Part of the path, a large part of the path, is what we do every day, our actions from one moment to the next. Our actions are two-fold; we have our external actions, and then we also have our internal actions. We have that which we do on the outside, and that which goes on, on the inside.
Sometimes people actively do things on the outside that are opposite to what’s going on, on the inside. They do things on the outside to hide what’s going on, on the inside. Other times people cope and do what’s necessary on the outside, and cope and try to do what’s necessary on the inside, but have terrible anxiety, and trauma, and difficulty on the inside because of worrying, and fear, and anxiety. Even though they’re able to maintain an external composure, they don’t have internal composure.
One of the things that you need on this path is composure; external composure and internal composure. And we need to know what it is that keeps us composed, and what it is that ruins our composure, or makes it difficult for us to stay composed.
The crux of composure is faith. The difficulty in keeping composure is doubt and fear. So, we have doubt, and we have fear, and we have faith, and we must each ask ourselves, “What’s stronger within us; our doubt and fear, or our faith?” And if doubt and fear come out on the plus side, then we must figure out how to increase our faith.
Everything’s been laid out for us as to the mercy of Allah, as to the care that Allah will give us, as to the protection that Allah will give us. But if we don’t believe it we switch into doubt and fear, and if we continue with doubt and fear, our faith gets lost. Our belief in God gets lost. All of a sudden we begin to react, internally and externally, as if the worldly circumstances are stronger than God’s abilities, that the worldly circumstances have more power than God’s abilities, that the worldly circumstances have more meaning than God’s abilities, that the worldly circumstances have more reality than God’s abilities and God’s truth.
You are encased in a perfect sphere of Allah’s protection. We are all encased in a perfect sphere of Allah’s protection, but we have to allow ourselves to be protected. It’s only with faith that this protection can occur. The connection between ourselves and Allah is based in faith. If faith isn’t strong, if faith loses its grip, if faith does not stay content, if faith becomes tremulous because of fear, then we lose that connection. When we lose that connection we become subject to the vagaries of the insanity of illusion. We become subject to the stones and arrows of all that exists in the world that is contra to faith, and fear that is ignorance. So we become susceptible to ignorance when we lose faith. We become susceptible to ignorance when we lose faith, because when we lose faith we lose our connection to wisdom, so we fall back into ignorance. When ignorance attacks us we respond with ignorance when we don’t have faith.
Ignorance versus ignorance is the story of the two bullfrogs who attack each other, and one gets hold of the other one in its mouth, and one tries to expand itself and expand itself, to get out of the mouth and to make itself bigger, and the other one tries to wrap itself around the other frog opening its mouth bigger and bigger, until they both explode. That’s where we are; without faith we are caught in the trap of ignorance attacking ignorance which leads to explosion. There’s no other alternative. Ignorance is without composure, and when we lose our composure we lose our faith and we enter into ignorance
How does one keep their faith when their faith becomes weakened?
