It's that time of the year - The Fasting Month of Ramadan!

 The third day of Ramadan, the fasting month in the Muslim calendar, of which I have written every year with one episode or another, and today being the third day of the fasting Month, I feel at a loss, a feeling of stagnation. The weather is hot, and I am hungry and thirsty with a numbing headache at the back of my skull. This is what the fasting month normally brings out of one, as expected. The true nature of the Fat month is experienced by those who follow it to its essence. I cannot! I can only do just as much and then some. I love the fasting Month, and I also have ambivalent feelings towards it. Not in any negative way, but just on my shallow observations and what I can and cannot do has no bearing upon how religious I am. I have no perception of what makes a good Muslim, a pious Muslim, or a simple true believer of Islam. I love Islam, but I am afraid I have not given a complete devotion to the practice of Islam. I am negligent in my mandatory prayers and such, and I have committed numerous transgressions in my past and perhaps even into my future. All in all, I have to say that the fasting Month of Ramadan gets tougher with each passing year! Of course, I can choose to be complacent and bear the guilt, or I can rationalize the Buddhist way and wiggle myself out of having to do it. Nah, this is the most challenging time of my life; it's Karma! It's healthy, and it keeps me awake and revitalized, and the pangs of hunger and thirst are nothing compared to the self-realization that it's all in all just, another brick in the wall, another line cast in the river, another thought floating in the empty sky. I like fasting, but I am not able to do it other than during the Fasting Month of Ramadan.

                           Danau Toba or Lake Toba, Sumatra, Indonesia.I drove around this lake in 2008

During the Month of Ramadan, I am faced with numerous challenges and doubts, especially when faith, spirituality, and practice merge into one big question: Who am I? Who or what am I afraid of? Why do I allow myself and my mind to be led here and there as though I have no say whatsoever? I am grateful to be able to enjoy yet another month of spiritual cleansing, and I will abide by the rules and precepts as best I can. Alhamdullilah! Praise be unto Him, Lord of Mercy and Compassion. I once heard Him whisper in my ear, "Be Happy! All you need to do is just be Happy!" It was during one of those critical moments of me going through a psycho/emotional tantrum, complaining about life to God, kind of moment. I heard loud and clear within me this, and immediately I was awakened from my bitchy mood. "The world will be happy with you, just Be Happy! No matter the outcome, just Be Happy! A Happy and joyful person will not jump off the Penang Bridge, nor will a Happy person create discord in society; a Happy man makes others happy, and a Happy soul makes the Divine Happy. The joy and challenge of the fasting month is in how one stays harmonious and happy throughout the day while fasting at the physical level and how one can stay pure in mind when one is addicted to scrolling the Internet. Curbing your thoughts from sensual delights is a major precept to observe during the Fasting period; the mind has to be kept in pure form, not distracted, preferably focused on the Divine. One cannot indulge in profanities and meaningless gossip, nor must one be backbiting or cursing others; instead, envision compassion and forgiveness.

Lake Toba (Indonesian: Danau Toba, Toba Batak: ᯖᯀᯬ ᯖᯬᯅ; romanized: Tao Toba) is a large natural lake in North Sumatra, Indonesia, occupying the caldera of the Toba supervolcano. The lake is located in the middle of the northern part of the island of Sumatra, with a surface elevation of about 900 metres (2,953 ft), the lake stretches from 2.88°N 98.52°E to 2.35°N 99.1°E. The lake is about 100 kilometres (62 miles) long, 30 kilometres (19 mi) wide, and up to 505 metres (1,657 ft) deep. It is the largest lake in Indonesia and the largest volcanic lake in the world.^[1] Toba Caldera is one of twenty geoparks in Indonesia,^[2] and was recognised in July 2020 as one of the UNESCO Global Geoparks.^[3][4][5]
 

Throughout my childhood, I had enjoyed being in the fetiveness of the Fasting Month. As children, the month meant food was different, better, and more in choices. Today, it is a major spiritual retreat, much more strenuous than a seven-day Seshin in the Zen School of Meditation Retreat. If strictly observed, the fasting month is a very effective way of realigning, getting back in balance, and attaining better syncrhroncity in the overall performance of the conscious and sub-conscious, material and Divine, mundane and the supernatural. Those who observe this month with purity of heart and sincerity of soul will be blessed in the here and now and the hereafter. This is the month that the Holy Quran was revealed to man, the month when the Angel Gabriel came to Muhammad and whispered, "Read!" From this moment on, Isalm came into being.Insha'Allah! The rest is the history of the religion as it is spread across the globe embracing other religions and cultures. Today, Islam is both feared and the fastest growing in number all around the world. To me, Islam is the answer to many of the ailments that our modern society is infected with, especially in social and interpersonal relationships. Do good and avoid sin is the tenet of most religions in the world, and so is it one of Islam's main principles.

Lake Toba is the site of a supervolcanic eruption estimated at VEI 8 that occurred 69,000 to 77,000 years ago,^[6][7][8] representing a climate-changing event. Recent advances in dating methods suggest a more accurate eruption date of 74,000 years ago.^[9] It is the largest-known explosive eruption on Earth in the last 25 million years. According to the Toba catastrophe theory, the eruption had global consequences for human populations as it killed most humans living at that time and is believed to have created a population bottleneck in central east Africa and India, which affects the genetic make-up of the human worldwide population to the present.^[10] A recent study has cast doubt on this theory and found no evidence of substantial changes in the global population.^[11]