Reflections on Prayer and Meditation
By Noor Khalil
In this easy essay, I explore the deep connection between my daily prayers as a Muslim and the practice of meditation and mindfulness. This class highlights the importance of meditation and reconnecting with oneself. I found a similar practice done in Islam, through our five daily prayers. Here I highlight the spiritual discipline that helps me find peace amid life's chaos and responsibilities.
As a Muslim, God commands us to pray five times a day at specific times of the day. These prayers are prescribed to us during specific times to take a break from whatever we are doing, and connect with god. Perhaps if they weren't prescribed times, we wouldn't truly understand how to disconnect from society and this crazy thing we call life. For five to ten minutes, we get to connect and talk to God. This is a form of meditation to me and many muslims around the world. Sitting down on Thursday outside and having to connect with nature and myself wasn't too difficult for me mentally since I am used to this state of meditation, calmness, and reflection during my prayer. I did find it a bit uncomfortable physically, as my body isn't used to sitting down on the hard floor for long. However, this experience was extremely beautiful and I can't wait to do it more.
A big reason why I feel like myself and others may find it hard to connect, might be because of the overload of responsibilities that we have in life that don't have a light switch to them that we can just turn off. Being able to clear your mind in a snap isn't something that can be super realistic to many of us since we spend most of our lives fulfilling the responsibilities that we have to ourselves, our families, school, etc.