Rambling on...

 I am running out of options as to how I intend to live my life from here on amidst the Pandemic and getting old and feeling the fragility of the body and mind catching up to me.  The doors are closing fast one after another or so it seems and I cannot step out of the room I am caged in due to external circumstances beyond my control such as the Covid lock down and travel restrictions, economic uncertainties and the need of my children and not to mention the slowly decadent of my physical body if not my mind due to ageing. A Part and parcel of growing old that every one has to endure in the course of life, some gave in much earlier than others and settle for getting ready for the afterlife by frequenting the mosques and temples, while others keep themselves busy pursuing their hobbies and baby sitting their grand children while counting rosaries in one hand. I paint, wrtie, read, and surf the Internet which covers the You Tube, the Netflix and Face Book. I have been devoting my time towards the useless and senseless pursuit of the unreal, the impermanent, the illusions  just to keep myself from falling into the rut of mediocrity like most of my fellow man. It is not that there is anything wrong with being among the majority of the mediocre club or the cub of reluctant messiahs and wannabe Roshi and Yogis, nor is there any need really to become the top notch scientist altering the genetic nature of the species or making the climate dance according to our tune , no, there is no right or wrong, except that being endowed with the mind and along with it the freedom of choice to will this mind into whatever infinite possibilities that a man can dream and conjure, it is a shame to die simply like a broken piece of record stuck in a rut due to a faulty player.  

I can keep on writing like this as i have been doing for most of the past thirty odd years of my life, documenting, recording, making observations and taking actions whenever and wherever possible, or I can make a genuine move towards a change in my life style and go for broke. What i have t loose is mainly security , the comfort of a roof on top of my head and food on the table and perhaps some sense of joy in watching my children drift towards the same rut I had fallen into. As most adult children today, mine are beyond my words of advice as their minds have drifted far into the pull of the inevitable rut called  your normal daily existence; again nothing wrong with that except what a waste of potentialities and possibilities. Throughout the history of mankind we have be told of how tremendous a faculty the Human Mind is and that it Created the Universe and helps to keep and maintain its creation and will wrap it up when the time is right...and then a New Beginning for the Universal Mind too is in the state of evolution towards Complete Perfection, Complete and Perfect Enlightenment 

The path towards liberation of the Spirit from the physical and mental formations is a journey we all take and in the best of our ability and with complete determination we make the commitment to take upon this journey; it is called the journey towards self discovery, the hourney of unveiling all the layers of blankets of ignorance and revealing the inner sanctum to the the energy of the sun. It is  meditation at its highest level, it s what some call meditation a subtle death. A part of you becomes erased from your unconscious mind, you become less burdened by past memories or handle them with complete understanding; through acceptance and letting go or detachment; I am not this,none of this is truly who I am. What has been, has been and what will be will be, what is now is the potential state of consciousness that can is able to bring forth to light the path that would lead towards self liberation, or in short,; look within and find the answers for yourself. What is here and Now in this moment is mind expressing and fingers tapping about a subject that is not much discussed like answering to the question of who am I?  

This morning feeling feverish after getting my second dose of the Pfizer vaccine after a long wait since June of this year.and thanks to my son Karim who accompanied me making all transactions smooth through his personality and charm. So ends my reluctance to get vaccinated but I still do not fully accept the manner in which the government forced me to take it. oh well...what is freedom or the right to stand for your principle in making decisions that governs your personal health and now most I talk to are going for the third shot! Will we become vac-addicts if this Covid situation prolongs? Truth be told most of us have no clue as to what the vaccine does as many are still becoming victims t the virus even after being give the shots and it must be staggering to even imagine how much it all cost to provide billions of needles, and whatever serum, not to mention the cost of delivery and the lock down; it is a very expensive affair all round. Who financially benefits from all these? Maybe we aught to know. Fear is the key and money is the name of the game.  

Herein lies the paradox of life when you have reached a point whereby you know you are transcendent, gone, gone beyond the concept of the word gone, closer to God or whoever that you worship and this world is an illusion that is mind created. Yet her I am still troubled by the details of the how and whys of the Pandemic and suffering physically from the very vaccine that I just had, headache, upset stomach, low energy level, close to depression and its alright! A few close friend and relatives have died at a very early age and I watch wondering if my time is up too as I had felt when the Covid virus had its two odd weeks choke hold on me but I survived. I was not afraid of the death itself but the discomfort aches and pains through my entire body was what I could not bear. I often blurt out to myself in anguish, "Die already, why don't you!" But the Universe, Allah has more in store for the sinner or so it seems. "For one thing, " You have yet to full discover who you are, have you?  You have yet to figure why you were here in the first place as you always insisted all along."                 

The Book of Life....Luh Mahfuz.

 As a Muslim I have been fascinated by the existence of the Kitab or book known as the Luh Mahfuz or the book of Destiny or The record of Creation Itself. In it it is believed is written all there is and there will ever be and including the detail history of my very existence from inception to the end of my days. Every move I have made every thought I have projected every relationship, every deed good or bad is written in the Luh Mahfuz. In other words The Lord had His Master Plan all figured out before He okay His Creation to be manifested. The Lord's allows for nothing to stray from His Master plan and all flow according its role and state in the life/existence he is destined for. It is the Lord's Will and in this is what I place my trust and surrender in. I accept wholeheartedly that I am a vehicle, a servant, the silent voice of the Divine within me. I am yet far from being able to fully listen and still have my glitches and digressions, however I am feeling the drawing closeness of my soul to that of my Beloved, my Lord and Creator. I will keep on meditating upon His Name and trust in the scheme of things are evolving according to His plan. I will keep on paving my way towards His Throne even if I have to crawl my way to get to it. 

Al the tall talks and passionate convictions towards the Lord is great and makes a whole lot of sense to one who is still looking for answers and have found the simple truth that it is all predestined and Lord is the Director and He makes the movie and I am merely an actor playing my role in this realm of existence. I write the script as I go along from craddle to grave; it is called free choice. You can make your role an epi one or you can act a snail! Your choice. Free will is a double edged sword and cuts both ways, it is the submission to a dual thinking mind. Right or wrong good or bad, your choice, my choice and everyone's choices. Knowing the choices you make will affect your future or destiny, one has to make the right choice as much as possible. Common sense, simplicity, making it all simple rather than complicated and confusing and last but not least , one has toaim for the "real' and drop the unreal. SO, what is the real you ask and I tell you, all that do not last, that comes to and end, are not real and that includes who you understand yourself to be; you are not real!What you hear is sound and what you feel is emotions and when you are tired you sleep, when hungry you eat and them you sit and watch your life go by.  One day you wake up with a heart attack and you struggle to deal with it with all the techniques and prayers that you have lived by and nothing seems to help and you are slowly but surely loosing consciousness and you are about to panic and give a shout for help or reach out for some reality to grasp no and there is nothing but you and your breath slipping away and you ask, what do I do? You make good with the Lord, you, make your Profess..."That there is No God but Allah! I surrender my soul unto Him...Innalillahi wa innallilahi Rajiun! From You I come to You I return...Please accept me into Your Grace.; usually I would pass out a few seconds or minutes and then when I wake up my cloaths are wet and I had peed my pants...it is when the most critical moment of your life and all else has been exhausted that giving in to the Divine can be a blessing. 

Some may say I am gambling with my soul, while others may see what I have been practicing, or as Mahatma Gandhi is said to have said, " Life is an experiment." Indeed! My life has been one long experiment in trying to analyze what life and living is all about and thus far I must admit I have come a very long way towards the possibility of writing a conclusion to my entire existence. It is very simple and yet it has taken me almost my entire life to live it out as a reality and discovering that it is all an illusion. My experiment with my life has taken me to places that many can only dream of and most would not want to and this is no empty bragging for an impressive line.No, I am still on the road to fully accept my state as is, that I am the product of my thoughts, lost in a maze of projections and being drawn into the chaos of simply noise and emptiness...like being sucked into a black hole of existence. I swing from one extreme to another like a pendulum and keeps loosing the momentum like musician out of tune. Lost in a dual thinking mind or in the Zen Buddhist Tradition, the Monkey mind. Whatever it takes, whatever the cost the state complete enlightenment must be achieved in this life. I am That, I am. I am the infinite, all encompassing, all pervasive,..Pure Consciousness; Atma Brahman, I am the Atman! The Unborn Buddha Nature, I am the essence of a Divine Spark lodged within me, I am that Infinite Mystery that no mind can touch, I am the ver same guy that is letting his fingers move and express themselves on the keyboard, I am still learning how to type. I am who I, a lost and humble servant of my Lord approaching His High Throne. 

Every breathI take and every step I make I am on my homeward bound, I am going home. I am wrapping things up and putting my house in order in the event of the 'Big One' as Fred Sanford of Sanford And Son, likes to shout when all else seemed to  fail in his life, I can feel mine is at hand. If it is written in the Luh Mahfuz that I die tomorrow or this morning even, at least I know that I have lived my life accordingly, both according to The Lord's Will and mine. I can look back and say I too did it my way. I experimented with my life and almost gambled my soul away and yet here I am making this post entry into my Blog while it is raining outside and the time being 3:36 am, this too is recorded or was recorded in the Book of Life.  

#luhmahfuz,#unbornbuddhanature,#lordscreation, #bookoflife.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

My Beloved, my One true Lord.

 Allah is Great! This evening I did my Maghrib Solat or prayer! I have stopped praying for many years now and have been haunted and tortured by self doubts and disrepair, I live in between two mosques that calls to prayer on the loud speakers five times a day and every time I listened to the call my mind becomes agitated and spiritual questions arises sometimes making me feel guilty and sometimes making me feel freedom. I toss back and forth about the five times prayer and I am beginning to feel the implication and the power of the Solat. I had felt it before on many occasion when I was doing it for sometime and then it slips away... I found no comfort and I might even say a waste of my time   and yes perhaps I am lazy. No matter, I surrender my will to the All Mighty Lord and Creator and I have in me a place where He/She, resides. I want to call Him God, the word itself is not a Biblical word and if place before a mirror it turns into Dog. I want to call Him Elohim, Adonai, Yaweh or Jehovah, I am not a Jew. I can call Him Lord Shiva or Lord Brahman, I will have to indulge into, Hinduism and the million of Gods and Deities; I call Him by His Muslim Name and that is Allah SWT. There is only Allah and none other, the one True Lord of Creation and I take complete refuge in His Mercy, His Compassion and His Grace. 

It is in the silence of my heart that I felt the presence of That which is Greater than me; I felt being Loved and Accepted, I felt Peace and Tranquility within me. Allah is an Arabic name that was used throughout the Arab World even before the time of the Prophet, (PBUH). Google it! I will not bore myself with laying down the details and I might be wrong on certain facts and have the whole Muslim community up in arms against me. No, the Word Allah is the most acceptable word to use for THE DIVINE that is withn me. I have become most comfortable with itand as of now I will not be using the God or any other Names when describing what I meant to be Allah. Hence when I say Allahu Akhbar, I am saying That which resides within in the temple of my heart, The AlMighty Allah is Great! There is none, but He.I am still not a good Muslim by a long shot and even as I am making this post I am exposing myself towards being chastised by those who claim themselves to know the religion much better than I. I am still groping in the dark and no matter where I am at or what I have discovered it all seems impermanent and thus unreal. 

Thus far only the threat of death of the physical body seems as real as it gets and on many occasions I have had the near death experiences although as complete as many has. I believe in the power of calling out to the One who one belongs to, the Owner and it has led me through my 'passing out' experiences. By being able to surrender fully to the Lord, Inna lillahi wainna lillahi rajiun! From Him I originated, to Him I return...Insha'Allah; the Lord Willing. This 'Amalan' or practice is the key to embracing Islam. Submission to the Will of the Lord, Tawakal or have complete confidence in the Will of the Lord and Alhamdullilah, am being grateful for the Lord's Mercy and Compassion. I realize it sounds simplistic if not corny, however as I near death in my age and physical condition, I have come to fully accept that AllahSWT, is my Beloved and there is none but He that I Surrender to and Worship with all my heart and soul. I have lived life experiencing the best and the worse it has to offer and at the same pretty much  am able to document as much and as close to the truth as I could of my life and tis Blog makes it possible for me to share my life with the general public. It has always been with Ikhlas - the genuine sincerity of my heart that sharing this journal is my way of saying Thank You and Please forgive me for Transgressions. I am  no Jesus nor Muhammad, not Buddha nor Krishna, I Am Who I Am.

• Doa Nabi shallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam :

  "Ya Allah, berilah manfaat atas apa yang telah Kau ajarkan kepadaku, dan ajarkanlah aku apa yang memberi manfaat kepadaku serta tambahkanlah ilmuku". [Diriwayatkan oleh al-Baihaqi dalam Syu'ab al-Iman]
• O Lord, grant me the relevance of what You have taught me and teach me to know what is relevant/ pertinent for me...by Your Grace, increase my knowledge and wisdom...(al -Balhaqal in the Syu'ab al-iman.
• 
  

 

   

Singing my death song.

" Knowing oneself is the basis of everything, the basis of all your questions and there you will find all the answers because you are the history of mankind...you must know yourself thoroughly, completely, not according to anybody, of books and teachings of religious scriptures, you must know yourself...the total nature of structure ...what your mind is...the whole movement of yourself...begin where you are..."     J. Krishnamurti. - Rajghat talk -1976

For ever now I have been telling myself the same thing, to know my true self is the most crucial and fundamental issue in my life and this i discovered way before I found out that the likes of J. Krishnamurti or Alan Watts. Sri Ramana Maharshi or Nisargadatta Maharaj, Mooji or RamDass existed. This was way back when before i even made my move to the United States, where I spent 21 years of my life as a happy go lucky idiot who knew no better than wasted my life away over matters that took me to the lowest of of the low morallyand not to speak of spiritually. I was being put through the wringer and knew not until I met the above characters through their books and lives. These were my spiritual Gurus, thee and many others who I stumbled upon while in college and continued on till this date and I am still meeting new masters whose words and wisdom helps me to keep my perspective towards where I am headed and that being, knowing my true nature beyond the realm of the physical and mental formations, I have time and again kept reminding myself that it is my wish to become free from if not liberated from this circle of life-death and rebirth as the historical Buddha did before my last breath, if not in this life in the next.

Sometimes I feel I have been wasting my time and fooling myself over something that is just another warped perception of an ignorant mind. Now at 72 it is a matter of time not too much longer before I depart this life, the truth is still evasive and veiled from my complete understanding. I have gambled my faith and am tempting fate in what to expect in the afterlife; heaven or hell or will there be simply nothingness. The issue here is really not about heaven or hell when I die it is more about what am I or who am I truly while living this life and manifesting, engaging and drumming up all these images and experiences irregardless of right or wrong good or bad. The thought process itself is a mind boggling issue to fully comprehend and then there's the dream states and the imaginative and whatever else that we go through in a day of our lives for 72 years!.

"I am Ready to Know!" I am more than ready to take on whatever it is that would set me on the path towards what is the real, what is beyond this illusive existence that I have been lost in like a soul in limbo. After all these years I have come to fully comprehend what the Buddha discovered about this life, that life is indeed suffering and that there is none who really suffers; for so long as there is an 'I' or a 'me', life is indeed suffering. Hence how does one end suffering if one is bonded to this concept of I, me and mine? If one goes deeper into it one finds the truth gets further and further from what is the real. There are moments when it seems futile to go on dwelling upon what life amounts to other than just to go on living the best possible way you can until it is time to leave the scene for good. There is no more mountains to climb and no rivers to cross and if there is one finds no more energy to make things happen. There is only pain, physical and mental anguish that seems to appear and disappear more frequently than ever; this is ageing. No matter how hard one tries to divest from clinging on to this material and mental existence one fails, there seem to be no escape from this self constructed prison. Death it seems is the only way out of this conundrum and eath comes when it comes not unless it be self induced or suicide. 

Taking a coward's way out is not an option especially when there is still food on the table and roof on top of the head, others who still look up to you and you having the will to make things happen whatever it takes. It would be an insult if not a huge disappointment to the loved ones to simply remove oneself from their presence without a cause that they would understand. Living a meaningless life on the other hand is a waste of life itself; it is like sitting on a death row waiting for the time of execution. How to make that rebound? How to make that shift from being stuck in this rut and move on to a more creative and productive state that I used to be able to do in the past? How to jump the hurdle or break through the barrier that is slowly building itself around me making me feel weak and helpless, accepting my fate of fading into oblivion lost in a limbo. If my time is up and there no more that I can accomplish in this life I will have to start making preparations for my departure in such a way that is most acceptable to all. I will need a plan of exit that would be as adventurous and elegant as I have lived my life. I understand that it is all relative how i lived my life, sometimes on the bright side and sometimes on the dark side of the road, however I came to realize that ti is all my life right or wrong, good or bad. I am responsible for all that had and will always be and I am manifesting my every experience today just as I have done everyday of my life. 

I have only but one legitimate witness to all these and that is my Creator, my Lord, God or in my case Allah subhana hu Wataala.Lord of Creations. I am answerable to the One and truly Al Haq or the Real, The Truth, That from which I had come and to return to at the end of my days. I have live my life knowingly or otherwise in the shadow of an illusion and every now and then am awaken to this realization by the remembrance of the fact that there is That which is far greater than who I am witnessing and assisting my every move and keeping from over extending myself one way or another. To become closer to the Creator the Lord and Master is my intention in all my life from the yearn to know my true nature to the cause and reason for my being here: what brought me here? Round and round we go asking the same question and getting no where near the truth, but till the Fat Lady sings the Blues, we ask and we demand for the truth.