Saturday 25 February 2017

The Tranquility Of Your Heart



Your problem isn't that you need to admire, to love, to worship someone. You are made to be a worshipful being. It is your Design: “And I did not create the jinn and humankind except to worship Me.” (Quran 51:56)

Your problem is that you worship people and things. They break your heart and disappoint you. Then you complain, you blame them for your misery and remain stuck.

When you submit yourself and your worship to its rightful Owner – that is, when you realize, when you interiorize La Illaha Il Allah – your heart will became tranquil.

image: intrepid travel

Sunday 12 February 2017

PEACE IS IN THE PRESENT MOMENT




To be present is to be at peace.

To be present we must let go of the past.
To let go of the past we must first acknowledge it fully.
When we acknowledge it fully, we see it correctly.
When we see it correctly, we see what can and cannot be done – particularly what cannot be undone – and we choose to let it all go.
When we see it correctly, we also see the blessing in what had appeared previously as a curse.
When we have fully acknowledged and seen the past for what it is we are grateful and we can let it go.
We become at peace with the past.

When we become at peace with the past we become at peace with the future. 
Because we know that the same Benevolence that cared for us in the past will care for us in the future.

When the past no longer burdens us and the future no longer worries us, we become present.
And we are at peace.

In order not to accumulate baggage from the present moment, it is important to act correctly in the moment. To act correctly is to act with unconditional benevolent intent because only then have we have given what were are being asked to give, we have done what we are being asked to do, we have done our best – we have been generous or courageous as appropriate.   

Being deliberate about correct action in the present, about letting go of the past and about letting go of anxiety for the future, are mutually enabling.

When we have done the appropriate, done our best, we can move on to the next moment without guilt, resentment or anxiety.  We are present.  And at peace.


image: with thanks via Wildlife Photographer Of The Year on facebook


Sunday 5 February 2017

INTIMACY/ ALIENATION



Why is it that you can spend decades in close proximity with someone and still experience them as alien?  Or meet someone for the first time and feel like you have always known them?

Because intimacy is not about physical distance or time.  Real intimacy is about an expansive openness, an all-embracing acceptance and a deep understanding, which comes primarily from accepting and knowing yourself.  

This self-knowledge and acceptance enables others to open up to you and allows you to accept and know the other as intimately as yourself.

Ultimately, real intimacy is discovering that you exist in the other. 

It is finding yourself Home in the Other. 
And discovering that they exist in you.

May Allah grant us that.  

image: with thanks via Wildlife Photographer Of The Year