prose: Merdeka or Mengelat?

merdeka!

prose: Death II

(hope this works). this is the conclusion to the first prose entitled 'Death'. Is it a wall or is it a portal?

I choose: 'portal'.



the ribbons represent our paths in life. the portal represents birth and death. there are two sides of the portal, representing the two realms that we alternate to and fro.

before we came into being, there would be the idea of us to come into being. same goes for everything that is created. preceding the act of creation, is the idea to create.

therefore we would find two alternates, the realm of being and the realm of non-being. before we are born, and after we are being born. the life as we live it, and the afterlife.

and where do these two alternates meet?
at the portal that is birth. at the portal that is death.

from the realm of non being we go through birth to being. then we go through life, and die, by going through death to live the afterlife.

so many paths that are laid before us, which do we choose? and many paths of others do we cross in our lives.

think of these premises:

Premise 1: God is Baqa'. Baqa' means 'Eternal', 'Perpetual', 'Kekal'.

Premise 2: God is Ilmun. which means 'Who Knows All', 'Yang Maha Mengetahui'.

Premise 3: God is Qidam. which means 'the beginning'. He is the beginning of all things.

Premise 4: God's creation is fana, which is the opposite of baqa'. it means 'temporary'.

Conclusion:

From Premise 1 and 3, we know that the only One that is eternal is God. therefore, after going through the portal that is death to the 'afterlife', we would not stay there forever. we would 'die' again, just to concur to the mere reason that we are not eternal, that we are temporary. to 'die' again when we are in the afterlife means going through the same portal again. in some religions, the soul is 'reborn' in a new body as a new vehicle for the soul. so is it birth? or is it something else, which we haven't coined a term for yet?

from premise 3, we know that God readily existed. he is the Creator. nothing else precedes Him. But we also know from premise 2 that he readily knows everything, what has, what is and what will. the creation of humans would readily existed. this is of course assumptions on my part, from what littlest speck of understanding and my worship and praises of His Greatness. the zat of God is not to be discussed. the zat of God cannot even be attempted to be understood. what are we humble creatures against the mighty will of God?

therefore, depending on how we look at it, we are immortal. the idea of us is immortal. the difference is that our existence is preceded by God. our existence has a beginning. our immortality is subject to our journeys through and fro the portal. so this is temporariness. the alternating between realms, while the idea of us remains. so how many cycles of birth and death do we go through? maybe one, maybe various, i cannot say, but our existence has an end. God is the beginning and God is the end. He is Awal and He is Akhir.

so this is temporary, after all.

prose : interval> 'Mati'

an interval on the discussion of death. this one is a favourite in my 'pillow sessions'. a conversation i had a few years back, when i was young(er) and naive. and i think it's a staple with jiwang couples everywhere. which answer means that Person 2 loves Person 1 more?

Person 1: kalau aku mati kau nangis tak? (if i die, would you cry for me?)

(Version A) Person 2: Nangis. (I would)

(Version B) Person 2: Jangan cakap pasal mati. (do not speak of death)

cast in your votes.

Prose: Death

which part of all this is crazy logic, you ask? bear with me.

Death. sometimes taken as the ultimate solution to problems we have in life. recently a dear friend wrote of bouts with the angel of death. i wish him well. is it greener on the other side? what other side?

The President’s Commision, 1981, stated that
An individual who has sustained either
i) irreversible cessation of circulatory & respiratory functions
ii) irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain including the brain stem,
is considered DEAD. ( Charles A.Corr et al, 2000)

this is the secularist/scientific definition of death. These definitions, however, are based on purely functional aspects of the body’s mechanism. In these secularist Western scientific definitions the existence of a ‘soul’ is somewhat ‘overlooked’.

what do poets and philosophers think of death?

Death is man’s encounter with the reality of his mortality. A question of one’s control of his own life. It is considered by some to be a change or migration, rather than an extinction. It is a natural law, death is a corollary of birth. Death is simply an absence of life, a state of non-being, a converse of birth. It is a return to a state of unconsciousness. These are but a few ponderings on death. It is strengthened by accounts from the deemed wise and enlightened few.

Aristotle called death a kind of destruction or perishing that involves a change from being to non-being. Death is seen to involve a change in the very substance of the being. When a human dies, two important consequences follow:
i) there is no longer human present - instead, there is only a body or corpse
ii) there is no longer a person present – there is only the person’s remains

Another Greek philosopher, Socrates, gives this account of death when he was sentenced to death:

This thing that has come upon me must be good; and those of us who think that death is an evil must needs be mistaken. For the state of death is one of two things : either the dead man wholly ceases to be and loses all consciousness or…it is a change and a migration of the soul to another place. And if death is the absence of all consciousness, and like the sleep of one whose slumbers are unbroken by any dreams, it will be a wonderful gain…For it appears that all time is nothing more than a single night. But if death is a journey to another place, and what we are told is true – that all who have died are there – what good could be greater than this? What would you not give to converse with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer? It would be an inexpressible happiness to converse with (heroes such as these) and to live with them and to examine them.

In this instance we can observe that Socrates posed the concept of death open to be contemplated. One could see death as the end, or the continuation of a journey.

Consider these ruba’iyat of Omar Khayyam :

Although I have a handsome face and colour,
Cheek like the tulips, form like the cypress,
It is not clear why the eternal Painter
Thus tricked me out for the dusty show-booth of earth.

When the cloud washes the tulip’s cheek at New Year,
Get up and make firmly for the wine-cup,
Because this green spot that today is your pleasure-ground
Tomorrow will all be growing out of your dust

Oh wise elder, get up earlier in the morning,
Look closely at that boy sifting dust;
Advise him, ‘Gently, gently sift
The brains of Kaikobad and eyes of Parviz.'
(Peter Avery et al, 1979)

From these stanzas we could see that Khayyam metaphorically envisioned that when a person dies, the substance of the person dissolved to become one with nature, or a ‘return’ to its original state (in this case with earth, for Muslims believed man was created from this element) and continues in some form or another.

One underlying structure that we could sense in all of these philosophical descriptions of death is that there is a ‘soul’, and that the physical body is just a vehicle in its journey, from the realm of the non-being to being and back.

What part of all this is crazy logic, u still ask?

to be continued.