Awareness

Awareness
Look not back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around you in awareness.

The word awareness fascinates me because it creates light for understanding and provides us food for our mind. It empowers us, it gives us knowledge, it takes us out of darkness into the light, and above all, it gives us a HOPE.

The awareness started ever since man’s inception came into being. Allah (SWT) sent 124,000 prophets to make us aware about HIM and to build our character. Therefore, to bring awareness for good is a prophetic business. It’s a fruitful and positive activity.

We know that every sophisticated product has a manual for its maintenance for enhancing its life and repair in case of emergency breakdown. What is the manual for human being, it’s the Holy Quran. The Holy Quran has all the solutions and wisdom for human problems.

What Allah (SWT) says in the Quran is “We have made the human being the most adorable creature”. Sura Teen

What Allah (SWT) urges in the Quran for the human being is that “know yourself”. Why?

Because knowing ourselves will make us more humble, more kind, more responsible, more disciplined, more honest, more fulfilled and more satisfied. Above all, knowing ourselves will get us closer to Allah (SWT).

When we are unaware of ourselves, what happens is that we start talking about others. Being unaware of ourselves, we gossip, backbite, criticize, complain, condemn and blame. In these actions, normally we point one finger towards others and four towards ourselves, so which one is bad? Obviously the four fingers which we point unconsciously towards us. Gossiping, backbiting, criticizing, complaining, condemning, and blaming are all negative activities and drain our energy keeping us away to perform any useful work. When we avoid these acts, we tend to become more positive. Let me share with you a secret that most of the successful people in the world have more positive traits than negative.

So how can we develop the self-awareness?

Contemporary Knowledge
People who are assertive seek awareness of others and of self equally.

Stephen Covey- a motivational speaker, charges 100,000$ per day for his seminars. According to him, every human has four endowments- self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom. The power to choose, to respond, and to change.

He gathers his participants at the end of his seminar around a casket in which dead body is placed for burial. He tells the participant to assume it’s your dead body, how would you like to be remembered afterwards? This is Stephen’s way of making people aware and conscious about the acts and deed they perform in this world based on their strengths and weaknesses.

Sage Wisdom
The key to happiness is self-awareness.

A stranger whom I met once gave me an unforgettable recipe for self-awareness. He advised me to go back home asking my children, spouse, sisters, brothers, mother, peers and friends the following questions:

Write down ten of my good habits you like and ten of my bad habits which you dislike.

Coming back home, I gathered my siblings and asked them what I was told to? To my utter surprise, my children and wife manifested those aspects of my life which I could barely think would bother anyone. So I gathered the list and started working on the weak spots of my life. Their removal earned me more respect, love and esteem. What else one requires besides these?

Many at times, we perceive ourselves perfect and are smug in this contention. But the reality is that it’s others’ perception which defines us based on our attitude and behavior.

Prophetic Advice
To emphasize a good character, simply heighten the awareness.

Our Prophet (SAAW) who was the beacon light of awareness knew that at the core of every true talent there will be an awareness of the difficulties inherent in any achievement, and the confidence that by persistence and patience something worthwhile will be realized. He was the symbol of steadfastness. He showed us that strength comes from the will and persistence together. His persistence in the moments of joys and sorrows was indomitable because of his awareness about our Creator- Allah (SWT).

Let me share with you the super formula narrated by our lovely Prophet (SAAW) to make us aware of ourselves. It’s a three words sentence. REMEMBER YOUR DEATH.

Pondering over this day in and day out, one becomes accountable of their actions. Accountability makes us more responsible, it makes us humble, it makes us respectful, it makes law-abiding and it makes us successful in this world and hereafter.

The first test of accountability is to say contact prayers with UNDERSTANDING. It’s a communal act and the benefits it can bring to the society in aggregate are countless which could be summarized as:

Coming together will bring us friendship and brotherhood.
Working together will make us an invincible team.
Keeping together will make us a great nation.

So having awareness of ourselves will enable us to conquer others.