And the Good News Came to Him

We stand before the grandeur of the Quranic verses of glad tidings at a moment of realization that, despite everything that happens to him, man continues to live between reality and what he is also expected to hope for—maintaining a good opinion of his Lord, who can, in the blink of an eye, tip the scales in his favor. And the relief that God brings, when its time comes, even if delayed, can change the meaning of the entire journey. God said: “So she laughed, and We gave her glad tidings.” He also said: “And they gave him glad tidings of a learned boy.” He said: “O Zakariya, indeed We give you glad tidings.” He said: “And receive good tidings of the Paradise which you were promised.” And He said: “And give good tidings to the patient.” Even Jacob, whose eyes had turned white from grief, received the shirt before Joseph arrived. Some glad tidings reach us first, and then the fullness of the event follows. What strikes me is that in the Quran, glad tidings often precede the thing itself—meaning that a person is granted an image of tomorrow before living it. Here, I specifically ask: What does a beautiful image do in a person’s mind before it becomes reality? We are predisposed to ease more than we realize. And if life exhausts us, we have no choice but to anticipate ease. God says: “Allah intends for you ease and does not intend for you hardship.” He also says: “Allah intends to lighten for you [your burdens], and mankind was created weak.” And He says: “Indeed, with hardship [will be] ease. Indeed, with hardship [will be] ease.” It is one thing for something harsh to befall you, and another to convince your mind that everything ahead is harsh. Here begins our responsibility for the image we allow to take residence within us. I believe in the importance of a person drawing in his “imagination” and placing ten lines beneath it—what he would like to see one day on his own land. Because merely “imagining” compels the universe, including its forces created to serve us, to fulfill our desires. When a person lives for a long time within a certain image, that image begins to influence his attention, mood, choices, and the way he receives opportunities. All of this is studied, measured, and tailored. The mind and body are affected by what we mentally evoke. Therefore, suggestion and mental visualization have a real impact on our psychological and physical states. When you repeat to yourself that you are finished, you will begin to see the world through the window of an ending. And when you leave within yourself the possibility of survival, you are at least not eroding away as if you had already settled on destruction. Optimism, whether as a feeling, an idea, or a behavior, is not a denial of a harsh scene. Optimism is seeing the scene in its entirety and then refusing to grant it the power to write the final chapter. From this, I like to simplify an idea known as “transurfing,” developed by Russian physicist Vadim Zeland, as a lifestyle from which we can derive a beautiful psychological meaning: Do not let your desire turn into oppressive tension, and do not grant what you want “excessive importance,” so that the fear of losing it becomes greater than the joy of possibly attaining it. Steps toward facilitation and visualization: If you want something, visualize it. Pursue it. Make room for it in your life. Then do not suffocate it with fear, so that it may come to you in the best, fastest, strongest, easiest, and most compatible manner with your situation. There is a vast difference between saying “It would be beautiful if it happened” and saying “If it doesn’t happen, I will be finished.” In the first case, you are moving toward life and bringing more life into your life. In the second, you are running away from fear. Perhaps some facilitation begins at the moment we stop resisting everything. This leads me to think about another technique known as Ho’oponopono, or the technique of forgiveness, which is for reconciliation and repairing relationships. Simplified versions emerged associated with phrases such as: I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you. Regardless of the stories mentioned about this technique, its human meaning deserves reflection. How many trials do we carry within us whose facts have concluded but whose sessions have not? What has happened has happened. And no matter how long we dwell on yesterday, nothing will change.

Loss has occurred. Disappointment has struck. The mistake was made. The other party said what it said, and we too did what we did. So what remains in our hands? What remains is our relationship with ourselves after the event. Here, forgiveness sometimes is not about absolving those who hurt us; it is about freeing ourselves from the ongoing pain within. Acceptance does not mean accepting that what happened was fair or beautiful; it means acknowledging that the past has become an unchangeable reality, while the present remains malleable, open to shaping. A message to the self: I am sorry for every time I was harsh with you. Forgive me, my soul, for carrying you beyond your capacity. Thank you for staying, despite everything. And I love you enough not to make you relive the incident a thousand times after it has ended. Perhaps this is one of the secrets of ease: not fighting what has ended, and conserving our energy for what is still possible; encouraging ourselves without claiming knowledge of the unseen; holding positive expectations without negotiating with God over a single image of life; imagining the most beautiful outcomes, striving toward them, and leaving room for destiny to surprise us with things we never imagined. For ease does not mean that things always come to us as we wish. Sometimes ease is that our hearts change so we can receive what has come. Sometimes the good news arrives as an event, and sometimes as a person, and God replaces what we have lost with something better, with multiplied compensation.

The poet Shams al-Din expresses a profoundly beautiful meaning in this context, which I quote from his poetry: “By consenting to that dark beauty, your beauty seized the world... Yes, through consent and harmony, one can take the entire world. The candle wished to reveal the secrets of those in solitude and the possessors of hidden knowledge. So praise be to God that its wick, which is its tongue, ignited with what the heart harbors of desire. The rose, knowing its worth, wished to boast of the beloved’s color and fragrance. So the breeze of love grew jealous of it and stifled its breath in its mouth. Out of sheer pride, the hat of joy tilted like a tulip. Whoever carries the stigma of love in their heart... From this great fire hidden in my chest, the fire of secrets and divine knowledge, the great sun that illuminated the sky is but a single spark.” He continues, saying in a verse that particularly struck me: “I was secluded from the world like the needle of a compass, spinning far away... until time finally took me to the center. So I became like a point at the heart of the circle.” I said to myself, O God, and indeed, after all that I have gone through, I am still capable of receiving love, and receiving blessings, joys, and divine outpourings with a heart that has not lost its capacity for wonder, nor its belief that in the unseen there is something worth waiting for. The circle no longer spins around me. I am the center, and I am the point at the heart of the circle. From this center, I do not beg for life nor chase it; rather, I open my arms to it and move toward it, lightened by what has passed, filled with what is to come. Yes, I will encourage myself, hold positive expectations for what I have not yet seen, and leave room in the sky for it to surprise me with something more beautiful than my imagination. Yes, I will set forth like a marvel, because everything that touched me returned me to my center: that I am a breath from the Most Merciful, and I will remain a spirit within this body. I will believe only that God has taken charge of me with His mercy from my creation until my death, and until the Day I am resurrected. He is more tender toward me than my mother and father, in all that He has decreed for me and will decree. Between supplication and response lies a plan: “Be glad, O My servant, I am with you, I protect you, I encompass you.” So praise be to God as He deserves and is worthy of. Praise be to God, the praise of the thankful.