Names I Have Lived: From Nanda Sena to Shamsul Bahari

                                                                     I am an artist/journalist.
 

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Names I Have Lived: From Nanda Sena to Shamsul Bahari

"Some names we are born into, others are given by the journey. But the truest ones are those that still fit the soul decades later."

I was born in August under the sign of the sun, with the sea never far from my childhood. Salt water, sunlight, and the endless horizon formed the backdrop of my early days, as if setting the stage for a name that would one day reflect both elements of my being.

Nanda Sena

My first name.
A name echoing Buddhist and Indic roots — Nanda, meaning joy, and Sena, army or warrior. Together: “Joyful Warrior.” A fitting name for a child destined to straddle inner serenity and outer engagement.

Even then, I felt both the discipline and the curiosity, the monk and the explorer. That name held space for all of it.

                                                    I enjoy sharing myself as an artist.

Shamsul Bahari

At age twelve, my path shifted. I embraced Islam, and with it came a new name — Shamsul Bahari, meaning “The Sun over the Ocean.”

The name was given not by an imam or registrar, but by a young woman adopted by my mother. She was living with our family while finishing her final year of secondary school — a sister figure of sorts, embedded in our home, observing our hearts. Perhaps she saw in me what I had not yet seen in myself.

And so she named my twin and me:
Shamsul Bahari — Sun of the Sea.

A name that, unknowingly, matched the rhythm of my birth:

• Born in August under the sun,

• Raised within reach of the sea.

Looking back, I see that the name wasn’t just symbolic — it was prophetic.

I would become a wanderer, an artist, a writer. I would cross oceans, sit with Zen masters, fish the Bering Sea, chant in mosques, and wake up at 3 a.m., moved to tears by quiet Light.

                                            I find peace and solitude in being an artist.

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Between Names, Between Worlds

To be Nanda Sena and Shamsul Bahari is to walk between two rivers:

• One fed by ancient calm and warrior joy,

• The other by Divine radiance and vast surrender.

But I don’t feel split.
I feel woven.
I feel given.
Both names, like two wings, helped lift me into who I am.

                                                 I become one with time and space as an artist

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✦ Footnote to the Reader

Your name, too, may be a mirror.
Ask yourself — what did your name whisper before the world grew loud?
Is there a light in it? A sea?

If you’ve lived through more than one name, then you’ve been more than one version of yourself — and that is a gift.

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#NandaSena #ShamsulBahari #NamesOfTheSoul #FromJoyToLight #SpiritualJourney #TerengganuRoots #SunAndSea #IdentityAndTransformation #NamaYangHidup #NamaYangDiberi #JiwaYangMenjelajah