Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Realisations 2 - The Fragility of Faith.

No. No pictures in this one.


Over the years (Long ones, I assure you) I've had the pleasure of meeting people who tend to point out things and talk before they think of it properly and by God do I love these people. Of course, most of the time I tend to feel the anger well up and it would take every single thing I hold dear to me to remind myself that 'No, no, no, no, God, no, it is not worth punching him/her so hard that it would literally shatter his/her mandible'. I actually appreciate them. Why? Because they tend to make me realise that what I believe in is strong. I would not say much stronger but strong is appropriate.

Yes, we are going into that topic now. Religion.

Just a few days ago I had a dear friend finally go out and say what was on his mind. Before that, he was praying and I, as always, waited while having a fag. While having said fag and most probably due to the nicotine coursing in my blood, an imaginary conversation began in my brain where he politely asked me why I seem to have a lack of faith and I of course, began to refute that very fact.

Then it really did happen. He sat down, looked at me, said 'I'm just asking this as a friend' and then went on to ask that very thing.

'I've known you for a long time, we've been good friends and I noticed that you don't really pray. Why is that?'

So, while other people would go ahead and give half-assed excuses about not being ready or denying it, I simply told him that at the stage that I was in, I do not pray not because I don't believe but because I still haven't found that thing which makes us loyal and quite frankly, BFFs with God.

I told him of Hazrat Rabia Basri, and the words which I like to believe I've stayed true to;

"O God! If I worship You for fear of Hell, burn me in Hell,
and if I worship You in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise.
But if I worship You for Your Own sake,
grudge me not Your everlasting Beauty.”

It's simple is it not? At this point, I honestly cannot say that I'm in tune with the frequency of that unshakable faith. Actually, I am pretty damned sure that if something major happens, I would fall into this pit of denial and wouldn't actually see it as a blessing from the big guy.

Then he told me a story. When he was a kid or something, he was like most of us, not really connecting with what we believe in. Then he went to this gathering and what they do was that they have this moment where they go into separate rooms, stay there and say God's name ten thousand times. He told me that he was bummed, like holy balls man, ten thousand times?! Then he said that after a while, he didn't care about the number any more and all he wanted was for every word he uttered to count. Moral: If you repeat things many, many times, you will learn to love it.

Which is difficult for me to accept. Actually I hate that concept.

Story time.

When I was a kid, as soon as I learned about the fundamentals of faith, I could not stop doing what was required. I never missed a prayer when I was a kid. Never. I fasted for the full month when I was five, and all that. My parents were sure they had brought me up to be a God fearing child and they were proud.

When I was twelve I had a pet bird. I have no idea what it's called in English so excuse my shallow knowledge when it comes to birds. I fucking loved that bird cause my Dad built an aviary and every time I walked past that bird would fly to where I was. It was awesome I guess. Then a day came when some sort of disease spread which fucking killed all the birds. And I remembered going into the aviary looking for it and it was half-dead on the ground. As a kid who did understood death, that fucking sucked, man. What did I do then? I prayed.

I actually had the wisdom to not go ahead and say 'Hey, God, I've been good to you, why don't you give me back that little thing you took away, eh?'. Instead, I just asked for some sort of closure, some sort of fucking comfort. I, a twelve year old kid, just needed to know what the bloody fuck to do. On one hand, I was a naive kid. On the other, I was a kid who took God as a superior figure who knows everything, and had the answers. The feeling I had when I still did not know what was going on was... Destructive.

Say what you want, but don't give that shit about the Lord working in mysterious ways. My point is that I was the ideal Muslim back then. I do everything right, I was pious as fuck but it only took me one damned incident to destroy any faith that I had. Which brings us back to the point my friend made which was that if you repeat something many, many, many times, you'll find that you love it. That is the biggest bullshit I've heard in my fucking life.

What I need is simply something which could prop me up and hold me steady. That something is knowledge and enlightenment. The simple ability to know and confirm in my heart that God is there, listening and God is there helping. What I need is simply the confirmation that yeah, I can do this without having it ripped away from me ever again. That, in my opinion, is true faith.

Sure, my logic might be flawed but I cannot accept praying for the sake of religious duty. I hate the thought that I'm doing it because I want to be guaranteed a place in heaven, or kept away from hell. Fuck it, I want to do it because I want to do it. Because I want to have a fucking connection and not because some motherfucking mullah or imam is going to incarcerate me. What is the fucking sense of doing it because you're afraid of people. Of other human beings. That is exactly the stupid, moronic nonsense that's preventing you from moving forward as an ummah. You find that good people are the ones who pray and fast and pay their dues but the fact is that you forget how many of those people are the real pretenders. While you are busy tearing the people who are truthfully still looking for faith, these guys are at your back dancing. How fucking ignorant you are, they say.

I find that it would be a direct insult to the big guy upstairs if I were to actually go and perform the ablution and pray right now. Why? Because what would you feel if you are listening to someone who is talking to you just because he had to? Because his friends told him to? Because his superiors commanded him to? What would you feel, knowing that he is doing it not because he genuinely wants to talk to you, not because he loves you but simply because he's doing it out of necessity.

Simply, fuck you, fuck you and fuck you, I might be that damned guy who's going to be the fuel of hell's raging fire but I can safely say that I will not pretend to be something that I am not. Don't you guys have a word for that? Munafik, was it?

Eargasm of the day: Because if you actually knew how many people are fake around you, you'd slit your own throat.

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