Flipping coin

The crackle of clove and tobacco,
Ephemeral smoke wisping by.

In another place, another life, another time

The crack of dawn in the dusty sky,
Rubble shuffle 'neath soles run dry.

In another place, another life, another time

Shut eyes crack open amidst clean air,
The alarms ringing time to go.

In another place, another life, another time

A tear trails a crack down the cheek,
No time to sleep simply weeping.

In another place, another life, another time

A creaking pinprick of light from dark,
Last breath heaved as we depart.

...

Time alone is always golden. Solitude and loneliness the perfect reagent. What magic is weaved in lone reflection. The alchemy of the living heart in introspection. Space and time may fall apart, as the spirit wander with the heart. Guiding light of the Single star, for paths tread amid twilight. No soul as an audience to be found, except those whose bodies have been ground. In the darkness of the night, can the dimmed Light shine bright. With too many lights showing the way, where do we go, do they know the way? Shut out the lights run by Man, dive deep into water and desert sand. Time alone is always golden, take back what's yours that has been stolen.

Smoke and mirrors

Day in, day out. That seems to be the assumed and conventional mode of living. Somewhere along the way, the spark in an individual to grow, learn, experiment and explore has died. It's a scary thing, for me especially.

The liberties of life are afforded when we realize the temporal nature of our existence, the purpose of our external environment and the teachings of introspection. If not, we become disillusioned in our pursuit of a semblance of financial stability, as a means to happiness? I'm not sure. Our mind tunes out the sounds of our vast world and tunes to the frequencies that facilitate this pursuit.

Dreams flutter out of existence and ambitions are beaten to a pulp. Follow the way! You can't do it. It's unrealistic, you're better off doing this. How are you going to feed yourself.

And everyday, the sun rises, the wind blows and the leaves dance. The audience is missing, but the show goes on... For the few that is still awake.

Gravity

The nature of gravity is that it keeps us down, the difficulty in ascending tells us this much. Grounded to the floor in order that we do not endanger ourselves and such, trivial reasons, all of them. The reality is the nature of such phenomenon. The perceived consequences are merely an accessory for our understanding and appreciation.

I suppose, to conjure an argument against nature for our purposes is a thing that we humans do instinctively. Blame the rain for days when we want to be out, the sun when we are out, our appearances or intelligence for our failures and successes and et cetera. Yet, the moment we step out of this visceral bubble that is our well being, we see different justifications for nature's behaviour, sometimes drastically distant from our self importance.

My point is, this myopic view of the world clouds our judgement on what is right and wrong, for these judgments are more often than not, made at our behest. How then do we adjust knowing that our actions are merely ripples in a great ocean of actions and reactions?

You follow those you deem best. It is without a doubt that the best inherently have within them the capacity for values that are admirable and worth emulating. It is highly likely that between their set of values, and ours, lie a valley of differences, of polish and refinement. If we are to follow those we deem best, it becomes necessary that we too must change, to attain their polished and refined values. Therein lies gravity, the reluctance to move forward, and to remain stagnant and below instead.

Is it not our nature to rise?

See through

Photographs are directed, curated, edited and adjusted according to the perceptions of the photographer. The end result is that we see what they want us to see, the imagery a canvas for our thoughts and emotions, yet indirectly shaped by another.

Do we really see what we need to see?

The notion of witnessing plays a large role in how we craft our perspectives. I bear witness. There is no other person that can replace the personal experience of witnessing, no outsider, only ourselves.

Have we seen what we claimed to see?

I'm not sure. Can you deny something you have witnessed? Can you reject a truth plainly told? Reading about the past, it seems so. Strange, yet frightening.

Dance

A droplet on th lily leaf. Moving in whatever direction th leaf shifts. A leaf among many in a pond. Moving in whatever direction th water laps. Every movement an inevitable consequence of a cause, and it regresses over and over. To what end do our limbs move, our thoughts form and our emotions feel for, what cause can hold sway over them? The gentle winds, the passing gusts, the terrible hurricane or the expansion of the universe? Our sensitivity to the cause determines the amplitude of our displacement, our place and our placing. For one connected and sensitive to the greatest of causes, they movement embodies the great, the mighty and the minute. Within the expansion of the universe, lies worlds trembling in hurricane storms, even in storms there are pockets of rushing gusts, and even still, there is a place for the soft Breeze. Worry not that your movement is insufficient, look beyond and move to the greatest of Movers.

Numbers

Flakes of rust slowly quivering in the wind.

Cold rubber tires reluctantly lifting of the tarmac.

The silence that follows a door creaking open.

Overwhelming dark when the lights switch off.

The hardest defeat is being beaten by yourself.

The incidences described above resonate a weight, a solemness that is caused by the object itself. The corresponding effect is an inevitable outcome of the object's circumstance - natural, self-prophesized. 

Thankfully, things change in time.

By the Time. Verily, Man is in (great) loss. Except for those believe, and does righteous good deeds, and invites one another to Truth and invites one another to the Patience.

Castle of Dreams and Reality

The beating Heat, the pouring Rain.

Look up into the Sun, look down to your Earth.

These are the instruments of Toil and Joy;

Inspiration to weigh our deeds and worth.

Through the elements, we sneak a peek,

Into the Reality of Creation and Destruction.

Two inseparable faces of the same coin, 

Dual forces moulding but Our function.

I stand atop the soil that is me,

I feel the Sun and the Rain. 

The elements remind me of my barren state,

They teach through heartbreak and pain.

Alas, to Him do I still rely and return,

This clay can never harden without the Sun,

This clay can never soften without the Rain,

But a base, the castle is made by One, for One.

Jungle

Yang muda tak tahu bahasa,

yang tua mudah terasa.

Ada telinga, dengar.

Ada mata, lihat.

Ada mulut, diam.

As I lay to sleep, eyes open yet unseeing, my mind went to the place where it tries to unravel the world, my world. Interestingly, yet unsurprisingly, it came upon the pleasures of sleep.

Why do we enjoy sleep? I assume it's because the body releases a cacophony of neurotransmitters and relaxants such as dopamine that corresponds to the pleasure sensors in our brain. But why? Why does the body do that? Sleep becomes the physical salvation of the tired, much like how even water tastes sweet to the thirsty! This physical valuation set by the body to certain acts and situations, truly powerful. But it begs the question of function. The dichotomy of existence and the respective function, the body and the soul. 

In the split second between consciousness and unconsciousness, the subconscious took hold and my mind unravelled the reality of the body's illusory sensations. Suddenly I questioned the reliability and integrity of the body (as I often do) in telling me what is good and what isn't. Our senses are fallible, biased and almost entirely basal. How could it ever discern for me the good and the bad when it's mere capacity is so shallow. Sleep, food, carnal pleasures and dominance - beastly. 

Deeper, therein lies the true compass of the good and the bad. Once I regained comfort, I slept a deep sleep, hoping that the Compass will never fail me.

Dreams

I walk at night, not with feet in my blanket, not with eyes shut,
but with my tethered soul, wandering through spaces in time.
I don't know what realm we go to, as we cross from here to there,
the place where reality is superimposed only that we can relate.

They say we can't dream of people we've never seen,
does it apply for the places we've never been?
Sometimes I go to places that I have always thought of,
places unseen and unheard, but not unknown to me.

Can you dream of the voice of someone you've never met?
Or how they smile and look at you? I don't think so.
Yet, in my dreams I see and meet people who I've only seen pictures,
and they smile and they greet, their voices is it real?

But something tells me that voices don't come from throats,
that voices are only needed between two who need language.
These people, they don't speak through such rough modes,
their hearts connect and they reveal what is in theirs, yes.

If dreams were bright metal, these would be just a sliver,
while the rest like pebbles in a river, either dull or beautiful.
Then there's the occasional pebble, black, sharp and painful.
In the end, they're all pebbles for me to leave a path, to walk.

Back to my body.

Petal in the Wind

Its a beautiful experience to see the world, small yet expansive, as part of you as much as you are part of it.
To feel the life coursing in your veins reflected in the rivers and tributaries.
To feel the beating bleeding heart emit warmth as the core of the world revolves and revolves in itself.
To feel the air in your breath and your exhalation to be as the winds that whisper and the winds that howl.
To feel the debilitating effect of sickness as how pollution and environmental destruction destroys the world.
To feel the eternity of death for every creature that faces death and self-extinction.

I have no right to wrestle power for my own use, my own existence a mere reflection of power and desire, of life and knowledge, of the ability to hear, see and speak. I am a petal blowing in the wind, my whims a mere illusion that the wind is my own. All I can ever hope to be is the petal that brings pleasant smells, hopeful colours and a reminder of the wind and release. I am but a petal.

I am a poor reflection.

Morning

The seeds of despair are not to be dust. It settles on the soul and ferments it for growth. Despair born out of reflection, regret and resentment is fuel for the growth of the soul. The soul becomes bathed in tears, sweat and saliva. 

Tears bubble to the surface, as water spouts from the stone, under pressure awaiting release. Sweat perspired by sheer effort to resist the urge to sway away from the straight unerring path. Saliva drying up in the mouth, ever begging for assistance from only that which can give it.

The morning is always mistaken to be when the sun rises and light breaks the sky. No, the morning is in the pitch darkness that births dew on grass and shivers in the spine. The morning is born in the twilight only witnessed by stars and moon, between the two suns of sunrise and sunset. The morning emerges, greeted by only a few, yet it holds the grand entrance of the one that causes the sun and moon to tick-tock perfectly.

I seek the morning that 

is lived by few and embraced by even fewer. 

I seek the morning that 

comes with the breeze of solitude and silence.

I seek the morning that 

precedes the daybreak, like a gentle mother.

I seek the morning that 

holds promise for my meeting with Him.

Kiting the hurricane.

We see neither past the day nor night of our lives. 

We live in complete darkness (of ignorance) to our fates in the future. 

We hold neither the information nor the capability,

to effect the path that we take in the course of Time. 

We are pushed and pulled by forces we mistakenly believe

to be within our grasp.

We are kites in a hurricane.

The kite let loose, far from the string that bind it to the Owner, thrashes about in the storm of forces, seeing neither pattern nor control in its fate. It is thrown about relentless, the wind furious and unthinking of the fates of those that reside it in. In the end, the kite is broken, torn and becomes unrecognizable. It can no longer fly and falls to the ground, no longer what it was before.

The kite pulled in, close to the string that bind it to the Owner, is still left to the forces of the hurricane winds, but it is within control, it is within means of control, within safety. The kite is close to the Owner and the owner takes care of the kite, as the kite has sought to be taken care of. The wind throws it about, but the kite is safe. The kite's movements are restricted slightly, but it is well, far from the fury of the uncaring hurricane. It then returns to the Owner, intact and appreciated.

Which kite will you be, my dear Self?

Pie

The form of matter, determines its function. Water as ice provides coolness, and as steam it provides heat. The characteristic of the matter changes with it form, henceforth the function. Function is derived from characteristic that brings about utility and appropriateness. To derive heat out of ice, and coolness out of steam is a crazy thing to be. Yet, beneath the layers of form and functionality, the matter does not change in essence, only in the exterior.

Man, imbued with so much!
Knowledge, Emotion and Intuition.
Every man is but an amalgamation of the three.
Yet, we see millions, no, billions, seemingly unique snowflakes.
But we know, for a fact that all are one inside.
One that through three, becomes many.
Ah, such is beauty.

Water turns into ice when the environment turns cold, yet changes back to liquid when permitted. Water turns into steam when the environment turns hot, yet changes back to liquid when permitted.

Where do we stem, what is our native form? I believe that that is the question that seeks to bring peace in Man. We are ever-changing creatures, responding to stimuli and changing our forms to fit the function demanded. But when the function is done, and all is quiet, shouldn't the natural thing to happen is that we become that which is our native state? Yet, we see people scrambling to always remain in their forms when the function has changed, or forms that have become obsolete. Never resting. We have not found our centre!

Ah, what a pity, even the water has found its centre, and it has no mind of its own.

Knowledge, Emotion and Intuition.
Where do we place each of the three such that there is balance, in the centre...?

Light

Mirror, Mirror on the wall.

Show me the fairest of them all.

I stand in front of my mirror, and I look upon it, only to find it hard to see myself.

I stand in front of my mirror, suddenly aware of the lack of attention I have given.

I stand in front of my mirror, afraid and conscious that I cannot see myself again.

I stand in front of my mirror, saddened by my own neglect to clean this mirror.

I stand in front of my mirror, asking myself when and why it has come to this.

Unable to see.

This mirror of mine, my window to my own,

I have only myself to bear its condition,

I have only myself to blame for its condition.

Wanting to see.

This mirror of mine, slowly, let it be surely so.

If it must be iron that chisels you, I will do so.

Long past was the opportunity for soft cloth, 

Gentleness will avail nothing to clean this dirt.

I need strength. 

Give me strength.

I need hope.

Give me hope.

For I long to see my own.

Needs and wants

The hunger that infests my body is as naturally part of my body as the air I take in every breath. Yet, as we are not the air that gives us essential breath, neither are we the desires that our body hungers for.

Many a time, our hunger becomes the more than a sensation, it drives us to feed it, it overwhelms our being such that we become a tool for to sate it. That is when we have lost our being to the hunger, a great loss indeed.

We must be cognizant of where our hunger comes from, what it alludes to, and where it stands in the scheme of our being. Only then can we combat the invisible, the implicit and the natural.

This hunger comes from our basal animalistic desires, it comes from a place low and dark, gritty and primal.

It tells us to sate it, to fulfill each of its desires and to be intoxicated by its fulfilment. There is no end in sight.

Due to its lowly position, it has no place in beings ascribed to the highest of the high (At Tinn, verse 4). It's fulfilment is an illusion and a trap, and it's denial, although difficult and unnatural, is the path best taken with constancy.

May we be given strength to continually battle the hunger within us

Path

The rightly guided are like gems, they are hard to find, 

and hardly many have them in possession or knowledge.

I am grateful for all the experiences and opportunities that have taught me the many things I cherish within my heart and mind. I am grateful for the sight and vision granted to me that allows me to see the many facets of the experiences I have gone through, and to glean as lessons from them. I am grateful for the friends and family I have, that have supported me knowingly and unknowingly, through their words of encouragement, words of chastisement and words of advice. I am grateful for the strength and patience granted to me that allows me to withstand the unrelenting tides of temptation, winds of weakness and the storms of sorrow, so that I may rise each time, growing.

Ageing and the cup of bullshit.

So here I am, taking a module titled Human Ageing.

Ageing is a natural thing, it is as inherent as the death that we will meet. Yet, some people, especially politicians and scientists seem to perceive to be a disease of some sort. Yet, ironically they don't seem to understand that the ageing itself is not the problem. The problem lies in the state of the human mind and body upon ageing. 

"A car, no matter how well manufactured, if driven hard, and without care, will deteriorate into a lump of metal much quicker than a car that is well taken cared for and is maintained regularly."

In my opinion, the concern should not be the reality of ageing, but on living itself. It has been proven that our current lifestyles, saturated with fats, sugar and chemicals, our time squeezed with a lack of sleep and intense stressful schedules, is detrimental to our current and future well-being. It leads to poor physical, mental and emotional health. It leads to the early or aggravated onset of diseases such Alzheimer's and cancer, It leads to the impairment of our ability to not only enjoy life, but also be a functional unit of society.

Its a strange event, really. The whole scientific community knows for a fact that our diets and lifestyles are bad for us, yet, their concern is how to cure it. Its as if they have forgotten the phrase, "Prevention is better than cure." Its as if we have to somehow just live with the fact that we will get such and such diseases and hence the zealous desire to pursue research in their cures. Is it because the food industry has such a strong sway and say on our lifestyles that any form of scientific rebellion against it will be silenced by their lobbyist? Or, that the purpose of research is to make cures that can be sold for revenue and profits to the pharmaceutical companies that will eventually manufacture them? Tin-foil hat was on, I'm sorry.

My point is simply, man Science is really slow on this.

Politely

We are but our own doing.

We bear the burdens we wrought,
We hold the memories we lived,
we fear the consequences we chose,
we cherish the things we give value,
we loathe the things we allowed to value,
we think as we were taught,

For every reaction, there is an equal opposite reaction. True or false?

In my humble humane opinion, false. For love will give love, and hate will give hate. Even with love, hate can make love, and even with hate, love can make hate.

For the words of hate hurled at our being with the force of anger, or the words of love delivered at our being with the softness of peace, unbroken and unshaken should I stand, solely true to my own being and to continually refuse the violent waves nor the gentle flow to break and erode my own being.

I am what I make myself to be.

Weighing In

I speak for no one but my self;

that I am truly inadequate in my understanding, for one only learns and understands when he progresses from a state of ignorance to a state of enlightenment, the path of wisdom shown in Light.

I shake in the face of adversity,

I shake in the face of trials,

My will like a dandelion blowing in the wind, getting weaker and weaker and weak.

I have no words to express my anguish, only to seek redemption and to try, and try, again.

What are we but a being measured by our deeds, 

done in darkness or done in light, just a measure.

Abu Huraira reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, 

“Verily, Allah does not look at your appearance or wealth, but rather He looks at your hearts and actions.”

Source: Sahih Muslim 2564

Zombie

Weighted limbs hang from the weighted body that belies the weighted mind,

the mind, weighed by thoughts, thoughts propel action and is propelled by it.

I began the day a corpse, the light of day barely grazing the darkness of my soul,

my shell of a body, hampered by the broken mind, a result of the forgetful heart.

I took on the day, a corpse seeking redemption, wanting to bathe in light and life,

my heart trying to remember, seeking to remind itself of itself, until I finally did.

I look at the day, though the sky is dark and the night is nigh, now there is Light,

the heart is remembering, the mind is beautiful and the body is alas, full of Life.

We only wrong our own Souls, we really do, our actions the extension of its condition.

The Sins we wrought, only seeks to darken the darkened, and slip further into forgetting.

The Goodness we do, only seeks to lighten the enlightened, and be bathed ever in Light.

Oh how we forget, and Oh how we lose ourselves.

Yet, like the cold muscles at the start of day, we stretch and stretch and find ourselves nimble.

As is the Heart, it started out dark, oh so dark, and we kept searching for light, sought and found.

Alhamdulillah.

You are the One I seek, in moments of darkness as I scramble in disbelief and terror,

You are the Light that shines the way, bringing me back to Your path, and only You.

And I submit. There is no confession worthy of confessing for You reside in my hearing, my hearing, my speech, and I am a given to You but not to my self, oh how I am still so lost and blind to myself.

There is Hope.