Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim - In the Name of Allah, The Most Beneficent, The Most Merciful!!
In this world, it is part of every human being's nature to wish for success in whatever he or she endeavors. Therefore there is a need to have a goal first, and then strive to attain it, so that we are successful.
So what is our true goal?
After understanding that there is only one true God and that He would never leave us without clear guiding principles by which to live our lives; we would be in a better position to understand what exactly that goal is.
When we look into the guiding principles that God has set for us, and when we find that we are doing ok when it comes to the basics, like performing our prayers and other acts of worship that are mandatory, but at the same time when we feel like something is missing from our lives, and that we want to progress towards getting closer to God, then what should we do?
We turn to the Qur'an and look for the next step to attain true success...
Four checks are clearly mentioned in sure mu'minoon to ensure success. These four are:
Khushoo in Salaat
Turning away from Laghw
Making sure to perform Zakaat
Protecting ones private parts
If we actively check these four in our daily lives and strive to attain them, success in these goals will then lead us to true success in our lives.
We then turn to ahadith of our Masumeen and find other goals which complement these 4, such as ethics and morals, sincerity and being good to others...
Imam Ali (AS) has sain in Nahjul Balagha, "Admonish your brother (in faith) by
exhibiting kindness towards him."
Zuhair's View
We can attain true success by striving for the goals set for us clearly in the Qur'an and ahadith.
Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim – In the Name of Allah(S.W.T.) the most Beneficent, the most Merciful
Once Again, I would like to state that I am neither a very learned scholar nor do I claim that all my views are 100% correct. The purpose of presenting my views is thus for me and the other readers to be guided by debating, commenting or pondering on the topics and not by just reading them.
The human brain is complicated; the best way I can think of explaining its complexity is through this paradoxical quote; “If the brain were so simple we could understand, we would be so simple we couldn't.” by Lyall Watson: http://www.quotedb.com/quotes/197
Many people have tried studying the way people think and the way they act under different circumstances. But most of the times the result is more of a generalization, and we would easily be able to find exceptions to their theories when looking at the general public.
The picture on the right is a single neuron in the nervous system, I copied it from http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/human_brain/, the site also contains very interesting information on the human brain...
I was thinking about my statement in an earlier post regarding the amount of logic the public has gained in today’s world… I wonder sometimes, how do we manage to have this amount of logic, and yet do some of the things we end up doing??
How can anybody with the slightest bit of logic go and kill a group of people for no VALID reason???
Why do we make life so complicated for ourselves? What do we gain from these things? do they really help us? what happens if I die while doing something illogical? What impact will it have on others? what impact will it have on me after death?
Lets come back to purpose of creation… Think hard; it’s really simple... do everything for one reason, one goal, one objective… Once you achieve that understanding within your life, you will find that those complications we have given ourselves don’t really matter all that much… They don’t really give us an important addition to achieving that goal…
I know so many people who smoke, but I am sure if I ask any one of them if they think smoking is good for them, every single one of them will say they know its bad, but they still do it!!
Where is this logic of ours??
What about Drugs? Murder? Lies? All the evil deeds that I would prefer not to even mention on this blog?? Yet the people who commit any of these acts, most of them have a similar brain, they have basic logic... its just that they choose not to follow it!
Even something like war... many times we find that a war could have been avoided in the past if somebody used logic to dictate his actions instead of acting on a whim! What is wrong with the people who do not see what is plain? do they think that thinking is only for leaders? or only for specialists? don't they understand that thinking is for every single human on this planet??
I heard this parable which describes our lives as being shut within a box, which we ourselves have created placing all the things we desire within the box, so that we don't need to see everything outside, because reality is painful at times...
If there are people in this world who realize that when someone saves your life then every single moment that has been granted to you after that is only because that person saved your life and thus they dedicate their lives completely to serve that person, why don’t we understand; why don’t we realize that every moment we live in this universe is only by the will of Allah; even the person who may have saved a life only did so due to Allah's plan... He has given us this time; without His decree which gives us life, we would not be alive and thus we need to use our lives to serve Him only!
Man has the ability to THINK, and if he uses this ability, he will come to some conclusions in life... In today's world, many have achieved this much... The problem lies in acting upon these conclusions! For example; I know God exists and that I should try to do what He deserves, but many times I find myself doing something without the intention that this is for Allah!
Logic dictates the following of a goal which makes sense and making sure all you do is for the purpose to achieve that goal... But human desire leads us away from sticking to this logic... what we need to do is to try to make sure that we only follow our desires to the extent that we are still achieving the goal... And if we manage to follow our logic we will even find that our desires begin to bend toward achieving the goal!
Thus Zuhair’s view: Many have still the need to follow what basic logic dictates!!
Please feel free to argue against this, or if you feel you know something that would be beneficial and is not present please do write a comment... InshaAllah Allah will guide us all to the right path!
