"i'm bored"

HOW easily those words roll off the tongue. To paraphrase a respected friend, you would not be bored if you would remember what was really happening. As we sit idle, engrossing ourselves in what is around us, a great calamity ever inches towards. This life we have built for ourselves… this sheltered cocoon… a family, possessions, daily routine and mundane responsibilities… has clouded our vision and obscured it, until it has become all we see. Though we profess “we believe”, our actions speak otherwise. When I look at this computer screen, keyboard, mouse… these black and white words tracing their way across the screen, and think of nothing else, I am saying… this is real. This is reality. This is all there is.

That is what we have been trained to believe. From birth, we have been unwittingly taught to turn our attentions to what is around us. When we grow and adopt beliefs, they come secondary to this preconceived view of the world. I can say, I believe in God… I know about devils and angels, the first day and the judgement to come. I know my responsibilities, as a human... yet the greater world of good and evil, of Truth, justice and light remains beyond my short-sighted gaze. As I type I remain oblivious to the devils whispering around me, and the angels standing guard…. I cannot see the all enveloping Mercy and Power which perpetually surrounds me, and everything else in existence. I cannot see beyond the end of my nose, to my individual and collective human destiny rushing towards me faster than a tidal wave striking the shore. Time is racing towards us, until the Truth arrives… His book, His messenger… His guidance is complete before us; that we might survive. This blindness we have let envelop has almost destroyed us… but for the solitary hope that we may wake up before our eyes close forever, in the arms of death.

We are… as if preparing against an army of ruthless marauders racing towards our gates. Living on borrowed time, we cannot afford to let a day go by without preparing for their advent. As with a tangible threat, our survival and our very existence depends on the extent of our training. This is the ultimate stand, where we must protect ourselves from external and internal weaknesses. This is what matters more than any other battle we will ever see, because on its outcome rests the fate of our lives and afterlives for all eternity. So, untrained as we may be, we must whip ourselves into shape to become great warriors, able to stand side by side in the greatest army. Perseverance is the key, as with any training: the discipline to start small and keep working, the humility to get up after failure and try again. Against the pressures of time, we have the capability to succeed if we overcome our beguiling perceptions… as we are the only real obstacle in our way.


If you find your centre, then you’re bound to win. we were created for this, perfectly suited to this purpose. We were made to find our real selves, and finally stand upright as true Human Beings… useful servants of God, in the army of His Imam (aj).

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(c) final revision Aug 2006