My maternal grandmother had tremendous respect for Sheikh Hassan. He was a pious man who lived nearby. At times, when life got tough, she would visit him for advice. He would mostly write down certain scriptures from the Quran and share them with her. Sometimes he would recount stories from the Prophet’s life to highlight a relevant moral. At other times he would challenge her faith and nudge her gently to regain her resolve.
Two generations and hundreds of miles apart, my version of Sheikh Hassan is different from that of my grandmother’s, yet strikingly similar. I was 22 and had just landed a job. The pay was fantastic and the status it extended was overwhelming. Yet I resented every single day on that job. As I shared this with a friend and contemplated the meaning behind one’s existence, in the typical melodramatic manner of a 22-year-old, my version of Sheikh Hassan showed up.
My friend advised me to consider life coaching. It was a relatively new field at the time, almost unheard of. Today it’s a booming industry. In short, a life coach is someone who helps you achieve inner peace and fulfilment.
As I was seeking that, I immersed myself over the following year in life coaching. During this time, I came to know about other disciplines and experiences that promised more of the above. And so, I pursued meditation, contemplation and healing workshops. Years have passed since then and some of these experiences and practices are still part of my life. I recall sharing once with my mediation master that I only meditated when life threw its challenges at me in abundance. He would tell me to try and make meditation a daily practice. “This way you build a fortress to protect your soul and mind,” he said.
Throughout these experiences, I was exposed to many interesting aspects of the human body and spirit. One particularly fascinating aspect was learning how humming certain vowels induced relaxation and reduced stress in the autonomic nervous system. These humming mantras, I was told, significantly reduced stress and tension if practised daily.
Another aspect that fascinated me was the premise that life coaching was based on. The particular model I was pursuing stressed that fulfilment lay in moving oneself consciously through life towards an aspirational state.
As I delved into it, I felt modern, open-minded, in control of things and different. Here I was tapping into the latest human thinking on self-progress and development. Technology and globalisation made it possible for me to learn meditation practices from different parts of the world and different walks of life. Still I had a lot of unanswered questions.
On one particular day, I went to my mother’s place. As I shared with her what burdened my heart, she handed me a small red book, titled The Fortress of the Believer. It was a collection of short prayers, verses from the Quran and Prophetic sayings.
My mother advised me to read them daily. “This way you build a fortress to protect your soul and mind,” she said. She gently nudged me to make praying a part of my daily practices. She encouraged me to join group prayers whenever possible. She shared with me how humming “Amen” at the end of each prayer in a group was the most soothing of experiences. She challenged me to persevere quoting a verse from the Quran affirming that God will not change the condition of people until they change what is within themselves. I was silent and overwhelmed. In less than 10 minutes, my mother had recounted a lot of what I have been learning over years. I asked my mother how she gathered all that knowledge. “Read God’s word, think it through your mind and feel it within your heart darling,” she said.
Albert Einstein once said: “My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals oneself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.”
The more I reflected on similar revelations, the clearer it became. Coaching, meditation and healing workshops in the form they take today are secular forms of prayers. They are of the same essence as religious teachings, but wear a different dress.
Perhaps we were taken by our scientific, technological and industrial advances and figured we can surely drive a revolution for our inner peace and fulfilment. Only this revolution has happened before.
Rana Askoul is a Dubai-based advocate of women in leadership roles