Badges mark quoted or attributed material (Qur'an, hadith, another author, an opposing view). Unbadged passages are Maulana Wahiduddin Khan's own words.
TAWASSUM: Spiritual Nourishment From Everyday Events
Just as material food is necessary for the health of the body, so also is learning lessons from all events a form of spiritual nourishment for a believer.
A true believer has the aptitude to learn lessons from everything going on around him. Faith makes a person sensitive. In all matters he tries to go beyond mere appearances in order to plumb the depths of things, thus arriving at their true meaning. Things which people see and fail to take seriously yield up a treasure of wisdom to the believer. His insight is so developed that he is able to see beyond superficialities to the deeper level of things.
The believer has sublime qualities which make his personality multi-dimensional. At every moment he discovers new things. The scattered universe becomes a great source of provision for his soul.
In the rays of the sun, he can see the light of God. In a breath of fresh air, he experiences the divine touch. In the verdure of the world with its trees and colourful flowers, he has glimpses of a world of meaning. He can see a more profound meaning in every spring and a more meaningful autumn in every autumn.
In this way, all human and non-human events become a source of taking lesson for him. He increases his knowledge from the knowledge of others. Others’ mistakes become a cause of improvement of his own mistakes. Right from the ants to the camels and from the rivers to the mountains, in everything he finds some aspect which adds to his insight. All of these become the sources of new experiences, giving his personality a many-sidedness.
Just as material food is necessary for the health of the body, so also is learning lessons from all events a form of spiritual nourishment for a human being. If material food guarantees physical well-being so also is the learning of lessons a guarantee of spiritual health.