The perfect Soul.

Today begins the Fasting Month of Ramadan and this year it will be a greater challenge as I am home alone only with the cat, she does not fast. This morning before the Fajr prayer i prayed six rakats of Tahajjud or non mandatory prayer and did some man to God talking with the Lord. I acknowledged the fact that I was never a good Muslim and perhaps still is, however during this month of Ramadan i promised to do my best to observe it fully and it is 2;30 pm. and my head is beginning to throb and my stomach is wondering what is happening. 

The fasting month is something that sets Islam apart from Buddhism in practice and it is not an easy act to follow as it is very demanding on th body and mind. When you couple this with the extra prayers that is carried out in the evening called Tarawih, the practice can be exhausting. What it does to the mind is something worth observing and not to mention of what it does to the body and spirit. In islam it is said somewhere that Allah when asked what can be done to contain 'nafs' or the ego if it might be called that, and the answer is fasting. In fasting one does not only cleanse the physical and mental dimension of our being it also helps us to become more aware of those suffering due to poverty and starvation; it triggers our compassion towards the suffering of others, Thirst and hunger becomes a reality and not just a perception, each and every thought becomes a mirror of who we are and who we choose to become.

It is not due to the threat of punishment in the afterlife that should concern us as Buddhist or Muslims, it is in how we live our life today and our presence benefits creation itself. We are placed here not by chance or an accident, we are placed here to play our roles as we see fit for the well being of ourselves and that of others and through our relationship to the external physical and spiritual realm we discover our own true Being or Buddha Nature.  The fear of death or the afterlife is in being ignorant of who we truly are and how we can become the perfect man or woman as created in the image of our creator, bearing the attributes as in the 99 Beautiful Names of Allah, or the Asma al Husna of Allah. To become of evolve into becoming the perfect soul or al insan kamil that all beings strive to achieve or the Tathagata Buddha as the Buddhist would have it,

Tathāgata (Sanskrit: [t̪əˈt̪ʰɑːɡət̪ə]) is a Pali and Sanskrit word; GotamaBuddha uses it when referring to himself in the Pāli Canon. The term is often thought to mean either "one who has thus gone" (tathā-gata) or "one who has thus come" (tathā-āgata).

Tathāgata - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tathāgata

In Islamic theology, al-Insān al-Kāmil (Arabic: الإنسان الكامل‎) also rendered as Insān-i Kāmil (Persian/Urdu: انسان کامل) and İnsan-ı Kâmil (Turkish), is a term used as an honorific title to describe the prophet Muhammad. The phrase means "the person who has reached perfection,"^[1] literally "the complete person." It is an important concept in Islamic culture of the prototype human being, pure consciousness, one's true identity, to be contrasted with the material human who is bound by one's senses and materialism. The term was originally used by Sunni Sufis and is still used by them, however it is also used by Alawis and Alevis.^[2] This idea is based upon a hadith,^[2] which was used by Ibn Arabi, that states about Prophet Muhammad, 'I was a prophet when Adam was between water and clay'.^[3]

  


   

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Today more and more non-Muslims are fasting during the month of Ramadan as part of their spiritual experience and the understanding of Islam in its practice. When you fast collectively there is a sense of belonging, a sense of camaraderie of kindred spirit and the thirst and hunger becomes secondary. It is no doubt the surest way towards getting to know your self a whole lot better.