More than a few times I find myself sitting in the car. And praying in my seat. This time, while I was in the middle of my prayer, it put me on a thinking trip. These thoughts sometimes just flow through me. I thought about how we are confined. Here I was out shopping, sitting in my chair trapped by my condition and commitments.
When I was young I always wondered what prayer was about and I had a hard time understanding its value. When you’re in prayer, five times, on time, that is sacrosanct. That’s the most ideal type of prayer. Something happens. It is a practice designed to interrupt competing desires at its peak.
Your mind starts computing. Competing, comparing, contemplating. Against yourself, against your priorities, against your own thoughts. You’re actually fighting in your mind, to stay still, to give up what was so important in that moment. You start reassessing the importance of things you think are important. Things you had to leave for your prayer in the moment. People you had to overcome for you to be present in front of God. Truly Bare. Bowing. Bending. Touching your head to the ground. Like a forced hierarchy test, five times a day.
Many people don’t understand this, this madness. Of what it means to submit to God. That it is also to reject other false Gods. That your mind has made up. That your hopes have cultivated. That your desires think they need. It is Ego purification, a re-orientation of the self, again and again and again.
Forging a kind of man that does not submit to anything but God. A man that can’t be controlled or played with. A slave of none but God, and ruler of his world. Being a slave of God is the only condition under which a man is truly free. If you are God’s slave, you are channeling God’s limitlessness, his vitality. In your most vulnerable and submissive position. You surrender. You are being vulnerable with yourself. You have to surrender to God. Becoming closer to God. And free of lesser fears. That is how you become fearless. And get over your feelings. What we submit to is what we fear. And what we are able to let go, and be vulnerable with, you are letting go of the noise and begin to channel bravery. You have clarity, and direction, purpose.
You are transformed. Recognised by some as the storm or the troublemaker. And identified by other storm-bearers as another rider of the storms. Letting the storm surround you, controlling it, and embracing all its dangers and powers.
Reminds me of this story from the guy from CAGE, this G on his way to prison with other jihadis, on a military plane, surrounded by guns, was constrained to a chair in a row. And one of the guys says, I think its time for prayer, and he recited the call to prayer and said God is Great and they all continued to pray in their seats. Absolute Gs.