A GENERAL THEORY OF THE MALAY AKAL BUDI

Abstract

What does it mean to be a Malay? Or rather what is ‘malayness’ of a Malay? Apart from the physiological aspect that could be clearly observed, it is the cognitive, affective and spiritual aspect that warrants further examination. While being a Malay certainly hinges on a necessary spatiotemporal existence, there should be some commonalities of being a Malay that satisfy the sufficient requirements of more than being human; the Malay conscientiousness for instance. In this paper, the author examines the Malay Akal Budi in light of the human hierarchy of existence and levels of reality of the cosmos. A general theory of the Malay Akal Budi is formulated towards the end.