The greatest respite this Ramadan has brought is the muffling, if not the silencing, of the mental white noise crackling with random, tangential thoughts and incessant self-vilification. Fasting does that to you! Its not just about a physical detox or moral realignment. The realisation of just how much bandwidth inner chatter was taking up was chastening, even shocking.
Released from the battle with the sabotaging monkey-mind, this month of fasting has brought a sense of floating on a deep pool of cool water. The absence of jolts to the adrenals from cups of caffeine has doubtless assisted with this descent into deep calm. It seems inevitable, however, once Eid is over - even on Eid itself - that the seductive aromas of roasted coffee and frothy cappuccinos will reclaim me and once again fuel this inner static. Perhaps, to be fair, one should not blame the caffeine. The biochemistry of thought and overthinking is a little more complicated than that. But for now a profound sense of calm predominates and it is beautiful.
And so as the last week of Ramadan unfolds, and we make our supplications on the 'Nights of Determination' (layāli al-qadr), the inner stillness is so...well, still, that it is hard to invoke desires or wants, however necessary or noble. Instead, a deep acceptance of things as they are stands sentinel. Whether I like them or not is immaterial; I accept them as part of the perfect order of cause and effect. All the loathsome imperfections and injustices wrought by human cunning, perfidiousness, treachery, greed, obliviousness, and power mongering remain in play. But the whole concatenation is one perfect cacophony.
Nothing is static. Everything is either moving overtly or covertly towards or away from Allah. Whatever moves towards that eternal light brings harmony, goodness, beauty. Whatever moves away from that towards the darkness of the lower orders brings suffering, despair, hopelessness - innā hadaynāhu 's-sabīla, immā shākiran, immā kafūran: 'We have shown him the way, he is either grateful or in denial' (76:3).
My sincere wish is for that state of gratitude to prevail, long beyond this month of withholding and abstention. Shukr (gratitude) sweetens even the bitter lessons life teaches us. Equally sincere is my hope for the space created between thought, emotion and passing state to remain. Fasting brings with it a loosening of fixations - and that is liberating. My last du'a is for the cloak of Allah's mercy and forgiveness to fall over me and keep falling over me. There will never be a time when I am not in need of it.
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| Taken by me at Sigtuna, Sweden, August 2017. |
And so as the last week of Ramadan unfolds, and we make our supplications on the 'Nights of Determination' (layāli al-qadr), the inner stillness is so...well, still, that it is hard to invoke desires or wants, however necessary or noble. Instead, a deep acceptance of things as they are stands sentinel. Whether I like them or not is immaterial; I accept them as part of the perfect order of cause and effect. All the loathsome imperfections and injustices wrought by human cunning, perfidiousness, treachery, greed, obliviousness, and power mongering remain in play. But the whole concatenation is one perfect cacophony.
Nothing is static. Everything is either moving overtly or covertly towards or away from Allah. Whatever moves towards that eternal light brings harmony, goodness, beauty. Whatever moves away from that towards the darkness of the lower orders brings suffering, despair, hopelessness - innā hadaynāhu 's-sabīla, immā shākiran, immā kafūran: 'We have shown him the way, he is either grateful or in denial' (76:3).
My sincere wish is for that state of gratitude to prevail, long beyond this month of withholding and abstention. Shukr (gratitude) sweetens even the bitter lessons life teaches us. Equally sincere is my hope for the space created between thought, emotion and passing state to remain. Fasting brings with it a loosening of fixations - and that is liberating. My last du'a is for the cloak of Allah's mercy and forgiveness to fall over me and keep falling over me. There will never be a time when I am not in need of it.
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