Just to clarify my last post..
Sometimes I feel I/we need to go through somewhat of a spiritual self-criticism and worldly-denial like the one that Shaikh Abd al Qadir is able to uniquely provide in order to find balance for ourselves from the extreme love for this world that develops naturally, like plaque on teeth.
A sort of counter-weight (just like dhikr, salat, etc). I find Shaykh Abd al Qadir’s work to be pretty effective in this regard!
Call it spiritual bi-polarity if you will, but it’s goal is not to remain at either end of the polarity but to maintain the steady state of balance for a majority of the time.
September 30th, 2005 - 11:47 am
Assalamo’alaykum,
“…extreme love for this world that develops naturally…”
in my opinion that statement is a bit flawed.
Extreme love for this world doesn’t develop
NATURALLY, you have to actually work quite hard to develop love for this dunya.
People actually work real hard without knowing that they are developing love for the dunya.
From the time a person wakes up in the morning to the time he goes to sleep at night, he or she should examine how much time he or she spent to get close to Allah. This doesn’t mean that that person should spent 24 hours doing dhikr. Your work could be a means for you to develop a closeness to Allah, depends how you approach work.
All the other time, he/she is developing love for the dunya, even though he or she may not know it.
And it is unnatural I say, because man has been created pure. If a newborn was left alone in the desert, without exposure to Allah’s creation, he would no doubt have a great closeness to Allah.
It’s man that pollutes himself with the love of dunya.
my 2 cents, don’t know how much of that actually made any sense.
September 30th, 2005 - 1:07 pm
3rd last paragraph should read man’s creation instead of Allah’s creation
[of course Allah SWT is the ultimate creator of everything]
September 30th, 2005 - 2:16 pm
well, you are right, I should probably use ‘easily’ instead of ‘naturally’.
unfortunately, living life in todays society as an average citizen, I think it is very easy to become in love with the things of this world. Although people may work hard at it.. like you said, they don’t even know they are doing it. So it is really easy.
There are many temptations present every day.
Everyday we have this or that aspect of the dunya shoved in our faces.
September 30th, 2005 - 2:32 pm
“If a newborn was left alone in the desert, without exposure to Allah’s creation, he would no doubt have a great closeness to Allah.”
Interesting… Have you had children?
As always yursil, thanks for your insights/thoughts. The help feed my brain, which tends to starve in my otherwise mundane day to day life
September 30th, 2005 - 4:00 pm
nah, haven’t had any children yet,
when I do though, inshaAllah, I WOULD NOT try that experiment
It’s something that I asked a sheikh once, that if someone was left to grow up alone, without any human, man made influence, he would be pure, and his thoughts would be pure and he would naturally be inclined to worshipping the One God. unless, I misunderstood what the Sheikh said.
October 2nd, 2005 - 5:42 pm
Would be an interesting experiment. One too drastice to ever undertake.
My experience with children lends me to believe that they would still find solace in worldly objects. That if taken away they would, at least momentarily, mourn their loss.
Who hasn’t heard the rant of a 2 year old “Mine, Mine, Mine!”.
I wonder… would he find God on his own, without education or introduction?