Stories of Life

My Story of Theirs

The moment I could read, there was no stopping of me in reading books especially stories. Some books that I liked when I was in primary school were local folklores, HC Anderson comics, Disney cartoon stories, Nina series, lima sekawan (the Famous Five), Tujuh Serangkai (The Seven Secret) and Si Badung (The Naughtiest Girl) of Enid Blyton, Trio Detective (Three Detectives) of Alfred Hitchcock. I borrowed them from my friend and school library.

My friend who supplied me with story books was a daughter of Christian Minister of a Javanese church in my village. She lived three block away from my parents' home. Her parents lived in a house at the back of the church. After school time sometimes I went to her house for study club and read her books collection. I still remember her nickname name is Wati. If you see us at that time, you may wonder how come the minister's daughter could be a good friend of a mosque committee's daughter. Our parents weren't friends for they never crossed path in their lives because of their difference position, but as children we were enjoying our little haven in the fantasy world of books. And then there was also a boy named Jhoni who lived near her house. I don't know where they are now. After primary school we went to different school and hardly had a chance to cross path till now. But I thanked her for lending her books to me.

And then there was my brother's school books of Islamic history. He went to Islamic school while I went to State school. I didn't have Islamic history in the school subject only subject on religion. He had more Islamic subject like Arabic, Islamic history, Quran Hadith and Aqidah Akhlak (Islamic Theology and Virtues) while I was just having one subject The Teaching of Islam. I used to read his text book and sometimes felt a bit jealous of that. Because he had more on the subjects than me. And at that time his holiday was Fridays while mine was Sundays so I could know their school time in Sunday because it was a block away from our house and very close to my grandmother's home. His school land was a granted land from our great grandparents, Some of the teachers were our relatives and some of the students were my kindergarten's friends. So I felt like having two schools though I wasn't officially listed as students. Having such a driving force to read, I then read his textbooks on those subjects though I didn't go through any exam that he had to have in class. Just reading them gave me basic knowledge on those subjects as a foundation to my preference now.

And then when I was in secondary school, story books that I read added with Trigan and Storm series,  Chinese stories on martial arts by Kho Ping Hoo (I took it from my brother), and Anita magazine (I took it from my sister), a collection of teenage short stories. I remember this magazine because she used to lock the magazines in her cupboard and I had to get my way to read it no matter how. And then as I had subject on ancient history at school, I began to like ancient history like Egypt and Greek mythology. And when I was in high school the book I read had broadened. They're the young adult novel of local writers such as Maria A Sarjono, Titi Said, Marga T, Mira W and translated novels of Harlequin and Miils and Boon. A nearby private library to my home had provided me with these reading collection, where I had to pay to borrow some books.

My first English story book collection I had from my host mother for my 18th birthday present. The title is Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean Mc Eaul the first series of Earth Children. It was after I saw the film of it by Darryl Hannah. As she knew I love the book, she then tried to get me the full collection of them. After more than 20 years, I still hadn't read the last book - Shelter of the Stone. It hadn't been translated to Bahasa Indonesia so definitely not sold here. Besides, the book are really thick and it isn't common for Indonesian to read a very thick book except for Harry Potters series I guess hahaha... I read the summary of it that it wasn't that good anymore. There had been a repetition of scene from the previous series.

Now, being member of Goodreads website and a group discussion in it, I know there are many kind of books classification. From science to stories. And the topic here is on stories. There are many types of stories, from children stories, teen, young adult, adult, science fiction, detective, historical romance, suspense, and true stories.

Comprehending Stories

Having all these kind of stories, our mind has its own way of responding and making preference. When we're children the stories gave us an imaginary world just like the story of Alice in Wonderland. Now as adult, we think that by providing the kids with the books we hope that they can take the wisdom from the stories. Maybe it worked, maybe it didn't. 

Any girls who read the stories of Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty or Snow White may have their imagination that one day prince charming or a knight in shining armor will come and rescue them from distress and marry them. Maybe I was one of them. As I grew up, I realize that it isn't true. It is up to me to resolve my problems to avoid any distress. And I think the cartoon series of Shrek is trying to erase that kind of image, that there's no prince of charming just men with their characters and uniqueness. 

And the books for boys are usually about adventurous experiences. They give them an imagination to be brave in facing the challenge or adversaries, to out-smarts the antagonist and find ways to solve their problem or become a gentleman to female creatures. I don't know what's going on inside boy's mind.

Drown into Fiction

Sometimes people can be so absorbed with the books they read that they just can't put them down till they find out the end of it. And usually these kind of books are considered the best. For me the martial art stories of Kho Ping Hoo fall in this category. I remember during my final exam in secondary school, my brother borrowed a series of Mutiara Hitam (Black Pearl). I was more interested in reading them than studying for my exam. I was afraid he would have returned them before I had chance to read them. Luckily I passed my final exam with good grades.

What we read in our childhood often shaped us to be who we are now. I don't know about others, but the seed of my love to Taoism and Chinese martial movies came from my reading habit. And reading Si Badung (The naughtiest girl) of Enyd Blyton gave me an idea to have fun in life. I mean.... being a little mischievous hehehe..... just for the fun of it.

Some books are just well written that we question ourselves whether the story is ever real or just a fiction. And one of the book that got me thinking so is Aleph by Paulo Coelho. I bought it three months ago just as my friend bought it and recommended me to read it. And when I read it, I took notes on its pages and put marks on the sides of it. I thought I would write my comment here but that would be silly. If it is a fiction then I definitely had been carried away by the story. And if it is true story then I should respect his personal experience.

The Reading Purpose

Of so many books ever written and printed either published or not, as a reader there is an important question we need to ask ourselves: What is the purpose of our reading? Do we do it just for the shake of reading? Because I was reminded by my great spiritual teacher that if we just read for the shake of reading, then we are wasting our time.

Indeed in this whole universe there is so much information that we may not be able to grasp it all with our mind and memory in this short life we have. So we need to make full use of our time by reading the right books and information. I know that I'm not an effective person on this. I still waste my time by reading some light reading books as diversion. I can excuse myself by putting forth reason but I know I'm just kidding my self. In the beginning I may read becauae I want to speed up my reading skill. Then as I enjoyed the story, it is to find something new and enriching inside it. Now, when I read story, it is more likely because I want a diversion and to keep up my english vocabulary. 

The Story of Divinity

And then there is another kind of stories in which whoever read them, they aren't considered wasting their time. It is the stories of divinity. They were written in the holy book based on revelation to the great men called prophets. Some of these stories were written in Bible and Qur'an. In the Old Testament we had plenty of stories from the prophets sent for the Jews with some similarities to Qur'an and some differences. I am not about to talk their differences. And there are also other stories of Ramayana and Mahabharata as well as Bhagavad Gita.

Of these stories, I think most people will refer them as the story from holy scriptures and that they contained divine wisdom in which we can learn something from them. The Old Testament is one of scriptures that contained a lot of stories from the first prophet of the existing human generation till the time before Christ. I remember reading it for the first time when I found it in the second floor of our house. It belonged to one of my brother's friend. I didn't know how it got there. But I was glad it was there because it got me fascinating to know other scriptures apart from Quran. One that I didn't have the chance to read when I had Wati, the minister's daughter around.

My question in story of Divinity is this: in reading these kind of stories, what is our mode of mind in comprehending them? Do we use the same mode as we read any other stories? That we consider them a history of prophets or kings?

Because honestly, this is the mode that we so often used in reading those stories. I'm not excluded on this. Many times as I read those stories, I took them as the history of their lives for me to know. Until two things had me changed my mode of reading. One is from a great man who said that in reading Qur'an one needed to assume that it was revealed to them. And the other is a verse in the Quran that said "And they say "Tales of the ancients, which he has written down, and they are dictated to him morning and afternoon" [QS 25:5]. We may not say it that way, but the way we perceive the story in the Holy Scriptures reflect our mode of reading whether we take them as the tales of the ancients or a hidden wisdom in living our life.

Understanding Divine Story

In understanding Divinity, people are divided into three mainstreams. the first would say that it is the story of personified god such as in the story of Khrisna, Ram and Jesus. They described them as super human with a super natural power. The second would say that the story is as is, no hidden meaning behind it. This was my previous perspective in reading the story of Ramayana, Mahabharata, The Journey to the West (Chinese story) and Syeikh Siti Jenar. And the third would say that the story is a parable in describing something that cannot be described. So it is like that but not really like that.  

Since I learned Self Knowledge and took about the third stream in understanding the story of Divinity, I no longer take the stories within Qur'an as is. I would try to seek wisdom behind the story, perceive the verses in my own life and find a red thread that will connect me to the Divinity. The existence of Khrisna, Ram, Jesus, Adam, Abraham, as well as Muhammad SAW is no longer outside my being. I seek them within me and connect myself to them to understand the Divinity and His proximity to my Self. 

Yes, it's true that the surah Al Anbiyaa' is about the Prophets, but as in truth they existed in the past, their essential experience also stay true to the life of human being. The difference is whether we accept its truth and follow their best example or not.

And the purpose of the story of Divinity certainly isn't for the sake of reading. It carries some profound wisdom as guidance to human being. As it is our needs to know our origin and how to surf through this life safely, so is our Most Merciful Creator - Allah wish to be known and acknowledged. And the story of divinity is about knowing the essential truth that connect our past, present and future to the Most Divine, i.e. our Creator.