Thursday, October 09, 2008

Kicking, Pushing & Coasting


I would like to thank my kind and attentive readers for the generous comments. Although I do not express my thoughts as often as I should (due to a mix of being busy and lazy), I would like to affirm my new found desire to be consistent....hahhahahhaa, well, I'll try.

As you all know, I discuss lessons that most or all people experience, but I like to examine them within the wee hours of the night - the portion of the 24 hour period where the mind wonders to distant realms of the subconscious.

This past year, the one question that has nagged on me is, "how does one succeed? Is success a byproduct of persistent hard work? Is it fate (luck, chance, etc.), is it both?"

Allow me to explain a scenario:

An individual who desires a particular degree of success will receive it. It does not matter if they plead with God, because a plea for success isn't necessarily a conscience "thought out" request. A desire, a deep pensive want in moments of self reflection could be your plea with the most-High (all praises due) I could be wrong, but I BELIEVE you don't need to be consciously asking the All Knowing for him to hear your wants.

So it is essentially a matter of energy, a matter of passion and desire for success. I genuinely believe that is the fundamental core.

However, there are variables that define how you succeed, and the sustainability of your success (great, now I sound like a politician).

in order to define your success and it's sustainability, I propose the question, "why do you want to succeed?" Regardless of your religion or principles, what reward do you seek, is it a) sense of satisfaction; b) money; c) a pure afterlife; d) humanitarian (selfless)?

I would assume that most good people would say all of the above and if you look into it, 2 parts are worldly (a & b), and 2 parts are heavenly (c & d).

a heavenly inclination might grant you a type of success that isn't necessarily visible to the secular eye as "true success" , but to s/he who is God-centred, it would be obvious that they are of the most successful individuals.

If someone is inclined to more worldly intensions, their success would appear as true and genuine success. Neither are necessarily bad, but evil may not be something you actively avoid when you take the worldly into higher consideration. The heavenly would obviously be tempted by the fruits of Lucifer, but would take active steps to ensure s/he is free of it.

Let's try to pull this all of this in together... we have:
a) a passion, a want, a desire for something (for me, it is to spread Islam not by word, but by subtle action and the revolution of thought)
b) It will be served to me, God willing, so as long as I really want it
c) I need to be presistent in reaching it, willing to bare the difficulties affiliated with it (i.e. self-reformation & refinement, backlash, and many many MANY more difficulties)
d) Adjusting my approach and intensions to insure they heavily incline towards the heavenly (they're obviously allowed to be worldly, but that can never outweigh the heavenly, and if they do, go back to step [c])
e) follow through and fly with what was served to you. Be thankful and humble, never failing to acknowledge the fruits of success which have rippened before you.

If I have said anything wrong, May I be forgiven and corrected.

God Speed.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

A great post Hassan, Success comes from within, it doesn't matter how much you ask the Divine for what you want, but if you don't take a step towards what you want, then you will remain in the same state you started with never moving forward. To seek the Divine's assisstance thru you is the concept. It's like a man praying for wealth, but you find him sitting at the mosque or at home 24/7 raising his arms in prayers, its not like wealth comes to your door, he needs to get up and search for a job, etc... The Prophet (pbuh) has said "A person should divide his day into 4 parts: Relationship with the Divine, Relationship with Family (spouse, children, extended family), Earning an income, and Enjoying hobbies/activities. The key to this is balance, and not wasting time. If humanity can learn the fundamental concept of balance and apply it to their life, it would rid the society of so many imperfections.

Anonymous said...

Thank you my friend :)

I couldn't have said it better myself :)

btw, who is this? lol