7. Be detached. The difficulties that others have may, when you listen to them with
attention, may throw up comparisons with situations in your own life. Recognise this when it
happens but distinguish between your situation and theirs. if you cannot remain detached
gently withdraw. Do not be drawn into carrying a burden for someone else when you have
your own. The holy Qur’an says that the one who is burdened cannot carry the burden of
others.
8. Don’t be nosy! If people don’t seek your help just give them a smile or a nod.
9. Learn to know yourself – your strengths and your weaknesses; trying to push a
boulder that is too big for you up a steep hill only results in the boulder rolling back down the
hill and possibly squashing you on the way.
10. Get support. Try to have someone older and wiser that you can refer to. Hafiz Sahib
puts it this way – ‘Take no step on the path of Love without a guide’.
11. Keep good company. This means not just the people you befriend or meet but the
ideas that enter your mind through books, films, the internet and so on. As the wise say – a
good book is a good friend – a bad book is poison. If you use social media use it with care –
it can be good but also very bad for you.
12. Be grateful to the person you imagine you are helping for the truth is they are really
helping you too.
13. Guard your own heart. Rudyard Kipling in his poem IF says:
" If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
and all men count with you but none too much”
14. Walk it off. If problems of your own or others weigh on your mind too much
persuade yourself to take a long brisk walk even when you don’t feel like it. It is a good tonic.
15. Be human. Irrespective of any specific religion or world view you may have bear in
mind there is
something deep inside all of us that is completely precious – call it soul or call it your
humanity – it is there cherish it.
16. Value yourself but not too highly – you may have a long way yet to go on the way
to self-realisation.
17. Develop your own set of values. Be completely clear in your own mind about
your own ‘core values’ and re-visit them from time to time. Sympathy with others does not
mean sacrificing these values but neither does it mean imposing them on others. As the holy
Qur’an puts it – ‘there can be no compulsion in religion’ and by extension there can be no
forcing your values on others.
18. Be a giver. Whatever situation you are in, try to be a net contributor and not in
deficit.
19. Intelligence is useful but only if guided by wisdom – do not overvalue it.
20. Avoid going too deep into abstract philosophy unless it happens to be your
profession – but find a practical philosophy that suits your needs.
21. Try to keep your own life in perspective. It may seem to you right now that life
goes on and on – it does but not your part in it unless you are a saint. Think how your
present actions will look viewed from the perspective of your death bed. If they don’t look
good change yourself accordingly. You can only help someone else to gain perspective if
you have it yourself.
22. Avoid excess – it is a killer even in helping others.
23. Be patient. That doesn’t mean just waiting in a queue without losing your temper. It
means trying to do whatever you are doing as perfectly as you can with attention and care –
you can even say with love. The results may not be immediate but they will emerge. An
impatient person repeats the same mistake again and again but because the circumstances
differ does not see this. Helping others may not yield immediate results but will only have
any result if you get it right. You might try watching the movie 'Ground-hog Day' to get this.
24. Make allowances. Avoid being too much of a perfectionist and make allowance for
others. In his poem IF Rudyard Kipling puts it this way:
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too.
25. Quietly develop your intuition – you can do this by sensing what is happening
inside you – being aware of your feelings without getting involved in them. You may find you
are being affected by the feelings of others. Mevlana Rumi says ‘Empty your heart of any
other thoughts but love – then whatever comes into your heart other than that comes from
another’. Intuition allows you to help others – it means you do not have to rely just on what is
said openly.
26. Manage your thoughts: if you recognise a negative thought such as one of malice
or hatred or prejudice, thank it for its time and politely show it the door. There is another
practice that is very effective – think of its opposite and replace the original thought with
that. Thoughts are not just some sort of unalterable thing that happens to you – you can and
should manage them just as your try to manage your behaviour. In fact if you manage your
thoughts your behaviours will be automatically managed. You have that much free will at
least.
27. Pray. If you have religious faith then pray but with conviction that your prayer will be
heard – but don’t be flippant – you probably will not get that sports car. Also allow that your
prayer may not be answered because it is inadvertently asking for something that would
harm you. Pray for others especially the poor and oppressed before you pray for yourself.
28. Get real. Be modest in your expectations from this material universe but greedy in
seeking spiritual development.
29. Smile generously but mean it when you do.
30. Keep concentrated. Don’t let your mind wander too much – bring it, like a
wandering sheep, back to the fold. You can be of little help to others if your thoughts wander
all the time.
31. Be active. Keep your mind and body active as much as you can but when they
have been working hard be kind to them. You can help others better if you are in good
shape yourself.
32. Be humble in attitude. Truth is the monopoly of no one – do not assume you have
it and others do not.
33. Do not expect gratitude. Often the person you seek to help may appear to take
your help for granted. Good! Your reward comes from within you – and it is the best kind of
reward. Be grateful for their lack of gratitude.
The Context
Context is of great importance and so is the person within that context.
This means the surroundings one is in must be taken into account – these surroundings may
be physical but they may also be social and they may appear quite abstract - about social,
political or religious values for example. These surroundings or the context we are in should
not be allowed to overwhelm our uniqueness as individual souls – when this happens great
evils can ensue as happens for example when people submerge their identity into a state
identity as can happen in totalitarian countries resulting in inhumane acts and depravity.
|n our daily life we cannot avoid finding ourselves in a whole series of differing fields of
activity. There is family, work, personal relationships, financial affairs, domestic matters,
health, sex, education, religion, morality, art, technology, transport and so on. Each of these
areas of life necessarily have their own concerns and rules. Do not dismiss these out of
hand. We cannot function without them. The challenge is to establish a relationship with
each that enables us to flourish as individuals. Often people seeking help do so because
they find themselves in conflict with one or many of the contexts they find themselves in.
So to help someone it is necessary to understand the context they are in as much as to
understand their individual needs. Contexts are not usually easy to change but it is in our
power to change our way of relating to those contexts. To take a specific simple example; if
we are obliged to undertake work that we do not like due to the need to make our living we
can choose to do it with a great deal of inward complaining and resentment or we can
choose to make the best of it while we look for ways to better our circumstances. The
likelihood of bettering the circumstance is greater if we take the latter approach.
'Making the best of it' means we learn the rules in which we have to function and see how
we can make use of these to better ourselves. To take a simple example if we are obliged to
labour physically we may decide to do so in a way that benefits our physical health and
stamina. The change of mental attitude towards something forced on us makes all the
difference. It may also give us the opportunity to train out thoughts in how to deal with the
mental boredom it
involves. To take another example – suppose our journey to and from work is unpleasant –
involving queuing and crowds and so on. We can boil inwardly with resentment or decide to
use it as a opportunity to train our mind.
This is straightforward enough but there are more complex situations that require deeper
thought but which are nevertheless subject to the same principle.
There is the thorny issue in some societies of the individual who finds the family structure
they are in oppressive and at odds with their individual needs. In such cases what is
required is to assist that person to view their situation in a detached manner; both to know
themselves better as individuals and to see themselves in the context of the family structure.
To do this requires moving from self-pity to taking an intelligent and considered approach to
the problem. Self pity is destructive and unhelpful.
Poor old Self-pity sought me out and said:
"By me to destruction many are led!’
"To the One Who sent you please return," I said,
"And say, by me you were well treated and fed,
But wherever gratitude and love have their bed,
Old Self-pity finds no space to lay his head.”
Wherever there is a problem there is a solution. To become engrossed in the problem is to
lose sight of the solution. To begin with become a net contributor to the family structure.
While you receive more from it than you give you are in a position of weakness from which
you cannot easily effect any changes. This does not have to be financial it can be in terms
of becoming someone the family looks to for help in other respects too. To do this – change
yourself from within. Human society as with almost everything else, is interconnected –
change from within and you begin to change the context and others around you.
The key to this all is love of course. Mevlana Rumi a great saint buried in Konya found
divine Love through his relationship with another saint called Shemsuddin Tabrizi. He
became a changed man and he effected a great change in the surrounding society that is
still felt hundreds of years after he passed from this world. Khawaja Muinuddin Hasan
Chishti taught the same message of love and tolerance and the impact he had on Indian
society remains potent till today.
Rasulallah – the holy Prophet Muhammed (pbuh) was one man but the world was never the
same again. Lord Jesus gave a sermon on a mountain and the world changed forever.
Change yourself – not merely to benefit yourself but to benefit others around you. Change
yourself – and change your context for the better.
‘But these are saints and prophets,’ you complain, ‘far above me!'. The holy Qur’an says
that holy prophet
Muhammed is a model – you may not be a prophet or even a saint but you can follow this
example in your own quiet way.
Dr Sharib wrote these lines:
Let love in above and around you flow,
In forgiving and forgetting do not be slow.
Finally a short poem of mine.
Passing Days
The days come and go – just so,
This we all do well know – no?
Young bodies mature and grow,
And older ones become slow,
The sum total of this we know,
Is that our life passes - just so!
But this secret you should know,
If the seed of love you sow,
And daily nurture it - just so,
It will continue to steadily grow,
And its effect will surely show,
Then real life you will truly know.
In the Sufi way it is said – first deserve, then desire.
May you deserve, and get, the happiness you desire.
Amin.
JMZ Aug 2013
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