Ahmad Arshad – Discourse At Khanqah #25
AI: Summary ©
The concept of "obsessiveness" is to stay in a state of considerance and wear a shirt or shirtless shirt to avoid becoming "nafs." It is important for observation and practicing these things. The speaker discusses the distraction of waking up to the reality of one's life and bringing in the hams and the de cycles, emphasizing the need for action and use of the collective awakening to benefit from the remaining days.
AI: Summary ©
So So we have been speaking about some
of the, the
the
seeker of Allah
goes through.
And if you recall, one of the things
that we mentioned
that our masaith have
talked about is
to begin one's day in a state of
musharatta, where
we challenge our own nafs
to follow and submit to Allah
and to stay away from a life of
sin and disobedience.
And the second thing is that after that,
the whole day, you have to be in
a state of muraqabah.
So we'll talk a little bit about that
today.
Basically means to be in a state of
observance,
right, to observe something.
And in this case, we are not observing
the outside, the
world, we are observing the inner world,
an unfussy
world.
We are,
in what they call in English, being introspective.
Right? We are looking within.
And when we say looking within, it is
to keep our heart in check.
And what we mean by keeping our heart
in check is that it does not
allow for
to enter it. It does not give any
place to and
it remains focused on Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
So you have to be in a state
of and observance for that.
And also to keep our nafs in check,
and we have spoken about that as well
because nuffs is
like a kid, like a child, out of
control. And we have seen that with children
out of control,
they're running around,
and they want things, they desire things,
and they don't care. They don't care about
what the
circumstance might be. You might be sitting in
front of the president, but when the what
the kid wants, the kid wants.
It will run for it. It you know?
So similarly, you kinda have to
keep the kid with inside in check, because
they're not like kid. You know, the nafs
itself is is very, very cunning,
and it is very, extremely stubborn.
So you have to especially look for
the triggers. You have to look for the
triggers that
makes us do certain actions that are clearly
haram, and that is against the commandments of
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And if we don't do that, then, you
know, it will
easily just
start to control us. And before you know
it, it will become next to impossible,
to not
give in to its desires. So you have
to be in a state of observance and
for
that too.
What is looking for right now?
Keep it in check. Left, right, ahead, you
know.
Check Mirakna, that is the root cause of
verb observance.
And then the masha'il have said about muhazibah
and mu'akhaza that we have mentioned before.
So as you know that a lot of
salasil and a lot of turoq, they emphasize
this exercise of. And for us as well,
you know, the specific tariq that we follow,
the,
this is something that
eventually comes. There are 3 kinds
of
that
are or 3 categories of
that we go through. The first one, as
you know, is what is called the
of Ismijala Allah
Allah Allah.
And so what we do is we try
to purify ourselves, especially,
or our inner faculties, what we call the
lata'if or the subtleties,
whether they are related to,
the
created universe here,
or the that Allah created with.
And so we try to
invoke his blessed name, Allah Allah Allah, which
is Ismi Adam,
and the barakah of that ism is that
it
has a cleansing effect.
You know, it's the you know, those pods,
the oxy something,
pods that you put in detergents, you just
put it and
white clothes become whiter. It's exactly like that.
You know, the name Allah, Allah, Allah, when
we learn how to invoke it within ourselves,
within ourselves, then it has a very cleansing
effect on the soul. And the second one,
as you know, is that we do the
zikr of La ilaha illallah,
and we do it in a very specific
way, and this zikr itself
has the effect
of cutting off any relationships and connections.
The
sword of la,
it cuts off our chains
that make us,
bound to the world and people in the
world.
After that, all of the asbaq are what
we call the asbaq of fiqr, or what
they call the muraqabas.
Whether it is the muraqabah of ahabiyat
or ma'iad
or habiyat
or aqrabiyat
or, you know, the muraqabas of, you know,
Kamalat and haqqaiq, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
These are specific, you know, focuses that we
do. And this is what observances that we
observe, for example, the mayyid of Allah
You can see
it, but this
observances,
you know, you can feel it with your
wazidan or your intuition.
Same thing with
because
Allah himself has mentioned these things in the
Quran.
Right?
What does that mean?
And how do you experience
that
on a very metaphysical level? So that
requires a, a little bit of training
within ourselves so we're able to,
feel it with our intuition, so on and
so
And when we say,
you know, these are things that we are
very much aware of. We know we have
to pray, we have to fast, we have
to read the Quran, etcetera, etcetera. But what
are the behind
them?
And what are the tajalliat
and manifestations of these
specific things that we are required to do?
So all of that requires observance.
Someone from Bashar did what is known as
muraq by mawd, which is also very interesting.
And, you know, we should try to do
it every now and then, which is really
to go through the process of mode
in your wizdah. You close your eyes and,
you know, just if you have seen somebody
pass away, you can relive that, but for
yourself,
or as it has been described within
the within the within the blessed sharia of
how a person passes away.
And it has a really strong effect, you
know, that I am taking my last breath.
The the angels have come, and they are
taking my my out, and it's
coming from my from my feet, and eventually
my legs, and I can't move them. And
agonal breathing, I can't breathe, and eventually it
is taken out. Right? And then the whole
process of,
and,
you know,
and being taken to Kabul and look at
the Kabul itself that I put in there,
and all my loved ones are putting me
in there, and then they are covering me
with, like,
you know, pounds and pounds of dirt. Right?
So kind of living that experience within the
mind. And you can you can imagine
that muraq by mote is a very powerful
thing to do, because
it reminds us of our
eventuality.
Is there anybody who can escape it?
We cannot escape our own deaths.
So this is the
of mode that we are you know, before
you have the full meal, the main course,
we're
trying
to
What is that the thing that you do
before before meal? Right?
Appetizer. Appetizer. So it's like we are we're
using the appetizer of, you know,
k? So we are experience so some of
them did that as well.
And so we should every now and then.
If you feel,
you know, that the world is, like, pulling
us too much, okay, remember your death. And
literally remember your death.
Okay?
A lot of, you know, you know, for
example, it's not a part of us, because
it can have a,
people
can fall into a sort of despair while
doing this as well.
Because, you know, and
it's a good thing or a bad thing
having their haybah.
Right? Maybe it's a good thing because it
will maybe transform and change. What do we
do? If nothing else is working, you might
as well just go through this by mouth,
you know, just like a.
Okay. You want to do your? Okay. Well,
do this as well when we'll we'll we'll
have no. You know, my my father passed
away, and I was holding his hand when
he passed away.
And, you know, for a couple of hours,
he had that agonal breathing, and it's still
very, like, fresh in my mind.
You know, he's, like, you know, trying to
breathe, and
it's just not coming. Right? So just, like,
really trying to pull it in. And, you
know, it's hadith that your heart,
because the the body is not
getting enough oxygen, it starts to pump harder.
So, you know, the oxygen can come.
And it pumps and pumps and pumps. Your
blood pressure goes up. And, you know, your
your heart rate goes to, like, really, like,
high 150 and above. And
and then, you know, your heart just gives
up, because it has worked so hard,
and that
that oxygen is just not coming.
And then, you know, it becomes so tired
that it just
gives up then.
So, you know, this is more.
And it doesn't matter, you know, if it's
your father, it's your mother, it's your brother,
it's your sisters. You know, we are going
to experience that as well.
And, you know, it's it's very
eye opening. It should be very eye opening,
because it should not.
It's time we wake up.
It's time we wake up from our slumber
and our sleep and our.
And so all of these that talk about,
you know, doing barak, buying zikr, this is
not just
this is not something to, you know, just
okay, you know, we're just doing for the
sake of doing it. There's a real maksha
of waking up.
Waking up to the reality
of our own lives.
Okay?
This world is really distracting. There's too many
temptations out there. All you have to do,
you have to, like, walk. Actually, you even
don't have to walk out anymore. You just
have to open up your phone and that's
it. You are lost in another world, the
cyber world, and
and it is so distracting. It is so
distracting. It is so distracting. There's so many
temptations. It's just like pulling you, pulling you.
And I'm reminded of Nabi says that I
am pulling people away from jahannam. They're walking
towards the jahannam and Nabi says that.
And so we we need to we need
to do that. We need to wake up
to the reality.
And so,
trying to make sure that, you know, we
are in a state of observance observance of
Allah's
Allah's
niamat.
Allah
watching us. Right? That also brings the state
of
Ihsan. They don't know that Allah is watching
them.
It's like, are you are you
you you don't know? Allah's watching you? And
so, you know, it's it's something we have
to wake up to. And so Ramadan, these
end days,
you know, very soon inshallah, the
will be over very soon. The Ramadan will
be over.
The question is,
what have you achieved?
Really, we have to ask. That that is
the Mahasabah, really. 30 days,
what have we done?
What have we done? What changes have we
brought in?
Remember like, you know, before Ramadan we had
that message that it was like, you know,
we have to be very goal oriented in
this
It was about, you know, what are our
goals and we have to bridge that gap
between intention
and. We have to bring in the hamat.
Right? Yes. Is that what we spoke about?
So we have to ask ourselves, did we
put in the himat?
Intention to
help you know, we want to become value
of Allah.
Did we bridge the gap? Did we do
the? Did we stay away from sins? Did
we stay away from the sins?
Did
we did we do any of
this? Like, what what are we expecting is
going to happen?
Some magic is going to happen that automatically,
you know, the change will will, you know,
somehow, no, it doesn't work that way. You
have
to you have to wake up from within.
Even for, you know, what they say, like,
okay, what about the the jihad of the?
Even to benefit from the sun, you have
to open the
the window. Right? So the sunlight comes in.
If the
windows close and curtains are drawn and you're
like, sunlight, why isn't the sunlight coming here?
I thought it was
well, you need to open the windows.
You know, we need to we need to
we need
to really,
you know, do this change within ourselves.
Look at what's happened to Muslims around the
world.
Is that it not enough to wake us
up?
It doesn't
shake us a a little bit with the
cries of our sisters and the children.
The cries of our sisters and our daughters
and and our mothers there.
Is that not enough to wake us up?
Just because, okay, I mean, you know, then
we shouldn't even call her Muslims.
In
they wake up, you know, when they see.
And, you know, what are we doing? So
we need to
reconnect
with this deen, with Allah
with a new vigor,
new energy, with a new passion,
and with a new sense of urgency. This
is this is what we need to do.
We need to do this change and we
need to spread this change to all of
our you know, everybody knows, you know, you
have friends.
It's not just about you. You know, bring
your friends.
Bring your friends. Okay? You know, we need
to we need to together,
you know, we need to together
do I'm on this thing.
I, you know, I have figured for you.
So let's let's do this together. Let's not
waste any of our time. So we need
to have this collective awakening,
and all of that is what we call
this observance in the state of of
realities and and attaching ourselves to that. So
may Allah allow us in this blessed month
of Ramadan to experience this. May Allah allow
us to
really benefit from the remaining days. And, you
know, just one day is enough for that.
May Allah give us