Thinker's Retreat

[Bengal_Tiger]

Poems and Aphorisms 5

People

People are like books
Don’t judge a book by its cover
Want to know someone?
Talk to them
Conversation is like reading.


Australian anthem

O Anglo-Saxon
Questioning from where my parents hail
Your ancestors too from some land did sail
Stolen generation
Refugee detention
Aborigines then Asians now Muslims – same old White Nation
Aussie made we are!
(except for Chinese imports and American government manipulation)
True blue we stand united!
(except for the browns, blacks, and yellows that can’t be liquid-paper whitened)
Today we’re strangers, tomorrow we’ll be neighbours
Say G’day, lend a hand,
Do each other favours—
Celebrate the blessings
That the colourless God gave us


Roundabout

Round and round
Grinding circles of fate
Not sure how to exit
This roundabout

Round and round
Magnetic wheel of hate
Don’t know where to exit
This roundabout

Never learn from past experiences
Signs pointing which way to take
Missed many exits
In this roundabout

What it took was a crash
For me to exit
This roundabout

http://thinkers--retreat.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/poems-and-aphorisms-5.html

[DaZahroJaam.]

[Bengal_Tiger]

Poems and Aphorisms 6


Baggage

Want to feel light?
Lose your mental baggage


Family

Friends come and go
But family remains forever
If there's one thing you should know
Family ties you should not sever

Friends you choose
But family chooses you
Friendships you can lose
But not family with whom you grew

Weddings and birthdays
Anniversaries and graduations
Hooray for the drinks and food trays!
At family celebrations

In good times and bad
No matter where you live
When happy or sad
You can call a relative


Life

Life
Sometimes smooth
Sometimes rough
You can run and lose
Or stay and play tough

Life
Some days you're on top
Some days cut like a knife
Don't let that make you stop
Continue to fight

Life
Sleep content
Wake up alive
Leave regret
Continue to strive

Life
Always just
Always fair
Act with full trust
In God's care

Life
A classroom
The ultimate learning space
You can't learn too soon
That to fall and repent is no disgrace

Life
Fall or rise?
It's your call
Don't just survive
Give it your all!

http://thinkers--retreat.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/poems-and-aphorisms-6.html

[Bengal_Tiger]

“Umm ad-Dunya” and the young Egyptians


Greetings from “Umm ad-Dunya” (Mother of the World) otherwise known as Cairo.

I’ve been thinking recently about why this title was given to this city. One has to live here to understand why. Specifically, one has to be around the Egyptian people, especially the children. I’ll clarify what I mean by this by prefacing the clarification with a note on the Islamic concept of the terms “child” and “adult.”

One of the points raised in the SeekersHub course I’m partaking in called “Becoming a Man” has been the fact that in Islamic law there is no concept of adolescence. Rather, one is either a child or an adult. One makes the transition from childhood to adulthood on displaying one of the signs of puberty.* After this point whatever is obligatory for Muslims to perform becomes obligatory for one.**

I feel that in Egypt one can see this part of the law extend to culture. The Egyptian children really do become adults at around the age of puberty. I speak not of the children raised in a “Western” way with a television, laptop, and no responsibilities. It is the youngsters you see working on their parent’s fruit stall on the side of the street at night. It is the mere seventeen-year-old driving a “microbus” (a 12 seater van used for transporting people around the city) while handling cash from the customers seated behind him, calculating the change, and at the same time being aware of where he is going and avoiding a crash on the laneless streets of Cairo. It is in the way of speaking of a child who has never been to school with the confidence and purpose of an adult. This child has grown up living in a makeshift hut (there are several of these huts in the suburbs of Cairo) on the side of the road, and learnt very early on that to eat he or she must work.

The point these examples are meant to make is that the children and teenagers here are much more advanced than their Western counterparts in terms of socialising and responsibility. For example, on the microbuses and Metro (Cairo’s rail system) I’ve seen many a youngster keep up with someone twice or three times their age in exchanging clever sentences.

This advanced ability in socialising and responsibility I feel is one part of Cairo being the “Mother of the World.”

I love and admire the young adults of Egypt. Here’s a poem to celebrate them:

Never stepped foot in a flashy mall
Too busy working late at your daddy’s fruit stall
Never clicked a button on a mouse
The only mice you know are the ones that eat your food
You don’t complain when they do
Because they’re part of your family too
Never shy to say what’s on your mind
A few wrinkles starting to show after another day’s grind
Never bathed two months in a row
Never felt hot water flow
But there’s a spark in your eyes
And in your smile a glow
You’re a hero in my eyes
Living it real, on the streets of Cairo

*According to the Hanafi school of jurisprudence, if one does not display one of the signs of puberty then one is considered an adult at the age of 18.

**Importantly, this also means that learning how to perform whatever is obligatory for one to perform is also obligatory – this is known as “Fard ‘ayn” knowledge.

http://thinkers--retreat.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/umm-ad-dunya-and-young-egyptians.html

[Bengal_Tiger]

Poems and Aphorisms 7


Suffering

There's never enough pain for a gain


Four Seasons

On wintery days
Full of grey
Thoughts flow
Tis time to reflect

On summer days
Full of light
Energy flows
Tis time to act

In between,
Autumn leaves fall
Tis time to ponder

In springtime blooms
Full of scent
Tis time to invest



Word Games 3

Being alone can be a blessing
In times of heedlessness
When stressing
About the fortuneless
When caressing
One's neediness
With fingers of sorrow
Why dream of tomorrow
When it might not follow
Today
Make way
For death, come lay
In the ground
Don't make a sound
Just accept
What's around

http://thinkers--retreat.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/poems-and-aphorisms-7.html

[Bengal_Tiger]

Death

Introduction

Death is something that contemporary Western society rarely reflects on. We see on the news every night that such number of people died in a car crash or that some celebrity died of a heart attack. Then the news switches to the weather. Life goes on. In my opinion people we who are alive should reflect on death. My reflections on death follow.

Death and Meaning of Life

Perhaps one reason why death is rarely mentioned today is because many feel it makes life meaningless. In his book, The Road Less Travelled and Beyond, Dr Scott Peck makes the point that rather than take away meaning death gives meaning to life. Death does this because it puts a limit to life; we can’t live forever. Anyone who contemplates death will sooner or later ask himself or herself the questions “What is the meaning of life?” and “What am I to do while on this Earth?” The answer to these questions will be different for different people, but a common thread in the answers will surely be the attempt to make some meaning out of this limited life.

Death and Motivation

Apart from finding the purpose of one’s life, the thought of death leads to a second development: it drives people to act. This is because, as Dr Peck observed in his work as a therapist, that people act when given a deadline. Death is the most important of all deadlines that we have. However, unlike other deadlines like the end of the month to renew one’s driver’s license or the end of the week to hand in one’s dissertation, the deadline of death is unknown. As God says in the Holy Qur’an: “No self knows what it will earn tomorrow and no self knows in what land it will die.” (31:33-34). There is wisdom in God not telling us the exact time and place of our death. One such wisdom is that we would live each day as if it were our last, or as the saying goes “live life to the max.”

Many inspiring stories exist of people who have a short time to live. Such stories illustrate the fact that people decide to live life to the full because they know roughly how long they have left to live. What occurs in these stories is amazing spiritual growth, which includes repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Learning about death, then, is therapeutic: coming to terms with your end enables you to become the person you have always wanted to be.

It would be true to say that as soon as we are born we are dying. Whether death comes a decade or three decades or six decades or nine decades later, we are all people who are, in the general sense of the word, dying. However, we rarely live in a way that reflects this fact. In our youth, and even middle age, we live as though we’ll live forever. Then, at some point around the age of sixty, our bodies change dramatically and we start thinking about the inevitable. It is then that some of us begin to live fuller lives. Why start at sixty? We can start living fuller lives and experience repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation in our twenties or thirties.

Dying Throughout Life

The Ancient Roman philosopher Seneca (d. 65 AD) is quoted as saying: “Throughout the whole of life, one must continue to learn how to live, and what will amaze you even more, throughout life one must learn to die.” While many a saint in many a religion has talked about dying before one’s death (and their words are available on the internet) let me think out aloud my own interpretation of Seneca’s words (this is a thinker’s retreat after all!). I interpret dying throughout life as dying to worldliness. That is, one loses all desire for “worldly” things, things that are tangible like wealth and possessions, but also things that are intangible like fame, position, praise, and glory. Throughout adulthood we encounter situations in which we can develop an attachment to these things. Such situations are tests, and they will keep coming throughout one’s life, even on one’s death bed. The challenge is to keep resisting worldliness, to keep dying. And by dying constantly throughout life, by the time one’s biological death comes, our spiritual selves will be able to soar above the pain of separation with this world and instead experience contentment and even a sense of joy.

The work of dying throughout life must be done alone. There is a saying that goes “God has no grandchildren.” Dr Peck mentions this saying in relating that “we cannot relate to God through our parents” (Road Less Travelled and Beyond, p. 66). And similarly, we cannot perform the task of dying through our parents, or priests, or imams, or friends.

The Stopover of Life

A helpful analogy that one can remember when struggling with dying throughout one’s life is that given by the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of God be upon him). One day he was with a companion named Abdullah bin `Umar when he took hold of the shoulder of this companion and said, “Be in this world as if you were a stranger or a traveller” (Bukhari). This is one of my favourite reports from the life of the Prophet Muhammad. Why? Because it brings to mind the fact that this life is just a stopover on a journey whose destination is beyond this world. An otherworldly destination - how mysterious and exciting!

Death and Ageing

It is very human to think about death. We are the only creature that is aware of its mortality. Dr Scott Peck points out in The Road Less Travelled and Beyond that “some have labelled this not only the human condition but the human dilemma because people tend to find this awareness excruciatingly painful” (p. 88). Consciousness of death is painful because it entails anticipating a stripping away process that old age brings. This stripping away process effects people differently: for some it’s loss of eyesight, for some loss of hearing, for a portion loss of mobility, for others loss of socialising. But for all ageing is a process that is, as Dr Peck notes, a “preparation for the Afterlife.” Nothing like old age can bring out a readiness to leave this world and enter the next stages of life.

Conclusion

Death is a phenomenon in which there is mercy and justice. It is part of life, but not the end of life because after we die physically we continue to live spiritually. And it is our spiritual self which travels to lands we can only imagine. Death is thus a door to another stage of life. It is beneficial. It is good.

May God grant us the ability to live life to the full. May He grant us the ability to prepare for death. May we be granted a good death. Aameen.


Thinker's Retreat

[Bengal_Tiger]

Listening Well


A key component of listening well is what Dr Scott Peck describes as “bracketing.” Bracketing is “the temporary giving up or setting aside of your own prejudices, frames of reference, and desires in order to experience as far as possible another world from the inside, stepping inside his or her shoes” (The Road Less Travelled and Beyond, p. 52). When conversing with someone, bracketing involves the temporary total acceptance of him or her. Sensing this acceptance, he or she will open up and share things with you. When bracketing is achieved, deep communication takes place. Deep communication is therapeutic. The fact that psychotherapy works so well in many cases is mostly because the patient feels that he or she is being listened to, sometimes for the first time in years, or for some for the first time ever.

Some people think a psychologist’s job is easy. It appears to us that they just chat to people. But during the whole time that a client is talking, the psychologist, if he or she is practicing love (extending oneself for mutual growth), is engaged in a very active and challenging process of stepping out of his or her shoes and into the shoes of another person and seeing the world from that person’s point of view. Thus, listening well is not passive behaviour. Rather, Dr Peck notes, “it is an active exercise of our attention and by necessity, is hard. It is because they do not realise this or because they are not willing to do the work that most people do not listen well” (The Road Less Travelled and Beyond, p. 52). The hard work of listening well is the psychologist’s bread and butter which is why they are paid well because they are part a small minority of the human race able to practice this behaviour.

We all have the capacity to listen well. The capacity for listening well is related to our capacity for love. If we love others, if we are ready to extend ourselves for their spiritual growth. Via this readiness the difficulty of listening well can be overcome. So it all comes back to love. If we can manage to love others and listen well our conversations with others will become therapeutic for them. And one will become as it were a lay psychologist.

May God grant us the capacity to love and practice proper listening. Aameen.

Thinker's Retreat: Listening Well