WHO IS MY FRIEND?

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When you change your path, or adopt a new path especially if you do it with single mindedness, you become unaware of the effect you are having on the people who have always known you. The change in you is scary to them, especially if they disapprove of it. The change is not only scary but is seen as a parting of the ways or a struggle on their part to bring you back to the way you were………..

The part in all this that is never spoken or expressed by a seeker of the path is the uncertainty that comes upon you when the above happens.

Yes one should not be doing things to please others but when you are doing and thinking things that displease the very same people who were your friends a doubt enters your mind if you are being “extreme” ? After all the five prayers are only 5 minutes each why the extra time after each? why spend the hours before maghrib in recitation or adkaar when you are missing a dinner party or a dholki? After all this never mattered before did it.

Before was an era of Ghafala where the basic tenets and spirituality imbued in our being by our parents and environment got covered with the fake paste of glitter and drowned in the noise of the selling of bodies, things and glamor via the social and other media.

In those days everything that hardens the heart was presented as beautiful and glamorous. It is a slow process of indoctrination of principles that slowly and steadily cover everything that was good in you with everything that is superficial and fake. This happens to most of us who leave the gates of our heart wide open to all the vile influences that are being bombarded on us 24/7.

The sad part is that you may not even be aware of it until one day the veil may be snatched from the face of the glamorous life and you see the horror and the heat of the FIRE so close that it paralyses you. Even though you want to you cannot retrace your steps. It is then you know with full yaqeen the following:

The only one who can save you from the FIRE that you see in front of you and feel its heat is the Almighty
Your deeds are inadequate if not tainted and thus unacceptable in measure to get you to the other side of the FIRE
You know then that you have no prayer except one and that is to Him Subhanawataala.

This is well described in Surah Takathur for those who have come to this juncture in their life.

It is then that all men and women recede into the background. All ads for glamor and wealth look like brass plates that on the day of Judgment will be heated and placed on the bodies of those who valued them in life.

It is then that one develops blinders to all social obligations as defined by society.

It is also then that some one throws in a tear gas canister which makes you cry because it says “what about the Khulooq of RasullAllah pbuh who tolerated everything with a smile and remained in Dhikr even in a market? And they say what about huqooq al ebad?

When you see the sands of time running through the hourglass and know that for you only a few grains are left do you look out for yourself or for your friends and relatives?

I am at this juncture and it is a lonely road ahead where one by one people from my past have abandoned me or I have left them because they are neither walking at my pace not walking in the same direction.

However loneliness does overtake me sometimes ………… as at one such moment I opened the Quran and proceeded with the tafsir lesson and here are the uplifting words of Allah Subhanawataala:

إِنَّ الَّذِينَ قَالُوا رَبُّنَا اللَّـهُ ثُمَّ اسْتَقَامُوا تَتَنَزَّلُ عَلَيْهِمُ الْمَلَائِكَةُ أَلَّا تَخَافُوا وَلَا تَحْزَنُوا وَأَبْشِرُوا بِالْجَنَّةِ الَّتِي كُنتُمْ تُوعَدُونَ ﴿٣٠﴾ نَحْنُ أَوْلِيَاؤُكُمْ فِي الْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا وَفِي الْآخِرَةِ ۖ وَلَكُمْ فِيهَا مَا تَشْتَهِي أَنفُسُكُمْ وَلَكُمْ فِيهَا مَا تَدَّعُونَ ﴿٣١﴾ نُزُلًا مِّنْ غَفُورٍ رَّحِيمٍ ﴿٣٢﴾

[41:30] Yusuf Ali

In the case of those who say, “Our Lord is Allah”, and, further, stand straight and steadfast, the angels descend on them (from time to time): “Fear ye not!” (they suggest), “Nor grieve! but receive the Glad Tidings of the Garden (of Bliss), the which ye were promised!

41:31] Yusuf Ali

“We are your protectors in this life and in the Hereafter: therein shall ye have all that your souls shall desire; therein shall ye have all that ye ask for!-

[41:32] Yusuf Ali

“A hospitable gift from one Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful!”

I can neither see them nor feel their wings but I pray that they (the angels) will descend on me and keep me company on the path of the seeker and assuage my moments of loneliness on the road and Allah will forgive me and pull me on the road to Him (Subhanawataala), with a beautiful final end.

Please pray for me!

*** Photo courtesy of: http://media.photobucket.com/image/PHOTO%20OF%20A%20LONELY%20PATH/Moshev/special%20pictures/special%20pictures%202/SadMan.jpg