Immensely grateful to God

May 14th, 2008

I was listening to Shaykh Kabir on my way to work this morning, and among many other pearls of wisdom, he talked about what he called the ‘dimensionless point’ (he didn’t use the Arabic, but he was speaking of the ruh sometimes translated as ’spirit’ cf. al-Hijr 15:29) within us. It is closer to us than our life-vein (Qaf 50:16), and is incredibly beautiful, incredibly intelligent, incredibly merciful if we would just heed it.

When he spoke about this, I cried. I felt so immensely grateful for my life, for my family, for the opportunities I have in life, for being able to hear the words of this Shaykh, may the Beloved reward him in this life and the next. For the first time in a very long time, I felt joy at the immanence of the Life-Source.

I haven’t experienced that for what seems a very long time, and yet God has never moved away from me, I have moved away from Him. I have become distracted by an idol of a ‘big cop up in the sky’ ready to write me an eternally damning ticket for the smallest infraction. By so doing, I have obscured the Still Small Voice Within.

So now, as the Buddhists say: “before enlightenment, wash dishes, chop wood; after enlightenment, wash dishes, chop wood.

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12 Comments to “Immensely grateful to God”

  1. dawood | May 15th, 2008 at 8:46 am

    Excellent! The one thing that I have noticed is that it is only through doing that we can change ourselves - it is not enough to ‘believe’, but by spending time on the mat or whatever other things you do, and being consistent.

    Nowadays when I have ‘down time’, I can immediately feel the difference within myself and have to struggle to maintain what I was previously doing and get back on top of things.

    It’s amazing!

  2. Saha | May 15th, 2008 at 2:15 pm

    ah, you must lend me the tape (or whatever the new technology is!)
    Alhamdulillah.

  3. ummyasmin | May 15th, 2008 at 5:47 pm

    Dawood: Salams akheee (I feel like I haven’t spoken to you for AGGGGGGES, did I tell you I bumped into Peter Gould at the Islamic conf. in Melbourne - masha’Allah (SWT) he is such a lovely dude. I couldn’t resist buying some of his gorgeous prints, masha’Allah (SWT) he is so talented.

    Totally agree with the ‘doing’ aspect. Naeem was saying that in his blog too, the verse from the Qur’an where it says ‘worship until certainty reaches you’, which doesn’t mean “believe and then pray” it’s “pray and then you’ll have iman”.

    Saha babes: it’s linked there, you just need to download the MP3, or you can listen to it directly from the site itself: http://www.sufism.org/society/sohbet/ *wooohooo there’s a new podcast up.

  4. Aaminah | May 15th, 2008 at 10:40 pm

    Asalaamu alaikum ukhti,

    Oh, please please please, this is PERFECT for a new group blog I started at http://gratefultoAllah.wordpress.com! If you’d like to join the blog and cross post it or post a link to it here that’d be awesome (I think you have to be WP user and give me the email address associated w/ your WP acct for me to add you). Or of course I could just post a link up to this for you inshaAllah. Lemme know! :)

  5. ummyasmin | May 16th, 2008 at 12:25 am

    wa ‘alaykumusalam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,

    what a wonderful blog masha’Allah (SWT)!! What a blessing to post there, I’d be delighted. At the moment, can you re-post it for me as I don’t have a Wordpress account??

  6. Aaminah | May 16th, 2008 at 7:37 am

    Asalaamu alaikum.

    Absolutely. I will put it up tonight (well, my tonight, LOL) inshaAllah. Will link back too of course. Shukran! :)

  7. Saha | May 16th, 2008 at 9:46 am

    please come and help me enter the twenty-first century!!! i know nothing about podcasts!

  8. ummyasmin | May 16th, 2008 at 10:39 am

    wa ‘alaykumusalam

    Aaminah - I’ve but a link in my blogroll, just think - every post is about celebrating shukr to the Creator, how many blessings have to be in that hey!!

    Saha - don’t worry not too difficult at all. Do you have speakers/sound on your computer? If so, all you need to do is visit that site: http://www.sufism.org/society/sohbet/ and then any of the links you like, just right-hand mouse click and choose Save Link As (can’t remember what the IE equivalent is) and then it will ask you where you want to save it to on your computer. Then once it’s downloaded you just double click on it, and it should launch your default media player.

    You can just click on any of those links in the browser itself. It should start playing them straight away, but then you won’t have it downloaded to your computer (in case you need to pause/stop/listen for later date).

    If no luck with that, let me know.

  9. dawood | May 16th, 2008 at 10:55 am

    Salams! It’s cool you met Peter - he is my bro :) Did I ever tell you how we met? Some of his work really boosts my iman just by looking at it.

    So you are Mevlevi now? :D I have been reading a lot about the Ba `Alawiyya and Qadiriyya lately as a matter of fact, and a close friend just became Naqhbandi. Mashallah we are so lucky to have so many established ways of for us to follow which is easiest for us…

  10. Immensely Grateful to God « Grateful To Allah | May 16th, 2008 at 11:59 am

    […] Originally published at the Dervish blog on May 14, 2008 […]

  11. ummyasmin | May 16th, 2008 at 2:08 pm

    I was really struggling with being pulled in two different directions, but I feel that Allah (SWT), swt, is calling me to the Mevlevi tariqa with Shaykh Kabir. Insha’Allah (SWT) I hope to make bayat soon.

    Alhamdulillah the diversity is a blessing!! BTW are u on Twitter?

  12. dawood | May 16th, 2008 at 4:29 pm

    I am so happy for you! :) I feel some times like I am wandering around aimlessly in the desert… but we will see what happens.

    No Twitter for me so far… I am on FB but regretting it immensely… You seem really up to speed on all of these gadgety things btw!

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