Year of Faith

I’ve been doing the Year of Faith for four months now, and there is an obvious pattern emerging.  Month one was good.  Satanism wasn’t perfect, but it felt good, it felt like I was making head way and I was pretty happy with it.  Taoism in February was brutal.  Everything felt like it was dragging, writing was forced, my interest waxed and waned.  Then everything turned around in March. Baha’i was great, it was easily my most productive and insightful month of the year.

I’m on month four now.  Bet you can’t guess how I’m doing.  Bet you can’t figure out that I feel burnt out, that I can’t focus, that I every time I try to bring something to the blog or realign myself with this new religion that things  are just frickin’ dandy…

I’m choking on Sikhism.  It isn’t anything about the religion.  It has a rich and interesting history and philosophy.  There are plenty of helpful people and many gurdwaras and communities to visit, but I’ve dropped the ball.  I’m twenty days into the month and I’m nowhere.  In light of this pattern I may have to reevaluate my schedule, or try to make more of an effort to plan ahead.  Having a more fixed schedule helps, so maybe I should be looking further into the future before the month is up.

I’ve decided to stop my month of Sikhism. I’m going to take some time to work on other things, and set up the schedule for May.

People always say that in order to succeed you need to get used to failure.  I have always assumed that this meant external obstacles- things that I have no control over.  What it really means, for me, is to get used to falling short of my own expectations.

It’s okay.

My name is Michael and I am a terrible Sikh.

I still have the beard going, which I’m noticing more and more (and no, I don’t like it yet), but a good beard does not a Sikh make.  I’m quite uncomfortable with Sikhism and I really don’t know why.  I’m not as interested in it as I have been in other religions I have done, and there is a large social hurdle I have to cross, namely making contact with Sikhs.  This brings to light one of my flaws, namely I’m terrified of strangers and meeting new people, and thus would much prefer to just email these temples I’ve found around town rather than call them and talk to a complete unknown.  I know it doesn’t make any sense, but it’s me.  The only reason I cleared this last month was because the Baha’is took it upon themselves to spread word and they all got into contact with me over email, which is less terrifying.

I’m going to get over it, I have to get over it, or else there won’t be much to report this month.  Working full time really isn’t’ helping my situation, but again this is something that I can’t really fix right now.  I have no alternative means of income that wouldn’t similarly sap my time, and the job I do have often affords me enough free time that I can read and write during the day.  The fantasy is to be able to do this full time, and the compromise will probably be that I’ll be sticking it out and saving up my nickles and dimes so that come the end of the year I’ll have enough to take a month or two off to focus on pulling The Book together.  I might have to live off of ramen for a while but I would really, really like to do this all day, every day.

I also need to move come June, so that doesn’t really help either.

For those of you who weren’t following Kotaku’s run of articles on religion in video games, check ‘em all out here.  All in all it was okay, nothing really stellar, and they didn’t go as deep as I would have liked into the meat of the issue.  But since I feel kind of passionate about the subject matter I assume that was inevitable.  Still, zombies and Ouija boards?  Really?  Really?

Anyway, I’m working on something that will communicate my feelings on the matter, which you probably won’t see up here for a while since I really want to nail it.  We’ll see what comes of that, in fact I think I’ll work on it once I sign off here.

Which will be right about now.

Sat Sri Akal.

Waheguru.

A few inspired quotes, courtesy of The Sikhs- Their Religious Beliefs and Practices by W. Owen Cole and Piara Singh Sambhi.

Burn worldy love

Grinding  it into ahses to make ink.

Let your intellect be the fine paper

On which you should write

With the pen of divine love,

As dictated by the Guru.

Write the praises of his Name

Write that He is limitless and great.

Oh teacher, if you were to learn writing this

The truth of it will stand by you

Wherever you are called upon to render account.

-Guru Nanak

Let him bear the name of Shiva or Kesava [Vishnu],

or of the Jina [Mahavira], or of the lotus-born Lord,

whatever name he bears

May he take from me, sick woman that I am, the disease of the world,

Whether he be he, or he, or he.

-Lalla, a fourteenth century Kashmiri Shaivite

The grandeur of the Sat Guru is infinite, infinite in his bounty,

He opened my eyes to the Infinite and showed me Infinity.

I was just tagging along in the wake of the world and the Veda,

Then the Sat Guru met me on the path and he put a lamp in my hand.

A lamp full of oil he gave me whose wock will never run dry;

All bartering is over,

I will go to the market no more.

- Kabir

Today was a good day.  Work was slow so I managed to get a lot of writing done.  Not much that will end up on the blog, but I’m making progress.

When I came home I managed to find a great resource for Sikh topics- the Raj Karega Khalsa Network, which I found while looking for info on Sikh prayers.  If you’re at all curious about Sikhism, do give that link a click.  Don’t let the very dated look of the website scare you, they update regularly and the databse of knowledge hidden in there is nothing short of dizzying.  It will become a constant resource for me over the next month, and I’m very glad that I found it.

Praying is very different now than it was last month.  During Baha’i the prayers were short, I could do them in a few minutes at most and so long as I could wash my hands and find east I was set.  Now, I don’t have to do much but meditate and pay attention to the words, as you do in most prayers, but they are frickin’ huge.  Instead of a few minutes a day I’m spending around twenty minutes three times a day.  I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining, because I’m not, I’m just shocked.  I was not expecting this.  I’m used to prayers being little things that give you a moment of pause during the day, not these comparatively large investments of time.  I can see why these are usually performed in groups in gurdwaras.  They are events in-and-of themselves.

So there is no way I am going to be able to memorize these, and I haven’t found a convenient way to cart them around with me yet.  Luckily the format of the prayers means I won’t have to.  Much like other faiths, Sikh prayers are scheduled around certain times of the day, though in Sikhism they are more practical than sunrise and sunset.  The first Sikh prayer, the Japji, takes place in the morning, before one heads out to work.  The second, Rahiras, is performed in the evening, when one returns from work.  The final prayer, called Kirtan Sohila, is done before you go to bed.

You see, they are broken up around the workday, as a method to prepare yourself for the events of the day, for recovering and re-energizing at the end of the day, and finally for resting.  I really like that, it stresses the utility of prayer, it’s role in not only the spiritual life, but as something that can prepare us mentally and physically.  As someone who has some trouble getting in touch with his spiritual side at prearranged times (especially in the mornings) this is really valuable.

But back to my original point, the Raj Karega Khalsa Network has a series of videos (their youtube channel could be described as ‘terrifying’ in its depth) of the three basic prayers, performed in the original Punjbai with English translation.  Now, I have a lot of trouble getting up early enough in the morning to stare bleary-eyed at my laptop for twenty minutes, prayer or no prayer.  Heck, some mornings I barely make it to work on time, that’s how well I deal with the wee early hours.  But dragging my sorry ass out of bed to listen to someone speak and sing beautifully in an enchanting foreign language, whilst I try to follow along, is something that I think I can manage.  I’m equal parts geek and religious student right now, so I’ll let youtube be my temple for a while until I contact a gurdwara.  Hmm, ‘religion nerd’, I like that.

Seriously though, check them out.  Try leaving one on in the background for a while.  They can be quite beautiful.

-Japji Sahib

-Rahiras Sahib

-Kirtan Sohila

Over Easter weekend I dug into the pile of new books I bought in March, starting with The Taqwacores by Michael Muhammad Knight.  Now, I won’t be encountering Islam proper until August, so I don’t want to get too into this, but I really need to say something about the book now, because it really blew me away and I wasn’t expecting that.

The Taqwacores is a fictional account of a group of young punk Muslims living in Boston and their particular take on life and Islam.  The main character, Yusef, is written as a perfect everyman whose struggle was easy to identify with despite the cultural disparity.  You don’t need to know much about Islam to see yourself in his shoes, as he mostly just reacts to the mix of punk rock chaos and various shades of Islam that surround him.  Taqwacore itself is a mixture of the words ‘hardcore’, a genre of punk music, and ‘taqwa’, an Arabic word meaning piety, or to be God-fearing.

It is a gripping yarn, effortlessly stringing together Islam with punk culture which creates a believable portrait of a movement that, for the most part, didn’t actually exist before this book was written, at least not in North America.  Michael Muhammad Knight inspired young Islamic punks to coalesce into a real Taqwacore scene.  This in turn spawned an excellent documentary film called Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam which I had the privilege of watching at last year’s Vancouver International Film Festival, as well as a film adaptation of the novel, which I dearly hope will be making its way here in the near future.

Part of the reason why I enjoyed this book so much is also the reason behind why I like talking about religion in video games, and incidentally why I have a soft spot for modern imaginings of Shakespeare plays.  It’s  the synthesis of the old and the new, the ancient, medieval, and the modern.  I don’t know what it is about this combination, perhaps it’s the impression that the old ways are still practical, perhaps it’s the juxtaposition.  I can’t say that I’m quite certain, but it tickles my fancy, as they say.

I really want to just gush about this book and everything that happens in it, but I want to save that for my month of Islam where I think it would be much more insightful and relevant.  Suffice it to say that I will be actively pursuing Knight’s other work and will be sampling all the Taqwacore bands that I can come August.  But for now I will leave you with these lyrics which open The Taqwacores. Enjoy.

I see Muhammad
down at the corner store
rocking on Galaga
getting the high score

When he delivers sermons
the kids think he’s a bore
but when he smashes idols
everyone cheers for more

Muhammad was a punk rocker
he tore everything down
Muhammad was a punk rocker
and he rocked that town

All the people in Mecca
knew Muhammad’s name
they knew him by his fucked-up hair
and dangling wallet chain

They knew him by his spikes
and said he was insane
but Ali knew better
Uncle wouldn’t play their game

Muhammad was a punk rocker
you know he tore shit up
Muhammad was a punk rocker
Rancid sticker on his pickup truck

When he was in a dumpster by himself
Allah told him crazy things
for Muhammad to share with all of us
on his six holy strings

Sat Sri Akal

My month of Sikhism is off to a slow but gentle start.  I basically took Easter weekend off, gave myself some time make the transition between the two religions.  I think that helped a lot.  March already feels like it happened years ago, and now April stretches out in front of me, long, uncertain… hairy.  Sorry, the beard is definitely getting to the itchy stage right now, I’m very aware of it.  At the moment I don’t think it makes me look particularly wise, worldly, or holy.  I’m getting more of a homeless vibe from the mirror- a spiritual vagrant.  If my hair was shorter I could probably pull off some kind of trendy hipster look.  But I have no hope of fitting into those skinny jeans, so it’s probably for the best.

There’s another reason why I’ve been slow to get into Sikhism.  It feels different than any other religion I have experienced so far, it looks perilous, closed off, difficult to penetrate.  Let me explain.  You see I feel pretty comfortable donning the suit of any particular belief system by now, of thinking and discussing things like God, prayer, faith, in a variety of contexts.  I feel like I can do so with honesty and candor.  At the very least by this point I can fake it pretty damn well.  But Sikhism doesn’t feel like just another religion, it feels like an entirely new culture, new language, new mannerisms, new food, new everything.  I wonder if I can know what it is like to be a Sikh without being East Indian, I wonder if it will matter that I’ll probably be the only white guy in the gurdwara.  I’m sure none of that really matters, being of a different race doesn’t preclude you from being sensitive to different religions, and culture, though experienced individually, can be shared.  Still, these are the things I worry about.  Different faith, different challenges.

The daily prayers are lengthy, longer than anything that have I so far encountered.  There are three central prayers to be recited in the morning, in the evening and at night.  I found a helpful booklet online that contains these in a line-by-line translation with the original Gurbani.  It is over 300 pages long.  The key word here is- daunting.  The central text of Sikhism, the Guru Granth Sahib, was available at the library in four volumes.  Large volumes.  This is not a religion of brevity.  But so far it is quite beautiful

In the platter are placed three things; truth, contentment and wisdom, as well as God’s Name, the support of all.  Whoever eats this food, whoever relishes it, is emnacipated.

-Guru Arjan, the Guru Granth Sahib

Sounds delicious.

Starting the week off right with a new post!  Woot!

This week Kotaku is covering religion in video games and I could not be more excited. Their first treatment of the subject isn’t terribly awe-inspiring, but I think it hints at ideas which have the potential to be delicious, much like a pie with a filling that you have not yet encountered.  I know that pie, as a constant, is sublime in its blissful effect, and yet I see this new combination of fruit and pastry and am given pause.  Will it be all that is true and dear to me of past pies?  Of fruit, sugar, pastry and whipped cream?  Will these things come together into something that is worth my time?

I hope that the answer is a resounding, “Oh God, yes.”

I am so excited by the prospect of discussing this topic that I’m having trouble finding the right words.  And this is saying something above and beyond my usual lethargy when it comes to bringing content here, because I have been trying to put these ideas into writing for a few months now.  Suffice it to say, I think that video games are a great medium for story-telling, art, and entertainment, and that while it is often difficult to convince people that religion is an important force in the world which merits our attention, I think it would require less rhetoric to convince people that it has an incredible canvass for myth, a rich context in which many entertaining and valuable stories can be told.

And if there is one thing I would like to see more of in video games, it’s better stories.

So how’d you like my little April Fools bluff?  Huh?  Pretty good eh?

Yeah, not quite sure what that was.  It started off as a funny kind of visitation, but then I thought it would be a bit more believable if I made it… um, well a bit more genuine.  And weird.   I don’t think I finished it right, I was trying to write the last few paragraphs on the bus on the way back from work.

So yes, welcome to my head.

I’m not really done writing about the Baha’i faith, I feel like I left it on a bit of a negative note, but now we’re into Sikhism!  So that may have to wait until later.  I promise I enjoyed Baha’i quite a bit, I think it was my most successful month yet, but right now I really want to write about my beard.

Not much of a beard yet I know.  You’re looking at about three days worth of growth.  I knew that I was going to have to let my hair grow out this month, so I wnet a few days without shaving, just so that I could start getting used to it.  The verdict so far- it’s kind of itchy.

Unshorn hair is part of the five K’s of Sikhism, five articles of faith worn by baptized Sikhs, a right called Amrit Sanchar.  This is the formal entry of the everyday man or woman into the Sikh religion, where one swears to live up to the ideal and practices of the religion and adopts the five K’s.  I don’t think that this is something that I will be partaking in this month, as it implies a genuine will to practice and cultivate the Sikh life throughout one’s life.  However, I can practice the five K’s in spirit, and letting my hair grow out is pretty simple to do.  This is called kesh, and symbolizes a respect for God’s creation.  Sikh’s believe that hair is a gift from God, and so to cut it would be a sign of disrespect.

I like this part of Sikhism, outward signs like the kesh set Sikhs apart from everyone else, and harken back to the days where they actively monitored and secured their communities against outward and inward threats.  This is probably still true today, though modern society has probably essoned this Sikh responsibilty.  I guess I’ll be finding out for myself.

Hope eveyrone has a good Good Friday (yay repitition) I’m off to enjoy another transition day.

I’ve been trying to write about this all day. It’s slow going,
I’m taking every opportunity I can between customers to type what sounds like nonesense into my iPhone so that I can put this onto the blog. I feel frazzled, a bit jittery, not myself. Just need to get this written down while the memory of it all is still fresh.

I’ve never had what I would call a ‘religious experience.’ I have felt indescribable feelings of itense awe and emotion when confronted with amazing pieces of art or inspirational words and performances, but never anything that other people have called religious. I have never had that feeling of the unseen Other that most people describe when they fall to the floor and begin speaking in tongues, or however people get through these sorts of things.

After my post last night I couldn’t sleep. This isn’t anything new these days. For the better part of the week I haven’t been sleeping properly. I was worried about the next month, thinking about God, nothing new. I don’t know what happened next, whether or not I managed to fall asleep, but I remember becoming aware of something terrible, something horrifying. I couldn’t move.

My jaw was clenched shut, and I think I may have been shaking, but I definitely remember everything getting rather… ugly. It was like the colour and life was suddenly being sucked out of everything, and even though it was dark I felt assualted on all sides by this distortion, this perversion of eveything around me. I must have been shaking by that point, shaking despite my repeated attempts to move, to turn my head away, to close my eyes.

Looking back now, I’m reminded of Karen Armstrong, about her autobiography where she described what it was like to suffer from seizures before anyone had diagnosed them as anything other than manifestations of deep psychological issues. She wrote about how everything went dark, how everything turned into sickly, ghostly forms that terrified her just before she would black out. On hindsight his may have been what I was experiencing, but I can’t say that I’m entirely sold. Karen Armstrong never said anything about hallucinating voices.

I couldn’t understand what it or they were saying. It wasn’t quite English, wasn’t quite human, and wasn’t really one voice. It was… difficult to describe, and even more of a trial to experience. To be frank I have never been so scared. Whatever this voice was, it was all around me, making me claustrophobic, pushing me down into my bed. It was so strong I thought I was going to die, that I was being crushed to death by each indecipherable utterance.

Waking was an experience in itself. I went from a state of sheer and utter panic to that of waking from a pleasant nap in a single moment. The last thing I remember was thinking that I could almost understand what was happening, that I could almost make sense of my pain and of what was verbally assualting me, and then I was waking up. It was like the whole thing had happened to someone else.

I almost leaped out of bed, my mind completely out of sync with my body, convincing it to flee, to run, to hide, to fight, to do anything but lay still and pretend it was all a dream. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to convince myself of that. But really, does it matter? I don’t know if I would be any more at ease knowing that this was some trick or misfiring in my mind than it was some… thing else. The only reason I’m equating this with something spiritual is because it happened in the context of the Year of Faith, and I cannot help but make that connection.

Whatever it was, I’m certain that I never want to experience anything like that ever again. Ever.

I think that I’ve mentioned a few times now that there are some problems with this faith, some issues I have with a couple of things that Baha’is have said and that I have seen in their sacred writings.  Because of the nature of the Baha’i faith, the stress it puts on the individuals independent search for truth, progressive revelation, and the need to be in line with scientific discovery, I don’t feel that these are real deal-breakers.  At no point did these problems I have make me want to stop practicing, or make me respect Baha’is any less.  I will stress this again once I write my final summary on my time with Baha’i, but the overall feeling I got was that the Baha’i faith is concerned for the continued flourishing and spiritual development of humanity.  Period.  Anything else is window dressing, and anything that gets in the way of this needs to be reflected on and revised.  These are some things that, in my opinion, can and do get in the way of that goal:

Discrimination Against Homosexuality

I have no idea why this is even here.  Honestly, the last time I investigated the Baha’i faith this threw me for a spin and I’m still not used to it.  But it’s here, a blemish on an otherwise beautiful countenance, and so it deserves some words.  The fact of the matter is that the Baha’i faith does not recognize same-sex marriage, and actually harbours a fair bit of bias against homosexuality in general.  It all stems from a few passages from Baha’u'llah:

It is forbidden you to wed your fathers’ wives. We shrink, for very shame, from treating of the subject of boys. Fear ye the Merciful, O peoples of the world! Commit not that which is forbidden you in Our Holy Tablet, and be not of those who rove distractedly in the wilderness of their desires.1

Ye are forbidden to commit adultery, sodomy and lechery. Avoid them, O concourse of the faithful. By the righteousness of God! Ye have been called into being to purge the world from the defilement of evil passions. This is what the Lord of all mankind hath enjoined upon you, could ye but perceive it. He who relateth himself to the All-Merciful and committeth satanic deeds, verily he is not of Me. Unto this beareth witness every atom, pebble, tree and fruit, and beyond them this ever-proclaiming, truthful and trustworthy Tongue.2

Shoghi Effendi has interpreted this to mean that Baha’u'llah was ordering injunctions against homosexual activities and therefore unions that would endorse such activities.

Bahá’u'lláh has spoken very strongly against this shameful sexual aberration, as He has against adultery and immoral conduct in general. We must try and help the soul to overcome them.

No matter how devoted and fine the love may be between people of the same sex, to let it find expression in sexual acts is wrong. To say that it is ideal is no excuse. Immorality of every sort is really forbidden by Bahá’u'lláh, and homosexual relationships He looks upon as such, besides being against nature.

To be afflicted this way is a great burden to a conscientious soul. But through the advice and help of doctors, through a strong and determined effort, and through prayer, a soul can overcome this handicap.3

From a religion that purports to be dedicated to erasing the boundaries between people as well as bias and prejudice from the individual’s spirit, this is really, really weird.  I see no connection between what Baha’u'llah has said in the above passages and what Shoghi Effendi infers.  I don’t see how they can get out of this, either.  The Universal House of Justice, the head of the Baha’i faith, is unable to change any legislation that it has not enacted, which is to say it cannot go back on anything that was laid down by Baha’u'llah, Shoghi Effendi, or Abdul Baha- the last two being the only ones permitted to interpret Baha’u'llah’s writings.  But if Baha’is want to be taken seriously there is no way they can carry on with this kind of doctrine, especially if they wish to jive with science and reunite humanity.

I didn’t bring this up with many of the Baha’is I met because I was scared of what would happen, and that is what is happening right now- I’m getting frustrated and angry, and I really didn’t want that to spoil what have otherwise been amazing interactions with amazing people.  This kind of thing- needless and irrational bigotry, really stirs me up.

I mentioned before that I didn’t think that these problems were deal breakers.  When I have brought up this issue, the Baha’is I talked to understood that it was a problem, a contradiction, and seemed genuinely flummoxed over how to solve it.  They were open to it though, they were not stubbornly holding on to this idea, which tells me that their beliefs in tearing down divisions between us is higher than being fickle over who gets to tie the knot.  This is a good sign, a sign that they will not be holding onto this position forever.

Still, it’s just so weird to even see it.

Disrespect to Unbelievers

There is a lot of language in Baha’i writings which suggests or outright states that all good and moral things come from God and God alone, even advances in science and technology are considered to be attained only through the spiritual advancement given to us by God through His manifestations.

The first duty prescribed by God for His servants is the recognition of Him Who is the Daypsring of His Revelation and the Fountain of His laws… Whoso achieveth this duty hath attained unto all good; and whoso is deprived thereof hath gone astray, though he be author of every righteous deed.4

You can see how this has left the unbeliever in the lurch, without God in their life or on their mind, how are they supposed to get about with their day?  How are they supposed to navigate history if everything that is good is Godly?  Again, we are in weird territory for a religion doing its utmost to bring the world together.

I haven’t had any Baha’is overtly say that atheists are bad people- even though the Baha’i writings tend to communicate that.  There is however this sentiment that God is what keeps us in line, His teachings are what helps us to ignore and overcome our animal instincts and behaviors and realize our more spiritual aspects.  This is especially true when we are “tested”, when we are presented with moral quandaries or particularly  trying periods.  Without God or the guidance of His manifestations we may just act on the will of our egos and other selfish desires.

Do I really need to get into this?  At this point?  Really?  I can’t just say the words “Catholic priest” and make all these silly notions that it’s religious study and service that make you a good person just dissolve and be swept away?  I realize that I might be nitpicking, I realize that the Baha’is I’ve met wouldn’t judge me like this, but I just can’t help but wonder what they think when they see these things in their religion.  It all feels so backwards.

It’s late and I have more to say, but I need to sleep, and I need to post something.  I don’t want you all thinking that these are my final thoughts on the Baha’i faith because there are a lot of positive things to say, I’m just so tired.

1. The Kitab-i-Aqdas, paragraph 170.

2. “From a previously untranslated Tablet” it claims to be from the Gleanings of Baha’u'llah but I can’t find it.

3. Homosexuality.

4. The Kitab-i-Aqdas, p19.