Friendship with Self

“Whatever my enemies can do to me I have my garden and heaven in my chest wherever I go, my imprisonment is solitude, my murder is martyrdom and getting me out of my country is tourism.”

How could you endure this torture, Bilal?

He said: I mixed the bitterness of torture with the sweetness of faith, so the sweetness of faith prevailed.

Those two examples and many others have lived the psychological peace in its finest form; happiness and amiability were always with them, so whatever they witnessed of sorrows and tragedies became easy for them.

Today we are in great need to search actively for peace of mind and self, particularly in this era in which souls have lost their identities and consequently they lost the meaning of life.

Don’t you see that the distances between ourselves and our souls are extremely wide and the reality with our souls is not encouraging; one team are hostile to themselves as they keep complaining and whining after drowning themselves in the seas of sins. We usually hear statements like (I hate myself- I am fed up with myself).

The question here is why are we mad at ourselves?

The second team neglect themselves as they have no idea about their value and highness. They don’t know that they have a precious treasure called soul that beats lively.

The question is to what extent can human beings neglect their souls?

If you do not know the value of your soul, People can easily humiliate you.

The third teams are different type. They are very few, but still they exist; their souls flew high to space and turned away from secular temptations into heavenly benefits.

Determined on Friendship

Briefly you will not be able to find the perfect happiness and satisfaction because of God’s wisdom. Many of us had future plans, commercial projects, or social friendships and we set goals and future aspirations over soul and peace of mind. Therefore, God the Wise and Omniscient wanted to fix our affairs to the best; He determined shortbread in everything in order to prevent attachment to anything. That’s what Imam Ibn Algozy assured in his wonderful book, “Mind Hunting”; he said:

(I found myself feel comfortable with intruders whom we call friends, but when experiences searched for them found that most of them are envious of blessings and enemies who can’t keep secrets, know nothing about the ethics of companionship and never condole a friend with money. Thus I contemplated and found when God Almighty is keen on the believer’s heart; He disturbs the world and its people around him in order to make God the only companion.)

Self-friendship is considered to be a protective shield from outside attacks. The moment you feel that others around you are trying to weave yarns of trouble around you or throw nets of grief on you, you have to leave them for a while in order not to lose happiness with your beautiful soul with which you became friends beforehand.

Only then you will be capable of accepting the excesses of others and putting things in their right place and consequently tension and pressure shall decrease. I always contemplate The Chinese proverb: “You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair."

Finally,

We have many people around us, but we don’t know which one is useful; people are ideas and visions, and God facilitates things for each one of us for the purpose of his creation. Thus, we shouldn’t hold great hopes on them. By this realistic view and away from idealism, we made peace firstly with ourselves and secondly with others.

Sheikh Ali Al-Tantawy said in his book, “images and thoughts”:

(I was like all other people scared of loneliness ,felt its heaviness and tried to escape from it… till I found in solitude a way to observe God and  I feel that He is with me hearing and watching and I pray from my heart and tongue asking him about everything . I believe that everything is on His own hands and if He does not give me what I asked for, He gives me better than I already asked. Thus prayer in this approach is worship as it is in the correct Tradition; I became alone even though I am indulged with people.)

Yes… That is friendship which means to be alone even though you are indulged with them!!

Are we ready to be friends with ourselves once again?

(With Slight Changes)