Saturday, September 4, 2010

25th Ramadhan 1431 Hijri

Bismillah.

O son, about four years ago I learned this lesson the hard way, that as advised by Shaykh Abdul Qadir al-Jilani, "we must set aside our own planning in favor of His planning."

Indeed the road to Allah requires real life lessons, we cannot simply learn from books and think we have mastered tasawwuf. We need to walk, fall, get up, learn our lesson and walk some more. About four years ago, I had planned to master a subject, work at a certain organization in a specified country. Everything was carefully thought out and planned. So I executed my plans but to no fruition. I tried vey hard but my efforts seemed futile. It took me a couple of years to realize that Allah wanted it differently. In hindsight, I could now see that I was motivated by my nafs, that I wanted to be successful exactly the way I wanted it to be. 

It took me so long to change from being headstrong and learn to submit myself to the will of my Creator. Shaykh Abdul Qadir al-Jilani said in Ramadhan 886 years ago: "You must erase your own knowledge in favor of His knowledge, set aside your own planning in favor of His planning, cut off your own will in favor of His will, and put your own mind out of the way on the arrival of His judgements and decrees. You must act like this with Him, if you wish to have Him as Lord, Helper and Savior. You must be calm in His presence, if you wish to attain Him."

As far as Islam is concerned, the path of least resistance is the path where you resist your own nafs, your desires, your planning etc., and follow the path set out by the Creator instead. Surely, the One who created us, knows better about us. "Allah knows and you know not."

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