...days before ramadhan i knew i would fast, i didn't know how. i've been listening to mantras and recitations, and praying and not much else. like it would just happen. things just happen in my life, due to a lack of planning and they leave me often in the hands of circumstance.
...yesterday i spent time in the sacred movements of yoga at the shala i've been devoting a day a week to teaching in. for free. it feeels right. after, i figured i'd go find a muslim space to bring in ramadhan with. to get soe clarity, purpose on why this month.
i forget sometimes, i forget why this month. i never really got it when i was young. it was the period of daytime starving and evening feasting. the feasting part was fun, great, viscerally gratifying. fulfilled the lust of all the daytime suppressions/repressions.
so i left. things need to make sense for me. i'm not into blind faith. i''m sure there is truth to santa claus in the north pole with all his little happy elves, who merrily work in a factory working non-stop for 11 months a year to bring kids gifts down their chimney. it's a storyline. that's cool.
placebo effect is important. it helps. if believing a man came to earth from a distant solar system to save man for their wrongdoings, and he is from a planet called heaven, and everyone who is good can join him there....cool. cooll. if it keeps you grounded and helps you stay focused and positive, cool.
i've always a been a bit more skeptical. i guess that stems from this manifestation of being into a brown thrid world body descended from an over-populated flies and diseased country in a immigrant and white and black and brown america at war with each other. my critical eyes may stem from seeing the victims of war and systemic violence from police, military, etc, be somehow portrayed as the criminals and terrorizers.
i learned the math of manipulation early. somehow the people's whose lands were stolen, who were kicked out and made into refugees...somehow the poorest people were of lands that held spices and ancient sciences that were highly sought after...somehow the people with whose complexions had natural protections against harsh solar conditions...somehow those abducted from home, placed into chains, wrapped into concentration camps called proejcts...somehow...were the crazy, lazy, savage, ugly, terrorists...
i did the math. didn't add up. have you done the math? so relgious storylines didn't always add up either. so, i left religion. i came to islam from 12 years of doing math. i understand why it has to be crucified.
even still, what i do has to make sense. i'm still putting together equations, doing math, and when i get the answers checked against the answer sheet of the universe, i go forward with it.
so, the lesson that occurred to me this morning, after a night of reflection on how do i go from eating when i want, how i want, having cups of coffee...to not eating from sun up to sun down, during 18 hour daylight. thenn it made me think about sex, and not engaging in sexual activity and this lead me to the senses.
what this thinking brought me to is that ramadhan is an exercise in detaching from the senses. ramadhan is a deep meditation that requires you to observe the senses and how they lie, and how they want, and how just as you, by default, train your senses to want (i.e. coffee, donuts, smoothies, salads with walnuts and goatcheese, etc), you can condition and retrain your body by operating from a place of Soul.
what occurred to me is that the practice of ramadhan applies to all areas of senses. for instance, the lust of the tongue to speak, to make a point, the desire of the ears to be constantly surrounded by sound and music, etc.
so, how do we go from being addicted to senses and operating from senses to this abrupt engagement in such a profound meditation?
well, you can practice the way i did, and my brothers and many others we knew - starve for 12-15, and then oink out, chow down, mmmm mmmm...
you can practice resentfully, which i did also. this is some b.s, i'd think. i'm from a population of underclass, and if ramadhan is for the haves to empathize with the have nots, then i didn't get why i had to. but when i realized how there were vast populations that were really hungry and how privileged i was and all, i didn't get how or why the poor, the real poor, had to do ramadhan.
what i came up with is this. ramadhan is possible, only if there is preparation. the preperation, as i learned from doing other fasts outside ramadhan, like juice and water fasts, requires a transtioning into, requires a gradual process. steamed foods 1 week, raw foods another week, smoothies and juices, another week, just juices another week, water for a few days or a week or more. then transition out.
so to abstain, to grow into this profound meditiation of seemingly having nothing (in the sensory sense) requires a great deal of transitioning into. in fact, it arguably may require the rest of the year to prepare - 1 part to transition into, and the other part, to come out of.
even with a vegan diet/lifestyle, even with regular practices of ashtanga - yama, niyama, asana, dhyna - even with all this, i am nowhere near prepared to participate in the way i need to.
so my advice to self is transition. take out foods gradually. for me, it could be lessning the number of meals i have a day, then taking out cooked foods, then solid foods, then pulverized foods, then juices, then, even water - from sun up to sun down.
No comments:
Post a Comment