It took me 20+ years to understand just a bit about what ‘ikhlas’ is.
I live in a neighborhood where the neighbors will be the first people that help you when something happens on or in your house. And that includes death. Here, it’s quite common to use your home as a funeral home. When you juggle your house into a temporary funeral home, some of your neighbors will take part to help you doing the magic. Then others will come to pay respect and show support to the bereaved family.
There was one moment when mom brought me to my neighbor’s funeral home many years ago. I was still a kid at that time. During the visit, my child’s senses observed a weird thing (I didn’t consider it as weird at that time, though, but that’s exactly why I made this writing). The little me noticed the folks will say something like “yang tabah dan ikhlas, ya” which means ‘be strong and ikhlas’ to the bereaved family members. Ikhlas in this context usually means to let that person go — to accept the person’s death.
I had been noticing and hearing that sentence multiple times especially in difficult moments, like misfortunes or grief. And to my surprise — because I’ve just realized it last year — I learned something, which was a huge mistake, about ikhlas and I apparently brought it until I become an adult. I perceived that ikhlas was something that you could implement as you wish, something that you could activate by cues. I used to think that it’s just the same like a person telling others to sit down or stand up, to walk or to stop.
So when hardships happened, I would retrive that memory and I told myself to be ikhlas. I should be ikhlas. If I didn’t, it meant I hadn’t tried as hard as I should. This thought, as you can predict, added more burdens to myself because I treated ikhlas like a homework I should finish, like a game I should win over, like an obligation.
Another consequences of this false perception was I started to search for clues to check if I was already ikhlas or not. It’s expected that the wrong definition I used at that time had led me to form wrong indicators. I used to think that if you’re already ikhlas, you would be able to do your usual activities without much of a problem. I thought that meant you’re not controlled by the discomfort you feel. I also thought being ikhlas meant you could talk about it without trembling voice — be it due to sadness or anger or fear.
So, those were the things that I exactly did. Even people told me that they wouldn’t know I experienced or felt such thing if I didn’t tell them myself — because it’s just nowhere to be seen in my daily activities, in my voice, in my face. And I thought I was ikhlas, and I ‘performed’ it well.
But surely you can trick others, you can even trick yourself, but you can’t trick the truth.
And the truth is, I wasn’t ikhlas. I was stubborn enough to ignore it until I was tired of my own thoughts that emerges in some occasions when I encountered things related to those hurtful events I experienced in the past. So, I decided that I got to do something about it — and I knew my past definition was not only obsolete, but also wrong.
I have to admit that ikhlas is one of the most difficult lesson I have ever submitted myself into. It’s also not something that you can ask others to teach you about. Hence, I start with the point where I knew I was wrong (which was basically the whole thing). Because first I thought it was a homework, a game, or an obligation — and all of these were wrong, I cultivated some hints using the opposite. Ikhlas is not a homework, a game, or an obligation. It’s not something that you have to do because someone told you so, it’s not something that you can win over, and it’s not a checklist. In other words, it’s not an order/instruction. It doesn’t need a ‘push’.
From that point, I started to imagine a situation where I was free of burdens and there was no threats. I was flabbergasted. What a serene, lovely state!
However, not long after, I realized that even though there was no external source of pain, I already felt the pain inside. The scars exist within. These scars, in which some were still stinging, could cause an intense emotion which triggers discomfort. And this is my second mistake. I thought ikhlas was the absence of emotion or the absence of discomfort. Only by then I learned that to deny emotion and discomfort is to deny one of the essence of being a human being. And ikhlas never asks you to deny your humanity.
With these mistakes I made and the hints I discovered, I learned that ikhlas is a state of mind of a total acceptance.
That’s why when you feel ikhlas, there’s no longer terms and condition, there’s no ‘shoulds’, and there’s no longer resistance. You accept the reality, the facts, the pain, and the emotion. You don’t scold yourself for feeling sad or miss someone that passed away. You don’t bark at yourself to erase the memory so you won’t feel the piercing sensation. You accept the brutality of grief and separation.
What makes ikhlas hard — and this is also what makes ikhlas really beautiful — is its honesty. It’s real. You cannot trick it because it’s not something that you can produce or reach through a hack. You feel it when you feel it. And it never asks you to get it as fast as you can. It never asks you to be convenient. It only asks you to be honest and to release whenever you’re ready.
Ikhlas is offering you an option to loosen your grip to something that’s no longer exists and towards the pain you keep. Those are heavy boxes which actually don’t belong anymore to any rooms in your mind because the room has been emptied for a reason — to make it more spacious for more meaningful things ready to be encountered.
I believe I only learned a glimpse of what ikhlas is and I’m cautious not to think that I kind of ‘get it’. Nonetheless, I think I’m now using a much healthier definition of what ikhlas is and I’ll hold on to it while I’m waiting for another lesson — which I believe will come to my way without my request, anyway — because who am I to think that life must work according to my will.
Thus, I’ll unashamedly take my time to the course that might take a lifetime to fulfil. With an open mind, with an open heart.
