As a young child I would often ask the question “Vy?” Unsatisfied by the answer I received, I would again respond with the same curiosity. Inquisitive by nature, I was somehow determined to learn the truth of the worlds.
My parents thought I would grow out of it, but as time passed and I collected more and more trauma; my determination only solidified. I wanted to know why I was the way I was, why people were the way they were; and in many ways what was wrong with me?
It seemed everywhere I went I was inviting verbal, physical or sexual abuse. Sometimes I felt like I had a sign board on my head, “abuse me”. Part of me just wanted to know when someone was going to, so I could stop them or escape.
My parents didn’t care enough or have the tools to know me; giving me advice that didn’t soothe my soul. I moved countries so often I never built any other support network either. It always just seemed to be, God and I.
Sometimes I loved Him, and sometimes I hated Him with the same passion. Sometimes I sympathized with the devil, and other times I felt the whole institution was a joke and God didn’t exist.
No matter how much I pushed God away, or told myself He had no place in my life; I felt His existence alongside me the whole time.
It wasn’t benevolent or malevolent, but it was simply present. A seeming companion on the journey; an observer as I discovered the right way to live for myself (if there is such a thing).
I visited temples, read scripture, sought out learned souls and contemplated life in silent moments. Everyone seemed to have a part of the truth; but of the people I spoke to, no one divulged more than convention.
I searched to know God and myself in most places except the way I had been raised to do so. With my life experiences up to that point, I had a strong aversion to Pakistan’s “pretend” culture and the shade of religion that underpinned it.
I held strong loyalty to the stories and people of my nation, but none to the community I was from or the way they chose to live and practice faith.
Nobodies mold seemed to make sense to me, and in many ways life forced me to carve out my own. Part of my curiosity for knowledge stemmed from a search for self and protection from those who wanted to harm me.
Another part was to understand Him through the world He had created. To know the only sense of belonging and stability I ever had in my life. A strange divine energy, that even in my most fallen moments refused to leave.
Multiple times I had skirted the brink of inevitable death and I’d ask God to save me. I didn’t even have to wait. It felt like a switch; boom, peace.
He was there, something was there. I’d deny it as coincidence, I didn’t want to accept it; but I couldn’t explain it either. For a while I forgot. I’d read about the subject in theory, but my practice was negligible.
A few years later as I continued my journey; somewhat drunk I thought to myself. I have looked for God in so many different places. Felt Him, and yet denied Him. Practiced with so many faiths; never more than culturally, but I was there. The one faith I’d studied all my life and grown up with; I hadn’t really given a fair shot.
I pushed myself off the sofa, only a little tipsy now. I did my ablution, grabbed a prayer mat and stood at the ready. The thought in my head was something is better than nothing; a start is a start.
The prayer was somewhat uneventful and it was over as quickly as it began. I didn’t think much of it, and decided I would say two prayers tomorrow.
I said two, then three and somehow while I was drunk again the next week; I said the fourth one of the day. It was important to me to say all five and give Islam a real chance.
This time the experience was anything but ordinary. It was like I fell into a pool of water, but the water was God. I felt Him on my skin and all around me. He was not only present as a figment of my emotion, but now tangibly so.
Of course I immediately thought it was some kind of acid flashback, before coming to terms with the reality that I’d never done acid. I thought to myself; no matter what God did to prove His existence, there was always a way to rationalize it as nothing.
He could stand in front of me and claim divinity; and the only thing I would do is hold my head, and think to myself that I have finally gone mad. Regardless, this surreal feeling of God persisted.
I went to bed wholly expecting it to be gone in the morning with the effects of the alcohol. It stayed with me for two full weeks. It stayed while I worked, it accompanied me through my chores and it was there as I thought deeply.
No matter where I went, I seemed to be redirected to this space. I didn’t know why yet, or even how it would be relevant to my life. I just seemed to hold glowing pieces of a puzzle that felt important.
Fast forward a decade and further trials, trauma, and life. I sit on my office floor; gazing longingly to the freedom my balcony’s edge offers. It wasn’t the first or indeed the last time I felt this way, but it was what it was.
Sobbing silently into my hands, almost ready to do it; I burst out laughing. Tangential to the moment, I remembered a little version of me saying a prayer. A waking dream; a television screen in mid air almost.
The satisfaction of this little boy’s desire could honestly have only come in the way it did. I had told God; I was ready to give up anything for it. To go through anything for it; and indeed I had. No longer crying, I laughed as I realized that my query had been answered.
Broken though I was, I now knew the path to empower myself. I could help so many little children just like me, who lived as confused. Rather than wonder about the things I had; my forward life work would free them to dream different dreams (or so I intended).
I had set out to understand my badness, to protect what was left of me, and to know the energy that loved without condition. Somewhere in that exchange; I discovered a lot of good.
When I searched for God, I ended up finding myself. When I searched for the little boy beyond the trauma, I found only God. Intricately interlaced, all signs pointed me to purpose; a path that stretched back as far as I could remember.
No matter what transpired, I never stopped asking “Vy”. The universe will always answer; though it most likely won’t be in the form you expect.
~Frumi
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