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"Those who rest not their hope on their meeting with Us, but are pleased and satisfied with the life of the present, and those who heed not Our Signs." (Qur’an, 10:7)
We experience this emotional roller coaster because we can never find stability and lasting peace until our attachment and dependency is on what is stable and lasting.
"If you worshipped Muhammad, know that Muhammad is dead. But if you worshipped Allah, know that Allah never dies."
To attain that state, don’t let your source of fulfillment be anything other than your relationship with God. Don’t let your definition of success, failure, or self-worth be anything other than your position with Him (Qur’an, 49:13).
You become unconquerable, because your supporter can never be conquered. And you will never become empty, because your source of fulfill...
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When I cry or lose or bruise, so long as I am still alive, nothing is ultimate. So long as there is still a tomorrow, a next moment, there is hope, there is change, and there is redemption. What is lost is not lost forever.
"What is with you must vanish: what is with Allah will endure. And We will certainly bestow, on those who patiently persevere, their reward according to the best of their actions." (Qur’an, 16:96)
So, all that is with Allah, is never lost. In fact the Prophet has said: "You will never give up a thing for the sake of Allah (swt), but that Allah will replace it for you with something that is better for you than it." (Ahmad) Did not Allah take the husband of Umm Salamah, only to replace him with the Prophet ?
"… But it is possible that you dislike a thing which is good for you, and that you love a thing which is bad for you. But Allah knows, and you know not." (Qur’an, 2:216)
But if something is going to be returned in one form or another, why is it taken at all? Subhan’Allah. It is in the process of ‘losing’ that we are given.
Madarij Al Salikin.
Ref
"The divine decree related to the believer is always a bounty, even if it is in the form of withholding (something that is desired); and it is a blessing, even if it appears to be a trial and an affliction that has befallen him; it is in reality a cure, even though it appears to be a disease!"
But the greatest gift lies beneath the taking and the returning.
Purpose, everything has one. Nothing in the heavens or the earth or inside of me or inside of you is created without a purpose. No event in your life, no sadness, no delight, no pain, no pleasure… no loss, was created without a purpose. So just as we must read the ‘message inside the bottle’ of the sun and the moon and the sky, so too must we examine the messages in our own life experiences.
Lil Wahid al Qahaar. To the One, the Irresistible. To run to anything else is to resist the irresistible. To seek other than The One (al Wahid), is to become scattered, but never filled. How can we find unity, completion of heart or soul or mind in anything other than Him?
"Islam began as something strange, and it shall return to being something strange as it began, so give glad tidings to the strangers." [Sahih Muslim] By being ‘strange’ to this dunya, we can live in it, without being of it.
Conflict
Our true suffering begins when we confuse the means and the End. God is the only End. Every other thing is the means. We will suffer the moment we take our eyes off the End and get lost in the means.
Gifts like marriage will be a means to bring you closer to God—so long as they remain a means, not an End.
Remember that whatever lives in the heart controls you.
It, therefore, must be something eternal, that never tires, and never breaks. It must, therefore, be something that never leaves. Only one thing is like that: The Creator.
"Whoever makes the Hereafter his preoccupation, then Allah places freedom from want in his heart, gathers his affairs, and Dunya (worldly life) comes to him despite being reluctant to do so. And whoever makes Dunya his preoccupation, then Allah places his poverty in front of his eyes, make his affairs scattered, and nothing of the Dunya comes to him except that which has been decreed for him." [At-Tirmidhi]
For those who make Allah their primary concern, there is only peace, because whatever happens to them in this life it is good and accepted as the will of Allah.
"Wondrous are the believer’s affairs. For him there is good in all his affairs, and this is so only for the believer. When something pleasing happens to him, he is grateful, and that is good for him; and when something displeasing happens to him, he is enduring (has sabr), and that is good for him." [Muslim]
‘Truly, there is a Heaven in this world, [and] whoever does not enter it, will not enter the Heaven of the next world.’
And in that heaven, complete peace is not something of a moment. It is a state, eternal.
"Detachment is not that you should own nothing, but that nothing should own you."
This is why Allah (swt) repeatedly refers to the dunya in the Qur’an as a mata’a. The word mata’a can be translated as a "resource for transitory worldly delight". It is a resource. It is a tool. It is the path—not the destination.
You can stay there at the bottom, until you drown. Or you can gather pearls and rise back up—stronger from the swim and richer from the jewels.
Come back Home.
"The one who is (truly) imprisoned is the one whose heart is imprisoned from Allah and the captivated one is the one whose desires have enslaved him." (Ibn al-Qayyim, al-Wabil, pg 69)
Ref
It is a heart that understands that the only true prison is the prison of replacing something with God.
The more you run after it, the more it evades you.
"Detach yourself from the world, and God will love you. Detach yourself from what is with the people, and the people will love you." [Ibn Majah]
the less we chase after the approval and love of the people, the more we gain it.
His heart was already Home.
No one gets to Allah without Allah.
"Strange is the case of a believer, there is good for him in everything—and this is only for the believer. If a blessing reaches him, he is grateful to God, which is good for him, and if an adversity reaches him, he is patient which is good for him." [Muslim]
Hadith legacy
The heart is, by definition, that which turns (hence the Arabic word for heart ‘qalb’ comes from the root which means ‘to turn’). The heart, by definition, is that which turns.
How do we not let our heart change or turn ?
Answer is in the Du'a
Ya Muqallib ul Quloob Sabbit Qalbi 'Ala Deenik
"Oh turner of hearts, set our hearts firm on Your deen (way)."
Run towards the creation, you lose God and the creation. Run towards God, you gain God *and* the creation.
"To acquire love… fill yourself up with it until you become a magnet."
You will give your life to reaching a ‘destination’ of worldly perfection that does not exist.
So if you’re chasing a feeling, you’ll always be chasing. No feeling is ever constant. If love is dependent on this, it too becomes inconstant and changing. And just like everything in this world, the more you chase it, the more it will run away from you.
The beauty you see in them is a reflection of the Creator, so you love them. Now suddenly it isn’t about what you’re getting, but rather what you can give. This is unselfish love. This second type of love is the rarest.
No matter how great what we love in this life is, it will always have some deficiency, in both quality (imperfections) and quantity (temporary).
We understand fully that there is a lesser model (dunya: coming from the root word ‘daniya’, meaning ‘lower’) and there is the Real model (hereafter).
The more we can see the Real thing, the easier it becomes to give up the ‘unreal’—when necessary.
Knowedge increaser
love for dunya and hatred for death
"Take good care of women, for they were created from a bent rib, and the most curved part of it is its top; if you try to straighten it, you will break it, and if you leave it, it will remain arched, so take good care of women." (Bukhari & Muslim)
Knowledge worker
"A believing man should not hate a believing woman; if he dislikes one of her characteristics, he will be pleased with another." (Muslim)
