Sonya Syed

Eid Mubarak to all my dear friends, to my family and to this beautiful extended family of our blog. May this Eid brings to all of us the joy, health, peace & abundance. I am absolutely gracious to the Almighty, so proud of myself and thankful for the love which all of you have given me, as today it has been almost a year since I began this blog. In all these days I received nothing but your affections, and I hope that the bond which all of us developed via this medium continues to grow and prosper. Amen! So much happened in this one year, most of it has been wonderful and some of it not so wonderful; nevertheless, I am grateful for all the blessings, for those beautiful experiences, for meeting some of the most incredible people, and for not being able to meet some of the other incredible individuals; I am extremely humbled and grateful for my journey and for becoming a person which I am today. Though I am not a nostalgic person yet in this moment I am able to experienc...

Sunday evenings are usually dull in my part of the world so having no activity on my hand I decided to grace my terrace with my presence. Just standing there and observing the hustle and bustle on road one could finally realize that Eid is soon approaching. Street lights in their bloom, people traveling to and forth from shopping malls, tailors, their relatives; traffic in full swing; small vans passing with cows on them reaching for their destinations; shops on the main road buzzing with customers and most of them being window shoppers like yours truly. Ah! What a sight it is; it all feels so alive- something which has now become a rarity for us Karachites. Where ever in the world we go after enjoying few days in the alien country we become desperate to return to this pollution, our broken roads, voices of thaeen thaeen (gunshots distant in the background), total traffic chaos on the roads. If we are abroad and there is a news of terrorism at home, the first thing which come...

I guess it has been almost two weeks since I wrote my last post, but I cannot give any solid reason for my absence because I don’t understand it myself. The only and the best way I could put it is that my mind is not able to concentrate on any thought or idea and I am unable to put it in the words as to what has been going on with me. I am in a different phase of my life where my thirst for inner peace and pure joy takes precedence over my desire for any material gains where I am exploring new avenues.  So I sort of shifted my life on my inner self and followed everything religiously which is the standard procedure ranging from observing my mind to brutally murdering my ego, to meditations and excessive prayers; for past one and a half year things were actually fine. Then following my instincts I have lessened my efforts for my legal career and completely focused all my energies in learning how to heal. Albeit my healing form is much of fait...

When I am all set to relax and enjoy a bit of TV, when everything seems to be in perfect shape, when there is a joy within, when life seems to full of beauty, when the sun is set and night is encroaching upon the day- suddenly there goes the power supply, in a second all that beauty of life that beckoning of evening enveloped in rest and leisure is now changed to rushing to close all main and heavy electrical appliances with a final touch of a humongous gurrrrrrr coming from the generator. It would be painful to imagine such an end to a beautiful evening. Sometimes there is so much to talk about, however; when I would sit down to chat nothing appropriate comes out so I drop the whole idea all together. Its just like going a giant ladies mall where everything so appealing and you want to get it all and since that is not remotely possible you would come out of there over-whelmed by all the stuff and exhausted for not buying a single item. With my immune system getting pro...

One is unable to comprehend the real value of health until there is an encounter with some indisposition. For some time now I have developed a routine to say gratitude for my health and overall well-being but that is all a verbal exercise because at times I have behaved negligently. And now when I had fallen ill and got well with soar throat and a high fever I could easily understand the difference between a healthy and an unhealthy body. I hope that we all take care of ourselves and treat our immune system with some respect and appreciation. Lot is going on in my mind these days and its not thinking rather it is unthinking . Whatever has been plastered in my mind since my early childhood to my adult life is pealing out layer by layer, and please do note that I am not going for any sort of psychotherapy; rather I am regularly reciting a combination of Bismillah and Allah’s name for my overall well being & happiness. As a consequence matters which once were consider...

Returning to the familiar territories is such a delight, and for me it would have to be this blog; though I intentionally stayed away from appearing for a couple of days because whatever I would write then might have felt forced rather than natural. Since now when I am in my usual frame of mind with much less distractions, well almost, I thought that this is the time to share a thing or two with you guys. Clarity of mind is a sheer blessing and I cannot but be in awe of those who possess this trait as their natural state, as for others like me who need to do a bit of work on ourselves before we are able to experience clarity and stillness. Some of our friends wanted to know what do I mean by stillness; well our minds are highly activated most of the time and there is constant thinking going on in it. Most of our thoughts are repetitive and they just continue like a movie playing of past and current events; and stillness is nothing more than quietening our minds. ...

All of us have our brilliant moments and also there are times when we have lost it completely, although in my current situation the latter would suit me perfectly. Sometimes the simplest of actions are exaggerated by our thinking and we tend to over-estimate their impact on our lives; and finally when we have conducted those actions we could breath a sigh of relief irrespective of the nature of outcome. Nevertheless, when I would be able to breathe my relief I don’t know. There has been a lot of work going on in my mind these days- if I try and follow my instincts my logical mind would jump in with its cheap, loud and argumentative voice and informs me about the triviality of things. It tells me to be a 100% sure that I will get some benefit from my actions; it wants me to live my life today in the shadows of my past experience; it tells me only to believe what I can see or hear or touch with my physical senses; it tells me not to have faith in the unseen or the unknown; it ind...