Human, First
Religion can be a prison or religion can set us free.
Dear beloved,
How are you? And how is your beautiful heart?
I climbed into my Uber just outside the entrance to my funky hotel in Amsterdam, on my first international solo trip earlier this year. Immediately, the driver caught my eye in the rearview and in his thick Chinese accent asked curiously, “Sabah? This is Arabic name. Are you Muslim?”
They drove on the other side of the road here, and I was still trying to get my head around the driver sitting in the left-hand side of the car. Looking directly back at him, I smiled at this strange curiosity - the smile on my face mirroring the smile in my heart - while clipping my seat belt into place.
“I’m Human,” I replied. “But yes, you could say I am Muslim. For me, it’s the same thing.”
Surprisingly and quite unexpectedly, he seemed to get it, and what followed was a profound conversation between two strangers, yet two familiar members of the same human family. We spoke about the Palestinian genocide; his background as an Uyghur Muslim and the atrocities being committed against his people back home in China; the corruption and hypocrisy of Western and Arab governments, and how humans can be so very selective about who deserves even their very basic levels of love and compassion.
As we bade each other farewell, each sending peace and love upon the other, the conversation stayed with me, ringing true throughout my heart. And in the months that have followed, I have been reminded again and again of how, as human beings, we have lost this most simple yet most beautiful of truths: that we all belong to each other.
Division and Fear
From the moment we enter this world and enter the social order, we are constantly being bombarded by things that seek to cause division and separation among us. One of the most effective ways this is done is through the people of religion, and this is why, for me, among the many other things that have become social constructs, religion can be very problematic when not used for the very purpose for which it was intended.
I was born into and brought up by a Pakistani Muslim family in England, living on many intersections of society. Surrounded and being raised by people who didn’t seem to really know themselves beyond the confines of their cultural programming, let alone know a God that was peaceful and loving, I was taught religion through an extremely distorted and disturbing lens of fear. And this fear-based faith was one rooted in division: we are right and they are wrong. We are believers and they are non-believers. We are saved, and they? They are the people of the hellfire.
As I have journeyed on through life, I have experienced this reality as one not reserved only for Pakistani Muslims, but for people from all walks of life.
I have had Christians demand that I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour in order to be amongst the ‘saved’ while they simultaneously stay silent on the genocide of their own people in Palestine; I have experienced white neighbours preventing their children from playing with my children - for reasons I can only ponder on but I’m sure are true to some extent; I’ve experienced outwardly religiously righteous people shut me down for sharing my life experiences because I shouldn’t be ‘exposing’ myself in such a way, and I have seen many instances of people rejecting one another just because they don’t prescribe to each others opinions or ways of life.
The Path of Love
As a born-again Muslim - a human being who had to lose her faith almost completely to find it for herself, deep under all of the noise, all of the labels, under all of the conditioning and programming, under all of the trauma and pain - I was led directly to the Truth that connects everything. We are human. We are human, human, human. Yet we live in a world where there are not many of us truly, deeply meeting each other in our shared humanity.
We have allowed society, and how it constantly works to divide us, to seep into our hearts, and we are drowning in that separation. We live in a world of us vs them, of me and the other. These are the ways of darkness, fear, and, if you will, Satan - and I refuse to subscribe to this way. I refuse. Because, as a lover of the Divine, a servant of God and a seeker of Truth, my heart knows that division and separation is not the way. It is not the way - and any ideology that promotes this should be seriously examined, scrutinised and questioned.
Islam may be the path and way of life that I chose or that was Divinely chosen for me, but in complete honesty, I have never felt like I have belonged in any Muslim spaces outside of the presence and company of my Spiritual Master and my spiritual family. I am not dismissing the beauty and companionship that can be found in such spaces, but equally, I cannot dismiss the closed-mindedness, the black-and-white mentalities and the superiority complex - all rooted in fear, might I add - that seem to pervade many religious communities.
Truth be told, the places where I have experienced non-judgment, true connection and no barriers, borders or walls are spaces that many religious people would call blasphemous. Isn’t that ironic?
The Religion of the Human
In my sheer longing to know the Creator, I was led to teachings of peace, service and non-violence. I was led to the path of Divine Love - the path walked by the Prophets, Messengers and Peacemakers from all backgrounds and all walks of life, with no discrimination between any of them. And I was led to the heart of this whole entire universe. It may have taken me a very long time to get there, but do you know what I found beating in the centre? The Human Being. And truly, this discovery made the painstaking journey worth it.
The Lord Almighty, the Divine, the Creator of all and everything, in many spiritual traditions, says that there is nothing in this entire universe that can contain Him - yet the human heart can.
What does this in itself tell you about the Human Being? About the Divinity that exists within each and every one of us? If there is nothing in this vast, beyond-comprehension, ever-expanding universe that can hold God the way the human heart can, what does that tell you about your fellow human beings?
God is within us all. So must we close ourselves off to each other, knowing that through doing so, we are closing ourselves off to God and the very reason for our existence? And for those who don’t believe in God, must we close ourselves off to ourselves? For truly, we all exist within each other.
My Spiritual Master, in one of his final talks before he transitioned from this human life, shared:
“..the true religion of God is human. It’s nothing else. When we talk about Islam, when we talk about Christianity, when we talk about Buddhism, when we talk about Judaism, it’s another way, it’s another form of ascension of how to get out of the social order to take the path of God, to reach the stage of being in God… this is the very heart of the religion of God in that the human is the centre and this is what religion is about.”
All the Prophets, Messengers and Peacemakers who have walked this earth demonstrated this through their service to humanity.
Muhammad (PBUH), Buddha, Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Krishna, Jesus Christ and the many, many others… they all lived the message of Divine Love. They worked to unite and not divide. They sought to awaken human consciousness, to help humanity to transcend the prison of the social order. They were not bound by their religions. They all travelled deep enough into them and ultimately arrived at the same place.
So let us remember the same.
Today I ask myself first, and then I ask you:
Where are you separating yourself from any other human being?
When we choose to judge, when we choose to condemn, when we choose to see ourselves as superior or inferior, when we choose to cut others off in sharing their truth, when we choose to dismiss all that we are not willing to try to understand, do you know what we are really doing? We are rejecting ourselves.
So please, don’t reject yourself, my love.
I pray deeply for a world that is suffering from the disease of separation, to be united in the sweet, soothing balm of Love that cannot be withdrawn, tainted or broken. The kind of Love that dissolves all illusion and connects everything.
I pray deeply for our remembrance that we all truly do belong to each other.
And I pray that once we do remember, we never forget.
“The true human identity is this. There is only one country, the earth; one race, the human race; one language, that of the heart; and one religion: the religion of Love.”
~ Sheikh Aly N’Daw.
I am human, first.
And I love you, fellow human being, for all of your humanness and in our shared humanity.
With Light, Love and Peace from my heart to yours,
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I am a writer, artist and Certified Transpersonal Healing Coach/Guide, journeying with spiritual seekers through spiritual awakening and on the long, wide, beautiful road into themselves. My sessions provide a safe, open and non-judgemental space for you, with the goal of working through an issue that is troubling you in any area of your life.
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Such a simple, profound truth conveyed beautifully and lovingly. I hope everyone reads this and is reminded of our unity. With all the societal forces so convincingly at play to divide us, we need more and more such reminders, shared with your non-judgemental, inclusive, and sincere energy.🙏🏼❤️
I have heard your message dear Sabah and it is inline with my own ideas on Islam and universal spirituality. Please keep up the good work. Our paths have crossed - I feel this was destined and it will be beneficial for both of us. A friend, a brother, Idris