The Second Rule

Second Rule: The Path to the Truth is the Labor of the Heart, not of the Head. Make your Heart your primary guide! Not your Mind.

Meet, Challenge, and ultimately prevail over your nafs (False ego) with your Heart. Knowing yourself will lead you to the knowledge of God.

Elif, (the writer of the book: “The forty rules of love”) talks about truth and love together in this rule and several thoughts just sprung up in my mind.

We lie to the people we love all the time. A father lies to his daughter about the pain he is suffering from or what hardships he has gone through earning the money for that nice plate of dessert.

A lover lies to the people he loves because he/she doesn’t want them to suffer as they are. There are many reasons we do that.

When you lie, Do you hear that sound or that voice which is telling not to lie? Or that pinch you get after telling the lie? You feel like covering your face or just behave that you are too tired to talk but in your mind you are still debating?

That’s what Elif wants you to comprehend, this debate or this voice inside your mind is your heart (not that hearts can talk, but your soul).

We can judge each other easily. You could look at a person and tell him/her how they behave or why they behave.

We rarely know what we want at times even if we do we aren’t sure.

Have you ever asked yourself? What do you want? What do you need? What is your desire?

Are you sure she is the one? Can you guarantee on this? Why is red your favorite color?

Why do you wear those rings? What made you choose that career?

Mostly, mind rules our decisions in our day-to-day life.

What if we give that inner voice a chance sometimes? How does it feel? How does it feel to not lie to the people you love?

Path to the Truth is the Labor of Heart: Truth can hurt but it also helps. It helps you to know yourself.

In the end, I would like to say Truth will manifest itself one day or the other so why lie. Just say what you feel and see it how goes. Say what you want to say because we have limited time here on this earth. Live it up!

The First Rule

First Rule: "How we see God is a direct reflection of how we see ourselves. If God brings to mind mostly fear and blame, it means there is too much fear and blame welled inside us. If we see God as full of love and compassion, so are we."

It is so skilfully argued in the book that if we have blame and fear inside us then we would blame god for not helping us or for not showing us the way ahead.

We might as well say God is a figment of our imagination. 

Don’t we all think that at one point of our life that maybe God is just an illusion that we need to get by.

Is He an illusion, our imagination? Or Is He for reals?

I know that when we keep digging deeper in this issue about God exists or not?

We get nothing or no explanation.

We just get one thing that there is someone or something out there which wanted this world to come alive.

And, we want it to look like us so that we can relate to something similar and not go completely nuts in figuring out Who? How? Where? On this issue.

Because, we want it to look similar we relate it to the feelings that we have inside us.

If we are pessimistic then we think that God won’t help.

If we are optimistic then we think that He will help in his own way.

If we are realistic then we say do what you do and do it right. We don’t think about God.

If we are spiritualistic then we say He is within us and we just have to find Him.

So, in a way, it is true that God is a direct reflection of us.

All we need to do is to know who we are as a person and try to adjust with that fact to become happy.

I know only thing in life:

Do whatever you want to do. It should result into only one thing that it makes YOU HAPPY.

Orelse, it's not worth it.

Love and it's Wonders!

I know it has been long since I wrote in this blog. I won’t give false promises to myself that I am back and all.

You see, I read this book by Elif Shafak on “The Forty Rules of Love” and this book made a big impact on my thinking.

I want to one by one discuss the rules that she talks about in this book.

When I read the title I was under the impression that it was going to be a romantic novel but it was not.

It was spiritual, lovely, made you wonder about companionship, fullness, nothingness, God, love, mindlessness and mindfulness.

If you were ever wondering about what is your role in this world or what are you trying to achieve by going to work, earning money, living it up and then living it down this book will in a way answer all your questions one by one.

It will immerse you in to a world that you never thought existed. It will make you fall in love with yourself.

J

Now, I will go ahead and start with the First rule in the book.