Thank You to My Beloved

by the Anomaly

18 May 2007 night time

Today

I finally passed the test

I finally learnt my lesson

I finally know

How to love myself.

To learn how to love yourself

You must first

Know who you are

You must know your value

and your worth

You must never let another person

determine your worth

and tell you who you are.

So I thank you,

my Master, my Guide,

my Beloved

for leading me to this path

to this knowledge

to this awareness.

To love yourself is to never allow anyone

to have control over your destiny

To never accept second best

To never be second best

Your soul belongs to Allah

Our Creator

Our Ultimate Love

Your life belongs to Allah

Never surrender your love and your life

to anyone else.

Know yourself and you will know Allah

Love yourself and you will love Allah

Love Allah and you will love yourself

It matters not which comes first

By the time you come to this realisation

You are nothing but a mirror

Reflecting

Allah's Beauty

Allah's Light

So learn to love yourself.

Do not accept a tarnished gift

For you are worthy of something better

Do not accept love in half measures

For you are worth

Much, much, much more than that

Do not accept insincere friendships

for they are worth nothing and you are priceless.

It is better to be alone

than to be with those

who do not know how to value you.

It is better to stay away from those

who do not know how to appreciate your worth.

They are not worth a single tear in your eye.

Finally I learnt and practised all this.

I have passed the test.

Thank you thank you thank you

My Love

for leading me here.

My chains are broken

I am finally released.

I finally know:

how to live

how to love

My burdens are gone

I am ready to live

I am ready to love another

How can you love another

when you do not know how to love yourself?

How can you value others

when you do not value yourself?

And today I have proven it

I love myself

I value myself

Thank you my Love.

The poetry above was inspired after going through a tough period for the past 2 weeks. I had come to realise that 2 people whom I am very fond of, whom I trust, whom I regarded as my friends have betrayed my trust and are not sincere to me. I struggled with myself - do I ignore it, accept them as they are and accept the half measures they mete out insincerely?

Then I realised - there is a difference between accepting people as they are and the treatment they show you. Accepting them as they are means not judging them and letting them be who they are and allowing them to find their own way. Eventually, we hope they will get there. But we don't have to suffer in their ignorance and accept their treatment.

So I stepped out of this circle of their ignorance and contempt.

What a release that was. To not be stuck in this vicious circle. I thought I would be upset and distraught over this. But all I felt was a sense of emptiness. I was worried. I thought I must be numb. But its night time now and I still don't feel anything. Just a sense of relief that I don't have to think about this anymore. I don't have to get upset over their behaviour anymore.

Then I realised - I finally liearnt my lesson which God was trying to teach me since 2000. I learnt to love myself.

So thank you God for this revelation, for this gift. It took me seven years of pain to learn. Seven years of joy. Seven verses in the Fatihah - The Heart of the Koran.