Completion of a Great Task

I just read this verse from Tao Te Ching and it makes me happy understanding its truth and had myself in the same situation just recently. Here is the verse.

7. Complete
Nature is complete because it does not serve itself.
The sage place himself after and finds himself before,
Ignore his desire and finds himself content.
He is complete because he does not serve himself.


Rearing a Beautiful Magical Baby

It started back sometime in the year 2002/2003 when I had a divine message in the form of dream in which I was rearing a baby with a beautiful face. The magical thing about this baby was eventhough it was still a baby, he could recite a beautiful poem which contained a message of patriotism. And I supported his hand up during his expression. At that time, I didn't quite understand the meaning of that message. I thought I would start a family life and given a baby to look after.

Human body is a perfect form in which
Allah taugh us about organization

When I finally returned to Jawa, I came home with a made-up mind to take care my personal life and tried to change the lifestyle I used to have in which apart from the work I did for earning a living, most of my time was filled with social works since teenager. So much so that i didn't care much about starting a family life (though sometimes thought about it). So when I returned to Jawa, there was only one organization I was left with, being the vice leader of LTIS, it's an IT community within the students of Thariqah Shiddiqiyyah. I accepted the task because it wasn't very demanding as others.

However, Allah's wills held supreme on me. Instead of manisfesting my wish, I was destined to fulfill Allah's wills. When National Conference of Organisasi Shiddiqiyyah was about to be held for the second time in August 2006, my love life came to an end and my colleagues in LTIS appointed me to represent the organisation to attend the event. It was the initial point of reality coming true. Because from then on, instead of having a family life, I had a busy life rearing Organisasi Shiddiqiyyah as the vice of general secretary. This organisastion was indeed a baby, because compared to the other Islamic non government organization such as Nahdhatul Ulama (NU) or Muhammadiyah, it is very young at that time only about 5 - 6 years old.

I didn't realize the truth in the dream I had before until my great master told me on how Organisasi Shiddiqiyyah was indeed a magical baby. Because even though, it is young in term of age, but we had done so much to Indonesian community and particularly to the students of Thariqah Shiddiqiyyah. As facilitator, motivator and coordinator within Shiddiqiyyah community, Organisasi Shiddiqiyyah had helped to rebuild or restore many housings for the poor, given charity to the orphans and the poor as part of compulsary program in every event we held, supported the work of local and regional leaders to work more efficiently, established a communicateive headquarters where the community members can be served as effectively as we could, dedicated the patriotism program as part of faith following the saying of Rasulullah Muhammad SAW (loving your country is part of faith), and much more.

Of all my social works I had done so far, the task I received in this organization was the greatest of all. Not only in term of its national scope and to some extend international since we have a representative in Malaysia and Singapore but also the pledge in which I was sworn was taken from the Qur'anic verses and furthermore  one of its core missions is to help the studenst in upholding the good characters and eliminiting the bad characters of human being such as greed for they are against humanity. So I took this task to heart and asked for guidance to Allah through anything He allowed me to received them from.

During the rearing time, I learned more about my lower self, my higher consciousness, my life in relation to Allah. Because many times, I had to make choices between serving my lower self or community, between following my desire to one thing or let consciousness to lead me to do other things, between saving my monthly salary or supporting the expense of my social work, between joining my family activities or fulfilling community expectation, between meeting my other social work or fulfilling the work in this organization, between resting or going from one city to other city in executing the pledge I said during inauguration. Having all that struggling in the past five years and reading the above verse, I summed up, that's how I felt and what I experienced in the past five years and last weekend was the culminating of it, because I was appointed to be the leader of organizing committee for the National Conference of Organisasi Shiddiqiyyah from 27-30 Muharam 1433H / 23 - 26 December 2011M.


Completion of a Great Task

As Truth manifested Itself,
So is the great task is completed

Being an organization with its character is sufism where the union of faith and humanity is its soul, we had to
act in such a way that even though all the work we did seemed very common and worldly, I personally had to find the meaning behing the action to bring me closer to Allah. I don't want all that I had done, left me with nothingness and be a wasteful because the intention was all wrong.

From the beginning when they appointed me to take over the leader position from my male colleague, I had made myself clear that nothing I would do except to serve Allah alone at my best. It is because I know very well that this conference is very important in shaping up and strengthen the organization and the network within and without Thariqah Shiddiqiyyah to achieve its goal to help the students implementing the tree of Tawhiid in their life. So there I was, giving out my time, my thought and my self, all of me to make the event successful not only in term of fulfilling the needs of the participants but also the outcome of conference as an executable result not just a nice thought to have.

In giving out myself, I tried to anticipate the needs of participants so they wouldn't complain because the facilities they had was below their expectation. However when the registration started, we couldn't fulfill all of them. The conference's material had not been fully available because the 'foto-copier' couldn't finish them on time. The bag we ordered as part of the conference kit was made with different material and printed wrongly so they had to be reworked. The accommodation given to participants wasn't enough so we had to place them in another hotels different from the main hotel we used I.e. Yusro Hotel. And in the closing ceremony, we couldn't finish the result documents that should be brought back by the participants.

And after the event, we still had some debts to pay to the hotels because the total money received from participants wasn't enough to pay for all the cost incurred. So there we were sending information to our colleagues to help us closing the debts, even though the hotel is ours. In that situation, I got a call from one of the persons who was asked to help. She called because she wanted to find out how could the money they paid weren't enough. So I explained to her about the opening ceremony where we had to provide the tents, seats, video screen, the meals to the family of Shiddiqiyyah who didn't join the event but wanted to come for the opening ceremony.

And we had to settle the matter with the bag maker on the payment. Because even though we had given him the down payment, because the result was very different from the sample, we thought that he didn't deserve any additional payment as agreed. But then considering the worker that he had employed, we then decided to give him some more just to make it even with the common cost of the product he delivered.

I personally do not mind with all the questions and complaints, because from the beginning I had put their needs and expectation before me and did my best to organize the committee to fulfill their expectation at their best. Working on them before the event happened had helped me to prepare for all the complaints and questions. So when things didn't turn up as our wish, I could only apologize and make notes for the betterment of the next committee. That's why I opened myself to answer the question and collect all the complaints.

Did I feel vulnerable with all of them? No. Why not? Because I didn't serve my self and I didn't even try to self-defense my ego. I put aside my desire to free myself from the task. It was an assignment given to me, and all I could do was tried my best to execute it while asking guidance and help to Allah to make it successful and meaningful. The patriotism of that baby was beautifully reflected in the song we sang together during the closing ceremony of National Conference. I cried in humility and understanding its significant and my gratitude to Allah and to this earth mother, Indonesia as my country. The feeling in hearing the song "Indonesia Tanah Pusaka" will always be with me, wherever I am going.

I thanked Allah for allowing me to take part on this great task. The event ended beautifully with some remarks given by the Great Master on how to maintain the greatness of us as an organisation as well as as an individual in following the greatness of Great Prophet Muhammad SAW. I am happy because my time, my mind, my efforts, my financial support, all of me had been spent meaningfully. May they bring benefits to human being especially to those who take the path towards the state of proximity to Allah.

Subhanallah, Alhamdulillah, Astaghfirullah.

As I ended this article, my heart reminded me of a verse in Qur'an QS Ash Sharh (The Relief) 7 - 8 which I should follow: " So when you have finished [your duties], then stand up [for worship]. And to your Lord direct [your] longing. "


اَلْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ