Demand not that the shaykh grant you a special place in his thoughts. Rather, require yourselves to grant him a special place in your thoughts. For, to the degree that you revere the shaykh, he will revere you.
We fight life only because we do not perceive our own best interests. It is rare that we can know any particular experience will fit into the whole plan of good in our lives. Often there is difference between what we think is good for us, and what God knows is good for us. God means everything for good. This is difficult to see from a limited point of view, but easy and natural to see from grandest point of view.
It is said that "Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view." When we look at our experience through Divine eyes, we can see the essence of goodness in all experiences, and letting go is no longer a trial to be feared, but to be embraced as an opportunity to be fulfilled in with something wonderful.
The man who piles up wealth and is puffed up with this world's goods, despising those otherwise endowed, will come to an evil end, for his hopes were not built on Allah.
When the fight begins within himself, a man's worth something. There is little that can withstand a man who can conquer himself. The man who masters his own soul will forever be called conqueror of conquerors.
If we enjoyed something in such a way that we feel sorrow for its absence, we enjoyed it in the wrong way. We enjoyed the mortal, changing element of the person or the thing, and that element can never bring peace. Only when we enjoy the eternal, Godly, inner aspect of and experience can it bring us real happiness. When we look back on the experiences that we cherished, we should feel no sense of loss whatsoever, for those were the experiences that made visible to us the Light that is within us now. The Light was there then, It is here now, and It will be here tomorrow.
It is not the person or the experience that counts, it is the spirit that is precious, and spirit is present in all experiences. People and events are like teacups-----vessels-----through which God gives us love and loving lessons. Though teacups may fade, crack, or be lost, the God that gave them to us in the first place is always present, with an endless supply of new vessels in His Divine pantry.
You must make yourself an empty cup in order to learn. One who thinks that he already knows, cannot be taught anything. Put in other words, it is only when we stop trying to hold onto the past that we are able to fully accept the blessings that the present can offer us. Clinging (in reminiscence or bitterness) to a thought or an experience is the same as clutching to a person or a thing. It takes us out of our here-and-now center and detracts from our experience of fullness of this moment.
Too often we hold onto memories of "The Good Old Day," when we were "really happy," and when things went just right. If they were really good, then we would not feel pain in missing them now, for what is good is liberating, and if we are bound to the experience, it certainly did not liberate us very much. The real good old days were those which showed us that we are free to live fully in any moment, including----and especially----now.
This cannot be undone and I am sure it will be greatly appreciated.
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