Today I did something I haven't done in a long time.
I prayed.
Five times. Subuh, Dhuhor, Asr, Maghrib, Isha.
Much to my mom's happiness. Haha. And no, I did not do it because it is Ramadhan. I did it because I just felt like it. Same reason why I started wearing hijab. Because I just felt like it.
I'm quite sure that my reasons may rub off the wrong way for some people. As it does so with my mom. Her usual lines are, "you should not do it just because you want to. That means you are making yourself your own god."
Like the issue of wearing the hijab, there was a point when I was vehemently against praying for the sake of compliance. Why do all these things? All that matters is you're a good person anyway. I thought that way until, one day, I decided to do them just because.
My mom is, of course, very happy with my new found practice of praying. The thing is, I don’t like following religious traditions just to make people happy. I think it defeats the purpose. My friend, Georgi, said it is not as if I am doing it for that reason anyway. My mom's happiness was simply a side-effect.
It is, then, in this exchange that I have concluded that I don’t subscribe to one religion.
How can I say that when I wear the hijab and pray five times, one may ask? Here then starts a question that I first asked thirteen years ago.
Faith and religion. What is the difference?
For reasons I no longer remember, I actually stopped believing in God when I was seventeen. And it's not even a conscious choice when it happened. I did not wake up one day and decided "today, I will not believe in God". Instead, the realization hit me while we were in the middle of our annual recollection. I studied in a private Catholic university and these are just some of the things they do. Anyway, during the retreat, the facilitator told us to "pray to the God that you believe in" and, for the first time in my young life, I felt so lost. It was a very tangible feeling of helplessness and utter confusion. I closed my eyes and tried to think of a God that I believe in but there was none. It was very strange. I could not replicate the kind of feeling now but I do remember feeling very confused that I started crying. Suddenly, it felt like I was floating in this vast emptiness that do not seem to end. As if a wall that I have been leaning on my whole life has suddenly vanished into thin air. I was looking for something to hold on to but I could not find any. I felt miserable.
I cannot recall what could have triggered such non-belief. Perhaps it was our philosophy classes. One of the few classes wherein you are egged to question every-freaking-thing. (Reminds me of a friend who said that Ateneo produces two things best: grounded Catholics and intelligent atheists that are fucking well-versed in religion). Or maybe it was through my conversations with agnostic friends. Could be Sartre, could be the author of the reading "Why I Became Pagan". I am not sure and I do not think it matters now.
Through time, the faith came back. I don't remember how either. All I know is that at one point, I started believing again. But this time, the God that I believe in has taken a different form. It remains that way up until today.
The God I believe in is kind and merciful and just and does not possess typical human emotions like anger or arrogance or deceit. The God that I believe in is not anthropomorphic. But it can be if it wants too. It is a force. It is in the trees, the stones, the rivers, the people that you meet. The God I believe in is not a He or a She. It is It. It is everywhere. It is the universe. It is the moral compass, the good. It does not demand to be praised or to be adored. All it requires is for us to be good.
It was after my faith came back too that when people would ask whether I'm Muslim, I would say "I was born in a family who follows Islam". It felt too hypocritical to claim myself a Muslim because I know, for sure, that I don’t fit the bill. I would say that I am not religious but I am faithful.
I am not religious because religion is an institution. It has norms and traditions and doctrines and laws. It has a rigid system of rewards and punishments. Religion is made by and run by people. To adhere to such is to follow everything and to decide that you wish to satisfy what these people require of you. It is to please a bunch of strangers you do not even know or care about. Or to please non-strangers who does not really care about your well-being but the perception of a group that they think they belong to.
To adhere to such is to strive to follow everything. I am not religious because I do not adhere to these practices with the objective of being part of a group. I figured out eons ago that I cannot be bribed with promises of rewards nor can I be scared with threats of eternal damnation. However, it would be inflexible and narrowminded to believe that one could completely separate themselves from mores that they have been raised into.
Similar to the idea of nationalism. You can despise being a Filipino all you want but your passport will still say that you are one. And while you can renounce your citizenship, your palate will still yearn for adobo or sinigang or tapsilog the same way that your skin will always yearn for the warmth of the tropics. It is inflexible and narrowminded to think that you can erase decades of identity formation.
In the same manner that I am raised to say 'Bismillah' every time I eat, join the fasting during Ramadan, or take my shoes off before entering the mosque, these are mores that I am used to and comfortable with. As such, I do not see any reason why I should stop doing them just because I have finally decided that I do not subscribe to any religion. I am comfortable with them, that is all that matters. The persistence to shake off any reminder of religious norms for absolutist purposes feels useless to me. It reminds me of the hilarity of those who scoff at believers because they are perceived as not free, and to some extent, oppressed.
It is important to nuance the critique of religion and the critique of faith. And isn’t it so that judging the faith of others defeats the purpose of emancipation? If an atheist feels liberated by not believing in a God, then why would they castigate people who find comfort in the idea that there is a Supreme Being watching over them? Faith is personal. And sometimes, people express this faith through adherence to religious norms. Of course, religion is not infallible because, like all man-made things, institutions are not perfect. But faith is difficult to qualify and, perhaps, can only be appraised through its manifestations relative to how a person acts towards herself/himself and everything else as dictated by it. One is free to comment on the religious practices and norms per se, but to judge a person based on their faith when it is a concept that is impalpable, to begin with, is laughable.
I am not religious. I was raised in a Muslim household, educated in a Catholic institution, surrounded by mostly agnostic or atheist friends. How, then, is it possible to absolutely shun or adhere to any of those institutions and labeled ideologies considering that situation? I do not see any reason why I should force myself to subscribe to any expectation required of any of these institutions just to conform. I believe in something that is good. I call it God but I also accept that it may be called by many other names---the Universe, the Force, Cthulhu, etc. And I believe that as long as I try to be good and do good---to myself, to other people, to animals, to nature, to every living thing---it is enough.
I don't even know why I ended up thinking about faith and religion recently. Is this sudden faith-related epiphany a miracle of Ramadhan? Could be, could be not. It depends on what you believe in.
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