I was reading Faiz s poetry the other day....and a favorite verse struck my heart. Har daagh hai is dil men bajuz daagh e nadamat, which translates roughly as my heart has every mark and wound, but these do not include the blemish of shame or remorse. It is true that as you go along the path of your life, if you have done things with good faith and what you thought was right, you have no cause to be ashamed or to have remorse. However people judge you or try to find fault with you, if you know in your heart that you tried to do the right thing, you should take succour in the thought that you have done nothing wrong. Allah is, of course, aware of what is in anyone's heart and weighs your action accordingly. But remorse is, as Faiz said, actually a blemish in a heart. if one has done something wrong and is ashamed of it, it forever resides in your heart as a dark mark, a blemish, a reminder of what you did wrong. It makes your heart imperfect, tainted, not pure and whole. But if you know it in your heart that your actions were driven by good intention, faith and love, however somebody's actions hurt and disfigure you for life, physically and emotionally, your heart remains pure, whole and perfect. It is beautiful because its true. There is nothing more beautiful in this world than the truth.
Many times people wonder, myself included, when somebody lets you down, is it my fault? Did I deserve this because i was foolish enough to put my trust in somebody's words? Was there something wrong with me that made that person behave unfairly, dishonorably, treacherously to me? Did I deserve this because i chose not to demean myself by treating them the same way? And why did it happen to me when I was sincere? You hear all sorts of excuses from people who let you down, and you think, maybe everybody in this world is right, I'm the only one who is wrong...wrong to expect love, wrong to expect sincerity, wrong to expect loyalty, in spirit if not in flesh, wrong to expect affection and support from the people that I love, why? They say that one expects thing from people which one would have done for them, and the difference in their response shows the difference in the feelings you have for them, and the feelings they have for you.
But it is not your fault if somebody else behaves badly. If somebody is evil, it is not your fault. Everybody has a choice to act the way they want to. If they behave badly, it is only their fault and their behavior. Even if you do anything, a bad person will behave badly, there is nothing you can do to change it. The only thing you can do is to hold fast to your values and what you think is the right thing to do. Never let a bad person veer you away from it.
When I look back at life, I know one thing. I did what i thought was the right thing to do. Loving someone is not a crime, cheating someone is. When one thinks one cannot get along with somebody faithfully, it is good to separate rather than cheat. Now mostly people don't do that, and somebody who doesn't want to live a lie, is condemned for trying to be with somebody who one can be happy with. If you are true to the one you love, if you are faithful while it lasts, there is no need for remorse. If somebody lets you down,it is not your fault. It is his fault. Perhaps they couldn't do as much as they would want to. Everybody has their limitations. It is not cause for any shame. Regardless of how our skewed society sees it, the blemish is in the heart of the one who is untrue.
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