LOST AND FOUND
Small quaint towns have been the seat for many lost travellers.
Driving down a dusty road in an unfamiliar town and passing the same store for the fifth time is an all too familiar sight for the locals. To them, the driver rightly seems lost, but strangely, the thought has not yet entered the seeker’s consciousness.
This scene could belong to anyone. Literally, but also analogously when applied to our lives in general.
How well have we steered our lives? If poorly, we may want to stop and ask for directions, or better yet, hand the reins over entirely to God: ‘And who could be more lost than those who follow their desires without guidance from Allah?’ [28:50].
Self-will run riot has left me lost and got me into trouble more times than I care to remember: ‘We guided them, but they preferred blindness’ [41:17].
But if we chip away at self-reliance day by day, it will dawn on us that losing our self-will is the surest way to peg our life’s coordinates and stay found.
(Exercise: Write down a list of times when your will got you into trouble.)
PURSE-PROUD
We like to hear coins jingling in our pockets. One, two, smile, we step. The sound comforts us and raises our posture an inch or two.
We live in a purse-proud world. Those with light purses strive for heavier ones, and those with heavy ones strive for dead weight—bottom lines in the black or gold bars in the sack. Currency makes the world go round, they say.
But that’s not what our Prophet (s) said.
He (s) said: ‘Wretched is the slave of the Dinar, the slave of the Dirham’ [Sunan Ibn Majah 4136], and ‘If I had gold equal to the mountain of Uhud, it would not please me that it should remain with me for more than three days, except an amount which I would keep for repaying debts’ [Sahih al-Bukhari 2389].
And the clincher, the prophetic statement revealing the futility of wealth accumulation: ‘If the son of Adam got a valley full of gold, he would love to have a second one; and if he got the second one, he would love to have a third, for nothing fills the belly of Adam’s son except dust. And Allah forgives he who repents to Him’ [Sahih al-Bukhari 6438].
A cypher is a code or encryption key to secure information. Hence, you decipher or interpret the meaning of something.
In a scene from the 1999 sci-fi blockbuster The Matrix, a character named Cypher betrays the rebellion by covertly meeting with Agent Smith to cut a deal. He agrees to hand over Morpheus and his team in exchange for a life back in The Matrix, and on condition that he forgets the truth.
The irony is that while a cypher holds the key to knowledge, Cypher wants it erased from his memory. Truth is burdensome, and he wants to be consigned to oblivion and live a comfortable life—even if that means a faked reality inside The Matrix. Cypher ends the meeting with the words, “Ignorance is bliss.”
Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard would agree with Cypher’s sentiment if it were the doctrine of a slug hatched out of filth and gorging themselves fat on life’s pleasures. However, humans should have nobler ideals, especially when rearing them is so intensive and demanding.
Unfortunately, many prefer life inside The Matrix. Still, others who oppose the fake and superficial life may relapse into eating artificially-flavoured foods and snacks regardless of their declarative packaging: Balsamic Vinegar FLAVOURED Potato Chips. But these are the least of the fake-propped-up systems that shepherd us into oblivion.
The frightening part is that many know the truth but, like Cypher, opt for a fool’s world.
I can almost hear Cypher’s rebuttal: There’s no shame in choosing The Matrix, especially when the marriage between machines, corporations, and governments is so powerful, the truth is dangerous, even deadly.
So, which one will it be? The blue pill or the red?
Until next week, InshaAllah
Zaahied Sallie
Author of The Beloved Prophet – An Illustrated Biography in Rhyme
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