For
the longest time in my life, I thought and had been taught that Ramadhan is
there to break us. Until recently when I
start to read Mindset: The New Psychology
of Success by Carol S. Dweck that I realized Ramadhan does not break, it
builds!
Just like everything man made needs
calibration every once in a while, man himself needs a calibration and Ramadhan
is that time of the year. It rejuvenates
your soul, it repairs your body and it changes your mindset.
Being the blessed month, acts of
worship is rampant. We look forward to
finishing the 30 juzuk of the Quran, we look forward to fast for 30 days (even
the women who know all too well they may not make it but still), we look
forward to wake up for suhoor every pre-dawn even if we only catch a sip of
water, we look forward to solat taraweeh, qiyam- al-lail, solat dhuha, and in
short, we want to worship Allah like we never did the whole year through. We are not going to let any second, or
nano-second for that matter of the blessed moment to pass by without us reaping
from it. We are setting our goals high
up there. We are preparing ourselves to
be an angel. Indeed, Ramadhan put us in
the angelic state as mentioned by Shaykh Abdullah Hakim Quick. What happens when you are an angel? The angels are the muqarrabeen, those close to Allah.
They are those who abide to the letter each and every command of the
Lord. If we, the humans take this
position (no, it does not make us zombies!), it makes us the superior being,
the apples in Allah’s sight. Just like
Allah has bestowed upon our father, Adam ‘alayhi as-salaam with not only
knowledge and understanding of things that Allah created but also the
mindfulness of His presence and the conscience to worship the Creator. We will find that connection again. We will fulfill the cardinal promise our
souls had made as recorded in Surah al-A’raf, 7: 172 when Allah had asked us, “Am I not your Lord?” and we had
proclaimed, “Bala shahidna, yes! We do testify.” This- according to Syed
Muhammad Naquib al-Attas in The Meaning
and Experience of Happiness in Islam, will satisfy the soul being of a man
and is the first step to achieve true happiness.
A happy soul performs better when it
inhabits a healthy body. Our body is the
tool for our souls to work. Abu Hurayrah radiallahu ‘anhu narrated from
Rasulullah sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, as reported in Saheeh Muslim, that “A strong believer is better and dearer to
Allah than a weak one, and both are good.”
The explanation of this hadith regarding strength is the energy and
ability to perform acts of worship. Aa
Gym in Management Qolbu mentioned
that a sajdah (prostration or kowtow) made by a healthy person is different
when the person is having a headache. If
only our bodies could tell us their miseries, we will not hear the end of
it. We deprive our eyes from sleep; we
keep staring and squinting at the computer or TV (if apllicable) screens for
what? We eat whatever we want and not
whenever but all the time. We just stop
listening to our bodies. If our bodies
try to tell us, we ignore them. So much
so that it has to scream, it falls sick!
If you have a thing for French eating (not necessarily French cooking),
you will agree with me that the French are obsessed with their food. They do not appreciate snacking because they
want to enjoy every meal. When they are
at a meal, you can bet that they will savour every bite and make it count. They do not eat until they are full but just
enough. You may be thinking, “That is not French eating, that is sunnah!” Well, exactly! Ramadhan calibrates our internal sleep-wake
and hunger clocks. During Ramadhan, the
day’s fast has tired us just enough. At
night our minds are set that we want to sleep as soon as taraweeh is done so as
to catch suhoor the next day. Thus when
we lie down, we fall right asleep. For
the first few hours in the night, our bodies get that deep sleep that it craves
to rest and heal. Abstaining from food
gives our digestive system a chance to slowly adjust and we know ‘hunger’
again. We feel it and we understand how
it is when our stomach is empty and need food.
When we break fast and put food in it, we feel how our stomach is being
filled and when it gets full (or overloaded).
We become aware of our body and its being.
Now we have a happy soul and a healthy
body. What more can we ask for? I wish for a right attitude. Attitude has to do a lot with our reaction to
things. And reactions stem from our
mindsets. Dweck gave an example of
facing failure. A person with a fixed
mindset, instead of saying, “I failed,” which
is an action, will say, “I am a failure,”
which is an identity. People with a
fixed mindset despise challenges. They
only like what works. Failure is not an
option because it displays weakness and the fixed mindsets need to be superior
at all times. A person with a growth
mindset welcomes challenges. They are
excited to learn new things. If they
fail in anything, they felt the pain just like those with fixed mindset but
they ‘see’ it differently. They are able
to spot where they went wrong and next time, you can be sure they will improve. Improve
is everywhere in Ramadhan. Every day
is a new day to improve our fast. So
many raka’ah in taraweeh so we can improve our solat a rakaah at a time. It takes minute adjustment, little tweaking
here and there to feel comfortable being good again. Old habits die hard and that is why we have
29 to 30 days of Ramadhan. If you are
more familiar with The Seven Habits of
Highly Effective People by Steven R. Covey you will remember that anything
that you do continuously will become your habit and it all start with your
perceptions also known as mindsets.
Ramadhan is set to put us in the growth mindset environment. It pushes us to strive to be better.
There is some right to Ramadhan as a
breaker. It is meant to break us from
our pattern especially if it is a bad one.
It breaks us from the pessimistic fixed mindset and inculcate in us, bit
by bit, day by day, rakaah by rakaah, the growth mindset so that we emerge from
Ramadhan a success and hence celebrate it by glorifying our Creator endlessly
and greetings of “Min al-‘a-ideen
al-faizeen kullu ‘aamin wa antum bil khayr, amongst those who celebrates, the
successful ones throughout the year; may you be well.”
