Day two of Spiritual Enlightenment

Just as I had predicted the previous day I knew this awakened sense of self would not last long, and certainly it did dissipate by the end of the evening just as the heat dissipates from a cup of tea. Although one thing did strike me as peculiar, this dissipation was not instantaneous nor did it fall to dangerous levels. By the end of the day I wasn't too far from where I had started. My spiritual enlightenment had by the turn of the day still remained constant.


And again as I awoke today, just as every other day, I felt lazy, comatose and out of it. By mid-day while I lay on my sofa half awake-half asleep, I knew that I needed some kind of miracle or even a pill to make me conscious. After ordering my younger brother to fetch me a mug of coffee I immediately felt the caffeine kick in, but many times before coffee was not always reliable but today I invoked my lord. Immediately, I felt like superman - man of steels. I quickly got my act together and began doing what needed to be done.


While I was going about my day God reached out to me and sent me a message. Though it was unorthodox, occurring while I was boarding the 147 bus taking me home, a woman began speaking to me about those 'gypsie' ladies who don a scarf over their head and pull out a baby in a pram like a bait to a fish. She remarks "These women, calling me a 'sister' they can't even say Salam Alaykum properly, I know their not even Muslims and when I told them that they gave me a funny look". She went on to talk about her frustration as a hard-working mother and then to be insulted by these women who cheat off people's hard-earned money and pay nothing back. She went on about more 'fraudulent' stories and then she said something, something I found quite unpalatable to digest. She pointed out "all these things, evading tax, falsely claiming benefits, cheating, committing fraud... it's all Haraam [forbidden]". It was not the content of what she was saying that shook me rather that some of the things that she was talking about were things that I was in fact committing. 


Growing up as an East Londoner, you don't quite really think much about these small acts of 'cheating' - even using the word scares us because what we do doesn't sound or even look like 'cheating'. For example downloading pirated content from the net, one would find all sorts of reasons to justify this action but the bottom line is it's illegal, it's fraud! Reluctantly, I began to see more and more of the things that I do that God wouldn't be pleased with and this is what initiated my phase two of spiritual awakening and enlightenment. I could feel God trying to teach me something, trying to evoke emotions within me - conflicting, perturbing the heart. My heart felt restless, I could feel the weight of all the things that I had done wrong. All these feelings intermixed sought me closer to my Lord. My late-afternoon prayer felt like all my energy had been depleted, I was focussing on every letter that I was reciting, every movement that I making. It felt something almost like after an intensive revision session or intellectual exertion, it was then that I knew that this prayer was like no other that I had prayed. After closing my prayers, I felt a sense of serenity overcome me and all the worries of the world has wondered away. The dark cloud of uncertainty had vanished and the constant whispers of failure had subsided. I was at peace with myself.

A sweeping soundness of my heart has enchanted me

At this very moment in time I feel so pure, so tranquil and a soundness in my heart. Everything around me feels unimportant, the people around me are invisible - I am in my own world, basking in the sweetness of spirituality that has enshrouded me. Yet I know that this feeling, notion, belief can not last long but I know that it's good for me, I feel easy, nothing is impossible - I feel like I can take on the world. I now understand why the true Sufi's (spiritual people concerned with the purification of the heart) spend their whole life in search of this tranquillity. Personally, I think this state of self should be used for good and be implementable in our lives so that we become of benefit to our selves, our families and the wider society.


I was contemplating whether or not to post such an entry but then I thought it won't be long before I revert to my old self so I better post this to remind myself that this utopian tranquil heart does exist, it just needs the right moment, the right mindset and the will power to harness its energy.


I am desperately trying to disseminate how this feeling came about. Key to this development is waking up early. This morning I woke up at 4am, I prayed my early pre-dawn prayer and later I decided to do something I had been meaning to do but never got round to actually doing, making excuses to myself so often that I had forced my brain to legitimise them as reason: I began to memorise some verses of the Qur'an. Though I was dreading the difficulty of this task, suddenly it felt so easy, I felt good, I wasn't getting tired at all - in fact I was relishing it all. I realised that this had a huge impact in the development for the soundness of my heart because it was something difficult to do, something honourable in the Sight of God. 


My second leg of the morning involved motivating my little brother, after properly waking him up at 7am, I advised him on time, on excellence on being successful, as always I had transitioned his sleepy head into a motivated mind. He raised up to the challenge (quite literally he tilted his head forward and sat up) and I was more than happy to support him. On my journey to uni, I opened my mobile Qur'an and listened to Shaykh Shatri recite and followed along with him, it was quite an extraordinary journey to uni, one in that it seemed extremely quick and two in that I had not actually 'seen' a single person, my eyes were pretty much closed and my gaze lowered throughout the journey.


Finally, last night, I spoke to a friend of mine and I think they gave some really good advice, and this is the final key to tranquillity -  that the day before is also full of goodness, motivation and success. 


In all earnestly, I do truly relish this state of self, it is deep and many people will not be able to handle what I am  saying (and some times I won't either) but here I am telling myself it is true, for once in a long time I feel 'happy', I feel at one with myself, I feel that all things are good in the world. Thank you more please.