What comes to us - or may come to us - is a gift from God which is adjusted to our receptivity, but is none the less out of all proportion to our des… - Gai Eaton
" "What comes to us - or may come to us - is a gift from God which is adjusted to our receptivity, but is none the less out of all proportion to our deserts. Our principle task is to make ourselves ready. What is offered is clear and simple but, faced even with the possibility of this gift, we find ourselves to be a mass of contradictions, not merely unfit to receive it but incapable of taking it in.
The profane man's selfhood is a debris of memories and dreams, false hopes and lingering guilts, or hard little pebbles of self-concern, desire and fear. This is the 'hardened heart' of which the Quran speaks of so often. A vessel must be emptied before it can be refilled, and only someone who has expelled this debris from the centre of his being can hope that something of the divine plenitude may flow into him. There is not room in the human heart for two, as the mystics have said on a number of occasions.
English
Collect this quote
About Gai Eaton
Charles le Gai Eaton (also known as Hasan le Gai Eaton or Hassan Abdul Hakeem; 1 January 1921 – 2010) was a British diplomat, writer, historian, and an Islamic scholar.
Biography information from Wikipedia
Also Known As
Birth Name:
Charles le Gai Eaton
Related quotes. More quotes will automatically load as you scroll down, or you can use the load more buttons.
Additional quotes by Gai Eaton
A generous man is so because he reflects the qualities expressed in the divine Name al-Karim, 'the Generous'. The man who has beauty of character or the woman who has physical beauty reflects something of al-Jamil, and the strong man would have no strength were it not for al-Qawi, 'the Strong', and al-Qahhar, 'the All-Compelling'. But Allah is also and, indeed, essentially al-Ahad, 'the One'; One alone, One who has no partner, the unique, the incomparable. From this name is derived the relative uniqueness of each human being and the fact that each is - at least potentially - a microcosm, a totality.
An affair that might have seemed a mere trifle - and might seem so still under different circumstances - was shown to be 'something immense in the sight of God'. 'A'isha could not have understood the vast dimensions of the stage upon which she had been summoned to play her part, but everything that happened upon this stage took place in so brilliant a light - and had such tremendous consequences - that we should not think it strange if God chose to intervene in the matter; nor is it difficult in hindsight, aware of the significance of this incident in the development of Islam, to realize that the loss of a necklace by a fifteen-year-old girl travelling through an earthly desert might be of greater significance than galactic catastrophes or the death of stars.
PREMIUM FEATURE
Advanced Search Filters
Filter search results by source, date, and more with our premium search tools.
And yet I needed to know the meaning of my own existence. Only those who, at some time in their lives, have been possessed by such a need can guess at its intensity, comparable to that of physical hunger or sexual desire. I did not see how I could put one foot in front of the other unless I understood where I was going and why. I could do nothing unless I understood what part my action played in the scheme of things. All I knew was that I knew nothing - nothing, that is to say, of the slightest importance - and I was paralyzed by my ignorance as though immobilized in a dense fog.
Loading...