Just when you thought it was safe to get back into the water!

I know the title is a corny line from an advert about a sequel to the horror shark movie Jaws that was perhaps the beginning of several horror movies like Anaconda and the likes of it .

What is it about being eaten alive or having parts of a person bitten off that is so fascinating that such movies become box office hits?

The line popped out at me after I began to see myself spiralling again to an emotional and mental state that I thought I had left behind so very many years ago .

Just when we taught we are so old that we have outgrown certain needs of the past , the needs come back stronger than ever .

Just when we thought we had become wise because of the additional years to our lives , we realise that it is just not so .

But I suppose in the very realisation lies the increase in awareness and perhaps being down in the dumps from knowing that I am a weak and faulty human ,I surrender myself and I then hold out my arms in helplessness and allow God to pull me up again....

SHADOW AND LIGHT

How does

a part of the world

leave the world?

How does wetness

leave water?

Dont' try to put out fire

by throwing on more fire!

Don't wash a wound

with blood.

No matter how fast you run,

your shadow keeps up.

Sometimes it's in front!

Only full overhead sun

diminishes your shadow

But that shadow

has been serving you.

What hurts you,

blesses you.

Darkness

is your candle.

Your boundaries

are your quest.

I could explain this,

but it will break

the glass cover

on your heart,

and there's no fixing that.

You must have

shadow and light source

both.

Listen,

and lay your head

under the tree of awe.

When from that tree

feathers and wings

sprout on you,

be quieter than a dove.

Don't even open your mouth

for even a coo.

Jelal'uddin Rumi - 13th century Sufi mystic and poet

From The Soul of Rumi. Translated by Coleman Barks.

The Spiritually Inclined Person

This quote below is from Eric Pepin's book the Navigator. Muslims who believe Non Muslims do not know the real truth have a huge problem dealing with information that is not from Muslim sources. It becomes a handicap and a blindspot as they reject information that do at times give an indication of what is a true description and accurate account of what really IS. The fact is, as Human beings all of us , Muslim and non Muslim, as long as we are sincere searchers for the truth will have access to realisations such as the one Eric Pepin has written here .

We are lost in an ocean of humankind; a world that we are part of but separate from. Through our entire lives we have questioned reality; social structures, religions and relationships… suspecting that there is much more that awaits us.

We desperately feel an urge to return to whence we came but have lost the map that guides us. We hold a constant desire to reawaken a sleeping memory that, if brought to life, will change the face of this world for the good of humanity.

If what you want more than anything else is completion, you are looking for the map that will reunite you with that which you seek. It cannot be an ordinary map. It must be a guide that transcends time and space… and it must have the power to take you to that which has eluded you.

Preparing for the inevitable

I was called upon to help a sick friend recently.
I hope and pray he was helped by my presence and my suggestions. I also hope when it is my turn to ask for help, someone will come as I went and that someone would perceive what it was I needed at that point in time and give it to me .

This was what I wrote for him, at his request. He was very sick and , his illness made it difficult for him to focus. On my second and last visit , which was also the last time that I was to see him alive, he indicated that he had read and understood and I believe carried out the suggestions I gave him.

Ya Rabbi , accept his soul , his good deeds and forgive his shortcomings!

This below is what I wrote for him


Things we need to resolve :

1. Issues of guilt : Understand the circle of influence is less than the circle of concern.
a. Do what we can do to resolve the issue : ask for forgiveness, right whatever wrongs etc
b. Leave what we cannot do to Allah REDHA because Allah will never burden a soul more than the soul is capable of .

2. Inheritence : make wills etc, settle things

3. Debts: insya allah ask for help . let go of EGO because EGO wants to pull us towards material life which we will have to let go anyway .

Attitudes we need to change

1. Regard this time of illness as a time of retreat from world and worldly matters by resolving our issues as above
2. Focus on our origin: Our origin is Allah " Innalillah " and know that we will return to Allah " Wa Inna Illaihi Raj'un"
3. Know that we actually long for Allah and shift from the mental body to the emotional body and find that longing for Allah that lives in the heart .This longing is the source of peace and joy eternal and is the balm that makes all suffering bearable.
4. Understand that our illness is ordained and is Allah's will and surrender to Allah's will and trust Allah completely . We may not understand Allah's perspective but even without this understanding , we need to trust Allah completely.
5. Understand that anxiety and worry over worldly matters is what Shaitan wants from us and if we succumb to the wiles of Shaitan then we have let Shaitan win.

Have I lost it?

I was looking throught the archives in my blog and came across this post

Sand in the oyster

And I started wondering why nowadays my postings about the interesting cases I meet almost daily did not make it into my blog.

What has changed about me that I fail to put in writing life's lessons?

I think being a coach has something to do with it.

Having people confide in me makes me reluctant to put it in writing because just maybe somebody might recognise the person I am writing about and that could be devastating for them to know I have written about them. no matter how well meaning my post is.

Having said that , perhaps there is a way to keep making notes of the interesting life events that pass by me and the lives I manage to touch or that manage to touch me as I pass through this life journey.

An interesting conversation I had with two old ladies is one that may be of interest.

The younger one had a backache and I cannot remember how the conversation drifted into the subject of death. She looked at me intensely and asked me , " So what is your perspective on death, Ustazah,"I find it quite common that some people knowing I am a doctor still manage to call me Ustazah rather than doctor but I will take that as a compliment !

I then gave her a mini lecture on my understanding of death . My perspective has been influenced greatly by some books I had been reading lately about the nature of man .

I expand that mini lecture to give my perspective as follows:

A Human being is made of at least two parts , one is matter which belongs to the Earth and the other is spirit which belongs to God . Of course since the Earth also belongs to God then a Human belongs to God in total anyway.

So when we die, the matter part of us goes back to the Earth , all the components return to the dust that it was and this dust is recycled , perhaps absorbed by plants and then eaten by animals or humans and maybe becoming flesh again in another living creature.

Then there is the part that is spirit and returns to its spiritual origin .

The Quran invites the soul at peace to enter into God's garden*. Then again, are all human beings, oomposed of body and soul at peace when they die?

What about those who have a lot of hate , anger, vindictiveness , revenge, cruelty , pride and all that which makes a person restless and not at peace? Do they keep these emotions after they have lost their earthly component ?

According to Al Ghazali , yes they do. If they have lived a life of pursuing the pleasures of the flesh and have no taste for spiritual enlightenment then when they die they will crave the same.

So what prevents the soul from entering the Garden ? A soul not at peace.

And how then would the soul not at peace resolve the issue of entering the garden anyway?

The soul would have to work on their issues and resolve them , only , it is much more difficult without the embodiment they had while on earth. If you think it is difficult to work on your issues now, wait until you have to work on them without this body.

That working on it is Hell. Die before you die is a quote from Imam Ali. It has many meanings and one of it is to die from the negativity that is possible in being human .

*AL-FAJR 89.
27. "O (you) the one in (complete) rest and satisfaction!
28. "Come back to your Lord, Well-pleased and well-pleasing unto Him! 29. "Enter you, then, among My honoured slaves, 30. "And enter you My Paradise!

Further reading on Al Ghazali, click this link

To be relevant

The three year old child was irritating me by her pushing a chair to sit next to me. She sat gawking at me and the computer screen in front of me. She tried to help her little sister open her mouth , of course that made her sister shut her mouth even tighter! Her mama without lifting a finger said innefectively ," Rina, no, don ' t do that . Rina will you please take that chair back to its place."
Rina did not budge, instead she moved the chair even closer.

I tried to put aside my irritation, I tried instead to understand .This child, like all human beings wanted attention. She wanted to be noticed , she wanted to be useful , she wanted to be relevent.
We all do!

I focused my attention on her, tousled her hair and smiled at her, giving her something of what she needed and wished that I did that more often, focus attention on a fellow human, recognise their need to be relevent and make them feel relevent .

I wish also that more people realised I too have a need to feel relevent , that I matter and I am worthy, worthy of your love and your attention and at the same time I know, the closer I draw to God, the less I need this assuarance for, I would have transcended this need and instead be an extension of the Universal consciousness that bears witness to all and is present to all that is in the MOMENT!