Have you ever distract yourself with a movie, guilty pleasure food or impulsive getaway trip?
That. was. my. expertise. There was this one night when I was overwhelmed with med school first year work load that on the spur of the moment I recklessly joined my friends for a night city tour and midnight movie. I was enjoying the company, the laughters, the meal when..
Out of blue, there was a rush of.. emptiness. I remember this bizarre moment when I felt as if my soul had suddenly detached from my physical body that was seated among my mates in a 24-hours-fast-food-diner. As the chatters and laughters roared, I stay afloat in a trance.
One of my friend noticed my abrupt change to frown that she agreed immediately to call it a day.
I remember that night I was just.. hollow. Weirdly enough, I couldn't cry. I couldn't even tell what I was feeling.
Praises be to Allah, who had granted my heart void that particular night. Later in life I learned that all this time, I'd work very hard to cut myself off from my heart and the natural feelings found there. The pursuit of happiness through worldly things provided me instant gratification such when the happy hormones had ceased, I was left with.. emptiness.
I had been circulating this cycle until that night, Allah saved me. I began to understand that this is the same mechanism of people who drinks their problems away.
When someone commits a crime, he or she does so against the heart, against the soul, which then affects the whole human being. One enters a state of spiritual agitation and often tries to cover up this agitation.
The problems we see in our society come down to covering something. The agents of this cover include alcohol, drugs, sexual experimentation and deviance, power grabs, wealth, arrogance, and pursuit of fame, just to name a few.
These help people submerge themselves into a state of heedlessness concerning their essential nature. People work very hard to cut themselves off from their hearts and natural feelings found there. The pressures to do this are very strong in our modern culture.
(Syeikh Hamza Yusuf in Purification of the Heart pg. 5)
MashaAllah.
That night, Allah gave me a sign through a simple flick. I had been violating my own soul and attempted to cure it with wrong medications.
Ironic isn't it? The fact that I call myself a medical student, who studies diseases attacking the body but never realising that the heart too, can be afflicted.. who studies merely the remedies of physical sickness, leaving out the ailments of the heart.
The heart is an organ designed to be in a state of calm, which is achieved with the remembrance of God: Most surely, in the remembrance of God do hearts find calm (Quran, 13:28).
This calm is what the heart seeks out and gravitates to. It yearns always to remember God the Exalted. But when God is not remembered, when human beings forget God, then the heart falls into a state of agitation and turmoil. In this state it becomes vulnerable to diseases because it is undernourished and exposed.
Cells require oxygen, so we breathe. If we stop breathing, cells die, and then we die. The heart also needs to breathe, and the breath of the heart is none other than the remembrance of God and what this entails. The very purpose of revelation and of scripture is to remind us again and for the final time that our hearts need to be nourished.
(Syeikh Hamza Yusuf in Purification of the Heart pg. 6)
I cried. I had been suffocating my heart all along. Astaghfirullah..
What about you? Is there any moment in life when you feel empty? If so, alhamdulillah!
Hurry up and answer the call, for it is a sign of Allah embracing you. Narrated by al-Bukhaari (6980) and Muslim (1499); Muslim narrated an extra phrase: “There is no one who is more jealous than Allah.”
Let's run towards Him... and fill our hollow space of heart..
-h.a.
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p.s. I hope this simple reflection benefits whoever reading this. If you know someone who might benefit from this writing, feel free to share.
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