Today…

Today I called in for a mental health day. I worked until late last night; and I woke up feeling like a steam-roller had been flattening the living daylights out of me…my boss said-“Girl, relax and get some vitamin D- its beautiful outside.”

Therefore, I took the dog, my laptop, my specs, some munchies, and headed for the park. Caesar and I have been sunning ourselves all day… Well actually he has, I have kept to the bench under a tree! Watching some online videos from Link TV- a channel that in my house we see more often than not, because of the variety of programming it offers. I have posted a link in my Alternative Views on Life blog roll among the projects I belong to- Global Oneness Project and HelpOthers.Org…

I recently read an Op-ed from Arab News, courtesy of a link from Susie of Arabia…thanks Susie! This piece is an article on the Youth in Saudi Arabia- and I honestly agreed with him whole-heartedly. However, what always disappoints me are some of the comments that pop up in response to what needs to change – and how it needs to change in Saudi Arabia. I truly have an issue in seeing people reduce everything to sex and the mixing of the sexes…and of calling for even stricter rules that are already agonizingly harsh on the youth of Saudi Arabia.

When the author asks the youth to be educated in the sciences, in philosophy, in the arts – the responses of some were to spill the beans, again to put more weight on what the West has done wrong to justify why they need to live caged. However, historically Arabs and Muslims broadly have made magnificent contributions not only to their societies, but also to the world. When I look at the abstract art, the calligraphy, the geometric art for which is specifically an Arab art-form that has been spread across the world- I wonder why some people would find objection in teaching the Saudi youth to find their roots in these art forms and revive it to the next level? Even photography of the abstract is something that many artists do with success, as well as film- Check these video trailers Susie of Arabia posted in her blog showing the awesome creativity of Saudis.

So why go back to the tired old argument of sex and the mixing of the sexes? Can’t they get past it? Are they so sexually induced in mind and body that everything has to end there? Why would philosophy be haraam, why is thinking so reviled? Why is there so much emphasis on regulating every single aspect of life to the point that there is no living, only existing?

I guess because I don’t believe in such close-minded, locked, and caged needs-which I find it so hard to comprehend. As a Muslim – which many will find some fault in my ways because of the influence of Buddhism has in my life- I believe Allah SWT gave us a clearer message than we currently live out today. We are His creation, and as such, we are to be of service to humanity only for His Sake. Do I as a person find contradiction in believing in Allah SWT with basic Buddhist tenets? NO! Why? Because what I have taken from the teachings of Buddhism is the understanding that we as Allah’s creation are all interconnected. This is demonstrated in how we feel the pain of a child not our own. In how we can empathize with those friends, and people we don’t even know personally in their time of need; in how we can love another not of our family.

I have learned and kept alive in my life the command to seek knowledge and universal wisdom that I can apply in my life, and I marvel at the beauty of Allah SWT’s creation. In nature Allah SWT shows us what power created this universe that shines at night, makes waves of electric forces in the night sky, that shows us the remarkable creatures that swim, walk, fly in our world whose sole purpose in life is to BE. They ARE just, as Allah SWT has decreed. In oneness, they live in natural balance.

Only humans have decided, with the intelligence Allah SWT gave us, to use it to separate ourselves from creation. We want to stand apart; we want to put up walls, rules, regulations that keep us from being the humans that are interconnected at the biological level with the rest of creation. Why? Some will say because their religion states it- that they are different. In what way? All religions teach that we come from a creational power greater than us. So we have in common the thoughts and ideas that a force created us…in that alone there is oneness. Some will say that only with strict rules can we be perfect. Well I am sorry to tell you, that if the force that created us wanted us to be perfect we would not have been called humans. To want to reach perfection is to want to be Allah- and that can never be. We don’t have the power to do one inth of what that power can create. What we have is what Allah gave us, not a bit more.

So in our pursuit of perfection, we become ever more separated from each other by putting up the barriers of race, gender, social status, particular religious beliefs. We hate, we disparage, we divide, we one up each other. And we create a tension that is not natural. There is nothing natural, in the case of Muslims; of killing the mind- making us auto bots that do in prescribed steps to further avoid us from challenging the unnaturalness of those steps. There is nothing natural in people believing they are in different categories, when Allah SWT explicitly states we are all equal. We have put fear in all our hearts so that fear can rule us. But isn’t it Allah SWT that rules us? Where does this fear come from? From knowing ourselves imperfect and not admitting it? Our being is, to state Buddhism, is perfect as it was created. Not that we are perfect beings, but that our BEING is perfect. Allah SWT created us to be humans. So why do we want to be something more than what we were created to be. Why do some want to attain demi-god status through ritual perfections, rituals that we created to make us stand apart. Not higher, just apart.

Believing that you should castigate yourself and others because you believe you need to be a perfect being, not a human, is ridiculous! We have been given the gift of discernment for a reason. Do you know why? Have you sat in a quiet place to see your place in Creation? Have you analyzed what your life means in the fabric of Creation? What is it that you need to do to be human? Not just a member of a religious group- as a member of Creation.

When I see across the world ideas of human endeavors that seek to bring us closer to one another regardless of our particular belief systems, and other human embellishments, I feel that life is more than we want to make it out to be. Yes there is hunger, wars. But we made these things, and honestly we are all responsible at the individual level. Because we don’t believe our blood is one. We don’t see how our human features are replicated across continents… Take a few days and look at people’s hands and feet. I mean really look at them, and you will find in people who are not in the most remote a part of your family to have hands and feet you recognize as the hands and feet of a family member. Voices that you hear that remind you of someone who is a family member. No matter what ‘race’ you will find features that are known to you personally. The color of the eyes, the sweep of a brow, the dimple, the walk, the laugh… That demonstrates our interconnectedness. We have come from one single place- the genetic markers that make us human.

So why does the Saudi youth have to suffer discrimination? They are all connected by the very fact of their humanity! They breathe, feel, think (though the “powers that be” would want to take that off the list), aspire, and dream… yearning is not a sin. To yearn for the space to live out our humanity is not wrong; it doesn’t go against our principles as Muslims. But from reading the few comments on that Op-ed you would think that mere existence is all you have a right to. Because when you turn off the gift of intelligence, of expression- you reject what Allah SWT gave us in Creation. NOW THAT IS A DAMN SHAME!