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.

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.

We’ve (me and Ali) recently been hearing the podcasts of Oprah and Eckhart’s webcast discussion of “A New Earth”. These webcasts are a chapter by chapter discussion of Eckhart’s latest book A New Earth. I must say that I finding it fascinating. I’m currently in the middle of Chapter 2 of the podcast series. Eckhart is always a pleasure to listen to and Oprah…well she provides good comic-relief now and then. I do hope to join the webcast in one of the forthcoming sessions. Meanwhile, pickup the book or do hear these podcasts, when you get the chance.

Where we first got to know this stuff
We were introduced to the subject by Kahlil Jaffer’s series of lectures entitled “End of Negative Suffering”. What he basically says in the series of lectures is that yes that we are human and having this material form we are bound to go through hunger, sickness ie physical suffering. But we need not endure anger, jealousy, resentment, depression ie emotional/negative suffering. Infact we are not designed to do so.

Regular readers of our blog may have noticed that we’re quite fond of the lectures delivered by Sheikh Arif Abdulhussain. Me and Ali both would highly recommend hearing these lectures. Most of them are delivered in English and deals with topics that would be interest to anyone who’s even slightly religiously inclined, Muslim or not. Sheikh Arif doesn’t have too many of his lectures available online, below is the complete resource of lectures that I’m aware of that’s currently up for grabs:

1. Lecture delivered at Satwa Imambargha, Dubai, UAE

Link details: Once you click on the above link you’ll have to scroll half-way down the page to find this lecture.

If it’s just one lecture that you hear from this page. Let this be the one. It quite well summarises most of the topics that Sheikh Arif is fond of reciting. His main theme is an attempt to answer, “Why are we here? What’s the purpose of our existence?”

A moving quote from this majlis “I’m confined in this mass of a body today, which gives me the ability to say, “I am.”. But what are you, O man? Have you looked at yourself from the top of a lofty mountain and seen how insignficant you are?”

As Muslims if we happen to miss one of our Daily Prayers, we don’t get off the hook that easily, we first have to make up for it by completing that very same prayer with the intention of it being “Qazaa” (ie late/delayed), as opposed to it being “Adhaa” (ie on-time). I’m not a pristine, pure soul and have a few qazaa namaazes to complete. Sometime back, I had made a firm intention to make up for my back-log. I do it by praying an additonal prayer together with my regular prayer.

Prayer as a Burden
Rarely (read that as Ver Rarely) it does feel delicously wonderful that Allah SWT has given the “Toufiq” (awareness), strength, and time to make up for my qazaa namaazes and I get to do it. But many times it feels heavy and burdensome too. Just when I finish my daily set of prayer, I have to drag myself to get up and pray it all over again. Just yesterday the thought did cross my head, “Oh God, why have You made this so difficult?”

God is the ‘I’ of the Universe.
Ali mentioned this statement to me after hearing it in a seminar and is one of the more profound statements I’ve heard on God. God is the “I” of the universe. Wow. It’s had my head spinning for weeks since I’ve heard it. But to digest it completely, the context needs to be set. You have to realise who you are or more precisely, who you are not.

Who are you?
If you bumped into somebody who looks familiar at a coffee shop, you’re curiousity is just overtaking you and you’ve just got to ask him, “Buddy, you look really familiar, may I ask “Who are you?” ” How would he reply?

He would probably say, well my name is so and so, I currently work at this place and I have these people in my family etc. etc. Observe. The question asked was, “Who are you?” and the reply we usually give is, what my name is, this is where I work, this is who my family is. Dude, the question was on who YOU are. Sure we may be partially defined by our job, or who we are related with, but what if that changes? Tomorrow, what if you decide to change your name. You change your job (or business), and by getting a divorce (hypothetically speaking only) you can even change your family. But, have ‘you’ changed? You are still the same you. Aren’t you?

Quran: Chapter 57 (The Iron): Verse 23 So that you may not grieve for what has escaped you, nor be exultant at what He has given you; and Allah does not love any arrogant boaster.

It always bothered me. Why doesn’t God want us to be overly-happy? If happiness is a good thing, being overly happy would mean more of a good thing, wouldn’t it? Honestly, that’s all each and everyone of us is striving for anyway.
I can understand the first part of the verse. That we shouldn’t be overly obssessed in grief over something (even someone) that we’ve lost. That just leads to more stress, worry, anxiety and most of all it’s a plain waste of time. But if you’re overly happy leads to more endorphins, more adrenalin and a more positive, optimistic outlook on life.