The Journey of a Sufi (Part 3: The Day to Fly)

From left: Hanif, me, Hafiz and Abu nazim before take off

10th May 2010

There were four persons including me all together who would fly to Syria on that day. Another two were already in Syria, they had flown a week earlier. I didn’t even know them except that I know they were my cousin’s friends. All of us agreed we would meet at KLIA. From UIA I wasn’t sent to the airport by my family, but by my old roommates named Mansur together with his friends by car. I had said my goodbye to my family few days earlier before taking a bus to KL. And I remembered nothing emotional happened that night, except for deep hugs and brave smiles from each one of my family members especially from my umi. It may look peculiar to you, but this is what characterizes my family: A bunch of members with Samurai soul within. We never show or express to each other directly that we love each other. It’s complicated to define this feeling, but it’s there.

Okay coming back to the story. On our way in the car, a friend of Mansur I forgot his name, reminded me on my intention of going to Syria. Telling me that the sincerity of intention is of utmost important, for it determines what I would gain from there. This had certainly been playing in my mind even before the day of departure. I always asked myself, ‘What do I go to Syria for? I can’t be going there to learn Arabic language per se for I loathe it. So what is it the switch that struck me like a revelation from God?’ I was in a confused state thinking about this. I was so lost in finding my real purpose till I became empty. A feeling that I have no power whatsoever to know and control what’s beyond the present, and this feeling lead me to surrender my life to God whom I believed had flung on me the intuition asking me to fly to Syria. And from there on, I ceaselessly told myself ‘My purpose is to find God’s guidance, God’s word’. Okay enough for the internal part.

Reaching at KLIA, I met new friends that would be joining me in the trip. One of them was Hanif, a person that after a period of time I discerned had with him a bright smile and a clear heart. Then I noticed that I’d met him in UIA several times. Another person is Abu Nazim. I would call him a boy because he was still at that time a matriculation student. All of the three had families to say their last goodbye at the airport except for me. But I got no problem with that. I forgot the time of our flight. I guessed it’s around midnight.

I want to go back to my statement of being empty up there. As a martial artist, now that I know how the Samurai feels when being surrounded by a circle of enemies. He doesn’t know what to do for he doesn’t know who is first going to move a muscle. But he knows one thing; that his fate is in the hand of his Creator, that He’s the one has written the time of his birth and his death. So knowing this, the Samurai shuts off his mind, empties it, surrenders and let God alone drive his intuition to any direction he should move and cut. And after all was done, he himself cannot even discern how he moved to make all the heads of the enemies separated from their bodies. And that is ‘No Mind’.

The four boys flee that night on Kuwait Airways. Don’t miss the next part.

-ali-