Realize my brothers, and friends that fear of poverty is one of the diseases of the heart that has multifarious consequences in terms of perspective, personal growth, health, family and social stability. It is caused by trauma, where the suffers have gone through immense difficulties so much so that the use of their faculties get affected and rather than using them to figure things out or keep learning new skills, they become dependent on others.

​​Fear of poverty grips the mind so much that the sufferer is unable to figure out anything on their own, but develops coping mechanisms which become instinct. Rather than valuing others and giving them their rights, all principles of social ethics become irrelevant due to the mind which is gripped by this fear and unable to figure things out. Their survival mechanism is based on subjugating others to their service who too might develop the same phobia. It is at this stage that people sieze to see principles at work in life which are independent of time, place, and culture as taught in the Quran and Sunnah. Rather, they develop a deeply communal mentality, in which people group together for the sake of survival, labeling everyone else as "bad" and themselves as "good". At an individual level, such people can sell their mothers, or enslave their progeny if needed due to their severe need to survive. At a neighborhood level, gangs appear. At a town level, we have fans who support their football team blindly. At a national level, this can develop into xenophobia. At a global level, this is what secret societies and government secret services practice.

​It is vital to have mercy for the suffers of the fear of poverty as we have mercy for all sufferers of illnesses. Be kind to them without them controlling us. Avoid getting angry with them, but rather sympatize with their malady without it affecting us. May Allah cure every patient, creating a world in which people instinctly behave the way they were meant to behave, at harmony with themselves, nature, and everything around them. It is practically very difficult for suffers from this malady to recover if this has been their condition for a lifetime. The important thing is to forgive them and keep our boundaries from them just in case they might try to pull us down with them, as that is the only mechanism they know for survival and use it instinctively.

PS: Lucid Eloquence is contemplating using a more versatile publishing platform to continue blog posts as it has many features to develop social influence at a larger scale. Do share your opinions as feedback is vital for continuous growth.

What is the difference between morality and etihics? Morality is a personal moral code of good, while ethics is that which is accepted universally. Whereas morality might be different from an individual to another, but ethics is  what might be common all members of a profession like medicine, law, engineering, or social work. When it comes to professional ethics, especially medical ethics, we need to be very careful in safeguarding the right of patients by scrutinizing our actions so that we work based on universally accepted values of our profession. In terms of mental health, perhaps sometimes, professional ethics might not be so well adhered to as we may want it to, because of the unique stigma attached to mental health patients. Thus, diabetes or high blood pressure patients might not be considered as negatively as schizophrenic patients, for example.

The fact that mental health patients, at some point, may lose their ability to make best judgements about their own health and might lose the right to make decisions about themselves, unlike patients with physical health issues, gives the treatment team the "license" to decide or influence their health decisions. This issue of independence is a very sensitive issue in mental health ethics, which is unique for it. Mental health ethics needs to ensure that it is not abused by subsitute decision makers. 

Sometimes, mental health patients have a lot of false hype associated with them. They might come in with exaggerated reports about their past activities from family members, social media, community, or news sources. The treatment team needs take such auxilliary information wtih a grain of salt, so that does not taint their judgement in terms of any prejudice or personal bias without interacting first hand with the patient. Before making judgements and decisions, they should soak up all the information after spending time observing and engaging with the patient for a significant time (perhaps at least 2-3 weeks). The nature of dependence when it comes to mental health, means that there is always the possibility that other sources of information (from caretakers, neighbours, and authorities) might be biased considering that they might have something to gain from the vulnerability of the mental patient and their situation. 

In certain situations, the social hype might get the better of them in terms of the their judgement. Sometimes, societal pressure is too much for mental health workers to uphold professional ethics when it comes to certain stereotypes. They might end up believing half truths, distored information, and false propaganda. Thus, they end up making judgements and decisions after 15 minutes of interviewing the patients, based on superficial cues from their manner of speech, appearance, and desperate circumstances in which they come in for treatment. In such situations, whatever the patient says bears little weight in contrast to what the treatment team "thinks" is true as the element of trust is missing, unless the patient manages to regain their trust over time. Many mental patients lose their independence to their abusers due to a lack of proper respect to mental health ethics by practitioners who might lack proper judgement.

Such societal bias is always present due to some negative connotations associated with certin groups of people. With hindsight, we can better appreciate how Japanese American citizens were mistreated after the Second World War or how McCarthyism caused innocent citizens to be "labelled" as Communist sympathizers in the 1960s, and how someone trying to practice Islam holistically and beautifully, might end being labelled as a "fundamentalist", with mainstream media churning out blockbusters and news reports laced with Islamophobia these days. 

How can we truly "know a person", unless we travel with them, financially deal with them or live with them? So unless, the treatment team has the luxury of getting to really know the patient as an inpatient over a prolonged period, it becomes very difficult for the mental health patient to reestablish trust and regain their independence. A rational and conscientious treatment team, realizes the real issues at stake in a mental health patient's history, and has the courage to reverse judgements when they realize their mistakes. 

Mental health ethics entails realizing that God ultimately knows the patient the best, then the patient has knowlege about themselves (although mental health issues can cloud self awareness). It is only after God, and the patient, that others have insights into the mental patient's situation. Nevertheless, they are human and their reports are naturally biased based on their own role in the patient's mental health. 

​It is important to have the right intention to do those good deeds that lead to positive goals. If the intention is selfish or insincere, mental health issues will persist in the patient. Only when we do good deeds and pursue worthy goals for holistic good in the right way (rather than pursue personal goals in an incorrect manner), i.e. what we call "the pleasure of God alone", can we truly break out of our mental health disposition.

Care needs to be taken that the process of breaking the negative CBT cycle is done in a balanced, gradual, organic, and well thought out manner, otherwise it is easy to fall back on negative patterns, with cyclic episodes of negative vicious cycle in an unorganized, unsystematic, and sudden manner, we end up observing bipolar symptoms in patients, with cyclic episodes of mania and depression. So proper planning, deep thought, and organization, free from insincere influences are essential to break out of the vicious cycle. Thus, social boundaries our important for recovery.

One way to ensure that the bipolar characteristics do not manifest themselves in the patient on breaking the negative vicious cycle is to do good deeds and to set goals based on SINCERITY (genuine holistic good done for the sake of God), as mentioned earlier, pursuing them in a gradual and organized manner free from insincere negative influences.

We are all familiar with what "sincerity" means. We are sincere to our friend if we do or say things with their best intent, but we are sincere to our greatest benefactor, God, when we do things primarily for His pleasure, not caring whether our actions might displease His creation if it means that those actions will please Him. "Sincerity" means doing things with the best intentions for the holistic good that God wants from us.

When good deeds lack Sincerity our breaking out of the negative CBT vicious cycle might not be successful and we can relapse into negativity. So proper planning, organization, with SINCERE good deeds, sincere short, medium, and long term goals, with the best of intentions, keep strict boundaries in terms of negative influences is needed to successfully come out of our mental health symptoms to become a better version of ourselves,  God Willingly.

Our world is full of paradoxes of our perceived realities. Perceived realities depend on several factors based on what we consume -- our media, education, social upbringing, role models, our social circles, organized religion, our food, etc. We hear so many voices around us and form our perspective of life. Nevertheless, there is another voice - the voice of our innate nature. Yes, the conscience that God instilled in each of us with the precognition of all realities we will ever experience. Yet He did not leave us blind and wandering to uncover our inner light of guidance. He sent spiritual guidance through the Scriptures He revealed to His chosen Messengers, all of whom are our teachers to discover and live the life worth living that is unique for each of us, through learning, personal observation, and self development based on natural principles of success common to all humanity. 

In our contemporary world our dialectics (concepts that seem the opposite but may be true at the same time) define us. Centuries of decay, decline, waning, and waxing of the Islamic World since the Mongol sacking of Baghdad when Muslims lost essence of faith-inspired intellectual and spiritual pursuits in favor of false pride in cultural heritage - customs, language, cuisine, arts, history, and traditions, without practicing the same principles of human success that made their forefathers great. Thus faith gave way to cultural decadence, stagnation, and capitulation in the form of centuries of European colonization of the Muslim world.

Christian work ethic, although based on a false belief system of human divinity, trumped the decadence of non-practicing Muslim lethargy. A people raised on baked potatoes and beans, reciting Shakespeare's sonnets, who love to camp in the open countryside for recreation were able to mesmerize a Muslim population relishing their biryanis and kababs, reciting works of Saadi and Mutanabbi, reclining on opulent cushions and carpets. It was a classic transfer of power from a stagnant civilization that had reached its zenith, and forsaken the principles of human success that Ibn Khaldun eloquently describes his Muqaddimah. A vigorous people practicing a distorted faith, glorifying a Spartan lifestyle, were able to displace a people who gave up their practice of their true faith for the love of luxurious living.

The mid-20th century saw the masters begin to relinquish their colonies physically but they left a system and an elite class of colored master class in Muslim lands who were more "European" than the Europeans. Nationalism -- the curse of the 20th century -- saw Muslim nation states glorify their jahilli past -- thus the Egyptians are proud of their Pharonic civilization, the Lebanese of their Phoenician heritage, as the Shah's countrymen were haughty of Persepolis -- the capital of the Achemenid Empire - before they perished in the dust of the Iranian Revolution. This system of "delegate colonialism" is still  so strong that one of its pawns - Pakistan's President Ayub Khan - had to write a book deliberately titled "Friends, Not Masters" to highlight the issue in the 60s. 

Fortunately, nationalism and Muslim cultural chauvinism is slowly giving way to a principle-based struggle that involves all of humanity -- independent of a particular culture. This is evident how the Palestinian struggle, a catalyst to unite Muslims globally, was led by nationalistic organizations like the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) has slowly lost credibility and popularity in face of more genuine Islam-based movements. The emergence of genuine Islam-inspired leadership in Turkey, Pakistan, and Malaysia who are not sellouts to their Western masters is a breeze of fresh hope in terms of the spiritual reawakening of the Muslim world. The lack of Arabic comprehension among their populations is still problematic, as we find the ignorance of nationalism and materialism still cloud the vision of their general population, especially the older generation. 

The strange marriage of Islam, nationalism, and material pursuit has created a strange philosophy that is alien to the innate human nature. It is the failure of Islamic thinkers and social architects to lay out a pragmatic contemporary way of life that is aligned with the original Islamic ethos, that we find the paradoxical experiences in contemporary Muslim world. Whereas, the leadership of the emerging non-Arab Muslim world has started to assert its independence of preference for natural principle-based way of life for itself and the world, the Muslim Arab world leadership is still tightly controlled by their masters with perhaps the exception of Qatar, Kuwait and Oman. They still simply carry out social policies architected by Western think tanks for selfish national interests irrespective for the harm they cause to natural principles globally.

​In contrast, the West has transformed from its colonial Puritan philosophy to a more secular atheistic outlook in which social policy is based on animal behavior to keep controlling the world masses through consumerism, sexual promiscuities, musical indoctrination, substandard educational policy designed to accept Big Brother world regime, propaganda-based media, and delusional promises of "freedom" in the guise of Western concepts of democracy and liberalism.

If we consider this stage of Western civilization, we realize the paradox we exist in. On the one hand Western religion is irrational and not based on natural human principles of success like Islam. On the other hand, social experimentation has resulted in disasters like the breakup of the family, individualism, alcoholism, substance abuse, sexual deviance, death of morality, relativism, and crass materialism. It is a classic result of dalal -- misguidance, but how can we blame anyone? If we are born as part of the non-Muslim population of the the West, it is perfectly rational to reject religion in favor or atheism, agnosticism, and general spiritual confusion that we see today in the West. How can someone base their beliefs on mental gymnastics of 3 in 1 and 1 in 3 -- with a god being born and dying at a specific epoch in history, for taking away the responsibility of people for the own self development -- as he already died for the mistakes/sins? Thus, how can we follow a religious tradition which opens the door to moral corruption wide open resulting in whole scale misguidance, unless we are open to investigate other religious traditions for the Truth?

​Yet the same social Western experiments that have resulted in a dysfunctional human society at home has been propagated globally to the Muslim world through Western stooges in Muslim national leadership. This leaves the common Muslim challenged in our day and age to live consciously based on principles that are intrinsically part of them, but deliberately subverted in the world they live in. Unless, they are ready to live a life free of materialistic love, independent of the overwhelming global social script, and influence of those who wish to use (abuse) them for their own materialistic pursuits, they cannot be true to themselves and their reality. This can be achieved through zuhd, learning, contemplation based on the Quran, and adopting Prophetic methodology for self development and development of others to revert to natural principles of success. When a critical mass of humanity does that, positive change will eventually ensue, God willingly.

Among the natural therapies for good mental health and longevity, in general, is healthy social relations. Did not mommy always tell us, "do not talk to strangers?" But building relationships with those we do not initially know, is part of the recovery process.

Nevertheless, there are some best practices for mental health in terms of socialization, that might help overcome barriers and be a source of strength, comfort, and lasting relationships rather than be a source of fear, hesitancy, or negative competition. If social relations are not based on collective attempts in building each other up for success genuinely from the heart, rather they put each other down, making people feel bad about themselves,  considering each other threats rather than opportunities to get better then such social relations are detrimental. In contrast, the opposite is the key to better health recovery, not only for the patients but for good positive environment for the whole society.

Sometimes, we think that when we talk to someone, we "need" something from them. This is not necessarily true in healthy societies, where it is just a norm to greet complete strangers pleasantly, whether we meet them on the street or in the market and to ask how they are doing. They do not have to have the same race, religion, national origin, native language, etc. Just being human is enough. Is there not an instinctive urge we feel in playing with that random cute baby in the doctor's waiting room or the grocery store checkout queue?

To think that we will only communicate with people we have a "need" for seems to be a very deliberate thought. Rather a person on a path of growth and self development may habitually interact pleasantly with a wide range of people with no particular motive. In general  greeting the janitor as well as the Prime Minister, should be without apprehension.

The number of mental health maladies and those who are affected by them is increasing, despite the development and progress in medical sciences. Since the 70s and 80s, the use of psychotropic medicines has been the standard way to address such psychotropic medicines which are on the rise with the progress in "modern" standards of living -- some of which might not be the most balanced or at least might not be lived out as such by more and more people globally.

Big Pharma and those trained in the specific field of psychiatry (treating mental health through only medicines), work closely together. We need to think positively about people's intentions and those of companies and organizations bringing medical solutions to the sick worldwide, but sometimes in our rapacious ego driven world, sometimes we, as people, might discredit the greater good for our own personal good. Sometimes, if we are a "hammer" all problems seem like "nails" to us. We need to consider why such medicines are so expensive and so very difficult to wean off to better understand the profit making factors behind modern psychiatry.

We acknowledge the use of psychotropic medicines and its proper use in treating disorders, but at some point medical ethics need to be observed more carefully to ensure that we never abuse the responsibility that society has entrusted us with. It should never be about our personal ego, but always about the greater personal good that psychiatry should be practised -- for the good of the patient themselves, especially those who have indicated to be treated voluntarily.

There have been tremendous changes in psychiatry recently. Dr Peter Levine has written much about these particular topics in his bestsellers which mental health professionals should study to better understand how to evolve their practices with the best trends in psychotherapy. Many trained psychiatrists are already changing their practices by incorporating therapeutic techniques like cognitive behaviour therapy, dialectic behaviour therapy, personal/spiritual development, holistic living, and generally understanding the "meaning of life" to develop the best versions of their patients possible using a spectrum of different natural treatments. Many are teaming up with other specialists in branches of knowledge they might not be as familiar with to jointly make decisions about the treatment of their patients and their way forward.

Dr Kelley Brogan is one of many such trained psychiatrist from New York, who turned into a holistic healer which is an increasing trend in psychiatry. After formally studying psychiatry she developed herself to holistically treat mental illnesses through a gamut of natural techniques including medicine, if needed. One of her objectives is to wean off her patients from psychotropic medicines if they are not absolutely necessary so they start living as "normal" people not dependant on medicines or other people.

Just like Christianity,  Islam has been shattered into numerous sects, even tough the essential religion is the same, ie worship ONE God, Allah, and serve humanity based on the examples of the prophets and messengers,  specifically on the example of the Last Messenger,  Prophet Muhammad (SWAS). Scholars of Islamic Studies, consider two main branches of Islam, Sunni Islam and Shiite Islam.

In a nutshell, Sunni Islam is all about its followers following the best practices (natural principles) that Prophet Muhammad (SWAS) was inspired to live by through continuous insights from God (Allah) while Shiite Islam considers that a person can be righteous if they take the family of the Prophet (SWAS) and his biological descendents as their religious leaders (imams). Whereas, Sunni Islam is all about learning and following the Prophetic Sunnah (his life pattern based on natural principles) as they were taught by him to his companions, the Sahaba (RA), some of whom Shiite scholas consider usurper of the Islamic State after the demise of the Prophet (SWAS).

As modern challenges whether they be mental health or AI ethics, can better be addressed by Sunni Islam using its methodology of insights from natural principles (the Sunnah), which can be applied to understand any phenomenon. Whereas Shiite Islam tends to relegate understanding to its religious leaders, in general. Thus, the ideal Shiite Islamic State is that led by their Shiite scholars, with the general population seldom questioning as fervent followers, in general. In contrast,  the Caliph of the ideal Sunni Islamic state is equal to the general population and can be questioned by anyone, in general. 

Whatever, the modern challenge, the common Sunni Muslim is able to "understand" it better from a more personal holistic religious way than a common Shiite Muslim, in general, as the former is suppose to develop a life full of divine insights using the example (Sunnah) of the Prophet (SWAS). In contrast, the common Shiite Muslim is suppose to obey their spiritual leaders (imams), perhaps "blindly". 

We can then consider Abrahamic faiths like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam which are supposedly monotheistic. Nevertheless, if we consider Christianity and its various denominations it has become a shade of polytheistic due to introduction of concepts such as the Trinity, by people like Paul, 300 years after the death of Jesus (AS).

When we consider Judaism it seems monotheistic indeed, whereby Jews worship one God, but it is a tribal religion exclusive for themselves which the gentiles cannot have any claim over. So there is no conversion into Judaism.  One needs to be born of a Jewish mother to enter the faith, which has very different ways of looking at people who do not believe in the faith. So its domain of sincere public service is limited to its coreligionists.

When we consider Islam, the last of the revealed religions for ALL humanity (the greatest domain of service) to the last Messenger of God, Muhammad (SWAS) and it is not parorchial as other faith. It is practiced by the whole diversity of mankind and it enjoins true monotheism -- the strict worship of just ONE God. It does not compromise on that. In fact, tawheed, or belief in ONE God, is its principal pillar.