In this episode, I focused on Byron Katie’s teachings and the concept of Qadr in Islam.

Byron Katie is a modern-day guru with a large following. Her concepts really inspire me, particularly this one:

“Could it be that all along, we have lived the life we should have lived and that everything we’ve done has been what we should have done.”

A lot of times we end up living in regret, thinking about our past - the reality of that time - and how things should’ve been.

“I should’ve done this instead of that”, “

I shouldn’t have suffered this way”, etc. 

These are just some examples of such thoughts. According to Byron, these thoughts do us no good; instead, they hold us back from moving forward by keeping us stuck in the past.

Have you ever thought about what would happen if we accept these things and think that whatever happened was supposed to happen? This doesn’t mean forgetting what happened - it’s about accepting it as it was.

This is also related to the Islamic concept of Qadr. As Muslims, we believe in the divine destiny i.e. Allah SWT has already written down all that has happened and all that will happen in the future.This means that all our actions are caused not by what’s written, but rather our actions are already written because Allah SWT knows everything, and His knowledge is not bounded by the restriction of time, whereas, us humans can’t know or even predict the future; we can only reflect on our past.

Some people argue that if everything is predestined, then that means it’s also decided if we’ll go to Heaven and Hell. This is where the concept of free will comes in; Allah knows what will happen, but he doesn’t impose anything on us. He has given us free will so that we can choose the right path for ourselves.

Therefore, you must keep in mind that all that has happened was supposed to happen, and there’s no point in going back and forth. This is one of Byron Katie’s teachings that

I personally love it. Apart from this, there are some others too:

“When there’s no thought, there’s no problem” - meaning that most of our problems are actually caused by our thoughts. These problems wouldn’t even exist if we didn’t read too much into things.

“Our thinking is the only thing we can change” - meaning we can’t control the situation or the people around us nor can we change them. What we can do is change the way we perceive or think about certain things – that is the only power we truly have.

“We only really do 3 things in our life - stand, sit, and lie horizontally. Everything else is a story that we tell ourselves” - meaning that we interpret most of the things that happen in our lives and form a story of our own.

Final Note:We can’t change our past, so no need to dwell on it. The future, however, has endless possibilities.

We can shape it according to what we want using our free will, and that’s what we should be doing - looking for opportunities and making use of them in the best way possible.