I need to take a Break from making serious observation of myself; I think too much - Part one.

 So let's us take a trip back when to take a retreat from the present state of mind...San Francisco! Specially for those who are familiar with life in The Bay Area.

  " I am stuck in the middle, my friend,,,!" - Joshua Bowes, while living on Haight and Ashbury right on the corner facing the ADVARK recycled clothing store, used to be behind The Gap. This is for the benefit of those who were my fellow travelers on this path of self discovery, self dissolution, self annihilation; the middle way. Those who are familiar with the Haight/Ashbury colorful cultural/historical background, the Birthplace of the Flower Children! Located on the outskirt of the Golden Gate Park, it was the place where a whole lot of cultural cum spiritual changes took place and perhaps still does. I used to live for a few yeas in this area of the San Fracisco Golden

                                    With Josh and his Indonesian Buddy  taken in his kitchen .

Gate Park, we used to live on Stanyan and Carl, my late wife Nancy and our infant son, Karim. Our apartment was right at the top of the road and parking was always a challenge. I still have the note that was left underneath my windshield wiper, saying to the effect that had rolled off and made a complete U-Turn where it was parked in

someone's driveway. The Lord must have been watching over us that no accident had taken place. And why am I telling all these? I am sharing a piece of my life while living with my family in the San Francisco Bay Area where in all I spent ten Years of my life from being a Zen student/ Organic Farm worker to running an Industrial yard on the SF Water Front area as the Yard Superintendent for H&H Ship and Environmental Service, This company is long gone and the whole area where I had spent six years of my life with the Office at 20, China Basin right next to the O'Shagnessy draw bridge on Third Street.

Anyhow, the whole area has been turned into the Present San Francisco Giants Ball pARK.! I was working at a site where major changes was about to happen it was a privilege, an honor to be present on one of the SF Landmarks, the Water Front. Stretching from the Presidio all the way to Hunter's Point, this was where I worked as a Yard Boss. I was in charge of the Underground  Fuel Tank Dispossal  facility and the general management of the whole Yard area. It was one of the most toxic and messy job that I have ever held and I spent six years of my life making sense out of non-sense, keeping safe what was potentially the most hazardous environment to work in. I needed a job and I was just (kicked) out of the Zen Monastery at Green Gulch Farm and was sleeping underneath Joshua's kitchen table till I got on my feet or face becoming a homeless in the Streets of SF.

 

The highlight of my life living in the SF Bay Area was working for H&H Ship and Environmental Services, a Hazardous Waste Management and Ship servicing Company located off third Street on the Water Front Area of The SF Bay. I loved my life, not an easy one but it a many of its time where I grew to know myself better, my weaknesses and and my strength. Here I found and lost Love and I lost my self esteem and any pride that I have for myself and found that I had to raise two beautiful children while my late wife taught English as a second language out of UC Berkeley, Ca. It was in the Bay Area that I was able to let off much of anger at life thanks to my friends and loved ones, I Love San Francisco and will always feel blessed having tasted Her beauty and her wealth of humanity, of love for one and another, I learned my lessons after ten years of living in this beautiful City, Two of my children were born in the City, one at the Davies Medical Center and the other at the one on Army and Mission Street, can't remember the name now.  #sanfrancisco,#haightashbury,#goldengatepark,

It's all a matter of Justifying to myself....

One who justifies, does not convince,

Not even to himself...Lao Tzu, ( the Old Boy at the Gate).

All my life I have been justifying to myself, my reason for existing in the time and space I occupy in this physical form, with these same old thoughts of right and wrong and I am not convinced as just yet if I have the answers...or any idea even of my original nature of who or what I am; this is my spiritual conundrum. After having written so much thus far I am beginning to feel the time has come to cease trying to put my lengthy justifications in words, cease telling my stories to a mindless audience not out there, except in my own imagination and to trying to convince this act of catharsis will unveil a revelation or two as to what if there is any meaning to this , my personal existence. Please do not ask me like who is asking, do not take these cheap Zen trip shots but come with answers that can help liberate this soul from its present sate and move on to a higher level of consciousness. I invite you to walk with me through this passage in time of ours. With the 'I' no longer in the equation and the "I am" is non existent, words have become useless, they have become irrelevant, redundant while in the effort to reveal what is beyond or transcendent of words, I cannot bring myself to reveal what is happening in 'My' absence. ..I am No More. The supreme state is without a form or emptiness, a being or non being-ness, it is the complete perfect state of wholesomeness of presence...a Peace of which words has no means to express, however express to the best of my ability I have to just for documentation sake, for me and my children and theirs if there be any. Who or what was my father, Shamsul Bahari@Nanda Sena s/o Simone Bartholomuze @ Abdul Mutalib Bin Abdullah, who was my Grandfather? and his...? There's my mother and my grandmother and their side of the family equation...who am I, you too will one day ask yourself...I hope you do, and sooner than later.

By "skillful means", the Buddha taught the Middle Way and by skillful means I have to make my delivery of how the 'I'got here after all these years and then some! By the mastery of self over the ego and by seeing the real and the unreal and making choices of letting go, of abandoning of all hope and expectations, surrendering fully to the unutterable supreme state of Being; the Supreme Consciousness; God, Allah, Krishna, Shiva, Buddha, Christ, Yahweh, Elohim, The Tao and so forth...I am developing hernia from sitting too long and eating cold food and so on! 

What is a hernia? A hernia occurs when an internal organ or other body part protrudes through the wall of muscle or tissue that normally contains it. Most hernias occur within the abdominal cavity, between the chest and the hips.27 Sept 2018

The body has its ways and means of drawing my attention to it through more than just tooth aches and chest pains, hence every time one denies being the mind or the body, remember one is liable to get a hernia. It is not what I look forward to dealing with at the moment, however deal with it I have to, it is part of the practice of skillful means and an important one whether one 'is' the body or not. 

"Absolute perfection is in the here and now,

Not in some future, far or near,

The secret is in action, here and now."   ...Nisargadata Maharaj. 

And he said, to avoid taking a spiritual path...it is like letting go of the Divine and the Sacred...the religious crutch the dropping off of all assumptions and concepts, of imagination and meditation. It is like drop all spiritual security blanket and veils of ignorance, stand out in the light of Truth...of Supreme Consciousness...of, of Peace and Tranquility, the abode of non - being, where form and emptiness are relative, where only action prevails from moment to moment, from breath to breath...these words are for my own personal benefit and would make very little sense to others, these are what I am thinking to my self, the I is still here in the now and still attached to the body and mind believe system.

"There is nothing to be done, nothing to give up,

Just look and remember, whatever you perceive is not you,

not yours." ...Sri Nisargadata Maharaj.

This is when I reach out into the Silence Mode, a mental- lockdown, this when I close my eyes and take a long deep breath and obliterate all thoughts from my mind...Silence! I am in between two thoughts, the space that is a pause of silence where a thought is coming into birth while another is dying... fading away. In this silence there is change or shift in the mind where new thoughts arises more positive healing thoughts thoughts that are the fruit of long practices of Love and Compassion for self and others rather than past toxic thoughts that hang around one's neck like a dead Albatross. I seek refuge in the Silence whenever my mind takes on unnecessary warp drives. I have a mind that is overactive and I am in a sense addicted to thinking, imagining, replaying, I have a mind that sees the worse in the worse and the best, my mind is corrupted and it has very little respect for the laws of man or nature; yes I have a very warped mind in all it aspects. I aught to have been lobotomized or sent to the mental home at an early age, but I was lucky not to. 

Letting go is not as easy as getting attached to. In the subconscious  mind there stores of past memories, skeletons in the closets and painful events that have scarred the soul in its infancy and while growing up, it is  a miracle for one to be able to silence the mind once and for all without going insane in the process. I have failed. All these years of trying to unravel the mysteries of life through the understanding of who I am, I have failed in finding anything that has truly any meaning to the answers. I am an intellectual fool trying to untangle the tangle of life itself through thoughts and words. I have to fully embrace 'Silence." I have to seriously take this path to the next level if I am to stay on this 'road to find out', Only through being one with the truth am I going to be able to overcome all doubts and fears manifested by my mind, and the 'Truth shall set you Free." The truth of who or what I am...who am I? #laotzu,#srinisargadatamaharaj,#allah,#krishna,#christ,thesupremeconsciousness,#themiddleway