Life = 'Ibadah. Really?

Initially, I thought of writing a post on the "grand lunch" Pycno, Bea, Elvis, Hiyoshi, Skye and I had, but I think Crimsonskye had nicely captured the moment with her words. I've left a long comment on her entry as well.

Instead I choose to write about our lives and our purpose. Most of these points are extracted from Ustaz Hasrizal's talk I attended quite recently. If we were to ask humans: "what is our purpose in life?", each would have their own answers, be it fame, money, status, etc. One of the most talked-about psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud, had only these words as to the answer to the purpose of our life: "to fulfill our ego and libido (sexual desire)". The most average answer that most people seem to practise in their daily life: "we live to eat, sleep, work, get married, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work...", which is no better than a herd of goats. No goat wakes up and vows to himself: "I hope to be a better goat today than the goat I was yesterday." None of these answers are good enough for us to know which direction we are heading in life. I personally think that none gives us the sense of completion. If getting a PhD is our final goal in life, what's next after we get there?

So, let us look back at the manual written by our Creator:

وَمَا خَلَقْتُ الْجِنَّ وَالْإِنسَ إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُونِ

I have only created Jinns and men, that they may serve Me.
(Qur'an 51:56)

This is our purpose of life. Sadly, many of us limits ibadah to the time we spent on the prayers' mat, or reading the Qur'an. Those are ibadah all right, but ibadah isn't just a certain time in life, but it's life itself. Working, sleeping, taking meals, getting to know people, spending time with friends - all these are also supposed to be ibadah.

There were quite a number of talks I've attended where people would always reiterate just how little time we spend on prayers, on reading the Qur'an as compared to spending time with friends or working or studying. It's almost like those are the only things we do that will earn us good deeds. Once we've folded our prayers mat and put away our telekung, it's like we're in another world. Which is of course, the wrong outlook.

The downside to this "distinction" is that we are subconciously being secular. We may not dare to shorten our Subuh prayers into just one rakaat, but we dare to cut class or cut our working hours (be it coming late, leaving early, or too much "coffee break"). We dare to talk bad things about people. We dare to break promises. We could care less about studying or doing our best in everything we do. We cut queues, we shout at people, we plagiarize, we lie. And the list goes on.

So, today let's just ask ourselves: Just how far had we made our life an ibadah? I must especially remind myself and ask myself this question again and again and again. Are we really serving our purpose of life? Or maybe are we just a part of the herd of goats?