on these subjects of the mind, it is worth your very existence in you could come anywhere close to manifesting their thoughts, these have been my guides in the spiritual mapping of my mind; what I belief and all my doubts. Life is suffering and in suffering there is none who suffers only suffering is, none who suffers and if one still hankers upon suffering, then  suffer without bitterness in your heart; this is Compassion.. The Bodhisatva of Compassion is said to be Avalokiteshvara, or the Goddes Kuan Yin to the Ancient Chinese and Kanon to the Japanese Buddhism and now who knows what he or she is called in the West. The Bodhisatva is depicted manifesting as a thousand armed deity and in each hand a tool to perform each and every causes of suffering in the world of this Nirmanakaya Loka. or the World of forms that Shakyamuni Buddha came into for His last action as a Bodhisatve, to set humanity free from Greed, Hate and Ignorance; to attain to an awakening and liberation from this round of life death and rebirth.
The lady who was getting engaged and the lady who had to face the Shariah court for divorce the next day both phenomenas occuring before me, what can i say?
Such Is! Such I!



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Visit the dead, the Sick and those getting Engaged.

I was on the road with my cousin and her husband driving in their Waja, and another Proton made Malaysian car second oldest brother of the Kancil, the Perdana being the eldest in terms of quality and size and not to mention price. I was driving a more comfortable vehicle than my Kancil in other words but does not mean I like it better than driving my Kancil, small as she is, she is my car, a part of me if not my own physical extension while on the road. Our intention was to visit my cousin brother['s brother who was in the last lag of his life. He lived with his daughter in Negeri Sembilan, somewhere South West of Kuala Lumpur, we missed him departing this life by a few hours, so we ended up burying him instead.
We left Penang on Friday morning after picking up another relative who hitched a ride to Ipoh where we left her at the bus station for one of her children to pick her up and continued to Kl. Not the best part of the journey as it was hot and we had to find our way through the one way streets of Ipoh on a a Friday afternoon when it was Prayer time- the Friday Prayer when all the streets were congested with people on their way to the mosque, but it was an experience as I have seldom been to this town in  the State of Perak. a state south of Penang. It is growing into a brautiful town from last i was there, cannot remember how long ago. This was the town where i stood underneath an electric light with two suitcases full of bay cloths in a drizzling rain at twilight with warm tears flwoing down my cheeks while waiting for a ride to KL to see my first born at the Asunta Hospital, in Petaling Jaya. I must have written it somewhere in my journal before. This is what I remember most about Ipoh and the next being that this is where my martial instructor's daughter had married and settled down with the man considered to be the second man in the hierachy of the Silat Seni gayong, Malaysia, a most beutiful lady I had a n affair with while a martial arts student in Kuala Terengganu. He apprently was a given a Dato' Title, like a Sir, soeone you do not want to mes around with in every sense of the word!
I also remember Ipoh being where i had driven my friend and fellow artist Entekhabi, Sharom from Iran when i had to smuggle him out of the country because he was being threatened bodily harm due to one of his botched relationship here with a Malay woman. I must have written this too in my blog sometime after it had happened, don't and don'n care when anymore.It is also where my niece Nakiah had lived for a short while, while being employed at the Tanjung Rambutan mental home as a psychiatrist, which i thought was unique if you happen to know Nakiah's personality and character. So, that in a nut shell was Ipoh to me, most of the time i just pass through it along the North South Highway from Penang to KL.
The first house we dropped by in Kl was Non Mama Chon's, one of the cousin who was baby sitting her grand daughter somewhere in KL, she is quite a character, large like her other siblings but strong in will having raised two boys and a girl as a single parent while working as a factory worker, whose husband succumbed to drugs and died at an early age. Now the children are adults and each doing very well with themselves. The eldest is a professional artist designer, the second works on the oil rig as a store keeper and the third married to a great guy whose house we visited. These are the children of my auntie who had recently passed away, the lady who had raised me as a child after being adopted away from my parents. I wrote about tis too in my blog. While at their house having a scrumptuous takeaways from the Indian restaurant somewhere we learned that my cousin's brother had passed away and so we made plans for the trip to his house in Seremban, Negeri Sembilan.
My cousin Zakaria who lives in Shah Alam  was on site where the death occured and had it not been for him the death would not have been discovered as he walked into the room while the deceased was in the process of giving up his last breath. The lights were off as he was thoght to be sleeping after being fed his food and medicine by his daughter, it was a Grace for him asmy cousin Zakaria is one of the most pious Muslim in my book; in Islam we call such person, Al - Insan Kamil or the perfect man though not quite. By Buddhist standard he would be considered an advanced Bodhisatva not yet a Mahasatve like Manjushri or Samantabadra. But that is another story reseved for those who knows only, of what I am talking about. So Zakaria administered the Islamic last rites for the departing soul; like making the Sha'hadah or the profession of the Oneness of  Allah and that the recognition of his Prophet. In Buddhist it is like the performance of the Bardo Todol in the Tibetan tradition.
This is one of the most significant event in the spiritual life of a man, to be reminded of his faith and his religion on his last breath for in the process one is reminded of who we are and what life was all about. To die in ignorance of this is no better than having lived and died as an animal and msot of us who passed on while under the influence of drugs like in the cancer wards are not so fortunate like those who die instantly due to some accident or who die in fear alone through guilt with the mind dominating our consciousness filling it with what is not really who you truly are. To die consciously is to know one's Maker and return to the Source of one's being in whatever form it may be.

Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un (Arabic: إِنَّا لِلّهِ وَإِنَّـا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعونَ‎) is a part of a verse from the Qur'an which translates to "Surely we belong to Allah and to Him shall we return".^{[n 1][1]} The phrase is recited by Muslims when a person experiences a tragedy in life,^[2][3] especially upon hearing news that a Muslim has died.^[3] The phrase is also recited in situation that involve risk of any sort.

We drove to Shah Alam where we waited for my cousin Zack (Zakaria) to return to his house and lead the way to the deceased home as we felt the chances of finding was better.At the house we spent the night sitting around in wake waiting for the morning. Relatives arrived from far and near and i sat listening to them shooting the breeze.The body was laid to rest according to fll Muslim rites and we headed for Kl by noon. We dropped by a Medical center to pay a visit to one of Zakaria's daighters who was warded for some Calcium buildup problem and awaiting further diagnosis prior to an operation.
 Our next pit stop was Zowie Mountford's house, Non Mama Chon's younger sister and another character of a lady who is is married to 'Brother Ray' an English man.with their one child JJ. Handed to her some artworks of mine for her to sell as she wants to be my promoter and dealer in KL. Raymond Mountford who goes by his Muslim name Ashraf has not had much luck in getting any kind of business venture off the ground and so not in top form but we enjoyed an Hercules movie together and watched to FIFA soccer games. We slept over
Next morning we visited another hospital where Zowie's grand daughter was warded with high fever where we found her daughter in law and her mother was babysitting the child. Listen to all that they ere chatting about while sitting in the back ground. From there we left in the afternoon and had lunch at Chinese restaurant the caters to all races somewhere in PJ was it? What raised my consciousness about the place was the fact that i saw no less than three couples who appeared to be Chinese men married to Malay women sitting all around our table. I felt a little hope in me where the racial issues in this country is concern. Mixed marriages without too much religious claws dug into it might be the answer to our racial predicament, a true Malaysian will have no claim of his purity in blood but that of a One Malaysian breed of people, all mixed.
To be contd....
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On the lighter side of life.

For a couple of years now i have been struggling to get this painting completed but it seems not to happen. So I take it as my meditation piece of getting to know where or what I am doing that is not working out. Perhaps i am dealing with my inner quest too much for my mind to cooperate with the external expression.

I thought changing the background is a good place to start and while at it take a look at what is blocking my creative impulses from the mind's perceptive, am I loosing my mind? If so great! Ha Ha! It seems my mind has been giving up on whatever i am setting out to do, like being lazy to attempt anymore but it is more than that, it is like there is no more desire or the will to create.

 Took some pictures 'out of context from paintings and  installation art works at the MGTF exhibition recently and they came out quit interesting.It is great to see others doing their thing and getting very good at it. I am glad that art is alive and everyone is into it these days; the more creativity there is the less destruction there will be.

It is ironic that in the every spiritual teachings the desire to discard the mind for thoughts is primary and yet without such creative minds how can we have such diverse beauties in creativity? This is one of my predicament.in my pursuit of getting to know who I am. Perhaps I am not getting the message correct somehow. It takes a whole lot of thinking to come up with these kind of creative works but if there is no mind what happens; over simplified?

Close up of a part of a big picture of mixed medium.

A close up of a mixed medium that is quite surrealistic by itself.

This picture was a close shot of an etching print.

To be a Wanderer.

The toughest thing about caring for others is not caring for them at all and not caring for anyone or anything in particular is to most great thinkers is the state of being liberated, being free from from cares. I am and has always been trapped in feeling guilty when I cannot do something or help someone out or free someone from pain and suffering in one form or another and I carry this guilt forever or so it seems; they are my eternal shackles. I have been dwelling upon leaving my home and everything around me ever since Timo left but i still am held back with Karim and Marissa's needs at this moment, I cannot walk away from my responsibility or so it seems, but i know this is not the whole truth of the matter as i know one way or another if they wake up to how they spend their money they will not need me anymore, until then I will have to stick around and make things happen for them.So I stick around till Karim knows how to keep his room tidy and do his own laundry and such small things that when in the long run becomes tedious and sometimes heart breaking. I have to make sure Marissa has enough to keep her going even if she does not really need it.Having worked for two months and making more than ample for herself and with Timo's help she should be set still she chew my head off saying she is broke. Perhaps she thinks I will ask her for help.Well at least I learned that she is going to help Karim to pay for his TM bills even if she is broke; they are learning.
Contrary to their believe i am not running away from my responsibilities as a father but i am running away to fulfill my journey of self discovery and learning all i can of the ways of the world while I still have the energy to. I am getting away from becoming stagnant and end up like the rest of men my age who has given up on life spending their time in front of the TV or the coffee shops.telling the same old tales of days gone by.I want to be on the road meeting with all the challenges it has to offer good or bad and share it as I am doing it now. The last thing i wish for myself is to grow into and grouchy old man blaming himself for not having lived life as it have been.I may be a poor sap when it comes to money and owning stuff but i surely do not want to be poor in my life's experiences and wisdom gained from taking all the chances like i have been. I hope to die leaving behind something more than just money or properties, i want to die leaving behind a legacy. I want to talked of having lived life to its fullest in my own way.
One of my favorite spiritual Teachers -  Shaikh Abd Al-Qadir Al-Jilani
"Then, instead of embarking on his own professorial career, he abandoned the city and spent twenty-five years as a wanderer in the desert regions of 'Iraaq. He was over fifty years old by the time he returned to Baghdaad, in A.H. 521/1127 C.E., and began to preach in public."
Yes i am leaving my children to fend for themselves and they are old and wise enough now at their ages, but if they cannot see the wisdom behind my ways then I have failed them. I should have stuck to one job like my twin brother and my rich cousins ad make sure my children have more than they need. But my plan if there is any plan to the way i see things is to help them to become survivors, to strive as much on their own and to learn to become independent of me or anyone else for that matter and they are slowly but surely.If they are to depend on anyone it is to be dependent upon each other of which too they are slowly learning to. My oldest son, the pilot supports Karim's education and Timo helps with Marissa's while she in turn helps Karim out. I am pleased to see this happening but sad to note that i have become the irresponsible father. But that is okay, I can take the blame for so long as they learn that by helping each other out they become closer to one another. At least I hope my children will not hackle over any property when I am gone but have each other to care for;t is completely fine with me if I am out of their pictures.

"A man of soul is always dangerous because a man of soul is a free man. He cannot be reduced to
slavery. A man who has an immortal soul in him has a deeper commitment to existence itself, to God
himself. He does not care a bit about the man-made structures of society, civilization and culture;
these are prison cells for him. He does not exist as a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan. He
cannot be part of a crowd. He exists as an individual."
The Secret of Secrets - Osho.

As hard as it is to leave, leave i must and with or without sustenance I have now made up my mind to again set out and wander this country like a vagabond that I am. I am no more concern of what others have to say about the way i live my life especially my relatives for they have lost interest in what becomes of me and my family a long time ago and rightfully so. I was the good uncle when i could more than afford to give but when i stopped being able to become charitable I have lost their favor. I do not mind in the least that I am no more in their thoughts as not even one of my cousins have ever asked me how i am doing of late. This is okay too as i learn who or what matters in this life as i grow in age; it actually makes it allot easier to let them go from my mind too. It may seems like I am feeling sorry for myself or blaming others for the way things turn out, no! I do not feel any sorrier for myself than I have ever been, I feel sad yes, but not sorry. It some odd ways I am glad. I feel more like i do not need to cater to or please anyone anymore, my life actually mine now and i can walk out tonight and none the wiser.

"But your soul cannot be put to any use in the market-place. The society needs only your body.
And it is very dangerous for the society if you start striving for the soul, because then your interest
changes. You turn from being all extrovert into an introvert; you start moving inwards. The society
is outside, the society wants you to remain an extrovert, interested in money, power, prestige, and
all that, so that your energy goes on moving outwards. If you start moving inwards, that means you
have become a drop-out, you are no more part of the game that is being played on the outside. You
don’t belong to it. You start diving deep within your own being. And there is the source of immortality"
Secret of Secrets -Osho.

Oh I love my children, no doubt about that but i love the road more than i love myself, for the road is where i discover who I really am and more importantly what life is all about for rich or for poor. I once a long time ago read a small novel called ' The Wandering Jew, which I found among my eldest brother's collection of books and it has struck me to my being the wanderer that I am.

By George Anderson, 1965

As Christ was carrying His cross to Golgotha, He stopped for a moment to rest outside the house of a shoemaker named Ahasuerus.  When Ahasuerus saw this, he jeered the Savior, asking Him why He was dallying.  Christ then looked at Ahasuerus and pronounced the curse:  “I will stand here and rest, but you must wander the Earth until I return.”  And so it was the Ahasuerus became the Wandering Jew—a man cursed to live for century after century, never knowing the release of death until Judgment Day
Perhaps i too have been cursed to wander if not in body, in mind. and spirit.
  

Dire Straits -Gratitude is riches. Complaint is poverty." Christian Science Hymna

There are days when you wish that you can will yourself out of existence, not because you cannot hack the pressures but simply because it is really at the end of the day not worth all the troubles that you have endured and still getting worse, No doubt what i have anticipated or feared would happen is happening ; money! Money is not everything in life but everything in life seems to hinge on having it. Family, relatives and friends drift as far from one as they possibly could when you have no money and worse as yet you become the target of criticism and frowned upon by those who have been waiting for the moment when you are most vulnerable to pass their judgement. I am now in dire straits and stuck in between the devil and the deep; my bad!
The hammer that fell on me came from my daughter who is now back in school in Cyberjaya still in need of money to live on. Our chat via face book was not most painful for me as i read the things she wrote as though venting out her frustrations on me for having been a poor example of a father who is neglecting his responsibility towards his children's welfare. I felt helpless and at the same time  disappointed for the one person I thought I could share my feelings with has turned around to chew my head off  as though I had done nothing worthy of respect anymore. My bad! Only my son Karim is left still looking up to me being there for him with no complains and that is his nature for I have never heard a word of it from in his entire life hard as it may have been for him the past. However now he has graduated from flipping burgers to working in the kitchen at Gala House of which I I see as a good prospect of survival through experience.
I was once accused of spoiling my children by letting them have whatever they wanted, how ironic, for now I am guilty of not letting them have what they need;money! Not pride not freedom not good virtues but, money! In this sense my life, my experiment is a failure and as i declared to my daughter with apologies, i am  a looser with the hope that i can pacify her as she had just broken up with her boyfriend. If anyone had been following my writings it might have shed some light over where i am coming from and why I lead my life as I see fit. To me money has caused allot of grief other than the fact that it sometimes buy happiness. I have purposely given up making much effort to earn a living or work for anyone simply because i wanted to prove to myself that being without money does not mean the end of life or that one has to succumb to being the underdog or the needy. Work is relative and sometimes I know i am working for nothing in the hope that by some divine perception I will be compensated for my undeclared work, like no time cards and no salaries but the job is done. This is not viable, not in this dog eat dog lifetime. One has to earn a wage no mater what and it has to be in the form of me paying you and you working for me; my ignorance.
I have only lived where I am for the benefit of my children's welfare, at least until they are free from my care and survive on their own. This is my grand parents home and it is my birth right to live in it as much as anyone else who is related like my cousins whose mother an adopted child this house was given to. I am not and will never contest this in court or even raise it as a protest but it is a fact of life that and my family has the right to this house as much as they are at least by the "syariah laws of Islam. But who is questioning the laws these days where money is involved. I am writing it so as to explain to my own children that they too have every right to be here without feeling like they are imposing. his house where I am at was like a welfare home where anyone who was in need came off the street to take shelter in when my Untie was alive, today i think I am the first required to pay the rent. Money! How blind we become.
My own sisters and brother has long given up on me, perhaps rightfully so, as i have been estranged from them far too long to make a comeback. I am egotistical, I am stubborn, I have an explosive nature, i am this or that you name it am it by their books; perhaps this too I am guilty of. The fact that I have tended and cared for their husbands and children in times of need till they die a few of them was just simply forgotten. I am the villain who and the pariah who should be avoided at all cost by my well to do and successful nephews and nieces who shunned me every time we meet. I am the good for nothing bum of the family; perhaps I am.
So what is there left to ramble about if it all comes to nothing? What is there to aim for if what you have set out to create falls short if not to pieces? Find a hole and creep in to fall into eternal sleep? That was my plan actually but only mt plan if there ever was a plan in my life was to retreat into the forest when all my responsibilities were taken care of for being in this immediate environment among my so called relatives and friends is last on my mind as it has always been. As i said if it were not for my son and daughter growing up and in need of such a place where they would get support in times of need at least emotional and psychological if not spiritual, I would have disappeared a long time ago. Sadly my daughter thought I am attached to the place itself.
I am alive toady because i have this physical form to cater to and for so long as I breath from within I am here and with it along comes my responsibilities. Otherwise if there is anyway I can step out of this game and walk away without incriminating myself towards the higher orders of the Universe I would have gladly left and this is exactly how i feel about being in this house of my grandmother's. I know i am not welcome here in the very first place, but I have to make do with what i can so as till my children are free to fend for their own.

"THANK YOU FOR ALL THE MONEY I'VE BEEN GIVEN THROUGHOUT MY LIFE.

Did you always have food to eat?

Did you live in a home?

Did you receive an education over many years?

How did you travel to school each day? Did you have schoolbooks, school lunches, and all the things you needed for school?

Did you go on any vacations when you were a child?

What were the most exciting birthday gifts you received when you were a child?

Did you have a bike, toys, or a pet?

Did you have clothes as you grew so quickly from one size to the next?

Did you go to the movies, play sports, learn a musical instrument, or pursue a hobby?

Did you go to the doctor and take medicine when you were not well?

Did you go to the dentist?

Did you have essential items that you used every day, like your toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, and shampoo?

Did you travel in a car?

Did you watch television, make phone calls, use lights, electricity, and water?

All of these things cost money, and you received them all - at no charge!" 
If the divine had anything to offer me as a guide this came in my email today it is from "The Magic" by Rhonda Byrne for which I subscribe.  I call it Grace.
My daughter declared in our chat that she has never read my blogs anymore"for years now.", so why bother? Who am I kidding? Who am i writing this whole garbage for? I do not make a cent out of it and have wasted enough time to earned a good living had i focused on making money instead. Then again for what? So my kids can turn around and kick me in my arse when I come out short?
For those who have passed any form of judgement against me, know me first and then look at yourselves and see if you fingers pointing if not your perception of who you think I am is accurate: lest ye be judged!
" The Lord's greatest gift to man is the beggar at his door'" -The Prophet (of Allah).


  

Life is an experiment-

Dropped off Marissa at the bus terminal in Sungai Nibong where she boarded the doubledecker headed for Putra Jaya.to finsh her diploma studies. It is sad to realize that she is doing something she does not enjoy and has no heart put into it, my bad, perhaps for not allowing her to take fashion design. Oh well it is much easier to blame myself when things do not work out for others, I am beginning to find out more lately and this is alright too as it does not hurt me much to bear the blame less so than having to argue it out on whose fault mistake it is. With her and Timo out of the picture for now i am back to figuring out how to leave myself and head for the hills.It is not that i do not enjoy living on this island among all my family and friends as it is, but i feel driven from within to seek a more quiet and remote life where i can work my body out and sit and contemplate life in between. My journey within is growing more stronger by the day as I am experiencing the side effects of meditation and detachment; it gets much more intense when in the city so much so that sometimes i feel like my mind is racing non stop from one thing to the next without any pause.Every event, every phenomena, every faces i look at generates a line of thoughts sometimes simply meaningless and a waste of energy.

I have been trying to generate my energy into creativity by getting back into working on my unfinished art works but i find it not as productive like it used to be. The pull to walk away from it all and surrender myself to the unknown while i still can make it happen is stronger than most of what is presently occupying my mind. Some people calls it escapism, not facing up to reality as it is in front of me or avoiding my responsibilities towards what needs to be done on the day to day affairs. But i feel more like at my age I need to break away from this kind of self imposed sense of responsibility, the need to  fulfill some unwritten agenda so as to justify one's existence for the benefit of others, people in my life or the community.I am committed to the well being of my children and has been my primary concern even now when all of them are of the adult age pass my care or responsibility. But there is the urge within for me to pursue my spiritual and mindfulness practice, something that I had set in motion years ago while in college in the USA. Somewhere , sometime in the past I have set in motion a practice that has become a part of me that today has become an urgent need like an addiction.

My attachments to the form of addictions throughout my life has taken many from drinking and drugs, primarily ganja or marijuana and needless to say my addiction to women tops it all. So i carry a llot of extra baggage like deep rooted Karmas, which has had negative impact in my past and perhaps more so now as i get older, in my present life. I feel like "I am sitting in limbo lie a bird without a song." The more I get deeper into my mind the more i find myself floating on the surface of  existence, like a cloud on an empty sky, now here and now no more. I feel like i have lost my anchor or dragging it along the seabed not being able to catch on to any permanent anchorage.As a Buddhist I would say I have lost my Dharma position, that from which I stand and apply myself as a human being. Perhaps I am still justifying for what i cannot convince even to myself the fact that I have no sens of direction or any concrete goal in my life like everyone else.
Hence this is who I am as it is, for better or worse i have to venture on and face the world as it is, my own way and in my own time, experimenting with life as I go along from moment to moment without totally giving in to any form of identification or measurement, with no attachment to or clinging on to any standards or style that is the norm. I am a drifter, and being attached to any single place or person, any single idea or plan is not healthy for the likes of me; I am like the bee that flies all over the garden mindlessly from one flower to another and in the process helps to pollinate and serve my kind in propagating life. At the end of the day I return with what i have accumulated and share it with the rest of the residents in the hive. This is how i feel i am serving humanity, by gathering knowledge and experiences about getting to know who or what I am and sharing my findings through this blogging.
LIFE IS AN EXPERIMENT and I am the observed and the observer.        

Back to the Women in my Life.

After out fishing for Halibuts off the  Aleutian Isles in the Bering sea of the Pacific Northwest for ten days and offloading our catch of 25,000 pounds of fish in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, where the fish canaries are, we headed back to the home base at Sand Point arriving on the 4th. of July 1982. Upon arrival all five of the crew members including the captain were tired and mostly drunk from celebrating our catch. All of us were filthy and smelly from head to toe covered with slime and grime and the stench of oil and fish, however because we were all hungry and the lack of facility to properly cleaned up we decided to head on to the only Restaurant called the Windward Cafe ran by two young ladies, a Ms, Judy P. and Ms. Brenda K.When we arrived at the restaurant we found that it was full of fishermen, it being the Fourth of July and the only table left was right by the entrance where we gratefully occupied facing the crowd.
Almost all the customers were rough and tough full bearded long haired  fishermen from the 'Lower 48',anyone of them could have played for the Niners or the Green Bay Packers.. They were loud as most were celebrating the 4th. the only way fishermen in the North do, get totally shitfaced drunk
tell of fish tales, what was the biggest haul of Halibut or Salmon or King or Tanner crabs in what year and what season.. As we waited to be served I noticed one of the waitresses swaying out of the kitchen area with two large pizzas each on the palm her hand and as she walked away displaying her hind view to us I blurted out, "I am in Love!" I must have said it loud enough that she turned and looked at us and when I saw her face I shouted even louder, "I am, in love!" The whole room went like someone had dropped a stink bomb and everyone was figuring out who, heads turned and the sounds of fork and spoons ceased, I felt less than comfortable as for one reason i was the only colored guy in the whole place if not the whole community itself Too late to take a walk and nowhere to go I too mesmerized by her looks that i froze.She stopped midway and turned around to took a good look at who was  the audacious numb nut, her face red she smiled and went about her delivery, she reminded me very much of the girlfriend I had just broke off in Green Bay, Wisconsin.Suddenly i felt my hand being squeezed by the large and hard fingers of my skipper, Donald Bark under the table and he leaned over and whispered seriously, "You got a death wish, pecker head? Can't you tell that half the fucking guys in here are eyeing her already! ! Shut the F,,k up!" I had my foot in my mouth and when she came over later on to delivering our orders I apologized to her saying that i could not helped it.
. The other members of the crew of the Iceland had a good laugh fortunately and one of them said, when we were back on the boat the guys never laid it to rest it was the best 4th. of July topic for five wearied, tired and drunk fishermen. "So, Sam, what cha gonna do bout it man!" Phil Rowe a one time member of the Hell Angels in LA challenged me.  That same evening when the cafe was closed I left the boat and headed towards her apartment where she lived with her partner.Me in my smelly woolen sweater and a thick winter down jacket, long greasy hair and a facial hair like Atilla the Hun reeking of fishy smells set out to find my love at first sight.. Along the dirt path I passed some houses and from one of them an Alaskan Husky as tall as my waist slowly got up and sized me up from the distance and my blood  froze despite the Whiskey in me; i have a phobia of dogs having been bitten once by a German Shepard in Green Bay. (That's another story.). I decided there is no turning back and as I approached the dog stepped off the porch and lowered its head making its way towards me. I picked up a large rock and held it in my hand thinking that it is either you or me buddy, but i was not going to turn tail, no sir, I was a man possessed by Whiskey and Love, in whichever order it may have been.  As I approached the dog which reminded me of a wolf to my surprise it did not attack but just sized me up and went back to its porch. This i thought was a good omen, I faced down my worse nightmare and beat it and so i became more confident and made my way to the apartment.
I knocked on her door when I arrived and she opened it and shock was written all over her face, she was dressed in her night gown getting ready for bed and she looked ravishing. "I meant what I said this afternoon." I told her. She looked at me up and down and told me to get back from where I came and clean up myself and she was willing to meet me at the restaurant the next day. I  felt like i made a gold strike in the Yukon.I had almost redeemed myself with the rest of the guys at the boat. I was man enough to take up the challenge, and removed the shoe from my mouth, I did make an impact when I shouted I was in love!  facing down the Husky gave me the rites of passage. I lived with Judy for almost two years on the Island. The Trailer Home we lived in was never without good food including bottles of Kahlua and frozen pizzas all you can eat. I became a respectable member of the community including acting in plays held at the local high school. We drove from Anchorage to Fairbanks on one of our vacations and later we flew to Hong Kong and to Thailand and Malaysia. Incidentally I earned more selling artworks than I ever made fishing.
Judy was from Kent, Washington and a very Italian family whose father was also head of the Elk or Moose Lodge in the area and spends allot pf time hanging out at many dinners and outings held by the Lodge, I got along with them with no problem but inside somewhere the heart said nope, not this, won't work out, no long term commitments in the books. Like all soap operas our lives slowly drifted apart due to more details setting  in the form of concerned friends and relatives who saw it too. We parted as peacefully as we could and i ended up with loosing all my artworks and pictures that i took in Alaska to her of which i thought was a small sacrifice for a short term good relationship that went sour.
Not much lessons to be learned from this relationship other than the fact that it was grand while it lasted as far as experiences went for both of us.We each had a taste of the other's side of life she tasted what being a Malaysian was all about and I had a good sense of being among the well to do Italian living the American dream in Washington State. As for Judy personally she was a beautiful lady who had the courage and business mindedness to run the only restaurant out at Sand Point in the  Aleutian Isles and made a killing at it. She had ways with people that attracts them to her vibrant personality especially when she visited my families in Malaysia.  .

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