Hypocritically Yours

A man praised me for being kind and benevolent to animals. He further said that kindness and benevolence earn us righteousness. And this can, to some extent, help us enter heaven.

I am not a pious man. Heaven does not appeal to me. I never ask for blessings from anyone. Whenever I see people asking others to pray for him, I get amused. Asking for a blessing in exchange for kindness or benevolence is a sort of selfish act. Doing any good to extract blessings should be avoided.

The man in question then asked me in a low voice if I had ever prayed to God. This was not the first time he sought to know whether I ever said Islamic prayers. Talking about religious matters with a Muslim is always like dealing with a two-edged sword. It cuts both ways.

We may need to tell a lie for dignity’s sake. It earns sin for us. Telling people that we don’t pray or pray occasionally needs us to reply to questions after questions until we are checkmated. Bigots are stubborn animals. In religious matters, they are better placed. They can very easily tan liberal people.

I told the man that I started praying at the seventh standard. It continued for years. Then I became logical, defiant, and sometimes insubordinate. In the last six months, I have almost never prayed. I want God to answer my prayer and ease my difficulties. I now have certain issues with him; I want him to be kind, benevolent, and attentive towards me if he really wants me to bow before him several times in a day.

I have started to maintain that faith is not as fragile as a piece of ordinary glass. It does not break into pieces just by falling. In that sense, most people are weak from the inside in religious matters and wisdom.

I like to discuss religious matters with people. But most people are not worthy and competent to discuss religious matters. They want the whole space for themselves. They take no longer to be daggers drawn in the face of contrary views. They are enemies of liberal people and free thoughts.

In religious matters, people are generally hypocrites. They are good at pretention and bad at practice. Heaven may be too far or out of sight for them.