My Awakening

Over the past few days, I feel like I have come into a new Spiritual Awakening, a complete and total understanding. To keep this locked up inside of me would not service me, or whoever might be reading this.

For too long, I have tried to find “understanding” within the walls of religion. Recently, I had a comment from someone that was very negative in its very words, but in comprehending, pondering, meditating, and then understanding, I find myself sitting here tonight with complete understanding.

The individual who wrote to me accused me of having an “identity crisis”, they told me that I should have “gotten over” my identity crisis years ago. While my initial reaction was one of complete shock and hurt at the words, I now am grateful for those words because it caused me to open my heart and my mind to complete and total opening up to my Self.

Over the years, I have traversed many spiritual paths, gone on spiritual journeys, and tried very hard to find my sense of “belonging” within the walls of organized religion.

This started in my mid-teens when I was in a foreign country attending school in a distant location from the town I was living in with my Grandparents. Alone, lonely, away from “home” (the home that I had grown up in with my parents), and without the friends I had known most of my life, I was friendless in this town. The only people I could consider as “friends” from school lived in the city, a distance from where I was.

In that loneliness, I was introduced to the Mormon Church via members of the church who embraced me and accepted me as one of their own. At 16-years-old, it was no wonder that their complete, total, unconditional acceptance appealed to me and drew me in. Whether I actually believed in the teachings of the church, I felt that I had found my place of belonging.

After I was baptized in to the Church, I found myself leaving within 9-months. I began my true “journey” through many different paths and religions, returning often to the Church, but never staying long.

For so many years I could not understand why I was not “satisfied” to just give up my life and any other beliefs that I might have and remain within the bonds of the church; at the same time, I wondered why I kept being drawn back to the church.

So when I was finally “out” of the church, my name removed from their records as if I was never even in existence; in essence, wiping me away from the mind and the cognition of God, I felt freed and relief. Now, I was finally released to truly explore my own truth.

After my father died, I delved in to the religion of my ancestors, my father and my birth; Islam.

Initial study taught me that Islam was more a way of life; it was a spirituality where Allah (God) was everything, not merely IN everything, but actually WAS everything.

Removed was the belief and teaching that God was a mortal man, an image that I simply could not comprehend since first learning about this “white-bearded Deity”. My mortal conceptualization of an omnipresent being contained within a body of flesh and bone seemed overtly limiting to me. The idea of a Holy Ghost and Son seemed even more foreign to me.

So, as I delved more into the study of Islam, things began to make sense. And that is why when I was first harassed by what are known as “haraam police” (haraam meaning “forbidden”), I was shocked. These individuals claiming that their “correcting” me was “sunnah” and that if I was to be a Muslim, I had “better get used to it”.

Often, I felt like I was a mere child being scolded continually by individuals whom I had never met and whom I did not know; strangers, that were labeled as “sisters” simply because we were both Muslim.

I became increasingly frustrated and angered at these people who were correcting my every thought, my every belief, my every action, and most often these individuals were much younger than me.

A couple of times, I came close to giving up the entire aspect of Islam because of the nastiness that was spouting out of these individuals, followed up by the prevalent “I say this because I love you for the sake of Allah”. What the hell did that sentiment mean? They only “loved” me to keep in the ‘good graces’ of Allah; and that “I”, the “you” they were correcting, had no matter, no meaning, no worth?

I began to withdraw from a lot of the social and religious activities within the community as the offense of more than one unnerved me. I was told by the select few I confided in to just “ignore them”; but in my doing that, I was continuing to give them permission to act in such an abusive manner.

An individual with my background does not accept abuse by simply rolling over and taking it. I have long-learned to open my mouth, stand out strong and tall, and shout out against abuse.

In my frustration, I tried to understand why I kept delving back in to different spiritual paths. Why was I not simply satisfied with “me”? What was I truly searching for, and would I ever really find it?

In a moment of complete and sheer frustration, I unloaded on a dear friend, and divulged a part of myself to her. I let down my barriers and opened up to a secret I kept long buried. In my doing so, in her amazing response, and in my thinking about her words, I finally saw clearly the whole picture. I finally understood myself, my frustrations, my “need” to hide behind organized religion.

This was a process that first began last year, but I could not let myself go enough to be honest and truthful with who I was and “why” I was.

In this openness that I finally began embracing, I began to SEE and see for the very first time.

I began addressing issues that I had seen crop up time and time in religion, and especially what I had recently learned within the confines of Islam “the religion”.

One of the biggest issues was the idea of covering in the hijab. When I first covered, I did it for myself. I did for my own reasons and it had nothing to do with the common misnomer held within Islam. And I had often questioned myself if my own reasons for covering were “in line” with what was common thought within the religion itself.

The verse in the Quran says; “And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty…” Qu’ran 24:31

And when I finally came to understanding, I realized that when God speaks, He speaks in the whole sense of the explanation and it is us mere mortals who understand in literal, and in so-doing, MIS-understanding.

“Guarding” one’s modesty is something that most of us do already. What is “modesty” in the true understanding of the word? In the online Princeton Wordnet definition it says that modesty is freedom from vanity or conceit. When we guard against this, we are removing EGO (Edging God Out) from our lives.

So covering the body in “modesty” as the literal translation has been interpreted, might not be what the original belief was.

When I meditated on “lowering their gaze”, I realized that this was not something that was also literal, but realize that this was the precursor to guarding modesty. Again, I finally understood it to mean that we need to be aware of our surroundings. When we lower our gazes as we walk, we are being cognitive of the path ahead of us. While this is indicated towards us as individuals, it has a much bigger meaning to it. A deeper, more spiritual meaning and not the literal translation that has kept so many women covered in cloth for so long.

I questioned why, if modesty was such an important thing, were we all born naked and emerging out of our mother’s naked vaginas. And then I understood the complete picture…

We are already “covering our modesty” as we emerge out of the womb, as we are forming IN the womb. Our “covering” is our physical bodies, and this covers that which “drives” our bodies, our soul.

In discussion with my husband, he asked “So does this mean that we’ll all be naked in heaven?”

No. We will not be naked; we will not have the bodies which we have now, because we are nothing but forms of energy.

We say Allah is everything, not just IN everything, but IS everything. How could that be? What is true omnipotence? The concept is difficult to comprehend on so many levels. But as we transcend in Spiritual awareness, it makes complete and total sense. Upon shedding of our mortal bodies, we too are omnipotent in that we can be in more than one place at one time because we are nothing more than energy forms.

Does this concept align us with Allah and “enjoin” us to him? Yes and no.

Yes we are aligned because if we truly believe that Allah is the creator of all things, therefore OUR creator, we hold a strand of His DNA within us. This is shown in the mere fact that we are alive, we are breathing and we are feeling. We have a soul, and in that soul, He holds a part of us. This is what is called Divine Connection. This is also what links each and every single person upon this earth to each other.

Does this mean that we are in essence “Gods”? No. However, we do hold a part of God in us through that Divine Connection, but we are NOT Gods, at least in my comprehension.

In answering my husband’s question, no we will not be “naked” because we will have no form to be naked with, but rather we are energy.

Someone asked tonight “how can God judge us, and why God would like some of us or dislike some of us when he doesn’t have a character and human emotions?”

I replied, “From what I have learned over my years (not IN religion), I have learned that this "judgment" is truly that Divine source in all of us (our soul connectedness) that will be responsible for judging us based on experience culminating with the intensity of Love on the Other Side, as well as complete and total understanding of the ages once removed from our physical form and limitations as well as human, earth-held, understanding. I have a very difficult time comprehending a "court" with the energy force that is Allah at the head handing down judgment and "sentencing".”

And I truly do believe this. It just makes complete and total sense to me. I suddenly “get it”, I understand and I feel completely freed in my understanding.

I no longer feel confined within the bounds of man-made religion. I finally can understand the concept of living and experiencing without the man-made rules and regulations.

Am I no longer “Muslim”? Yes I am, because I understand the meaning of Islam being “to submit” or “to surrender”, from the Arabic root word “Peace” (Salaam). Muslim means “one who submits”. But again, I do not believe that it means this in the literal sense, but rather in the limitless sense.

We all submit and surrender in so many aspects of the meaning, being “submissive” does not mean the same thing which many have come to understand the meaning.

As a tree bends in the wind, so to we bend with the winds of change. It is a natural process.

Life is as easy or difficult as we choose to make it. For me, I choose to make life easy, without all the confines of rules and regulations, rights and wrongs. I choose to simply Be.

The true purpose of life; is to experience, and in those experiences we learn, we expand our minds, and we live.

Making Waves in the Media

The other afternoon, I watched a very interesting documentary called "30 Days - Living As A Muslim". The premise behind the documentary is that people from all different walks of life in America, volunteer to live for 30-days in an environment that is completely different from anything they have known before. In this particular episode, a young married father, white, Christian, from West Virginia agrees to live 30-days as a Muslim and with a Muslim family in Dearborn, Michigan.

I won't go into a rundown of the show, and you can definitely view the entire episode in five parts on You Tube; the reason I am writing this is because there was something in the show that really bothered me. I felt overwhelming sadness at the ignorance to the truth of Islam. And the way that people react to Muslims and to our beliefs and way of life.

How badly we have been portrayed in the media that a single word association game will produce such images in the minds of those who simply know us (Muslims) as what has been portrayed to them in the media. So when a person mentions the word "Terrorist" in such a game, the first word that passes through their mind is "Muslim". And when the word "Muslim" is presented, the first word that crops into peoples minds is "terror", followed by "fear", and "scared" and then of course the ever present, "terrorist".

So how have we, people whose entire religion is one that is steeped in peace - the root word of Islam itself is Salaam, which we know means "peace"; how have we become to be known as a people who will strike fear and loathing into the hearts of complete strangers?

One word, Media.

Sadly, over the history of our most modern times, media has reported individuals who are Muslims, doing evil and extraordinary acts of cruelty, as being WHO we are, NOT acts perpetrated by men (and women) who are Muslim by religion and not our religion perpetrating that what they have done.

September 11th 2001 changed our world, and it took the notion of people who did things and who happened to be Muslim, to suddenly this radical belief that ALL Muslims have the potential to perpetrate such atrocities. While we, who live on the other side of that fence think that is a preposterous notion, the media use of verbiage such as "Radical Muslim" and "Muslim extremist" keeps the association of Muslim together with the negative and therefore perpetrating us all to be cut from the same cloth.

Does this make me, and every other Muslim sister who chooses to wear hijab and pray five-times a day, who chooses to live life in accordance with the teachings of our prophet Mohamed (PBUH) and the Quran; and who live a prayerful, spiritual, and peace-filled life in remembrance of Allah (SWT) suddenly mean we are now terrorists and someone to be taunted and spat at and abused in the streets?

How does it turn from who we truly are, peace-filled beings, to suddenly being labelled as "scary"?

I am a simple woman. I proudly wear hijab, I continually have a prayer in my heart, and I hold my head up high and look in people's eyes and I smile into their faces, and I say "Hello" with a friendly nod to people who stop and stare at me. Can I truly be seen as someone to be feared?

In all honesty, since I began to wear hijab over the past couple of months, I have not once had, or felt, any discrimination. I may have had people stop and stare; one particular lady stopped dead in her tracks in Costco one day, and what was my reaction to that? I walked right over to her gorgeous child in the cart and said "Oh aren't you the most adorable little guy?!" To which her entire demeanor changed and we engaged in a simple conversation about her child. I guess her sense of "fear" had been diminished as we connected as women gushing over her child.

Is that something that is difficult for us to do? Being friendly, being kind, being charitable, showing love, and being human?!

If this is the case, what can we then do to begin to create fresh media reports of POSITIVE actions rather than negativity and reports that show us continually in a bad light?

I was spurned to action when I was looking for photos to share on my Facebook page and simple did a Google image search under the key words "Peace Islam". What turned up was something that was horrific, painful, and lasting that is now etched in my psyche forever. There were pictures of severed heads, terrorist madmen with covered faces holding up the severed head of an executed American, young childrens severed heads, severed heads in boxes; amongst these were radical hatred photos of Muslim demonstrators calling for beheading with the caption "Is THIS Islamic Peace?"! Intermingled amongst these heinous photos were a scattering of the beauty that I was seeking; but who sees those in a sea of hate, horrendous imagery, and negativity?

My action... my proposal is to unite Muslims throughout the world to gain much media attention for us doing GOOD WORKS, where we are shown serving our fellow-man, helping, being kind, loving; and doing it as HUMAN BEINGS as opposed to being Muslim. In other words, doing in with the intent of Allah (SWT) and zakat in our hearts, but without spouting off Quranic verses (which will fuel a fire) or trying to teach about our beliefs (unless specifically asked), but rather showing and proving to the world that we can be people... humans, just as they are with the same concerns, the same hopes for peace and brotherly love, acceptance, and the same potential for charity and giving as the next person.

I have read/seen/heard arguments from people who claim that the desire and goal of Islam is to create a global domination and force all of man-kind to be converted to Islam, or face the sword. They truly believe this! So, when we are out and spouting off our beliefs into crowds, people see us as being this stereotypical enemy who is seeking to convert otherwise the sword is going to be produced. It is an incredible "Paul-ine" way of thinking (ie Paul formerly Saul of Tarsus); convert or die. Maybe this is the Christian belief because it is so steeped in their teachings and has now been transposed over to us. However, when we do the kind of dawah where we are preaching in the streets, we are falling into the stereotype that the media and these so-called "Christian" ministers are making their flocks believe.

Wouldn't being known as a people who work to make peace, NOT 'force' peace, make a better statement and dawah? Wouldn't showing that we are just people who have a concern and a vested interest in humanity and the countries we live in, a better message for us to be embraced as Americans (or Canadians, or Australian, or English, or German... etc... etc...) better than as terrorists?

It seems to me, no matter how much we kick and scream and try to make people believe that WE suffered just as the next person in 9/11, no one wants to believe that WE are not all responsible for the atrocities that took place. We must now find find a way of re-creating ourselves and in the way that people view us.

Along similar lines as the world-wide "Free Hugs" campaign, I put forth an idea, which I pray insha-Allah will become a movement; that we organize a gathering of Muslims within our cities to rally together in providing service to those who are in need. Maybe that is donating time at a food kitchen, or a food bank, or making sandwiches and distributing them (and a bottle of water) to the homeless in your cities - or just to people in general. Maybe wrapped in the sandwich paper will be a little and simple note that says "You are loved" and left at that, NO long Quranic phrase or quote from Prophet Mohamed (PBUH), just keeping it simple. Do this during a lunch hour, you never know who may not have money to buy themselves lunch.

If we can gather together to make this happen, maybe if we were to organize it on the same day, throughout the world, it WILL be a movement. We are not doing anything other than giving.

The more we are PRO-PEACE and PRO-LOVE, and just "Pro" the more positives we will draw to ourselves.

I will end this with a quote from Mother Teresa: "I was once asked why I don't participate in anti-war demonstrations. I said that I will never do that, but as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I'll be there."