The substance of your soul
INsights 070, Friday 27th December 2024
The substance of your soul
INsights 070, Friday 27th December 2024
When it all falls away, what remains?
Beyond your title, reputation and public persona, who are you?
Beyond your material possessions, what do you have?
Beyond your human relationships, what connection is left?
Beyond your external words and statements, what is your internal conversation?
Beyond your body and outward appearance, what is the substance of your soul?
I’ve been asking myself these questions more intensely lately, prompted in part by some sobering life experiences and in part by the natural psychological effect of coming to the end of another year in the Gregorian calendar.
Reality check
The more I’ve been digging and excavating internally, the more problems I’m finding.
The impurities are everywhere to be seen.
Within myself, I am confronted by ungodly elements of hypocrisy, pride, ostentation, desire, doubt, fear, frustration, resentment, anger, heedlessness, ingratitude, impatience, apathy, envy, judgementalism, miserliness, selfishness, false hope as well as hopelessness, and different forms of worldly attachment.
I didn't go out of my way to make such a long list. It built up pretty quickly as I thought of real examples of my actions, words, thoughts and feelings.
So if you look up to me, don't. I'm just another flawed individual struggling along the path.
Perhaps there is no internal disease from which I’m not suffering at least some symptoms.
How big are these elements? God only knows. It’s hard to quantify the intangible precisely.
How significant are they compared to what others are experiencing within themselves? Again, God only knows.
In any case, comparison is irrelevant. Life is a one player game. At the end of it all, I will only be held responsible for myself.
The fact is that this process of introspection has made me painfully aware that I’m not at all ready to meet my Maker. If my soul were to be taken tonight, I wouldn’t be hopeful of where I would end up. There’s too much spiritual sewage that needs to be incinerated.
I am ashamed of the distance between my reality and my goal. But I know I must be ashamed only to the extent that it moves me towards the goal. Both zero shame and excess shame will simply keep me where I am, either too proud or too despondent to effect any change.
Staying positive
Despite the brutal reality check, I am encouraged by the fact that, in the midst of all the mess, I do feel a deep sense of longing.
Longing for truth, for tranquility, for the divine.
I also feel strong determination.
Determination to crush my ego, to expand, enrich and elevate my soul.
I am scared by the possibility of being in anything other than a blissful state of divine connection at the time of my death.
It follows that I need to be hypervigilant in finding and preserving that blissful state for as long as I’m alive. I can’t expect a sudden positive transformation at the last minute. I must be ready. I must proceed with urgency.
Time for action
If the longing is there and the determination is there, all that’s needed is consistent practice – doing more of what I know to be purifying and avoiding what I know to be damaging.
I think this means more prayer, more remembrance, more fasting, more charity, more acts of service and care for others.
I think it also means more focused reading, more reflective writing, less talking and less time wasting.
It means constantly checking whether my words and actions are stemming from my ego, or from love for others and ultimately, from love for The One.
As far as my mission is concerned, it will continue but I will keep reassessing and refining every aspect of what I do to try to ensure it’s as authentic as possible.
That will probably involve seemingly random shifts in emphasis on different topics, shifts in medium and shifts in frequency of public output.
I will explore the topics that my heart feels inclined to explore.
I will be in the now, seek guidance and go with the flow.
I will trust that whatever emerges from this way of being will be for the best.
This is because my work is simply me experiencing life, trying to achieve an understanding of God and proximity to Him, then sharing the principles and practices, the attitudes and approaches that I have found to be meaningful and useful.
Whatever direction my work takes, and whatever impact it may or may not have, I take comfort and learning from some words I came across recently:
The outer work can never be small if the inner work is great.
The outer work can never be great if the inner work is small.
So in summary, I suppose the overall message here is that I’m going to try to do a lot more inner work in the days and months ahead. A lot more.
As this is the last INsights of 2024, I’m sharing all this with you so that a) you can put into some context whatever I come up with in 2025 and b) in case it might help encourage you in a similar introspective direction if that is what you think your soul might be in need of right now.
I ask God for His forgiveness and guidance, for me and for you.
I thank you for your ongoing engagement and support.
Until next time.
Peace.
Iqbal
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Have a blessed week. I'll send you the next edition next Friday, God willing.
