Karl Brown - Outside Reading - A Season in Mecca

 A Season in Mecca was a very unusual read. For the longest time I had been reading about examples of spiritual journeys and successful spiritual experiences that occurred on those journeys, but this book took a different turn. In A Season in Mecca, the author describes a trip on the Hajj that did not go as successfully as he had planned and not spiritual journey was achieved. After seeing tons of examples of successful trips, it was good to see the other face of the coin and get the perspective of someone who did not manage to experience what they set out for. It really gave weight to the axiom described in class “You can walk through a sacred place without entering it”. The author had the religious convictions and backgrounds, went through the journey, but from my point of view really did not manage to break through and enter the sacred place fully. Part of me thinks that one of the reasons he did not get as full a spiritual experience was that he did not do the Hajj in its true entirety. He chose not to do any walking at all to Mecca and instead got on a bus to Mecca immediately after getting off the plane landed. I think that if he had taken the time to walk for a while, especially with other pilgrims, he might have been in the proper mindset once he arrived at Mecca to have a true spiritual journey.

His perception of others on the trip also seemed to really hold him back. From my other readings and knowledge of the Hajj I had accrued over the semester it seems that in this spiritual journey’s case feeling a connection to the mass of pilgrims participating in the Hajj alongside you really has an effect on ones mindset. Malcom X emphasized it was the turning point in his spiritual journey to Mecca. The author on the other hand seemed to have a very jaded and judgmental view of the other pilgrims, seeming very quick to focus on negative aspects of what they were doing or overanalyzing situations. I believe that this mentality might have contributed to his failure to achieve a proper spiritual journey. I tried to analyze how his travels went in an attempted to garner what he did wrong and use that to figure out how to better achieve a spiritual journey in any given circumstance. There was a definite contrast in mindset between the author and Malcom X which in Mecca and I tried to pinpoint exactly where things went wrong to learn more about spiritual journeys as a whole.