Trend commentator Polad Hamidov
A neighbor complains that her eleven-year-daughter has decided to keep the fast during the holy month of Ramazan. "She doesn't eat much anyway, but now her friends have decided to keep Oruj, and she does not want to be the "black sheep".
Many of us are faced with this choice. It is not only our children, but we too are unable to explain why, in an era of secularization, we have suddenly become so religious. Is it because everyone is keeping the fast and it has become a fashion statement? Maybe is it good for our health? Some people find an explanation and seek benefits from keeping the fast - in the most literal sense of the word. Justifying the fast in terms of medicine, modern man is forgetting about the spiritual aspect and explains that the fast is a way to lose weight or calls it cutting-back for one month a year.
In modern society, where many people have forgotten about religion, amid their other domestic anxieties people have doubts whether it is worth keeping the fast. To be more precise, man has not just forgotten religion, he simply ceased to feel dependent on it. God comes to mind only when we catch a terminal disease and sense death's approach.
It seems likely that will soon we cease to be dependent on nature due to scientific and technological progress. For example, we make namaz or pray in a church, not to gather a good harvest or prevent wolves from taking our sheep. Most of us work in offices and are more dependent on our managers than we are on nature. Neither drought nor poor harvest will affect you acquiring food, if you are employed. We can pop into any supermarket for peaches and pomegranates, even in winter. Modern man, having created his 'metropolitan paradise', has totally isolated himself from nature. He drives a car, can travels huge distances by airplane and even intends travel to the moon, as a tourist.
So science and technology have torn us from nature when for many people, nature is inextricably linked with God. Whenever people used to witness natural phenomena such as thunder, earthquakes or volcanic eruptions, he thought about God, because he was fearful. But now man lives in his house, so resistant to those natural disasters, drives a car with air-conditioning, has access to information, food and clothing without even leaving his apartment. In short, a man is distanced from nature and has found independence.
Meanwhile, there is little time for people to learn the Truth in the rhythm of life of this era of secularization. Man needs time-out when he can take a step back from his life and think about God and his origins. Keeping the fast and prayers are stipulated in the sacred books for this very reason. During this period of observing religious traditions, man must not think about the material or physical benefits.
While praying or keeping the fast man is given the opportunity to experience the heavenly realms while shunning the laws of this world. Simone Weil gave a vivid account of such a state. "These are moments of stop, intuition, pure intuition, mental emptiness," she said.
Of course one would not argue that everyone keeping the fast or praying reaches such an intensity of feeling.
But a person observing the religious traditions has a greater chance to attain that ethereal feeling. We have the chance to apply to God and observe God's laws from the holy books. People who observe religious teachings and attend mosque at least once a week gain a psychological resilience against stress.
Certainly, the modern world is one of less faith, since many value only those things obtained by means of science. They keep the fast only once they see scientific justification for it. Such 'faith' is futile. But without faith, society's spiritual and moral diseases are permanent. Therefore, we must cherish our religious heritage. "If religious heritage disappears, the difference between good and evil will vanish with it. It will simply lose its meaning," Polish philosopher Leschek Kolakowski said.
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