the other side

The Prayers of Others (Cont'd from www.flickr.com/photos/42093313@N00/51241395667/in/datepos... )

 

Day Five – The road to heaven is paved with rocks

 

At the new hotel in Khanian I woke at 6:30 and had breakfast alone in the hotel garden in front of the river. It was loud and I wondered what it said. When it came to leaves and trees, rain and sand, even pebbles and rocks, I felt they all whispered. They were mostly still.

 

The river was loud and louder as you approached it and moved so fast, it was scary. But then I had also seen it in the open in Naran, where it just spread out and became like a lake, calm, quiet. From roaring to silence. I wanted to be like the river, go from a noisy head to stillness.

 

I read in the garden and wrote some while waiting for the driver. We were going to these beautiful meadows called Siri Payee two hours away. The last hour of the drive was again going to be a back breaker, at par with the road to Saif ul Mulook. When he arrived, we started loading up the jeep.

 

I had noticed that my lips were becoming drier and drier with each passing day. Thinking it was the air or the new environment for me, I was guzzling down the water from different streams like a maniac. On this day, five, my lips were like swollen dry prunes. Even though I felt embarrassed, I decided to ask Mushtaq about it.

 

“My lips are becoming really dry and strange. They feel very weird even though I drink a lot of water. Is it because of the air or something?”

 

He didn’t take a moment to reply.

 

“It’s the water,” he said. “It’s coming from the glaciers and it’s dry.”

 

“What? The water is dry?" I couldn’t believe my ears. “But I emptied all the bottles I had to fill them with this water.”

 

He started smiling. “The water is like this this time of the year. Don’t worry. They will become fine again.”

 

Great, I thought. When?

 

The part to Shoghran was quick, then we turned to go uphill. Once we left the main road, the drive was beautiful. The ranges of snow capped mountains were endless. During that hour, I began to deconstruct my night before. I had slept terribly again but this time it didn’t have anything to do with the hotel. The room was lovely. There were hardly any other guests. It was my mind that was driving me nuts this time with crazy thoughts all night.

 

First my nafs started whining about the aches and pains I felt in my body from all the driving. When we were in Skardu and perhaps all mountain hotels, the drive to other places to see was also always a couple of hours. But the roads in Naran were worse because of the snow. It kept damaging them and they weren’t rebuilt quite as quickly as in the terrain of the Agha Khan perhaps.

 

I felt the pain of course but in the darkness of the night, my nafs was accentuating that. If I turned a side or stretched my legs, it yelped. At first I didn’t realize what was happening. Then when it saw that I was oblivious, it shifted gears. My mind started erupting with thoughts about how my plans for the day were a nightmare.

 

“Why are we going to another place so far away on that dumb jeep again on a garbage road for hours? My bones will hurt. My muscles and nerves are already stiff like rocks. You should have just gone to Nathiagali if you wanted to see a meadow so badly. What’s the difference exactly? Even my stomach hurts,” it wailed.

 

I touched the muscles above my stomach. They did hurt. For a second I started second guessing myself. Should I go or cancel the trip? Before I could even decide on an answer or react, like its good old impatient self, my nafs decided to go full scale mental about everything. I started to feel stressed and anxious about things which were totally insignificant and on top of it, easy.

 

Upon returning to Lahore, I was supposed to introduce my team from the table tennis project to Daewoo who were making the next 10 tables. All I was going to do was take the different workers over and give them a breakdown of what everything cost me. Suddenly there I was in the darkness of the night, worrying and thinking about that in a loop. It was senseless.

 

In the jeep as I replayed the events, wondering what had happened, it dawned upon me. My heart or rather my qalb rejecting the negative thoughts coming to it from the brain meant I was a step closer towards controlling my tongue. My nafs, one step ahead of me at all times, realized what was happening. Like a mental health patient seeing the strait jacket coming towards them loses it one last time before surrender, my nafs was crying bloody murder!

 

It was at least nice to figure out why my sleep was all over the place. Wobbling around on the drive up, I thought about silence.

 

“O Listener! Leave your false lusts and desires and busy yourself in remembrance of Allah. Let that leave your tongue which gives you benefit and keep yourself silent of the words which will bring you harm. If you decide to speak, then before you say anything, deliberate on it. Form an intent around it. Then use your tongue.”

 

The problem with mine was that after I broke it, when I did say something, it was always without thinking. Hence rubbish came out. If I had to pause before everything I said, like Ghaus Pak (ra) was instructing though, how long would my pauses be?

 

I thought of Imam Ali (ratu) and something he said which I always understood in a narrow context previously. “See your destination before you embark on a way, even it is paved with gold and silver.” I re-heard the words as “Hear your sentence before it leaves your mouth, even if you intend to say it without meaning it badly.” Who would have thought the “destination” could be a string of words uttered by the tongue?

 

I knew how to try it. My driver, Usman, the young man who was still under training was the perfect person. He continued to make four mistakes a day, two of which were the same as the previous day. My tone had changed in that I used less irritated “whys” and more sarcasm. He seemed unaffected by either.

 

His age, 24, was compounded by the fact that he seemed to be popular. Everywhere we went, he made friends and told me how they always gave him free food and drinks and wanted to hang out with him. He also made these interjections that were bizarre. Like on the drive up to Siri Payee when I scribbled notes for this piece on a paper. I thought the driver might wonder why so I told him.

 

“I’m writing a piece during this trip. I just have to note things down sometimes when they come to me otherwise I might forget them.”

 

Next I hear Usman pipe in from the back.

 

“I’ve been writing too,” he said. “In the night.”

 

I ignored him so he offered more.

 

“Those contacts from your phone you wanted me to save on paper.”

 

“Yeah,” I thought as I rolled my eyes, “that’s exactly the same thing.”

 

Then I smiled at my cattiness. Yes, Usman was the perfect specimen to try the “pause before you speak” rule.

 

My mood suddenly became elated after I figured out what my nafs was doing. I put on my headphones and blared some house tracks I had downloaded just before leaving Lahore. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=60wfyuwb_sk) Normally, the music would make me joyous but seeing the scenery, I kept thinking of God and His Mercy upon me and the sound just made me cry. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_Cw73cNP0Y)

 

Every so often, I wiped my tears as if they were dust on my face so the driver wouldn’t notice. House music fanatics are like that. Just as the music compels them to dance, it can make them weep. I often read that in the comments of tracks that I love and it always makes me smile.

 

Siri Payee was expansive and serene. There weren’t many people there. Apparently, the jeeps for the trip there would give the client an hour and a half there. Most people didn’t even walk ahead of the little cafes that were right at the start. I walked a while till I found a spot. There was no shade and the sun was warm but it was always quite windy at times so the heat felt good.

 

I ate some lunch and prayed. Qari Sahib had told me to pray as much as I could in the highest of places. The mountains were always where the Prophets retreated to meditate. I just managed to say the prayer of the hour and listen to Surah Yaseen. I had finally learnt it now so I would recite it as it played with one headphone off so I could hear my voice as well. Every time I did that different verses flowed out of my mind all day long. I liked that a lot.

 

Afterwards I just lay on the grass and stared at the mountain ahead of me that was stunning, I must have taken 20 shots of it in different light. I thought about what was happening to me. In a recent reading of sharha of the Masnavi I had read this excerpt;

 

وَأَن لَّيْسَ لِلْإِنسَـٰنِ إِلَّا مَا سَعَىٰ

 

And each human being will attain what he strives for.

Surah An-Najm, Verse 39

 

“As the hadith goes; Each person will only gain reward based on how much he sacrificed and how much he endeavoured. Whenever each human being works for earnings, a list is prepared of who did what. So and so worked in a garden, so and so did it for one day, so and so for five. Someone worked in a shop for x number of hours, another stitched y number of shoes, yet another crafted z number of bowls. In the Quran it says that Allah said to the angels, “I know what you do not know.”

 

He is The One who knows on a dark night, on a black stone, the black ant walking on its tiny feet, or running, so know that everything is seen and known by Him. Allah also knows the reason for the ant’s running. Is it concern for its family or is it greed for food? Is it a dutiful one or is it just wandering? The Lord who knows this will certainly be aware of the strivings of His Servants, all of Mankind.

 

وَعِندَهُ مَفَاتِحُ الْغَيْبِ لَا يَعْلَمُهَا إِلَّا هُوَ

وَيَعْلَمُ مَا فِي الْبَرِّ وَالْبَحْرِ وَمَا تَسْقُطُ مِن وَرَقَةٍ إِلَّا يَعْلَمُهَا

وَلَا حَبَّةٍ فِي ظُلُمَاتِ الْأَرْضِ

وَلَا رَطْبٍ وَلَا يَابِسٍ إِلَّا فِي كِتَابٍ مُّبِين

 

For with Him are the keys to the things that are beyong the reach of a created being’s perception; none knows them but He.

And He knows all that is on land and in the sea and not a leaf falls but He knows it.

And neither is there a grain in the Earth’s deep darkness, not anything living or dead, but is recorded in His Clear Decree.

Surah Al-Anam, Verse 59

 

Does He not know how many tears fall from the sinner’s eye? How many sighs of pain were exhaled? How many gave their lives for Him? Who is is Aar’if, possesses recognition of Him? Who spends their life in remembrance of Him? Who is only spinning the beads of the tasbeeh (rosary) without feeling? Who is in praise of Him since Fajr? Who is passing stations of spirituality? Who is steadfast in their striving in the way of Allah? Who is feeling ecstatic in His Kingdom? Who is merely asking for things?"

 

On the way to where the jeep was parked, I saw Mushtaq and Usman speaking to three young guys standing next to a bike. I did a double take. A bike?

 

When I reached them I asked smiling, “Don’t tell me someone made it here on a motorcycle?”

 

We had seen cars parked on the side of the road from being over-heated because of the incline. Even though Pakistan is full of the largest jeeps in the big cities, Prados and Land Cruisers, I had hardly seen any in the entire area. Mushtaq had said people don’t like to bring their own cars because the roads are so bad. Instead they rented the little Wranglers.

 

They smiled back.

 

“Those three guys,” Usman replied.

 

“I don’t get it. A car can’t make it up and a bike can. With not one or two but three people on it?” Basically my tone was “You have got to be kidding me!”

 

Both of them continued smiling. ‘We asked them the same thing.”

 

“And…?” I waited.

 

“They said ‘We’re Pakistani.’”

 

“Meaning what?”

 

“Meaning ‘Is there anything we cannot do?’” Usman said with a smirk.

 

Going down the road, my bones rattling all the way, I thought they’re right. Maybe there was nothing we could not do. But only when it came to being challenged. In terms of picking up our own garbage, we ranked last. But maybe all things have to come with time. I knew I had my own role to play in that too when I heard what Hazrat Bahauddin Zakriya (ra) said about the destiny of a nation.

 

“It lies in the hands of two groups; the elite and the scholars.”

 

Day Six – One last Stint

 

On the last day, I had decided to just hang out at the hotel. Not get into a jeep and just write. I came across some notes from a lecture Uzair gave on imaan, faith. I had used the verse once before in a video marking the Urs Mubarik of Ghaus Pak (ra).

 

يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ ٱتَّقُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ وَكُونُوا۟ مَعَ ٱلصَّـٰدِقِينَ

 

O ye who believed!

Be conscious of God and be with those who are truthful.

Surah At-Tauba, Verse 119

 

Uzair: “Ya ayyuhaldina amino: O Momin, the one who brings imaan, the ones who have truthful beliefs. If you look at religion, each deen, religion, has two main babs, chapters. Bab e Imaan and Bab e Taqwa. Bab e Imaan has to do with beliefs, aqeeda. Beliefs that are intangible. Bab e Taqwa has to do with deed, our actions.

 

So there are two states really we live in; thoughts of the mind and action of the body. The mind, aql, part is Bab e Imaan, the doing of the thought is Bab e Taqwa. Momin and Muttaqi are the doers of those acts. So the Mo’min and the Muttaqi is the one whose imaan is truthful and whose aml, action, is truthful.”

 

Of course as I read I couldn’t help but think; “Unreal!” Perhaps I couldn’t change what my mind thought but at least I could reject it. In my heart. In those moments, my tongue became the doer. I could silence it or I could think many times before speaking. The exercise could possibly place me in the category of Mo’min and Muttaqi at once!

 

Ghaus Pak (ra) says the same thing in his explanation of a hadith;

 

Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him) says,

 

اَلدُّنْیَا مَزْرَعَۃُ الْاٰخِرَۃِ

 

“The world is the harvest of the Afterlife.”

 

Al-Fath Al-Rabbani; “In your qalb, the seat of recognition of Allah in the heart, lies your harvest and imaan, faith, is the seed that yields its growth. That seed is watered by your good deeds, amaal salih. When the heart will possess affection and mercy, shafqat and rahmat, then the seed will yield fruit. When

it is full of ill-will and rotten-ness, then the qalb will be barren and in barren land there can be no growth.”

 

The lines gave me pause. Without imaan there is nothing to grow. Without the deeds, performed with softness, the faith lies wasted, unused. Then righteous deeds could so often be executed harshly. Choosing a deed was one thing, the manner of doing it quite another.

 

Uzair: So the verse says, you who have good beliefs, make your acts good as well. These are the first two directions by God. Both have to be correct. Many times people perform good deeds but their beliefs are problematic. In those cases, even if their lifetime is that of Khizr (as), infinite, their aqeeda, which is a cornerstone of the foundation of a person of faith, if it is not correct, then even if one is in prostration till the Day of Judgement, they will be in trouble.

 

The Quran says that in no uncertain terms.”

Then he quoted the verse that makes everyone’s hair stand

on end.

 

فَوَيْلٌ لِّلْمُصَلِّين

الَّذِينَ هُمْ عَن صَلَاتِهِمْ سَاهُون

الَّذِينَ هُمْ يُرَاءُون

 

So woe upon those who pray,

but their hearts from their prayer are remote.

They only want to be seen and praised.

Surah Al-Maun, Verse 4-6

 

“Allah is saying they are praying but only for show, not for Me.”

 

Luckily I was expelled from the Show and Tell crowd. I always chalked it up to being single. The upside was fairly complete invisibility in the “world.” Married people think everything about them is “important” no matter how tired or run of the mill it is. It was the same everywhere. In Pakistan, they either spoke about themselves, other married people or going to be married people. I include in that category those that were once-married as well. If you had entered the club, you retained membership for life under all circumstances. But I had my own problems.

 

I woke up around 7 and waited for the kitchen of the hotel to open to order breakfast. Then I went down and wrote for a few hours. A couple of hotel staff came over to ask if I wanted to go up to a cottage built by the British in the 1900’s in the forest. I had previously intended not to do that but after a few hours of being on the laptop, both my writing and editing became sub-par.

 

“Okay,” I said to one of them. “Let’s do it.”

 

I went upstairs to pack my usual gear; camera, water, Ipod and went to meet the driver. His jeep was different. It was open on all sides. The driver’s brother was standing at the back holding on to the bar in front of him. I got in and off we went. The road was bad like all the others but something about going into the forest was cool. Pine trees surrounded us and there were no other cars.

 

There was pole barricading the entrance on the main road and the driver locked it before we left. That meant no one else was going to be coming in. On the way, we stopped to see a 2,000 year old pine tree. On it was a note, written in the first person. The note was mostly about survival. How so many wanted to cut it but it was always protected by Allah. I liked that style of expression on behalf of a tree.

 

It also made me feel happy about some of the ways Pakistan is. Everywhere you go, you see a sign of God. On top of the sign was a verse from the Quran;

 

وَالنَّجْمُ وَالشَّجَرُ يَسْجُدَان

 

Before Him prostrate the stars and the trees

Surah Ar-Rahman, Verse 6

 

Every so often, I saw one of the Names of God on a tree. It was like that in most parks in Lahore too. I looked for “Wadoodo – The Loving One” but didn’t come across it. It was the Name of Allah that was chosen for me based on the Knowledge of Numerology. I used to do a tasbeeh of it religiously in my teens and all of my 20s after my mother instructed me to do so. I know now that it came to define the way I loved. Changed it from what it might have been otherwise.

 

When we reached the house, it was lovely little cottage with a grassy garden, nested between the trees.

 

I wasn’t hungry so I lay on the grass for a long time staring at the clouds. The sky was part blue, part dark gray. I could hear thunder in the distance and every so often, I felt a rain drop. I didn’t want to move. When I heard the Azaan echoing in the mountains I prayed Zuhr on the grass. Towards the end, in the moment of true aloneness, I decided I wanted to address my nafs. Share with it where I was at.

 

I walked over to the edge of the green wooden railing and in my gentlest tone said, “Chukie! I know you want to stay the same and I know you don’t want me to change anything but this way I don’t feel happy. And you think you feel happy getting your way, but you’re not. You are my overt existence and I am your inner. I am tired of us being apart.

 

Ghaus Pak (ra) says a version of you, the one I strive for, it’s the best of you. It is also derived from the qalb. Just like the tongue. For almost of my life, I have done what you want. Can you try to let me do what I want just for a little? I promise it won’t be bad. It will bring us closer. You’ll see.”

 

I took off my veil, packed it and went to sit on a bench on a higher vantage point before my one and half hour was up. I wished I could stay longer. There was nothing to do back at the hotel. Finally, the driver looked over and tilted his head towards his vehicle. I got up slowly and got in the front seat. The other dude jumped into the back.

 

Since it was my last jeep drive in the thick of nature, I quickly pulled out my Ipod and played the house tracks again. The same ones I had cried to on the way to Siri Payee were now making me happy. The drive, rough as it was, was beautiful. The open jeep was great. On the way we came to a fork in the road. I saw the driver turn to say something. I removed my headphones.

 

“Can we go up this way? It will take ten minutes and I need to pick up something?

 

“Absolutely,” I replied enthusiastically. “I would love for this to not end sooner than it has to.”

 

He took a left and we went up to a spot where two men had shaved patches of grass in mounds for him. I got off to walk around. They started loading the back of the jeep with the grass. A few minutes later, we were on our way down again. I put on the music again and decided I wanted to stand up as well.

 

“What will I hold on to though?” I asked the driver. There was no bar in front of me like there was for the man in the back.

 

“Just hold on to the top of the windshield,” he said.

 

The windshield was wrapped at the top in a heavy plastic. I leaned over it tilting my body forward at an angle placing my entire weight on it and dropped my arms over it. After that there was no need to hold on to anything anyway. No matter how hard the bump, I hardly moved. A cool wind blew in my face. I turned up the volume some more.

 

That ride down was the best part of the several hours of the drives I did all over the area. A smile was plastered on my face the whole time. When we reached the bottom, I jumped off the side and thanked the driver profusely. It started to rain a few minutes later so I went up to my room. I looked through my photos for a bit and then opened my book again. Once again what I read was uncanny.

 

“Through your striving, melt your nafs because once it melts and dies, it will finally find its solace from the qalb, for it derives its state from it. There can be no doubt that Allah loves you so the call from Him will come but you have to cleanse your nafs from its bearing of grudges.

 

Melt its resentments, be mindful of Allah and be obedient from your heart. Without this, don’t seek closeness with Him. Without purification from impurity, that closeness is not possible.

 

Reduce the desires of your nafs so that when you want something from it, (instead of the other way around when it wants something from you), it will listen to you.

 

،‏‏‏‏‏‏فَقَالَ لِي ابْنُ عُمَرَ:‏‏‏‏ إِذَا أَصْبَحْتَ فَلَا تُحَدِّثْ نَفْسَكَ بِالْمَسَاءِ،

،‏‏‏‏‏‏وَإِذَا أَمْسَيْتَ فَلَا تُحَدِّثْ نَفْسَكَ بِالصَّبَاحِ

‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏فَإِنَّكَ لَا تَدْرِي يَا عَبْدَ اللَّهِ مَا اسْمُكَ غَدًا

 

The Prophet of God (peace be upon him) said, “When it is morning, don’t talk to your nafs about the evening. And when it is evening, don’t mention to your nafs the morning because you don’t know what will happen to you tomorrow.”

 

There is no one kinder to your nafs than you. Alas! When you yourself have lost your relationship with it, why do you expect others to be kind to it, safeguard it. Your endless hopes and greed have caused you to destroy it.

 

Tell your nafs, ‘You will gain from that which you do and you will bring upon yourself the harm of that which you choose. No one else will come to your aid and no one will be able to give you of what they earned. Without the struggle and the hard work, there is no healing.’”

 

That night I realized two things. The people who I loved and and recognize, they could do anything and I wouldn’t say a word against them or feel badly because of them. I didn’t wait for them to change. In those cases, my nafs was not a veil. I didn’t have hopes and fear attached to them, only love.

 

If with the rest, instead of all the other things I felt, I could just love them, my life and their lives would become simpler. Our interactions would be smoother. And most importantly, I might come to understand patience sooner so difficult people and difficult things would not appear difficult to me.

 

The shield around my heart had a dual purpose. It rejected my base thoughts and it also made me see in a pronounced way, my own role in bringing sadness and distress upon myself.

No one was doing anything to anyone. We were all doing it to ourselves. With our endless choices “opting for endless hopes and greed which caused us to destroy our nafs.”

 

مَّا أَصَابَكَ مِنْ حَسَنَةٍ فَمِنَ اللَّهِ وَمَا أَصَابَكَ مِن سَيِّئَةٍ فَمِن نَّفْسِكَ

وَأَرْسَلْنَاكَ لِلنَّاسِ رَسُولًا وَكَفَىٰ بِاللَّهِ شَهِيدً

 

Whatever good that happens to you is from God and whatever evil that befalls you is from your self,

And we have sent you, O Muhammad (peace be upon you), as a Messenger for all Mankind and Allah is Sufficient as The Witness.

Surah An-Nisa, Verse 79

 

“As a Messenger for all Mankind.”

 

The same causes, the same cure!

 

With piercing concentration, I started saying a prayer I had been saying for months but just rote. It was one of the 40 “Rabbana” prayers in the Quran. This one was said by the magicians of Pharoah who were called to compete with the Prophet Moses (as). When, instead, they brought faith upon Allah, Pharoah became enraged and threatened them first amputation, then death. At that point they prostrated and uttered the words;

 

رَبَّنَا أَفْرِغْ عَلَيْنَا صَبْرًا وَتَوَفَّنَا مُسْلِمِين

 

O Our Lord! Pour upon us your patience and make us die in surrender to you.

Surah Al-Araaf, Verse 126

 

The pouring of patience! Obviously, I had to understand the meaning of each word.

 

Tafseer e Jilani:

 

Rabbana: O our Lord, who raises us with your Kindness and Bounty, till you make us enter into the Group of Your Witnesses who saw You, and those who spent everything in their possession in Your Way, willingly and with love

 

Afrigh: Pour upon us, shower upon us

 

Alayna Sabran: patience from Your Side, which descends continuously. Each pour following the one before it, when we become incessantly occupied by the evil of our nafs on a certain matter. Don’t let us be guided by that thought and go in that direction by instead making our love for you dominant that never disappears. And never let it gain control over our hearts, which suffer from the intense pain of the nafs, which constantly prompts towards wrongdoing.

 

Wa: And when our breath is the last and our soul is leaving us

 

Tawaffana Muslimeen; then let us die as firm seekers of Your Pleasure and in surrender to You, steadfast upon Your One-ness and Your Recognition, without any doubt and without any deviation.

 

My heart soared.

 

Day Seven – Heading down

 

On the way back to Islamabad, as I sat with my feet stretched on the back seat staring out the window. It had certainly been the strangest of holidays. My photos would never reveal that. They were only stunning and would belie the turmoil my heart had experienced these last days.

 

I began to think about the piece and how I wanted to end it. I had been going over the steps of my learning and the findings of the reading again and again every single day so I understood what was happening; I had asked a Friend of God to pray for me. His prayer allowed my poisonous thoughts from my mind to not enter my qalb. I saw that. That brought pause to my tongue.

 

Initially I had wanted my tongue to be controlled because Ghaus Pak (ra) had told me, my entire physical being was affected by it. But he had also said that in reverse, the sound and silence of my tongue affected my qalb as well.

 

“If the tongue is respectful, the qalb becomes pure and when the tongue is misbehaving, the qalb becomes ruined.”

 

When the tongue was harsh, it distorted the state of the qalb and therefore its ability to fulfill its purpose; recognize God. I had to consider what I was eventually say as well so even my silence had to be mindful, not just dumb.

 

Despite the difficulty, everything increasingly seemed to just be an upside. Eventually, hopefully soon, I would end up at another shrine in sha Allah. Or I would read the words of a Friend of God and connect myself to Him. Then when I would pray for the world and all in it, I also would ask them to pray for me. With that prayer would come my next movement forward. Towards sabr and fulfillment of my imaan. Towards God, the only faithful love!

 

The prayers of the ordinary are almost always about the world and what’s in it; health, wealth, happiness, ranks, honour, people. But the prayers of others, the extraordinary, yield a shift in the nafs that bids towards wrongdoing, breaking habits, changing ingrained behaviour, all otherwise clear impossibilities.

 

As Maulana (ra) says; only in the presence of a Friend of God does the nafs become obedient;

 

رزق جانی کے بری با سعی و جست

جز با عدل شیخ کو داؤد تست

 

How can you ever gain blessings from your own struggles and endeavours?

Without the assistance of the Spiritual Master who intervenes for you like Hazrat Dawood (as)?

 

نفس چوں با شیخ بیندگام تو

از بن دندان شود او رام تو

 

When your nafs, your ego, sees you in the footsteps of your guide, it will have no choice but to become obedient to you.

 

عقل گایے غالب آید در شکار

بر سگ نفست کہ باشد شیخ یار

 

The aql, your powers to reflect, will only conquer the enemy, your ego, in this battle

when you are accompanied by your spiritual master.

 

The first step is mine. Not even the step, the intention of a step. The hope for it, the need for it, the expression of it before someone who knows how to do it all because their love, their deep devotion for Allah’s Beloved (peace be upon him) rendered them a Friend of God.

 

Ghaus Pak (ra) says: “All my life I have had the highest and most honoured opinion of those beloved to God. I was their servant and in that I gained every benefit which continues to this day. In giving you my words, I don’t ask anything from you. The ask of my sermon is that you act upon it.

 

It is a sermon that holds within it complete ability to allow you to isolate yourself, with no need of anything else. It will give you the way to reach pure sincerity. If your efforts and means of becoming sincere are fulfilled, then you will become devoid of hypocrisy. Your faith and your certainty, imaan and iqaan, will continuously ascend.

 

Nabi Pak (peace be upon him) says;

 

الدُّنْيَا سِجْنُ الْمُؤْمِنِ وَجَنَّةُ الْكَافِرِ

 

“The world is a prison for the believer and heaven for the denier of Truth.”

 

So why would one feel happy in it, Ghaus Pak (ra) asks.

 

Perhaps in the overt, yes but in the heart, the Momin is always sad because of difficulties. That exterior of calm with a heart shredded into pieces is the reason, he says, Allah points such a person out to the angels with pride for being brave. That is courage, a single moment of patience!

 

For someone who has always babied by Allah through all my spiritual learning, patience feels like it’s the first trial. But it won’t feel difficult for long. I know that too through another promise from God;

 

وَالَّذِينَ جَاهَدُوا فِينَا لَنَهْدِيَنَّهُمْ سُبُلَنَا وَإِنَّ اللَّهَ لَمَعَ الْمُحْسِنِين

 

And those who strive hard for Us, We will surely, guide them to Our Ways.

And indeed, Allah surely is with the doers of good.

Surah Al-Ankaboot, Verse 69

 

Tafseer e Jilani: Then Allah said in His Style, where after the warning comes His Promise; ‘The Momineen, believers and the Moqineen, the ones possessing certainty, stand steadfast in the exalted rank of seeing Allah and His Tauheed, One-ness, according to their granted capacity.

 

Then they strive with their utmost effort because they want to dissolve, become fana’, in the Essence of Allah and become everlasting in His Eternity. Their endeavours are therefore all in Our Way, leaving behind their selfishness as well as their own being which is transient and false, delving into Our Desires and Essence.

 

La-nahdeyannahum: And We will guide them and grant them ability

 

Subulu na – towards Our Way. And certainly, We will increase that Guidance, in their physical and spiritual being, towards Our Essence because it comes out of Our Love for them and Our Bounty and Our Favour upon them.

 

Wa – How can Allah then not love them and increase their honour and their guidance and ability?

 

Inna Allah – Without doubt, Allah is the one who unveils Himself according to His Names and Attributes for His Servants, those who are pure, those who are sincere.

 

La ma almuhsineen – He is with the muhsineen, the ones who have the best decorum with Allah who strive hard to dissolve their own selves into His Essence after standing at the Place of Kashf, unveiling and Shahood, witnessing.

 

Then comes to them the certainty that there is, in fact, no one (present) except Him.

 

The holiday ended. Before heading back to Lahore, I stopped by the shrine of my Spiritual Masters at Golra. As I approached the courtyard, I heard qawali in the background. I had never been there before when that was happening.

 

The temperature wasn't too high but the marble against my feet felt hot. I walked up to the shrine of Pir Mehr Ali Shah Sahib (ra) and just stood there, the sound of the music melting my heart. I offered my roses and got back a gift, a few petals from the chadar that was touching the blessed grave. That was a first for me as well.

 

I placed them carefully in my pocket and just cried, praying for everyone who was present and absent. My heart finally felt light. It wasn’t going to be an easy journey but I knew someone Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him) sent for me was going to be holding my hand throughout it.

 

With those hands would also come a prayer bringing me closer to a cleaner heart, a controlled tongue, a contented nafs. And most of all, an audience before my Lord where I would see Him. That was necessary.

 

Ghaus Pak (ra) says that the purpose of the creation of Man is to become the reflection of Allah's Attributes. That is why the angels were told to bow before Hazrat Adam (as). Earth trumped both light and fire! But beyond that, he says, the point of everything is only to increase focus towards Allah's One-ness, the only One to be worshipped. People become the most effective means to do that. The learning is constant and it is endless.

 

Relief though, I have found, comes from the Realm of the Unseen alone. How and when a negative thought, a disruptive feeling, otherwise nagging endlessly, suddenly dissipates, I have never known because I never made it happen. Suddenly in a moment it is gone like it was never there! Increasingly, it turns out, all I have to do is to make an offering, of a little bit of love, dipped in a lot of patience!

 

Lift-off 2:05: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef7dlFqhzIk

Done