Namaz as Yoga

[mohdanas]

In short, Islam is surrendering yourself to god, which is in a way achieving enlightenment.

Now, Namaz is a spiritual practise must for all muslim, as an exercise to surrender yourself to god to be performed five times a day. 

It show resemblance to yoga in way, example to perform namaz you have to go through various asanas while reciting quranic verses, whose core essence would be to surrender and recognize god as the ultimate in life. 

My question is, if someone is aware of enlightenment, aware of surrendering themselves to god in a way, we do right now, then perform this since early teens, every day, five times a day, throughout the course of his life. Then, can he attain enlightenment? If so, is it worth to investigate and look at namaz as a yoga? 

Also, Now I am beginning to see sunat ( the way he use to live ) of Muhammed in his life. Which are forms of various yoga like karma. 

My mom tells me to drink water slowly, eat slowly, etc etc follow the sunat of Muhammed, so thats basically mindfulness. 

Thoughts? 

[sarapr]

The action itself doesn't have any effect so if anything is gonna come of out of it depends on the mind and the mental mindset cause I've done it for a year being a hardcore Muslim for only a year because that's the time it took me to realize all of its stupidity 

[mohdanas]

6 minutes ago, sarapr said:

The action itself doesn't have any effect so if anything is gonna come of out of it depends on the mind and the mental mindset cause I've done it for a year being a hardcore Muslim for only a year because that's the time it took me to realize all of its stupidity 

Yeah, that is why I stated that if someone is aware of self enlightenment like we are and then perform it, and only then can it be classified as yoga? a means for enlightenment? 

The way most people pray namaz is bs, they just go and recite words of arabic language which they do not understand while probably thinking about their to do list, and also they perform it from the act of duty rather than love. Instead of freedom, they do it out of order, and this really act against itself, doesn't it. As well as it is a task for them, in which they rush and rush out. 

What, I really dislike as being a muslim and being raised to be told to do this or to do that, or else it is a sin, or else I am bad, etc etc is that people are performing the religion out of duty than love, to save their asses from hell lol, and that is egoistic in itself and so so so wrong. 

 

 

 

[sarapr]

7 minutes ago, mohdanas said:

Yeah, that is why I stated that if someone is aware of self enlightenment like we are and then perform it, and only then can it be classified as yoga? a means for enlightenment? 

The way most people pray namaz is bs, they just go and recite words of arabic language which they do not understand while probably thinking about their to do list, and also they perform it from the act of duty rather than love. Instead of freedom, they do it out of order, and this really act against itself, doesn't it. As well as it is a task for them, in which they rush and rush out. 

What, I really dislike as being a muslim and being raised to be told to do this or to do that, or else it is a sin, or else I am bad, etc etc is that people are performing the religion out of duty than love, to save their asses from hell lol, and that is egoistic in itself and so so so wrong. 

 

 

 

My guess is it won't work cause everything in this religion is corrupted after all these many years so you can't even be sure if this is the proper way to do it furthermore you can't even be sure that the man himself who invented it was truly enlightened , a lot of yoga techniques are also changed let alone sth like namaz.

[mohdanas]

2 minutes ago, sarapr said:

My guess is it won't work cause everything in this religion is corrupted after all these many years so you can't even be sure if this is the proper way to do it furthermore you can't even be sure that the man himself who invented it was truly enlightened , a lot of yoga techniques are also changed let alone sth like namaz.

Alright, The reason I wanted to discuss this was dew to the thought

Can originally the core purpose of namaz be enlightenment? 

[sarapr]

7 minutes ago, mohdanas said:

Alright, The reason I wanted to discuss this was dew to the thought

Can originally the core purpose of namaz be enlightenment? 

Of course it was intended for that 

[mohdanas]

20 minutes ago, sarapr said:

Of course it was intended for that 

alright, thanks, this is what I thought and was looking for confirmation. 

 

[Leo Gura]

The problem with ritual, is that it tends to become mindless, which is the opposite of mindfulness.

If ritual alone produced enlightened, half the world would be enlightened.

What's required is consciousness, which is much harder.

[Joseph Maynor]

You should look into the debate between Al Ghazali and Averroes.  Al Ghazali  tried to synthesize the more hard-nosed Islamic Theology and Philosophy with the Mysticism of the Sufis.  Check out Averroes’ objection!  Those of you who want to see Philosophers struggle with how to integrate mysticism and conceptual-truth can’t afford to miss checking out Al Ghazali.  I know when I studied him, it made a mark on me.  Islamic Philosophy is amazing!  It’s a different perspective; a different way of solving the same problems that occurred in the West, in India, in China, etc.  the same issues were dealt with by Islamic thinkers, but in their own unique way.  So, you wanna take a look at that on the Path.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ghazali

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incoherence_of_the_Philosophers

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Averroes

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incoherence_of_the_Incoherence

Edited March 12, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[RunningWater]

Here is the way i see the daily Islamic ritual : 

First things first; It is called "Salat", it is always thought of and translated as "prayer" and it's absolutely not ! The Word Salat in Arabic comes from the root word "Sila" which means connection, So then the daily ritual is called Iqamat Al salat which literally means "Establishing the connection". 

What you basically do during Salat is that you disconnect yourself from the illusion and reconnect yourself with the absolute, of course if it's done mindlessly it will just be another burden on you. Imagine if you do meditation only because someone forced you to, you would just sit thru it and then wrap it up as soon as you hit the minimum 5 minutes let's say and go about your day. It becomes absurd.

Ritual of any sort, whether it is yoga, Salat or any other form is meant to create a distinction between your everyday life activities and your spiritual activities, it has to have defined rules, defined postures and mouvements, it is built this way to create the distinction in your physical body as well as in your mind. It is not the form of the ritual that will bring you the benefits, it is not the way you sit during yoga or whatever that will raise you to enlightenment, but it's rather how deeply you are performing it, how conscious you are while doing it.

The ultimate yoga practice or meditative state is total dissolution in the absolute. You're doing it so well that it's effortless, therefore you become it, you cease to exist as an ego. All of what remains is meditation, or mouvement, or Yoga which actually means Union. 

Salat is no different buddy, it's about achieving total union. It is that by definition, start seeing it as what it is, not at how society see's it. Because most people have no idea what it actually is. You can use it as an anchor point too, a tool for structuring your day. Notice how it is related to time also. Dawn / Noon / Mid-afternoon / Sunset and then just before sleep. It can help you maintain focus throughout your journey. It is a pause from life and a constant reminder that it's only an illusion, a game. 

The real deal feels like heaven man, you become weightless, you become nothing. And that's what surrendering means.  

 

Meditate on this quote from Rumi : 

"O wise and smart ones! It is beyond the reach of the intellect to understand the union with Allah in prayer. It can only be understood by sacrificing the intellect for the Dearest and reviving the heart."

Edited March 12, 2018 by RunningWater

[Sevi]

Very nicely said @RunningWater 

[mohdanas]

1 hour ago, RunningWater said:

Here is the way i see the daily Islamic ritual : 

First things first; It is called "Salat", it is always thought of and translated as "prayer" which it's absolutely not ! The Word Salat in Arabic comes from the root word "Sila" which means connection, So then the daily ritual is called Iqamat Al salat which literally means "Establishing the connection". 

What you basically do during Salat is to disconnect yourself from the illusion and reconnect yourself with the absolute, of course if it's done mindlessly it will just be another burden on you. Imagine if you do meditation only because someone forced you to, you would just sit thru it and then wrap it up as soon as you hit the minumum 5 minutes let's say and go about your day. It becomes absurd.

Ritual of any sort, whether it was yoga, Salat or any other form is meant to create a distinction between your everyday life activities and your spiritual activities, it has to have defined rules, defined postures and mouvements, it is built this way to create the distinction in your physical body as well as your mind. It is not the form of the ritual that will bring you the benifits, it is not the way you sit during yoga or whatever that will raise you to enlightenment, but it's rather how deeply you are performing it, how conscious you are while doing it.

The ultimate yoga practice or meditative state is total dissolution in the absolute. You're doing it so well that it's effortless, therefore you become it, you cease to exist as an ego. All of what remains is meditation, or mouvement, or Yoga which actually means Union. 

Salat is no different buddy, it's about achieving total union. It is that by definition, start seeing it as what it is, not at how society see's it. Because most people have no idea what it actually is. You can use it as an anchor point too, a tool for structuring your day. Notice how it is related to time also. Dawn - Noon - Midafternoon - Sunset and then just before sleep. It can help you to maintain focus on your journey. It is a pause from life and a constant reminder that it's only an illusion, a game. 

The real deal feels like heaven man, you become weightless, you become nothing. And that what surrendering means.  

 

Meditate on this quote from Rumi : 

"O wise and smart ones! It is beyond the reach of the intellect to understand the union with Allah in prayer. It can only be understood by sacrificing the intellect for the Dearest and reviving the heart."

Thank you for such detailed insight. I do agree that its important in terms of anchor point cannot be understated, at least ppl that pray mindlessly do benefit from this. 

I noticed, it is extremely important to whatever you are studying, to study the meaning of the term from the origin.

[Joseph Maynor]

 

[mohdanas]

7 hours ago, Joseph Maynor said:

You should look into the debate between Al Ghazali and Averroes.  Al Ghazali  tried to synthesize the more hard-nosed Islamic Theology and Philosophy with the Mysticism of the Sufis.  Check out Averroes’ objection!  Those of you who want to see Philosophers struggle with how to integrate mysticism and conceptual-truth can’t afford to miss checking out Al Ghazali.  I know when I studied him, it made a mark on me.  Islamic Philosophy is amazing!  It’s a different perspective; a different way of solving the same problems that occurred in the West, in India, in China, etc.  the same issues were dealt with by Islamic thinkers, but in their own unique way.  So, you wanna take a look at that on the Path.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ghazali

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incoherence_of_the_Philosophers

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Averroes

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incoherence_of_the_Incoherence

 

1 hour ago, Joseph Maynor said:

 

I will checkout the debate between Al Ghazali and Averroes Later. My plates alrdy full with so much, cannot read more. sorry, but thanks for the recommendation