Monday, October 29, 2012

Being Nothing and Doing Nothing - the ego and the selfless ones...


1.      Be Nothing
To be nothing
Is not to do nothing.

It is to do something
With your life
In the pursuit of
Being nothing.

And accepting
That whatever effort
That you expend,
At the end,
It is entirely up to Him.

Yes, it is a little
Like God having the cake
And eating it too.

But, you see,
That is God.
And I would accept
Him regardless of
The  infinite ways
That He may breach
Our petty human norms.

Indeed, it makes
God to me,
God the Most Interesting,
God the Utterly Unique!

But don't believe me.
For I am in love, you see.
And I would say the most
Foolish of things now,
To keep Him
Interested
In me.
........................................

Doing Nothing. And when you are doing nothing, you are also doing something. For the human ego has to two contradictory abilities, it can motivate you to do the baddest thing in the world, and like a giant donkey, it can simply sit on you and stop you from doing the best thing you can do, for yourself, and the world. As a sinner who has graduated with both majors, I can assure you that the ego can ruin your life either way.

The Ego. Whether you are rich or poor, the ego as the selfish, proud, a genuine mr-know-it-all with a middle-age spread of hubris can make life unbearable. Whether you are sick or healthy, the ego will either make the path of recovery appear so unlikely that it will convince you to do nothing at all, or it will tell you that you will always be healthy and live forever. Both are of course, damn lies, but it is difficult sometimes to sieve through the truth and lies, facts and illusions, especially if you are inclined to believe the insidious mutterings of your ego most of the time...

The Selfless Ones. I admire the selfless and the generous, who thinks of nothing to lend their last penny to their brothers and sisters in need. They have trained their ego to heel, to sit, to stand up, to trot and to gallop according to their conscience, and not the other way around. God bless them!

Thank you for sharing the loft of your mind with me, sunshine. It is Monday and the Sun is shining obscenely bright outside. And I can almost hear the cackle and noise of humanity knocking on the door of my contemplation, requiring my attention. In my line of business, worrying and doing something about other people's problems is my vocation. My donkey is tethered outside and impatiently braying for me to come. Thankfully, I like what I do very much... May we all be guided to do in life what is natural to our fitrah (individual essence), whether as a doctor, a mechanic, a farmer, a writer, a singer or a nurse. Love what you do and do what you love... as the old adage goes.


Whatever you are working as, may you have a wonderful day ahead.

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Hate has no place in Islam
Love will show the Way

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