Thank you Rick Rubin

I’m an avid lover of simple ways to express seemingly large and abstract things, and so when I read spirituality described as ‘ a way of looking at the world where you’re not alone’ something just landed. I have Rick Rubin to thank for this one as I was breezing through his artfully written book, The Creative Act. 

The atheist mask was a hard one for me to peel. Growing up in a country where religious allegiance was a must on your official documents, Islam was what my parents got handed down yet never practiced. The politicized nature of their upbringing having been forced to leave Palestine, migrating to Jordan,  joining the communist party under the promise of liberation, devouring books for every meal, they cultivated the brilliant ability to call a spade a spade. The spade of organized religion, of politics, of communism, and almost anything that didn’t align with their values. An intellectual muscle and a way of being that I am deeply grateful seeped through me by watching them be the brilliant minds they are. 

Back to atheism though, it wasn’t that they imposed it on me or my siblings. In fact, their answer to any existential question I had for them almost always sent me back with some book recommendation. A way of encouraging me to find my own answers. And that I did. Many habits and lessons I keep till today as the greatest gifts life has given me through them, but much else I also grew to part with as not mine to keep. From them, from culture, from friends. With atheism, the story was a little more complicated because it was really a question of belonging. 

The growing narrative on Islam was becoming increasingly shaped as regressive and so I held on to my atheist identity even tighter to ensure I was not THAT. That being the ever so slight association with any form of regressive thinking given the official documentation on my ID. Irrespective of the opposite reality of my upbringing.  A foolish reaction simply because I have not yet developed the language and knowledge to understand that atheism, scientific dogma, other organized religions, all sing to the same hymn. Alas, I hid behind the atheist mask as the non-religious muslim on paper, severing with it the connection with universe and the nature around me. 

It was a question of belonging because on one hand, Islam as it was practiced was already something I wrote off so I definitely didn’t want to belong to that. On the other hand, the alternative choice was to either align to the ‘liberalism’ of Christianity or stand on my own as an atheist. I chose the former, cultivating with it a sense of validation from being the ‘cool muslim non-muslim’. A need for belonging met.  It was then followed by a life abroad in college and beyond, where the narrative on Arab-ness and Islam was even more extreme and so atheism gave me the ammunition to belong without adhering to judgement.

Taking off the atheist mask and into spirituality wouldn’t become possible until I learnt to resolve much of my inner conflicts much later in my late 20s. Meeting the skepticism that arose in accepting truths that cannot be measured with a scientific formula, while also having  reverence towards whatever anyone chose to practice.   Leaning into the beauty of participating in life from a place of curiosity, not a place of rigid dogmas. I’m not really sure when I started to dip my toes into spirituality, although I now know it’s not something you adopt but rather who we fundamentally are, nonetheless the process was one of unlearning all the ways we are separate from nature. That process for me was slow and steady, faced with a lot of internal resistance. If I don’t belong to atheism, where do I belong? Where do I fall if not on the manufactured binary scale of conservative vs. liberal. 

I kept on with the rabbit hole attempting to understand the whole thing intellectually. Riding at times the spiritual meritocracy syndrome much of the pseudo spiritual world falls into today. The ‘I understand the world better now’. A way of relating that defines oneself in relation to another as better or worse. A bridge I safely crossed now as I continued to follow the pull into the mystery and into humility.  Without having awareness to it at the time, it was a journey that was bringing me home to myself every day. Back to my breath, back to my felt sense, back to nature. It was slowly relieving me of fear, and instead filling me up with a greater trust in myself, in things unfolding perfectly, in the outer world as a reflection of my inner world. 

With time, I relinquished understanding spirituality through text and slowly peeled off the atheist mask that had me fear not having the one answer. That it doesn’t matter if it’s one God or the Big Bang, they were both narrow and both missed the point completely. Instead I started to learn spirituality through active participation with life around me. Through time in nature with all the elements. Through time with my breath. Through dance and hearing my own voice sing and howl. Through the presence with people I love. Through the food I put in my mouth. It was nothing but a process of coming back to essence. Of seeing the magic in how things unfold.

Spirituality is a way of looking at the world where you are never alone. It really is nothing more than that. A look beneath the surface. A way of seeing nature as a living teacher. A syncing with the cycles inside and outside of us. A deep act of trust in things happening for you, not to you. In meeting life with the willingness to feel. In taking the path of least resistance in the face of what is; knowing that you are held by life.