Looking back on the Good times.

 

 

On the lighter side of life, this was when I decided to go traditional with my daughter a few years back

It was a wedding of one of her closest friend from her college years.

 The food was good and it was a good chill out time for me.

All these talks of death and decay is becoming too negative for me, it is good to look back on good times just to be reminded of life being not all that bad.

A

In Loving Memory of my Friend and Brother - Rosli Bakoi, aka Mamu Li

My friend or should I say brother passed away on Sunday and was laid to rest at the Jelutong Masjid Jamek, on Jalan Tunku; he was my best friend among the few I have and had in this life. He was there when I most needed a friend and a place to hang out. Rosli or better known as Li Bakoi, or Mamu Li among the locals old and young, owns and runs the Coffee Shop at the Restauant Ikan Sembilang, which is run by his sons and their buddies. My friend was one of those most likes and respected in the fisherman's community where this all happened and it is known as the Pondok Nelayan Jelutong located along the coastal road off Leboh Raya Lim Chong Eu. This are is located on reclaimed land and the highway that runs parallel to the sea edge was built upon the reclaimed land. When I first met him he was working behind the counter making drinks  I was having a drink while doing some sketching on my pad and we got to talking. Our friendship lasted over twelve years in all and much have I learned about life from this humble man who never seems to have nothing to do, He had a hand in con

structing most of the floating huts of the fisherman's village and the last one he had built from scratch is his living legacy.

When I peeked into the room where they were giving his body the final bath I realized how small he was and from all that I have known he had done with his two hands it boggles my mind. However I had the feeling that he was not going to last into a ripe old age at the rate he was pushing and had a history of a by-pass operation to boot. He refuses his medication his eldest brother told me when we met at the mosque the burial. It rained heavy that Sunday night and I was worried he might be swimming in his grave, he most probably built a sampan right there and then! Bon Voyage my friend, my Brother... may

Allah make it a simple transition from this life to the next.

My drug story

 It is time to talk of my drug experiences a few of which I can safely had a deep impact on my life. I can safely say that I was always stoned on Marijuana since my preschool years and this was from the secondary smoke that the adults in my village we indulged in. There was and still is a club called, The Baharul Alam Football Club, (BAFC) in Sungai Pinang where I was born. This club was the port for all the adults who hung out after work, a rest and recreation place for bachelors. Ganja was the drug of choice back then with a few preferring to drink alcohol. Usually the men would have good smoke and then feast upon the large, pillow size Nasi Kandak lunch after their appetite is being aroused. It was fun to watch the smoking session as kids and I loed the smell of Ganja as the adults would blow it into our faces as we clung to the grill fence separating us from them. They tried to chase us off every now and then but eventually gave up and we got stoned without even knowing it. After the smoking session we would be off doing our thing of running wild as Cowboys and Indians, or Pirates during the high tide around our village. This went of for most of my childhood years and so much so that I was nicknamed, "Mata nishan", by the adults as I would stumble around with my eyelids drooping and a silly grin on my face or so I was reminded by the adults in later years,

I did excellent in my primary school years except when it comes to maths. On looking back I wonder if my mind was not affected in some way that makes my linear thinking mind dead from inhaling almost daily marijuana second hand smoke as a child. On the other hand I excelled in just about every other subject while in primary school often being awarded every end of the year for being the best in Art, English, Intelligence test but fail in maths and science. I never did any drugs untill after my secondary school education. I remember taking a trip to the southern state of Johore visiting a friend in the small town of Segamat. There I was taken into a forest area where I was oficialy introduced to pot smoking in a small hut that was surrounded by a field of marijuana plants. The first time I got stoned that I can still remember was complaining to my friend that I cannot feel my arms while we were riding back to his home on the motor cycle and he kept hold me from falling off backwards while laughing his head off. Marijuana although was illegal in the 60s it was not a serious issue as far as the public was concern. I never really got hooked on it after my initial introduction to smoking ganja even when it was readily available sometimes.

Till this day marijuana is still my drug of choice and it was while I was in college in the United States that I really got hooked on it when I found out that just about everyone in the neighborhood were getting high or stoned. One of my most memorable experience in smoking pot was when I sat and smoked in front of over 90 University students giving them a two hours lecture on Meditation. This happened at the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay, (UWGB). I was also a student then and I was invited to give a talk by one of my professors a Mr. Jack Frisch (sp) who was conducting a class called ,Interpersonal Communication. Jack was a friend out of class and knew I was delving into the meditation and Eastern Mysticism trip at the time. I spent many days thinking about what to share for two hours on this topic that is in actuality not much to talk about. Just the day before the due date I was sitting in a toilet still thinking about it while taking a dump. When I was done I reached for the roll of toilet paper and lkow and behold something dropped to the floor! It was a ceramic bowl that someone had left behind after doing his thing. I picked up the bowl and had my answer to my talk the next day.

I had Jack prepared for me a record player and an incense burner, and the rest I had with me which was a bag of weed or grass as marijuana was commonly known among students those days and the ceramic pipe I had found in the toilet of the Fine Arts Department. I sat on the table lit the incense, played a Ravi Shankar album on the player and loaded the pipe and had a smoke. One student in the back out of 90 odd stood and left the room while the others sat and stared at me. I gave my talk on the subject of meditation and in this case it was also in comparison to natural and the use of drug way of getting high. I kept on talking about how paranoid one gets in getting high on drugs and sometimes in the effort to attain calm and repose we end up with leaving our smoking ceramic bowl behind us in the toilet or sometimes worse yet leaving the keys in the ignition of our vehicle and stepping out locking the car door behind us. I took a great chance and so did my professor in my out of the box performance but it was well worth it and there was no repercussion from the University Admin.

Needless to say like most lost souls of the Green Bay area I was high most of the time which helped me to cope with my scattered life of being divorced, going to school and living in basements and boxes. My first trip on LSD happened at about the same time, while in college. gain it was given to me while I was about to give a talk in the same Interpersonal Communication class of Jack Frisch's. Can't remember how exactly it happened but i can remem two characters involved in the incident. The guy who gave me the LSD tab and my current lady friend who knew I had popped it into my mouth. Martha my friend followed me into the lecture room and sat among the 90 odd students just to make sure all goes well and I was armed with a slide projector this time giving a talk of my visit home to Malaysia. I was shocked and scared in the beginning when the acud hit me and I almost walked out of the room. The I looked out the only window  in the room right right across from where I stood and saw a small tree in the distant with golden grass dancing in the wind, everything was gold in color. Then the first slide came on and my attention was attracted away from the window to the screen and I began my non-stop talk on a Malay traditional wedding, the Thaipusam in Penang, my trip up the Rajang River in Sarawak to celebrate the Gawai Iban of the Head Hunters of Borneo for three days and the great time I had diving and exploring the Kapas Island on the East Coast; these were all in slides and my mind just rattled on over a hundred slides non-stop relating the events as though I was there at the moment. The two hours went without a break as everyone was enjoying the presentation. I made some good friends after the talk and the slides I donated to the International Student Center at the University for their future use.

I was living in a trailer home with a lady when one day I dropped acid while at home alone. It was a mistake that turned into a bad trip. I was depressed to begin with and was at my wit's end wondering where my next meal was coming from. After I took the acid i found everything I looked at was deep blue in color an no matter what I tried I could not shake the color off. What I remember most of my acid trip was that I ended up destroying most f not all of my artworks, prints that I had done over the semester at the university. That was the end of my taking LSD experience as I vowed never to again.

Mushrooms were different, mushrooms I enjoyed taking as I found them to be less as dramatic or intense as LSD and a little more effective than marijuana. I was first introduced to  Psilocybin mushroom while living at Green Gulch Farm in Marin County, California; I was a practicing Zen student there for two years. I found that mushroom effected my muscles, it was more of a physical rug for me, Perhaps it had to do with the immense physical labor I was involved in working on and organic farm and doing the intense practice period of Zen meditation. Sometimes pon taking the shrooms I could feel all my bones shifting into their 'proper positions' especially the spinal column. I could hear the popping of each and every vertebrae as they shit into position when I sat to meditate in the Zendo. This shifting and popping would go all the way up to just below my neck and it would cause my neck to lock the skull into an alignment with the the rest of the spine. Sometimes as soon as I came to this state I could feel an energy rising from my lower parts and threaten to explode around my neck area and causing a tremendous shake to the whole body; I usually sit by myself when I was on mushroom and doing Zazen. In sitting quietly I was able to witness how all my physiology becomes affected by the mushroom mind alternating qualities.

My most unforgettable experience with mushrooms took place in a small mountain village of Esperanza, high up in the Andes Mountains of Ecuador. I have written about this on many occasions in the Blog and finds it redundant to do so now. However if there is any interest to know what transpired back then one can refer back by browsing for the post in the search for  engine...like try -"Out of Body Experience  Magic mushroom/ Ecuador for a detailed post. I did try some peyote while I was travelling in New Mexico, but the amount was too small to create any significant  altered state of consciousness other than flashes of lights popping up here and there in my head whenever there was sound generated in and around me. It was like sounds were manifesting as flashes lights as I laid on a couch and fell asleep soon after. i would like to point out that I made a thorough study of all these natural drugs prior to having the opportunity in trying them. I traveled the South West with Carlos Castaneda's paperbacks as my reading companion. I had read Ram Dass and Timothy Leary on their experiment with psychedelics and had a good idea of what I was getting into. Having had the opportunity to experiment with getting high in my younger days also kept me from freaking out when in a drug induced altered state of consciousness.

Today I rarely indulge myself in any form of drugs , not even Marijuana, the drug of my choice. Drug use is a serious offence in Malaysia and it is not worth the trouble.    

 

 

    

 

   

My updated two cents worth - The Malaysian Dilema

 So, I ask myself, Bahari, what have you got to say that is worth saying, where are you at, why are you here? Has all these writing and making lengthy posting into this Blog amount to anything worth your while thus far? What have you learned about yourself if this be the journal of self discovery, of Atma Bodha, of self inquiry. It has been over fifteen years now and you are still at it forcing yourself to put down thoughts and ideas often repeating over and over the same old story only in different words and format. What are you expecting, Bahari? What do you hope to find? Clarity? Into what are you looking for this clarity and how would you recognize when it is clear or not? Has it all been a waste of time and energy, a futile effort in order to justify your very wasteful state of existence for over 70 years? What have you learned that you do not already know from the very first time you decided to throw yourself into this mess you call a journey- of self discovery; of Who am I?

This very morning as I sat on the stairs in meditation with my eyes glued to the statue of the Goddess Kuan Yin that stands at the Kek Lok Si Temple, located at the foothill of the Penang Hill, I was asking these very same questions to myself until my mind went silent except for the sounds generated from all around me, of birds and dogs, of vehicles and children's laughter and yelling and shouting. It came to my mind that, yes, I have been wasting my time and there is nothing else that I can do about it but to just sit and enjoy wasting my time. The excruciating pains that emanates from the center of my chest is just a part and parcel of the physical me, my body, it is not The I, me. My body suffers aches and pains as it age and decay like all else that is sentient. My body will one day cease to be a problem when death claims its due and my mind with it. My mind, also not the I that is making all these observations, is not me. Just like the body the mind is just another tool, an instrument that helps me to navigate, communicate, deliberate and discern I manifest myself in forms and relationships to what is around me in this physical existence. What else is there to do except to just sit and watch the grass grow! 

Time! I just asked a young man from somewhere in Kelantan, a state on the East Coast and who ask to be my fb friend what he is doing right now. His reply was, nothing really. He is trying to change the subject by asking me where I am from. I replied, Penang and continued to ask him how there is nothing to do early this morning, (for a young man). I knew from the way he tied to changed the subject and make me the topic of his conversation, h is one of those who is just killing his time digging around for something to chew on and I have tried to entertain many in the past like this young man. I do this with the hope that I can be of help in cheering up or even offer an advice or two abut not wasting time in life and so forth. It is simply sad to listen to bored and aimless young men trying to make sense out of their lives. These young adults are the food and fodder for those seeking power in the government and religious standings; they become willing victims for lack of better things to do with their lives. They are not ignorant or stupid but they simply have very little choices and motivations to move forward as their lives it seems is like living in a cage. Their problem becomes compounded with the COVID19 scenario where traveling and social distancing becomes the norm; there it seems is no escape from this self imposed prison.

 Malaysia is on the road towards a collective human decadence whereby most of the people in the country are on the brink of either despair or simply giving up. The number of those struggling to keep the boat afloat in terms of social, economic and artistic or creative endeavor is very minimal and dwindling in number as these too are seeing a barren landscape ahead. Malaysia is today suffering from her own viruses in some cases more virulent and extremely infective compared to the COVID19 strain. This viruses have affected untold lives and the destruction of environments and wildlife; it is a cancerous virus and in dire need of a surgical removal. The virus most commonly encountered are the corrupted politicians and the extremist religious so called leaders, the unscrupulous tycoons of major enterprises and their lackeys. These are to name a few strains of viruses that plagues this country of ours and we as a nation are trapped by our own law abiding and civic consciousness inherent imbued nature as left us by our past colonial masters; we are trapped in a mental slavery. Malaysians are or used to be among the best when it comes to thoughts and ideas compared to other ASEAN countries perhaps only second to Singapore. Today  we are dragging our butts in the muddy waters of a failed government, failed economy and failed cohesive society, ( culturally as well as religious.) Malaysians needs more than a vaccine - Malaysians need to reboot our mode of thinking. We need tow ake up before we are rudely awaken. #malaysians,#asean,#consciousness,#covid19,#kelantan,#penang,#kuanyin       

       

  

We are drowning in information but starved in knowledge - JN

What is Brahman! ( The Vast) - That Thou Art... Tat Tvam Asi.

Through a process of negation, Vedanta teaches that Brahma is non-dual, one limitless fullness - that Brahman should be realized.

Pervading the world and extending beyond, illuminating the entire universe, Brahman shines like a glowing red hot lump of iron.

Atma abides in your heart as the light of consciousness, destroying ignorance, pervading the universe, sustaining all, and illuminating everything.

There is no drying, burning, wetting or cutting for me, pure consciousness even by real wind, fire, water or weapons, what to speak of imaginary ones.

For the insentient world, its appearance without consciousness, is impossible. Therefore I am all pervasive consciousness.

Even when ignorance appeare due to absence of inquiry, it is like mist in the space of consciousness that lasts until the sunrise of inquiry.

Evn when an observer of objects, an awareful witness, it is not my true nature. It is merely an incidental attribute of the waveless ocean of consciousness.

Existence alone (is-ness) alone is my nature, like space-ness. It is not an attribute. Because there is no existence other than me, it is no a category, (that has  members.).

The manifold nature the on reality could never have. Therefore I am indivisible, free from divisions of the world.

How far deep down the rabbit hole does one wishes to go in order to discover one's innate true nature, one's original being one's ground of primordial consciousness; a question that was raised in 'The MATRIX', the movie. How passionate are you to discover the fact that you are living in world of illusion and yearn to break free from this 'Net' to live a life of the real you? It is a question that haunts most awakened minds who ever walked the human existence and many have made the journey to the end and found self liberation, the enlightenment of the Buddhas and the Unity of One-ness with the Divine. Many who have tried but failed to get to the bottom of the mystery only to return to carry forward what was left behind in life after life. Then there are the masses that are oblivious to the awakening process, drowned in their own self deluded ignorance, trapped into the lures of this realm of mental formations and physical manifestations to forever evolve in cyclic existence of the herd mentality, following the leader, blindly being led to the slaughter houses at the end of the day; the Matrix existence.

We are living in a toxic waste dumpsite of our own creation a site that has been building in size ever since man discovered the wheel or perhaps even when he discovered the fire. When man discovered that he has the ability to overcome the lesser sentient beings and nature itself through his ingenuity, his arrogance grew and he became self centered to the point of every man for himself with the attitude of the devil may care.  Infected by greed, hate and ignorance became a malignant virus that threatens to destroy it very host sooner or latter.  Most of humanity that is enslaved by ignorance and succumbed to the herd mentality are impotent to do anything about the predicament we are in and can only give lip service in protest for anything attempted beyond this would incriminate against one by law or cast one as a pariah of society. Man has lost his passion and integrity to transcend the fate he is in, He has lost his pride as a warrior, a fighter, a divine ordained 'Khalifah', a seeker and defender of the truth,(the real), Man has become a pigeon that sits and wait to be fed at the right time of the day by the owner or the old retired fart who sits on the bench in the park; He has forgotten that he has wings that fly him anywhere and find the food at his own leisure. Instead he depends on ''Grab' for his transportation to get to the grocery store. Man is so removed from his divine nature that he needs to look up the dictionary to find out what the word divine means.

Most religion and spiritual school of today will acknowledge that ignorance is the cause of human suffering and that knowledge removes ignorance and thus puts an end to suffering. Yet how many truly know or even understands of this simple truth and how many would attempt to put this truth to practice. Most of us have practically resigned to the fact that we are a sorry lot too far damaged to be repaired, like Humpty Dumpty had fallen and no matter how many King's horses or King's men could ever put us back together again. In this day and age of information super-highway, of high tech and artificial intelligence, we humans have found ourselves on the brink of a catastrophic collapse, we are like a sinking ship that is full of state of the art equipment that is of no use because these tools and equipment did not come with a operating manual. The ship is sinking simply because no one knows what a screw driver is used for. The acquiring of knowledge takes dedication, commitment and work, that is why we always keep asking our children if they had done their homework.

Definition. Jnana is knowledge, which refers to any cognitive event that is correct and true over time. ... Jñāna yoga is the path towards attaining jnana. It is one of the three classical types of yoga mentioned in Hindu philosophies, the other two being karma yoga and bhakti.

As we age and often looking back at what or where we have been in this life we begin to wonder more and more what is wall about. At least for those of us who have the discerning mind about the path we have taken all the while believing that we are headed towards something or somewhere that would be our final destination. Most of us are guided by some form of lesson or teachings handed down from our ancestors, our forefathers and some of us simply fall into the groove of the existing rut called cultural ground of our society. Whatever religious doctrine or spiritual school that we find our self we soon realize that we are being led by the herd mentality of following the crowd, being inclusive with the norm and fitting into the groove of the common ground. For most this is perfectly okay and as a matter of fact preferable than having to think and explore beyond the confines of the box we find ourselves. This freedom from having to spend the time in seeking for the real as opposed to the unreal allows us the freedom to explore the more the pleasures of the physical life. In this circumstances our spiritual growth is stagnant and taken for granted. Because I have observed the precepts of the religion I will go to heaven when I die; The Book said so and the priests and Imam has guaranteed so; off course, 'the devil is in the details'.If one finds the time and commitment to delve deeper into the teachings one would soon begin to discover that having strong faith alone does not guarantee one's liberation form this world of illusion of Maya. To have lived 70 odd years of my life and still having doubts about he nature of who I am and what happens when I die is no small detail to grapple with. I could off course accept the teachings of Good Book on good faith and hope that it was a right choice; blind faith. 

It is not that i have  lost total faith in God or religion and I do not come to this conclusion out of fear of divine retribution in the after life. I have said time and again in the past I would rather not go to heaven or hell, but instead I would like to simply go home to where I had originally come from and if it means returning to the divine nature of the universe or God, so be it. It would be an insult to my intelligence if I would be kept in perpetual punishment for my transgression in this life after I die. What is karma and what is sin and what is life without karma or sin? The answers to these abstruse questions are in having direct knowledge and understanding of them and this takes effort and work to attain. We can keep asking questions as much as we can till the ultimate one;is there a God? If there is, what is His purpose in creating this life as it is, why the chaos and turmoil sprinkled by a dab of illusory fun and pleasure. Why allow for war and pestilence, corruption and most debilitating of all why so much waste? I refuse to accept that it is due to our human condition having free will and so forth, nor would I accept the excuse that the devil has something to do with it. No Sir! I have resigned myself to hold fast to the God of Love, of cOMPASSION OF gRACE AND mERCY! and my God would not have allowed for His creation to go awry, out of wack and approaching self annihilation while there is so much greed, hatred and suffering among His 'best of creation,' along the way. 

One of the most valuable things any person can learn is the art of using the knowledge and experience of others.

Napoleon Hill