The continuous spiral of life

Salam,

In searching for the image to begin this post and give me a focal point from which to jump off this blog and my perspective, I had to connect a little deeper to the truth as I understand it today. Although giving one's personal perspective of Islam is a very challenging task that requires constant disconnection from society's perspective as we see it or as they present it, or on the other hand and perhaps a lot more positive, requires constant reconnection to Allah and returning to the Original, we all hold within us an inner truth of what Islam means to us personally.

Ok, that was a mouthful but the best way I could say it.  To me this beautiful and modern calligraphy was as close as I could get to what Islam means to me today.  It looks like a peeling away of the external to finally arrive at the core, the beauty of all things, of ourselves, of that inner tenderness and subtlety; the deeper understanding of our relationship to Allah which spirals on to the infinity - the spiral of life.

The outside, the dunya or the ignorance of the truth as I will call it for now is what distracts us from that truth and beauty to prevent us from reaching deeper realities of everything.

We read from different guides or mystics (one such book is light within me by Ayatullah Khomeinei, Alama Tabatabai and Shahid Murtaza Mutahari) about how in everyone's life there are those "aha" moments where we get what we can call a revelation, a revealing of a certain truth in our life at the level we have reached so far.  But is that enough for us?  To look back at our life and remember that time 20 years ago where we became a Muslim for those who came to Islam after having lost their way initially, decided to wear hijab for the first time, or decided it was finally time to learn to read the Quran in Arabic.  But what if we could find the way that every day could have greater meaning or back to the calligraphy, what if everyday we could peel away the outer layers and reach the core of an issue we were pondering on what some call the subconscious, the raw truth, reconnect with our Allah every single day or every hour, every task that we embark on.  At this point we being to see Allah in everything we do, we find new realities, new perspectives and find new paths to continue on this journey.

This is what Islam has become for me.  The journey began from a search for several realities: The first, to see the reality independent from the way the masses see it, to find my personal mission, my meaning to be alive, to discover the reality behind the meaning independence and to find certainty in any issue and finally, to find me.

I'm tempted to continue this post tonight, but I fear that I may over simplify the explanation.  It was unbelievably simple, but if I explain it now it may not hold the same value so I will continue later.  Perhaps I'm also not telling you anything new, but maybe someone out there somewhere might at least ask the questions for the first time.

Until then...I leave you with your Allah.

(to be continued)