The price of freedom is greater than all of creation put together.
The cost of life, far beyond imagining. So much so that even if you work throughout an entire millennia, still you will be unable to compensate for it.
Man is greatly indebted.
He owes so much.
Yet, man forgets.
Ignorant.
He is ungrateful.
And when he is grateful, he becomes incapable.
Such is the state of man.
The hearts are two hearts, a heart wandering around women's gossip and a heart wandering around the throne - Ibn Al-Qayem
Women and power. Two things that capture a man's attention and blind a man to all others. As long as he lets himself be rooted down by these things, he will live but in a dream.
Announced to be the source of much joy and satisfaction. Yet many men would tire of it. When the heart becomes consumed by these two things, the soul would begin to rot and the mind grow twisted.
Lust unbridled turns a man beastly. Power without purpose and responsibility destroys him by robbing his dignity.
Ponder for once from where your purpose and responsibility is inspired. Find thought and mind to combat feel and heart. Think friend, think. For your mind was created for good reason. Let not your emotions and greed blind you.
Whatever good happens to you is from Allah; But whatever evil happens to you is from your (own) soul
- Al-Quran 4:79
- William Shakespeare
These words are mine and no one else's. Of a truth that is. Or is it?
By what criterion should ownership of anything be judged? Finders keepers, losers weepers. There's a cliche' we've heard often enough about ownership, or rather the transfer of ownership.
What about ownership makes it such an important aspect of man in this societal state we live in? How does it affect our lives? How does it affect us?
Material ownership has been the source of many disputes among men. In a word, greed. Man's greed for ownership of material wealth and resources can grow to astounding heights.
We live in a world laden with riches and resources aplenty. In the form of precious stones, precious metals, food and water, land and sea and even information. All of it splayed out before us as gifts for a time.
Gifts for a time.
For how long do we retain ownership of these gifts? Who gives us ownership over these things? What right have we over them?
We squabble over our rights to these blessings of God and act as if these were due of us. As if we deserve them. Of a truth, do we?
These gifts of a time, meant to aid us. How long do we get to keep them? What are we meant to do with them?
What we own rarely lasts for a lifetime. One day in the future, everything will be taken away from us. Our lives; our homes; our wealths; our relatives. Every single thing.
Do we own anything or is everything to a truth out of our hands? It appears upon a second glance that all things we hold are merely loaned to us for a time.
One day, all things will pass for nothing in this world is eternal.
So why do we feel the need to express ownership? What rights have we when all things we claim ownership over are mere temporary gifts that had once belonged to another or will one day belong to another?
In the end, we lose everything. So why should we bother to hoard everything that comes into our hands when we all know that in the end we're bound to lose it?
For temporary pleasure?
What I own is only temporary.
All will come to pass.
The greatest form of a man's glory.
Is when his soul releases all ties.
What does a man own?
Nothing. All things rest in God's hands.
So why do we act otherwise?
If the fate of all humanity rests upon the death of one man, would you be willing to sacrifice just one person?
What is the price of a life?
How do you judge who is worthy to live or otherwise?
How is the survival of one person more important than another?
It is a debate that has been encountered by many men and avoided by many more: The question of the price of your soul. Who among us is more worthy of living?
Would you dare to say that Mother Theresa or Mahatma Ghandi deserved to live longer lives? Should Princess Diana be given a second chance at living?
Would you agree that Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein deserved to be put to the gallows? Would you say that terrorists like Osama bin Laden deserve death?
What raises or lowers the value of life? Do you know?
Friends lost
Fading into time
Finding each loneliness
Faced by ties broken by age
Roaming back
Reaching for past unreachable
Reeling in the hopelessness
Rendered true by the years
I find it true
Instilled in the shadows
Iron cold truth
Imminent solitude of old
Each man finds it
Effervescence dulled by the seconds
Enigmatic mysticism
Endured to be by the soul
Now's the time
Never it comes
Nigh waiting for the day of love
Nudging the darkness closer
Din in which they disappeared
Dragging along a piece of the soul
Draping a cloak over the light
Destined as a candle to burn out cold
So here I'm left
Standing alone
Seeing each walk his path
Somberly stoned
Salman told Abu Ad-Darda', "Your Lord has a right on you, your soul has a right on you, and your family has a right on you; so you should give the rights of all those who has a right on you."
Abu Ad-Darda' came to the Prophet(pbuh) and narrated the whole story. The Prophet said,"Salman has spoken the truth."
The boastful only see the best in themselves while the wise see the worst in what they do.
Living in a world where excellence is valued so greatly above all else has made us blind to this fact. And this is exactly what will one day lead our society to its downfall.
How true is this fact? What wrong is there in believing in your ability?
Of course there is nothing wrong in believing in yourself. But how much is too much? An excess of something can never be good for a person. Even if it is an excess of goodness.
Mankind was created with weaknesses. He was blessed with both good and bad. Made in perfection as well as flawed. Understanding this is the key to humility.
"It is a mortifying truth, and ought to teach the wisest of us humility, that many of the most valuable discoveries have been the result of chance rather than of contemplation, and of accident rather than of design."
- Charles Caleb Colton
Age, the cradle of wisdom
Experience, the mother of compassion.
Love, the source of humanity
Hate, the father of destruction.
As age creeps up upon a man, and experience comes to his side to be his best friend, love will grow or hate may consume.
The choice between the two, is entirely in his hands.
What will he choose to end with?
That understanding may his guidance be.
And in comprehending peace shall find.
In written deeds a story left behind.
It hurts to be human. It is human to hurt.
What is "hurt"?
Hurt:
1) to inflict phyical pain
2) to cause emotional pain o anguish
3) to suffer pain or grief
4) to cause damage or distress
A word synonymous with pain. It makes a person human to feel pain. Be that pain physical or emotional, it hurts just the same. Why is it human to hurt?
To hurt is a weakness. Feeling pain is a weakness. Being human means being born with a weakness. It is to be born human that makes us weak. Our only strength lies in what is known as our "Aqal". Our ability to think.
Hurting helps build the humanity in a person. Only in suffering does the human soul mature.
- William Wordsworth
Can't decide
Am i black or white
Drifting forth
In my discourse
Who I see
Makes the current me
Red or blue
Determined by you
What's understood
The fleeting notes of the flute
Always changing tunes
Unnoticable in the shifting dunes
Lost in colors
As my mask falters
Where is the me
In this colorful sea?
The land quakes in fear
Shivering beyond control
It feels the end of years
And how its bones now feel old
Days grow ever longer
As the sun skips to its youth
Growing ever shorter
The delay of impending doom
The skies twirl confusion
Clouds spun overturned
Raindrops not waiting their turn
Still man does not learn
The signs have shown
Written in woes
Their covers are blown
Yet concern they do not show
Chaos in its roots
Has begun to fester
With faces covered in soot
They burn on their desires
Upon sun baked land
Icy whiteness was glittered
Do you not understand
Have you not pondered
The world now trembles
Buying its time
Buried in battles
And endless crime
Candles of wisdom
Snuffed out one at a time
Fading to chrome
Arts no longer enshrined
All's lost
In that dying breed
Their lives their cost
When time ends their deed
The land in fear does quake
But why don't they?
Where does life begin or end? Are the sad really dead and the happy truly alive?
The lives we live rarely seem to satisfy our needs and wants. Living in strife more often than not can leave a person weary and drained.
As the burden grows heavier, your legs begin to tire and the distance stretches. Do you walk the endless path in silence and gloom or with the cheery disposition of the sun?
A life led in melancholy rarely seems worth the suffering. Simply enduring the pain from beginning to the end of time may leave you a living zombie. Nothing more than but a husk of a broken man.
Does such a depressing existence truly exist?
Is such a depressing existence warranted to be called living?
Smiles. Smiles brighten up our day. They are a sign of hope. The guardians of joy. Happiness begins with a smile. And what is life without happiness?
So every person strives to his utmost ability to achieve that joy.
Once happiness is infused into life, it becomes thoroughly fulfilled. And happen it might to you.
The joy of having all your needs and wants fulfilled and experiencing true freedom marks the opening of man's dream lives.
Happiness marks fulfilment. Fulfilment draws the line for the form of life that is led by a man.
Sadness comes from the lack of fulfilment. Lack of form for the life of a man. But should sadness be the final note of a man's life?
Should death and sadness be or are they ever the same taste and feel?
What will life look like lived in despair?
Does only death hold the answer?
The simpleton cries
His heart torn asunder
His beloved now lies
Buried and plundered
All lay in ruins
Distraught by war
Ravaged by grave sins
Of hearts cold to the core
All his power stolen
Life taken away
His face entirely ashen
Drained by dismay
He stood now a wight
Eyes deathly cold
His soul now in blight
To revenge existence sold
The simpleton reborn
Hungers for blood
Tainted and torn
Bleached now he fights
A demonic spirit
Remorselessly sharp
Anger burns in timeless fits
To the tunes of ghostly harp
The trailing past become
Striding the lands in search
To the swing of the blade he hums
As to the ground blood's splurged
Blood for blood
Tears caked dry
Softness grew hard
The day the simpleton died
The world. It moves. Changes day by day. Slowly revolving and evolving. There is a constant beat to it. Bleeding the present away to make space for the coming future.
And every action we take helps to further mould that future into shape. What will it look like at the end of the day?
How we change the world, is entirely within our own hands. But the clumsy hands of man never fails to fumble while he's toying with his own fate. Thus more often than not, consequences beyond our expectations are a common end result.
And in that way, fate and future is unpredictable.
Look around us. How much we've changed the world. The way we've sculpted every brick and stone not to mention layered every street and moulded lands. What have we done?
We call it civilisation. The advancement of mankind. How much have we trancended above our past?
Claiming embetterment above the past is very boastful indeed. The big question is how we back that claim up. What do we hold now that is of truly great import to us?
When we compare us now to our ancestors, are we any different from them? Is that difference an improvement?
That power to meddle with fate has gotten to our heads.
Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely - Lord Aston
We have let the gift of control over the path of our future blind us. We see only the future we wish to see, and we strive to mould the passing days to build a replica of that image.
By whose permission do we do so?
Who is the one who is truly in control?
It cannot possibly be us. We lack that absolute totalitarian insight into cause and effects to truly become the masters of our own fate. We but fumble and pull upon strings within our reach hoping to arrive at a desirable result.
Knowing. It is what we lack. The knowing. The more we learn, the less we feel in control. And we cover that helplessness by exerting control over what we can. As we gain, we bend it to our whims. Do we then realise how much toll control exacts from us?
Look at our world. What's happening to it?
How have we come to be in the position we are in now? Can anything be done about it?
Of course, we'll try to correct our mistakes. Perhaps make new ones along the way. In the end we'll stumble. But into what?
There was a man who lived through history. A man who saw yesterday's future as it passed by him. Living through time, a part of the world yet apart from it.
He was a historian; a sage; a learned man.
Watch he did as time flowed in its endless twists and turns. Observing the changes in the river of ages that left him withered.
His timelessness was his gift. His curse.
Lives entered the world and exited in the blink of an eye. He watched them come and go. Short meaningless existences. Beings most often with little control over the paths their lives would take. A strange sight they were.
Desperately grasping at every moment of joy and satisfaction as they did, he saw them lose their puny little souls in the reverberations of the river. And wrote down their journeys he did.
Each spark presented an experience. The man, he realised the value of what he saw. Of what they lived.
Yet they did not. Engrossed as they were in their own lives, they could not possibly see what he saw. Only he understood. Only he realised it. Only he was removed enough to understand it. And all he could do was look.
The man witnessed wars break. He listened to tears and laughter. He trembled at the sight of blood and violence and shook in anticipation of joyous celebrations.
He lived with them. But he could not die with them. Among them yet removed from them.
Immortality was his curse. The source of his alienation. His loneliness. So he watched them away from the crowds and alone. Secretly fearful of growing attached to them. He did not wish to experience loss.
Detachment was the source of his sanity. His wisdom. His self.
He was a historian; a sage; a learned man. Living till the end of time.
Hours. They come and go. They mark the passage of time and break it to bits.
Though a seemingly large amount of time, an hour is really pretty short. Passes by in a mere glimpse. It quickly trails away like water. An hour is rarely enough for anything. Especially not learning.
How many hours make up a lifetime? Let's say you're bound to live up to the age of 65. A day is made up of 24 hours. That adds up to about 168 hours a week. Or 744 hours a month. Or a whopping 8760 hours a year. Multiply that by that good old 65 and you'll get a grand total of 569400 hours. That's a good deal isn't it? So much time.
What are we doing with all that time? Say you sleep exactly 8 hours a day. That adds up to a total of 189800 hours spent asleep. That leaves you with 379600 waking hours.
So much time. What do you do with all that time? How much worldly experience can you gain? Will you learn anything? Is that enough time to absorb all there is to know of this world as well as the next?
With so many hours at your disposal, what will you waste your time doing?
Hours will come and go. Mesh them into a single lifetime and what will you get?
Suicide. What could drive a man to the brink of it?
We are naturally inclined to fear death. So what could tip the scales in favor of death?
Approaching the point of cracking. No one could possible realise it but the self. Perhaps even the self does not fully realise the implications of his own personal thoughts.
Suicidal thoughts and wish for death easily comes at the face of problems monumental beyond solving. But these thoughts are rarely strong enough to provoke action. Simple words such as "I wish I was dead" escape our lips and are taken as mere words. Few among us recognise its ability to escalate into something more unlikely as it may seem.
It is best to stay from such thoughts. Simply wishing you're not there, hoping you were only dreaming as well as wishing you were someone else are merely some alternatives to suicidal thoughts you could use if you get them.
Loss. It all begins with loss. The crumbling of everything around you. When it starts to break down, you try to patch everything up and staunch the flow of the lifeblood of your existence out of your being. But as it slowly continues to bleed out, yoou're inching even farther away from your reasons to live.
When all's lost, you'll be empty. Is an empty life worth wading through? All that's left is simply to escape. And what way is there to escape life?
It all begins with loss and ends with the final loss of life.
Suicide is not chosen, it happens when pain exceeds resources for coping with pain.
Or perhaps it is a choice. Can you choose to live with nothing to live for?
A hug. We all need one sometimes.
That simple gesture that says 'I'm here for you."
One act that can sum up "how I miss you."
You know that when all else fails and words no longer cheer you up, a hug will do.
Says "I'm close" and "I care."
In the swift moment telling you "I'll be there."
All things can be said in one single hug.
In smiles or in tears, a kodak moment.
Points of views. Everybody has one. Some are similar to a completely startling degree while others are as different as the sun and moon.
What is interesting and what is not?
Where lies the good and the bad?
What do you see?
What do they see?
What is there to see?
In a picture is painted a thousand words. In it a million emotions and just as many unwritten feelings.All you need do is find the right point of view. Is there a right point of view?
Can a movie be shot with only one camera angle?
There are times when we feel we are right. Times when we think we understand the whole picture clearly. With a million and one different ways to look at a single situation, how do you know that you're looking at it the correct way? You can't be sure that you've seen all the minute differences in viewing it. And you wish to say that you fully understand the situation?
Impossible!
Dare I say more? What is this point of view I bring up? Or is there even one? Do you see what I see?
There may be little to be plucked from this menial little entry but if you look at it the right way, there's probably something to be learnt. A hidden message perhaps.
All that needs to be done is for it to be seen the right way.
