“He has been successful! whose heart Allah has made sincere towards faith, whose heart He has made free from unbelief, his tongue truthful, his soul calm, his nature straight, whose ear He has made attentive and his eye observant. The ear is a funnel and the eye is a repository for what the heart learns. He is successful whose heart is made retentive.” –Prophet Muhammad (SWS)
We must endeavor to reach a calm soul. Free yourself from worry, stress, anxiety, rage, hatred, bitterness, and negativity. The shackles of negativity bind your heart from moving as soft waves across the ocean of your inner being.
There will be ripples across your heart’s ocean, waves of tumult, and even storms of chaos. Your heart might sway back and forth between one desire to the next. That’s when you need to find a way to still your heart of its chaos before it turns black like the ominous clouds that darken the ocean’s skies.
Because you never know when a storm might burst forth from the skies and lightening might strike you to the core. You never know when chaos will strike and your feeble heart will give into the calamity at wake. You must resist hypocrisy. You must resist rage. You must resist lusts. You must submit your soul to Allah.
“Allah has set a seal on their hearts and on their hearings, (i.e. they are closed from accepting Allah's Guidance), and on their eyes there is a covering. Theirs will be a great torment.” (Qu’ran 2:7)
Now you may ask: how do you do that? Resisting all those things that many so easily slip into? The first step is to recognize your heart. What do you have in it? Is it hypocrisy? Is it sins? Or is it plain death?
"Four traits whoever possesses them is a hypocrite and whoever possesses some of them has an element of hypocrisy until he leaves it: the one who when he speaks he lies, when he promises he breaks his promise, when he disputes he transgresses and when he makes an agreement he violates it.” –Prophet Muhammad (SWS)
“In their hearts is a disease, and Allah increaseth their disease. A painful doom is theirs because they lie.” (Qu’ran 2:10)
The dead heart is one which has a seal over it. And the sick heart is the heart of the hypocrite, who has disease in his heart. He lies and qualifies for the four traits that make up a hypocrite, or at least one of them.
These hearts have no vigor to them because they are either dead or too sick to have life in them. Their waters are stormy and any moment the lightening of fate might strike and disperse into the chaotic waters. The hearts go to and fro between desires, knowing no rest albeit perceiving the illusion of rest by thinking it’s found it, when on the contrary it’s found a temporary pleasure to latch onto. That temporary pleasure will die soon and again the heart’s oceanic waves will rise and crash to whichever the wind of its whims goes. Unless the heart repents, this storm will continue going on until it’s too late. And the soul won’t find calmness.
But a sick heart can be cured. There is something that gives life to the heart. And it will find rest and tranquility, rest assured.
“Verily, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest.” (Qur'an 13: 28)
When you remember Allah, your storm will begin to dissipate and the light of tranquility will shine through the bleak clouds. The waves of tumult will turn into serene waters. Because in the remembrance of Allah, do hearts find rest.
What makes a hard heart tender? Let the waters of your heart’s ocean tranquilize by the following. The Prophet (PBUH) gave us the key to purify the heart. The Prophet (PBUH) said “These hearts become rusty just as iron does when water affects it.” On being asked what could clear them, he replied “A great amount of remembrance of death and recitation of the Qur’an.”
Remembering death and reciting the Qu’ran purifies the heart. And in that combined with the remembrance of Allah will the ocean of the heart still.
Change your heart to turn towards Allah. Turn in repentance, in duty, in humble submission. You won’t find that tranquility from fame, wealth, or even people, but you will find it with Allah. You will find the key to happiness and the key to a calm soul, free from anger, hatred, lusts, anxiety, distress, and evil through the remembrance of Allah.
“… the one who repents, becomes a true believer, and starts doing good deeds, for then Allah will change his evil deeds into good, and Allah is Most Forgiving, Most Merciful. He that repents and does good deeds, has truly turned to Allah with good turning.” [Qu’ran: al-Furqaan 25:70-71]