40 Days with God – The Grand Design

So how does a pilgrimage purify?

The first question that comes to mind is purify what? If the answer is purification of soul then what does that mean in real terms?

I could distill it as purification of intent. Because intent determines our thoughts, our actions and thus eventually the results that we achieve. And thus if we were able to purify our intent at all times our outcomes at all times will be pure, which is eventually what we aspire.

How do you purify something, say your clothes? Basically it involves two fundamental steps – cleaning or removing accumulated dirt and sustenance or ensuring you don’t acquire new dirt after the purification process.

A pilgrimage essentially does both these tasks.

Let us take the Haj example and try to build the algorithm of a pilgrimage, unravel the steps that, when done in letter and spirit, will ensure purification of intent.

1.    The foremost step before you even start planning for the journey is to ask the question ‘Why am I going for Haj’ or what is the intent? The single, simple intent has to be ‘pleasing God’ or rab ko raazi karna, and thus in the process purifying oneself. If there is any dilution of this intent then purification process may not yield desired results.

2.    A pilgrimage is about leaving the world behind. So you need to ensure that you have taken all your professional and personal tasks to a logical end or assigned them to a responsible person so that they do not need your intervention for the next six weeks.

3.    Forgiveness of past sins is necessary to remove the accumulated ‘dirt’ of life so far. Hence seek forgiveness from all your acquaintances before you leave. While Allah is all merciful and can forgive you for your transgressions of faith, it is mandatory for your acquaintances to forgive you for any perceived wrongdoings against them since only they have the right to do that. However this can easily become an opportunity to publicly proclaim your Haj rather than an exercise in atonement. Thus intent needs to be carefully guarded.

4.    Haj, like all pilgrimages, requires travel. Any prolonged travel exposes your practicing values through numerous occasions of conflict which are opportunities to demonstrate and build character.

5.    Haj requires you to be patient and provide service to your fellow pilgrims at all times. This requires a constant awareness of your situation and a determined effort to stay true to these principles in times of conflict and threat to personal comfort, security or opportunity which can be often. This determined effort builds taqwa or mindfulness or a conscious awareness of what is right and wrong and then having the courage to do the right in the given situation.

6.    Before you enter the boundary of Makkah you have to discard all your clothing, cleanse yourself physically and adorn the ‘ihram’ or the two sheets of white. And while in the state of ihram you have to avoid scratching, or killing any type of animal or plucking leaves or maintaining conjugal relationship. This helps you to ‘detach’ from everything worldly – including your clothes, the last vestige of your status, before you go in the presence of Allah. This is the closest to death while living. It also symbolizes the removal of all distinctions and the equality of mankind irrespective of social, economic, educational, regional and all other boundaries.

7.    Every pilgrimage involves being in the presence of something deeply reverent, something which is extant at that place only – for Haj it is the Kaaba, the black stone cuboid which is the direction for every Muslim to pray in. This leads to a sense of deep gratitude, of the feeling of being the ‘chosen one’ amongst the millions of aspiring common men.

8.    The forsaking of the world, the time to reflect without distraction and the sense of gratitude of being present with the divine helps you to undertake the journey into your core intent, the true purpose of your actions and you begin to discover the dirt of pride, ego, greed, temptation etc. that lay at the core of some of your even so called good or noble deeds.

9.    Forgiveness is the detergent of the soul. This discovery of your fundamental flaws leads to deep remorse and you seek forgiveness with an intensity and genuineness that is difficult to experience from any other place.

10.  As you start feeling the peace that comes after forgiveness you realize that only someone who loves you deeply can forgive you for so many transgressions and still provide you the privilege of His presence. This leads to a true understanding of love and a feeling of great love for the Almighty and thus eventually for mankind.

11.  Most of the rituals at Haj (as also other pilgrimages) e.g. Tawaaf (the seven circumambulations of the Kaaba) and the Saee (or the seven rounds of Mount Safa and Marwah) require you to walk. Medical science has proven that physical activity leads to the release of specific neuro-transmitters by the brain which are the source of relaxation, energy, positivity and relieving of pain.

12.  Remorse, Gratitude and Love are a potent combination. The rituals before the actual Haj rites help inculcate them. And then, in this heightened state of awareness and emotional ripeness, when you stand under the sun in the huge plain of Arafat along with millions of others like you and seek forgiveness there is a collective divinity at work that is at the same time powerful and humbling.

This grand climax at Arafat completes the process of Cleaning.

The next stage is about Sustenance, or ensuring that you avoid gathering ‘dirt’ (or wrongdoing) in your life hereafter. How does one avoid ones clothes getting dirty in real life? The answer is not difficult. First you become aware of where dirt is and avoid those places or circumstances. Where you cannot, you tread cautiously taking the correct steps and avoiding temptation.

We have already seen how the focus on being patient and being of service to others at all times helps build Taqwaa or a sense of heightened self-awareness. Let us see how other rituals at Haj help to reinforce sustainability.

1.    After Arafat, a key ritual is the stoning of the Devil. This requires you to throw seven stones at three devils each, with each stone recalling one wrongdoing in your life. Thus not only are you reflecting on your own wrongdoings, but building a mental pattern within yourself to ‘stone the devil,’ or resist the temptation, whenever you are accosted with one in your life hereafter.

2.    It also inculcates a sense of ownership and responsibility for your own wrongdoings by suggesting that the devil lies inside each one of us and not in those pillars or the external world which is only a manifestation.

3.    Every single Haji, irrespective of caste, creed, color, nationality, wealth, education, age or gender stays together, travels together and performs the same rituals during the five days of Haj. This creates a strong bond of universality and unification with mankind that inculcates a deep sense of community and love. And only this feeling of love for your brethren can provide the wisdom and courage to forgive others and sustain not just purity for yourself but help others in achieving purity for them; because sustainability can be best achieved not just by keeping yourself clean but also helping your environment become clean.

The process thus can be summarized as Gratitude, Remorse, Forgiveness and Love enabled by Reflection leading to a heightened Mindfulness.

The final question then that needs to be asked is what is the end outcome of achieving purity? How does it make your life different than what it was before the journey?

I can only answer this for myself. It has been nine months since the completion of the journey and what I have experienced myself and validated from my close friends and colleagues is summarized below:

1.    There is better clarity in the thought process. I am thus able to respond better, which means I speak less in calls and meetings and am more relevant. I realized I used to speak a lot earlier simply because I was finding clarity as I spoke.

2.    This clarity has also helped me prioritize better and I am now able to identify and give more time to things that I feel are important and add value to my life.

3.    My need to impress people has reduced to a certain degree which has also resulted in being able to accept shortcomings easily, share bad news and participating in calls and meetings only when required.

4.    I have become less impulsive. This has improved my facilitation skills and I feel in better control during a session.

5.    I have become more mindful of situations and understand the right and wrong options. That doesn’t mean I am able to act correctly in each of them but I hope awareness is first step and my ability to action will also improve gradually.

6.    I feel a heightened sense of gratitude for everything which means giving has become easier and I get the urge to say thanks more frequently.

To summarize measurable outcomes, as is the preoccupation these days, my participation in calls and meetings has reduced by around 70% and I am on the verge of completing two books.

And I feel at far greater peace with myself.

I cannot conclude this series without saying Thanks. I deeply thank my boss who sanctioned my leave without the slightest hesitation, my team which ensured I wasn’t called one single time during those 40 days, Asian Tours, the travel operator through which I undertook the pilgrimage, my room partner during the journey – a fantastic couple who kept the spirits high despite having gone through some of the greatest tragedies a parent can face and all my fellow pilgrims.

When I started the series I expected it to conclude in around 5 episodes. However the writing process made me reflect and relieve the experience and as is common one is always wiser in hindsight.

I reserve my deepest gratitude to every reader, now and in the future. On returning from Haj I didn’t want to write about it simply because it would seem like public posturing, drawing mileage from what was essentially an intensely personal and private experience. However I started to pen it down only when more than a few friends requested to understand the experience.

I hope you have gained as much from it as I have writing it.

In the end I would repeat what I said at the beginning – everyone must go on a pilgrimage sometime in their life, in whatever form it is. It helps.

Thank You!

[In a subsequent appendix I will list down the do’s and don’ts for any person who is planning to go on Haj. Since it will be relevant to only a small populace I will be happy to share that with anyone planning to undertake the pilgrimage.]

40 Days with God - And a Begining

The flight back to Mumbai was uneventful. We were returning back to our children after six weeks but strangely it didn’t feel as exciting as it had felt when we had boarded the flight to Jeddah or during our six week stay when we would at times count the weeks remaining for the return journey.

As the flight readied for take-off, I picked the newspaper lying in the seat pocket. It was our first contact with the outside world after six weeks.

At the Mumbai airport I immediately realized the difficulty in applying the seemingly simple lessons learnt during the pilgrimage.

Everyone had brought tons of baggage from Saudi to be gifted to relatives and friends but I knew it had little value since all those items were actually made in China or Indonesia or some such foreign country and thus had no connection to the holy land. There were only two things that came from the place – dates from Medina and the water from Zam Zam, the holy stream of Mecca. Even the dates of Medina are now imported and available in Mumbai, so it was Zam Zam that was available only when you visited Mecca.

I had thus been very finicky about packing as much water as I can (each Haji is legally allowed a can of 10 liters) and I had packed in small bottles along with the large can. The water cans, due to their fragility are deplaned separately and kept in a separate corner of the baggage collection section, from where you have to identify your can by the name written on it and collect it. I wasn’t worried about my baggage, my only concern was to ensure that my can (and my wife’s) came undamaged.

As I searched through the many water cans that were kept in the corner I could locate only my wife’s can. I read and re-read the names but couldn’t find mine. Probably there was a lot that was still being deplaned.

I went to the baggage belt to collect my regular baggage. As I loaded my trolley and wanted to rush back to the can section I was besieged by an old lady who had always relied on me during the pilgrimage. Her trolley with all her luggage had suddenly gone missing as she had gone to fetch the water can. She was desperate; had someone walked away with her trolley, would all her luggage be lost?

She requested me to help her find her trolley. I knew in my heart that I should help her – that was what right behavior demanded. But my own desperation at not being able to find my water can was gnawing at me. I reasoned to myself that the water was more precious than luggage so I gave her directions as to where she would find her trolley (I vaguely remembered where I had seen it), assured her no one would walk away with it and left her to locate it herself.

When I reached the can station, most of the cans had been collected and there were only a few left. Yet mine was not amongst them. My desperation began to grow into despair. Was I going to miss on the only real valuable thing one could bring from Mecca, something that was not available anywhere else?

And then I found a can with no name or number on it lying unclaimed in a corner. Pilgrims continued to come, identify their cans and collect them, but no one came to collect that unnamed can. And then I had a thought; should I pick that can since it purportedly didn’t belong to anyone because it had no name on it. Of course someone would have put it in the luggage with the hope of getting it through, but obviously it must be an additional can. If for any reason my can didn’t come, did I have the moral right to take the unnamed can?

I knew it wasn’t completely correct, yet as I couldn’t locate my own I began to make plans of taking that unnamed can. Probably, I tried to convince myself, I would wait till the end, wait for every can to be collected and even then if that can remained uncollected I felt I would have done enough diligence before picking it.

As I struggled with my moral dilemma I noticed my can in the middle of the few remaining ones. How had I missed it despite the many checks?

As I walked out with the luggage and the cans safely stacked on the trolley I realized how the slightest threat to something I valued, had diverted me from the task of helping an old lady and made me almost claim a possession which didn’t rightfully belong to me.

Had all my learning, all my days and nights of realizations faltered at the first test of faith? If I had complete faith in the Lord should I have not believed that I would get my can if He so desired and have the fortitude to help others in need?

The children ran to greet us and during the entire ride back home they kept talking incessantly. They had obviously missed us more than we did.

On the Santacruz flyover our taxi driver sharply cut past a car. The car driver honked angrily. As the taxi stopped at the Bandra signal, the car driver got out and assaulted our taxi driver. It seemed the car belonged to the local MLA and thus the driver felt insulted at being overtaken. Our taxi driver tried to put up a brave front but obviously smarted at being roughed up.

As the taxi gathered speed again my seven year old son vented his ire at the preposterousness of the car driver. I had sat passively during the entire incident. Should I have intervened in the matter, should I have stood up for the hapless taxi driver?

And I realized that putting learning into action was not going to be easy at all. That application also required the courage to act and that courage could only come from a firm belief in God and the merit of doing right.

And I also realized that while I had not been able to act as desired I had at least become acutely aware of the need to act. Was this awareness in itself a beginning, a precursor to action which would eventually follow?

We had arrived in Mumbai on Friday evening and I had the weekend to rest at home before joining work. There had never been an occasion when I had stayed away so long from mails. Even when I was on leave I had the constant impulse of checking my Blackberry and logging on to the laptop at the first available opportunity. An hour with an email felt like a disappointment.

However now I didn’t feel like opening my laptop even though I had been away for six weeks. Reluctantly on the Sunday night I reactivated the mail service on my mobile. And it was only on Monday in the office that I started to download my emails.

As I checked through them I realized that a week into my leave some gracious soul had sent me an email with a 12MB attachment post which my mailbox had closed and I had no mail for five full weeks. I suddenly felt a sense of huge relief. A month of all communication had been wiped off my mailbox. It was as if I had ceased to exist professionally for that one month and I didn’t feel the slightest disappointment, the smallest hint of insecurity at that thought.

Was this the beginning of what they call transformation?

{In the next episode - which will probably be the last we will try to recreate the algorithm, the grand design which makes a pilgrimage a source of purification}

40 Days with God – An End

How does one feel on reaching the destination, on achieving a cherished objective?

A philosopher has said that when you have achieved a goal there is nothing further to achieve, once you have reached the destination there is nowhere to go. What he obviously meant was that the journey to achievement was the source of fulfillment, the reaching to the destination a greater motivation than the destination itself.

What one felt in the days immediately after the Haj was a feeling of emptiness that comes with the relieving of responsibility, when you know that there is nothing left in your control. Like the lightness that comes after giving an important exam; you have done whatever you could, good or bad, right or wrong and it was now with the examiner to decide the grades.

For the past five weeks, day after day you had prepared for that one afternoon in Arafat, that one night in Muzdalifah, that one tawaaf of the Kaaba and the stoning of the devil – things that you will probably never do again in your life. And now that it was all over what remained was only the return journey back to the world.

And it was an infinitely sad thought. Of having to give up this life of submission and love, of closeness and affinity for a life of daily chores far away from this holy precinct.

Yet the world was the field of application and what good is all theory if not applied. And that was the biggest fear; could we go back to the rigmarole of the routine and still retain this same sense of love and divinity?

The one sign, the book says, that your Haj was accepted by Allah, that you had passed the exam, is that your life transforms after return. That it becomes easier to lead a righteous life as prescribed by the Quran and God. Would there be a change in my life once I return? And what would be that change or transformation that the books talk about?

And had I performed the Haj correctly enough to bring about that change? Had my Lord accepted my supplications?

The days immediately after Haj were of hope and despair – hope that sprang from a staunch belief in the boundless mercy of the Lord, that if my intent had been good His actions would be generous, and the despair that comes from the realization that there was always something which I could have done more – the nights when I wanted to go to Masjid-al-Haram but kept sleeping, the visit to Masjid-e-Namra on the afternoon of Arafat when it was just a walk away etc.

And there was one big fear; the fear of how I would be able to sustain this same sense of seeming purity on going back into the world, of whether I would be able to put into practice all the good things that I had learnt, the realizations that I had.

Would I be able to know the right and the wrong in any situation and then have the courage to do the right?

There was only one answer to this – to get the intent right. If I could be constantly aware of my intent and ensure that it remained pure, the actions that would emanate from it would be largely correct.

That is how a Haj, and any pilgrimage, which purifies your intent, has the ability to transform you.

The final ritual that remained before we undertook the trip back home was the tawaaf-ul-vida, the farewell circumambulation of the Kaaba. The transfer of pilgrims from Mecca to Medina had not yet started and Masjid-al-Haram was overflowing with people. The biggest anxiety you have as you take the seven rounds of that holy structure for one last time is that you don’t miss out on any dua, any prayer for self or for any person you know.  For you will never get this opportunity for a long time again.

As we finished the obligatory namaaz on completion of the tawaaf and stood for one last time in the physical presence of the Kaaba, I tried to keep my eyes open without blinking for as long as I can, with a childlike desire to capture that black stone structure in my eyes forever so that from tomorrow when I raise my hands to my ears at the start of a namaaz with the statement ‘…and my face towards the Kaaba’ I can picture the actual Kaaba in front of me like I would in Masjid-al-Haram.

The incessantly moving crowd didn’t allow the occasion to stand at still and take in all the glory for the one last time. There were other lovers, pilgrims who had come at later dates and needed their time with the beloved, like we had in the beginning. It was for us to say a quick good-bye and let them indulge in the privilege.

I quickly turned around and traced my steps back towards the exit not turning around to look again one last time as I had initially thought. The final adieu wasn’t emotional or sad, it was strangely fulfilling and complete, like the closing of a much worked upon task, like the finishing of an assiduously read book.

It was the last namaaz in a local mosque in Azizia before starting on our return journey which was far more sad and painful.

We had to leave before mid-night for Jeddah to catch an early morning flight back to Mumbai. Dinner was going to be served after namaaz-e-isha (the last of the five mandatory namaaz to be offered every day) and loading of luggage would start immediately afterwards. Hence the instructions were to quickly return from the prayers and finish the supper as early as possible so that things could be wound up in time.

As I raised my hands for the last time in the namaaz, the body felt heavy and leaden and every action seemed like an effort. And when I bowed for the last time in sajda (supplication) I didn’t want to get up, to distance the forehead from that holy land, to lose contact. And I cried and cried from the pain of partition not praying for anyone or anything just wanting to sit there and feel the presence, to capture forever the essence of having been to the holiest of all places for a Muslim.

After what seemed like a long time, when the mosque was all but deserted and the keeper had switched off most lights and when it seemed too late for the dinner I got up and left quietly.

It was my last namaaz at Mecca till destiny will take me back again.

[In the next episode we will see what it takes to put the theory at work, what happens when as they say 'the rubber meets the road'.]