Follow us for you will be closer to God

| Opinion | Malaysia | 19 July 2017 | Asia Samachar |

She was very pretty. Fair, shapely in her tight jeans, flashing a smile that would get any freshmen’s attention that morning. And she was a senior to me by a year. When she approached to talk to me, there wasn’t a single sign of inhibition. She touched my arm, eyes twinkling and that smile warmer as the seconds go by.

“Would it be ok if I came to your room sometime…”

I could already envision our embrace. I was sweating by now because no girl has ever been this direct in my entire juvenile life.

“…to talk about God and religion?”

That vision of warm embrace suddenly disappeared and I spend a few seconds trying to digest her last few words. Her smile was so beautiful still.

I stammered and agreed to talk about God and religion, as the brochures she handed me started to make it clear what her intentions were. Before we parted, I asked her if she would spend some time listening to my version and understanding about Guru, God and religion. She surprised me further by saying that’s not really acceptable and perhaps that meeting in my room wasn’t really a good idea.

That was that. And it was 22 years back.

I never saw this as an attempt to convert me into a believer of whatever religion she was from. I saw it as more of an exchange of knowledge, and to be brutally honest with you, I was already intrigued with the many denominations of religion around me. I wasn’t really on a quest to find my spiritual path. That was the least of my priorities in university and in life at that time. Hooking up with girls, experiencing independent life away from my parents and generally being a young materialistic adult occupied my priority list. Nevertheless, curiosity killed the cat. And I was curious of what knowledge she was planning to share with me.

SEE ALSO: Converting Sikhs right in their own gurdwaras

To many, including my parents, this curiosity posed a risk. The risk of losing one of your close ones to religious conversions. It didn’t really matter to me then, not now, but it mattered to my parents and extended family members. Luckily for my parents, they did a good job instilling pride in me with my roots, with the history of my forefathers and with what religion I was born into. This sense of pride and belonging deterred any persuasive attempts to satisfy my curiosity. Nevertheless, there was an abundance of reading materials to answer my questions about what made religions tick and work in general.

To many, for religion and its individual dogmas, it’s all about the numbers game. The more believers, the stronger the religion. Converting non-believers into believers through any means necessary was, and is, a means to justify validity of the converting religion. That’s why some of the more fervently passionate religious believers will go to the extent of preaching and converting at the doorsteps of worship belonging to others.

If we, as a community, want to avoid losing some of our close ones to their fate of being converted, we’ve got to look at ourselves in the mirror. Getting all worked up at some viral video of our people being approached outside of Harmandir Sahib to be seduced into conversion is akin to crying over spilled milk.

One thing for sure, arguing amongst ourselves, displaying childish immature arguments and behavior in public to affirm our dogmatic beliefs against our very own brothers and sisters, will not be attractive to the curious ones like I was in university. These curious ones will weigh in the humanistic values more, the love and the brotherhood more here on earth in this lifetime than what happens after we perish and extinguish our lives. These curious ones won’t give a damn about what are the right dogmas to follow but how to help the poor and the downtrodden. These curious ones will want practicality in fighting for justice and not some dreamy visionary theory on how to enjoy heavens in the sky.

Instead of fighting, I suggest we look at how best to practice living a practical life of a householder, effectively contributing to the living society and focusing on the betterment of our personal selfs. This, I strongly believe, will be the best method to teach our loved ones that they need not search further and can satisfy their curiosity closer at home.

But back to the numbers game, my conversion would’ve torn the fabric of the small family unit I belonged to. A consequence I had to bear if fate had it so. But fate was kind, and I was surrounded by like minded souls who showed me that life is all there for us to progress as spiritual beings, not religious humans.