The human mind, a precise instrument tossed by greed needs to be controlled. Its major fallout is denial of the Unseen and ridicule of faith. Instead the common attitude about the Unseen is fear. Fear, that loves to express itself as denial of a living intelligent source for the world as known to us. An intricate web, constantly contaminated by our ambitious pokes. In our desire to conquer death we ridicule Eternity as boring. Blissfully ignoring the fact that we ourselves are part of a whole. In our vain forgetfulness we prefer to see tests on our road through life as eruptions of an ongoing bang.

The common consequence of this denial is worship of that tossed and rattled instrument we like to call Self.

Yet only hope can support our innermost instinct that there is sense and meaning to our existence in the life in this world. Balance between hope and fear creates faith to investigate this matter.

Take the fact of death: We all, regardless of knowledge color caste fame power or fortune will die and decompose back into the ground. None of us like the idea. If we are ready to listen, we can understand life as a short journey where we qualify for our abode in eternity. Heaven would be nearness to the Eternal Living Source and hell an eternity of burning failure. Yet there are many of us who do not have the patience or perseverance to pass tests on the road which can not be rationalized. Theirs is the flat disc of a world to glutton, dance in ecstasy around the golden calf and at the edge fall off into nothingness. Dust spread over seven seas or fodder for worms. Such random thinking freedom worships its own intelligence and loves to reject any hidden universal mind reigning over our fate. Doing this it rejects hope and submits to fear. Fear to be excluded from access to climb ladders of success, fear to be denied membership of worldly connections. In outrageous greed this type of believe veils the beauty of creation. In desperate fixation upon the Self it denies whatever the Self can not understand. Denying overall the relation of a Self in the cosmic picture. In consequence competitive power games like business ventures and scientific research ambition blind our perception of reality.  Nature sacrificed for Norm.

The effort it takes to analyze a simple detail of life serves as prove for human capacities when all it indeed proves is the superiority of the Universes’ ingenious master mind in every single detail. Allah tells us in the Qur'an to look at how the sun and the moon run their course in steadfast submission! Look how rain makes dry earth fertile! Make the sun rise from the west, if you are so capable a genius! 

Our truly living self, the soul - if we can agree to call it this name - is longing for nearness to its source. It longs to serve the true meaning of life, the truth about where we come from where we are going and what our purpose in this world is. Any true seeker of Truth will not find rest until he/she acknowledges that there is and can be only One Truth: The Center and Source of all being, One Truth, as at the core of our being, so in everybody else’s.

This center can be approached by different angles - roads – which, while inevitable reaching the center, can be of different shapes and forms. These roads evolve along environmental needs. The law of laws is to acknowledge the centers' nature as the Intelligent Living Source of all possible being and in consequence learn the right manners to deal with Its manifestations - reality.

Obviously our soul – or consciousness - is the compass to the Source and we need to know how to maintain it. Maintenance of the soul is purification of intention. To fulfill this cleansing process, we need to reckon the laws of nature and do justice to the balance of things.

To believe is to give justice to the seen and the unseen. For help we put our trust in the Living Source of all being and strive to be aware of it as the ultimate power every moment. It is this Ultimate Source The One and Only God, Allah, Who placed us in our given environment, gave us eyes and ears to perceive, limbs to play the strings of life and provided us with everything we need to grow and prosper. God placed us in the maze of this world for us to find Him. To Him we turn for help. As soon as we turn to God He reaches out to us.

Of a fact, to lack knowledge of a thing’s existence is quite different from the non-existence of anything. It is not necessary that whatever we do not know does not have any existence    
Ahmad Taqi ud-din Ibn Tamiyah 661 A. H.

When we begin to understand the meandering ups and downs in the transit of life as an opportunity to qualify for eternal heaven or eternal hell compassion is the natural consequence, compassion, an all embracing feeling for our fellow beings striving through that same maze. We understand the needs they have, we have them too. Our own experience on the road sooner or later tells us that yes, we are unique, but not in any special way. Everybody is composed out of the same needs. Even the greatest king of the world sits on his behind. We may have different talents, gifts. Some bodies’ gift is to be rich the other bodies gift is poverty. Neither one did “deserve” it, although the rich tend to figure they did deserve being rich, while the poor would never claim to deserve being a pauper. In terms of compassion the poor is privileged, because he knows reality in its blankness, while the rich is diverted in pondering what other people might be plotting on to derive him from his riches. The same with intelligence and simplemindedness; both are gifts from The Eternal Living Source. Yet a favorite thought train of the intelligent person is how deserving he/she is, while the simpleton is humble receiving his gift. Everything our intelligence achieves, we think we own it, while the simpleton just understands there is a lot to give.

This applies for societies as well as individuals.

We are not alone. Compassion is the manner to communicate this fact.

The self-centered person does not perceive this alike, yet we all have one thing in common: on the core of our being we all strive to fulfill our line of life in the best of all possible ways.

Know the pattern of competitive achievement ruling what is called First World is averse to compassion. Goals and goods, facilities for science of soul and social interaction are blossoming industries in a self serving cult where responsibilities are shed for appraisal of his/her achieving Ego. Family ties, the safe haven of peace and tranquility are hence compromised for individual gain a gain, whose final outcome is loneliness, envy resentment hate and loss of hope.

As The Intricate Whole obviously created us with compassion – or else why would we have this inward compass constantly urging us toward the good, we better serve this urge. The miracle of Truth cannot be figured by denying the basic shapes and forms it chooses to appear in.

Compassion is the one way to give back the good that is bestowed upon us.

Love is with The One that is living. It is not bound by shape and form when it is giving, remembrance of light all the way.

At the start of our journey through life we experience ourselves as part of one tremendous whole. From the very first minute when we are borne and our senses open to this world, we like and dislike. We like, what keeps this oneness going and we dislike any interruption of it. We like what keeps us warm and full; we dislike what leaves us cold and starving. Our expression of likes and dislikes helps us to get what we need. Our parents, respectively the guardians taking care of us, in their response tune the urgency of these primary expressions. They love us in softness of heart and determination of care, which adds up to devotion. By our destined culture we are guided to name the environment surrounding us. We get initiated into the intricate minuet of poverty and wealth in feelings and things. We become trained to target towards success in the given society’s achievements. We learn about good and bad in relation to evolution towards a common good.

With puberty we slip out of this cocoon and are challenged to pick up responsibility for our deeds and feelings. Such separated as our own person we learn about freedom of choice and consequences to our needs according to the fulfillment of the latter. Love, the longing to be near to the beloved is means to achieve unity. Physical reactions like sex may light the stake. We learn about love as nearness to the loved one in a very down to earth way. Like and dislike expand into love and hate; one constructive, the other destructive to our essence and interchangeable so. We might love our simmering fantasies projections – as in “free love”. And we might hate, what our heart tells us to do – when we find ourselves challenged to decide between the convenient and the good.

With this our trust and believes are triggered and we build a fortifying wall around our heart’s sensors. By accumulating experience we tend to identify this fortification falsely as its content and up pops: Capital I, The deserving Me.

Love is the expression of our essences’ desire. Love speaks for our innermost needs, the needs of that weightless and shapeless thing in ourselves we call heart or soul, or True Self. Love is submission as it enables us to act without inhibitions and prejudice. Love as agent of the heart - our basic awareness of the harmonious core of things – is able to transcend appearances like space and time. In its consequence love is to serve.

God, Allah, The Selfsubsisting One and Source of all creation has in His ingenious Mercy joined us together with our respective partners to let us know Oneness - Him. This essence is The Living Creating Source we need to be close. If we are blessed to understand this fact our heart expresses itself in being thankful, remembering in sincere love The Sovereign who created us and lords over us with Compassion and All embracing Mercy. Thankful we in our limitedness can be in being compassionate, that is merciful patient and persevering with our neighbor, the other of the same kind which shares the journey through this maze called life.

We are advised to leave the environment behind that is hindering us on the Right Way, the way to completion in the Oneness of it all. The world is wide and far it says, yet the I, the respective Ego, The deserving Me has accumulated a host of dead and meaningless things which it will not let go. On top of all this plunder which will not help us, when our time to die has come, we have lost hope. And hope lost is the saddest state to be in, because all motivation to stand the labors of love is lost: we lost our True Selves. Such it happens that we lose heart and worship the life of this world: Goods, wealth, power, persons, Gods other than The One and Only Source that created us, heaven and earth and everything unseen and seen in-between.

To keep our hearts clear of all this numbing plunder we are advised to remember The Reality of Things and do this much and often. We Muslims, those who made their intention to submit to Allah, The Creator and Ruler of all visible and invisible worlds, we pray, five times a day. In doing sincerely so our inflictions get washed away and our hearts are light and clear to remember, what has not to be forgotten.

All this has been said most competent and enlightening by several revered teachers of ancient and modern times. To mention but the few I love to resort to: Imam Ghazzali Shaikh 'Abd Al-Qadir Al-Jilani Abuna Shaikh al-Mahi http://wn.com/ Who_is_Abuna_Shaikh_al-Mahi as a contemporary Shaikh Hamza Yousef and last but not least my husband Mohammed Suleyman Hafis.  

For detailed information about places and events of Islamic meaning http://almiskeenah.com

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