It's a Healing Blog but what exactly are we healing?
‘It is said that the virtuous ( abrār) are those who do not hurt ‘grubs’ ( dharr), ie, tiny ants that are almost invisible’
Fadhuratu hubbi lilMawla’r-Rahīm, tuzīlu’l-humūma yawma’t-tanādī.
Blame becomes a meaningless concept the moment one understands how suffering in a family system or even in a community extends back through the generations. “Recognition of this quickly dispels any disposition to see the parents as villain,” wrote John Bowlby, the British psychiatrist who showed the decisive importance of adult-child relationships in shaping the psyche. No matter how far back we look in the chain of consequence - great-grandparents, pre-modern ancestors, Adam and Eve, the accusing finger can find no fixed target. That should come as a relief.
The news gets better: seeing trauma as an internal dynamic grants us much needed agency. If we treat trauma as an external event, something that happens to or around us, then it becomes a piece of history we can never dislodge. If, on the other hand, trauma is what took place inside us as a result of what happened, in the sense of wounding or disconnection, then healing and reconnection become tangible possibilities. Trying to keep awareness of trauma at bay hobbles our capacity to know ourselves. Conversely, fashioning, from it a rock-hard identity- whether the attitude is defiance, cynicism, or self-pity - is to miss both the point and the opportunity of healing, since by definition trauma represents a distortion and limitation of who we were born to be. Facing it directly without either denial or over identification becomes a doorway to health and balance.’
The Last Place You Want to Be, The Myth of Normal by Gabor Maté
from the Thirty-first Discourse , Al-Fath ar Rabbanī by Sheikh ‘Abd al Qadir al Jilāni
‘For I saw that the children of Christians always grew up embracing Christianity, and the children of Jews always grew up adhering to Judaism, and the children of Muslims always grew up following the religion of Islam. I also heard the tradition related from the Apostle of God – God’s blessing and peace be upon him! – in which he said: “Every infant is born endowed with the fitra: then his parents make him Jew or Christian or Magian.” Consequently I felt an inner urge to seek the true meaning of the original fitra, and the true meaning of the beliefs arising through slavish aping of parents and teachers. I wanted to sift out these uncritical beliefs, the beginnings of which are suggestions imposed from without, since there are differences of opinion in the discernment of those that are true from those that are false.'
Imam al Ghazali, Deliverance From Error
‘While we pride ourselves on being conscious individuals who make conscious choices, the reality is that most of the choices we make are driven by hidden reasons, motivations, impulses, and compulsions. These are formed within our unconscious mind and influence our decisions all the time. In fact, most of our decisions are made unconsciously.
Many of these hidden reasons or compulsions that come to us from within are formed by our lower self, social expectations, media, social pressure, and all sorts of other external influences that mold us in ways we are unaware of and eventually determine many of the decisions we make. How do we rid ourselves of their negative influences? How do we prevent them from making bad promptings and suggesting bad actions?'
The night corresponds to the soul, the moon to the Heart (which is to the soul what the corporeal heart is to the body) and the sun to the Spirit. Just as the moon is the last outpost of daylight in the darkness of night, so the Heart is the last outpost of Divine Light, that is , direct Knowledge (Gnosis) in the darkness of the soul’s knowledge, which even in its highest form, that is as theoretic understanding of the doctrine, is only mental and therefore indirect.
The ‘Eye of the Heart’, which corresponds to the ray of light that connects the moon with the sun, is the Intellect in its true sense – the sense in which Intellectus was used throughout the Middle Ages – the organ of transcendent vision.”
It is He Who sent down tranquillity into the hearts of the Believers, that they may add faith to their faith;- for to Allah belong the Forces of the heavens and the earth; and Allah is Full of Knowledge and Wisdom.
Dhikr Balm Studio 