On Religious vs. Non-Religious People
Some religious and even non-religious people
say: no religion has a monopoly on wisdom. In 1993 by chance I met a Jewish
writer who schooled me a lot within a few minutes. He wasn’t getting a clear
answer to the question “what are you?” Basically, [about my “roots”] he said, “don’t discard that part of you”. This set me
on a new journey for about three years, delving into the process from a new
angle to do some deep self-examination. At that time, it had been 12 years
since I had discarded the religion of my childhood, and never imagined that I would
ever be a full-time lifer, calling myself a religious man some day. But I still
don’t call myself religious, I think that requires high standards. I’m barely
hanging on with my nails. Back then and now, if cornered, if I absolutely must
answer the question, I say I’d like to be spiritual rather than to be a
religious person. The phrase Religious person can evoke an image of a person
who is assumed to be isolated, illogical, closed minded, and even stuck in his judgemental
ways. In 12-step programs and other places, they provide a good answer to the
question: What is the difference between a religious and spiritual person? Answer:
A religious person is one who is afraid of going to hell. A spiritual person is
one who has been through hell and doesn’t want to go back there.
The three year journey forced me to step out
of the box of being a non-religious person and to look at myself and unpack the
boxes of my history and my belief systems. Who am I? Where am I from? What is
my identity? What are my beliefs? What are my habits? What are the thought
patterns and behavior tendencies I’m not aware of? Who have I harmed? What kind
of life am I living? What is the meaning of my life? What legacy am I leaving
behind, good or bad?
I came to the conclusion that I had been miseducated,
mostly by teachers, preachers and parents. At the same time I had been educated
by the same folks so I couldn’t throw them all away, like baby with the bath
water. In that cloudy, bubbly, dirty, soapy, slippery bathwater there was good
stuff and bad stuff. I looked at each piece of the puzzle that was me and
evaluated it to see if it was part of my miseducation, then I threw it away.
But continuing that self-analysis, I also concluded that other parts of my history and identity
were not trash, but gems which I should hold onto. Some things I enjoyed and
found valuable to keep. At the same time I had become a student of a non-religion
teacher from whom I learned universal principles. I applied what I learned in
practical ways in my life to test the truth of those teachings. If it worked,
then it was true for me and I put it in my pocket as a pearl of wisdom.
Gradually, over the three years, the
pre-religion universal principles reminded me more and more of the good stuff I
was taught in childhood, as part of my upbringing and my family’s culture and
religion. The cool thing was, I now had some tools to check the validity of
religious beliefs. I now started to evaluate pieces of my childhood indoctrination
by using these tools and looking at religious teachings through the prisms of yoga,
psychology, science, books and talks by various teachers, and concepts taught
by self-help groups. So I began looking at Islam through outside systems to
check the validity of what rings true. In the process I was sifting through the
clutter and sometimes through the rubble and rubbish to pick out the pearls of
wisdom and discard the trash, emotional baggage and miseducation. It was like
cutting away the fat and washing away the filth from the meat. It is a way of
checking to see if I’m absorbing junk thoughts like junk food, or am I
prescribing to healthy beliefs. Am I taking drugs or vitamins? I did understand
that for many religious people, education is convoluted by miseducation, thus
religion can be an opiate of the masses as Karl Marx said. Opium instead of
life enhancing vitamins and spiritual medicine. We must have the courage to do some
sort of deep self-examination. For example for Muslims the month of Ramadan can
provide a good chance for a vision quest. Like children need to learn how to
self-sooth, as adults we need to learn to develop the discipline to take the
time to look inside, do self-processing and self-reflection and improve our understanding
of our inner self as well as to enhance our relationship to the millions of external
factors including people and their ways of being. This is an important part of
trying to figure out what it means to be a human being and what are we doing
here. As Socrates said 2500 years ago, “An un-examined life is not worth living”.
If a person chooses to follow a religion, he
needs to take responsibility and cross check himself on the list of things he
believes in, to insure he’s not making stuff up. If he genuinely wants to be a
good practitioner, then he must remain open to the possibility that he may be a
hypocrite in a hundred ways, so that he can continue to learn and to correct
himself. As Noam Chomsky says about what U.S. foreign policy should be, “First,
do no harm”. Many of us are on auto-pilot, just going through the motions, hiding
behind religious jargon, and not being humble enough to maintain a student’s
attitude. A person who takes responsibility of his religious practice should be
very concerned about what impact he’s having on the world, and immediately stop
if he’s being harmful. Being religious and being a menace to society are not
mutually exclusive. Some people are pretending to be religious, and hiding behind
their religious garb, title, beard, or status. Some have intentions of being a
good religious practitioner, yet regularly do evil things in large and small nasty
ways to fellow human beings. He needs to be a good example if he claims to be a
religious person. Unfortunately, from an objective point of view, many religious
people don’t seem to be examples of good human beings. For example they often
fall prey to ailments like becoming arrogant, judgemental, religio-centric, oppressive
and self-righteous. A person who does not practice what they preach cannot be
respected. A holier-than-thou attitude is not attractive. Religious people need
to be mindful that such negative behavior can be very repulsive and you can
make other people hate your religion and dislike the things you hold sacred.
In some ways, all humans are the same, yet
different in other ways. Similarly, some Muslims may have ideas similar to beliefs
held by Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindu, etc. Yet even within each religion
there are differences, for example there are sects, and some Evangelists might
claim that Catholics are not Christian, and vice versa. According to Pew
Research Center, there are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world. Although many of
us use the term “Muslim Ummah” to refer to our community as a whole, yet
sometimes it seems difficult to find two Pakistani Muslims who agree with each
other, making one wonder; are there 1.6 billion sects among Muslims? Suffice it
to say Muslims, like other groups, come in various shades, shapes and sizes,
from a wide spectrum between conservative / dogmatic to liberal / progressive.
Why did I end up prescribing to a mainstream
religion? This affirmation developed and evolved over time. One of the choices
is to study a subject like spirituality, from a broad approach versus a deep
approach. A person might do some shopping around to check out various belief
systems, and pick a little bit of this philosophy and mix it with a little bit
of that faith. Or they can end up choosing the study of one school of thought
or to specialize in one specific religion.
It is healthy to question things in order to learn. But if I remain
skeptical of the other person’s point of view, then I might develop a
stereotype about them and just write them off, or to always be looking for ways
to prove them wrong. On the other hand, any person you are around, is a teacher
in some way. No one has come back from the dead to let us know what happens to
religious or un-religious people, so the jury is always out. It is good to
entertain the notion, “Maybe I’m wrong”, yet not fall victim to doubt.
In philosophy, the either/or approach is
known as a fallacy and also called a false dilemma. Inside each religious person,
there is also non-religious behavior. For example, he cannot surgically remove
his kafir (non-believer) self from his Muslim self. Therefore it doesn’t make
sense to me when Mr. Bush says “you’re either with us or against us”, cause I’m
with neither of the idiots. Similarly, I can’t agree with a religious Muslim if
he says, “there are only two kinds of people in the world you are either Muslim
or kafir (non-Muslim)”. How will you possibly drive a Muslim car on a Muslim road
with no Muslim money in your wallet which could be made of pigskin? Similar to
the either / or fallacy is the us versus them mindset which is often used in
politics to divide and rule. It is even used to incite xenophobia and
manipulate people into going to war.
In the meantime, on that dial, I’m tuned in to
the left and progressive side. Most preachers, specially the Urdu speaking ones
on Peace TV, don’t seem relevant to my day to day life. The teacher I find very
useful to help me better understand Islamic teachings is an American convert
named Hamza Yusuf. He’s a scholar who is specially popular among younger
Muslims. I met a Latino convert once who said “Hamza Yusuf teaches you to think”.
That’s what we are all supposed to do, is to pay attention, reflect, learn and
grow, instead of having blind faith or being stuck on doing rituals in a
superficial way.
Often people who have mastered some aspect of
life do so as a result of following a discipline. I mean the kind of discipline
which is a daily practice and a tool that helps us to make progress and grow.
For example, playing the guitar for 7 hours a day, will usually result in
mastering that instrument after a few years. Many doctors say that for better
physical health, the patient needs to exercise at least 20 minutes a day. For
better mental health, a person might benefit from a support group, therapy, playing
on a sports team, or finding a circle of trusted friends. The discipline would
be to practice that activity every day or every week. Similarly, many people
feel the need to develop their spiritual health, and often they choose to
practice a religion for that purpose. But frequently, religious people get a
big head and assume they have been guaranteed Heaven after death and have the illusion
that they have been rendered infallible in this lifetime. I like the definition
by the former nun, Karen Armstrong in her book “A History of God”: The litmus
test of a true religious or spiritual practice is: Does it make you a more kind
and compassionate human being.
Thus, when a person is not being kind and
compassionate, most likely he is practicing something other than religion at that
time. Often at such instances we are worshipping our own ego, desires, likes,
wants, preferences, subjective views and self-serving agendas.
Another reason why a person picks one
religion is, because he doesn’t want to re-invent the wheel. Perhaps it is the
easy way out, or maybe it just makes life simpler. On the other hand, we do
need pioneers who invent instruments from scratch and find new ways of tuning
them. But most people don’t have the time, the IQ, the creativity, the drive to
take on such an endeavor. Some brave souls stand on the shoulders of giants and
pick an existing instrument like guitar, and invent a hundred ways to modify
its look, sound, feel, etc. One person may decide to be a jack of all trades
and learn to play various instruments, taking a broad approach. While another
person might say they want to specialize in a single instrument like a guitar,
and go on a deep exploration journey. If
music is like a religion, then this person has taken a very active role in his
practice. They are players engaged in the arena, putting their sweat and tears
into their daily discipline. Yet the vast majority of people are like bystanders
and fans sitting on the sidelines, watching the game from afar. They sit back
and enjoy just listening to the music created by others. Many don’t know or care
that most of the music on the radio is junk. They just monkey what the others
are doing.
In these modern times, one litmus test of a
religious or spiritual practice is: does the practitioner adhere to basic
concepts of human rights and civil rights? Or in terms of service: Are you
doing some work to make the lives of your fellow human beings a little easier
or better? If it is hard for me to find examples of a good religious person, it
doesn’t mean I should discard all religions or all religious people. They say
that no religion has a monopoly on wisdom. So I engage in the practice of fishing,
and cast my net in the oceans of religions and the seas of non-religions, and end
up capturing some pearls of wisdom. Later, when my friends and I utilize the
value of each pearl, they don’t really care much about which sea it came from,
or which religion claims to have a patent on it.
When I specifically want to learn about
Islamic teachings, I turn Hamza Yusuf. I am also forever grateful to the many non-Muslim
teachers who share their wealth of wisdom. When I’m trying to figure things out
in life, my search for answers is not restricted to Muslim teachers, because it
that time it often doesn’t matter much what their personal belief system is. It
wouldn’t make sense for me to discard their teachings, if I just write them off
as “non-Muslim”. I would be a hypocrite, because every day I benefit from
products, systems and books created by both religious and non-religious people.
Like riding the bus made in Israel, using the gas made in Saudi Arabia, on
roads made in America, under the sun made by the Creator, breathing air made by
trees, wearing clothes made in China to go to a non-religious school to learn
how to make a million dollars and retire early. Some of my heroes are Cornel West and Chris
Hedges from the Christian faith; Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn from a Jewish
background; Fela Kuti inspired by African religions; Dalai Lama from Tibetan
Buddhism; Robert Bly and Justin Sterling from ageless wisdom; Malcolm X and
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan made in Islamistan; Arundhati Roy, Hamid Khan and Amy Goodman
who seem to not be practicing any specific religion. I think a fruitful approach
to life is to start with a basic foundation by subscribing to some time-tested
universal principles and adhere to that bedrock without skepticism, and then continue
to build upon that bedrock by learning lessons from daily living to derive the
pearls of wisdom from those life experiences, which you can then carry in your
pockets, to enhance the rest of your journey, and to be of service to others. There
is no us versus them. The enemy is me. We’re all in this together.
