Kindness of God

Prophet Mohammad(p) said, “After creating His creation, God wrote in His Book (The Tablet Preserved) that My Kindness and Mercy shall prevail over My Wrath and Anger.” This Book is there above the Heavens with God.”

Faith (in God) exists in between fear and hope. This basically means that man should have fear of God in his heart, and the fear should be because he would deserve and become entitled to the punishment of God (because of his deeds) and at the same time he should have hope on the Mercy and Kindness of God. And Faith in God shall be there in the hearts of those, in whose hearts both these feelings are there.

Once, a few prisoners came to Prophet. Amoung these prisoners, there was a woman, who was searching for somebody. Suddenly she found a child amoung the prisoners. She seized the child and pressed him tightly to her heart and started breast-feeding the child. Then Prophet told his companions, “Do you think this woman can throw her child into the Fire?” The companions replied, “By God! She will never do that.” Then Prophet said, “God is more kind to His devotees than this woman.”

Prophet(p) said, “God divided Mercy and Kindness into one hundred parts; kept ninety nine parts with Himself, and released only one part on to our Earth. Because of this one part alone, a quadruped removes its legs from above its child, fearing that it might cause harm to its child.” So God’s Mercy , love and Kindness is 99 times more than whatever kindness, love and affection we see amoung the creation of God.

Prophet(p) said, “If a believing (in God) person comes to know about the Wrath and Anger of God, nobody would aspire for His Paradise; And if a non-believer comes to know about the Kindness and Mercy of God, he would never lose hope of getting Paradise for himself.” Once Omer(r) said, “If I come to know that all the humanity, except one person, will be granted Paradise by God, I will be scared thinking whether I am that person. And If I come to know that the whole of mankind will be consigned to Hell except one person by God, I shall hope that I would be that one person. So all of us should have fear of His Wrath in our heart, and at the same time, have hope on His kindness and Mercy.

God says that for the good deed that a man does, He gives a reward ranging from 10 times to 700 times to man. And for the bad deed, God gives only that much punishment as the bad deed is, and He may even pardon that bad deed altogether. Prophet(p) said that God has written down all the good and bad deeds, and then clarified that if a man has made an intention of doing a good deed, but has not yet acted on it, even then God records a good deed in His Records. Man made an intention of doing a good deed, and then if he performs that good deed also, God records ranging from 10 to 700 and more than that number of good deeds in that man’s account. If a man made an intention of doing a bad-deed, but abstained from doing it, then God records a good deed in that man’s account.(because man has abstained from bad deed, because of fear of God. And if man had intended doing a bad-deed, and then goes ahead performing that bad-deed, then God records only one bad deed in that man’s account.

God says, “If man moves closer to me by a palm’s length, I move a hand’s length towards him; and if man moves one hand’s length towards Me, I move a length of two hands outstretched towards him. When man comes walking towards Me, then I go running towards him.”

God says, “I deserve the fact that I be feared, and I be joined no partners, and I deserve the fact that I pardon him, who protected himself from joining partners with me.”

Prophet(s) said, “There is none more patient than God, because man reaches heights of insolence and attributes children to Him, but He pardons them and provides subsistence to him.”   

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Three Karmayogis

Prophet Muhammad (p) once narrated a very interesting story of three men. He (p) said, “Once three people were going on their journey. On the way, they were caught in a very heavy rain. To protect themselves from the rain, they entered a cave and sat there. A big boulder came down from the hill and fell right across the entrance of this cave. The opening of the cave got completely blocked. The three companions got frightened. The boulder was so big that it was beyond their capacity to move it. Added to that, the place itself was so uninhabited and deserted that there was none whom they could call for help. They were completely disappointed and thought that they are as good as buried alive, and this cave is now their grave. One of them said, “We should never lose hope on God and His mercies. Each one of us shall pray to God, giving reference of one of the best deeds of our life. I hope God, out of His   mercy, shall certainly  find a way for us from out of this cave. “

Story of the first Traveler

One of those travelers started telling:-

“O God! My father and mother were very old, and I had very small children. I used to graze the goats throughout the day, and return in the evening. After coming back to the house, I used to draw milk from my goats, and first offer milk to my parents. After feeding them, I used to give milk to my small children. Incidentally, one day, I went deep into the forest, and by the time I returned home, it was too late in the night. By that time, my parents had fallen asleep.

As usual, I drew milk from my goats, filled in a tumbler, and stood near the bed of my parents. I was waiting with the milk to give it to them, if they wake up. It was late in the night. My children were growing uneasy because of their hunger. They would come again and again; embrace my feet, cry, and demand milk from me. But I did not like to feed my children before my parents.  When my parents were sleeping on empty stomach, I did not like that my children should take rest with their stomachs full. It so happened, that I was standing all through the night, with the tumbler of milk in my hand, with my parents sleeping, and my children writhing with hunger. The complete night passed like this, and it was at last break of the dawn.

Oh God! If my intention of treating my parents like this, was only to please you, then you, with your mercy, please, remove the boulder from the mouth of this rock, and make way for us!”

The moment this traveler finished his supplication, the boulder moved from the cave and the sky was clearly visible. 

And then the second traveler started telling about his good deed.   

My Experiments with Psychology

My daughter came out in flying colours in her SSC. She was to join in Intermediate. Coming to the selection of her subjects, as is usual with every parent, we have only two options for our children; they are Maths, Physics and chemistry, for making them an engineer, or Biology, if we want them to go for Medicine. Their taste hardly matters. We impose our choice on them. I did the same thing. I gave her MPC in her Intermediate. I arranged the best coaching for her. When the first year results came, they to my utter surprise, I found that she could get just pass marks in group subjects, but she secured excellent marks in languages. I realized my folly. Then, I told her, “Passing with barest minimum marks, in Inter, will take you nowhere, in these days of competition. You come out with your choice, and join a new course afresh.” She selected Commerce, and stood first in the college.

She was to join in graduation. She preferred the Royal Arts group, with History, English Literature and Political Science. As the adage goes, “Habits die hard”, I meddled again. We, parents, have a nasty habit of fulfilling our unfulfilled dreams and desires through our children. I used to be very much interested in Psychology. Those days my elders did not allow me to have my wish. Now there was a chance. I reasoned with my daughter, “These days who is interested in History? You would have no prospects. If you take psychology, which is very interesting (it was interesting for me, not for her), tomorrow you can be a practicing Psychotherapist, and you would have a bright future.” She agreed, though reluctantly. Luckily for me, she came out in flying colours in her graduation. But after her course was over, she never touched the books of psychology again, which were from renowned foreign writers. They became my property. For the past four years, I have been regularly reading these books. At last, my wish of studying Psychology got fulfilled, and I am happy about it.

Generally I have the habit of making a beginning from the end, or start the negative things first. When I tried my hands at learning Tamil, I made the beginning by learning the abuses first. In my study of Psychology too, I made the reverse beginning. I started with reading the Personality Disorders first. In this direction, two disorders particularly attracted my attention. They are:

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Antisocial Personality

Narcissistic Personality Disorder:- is described as having an inflated sense of self importance, being preoccupied with fantasies of success, constantly seeking admiration, and attention, and being insensitive to the needs of others and often exploiting them. Until I read this, I did not know that this could also be a disorder or a mental disease. Who does not think great of himself? I feel that in some measure all of us have these features. Just as “Too much of anything is bad”, I feel that having this sense in a small measure may not be the disease, but having an Inflated sense of these cravings must be a disease or disorder.  

Antisocial Personality:- They are also called psychopathic Personalities. These people seem to have little sense of responsibility, morality, or concern for others. Their behavior is determined entirely by their own needs. In other words, they lack a CONSCIENCE. When the average person realizes at an early age that some restrictions are placed on behavior and that pleasures must sometimes be postponed in consideration of the needs of others, individuals who have antisocial personalities seldom consider any desires except their own. They behave impulsively, seek immediate gratification of their needs, and cannot tolerate frustration. They have little feeling for anyone except themselves and seem to experience little guilt or remorse, regardless of how much suffering theuir behavoiour may cause others. Their other characteristics are a great facility for lying, a need for thrills and excitement with little concern for possible injury, and an inability to alter behaviour as a consequence of punishment. They are often attractive, intelligent, charming people, who are quite facile in manipulating others- in other words, good “con artists.” Their façade of competence and sincerity wins them promising jobs, but they have little staying power. Their restlessness and impulsiveness soon lead them into an escapade that reveals that reveals their true nature. They accumulate debts, desert their families, squander company money, or commit crimes. When caught, their declarations of repentance are so convincing that they often escape punishment and are given another chance. But they seldom live up to expectations; what they say has little relation to what they feel or do.

The two main characteristics of them are lovelessness (the inability to feel any empathy for or loyalty to, another person) and guiltlessness (the inability to feel any remorse for one‘s action, regardless of how reprehensible it is).   

(In my next post, dabbling with my pet subject of Numerology, I shall try to find the causes of the above personality disorders)

           

The World will be good,

 if you are good!

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I heard this story long ago from somebody. I am recollecting the same and penning down here.

In the outskirts of a village, called Gudem, two people were sitting in the shade of a tree – One was Shakeel, another was Nabeel. One traveler approached them, and asked Shakeel, “I want to settle down in this village. Please tell me, how are the people in this village?” Shakeel asked, “Where are you coming from, and why are you leaving that place?” The traveler said, “I am coming from a distant village called Hussainpur. All the people in that village are quarrelsome. So I have left that village. Tell me how the people in this village, Gudem, are, such that I can settle down here for life?” Shakeel told the traveler that people in Gudem also are equally bad, and you would better find some other place. Listening to this, the traveler left in search of some other village.

After some time there came another traveler, from Rampur. Incidentally, he was also in the same hunt, and asked Shakeel whether people of Gudem are good, such that he can settle down here. Shakeel asked the same question to this traveler also, “How are the people in your Rampur, where you are coming from?” He replied that the people in Rampur are very good and very co-operative. I want to shift because my wife died in Rampur. Her memories will continue to haunt me if I continue there; so I wanted to change the place. Then Shakeel said, “In Gudem also people are very nice and co-operative. You can come and settle here.” The second traveler left accepting the advice of Shakeel.

Then Nabeel asked Shakeel, “Both the people asked the same question to you, but for the first person you told that people in our village, Gudem, are bad, but for the second person you told that they are good and co-operative. Why so?” Shakeel replied, “The first person found his present-village-people to be bad because he was bad. So naturally he would be bad here also, so our people cannot be good to him. The second person found his village people to be good, because he is good. In our village also because he is good, he will find our people also to be good. Everywhere People will be good to you, if you are good. They will be bad, if you are bad.”

A Rejoinder

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Two religious persons from two different villages met, one was Shakeel and the other, Nabeel. Shakeel asked Nabeel, “Sir, what is the attitude of people in your village?” Nabeel said, “People in our village are very good. When God gives them something, they thank God. When He does not give them, they hold patience.”  Listening to this Shakeel said, “Sir, This is what the dogs in our village also do.”  Nabeel was taken aback, and asked Shakeel, “Please tell, then, what the attitude of people of your village is.” Shakeel said, “The people in our village give it to others, when God gives them. When God does not give, they hold patience.” Nabeel understood, and said, Indeed, people of your village are great.