A saalik/seeker should not worry too much about emotions. Sometimes a saalik will feel unmoved during a dua. Other times, he will feel as though he has ascended to the heavens. Sometimes he will be really into his dhikr. Other times, he will read it in an apathetic, parrot-fashioned manner.
Throughout these ups and downs, a saalik must remember; he is not an Abdullazzaat – A slave of enjoyment. He is an Abdullah – A slave of Allah. A slave of Allah does what is pleasing to Allah, even if it’s not pleasing to him. This bond with Allah is a bond of love. When a person wants to buy his wife chocolate, he will buy the flavour she wants, not the one he wants. She may like nuts, whilst he goes nuts when his chocolate has nuts. But he will buy this nutty chocolate anyway. Why? Because he’s not buying it for himself, he is buying it for her. It’s not about him, it’s about her.
Likewise, even if we are not feeling motivated to do our muamalaat and dhikr, we must still persevere and continue with it. Because we are doing it for Allah, it’s not about us, it’s about Allah. So today we will touch upon this topic of feeling spiritually low. Sometimes in life, a person just feels down, apathetic, and unmotivated. He feels a lull. This situation can be due to a few factors:
? HEALTH: A person may not be feeling well and he’s about to come down with something. So he’s not feeling up to it anymore.
?EXERCISE: A person may feel lethargic because he’s not exercising his body. His mind is not active, his body is lethargic. At this stage some people sleep it out, only to feel more miserable in the morning due to oversleeping. Then when he puts his body into action by exercising, he feels chust – active. Otherwise he feels sust – lazy.
? GOING THROUGH A NEW PHASE IN LIFE: A person may be going through a phase in life that he is not used to. For example, having builders over. Whilst trying to accommodate for all, he may get a bit ratty and snappy with his family.
These are all outside factors that can cause this lull. However, sometimes this sad feeling is nothing to do with the above reasons. In fact, everything is going fine in his life but all of a sudden, he feels a lull and stagnant.
Therefore, at times, this feeling comes just before Allah allows us to progress to a higher stage of spirituality. This is provided that we are not involved in any major sin. A child is excited to ascend heights, but to do so he must endure a boring, frustrating and restricting lift journey. Likewise, for us to ascend heights in spirituality, sometimes, we have to endure a short journey of unexplainable sadness.
Nonetheless, we must be very wary in this condition. We are very vulnerable at this time and can slip and fall prey to nafs and Shaytaan. Just as he can progress, he can also regress if he gives up his muamalaat and returns to old sins.
Once, when Shaykh Yunus Patel رحمة الله عليه went for umrah, he felt very weak. By the time He reached Makkah mukarramah, he had no energy left to walk. So for the first time in his life, he had to sit in a wheelchair. Naturally, he felt really upset over this but he had no choice. He then told us that when he made tawaf in his wheelchair, it was actually one of the best in his life. He was being pushed, he did not have to worry about bumping into women etc. In this state, he just closed his eyes and made tawaf with full concentration.
Therefore, at first Shaykh رحمة الله عليه felt saddened but then, Allah opened up something he had never experienced. Throughout our lives we must just focus on continuously worshipping Allah until death comes. Death isn’t a long way away, so it is not a long period of time that we have to remain with istiqaamah (remain steadfast). Qiyamah itself will last 1000 years, so if we have to live for 30, 40 or 50 years more, what is that in comparison to 1000 years? Nothing.
Thus, if we continue with istiqaamah, then like the lift ascends yet when we’re inside, we don’t feel like it’s moving, we too will ascend in our low moments, even if inside, we don’t feel like we’re moving.
May Allah grant us the tawfiq to continue with steadfastness Aameen.
— Shaykh Dawood Seedat حفظه الله
Above is an extract from Shaykh’s talk on 7/3/2016 in Masjid-ut-Taqwa, Pietermaritzburg. To listen to the full audio, please click here.