It’s dark and approaching dawn, here in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, on the the vast island of Borneo. The Fajr Adhan, the Muslim call to early morning prayer, has just ended. Instead of it being simply my usual wake up call, I decided to move into meditation. Turning my thoughts towards the divine, I remembered that, like all of us, I had incarnated to do soul growth work: to awaken to my true nature. And not just for myself but to help others, regardless of religious preference.
All of us are here to develop our personal and spiritual lives but it is easy to be distracted in the hustle and bustle of our everyday life. In a Muslim country, such as Malaysia, they make it delightfully impossible to forget. The call to prayer is the first thing you hear every day, and then throughout the day. As a non-Muslim I find it inspiring, not invasive. The call to prayer opens my heart.
There’s a line in the pre-dawn prayer that is unique to the five other daily calls: “Prayer is better than sleep”. For myself, as a spiritual seeker, prayer is any decisive act that turns me within, away from mundane worldly distractions. It’s any act that welcomes the divine back into my life and awakens my true nature. To help shake me out of the daily “sleep” state.
Last night I listened to a very different call to prayer; a strangely powerful song by Johnny Cash, “The Man Comes Around”, with its multiple references to the Biblical Book of Revelations, and the second coming. The ragged voice of the aged country singer, recorded shortly before he died, transmits a sense of the Christian apocalyptic vision. It looks forward, towards the ending of time, whereas the Fajr Adhan eternally embraces a new beginning. As the day approaches, the invitation for turning within is sent out, again and again. “Hasten to prayer”, the Fajr Adhan calls out. It’s a brand new day.
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Nice post. Thanks