What comes to your mind when you hear spirituality?
When one mentions spirituality, the Western perspective often aligns it with Yoga, meditation, and practices geared toward finding inner peace. While inner peace is an aspect of spirituality, it doesn’t encapsulate its entirety. Islam offers a profound and comprehensive understanding of spirituality, setting a high standard for its definition.
Spirituality, in essence, represents the pursuit of inner purification, a journey to unveil the divine, a process of unlearning false knowledge, an acquisition of wisdom, an elevation of morals and ethics, and a path toward self-rectification. It involves gradually drawing closer to the teachings of the Holy Prophet (PBUH). The true essence of spirituality lies in purifying intentions to do everything solely to please the Creator, devoid of worldly desires and egotistic tendencies. The sincerity behind an action holds paramount importance in religion, where an act, regardless of its magnitude, holds no value if not genuinely intended.
Navigating the path of spirituality often necessitates guidance from a spiritual master or teacher. The human lower self, a complex and deceptive entity, clouds objective judgment, making it challenging for an individual to evaluate their actions without bias. Only someone further along the spiritual journey can aptly discern the intent behind one’s deeds and identify any deception or influence of the lower self. Additionally, the traps set by Satan are subtle and well-disguised, requiring guidance from those at a higher spiritual level to discern them.
Spirituality and religion are intertwined. While one may be religious without being spiritual, true spirituality can’t exist without religiosity. Traits like love, forgiveness, compassion, and honesty, while admirable, don’t singularly define spirituality as they can be present even in non-believers. Spirituality is achieved when one relinquishes personal desires, surrendering to a higher purpose or being.
The path to spirituality presents three choices: to persist in personal objectives, remaining distanced from spirituality; to forsake individual desires, embracing spirituality willingly; or to have one’s plans disrupted by God, forcibly redirecting towards the spiritual path. Embracing spirituality challenges personal will, indicating that one’s preferences hold no significance compared to the Divine Will.
Another reason for spirituality’s unpopularity is its association with suffering. Embracing spirituality often leads to hardships, setbacks, and rejection, experiences that individuals typically avoid.
However, Rumi’s assertion, “The wound is where the light enters,” highlights that personal growth emerges from the pain. Spiritual evolution requires the repeated destruction of the ego, a profoundly painful psychological and emotional experience.
Spirituality’s purpose is to comprehend life’s true meaning and the pursuit of recognizing God’s existence. It involves unveiling the veils that obscure understanding and recognizing God’s role in every aspect of life. However, these veils exist due to false knowledge instilled from childhood through various sources, contradicting spiritual wisdom.
Genuine seekers of truth undergo experiences that challenge their misconceptions, ultimately aligning with religious teachings. This journey of faith cannot be acquired through mere reading or academic pursuits; it requires profound personal experiences that defy conventional wisdom and cause-and-effect reasoning.
Sharing spiritual insights with an ordinary mind is futile, as spiritual comprehension transcends logic and intellect. Only a genuine connection with the Creator enables true understanding, an element scarce in the modern age. Islamic spirituality goes beyond yoga or meditation, offering inner peace and eternal life’s promise, unlike its Western counterpart.
Lastly, spirituality’s unpopularity stems from societal emphasis on success, glamour, and worldly achievements. Judging one’s worth solely on material success conflicts with spirituality, as it necessitates embracing worldly failures that diminish egoistic tendencies. However, this idea contradicts society’s drive for self-preservation and ego-boosting achievements, making spirituality unattractive to many.
Spirituality, therefore, is reserved for those chosen by God, individuals blessed with selflessness and refined souls. It’s a journey of unwavering devotion, unconditional virtue, and resilience, where divine love surpasses intellectual understanding. It’s a realm beyond intellect, reserved for those dedicated to spiritual growth and divine connection.
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