The Dilemma

“Who am I?”
You just feel sad,
You also wonder…
“Who do I want to be?”
You keep on wondering…
“Does God love me?”
Then you realize,
“Do I love God?”
You keep on wondering forever,
Your pillow is wet with your tears,

What about the world?
“No, they don’t understand”
You comfort yourself,
“God certainly understands me”
You realize again,
“But I’m a sinner”
The tears keep flowing on…

Self-pitying is worthless,
“I’ve got to do something”
Then another realization,
“But this is not the first time”
You can’t even remember when,
“I’m just hopeless…”

The candle flickers,
A stray cat purrs outside,
You’re swimming in your tears,
And you’re tired…
Tomorrow is another day,
“Have faith... Have faith…”
Bismillahi ahya wa amut.

How Can I Tell You?

I saw some pictures of some friends, some close ones, and I get scared. I wonder, how can I tell you? Just how can I tell you? If we are at overseas and we are being sponsored, know that this is a weighty trust; a trust that must not be betrayed by our whims. We are not here merely to assimilate the decadent culture of our surrounding. Please have some proud of the greatest gift of humankind that is being bestowed to us: The knowledge of the self that can liberate us from the superficiality of this world. What is liberation? Does it come from those stimuli that excite the senses? Or is it the popular culture that we clothe ourselves with, so that we feel just like them? Know that liberation comes only when you submit… yourself only to Him.

"Verily the friends of Allah are those on whom fear cometh not, nor do they grieve" (10:62)

It seems almost unattainable. It is the closest you can get to perfection. So think deep my friend, is this it at all? As T.S. Elliot eloquently laments in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock:

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”

Let’s switch to myself. Alhamdulillah, I am very, very happy at the moment. Life just seems to finally pull together just like I want it to be – after some period of learning it the hard way. Hopefully things are going to be fine, insyaAllah. I think I sort of figured out how not to be emo. Hehe..

I recently had a conversation with a friend – a nice friend. This nice friend of mine said a da’i has to be thiqah (a loose translation would be scrupulous I guess), as only when people respect a da’i will he/she be effective. But I said: I don’t really care... This friend of mine said, you have to care if you care enough for people. So true…

I better get going, as I have one more paper to go… and the heart will be going to where it belongs soon!