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.
Your minds may now be likened to a garden, which will, if neglected, yield only weeds and thistles; but, if cultivated, will produce the most beautiful flowers, and the most delicious fruits.
To be a man is, precisely, to be responsible.
The best of modern therapy is much like a process of shared meditation, where therapist and client sit together, learning to pay close attention to those aspects and dimensions of the self that the client may be unable to touch on his or her own.
People who need to bully you are the easiest to push around.
No one is more miserable than the person who wills everything and can do nothing.
Wisdom is the abstract of the past, but beauty is the promise of the future.
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