Ahmad Arshad – Discourse At Khanqah #17

As

we discussed

the,

the

that a seeker

goes through,

One of the things

that we aim to get in our lives

is what the Quran calls.

What's

Tabatul

means,

a very pointed devotion

that a person is committed to something, that

some you know, that the person is devoted

to something.

And so Allah

wants complete devotion

from his servants and his slaves.

And some of the moshai explained this as

the cutting yourself off and

attaching or reconnecting yourself with them.

So when we say cutting ourselves up,

if you look back at the concept of,

at the

concept of,

you know, renunciation

with which is.

It's cutting ourselves off as far as our

heart is concerned,

that we cut our heart off

from this dunya and everything in this dunya.

And we make sure that

it is pointed towards Allah, the

direction of Allah.

And so we know that

the complete devotion is

with

our body, you know, our eyes, our ears,

our tongue, our hands.

But

this this kind of devotion cannot happen all

the time.

But it is only the devotion of heart

that can be done all the time.

And one of the that we heard today

was about

That

these are the strong

men, women, you know, the the real men,

the real women are those

that trade and commerce does not distract them

from the zikr of Allah. Meaning, their heart

is so devoted towards Allah

The remembrance is so

strong in their heart

that even something as busy

and as consuming and as distracting

as trade and commerce does not distract them

from the.

So this is something that we have to

bring into our lives, cutting ourselves off.

Our

explained this in other words, you know, which

I mentioned yesterday about,

which is to find seclusion and solitude in

our hearts

even when a person is in a gathering.

So naturally, when a person is in gathering,

what happens?

You get distracted,

you are attentive towards other people.

But when you have this

connection,

the batul in the heart or this inside,

then even when you are in jalwat,

it doesn't distract you. And this is what

is really required.

So monasticism

that in our deen of Islam,

physical monasticism

is neither required

nor is it something that is encouraged. It

is actually highly discouraged,

Right? Because we have to live in communities

and families and establish

Allah in this world.

But when we talk about that seclusion and

solitude in the heart, that is actually highly

desired.

Highly desired, it is highly encouraged, it is

something that we need, and it is something

that we

are, a lot of times, not really good

at.

So that is why it becomes easy for

us to to even be distracted in our

salah

rather than not to be distracted

outside of salah.

So it means that that practice is not

there.

So,

you know, it's it's important

that we bring something in our lives,

some extra

some extra

some extra

that would help us in this school. It's

a hookah from Allah

It's not something that we can ignore, we

can choose not to do, so that cutting

off is required.

So there are a couple of few kinds

of steps. You know? The least of which

is that we cut ourselves off

from the duniya, from our

own self interests, our own passions.

And our marbela with this duniya is not

that of hope or fear or concern.

So that is one level up.

Of that we shun it in a way

that

we shun it, we get it that our

our hope is with Allah

and our fear

is also with Allah

not

about

fear of the dunya or any concerns.

That is something that we need to step

back from.

And all of our hopes, all of our

fear, and, Allah ta'ala, his pleasure,

and agha becomes our only concern. So this

is one level of the that we should

aim for.

The second level you can consider is maybe

a higher level, which is

the disconnect,

from oneself.

And this is, you know, what we in

the suburb, they will call, like, fanatical or

fenilepsy,

in

which, you know, the,

the annihilation of self, not in a physical

sense, but annihilation of our own desires and

whims

as far as submission to Allah

will and command that occurs.

Right? So the heart naturally submits, organically

submits to

Allah And so this is what we would

call that. You know, this is the level

of or cutting off from our own self.

You know, we reconstruct

our self image

in the light of the Quran and the

sunnah. So it's a reconstruction

process. So it's not that deen is a

part of our life,

deen is our life.

So that kind of reconstruction

happened.

And on another level, Tabatul, we also,

you know, this

strong kind of

focus

on certain goals in life

and showing

the and showing the

the strength to achieve them. So for example,

a person shows that, you know, Allah is

my purpose. So everything, all the efforts and

all the striving

becomes Allah

That is also because you have devoted yourself

fully and completely to the goal. And this

is what we make du offerings, you know,

Allah, that you become

our which really means that all of my

struggles, my

my passions in life, and, you know, my

wants and desires, and that you become that.

And so the natural result of that would

be that all of my efforts,

all of my triumphs, all of my,

striving,

becomes

that. And through Allah

I define myself.

That is also

one angle of of tawbatul that we can

we should aim for. And so this is

the perfect time.

This is the perfect time, mama'at, to achieve

this tawbatul,

cutting ourselves off, you know, those who are

doing whether

or

they should aim for this, they should make

this a goal of theirs And, you know,

when they sit down in that

should be the aim that

I really want to

cut myself off from the

and really

bring that

in

my heart. So may Allah

make it easy for all

of

us.