Ways to grow your soul

scattredthoughts:

Recitation of the Quran is the first thing you need to do to grow your soul. Within the sunnah you see a strong emphasis
on recitation. Any human being who wants to attain closeness to Allah needs to
open the Quran and read it. If you don’t do it, you have lost the most powerfool
tool to grow ur soul. For every letter that’s recited you receive ten rewards. If
you read the translation and commentary only, perhaps you should make an effort to learn to read the Arabic because the reward that is mentioned in the Quran and the hadith has nothing to do with translation, it has to do with articulation.

Salawat on the Prophet (saw) is the second thing that would help your soul grow. It
fulfills the mandate of the Quran: 

إِنَّ اللَّهَ وَمَلَائِكَتَهُ يُصَلُّونَ عَلَى النَّبِيِّ يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا صَلُّوا عَلَيْهِ وَسَلِّمُوا تَسْلِيمًا 
 "Verily Allah and His angels send blessings on the Prophet, O you who believe! Send you also blessings on him, and salute him with submission”. [33:56]

This is the
only act of worship that Allah says that I do, my angels do it so you should also
do it. By doing so, you don’t benefit rasoolAllah (saw) in anyway. It is a reflexive act: you send salawat on rasoolAllah, it reflects
back with ten salawat on you. You bring blessings upon yourself and it
gets presented to rasoolAllah. It connects you to the Prophet (saw) and its barakah
will connect your hearts. If you can’t do it abundantly, even once in the morning and once in the
evening would be sufficient for ur soul to grow.

It’tibah-e-sunnah is the third thing that causes your soul to grow. It’tibah-e-sunnah means internalizing the following of rasoolAllah (saw). Following his sunnah is the magnet that
draws Allah’s love, and Allah’s love is the most tasty food for our souls. By following him, what we
are doing is turning on our magnet so that it attracts Allah’s love.
For every sunnah that you follow you end up making yourself that much more beautiful to Allah. Prophet Muhammad (saw) said: “Allah is beautiful and He loves beauty.” [Muslim :911]
Therefore, what attracts the attention of Allah is the
sunnah. When you put on makeup and
dress all pretty, you might be attracting the attention of others around you
but to attract the love of Allah, we require the sunnah, and ecstasy lies in
finding in every tiny sunnah of rasoolAllah and following that sunnah from head
to toe, from heart to soul.

Notes from a lecture by Shaykh Dr Hussain.