The heart matters

Bismillah.

I wish you a good weekend, whatever that's left of it. I am mentally exhausted due to lack of sleep. So pardon me if what you will read sounds a little weird and jaded. But let's just stick to the rule: write from the heart and follow your first instinct. By the way, Shaykh Yaqoubi too said, follow your first instinct because it's a divine whispering from Ar Rahman.

Someone once asked me this question: "Are we supposed to seek out for love or is it fated that we will meet our partner?" At that instant my first instinct was to say: "Love will find you". But I didn't. 

How often have you ignored and denied the whisperings of your heart?

Someone mentioned these facts about the heart which we all know but sometimes forget.  

He said: "Remember this - listen with your heart and act according to what your heart says. The heart knows what the mind does not. You know God not with the mind but with your heart."

Yes how true. And from a personal experience I also discovered that the heart seems to know something well ahead of the mind. Sometimes you find yourself feeling jealous towards someone when you have nothing to do with him/her, not yet. I think the heart knows love when it sees one. The heart knows that we know not. It can travel a great distant in a heartbeat. The heart wants and knows what is good for the person. So again, follow the heart. It's more than just a lump of meat. It's sensitive, it feels what we/others cannot yet feel. 

We traverse this path called life trying to balance between the judgments of the heart and the mind. And yes "the road is long, there bounds to be some bums along the way. So, the important thing is not to lose sight of the final destination."

If anyone were to ask me that tough question again "Are we supposed to seek out for love or is it fated that we will find our partner?" I'll borrow these words: "a heart will always find its way to the person seeking it." At the outset, we may not know, but as paradoxical or tautological as it may sound, we have to let the heart itself speaks because it knows, so we must pay attention to it. "What the heart feels, the mind can never understand. The heart has its own reasons that we can never comprehend."

"Desire, pure desire, ultimately comes from the heart. Lust comes from somewhere else. Desire comes together with love which of course comes from the heart. If love is missing in a relationship, then any sexual encounter is merely lust which comes from [lower] nafs which is no different than the behavior of animals. Animals don't fall in love. They only act out of their lusts. Humans have a heart but sadly many don't use it and ignore it. But there is more to love, desire and the heart. As Muslims there must be akad nikah (marriage solemnization) before intercourse. That differentiates us from the others." [More importantly, from the animals!]

Hmmm.... the heart matters, it does. And we must listen more to it, if we haven't.

On a different note, I leave you with this wise saying I saw on someone's FB wall. It's in Malay but let me translate it here: "If someone has changed for the better, do not dig out his/her past. We don't know how difficult it must be for him/her to forget the past. And do not argue about a person's past because we all have our own past, be it good or bad."  

Allahu a'lam. May Allah guide our hearts and keep us with the righteous. May He grant pardon to our sins. May He convert our past misdeeds into something worthy. May He make us a better person today than the yesteryears. May He grant us all a good ending. Ameen.

[Note: Many people can talk, but not many can walk the talk.]