Why Preaching? Part 1

  I've been preaching on non self limitating and self limitation, since it has been proven to be beneficial universally, again, without limitation. One famous Indonesian motivation speaker once mentioned that if everything in our life is the same, then we will not improve ourselves, since we'll learn nothing new. We have nothing to compare, i'd like to add. When we find things, including people, to be different, than it's not a reason not to study (or to cower away as many westerner and their impostors do) Instead, it's exactly the reason to study.

  Then, how we'd be able to extract lesson from those differences? By looking at the similarities that tie them in, that is embedded in all of them! Just because something is abstract, doesn't necessarily mean that it doesn't exist. Take electricity for example. Can we really always see or touch electrical current? You get to be electrified first then to admit its existence?

  If we human don't study continuously, openly, and dare themselves to accept anything new (not necessarily agree with it though), however despicable it might be, we'd still be in caves by now.

  When we base our judgements only on personal knowledge and personal wish, instead of the one great universal truth (this isn't abstract either), we'll never reach peace, unity, and harmony, since human knowledge is limited and there are billions of human being here. Each with their own personal believe.

  So, it is not about the right to think, but about what is really right. Please differ what is truly right with thinking oneself as being right.

  At best, we'll attain peace by not adhering to the one real truth, peace between human, rarely with nature (to our own disaster). Like the Palestinians and israelis. Smiling in front, knives behind. What separate it from hypocrisy. Not to mention it will never endure, such "peace". Just postponing underlying conflicts. Unless we enjoy conflicts? I experienced the 1996-1998 riots in Jakarta and its surrounding, and it wasn't fun.

  To study is to step out of long held comfort (If it is comfortable at all. Be honest to yourselves).

  Well, thanks for being around. May Allah shines His light on us all.

So What With Burning The Qur'an?

   Since several months ago, just like the muslims like to burn atributes related to u.s.a, such as the star spangled banner, u.s presidents dolls, etc, qur'an burning has also been incited by the non-muslims.

   Sure, it enraged many muslims. The qur'an is muslims's main source of way of thinking, guide to right conduct, many laws...in short, God's personal guide book for them.

  Funnily, many "non-observing" muslims were also enraged by the burning acts.

Why?

  Apart from having "Islam" printed in some muslims' id cards (incl. passport etc), have we really treated qur'an as it should be? Many muslims put qur'an in some notch, cavity, whatever they can find above their houses' doors, in order to repel the devil and evil spirits. Asked why, they simply stated "they/many people told/did so". Many muslims still deliberately and consciously conduct adultery, fornication, corruption, burglaries, money scam, and so on. Just exactly the same things forbidden in the qur'an, that committing them is taken as blasphemy towards God.

  So why should many muslims be angry when some savages from so called modern industrial countries burn the qur'an...It is just a big insult done in one big (sometimes explicit) step. While the muslims themselves are regularly committing things deemed sinful in the qur'an, thus insulting the qur'an itself, by saying by deeds, not by words nor by fire, that it is not a holy refered book, since its contents is not observed and practiced anyway. Even practicing things contradictory to it.

Ego 2#

For all these times, Islam has been mis-understood and mis-interpreted, taken as a source of threat. Simply because it mainly teaches human (and jins) not to take their own self as the ground for determining right or wrong, but to take God as the basis for doing so. Simply because it teaches humans (and jins) not to rely on their own selfish ego to judge anything.

Just imagine. If we take what the north americans (and perhaps also the rest of the white people including the europeans) believe, that "truth is personal", then we'll come up with different versions of truth almost as much as living and even deceased persons ever live (and still live) on this planet. Yet, the fact is, we all live in the same plane, the same realm. Like it or not, and believe it or not, anything we did, do, and will do, will affect others.  The question is simply directly or indirectly, in short, middle, or after a long term. Still, we're interconnected.

So, take for example a bunch of natives in amazon or kalahari or papua or simply elsewhere, anywhere where we can find indigenuous people and rich land or body of water. They have their version of truth. Since "truth is personal", a big company planning on extracting and manipulating those rich soil or water simply has to hire expert(s), lawyer(s), to define what is "right" and "beneficial" etc. It doesn't have to be true, just has to make sense and right sounding. So, they gain the contract and start plundering the soil or water area. Will the result be different than a destruction of earth, regardless of they have all the public relation announcement explanation through the media, all the papers etc, describing them as doing something rightfully? The results, the facts, speak, and for us to carry the burden. Not all the justification been made up.

Or, prostitution. Say "what the heck, i play by myself, who will i do hurt then?" or "let them be, as long as me and my family have nothing to do with it". Sure. You play yourself, you keep that activity going on in your neighbourhood. You catch hiv aids, you get sick You yourself get hurt? No. You can't work. The place you've been working for loses its productivity. You can't afford your family. Me and my family have nothing to do with it? One day, either one of the prostitutes or their consumers gets hiv aids, then have a wound, and incidentally bruise over the skin of one of your family member, since you all live in the same neighbourhood. The same. And the above are just some of the misfortunes that might take place for using yourself as the basis for right or wrong.

So, rely on ourselves to determine which is right and which is wrong. It instantly turn out to be a simple contest of brute strength, wether physical, monetary, thinking strength, etc. Whatever the results, it will we ourselves again who have to live with it.

Still want to rely on our own self then to define the truth?

Find the truth. Consult God. Learn and study Islam. Get rid of those selfish ego of ours. Of me and you.

Ps/nb: and don't tell me you don't care about what happens to others, to nature, it won't affect you...It does.  And people still complain whenever something bad happens on them, even when they have their share in making it happen.

Sacrificial night

Noo, it's not as horrid as it sounds. It is just...the night filled with takbir (the loud chanting of Lord's praise). Of course. It's aidl adha. Complete with the extra morning prayer.

Yes, aidl adha. Based on two persons who willingly sacrificed everything they owned. Their very lives.

Can we still encounter that kind of people? I ask myself too.

Daily miracle 1#

Do any of us ever wonder:
Why God leaves us? Paying us no attention? Deserts us in the midst of battle, etc...?

Then i ask ourselves:
Do we ever realize, how God comes with His miracles in unpredictable times? When you're sad, suddenly someone out of nowhere approaches you and bring you goodness and kindness, even if just in the form of offering a candy...

When we're about to kill someone innocent or have sex to someone not yet married with us, suddenly we hear the call for prayer...

So let's help each other. Strenghten each other. Appreciate God, remember Him. We can start by not neglecting His favour in us. Including the people He sends to us. Don't waste them in vain.

One flew apart from the team

A friend of mine, laying on hospital bed, phoned me last afternoon. To announce the death of another close friend of ours.

The passing guy was around 27 years old. A good boy, as far as i knew him. One of the few i consider brothers to me. One of the very few who actually paid me visit during my hospital days. One i knew insyaAllah i could always count on whenever it's about something good. One who didn't want me to die in vain.

Justly, he's gone.

His brothers told me, how he left this mortal world in such a "clean" and quick fashion. And indeed, i had known him as insyaAllah a person quite devoted to God.

So. Good girls and guys leave this place easily and cleanly eh, God permits.

The rest...the ones left behind...yes with all respect it includes you and me...When will we stop taking paths other than God's path?

Miracle quotidienne (daily miracle/mukjizat dalm hidup sehari-hari)

So, last friday i got up too late. Way too late. Cost me my first meeting in that very day. But God taught me precious lesson. Invaluable lesson, as many of God's teachings.

As i told you. Got up way too late. I had to go to masjid/mosque for the friday special prayer. Going there at 12 o'clock? it'd have been crowded to the last corner!

Hey, so we're not going? Haul ass. Move it. Sorry for my language.

I didn't get that late for no reason. For once, until then, i had been having trouble sleeping. The person i love so much...so hard to bring that person back to the right track...the track where whatever that person decide God permits would be the best for that person. So, hardly slept.

Then, for so long a time, i'd been despising abg/teenager/persons average from 15/17 to around 23 years old, especially the product ot the latest times. So childish and yet so cocky and overconfident. Like inviting an adult's hand to slap their faces into oblivion.

Well, i arrived at the masjid, as i had predicted. Crowded, to the last corner. having had wudhu/religious purification/misogi with water, i strolled to the last line of the prayer's attendants. Looking..searching...God help me, not a single tiny spot...Untill when i travelled the back of the very last attendants line, a voice called me: "mas (brother), (come) over here"

Know what? It was a teenager, a boy, with such a soft, polite voice. Inviting me to share his sajdah (praying mat) ! In such an elbow to elbow situation!

Call it what you like. God knows better. God teaches me:

1. When you believe in something good, fight for it. To the last bullet. Even when there seems no more hope...as long as it is something good and you do strive for it...Hey, God is easy with His miracle. It's free. He'll give you the best. Sometimes, the exact thing you've been striving for...with some bonuses.
2. There are still noble people in this realm. Let's not too easily and quickly judge, not to mention hate, based on generalization, people coming from a certain group just because some other members of that very group happen to be jerks and the like.

Well, may God bless you= )

If you believe in love tonight

If you believe in love tonight...then i'll tell you this.

Have just read a manga titled "Walking With Papa" Not a perfect one, but still a beautifully composed one. So i walked home from my housing complex masjid. And God made me realize...How beautiful it'd be with love all around us. Some people would be affraid walking alone in the night with trees around like what i'd done, affraid of supernatural creatures for instance. But me...i trust in God. Put myself in God. Believe God will protect me. Out of God's love for me. For you. For all of us.

Yes, the trees...the leaves...giving shelters to us humans, from rain, heat...the parents calming, soothing their children in the homes i walked past by...everywhere...won't this realm be better when we share goodness, out of love, to and with each other? Can't love anybody without loving oneself. Indeed. Take care of yourself then, do no harm to yourself. Can't feel true love untill you share actual love with everybody and everything. Kanshu Sunadomari shihan often repeated Morihei Ueshiba sensei's words of "...loving everything in this universe..." Of course. We are but one single entity, this universe. Composed of many individuals...you, me, they, she, him, it...etc. What happens to one sooner or later, directly or indirectly will affect the other. So, for example, should we meet someone in despair, won't it be so proper and beautiful if we lend a hand, even just to make her/him smile?

Yes, universal compassion, true love...Something insyaAllah worth fighting for and with.