O My Soul, Preoccupy Yourself
I said to my soul—seeing it wandering aimlessly, unsure of where to set its steps, glancing about without finding any refuge, seeing before it nothing but a mirage and behind it nothing but smoke—”Busy yourself. Occupy yourself before your emptiness preoccupies you; before your loneliness overwhelms you; before you fall into abysses from which there is no escape. Do not allow yourself to be a victim of idleness, nor an easy prey for wandering thoughts and vain fantasies. For if the soul is left to its own inclinations, it roams lost in confusion and is engulfed in the darkness of doubt and weariness.”
My soul replied, displaying signs of displeasure, a look of annoyance on its face at this unfamiliar call: “Occupation is a shackle upon freedom; it is a form of restraint. I do not wish to be restrained or bound. I do not want to be forced into what I do not desire or driven towards what I do not love. Rather, I want to live as I please, as I wish, without restrictions or limits, without command or prohibition, without a watcher or conscience.”
I looked at it long and sorrowfully, as one who has seen the end of such words and knows the outcome of that path, yet sees the one before him unable to perceive it. Then I said: “This desire of yours—to live as you wish, wandering wherever whim takes you, pursuing pleasure without reins or reinsman—is the very disease that drags souls into ruin. It is a fall that disguises itself as rise; it is a concealed slavery clothed in the garb of freedom. But in truth—O my soul—it is nothing but captivity and humiliation. It is submission to a tyrannical force that shows no mercy; surrender to an invisible shackle more crushing than any visible chain.”
She asked in surprise, her voice softening and the brightness of her eyes dimming slightly: “How can that be? How can my desire to live as I wish be a form of slavery? Am I not the one who desires? Am I not the one who chooses?”
I said: “If you fall in love with food excessively, and cling to drink fiercely, and chase bodily pleasure blindly—without the restraint of reason or the check of conscience—then you have tied your life to these urges and instincts that hold no real power to benefit or harm you. If you attain them, you rejoice; if you are deprived of them, you grieve and suffer. In this way, O my soul, you become a servant to your desires, a captive to your inclinations. You no longer own your will, but hand it over to a fleeting craving or a perishable delight. If you fail to obtain these things, you remain bitter and pained, lamenting your losses and weeping over your deprivation. This is dependency upon what lies outside you. And this—by God—is slavery in its very essence, not the freedom you imagine, nor the sovereignty you claim.”
She spoke more softly now, her tone lighter, and the cadence of genuine reflection began to enter her words: “Then what is freedom? If it is not in doing as I please and desire, where do I find it? How can I attain my rightful share of it?”
I replied, my voice tender and my gaze brightening with hope: “True freedom, O my soul, is that you own yourself—not that yourself owns you. It is that your reason governs your passions—not that your passions govern your reason. It is that insight and discernment take the lead, guiding you to what benefits you—not that you are dragged along by a desire or a habit or a whim that offers no justification. Freedom, O soul, is not in lawlessness, but in discipline. It is not in permissiveness, but in conscious will. It is to examine with your reason what benefits you, brings you happiness in this world, and ensures your salvation in the Hereafter. It is commitment to lofty values—not a constraint upon them. It is training in noble ideals—not deviation from them. It is the construction of a balanced and strong character—not its destruction or dismantling.
“So if you take the path of knowledge, engage in contemplation and reflection, are guided by the light of faith, and draw illumination from the teachings of Islam, then you are indeed walking the path of freedom, not servitude. You are reaching the light, not stumbling in the dark.”
She asked, “Does this mean that all desires are evil and must be rejected? Are there not some that contain goodness? Are there not pleasures that are harmless?”
I responded, pitying her for the confusion that now showed in her eyes: “Not all desires are evil—far from it. Desires are part of human nature. One cannot be rid of them, nor live without them. They are necessary for human survival, indispensable. But they—O soul—benefit you only when they remain under the authority of your reason and subject to your conscious will. If your desire obeys your reason, you are free, a master and leader, not a follower. But if the roles are reversed, and your passions overpower your reason, and your urges override your will, then you lose mastery and fall into the abyss of futility. At that point, you are insane, even if you imagine yourself rational; you are shackled, even if you think yourself free.”
She now seemed truly reflective, taking my words seriously, considering them not as jest but as counsel, not with defiance but contemplation: “Then what connection does your command to occupy myself have with all this? What has preoccupation to do with freedom and slavery? Is it a cure? Or another form of constraint?”
So I said, gathering the threads of my discourse, weaving its hues into a single clear sentence: “If you occupy yourself with that which benefits you in both worlds, look with the eye of reason at what furthers your worldly life and your afterlife, fill your time with beneficial knowledge, sound thinking, and fruitful action, strive in building rather than destroying, and in rising rather than declining—then you are forging your free, conscious self. You are constructing your personality, and elevating your essence.
“The more you occupy yourself with noble tasks and lofty goals, the more distant you become from false desires and corrupting temptations. In this way, you ascend, you become free, and you truly become the mistress of your soul—not a mere slave to whim or a prisoner of fleeting moments. For if the soul is not occupied with what elevates it, it falls into what debases it. And if you do not build your self through meaningful work, it will be demolished by idleness. If you do not fill your time with what uplifts you, you will be consumed by confusion, and devoured by loss.”
Disclaimer: This article was translated by AI. Original post: https://t.me/DrAkramNadwi/6404
