Peace
Imagine a baby that grabs at shapes and movements and learns eventually to grab and hold fast to him … the natural instinct leads him to draw objects to his mouth because grabbing it is not enough … it has to be consumed - to become part of him. Do we really change from this position? As we get older we see and we want and take and we get and such is the nature we have inside us. We learn about a world that is the world of “means” that food can’t be obtained without the means such as hands to take, money to buy, effort to harvest, a system to grow and transport the food … it never enters our minds that perhaps “nourishment” can be obtained directly from The Divine. Alas it can, but we seldom see such things … we are nurtured to accept the cause and effect methods of this world … as long as we see this world in such a manner then we remain shackled to it.
Who would stand on a cliff and jump thinking they will survive? It is lunacy .. or is it? Surely there is a chance of surviving? But without being bogged down in statistics what is it about this world and what is it that gave Mary (AS) her platters of fruits and delectables when Zakariyyah (AS) saw her?
Once someone asked Jesus (AS), “How are you able to walk on water?” Jesus replied,
“With certainty.” Then someone said,
“But we also have certainty!” Jesus then asked them,
“Are stone, clay, and gold equal in your eyes?” They replied,
“Certainly not!” Jesus responded,
“They are in mine.”
http://sandala.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Walk-on-Water.pdfWhat is it that we need to do … to be able to wield the ability to do more … what enables tawfiq? It is to abandon what we see as our means as true. It is hinged on the concept of total reliance on The Divine … Why is it that our du’as must be made without a hint of complaint? Could it be that a despairing supplication harbours a hint of faithlessness? That we conceive of our situations to be worse than they could be? That we have a greater idea of what is better for us than what our fate has put us in? The condition we are in is His Will do we hold fast to an idea we consider better for us than what He has deemed for us? The One Who Loves us more than 70 mothers?
What Isa (AS) did was he emptied himself of desire and allowed only Allah (SWT) in His Might and Majesty to be recognised and then he was granted the ends without the means … the raising of dead, breathing life into a clay bird, walking on water … how his blessed mother came by the food she said “My Lord provides” and how Zakariyya (AS) and his barren elderly wife came by a son Yahya (AS) … when he (AS) was taught this vital lesson.
It is the lesson of tadbir … of self-management - it was the lesson that was acquired by the Sahabah of Isa (AS) by the Sahabah of Muhammad (SAW) … the karamaat … was never their desire … read in the Qur’an how the boy conquered the king in the People of the Ditch … how he said “Oh Allah … protect me in any way that you wish” and it was done …
Do you feel faint, hungry in Ramadan? Then you only holding on to a concept which is the means … focus … look at your hand you grab too tight … let it go and see how your hunger has left you … how those headaches are no more … just abandon the need to hold on and release that grip and see that miraculous nature of the life you have been given …