Edris Khamissa – Tap into your potential – 21.03.2013
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Salam Alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh Welcome to reduce time international and as salaam alaikum wa Taala will Castro guest for the visa visa?
vie de casa de la vaca. Nice to hear from you again easy, how are you keeping? is unbelievable. Alhamdulillah I'm so well we cannot thank Allah for all His mercies. Can you believe Allah spoke two weeks ago? It seems only like yesterday, like yesterday and humbly?
Well, for me, you know, the weeks, when days passed so fast that was just the other day my wife was saying, Just Just the other day, I'm asking you, what are you gonna cook for tomorrow, and then he has your back all over again, always unbelievable a time time is just never enough, it is very, is a very, very big hype around your program that you are going to be delivering. in Johannesburg
there's going to be on the fifth and sixth of March. So that's this weekend.
And unleashing your potential G is a little bit of a bit of an outline of what you're going to be discussing and what the team's view on.
The
program itself will be led by myself and the subtler concepts at Lacan. And it's about really, it's about helping people to go through a personal journey. Everyone comes to the end all human beings, including myself, every human being carries with him some baggage of sorts, you know, and sometimes the psychological barrier barriers, that sabotage you don't allow you to release your potential. And what we do basically is we do we discuss unleashing of potential, we look at redefining or what is success, and then we look at, for example, the most to your different emotions like guilt, fear, and how you need to deal with those fears, then we also look at really taking ownership of your life.
And the whole idea inshallah is by the time when people leave, is to hold a workshop, they have, they will have a better understanding about who they are, and a better understanding of the future. And the whole exercise culminates is something that I regard as wonderful. Every person sitting there on a step by step approach, would develop in in a mission statement. And that mission statement would encompass all aspects of his life, in a company's life as a father, as a child, as a committee member, being part of the oma to Nabi sallallahu, wasallam. And even in his workplace, so it is all encompassing. And what it does is basically, it really makes you look at all of those
things and asking yourself, what am I doing every day, in fulfilling at that particular objective? To what extent Am I making a difference? And it's about, you know, in the end, many people, for example, would blame society would blame the parents, and so on and so forth. And here, it's an opportunity to take ownership of your life. The other critical aspect is something that I find impacts on lots of people. And one and I also like to ask you this question. You know, if someone monana were to be harsh, and rude to you, and say things that are not true about you, how would you deal with him on a given day? Exactly? No, no, no, no, maybe? Maybe directly, maybe, you know, in
any way whatsoever? And you are you aware of it? The why I'm asking this question is because I find lots of people, you know, find it difficult to handle those kinds of things. I mean, I was listening this morning to Milan a brain bomb, and Mona Robert, and a sister phone. She says that what do you do to get bored so easily? And parents get depressed whenever they have a challenge.
And so, how would you deal with money? Sorry, I
know it's a very interesting question. It is by
somebody saying something about me or somebody is being very rude or harsh, then in life Normally, this is my approach is that I
would try and ignore it. That's what I normally do, I try and ignore it as far as I can, and try and save it.
As long as nobody. If it doesn't spread out too far and wide, it doesn't become an issue and it doesn't
make me or the public doesn't start believing it, then I try and ignore it completely.
If it is, it is really paid. And if that person is being really malicious, then I would try and go up to the person and ask them very politely about the reason why they are going this path, my wife, right, they're doing this thing.
Okay, she molana I'm glad that you're responding that way. And what is worse is sometimes with people that impute an intention on your part, and when they do not know you, my response basically is similar to your response. I mean, someone does this to me. My approach basically is we are humans. After all, we took it hurt. There's some people can be so malicious, insidious, but then I move on very, very quickly. Because if someone is guttural, someone is malicious, someone who is vulgar in his approach, I will not respond to that way. And I recall, you know, the one example of a Tabitha being I think it was I'm not too sure the name when the his fault was with him. And someone
was very, very rude to him, and you know, and guttural, but yet he was so kind. And you were so polite to him, that he even he was asked this question what why are you so polite to him? Look at him. When he looked at his the answer his answer said, in my heart, I have kindness. That's all I can show. In his heart, he has all of this assault he can show. So I can only sharing what I have. He can only show me what he has. And I feel it's a very important thing because I find that many people, many, many people suffer for other people's inadequacies. And they speculate about their behavior. In the end, if Allah inshallah is pleased with us, and he knows why we do what we do. Of
course, none of us is perfect. That is enough. And yes, they are hamdulillah there is a sister who shared with me, this beautiful response when he said allow yourself in ministry of Nabi sallallahu, alayhi wa sallam who, in the end, he said, you know, Allah, if you are pleased with me, that's all I need. If you are pleased with me,
you know, that's the most important thing. I think people must learn, inshallah, to please align that way the humanity will be pleased. But if you want to please humanity, I don't know, please, Allah, no human being would be pleased. And this is a whole part of what you and I discuss, is the one of the biggest issues today is managing relationships. How do you manage relationships? How do you deal with another person's anger? How do you deal with someone's a fabrication and lies? How do you deal with the cost of mongering? And that's a real challenge. But the important thing is this, the best way, the most effective way I've come across is to ignore it. But also take your point.
With this becomes part of a public discourse. And you I think you need to maybe if the situation demands it, if people confront you with it, and you can either say, I mean, you know, what is this? Is he saying all of those things, and May Allah forgive him, and I, there's nothing for me to respond, because people who truly know you will defend you. But the other important thing is this, that when you try sometimes to defend yourself, then you people might erroneously believe that you're blowing your own trumpet, you're trying to for example, so my Telly Maulana you know, you are the least charitable person I've come across you I find your you know, your cut off your least
charitable. Right. And, you know, in your heart of hearts, maybe the number of families you're helping people who are feeding or people come to your home, what their concerns how you respond, how you may be sacrificing your own family. Then when you start speaking about that, you know, you know what, it may be a revelation for others, but it could be also being on dangerous ground. So, for me, the way I like it, and I'm, and I'm very comfortable with it is you know, I remember years ago, years ago
I remember when I was at a particular school, and I might have shared this with the listeners, I went to a school was in 1979, I think it was I was teaching English at the school in 1980, rather, and I went to the school. The I just went there towards the end of the first term, I was a teacher of English. And our cities are nine English and I had to serve relief in the metric class. And the teacher that was the acting head of department was absent. So the pupils asked me, he said, Mr. Cammisa, what subject do you teach? I said, I teach English. And he said, Could you discuss the book Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. So I gave I delivered a lesson. And unbeknownst to me, the
kids went to the office. And they told the principal, Mr. So and so we want the new teacher, Mr. Cammisa to be our teacher of English, we do not want the other person. Now what happened? The principal and the other person were very, very close friends. And immediately, I could make out there was some kind of tension right? The hours on the spotlight. And the next day or so the headmaster came to listen to my lesson. I remember this so clearly, and tell you why I'm sharing this. He came to my class, and I was teaching the book, Othello. And I recall that that time I was wearing a khaki suit, can you believe it is a khaki suit, and I was enjoying the lesson. And the
principal credit to him, he said to me, no, he was very impressed with the lesson. In the two things he mentioned. He said, I walked too much in the classes I'm teaching. So after totally joking me out to give a moving lesson.
And the other is I should write one side of the board anyway, I left it at that. But what happened? Men the header department got wind of the fact that these pupils want to meet the teacher of English, they he began to be very, very harsh with me to a point in which I remember. And I used to hate your lips. That time I deliver car and I went home, I was thinking my flat on my own my mum and dad, my brothers in shifts in and I started crying. You know, I was I was at since the first and I said but you know, I'm not here to gain fame or whatever. I do not ask the pupils to go away. Then I shared this with a friend of mine. This is what I'm coming to I shared this with a friend of mine.
And I said to him, you know, tomorrow when I go back to the school, I am going to really be very formal with the center department. I'm going to do this and the other. He said he please do not do this is how we share with you something my father gave me before he passed away. What is it it was a small little article about a something that took place. And that article I read has since informed me about my behavior towards people that are guttural people, that we have other agendas, people who impute intentions, people who do character assassination, I let them be and this this incident was very poignant for me. And it impacted on right there you said was he was a young man or a young
young ish man. He used to go to the shop every day. And I think I shared this the listeners. He used to go to the shop every day. And he tells the person Good morning, Sir, may I have the newspaper please thank you are very polite, and sweet friend accompany him for what two or three days in succession. And his friend told him, You know what? I be coming to you with you to this person, the shop. That man is so sudden,
he doesn't greet you back, eh, you are so polite to him. But look at the response of this man. He said well, that men mustn't tell me how I should behave towards him.
He must not tell me how I should behave towards him. And this is the crux of it. I think you know, if you and I even I see you and I mean, the listeners if we can understand that we must not personalize every interaction. We must look for excuses why certain people behave the way they behave. When people talk to me that way in the gutter. I never go to that level. In fact, I make dua for them. I pray for them, I forgive them. And that's a relief, and you got to move on in life. Otherwise, you're gonna have a victim mentality. And especially when you have a public profile, you stop doing things that he's supposed to be doing purely because you own a piece people and this is
the whole thing. If you and I can understand that. You find our relationships in be better term, and a whole range of things.
would take place. Oh, yes, definitely. Dubai, we have a question that has come via Twitter sister says that
the girls in our locality are very upset about something called Gossip Girl on Facebook. It puts up gossip and pictures
of teenage of these teenage girls, it's destroying reputations. How do I console these girls? I get calls almost every day can't be ignored. Obviously, nobody needs it. But many people here do. What happens when they want to get married? their reputation is in tatters.
Yes, you know, Milena, I can understand what they're saying. Whilst there are some benefits in the social networking. The social networking is also used by people who have dirt in the heart, who have low self esteem, who often, you know, reflect that in our society, that we have some people who behave in a manner that is not in keeping with not about only being a Muslim, just about being a decent human being with the tarnish the reputation of people, the smear, the name, the humiliate them. And this kind of thing is a profound negative impact. And what is worth, the others will look at it, they now begin to look at them with different eyes, I really believe, number one, that
something has to be done with this vehicle to find out who is the culprit. And if it even means taking the method to the police station, reporting them because such people cannot go on to do such things with impunity, especially when it comes to our beloved daughters, our sisters whose reputation is intact, but somewhat solid, because of the actions of one individual or group of individuals who have nothing to do except to ridicule others and tarnish the reputation. There's one thing, the other thing that needs to be done is this, such as these girls needed to go for some kind of therapy, they need help to talk about it. And remember this also, you find that was the pain is
greatest. Now, you got to also ask yourself, that if I'm going to take a drastic action, and you become is now a part of the public discourse, is it going to make it easy or difficult, you need to look at the consequence of it. But those people listening to us on the radio station must understand that in life, you got to behave responsibly, you remember, you know you call it a digital footprint, you can never erase it, because it remains a digital footprint is there to posterity. So what is important is to call this goes together, try to find out with ease. And those parents that are involved will know that I mean, those children are involved. They need to be counseled also, and
perhaps we need to go on a campaign nationally, so that there isn't a recurrence of such thing even for example, there has been a you know, a mix it in the mix it a kind of,
you know, less profile of people, like almost seeing the all the following people, you know, lustful, whatever whatever it is, those kinds of lists also have been going around. So I think they require therapy understanding. But I think whoever is the culprit, I think, you know, depending on the family, the one or two things a drastic action, or perhaps the person removes it and apologizes on Facebook, on Facebook, that this was really done out of an idle mind after being mischievious. And the persons that they refer to all of them are people with impeccable reputation, and you apologize profusely for it. If we hit that issue in Amarillo as well,
you know, with
this person posing on Facebook as Gossip Girl, and, you know, the end, we found out who the person was, it was really somebody who needed emotional health. I won't go further, you know, in order to
not explosively add, but it was really somebody who needed emotional health, they needed support. They needed some sort of,
you know, the
somebody to have them, somebody to talk to
she's crying out for help.
And the surprising thing that in ermelo, the person posing as cost was actually a boy. Yes, that's the whole point. People, these are the these agenda pent up, you know, these the sense of bravado, you have to be a girl, you're an old woman, whatever it is, you can be that person. But at the same token, we also need to acknowledge the many individuals who use social networking, to uplift the oma to respond to people's needs. I mean, I'm talking about for example, I don't know if we know this nanny Ma, you know, I think she's, he does an excellent job. And it takes a lot of time and energy. Firstly, I'm too busy to respond to everything on Facebook whenever I can. I try to do that. And,
and these are important things. It's about in the end, I think, you know, re engaging with our children, reconnecting with them, that so that they will understand the power of conversation, the power of face to face discussion, the power of negotiation, and these important imperatives for people to you know, remember looking at this, this is one of the harms that somebody does anonymously, and it affects so many people just the other day, reading in the news, an article in news 24 see that, approaching a ports, the planes and pilots are faced with green laser lights from people standing on the ground shiny into the pilots eyes, which causes temporary blindness. Many
either pilots have experienced temporary pines of blindness already, the one pilot says they could only name the plane with the navigation system because they couldn't see the runway after the person shine the green laser light into the eyes, how malicious and how low can a human go
manana. I must concede that nothing. Nothing shocks me. Nothing shocks me. I remember years ago, when our Smith school when I heard about something happened, that, you know, someone did this. If a girl eloped, what am I surprised? I surprised so much. I used to cry so much. And it took me a long, long time for me to recover from it. You know, even though they're not related to me, in that sense, this be part of the same fate. But the whole thing is nothing shocks me. Nothing. When I hear the kind of issues and problems that people speak about. Nothing shocks me. He and this is it's a sad thing. But yet, for some reason, we move on with a cheery facade, that everything is fine,
everything is fine. And it's about us that is about dusky are cleaning our hearts, having pure intentions, and connecting with align is Beloved. So that will make a huge difference to where we are, the way we think and the way we do things. Because there is also this feeling, you know, almost as if you live forever, but you know, we are mortal beings, and we're gonna die. inshallah we pray that all of us, including those that,
you know, are guttural, those that behave in ways that would really, you know, make an animal look more human than us? May Allah forgive all of them? And these, this is the crux of it, the crux of it is, are you a person that brings joy to others? Are you a person that uplifts others? Are you a person that you know stubbornly clings to some attitude? Are you a person that when people look at you, they want to move far away from you. And these are some fundamentals because it is about human relationships.
It is a sister on the line from kwazulu Natal, Santa Monica de la, honey kusina.
Say that, I think it's quite attainable. It's something you have to work at, once you link yourself to that spirituality and that that forgiveness of
time comes into your heart and to overlook
small things. It's slowly conjecture, something that's not attainable.
It's so correct. When you're close to Allah, forgiveness, it comes very quickly to you, when you close to align his beloved Ross, so it's almost an automatic response to this. When you're not close to Allah and His beloved reso. He would harbor this for the rest of your life.
You never want to forgive, and in fact use for you, it's just for chat, he did it to me, do it to him. And this is how people respond. And any important thing in life also, even when people are harsh towards you, they may be saying something that might be in all the stuff they said to you, they may be he when at point 5% of it may fully apply to you.
Ignore that 99.5 but look at the point five, that point five will help you to become a better and decent human being
connecting ourselves with Allah and inshallah these things will come right. It is by
you your program is about unleashing your potential one one question that just came to my mind just before we started the program, was that, do you ever have cases where people so they can a manana, as if you ever have cases where people have Hamdulillah, you've helped them you assist them to unleash the potential now, they sort of come out of the shell, they become confident they become strong emotions, and now they abuse this new strength that they find in me, the Civic No, I am confident I am somebody with a high self esteem and now, now they start
abusing that sort of strength that they've received
is a very interesting point that you raise. But you find when a person becomes confident, and when his self esteem as improved, you find one of the abiding qualities of a person with a healthy self esteem is his humility and generosity of spirit.
I've seen many people who are arrogant, or standoffish, condescending, those people rarely, they are not unleash the potential. They are really people with low self esteem, and they almost like control freaks. And you find that one of the things about unleashing of potential, you really find that new vistas open the new horizons, you begin it's about really discovering yourself. It's about discovering who you are. years ago, years ago, I remember the lyrics of a song, it was about an eagle, there was a young boy who took the egg of an eagle, and he placed it in a foul pin. So when the Eagles egg hatched, this little egg lit was amongst all the falls, scratching the ground and did
all kinds of things very uncomfortable. But the poor ego remain like that in group very, very old. And one day looked up in the sky. There are two versions to this was one day looked up in the sky. And he saw a beautiful bird, a flying majestically a bill you know, he like it belonged to the sky, massive but beautiful gliding so gracefully.
And he looked up over there. And he said, I wish I could fly. This is the whole point. The point is, is that Eagle was born to fly. But it remained with people who did not help it to understand who it is the foul the chicken, they meant to do things that true to what Allah
Allah says similarly, it's about us discovering our true self looking, discovering at our true self, and knowing I know many people monana when you speak about success, I asked them immediately about a personal or a fancy car, or a fancy house, and a lot of money. In fact, a person sweeping the streets can be more successful. Nicky is not about what you own is about who you are, it's about your character. So answering a question is basically that when people whose potential is unleashed, who could come up from a situation of adversity, and you find that throughout the world, they often the most charitable people, people would not forget where they come from being gauged humanity, the
want to do projects to help others. There is a kind of a selflessness. I recall in again in 1979 80, I remember many of my students, there was a young girl in my class at that time, and she was very shy. And I used to encourage them to participate in my class lessons. To take part I said, share your feelings. What do you feel what's your opinion and and i
Try my very best to do that. The next year, I got a shock of Paula.
She got up, she put their hands up, say, Mr. camisa, I disagree with you. So, you know, I started laughing. I was so happy, you know, because she never did that before. And she wrote me a letter in the creative writing him as a chemist, I hope I did not shock you. But thank you so much for encouraging us to speak. Today was the first day I spoke. And, you know, I felt almost like a person who was in prison, who is released from that prison.
You know, these things are important, because many people today are like spectators in their own life. Life isn't what they do. But life is what happens to them. And that's the difference. It's about the power of intentionality, The Power of Now, the power of rarely saved yourself, and understanding that I have one day in, I mean, one life I have, and the only life I have, and I need to do something so that people will remember me for who I am disease by
this issue of no publicly calling people names and causing issues causing problems. No, a few weeks ago, I asked you about the same question as well, if I put you in
a bit louder,
say last last week as well. A few weeks back I think I asked you about why what do you do in the case when people are speaking bad about you? And I think it happens all the time. It happened in the time of the lion home.
You know, it happened with the below the line with the young boy when the hippo could do you know he he said something against a pseudo law specimen and he denied it completely. Revealing is obviously the days of why he and revelation are over. But yet Allah subhanaw taala somehow or the other brings out the truth. And I remember one Hadith, in which aboubaker delanco he was sitting by sama sama and these people who were speaking bad about avocados, Rambo
criticizing him and swearing at him right in front of him. And avocado gelato kept quiet. And then obatala who finally replied them with something, and maybe Salama Hardison turned away and asked him why, why what was wrong? And viswasam said to him that as long as you kept quiet, Allah subhanaw taala had assigned an angel to defend you. But as soon as you started replying, with Angel was returned to Allah subhanho wa Taala. And you were left on your own? Yes, I remember that. Very, very powerful. Thanks for reminding, you know, it's very, very powerful.
And Dino one, and this is the whole point. The whole point is this, as you and I mentioned now, for one week to the other week with the time but in the process, I think was time in our culture is gone. I think if we genuinely and authentically respond to people with our hearts open, is what the sees what they get, may not the conniving conspiring person Alhamdulillah. And I think also what also helps Mawlana is to have a good opinion of people. I mean, the are you right? You know, I mean, if you look at BBI, Chow, they tried to Sally and tarnish her own reputation. And this happens to the best of us is that just from Allah, and really, as you rightly indicated, he feeds respond
appropriately, who knows a lot also assign an angel for us. And I think this are some fundamentals we need to learn. It's about, you know, it's about us not justifying what we are doing. He don't say much, you know, it's easy for them to talk, but this man did this to me that men didn't. So the point, the point is this, people that I essentially, were able to handle the emotions are forgiving, can adapt to any particular environment. And therefore I'm encouraging really, and Allah bless you for talking about this workshop this weekend. There is a huge demand for it for Friday and Saturday. And we have, we have also reduced the rate. It's 600 grands, for people, but 500 rents for a teacher
students and NGOs and inshallah I look forward to meet the people there. So that inshallah we, together as a collective we can learn because one of the things beautiful parts of life I mean, I've learned greatly from my own students.
You learn all the time, and when there is an openness to learn from other people, but no one has the monopoly of knowledge.
You have to do research and you share insights your you learn from your fellow presenters and others. And the last like Sophia mosa was one of the CO presenters in Durban she did an excellent excellent job and woman can identify with the challenges she went through and yet now she's healing people. And it's about that time I mean, today this very moment, I mean time is such that we are in the queue is not know when we are going to die, we could die at this very moment. So it's through the radio stations, we need to uplift people, make them aware of what they are and what the purpose is,
is by some parting words of advice in Sharma Okay, my parting words of advice is this, that if for some reason, you cannot make it for the program. inshallah, I'm looking forward to maybe doing snippets of it, man, I'm a ninja, you know, four to three hours at a time to help those that for somebody who cannot make it my own advice to people is this, that I want you today, have an honest look at yourself. confront yourself, you know, your spins, you know, in the dark of the night when you're sleeping, you know, what is it about you that others do not know, reach out to Allah you walk towards him, Allah run towards you, before it is too late. If you want to have some kind of release,
forgive those who have hurt you.
And even those others who asked for forgiveness, Grant forgiveness to them.
Consciously lived your life every day. Believe in yourself. Unleash your potential, connect with your families, connect with people around you, so that when you die, they would be moved by your loss, and they'll pray for you. The other important thing is this something that I feel very concerned about, was at a particular school yesterday I sent a note out, I said that sociologists psychologists, educational and religious leaders are very, very concerned that parents pay little or no part in the lives of the children. And they said we have partners and a habit that our nervous allows for them inculcated It was the first Ayat of the Quran is to read. If you can inculcate this
habit in your children, because reading parents beget reading children, you'll be giving them a life skill that inshallah will inform their life will open their mind would facilitate the majority would for example, help them to develop a linguistic competence, which they would also facilitate the understanding of the world. And reading is like a portable universe. So please, that is focused on reading inshallah. And my boy is with everyone, every individual, remember, Allah is God for him. Please, there are too many problems that are visiting our communities. Too many families that have issues, at least consciously get your family around you. So that are them exactly what they feel
about you. That's the observation might help you to become a better human being.
Please raise your conscious Elan, and we'll speak to you next week in sha Allah. Allah salaam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa Alaykum wa sallam
from Geneva sat on this Thursday morning as well as medical management Allahu Akbar cattle