Mirza Yawar Baig – AIC Ramadan Event Gratefulness
AI: Summary ©
The host of a virtual event discusses the importance of gratitude and experiences in life, emphasizing the benefits of small things like eating and drinking. They stress the importance of small things like chili and keeping track of metrics to measure success. The speaker also emphasizes the importance of being aware of one's progress and making small small decisions to achieve larger goals.
AI: Summary ©
I begin in the name of Allah,
god almighty, the glorious and magnificent.
And I send salutations
on his messenger, Muhammad
peace and blessings be upon him.
Welcome to this wonderful event. This is my
2nd time here in AIC. We had a
similar event in the same place
last year, and that was also very nice.
I'm really well attended.
And my thanks also to a lot of
my friends here here who are not from
AIC, and thank you for taking the time
to come,
and participate and be with us here, inshallah.
Allah
tells us in the ayat which
we hear in practically
every Friday, every jama'ah and every masjid on
the face of the planet
then Allah
said,
He said, which means
all you who believe
have concern for Allah
have taqwa of Allah
as it is his right.
And do not die except in a state
of complete submission to Allah
except in a state of Islam.
Taqwa is
the concern for Allah
for his pleasure
to please him in everything we say or
do
as it is his right that he should
be pleased.
It is his right because everything we have,
we owe to Allah
To give you a
quick,
some thoughts here on this, what do we
have?
Think about this.
If our hair
were live tissue,
if the hair had nerve endings,
you would have to go under a general
anesthesia every time you need a haircut,
so also the nails.
This town, Springfield,
has an area of 33 square miles.
One square mile is 6 40 acres.
1 inch
of rain or precipitation
per acre
weighs 113
tonnes.
Springfield had
rainfall of,
last year Springfield had
50 inches of rainfall.
If that rain
came down
as one mass,
50 inches of rainfall if it came down
as 1 mass,
average cloud height is 15,000
feet.
That would be a mass.
The weight of that would be a
119,000,320,000
tons.
If you get hit
by
a 119,300,000
tonnes,
there's only one
result.
Springfield would be one big lake of 33
square miles,
and it would be
along with the connect along
with the Connecticut
River.
There would be no Springfield.
But Allah
sends that 50 inches of rain
in single drops
and single flakes of stone.
Right? So think about that.
This is Allah.
He sends down what he sends down, but
the way he sends it down itself is
mercy.
Look at the people in our lives.
Who are the people in our lives?
We have 2 kinds of people in our
lives.
Those who teach us to be grateful
and those who teach and who give us
experience.
Both are useful.
Some people, you are with them, and you
are very grateful that you are blessed with
them. With other people, you learn how to
deal with people.
Both are good things.
I had a friend,
and we were at a party in Hyderabad
where I come from in India, which has,
according to me at least, the most fabulous
cuisine
of any place on the face of the
earth.
And we were at this party. We were
having this dinner. So I picked up my
plate and I said to her, isn't this
food absolutely fantastic?
She said, I don't know.
I said, what do you mean? You don't
know? You're eating. She said, yeah.
So how don't you know?
She said, because to me, everything tastes like
cardboard.
I
said, why?
She said, because after my 3rd child, I
completely lost
my taste buds.
My taste buds don't function anymore.
So when you eat the food today,
think about that.
She said she she said you can give
me the the the most the hottest chili
in the world, the hottest pepper in the
world, I won't feel it.
You can give
me the most bitter thing in the world,
I won't feel it. You can give me
the sweetest thing in the world, I don't
know.
My brother
Allah said in another place, If
you try to count the blessings of Allah,
you will not be
able
to
count
them. Individual things.
So called small things. How many times
when you have your first cup of coffee
in the morning and you smell the aroma
and you have that first sip of coffee,
how many times do you think about taste
buds and how many times do you think
about the connection between smell and taste?
You know the smell goes, the taste goes.
Right?
Sometimes your nose is very blocked and you
can't smell anything. You can't taste anything.
One little,
the ears, the fluid in the in the
in the, ear canals
is what gives us balance.
Right?
One little change in that, and you will
not be able to stand upright.
You will get terrible nausea,
and you'll be completely dizzy and you will
not be able to stand upright.
How many times do you think about that?
How many times do you think about your
big toe?
Because without your big toe, you wouldn't be
able to walk.
How many times do you think about the
thumb?
The opposing join to the others,
which gives you the power to hold. If
you didn't have the thumb, you couldn't hold
anything.
Or at least not manipulate it and and
hold them in a in a in a
in a way which is useful.
How many times do you think about language?
Think about what an amazing thing language is.
Language is the ability that human beings have
of taking abstract thoughts,
converting them into specific sounds
which have meaning,
which somebody who understands that language,
the minute they hear that sound,
the picture pops in the mind.
For example, if I say mother,
2 sounds.
A picture pops in your mind.
I say the same thing.
I say the same thing.
I say the same thing.
How many people who don't know Urdu, who
don't know Arabic,
who don't know travel?
Did that make any sense to you?
But when I say mother because you know
English,
are you thinking m o t h e
r, or are you thinking the face of
your mom?
You know what I'm saying?
Do we reflect on this? I mean, imagine
imagine
the power of language
that today in 2024,
you can read
a book called The Republic written by Plato
2,000 plus years ago.
See, one of the,
most
powerful very simple but most powerful things to
do is to write us,
literally like 2 lines,
a count of your day
every night.
So keep a keep a notepad.
I think it's important to write physically with
your hand.
It's the connection between the brain and the
hand.
So you can write it one way of
writing is, what did I learn today?
Ask yourself the question, what did I learn
today? And write that down. Whatever. I learned
to cook eggs in a particular way. Very
fantastic. So today's learning.
Right? It doesn't have to be some great,
spiritual thing you learn. No. Anything.
What did I learn today?
So then you become so every day now,
for example, if you say, what did I
now your mind is blank. I can't write.
I I really don't know what I think
I learned nothing.
It brings even there, that's beneficial because it
brings an awareness that today, the whole day
24 hours got
crushed. Right? I learned nothing.
So now tomorrow, I'm going to live with
that. I'm not gonna allow another 24 hours
to go trash like this. So I'm going
to learn something.
Similarly, you can say, what did I do
for Allah today?
Only to please Allah.
Again, it can be anything. It can be
charity. It can be being nice to somebody.
It can be prayer. It can be salah.
It can be whatever. Right? What did I
do to please Allah today?
So if I can't think of anything, then,
again, wake up call. Alright? So one day
passed tomorrow,
I'm not going to allow another day to
pass and as, you know, without having done
something for Allah, whatever.
Smallest thing to the biggest thing.
So when you do this,
what did I learn? What did I do
what did I do for Allah today?
What good thing I do? Whatever. You know?
Meaning,
you keep track of that metrics.
The guy the the the
quality,
system called 6 Sigma,
and, the guy who invented that, he used
to work for Motorola. He
this called me. His name is Michael Harrie.
So Michael Harrie said a wonderful thing. He
said, if you want to see what people
value,
see what they measure.
If you want to see what people value,
see what they measure. And you know the
most powerful
place to understand that? I'm sure you must
have heard this term, time is money.
People say time is money. But imagine,
if I lose $20,
even though I can afford to lose weight,
I will still feel that my $20 has
gone somewhere.
But 20 minutes I lose.
I'm not even conscious of that.
Not a just
sit on this phone, open TikTok,
and 1 hour will pass like
2 seconds, like 2 minutes. Right?
Totally.
Now think about that. What is the actual
value of that 1 hour? The actual value
of that 1 hour is put yourself in
that situation.
You are dying.
Right? Last breaths.
And at that time, say Malakor Maut, the
angel of death comes to you and say,
Michael,
I will give give you now. I will
give you
the time that you spend on TikTok.
Right? So now what's the value of that
time at the at at
of of the period of time at that
time of death? What's the value of that?
Fantastic, because if I get that time now,
I can correct myself with Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala, I can make Istighfar, Tawbah, I can
repent,
maybe I can do salah or something and
then I'm dying in a state of salah
and sujood. All this. Right?
But the angel of death says, I can
give this to
you, but
not for free.
So what will you pay me for that?
What will you pay me? Anything. Anything. Right?
They take everything because all this stuff, any
in any case, I'm going to die. This
will be left here. But take it.
That doesn't happen.
This will not happen. I'm only fantasizing.
When the time for death comes, you go.
But right now we have that time.
We have that choice.
Do I want to spend time watching TikTok
or do I want to spend time doing
something useful, beneficial?
That's the choice we have.
Right? And that's the reason why, as I
said, Michael Larry said, measure.
If you want to see what people value,
see what they measure.
We measure money. We count money.
We say time is money, but we don't
count time. Time passes.
And that's the reason why we waste. We
don't waste. I mean, we waste money in
a different way in the sense of use
you use it for useless things, but
nobody will just take out the wallet and
throw away money like this. No? We won't
do that.
What do we try?
Nothing. No track occurs. Comes and goes.
That's the reason why it's so important to
keep this in mind.
So end of the day,
write a
notebook and say, today,
my learnings.
Now make this into a habit. Believe me,
it is the most powerful habit that you
will ever have.
You know, you'll remember this throughout your life.
Write that down. And who knows? I mean,
if you write enough stuff down and some
at some point in time when you have
grandchildren to make this into a book and
give it to them. This is what I
learned in my life. Go read.
Yeah. Seriously.
Imagine. I mean, can anybody that's such a
powerful thing.
Right?
Such a powerful thing. They said, here's my
here's my life.
That's the power of language.
And with that I want to end
because it's now time to break a fast
and that is
the sound of the azan
where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's name is being
glorified.
Allahu Akbar.
The same thing is said in English,
God is the greatest
which has the power.
Thank you very much.