Quest for life

Rule no. 10: The midwife knows that when there is no pain, the way for the baby cannot be opened and the mother cannot give birth. Likewise, for a new self to be born, hardship is necessary. Just as clay needs to go through intense heat to become strong, love can only be perfected in pain. "Love can only be perfected in pain". Can it be expressed in more beautiful words? Yes, I feel that love can only be perfected in pain because love is transformation. Transformation of the ego, perspectives, beliefs, relationships, goals and life itself. And, a change is always painful. Why is change or transformation or love painful? Old is known. They say it's better to have a known devil than an unknown angel. People do not want to leave their comfort zone, no matter how stagnant, rotten or uncomfortable it feels. Known things can be controlled easily. The mind doesn't let go of the imaginary control that one feels in the present circumstances, conditions and situations. Re

Rule 16:Real faith is the one inside. The rest simply washes off. There is only one type of dirt that cannot be cleansed with pure water, and that is the stain of hatred and bigotry contaminating the soul. You can purify your body through abstinence and fasting, but only love will purify your heart. What is real faith? Before my father died I thought real faith is believing in something that you trust with all your faculties. Believing that,  come what may, something that you have hoped for, will come true. Alas! Was I naive! I believed that my father will survive. I had so much faith in my own belief that I didn't even realise the gravity of his illness till the time doctor told me to call everyone as his condition is grave. And before I realised he was gone. It was a shock. I accepted his death calmly but it took some introspection and conviction to do so.  Life is slowly coming back to normal and it is only now that I am questioning faith. There was another fam

Rule no.7: Whatever happens in your life, no matter how troubling things might seem, do not enter the neighbourhood of despair. Even when all doors remain closed, God will open up a new path only for you. Be thankful! It is easy to be thankful when all is well. A Sufi is thankful not only for what he has been given but also for all that he has been denied. There have been times in my life when I felt despair. At one point of time, I was jobless, had a huge loan to repay, got my leg operated and was dreading that limping may become a permanent fixture of my walk. I tried my level best to be in good spirits, to find ways to keep myself engaged and to feel hopeful about future but at one point of time I couldn't keep myself motivated enough to remain happy and felt desperation and dejection. I can say from my own experience that if these emotions set in, the downward spiral is fast and bottomless. Luckily for me, it didn't last for long as I and my family and friends we

Rule no: 8: Patience does not mean to passively endure. It means to look at the end of a process. What does patience mean? It means to look at the thorn and see the rose, to look at the night and see the dawn. Impatience means to be short-sighted as to not be able to see the outcome. The lovers of God never run out of patience, for they know that time is needed for the crescent moon to become full. Someone recently told me that patience is the sign of maturity. "Oh my God, I am not mature at all" was the first thought that came to mind. The shock of it left quite an impact on me as I never thought of patience as sign of maturity. It always came to me as something related with calmness and also tolerance but patience as a sign of maturity …. Give me a break! However, after my initial unwillingness to accept patience as a sign of maturity, it really dawned on me that my friend is right. What else can be a sign of maturity if not patience. An ability to deal with problems,

Rule no.11: The quest for love changes us. There is no seeker among those who search for love who has not matured on the way. The moment you start looking for love, you start to change within and without. It is very clear that a person requires love to experience life to the fullest and so Shamz asks you to look for love. However, why has Shamz urged people for embarking on a journey to find love outside? The question is; can anyone find love without first having it inside him/her to give it to the world. To me, if you do not have love inside you then you can't find it outside.  Here I mean to say two things; First is that love is an inherent feeling. You can feel unloved even when you are getting all the love in the world just because you have created barriers mental and emotional. The famous Persian poet and philosopher Rumi said, "Your task is not to seek love but merely to seek and find barriers within yourself that you have built against it". Let me expl

Rule 6: Loneliness and solitude are two different things. When you are lonely, it is easy to delude yourself into believing that you are on the right path. Solitude is better for us, as it means being alone without feeling lonely. But eventually it is best to find a person who will be your mirror. Remember only in another person’s heart can you truly see yourself and the presence of God within you. There was a time when I hated to be alone. To a person who loves to be surrounded by friends, it was as if loneliness was a punishment. Acting as an agony aunt and giving a patient hearing to someone in need which is one part of me that I enjoy. I am such a chatterbox that I always desired company. So, whenever I was alone, I missed company and felt that I was cursed to be lonely. However, slowly I started enjoying my own company. I realised that I enjoyed doing my own things. I love not being answerable to anyone for my own actions. I get time to reflect upon myself and my strength

Rule 5: Most of problems of the world stem from linguistic mistakes and simple misunderstanding. Don’t ever take words at face value. When you step into the zone of love, language, as we know it becomes obsolete. That which cannot be put into words can only be grasped through silence. As per French born painter, sculptor and writer Marcel Duchamp “As soon as we start putting our thoughts into words and sentences everything gets distorted, language is just no damn good. The question comes up, “is language an adequate mean of communication". Language as a tool to communicate is insufficient when it comes to expressing intense emotions. It doesn't express how a person feels or sees the world. For eg. one cannot interpret love however hard one tries or one can't explain the feeling of elation one gets from listening to music. The degree of happiness, the depth and the understanding of each person varies and categorising everyone's experience into limited vocabula