Being Human

I've always been crediting myself with the nonsense of being more spiritual than religious, but lately I've been in this oblivion and have come to accept that I'm neither spiritual nor religious 'I am only daringly human!' A human with a need for God. With a need for something out there that makes more sense than my life does, is more responsible than I am, and is holier than I am. I am tired of answering to my own self, my own deep set values and my own chivalrous ego. I am counting on God to make sense of it all. Is it sad that I am waiting for the end to understand why it all began?

Switching off.

I started off this week valuing integrity and honor , I believed in this quote “You cannot make yourself feel something you do not feel, but you can make yourself do right in spite of your feelings.” ~ Peal S. Buck. I still believe this but now I think there has to be more. There has to be give and take it can't just be give, it can't just be take. I cannot always do what's right without filling a void of what's needed.

I am ending this week with honesty and awareness. I have come to a conclusion that even though most of the time we must do what is right, sometimes we need to focus on what's necessary. it's time for me to switch off to focus on what must be done. I was speaking to a dear friend this morning and I realized that even though sometimes we tend to complicate simple things there are times when we try hard to oversimplify or ignore complicated things. Sometimes things are not as easy as we wish them to be and we must learn to respect the gravity of the situation rather than ignore it.

I must switch off, if not I will continue to try too hard. I must switch off, if not I continue to give too much, I must switch off , if not I will be forced to burn out and I am not ready to burn out.

Pride is a deadly sin.

I refuse to revere people who are quick to judge. It is their inflated ego that gives them limited perspective and a false sense of grandiosity.

I refuse to revere people who can only see their ordeal and never see the other person's pain.

I refuse to revere people who can only hear words but can never see tears.

Don't be blinded by your pride.
Even Heaven has no place for it.

The Quran defining itself

Naif Al-Mutawa, my favorite Clinical Psychologist and the creator of the comic book series 'THE 99' wrote an essay about this: http://al-mutawa.com/?Let_the_Qur%27an_define_itself and here are my thoughts:

It’s just common sense isn’t it? That after every Salaat if we ask Allah for guidance it is because we know that everything is not just black and white, there is a grey area. If we were to be parrots or even angels for that matter we wouldn’t have to worry about sensibility. The fact that Allah has given us free will and asked us to seek guidance and knowledge is proof enough for me that depth and perception is required and a must in Islam. In terms of language I think the essence maybe lost in translating it so we must try our best to learn Arabic however restricting it’s revelation and reading it without understanding, I believe loses then main premise of Allah’s revelation. It is said “So We have made this (the Quran) easy in your own tongue (O Muhammad, SWT), only that you may give glad tidings to the Muttaqun (the pious) and warn with it the Ludd (the evil doer) people.” Chapter 19, Verse 97. The Quran was revealed in Arabic as it was the Prophets native tongue and the language spoken and written by the people in that area. Arabic is a beautiful language that can be written concisely and no one can seriously translate the authenticity of Allah’s words or even capture the literally miracles presented in the Quran, but the Quran is revealed as ‘A Book for All’ and that’s how it should be.

Here is an amazing video regarding the literally miracles in the Quran:

http://thedeenshow.com/show.php?action=detail&id=1456

Qi.

‘The other day I learned something through my own vision… I was focusing on one small point and after a while every thing else around it was slowly turning blurry, I would’ve experienced this many times as I’m sure many of you have. If you haven't you should definitely try it. Try focusing your vision on a small object for a while and you’ll notice that not just the surrounding but even the object you are focusing on loses visibility, the object of your focus becomes hazy as though your mind is losing it’s ability to process. Similarly in life if we focus too long on one thing, we are unable to see all the other important things that come with it, our brain loses its ability to process reality.’ I wrote that a long time ago.

Funny sometimes are own lessons are forgotten in search of new ones. I had forgotten how easily one can lose focus on the issue at hand and make something completely else the center of ones world. Almost like trading spaces to create a better one but in the end forgetting what we were really trying to fix. Our mind is really good at playing tricks on us, it is easy for it to create scenarios when one's judgment is clouded, biased, or faith in something too strong. Maybe that is why some people hear voices. Maybe the cloudiness of one's mind and emotions is what causes auditory hallucinations. Apparently hearing voices is ‘one of the most awe-inspiring, terrifying, and ill-understood tricks the human psyche is capable of,’ ^{Psychology Today} and not all of them are bad. Some maybe inspirational, motivational and even capable of guidance; but when they take over ones psyche it can become an impending problem. Okay but to ease your tension I do not hear voices in my head. I do however have two very obnoxious inner voices that can battle it out to the brink of insanity, but apparently inner voices are normal. I just wish they would shut-up sometimes.

I have been playing scrabble a lot nowadays and I tend to play the word ‘Qi’ quite often. Forgetting it's meaning and not realizing how much I’ve messed up and ignored my own balance in life. I let the voices overtake my judgment and cause inner drift of my yin and yang. After much argument and critically acclaimed performances by my inner soul, I’ve come to realize I was being distracted from the bigger picture. I was off-focus in many ways and was fighting really hard to find balance. Disregarding the fundamental step of taking a break and breathing. Accepting my energy and matter around me for what it really is, accepting me and others for who they really are; without prejudice, without doubt, without fear.

To you without prejudice:

Sometimes you do need to be slapped in the face to realize what you already know. I'm not the center of your world and you're not the center of mine. Sometimes known facts can be easily ignored. You have been and will always be a vital part of my world though; because you’ve helped me recognize a different side of me that I can’t help but love.

To you without doubt:

I did forget who you are to me and what you mean in my life. Sometimes we forget to measure the most important ingredient in life not realizing how sour we may be making it. Life does throw lemons your way and I must learn to admit that some will be too bitter for lemonade. I need to learn to figure out what is right for us. I need to learn to trust you more and accept you without judgment. I need to focus on 'US' and not just 'You' and not just 'Me' and not just the world around our feet.

To you without fear:

Sometimes when one outlet is clogged I must create a new one and sometimes another new one. There is no spoken rule on outlets just rules on trust. I sometimes forget that I do not have to tell the whole world the whole truth just the ones who matter.

If I should have a daughter, instead of Mom, she's gonna call me Point B

http://www.ted.com/talks/sarah_kay_if_i_should_have_a_daughter.html

If I should have a daughter, instead of Mom, she's gonna call me Point B, because that way she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me. And I'm going to paint solar systems on the backs of her hands, so she has to learn the entire universe before she can say, "Oh, I know that like the back of my hand." And she's going to learn that this life will hit you hard in the face, wait for you to get back up just so it can kick you in the stomach. But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air. There is hurt here that cannot be fixed by Band-Aids or poetry. So the first time she realizes that Wonder Woman isn't coming, I'll make sure she knows she doesn't have to wear the cape all by herself. Because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal. Believe me, I've tried. "And, baby," I'll tell her, don't keep your nose up in the air like that. I know that trick; I've done it a million times. You're just smelling for smoke so you can follow the trail back to a burning house, so you can find the boy who lost everything in the fire to see if you can save him. Or else find the boy who lit the fire in the first place, to see if you can change him." But I know she will anyway, so instead I'll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rain boots nearby, because there is no heartbreak that chocolate can't fix. Okay, there's a few heartbreaks that chocolate can't fix. But that's what the rain boots are for. Because rain will wash away everything, if you let it. I want her to look at the world through the underside of a glass-bottom boat, to look through a microscope at the galaxies that exist on the pinpoint of a human mind, because that's the way my mom taught me. That there'll be days like this. ♫ There'll be days like this, my momma said. ♫ When you open your hands to catch and wind up with only blisters and bruises; when you step out of the phone booth and try to fly and the very people you want to save are the ones standing on your cape; when your boots will fill with rain, and you'll be up to your knees in disappointment. And those are the very days you have all the more reason to say thank you. Because there's nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it's swept away. You will put the wind in windsome, lose some. You will put the star in starting over, and over. And no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute, be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life. And yes, on a scale from one to over-trusting, I am pretty damn naive. But I want her to know that this world is made out of sugar. It can crumble so easily, but don't be afraid to stick your tongue out and taste it. "Baby," I'll tell her, "remember, your momma is a worrier, and your poppa is a warrior, and you are the girl with small hands and big eyes who never stops asking for more." Remember that good things come in threes and so do bad things. And always apologize when you've done something wrong. But don't you ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining. Your voice is small, but don't ever stop singing. And when they finally hand you heartache, when they slip war and hatred under your door and offer you handouts on street-corners of cynicism and defeat, you tell them that they really ought to meet your mother.

We are all in this together

Death is a part of life
Life initiates at birth
Birth awakens the soul
The Soul is on a journey
The journey is a path to truth
Truth is the way to God.

Rumi

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.
you must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep.