I want to talk about religion and commitment, which as an Indian, is everyone’s choice of poison.
Let’s start with the first bundle of joy.
I am an itinerant Hindu – I’ve had so many questions about my faith that some days, I feel like an atheist.
I’m anything but that.
The older I get, the more curious about my religion I become, and I’ve come to three conclusions:
- One hundred percent, I believe in the existence of God. There is no doubt that there is only one Shiva.
- I cannot embrace the routine that is associated with household prayer. It’s not that I don’t want to or that I don’t see the value, but I hate the transactional nature: I have used this process to bring out the worst in me because it encouraged me at various points in my life to attempt to abdicate responsibility for my actions. Each of us can perceive pain beyond measure in our heads, and yes, praying alleviates this but much depends on our actions – and regular prayer makes me forget this.
- What sits well within me is that as individuals, our purpose in life is enlightenment: we break the cycle of life and rebirth through our actions. I often wonder why my household did not mention this aspect of Hinduism, and I guess that’s something I will never know.
Also, the mark of a Hindu of old is the constant internal battle with faith itself, and I can still find shade under the umbrella of Hinduism, even if I am a work-in-progress.
I have to say that I cannot thank technology enough (words, you never thought you’d read). I would have never had the means to start the process of my life’s purpose without youtube. Seriously.
The second issue, commitment, stems from my current phase that the only thing that matters in my life is my path to enlightenment.
Why is this so important?
I usually fail at every attempt to maintain a healthy lifestyle and routine: this is one such example, but is not the most damaging.
I’ve been engaging in interactions that I am 100% convinced are not in my best interest.
But to the external world, I am 100% committed to you as my friend, family member, and lover. There is no doubt. If I have your back, I have your back.
I have been asking myself why this external commitment is more important than my commitment to myself? Why do I hold onto remnants of a past that has gone? By holding on to this decaying and moulding past, I ignore the truth of now.
The only relevant information I need to do better, is that I am me, for a fleeting moment on this planet and that my time here is finite.
My lack of commitment to myself and how I treat myself is a travesty.
This sudden realization that I’ve been neglecting the only relationship that matters because it takes me further away from my path of enlightenment has been shocking.
I don’t know how to explain the pain and humiliation of this realization: it feels like I am the Emperor with no clothes, but unlike the Emperor, my body is covered in self-inflicted wounds, and I repeatedly prod to bleed. I wait for a moderate recovery of the injuries, and then I go back and pierce the fabric of my soul with more vengeance than before: as if I were the enemy here.
I find myself asking what I have been doing with my life.
Why have I been asleep for so long?
What needs to reverse is my lack of commitment to myself. Because now I feel it in my soul.
My failure to myself and not act towards my enlightenment is a crime. It is a crime that does not go unpunished: I have accumulated more karma, moving further away from enlightenment.
Am I going to keep failing? Repeatedly. But at least now, I appreciate that my commitment to myself is nothing short of a battle and that the cost of losing on this battlefield is not one that I am willing to pay.
That’s a start.