Your Life Is Lacking This Essential Spiritual Skill
Do you ever feel like you are doing a lot of good deeds but nothing is helping in your spiritual upliftment? Or you get this apprehensive feeling that none of your good deeds are good enough?
We often try so hard to attain some form of spiritual energy and satisfaction that we forget the essence of it all. We forget that along with what we are doing we need to know why we are doing it too.
If you are not gaining any spirituality from your deed there is a link that you just might be missing, a link between belief and action.
If this link is missing all of your actions, your good deeds, your lengthy worships would remain ineffective and fruitless and if this link is present, you will be awarded results even if you don’t do any actions.
This link may sound easy, trivial, even. But it is always the small and easy things that matter the most. And these are the things that we neglect and then end up regretting the most.
Let me tell you about this link, This link is ‘Niyyah’. The missing link in your life, and in my life, is intention. What intention? The intention of getting close to God. The intention that, “I will do this to get close to You Oh Allah!
Your problem is not your sins. Your problem is when you do good deeds without saying,“O God, because of You.” (God says,)
“I want intention from you.” “So You don’t want action?” “I want action coming from pure intention.” “What if I wasn’t able to do it, but I had the intention?” “I will accept it from you. I want intention from you.” -AliReza Panahian
It’s utterly useless to do good deeds without this intention. We need to learn to say, “O God, I’m doing this solely for You.” before every good deed we perform, And when you do something for Allah, for example, you give charity to an institution and you say that I helped the charity, no my dear brothers/sisters you didn’t help them, you helped yourselves, If you think you helped them then you get this sense of pride and the feeling that they owe you somehow and this leads to expectations, for instance, you expect to be treated with more respect then anyone else in this institution and the moment you develop this feeling your good deeds are reduced to zero worth in the sight of Allah, Ask yourself, is it worth it? you contributed for Allah so your expectations should remain solely with him. You should only expect a reward from him, he wants his intentions exclusive.
It is narrated on the authority of Abu Ad-Dardaa’ who stated that the Prophet ( S.A.W.W) said: ‘Whoever goes to bed while intending to wake up and pray during the night, but he oversleeps until the morning, then what he had intended will be recorded for him, and his sleep will be a bounty from his Lord on him.’ (An-Nasaa’i and Ibn Maajah; Al-Albaani classified it as authentic).”
Little intentions could give you endless rewards from Allah. A man was building his house. Imam Sadiq (as) asked him, “What are you doing?” He said, “I’m putting a window for the kitchen smoke to go out.” The Imam (as) said, “Say, ‘I am putting a window to see the sky and know when it is time to pray.’” Make the intention for God; the smoke will go out from the window too. You are putting it anyway.
Start doing this with every little deed you do, the quantity or quality of the deed doesn’t matter you will get rewarded for your intentions. when you help someone, whisper in your heart, to yourself, Oh Allah I’m doing this for you.
It’s not only a link it is a skill you need to incorporate in your lives, The skill that leads to the belief that every ounce of your being is for Allah. Trust me this skill will elevate you in the sight of Allah like no other thing. You will feel spiritually uplifted, It would be a sacred link between you and your lord and you will feel a divine connection, you will feel peace and happiness. May Allah purify our intentions for everything we do. Ameen.
Actions are (judged) by motives (niyyah), so each man will have what he intended -Hazrat Muhammad ( S.A.W.W)
