Akhlaaq of the Ummati #50
Date:
Channel: Mirza Yawar Baig
Series: Mirza Yawar Baig - Akhlaaq of the Ummati
File Size: 37.33MB
Related
- Bilal Philips – The Message Of Jesus Christ
- Ismail Kamdar – Reflections on the Hijri Calendar
- Yaser Birjas – When The Pious People Are Gone
- Ahsan Hanif – The Two Sons of Adam عليه السلام
- Abu Bakr Zoud – Everyday 360 acts of charity are due
- Mufti Menk – Ramadan 2011 – Stories of the Prophets – Day 12
- Mirza Yawar Baig – Connect with Gratitude
AI Generated Summary ©
The importance of clear goals and not taking advantage of opportunities is emphasized in the conversation. The speakers discuss the benefits of working towards one's goals and finding one's own success in life, including the importance of learning from sports and finding one's own success in life. They emphasize the importance of intentions and avoiding activities that are pointless in achieving success and creating a life with meaning.AI Generated Transcript ©
Villa Rahim al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen wa salatu wa salam O Allah shuffelin be able mousseline. Muhammad Rasul, Allah is Allah Allahu Allahu Allah, he was able to sell them to Sleeman kathira in the Sierra Nevada. My dear brothers and sisters, in our class today on
clap of the Almighty have a sort of light.
I want to say to you that there are two kinds of people in the world,
those who have goals for themselves, and those who inadvertently become the means for others to achieve their goals.
And that is a choice that we all have, no matter where we are, no matter what our circumstances, no matter what we are born with or without,
we all have the choice, whether we want to be somebody with a goal for themselves, or we want to be the raw material for somebody else's goal, this is the choice that we have.
And the sooner we make this choice, and the sooner we pick
a goal for our lives, the sooner we will be able to
achieve that goal.
Which means that the that when we have that we will have that much longer, and that much more opportunity to achieve our goal. Now, having time is not just a matter of time.
It's also the opportunities and in opportunity, we have to look at what we call in business language opportunity cost, which means the cost of lost opportunities.
So if we do not have a goal, many times, things that could have been eminently useful for us, people from home, we could have benefited enormously.
circumstances that we could have leveraged for the achievement of our goal, all of them just pass by, without us taking advantage of them. Because we did not have a goal in our mind. And then later on in life, when you do get this
realization, and you do pick a goal, then very often, you think back and say, Oh, my God, you know, five years ago, I met this person. And if only I had this thing in mind, I could have asked him those questions.
Or, some years ago, there was this business opportunity. And if only I had realized that I could have achieved that.
Now you do not have to live with those regrets, because many of those opportunities are not repeated.
But you don't have to live with those regrets. If you start your life with a goal.
There is only one thing which differentiates people who are hugely productive from those who are hugely unproductive, and that is those who are productive, have goals. And they are working towards those goals. Allah subhanaw taala is ideal, Allah subhanaw taala is just a last word Allah gave the same general circumstances to everyone meaning for example, everybody has 24 hours in terms of time, everybody in a given situation, obviously, that does not apply across the world. But in a given situation, he will have more or less the same kinds of opportunities. For example, for example, people who go to a particular school, right?
They all go to the same school, they all study from the same teachers, people who come to
two classes, my classes, for example, why leadership classes and other classes. Now, as far as the class is concerned, my input is not my input is customized to the class, it is not customized to every single
individual in that class obviously cannot be because there will be 10s of people in the class. And especially if it's a public class, I don't even know who those people are. So I can't claim to customize my instruction for every single individual. Although I'm open to everybody. And I can see through in the number of years now it's about 40 years since I've been teaching.
I can see people who have taken huge advantage of my teaching, and people who went through the same classes and so on and so forth. They came up with it. I mean, their feedback was positive. They said Oh beautiful class, we loved it, but they did not get very much out of it. On the other hand, you have some people who have taken away things and some in some cases people have just taken away. For example, one quote or one sentence or they took away the
lesson from one exercise, or they read one book, which I would have suggested to them or something. And then they made,
they made that one into a million.
They did wonderful things for themselves and for, for many others, because they took note of that, right and the thought about them. Now, from a receive receivers point of view,
one of my most dramatic experiences in life as a student, was when one of my students, Navarre, Mahmud invited me one day to attend a class that he was taking for younger children. So I went along, and a couple of other friends of mine went along. And Nevada did something phenomenal. I mean, that's one thing, the whole episode was maybe, you know, took 10 minutes, but it's quite literally blew me away. And I therefore want to acknowledge that and, and thank him and, you know, point I want to make is that
there were many people in that class, I don't know how many of them remember that incident, but it was there for everybody. Now, what he did was that he gave us, you know, he goes, pads like this, and he said,
write your name on top. And he said, this is for you, you're not going to give it to me, but just write your name on top. And then he said, write down on this.
The worst thing that ever did something that you was bad, something you are ashamed of, maybe nobody even knows. And don't tell anybody, just just write it here for yourself, keep it secret, keep it to yourself, don't throw it away.
So we're not what we have, or whatever we need to write. Then he said, turn it around.
And he said, Now, on this side, write the best thing that you ever did in your life. And so we did that.
And then he said,
one day,
this will be given in your hand.
And by that What does he mean? He means the book of deeds.
He said one day this will be given in your hand.
It literally took the earth from beneath my feet. And I might say, Well, you know, didn't you know that, of course, I knew that. It's the way of how it was put. And it was how the time and the circumstances and how Allah rantala caused that to
touch my heart. It blew me away. And then it is another wonderful thing. He had given us pencils to write this thing, not pens, he gave us the pencils. And these pencils at the end of the pencil like it like most pencils have or had an eraser, which was on the end of the pencil. So he said, Now turn to the bad deed that you that you have written and with the areas he said, rub it out, wipe it clean,
what do you have now, nothing clean sheet.
And he said this is an opportunity that you have today.
This opportunity will not be there for you when the book is given in your hand.
This opportunity you have today
to wipe that slate clean.
So I just got to delana one of our many, many beautiful quotes. She said that every person is an author.
And on the Day of Judgment, their book will be published.
Every person is an author. And on the Day of Judgment, their book will be published. We are all writing whether we like it or not. We are all authors. We are all writing our books.
And on the Day of Judgment This book will be published. What we want that book to say what we want to be or to keep in that book is our choice. Today it is 100% leftwards. Allah subhanaw taala does not interfere in our lives. Allah subhanho wa Taala has guided us, Allah subhanaw taala sent his book Allah swatara sent His messenger Muhammad sallallahu alayhi salam to teach us that book.
To to explain that book to us verbally and to demonstrate that was in his blessed life.
As far as we are concerned, the class is over. The lesson is finished. And we have graduated from this class. What we graduated with is left to us because that graduation what comes out of it is left to us to
prove in our own lives
to like Nevada, this is your book. You wrote whatever you wrote
Remember that you have an eraser.
As long as you live, you have that eraser, no matter what you did.
As long as you're alive, you have an eraser, use it,
use it, if you do not use it. And if you submit that paper, if you submit that book with that bad stuff on it,
even though you had an eraser, then Believe me, you have nobody to blame. You cannot blame fate, you cannot blame anybody else. It is your responsibility. 100%, you chose to do that you chose First of all, to do something bad. And then you chose to leave it there for it to be published. And for yourself to feel the consequences of that.
My brother and sisters, I began by telling you that there are two kinds of people, those who have goals and those who don't have goals. I think about what kind of goals.
Most people if you ask them, and I do this as part of my business consulting work, I do leadership development training. And one of the courses I teach is called life goal planning.
I tell people write down your life goal and they write down their life goals and I tell them to,
to you know, to share it with the class if they want. Or I guess I won't say everybody but practically everybody
who writes a live goal
writes a goal that has to do with name and fame and money and a life of luxury.
hamdulillah nothing wrong with that. Islam does not prevent you from earning well, Islam does not prevent you from living well. Islam does not glorify poverty or suffering, Islam does not does not tell you that you must necessarily face suffering no normies live well and so on. So one question is not that question is
what is the significance of that?
So my question to you when i when i when I'm talking about the goal is when you pick a goal ask yourself,
name, fame, money,
or contribution and significance.
Now, the two are not always mutually exclusive.
But sometimes
we have to make a choice.
What will you choose?
Let me give you some names.
Take Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant. Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, such an Tendulkar for my cricketing fans.
Right write and think of all the other cricketer names.
Think of the tennis players.
I've got nothing against sport.
I believe sport is a very good thing.
My my approach to sport is very different from a lot of people. My approach to sport is to in two ways one is play the sport.
Not just watch it and yourself horse, play the sport. And secondly, ask yourself what do I learn from the sport
because that's an angle of sport, especially team games, which is usually beneficial, which most people don't get, because they are only focused on
the competitive part of it.
So you have this these names and you can add to this. And obviously, you can add all the pop stars and the film stars and whoever else you want to add to it. Who are these people? These are people whose faces are recognized whose names are recognized who have millions of fans who endorse products which sell in millions. These are the people who make millions. These are the people who have huge followings, the other people who live the highlife, mansion's yards, private jets, fancy cars,
right?
Monday, that one one day that I
like everybody dies.
And if you ask
a question after they're gone,
what was the significance of the life of this person?
What was the contribution this person made?
I wanted to do not make any contribution However, I'm going to ask you to think about that yourself. and answer the question yourself. What is the contribution that person made that popstar that film star that sports icon?
What is the contribution they made?
What is the significance of their life? So what if they had never been born?
So, what if the Wimbledon champion of the world was never born? So, what is the US Open champion of the world was never born?
Right.
Let me give you some other names contrasting
Have you heard of
somebody called Rennie Jeronimo Cavallaro?
Who was Rene Jeronimo favaloro
he was a cardiac surgeon who invented bypass surgery
by using the great saphenous vein, which is the longest vein in the body that runs along the
along the inside of the leg
and brings blood from the foot all the way up to what is called the femoral triangle where the barrier joins the femoral artery and the blood goes up to the heart.
He took a piece of that vein
and bypassed the coronary artery which would have got blocked
he created bypass surgery. Believe me, May Allah give you a long and healthy life. But if you ever need bypass surgery
and you have
Reni, Jeronimo favaloro to thank and not Lionel Messi or Kobe Bryant,
that is contribution that is significance.
You can ask the question what if favaloro had never been born? I won't say he would never have had bypass surgery but certainly would not have had bypass surgery from him. And from what he contributed
which is more important. kicking a ball in the in the in the goal or
giving a person a new lease of life. Of course, the life comes from Allah subhanaw taala the duration of it comes from Allah subhanaw taala. But we are talking about the quality of that life. We are talking about helping somebody who is mortally ill,
which is more significant.
hitting the ball over the net.
In center court in Wimbledon,
or
bypass surgery.
Have you ever heard of another man called Christian Bernard and his black African
assistant called Hamilton naki?
These this person and this were Christian Barnard was the surgeon who performed
the first
human heart transplant
first successful human heart transplant
human to human in the good shore Hospital in Cape Town in South Africa.
What if Hamilton naki had never been born? What if Christian Bernard had never been born, you would not have had heart transplants you would have had for somebody else. I mean, don't get into the, you know, into an argumentative mode with it. I know every I'm responding in advance to some of the comments that I sometimes get from people who can't see beyond who don't who don't, who do not know how to understand examples.
Fame, or contribution and significance.
That is the choice that you need to make when you set up goals for yourself.
Now,
the thing I want to say to you is this.
How do you do that? How can you set a good goal for yourself?
And the answer is by living thoughtfully by living deliberately.
Because as I said many times before, to live is not simply to draw breath.
Breathing is not living. Somebody who's in a coma on a ventilator, is also breathing. He's alive is not dead. They won't take him and bury him.
Right.
But what's his contribution?
There are many people in this world who are walking and talking and eating. But they are living as if they are in in a coma in a coma.
Zero contribution This is breathing.
My question to you is
I would say do you want to be like that? Because you don't I'm sure. But do you want to be different? And if you want to be different, then Islam has the solution for that.
And what is their solution to live your life thoughtfully and deliberately, consciously, thoughtfully and deliberately.
Now you might say
That. Yes, good advice. Live live thoughtfully and consciously and
deliberately, but what does that have to do with Islam?
I'll tell you why I'm saying that this is what Islam teaches. Because this is the fundamental building block of the teaching of Rasul Allah is
where it all begins. And that is the first heavies in Bukhari and Muslim. And what is that? That is the Hadees narrated by say that Katara Delano, where he said that Rasul Allah is Allah Allah is seldom said, in Amal, Mr. Lubin, yet, there is no Salaam said the
reward of the deed, the outcome of the deed is based on the intention.
Now, by this reward and outcome, we don't mean only the outcome or the reward in the arc era, we ask Allah subhanaw taala for the best in that. But we mean the reward in every way, in this life as well as the next
is based on what is based on the intention of the day.
Now, think about that. Think about how much more deliberate and conscious can you get? When the prophets Allah sort of saying that every deed the reward of it is based on the intention with which the deed is done.
Remember, Obama Napa Valley in the mocha Dima, in the introduction to his book, Aria Salaheddin, he describes this in a very beautiful way. He says
URL is Harmonia fee equally occur while we're fee equally amahl were fee equally a
URL bar is a dual Javi.
He said which means the is har, the clarity, the manifestation, the expression, the awareness,
of the intention,
frequently acquired, in everything we say frequently amahl in everything we do, but equally in every condition that we find ourselves in
all barriers to wall coffee, whether this is visible and open, or whether this is hidden.
Now think about this very, very beautiful description of the issue of being aware of our intentions of doing things with consciousness and doing them deliberately. Not living a life like a robot not living a life by default. Not living a life randomly.
Not living a life which is just chasing sensation to sensation to sensation. Why should we go on a holiday we went here we went there do you? Did you try the you try bungee jumping? Do you try skydiving? Do you try? Did you try that? So we try try try and then what happens? Not like that. We're talking about deliberate
and conscious.
Now when you do that,
think about what it produces.
It's a great
it's a great challenge, I would say even a curse of affluence, that in affluent societies and affluent families, childhood gets delayed.
People remain within poor children much longer than they do in societies which are not affluent.
And thereby opportunities to create sense of responsibility, opportunities to take risk opportunities to take charge of something and to establish yourself and your own leadership Get lost.
Because the so called child is 15 1617 1820.
Where if you look at people of those ages, in societies, which were not affluent or not, are not affluent, you will find I'm not saying every single poor person is a great leader. I'm just saying that when
circumstances force you to take responsibility, then you end up learning a huge
deal more than you do when you are living in circumstances which are too easy.
So the question is
how
Can you program this into your life? I'm not suggesting to you that you should become poor. I'm saying Allah has given you wealth Alhamdulillah How can you use that for your own benefit? And you do that by living your life, consciously and deliberately. Today, we have equated fun with spending time in meaningless, pointless activities, pointless for ourselves. But believe me, every single one of those activities is making millions for somebody else.
So we think when we say fun, what are we looking at, we're looking at watching a football match. Watching not not playing football, playing football will be good because it develops your, your body gives you great health and you know, physical fitness. And as I said, there's huge amounts to be learned in playing of team team games in terms of leadership and followership. We don't I'm not talking about what do we do most of us majority, we sit in front of a television screen, you want to get the biggest possible TV set that you can get, even if you have to borrow money on interest to buy that. And then you sit in front of that watching Super Bowl,
or watching whatever else you're watching some sport, yelling yourself horse, trying to tell the player do this and do that knowing perfectly well that that player can't hear you.
And you and you think this is fun.
You enjoyed yourself. Sure you enjoyed yourself. I don't I don't doubt that. But ask yourself, what is the significance of that enjoyment? in life? What came out of that? So I always tell people that I'm sorry, I'm a great spoilsport. But I always tell people at the end of that two hours watching Super Bowl, give everybody a piece of paper and tell them please right here. What did I earn for the dounia? Or aka?
yourself? What did I earn for the Junior urahara? In these two hours? and Why must you write that because you will be questioned about those two hours? Yes, you did not do anything Haram. But wasting time is a talent.
task or something. Somebody came to her or she's
a juggler came to her or she then he did this great act of juggling of you know, many balls going up and down and whatnot. And it was quite impressive. So at the when he finished he expected the king to give him you know, great reward. However, she gave him
a gold coin. And he said this is for your effort. And he said, working once with a whip.
So the man said Why are you punishing me? He said because of the of the time you wasted doing this nonsense.
Instead of doing instead of doing something significant in life?
So the question to ask yourself is this what is the significance of what I'm doing?
What contribution does it make? What if I never lived?
What if you never watched Superbowl? When it was happening? What difference would it make? To whom would you make a difference?
It will make a positive difference for you. If you use those two hours or one hour, or whatever it is, I don't even know I never watched it and I'm never going to watch it. But I'm saying that if you use that for something useful 100 an hour I'm not saying that you must sit there read the Koran and you must you know make bread off it. May Allah give you tofu hamdulillah. But I'm saying something beneficial for yourself.
If you did, instead of spending that hour or two hours
doing something so called fun, which is completely and totally pointless. Imagine the amount of energy, the resources, the energy,
right?
The emotion does that goes into watching a football match if that was used for something beneficial, something worthwhile?
Just imagine a football stadium.
Right? jam packed because there is this there are these two world favorite teams which are playing
calculate the resources that have been sunk into that. I'm not talking about the the cost of the stadium. I'm talking about the people when they calculate their their fares, the money they spent to reach them.
If they're staying overnight in a hotel, what is the hotel? What do they pay for the hotel, the ticket money
and then calculate Uganda the energy, the emotion that goes into that match. And imagine if all of this instead of that had been spent
on feeding the poor on alleviating the suffering of somebody who's desperately in need.
What would be the significance of that? Those football players are being paid in millions. Why? Because they can attract all these mindless creatures to come and sit there and scream and yell and get
The guts out. Because somebody now is making money out of that. And the money that person is making is enough to pay millions to these people who are kicking a ball around the field.
Imagine if that match never happened.
Imagine if none of the football teams ever exists or existed, none of the basketball teams or the cricket team, none of the tennis players, if there was no if any of these games just didn't exist.
What would we lost?
What would be lost?
On the other hand?
What about the great scientists of the world? What about the great scholars of the world? What about the people going up into space on the International Space Station?
The tragedy is that that is going to be stopped. Because there is what they don't have enough funding.
What if they had never existed?
What if the person who invented this technology which you are using to watch this video had never existed, you will not be watching this video
majan we have taken this world and we've equated the word fund with mindless pursuits. pointless useless exercise. How come? We don't say that inventing a fuel efficient car is fun.
How come we don't say that creating or building homes for the homeless, digging wells digging Latins in the daytime, and sitting and teaching their children in the night to read and write.
Who said this can be fun. Who says that giving food to people who who are hungry or starving is not fun.
Who says that going into a hospital? And asking people and saying look, I have money. How many people in the hospital cannot pay their bills. I'm here to pay their bills. Who said that? Can't who said that cannot be fun? Who said that you cannot go to a court and say I am willing to pay the bail or go to a prison where people are languishing in prison languishing in jails, because they don't have the money to pay the bill.
Who said that going there and saying, I'm here to pay the bill of all those people who are eligible to go out on bail, but they can't go because they don't have the money. Here is the money I'm willing to pay bail for them. I'm willing to
do what it takes to for them to walk free. Who says that cannot be fun.
Right?
What do you think?
I will tell you, that is a million times more fun than mindlessly watching somebody kicking a ball around on a field or hitting a ball over net.
This is what we have done to ourselves.
And this is what Islam stops you from doing prevents you. And how's that in the Muslim Albania?
Because what is the
condition? What is the criterion of the right knee? What should be the right knee of the Muslim? to please Allah subhanaw taala right, every action. The best thing is I'm doing this to please Allah.
Not for money, not for name, not for fame. Whatever comes comes hamdulillah we're not talking about that. I'm saying my Nia is to please Allah. And therefore my Nia is to please Allah, I cannot be kicking a ball around on a court.
It has to be something which has significance in this life.
So if I'm doing something to please Allah Subhana Allah,
then there's a double benefit. One is the action by itself is beneficial.
So even if it was a person who did not believe in Allah subhanaw taala like the names I gave you, power Laura was not a was not a Muslim, Christian Bernard was not a Muslim, but their contribution
benefits humanity for as long as it's going to be used.
So the benefit of doing beneficial things is that they are beneficial, that they continue to benefit. And when a Muslim does that with the intention also of pleasing Allah subhanaw taala he or she will get Jenna. He will get Baraka in his life. And he will get Gemini in the afterlife. But tell me what's the problem with that?
Why can't that be fun? That that we don't see that as fun because this is in the grip of Saturn. We have given our minds away
to Saturn to play with as he wishes.
My submission is instead of that,
if we can take our minds back and say I'm going to give my mind to Rasul Allah is Allah Allah is in his hands
and I'm going to live
The Nabi Alayhi Salam dictate to me how I must think. And what did he say? He said, think about what you are doing before you do it. In normal Mr. looby, near the reward of the deed is based on the intention. So consider the intention, why are you doing what you are doing?
She the beauty of that even the best of deeds, even a bad or the best of a brother is for Salah. If that first Salah is done with the intention of impressing people,
then there is no benefit.
On the other hand, you got you become liable for punishment. That is how important intention is intention is even more important than the action because the intention determines the outcome of the action.
Even the best of actions with the wrong intention, not only will give no benefit, but it can actually harm
and even the most not evil action obviously has no benefit, but even the most so called insignificant action.
That's what told us
May Allah bless the proper Salam for this beautiful and so graphic examples. He said Allah subhanaw taala gave Jana to a man he forgave that man's sins and gave him Jana, because he gave water to a thirsty dog.
Now, you might say you know what is so significant about giving water to a thirsty dog, we are talking about something about helping somebody in need, even if that somebody is not even humor is a dog is an animal, Allah subhanaw taala places so much importance on that,
that Allah subhanaw taala granted the person gentlemen, as soon as and as Adam said, somebody will plant a tree, and this tree bears fruit, then Allah Subhana, Allah will give reward to that person who planted the tree for everything which benefits from the tree from a person who takes shelter under the shade of the tree from the animals and birds which eat from that tree. For the people of humans who eat on the street, and so on, Allah will continue to benefit that person who planted the tree, because of all the other creatures who are benefiting from that particular tree.
This is the power of intention.
So ask yourself, why do I do what I do? And therefore, this also gives us
two other things. One is, this is a shield. This is something that protects us against evil, for Brock protects us from sins, because obviously, even a person with a.of a man cannot continue to sin deliberately when he's thinking about it.
Right? Maybe I want to go and slander somebody, maybe I want to go and backtalk somebody back bite somebody, but then I'm conscious of the intention and I'm asking myself, what is my intention of doing this? And what is the intention for a Muslim, that Allah should be pleased? So is Allah going to be pleased, if I backtalk somebody if I backbite somebody? Of course not. So what do I do? I do not beg by anybody. So the thought itself perishes, the thought itself dies, because I was conscious because I was thinking about my intention.
So therefore, intention becomes a shield for us, shields us from all evil, because no Muslim will ever consciously do something negative. No Muslim can consciously do something which is bad, no Surah Surah Salim said he is not a Muslim is not a believer is not a believer is not a believer, the Astoria Sula who is not a believer, he said the one from whose tongue and whose and his neighbor is not safe, whoever the neighbor might be, neighbor might be Muslim, maybe non Muslim may not even be human, the neighbors might be the animals and birds might be the environment might be the trees, whoever is the neighbor of the person, if that neighbor is not
safe from the tongue and the hand of the person that said he is not a believer is not a believer is not a believer, that is the power of intention, it saves us and protects us from
from this from sin. And the other big benefit of living a life thoughtfully and with the intention, according to in Albania is that we end up creating a life which has significance in this world, which has contribution in this world, where we leave a legacy of honor for ourselves. And when we meet Allah subhanaw taala we meet him in a in a state when he is inshallah pleased with that and he gives us an ask Allah Subhana Allah, Allah Allah Allah to be pleased with you, to enable you to live your lives consciously with power with intention and
To save yourself from doing all useless pointless activity, before anything before doing anything before speaking anything, ask yourself, what is my intention? What is the benefit of this in this life or the next? If there is benefit, do it. If there is no benefit, stop yourself, save yourself. Well sallallahu alayhi wa aalihi wa sahbihi
wa salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato.