Searching for the quiet connection…
In today’s society it’s so elusive. Where can you find the a moment of peace, where you can languish in the stillness of your mind, the quiet within your soul. It seems to be something that is forever just out of my reach. I know it’s just in front but I can’t quite touch it.
I just watched the Sandra Bullock movie, All about Steve. She plays a crossword constructor! Highly intelligent, so much so that she can’t stop talking, telling anyone who will listen the incessant train of thoughts that run at high-speed thru her mind. Naturally, most don’t have the patience to listen, but of course in the end she finds a few that do and therein finds that her peace lay in finding good friends who just get you.
Juxtaposing this idea is the book, Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Here you have a woman who seeks refuge in an ashram in India. One part of her quest is to find God, through solitary meditation, to connect with him, to feel him. Now her path is a very yogic path but on some levels I see some alignment with Islamic ideology. Are we also not trying to connect with our Rabb, to totally submit to the leap of faith we have taken in accepting all that is Islam. To find that connection in our salah, to reach a state of khushoo, is this not what they are seeking as well. I really connected with some of her ideas, esp the one about not just being an automaton asking God for things, but really waiting, connecting and when you make that prayer (dua) it is one that is authentic, one you feel from your core and you are asking for, with all of you connected, channeled to this conversation with God (Allah).
And so we come to me, a girl on her prayer mat, trying not to spout out an empty dua, Allah save our ummah, alleviate the suffering, give health to the ill etc etc. Of course I mean all these wider duas, I really do, but sometimes there is a disconnect so now I’m trying to reach inside and make that dua specific and really count. But before I can even get to that, there is the struggle of the mind while reading salah. Sometimes I stand there and boy does my mind wander! I’ve designed outfits, thought up curriculums, composed emails and even argued with myself while stood in my qiyaam! All the while, totally missing the point of my salah. To connect, to have those moments of peace with my Lord, my Creator, My Pardoner, my Guide!
I am trying to get my daughter all excited about salah so I tell her stories of how the angels have come to stand with her while she prays and how Allah loves to hear a child worshipping to him, wanting to please him and how lucky we are that our Allah has given us 5 times in a day where we can leave everything else behind and have this time for us, moments of peace and quiet filled with the beauty of the Quran. (Of course these concepts are explained in 5 yr old speak! 
) And while I tell her, sometimes I feel like such a fraud, if I know all this, then when I have my time, why is there no peace? Why is it my mind races around like a rabbit trapped in a tunnel?
So the last few days I’m trying something new, I start with contemplating on one of the names of Allah and how this quality of Allah has touched my life for I have been blessed abundantly with his mercies and beneficence. Alhumdhulillah. And I am trying to finish with dua that is truly authentic, dua that I read from my heart for me! And where I can and of course when I remember, I’m trying to implement sunnahs where I can in the hope that a change in my actions will facilitate the change in my state of mind. Lets hope it works! Pray for me!!!
