Have you ever come across a quote, an inspiring saying or a Hadith, that you liked so very much you just had to take a printout and stick it up somewhere that you could see it everyday. Infact you may have a couple of these either around your office desk, or home, maybe in your car. If you haven’t done it yourself, you certainly know friends who have this quirky little habit.

I have done this a couple of times in the past too. And sure the first couple of times I read the quote, it does charge me up to either work harder, or be focused or more caring, loving etc. However, after a week or so, if I happen to read the quote, it makes no difference to me. Give it a fortnight, that quote becomes invisible. I don’t even look at the side where I’ve got that quote up. Infact even if I did, I would probably see right through it. There’s a psychological reason that if anything is seen or told at too often, one becomes completely immune to it. The technical term for this is: nagging. So what do you do to get the same impact again and again? So how can you see and read this advice regularly enough that it encourages you but not so often that it stops having an effect on you.

On the sighting of the crescent of Ramadhan, each Muslim renews his solemn oath with the Almighty, that he has indeed surrendered his will to that of his Lord. It’s a month where a greater portion of one’s day is spent in prayers, recitation of the Holy Book and religious discourses, than otherwise. It’s a month where one breaks free from the normal routine while physically and mentally stressing himself to an entirely different one. He wakes up at 4:00 AM to eat, then fasts through out the day to open his fast again only at sunset. Followed by prayers and recitations of the Quran all night long. Why?

There’s a potent message of Self-Will.
Man is made of greater moral strength. He has it within him to take up tasks that are seemingly difficult, maybe even impossible. No matter how strong an addiction, God has made one’s personal will stronger. No matter how strong the urge be to have that morning cup of tea or to smoke that bi-hourly cigarette, millions of Muslims round the world forsake their desires for a higher purpose.

What if you truly had just six more months to live.
Stop and give it a thought. What if you truly had just six more months to live. What if yesterday you went down to your family doctor. You go to him with the results of certain tests he had asked you to do for some silly little pain like a headache or something like that. There you are sitting across the table from him and he says, “Buddy, there’s no easy way to say this. So, I’m just going to spell it out. Arif, you have only six more months to live. We’re in the middle of August, six months later this year, say end Feb you will breathe your last. It’s not a might, it’s not maybe, but you WILL breathe your last breath in the end of February. I thought it best that I tell you that now then you finding it out later. I’m really sorry, Arif. I strongly recommend getting all your affairs in order now.”

Yet another marvelous creation of the Almighty:

Click here to view another video of the Basilisk captured by some students.

Ghazalli’s Alchemy of Happinesss is a beautiful book that I will probably read a couple of times again. Contrary to the image of heavy hard-bound complicated volume, the Alchemy of Happiness is 30 or 40 pages long, and really quite simple. Yet it’s deep. Very deep. I got my copy of the book from Dad after he had it printed bound from this online link.

To explain the purpose of life, Ghazalli uses many parables and similies. The ones that had the most penetrating effect on me, which eloquently also explain Why are we here, are these three:

1. Ghazalli likens man’s journey in this world to the pilgrimage of a Muslim on a camel-back to Hajj. To make the description more general say it’s, the journey of an individual on a steed to a Greater Pilgrimage. What’s the purpose of any Pilgrimage? It’s to gain greater spiritual purification and presence after our lives. But most of the time we live our lives overly-concerned with our bodies, our other passions & desires and choose to be unmindful of our Spiritual Growth. The similitude of a person who’s life revolves around the satisfaction his desires, be it hunger, sleep, climbing the corporate ladder or dominance of his business is like the Pilgrim who’s got his full attention to his camel and is oblivious of why he’s out on this journey in the first place. The Pilgrim feeds the camel, gives it all the rest it needs, beautifies it, gets it married, brings up the Camel’s kids and eventually when his Camel is not strong enough to complete the journey it lays down and dies. Leaving the Pilgrim lost in the desert in despair, anguish, tearing his face with what he’s done.

There were a whole lot of email forwards and blog posts on a speech that Steve Jobs gave at Stanford. But the speech that Bill Gates delivered at Harvard have done fewer rounds on the internet. Where Steve Jobs spoke about Passion and following your hearts desire, Bill Gates spoke about what his passion is, ie identifying the hunger and poverty in the world and then doing something about it. What makes his speech more impactful is that he actually does walk his talk.

I loved this speech. I had read the script of the speech a couple of times and then when I got access to the video watched the whole thing again. Below is a really brief Summary of what Bill spoke about, but do watch the speech on YouTube here (it’s in five small parts), or atleast read the script here. It may spur you to do something about the world’s biggest problems. It’s certainly moved me.

I was returning from my weekly site visits from our projects. I had a long hot day and on my return I was in the mood to listen to something light and relaxing. I had earlier downloaded “The Madman. His Fables and Poems” by Kahlil Gibran from Learn Out Loud. It sounded more heavy than relaxing, but I gave it a try. Wow! If you have even a little background of Sufic literature you’ll greatly enjoy listening to The Madman. The production quality is excellent and the narration by Anotina Bath is highly captivating. Just as probably Kahlil would have preferred it.

Best part is that this download of Kahlil Gibran is free once you register (again for free) with Learn Out Loud. Though I think that this is only valid till end July. (Later edit: Oops, it seems that it’s no longer free on Learn Out Loud, but I found it still available for free on Itunes here). If you prefer reading the text, the entire script of The Madman is available here as part of the Gutenberg project. But I wouldn’t recommend reading it. It’ll severely spoil the effect of listening to the audio. Rather register yourself at Learn Out Loud, download it here (it’s free in iTunes here. You’ll need itunes installed in your computer for this link to work.)and then drop in a comment below and let me know how you found it to be.