BALANCING ACT GOD’S

Shoaib Ahmed

Never have I taken this long to settle on an idea for my article. By now, I have repeated the word ‘ephemeral’ a couple hundred times in my head. I keep thinking about this life being ephemeral, but that seems too somber an idea to write about. This time, instead of mumbling the word, my mind hums a line from a beautiful Urdu song by Sunny Khan Durrani.

“We will sit together in Heaven and laugh at ourselves, wondering why we were upset at such trivial matters.”

As life is temporary, so are the states of pain and pleasure that stitch together to make up life. Life is never stationary, always in perpetual motion, oscillating between pleasure and pain, between loss and discovery. This is how it attempts to balance itself. Our faith consistently inspires us to understand this impermanence of life and its parts. Sheikh Hamza Yusuf, a prominent Sufi Sheikh, analogized life to a child being thrown in the air. Their eyes widen as the child leaves your arms, and a cry escapes them. They thump back into your arms with a chuckle and delight. The ascent and fall of the child can also be analogized to our phases of sorrow. The one difference is that a child learns to enjoy the anticipation in the fall and trust the arms that catch it.

As Muslims, we understand that the depth of each fall is compensated by the height of each rise. Our belief in God informs our belief that whatever difficulty we are going through will undoubtedly end. It keeps the flame of hope ignited within us. Still, we are only human. It is, well, human of us to occasionally lose hope and fall into despair. During these times, Allah (swt) assures us,

“So truly where there is hardship, there is also ease. Truly where there is hardship, there is also ease.”

[94:5-6]

When faced with new difficulties, we can return to this verse to replenish our hope and resolve.

And yet, not all sorrow is the same. For instance, yearning for a lost loved one never surrenders. It roams around your soul - foggy and cold - despite the passing of time. These pains age with you and only come to cease at your last breath. But even these lasting pains can be dulled by our understanding of this temporary life. When Muslims learn of someone’s passing, we say, with sorrow and failure, it also dictates our relationship with joy and success. Material success, like every other component of life, is an adversary of time. This in itself is motivation for us to be humble in our success. We attribute our success to God and, hence, remain detached from it. As Muslims, we are careful not to define ourselves through worldly gains. Yes, we can be proud of the work and energy we have put in, but it is not how we identify ourselves. Then, when the inevitable strikes and failure does come our way, we are better positioned to accept it.

Pleasure and joy are no different for us. When they do come our way, we enjoy them. When they shy away, we don’t chase after them. The purpose of our lives is not to attain comfort or pleasure. Indulging in pleasures is not only a deterrent to our pursuit of submission to God but also to any worldly goals we might have. Because we don’t chase happiness, we don’t desensitize ourselves to it. Nor do we guard the moments of joy. We understand the futility of such a task.

And therein lies our hope as well. The pain will subside, and so will their absence. We will look forward to reuniting with our beloved in the next life.

As Allah (swt) promises, soon after sorrow comes joy. As a cog to a clock, this circle of grief and joy keeps life moving forward. Each state more fleeting than the previous one. As the ephemeral nature of life dictates our relationship

As life feels the pull of time, it shifts its states to balance itself. Through this journey, we often lose hope, and we often succumb to pleasure. That is how it is meant to be. Every time we find ourselves trapped, we look to Allah (swt) and wait for Him to lead us back to equilibrium and onto the next phase. Phase by phase, we hope to detach from these phases and submit further to the only constant we know, the Eternal One.