More on Surrender

We often say Lailahillalah. There is no ilah but Allah or , there is no object of worship/surrender except God.

What this entails in submitting to all that is coming to us from Allah. What we then need to understand is that everything manifest in this world is from Allah. The good and the bad.
Below , Dr Godlas quotes from an old sufi writing by Ruzbihan :

The surrender that is inherent in servanthood is linked, for Rūzbihān, with surrender that is a form of submission (inqiyād) to God, a submission that involves man's continuing his awareness of God (as the ultimate cause), particularly at times when man is facing traumatic events. Rūzbihān highlights three qualities of one who is not submitting in this sense at such times:

1) being unable to patiently endure

2) becoming deeply anxious

3) paying attention to other than God
(quoted from Dr Abdal Haq Godlas)

I had this as a draft for quite a long time...so this is after a deep pause.
Right now I have this ache in my heart . I have just been watching the Alchemist of Happiness about the life and work of Imam Ghazali..Hujjatul Islam....He wrote about knowledge, and the various ways of knowing via the senses, via the intellect ..and he wrote about this pain...the pain of wanting to know Truth , of wanting to surrender to God..it is Ishq and you will perhaps understand Ishq when you fall in love , or when you read about being in love and being separated from the Beloved and the heart is filled with longing and it aches with pain. This pain of longing is in all of us and we are constantly seeking ways and means to assuage this pain..none will remove it for very long except Surrender to Al Haq....

Tawba – surrender in contemplation of the Divine

Tawba – surrender in contemplation of the Divine

Allahuma maghfiratuka awsa’ min dhunubi wa rahmatika arja ‘indi min ‘amali
My Allah , your forgiveness is more than my wrong and your mercy comes from you from my deeds (I am not very good with translation, anybody can do a better job?)
God centering- Allahuma
Surrendering guilt in contemplation of Forgiveness – maghfiratuka awsa’ min dhunubi
Surrendering will in contemplation of Mercy – wa rahmatika arja ‘indi min ‘amali

Tawba means return: and the cycle goes like this above.
Tawba is return , and we return after we 'fall' into affliction at the bala stage and this cycle is true for those who are on a sufi path

This is another cycle when we are seeking for our religious truth as above . Our 'religion' can be just about anything that makes us feel fulfilled.


More on tawbah

Allah (ta’) said: wa qawlahu ta’ala:
illa man taba wa-amana wa- ‘amila ‘amalan salihan, fa-ula’ika yu’baddilu llahu sayyi’atihim hasanat
One who turns his back in repentence and places his security in God and who acts righteously, Allah will turn his negative qualities to beautiful virtues

Basically what I am saying is that when we have as objects of surrender other that Allah, we then make tawba and return to Allah.

Shirik khafi is taking other things as illahs and this is the meaning of Laillaha ila Allah
We are negating all that we take as illahs in place of Allah.

Our illah could be our job, our family, our car , golf, our garden , our wealth etc
or on another view, even our religion or, our tariqa whatever distracts us from Allah and does not bring us to Allah

Hence the Tawba, the return

Actually this has been explained over and over but I think Dr Alan has made it crystal clear and in an aspect that removes the taint of what Christians dislike ie the original sin which is what I suspect make many people dislike tawba when they think it is repentence because then the reaction is repent why , repent what ?