WHAT GOD WANTS OF US - the ego-nafs, prophets and saints, devils and other stuffs

13. Beware

Even the ego

Will love the Shaykh,

But for its own

Selfish reasons.

Beware, beware, beware!

14. Beware II

Even the ego

Will despise Satan,

But for its own

Selfish reasons.

Beware, beware, beware!

The Ego. Love, distilled from the impurities of the human ego, would be a remarkable wine. But it would also make it undrinkable. This almanac has sighed, moaned and at times clamoured about man's servitude to his ego, and our need to surmount it. But without the ego, this life-force that makes us wake up, work, play and desiring something other than God, we would not be who we are.

History of the Ego. God created the ego and the nafs a looong time ago (Nafs means human desire, normally associated with our baser / animal instincts. I am not sure whether the two are separate or actually two part of the same entity, so let's call it 'the ego-nafs' for the sake of convenience). And even though the ego-nafs for a while rebelled against God, after an eon of subjugation in the black flames of Hades, the ego-nafs finally relented, acknowledging that God is... God.

So God at the end of it, did not destroy the ego-nafs, nor do I think we, as mortals are entitled or capable of doing so. The Sufi masters often preached, "Do not let the donkey (the ego-nafs) ride you, you must ride the donkey." The Sufi masters did not say "Take the donkey out to the back and shoot it."

The Nature and Cunning of the Ego. So we are mortally married to our ego-nafs, in whatever manifestation the ego-nafs chooses - For the ego-nafs can be the sanctimonious preacher on the pulpit, it can be the envious beggar on the street, it can be the scrooge counting his money during Christmas, it can be the holy warrior 'loving' people to death, and it can be the politicians and their hateful speeches. However you live your life, the ego-nafs can dominate you. And as the two prose above records - the ego-nafs can easily blend into your consciousness, in a guise of love and affection, or in a mask of hate and revulsion. The ego-nafs has no fixed state and will adapt accordingly, for it is never gone, only disguised - Once upon a time, a man was approached by a mystic guru, who asked him, "Do you need guiding to control your ego?" The man only replied, "My ego has no control over me. All the time the ego begs me, 'Feed me! Feed me! Do not ignore me!' And all the time I choose to ignore it. So you see, I have no need of guidance." The guru then said, "Your lack of need is a manifestation of your ego."

He does, you know!

But God Always Wins. When you consider things objectively, by any avenue, God wins - He has Saints and Prophets who will invite you to God, just as he has the Devil and his minions to chase you to God. Good persons and good events to reward you and draw you closer to Him, as well as bad persons and bad incidents or accidents to chase you to Him. This is His World and His House, and as all gamblers know... the House always wins.

So what about us? But that is God's and the Prophet's victory. Inter-spaced between our birth and the Ordained Victory is our actual life. This discordant existence, often made messy and blurry by our inability to control and harness our ego-nafs. And for that, God has armed mankind against the ego-nafs with the most powerful weapons - our reason, our heart and our conscience. But unlike any other wars where victory is decided by who wins in battle, we win by simply showing up at the field of conflict with our reason, heart and conscience intact. That is all it takes, and that is all God wants of us.

Have a thoughtful day, sunshine.

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way

Good is Recycled. Evil is Recycled. God is Eternal.

I came from Heaven and I am going back to Heaven. But I never promised
anyone that I am willing to wait a lifetime. There must be a backdoor to Heaven
somewhere in this room. Hmm... maybe in here? Huloooo,,,, God? 

73. Evil Is A Cliché

Evil is not a great notion,

Deserving of special accolades.

The enemy has no new tricks up his sleeve,

And has found no new innovative ways to deceive,

Yet, for someone who uses clichés to further his purposes,

Strange that he has found in us so many willing followers.

But I guess that’s what make clichés a cliché,

Because they work.

Desire. You would think that after thousands of years, mankind would have learnt its lessons. But just as your mother and father wants you to do what they ought to have done and avoid doing what they ought not to have done at your age, that is just a desire. Above everyone else's desire, no matter that you know how much they love you, is your own desire.

God Given. And God has made your desire to be powerful and overwhelming, surpassing the treasure trove of knowledge already collected by your ancestors - You need to know yourself. To feel and experience the sweet and the bitter of life, that fire burns and water quenches, that the world often appears arbitrary and good intentions are no guarantee of good endings.

Evil is Recycled. In that way, God is giving each child the right to live life as he or she chooses. You pick your choices and you make your own world, connected but still very different from the world of your elders. Alas, in that way also 'Evil' (if you desire to give it a name) can recycle its old cliches of temptation - greed, envy, jealousy, pride, hubris, waste, selfishness etc. So even 'Evil' is given yet another opportunity, another round to box with your conscience and your heart. This cycle is as certain as the rising of the Sun in the East and its setting in the West. Until of course, that also changes.

Homecoming. Do not be so harsh on yourself. If you succeed, wonderful. But if you fail temporarily, know that in the past, there were many better than you, who have also failed. This too is a cycle. But at the end, our ancestors all return to the Lord, and so shall you. A fitting homecoming for a soul. So don't worry too much!

After all, 'tis Friday, sunshine!

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way

The Fisherman, Rabita and the Ocean of God

The Fisherman, Rabita and the Ocean of God

THE MAN. Once upon a time, in a space between eternity and the great big bang, lived a man. He didn’t appear to have much talent for anything really. But he could write love letters. He hired out his skills to his troubled young male friends, who often enough were stumped for words to woo their maidens. But one day, he grew bored of all transient sentimental sop, and was moved to write about God, the Prophet and Love… and so he did. And he used to write about all sorts of things, even flirting with fana (annihilation in the spirit of the masters, the Prophet and God) and rabita ( a divine connection)…

The ocean is lapping on the shores of fana,

The moon is reflected on the waters of rabita,

And thou art nothing but a ripple,

A cloud of human emotions gasping

Across an eternity of oceans.

A whim, a thought, an idea of God,

A gesture of Divine recreation,

A treasure from God’s heavens,

A river of sublime connection,

From the Earth to the Moon to the Sun.

PRIDE AND HUBRIS. And thus he fancied himself pretty knowledgeable about this Divine Love malarkey. And hubris grew in his heart, overpowering love. He felt himself privileged and special. Honoured to be amongst the few who traded their days and nights contemplating God and Beauty. He became a poseur of holy prose, and the light in his heart grew dim. He spoke with condescending tone of ‘the many’, veiling his pride with certainty…

Casting off from the harbour of doubt,

Beyond the servitude of your mind

Swimming in a sea of wine

Fancied by many,

Tasted by few.

THE SAINTS. But you do not live your life alone. And whether it is in the physical world or spiritual realm there are always onlookers. Minders of mankind – some people call them saints, others call them saintly. And there is also a part of mankind who call them cranks, witchdoctors and snake-oil salesmen, men not to be trusted. Anyway, the saints mind the Sea and all the swimmers in it. Actually, some people prefer to merely picnic by the beach. But others, aspirants of the Path especially (let’s call them mureeds), like to go swimming in the Sea. Of such people, the Saints are particularly mindful of. Partly because the passion seeded in these aspirant-mureeds often came from them. These young fellows often swim and drink, letting the wine go to their mind, conjecturing great visions as drunkards often do. And as everyone will tell you, you don’t drink and swim and expect calamity to avoid you. You are calling calamity your way…

And lo, the mureeds think they have journeyed far

And have seen the King and His crown,

Alas, to drink too much

And into their wine, they gently drown…

THE FISHERMAN. Fortunately above all saints, there is the Fisherman. He is unlike any man you have ever met. Indeed there are those who say that he is in fact the only Man to exist in the perfect form. In the beginning, there was the Sea, until God chose to bring forth from the sea a light, an Orb perfect and luminous as an infinite number of Suns. And as he was the first to arose from the Sea, it is only fitting that above all saints and lifeguards, he is the true Saviour and Salvation over the Sea. For this story, we will call him the Fisherman. And it is the Fisherman who trawls the oceans, always looking out for the hapless fools who plunge into the horizon of truth with nay a thought for their own welfare. Because these mureeds are young when compared to the age of Creation, they are often plagued by uneven passions. Sometimes being wonderfully good, at other times, negligent and forgetful. As they trash for dear life (which they inevitably do at the end), it is the Fisherman who comes along with his net…

Only to be caught

In the net of the Fisherman

Before they perished in their watery graves,

Pulling them out from their hubris state,

And who then wearily remonstrates,

“ Do not think highly of yourself,

Nor too lowly,

For each pretension

Leave a lot of souls

Drowning in this Ocean…!”

But the Fisherman smiled and concluded,

“And my boy, have I been busy salvaging you lot

Flirting with Rabita in the Ocean of God!”

.........................

Wa min Allah at-taufiq

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way

Ghosts, mini Gollums, Vampires and Ponti-babies!

That is not Gollum. That is a Toyol. Entrepreneurial Malays often employ such supernatural creatures
to burgle houses. They are not actually scary but more of a nuisance. If found out however, the
enterprising owner is often chased out of the village. 

Ghosts! In Malay tradition, the role of the supernatural creatures is often cast in a woman with long black hair called a pontianak. I do not know if she would actually drink blood, but she can do some psychological damage, and sometimes even physical damage. The types that do actually drink blood are what is known as toyol, which is kinda like a mini-me version of gollum. The toyol is normally a kept creature, and the owner would often use him for theft and mischief. If the toyol does not get its fill, the owner would have to give his own blood for his little employee. Why, even a Toyol deserves minimum wage. I think they are unionised. 

Maya Karin, acting her role as a Pontianak. The Pontianak is often  said to have died
in a violent death or often enough during labor. There she is carrying her dead child
and looking mightily pissed off. 

Pontianak! Many eons ago when dinasours roamed the Earth, my brother used to hang out at his friends' house where they listened to music, played guitar and smoked the occasional weed. On one particular night, most of the guys were downstairs watching TV when suddenly they heard a friend, whom I shall discreetly call Mr. Pink shouting from the 2nd floor, "Ponti-baby! Ponti-baby! Ponti-baby!" They rushed up and found Mr. Pink in a state of mild surprise, cheerfully sharing that while he was sitting by the window, an apparition of a Pontianak appeared floating outside. (anak is child or baby in Malay). He wasn't actually terrified, in fact Mr. Pink appear amused by the incident.

From the Japanese movie 'RINGU' later adapted by Hollywood into 'The Ring'.
She looks like a pontianak too. I think it's an Asian thing...

Clawed from behind! The house where they liked to party was on a hill with jungle all around it, and neighbouring houses pretty distant from one another. They were old government quarters from the time of the British empire. One of my brother's friend's house is actually in the area and one night he chose to go back alone. The guys were standing by the door watching him, Mr. Blue walking away into the dark night, along the stretch of road barely lit and pressed on both sides by the jungle. As they looked on suddenly they noticed that directly above Mr. Blue, was a figure in white with long black tresses sitting or standing on the branches of the jungle canopy that stretched across the road. They looked on in stunned silence as Mr. Blue, blissfully ignorant, walked beneath the Pontianak. But after a couple of yards further the ghostly figure floated down from the trees behind him and moved with great speed towards Mr. Blue's retreating back, "Hey! Hey! Hey! Watch out...!!!" The boys shouted but to no avail. The next thing they witnessed was Mr. Blue sprawled on the ground. The Pontianak was gone. They ran as fast as they could to him and found him groaning with some pain, "Oh...oh.. what the hell happened?" sputtered Mr. Blue. My brother found the back of Mr. Blue's shirt torn and on his back were red welts and scars akin to someone clawing their talons into his back.

Mother? Which is Mother? On one bright afternoon in the same house, the mother wanted to go out and asked her son to drive. Mr. Green was a bit tired, but being the dutiful son that he is, grumbled, "Okay... okay, I am coming." He trudged downstairs and looked out to the front yard and found his mother, obviously in a hurry, already waiting in the car. Raising an eyebrow in surprise, he found the keys on the side table and hurried to the car. "Where are we going anyway?" He mumbled as he got into the driver seat next to his mom. He turned the ignition and the old car faithfully started to roar into life. Suddenly the front door of the house opened and his mother was shouting at him, "Where do you think you are going, son?! I am still getting ready!" ... Uh Oh. If that is his mother there, then who the heck is he sitting next to? Mr. Blue quietly turned off the engine, got out of the car and went into the kitchen for a calming glass of water.

Hehehe. I actually wanted to write a short review of two horror books I read recently. I somehow got diverted I guess, reminiscing on the few ghost stories my brother once shared with me. I will do the books next time. Hope you enjoyed this brief diversion.

Have a beautiful day, sunshine.

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will find a Way

Good Company make the Tightest Corner Bearable - Family, Friends and Holy Agents

151. Footprints

What am I, but a stray pixel

From an inscrutable imagination,

A castaway

Of a heaven long forgotten.

Wandering the shores

Of time,

And finding strange footprints

Resembling my own,

Trailing out of some Untamed Sea.

In Good Company. Hullo, sunshine. The day began for me rather listless, but it ended just fine, stuck in a rush hour jam, returning from attending a signing. But when you are in good company, it really doesn't matter, does it? Well, unless you need an urgent toilet stop. But you get my point.

A Friend in Need. There are many, many things in life we rather avoid. From credit card bills, to traffic summonses, from colds, a stomach flu to cancer. But sometimes, these things just happen. Perhaps we have been negligent someways, we bought something we didn't need to, we over-ate or we simply ate the wrong things. Other times difficulties happen without our knowledge nor are we to be blamed at all. Like getting caught in a civil war. Like sitting in the wrong bus at the wrong time and in the wrong place. We just hope that when such things do occur, we have friends and family who will stick by us, come what may. Who will bear with our mistakes and our dire straits.

The Divine Agents. For God may be the Giver of Blessings, but by God, sometimes He chooses the most beautiful of agents to attend to us when we need attention most. May the Lord bless the care-givers, from the tiniest crumb of comforts to the biggest of sacrifices, like organ donors... For we are all wanderers in this life, and one day, God will welcome us home to His Untamed Sea. But so long as we are here, we are fortunate to be ministered by His agents - our family, our friends and kind strangers. 

Thank you, sunshine. For keeping me company.

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Footnote: This is one of the earliest prose recorded by the sinner, some 8 years ago. I have published it earlier in this almanac, I am sure. I completed this sketch today and for awhile I have been going through my old writings to find something suitable. And I think that perhaps this is it.

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way

Belief is... - The Sinners' Dictionary

Belief is...

Belief is a posture,

You can be sitting,

Standing, or lying on your side.

You can be kneeling by your bed

While others sleep at night.

You can be singing, dancing

Turning like a top,

You can be hurting,

Crying to God, Please make

The bad thing stop.

You can be running,

Walking or crawling on all fours,

Only to find that someone

Has locked the temple’s doors.

You can be reading, preaching

Speaking to an empty mosque,

Salvation you may be offering

But no one is actually asking,

You can be thinking, wishing,

That faith would not find you wanting,

Forgetting that belief is not just posture,

But in truth, an inspired feeling.

They drove your hearts into a corner, with books and sciences, taunting you, "If there is God, where is he?" In their sciences they are seeing deeper and deeper into outer space, and with their sciences, they are seeing deeper and deeper into inner space, that seemingly infinite space between our atoms and molecules. They have gazed deeply into the working of God's creation and think that they are wise. But if I myself make a computer and populate software and applications in it, you would not find me in my computer. You may find traces of my personality, talent and knowledge. But me? I would not be in it. Not in the sense that the software and applications may conjecture in the limited cognitive ability that I choose to program them with. So how will they find God?

This is a simple, simple analogy. Things are normally simple, it is often men, and their complexity and passion that often blurs things.

Something to think about, sunshine. But don't think too hard!

God bless.

wa min Allaha at-taufiq

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way

The Saints and the Saintly - They walk amongst us

6. Somehow Different

There is no quest,

No holy grail,

For those who would take it

And share none of its blessings

With beggars, strangers and simpletons,

No offering of wine

For someone

Somehow different.

A 1997 STORY. Once upon a time, in 1997, two nondescript friends were having a conversation during lunch. And somehow or rather the topic turned to hermit saints, and this was what one friend said to the other, "What's the point of him staying in his cave in the jungle, on a deserted island or on top some lonely mountain, having learnt all that he have from his meditation, prayers and fasting? He must come back to society to help us! Really wha..." The speaker abruptly stopped as his eyes glazed over, and then he started to cry. He cried and cried and cried, much to the consternation of his friend who was getting desperately worried about him and about the food getting cold, "Hey... Hey... Hey! Are you alright?"

Finally his tears stopped running, and he replied, "Oh my friend. A veil was raised and I saw an ocean of sorrow, a horizon of regret, a sea of despair afflicting all of mankind... Who am I to ask the saints to face such horrifying spectacle." Then he sighed and concluded. "I understand a little now what faces the saints. But it also makes me so sad..."

THEY WALK AMONGST US. Well that was 14 years ago. Since then I have come face to face and met saints of all sorts. Tall and short, fat and thin, and they are in the midst of people, dealing with the poor and destitute, the rich and powerful, from street hawkers to tycoons, ministers, princes and kings. Attending to people with no homes, to people with many, many homes, whether you are a sinner or saintly. They take everyone in... if it is thus meant to be.

For the true saints have no qualm sharing their knowledge with people, albeit with discretion. It is not for glory of the quest nor honour for the holy grail that they do what they do. They do it for God and His Beloved Prophet. And with their 'gifts' they are commanded to be responsible over the kin of Adam and Eve, over the Nation of Muhammad. It is a heavy, heavy task. God bless their busy little hearts!

May you meet a saint, sunshine. If (you think) you hadn't, ask to meet one and see what happens. God will not refuse you. As for the saintly... well, I am sure you have been bumping into them through out your life. Perhaps you are one yourself.

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way.