Ramadan Day 25!! : Obligation or Sincerity?

So Day 25 of Ramadan is coming to an end and I just broke my fast with an excellent meal of rice, beans, and salad. I want to catch you all up on my progress and jump right into my topic this entry.

A week ago I was faced with making a decision. After much deliberation I decided after being offered to join in on a trip to Florida for a week that I would go. The debate was in whether or not I would be able to maintain my fast while down there. A week later I'm proud to say that I only missed 2 days of fasting, both of which were due to my physical state of being and not a lack of discipline. On the flip side, the negative of my being on the trip was that my focus was almost completely ripped away from Ramadan minus the conscious physical fasting. I was prepared for this; and in the days following my last post and leading into my trip the intensity of my fast decreased as I had become more and more turned off by my apparent submission to religious law and practice...the very law and practice I turned away from those 5 years ago. The ritual in prayer has become redundant and obligatory and I'm not feeling as much as I did when I started...very often I wonder why am I still holding on, why am I even doing it anymore and at those moments I have to dig deep inside and push through with faith that there is a calling I'm answering to that perhaps I'm not aware of yet...

That does bring me to my topic of choice however; that topic being obligation or sincerity in religious practices and rituals such as prayer. In Islam you pray 5 times a day going through various cycles of standing, to kneeling, to sitting depending on the time of day. In Florida I went through the whole cycle one time and since being back I've resumed regular prayers. Lately however, I have found that while praying my mind begins to wander and I realized that I'm not praying with the same sincerity I did, that I'm more praying out of the muslim obligation in times and cycles...that when it gets time for my "personal" prayers THAT is when I feel the sincerity return. My question is should you pray out of sincerity ONLY or should you pray out of obligation...or perhaps maybe obligation trains your sincerity? Having dipped myself in the world of organized religion makes me remember how many governing rules to practicing there are...rules that aren't necessarily bad but rules that indeed can ( and often do) distract one from the real point of the religious experience or expression of spirituality. I will say that this Ramadan I "broke" a lot of muslim rules... and call me what you want but I'm cool with it. I went out to party when the sun went down, I laughed and cursed, I enjoyed myself but I set out that time and sacrificed that food for a reason and I know that reason and that's what is important. Some have suggested after hearing about this that I should never have started fasting in the first place or perhaps to acknowledge that what I was doing didn't fall into the category of "Ramadan" because I'm not following the rules as a muslim would. These 30 days have been my RAMADAN and I enjoyed the hardships, the confusion, the fasting, the stomach grumbling, the breaking of the fasts, the waking up before dawn to pray and eat and even though it was challenging at some moments more than others I am PROUD of what I've accomplished and what I've learned and hope to continue to learn.

5 more days...