5 things I have forgotten: the meanings of hunger, hard work, discipline, joy and silence. Even then, did I ever understand their meaning?
— I (@th_mnmlst) November 25, 2013
HungerWhen I mentioned hunger I meant it in the obvious sense; physical hunger. On the rare occasions that I skip breakfast, and also on the day of Ashura where some Shias observe the recommended act of abstasining from food or drink until 'Asr time, I noticed that I don't feel hungry at all. If I were to fast in these short days I would not feel very much hunger until the end...something has been lost. If it is hard for me to be hungry, it will be hard for me to empathise with those who have no food, and furthermore, if this carries on till next Shahr Ramadhan, then any fasting I do will lose their spiritual effect on me. A substantial corpus of Hadith mention both the benefits of fasting/hunger and the dangers of overeating. I need to rediscover physical hunger.
As I meditated upon the words I would choose in writing the above part, I became aware of a second kind of hunger, which it turns out, also applies to me. It's called hunger, but other words such as want and desire may also be used, in their positive senses, but hunger seems to me to be the best one. It's do to with me wanting to change my life for the better. How badly do I want to be successful in both this life and the next? How badly do I want to be the architect of my life, and shape it the way I would want it to be (God willing*)? Do I really hunger for such? I would venture to say that, if one was to study the way I've been living my life for the past few months/years, they would say that maybe I want such things, but I don't want it enough to truly put such effort in. Taking the above to its logical conclusion: without any real hunger - to improve and be in control of my life; to be successful in this world and the next; to do any work of meaning and value - these will only be pipe dreams.
Hard Work
I do not shy away from hard work. Ok, well maybe sometimes I do. I don't know how best to word this. I intellectually know that nothing of substance is ever achieved without a tremendous amount of hard work, but it seems to me that I've been incredibly wasteful and procrastinative** over the past couple of months. I could probably count on my fingers the number of days I've been genuinely happy with my day's output of work before I retired for the night. I think it's down to multiple reasons; not having focus by not having a clearly defined agenda for the day; looking at my work as an overwhelming body rather than something that can be broken off into discrete, manageable chunks that can be dealt with one at a time, and maybe other reasons I could probably come up with as justifications if I was really feeling sorry for myself. Regardless - I know it's possible for me to have a genuinely productive and hard-work-filled day, and this is my target for the next few weeks. Just achieve one day of solid hard work without any compromise. Then we can go from there.
Discipline
Discipline. More accurately, self-discipline. I've become way more impulsive recently. Or was I always impulsive, and now my flaws are revealed to me? Regardless, I am not happy with this specific element of my life in particular, especially on occasions when I decide to chill with friends into the late hours of the night, knowing full well that I really have too much to be getting on. And it happens way too often. I know, as with hard work, that discipline leads to success. That decisions are rarely easy, that sometimes you have to say no to the things you want in order to get greater benefit in the future. I know that I'm settling for less than what I should be. Yet I wilfully choose to ignore it. I guess deep down I don't fear the consequences enough, yet I know I should.
Joy
Sometimes I feel that I swapped a life of drudgery in Norfolk, for a different life of drudgery here. I don't feel that all the time, but it's a naggy*** feeling that surfaces enough times to sap my energy and make me want to retreat to the simpler pleasures. What happened to the unbridled curiosity that I used to have, that would at times force me to devour some pretty arcane books? Come to that - when was the last time I lost myself in a good book?**** When was the last time I looked at a glorious sunset, or found myself entranced by a sunrise over a beautiful body of water? The good thing here is that joy comes from gratefulness, and it shouldn't be hard to be grateful and give thanks for all the blessings that are in my life, if only I would stop being mopey and appreciate them.
Silence
Imam al-Sadiq (as): [paraphrasing]
Silence is the adornment of the wise, and a protection for the foolish.
(This is the only one that gets it's own hadith)
I have changed from someone who rarely used to talk, to someone who now talks too much. I recall a time when I was known "The Quiet One". It may have been completely by accident - I stumbled across the benefits of being silent through being very, very shy in my teens, rather than deliberately deciding that I wanted to be a quiet person. Now that I have grown up (somewhat) and also that I feel more confident, and can hold my own (and sometimes more) in conversation, I don't feel shy as much as I used to. And with that my silence has gone. Or that's my line of reasoning anyway. But if that's true, I was never really silent. And if _that's_ true, then maybe I need to discover _and_ rediscover silence.
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This post inspired by a random "deep tweet", camouflaged alongside all the extraneous fluff that appears on my timeline. May possibly be a new direction, where I tweet my thoughts concisely, and expand on them in long-form blogposts later.
* As much as I would want to be in control of my life, I obviously understand that God is always in control, and so the control I seek here is (obviously) not independence from God's control, but that with His permission I am able to pursue and shape the life that I desire. It's all down to intention, I guess.
** Yes, it's not a real word, but using general rules of English grammar and syntax, I have constructed it. So there.
*** Constructed word #2, for those keeping count
**** And the Mountains Echoed, Khaled Hosseini, July 2013. But that's not the point.
Enshallah you will rediscover and implement them all.
ReplyDeleteThank you. InshaAllah
DeleteI apologize for the long post (do people usually apologize for long posts? Or do Canadians just say sorry a lot? Oh well - sorry!) [Edit: this is so awkward. My reply has gone over the limit so I have to post twice].
ReplyDeleteNot too long ago, a group of friends and I commenced a discussion on the idea of how hard we were expected to work towards God in this life. We read examples of the Prophet [s] praying all night, or Imam Sajjad's [a] skin hardening from prolonged prostration and I wondered, are we supposed to do that too? Are we supposed to push ourselves to our maximum physical potential/limits (but be careful to not make our lives empty worship) to the extent that our bodies become weak or we feel some sort of pain? bA was actually involved in this discussion and she posted a video which mentioned the idea, and she also brought in the argument that we shouldn't feel the need to question how hard we should work - if our heart is strong, we will naturally be inclined to work hard, for the sake of God. So I reproached the question with, do we really need to physically feel anything to become better people? As in, is there a proportional relationship between physical pain (or hunger) and wujood?
I remember fasts to be incredibly difficult as a child but, as most people, done enough (alhamdulillah)to condition my body to not feel hungry when I'm fasting (well, until this year when it became extremely difficult for some reason). Are we really supposed to ensure that we feel physical hunger? What I understand fasting to be is yes, the physical hunger but more importantly, how the physical hunger works with the soul. What we physically feed our bodies (what we eat, what we look at, what we listen to) are direct gateways to our souls. When we abstain from food, we expect to feel hunger but maybe that shouldn't be a focus *at all*? By not eating, we soften our souls and in response to that we become more observant/empathetic towards those without food. In other words, I don't think our acknowledgement of the less fortunate comes from being physically hungry ourselves but rather, I think it comes from the awakening/softening of our souls which in turn, can be done through the abstinence of food.
Hunger helps us to realize the truth, but not every hungry person will empathize with those who are less fortunate. It's only those who have let hunger soften their souls who will be awoken to truth that will naturally be empathetic. So, in these terms, we don’t have to be physically hungry to be empathetic, as long as we keep our hearts soft. Not to be misinterpreted, feeling hungry definitely makes us more empathetic but I think it to be in an indirect relationship. Hunger softens our heart and it’s only then that we have the ability to feel empathy. Maybe prayers can do something similar to our hearts but we don’t actually have to feel physical hunger or pain etc(?) These are just personal thoughts. Maybe if I were to actually read these hadith on fasting/hunger, I’d be more confident in my thoughts.
And how this relates to "how hard we should work" - (I know it's a useless point if I were to say, "just trust me") The aimmah's wujood is the greatest and because of this, they are able to pray all night; Imam Ali was able to not feel any pain when the arrow was pulled out of his leg while he was in prostration; the companions of Imam Husain didn’t complain about any pain, as if they never felt any at all etc. showed us that we can only triumph over our physical bodies when our souls are pure (not like the water in the glass metaphor in Lubb al Lubab), but completely pure. Only then can we be like Zuhayr ibn Qayn when he tells Imam Husain that he was ready to be cut into 1000 pieces, and be revived 1000 times to face that fate 1000 times more. Yes, we should think about physical hunger, but I find that useless at some point. We should be focusing on how that physical hunger can increase our wujood/uplift our soul so we can genuinely feel the hunger of those who are less fortunate.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to silence - I was that kid who was so “shy” in the mosque but as soon as I got out onto the playground, I became, in informal terms, a Nazi... I was *really* mean and was nicknamed some horrible things. When you figure out the secret to silence, please share some advice, yeah?
Oh and thank you. I'm quite grateful that you've posted this… God willing we’ll both become more joyous when we build the habit of being grateful. Also, God willing, you'll have a solid game plan by the time Safar ends... these are definitely the months for reformation.
[Yes, I was keeping count of those constructed words : )]
Long posts are welcome posts; do not apologise.
DeleteThe point about hunger being an indirect means to empathy is well noted, and not exactly something I had considered before. Thank you. If I can find the Hadith I refer to, I will post them in a future blog post, inshaAllah.
As for tips on silence, my good friend Nadir wrote a lovely article that was posted on Islamic Insights. Here it is:
http://www.islamicinsights.com/religion/religion/silence-the-mark-of-a-believer.html
InshAllah. Thank you.
It's been a while since I've read Nadir's post and completely forgot about it. Thank you for sharing, an absolute gem of an article.
DeleteWas this tweet inspired by a hadith/piece of advice to Prophet Dawud? Just came across something interesting and remembered your post.
ReplyDeleteI don't think so. Please do share in any case.
DeleteAllah (swt) revealed to Prophet David (Dawood) (a.s.)
DeleteOh David, I put the way to five things in doing five things, but people are seeking them in five different things so they don’t find them.
I put knowledge in hunger and struggle, and they are seeking it in comfort and in a full stomach - so they don’t find it.
I put dignity in obeying me and they are seeking it in obeying the powerful in this life - so they don’t find it.
I put richness in contentment with what they have, and they are seeking it in collecting money - so they don’t find it.
I put my pleasure and contentment in their self-displeasure & discontentment, and they are seeking it in their self-contentment - so they don’t find it.
I put comfort in paradise, and they are seeking it in this life - so they don’t find it.
Source: Allamah Muhammad Baqir al-Majalisi, Bihar al-’anwar, vol.75 , p.453.
I usually check these things first hand before sharing but I haven't had the chance to go looking for this volume (yet, iA). It was found on tumblr so you can do a search and probably get the same source as me.
Regardless, it makes one think.
Interesting. The only overlap is hunger, and I think I picked 5 because of tweet character limits.
DeleteNevertheless, thank you for sharing the hadith, it definitely makes one think.
And joy/contentment
DeleteDebatable. Cenrtainly not in the way I meant it, but I guess it could be seen in that way,
DeleteI recognized after that comment was published - probably just my perception of joy = contentment.
Delete