Inspiration | The Spirit in us

Bismillah.

Glory be to Allah, we have no knowledge except what He has taught us. He is the All-Knowing, the All-Wise. So we learned that invocation from the Qur'an. Thus, we are resigned to the fact that He is the Only Teacher. 

With that let's hope that some of the students on the path of Allah will not be too stingy and overly possessive of what "their teachers" have taught them. I had been told not to share some of the teachings of a certain guru. I said, why all the fuss? At the end of the day, the knowledge that gets accumulated in our hearts is from Allah. All knowledge belongs to Him. He is the ultimate copyright holder.

On the other end of the spectrum, some people asked me, "What can I get from attending a majlis conducted by those habaib/shuyukh? What do they do there?" Hmm....how do we answer that? If there is one word I could use to describe the habaib and the shuyukh, I would say, they are utterly inspiring. What does that mean? 

Lately, I have been listening to Dr. Wayne Dyer and I must say that I am very impressed and surprised at the same time that he could articulate very eloquently some aspects of Sufism, although he did not use such a term. He said the word inspiration comes from two words: "in" and "spirit". Being inspired is to be in spirit, that is to be in touch and connected with the Spirit from which we came. According to him, "to live an inspired life is finding a way for you to be in harmony with the spiritual essence from which you originate. And not just in feelings but in behavior and in every single thought that you have. It's about living in spirit at all times and catching our self when we are disconnected from where we originate, from that divine source." The core underlying theme of many of Dr. Wayne speeches is that we are connected to God because His spirit is in us. It is, in my interpretation, very similar to what we learned from the Qur'an in Surah As-Sajada: "...then (He) formed him and breathed His Spirit into him and gave you hearing, sight, and hearts. What little thanks you show!"

Now coming back to the question posed earlier. Why do I find the habaib and shuyukh so inspiring? I reckon and I believe it's because they are so very in spirit. They are deeply connected with the Spirit, the Divine Source, they are closely in touch with Allah in their zikr, in their remembrance, perhaps in each of their breath that their speech, in fact, their presence alone could make you feel calm, secure and inspired. When we are in their presence, we are often reminded not to forget Allah, not to lose touch with our Source, so much so that when we see them, we remember Allah. When we are at their majlis, we are often reminded of the true purpose of our being. They would recite lengthy and meaningful prayers that could bring us to tears and we seek solace in that because they being so in Spirit, their du'a is likely to be more maqbul than ours.

Let's think about it a little deeper. Think about the Spirit that has been breathed into us. We have the tendency to take that for granted, to forget it so easily, to be so fragile and get disconnected from it. 

I leave you with some thought-provoking and encouraging words from Dr. Wayne again: "How could you have a body that comes from a divine source that created you, be anything other than beautiful, and divine? It is a perfect creation of God, of Source that you carry around with you." He said because of our connection to the Spirit, we should feel empowered and recognize ourselves as a genius with unlimited talent and that anything we may intend to have, is on its way.

O friends, let us all be in Spirit always and be inspired. We welcome anyone whose words and actions inspire us and make us grow in our thinking capacity. And we say no to anyone who tries to delimit our knowledge receptivity.

# Watch "Inspiration: Your ultimate calling" by Dr. Wayne Dyer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pj_RGvDRJRE 
# Pic credit: Brother Hamid Iqbal Khan
http://www.redbubble.com/people/hamidsart