AdvaitaVedanta teachings are a road map towards discovering who you truly are especially when you feel lost while looking for yourself. I have been snooping off and on into this spiritual school of Vedic origins, however have never really made any serious study perhaps due to religious prejudices. I have always considered myself being a Muslim afte being converted to Islam when I was twelve years old. I have lived among Muslim relatives and friends most of my life and exposed to Islamic tenets and virtues that most of all forbids the worship of idols and Hinduism is littered with idols of deities and gods. I officially became a Muslim when I moved to the East Coast to join my parents and siblings after having been living with my uncle and relatives in Penang, (on the West coast). My uncle who adopted me since birth was a Buddhist and had insisted that I too be raised as a Buddhist. Hence for twelve years of my childhood days I was a Buddhist living among the rest of my aunt and uncles who were Muslims. My uncle was the only one in the house who remained a Buddhist having refused to convert to Islam. I was raised actually in a dual religious environment.
Even as a child it was not easy to reconcile with the fact that I was a religious freak who worshiped two 'Gods' and the Muslim in me was just as strong as the Buddhist at the age of five or six when I was made to attend the Buddhist Pali classes at the every week end at a Buddhist temple close to our home. The Mahindrama Buddhist temple is considered one of the oldest if not the oldest Hinayana Buddhist temple in the country and in it my grandfather was responsible for all the art works of sculptures and wall murals. He was specially brought from Sri Lanka and employed to do this along with some help and assistants and he also brought his younger brother with him. Before he became a Muslim marrying my Grandmother in Deli, Sumatra, Indonesia (A district near Medan), my grandfather's name was Paul Mariano. He was fair skinned and had an almost Eurpean look about him; he was a Singhalese from Sri Lanka which in his days was called Ceylon by the British, My grand father was an artist who after having completed his task at the Budhhist temple had decided to join a stage troupe called the ' Kumpulan Bangsawan,'(Malay Opera), in the local Indonesian and Malay language. He was in charge of the props and back ground paintings.
The Bangsawan Theater gained strong support in Indonesia especially on the Island of Sumatra and later in Malaya, (Malaysia). As children growing up in Penang one of our favorite pastime was listening to the Bangsawan Di-Udara or Bangsawan on the air. When the time came we young and old alike would be glued to the radio to catch the latest episode of Panji Semerang series from performances by the local Bangsawan artists on radio. To me it was a source of inspiration and imagination and I would become one of the main characters in my dreams with names like Raden Inu Ketrtapati, and Raden Panji Semerang, names that were exotic and mysterious to my childhood memory yet they stuck in my mind till this day. The Bangsawan theater was performed originally for the benefit of the Royal household's entertainment in the different states in Indonesia and Malaya; Bangsawan means the royal folks and their entourage.
It was through being a part of the Bangsawan Troupe as a lead artist that my grandfather became friends with the Sultan in Medan; their mutual favorite pastime was drinking. My grandfather being a non Muslim was able to drink with the Sultan without the ruler feeling self conscious for being a Muslim. And this went on until sometime in 1945-46, the then President Soekarno came into power and with his Partai Komunis Indonesia,(PKI) decided to end all Indonesian Sultanate with a pogrom of all the royal bloods. It was then that the Sultan decided to marry one of his cousins to my grandfather and sent them in exile to the neighboring country of Pulau Pinang or Penang, Malaya. My mother the eldest of the three children was born in Summatra, possibly Medan or Deli. She was most beautiful and fair skinned and was well cared for by the royal household before the escape to Penang. Even while living as refugees in Penang my grand mother would be visited annually by ladies from Indonesia bearing gifts of jewelry and batik sarongs. Their where about was kept a secret and was under the watchful eye of the Penang Special Branch who were made aware of their identities and the threats to their lives. Hence we found grandma's house sitting in the middle of nowhere amidst a mangrove swamp where the tidal floods would bring about garbage from all over an left them at the doorsteps. My grandma's house was located in Sungai Pinang, Kampung Selut.
Anyway to make a short story even longer, the reason I was not more into the teachings of Shankaracharia on Atma Bodha was because of these childhood background that instilled into my mind that Islam is my religion as it is my Grand parents and parent's relgion and as such I became paranoid when it comes to images depicting gods and deities. it was in later years in my life that I began exploring other religions especially when I was in college in the the United States. I will have to admit that spirituality came to me while in the Midwest of the United states after my total breakdown as a human being; I was living a hedonistic lifestyle after my divorce and loosing my son in my first marriage. It was during the nadir of my life that I found the doors of spirituality opened to me. it was then that I started delving into the nature of all the religious schools found on the planet. Hinduism was still left in the back burner except in the form of the study of Yoga. I latched on to Buddhism especially Zen Buddhism which I found most alluring in its cut and dry approach towards spirituality. I felt a sense of freedom from religious inhibition like I was while living in my own country where Islam held me in its religious and cultural grid lock. The prejudices and accusations thrown at me while growing up from childhood through my teen years hung around my neck like and dead albatross where Islam was concern and later the same happened to my children when they arrived in the country via the East Coast. The treatment my children received form the Malay Muslim children while they were in school was something that akes me want to puke with anger every time I think of it. So Islam held no strong sway over me as a faith when I was younger. Now off course I have realized that it was not the religion itself that bugged me, it was the environment and circumstances I was thrown into that kept my mind from accepting the religion.
