The most excellent of those who perform good deeds are those who most often remember God in all situations.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of mindfulness and spiritual awareness in performing good deeds.
Ibn Ata Allah's quote suggests that the highest form of goodness is not merely in actions themselves, but in the awareness of a higher power while performing those actions. It implies that true excellence in doing good comes from a consistent remembrance of God, regardless of the circumstances one finds themselves in, thereby elevating the quality and intention behind each deed.
In practice
During a sermon about the importance of spirituality in daily life.
Whosoever is determined to seek guidance and follow a path of right conduct must search for a shaykh from amongst those who have realization, one who follows a path methodically, who has abandoned his passions, and who has firmly established his feet in the service of his Lord.
Actions are but lifeless forms whose soul is the secret of sincerity in them
Extinction is the beginning of the path: it is traveling to God Most High. Guidance comes afterwards. What I mean by guidance is the guidance of God, as described by the Friend of God, Abraham: "Lo! I am going unto my Lord Who will guide me."
God Most High has said, "Is the reward of virtue aught save virtue?" . . . Know, O man, that the covenant of servanthood is incumbent upon you, and that the covenant of Lordship is incumbent upon His magnanimity, as He Most High has said, ". . . and fulfill your covenant, I shall fulfill My covenant."
. . . persist in that invocation until the unity of the world is subsumed for you in a single sphere, so that with the eye of your heart you will see naught in the two worlds save the One.
If you do not think well of Him because His qualities are beautiful then think well of Him because of the way He treats you.
Curses of vanished elders echoed down on me; too pretty, too soft, too pale, eyes far too full of the Devil, ah, that devilish smile
When journalists and politicians speak of a dwindling middle class that's under economic assault and a poor community that's getting bigger, they're talking about Ferguson. Independent of the racial demographics and dynamics of Ferguson, Missouri, there's a 'Ferguson' near you.
What are men? Mortal gods. _x000D_ What are gods? Immortal men.
I think [religion] is presumptuous and I think it is silly, because it makes you believe that you are less than what you can be. As long as you can blame everything on some unseen deity, you donβt ever have to be responsible for your own behavior.
Vedanta teaches that consciousness is singular, all happenings are played out in one universal consciousness and there is no multiplicity of selves.
It is tempting to think of this form of insomnia, the inability to fall asleep, as a disease of agency and control: the inability to relinquish high self-reflexive consciousness for the vulnerable, ignorant regions of slumber in which we know not what we do.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.