THE MORAL HAZARD OF DOING GOOD - turning honey into hemlock

I Am One of Them

Dear God,

Make desirable unto me,

What is desirable unto You,

Make undesirable unto me,

What is undesirable unto You,

Yet give unto me the space in my heart,

To accept and love those who still

Omit to do what is desirable

And do what is undesirable,

For verily, You have not turned away

From any of them who turns to You

Seeking love, forgiveness and acceptance...

And verily, I know this to be the truth,

For I myself am one of them.

.................................

Moral Hazard. Doing bad obviously is a moral hazard. But doing good also has its own moral hazard. It is of course our ego and its terrible offspring called self-righteousness and hubris. So when you go supping upon the cup of faith in the cathedral of love, beware that your tongue do not change the honey into hemlock - your ego prompting you into thinking, 'Yea... how good am I. How bad are those others!'

The Selfless Sunnah. After all, if God says... there is no god but Me, and Muhammad is My Messenger, He is talking about the annihilation of our 'self' and abasement of our ego... Through the daily, constant, minute by minute, microsecond by microsecond application of the selfless Sunnah (traditions) of the Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.s.).

The Desirable Medicine. This is the medicine to cure us of our egocentric worldly addictions. But unlike other medicines, this medicine is desirable and increases in desirability the more we take it. 

That is what I call Godly Awesome.

He he he.

Have a lovely Tuesday, sunshine. I have been away for awhile, but I am back now. Alhamdulillah...

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way

Just As You Are - people are real, corporations are a myth

A friend.

Just As You Are

Tis’ better to be a master of a small boat,

Than an able seaman of a giant liner,

Tis’ better to be the lady of a cottage,

Than the maid of a mansion,

Tis’ better to cast a small shadow

Than to cast one bigger than yourself,

Diminished, I return to my small abode,

Diminished, I stroll down the quiet road

To my small heart and my small ambition,

To my books and my music,

As I seek solace from my Lord

And hear Him assure me

Time and time again,

Though I deserve no assurance…

 “Others may not see you as a star

But you are quite enough

For Me just as you are.”

…………………………

As a lawyer (for I am one), I take some pride with knowing 'stuff', thinking I 'understand' the world and the working of the human mind. I like to believe that I know 'what's what' and above all, that with all this vast knowledge, I won't let anyone make use of me. 

He he he.

Well, a couple of days ago I was well and truly 'used' by my  client. Completely dropped into the crapper and expected to learn to swim in the deep end of the pool. He he he. But I didn't drown. I managed to get to the pool's edge, but only just. Funnily enough, it was not from any help from my client, but rather the 'other side'. My client was a corporation, and the other side were individual human beings. I guess it should come to no surprise that people are better than corporations. After all, corporations have no feelings or morality.

Even politicians (and this is saying a lot!) are better than limited liability corporations. For at the end of the day, they are still human beings, representing themselves and their personal opinions and ideals, however moral or immoral it may be. A company is a means by which businesses derive maximum profitability with minimum accountability, as a corporate veil comes down upon man's greed and avarice, hiding its unquenchable appetite for money and power behind 'cute', 'friendly' and 'green' slogans, cooked up by their advertising and PR consultants.

I am still bitter at being used, I guess. He he he.

But I am here, and I am still alive and writing. I have done nothing deserving of this, but I have your kind company. So despite all this complains, life is, as always, actually beautiful. Alhamdulillah. 

Thank you, sunshine, for dropping in. Have a wonderful sabbath.

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way

The Spyglass, The Sinner and The Most Merciful

Some people use the spyglass to help navigate their way through life.
Others use it to spy on people and their secrets. Spying on and prying out
the follies of people is a terrible thing that they do. But they are often
deluded into thinking that it is God's work that they are undertaking.
Nothing can be further from the truth.

56. Spyglass (Omar Hana)

The only contemptible sin

To be found through the spyglass

Is the spyglass

And the spy himself...

If there is nothing good to be seen,

Do not look!

If there is nothing good to be heard,

Do not eavesdrop!

If there is nothing good to be said,

Then, say nothing!

....................

Even the recording angel (who hovers near your left shoulder) is reluctant to record our misdeeds. Already these heavenly heralds do not even take into account our bad thoughts. But where the angels are reluctant, some people appear to love playing the role of the moral police or theocratic cops. In fact they appear to have no other hobby than to muck rack and to throw stones of accusations at us poor sinners...

11. Dam

If some people had their way

We would be on our hands and knees

Looking for stones to throw.

They would divert Allah’s Mercy

So that to the Ocean

No river shall forevermore flow.

................

And if we argue with them that God is Most Merciful, they will say "God's Mercy is only for good people (like us) and not bad people (like you)." But it doesn't make sense, does it? If you are good already, why do you need God's Mercy at all? Because according to you, you are already wonderful and promised salvation on your own merits.

I have nothing written for such individuals. Because after all, this is the sinners' almanac. But my abiding happiness is that I have you, sunshine. You who can accept me despite my questionable antecedents.

So thank you.

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way

Divine Usury vs The Temple of Money & The Palace of Debt

Purrrr...

The Myth of Money, The Great Deception
We are asleep in an opium dream of debt;
Credit cards and housing loans,
Mortgages and hyperinflations
Recessions and sub-prime moonshine,
Monetarism and cronyism,
As we continue to be kept asleep,
Drugged in the jester’s dream
With intravenous drips
Of debt and fiat based money.

It is not blood that is coursing
Through the body of our society
But The Great Deception.

God is Scarce. Gold is a scares commodity and it will always be valuable. And so is silver. But it is not because of these precious metals that we are criticizing the economy of debt and fiat based currency. Our faith is founded on the single most scarce resource of all Creation - God. For God is Only One, and you cannot be more scarce than that.

The Copying of a Divine Attribute. In God’s absolute oneness He does appear to have an infinite ocean of divine attributes. He has however unbended enough to share with us a few of His fascinating attributes. For this topic, the most important divine power is His ability to make something out of nothing.

The entire premise of money as opposed to barter trade is to utilize a mode of currency that would enable A to sell barley to B in exchange for a recognizable and standard value unit - money. For this to work well you ought to utilize a resource (often metal) that is scarce and universally recognizable. For centuries mankind have been contented using metals, shells and even pieces of wood to signify a monetary value, but most popular are of course gold, silver, copper and their assorted mix.

But modern man has become too smart. To cover their deficits, the governments of the world have decided that they have an implicit right to make money. This is what is called fiat (by-right) currency. It is similar to usury because just like the normal banking right to leverage on its capital (say by 10 x capital), this 'created' money can be used to buy products and services. This money came from nowhere but by virtue of magical accounting and government legislation copied globally - The Central Bank Act. The Money Act and other assorted financial institution statutes. It is a complex structure intended to show off a veneer of 'creation' of value. But the truth is only God can create something out of nothing. Only God can create an intrinsic value out of a vacuum. Thus, begins the deception that is the source of all our present credit and fiscal problems…

132. Mortal Usury
Oh My enterprising servants!
I have vested upon this earth
Wealth of certain certainty
For people of certainty,
Dabble not in the arts of usury,
And attempt not to copy My Unique Ability
To make something from nothing.

The Weakness of Man. The thing with mankind when they decide to do something is that we always begin with the best of intentions. The best of hope and aspirations. After all, no one goes out of their way to bankrupt their own company or country. That would simply be suicidal. But...  

The Temple of Money. The Palace of Debt. Have you ever wondered why are bank buildings often imposing like temples of religions and palaces of the kings, where the priests of money walk about in reverent silence upon marbled floor and gilded walls? The answer is simple. It is because they need to impress you lest you decide to peek behind the shiny edifice of the current debt and fiat-money system and see the weakness of the system - Man himself. Because, however high bankers build their global headquarters, debt and usury are essentially based on human promises, and we know how easily humans are corrupted by greed and desire…

188. Paper Promises
Paper money makes poor substitute
For gold and silver,
A mode of transaction
On human promises.
And oh, how well
We know of man
And his paper promises!

Ostentatious Consumerism. One unfortunate consequence of the flooding of the economy with debt is the flourishing consumerism. To consume something is not wrong. After all, if we don’t consume food and water we will all die. But consumerism goes beyond what is necessary for survival. In fact it goes beyond even what is necessary for a comfortable and decent quality of life. Everything is built to decay or become redundant. So we can buy more fridges, more cars and more washing machines, zipping our credit cards to fiscal exhaustion.

Divine Leverage. There is in fact a place in this world for usury, but it is for God to give us, not for us take it for ourselves. This is the divine leverage that God has promised us - It is goodness and prosperity in this life and in the hereafter, where a single act of patience, kindness or courage can bring you an ocean of joy in the Divine Presence. He is offering this free for us with no hidden charges...

133. Divine Usury
Oh Divine Usury!
Oh Divine Mercy!
Thy place is in the Hereafter
When we place our deeds on the Mizan, pleading
“Usury for Umati Muhammadi!
For our deeds weigh for nothing, O’ Lord,
In the Light of Thy Infinite Mercy!”

Well, something to think about, sunshine.

Pax Taufiqa

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way

Resist the Ambition to Climb the Moral Mountain

Moral Mountain II
The problems with staking your tent
On a moral high ground
Are the altitude sickness, frostbites,
Frequent avalanches
And the likelihood
That a sudden gust would
Propel you, your tent,
And your precious morals
Over the precipice.

(No.128 from 'the Dam.SunSun.Ana')

Not my best friend would say I am a particularly moral person. Indeed, some may even suggest that my reluctance to draw a clear line between black and white, good and evil makes me rather unscrupulous. I hedge my bets, they say, right to the cliff edge of morality.

Despite this however, I am prone to subconsciously judge people. Outside, I may spout liberal and tolerant views, inside however, my mind is going tsk, tsk, tsk, shame, shame, shame. Years ago, when my brother got divorced, I staked my claim on the highest moral ground. Reminding myself that in my faith, divorce is described as the worst permissable act you can do. The very pillars of heaven are said to shake when the husband recites the proscribed words divorcing his mate. From this moral mountain, I looked down and passed judgement on these feeble human failings...

Well, so much for my morality. In 2007, I found myself in front of the Qadi (Judge) of the Shariah Court in Kuala Lumpur, testifying the solemn words to breach the marriage vows which I had readily entered into just 5 years back.

So don't judge too quickly, my friends. You know not what Fate may have in store to test your personal convictions. Resist the ambition to climb the moral mountain. Just because it is there, doesn't mean that you must climb it. You do have a choice. Choose wisely.