DR ARY GINANJAR

A Towering Personality

I first heard about Dr Ary Ginanjar Agustian, the founder of the ESQ 165 model which has been materialised into the much talked about ESQ Training programme, in 2005 when I was doing a project work in Jakarta and Bandung.

In Indonesia, I enjoyed going to book stores, because interestingly for every best-selling English publication one could almost find the translated version in Bahasa Indonesia. It's not that I would enjoy reading Indonesian, but I was amazed how fast new best sellers were translated into Indonesian and the fact that many people there read the translated version more than the original language!

The obvious reasons I thought were because Indonesia is such a highly populated nation and moreover Bahasa Indonesia is so prominently used so much so that the book industry can easily create local best-sellers for translated books even if you are talking about a target audience of 0.01% among some 280 million people there. The reverse was probably the case too.

Try selling translated materials in Bahasa Malaysia where not even a tiny fraction of the 28 million buy Bahasa books, and one will burn his pocket!

I noticed that Dr Ary's books were obviously written first in Bahasa Indonesia, but its English translation titled ESQ Power, ESQ etc. were already on the shelves and selling fast.

I flipped through the books and found the chapters rather interesting topics. However, I had several "belenggu"s (Bahasa for "cover" and "kaffir", Pak Legisan Sugimin a senior ESQ trainer always told participants in jive).

One of my "belenggu"s was PRESUMPTION (prasangka). I hated reading religious books written by authors with no known Islamic qualifications. Dr Ary Ginanjar Agustian as a name didn't provide indication of Islamic background, in fact, at first I figured the name didn't sound Islamic at all! I easily dismissed the contents due to such presumption.

Another belenggu I had was LITERATURE (knowledge). Not that I considered myself knowledgable Islamic-wise. It was just that, I always equated the subject of Spirituality discussed by Dr Ary Ginanjar in those books with Sufism, and I don't consider myself or my family apt for practising Sufism, or Tasauf or Tariqat.

I considered myself (and that extended to my family) a straightforward muslim (read: good, moderate): reading Qoran, practising the required pillars, and sometimes listening to ceramahs or kuliahs (religious talks) on TV, radio and in mosques.

From my understanding then, muslims who got involved in tasauf usually became obsessed with lengthy doa and endless wirids, and did certain group activities I deemed alien and wouldn't be endorsed by Prophet Muhammad SAW if he were alive.

So, Dr Ary's books such as ESQ Power, whilst being a best-seller in Indonesia (sold 300 thousand copies at that time as stated on the book cover) as well as sounding intriguing as it talked at length on a subject a lot of people had difficulty explaining, wouldn't gel well on me. Instead, I purchased several books on Key Performance Indicators and strategic management which were my professional interests (they still are). For personal improvement I bought several Qoran volumes, one of them being the biggest size-wise I ever saw!

I may have given Dr Ary a miss back then, but perhaps due to its peculiarity, I couldn't help but imbed in my mind the names Ary Ginanjar Agustian and ESQ. Little did I know then, how through his spiritual and physical journey in search of Allah, the Almighty SWT extends His Guidance to hundred thousands of human beings.

How, through the modules Outer Journey and Inner Journey, and the Seven Core Values springing from the 99 Names of Allah (Asmaul Husna), many become better muslims who understand and start practicing the true spirit of Ihsan, Iman and Islam.

May Allah SWT Provide strength to this towering contemporary Muslim personality. May He forgive us and continue to provide us with His Guidance.

(to be continued, InsyaAllah)

NEXT: ATTENDING ESQ TRAINING FIRST TIME