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Removing the contradiction between "Love and Self-Negation"

It has always seemed to me that there are two ways to grow:
1. Growth by self negation
2. Growth through Love

I have always thought that these methods are mutually exclusive.

Let me give you the following example to explain this better:

Waking up early in the morning close to sunrise to go for a walk is always something I thought I ‘loved doing’.

In order to wake up in the morning the first method [self-negation] would suggest I get up in the morning however tough it is.

To do the same somehow through a message of love should mean an ‘argument’ of some sort that would ‘win my heart’, a ‘secret lore so to say’. This method should incite such an emotion in me that I would not need to ‘negate myself’.

The two methods clearly seem to diverge and here I try to reconcile the two:

If I love to wake up in the morning I will not wait for an ‘argument’ to convince me, for an argument that always seems elusive. If I love it I will ‘just do it’, I will not care ‘even if an argument exists’!

This I think is how love works as opposed to cognition, how the heart works as opposed to the mind. The heart uses the mind to get its work done, simply as a tool!

In so doing if I really love something I will ‘negate’ myself wherever required to get it.

The degree to which a ‘parwana’ is intoxicated with the brilliance of the flame is such that it will burn in it.

What then would it be like to be in ‘love with reality’? I clearly do not know!

What would it be like to be in ‘love with God’, I have an idea. [It seems to have something to do with one’s understanding of reality]

I have picked up from the Quran that if you hide something from yourself you set yourself up for failure, if you try to better it you set yourself up to be successful.

If you can't get something done, if you are pursuing somebody in a half-hearted way, admit it to yourself! You probably don't love her even if you fool yourself into thinking that you do!

Those things that you love, those people that you love, pursue them with whatever you have got!

And if you are pursing something or someone but you now realize you don't love them do some 'honest introspection' to find out what the hurdle is [you should not hide the reason from yourself and you don't need to share it with anybody else].

Comments

  1. AnonymousJune 19, 2009 at 9:31 PM

    What if, in your love for the highest Power (God, or maybe "ishq-e-haqiqi"), you willingly "self-negated" on a kind of worldly love (a certain person)? With real ishq-e-haqiqi, it shouldn't have and shouldn't continue to hurt, right? But if it does? Then maybe the love for God is incomplete? Or maybe you're just obsessed? Or maybe it's just a test..and life is supposed to be a test.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Faraz HaiderJune 20, 2009 at 12:13 AM

    I think the best answer I have to this is the following:

    To be close to reality you have to be present in the immediate moment.

    The first indication that you are in the moment is that all rationalization will stop [b/c this rationalization will either be about the past or the future and neither is important]

    Now that rationalization has stopped you should ask yourself what is it that I really want to do right now [and remind yourself that you could die in the next five minutes so you don't want to fool yourself into spending time 'enjoying' something when you can do some better act]

    So now:
    1. rationalization has stopped
    2. you are trying to do that act that gives you most harmony
    3. you don't want to fool yourself
    4. you live on a moment by moment basis
    5. if you want to express your love for a woman I don't think anything should stop you!

    nothing should stop you from expressing a love for that woman because if you are 'honest' and if you want to be with her, what better act can you do?

    And so maybe it is in love for that woman that you will find God.

    Maybe it is in some other act that you will find God.

    In any case it is important to be honest with yourself.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Faraz HaiderJune 20, 2009 at 12:21 AM

    put another way...

    Ishq e haqiqi is not a rationalization it is an 'experience' which is why 'ishq e mijazi' can be a powerful tool towards ishq e haqiqi

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousJune 20, 2009 at 1:57 AM

    Hmmm actually there were solid reasons to not expressing myself - including that person's interests lying elsewhere, and more importantly - their negation of the importance of God Himself. That is why I felt my love for that person to be in conflict with my love for God.

    But I like what you said.

    "'ishq e mijazi' can be a powerful tool towards ishq e haqiqi"

    I feel that's so true! Before this ishq e mijazi, I never understood the meaning of "everything I do, I do it for you". Now I do. And it resonates with the beautiful verse in Surah al-An'am:
    Say: "Truly, my prayer and my service of sacrifice, my life and my death, are (all) for Allah, the Cherisher of the Worlds." (6:162 )

    The experience made me realize how I should have been worshipping Allah. I guess if it's good for me, and when the time is right, Allah will have someone else come my way, someone who doesn't keep me in conflict with God Himself. I pray He'll teach me to love again.

    Thank you for your words.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Faraz HaiderJune 20, 2009 at 12:02 PM

    I think ishq e haqiqi is a window to the love for God Himself.

    and i also realized that its an experience, also that this experience you can only have when you are in the present moment.

    Once you somehow are able to bring yourself to the present moment and THEN 'upgrade' your immediate experience by doing whatever you 'really' want to do! [and ofcourse can do] you start 'exploring' the 'experience' of being alive!

    This experience of being alive i think is the key to loving everything around you i.e. loving reality.

    ReplyDelete

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