It doesnt stay.
And thats normal. The point is to never go under a certain standard. Imaan doesnt come and go but it isnt constant as well. Sometimes its very high, at times it loses its strength. Our struggle is to keep it as high as possible and lose our life at a point when our heart burns in the love of our creator.
So I asked myself. What did I do wrong ?
Why didnt it stay as high as it was before? What was the one, essential thing I was doing differently when I compared my present self to my past-self ? I found an answer.
Then I looked around. I asked myself what was making the people so different although they were basically exposed to the same things? I especially focused on the people in my community. We were all sitting in the same classes, listening to the same pictures, the same rooms, same imaams, same , same , same... Yet , some of my brothers and sisters in Islam were so pious and others were'nt impressed by the truth they were being exposed to at all. I believed to have found the answer. And I found it to be identical with the answer I had found for myself, on an individual level. So I belıeve to have found the answer I have searched for. Something I consider worth sharing.
The very foundation of faith is independent thought.
The very foundation foundation for independent thought on the other hand is time. Time to ponder and a clear mind.
Do we have time ? Yes we do. The statement ' I dont have time!' is probably one of the biggest lies of our time.We have always time for our priorities. The question is never whether you have time for something or not, but whether you consider something as important enough to spend your time on it.
Do I have a clear mind ? No. The second premisse is not met. Now lets go further. Why dont I have a clean mind? And what does 'clean' mean.
Lets think of our minds as something like a vessel. When is a vessel 'clean' ? When it is empty or filled exclusively with things it was supposed to be filled with.Whenever something that wasnt supposed to be put in it enters the vessel it becomes 'dirty'. The level of dirt varies of course, you can fill a vessel only with junk or only with goodness, but the moment something bad enters it it is not pure any longer.
What is it that we fill our minds with ? Information. We fill our minds with information. When we see a picture, listen to some music or just spend our time at a specific event we process what we sense and store it as a piece of information. So we have to be very carfeful what we expose ourself to.
İt doesnt really matter how much you dislike ssomething - if you are constantly exposed to it you will store it. It will occpy your mind and eventually become part of your identity. So lets be careful what we expose ourselves to.
We are all born upon the fitrah of tawhid. So theoretically we should have high imaan in our natural state. Therefore low imaan had to be a consequence of distraction. Logically I had to get rid of all the distractions.
I asked myself : What are my distractions ?
1) Food
I may not look like it, but I eat horrific amounts of food. I eat constantly, there is no satiation for me when it comes to food. The more the better. I eat when I am excited and I eat when I am bored. Not because I am hungry -but because I am in a constant search for stimulation. And food is the easiest accessible stimulator, not to mention that it never fails to work. In one way it has become an addiction for me, food is a kind of a drug in my state.
2)Looks
I am a woman. I spend time on my clothing and make-up.
But during the last semester I started spending more thoughts on it and whenever I have free time I tend to either eat or - go on instagram to look out for some fashion.
3) Entertainment
That includes the entire internet. I gave up watching TV and reading novels 6 years ago, but that doesnt mean, that I gave up entertainment completely. I dont believe that you have to do so completely, but I believe that entertainment is wasted time and I as a muslim cant afford that.It should be very minimal. Just enough.
4) People
Useless conversations, unneccessary people, unneccessary gatherings. From most of them we dont only not benefit but are harmed. I will cut it down.
Lastly about the title I chose : I am not defending a complete abstinence from all this in no way. Nor do I agree with withdrawing oneself from the world. But I do believe, that our hearts are easily occupied by the dunya and in order to get rid of it we need some zuhd.
