Abdurraheem Green – E-Reminders
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the importance of knowing oneself and oneself in order to achieve one's goals. They also touch on the negative impact of social media on one's health and energy, as well as the dangerous and pathetic nature of the world. The segment emphasizes the importance of staying true to oneself and avoiding giving up on one's true selves. They also encourage viewers to be honest with themselves and not let things happen to themselves.
AI: Summary ©
Yes, brothers and sisters,
As Salam Alikum Do you like my look? My daughter was in fix fits of giggles. I said, Why are you laughing? At like a fly? Now, that may ruin the rest of the show?
Because you may be laughing, but look at this burden. So when you see this, look at this, see this, you see this, this miracle? Right behind you see this? Look at this.
There's Subhanallah brothers and sisters Listen, a few days ago, literally a few days ago.
No, was it yesterday, even.
There were no leaves on that tree. Nothing, literally, I think just overnight, and today, those fresh,
young leaves have started coming through. I'm going for a walk. Now I'm going up into the forest. So I thought I'd have a walk and talk at the same time. Even though I'll be honest, I'm really quite tired. And a little bit thirsty.
I don't feel hungry.
I don't feel hungry at all.
But I feel you know, like I I'm one of those people who sort of get that energy from food. If I feel tired, it's like, give me some food. I need some to eat to get some energy. But so I wanted to talk today. And forgive me like if I'm breathing a little bit heavily because where I live, there's some quite steep hills, and see that as the * I'm going to be walking,
walking out when I'm talking to you. So
today, I want to talk about how Ramadan helps you
how fasting how Ramadan
helps you to know yourself, because, you know, since last Ramadan, almost for a year, what is the year now? And Islamic year? I've been talking about
knowing yourself.
It's been so interesting.
You know, the whole it's been as much a journey for me. I'm sure as it has been for you. For those of you been listening? Well, actually. So I'd love to go back and listen to everything I said.
Because, you know, he's funny. One of the things I do is I listen to my talk sometimes.
And honestly, I feel like I'm a stranger. I feel like I'm I'm feeling I'm listening to this guy who's giving me
a good motivator, you know, a good admonition.
Wait a minute, that's me talking. I said I need to act on the stuff that I'm saying myself. SubhanAllah.
So it's good advice to me, you know, giving these talks is just as much as it is for me is is for you.
Believe me? So
we've been talking about getting to know yourself and why is that so important?
It's so important. One of the reasons I've been saying again and again and again and again.
Why knowing yourself who you really are.
If there is such a thing as a real you.
That's a whole nother topic.
When people say, you know, the real me, what is the real you?
What does that mean? Anyway, the real you the authentic you.
I should think I need to have a whole
episode on that. But I need to think about it a bit more.
You know, I think unfortunately, the authentic you is often a byword for
not doing hard work. You know, the reason I'm not going to do this hard work, is because it's not the authentic me.
It's an excuse very often.
But on the other hand, no. It's always an excuse. Sometimes you feel you are taking direction in your life,
doing something,
doing some things, behaving in a way that you feel goes against the whole grain
of what you you know, of, of who you are or what you think the direction of your life should be.
I get that like I've been lucky.
Blessed. I shouldn't say lucky really, you know, blessed by Allah
because I think
especially since I became Muslim,
I guess for me, before I was Muslim,
I was very confused. I had no idea really what my life was about. I had no idea
on a very, very basic level, a deep level, but basic, because sometimes the most basic things are the deepest things of all.
I didn't know what life was for why we human beings were here on the planet. I mean, I didn't understand the basic, overriding, overarching purpose of our existence.
And Islam Alhamdulillah the Quran?
The beautiful book of Allah
gave me the answer to that. Allah said, Well, my follicle Jana will INSA
ileap balloon that I did not create the human beings and the jinn, except to worship me. And as Abdullah bin Abbas said, You means to worship Allah, he means to know Allah.
That's thus that's what life is about. To Know Allah.
But it's, I guess this whole journey that we've been on for a year
is based around the wisdom that if you you can, if you want to know Allah, you need to know yourself. And that's not because
as some people would say, a stalker of Allah
that You know, God is within you. No,
absolutely not.
Because is the one who creates? Or is the one who does not create, meaning you and me and all of us we don't create, not really, we don't bring something literally out of nothing.
Is the one who does not create like the one who creates
Allah is different from his creation. So not knowing yourself
doesn't mean brothers and sisters. That through the path of knowing yourself and self knowledge,
self actualization, self mastery, this important path
we should all take
that involves restraining and controlling our knifes.
Right?
It means that ultimately, when you understand the reality of who you are,
you will know
that you're definitely not God.
I mean, that's the whole point. The whole point is you will realize how on God like you are, how little you have in common with Allah subhanaw taala how completely perfect Allah is and how imperfect you are and how completely needy and how completely dependent on Allah you are.
And what better time to bring this sharply into focus. Then this month of Ramadan
because look at me, look at us, right
Subhan Allah, no food and no drink for a day.
And we're barely functioning
Subhan Allah imagine you continue this for another day, and then another day, well after another day.
Without water, if you didn't have something to drink,
it wouldn't take long for you to actually die
without food and just drink your last about two weeks.
And yet people think they are God.
They think there's somehow allies in them. The eternal, self sufficient creator is contained within them and even your LUFS What is your knifes?
It really makes you realize that again, your knifes What is your office's?
Your nuts loves to think that it's something special.
You love to think that you should be
the center
of attention
that the focus of the world should be upon you.
This is really amplified and enhanced by social media.
We're all looking for likes. And you know, I guess social media is just a reflection of in some ways.
What's really going on in the world around us. That you know we human beings.
We all we love. We love to be loved by others. We love to be admired by others. We love to be respected by others. This is our knifes.
This is the knifes
Right. Although the reality is brothers and sisters,
what are we? How? In what way? Are we really deserving
of others love and admiration.
And for they're following us, and respecting us
and paying homage to us.
Because really, everything we do is only from the permission of Allah anyway.
There's nothing we can do not, not a step that we can take. Not a word that we can say.
Not a breath that we can breathe.
Except that Allah
is the one who controls
I mean, here in this forest, look at it.
What choice do these trees have? Right? They're just waiting for the sunshine to come. So the leaves can come out. And then they can start to photosynthesize, turn that energy
that Allah has created in the sun, to transform it into
sugar to help them grow.
How, how different? Are we really from these trees? Really?
How different are we?
We like to think we're really different.
We like to think there's this massive gap between us and them.
We love to think we're mightier than them.
Greater than they're more important than them.
This guy here.
How do you think he is?
200 years old.
He's probably already 100 years older than any of us will ever get to be
that guy over there. That little guy because he is a little guy compared to some of the trees in this forest.
And he's probably a teenager.
That tree over there. 200 year old teenager.
You know, brothers and sisters seriously. You know,
I was listening to this YouTube video.
And
subhanAllah he was talking about
how long it would take for New York
to completely disappear.
Without even a trace
for all the buildings to collapse. Yeah, the whole city to literally become nothing.
With all the processes of nature,
the rain, the wind, the plants, the animals,
how everything would break down.
He said within 1000 years, there'd be nothing left. Literally nothing left. Maybe all it will be left was some bits of plastic.
It's very small bits by the way.
We think we're so mighty and strong and powerful.
That's one of the great things about Ramadan.
It quietens the ego.
He acquired sins, if
you will, knifes
gets a little bit quiet.
Because it's so tied to your body. Right?
You have no energy.
You have no food, you have no drink.
And your nuts gets quieter.
Right write is less concerned.
It's not so concerned with all those. How many likes am I going to have on my Instagram page? How many people admire me?
How many people respect me? Because most of the time you're just thinking about
I need to break my fast
I want to eat drink
that's it.
You see this is why Ramadan
is so good.
Good for self mastery. Good for knowing yourself. Good for knowing what your
knowing the reality of your knifes.
Your knifes as I said already loves to be the center of attention. I think that's what it is. It almost wants to be worshipped.
loves that people
admire and praise it.
You know it's very dangerous.
very, very dangerous.
Because with that comes Keba
all those things that we talked about pride
Subhan Allah, the Most one of the most dangerous pride, arrogance
Subhan Allah. You see, well, Ramadan mashallah fasting
I guess that's it reminds us that we are
weak, temporary,
needy, temporal,
human beings
all the time really here on this earth is so short.
It really is like, individually
individually
social, you know, and even collectively, like how long of human beings existed?
What
40,000 years, even if
we existed longer, even if there was ancient human civilizations, totally wiped out by successive ice ages and global warming that's been happening
over the millennium.
Quite possible human beings have been around a lot longer, quite possible that there have been
civilized civilizations.
Allah tells us about this in the Quran. You know, there were people mightier than you,
and power and wealth.
And think about it. You see, the Quran is a message
for us today.
The Quran is the message for China.
The Quran is a message for America
with all their
combat aircraft and
aircraft carriers and battleships,
tanks and nuclear bombs,
if we think they're the greatest military forces that have ever existed,
but that might not be the case.
Allah knows.
Maybe there were civilizations with technologies we don't even know that we don't even understand.
And they were brighter, more powerful.
And they're gone.
Gone brothers and sisters, they not even a trace. Maybe they've gone so far gone that
we barely have a means to discover them anymore. That's how far back it could be. And you know, when you think about time,
this what struck me about this video I was listening to
I realized how small we are Subhanallah how small I am.
How pathetically short my life is.
But you know what? That still?
It's still beautiful brothers and sisters, from the point of view of
Allah has given us a chance.
In this small life, it's not a long life. But it's long enough. That's the thing. It's not long, but it's more than long enough Subhanallah then you know, it's brothers and sisters, how much you get done. In a day when you're eating and drinking half the time.
How much more time you have.
What excuses are we going to have?
When we meet Allah on the Day of Judgment?
What excuses are we going to have?
You know, you didn't have time
to read the Quran. You didn't have time to sit and think and contemplate on the book of Allah.
You didn't have time to contemplate on those ayat and also
these Iots yeah
yeah, these ones behind me.
The trees are Thammarat
you know the crops the
the mountains, the hills. These are signs as well
check out my latest YouTube video on my channel. It's a nice little it's a little
you know reflective video I did have a walk I took through the hills not long ago. Those hills were covered in snow.
And now it's motion are so warm and beautiful.
And that's it brothers and sisters you know that's the dunya holla gives the example of the life of this world is that the rain? Is that the rain? The rain which is hands down. You see? The Allah sends down moraine and then the ground. The ground absorbs that rain. But then
What happens, out comes the sun, and it dries it all up.
You see all those crops, these fields there.
Soon they will be full of crops, the delight of the farmers.
But then the sun will come. And it all becomes scattered dust. That's it.
That's the world.
Just all gonna become scattered dust
scattered dust
and what will remain
when we're in our graves, that's it.
What is really permanent
we're so desperate to find security in our life, a nice house.
A nice land to live in with political stability,
income savings, to make sure we're cared for and our children.
You know, that's normal wall after that. Me too. Yeah, me as well. I'm not free of that.
You know, but at the end of the day, we're going to be dead. Like really, really soon.
We're going to be in our graves, and you can't take it with you.
None of that you can't take it with you. I'm going to be able to take that stuff with us. There's no passport, British passport, that's gonna kick you to Jenna.
It may help you get from A to B in this life. But it ain't going to help you and you meet Allah.
There's no little paper
certifying your degree, and whatever thing you studied in university, this is going to help you get to Jana. It may help you get a job in this life. But it's not going to get you through the gates of Genma.
No brothers and sisters, you see what we need
to be saving up for that time that's going to reach a suit that death as the reality
is deeds, good deeds, you see, and this is what you need, you may need to confront our knifes with just keep confronting your knifes keep confronting yourself with the fact of death.
Because that's the true reality. Keep reminding yourself, the real you. Yeah.
The authentic you, whoever that is, whatever that is. Remind the authentic you about death remind your authentic you about the Day of Judgment, remind the authentic youth about paradise
and remind the authentic you
because at the end of the day, brothers and sisters, that's the true reality.
Subhanallah the Day of Judgment, Allah described it but one day and 50,000 years, one day, like 50,000 years Subhan Allah that's where the disbelievers even for the beavers brothers and sisters
is for everybody a day of distressed
you know, when you're going to run
from your mom, your dad, your brother, your sister, your wife, your kids, young kids, you're going to be running away from them and they will be running after you saying
give me from your deeds.
You know, you did this to me You abused me like this, you did this injustice. You did this wrongdoing to me
Subhanallah knifes enough see
myself myself.
So you know what brothers and sisters, if you really care about yourself, if you really care about the authentic you, whatever that is,
then prepare it. Prepare something.
prepare something for the real authentic you
on that day, that is inevitable.
When we're going to meet Allah.
There'll be in front of a whole lot.
Alright, brothers and sisters.
I hope your fasting is going well. Like your thoughts and your prayers, and your charity
and all of your good deeds. In November. All of this time we've been talking about the importance of F loss.
How you need to keep checking yourself, trying to make sure you're doing it sincerely for the sake of Allah.
And really to help you do that you need to take this journey brothers and sisters of you know being honest with yourself and knowing yourself. Knowing what motivates you and knowing what makes you do what you do and knowing what makes you not do that.
What you don't do? All right brothers and sisters, that's it from me until next week. May Allah bless all of you, Joseph Kalasa salaam aleikum wa