.

……..sometimes passes through rough terrain

A sincere seeker wrote of his declining spiritual condition to one of his close friend. He received the following reply.  Being in sync with the teaching of sayyidi wa sanadi Shaykh Mufti Mohammad Taqi Usmani (may Allah preserve him) it is worth sharing.

In the name of Allah,

as salam o alaykum
JazakAllah for the kind email.
I read it in detail. Be assured that these are the natural up and downs of the path. As the Friends of Allah (awliya) say,

“Truly the fortunate one is he, who is blessed with the ability to recognize his own shortcomings.”

All praise is for Allah, that you have done this. That is, recognized and acknowledged the problem.

Now the second part is at hand. That is, to overcome these short comings. This is the spiritual struggle (mujahida). This will be facilitated by asking Allah sincerely to make it easy to control these unlawful desires (to indulge in sins). At the same time you will have to put all your effort in trying to do so. That is, using self determination (himmat). There is no short cut to success without genuine determination. In absence of sincere effort the likelihood of giving up sins will only be a wishful thinking.

You have already recognized that failure to follow a daily schedule of wird, etc. and loss of regular contact with Shaykh have resulted in this. Try to overcome these. You are smart, intelligent and hardworking. You can do it.

Set your priorities.

Ask your wife or a close friend to remind you of them if they see you slipping.

Set a penalty if you do slip. Like four units (rakat) salah of repentance and/or skipping everything sweet that day, or something similar that is a burden on your self (nafs). This is to remind and ingrain that mistakes have consequences.

It is okay to slip and fall.
However, it is not okay to keep lying flat in dirt for ever.

Saturday 5th July, 2008/1st Rajab 1429