"The Beginning"

Through frequent conversation with a man whose vision is so deep, I was able to write his story... a very astounding journey of life. Let's try to take a glimpse so as to taste such sweet sensations of human's spirituality:

Chapter I The Beginning
“At the beginning I was nothing… but in that nothingness there was I”, was the mystical phrase I uttered during my madness in December 1988, three months before my Graduation from WMSU. It is divided into two parts: First voluntarily uttered but the second was the involuntary response from within, by the inner unknown world to my surprise and astonishment then, which during those days I was a young man of cognizant religiosity who was taught that no man except prophets can penetrate into the world and realm of Divinity.

At that very moment I seem not to control myself because in me was a King who kept on asking whether I can afford to look at Him, at His countenance or Face. Because of excessive fear I became restless, mad. I was afraid of me…afraid to look into this face.

The confrontation was done in front of a mirror, which was situated breast-height. I was extremely afraid to bend and stare at my face because at that moment it was not me but King of Kings, whose wrath was ready on hand. I felt helpless because who am I to petition Him to calm down… in me was a surrender asking, “Please, I didn’t mean to anger you”. I was mad in the judgment of the world around me. But I was not just myself.

Out of love for a sick son, my parents did not stop but to find ways on how to regain me back. They brought me to a muslim priest who is known to give remedy to my malady. He offered me prayers. It appeared to me that we were suspended in space away from this earth. As we went home, from that ritual, I felt that I was descending from above through the center of the Ka’ba which after a moment I was just at its perimeter. My vision then seems to enlarge for me and the space contracted, that the holy Ka’ba is just a wall ahead from where I sit. I saw all the little domes surrounding the Holy Ka’ba. As the jeepney accelerate bringing us back home, I felt confused of my inner state and said, “God, I am confused. Sects of Islam are so various with different beliefs and perspective…” I saw at that moment that a saint plays in between us and God, delivering my prayer, as if an interpreter was needed. The answer was directly given, also through that saint. As if God answered, “there’s actually no problem for as long one believe in the oneness of God. Your weapon against all adversaries are just words of God written in the holy book.”

Communication continued. It was just talking to somebody, giving out all complains with a direct comfort and assurances, that after that conversation I felt all the confidence that should there be any Christian or any Jews willing to confront a battle with me so be it. There was actually none because to every ordinary consciousness I was just out of my sanity. But the one who took to confront with me was my cousin who played as my opponent. Though it was ordinary to him, in my vision, I was in a big rocket ship, or the rocket ship was me bombarding all the opponent to distraction but like the turn of a circle no one was defeated. Like a playful child, I enjoyed the fight, because it was an entire all out war, underwater and space, where I knows no death nor pain but pleasure, comfort and ecstasy. My entire head and hands became like the hardest of the stone, at least to my reckoning, that I hit it against the hard wall and post of the house. Everybody was looking to me and my madness. After the no-winner-no-losser war, as if I was thrown into the deep cosmic ocean towards nowhere, until suddenly I was coming into the direction of the sun. I feared its burning hotness. But since it was not a travel of the body only the mind and the senses, I just enjoyed the velocity until I was backed into deep blue seawater. I can’t explain what ecstasy it brings you looking into the deep blue see passing so fast broken in your eyes without any pain except the anxiety where will this end. From the deep blue I was brought into the deep-dark, then blue again, green, shallow, then the white sand, then into the ceiling of the house of Apu’ Datu Unding. I saw all the contents of his house. Then I was back into my senses. I asked for a cold water to appease me the thirst of that travel. I felt that I was just a new arrival a newly wed couple.

This chapter of my life became bad dream of my mundane existence… at least in some moments of my younger days for I can’t look straight into the eyes of normal people because I am a man with some kind of an abnormality.

I decided to share these experiences into the world for I found it meaningful to let others reflect on the different vibrations that spiritual realm is giving. Among its rays of infinity I am just but negligibly one. At first, I was hesitant thinking over that it would bring no good but on the other hand I wish to let the outer world witness and the truth will shine anyway, no matter what. Jaa-al haq wa jahaqal batil so goes the qur-an. Falsehood’s essence is perishable.

Inspired by circumstances, I found writing a form of life which itself is minutely expressing what is kept in the unfathomable world of secrecy. For no amount how mystics, of the past, present and future seems and will seem to reveal their secrets, experiences and tastes, the treasure never ceases from its clandestine purity. What has been still is. Everyone is reserved a special place as a testament of God’s boundless bliss. No matter what wave I will create on this ocean of truth, truth will still be calm, silent and undisturbed but unavoidably effulgent.

It was only in 1994 when I began to be confused of my religiosity particularly my comprehension about how God is. In the Muslim world views are divided. I was not aware then. But thanks to doubt and confusion, which initiated me into, further serious inquiry.

The spiritual adventures I have had were not devoid of pains, inner tortures with some tastes of unexplainable pleasure. I am in fear to reencounter some but in greater hope to retaste of others.

I experienced punishment, shame and deep regrets and in those moments I was seeking for the reward of my prayers, fasting, Qur-an-reading and other deeds. But to my dismay they were judged against me. I was to be doomed for despite those outward good deeds; they were never founded on true faith. Men and others whom I thought to be unreligious were better off than me witnessing my very doom. What a big mistake? These spiritual tortures kept me stare, restless and sleepless. I was even fettered to prevent me from walking to and fro as how a madman does.
Sometimes, aside and relieve from the torture of judgment I find my senses wandering in space amidst the sound of a noisy nights in forests, sometimes along the seashore or in space. Astral travel is not an illusion of those travelers, but to me in those beginnings they were uncontrollable...