Petal in the Wind

Its a beautiful experience to see the world, small yet expansive, as part of you as much as you are part of it.
To feel the life coursing in your veins reflected in the rivers and tributaries.
To feel the beating bleeding heart emit warmth as the core of the world revolves and revolves in itself.
To feel the air in your breath and your exhalation to be as the winds that whisper and the winds that howl.
To feel the debilitating effect of sickness as how pollution and environmental destruction destroys the world.
To feel the eternity of death for every creature that faces death and self-extinction.

I have no right to wrestle power for my own use, my own existence a mere reflection of power and desire, of life and knowledge, of the ability to hear, see and speak. I am a petal blowing in the wind, my whims a mere illusion that the wind is my own. All I can ever hope to be is the petal that brings pleasant smells, hopeful colours and a reminder of the wind and release. I am but a petal.

I am a poor reflection.

Morning

The seeds of despair are not to be dust. It settles on the soul and ferments it for growth. Despair born out of reflection, regret and resentment is fuel for the growth of the soul. The soul becomes bathed in tears, sweat and saliva. 

Tears bubble to the surface, as water spouts from the stone, under pressure awaiting release. Sweat perspired by sheer effort to resist the urge to sway away from the straight unerring path. Saliva drying up in the mouth, ever begging for assistance from only that which can give it.

The morning is always mistaken to be when the sun rises and light breaks the sky. No, the morning is in the pitch darkness that births dew on grass and shivers in the spine. The morning is born in the twilight only witnessed by stars and moon, between the two suns of sunrise and sunset. The morning emerges, greeted by only a few, yet it holds the grand entrance of the one that causes the sun and moon to tick-tock perfectly.

I seek the morning that 

is lived by few and embraced by even fewer. 

I seek the morning that 

comes with the breeze of solitude and silence.

I seek the morning that 

precedes the daybreak, like a gentle mother.

I seek the morning that 

holds promise for my meeting with Him.

Kiting the hurricane.

We see neither past the day nor night of our lives. 

We live in complete darkness (of ignorance) to our fates in the future. 

We hold neither the information nor the capability,

to effect the path that we take in the course of Time. 

We are pushed and pulled by forces we mistakenly believe

to be within our grasp.

We are kites in a hurricane.

The kite let loose, far from the string that bind it to the Owner, thrashes about in the storm of forces, seeing neither pattern nor control in its fate. It is thrown about relentless, the wind furious and unthinking of the fates of those that reside it in. In the end, the kite is broken, torn and becomes unrecognizable. It can no longer fly and falls to the ground, no longer what it was before.

The kite pulled in, close to the string that bind it to the Owner, is still left to the forces of the hurricane winds, but it is within control, it is within means of control, within safety. The kite is close to the Owner and the owner takes care of the kite, as the kite has sought to be taken care of. The wind throws it about, but the kite is safe. The kite's movements are restricted slightly, but it is well, far from the fury of the uncaring hurricane. It then returns to the Owner, intact and appreciated.

Which kite will you be, my dear Self?

Pie

The form of matter, determines its function. Water as ice provides coolness, and as steam it provides heat. The characteristic of the matter changes with it form, henceforth the function. Function is derived from characteristic that brings about utility and appropriateness. To derive heat out of ice, and coolness out of steam is a crazy thing to be. Yet, beneath the layers of form and functionality, the matter does not change in essence, only in the exterior.

Man, imbued with so much!
Knowledge, Emotion and Intuition.
Every man is but an amalgamation of the three.
Yet, we see millions, no, billions, seemingly unique snowflakes.
But we know, for a fact that all are one inside.
One that through three, becomes many.
Ah, such is beauty.

Water turns into ice when the environment turns cold, yet changes back to liquid when permitted. Water turns into steam when the environment turns hot, yet changes back to liquid when permitted.

Where do we stem, what is our native form? I believe that that is the question that seeks to bring peace in Man. We are ever-changing creatures, responding to stimuli and changing our forms to fit the function demanded. But when the function is done, and all is quiet, shouldn't the natural thing to happen is that we become that which is our native state? Yet, we see people scrambling to always remain in their forms when the function has changed, or forms that have become obsolete. Never resting. We have not found our centre!

Ah, what a pity, even the water has found its centre, and it has no mind of its own.

Knowledge, Emotion and Intuition.
Where do we place each of the three such that there is balance, in the centre...?

Light

Mirror, Mirror on the wall.

Show me the fairest of them all.

I stand in front of my mirror, and I look upon it, only to find it hard to see myself.

I stand in front of my mirror, suddenly aware of the lack of attention I have given.

I stand in front of my mirror, afraid and conscious that I cannot see myself again.

I stand in front of my mirror, saddened by my own neglect to clean this mirror.

I stand in front of my mirror, asking myself when and why it has come to this.

Unable to see.

This mirror of mine, my window to my own,

I have only myself to bear its condition,

I have only myself to blame for its condition.

Wanting to see.

This mirror of mine, slowly, let it be surely so.

If it must be iron that chisels you, I will do so.

Long past was the opportunity for soft cloth, 

Gentleness will avail nothing to clean this dirt.

I need strength. 

Give me strength.

I need hope.

Give me hope.

For I long to see my own.

Needs and wants

The hunger that infests my body is as naturally part of my body as the air I take in every breath. Yet, as we are not the air that gives us essential breath, neither are we the desires that our body hungers for.

Many a time, our hunger becomes the more than a sensation, it drives us to feed it, it overwhelms our being such that we become a tool for to sate it. That is when we have lost our being to the hunger, a great loss indeed.

We must be cognizant of where our hunger comes from, what it alludes to, and where it stands in the scheme of our being. Only then can we combat the invisible, the implicit and the natural.

This hunger comes from our basal animalistic desires, it comes from a place low and dark, gritty and primal.

It tells us to sate it, to fulfill each of its desires and to be intoxicated by its fulfilment. There is no end in sight.

Due to its lowly position, it has no place in beings ascribed to the highest of the high (At Tinn, verse 4). It's fulfilment is an illusion and a trap, and it's denial, although difficult and unnatural, is the path best taken with constancy.

May we be given strength to continually battle the hunger within us

Path

The rightly guided are like gems, they are hard to find, 

and hardly many have them in possession or knowledge.

I am grateful for all the experiences and opportunities that have taught me the many things I cherish within my heart and mind. I am grateful for the sight and vision granted to me that allows me to see the many facets of the experiences I have gone through, and to glean as lessons from them. I am grateful for the friends and family I have, that have supported me knowingly and unknowingly, through their words of encouragement, words of chastisement and words of advice. I am grateful for the strength and patience granted to me that allows me to withstand the unrelenting tides of temptation, winds of weakness and the storms of sorrow, so that I may rise each time, growing.

Ageing and the cup of bullshit.

So here I am, taking a module titled Human Ageing.

Ageing is a natural thing, it is as inherent as the death that we will meet. Yet, some people, especially politicians and scientists seem to perceive to be a disease of some sort. Yet, ironically they don't seem to understand that the ageing itself is not the problem. The problem lies in the state of the human mind and body upon ageing. 

"A car, no matter how well manufactured, if driven hard, and without care, will deteriorate into a lump of metal much quicker than a car that is well taken cared for and is maintained regularly."

In my opinion, the concern should not be the reality of ageing, but on living itself. It has been proven that our current lifestyles, saturated with fats, sugar and chemicals, our time squeezed with a lack of sleep and intense stressful schedules, is detrimental to our current and future well-being. It leads to poor physical, mental and emotional health. It leads to the early or aggravated onset of diseases such Alzheimer's and cancer, It leads to the impairment of our ability to not only enjoy life, but also be a functional unit of society.

Its a strange event, really. The whole scientific community knows for a fact that our diets and lifestyles are bad for us, yet, their concern is how to cure it. Its as if they have forgotten the phrase, "Prevention is better than cure." Its as if we have to somehow just live with the fact that we will get such and such diseases and hence the zealous desire to pursue research in their cures. Is it because the food industry has such a strong sway and say on our lifestyles that any form of scientific rebellion against it will be silenced by their lobbyist? Or, that the purpose of research is to make cures that can be sold for revenue and profits to the pharmaceutical companies that will eventually manufacture them? Tin-foil hat was on, I'm sorry.

My point is simply, man Science is really slow on this.

Politely

We are but our own doing.

We bear the burdens we wrought,
We hold the memories we lived,
we fear the consequences we chose,
we cherish the things we give value,
we loathe the things we allowed to value,
we think as we were taught,

For every reaction, there is an equal opposite reaction. True or false?

In my humble humane opinion, false. For love will give love, and hate will give hate. Even with love, hate can make love, and even with hate, love can make hate.

For the words of hate hurled at our being with the force of anger, or the words of love delivered at our being with the softness of peace, unbroken and unshaken should I stand, solely true to my own being and to continually refuse the violent waves nor the gentle flow to break and erode my own being.

I am what I make myself to be.

Weighing In

I speak for no one but my self;

that I am truly inadequate in my understanding, for one only learns and understands when he progresses from a state of ignorance to a state of enlightenment, the path of wisdom shown in Light.

I shake in the face of adversity,

I shake in the face of trials,

My will like a dandelion blowing in the wind, getting weaker and weaker and weak.

I have no words to express my anguish, only to seek redemption and to try, and try, again.

What are we but a being measured by our deeds, 

done in darkness or done in light, just a measure.

Abu Huraira reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, 

“Verily, Allah does not look at your appearance or wealth, but rather He looks at your hearts and actions.”

Source: Sahih Muslim 2564

Zombie

Weighted limbs hang from the weighted body that belies the weighted mind,

the mind, weighed by thoughts, thoughts propel action and is propelled by it.

I began the day a corpse, the light of day barely grazing the darkness of my soul,

my shell of a body, hampered by the broken mind, a result of the forgetful heart.

I took on the day, a corpse seeking redemption, wanting to bathe in light and life,

my heart trying to remember, seeking to remind itself of itself, until I finally did.

I look at the day, though the sky is dark and the night is nigh, now there is Light,

the heart is remembering, the mind is beautiful and the body is alas, full of Life.

We only wrong our own Souls, we really do, our actions the extension of its condition.

The Sins we wrought, only seeks to darken the darkened, and slip further into forgetting.

The Goodness we do, only seeks to lighten the enlightened, and be bathed ever in Light.

Oh how we forget, and Oh how we lose ourselves.

Yet, like the cold muscles at the start of day, we stretch and stretch and find ourselves nimble.

As is the Heart, it started out dark, oh so dark, and we kept searching for light, sought and found.

Alhamdulillah.

You are the One I seek, in moments of darkness as I scramble in disbelief and terror,

You are the Light that shines the way, bringing me back to Your path, and only You.

And I submit. There is no confession worthy of confessing for You reside in my hearing, my hearing, my speech, and I am a given to You but not to my self, oh how I am still so lost and blind to myself.

There is Hope.