Feed Your Spirit
by Zainab Al-Shammari
Jesus (pbuh) said: “not only by food,
the son of Adam shall live but by
the word of God”. And Imam
Ahmad Al Hassan (a.s) said: “by
food, the son of Adam shall die, and
by the word of Allah he shall live.”
food the son of Adam dies” because
those who care about their body
more than their spirit are like those
mentioned in the verse {They are
but as the cattle - nay, but they are
farther astray} -Al-Furqan: 44.
Death and life, both are related to
food. So when does the man die or
live by food?
The man should not be more astray
than the cattle and does not have to
behave like monks who lock up
themselves while people are waiting
for them to say a word. This
behavior is rejected by Ahlul Bait
(a.s), as Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w)
said: “you will follow the steps of
the children of Israel”. So being
ascetic is different from
monasticism, as who is ascetic is
ascetic for himself not on the
account of people, as Ahlul Bait (a.s)
said: “who spends a night without
taking the matters of Muslims into
his consideration is not from them”.
The human being composes of body
and spirit, God said in the Holy
Qur'an: {So, if I have made him and
have breathed into him of My
Spirit} -Sad: 72.
The body and spirit require food
and the food of the spirit is different
from the food of the body. So this
composition demands the man to be
fair in giving each its need and
requirement. It is just like having a
jewelry box, how precious it is just
because it has jewelry, but the
moment we remove the jewelry
from the box, it will have no value!
In the same manner, the body has
no value if it did not have spirit; “by
needs, is also what the spirit needs,
but in another form.
For example, if the body should
excrete wastes otherwise it will
transform to poisons that will kill
the body, then we should also
excrete the wastes from the spirit or
it will kill it. So the spirit cannot rise
to higher degrees if we do not
empty it and make it a clean field to
receive the Divine flow.
God the Most High said: {And he
who disbelieves in tyrants and
believes in God has grasped a firm
handhold which will never break} Al-Baqarah: 256. Therefore,
disbelieving in tyrants and rejecting
their thoughts is preceded to
believing in God because that is
how we can receive the Divine flow,
as light does not approach anything
except light.
So basically being ascetic does not
call off being sociable.
Now we should know that
everything we realize that the body
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