People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality. I learnt never to underestimate someone’s capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them.

When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. 

This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.

It is very important to try and honour at least some of your dreams along the way. From the moment that you lose your health, it is too late. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.

2. I wish I didn’t work so hard. 

This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret. But as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.

By simplifying your lifestyle and making conscious choices along the way, it is possible to not need the income that you think you do. And by creating more space in your life, you become happier and more open to new opportunities, ones more suited to your new lifestyle.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.

We cannot control the reactions of others. However, although people may initially react when you change the way you are by speaking honestly, in the end it raises the relationship to a whole new and healthier level. Either that or it releases the unhealthy relationship from your life. Either way, you win.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. 

Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.

It is common for anyone in a busy lifestyle to let friendships slip. But when you are faced with your approaching death, the physical details of life fall away. People do want to get their financial affairs in order if possible. But it is not money or status that holds the true importance for them. They want to get things in order more for the benefit of those they love. Usually though, they are too ill and weary to ever manage this task. It is all comes down to love and relationships in the end. That is all that remains in the final weeks, love and relationships.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier. 

This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content. When deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.

When you are on your deathbed, what others think of you is a long way from your mind. How wonderful to be able to let go and smile again, long before you are dying.

This article was written by Bonnie Ware. Click here to read it on her blog.

Imam Shafi’i said something to the effect of…

“I would only enter a debate with someone if I was certain the truth would end up on their lips.” I’ve reached a point where I find no value in arguing with anyone about the deen, and I spend very little time with people who do. As a result people find it very annoying that they can’t figure out which label to put on me: ‘salafi’, ‘sufi’, ‘brelwi’, ‘naqshbandi’ etc.

The truth is, all of these labels are just identification strategies, that we made unconsciously, in order to fit in with a group of people we like, or in order to separate ourselves from a group of people we don’t like. My problem is: I like everyone who reads this blog

Let me know what you think in the comments box below…

Naturally when I first looked at the book in an Islamic bookshop somewhere, I skipped straight to the “juicy bits” – the overall root diseases of the heart, and their cures. Do you want to know what the cure is for pretty much all of the dis-eases of the human heart, from an Islamic spiritual perspective…?

Dhikr.

Dhikr is often translated as ‘rememberance of Allah’. And herein lies the problem. How can you ‘remember’ Allah, when Allah is incomparable? It is impossible, isn’t it? To remember is to bring something to mind, but whatever you bring to mind when you ‘think of Allah’ is not Allah, so you are not remembering Allah. Unless…

You first accept this reality: freeing your mind from thought, (which I also refer to as the ‘thinking-mind’, ‘nafs-thoughts’, ‘the ego’, or ‘the nafs’) is the closest you will ever be to Allah. If you want to ‘remember Allah’, and be in a state of true, deep dhikr, you must clear your mind of all thought. When your mind is free from thought, you will notice you are closer to Allah than you’ve ever been before. You are now in a state conducive to real ‘dhikr’. In fact, you are in a state of ‘ihsan’ and dhikr is what your body & tongue do when you are in this state. If you’re a Muslim you’ve almost certainly been in this state before, probably during some form of worship – you just didn’t realise how you did it.

In future posts, I will break down all the different ways you can get into this state of ‘spiritual presence’, which in Quranic terminology is called ‘ihsan’ and is an internal requisite if you want to benefit from your ‘dhikr’ and worship. I’ll also show you which everyday activities automatically put you in this state – such activities are considered by many to be ‘excellent’ things to do. However, for now, it is important that you recognise that to be in a state of true dhikr is to free your mind from all thoughts. That will bring you closer to Allah than anything else you can do. In this state of no-mind, you have pure awareness of Allah, and when you choose to say ‘subhanAllah’ in this state, it will be about 1 billion times more powerful. Don’t take my word for it – try it for yourself.

The Quran – The Greatest Form Of Dhikr

Of course we know that the Quran is the highest form of dhikr. However, only when your mind is quiet do you open up the space inside yourself for the Quran to be absorbed. If your mind is thinking millions of irrelevant thoughts as you are reading the Quran, you will miss the point of what you’re reading (that’s if you understand the Quran in the first place). If you are reading the Quran without understanding it, because you haven’t invested a few hours into learning basic Arabic, then the only way you can really benefit from such reading is by being intensely present whilst reciting the words.

Let all your acts of worship enhance your awareness of the present moment. Why? Because when you are fully aware of the present moment, your nafs-thoughts disintegrate – at least in that moment you are the master of your nafs; you are in a state of ‘ihsan’ (spiritual presence).

You do not need to be a scholar or a saint to do real, pure dhikr. It is your birthright, and you can do it right now, as you sit in your chair, reading this article. When you get into this state of being free from thoughts of the future and the past, you will automatically be fully aware of the present moment. You’ll be fully in tune with ‘Reality’ (al-Haqq). In other words, you’ll be aware of Allah (SWT).

Of course, your nafs will do everything it can to stop you from becoming aware of its never ending stream of thoughts, that you identify with. But your nafs can’t do much, once you become aware of the fact that ‘dhikr’ is worship, and being in a state of dhikr is tantamount to being ‘present’ – free from thought.

Get into the state of no-mind (the previous article gave you a couple of ways how), notice your thoughts, and let them go and when your mind is free from thought, consciously praise Allah.

Let me know how that improves your connection with Allah or if you have any questions, by writing in the comments boxes below.

We are in the first 10 days of Dhul Hijjah, so…

Now is a great time to focus more on dhikr, prayer, and fasting.

Check it out…

During this 60 minute webinar you’ll learn:

• The number 1 thing to bear in mind if you ever really want to tap into your true potential

• A key mind-set shift that will put your life in perspective (this companion’s saying is a real wake up call!)

• The 2 Quran ayahs & 7 authentic ahadith that concisely explain what the purpose of your life is, and how to live up to it

• The 3 trials everyone faces in life, and how to deal with them (NOT preparing for these can cause a serious blow to your man, that may last for years)

• 7 ways to ensure you can ‘chill’ on the Day of Judgement (NOTE: this is literally what the hadith says)

• Exactly what to expect from the moment you die, to the moment you meet your Lord (there’s a deep sense of inner-ease and contentment that can only come from knowing this)

• The 3 stages you’ll pass through when you die – knowing them in advance is an essential part of our fait, and the ONLY way to prepare for death.

What is the deepest insight you got from these Quran verses? Post below.

What I really loved about it though, was the role the Quran played in the story – it inspired me to go pick it up and have a read…

Check it out below, and let us know what your favourite part was in the comments

Imagine ‘God’. Go ahead, close your eyes right now, and imagine “God” or “Allah” or whatever you’re used to calling It. What do you see? When you really concentrate, and attempt to visualise the One that created all that is, what do you see? A bright light? The Ka’aba? The letters that spell out ‘Allah’ in Arabic? A combination of these? Does It have a face, or hands as you imagine it? Is it male or female? Got the image as clear as possible? Great.

Now, here’s an obvious truth that you probably already know… the image in your mind that represents “God” or “Allah”, that you may well have been praying to your whole life is not God or Allah. To imagine this image and pray with it in mind, regardless of how abstract it is in your mind’s eye, is tantamount to blasphemy. In fact, in the Islamic tradition, and using Quranic vocabulary, the closest word we could use to describe you praying to this image is “shirk”  - worshipping something other than God.

Acknowledging this gives us a great and deep insight that will immediately enhance your ability to pray or meditate, and bring you instantly closer to the All-Loving Creator. Here it is…

“The closest you will ever be to ‘The Incomparable’ is to free your mind of any image or thought. For a few quick ideas on how you can do this, and how doing this is the quickest way to ‘master your ego’, click here.

The connection I want you to see here, that may have an instant effect on your spiritual development is that believing in One, who is Eternal & Incomparable forces us to free our minds from any thought forms. It is impossible to ‘remember Allah’ unless we do so in a way that doesn’t limit Allah in any way. The only way a human can do this is to be free from thought forms of this world, and thought forms that limit Allah (like imagining It with 10 fingers & 10 toes). There is of course an immense side benefit of doing this – experiencing instant “ihsan” – the Quranic word for spiritual excellence, goodness, and beauty… or perhaps even “enlightenment”.

Well, there are a few reasons I can think of – perhaps you can comment below to give me your take on this.

The first reason we’ve made ‘Allah’ into a ‘He’ is that the earliest translations of the Quran into English had an on-going theme of trying to sound as biblical as possible. In the Bible, God is a ‘He’ – the ‘Father’ figure for humanity. Imagining God as a father figure creates warm, fuzzy feelings inside you, especially if your father is emotionally and spiritually absent.

However, personalising the Incomparable to this extent has a down side: in the minds of millions of people the Almighty Creator has somehow become a cheerful chap with a Father-Christmas-like beard sitting on a cloud up in Heaven. Even though most Muslims would reject this image of Allah, they wouldn’t reject it strongly enough to not use the pronoun ‘He’ to describe It. (Although I imagine if we started referring to Allah as a ‘She’ it would cause some kind of out-cry, even though the word ‘Ar-Rahman’, The All-Loving and ‘Ar-Raheem’ The Most Kind, both share the same 3 root letters in Arabic as ‘womb’, which is surely feminine.)

The second reason Allah is referred to as ‘He’ in English is that Arabic grammar does not have a neutral gender, and when referring to something neutral of gender, the masculine is used. And, because most translators are just looking for the easiest equivalent in the target language, the pronoun ‘He’ or ‘Him’ is used instead of ‘It’ throughout most (no, all) English translations of the Quran.

The 3rd reason, people use ‘He’ to refer to Allah is that they hear other people, particularly scholars and people of knowledge referring to Allah as ‘He’ when talking about Islam or Allah in English. No doubt such scholars have their own reasons for referring to Allah as ‘He’ rather than ‘It’, but at this point, I couldn’t justify it. I’m guessing most scholars just do it because they’re translating the Quran from Arabic to English in their minds as they speak, and they hope their audience knows enough about Islam to know that “He” isn’t a male.

The 4th reason is that the best alternative to ‘He’ is probably ‘It’, which doesn’t feel good for some people. I can understand that – ‘It’ is so much less personal than ‘He’. ‘It’ sounds like some kind of an alien character in a horror movie. However, the more I use ‘It’, the more I feel close to ‘It’. Besides, when talking about the Indescribable, I’d vote for an Alien Force for Good over a Father-Christmas sitting on a cloud any day.

I also feel like I can use the term ‘It’ to communicate to a broader audience, from different religious, non-religious, and spiritual backgrounds, and maybe help us all see that we probably believe in the same Divine Force, although the words we use to describe It may be different. That’s harder to do if I think and talk about ‘It’ using a male pronoun.

The 5th reason is probably one of the most practical. When translating the Quran accurately, it’s very difficult to refer to Allah as ‘It’ because the ‘It’ could be referring to just about anything else in the sentence. Here’s an example:

“There has come to you from Allah a light and a clear book by which Allah guides those who pursue His pleasure – the way of peace – and brings them out of the darkness into the light, with His permission, and guides them to a straight path” (5: 15-16)

The above verses make a lot more sense, and are easier to read than my preferred translation:

“There has come to you from Allah a light and a clear book by which Allah guides those who pursue Its pleasure – the way of peace – and brings them out of the darkness into the light, with Its permission, and guides them to a straight path” (5: 15-16)

In the 2nd ‘It’ version, the ‘It’ could be referring to ‘a clear book’ in the 1st use, or ‘the light ‘ in the 2nd use. Hmm… tricky. Whilst this happens less with the personal pronoun ‘He’, it still happens. That’s why it’s capitalised. If throughout the translation, ‘It’ is used to refer to Allah when capitalised, using ‘It’ still makes sense. And something awesome happens…

When you read the Quran, replacing the “He’s” with “It’s”, you get a sense of Allah’s Awe, Magnificence and Incomparable nature. You’re referring to Something when you’ve never seen, heard or touched It. Read the second version of the verse again, accepting that ‘It’ (capitalised) refers to Allah. Go ahead. Then, let me know how it feels to you in the comments box below.

The reason I wrote this piece is to let you know that throughout the rest of this blog and in other writings, I’ll be referring to Allah using the equally inadequate, but at least gender-free pronoun, “It” insha’Allah. If you can think of a really good reason not to, let me know below and I’ll judge for myself, with the True Judge watching me.

Now, I didn’t always have successful Ramadans when it came to my Quran studies. In fact, since I started practising Islam, my first few Ramadans were so un-successful Quran-wise, that I almost gave up on the Quran altogether! Let me tell you about…

The Ramadan I Gave Up On The Quran

It was a few years back – I was in my first year of had studying Arabic seriously at university, but was nowhere near the point where I could understand the Quran. I was so motivated this year, and so excited to actually be studying Arabic full time, that I decided to make the most of Ramadan. I got together with a friend who lived with me in our halls of residence, and we decided we were going to ‘kill it’ this Ramadan.

The plan was simple…

We were going to meet up after Suhoor & Fajr every day in my room or his and we were going to read one entire Juz of the Quran. Because there were two of us, we figured that would increase our accountability and we could motivate each other. And, because neither of us were particularly good at reciting the Quran, we decided to enlist the help of Imam Shatiri via CD. For the first time in my life, I was excited because I thought I was about to actually complete the Quran during Ramadan.

But Allah had other plans for us…

The first day we did it, and we both felt great about it. And of course, I missed my 9am Arabic lecture. The second day, we were still on track but both showing signs of fatigue – but we were determined to push through it. By the fifth day, we were both dreading each other’s phone call, and we had that awkward conversation of… “you know, I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to do it today, but maybe we can catch up tomorrow…”

By the end of Ramadan, we hadn’t even come close. In fact, the longer Ramadan went on, the more I kept changing my targets… and missing them. The truth was, I had failed. Miserably. Towards the end of the month I decided to just let this year go, and hope to do better next year. I was so upset I almost blasphemously went down a path of thinking… “why did Allah make it so difficult for us to study the Quran?”

I now realise the Quran was never ‘difficult’ – my plan was ineffective. When life doesn’t go according to your plans, here’s a great question to ask yourself… “What is the most valuable lesson I can learn from this, that will save me from making much bigger mistakes in the future?” After some reflection, and training, I later realised where I went wrong. And, the more I reflect on it, the more I see how it was a doomed-for-failure plan from the out-set.

Now I’ve mastered a system I use with all my personal Quran Coaching clients to help them create plans that actually work in the build up to Ramadan. The plan outlined below will give you immense clarity around your Quran studies for this Ramadan, but you need to actually open up a document and write out the answers. If you want, you can answer the questions in the comments box below this article, to get feedback & support from other Quran Fans.

Exactly How To Set & Achieve Your Quran Goals This Ramadan

Get your Quran Journal out & brainstorm answers to each of these questions…

1. What can you learn from previous Ramadans’ mistakes that will help you succeed in future Ramadans?

Your past is not your future. Brainstorm 3-5 ways you can improve on your past efforts

2. If you could wave a magic wand, what would you ideally achieve with the Quran during an ideal Ramadan?

Recognise that you may not be ready to achieve this ideal target this Ramadan, and commit to improving yourself over the next year, so you can do it NEXT Ramadan, not this one.

3.a. Set up ideal & minimum time targets for each day of Ramadan.

Take a look at your calendar right now & mark off the dates of Ramadan. Now ask yourself…

a. When during the day is the best time for me to recite?

b. Will I have more time on weekends than weekdays?

c.  Which healthy weekly/daily commitments am I willing to cut out during Ramadan? Perhaps cutting out gym, or other healthy normal activities, like TV will create more time for Quran.

d. How much time will you ideally, comfortably have each day for the Quran? (eg. 1 – 2 hours)

e. And if you don’t make that ideal target, what will be the bear minimum you think you can comfortably do each day? (eg. 15-30 mins)

3.b. When Can I Use Passive Audio ‘NET’ Time (No-Extra-Time)?

I like to think of Ramadan as having 2 types of productive Quran time: passive audio listening time; versus sitting & studying the Quran time. The great thing about passive audio time is that it can be whilst you are doing something mundane that requires no conscious thought, such as taking the train or doing the laundry.

4. Where are you at right now in your Quran studies? Eg. Fluency, English, Memorization, etc.

Check out this this ‘Quran Progress Tracker’ tool that you can use to measure your progress before and after Ramadan…

http://www.quranforbusypeople.com/quran-assessment

(You don’t need to send me your personal information – just read the questions and make a note of the answers yourself in your Quran Journal).

5. Of all the areas of Quran study, which is the most important for you to improve on during this Ramadan to set yourself up for a great year with the Quran?

For some people, the best use of Ramadan may be to learn to understand the entire Quran in Arabic. That way, for the rest of the year, they can connect more deeply with the Quran. For others it may be improving fluency of recitation, so that for the rest of the year they can read 2 pages each day in Arabic & English to feel that constant connection. For others, the best use of this month may be to simply learn how to recite the Arabic script, so they can go on to achieve all their other Quran goals. There are many more options than just these, and each individual has to decide for him/herself what is most important to improve this Ramadan.

6. Use these practical Quran strategies with the suggested time-frames, and decide which one suits your abilities, free time & goals.

The great news is, wherever you are in your Quran studies, you’re not alone! In this article are some great resources students & Islamic organizations have recommended, that help you immediately achieve some of your Quran goals…

http://quranforbusypeople.wordpress.com/2010/08/10/5-essential-ramadan-resources/

For loads more advice, tips & strategies for achieve all your Quran goals, visit www.quranforbusypeople.com and enjoy the free articles, live webinar invitations & videos.