Ramadan 2019: People say Ramadan comes for many different reasons; however, what we extract out of it is almost nothing. We are simply the same after Ramadan too. Ramadan really has not stopped us from doing all the things that we WANT; we anyways do a few things. One of the highlighted things we give importance to is food. We do not consume food within the given hours of the day and if we happen to see someone eating, not fasting, we have an impression of him or her as ‘Be-rozedar in Urdu or Kunda / Kundi in the local language.
Ramadan is not only about abstaining from eating. Eating is just one of the five ways of in-taking (taking something external inside the body). The other four ways are seeing, smelling, touching and hearing. Since we have given too much of importance to just ‘Not Eating’, we feel we are ‘Roz-e-dar, Roza Rakhne Wali. The other four ways of consumption is simply taken to be Makrooh, a disliked or an offensive act and such people are in majority, so we consider it is okay. You do not want to do them, they anyways happen.
Ramadan 2019: Battle against Nafs, Desires, or Wants
Let us have a sincere look at ourselves. Are we really better than those who anyways eat in Ramadan?
Now, coming back to the reasons, a prominent reason is controlling our Nafs (ego, wants, desires etc). When Ramadan approaches, Muslims prepare to battle with their Nafs, some succeed and many do not. Many are blinded by their Nafs in the name of being a Roz-e-Dar. Your ego makes you feel very nice that you are fasting. You do not see that you do not fast; because you WANT to, you simply fast because you HAVE to. You have made it Farz upon you.
When Islam says Farz or Mandatory, it simply is asking you to make it a choice of yours to fast. However, make sure, whenever you fast, you fast with all your heart and stop the harmful intakes not only through eating, but also from all the five in-taking ways. It takes time and practice, and practice has always made us perfect. We are able to walk so easily without a single thought in our mind about walking is simply because we are practiced to do so.
Your ego makes you feel pious, religious, close to Allah, dear to Allah, and you believe all that jazz. And, somehow that ‘Have To’ starts to feel like ‘WANT To’. It is not your want, it is simply someone else’s want which has become your have to. The desire is also not your desire. Listen to this video in your free time: How to kill your Desires?
Ramadan 2019: A Desire is Simply a Desire
Without Desire, people cannot even reach to God. ‘I don’t want anything, I just WANT (you see there it is) God’. Changing the object of desire does not remove desire from you. The desire is and will be there and it should be there because it is a ladder to God. The problem is you have too many ladders. Ramadan comes to teach us to live with minimum desires. It helps us to make our desires minimum to an extent that we have only ONE DESIRE: GOD, NOTHING ELSE. Not even the food that nurtures our body, which is the most basic need of our physical body.
Abstaining from food does not really make you close to Allah. Not Eating simply teaches us not take anything inside the body that is harmful to our Iman. The practice of these 29-30 days should transform our other months. Our whole life should become Ramadan. That is the goal. The goal is not to finish this Ramadan and pray to be kept alive until the next Ramadan. That is simply your ego playing with you. It is asking you to delay until the next Ramadan. This Ramadan make it happen. Best of luck!
The post What has This Ramadan 2019 Taught Me? appeared first on Syed Usman Haniel.
