Title: A Moment of Stillness, A Glimpse of Grace
As I sat facing the hills lined with white concrete structures stretching across the horizon, the sky blazed crimson with the rising sun. For a fleeting moment, I felt a sense of blissfulness—pure and complete. All else dropped away, even God was absent. What remained was a tranquil clarity, a stillness untouched by thought. I felt as though I had become the 60-foot-tall Kwan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy who watches over the sprawling Chinese cemetery of Batu Gantung from the foot of Kek Lok Si Temple.
I listened to the myriads of birdsongs heralding the dawn and witnessed the shifting palette of colors bathing the landscape—from Jerejak Island to Batu Gantung. The Penang Hills stood like a towering emerald wall, fresh from the heavy rains of recent days. I let my mind wander, telling its stories one after another until they, too, faded—leaving only sound and sight, the texture of a new day.
Somewhere in the background, my cat Furby meowed insistently, pulling me back from that sacred stillness. With a soft Gassho and a bow to the Universe that had just opened before me, I rose—reluctantly. And this too, I reminded myself, shall pass.
Half of the holy month of Ramadan has now gone by. My struggles with the Nafs—the egoic self—have begun to subside, and I feel a subtle yet steady reclaiming of who I am. I fully admit that I am not observing the fast with the discipline of a devout Muslim. I never claimed to be one. But I fast nonetheless, in my own way. I confess this to my Lord and to no one else. Yet I feel His Presence within me—on and off, like a gentle wind—and for this, I am deeply grateful.
I acknowledge that I am at the mercy of His compassion, that nothing I say or do comes from anywhere but Him. If you ask me, as a Muslim, who is my God, I will say He is Allah (SWT). If you ask me as a Hindu, I will say He is Brahman, the Supreme and Eternal Essence. If you are Christian, I will call Him El Elohim, Adonai. If you are Jewish, He is the God of Abraham, Ishmael, and Isaac, the God of Moses—Jehovah. But having been guided to Islam, I now call my Lord Allah.
Fasting, to me, is not merely ritual—it is purification. It is my offering, my cleansing from the stains of my past. I have broken nearly every precept and moral code in my life, save for cold-blooded murder. There were times when, in anger and defiance, I raised my middle finger at God. Yes, I have a heavy karmic debt to pay—here, and in the hereafter.
Yet I hold onto a single, unwavering hope: that the Almighty is most compassionate, most forgiving—even to a soul like mine. I cling to this faith without doubt. After years of searching, wandering, and trying to escape my own self-imposed suffering, I am beginning to feel the faint warmth of the inner light returning. Glimpses of liberation flicker through the fog—small, fragile, but real.
It feels like setting down the cross, removing the crown of thorns I have carried for far too long. These symbols of penance, of pain, no longer define me. I only wish I could turn back the hands of time and walk a different path. But I accept this path I took—through anger, through darkness—because it led me here.
"Centered in stillness; meeting resistance with acceptance,
reveals and heals the persistence of the concealed."
I came across this quote by Jane Parry in a Facebook group I recently joined: “An Understanding of the Words of the Gurus and Sages of Our Time.” It appeared on my screen just as I finished typing the last paragraph. Believe it or not.
Yes, God speaks—if only we know how to listen.
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