Forgiveness

[kmaherali]

What’s the Use of Regret?

A few weeks ago I was sitting poolside in Florida with a friendly retiree who was standing in the warm aqua water, beaming with friendliness. We started chatting, first about his hometown, Pittsburgh, and the many great athletes from there. Soon the conversation pivoted to Vietnam and his experiences as a draftee there. Embarrassed because I was spared from that jungle and moral crucible, I just listened. First it was a few madcap stories about his arrival in ’Nam, but then his thoughts swam along a darker current.

Moving his arms underwater, he recalled: “One time I had just gotten paid and I was gambling, playing poker with this 14-year-old Vietnamese kid. A great kid. He was studying English — wanted to make something of himself! Well, he won fair and square. He cleaned me out of my whole paycheck. I was drinking heavily back then. I picked up my M16, pointed it at him and demanded my money back. He gave me my money.”

All I could do was shake my head and tell him (though it wasn’t completely true) that every ugly deed that I committed had also been fueled by alcohol. As though I’d missed the point, he said: “I haven’t had a drink in decades. But you know I’d give anything to be able to see that kid now grown.” His voice swelled with emotion. “I would get on my knees and ask his forgiveness. I would say that I hope he has had a great life and that I am sorry.”

The otherwise jolly veteran-turned-accountant went on to suggest that he had done worse things “over there.” I hung my head and was thinking that maybe I should apologize to him for having been able and willing to get a deferment, avoiding the harrowing machine that sliced up his sense of innocence.

Not long after, I found myself wide awake one night, waiting for the gods of sleep to descend, when the incubus of a memory of another weak and selfish moment crawled out from under my bed. Sitting on my chest, it may as well have snickered, “O, teacher of ethics, how can you have any moral confidence in yourself after that?”

After what?

Better not to say. No less of an authority on sin and repentance than Dostoyevsky raised doubts about our ability to confess without boasting or making a power grab. Albert Camus, a student of Dostoyevsky, wrote “The Fall,” a book about guilt and judgment in an age when God and forgiveness have been put to bed. Camus’s protagonist, the “judge penitent” Jean-Baptiste Clamence, confesses that “the more I accuse myself, the more I have a right to judge you — even better, I provoke you into judging yourself.”

Perhaps I will commit one fewer sin by refraining from broadcasting my regrets.

In one of Kierkegaard’s most famous and cryptic sentences, he wrote, “The self is a relation that relates itself to itself.” Kierkegaard went on to explain that among other things, we are beings who combine aspects of both temporality and eternity. We are given the task of relating ourselves to our past and to our future. Days gone by are seldom an issue, but how to interpret major missteps that might prompt a person to lose faith in himself is a challenge that shapes who we are.

Some thinkers have portrayed regret as a humanizing emotion. The 20th-century moral philosopher Bernard Williams pointed out that, in instances where a person hurts another through no fault of her own (to use his example, a truck driver who runs over a child), we still expect her to feel remorseful. She will feel the weight of the event more intensely than any spectator. Other people, Williams writes, will try to comfort her, “but it is important that this is seen as something that should need to be done, and indeed some doubt would be felt about a driver who too blandly or readily moved to that position” of comfort.

Others hold the commonsense view that regret over a past event you can do nothing about is a waste of time when you can actually do something instead.

The 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza reasoned that remorse and repentance are pernicious intoxicants that interfere with our understanding: It is out of rashness that we transgress and it is out of rashness that that we pound our heads about our transgressions. Our main aim, he believed, should be to avoid acting on impulse and emotion and to be guided by reason. Nietzsche agreed, calling remorse “adding to the first act of stupidity a second.”

In our therapeutic age, the likely counsel to the troubled former soldier would be “forgive yourself!” But self-forgiveness is a misconception. The only people who can forgive us are those we have sinned against, those we have harmed. Dostoyevsky’s Ivan Karamozov argued that not even God has the right to forgive someone who has tortured and murdered children. After all, God wasn’t the one who was tortured.

I have no authority to forgive someone for mugging you, and I can’t forgive myself for cheating someone else. This is not to endorse endlessly torturing ourselves or pathological guilt. When the super-ego becomes a mad dog, we lose faith in ourselves and in our ability to mend our ways. We can learn to let things go, but before we let them go, we have to let regret get hold of us. Perhaps the old biblical formula is best — repent, ask for forgiveness with a sincere resolve to change your ways.

Regrets come in different forms. There are the faux pas and botched career moves. Just before he tumbled over the falls and out of existence, I asked an uncle if he had any regrets. His brow furrowed, he drew a deep breath as though what he was about to say was hard-going. Then he confessed that the one thing he deeply regretted was selling a certain piece of property at a price that was much too low.

Moral regrets are usually packed up in deep self-storage and we often make a point of remembering to forget them, even while we are awash in pseudo-regrets. I often regale my male friends with the tale of the time during college football pre-season when I started a fight with a coach on the practice field. This incident helped bring an end to my less than glorious gridiron career, and in that sense I regret it, but when I tell the story it is always with a chuckle, as if to say, “Wasn’t I a pirate in my day?”

As Freud and Kierkegaard taught, we always have to consider the affect, the mood with which an idea is expressed, in order to begin to comprehend the meaning that the idea has for us. The memory that the Vietnam vet bounced out of the pool was not of that backward boastful sort, it was a beach ball of sorrow. I suspect that he was a better person for having mulled over and hung his head for his behavior than he would have been had he resolved — what’s done is done and never thought about it again.

Kierkegaard observed that you don’t change God when you pray, you change yourself. Perhaps it is the same with regret. I can’t rewind and expunge my past actions, but perhaps I change who I am in my act of remorse. Henry David Thoreau advised: “Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.” To live afresh is to be morally born again.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/opini ... 87722&_r=0

[kmaherali]

Forgiveness is Cleansing

Forgiveness is the cleansing fire that burns away old regrets and resentments.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The practice of forgiveness is our most important
contribution to the healing of the world.
- Marianne Williamson

In forgiveness you grant,
and more so in the forgiveness you receive.
- Terry Goodkind

Forgiveness is the key to happiness.
- A Course In Miracles

Today's affirmation:
I accept everything that ever has been,
with no regrets, no resentments, and no call for vengeance.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

[kmaherali]

Anger Returns Upon Itself

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal
with the intent of throwing it at someone else;
you are the one who gets burned.
- The Buddha

He who angers you conquers you.
- Elizabeth Kenny

Anger is often more hurtful than the injury that caused it.
- English Proverb

You cannot hate other people without hating yourself.
- Oprah Winfrey

For every minute you remain angry,
you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Being angry harms your physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.
You create stress in your life by getting angry,
and you can instantly remove
that stress by granting forgiveness.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

[kmaherali]

when the violin :: hafiz

translated by daniel ladinsky

When
The violin
Can forgive the past

It starts singing.

When the violin can stop worrying
About the future

You will become
Such a drunk laughing nuisance

That God
Will then lean down
And start combing you into
His
Hair.

When the violin can forgive
Every wound caused by
Others

The heart starts
Singing.

[kmaherali]

How to Apologize (Better)

Excerpt:

If you are a Catholic of a certain age, you grew up reciting the Act of Contrition every day, and you thereby learned some things about remorse. (Maybe you learned only the language of remorse, but still: “We are what we pretend to be,” as Kurt Vonnegut observed.)

“O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins because of Thy just punishments, but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who art all-good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to sin no more and to avoid the near occasions of sin.”

A child who learns these words learns that an apology consists of four parts:

1) Genuine remorse (not “I don’t remember it that way” but “I am truly, wholeheartedly sorry.”)

2) The expectation of unpleasant but entirely deserved consequences (not “I wouldn’t have fired me” but “I’m seeking help to confront my racism.”)

3) A resolution not to commit the same error again (not “I’m not as bad as some of these stories suggest” but “I’m much worse than I ever imagined, and I plan to devote the rest of my life to making amends.”)

4) A sincere effort to avoid the circumstances that led to the error in the first place (not “I won’t take Ambien any more” but “I will no longer hang out online with racists.”)

The moral imperative of the Act of Contrition has its limitations, of course, starting with the question of who gets to decide what might offend God. (“You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image,” Anne Lamott famously pointed out, “when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”) And God knows the world is still waiting for the Catholic Church to apologize for some criminal errors of its own. The prayer is nevertheless a good basic template for something that no longer seems basic at all: knowing how to clean up a mess of your own making.

When a person causes egregious offense, the appropriate response isn’t damage control. The appropriate response is a genuine apology — not because you might get your TV show back but because to acknowledge a mistake is to participate fully in the human community. We all mess up. We all see through blinders. We all say hurtful things. We all nurture prejudices we don’t recognize in ourselves.

It isn’t necessary to think of these tendencies as being part of a sinful nature to understand that they are endemic to human life. Even a full-throated apology won’t erase a colossal mistake. We will never make ourselves perfect. But we can try to make ourselves better, and the culture we live in, too.

More...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/04/opin ... ology.html

[shivaathervedi_3]

The best attribute of a believer can have, is forgivenes.
Hasan Basri

Forgive others as quickly as you can , expect God to forgive you.
Anonymous

Never forget the three powerful resourses you always have available to you ; love, prayer, and forgiveness.
H.Jackson Brown,Jr

There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.
Josh Billings

When you forgive, you in no way change the past, but you sure do change the future.
Bernard Meltzer

Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom.
Hannah Arendt

Darkness can nor drive out darkness, only lights can do that. Hate can not drive out hate, only forgiveness and love can do it.
Martin Luther King,Jr

Forgiveness says you are given another chance to make a new beginning.
Desmond Tutu

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
Mahatma Ghandi

Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit.
Bruce Lee

I believe forgiveness is the best form of love in any relationship. It takes a strong person to say they are sorry and an even stronger person to forgive.
Yolanda Hadid

[kmaherali]

Forgive Rather Than Judge

I can have peace of mind only when I forgive rather than judge.
- Gerald Jampolsky

Give yourself the gift of forgiving others,
not because THEY deserve it,
but because YOU deserve the serenity and joy
that comes from releasing resentment and anger.
Unconditional forgiveness is the path to your own inner peace.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

A wise man will make haste to forgive,
because he knows the true value of time,
and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.
- Samuel Johnson

Today, I say yes to forgiving.
I commit to being for-giving love and for-giving compassion in all areas of my life.
– Sheri Rosenthal

[kmaherali]

Forgiveness Isn’t Easy, But It’s Essential

The great C.S Lewis observed that we all find forgiveness to be a lovely idea...right up until we have someone to forgive. It’s true. Forgiveness is one of those virtues that’s easy to talk about, but incredibly hard to practice. Particularly when we are hurt, or when we have been seriously wronged. Yet, isn’t that sort of the point? Forgiveness wouldn’t be that impressive, it wouldn’t be that meaningful, if it came naturally. If it could be so easily tossed off.

Think of Laura Tibbetts, whose daughter was killed by an undocumented immigrant in 2018. After the body was discovered, all sorts of letters poured in. People tried to stoke her passions to make her angry. This is why we need to build a wall, they said. Those people are animals. We need to protect ourselves.

And what did she do?

She opened her home to a young boy whose parents were also undocumented immigrants and had worked in the very same fields as the man who had murdered her daughter. That’s not just a lovely example of forgiveness, it’s a profoundly virtuous and impressive thing to do. There must be so much pain in Laura’s heart, so much anger. Yet she has risen above it. She has found a way to see through the rage and the hurt to find something common in their shared humanity. Something she could support and care for, rather than dismiss or rail against.

The Stoics believed that these sorts of gestures were the essence of greatness. They believed these were the moments we train for. It’s easy to say that forgiveness is important. It’s easy to talk about sympatheia, or how we are all part of a larger whole, alongside our fellow humans. But it is so hard to do. Because life challenges us. Life throws tragedy at us. Instead of calling us to be better, to live up to a higher standard, the media and our fellow citizens often try to drag us down into the mud, encouraging our basest instincts.

We have to keep reaching for that higher standard, though. We have to push through the pain and the anger. We have to pull ourselves out of the mud. We have to forgive. We have to try to be good...and in the process, be great.

P.S. We think that every leader and citizen should think deeply about this idea of sympatheia. We were made for each other and to serve a common good, as Marcus put it. That’s why we made our Sympatheia challenge coin, which can serve as a practical, tangible reminder of the causes and the larger whole we are all members of. You can check it out in the Daily Stoic store.

[swamidada_2]

I have a question. In Chand Raat Chhanta a person say "GHAT BUKHSHEY SHAH PIR BUKHSHEY". In my opinion it is Ghat Bukhshey TOU Shah Pir bukhshey. For example; I did something wrong with a jamaiti member and have not asked him humbly for forgiveness then how come Shah Pir will forgive me?

[kmaherali]

I have a question. In Chand Raat Chhanta a person say "GHAT BUKHSHEY SHAH PIR BUKHSHEY". In my opinion it is Ghat Bukhshey TOU Shah Pir bukhshey. For example; I did something wrong with a jamaiti member and have not asked him humbly for forgiveness then how come Shah Pir will forgive me?

Forgiveness is the quality we are encouraged to cultivate and develop. There is a Farman which instructs us not to hold grudges. Hence the jamati member will eventually forgive if not immediately, although it is good to ask for forgiveness to clear your conscience.

[swamidada_2]

I have a question. In Chand Raat Chhanta a person say "GHAT BUKHSHEY SHAH PIR BUKHSHEY". In my opinion it is Ghat Bukhshey TOU Shah Pir bukhshey. For example; I did something wrong with a jamaiti member and have not asked him humbly for forgiveness then how come Shah Pir will forgive me?

Forgiveness is the quality we are encouraged to cultivate and develop. There is a Farman which instructs us not to hold grudges. Hence the jamati member will eventually forgive if not immediately, although it is good to ask for forgiveness to clear your conscience.

No doubt forgiveness is a good quality. My question is about Ghat Bakhshey Shah Pir Bukhshey which you not addressed. First the jamaiti has to ask for forgiveness then he is entitled to request for forgiveness of Shah Pir. Let me remind you a Farman of MSMS. "Untill and unless you are not forgiven by other party there is no forgiveness for you".

[Admin]

There are sins against the Imam (and his faith such as NaFarmani) and there are sins against other human being.

Imam pardons the sins against him. Jamat's sins are forgiven either at Mahadan or when there is an announcement in Jamatkhanas for request from Jamat to forgive and the whole Jamat says "Maaf", this is a beautiful "KHOJA" tradition.

[swamidada_2]

Indeed nafarmani is a sin. You are not paying attention to my question which states Ghat bukhshey Shah Pir bukhshey. This sentence is repeated thrice infront of Mukhi on Chand Raat and on other occasions. The first condition is Ghat bukhshey and I have mentioned a brief Farman of MSMS on this subject in my previous post. It is a good practice that announcements are made in JKs for departed souls, but this kind of announcement is made once and not on monthly basis. Maha Din Chhanta is related to nafarmani of Imam and not for sins against community and humanity. Other question, if I sinned against a non Ismaili will Chhanta cover that also?

[kmaherali]

Dear Karim,

Let’s be honest: it’s much easier said than done to “forgive and forget” when we’ve been deeply hurt.

And yet, forgiveness is absolutely necessary to our spiritual evolution and overall success in life.

That’s why I want to share this incredible FREE video of Wayne Dyer https://www.thetappingsolution.com/2020 ... 6cccaa5e03 explaining how to quickly and easily let go of the toxic emotions that hold us back.

In it, he tells a powerful story about visiting the grave of his abusive, alcoholic father who abandoned his entire family when Wayne was just an infant.

He drove to the cemetery that day—shaking with hatred after decades of pain—to find out if he was listed on his father’s death certificate as his son, and to “pee on his father’s grave.”

Shockingly, the trip ended up changing his life beyond his wildest dreams, and this is one of the most beautiful stories you’ll ever hear. https://www.thetappingsolution.com/2020 ... 0b984db63e

At the time of his visit, Wayne was overweight, drinking heavily, and on a self-proclaimed “suicide mission.” After the trip, Wayne skyrocketed to one of the most renowned thought leaders of our time, celebrated worldwide for his best-selling books and PBS specials.

Watch this FREE video on how to transform your entire life through the power of forgiveness!
https://www.thetappingsolution.com/2020 ... bc701c0c27

Waye passed away exactly 41 years to the date after visiting his father’s grave. We’re so grateful that before he did, he sat down with Nick Ortner to tell this empowering story.

His message is still changing the world.

Who might you need to forgive and how would it change your life to release anger, pain, and resentment FOR GOOD?

>>Click here to discover the SIMPLE way to achieve the inner peace you deserve
https://www.thetappingsolution.com/2020 ... 28b0e33230

To moving onward and upward,

Laura Trumbull
Community Director
Evolving Wisdom

P.S. This life-affirming FREE video is part of the wind up to the 12th Annual Tapping World Summit, which starts February 24th. Over 2.5 million people have attended over the years and have used EFT Tapping to manifest dramatic results in their life. After you watch the video, you’ll be prompted to register, if you’d like. Don’t miss out, especially because this event is totally FREE!

[kmaherali]

ChandRaat – 21st June 2020 – 1st Dhu al-Qa’dah, 1441 Hijri: Seeking Forgiveness and Forgiving Others
BY ISMAILIMAIL POSTED ON JUNE 21, 2020

By Sadruddin Noorani, Chicago, USA

The Places of Worship serves as space where the religious, the social, the educational, and the ethical maters come together.

Here I would like to explore the act of asking for and offering forgiveness. The basis for all forgiveness is compassion. Each of us expects Allah (God) to be compassionate towards us and to forgive us for our wrong-doings. We should then also try to show that compassion towards others by forgiving them. This comes most easily when we recognize that we are all intimately connected as human beings, regardless of religious beliefs or social status. After all we are further connected as the creation of one God. Obviously, we must begin by demonstrating compassion and forgiving those that are closest to us. But it is also in compassion towards strangers, towards those not part of your family, that we can truly embody this value. Given the Islamic emphasis on brother- & sisterhood regardless of race, religion or color, there is no room for racism or prejudice.

IMG_1605


An Ismaili priest Pir Hasan Kabiruddin (1341-1449) says in his Gujarati language poetry (translation)

“The physical form is raw and unstable, and the mind and heart is fragrant (lively). With this awareness and feeling, conduct yourselves (in appropriate manner), o living mankind!“

Here we are reminded that our bodies are transient and can spoil once our souls departs. The body has value because it allows us to achieve our spiritual and worldly goals. It allows us to translate our feelings, ideals and thoughts into action. By embodying the five virtues of truth, patience, faith, remembrance and forgiveness, the tired boats of our bodies are better able to sail through the ocean of our material existence. Our heart and minds, however, are brimming with fragrance and promise. Maybe because it is through those faculties that we may know our creator.

When we forgive others, we are softening our hearts so as to better perceive the Divine presence within us. When we are forgiven, a burden is lifted off our shoulders and we are unburdened from our worldly feelings so we can focus on our spiritual well being. Through the act of forgiving others, we open ourselves to each other, it is a perfectly selfish act. It sets you free from the past. With each act of forgiveness, our community gets both stronger and larger, as we break down the barriers that divide us.

IMG_1606


Surely, God forgives all sins. ‘Indeed He is the most Forgiving, the Merciful‘ (Quran 39:53). We then learn ‘And the retribution for an evil act is an evil one like it, but whoever pardons and makes reconciliation -his reward is (due) from God. Indeed, He does not like the unjust.‘ (Quran 42:40). In fact ‘forgiveness‘ and ‘mercy‘ are mentioned over a hundred times in Holy Quran.

We are also reminded of how connected we are through forgiveness during prayers, religious holidays, at special family and community events. We generally ask in-person to our family and friends for our past knowingly or unknowingly committed sinful or hurtful acts, when the person forgives, the God will also forgive. In this very act, we are reminded about the importance of community and how each and every one of us is responsible for the entire community’s spiritual well-being. Being myself an Ismaili Muslim, I go to JamatKhana and participate in prayers and religious ceremonies, my family and I collectively contribute to the spiritual health of the community as well as my own progress on the spiritual path.


His Highness the Aga Khan speaking after receiving the inaugural Adrienne Clarkson Prize for Global Citizenship

In a speech in Toronto, Canada in 2016, His Highness the Aga Khan, Imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims, outlined a number of principles required to face the challenges of the future, including “a vital sense of balance, an abundant capacity for compromise, more than a little sense of patience, an appropriate degree of humility, a good measure of forgiveness, and, of course, a genuine welcoming of human difference.”

Practicing each of these attributes can go a long way towards preventing conflict, and resolving disputes when they do occur.

In the act of seeking forgiveness and forgiving others, we are purified. The word tauba, usually translated as “repentance”, literally means to “return” (from sin). So when we repent and seek forgiveness, we are actually turning away from sin to the Divine Love, back to our original pure, loving essence.

Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) has said “The repentant one is like one without sin; for repentance erases what happened before it.”

With forgiveness, comes much blessings. In being forgiven, our load is lightened. The importance of seeking forgiveness from the person reminds us of the intricate ways we are connected to each other. Forgiveness is something we should ask for often, from others as well from our Creator. Let’s commit ourselves to asking others and our Creator for forgiveness but also have the compassion to forgive others.
/ismailimail.blog/2020/06/21/chandraat-21st-june-2020-1st-dhu-al-qadah-1441-hijri-seeking-forgiveness-and-forgiving-others/

[kmaherali]

In this lesson, Wayne talks candidly about his own experiences of deep healing, sharing profound stories and concrete examples from his life. The key to shifting into a space of true healing, he reveals, is by making amends—with yourself and with God—and freeing yourself from judgments. He also discusses the critical importance of listening to your desires and inner callings in order to have the meaningful life you came here to live

Watch video:

https://experience.hayhouseu.com/manife ... ose-day-4/

[kmaherali]

Scarlett Lewis

Scarlett Lewis is the mother of Jesse Lewis who was killed in his first grade classroom during the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012 along with 19 classmates and 6 teachers and administrators in one of the worst school shootings in US history. She founded of The Jesse Lewis Choose Love Foundation in honor of Jesse and to spread a message he left on their kitchen chalkboard shortly before he died, Nurturing Healing Love, the formula for choosing love, and to promote social and emotional education in schools as well as a consistent message of compassion in our communities.

Scarlett is the recipient of the International Forgiveness Award, the Live Your Legacy Award and the Common Ground Award for her advocacy work for peace and forgiveness. When she became a parent for the first time, Scarlett wrote and published a children’s book, Rose’s Foal. Following Jesse’s death, Scarlett wrote, “Nurturing Healing Love”, a story about her journey of turning personal tragedy into something that can positively impact the world. An artist and avid horsewoman, Scarlett lives on a small horse farm in Connecticut with her son and animals.

********
Book

Nurturing, Healing, Love

A Mother's Journey of Hope and Forgiveness



https://www.hayhouse.com/nurturing-healing-love

[kmaherali]

The Concept of Hilm: Chand Raat of Dhu al-Qa’dah 1442 – 11th June, 2021

BY ISMAILIMAIL POSTED ON JUNE 11, 2021
By: Sadruddin Noorani, Chicago, USA

We recently completed the month of Ramadan during which we fasted, tried practicing humility, patience and calmness. The current Muslim month is Dhu-al-Qa’dah. In this article we will explore the concept of Hilm.


Source: Feddy Fap Official (YouTube). Recited by: Feddy Fap Composed by: Feddy Fap Produced by: FFF Productions
Al-Haleem is one of the names of Allah (Asma-e-Husna). Haleem comes from the root “hilm“, which has the following classical Arabic connotations: to be mild, lenient, clement; to be forgiving, gentle, forbearing, deliberate; to be leisurely in manner, not hasty; to be calm, serene; to manage one’s temper; or to exhibit moderation.

The word “hilm” has not been used in the Holy Qur’an, but its derivations have been mentioned over a dozen times. In the Qur’an, both God and humans have been praised as “Haleem“. In 11 Quranic verses God has been referred to as “Haleem” and in other verses Holy Prophets such as Hazrat Ibrahim (Abraham) (a.s) Hazrat Ismail (Ishmael) (a.s) and Hazrat Shu’ayb (Jethro) (a.s) have been described as “Haleem“.

There is a hadith of the Prophet (p.b.u.h), transmitted by Hazrat ‘Ali (a.s), in which he says, “If a person lacks any of the following three things, his deeds are incomplete”. The first is caution and care in avoiding things declared unlawful by God. The second is maintaining good conduct so that we can live harmoniously amongst others. And the third is hilm which can be translated as gentleness, patience and forbearance.

Forbearance is the result of one’s moderation and calmness. From the viewpoint of mystics and Sufis, forbearance is one of the seven major attributes of the soul which are the originating points of other good qualities. Forbearance is the originating point for poise, modesty and tolerance.

Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) believed that no human being was born with all of these traits, but rather had to strive to acquire them during his/her lifetime. A person with the first attribute not only avoids anything that is explicitly unlawful, but also stays away from anything doubtful, including those things they are themselves unsure about.

The second attribute that the Prophet highlights is beautifying our code of conduct. This means, behaving in a manner befitting our position on this earth as ashraf al-makhluqat, God’s supreme creation.


The third attribute, tied to the previous two is that of hilm, or gentleness, patience and forbearance. This trait is so important, that the Prophet is reported to have said in a hadith, “If gentleness was a creature that could be seen, God would not have created anything better than it.” Echoing this sentiment, our fourth Imam, Mawlana Muhammad al-Baqir (a.s) [677-733] once said, “Everything has a sign, and the sign of faith is gentleness.”

The Ismaili Pre-School Ta’lim Curriculum, Book-3, has a section entitled: “Prophet Muhammad” (May the Peace of Allah be on him), which contains a story about a woman in Makkah who did not like the Prophet. Each time Prophet Muhammad passed by her house, she threw trash on him. Despite this, the Prophet did not get angry with the woman. One day when walking by her house, the Prophet was surprised when the woman did not throw trash on him as he was accustomed to. Upon finding out that she had become ill, the Prophet went to her house to see her and found that the woman was so unwell that she could not get up to have a drink of water, so the Prophet offered her some.

This story is a beautiful example of the gentleness and the calm nature of the Holy Prophet even in difficult circumstances. In other ways, it is also a story of faith and conviction. How many times do we lose our temper, get angry or annoyed at the smallest of things? Whether at home with our families, at work or with our neighbors or friends, we are often quick to lose our patience and become angered. Many of us are not even aware that we often raise our voices to scold or criticize others. And when we act in haste, we often regret yelling/shouting at someone or engaging in actions that are even worse.

In another beautiful saying, the Holy Prophet has said: “None among you is a true believer unless he loves for others what he loves for himself”. (Bukhari)

Amongst the first steps undertaken by those who choose a mystical way of life, is the calming and quieting of the urges of the nafs (lower self), one’s ego and inner self. To be patient and gentle is not easy. It involves spiritual strength that requires us to control ourselves, to curb the quickness of our emotions and instead let our actions be guided by our heart and our soul. Our outer states can affect our inner states and our inner states can be reflected in our outward being.

Being kind and gentle to our elders, to our parents, to our siblings, to children and others who we interact with throughout the day can sometimes require a special kind of patience. The virtues of gentleness, of patience and of forbearance, that together make up Hilm, are the qualities we should aim for ourselves.

Let us each try and notice how many times each day we get impatient or angry, and then ask ourselves if we can try to be gentler in everything that we do.

O’Allah, give us the strength to be patient and to stay calm when our end goals seem far and out of reach. We should pray that we learn to wait patiently with understanding for all things that come to pass in our lives. O’Allah give us the strength and clarity of mind to find our purpose in life and to walk on “Sirat-al’Mustaqeem” (the straight path) that You have laid out for us. We trust Your love O’Allah and know that You will heal our stress. Ameen.

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[kmaherali]

We’re All Sinners, and Accepting That Is Actually a Good Thing]/b]
March 6, 2022

Credit...Matija Medved

Tish Harrison Warren
By Tish Harrison Warren

Opinion Writer

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This is the first Sunday of Lent, a season in preparation for Easter when Christians often focus on sin and repentance. One of the things that’s most difficult to swallow about Christianity is the idea that normal, nice people are sinners, that we are born sinful and can’t elude being a sinner by being moral or religious enough.

It can seem gentler and kinder to think of human beings as basically good, our intuitions basically correct and our motives basically pure. But then we run into the hard facts of greed, genocide, abuse, oppression, lies, tyranny, hatred, jealousy, violence, murder, enslavement and even mundane selfishness, impatience, arrogance or resentment in our own heart.

It wasn’t until college that I ever really thought about the Christian doctrine of sin. I had grown up in a Baptist church hearing about how Jesus “died for our sins,” but it seemed that sin was the breaking of certain rules — drinking too much, sleeping around, lying, murder and stealing. I was a docile kid mostly into student theater and church. Not much of a rebel. So for me, being a sinner was more of an abstract religious idea than any kind of felt reality.

In college, through a string of failed relationships and theological questioning, I came to understand sin as something more fundamental than rule breaking, more subtle and “under the hood” of my consciousness. It was the ways I would casually manipulate people to get my way. It was a hidden but obnoxious need for approval. It was that part of me that could not rejoice in a friend’s big award or accomplishment, even as some other part told her, “Congratulations!”

My favorite definition of sin comes from the English author Francis Spufford. He says that most of us in the West think of sin as a word that “basically means ‘indulgence’ or ‘enjoyable naughtiness.’” Instead, he calls sin “the human propensity to mess things up” — only he doesn’t use the word “mess,” and his word is probably closer to the truth of things.

This propensity is not only passive like an accident, but is also “our active inclination to break stuff,” Spufford says, including “moods, promises, relationships we care about and our own well-being and other people’s.”

This is the slow dawning that I had about myself in college, and with it came liberation. Far from being a crushing blow of self-hatred, the realization of my actual, non-theoretical sinfulness came with something like a recognition of grace. I saw that I was worse than I’d thought I was, and that truth knocked me off the eternal treadmill of trying to be better and do better and get it all right. It allowed me to slowly (and continually) learn to receive love, atonement, forgiveness and mercy.

Every week now in church, I kneel with my congregation and admit, in the words of the Anglican liturgy, that I have sinned against God, “in thought, word and deed” by what I have done and by what I have left undone, that I have not loved God with my whole heart and have not loved my neighbor as myself. With my whole community around me, week in and week out, I admit, as Spufford says, that I have broken stuff, including other people and myself with my human propensity to, ahem, mess things up.

The Eastern Orthodox practice of praying the Jesus Prayer has become important to me over the past few years. This prayer simply says, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” It is usually prayed repetitively and meditatively, again and again.

In praying it over and over, I noticed how strange and transformative it is to repeatedly identify myself as a sinner. I am not identified primarily as a mother, a writer, a woman or a priest. I am not primarily a Democrat or a Republican or a Christian. I am also not primarily an upstanding citizen or right or reasonable or talented or “on the right side of history.” Instead, again and again, in these received words, I call myself a sinner.

This recognizes that I will get much wrong. That as a writer, I’ll say things, however unintentionally, that are untrue and unhelpful. As a mother, I will harm my children — the people I love and want to do right by most in the world. And it tells me that I will harm them in real ways, not just dismissible “well, shucks, we all make mistakes” kind of ways. As a priest, I will lead people astray. I will not live up to what I proclaim. I will fail. I will hurt people, not just in theory or abstraction. I will cause true harm.

This humbles me.

I need this humility. Our broader culture does too. The Lutheran theologian Martin Marty wrote that we live in a culture where “everything is permitted and nothing is forgiven.” He meant that we tend to reject the idea of sin and judgment in favor of a “you do you” moral individualism. We try to convince ourselves that there is only personal appetites and preferences, but we cannot quite shake a sense of good and evil because most of us retain a sense of justice, a sense that what we do matters. But when someone violates our often unspoken sense of justice or righteousness, there is no way of atonement. There is no absolution or restoration.

An understanding of universal sinfulness, in contrast, is the verdant soil from which grace can spring. The British author Tom Holland called the Christian doctrine of sin a “very democratic doctrine,” because it has a leveling quality. To paraphrase Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, it draws the line separating good and evil not between political parties, cliques, classes, religious groups or ideological tribes, but instead through every human heart.

But we’re not left to stew in guilt or shame. We aren’t just sinners; we are sinners who can ask for mercy and believe that we can receive it. Living in this posture is what makes forgiveness possible, which is the only thing that makes lasting peace possible.

Without a clear sense of right and wrong, we will end up endorsing injustice, cruelty and evil. But without an equally profound vision of grace, we will end up only with condemnation and an endless self-righteous war of “us versus them.”

After I kneel with my church each week, confessing that I have blown it, I am invited to stand and receive absolution and forgiveness. I’m then invited to “pass the peace” to those around me and extend to them the same mercy and forgiveness that I’ve received.

“Forgiveness flounders,” the theologian Miroslav Volf wrote, “because I exclude the enemy from the community of humans even as I exclude myself from the community of sinners.” But if I am a sinner, then my enemy and I have something in common: We are both wayward and in deep need of grace.

Like many of you, I have been praying for peace in Ukraine and for the Ukrainian people. As we feel dismayed and often powerless as individuals to respond to the horror of war, it can be hard to know how to pray. Please share your prayers or with us at [email protected] or through the form below. We may mention some of your thoughts in next week’s newsletter.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/06/opin ... 778d3e6de3