Q644 :From my early years I was troubled by
day-dreaming and fascinations. Now I am middle-aged with heart disease.
I have been consulting a psychotherapist, but with little results. He
has renetmended deep thinking, but when I do I feel that I should think
about God the Almighty. I do not precisely know what to think and how.
Some people suggest to be more religious, but again I do not know how
to do that. I attend to my religious duties but I do not know how to be
more religious. Please advise.
A644 : I fail to see the connection between what you
have described of your condition and your consultation with
psychotherapists on the one hand, and your heart trouble on the other.
As you have said in your letter, the latter is a physical condition for
which you need the help of a cardiologist. But it seems to me that you
are troubled by your day-dreaming, which is most probably caused by a
netbination of a sensitive nature and an aspiration to better living
conditions. All people have daydreams when they are young, but as they
grow older this is tempered by the realities of life. In your case, you
may still be troubled by a deep sense of lack of fulfillment. Perhaps
you feel that life should have offered you more than you have actually
got. I am only speculating because I do not have sufficient details.
If this is the case, then my advice to you is that you should start
nurturing a sense of contentment. You should look at yourself and what
you have achieved in life and netpare it to what others are going
through. You will realize that whatever your situation is like [it
could be worse], there are people who suffer worse conditions through
no fault of theirs. This may lead you to ask: “What is then the purpose
of life? Is it suffering?” The answer to this is that this present
life of ours is a test. There are as many versions of this test as
there are human beings. Each single one of us must prove that he or she
is worthy of God’s grace and eternal happiness in heaven. We do that by
accepting what God has given us, realizing that His blessings bestowed
even on the most miserable human being outweigh by far the difficulties
he goes through. Therefore, we have to believe in God, the One, the
Eternal, the Most Fair and offer what little gratitude we can to
demonstrate this. People advise you to be more religious. I concur
with their advice, but that does not merely mean that you should offer
more voluntary prayers or voluntary fasting, or give more to charity,
etc. It means that you should develop a better understanding of Islam
and know why you believe in God and why you worship Him. That netes
through study and a realization that Islam provides a netplete code of
living. As you begin to develop this understanding of your faith, you
will find that you are better able to cope. Your better sense of your
faith will tell you that there is much more that you can do in your
time than spending hours day-dreaming. You need to fill your time with
useful pursuits. Try to have as little time alone as possible. All this
may be of help. I pray that you will soon be able to sort out your
problem.
Our Dialogue ( Source : Arab News – Jeddah )