Nude, Part 1

As a moisture-laden breeze floats in through the screen door in my room, I breathe in deeply. I breathe because I don’t do it enough. But then, I don’t do anything enough.

However, I bare my soul, and I do it often. I was a religious kid for the major part of my life. I’ve frequented temples more often than I remember. Mantras and chants are embedded in my head for the rest of my life, probably. I involuntarily bring my hands together whenever I walk by a temple or any other place of worship for that fact. I apologize silently when I touch anything that embodies knowledge.

And then I found myself developing an aversion to religion. Not a distaste of religion, for disliking something that makes most people better is simply unjustified hate. I felt my thoughts drifting away from religion because I became self-aware quite early on in life, as compared to an older generation which is just now going through a mental metamorphosis of sorts, after spending years out of touch with the world around them. Internet became mainstream only recently. I’m 26, and if I conversed with nobody but my parents for this tenure, I would’ve been in the same boat. Hence, I refrain myself from disrupting others’ faiths, because that way, no one can disrupt mine. And that’s how it should be.

I wasn’t in my best headspace recently. There was a whirlwind of ethical dilemmas inside of my head, threatening to capsize all of my mental sanity. I did I what I thought was rational. I called my Dad. “Dad, I know you’re a good person. What forces you to be benevolent, kind and an empathic person? Is it a voice inside of your head? Is it religion? What is it?” Dad said the most Dad thing ever. “What do you think?” And I was at a loss. I knew he was a good person, but what made him so? I know his upbringing played a major part. Some days later, he brought it up. “Our parents taught us to be this way. Then they left us with our faith, our religion to help us make good decisons in life. Decisions that contribute to the betterment of our life in general.” I deciphered the meaning behind his seemingly transparent answer, but it was translucent at best. And I can’t blame my father for that, can I?

I never associated religion with doing good. More so, I linked religion to a sense of belonging, a pedestal adorned by everything mankind was oblivious to, until around a century ago. Had I been born then, I would’ve basked in the bright light of religion until death ruined everything for me.

Because that’s what us humans do. We rush for comfort. Brutal, true displeasure is annoying, however necessary it might be. We find answers to our existence’s questions in religion, so we presume it’s as accurate as the word of your mother. Or father. And we make it the only thing we know. We breathe our troubles into prayers and look to the skies for a rain that might cleanse us. And we pretend it does. It’s that easy to fool the naive reaches of your brain.

But how long can you fool your head for? How long before the twisted, toxic, putrid mass of emotions, guilt and regrets repressed in a far corner of your head implodes?

Someone I know has been devoted to God for longer than I’ve existed. A couple years ago, they were diagnosed with insomnia, hypertension, anxiety, stress and well, you get the gist, right? They took meds. They coined a good night’s sleep. Some months later, it happened again. And again. I recommended therapy. They recommended me some extra faith in God. In the religion that was seemingly still in the equation, soaking up what they were bleeding. Little did they know, all of it was trickling down to a place where the rest of it resides. And just like any other infested region, it needs to be cleaned up.

And trust me, there’s no higher power that’ll do that for you. Well, as long as we keep hallucinogens out of everything. The only cleansing we need to do is inside of us, and while that might be hard to accept, it is impossible to change. Religion makes it harder for one to accept that, for you can conceal yourself behind your faith for only so long before your own consciousness catches up with you.

When that happens, it’s never pretty.

I don’t hate religion, I hate that people hide behind religion the same way a guilty child cowers behind a mother as an angry mob marches towards them, threatening to burn everything down until nothing remains but ashes. Ashes, and some specks of finally-wavering faith.

(Continued in part 2)