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bdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid, the fourth president of Indonesia, a great ulema and a man of humanity, is no longer with us, but he is not dead. Neither is he in the grave. He lives in us.

His human touch and spirit — for justice, freedom, humanity, tolerance, decency and simplicity — live and rise as ripples and then as waves of love within many hearts. A teacher of love and compassion, Gus Dur remains a fearless defender of tolerance, pluralism and constitutionalism.

In front of him, you were precious not because of your religion, wealth, affiliation or social status, but because you were simply human. The fact that you were human gave the man enough reason to respect you. That was his religiosity.

He welcomed me so warmly when I requested a letter of reference for my doctoral studies. One time he phoned Father Erary, a Catholic priest in Papua, at midnight during a presidential visit to Washington, just to listen to his opinion.

Gus Dur passed away on Dec. 30, 2009. But his wisdom prevails. In our present world, degraded by violence, hatred, cruelty and greed, Gus Dur’s humanity is more relevant than ever before.

The humanist spirit of Gus Dur — religion with sacrifice, tolerance, justice, democracy, constitutionalism and spirituality with love — was well summarized in a dangdut song titled “Pendekar Rakyat” (The People’s Hero) performed by Sagita.

“Although your eyes are blind

Your heart is with sight

You know which one is a cat and which one is dog

It doesn’t matter whether you are NGOs or parties, organizations or community activists

The most important is the character

I remember your simple advice

Religion should protect the universe.”

Gus Dur’s conviction that religion should protect humanity and universe remains absolutely true. The fundamental objective of religion for Gus Dur was to protect life, because every life is sacred.

Religion, in his own words, should “reflect God’s mercy and compassion, and bring the blessings of peace, justice and tolerance to a suffering world.”

Thus, it is grossly irreligious to hurt, hate and discriminate against other people because of their religious views. Gus Dur did not only believe in the sacredness of life, but also in the unity of humanity.

There are many faiths, but there is only one humanity. That is why, for Gus Dur, the Muslim majority was obligated to protect the non-Muslim minority in Indoensia.

The next legacy of Gus Dur is his consistent teachings about constitutionalism. People often use religious prescriptions to judge what happens in the public sphere, such as in the Ahmadiyah case. For Gus Dur, this was unacceptable. He taught us to hold to constitutional principles instead of sharia, because Indonesia is not an Islamic state.

Gus Dur also taught us to be just and honest. To the young generations, he underlined the importance of being just and honest over being smart. Oft questioned as to why he defended the minority so strongly, he replied that justice was more important than solidarity in injustice.

Finally, Gus Dur was a man of God. He taught Muslims to surrender to Allah, the Almighty, instead of becoming slaves to their egos and greed. Religious violence and conflict occur because of human egos and spiritual impoverishment. Muslims should gain enlightenment to free themselves from their egos, greed and hatred.

To reach enlightenment, as he advised his youngest daughter, one needs to be drowned in nothingness or God’s consciousness to enter the divine presence. Only in the divine presence can one strip off the desires of ego and grow the wings of love needed to can fly.

It is this energy of divine love that rises as wave in his heart that gives him energy and courage for his patience, compassion, humanity, humor and devotion to pluralism and social justice.

At the center of Gus Dur’s consciousness was the idea that the very essence of being an ulema was to embody loving and caring rahman rahim and then channeling that compassion and mercy to the universe for the whole of humanity.

Ulema are not a set of attributes, religious symbols or the guardians of religious doctrines. Ulema should be a manifestation of divine love on Earth.

Gus Dur expressed that divine love in his decency and simplicity. As one person once said: “I am blind about Gus Dur. But I like him because of one thing. He is simple. And simplicity is the best dress for an ulema.”

For Gus Dur, the heart of religion was sacrifice and love without which religion would be, in the words of Steven Covey, “just another hierarchical system”, “outward observances” and “visible accoutrements” without “a sense of service or inner worship”. Such outward religiosity is dangerous, according to Covey, because it is “neither God-centered nor principle-centered”.

With all those characteristics, it is not surprising that Gus Dur is remembered and loved. Though he was almost blind, he was the one with true sight among us, the blind.

Though he was in a wheelchair, he was the one who taught Indonesia to walk along the path of democracy.

Gus Dur is no longer with us, but Gus Dur is like a pebble dropped in water that vanishes, as James W. Foley described in his poem. “But there are half-a-hundred (perhaps endless) ripples circling on and on and on/ Spreading, spreading from the center, flowing on out to the sea/And there is no way of telling where the end is going to be.”

Let the memory of Gus Dur warm our hearts and help us to handle the hatred and violence that dominates our public life today. Remembering the spirit of Gus Dur, let us embrace the words of Rumi: “Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone’s soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd.”

The writer is a researcher at the Center for Cultural Pluralism, Democracy and Character Building at Semarang State University.