Ya Ramadan! Ya Karim!

In Allah’s Great Compassion and Love

Beloved Ones,

Life on earth is brief.  When it comes to its conclusion we will be utterly happy with every Ramadan we have honored, every fast we have undertaken, every study of Quran we have plunged into, every ilahi we have whole heartedly sung, with every breath we have breathed in gratitude, every true prayer we have uttered, every morning we have risen from our beds for His sake, every Zikrullah we have joined, every sacrifice we have offered, every act of humbling our limited self, every kind act that flowed from us toward another, every moment of praise and joy in our Beloved, every movement of love from our heart, every journey we have undertaken to increase our knowledge of Him, Every good counsel we have given that has benefitted another, every gathering we have joined for His sake, every conscious moment that we have lived.

And we will be asking forgiveness for our heedless moments, our distractions, our obsessions, our selfish actions, our lack of gratitude and our blindness to the ever-presence of our Beloved. We will regret our prayers missed, our paucity of praise, opportunities for selflessness and generosity passed over, our responding with pride, anger and ego to events that test us, and our lack of daring and courage to undertake the path of love and mystic knowledge.

But Allah is the Forgiver Who loves to forgive, Who makes excuses for us and Who covers our faults and turns them into good. And Allah is the Grateful Who joyfully elevates our small offerings in the way a mother would delightedly receive a wilted flower or a piece of melted candy from her child. Allah watches over us in utter love like a mother and counts our actions as good even though they were only intended and not realized.

From our side, let us be humble toward Allah. Better to be humble and bewildered in love like a child toward its mother than offer countless practices with a mind that is proud, feeling that it has done something important.

That is the paradox. We offer but we do not count the offering or consider it worthy. Only Allah gives it worth.

So let us be present in this Ramadan as though it were already the end of our life. For that is what it can feel like in these days, as though we had died and were in the Barzak, the intermediary realm between this world and the next. Ramadan is a kind of Barzak, but one in which we can still act and change our condition and help to improve the condition of others through our prayers, our actions and our intentions.

Every day let us make a conscious intention to dedicate our day for the sake of our Beloved. And ask forgiveness and mercy for our self and others. And ask Allah to overlook our shortcomings and the shortcomings of others. And let us also forgive. May we be counted among those who like Hazreti Ali, may Allah be pleased with him and ennoble his countenance, always forgive.

May Allah bless the best of humanity and the prince of Prophets in the beloved Muhammad, sallallahu aleyhi wa salam, his cherished family, descendants and noble companions and all the Mesengers, Prophets and Mothers. May Allah bless Hazreti Maryam, Hazreti Fatima, Hazreti Khadija, Hazreti Asiya, Hazreti Aisha, Hazreti Zainab, Hazreti Rabia and all the noble women of the path of the heart.

May Allah bless our beloved Muzaffer Ashki Aziz, Nur al Anwar, Hazreti Pir Nureddin and his mother Amina Taslima and all the mystic lineages dwelling in the Source of Love.

May Allah bless our families, our companions, our neighbors and all people of heart and all creatures each of whom is a sign and a mercy of the Creator.

Fariha

We are just passing from the first ten days of Ramadan which are under the cloak of Mercy into the second ten days which are under the cloak of Forgiveness.

Tonight, Thursday, is the tenth night of Ramadan.

Let us look for the presence of the Night of Power in each of these nights.

It is not in the doing but in the being. But the doing is a sign of the being. But only Allah knows the being and only Allah sees the doing. And Allah is the only doer.