“Be More & Achieve More!”

Greetings,

We, mankind, are created weak, hasty and ungrateful. We have learnt in the previous postings that when things go dead against us we do one of two things: (i) despair and give-up all hope; (ii) enter into prolonged prayers with the deity that we know to exist - the One who created the heavens and the earth and rests on His Mighty Throne above - but lack the proper knowledge to relate to Him. Why? because our base nature tends to seek Him and want His assistance and yet, attempting to be patient, grateful and resolve to persevere only comes with great character development and spiritual insight.

Then, when we are bestowed favours from above, we forget the Source of Goodness and assign the turn-around to our own abilities, or ‘luck’, or worse some false deity or spiritual force. And as the person continues along the path of good fortune he begins to develop a sense of self-sufficiency that quickly rises into a type of arrogance that we are all too familiar with.

But here I want to help you to link this state of arrogance with one other crucial feature: miserliness. You see, this self-conceited person who believes in his own abilities as being the sole power to shape his destiny becomes hard-hearted and shows the exact opposites characteristics of when he was in despair: “I have such and such, so much, and I managed this myself and hence who are you to ask me for anything? Go do it for yourself!” Might be the silent messages emanating from his conduct.

We have been looking at verses in Chapter 70 (Ma’arij, The Ascent) and I want to share with you a coiuple of other verses to put things into further perspective:

17: Inviting (all) such as turn their backs and turn away their faces (from the Right)

18: And collect (wealth) and hide it (from use)!

And so, as the great commentator A Y Ali say, the analysis of sin is given in four master-strokes, of which the first two refer to the will or psychology of the sinner, and the last two to the use he makes of the good things in life.

1. Sin begins with turning your back to the Right, refusing to face it squarely, running away from it whether from cowardice or indifference.
2. But conscience and the sense of Right will try to prevent the flight; the Grace of God, Allah, will meet the sinner at all corners and try to reclaim him; the hardened sinner will deliberately turn away his face from it, insult it and reject it.
3. The result of this psychology will be that he will abandon himself to greed, to the collection of riches, and the acquisition of material advantages to which he is not entitled; this may involve hypocrisy, fraud, and crime.
4. Having acquired the material advantages , the next step will be to keep others out of them, to prevent hoarded wealth from fructifying by circulation, to conceal it from envy or spite.

And so it is: In adversity man complains and get into despair. In prosperity he becomes arrogant and forgets other people’s rights and his own shortcomings.

So here is the simplest of formula to write but amongst the weightiest to enact:

Faith + Gratefulness = Righteousness + Charity (Benevolence)

As per the prophetic tradition, all children of Adam sin, but the best amongst them are those who repent and return to their Creator.

Most sincere people, the general do-gooders, are those who will have a strong sense of guilt when committing a sin and feel a strong tremble within when approaching that which is not proper. And even if this was recklessly repeated due to the weak nature, then this generally good and sincere person does his best to stay away from falling into the same trap. It is only those who refuse to believe that any wrong is being committed, they have deluded themselves into thinking that what is improper is actually valid and acceptable. They have become hard-hearted, deaf in the ears and blind in their sight, though they have a pumping heart, physical ears and eyes. The gap between the physiological function of these organs and their respective spiritual faculties has widened - this connection is lost.

Their central nervous system (CNS) no longer trembles at the idea of committing a sin - whether it be against their own person or against another - as this CNS does not have the same sensitivity or sensibility towards understanding virtue, morals, thoughts, intentions, deeds or habits.

It’s only with a real big JOLT to the CNS that a chance of self-awareness is created and the possibility of appreciation, gratitude and humility re-enters the emotional pattern. Otherwise, the person is far removed from such sentiments and it is no wonder that righteous conduct does not follow.

So what is righteousness you may ask. Let’s us see what the Divine instruction on this is. As well as 2:177, we have in the same chapter 70 that we been studying so far the following masterful insights and instructions:

Not so those devoted to Prayer;-

Those who remain steadfast to their prayer;

And those in whose wealth is a recognised right.

For the (needy) who asks and him who is prevented (for some reason from asking);

And those who hold to the truth of the Day of Judgement;

And those who fear the displeasure of their Lord,-

For their Lord’s displeasure is the opposite of Peace and Tranquillity;-

And those who guard their chastity,

Except with their wives and the (captives) whom their right hands possess,- for (then) they are not to be blamed,

But those who trespass beyond this are transgressors;-

And those who respect their trusts and covenants;

And those who stand firm in their testimonies;

And those who guard (the sacredness) of their worship;-

Such will be the honoured ones in the Gardens (of Bliss).

Prayer, Selfless-Sacrifice, Generosity, Probity, Chastity, True and Firm Witness, and the real consciousness of Higher Presence are the hallmarks of those who desire Peace & Tranquillity in this life and the Eternal Garden of Bliss in the next.

Does every man of them long to enter the Garden of Bliss?

By no means! For We have created them out of the (base matter) they know!

We are all on a journey and the emptiness, confusion and uncertainty of faith that pervades people’s everyday life comes from a lack of true knowledge. Hence the requirement of Divine Revelation to help put matters into the context of the actual Reality.

The animal part of man is nothing to proud of, and we know it. It is by spiritual effort, and long preparation through a good life that a man can rise above the mere animal part of him to his high dignity as a spiritual being, and his noble destiny in the Hereafter.

We all have our day-day experiences, some good, some exciting, others challenging and yet others still quite mundane and tedious. We have to learn to develop a greater awareness in order to make this journey peaceful and more importantly to ensure we safely arrive at the desired ultimate destination.

For Success and Contentment,

Asad Khan

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Hi there,

The Magic of Relationships seminar is coming up on the 18th December. To get us started, allow me to share with you some ideas that will help foster better understandings towards one another.

Men are Like Rubber Bands:

Which means they like to pull away, they like to stretch out to create distance, but then they have to return - often springing back. Its the male intimacy cycle that involves getting close, pulling away, and then getting close again. Women don’t tend to realise this rhythm and feel distressed when the deep romance surrounding a relationship abruptly ends and when the man wishes to focus on something else. It’s a common misinterpretation because women tend to pull away for different reasons: when she doesn’t trust him to understand her feelings, when she has been hurt and fears being hurt again, or when he has done something wrong and disappointed her.

Of course a man can pull away for the same reasons, but he will also pull away even if the lady has done nothing wrong. It could purely be a male thing - the need to have space - even though he loves and trusts her. But like the stretched rubber band, he’ll come back. This need for space is like the man going into his cave: its a place of solitude, independence and autonomy. He’ll soon feel the need to spring back and automatically pick up the intimacy at whatever levels required, even just before he pulled away, without the having to go through a period of getting reacquainted again.

If properly understood, this male intimacy cycle enriches a relationship, but can cause havoc when misread and misjudged, or even mis-timed. Usually, the man can give and take less readily than the woman, so the women thinks that her man is not reciprocating her love. Women naturally give and take more readily and can easily express their sentiments. But when they don’t see this happening with the man, they misjudge him and think that there’s something wrong with him. Anxiety builds up when she tries to ‘fix’ him - that’s not what he needs…rather he wants to simply pull away to have his own breathing space: whether its in the shed, out with friends, strolling, watching a movie or reading. She continues to get frustrated when he wants to ignore her and she develops ideas that he doesn’t love her, or worse still, think that he has got someone else! A confused state of affairs soon arises.

Women should understand the need for a man to pull away. Its good for him and her (and any children). He’ll spring back with power and enthusiasm. Men however need to remember that it may be easy for them to get to intense levels of intimacy as he was before pulling back, but the woman may need to time to catch-up and re-familiarise - particularly if she’s been through a state of confusion or panic (she doesn’t know what she did to switch you off)!

It is very confusing for a woman when a man pulls away because something she says or does often triggers his departure - usually when she begins to talk about feelings. The talk of feelings creates intimacy and the man can be defensive and not open-up, hence begin to pull away. It’s not that he doesn’t care about her feelings as at another point in the intimacy cycle those same feelings will draw him closer. So its not just what she says but rather when.

When a man gets too close and doesn’t pull away, common symptoms are increased passiveness, moodiness, irritability and defensiveness. And the women builds a huge amount of dependency on the man that can lead to a high degree of unwarranted trust, such that if he does pull away, she feels totally dejected for ‘doing something wrong’ or misappropriating the trust. She may begin to resent him and hold bitter feelings towards him unjustifiably. When women don’t understand the male intimacy cycle, they can unknowingly obstruct it in two ways: they are (1) chasing him when he pulls away; (2) punishing him for pulling away.

Men must be sensitive to the needs of women (I’ll come on to that later) but also understand the requirement of pulling away. If timed, done well and worked with, a high degree of satisfaction can be engendered in the relationship such that the natural rhythms of both the man and woman are held to a better standard. There’s no need for guilt or blame on either side. The man needs to go to the cave every now and again, grow and become wiser….he’ll return to with a freshness that the women has longed for and will be better prepared to hear her share her feelings. The patient woman who understands this will love and trust her man, share with him as needed, and allow him to open-up in his own time without demanding it to be so.

This single insight into the male cycle that has been represented as mimicking a rubber band can replace so much confusion and unnecessary pain with that of care and understanding.

Soon we’ll take a look at how women act as waves….

For Success and Contentment,

Asad Khan

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