ESQ basic training (1)

on the 27-29th december last year, i went to this interesting training which is the ESQ basic training. actually, it was my sister who had put up my name for this. she had went to the same training earlier and found it great. so, she wanted me to undergo the same experience. she had told me about it a few weeks earlier but i only got my letter from my admin unit on the 24th.

on the name list, i was the only grade 17 participant. if you didn't know, government rate their staffs by grade. the higher your grade, the higher your post is. in my case here, i'm the lowest grade and i am alone. i told my sister about this, saying i wouldn't want to go for it would make me felt out of place. luckily, we were short of about 50 participants and my sister urged me to recruit more. alhamdulillah, i managed to drag to of my good friends azu and dayah along. then there were three 17 grade staffs.

the registration was on the night of 26th but due to my doctor appointment on 27th, i went to the training a little big late. i missed the morning session. ooo, btw my parents send me aimm (akademi imigresen malaysia), where the training was held. i'll be going back with azu and dayah. the three of us were in the same room because we requested it. when i asked my two friends about what i missed, they said nothing much. there were only introduction regarding the training. i already told the training committee that i would come late because of my appointment.

let's get to training. ESQ stands for Emotional Spiritual Quotient. most of us are familiar with IQ that is Intellectual Quotient but not on the EQ or SQ. honestly, i once thought that SQ stands for Social instead of Spiritual Quotient. ESQ is introduced by dr ari ginanjar agustian from indonesia and if you googled ESQ 165, you'll different opinions and thoughts regarding it. some were against it because they found that the concept was against the teaching of Islam. and some were okay with the concepts and find it really helped them in their faith. me? i am with the latter.

this ESQ training was formed by four different stages. the basic is only the first step. the other three types are ESQ MCB, ESQ2 and ESQ total action. all the things that been taught in this training brought us nearer to our Creator, Allah swt. the 165 is 1 (value ~ based on the concpet of IHSAN at Fitrah awareness), 6 (moral principles based on the concept of RUKUN IMAN) and 5 (steps to success based on RUKUN ISLAM).

ESQ model

as a muslim, i learned about iman, islam and ihsan since primary school. especially when i came from johor for in johor, it is a MUST for the muslim children to go to sekolah agama or religion school before of after the sekolah kebangsaan or regular school. i said before of after because, if you had your regular school in the morning, you'll have to go to religion school in the evening. during my time, standard 1, 2 and 3 of religion school in only 1 1/2 hours while standard 4,5 and 6 3 hours.

and there are also 2 years darjah khas or special class for those who has completed standard 6. if i'm not mistaken, people who had completed darjah khas will receive a certificate that would allow them to be ustaz or ustazah (religion teacher) as for me, i only completed my study until standard 4 for i went to boarding school in negeri sembilan. in sekolah agama, we learned more details in Islam compared to what we learned during sekolah kebangsaan. we have specific subjects such as Ibadat, Tauhid, Sirah, Tajwid, Tafsir, Munakahat, Farai, Arabic and Jenayat.

alhamdulillah, because of all these teachings, we know a lot of things regarding Islam. but unfortunately in my case, since i learned it at a very young age, i forgot a lot of them while growing up. i'm ashamed to admit it, but it's the truth.  i used to remember a lot of surah and their meaning then, especially ayat lazim (Surah al-Duha until Surah al-Nas). and during secondary school, there were the ayat hafazan, sentences from the Quran that we must memorize for the exam. once the examination is over, i forgot about them.

okay, let's us get back to the training. we were once again introduced to the concept of iman, islam and ihsan. i wouldn't want to explain these important things using my own words for i'm afraid that it would be interpreted wrongly. so, i googled and i found this site that have a very good definition and explanation on iman, islam and ihsan. in this training, we were once again reminded of these important things. let me paste the translation of the hadith riwayat muslim as being said by the authority of Umar ra. actually, these translations were copied from the site i mentioned earlier.

again, i must emphasized that all of these were being taught to us when we young and reminded again and again through our school and university years. once, we entered the working life, where we didn't attend to islamic classes anyore, we tend to forget it little by little. we didn't forget it actually since it was still there deep inside of us, waiting to be awaken and known again. in our eagerness to pursue life, we forgot the teaching that is really important. we kept feeding our physical appetite that we forgot to feed our soul with the nutrition it needs.

to be continued...