A simple thought from The Community on Friday:
Imam Khomeini, may Allah rest his soul amongst the elevated ones, led a very simple life and one of the things he did on a regular basis was to surround himself with reminders about death. It is reported reliably that he kept his place of resting very constricted, almost to fit his body in a dark corner of his home, simulating the manner in which we are laid in our graves. This frightening experience is but one that leads to the real understanding of the temporal nature of one’s life and the imminent need to focus seriously on one’s righteous deeds as an investment in the afterlife where the only acceptable currency, is deeds.
Our daily prayers, the fasts we keep and the charity we give, in short any action deemed as good, inevitably reminds us of this very concept of death. Yet most people do not like talking about it or pondering about the compulsory phenomenon, some say perhaps due to fear or simple denial.
Having said that, we must not forget that turning something into a daily practice (read ritual), may imperil the underlying comprehension behind the performance of an action. It is not unusual to see people rushing through their salaat in order to make it somewhere else. Now if the pillar of faith has been allotted such a run by, drive by attitude where most of us have some very questionable practices, then we may just be fooling ourselves engaging our energies in seemingly doing good for society through our other social givings, for the actions that are tainted with the slightest chance of being selfish, may be non convertible currency in the sense of the hereafter.
Unfortunately, it may appear that our Hindu inner selves, compel us to have a very twisted view about religion. We tend to group the Holy Household (AS) as the source of our happiness and material prosperity much in the same way that their are gods and goddesses of love, wealth, fertility and so on. This, whenever applied, is tantamount to shirk, which is by far the gravest of sins in the eyes of the Almighty. Unknowingly we may be incurring His wrath and not pleasure by some of our actions.
We need to talk about these things, we need to pass pure concepts to our children, this too will be counted as tabligh. Not speaking about it formal sessions, letting things be in order for peace to prevail, will aggravate the infection of society’s distorted views on religion. We need not fight about these things, we need to reflect, to discuss and to improve, for no knowledge is ever complete if we stop learning and adapting. Stopping to learn is precisely the reason why some living sects today are still subscribing to books that were subsequently replaced by the Holy Quran as the final testament and as a complete guide.
Lastly, there is no guarantee that you anf I may breath the next, our mundane craftiness, our jealousies, our remarkable ability for adversities with each other may indeed gift us just barbs, and not the bouquets we so fervently desire once we step into the next realm. Time to act is now.
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