As I sat facing the hills lined with white concrete structures stretching before me the skies was blazing with crimson colors from the rising sun, felt the sense of blissfulness for a short moment when all else dropped even God was absent. I felt the tranquility of being devoid of a single thought, only peace and clarity as though I was the 60 feet tall Kwan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy at the foot of the Kek Lok Si temple as She looks down with Compassion upon the largest Chinese cemetery of Batu Gantung; I listened to the myriads of birds songs welcoming the break of day and witness the changing colors all over the landscape stretching from the Jerejak Island to the Batu Gantung cemetery. The Penang Hills rises into the morning clear blue skies like a green wall fresh from the heavy rains of the past few days. I sat and allowed my mind to tell its stories one after another rising and fading away until there was none left but sound and sight of a new day, somewhere my cat Furby was meowing loud demanding attention and with a Gasho and a bowing before the entire Universe that had oened before i rose reluctantly; and this too will pass.
Half the month of the month of Ramadan has gone by and my struggles with the Nafs ( ego) within has slowly began to subside for now and I feel like I am making a headway in reclaiming the sense of who I am. I fully realize that I am not giving it my fullest effort in observing all the precepts of the fasting month like a devoted Muslim should, but then again I am not a devout Muslim never was and never claimed to be and this I confess before my Lord and my Lord alone. However I feel His Divine Presence off and on in me and am grateful for His Grace and Blessings and I realize that i am at His mercy and compassion and that nothing, not a thing I say or do that does not come from Him and if you ask me as a Muslim who is my God, I say it He Allah (SHW), ask me as a Hindu I would say He is Brahman, the Supreme and Eternal Essence, if you are Christian I would say He is El Elohim, Adonai or if you be a Jew my Lord is the God of Abraham, Ishmael and Issac and the God of Moses, I call Him Jehovah; being converted to Islam I call my Lord, Allah. I am fasting in obseervation of one of the Mandates of my Lord which to me is a very pure cleansing and healing practice, a purification of my soul. in my effort to cleanse myself from the stains of spiritual transgressions in my life. In my life i have broken just about every precept and moral laws short of cold blooded murder and I have often enough times pointed my middle finger at God; I do have a heavy karmic debt to pay one way or another.
I know I have a very long ride towards perdition here and in the hereafter for karma to play out itself but I hold on to one hope none the less, that the Al Mighty is compassionate and forgiving even for a damned soul like me and this faith I hold on to without doubt. Now after years of searching for answers and ways out of my self propagated suffering I a beginning to feel some small comfort in seeing the inner light burning again within me.I am catching glimpses perhaps of my liberation from the tangle that i am in all these years that very few really know of. It is like laying down the cross and removing the crown of thorns that i have been carrying and wearing as a symbol of penance and repentance. How I wish I could turn back the hands of time and walk a different path instead having driftted into the rut that i had led myself into all out of so much anger at myself and the world.
"Centered in stillness; meeting resistance with acceptance,
reveals and heals the persistence of the concealed."
A quote I got from a post on Face Book by Jane Parry in a group I recently joined called, "An understanding of the words of the Gurus and sages of our time." as soon as I finished typing the last paragraph! Believe it or not! God speaks and if only we know how to listen.
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