There’s an electricity in the air. Can you feel it?
It always happens around this time of year. Just before the divine challenge begins.
Throughout history, the wise women and men who follow the spiritual path of the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings upon him, would spend all of this month and the previous one in preparation, praying to be among those who get to live to see the blessed month of Ramadan.
It’s the month in which the Quran was revealed. The month of love and forgiveness. The month of deeper consciousness.
And it’s the month of spiritual training in which we tame our bodies in order to let our souls soar.
Ramadan proves that discipline isn’t reserved for a certain special kind of person. It’s the 4-week soul-building plan that anyone can do and everyone is welcome to.
How do we make this Ramadan the best one of our lives?
First: realise that if we make it to Ramadan, it is the only one of our lives. There is no guarantee that we’ll live to see another one and there’s no guarantee that our previous Ramadan’s were sufficient. The essence of Ramadan is taqwa (consciousness). The essence of consciousness is presence. The essence of presence is to abandon all thought of past and future and discard the illusions of the mind. I explain how this works in detail in a program called “Instant Ihsan”, but if you need a reminder of this truth… a hunger pang while fasting should do the trick😉
Second: create a simple, effective Ramadan Quran Plan that sets you up for success. One of the biggest mistakes we make is to not carefully think through and plan out our Quran goals and daily objectives, and then we get surprised and feel guilty for not hitting an unrealistic target.
This month brings its own spiritual energy and motivation. If we use it wisely, we can accomplish a tremendous amount of growth. Ideally, we want to read the Quran all the way through. The question is: do your current Quran skills allow for you to do this in Arabic, with understanding? If so, great! Enjoy every moment of it. If not, make a commitment to get yourself there by next Ramadan and use this Ramadan to listen to it in Arabic and/or read it in English. For more detail on how to achieve each and every one of your Quran goals in the most logical order, so that by next year’s Ramadan you can read it in Arabic with understanding… go through the “Quran For Busy People” program.
Third: Make the most of the fast. This may seem obvious, but most people miss it. Fasting is actually incredibly beneficial for your body and by fasting you’re doing 95% of the ‘hard work’ involved in burning fat and transforming your body. Most of us – because we believe that feeling a twinge of hunger gives us the right to indulge in every sugary, fried, fatty food in sight – manage to undo all the benefits of fasting about 30 minutes into the evening time.
Instead, this Ramadan I’m going to do something very different. I’m going to use Ramadan as a spring board to accelerate my personal health & fitness goals. I predict that, insha’Allah, by the end of Ramadan my wife and I will have each lost about 5kg-9kg (10-20 pounds) of body fat, in a way that makes the actual fasting easier and more enjoyable, increases our likelihood of having the spiritual highs that we all hope for, and keeps our energy much higher than normal.
