Unmasked on Friday 13/7/13 - Revised.

 

                     Najib, on the left, died a few years back while praying in the mosque, they said.

Unmasked on Friday

13/7/13

Yes, I made it to the mosque yesterday for the Friday prayer—and like clockwork, the same scenario unfolded. A pompous fellow dropped beside me and dramatically threw a bunch of keys onto the prayer mat in front of him. Kaboom!—my mind went off like a grenade.

Suddenly, I’m imagining assault and battery, kicking in his teeth, tossing him into a parallel universe where people arrive at Jumaat with humility instead of hardware.

Then, perhaps sensing the silent warfare radiating off my aura, the man shifted away. A gap opened. Into that space slid a young boy with the air of someone very much in tune with God.

But what irked me about this kid—ah yes, the twitching. During the tahiyyat, he kept wiggling his index finger not toward God, but toward ten different invisible realms. It wagged in every direction like he was testifying to a divine GPS. And yes, I thought—perhaps he was right. God is indeed everywhere. Still, I could have reached over and broken that finger.

But how could I? I was sitting before God!

                                             
Most of those who came were Banglas 

Of course, upon reflection, I realize—these vexations are mine. My own attachments to form, to appearance, to how others behave around me when I am trying to be holy. I usually sit in meditation for thirty to forty-five minutes before the khutbah begins, eyes closed, tuning out the noise. But sometimes the noise wins.

This is why I seldom pray at mosques—except on Fridays.

---

                                                               The Ummah!

Fasting, too, has its way of drawing out both the best and worst in a person. And it seems I have yet to earn the best when it comes to anything religious. I just can't seem to open to what being in the presence of God is meant to be. My mind has long been trained to rebel against constraint, coercion, and quiet cajoling.

Meanwhile, in other parts of the world, the Vatican has, for the first time in history, sent its envoy to Malaysia, adding another color to our religious mosaic. With the Pontiff’s representative in our midst, perhaps we’ll receive guidance on our beloved local theological conundrums—like the use of the word "Allah" in the English Bible. Or was it the Malay-translated one?

Whatever the case, everyone who’s interested in God—or the sound of the word—is up in arms. This tug-of-war has gone on for years. I wonder if God or Allah has changed by now. As the Buddha reminds us: All is transitory. And as human minds can’t stay still for long, perhaps even the word “Allah” might shift meaning by day's end.

We’re trapped in names and forms. We chase the idea of being “one with God,” yet fail to feel it. And even when we feel it, we miss seeing what God might be seeing in us.

We're like Peter Pan, chasing our own shadow—trying to sew it back onto our feet when it’s already part of us, if only we’d stop trying so hard to prove it.

Instead, we trudge along like zombies—emotionless, seeking live forms to consume so we can keep calling it life. We kill to stay alive. We kill to stay relevant. And when zombies aren’t enough, we invent vampires—our favorite immortality projection. We glamorize their hunger, make cinematic masterpieces out of their lifestyle—anything to convince ourselves we can survive forever by feeding off others.

Zombies and vampires may not be real, but they live inside us—as psychic projections of our desperation. Our craving for immortality, our obsession with form, our fear of vanishing.

We are now selling body parts across the world—hearts, livers, kidneys, eyeballs—just name your price. Is this not proof of our sacred attachment to form? Our belief that eternity must come through flesh?

Oh, what a wonderful world we live in. Is there any other place like this one among the stars?

                                            I like to be at the mosque early and sit in the first line.

Maybe my next journey is astral.
Maybe I’ll go searching—off this planet—for something more alive than all of this.

---

#UnmaskedOnFriday #ZombiesAndPrayerMats #ReligiousAbsurdities #FingerToTheDivine #FaithWithoutForm #FridayFrustrations #TalesFromTheMosque #GodIsEverywhere #NamesAndEssence #ChasingShadows #KickingKeysAndInnerPeace #PeterPanSyndrome #VampiresAmongUs #SpiritualSatire #FastingAndFury