Tag Archives: Gratitude

Inter Faith, Prayer, Ramadan, Ramzan, Spiritual Humanism

A Prayer in Ramadan/Ramzan

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In all the trials of life and pain, doubt and heartache, love and forgiveness of each other how uplifting to ask for Gratitude to soar like an eagle above the earth. The earth where our troubles and joys are found but Gratitude takes one inner and higher. It is to the other world. Another world where equality and peace reign upon the earth or otherworldly, altogether spiritual, non-material.

Ask first that your Gratitude for all you have shines high like an eagle so that in comparison your troubles seem small and as such you are given great strength and confidence to face and inshallah overcome them by yourself or with the assistance of some anonymous solidarity.

Oh Allah, God of Abraham, Solomon, Moses, Mary, Jesus, Muhammad (peace be upon them All) improve my gratitude/shukar to You Alone. Not gratitude to my memories (good or ill) nor to my personal achievements, nor to wealth or poverty, nor to charity, nor to my sense of arrogant self-righteousness, even though I may feel justified. All Justice is Yours to dispense or otherwise.

Gratitude to You Alone oh Allah. All is from You.

Nothing is of my doing but by choosing of this or that thing, this or that emotion to dominate my mind and heart. Nothing is of my doing but what I choose and accountable for.

By Musa Askari

Spiritual Humanism, SpiritualHuman

“What have you not asked for?”

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“What have you not asked for?

“I did not ask to be born,” he said. “I did not ask for my eyes. I did not ask for my face. I did not ask for my ears. I did not ask for my hands. I did not ask for my feet. I did not ask for anything that one may call a Body. I did not ask for I did not even know what even a body was. I did not ask for my Parents. I did not ask for my Family. I asked for none of these things for I had no idea of what they were. I did not ask for companionship. I did not ask for friendship. I did not ask for food to eat, for shelter nor for warmth. I asked for none of these things for I knew not what they were. I was in no lack or want of any such thing.”

“Who are you to not ask or need for such things?”

“All I know, all I remember, all I recollect, and know to be true, the one certain thing, that I am a soul. Yet I did not even ask to be a soul.”

“I did not even ask for my name. All these, given not by myself to myself. Given unknown and unbidden by the Giver of All. For what purpose, for what reason unknown to me and I shudder to ask. That I cannot ask.”

“If all such have been given and given in abundance with no memory of my calling for them, who is the Giver that gives as such? Pray tell so that I may give thanks and thanks in perpetuity. All I ask is to whom I offer this thanks. For thanks and much more is due. That is the only thing I can ask. To know where the offering of gratitude is to be placed.”

“But first I must pay attention to this Body ahead of that offering. Where is the place for wadhu (ablution)?”

Musa Askari

Hasan Askari 1932-2008, Spiritual Humanism

The Seven Steps

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THE SEVEN STEPS  

by Hasan Askari from his book “Alone to Alone”

 There are seven steps: Testimony(“tasdiq”). Trust (“tawakkul”). Patience (“sabr”). Gratitude (“shukr”). Remembrance (“zikr”). Love (“hub”) and Gnosis (“irfan”).

When one knows, one loves; when one loves, one remembers; when one remembers, one is grateful; when one is grateful, one learns to be patient, and it is the proof that one trusts; and when one trusts, one has given a true testimony.

Gratitude is faith. It is the cornerstone. It is the bridge. Without gratitude there is no strength in patience and no pleasure in remembering. Gratitude is for both material and spiritual gifts, but there is another far higher gratitude, gratitude to the Supreme who is all possessing and yet, what is in reality His, He calls it ours.

Gnosis results in love. Love is remembrance of the object of love. When true gnosis is there every other step follows effortlessly. The begining and the end are connected without break or interval.

 Trust in the unseen is the reliable proof of a testimony being true. If there is no trust as such, testimony in any form is false.