For many years I believed the word Islam meant peace. I suppose that is how one would explain it to a child. But when I realised Islam meant submission; I did not at first understand why and how they had got to the concept of peace. The word salaam meant peace and I knew vaguely of the concept of root words in Arabic and assumed it was something to do with that.
I thought I had submitted. Ritually I had changed my life around. I now observed the hijab, prayed five times a day and was trying to learn the foundations of the faith. I thought this was enough. Over and over again I was being told to take the inner journey, yet I did not know what they meant. What inner journey and how?
I assumed wrongly, the inner journey was to pray more and miraculously I would arrive. And, as I had changed my ways, I thought this was enough. What I needed to do, and did not do until life made me, was work on my personal development. I needed to let go of the diseases of the heart. But before I could do that I had to acknowledge I had them and face them gently.
My dad once said to me ' when you wanted to break the cultural norms you didn't like, you did so, until we conformed and now your doing it again in this new state. Can you please go back to who you were because at least we knew who she was'. What he and I never knew, was that back then I did not know who I was and that was why I had struggled. I know was getting to know me and this was not an easy task for any of us, especially me. I had to rise in love with my self, after I had explored who I was and what I was going to keep.
Submission and I on a superficial level got on, but for a deeper connection, my heart had to surrender. I struggled with this. To surrender in my world was to give up. I did not come from this make up. My DNA was from a lineage of fighters. What I did not realise my fight was different. Their fight was external for they were children of partition and immigration. My fight was internal for they had already fought and won the external battle for me. It was time to release the generational trauma. So whilst I focused on healing, I convinced myself that was all I needed to do. What I needed to do was surrender.
In healing circles, I would constantly be told you are not ready. This would hurt especially when the women with similar experiences as me had had all the openings I wanted, when they hadn't healed. My spiritual teacher on the other hand never spoke to me like this. I asked him once when would the penny drop and he said 'you are on a journey but one day you will arrive, keep doing what you're doing'. I did not see the depth of this message either and just carried on trying to heal and up level.
And then just like that one day it happened. I realised I had to surrender to my life. Surrender no longer meant giving up, but this was where real peace was. I had to submit and surrender to God's plan. Right here, right now, I had to be content and grateful for what I had. I had to bloom where I was planted. I could still dream for what I wanted but without fear, expectation or attachment. In fact once I surrendered, my visualisation increased. My intentions started to manifest with ease. I had let go of fear and aligned my heart to God's love and will. This was true surrender and submission and in this solace was peace. So yes Islam did mean peace, once your heart, mind, body and soul surrendered and submitted to God's plan.
A secret to happiness is letting every situation be what it is instead of what you think it should be, and then making the best of it.