SO YOU THINK YOU CAN BE AN ARTIST - A SPECIAL NOTE TO ADEELA

by Hasnul Saidon on Wednesday, August 18, 2010 at 1:54am

 

So you want to be a good student, an 'A' student, a student with good grades and all that numbers and numerical values that u you label as 'a good and successful student'. U want to be the best student. U want to go out and become a good artist, who uses photography as a channel to express your views, your ideas, your ideals, your feelings and so on. U want to be like me, u said. Thats great and flattering of course, for a father.

Well, u can b whatever u want to b, and definitely u don't have to be like me. Be yourself. Create yourself. U r the master of your life, the dancer who r dancing (or not, depending on your own free will or choice) with the symphony and rhythym of the universe (or Will of the Creator, the Source, the One). So, dance in synchrony with this symphony. Its difficult to see and hear it at this stage of your life, but its there. If you shut that noises (thinking and feeling) and get rid of that thing call 'me!me!me!', you will hear it. You will even sense and feel it, in you. In your heartbeats, your breathing, your inhales and your exhales, in what your experience as 'living'. It will unveil itself when u r really calm, very very very calm and centered. Calm yourself with zikir or remembrance. Heck, that symphony is YOU. To unveil it, that thing called 'my mind' must let go its identification with any form (my name, my reputation, my grading, my project, my pride, my pretty face, my camera, and all the things that you have identified as YOU). How to do this, well, your have been blessed with people like your Tok Wan, Tok Syeh who have learned from their parents and gurus, who had passed down the wisdom and knowledge of Self from their gurus, who carried the light of Rasullullah S.A.W. Ask and seek from them while they r still alive. Don't be disturbed by their outward appearance (their age, wrinkles, grumpyness, etc). You may seek from me too, since I am also learning to unveil this label called Hasnul J Saidon through you. Together we embark on this beautiful journey of awakening. The time is NOW.

Only in the NOW that the Real You can dance in tune and in synch with this symphony like an interesting partnership bewteen choice and fate, or AsSham(the sun) and AlHillal(the moon), positive and negative, male and female, Ying and Yang, Shiva and Shakti, or Rama and Sita. Be in tuned, in harmony with the symphony of the universe, the Will of the Creator. Follow the way, the path, the road (syariat), u will be in harmony. But if u decide to deviate from the path, that is your choice too. U will be in dissonant with this symphony. U will be out of tuned, out of synch, like......hmmmmm......most of the people who are dwelling on this planet now. Or like me, in moments when u saw me in anger, or frustration, or sadness. Most of us r too used to being dissonant and out of synch that we assume that that is our true nature. We need more forms to affirm our sense of identity, more and more. We become like a mutant cell or free radical that sole purpose is to replicate and grow more until its host cant cope or be destroyed. Dont be like this. Dont be an unconscious dreamer of forms. You r not that dissonant noise. So, check your path, your way, ask Allah to show you the way, you will be shown

So, start writing  your own story NOW, your own script, your own characters NOW. Every NOW is important. In fact, there is only NOW. Whatever there is, there is only NOW. You think about the past, u think about it NOW. You think about the future, you think about it NOW. Occupy that NOW, become the master of your NOW. Fill it with all the wonderful mental creations that you can conjure and feed it with all those beautiful emotions that you can evoke. Be the great artist within, in your mind first. Dont ever let it be taken hostage by that mind and feeling taking an automatic cruise control. U r the driver. That silent witness who r witnessing the activities of the mind and feeling is the true driver. U r the master of that thing u call 'my mind' and 'my feeling'. Nobody else can do that for u. Not even me. In fact, I am just another flickering hologram that that mind of yours has decided to refer to as 'abah', and that emotion of yours has decided to feed with (thankfully), love.

You can create whatever you want to create by wisely using that instrument called 'my mind'. It is the best gift to you, like a holographic projector, which can be easily misused and abused too. But please, and this is really important, please be 'aware' and 'conscious' that this mind is not YOU! It can only conjures up a mental concept of this label called 'Adeela Hasnul Jamal'. But who you r is much, much, much more deeper than that mental concept. You can't know who you are by just using that mind only, or worse, that thing you call feeling. They r just instruments, they r not YOU. Ok, I know by now u may be confused. Dont worry. You mind and your feeling like to say you r confused, but that Real You, is not. And  I am speaking to that Real You, or unveiling all that cluttered thinking and feeling so that the Real You may be unveiled, awakened. The Real You? The Real Me? Who? Where? 

"That silent witness who r observing what that mind is doing all the time. Or that background space where mind and feeling operates or need to exist. That space before mind and feeling can kick in." Dont worry, we will go over this again and again, while seeking Guidance from Allah all the time. I'll pass you the maps. 

Adeela my sweet princes, go and be whatever you want to be. If you want to be an artist, so be it. But being an artist does not define who you r, and dont allow people to define and objectify you as one. Everything is transient, temporary, not permanent. Being an artist is just a mental concept. Every mental concept or thought is transient. Every thought is energy (albeit in a much higher frequency) and will eventually be transfered and transformed (into even higher energy, or lower). Lower energy includes things that we can smell, taste, touch, see, and hear. Higher ones r our thingking and feeling. We have a mental body, an emotional body and a physical body. Our mental body (higher energy) will determine our physical body. Our physical body is just a reflection or shadow of our mental and emotional bodies. Now u r thingking the other way around. You think your body is real. Actually it is not. Your mind and feeling r much more real. But even your mind and feeling r not YOU. The Real You is beyond mind and feeling. You can call it spirit, for the lack of better word or term. As I said earlier, mind and feeling r higher energy. Energy cant be created or taken away. It can only be transformed. Check out quantum physics, even though some dreamers of forms like to make fun of it (in a display of insecurity). So, start becoming a good 'transformer' of energy, churning out those good vibes or frequencies from higher order (thinking) to its manifestations in the lower world of senses (forms or things). Start creating in your mind, ask for Allah's guidance, utter the Salawat, and witness it manifest into the world of forms. 

Now, let me tell you what it means to have you as my daughter and how that presence have managed to unveil myself. I was made to exist in this world of forms to be a father, to be the contigency or the means of which another form may manifest - you.

Adeela, u r a gift, specially delivered to me by Allah. 

I remember feeling like a superman while flying (actually riding) on my bike in Carbondale Illinois to the SIU campus after your mum told me that she was pregnant. In Troy Samaritan Hospital during winter 1992, I saw u for the first time, freshly delivered from heaven. We were alone together. We were like 2 aliens in that land called the USA. When I looked at you, I thought I was looking at my self, in a compressed JPEG version of course. I felt like I was reborn, rejuvinated. Thats me! or, thats me in another version. Time ceased to exist. Space too. Everything was pushed into the background, then dissolved. Even Hasnul J Saidon also ceased to exist. He dissolved like a cube of sugar dissolves in a glass of water. He became a part of the larger whole, that part that has always been there all along, eternal, ever presence. He became that nothing, like a kernel without its shell.

Then, I felt like a bird flying out of its empty cage. I was witnessing and experiencing a miracle. Since I first hold u in my arms when u were just born inTroy Samaritan Hospital, watching u grow from a cute little baby, to a cute little girl who greets me when I came back from work until now, when u r flaping ur wing at UNISEL to become a gift of Allah for the whole world to cherish and love, I never stop giving gratitudes for this miracle of life. It has saved me from being sucked into the cyclical motion of ups and downs as I play out my characters in this dream of forms. This miracle called Adeela, is a flowery sign or shadow for the existence of 'Yang Maha Pengasih'.

At times, I see you in the faces of my students. It is as if I was, for the past 16 years or so, being prepared to awaken to such profound sense of love beyond forms. At such moment of awakening, being labeled as an artist, or wishing to be a great one, has nothing to do with who is Hasnul J Saidon.

So Adeela, everything is a reflection of everything. Everything is connected to everything. Every energy is a part of every form of energy. Nothing stands on its own, except the Source, the One.

Be a good transformer, regardless of who you decide to be. Whatever you manifest from there, its just a shadow. Enjoy it by all means, but that is not who you are, not who we are. 

We are way much more, more, more, more beautiful and wonderful than any mind can think of.

Let the journey begins, NOW. Start with your heart. Call it INTENTION.

Abah

Taman Bukit Gambir, Penang

17 August 2010