Reclaim Your Heart | Yasmin Mogahed

*highlight from yasmin mogahed writings*

🙌ATTACHMENTS

There is only one hand-hold that never breaks. There is only one place where we can lay our dependencies. There is only one relationship that should define our self-worth and only one source from which to seek our ultimate happiness, fulfillment, and security. That place is God.

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Nature of the dunya as a place of fleeting moments and temporary attachments. As a place where people are with you today and leave or die tomorrow. But this reality hurts our very being because it goes against our nature. We, as humans, are made to seek, love, and strive for what is perfect and what is permanent. We are made to seek what is eternal. We seek this because we were not made for this life. Our first and true home was Paradise: a land that is both perfect and eternal.

And that's why if we live in dunya with our hearts, it breaks us. That's why this dunya hurts. It is because the definition of dunya, as something temporary and imperfect, goes against everything we are made to yearn for.

We must also realize that nothing happens without purpose. Nothing. Not even broken hearts. Not even pain. That broken heart and that pain are lessons and signs for us. They are warning that something is wrong. They are warnings that we need to make a change. Just like the pain of being burned is what warns us to remove our hand from the fire, emotional pain warns us that we need to make an internal change. We need to detach.

Pain is a pointer to our attachment. That which makes us cry, that which causes us the most pain is where our false attachments lie. And it is those things which we are attached to as we should only be attached to Allah which become barriers on our path to God.

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We experience this emotional roller coaster because we can never find stability and lasting peace until our attachment and dependency is on what is stable and lasting. How can we hope for constancy if what we hold on to is inconstant and perishing?

To attain that state, don't let your source of fulfillment be anything other than your relationship with God. Don't let your definition of success, failure, or self-worth be anything other than your position with Him [49:13]. And if you do this, you become unbreakable, because your  hand-hold is unbreakable. You become unconquerable, because your supporter can never be conquered. And you will never become empty, because your source of fulfillment is unending and never diminished.

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There's something amazing about this life. The very same worldly attribute that causes pain is what also gives us relief: Nothing here lasts. What does it mean? It means the sadness I feel today will change tomorrow. My pain will die. My laughter won't last forever- nut neither my tears. We say this life isn't perfect. And it isn't. It isn't perfectly good. But it also isn't perfectly bad, either.

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We all love gifts. We love the blessings that beautify our lives. We love our children, our spouses, our parents, our friends. We love our youth and we love our health. We love our homes, our cars, our money, and our beauty. But what happens when a gift becomes more than a gift? What happens when a want becomes a need, a favor becomes a dependency? What happens when a gift is no longer  only that?

What is a gift? A gift is something that did not come from us. A gift is given- and can be taken. We are not the original owners of a gift. A gift is also not necessary for our survival. It comes and goes. We want and love to receive  gifts - but they are not necessary to our existence. We don't depend on them. We don't live to receive them and do not die if we don't.

Remember that there are two places to hold something: in the hand or in the heart. Where do we hold a gift? A gift is not held in the heart. It is held in the hand. So when the gift is taken-or never given at all, the loss creates pain to the hand - but not to the heart. We will feel the normal human pain of loss. We will grieve. We will cry. But the pain is only on the hand, our hearts remains whole and beating.This is because the heart is only for God.

And God alone.

We all have needs and we all have wants. Our true suffering begins when we turns our wants into needs, and our one true need (God) into a commodity we think we can do without. One true suffering begins when we confuse the means and the End. God is the only End. Every other thing is the means. We will suffer the moment we take our eyes off the End and get lost in the means.

In fact, the true purpose of the gift itself is to bring us to God. Even the gift is means. For example, does not the Prophet PBUH not say that marriage is half of deen? Why? If used correctly, few other parts of this life can have such a comprehensive effect on the development of one's character. You can read about qualities like patience, gratitude, mercy, humility, generosity, self-denial, and preferring another to yourself. But, you won't develop those qualities until you are put in a situation in which they are tested.

Gift like marriage will be a means to bring you closer to God- so long as they remain as a means, not an End. God's gift will remain a means to Him, so long as they are held in the hand, not the heart. Remember that whatever lives in the heart controls you. It becomes what you strive for and are willing to sacrifice anything to have. And to keep. It becomes what you depend on at a fundamental level. It therefore, must be something eternal, that never tires, and never breaks. It must therefore, be something that never leaves. Only one thing is like that: The Creator.

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Detachment does not mean that we cannot own things of the dunya. In fact many of the greatest companions were wealthy. Rather, detachment is that we view and  interact with the dunya for what it is really is: just a means. Detachment is when the dunya remains in our hand - not in our heart. As Ali RA expressed. "Detachment is not that you should own nothing, but nothing should own you."

Like the ocean's water entering the boat, the moment that we let the dunya enter our hearts, we will sink. The ocean was never intended to enter the boat; it was intended only as a means that must remain outside of it. The dunya, too, was never intended to enter our heart. It is only a means that must not enter or control us. It is a tool. It is a path- not the destination.

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If you allow dunya to own your heart, like the ocean that owns the boat, it will take over. You will sink down to the depths of the sea. You will touch the ocean floor. And you will feel as though you were at your lowest point. Entrapped by your sins and the love of this life, you will feel broken, surrounded by darkness. That's the amazing thing about the floor of the ocean. No light reaches it.

However, this dark place is not the end. Remember that the darkness of night precedes the dawn. And as long as your heart still beats, this is not the death of it. It is when you are at the lowest point, that you are faced with a choice. You can stay there at the bottom, until you drown. Or you can gather pearls and rise back up- stronger from the swim and richer from the jewels.

If you seek Him, God can raise you up, and replace the darkness of the ocean , with the light of His sun. He can transform what was once your greatest weakness into your greatest strength, and a means of growth, purification and redemption. Know that transformation sometimes begin with a fall. So never curse the fall. The ground is where humility lives. Take it. Learn it. Breath it in. And then come back stronger, humbler and more aware of your need for Him.Come back having seen your own nothingness and His greatness.

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This world cannot break you- unless you give it permission. And it cannot own you unless you hand it the keys- unless you give it your heart. And so, if you have handed those keys to dunya for a while- take them back. This isn't the End. You don't have to die here. Reclaim your heart and place it with its rightful owner: God.

💘 LOVE

And so there are some who spend their whole lives seeking. Sometimes giving, sometimes taking. Sometimes chasing, but often waiting. The believe that love is a place that yoe get to: a destination at the end of a long road.

And the one, who runs after a mirage, never gets there; but keeps running. And so too will you keep running, and be willing to lose sleep, cry, bleed and sacrifice precious parts of yourself - at times, even your own dignity. You'll never reach what you're looking for in this life, because what you seek isn't a worldly destination. The type of perfection you seek cannot be found in the material world. It can only be found in God.

The image of human love that you seek is an illusion in the desert of life. So if that is what you seek, you'll keep chasing. But no matter how close you get to a mirage, you never touch it.

Yet, you will give your whole life, still, to reach this 'place'. You do this because in the fairy tale, that's where the story ends. It ends at the finding, the joining and the wedding. It is found at the oneness of two souls. And everyone around you will make you think that your path ends there: at the place where you meet your soulmate, your other half. Then and only then, they tell you, will you ever finally be complete. This, of course, is a lie because completion cannot be found in anything other than God.

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There are two type of love. There will be some people you love because of what you get from them: what they give you, the way they make you feel. A person's capacity to give is inconstant and changing. Your response to what you are given is also inconstant and changing. So if you're chasing a feeling, you'll always be chasing. No feeling is ever constant. If love us dependent on this, it too becomes inconstant and changing. And just like everything in this world, the more you chase it, the more it will run away from you.

But, once in a while, people enter your life that you love- not for what they give you- but for what they are. The beauty you see in them is a reflection of the Creator, so you love them. Now suddenly it isn't about what you're getting, rather what you can give. This is unselfish love.

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This means you will love what He loves and not love what He does not love. And when you do love, you will give to the creation- not for what you can get in return from them. You will love and you will give, but you will be sufficed from Him. And the one who is sufficed by God, is the richest and most generous of all lovers. Your love will be by Him, for Him, and because of Him. That is the liberation of the self from servitude to any vreated thing. And that is freedom. That is happiness.

That is love.

HARDSHIP💦