Blogger Indonesia of the Week (42): Eva Muchtar
The Wanderer of a True Life and Happiness
Human is the only God creatures who keeps wondering and, therefore, seeking after the true meaning of life. It happens because of unsatisfying nature of human in looking at the existing life and condition he/she is currently in or has been through. Because human is equipped with “soul,” as opposed to animal, that make them always tend to evolve and ever needs an additional kind of comfortability or happiness if you will.
Strangely, human never feels satisfied and happy with what they’ve already had; rather they always think that they will reach happiness if they reach some kind of achievements that yet to be achieved and being attained by others. From that anxiety, human develops, grows and progress for the better or the worse.There are two ways for a serious seeker of the truth to satisfy their thirst of meaningful life: (1) Turning into philosophical books; and (2) learning from the mozaic of the world by travelling around the globe for those who can afford to do it.
Eva Muchtar seems to choose both alternatives. As she put it:
I share my impressions on my journeys. A physical journey to exotic places or my neighborhood. A mind travel through reading books and breathing the environment. A chat with friends or strangers. A search within self. Journeys that have helped me make more sense of life, if at all possible. And certainly journeys that make me feel blessed with the life and love that surround me. My own personal pilgrimage. For life.
Her journey to Spain seems to inspire her much spiritually,
I am a lot more in peace with myself. I have learned to accept myself more. I have traced-back my life. I have learned to accept, to forgive and to learn what I need to learn from my personality and my life.
As a Muslim, she thinks that Islam is not only a plethora of religious rituals. True, rituals/prayers are important, but
…there is more to Islam than just prayers, fasting and whispering the name of Lord with our lips. Religion is just a guideline along with some examples to reach a higher purpose. We need to know the story behind it, need to read between the lines and feel it with our hearts. We need to go beyond believing, to even go beyond knowing, and to actually experience it.
Eva Muchtar, a Public Relation officer in Jakarta based company, seems to be in love with Al
Ghazali, the most celebrated Islamic figure of sufism. A school of thought within Islam that emphasizes more on esoteric (haqiqat) or inner-self way of life.
And she is not alone. Many Indonesian middle class professionals getting bored or distressful with so much ever mounting pressures at works turn into sufism or spiritualism to attain peace and happiness humanity is and has been longing for.
As mentioned above, as far as I am concerned, eternal happiness and peace will never be attained, temporary happiness is, because it’s against the human nature. At the same time, that’s the beauty of mankind: always desperately wants more to evolve, develop and progress. That’s humane and it’s good. But there’s a time where we gotta know our own limit crossing of which will result in a disaster for our own soul.
And at the cross-road between ambition and desperation; between never-give-up in achieving our earthly life and limitation of thinking mentality, lies spirituality to make us still stand firm on our own legs. To maintain equilibrium between eartly dynamic life driven by our brain and heavenly peace of mind which comes from our hearts and spread calmly within our nerves system. It calls peace. Temporary peace and happiness.