Space for my spiritual detox and frequent reminders.

How long will you move backwards? Come Forward!
Don't stray toward disbelief, come to religion.
In grief see gentleness: come towards gentleness.
Return at last to the origin of your own origin.

- Mewlana Jalaluddin Balkhi Rumi

Diagnosing the heart

Source: How To Diagnose Your Heart | Khutbah by Dr. Omar Suleiman

Once or twice a week if not more frequent, scan the heart with a spiritual lens. Is it struggling, or is it settled? Is it restless and craving a false relief, like having candy floss? Just like the pumping organ in our chest requires a mindful lifestyle and heart healthy diet; our spiritual heart needs be conditioned and calibrated with the sophistication of our faith, lest it should get clogged.

According to hadith, there are four types of hearts –

  1. A content heart: heart of a true believer, completely focused towards Allah. It is like a polished lamp, shining brightly. This heart is fed with one source, the source of imaan.
  2. A heart that is sealed and has a knot tied around the seal. The heart of a disbeliever.
  3. A heart that is upside down. Heart of a hypocrite, it gets fed with good, but it empties out like a upside down pitcher.
  4. A wrapped heart. The most common one. A heart fed with two source: imaan and hypocrisy. The faith is like a stream of clean water that feeds the heart and there is the hypocrisy, which is like a stream of blood and pus. Which ever stream is stronger at the moment, that is the state of the heart at that moment. Its like a heart with blocks in it, it still works but not well.

What is a healthy heart

A content heart, a heart that is not distracted. A content heart is not about intense emotion, not how much it cries in prayers. It is a heart that immediately stands alert in the mention on Allah, like a beloved tune or name, the heart immediately turns full attention. “My rabb” the heart fills with love for the Creator.
Reading the Quran, is like reading love letters from the Protector, the Provider, the One who love me more than any human being ever could.
Its not a heart that feels intense pain but remorse of committing sin. A believer’s heart is governed by two things; pain of regret and love of worship of Allah, pleasing Allah. Those who turns away, Allah moves their heart. They commit spiritual suicide.
Those heart which sincerely wants to come back, Allah opens the clogs of those hearts.

“Allah has not put for any man two hearts inside his body” (Sûrat Al-Ahzâb:4). We cant have two hearts, a heart that derives joy from things that is displeasing (binge watching netflix, or viki in my case) to Allah, Allah does not bless that heart to taste the joy of worship. A hypocrite believes he/she has two hearts, thinking to feed one heart today with this or that and then following day go to mosque to feed the other heart. It doesn’t work like that. Heart like that has another master. There is only one heart, one heart to feed. Where it seeks the pleasure from, that is where it will get pleasure from.

To do

First thing: Good deeds makes me happy, bad deeds make me sad.
What is sin? outside of the context of halal or haram, its something that causes the soul to feel hesitant, trust that feelings and refrain.

Best way to gauge the health – examine the relationship with the Quran. if its uncomfortable reading it, if it gets restless, gets bored, wants to just finish reading it fast; then its unhealthy; time for sincere repentance and asking Allah for guidance and strength. Just like the in hikes or climb, the unfit physical heart is beating like crazy, one gets breathless; the distracted spiritual heart is impatient and in need of instant gratification.

Just like a train for a hike, or a marathon. Our spiritual heart needs that daily exercise of mindful connection with Quran to keep the light pass freely in our heart without experiencing blocks.

Its like lack of appetite when the body is not feeling right, when our spirit, our soul is not feeling right, we don’t taste the salah, the Quran. We go through the motion but it doesn’t sustain us or fill up. We suffer from spiritual malnutrition.

Second thing: Detox from spiritual junk food. Discipline the heart and seek shifa from Quran.