The tenth day of the fasting month and I am dragging my butt along trying to keep up with the full practice giving myself all kinds of excuses why to or why not. My lower back pain has practically stopped me from doing the Taraweh prayers, a convenient excuse perhaps but I wish my guilt tripping would seize from managing my life whehther spiritually of materially. I sometimes feel like I am forcing to perform not so much for my belief's sake but for the friends and relative's sake, for what would the neighbors say's sake. However I cannot deny that deep down I have a weak disposition and it is most evident when it comes to putting my self to the spiritual disciplin.
I am regressing again and may Allah forgive me for being such a weakling, I fast but my fasting is incomplete or might even be worthless as I fail to perform all the other obligations that is compulsory for a Muslim to perform like the five times a day prayers. Everytime I hear the call for prayer from the mosques over the loudspeakers my heart feels sad it is as though I am forfeiting my chances of winning a lottery for no good reason other than sheer laziness or lack of faith. I am greatful for all that Allah has bestowed upon me and there is no greater love for me this day than the love of the AlMighty Creator and if I am to die in His service I gladly will but this sounds as flakey even for me.
For the love of the Al-Mighty I could not perform my prayers even if I wanted to as my mind will not allow for its total surrender or submission. The will always be an intrusion into my Solat(prayer) by thoughts out of nowwhere just as though what I would be doing was just pure physical actions with no spiritual substance whatsoever in them. I like to pray, I even enjoy praying sometimes when I can full concentrate upon my act of worship, however, I fail most of the time to feel the connection between my heart and my soul.I do my worshipping while sitting in meditation and would attain much more genuine feeling of the act than I would performing the mandatory solat. Sitting meditation or Tafakur as in Islam is one form of offering one's prayer or getting close to Allah but it is not a substitution for the daily solat. So here's the catch for me damn if I do and damn if I dont.I often feel like I am existinfg in a floating world of dellusion an empty husk floating aimlessly along the firface of life for no rhyme or reason. My prescence on this p
lanet is just a long bloody waste of time with alot of garbage to show for and nothing more.
I now realize that it is not money or the lack of it that is tha cause of my often times what i can only call manic- depression for even as I am financially stable at the moment my heart is sick with depair. It is an incomplete feeling like something is missing from its very core. I am envious of those who seemingly makes it look so simple in performing their obligations towards their religious practice as Muslims and am even beginning to see the correlation between material and spiritual wealth in some like my cousins and brothers but it all seems still emphimeral like there is something that I quite fail to grasp, the Truth eludes me.
Perhaps i seriously need to find a spiritual companion to fill the empty space left by my wife. I am a very sexually oriented soul by nature and have been living an almost celibate life for as long as my daughter has been born. She is now almost seventeen and that is practically how many years i have really been without a real soul mate for my wife was just my wife a mother to my children, a fully committed career person whose interest in sexual intimacy was practically nil. Far from it I do not blame her for my shortcomings and yes she was a aprt of it like it or not but suffice to say I have been living a hollow unwholesome life with my better half missing, a Yang without its Yin.
Find a wife they say, you cannot live a solitary life even if you have your children to keep you company. Yeah! Right! its like i can step out one day and find a compatible woman ask her to marry me while having to tell her that i have two kids who are foreign citizens and my income comes from and ureliable source of being an artist, like sometimes you have and most of the times you are scrounging to make ends meet.Oh by the way I am also subjected to fits of temper as pointed out by my relatives and in laws most of whom would not be having any good words to speak of me. I have practically nothing to offer in terms of property, not eeven an insurance policy if and when I die to leave behind and no pension to boot. So who in heaven's name would consider having me for a partner to spend in sick and health for the rest of my days? Perhaps I have squandered my life in persuit of the grand illusion, the life of an artist, seeker traveller whatever, but I sure as hell have failed as a father, husband and most ashamedly as a spiritual man. I still cannot pray five times a day!!
I am regressing again and may Allah forgive me for being such a weakling, I fast but my fasting is incomplete or might even be worthless as I fail to perform all the other obligations that is compulsory for a Muslim to perform like the five times a day prayers. Everytime I hear the call for prayer from the mosques over the loudspeakers my heart feels sad it is as though I am forfeiting my chances of winning a lottery for no good reason other than sheer laziness or lack of faith. I am greatful for all that Allah has bestowed upon me and there is no greater love for me this day than the love of the AlMighty Creator and if I am to die in His service I gladly will but this sounds as flakey even for me.
For the love of the Al-Mighty I could not perform my prayers even if I wanted to as my mind will not allow for its total surrender or submission. The will always be an intrusion into my Solat(prayer) by thoughts out of nowwhere just as though what I would be doing was just pure physical actions with no spiritual substance whatsoever in them. I like to pray, I even enjoy praying sometimes when I can full concentrate upon my act of worship, however, I fail most of the time to feel the connection between my heart and my soul.I do my worshipping while sitting in meditation and would attain much more genuine feeling of the act than I would performing the mandatory solat. Sitting meditation or Tafakur as in Islam is one form of offering one's prayer or getting close to Allah but it is not a substitution for the daily solat. So here's the catch for me damn if I do and damn if I dont.I often feel like I am existinfg in a floating world of dellusion an empty husk floating aimlessly along the firface of life for no rhyme or reason. My prescence on this p
lanet is just a long bloody waste of time with alot of garbage to show for and nothing more.I now realize that it is not money or the lack of it that is tha cause of my often times what i can only call manic- depression for even as I am financially stable at the moment my heart is sick with depair. It is an incomplete feeling like something is missing from its very core. I am envious of those who seemingly makes it look so simple in performing their obligations towards their religious practice as Muslims and am even beginning to see the correlation between material and spiritual wealth in some like my cousins and brothers but it all seems still emphimeral like there is something that I quite fail to grasp, the Truth eludes me.
Perhaps i seriously need to find a spiritual companion to fill the empty space left by my wife. I am a very sexually oriented soul by nature and have been living an almost celibate life for as long as my daughter has been born. She is now almost seventeen and that is practically how many years i have really been without a real soul mate for my wife was just my wife a mother to my children, a fully committed career person whose interest in sexual intimacy was practically nil. Far from it I do not blame her for my shortcomings and yes she was a aprt of it like it or not but suffice to say I have been living a hollow unwholesome life with my better half missing, a Yang without its Yin.
Find a wife they say, you cannot live a solitary life even if you have your children to keep you company. Yeah! Right! its like i can step out one day and find a compatible woman ask her to marry me while having to tell her that i have two kids who are foreign citizens and my income comes from and ureliable source of being an artist, like sometimes you have and most of the times you are scrounging to make ends meet.Oh by the way I am also subjected to fits of temper as pointed out by my relatives and in laws most of whom would not be having any good words to speak of me. I have practically nothing to offer in terms of property, not eeven an insurance policy if and when I die to leave behind and no pension to boot. So who in heaven's name would consider having me for a partner to spend in sick and health for the rest of my days? Perhaps I have squandered my life in persuit of the grand illusion, the life of an artist, seeker traveller whatever, but I sure as hell have failed as a father, husband and most ashamedly as a spiritual man. I still cannot pray five times a day!!
1 comment:
"... I fail most of the time to feel the connection between my heart and my soul".
So do I. But I just keep praying because if I don't I'll have a guilty feeling inside me.
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