What is Your Heart Looking at?
Often what makes us fall into despair is focusing on the wrong things. For example, if we’ve sinned, we focus on the sin, rather than the Most Merciful. If we’re broken, we focus on the break instead of Al Jabbar, the One who mends. If we are in pain, we focus on the pain itself, instead of on the One who removes all pain. If we are wounded, we focus on the wound instead of on the One who heals all wounds. If we’re scared, we focus on the fear, instead of the Protector. And if we’re facing a problem, we see the problem, but not the One who can solve it. We see the lion,...
Read MoreThis is Awakening
This is Awakening By: Yasmin Mogahed It’s hard to describe the feeling. Imagine living your entire life in a cave and believing it was your whole world. Then suddenly you step outside. For the first time in your life, you see the sky. You see the trees and the birds and the sun. For the first time in your life, you realize that the world you once knew was false. For the first time, you discover a Truer, more beautiful Reality. Imagine the high of that realization. For a moment, you feel you can do anything. Suddenly, nothing from your previous life in the cave matters. You become...
Read MoreWhy do we break?
I learned something in a very concrete way yesterday. We had bought a set of 2 beds and it seems they were made of very weak material; so they broke. There was a serious problem in their foundation, but it took a break to find it. And as a result of the break, the man who fixed them, put a solid wood foundation that is now almost unbreakable. This also happens in our lives. We are full of inner deficiencies and weak foundations. But how are they exposed? They are exposed through a break. Through certain breaks, we become aware of particular deficiencies in our inner foundation. We become...
Read MoreReflections 4/18/12
The heart can withstand any calamity—except one: loving something as it should only love God. *** Never make your happiness dependent on something inconstant—by definition everything, but God. *** Once you awaken, every moment spent away from His remembrance is a misery. Its only when you’re still asleep that you can be distant without pain. *** We ask God to cure us of our hardships, and never stop to consider that our hardships are curing us. *** Let your heart go Home, even before your body arrives. *** When you go to a doctor, you trust your affairs to him completely–even...
Read MoreOn treating broken hearts (love addictions)
If you are trying to get over a person you can’t be with, treat it like an addiction: 1. Cut yourself off from the drug completely: Cut off all communication and reminders–even if that means blocking numbers, emails, a Facebook profile, and stop checking their Facebook! This is your detox. 2. Replace it with something better: Increase in your thikr (remembrance of Allah) and get closer to Allah. If you aren’t praying your daily prayers, fix that. Pray all and pray on time. Pray qiyam in the last third of the night (just before fajr). Make duaa, tawbah (repentance), cry,...
Read MoreBreak Free
I close my eyes and dream quietly of breaking free. I dream of breaking every single chain that has ever held me. I cut them. I throw glass cups against the wall. Every vase shatters, and then I’m set free. Free. I will own love. Love will never own me. To break free is the only object of life. Every up. Every down. Every turn. Every stab. Every pleasure. Every pain. Every loss. Every gain. Every broken chain. Was just to allow your entire heart, mind, soul and being to realize la illah illah Allah. Tell this imprisoned soul that it will never be owned. Nothing will ever own you. But...
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