A R C H I V E S
Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board
| a balanced life |
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| timbuktu |
| 05/14/05 at 10:43:35 |
| [slm] This deen that Allah (swt) has chosen to be the path to salvation, is not (just) a declaration of faith, or the partaking in some rituals, but it is the perfect way of life. Allah (swt) has sent us this guidance for this life as well as the next. It guides us to live a balanced life. Some call it moderation. This balance does not mean that we are monotheists part of the time, and polytheists part of it, and atheists or agnostics the other part. It does not mean that we balance a good deed with a foul one to stay balanced, nor does it mean that we drink or do other haraam deeds in moderation, nor that we sometimes fulfill our obligations and sometimes do not. It means a balance in all the rquirements of our lives. When we fail to do so, we face problems. I want to relate here some of these imbalances that have caused me problems, or that I have seen causing problems in others, in the hope that you on this board will be able to avoid these pitfalls. I have told you about my eyes, and even now there is pain at the back, there are flashes of light, and everything that indicates that the inside of the eyes is messed up. But this is largely of my own doing. You see, the muscles that hold the eye lenses can contract or expand, thus changing the focul length of the lens, and allowing us to see a thing which is close or farther afield, with equal clarity. When one is doing some work at close range for a long time, the muscles do not always relax back to their original position, and gradually the "zero" state of the lens shifts towards a shorter focul length. Thus resulting in, or worsening of, myopia. What we should do is that for half or at most an hour of close work, we should refocus our eyes to something at a large distance away from us, for about ten minutes. This will help the lenses stay in shape. Otherwise, our myopia will get worse, and eventually the gel inside the eys will thin out, causing stresses on the retina. With the color TV and its radiations, with the computer screen, it is even more important that we take care of our eyes, and of our children's. Take note of that, please. Next, we do not always take a balanced diet. Most of us eat what tastes good. In desi households, food is often deep fried, or cooked for so long, vitamins are lost. There is no supplemental vitamin intake. We eat maida rotis, thus the fibre (and vitamins) in the wheat doesn't get to us. The desi diet lacks in fruit, too. At school, we had to undergo Physical Training. As far as most of us are concerned, once out of school, PT was out. Whatever exercise we had later in life was due to the involuntary walking we had to do. Hardly a recipe for good health ! And this is doubly so for girls, whose access to physical activities are rather limited. In the good old days, women had to do some physical work in the kitchen or bringing water, but urban living has paid put to that. Do some regular exercises, or our muscles will start getting weak or fail. Next, let us talk of our hobbies, and our addiction to them. I was interested in Chemistry. So, I graduallly built my own laboratory. I bought and collected chemicals, and one of the things I collected was mercury. What was wrong was that I did not handle it according to the rules. From my childhood to about 28 years of age, I experimented with without any precautions. So, there must be a great deal of this poison in my body. That is inexcusable. Why did I not learn of the toxic nature of this, and other chemicals that I handled? There are detergents that eat away at your skin. I have already talked about the radiantions from day-to-day appliances, agianst which we must guard. How many of you use a screen for your computer monitor? One can think of many other bits where we can live a balanced life, but we don't. And when we suffer, we blame Allah. Now I will give you some more hints to help ourselves. First is the use of honey. It removes poisons from the body. Drink one teaspoonful dissolved in half to one teacup of warmish water first thing in the morning on an empty stomach and with a few Black seeds (kalonji). Do not eat or drink anything for half an hour afterwards. And always make the duas for Fajr and Maghrib. May Allah (swt) protect us anr our families and friends, and bring us all to Jannatul Firdaws. aameen |
| 05/14/05 at 10:47:36 |
| timbuktu |
Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board |