Who am I?
My husband is currently on a quest to find out what he’d like to do with the next chapter of his life. I suggested that perhaps the better question to ask himself is: Who am I? which then led me to asking myself the same question.
Here is the answer I recieved:
I am not what has been done to me. I am not the bad things I have done. I am not an INFJ, what the strength finders test has assessed, nor a scorpio with pisces rising and a libra moon. I am, under all of those layers of identity and personality, a child of God. Which makes me a sacred and holy being of light and Love. Love, with a capital L – the kind that amounts to more than a moment of warm and fuzzy in my heart when my husband smiles at me, or I hear my child laugh, or the feeling of contentment that comes when I know I have done my best.
There is a teaching in our spiritual lineage which states: ”You think you are a small star, when in fact you contain the entire universe…” I now see that I am in fact, that universe. A part which contains the whole and the whole that is also a small and important part.
Sufi’s have a spiritual practice called Dhikr, which is also known as Remembrance. During this practice, we call the name Allah, One God, into our hearts. I used to think i did this practice so that I could Remember Him, but I can now see how He, in His generosity (al-Karim), has given us this practice to remember Him, so we can also remember who we actually are.
My thoughts then led me to the order in Islam to pray five times a day. We do not pray five times a day for Allah, as He does not need our prayers, we pray five times because we need Him. And again in His wisdom (al-Hakim) and generosity (al-Karim), He knew we would forget Him AND who we truly are, therefore He gave to us an opportunity to stop, five times throughout our often over busy and stress filled days, to be the Love that He created us to be and so that we may remember who we truly are, for and in Him.