Strand that binds us together

Compassion is just flying without wings. It builds our inner world and the visible world. It is what it takes to accomplish something. It isn’t rage or war or cowardice that drove us, it has always been the derivatives of compassion that accomplished something. Compassion is a living force, when it takes hold of us it runs in our veins and sparks in our neurons, firing up our reservoir of infinite energy, taking us to the valleys of love, conquering our fears and opening up ways that we never could have imagined. We see world as a broken place and humans as tragic beings who are at once in the middle of rights and wrongs, who are cornered by the very ideal of duality within themselves. Rage might bring somebody to task, it might inspire somebody to greatness, but rage is not the conclusion of this conflict. We don’t see villains as heroes, it is always the ideals of compassion that inspire somebody above all else. The synthesis of duality must be the conclusion of this conflict which is abound in the depths of compassion.

Life is a choice we make and the foundations of those choices must be set on what the grandeur of compassion teaches us. We must love ourselves and love those around us no matter what.  They are the travelers of the same journey as we are, they have been or they will be across the same paths we treaded.  Be gentle and kind to everybody. Life can be a bed of roses if we choose to provide one in our grasp. Let us make use of what we have and don’t bother about what we don’t. Live in the moment and deliver what we have been here for. Search within ourselves and believe that we are not alone, we are here and we have a purpose, might it be grand or small it is something we were created for. Practice sentience, practice compassion.

We wouldn’t have to survive, if we make others fit. We are knitted together with a strand of humanity. If a single strand fails, nobody survives. This is the idea of all-encompassing compassion that we need to live our lives by.  We have to give not take, we have to be courageous enough to let go and not hold on to our grudges, we have to promote love and not rage. The doctrine of compassion does not differentiate between high and  low,  rich and poor,  white and black,  man and woman, elder and younger, it is not something geographical or something otherworldly, it is now and  here in all of our hearts.  Brains think but it is the hearts that see and hear. When love engulfs our being and we experience fearlessness, that is when we are truly free, the most pure form of bliss, we can ever imagine. These words might sound theoretical or utopian, but it is my faith that these are true and what else have we got besides faith to believe in. I don’t believe that one divided by zero is equal to infinity. 🙂

Beauty of love is in freedom

Love cannot be a duty, because it is not subject to will. It is a gift from heaven, the best that heaven has to bestow. Those who shut it up in a cage destroy the beauty and joy which it can only display while it free and spontaneous. Here, again, fear is the enemy. He who fears to lose what makes the happiness of his life has already lost it. In this, as in other things, fearlessness is the essence of wisdom.

~ Bertrand Russell, On Education

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Misfits!

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The juniper in the garden is free as well as chained to the soil

You should acquire freedom within these constraints!

Phool, Bang-edra, Iqbal

Society has its own ways we are taught. Bold and the beautiful are always admired, every society yearns for those who are the prodigy of its social consciousness. For us these are the engineers, doctors and business men. The high achievers, high salaried people who are seen as the pinnacle of our society. If you are among them it is good and your every thought, your every activity is admired. As long as you stick to this it is fine, as soon as you start deviating, those who were with you will be looking with disgust at you. Those who were your buddies will go away, your parents, your relatives will disown you. Why? Because you are a misfit, you are someone who said I am going to discover life on my own.

Society is judged by the way it treats the misfits. If you are asking to quit your profession and start up a business you are a misfit, if you want to marry according to your own wishes you are a misfit, even if you want to marry before your elder sibling you are a misfit. In some circles, even if you are having a beard you are a misfit, you are wearing a hijab you are a misfit. If you are opting to study according to your desires you are a misfit. In my experience, I have heard stories about people from all these misfits. If you desire to have a simple wedding you are a misfit, if you are not going to demand dowry from in-laws you are a misfit. The list goes on and on and on . . . . .

Freedom and patience is needed in every society i believe. We have to play an enabling role. We have to altruistically love everyone. We have to stop judging. We have to make this society free from all such dogmas and traditions and chains that it is imposing. People’s lives are involved, families are involved but we in our own ego, fail to see all this. We have to revamp our behaviors and our attitudes for those who think otherwise. Because it will be an oppression of the highest order. This freedom is needed for an individual to think freely about all the possibilities that his potential self can achieve. This freedom is not haphazard, it is not crazy but an organized thoughtful quest of living one’s own life. Our society must be supportive of this freedom. Instead of making misfits, psychos, we have to make humans human.

When, therefore, it is said that the interests of Islam are superior to those of the Muslim, it is meant that the interests of the individual as a unit are subordinate to the interests of the community as an eternal symbol of the Islamic principle. This is the only principle which limits the liberty of the individual, who is otherwise absolutely free. The best form of Government for such a community would be democracy, the ideal of which is to let man develop all the possibilities of his nature by allowing him as much freedom as practicable.

Iqbal in Islam as Moral and Political Ideal, 1909

Conviction of love

Love is the Space and the Creation, Love is Time and Earth!
Love is conviction entire, and conviction is the key!

The luxury of destination is forbidden in the religion of Love;
Fighting the storms is permitted, but the comfort of the shore is forbidden;

Iqbal

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Love Conquers the world (محبت فاتح عالم)

I thought of contemporary love as a feeling of deception that you have for somebody, enslaving you to inferior desires. It was not until I read عشق کے پانچ درجے by Khurram Ali Shafique and discovered Iqbal through his Marghdeen. This change introduced me to that powerful love through which beloved says بتا تیری رضا کیا ہے (What is your wish?).

My original thought was a reflection of the society, a society having boys and girls eager to talk to each other, spending sleepless nights on phone and offering useless gossip about girls/boys in gatherings. It is an ignorant world view to which youth is forced to believe in; this world view of lust, promulgated by media. It is nothing but a means of profiteering from the masses.

Love is much more powerful than all this, it is that curiosity for an infant to take the first steps; it is in those sleepless nights of mother taking care of her child; it is in those scholars who persevere to preach goodness; it is in those martyrs who stand for their countrymen. It is this love  in the universe that holds it all together.

Love is quite a real phenomenon. It exists physically. It is tangible and can be felt and sensed. It can be experienced and then held. It is supreme power of love is that constitutes ‘humanity’ today. It is the foundation of human existence: ‘He placed between you affection and mercy’.

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