A sign of the death of the heart: lack of sadness about beneficial actions you have missed, and lack of regret about your mistakes.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the importance of feeling emotions related to one's actions, indicating that a lack of sadness or regret can signify a disconnection from one's heart and values.
Ibn Ata Allah emphasizes that a true sign of a healthy heart is the ability to feel sadness over missed opportunities for doing good and to experience regret for past mistakes. This emotional engagement is essential for personal growth and moral consciousness; when one becomes apathetic toward actions and their consequences, it indicates a deeper spiritual decline.
In practice
During a motivational speech about personal growth.
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.
The most excellent of those who perform good deeds are those who most often remember God in all situations.
Be kind and honest, and harmful poisons will turn sweet inside you.
You see things less clearly when you open your eyes too wide.
Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.
Careful the spell you cast, not just on children. Sometimes the spell may last Past what you can see And turn against you... Careful the tale you tell. That is the spell.
If we don't plant the right things, we will reap the wrong things. It goes without saying. And you don't have to be, you know, a brilliant biochemist and you don't have to have an IQ of 150. Just common sense tells you to be kind, ninny, fool. Be kind.
Everything you are comes from your choices.
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