Friday, May 30, 2014

Stop Living In Your Past!


You live in a drama. We need to start living in reality. What do I mean by this? Our drama, brothers and sisters and friends, is our previous experiences, our limited perspectives, ideas, interactions with others and we take all of that and we super impose it on to reality, on to the present. We are always living in the past from that perspective because we are so attached, our egos become so attached to, 'but he did that before' and 'she's always been like that!' etc. etc... And you superimpose that onto reality. So as if we have three filing cabinets in life - the filing cabinet of the past, the filing cabinet of the present, and the filing cabinet of the future and we take the files from the past and we are always putting it into the future, so we are never living the present and our whole life and the rest of our life is just one big retake of our past. This is ridiculous! This drama and reality is not the same thing. And the reason we think it is the same thing is because of the ego. 


And [mention, O Muhammad], when your Lord said to the angels, "Indeed, I will make upon the earth a successive authority." They said, "Will You place upon it one who causes corruption therein and sheds blood, while we declare Your praise and sanctify You?" Allah said, "Indeed, I know that which you do not know." (Sahih International)

When we reflect upon the Quran, Sura Baqara, Chapter 2, verse 30, we can really derive this knowledge. Allah says to the angels. He announces that He is gonna send down a vicegerent on earth and the angels reply, 'are you gonna send someone down to create bloodshed, calamity while we sing Your praises?' What does Allah say, 'I know that which you do not know.' Ibn Kathir, the classical commentator, essentially says that, 'God has a totality of wisdom and knowledge, we have its particular.' God has the picture, we have the pixel. So, this should really teach us about our own lives! Are we gonna live in our own drama, our limited experiences? Just like what the angels said! 'Before Adam, before this man you are gonna send down this vicegerent on earth, there was bloodshed! So therefore, what are you going to do now, is going to be the same.' But Allah says, 'Don't think like this! Don't be like this! Don't be in a state of being that you are always living on your own ego.' Your own interpretation of the past! Your limited experiences of the past, super imposing on everybody else, on yourself, your family and the entire world! This is why you are living a circle! Your whole life is a one big circle. But Allah says, He knows that which we don't!

So if we truly rely on Allah and His wisdom and we understand that my previous experiences just like the angels, my previous understanding, my limited ideas, thoughts and perspectives are not reality and I can't super impose them on the present, or on the future all the time because they are not reality. I rely on God's wisdom and plan. Then it creates a new realm of possibility for us to do what we can to interact with others in a positive way and the past is just the past, meaningless! Absolutely meaningless from this perspective! So just by reflecting on one small verse in the Quran, it enables you to have a new realm of possibilities with other people. So divorce your drama from reality! It's meaningless! Be a black canvas and connect with people in ways that they should be connected with. Not via the lenses and prism of your limited experiences and perspectives.

I hope this helps.

Assalaamu Alaikum Wa Rahmatullah


 - Ustadh Hamza Tzortzis

No comments:

Post a Comment