“And rely upon Allah; and sufficient is Allah as Disposer of affairs.” – Noble Qur'an 33:3
So there we are, in the desert of our desires, wishes and hopes, and we are holding in our hands a cup of water. That cup is nothing else than the thing we put our complete trust in, hoping it will make the change in the desert that we expect to see. We are grasping that cup with all our might; we hang on to it, expecting, that once we pour out its contents on the dry sands of the desert – it will transform its bareness into the richness of a flourishing garden.
And we pour the water out. And the tears fill our eyes. Because the hot dry sand immediately soaks in the water, without leaving any trace of its ever being there.
No garden.
Disappointed and defeated, we fall on our knees weeping. And we mourn over the shattered dream of happiness, which never came into being.
And in that blinding grief that overcomes us, there is a great lesson – that cup of water could never change a desert into a garden. It was never meant to be able to do so. All it could be sufficient for – is quenching our thirst for a brief moment. Nothing more.
Yet, how many of us, till this very day, are trying that “experiment” out? And how many of us are grief-stricken daily, because no matter how many times we try – the outcome is still the same?
How many times do we have to find ourselves in the middle of the desert disappointed, before we come to realize, that perhaps, we are using the WRONG means in order to attain the happiness we wish for? How many times do we have to find ourselves broken and whining, before we realize that the mere cup of water is the WRONG means we are using, in order to transform the desert into a garden?
In our never-ending quest for happiness, we often overlook the simple truths, and we continue to neglect them with the stubbornness of a child.
We have put our complete trust in the idea that a cup of water is the ultimate provider of what we wish to attain. We have enslaved ourselves to the idea that it is the source of the blessing, and we have all-so-readily placed the key to our happiness in it!
It’s time we woke up from the dream, and broke the shackles of an illusion that has enwrapped us.
When we place the expectations for our happiness and fulfillment in the things that are inconstant and perishing, we are bound to be broken. Because they were never meant to fulfill those expectations in the first place.
What will happen if we lean against a spider-web? Will it ever be able to support our weight? The answer is – “NO”. It is meant to support the weight of a spider, not a human being. Yet, what we are doing so persistantly is exactly that – we are hoping that the frail framework of a spider-web will be strong enough to hold us. And when it tears and breaks, and we fall and break with it, astonished – we open our eyes wide and wonder: “…Why did it happen?”
The answer is simple: “…It was inevitable.”
When we place the hopes for our happiness in the creation, when we seek it to be the end in and of itself for our fulfillment, when we expect it to provide us with the attainment of our desires, wishes, hopes, dreams, aspirations and longings, it is just the same as leaning on the spider-web. It’s bound to be a failure.
In order to reach the happiness we all wish for, we need to finally LET GO of the cup of water we hold on to so dearly, and we need to QUIT leaning against the feeble spider-web.
They are the creation. Weak, powerless, deficient, impotent, and incapable of providing us with what we expect it to provide us with.
Therefore, there is no sense in blaming our family, spouses, friends, jobs, wealth, (continue the list by thinking of anything that falls under the category of “creation”, and it is virtually everything around us, that we might see, hear, smell or touch), when they do not meet our expectations, when they let us down, when they do not live up to the level we expected. They were never meant to give us what they are simply not able to give.
In order for us to get what we so desperately need and seek for, we need to empty or hearts from the expectations attached to the creation, and fill them with the expectations attached to the Right Source. The Source which is never-ending, never-breaking, never-diminishing and never-failing.
And only when we put our complete trust, expectations and dependence on what is strong and unbreakable, will we attain what we were hoping for: the vast deserts of our own souls will begin to be covered with the abundant carpets of the green flourishing gardens.
And that Source is: God.
