Hello from Ireland

i dont quite understand ur post..but all i can say is that when you have in ur mind, heart and soul of fear for ALLAH,tHE ONE AND ONLY GOD,what others said or do cant and wont bring you down. I was sadly to say,was just a muslim by name,never really practising but eversince i got married to a convert,who is a born christian, i start to guide my every steps. i hate myself for the person i was before and there was never a time that i didnt looked back to my old past and regret every single things and places that had caused me so much neglegient. But of course, my changed wasnt like by others. i felt dejected when being mocked, but i prayed  and repent and its amazing that i felt like im just been born. Just believe and trust ur own self. There are ppl who wudnt like others changing and will constantly try to bring us down and sometimes we felt like it but each time, we remember Allah, it will makes us stronger.

 

I will leave this and go to the other place you recommended for posting. I am just putting this here in case you don't see it somewhere else. I am not 'Muslim' in your understanding of the word - and was not raised Muslim. I am Irish, in Ireland and was raised Catholic Christian. Cead mile failte. (One hundred thousand welcomes)  I have only started to look at aspects of Islam since January of this year - because of meeting a Muslim friend. It was strange. He was a man who had 'lost' his way, but in many ways a man of great faith. How can you lose your way with 'great faith' ? Like it all - it's a great paradox it seems. You have to be lost to be found some times.  

 

I had 'lost' my way too, and wanted to get back to 'seeking God' - something that has always driven me at some level. So the two of us began a journey and it continues. I find the Sufi tradition - or some of those parts of it I have read, very interesting - appealing. It's sounds VERY similar to the 'mystical tradition' in Catholic Christianity. The Creator is sought through and above the Creation. And the Creation is loved the greater, the more we truly seek the Creator in, through and above it all. I honestly believe that there are those in this world who speak exactly the same lanuage spiritually - even though they seem to come from different 'religions' / traditions. You hear what they say and it makes sense to you. That 'unholy' fear does not govern their 'religious' lives in any way - but they are motivated by a desire to seek and truly love God - Allah, the Creator just for being Creator. If I seek God, because of Heaven/Jannah. Then I seek God because of the creation rather than the Creator. I am motivated by love of the creation, the 'reward' - more than a true love of the Creator - God/Allah.  Even in this life, if I love someone because of what they can give me. I don't truly love them at all. In the Christian tradition it says somewhere, "perfect love casts out all fear." Some times I look at the religions of the world, and the divisions they create in and amongst themselves - and you are 'tempted' to stop believing at all. It can be depressing for a time to witness all the stife, supposedly in the 'name of God'. Then perhaps circumstances transpire to create a place in your heart/life where you can let fear go, and begin to rise above and beyond all of theml - 'religions' - where God really is. I am sure I am the worst of heretics and a blasphemer and should be burned at the stake.  When the fear begins to lose its grip, and you can begin to 'see' the Creator in all of them, and in all 'religions'.  I don't know - it's a journey as you know. Maybe that is the way of true Islam - and the real 'way of peace'. I don't know. I am still very 'lost' in so much of it, but learn more as times passes just to 'submit' in that too. If God really is transcendent - then we can waste a lot of energy trying to put God in our respective little boxes, making God in our image - rather than God comforming us to the 'image of God' - in christian religion - to become truly Christ like. I don't know and I don't worry. But I do like to hear what all others have to say :-) God bless and I will go to that other place now.

 

There is a song - sung beautifully by an Irish singer, Mary Black -

 

and a few of the lyrics come to mind............   seem appropriate........

 

 ".......To hold us 'til the day
When fear will lose its grip
And heaven has its way..........

Heaven have its ways.....     for.....

Heaven knows no frontiers......

And I've seen heaven in your eyes.

 

________________________________

 

:-) Take care of yourself there.

 

Selamat datang sahabat.

 

Hi Bare, I wonder whether you still understand my first welcoming words to you. I believe you do.

 

I do not have friends or relative in USA except a friend's daughter in Las Vegas. How is Ramadhan there? Are you not missing chendol or kueh lapis that can be found here in plentiful?

 

I bet you do.

 

Till next time.

 

Salam persahabatan.

 

There have been many times in life I have wanted to strangle people, and they strangle me. I am dealing with some people now, in the real world, not online, who are on different sides of a fence, so to speak - in a given situation. I am drawn into this situation having just been through one of life's lil old 'war zones' myself. Where you come out barely having survived, but somehow you do.

 

And it takes time, but as time passes you realise that 'dark night' has some 'light lessons' to give to your soul. I actually joined one of the groups, who were seriously opposing the other. The 'other' group was the one that I myself had suffered with greatly for a number of years.

 

Through some process I get to sit with, and know this new group of people who are trying to change the first group, 'for the better'. But the more I get to know them, the more I realise that the very problems they are seeking to have changed in the first group are evident amongst themselves as a fledgling group. No one is really communicating the 'truth' to anyone, because none know what the 'truth' of many matters are in this situation. So much speculation and hear say and all of that. And personalities are very often attacked then too - judged, misjudged, condemned, hated even. There is much ignorance in all of this I learn. I become very disillusioned myself, or begin to.

 

But having tried to seek the 'truth' about my self over the years - a painful and often unpleasant process, I began to see here too just so many wounded, broken hurting souls - selfs. All 'lost' in a sea of confusion, pain and fear. The bottom line was, I was human, I knew it. Someone once said that 'self knowledge is a sure path to God'. I had messed up big time in life. I was a 'basket case' on so many levels, just human - and so were all these people too. And people, being people, rather than look and see and learn about their true selves, will seek to attack what they do not understand in the 'self' of another which is often their own reflection. I did not know what to do, or where to seek help or guidance. I wanted to run to the hills and forget all of it. Leave them all to the madness. But you cannot do that. When you have grown up in a big family, you can come to learn much better that humanity itelf is just a big family, with all the same hangups and stuff that smaller families have.

 

There is something in what Christ speaks of in the 'great commandments'. We are told to seek God with all our hearts, minds and bodies, and to love the neighnour (other) as we love our very self. If we cannot love the self, know the self, then we can never hope to truly know our neighbour, love the neighbour - the other 'self' -  and God will never be 'known' at any 'true' level for us, it seemed to me. It actually sounded like some brilliant 'psychology'. As the 'road to God' itself is often said to 'be within'.

 

Anyway, I am blabbering on here and did not mean to at all. I am now in neither 'camp' - having officially left 'both'. But I do know something about the individuals, as ordinary human beings in both 'camps,' and hope, at some point to try and help them see each other as just this - human beings. That there is MUCH dishonesty, dis information, mis information etc, and they are all not really communicating any level of 'truth'fullness to each other within their respective groups - so no real understanding or 'peace' is possible between different groups. At this point it seems it will be a case of sitting with people, one at a time, face to face, and trying, TRYING to get to the real 'truth' of the matter, and share that truth, and God willing - begin on a road to peace - the 'Kingdom of God within' spread without - amongst all.  It's a tall order, and I would rather run away than look any more at it. But you have to try. You do seek guidance, pray and trust that God will guide all to the 'truth' of the 'self', the 'neighbour' - each other, that God's 'peace' will then truly start to reign in the hearts of the individuals and the group. I will seek to try and  plant a few seeds of 'truth' in a few hearts, and pray to the Good God that they bear some fruit. Then I think of what Pilate asks of Christ, "what is truth." Can any of us answer that about our self, the other or God. Now that really is a TALL ORDER. lol  One we must all learn through the journey that is life.  One little thing at a time is all we can do, or we end up fit for nothing and useless to our selves and everyone else.

 

So keep me in you prayers please and thank you again. 

 

I hope you are nolonger filled with rage and wanting to strangle them all, or as we say, "kill dead things" - LOL    Pray for them. I know it's hard some times. That they too - as we all need it - be shown the, 'way out of hell and into the Light.'

 

May Allah lead us all 'out of hell and into the Light'.

 

I like that quote from Milton - 'Paradise Lost'.  "Long is the road and hard is the way that leads out of hell and into the Light."  It's the same of the level of the self and the 'group' - the family that is humanity.

 

I think God just expects us to lay one little brick, or even a stone on building that 'bridge' that 'can lead us out of hell and into the Light'.

 

"Better to light a candle than curse the dark".

 

Like so much in life. They are mere words, often beautiful words when we first read them, and have to real grasp of what they mean. But you learn.

 

Over and out.