Mirza Yawar Baig – Deep Thinking Thought
AI: Summary ©
The concept of deep listening is discussed, which is the fruit of faith and love, rather than just a communication. The importance of living responsibly and creating a strong bond with oneself and others is emphasized, along with the need for deep thinking and action to improve one's understanding of oneself and others' differences. The importance of mutual respect and creating healthy boundaries is emphasized, along with an incident where two interfaith friends attended their sermon and Prayer Service, where they paid homage to their friend and the Prayer Service.
AI: Summary ©
As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
May peace and blessings be upon all of
you.
Bismillah walhamdulillah wa salatu wassalamu ala rasoolillah.
I begin in the name of God Almighty,
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And I send my salutations on His Messenger
Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him.
It's a great honor and pleasure to be
here again.
Jason keeps repeating his mistakes, so it's no
fault of mine.
My topic today is deep listening and deep
thinking.
I want to say to you, before deep
thinking comes deep listening.
And before deep listening comes deep concern.
Hearing is about sound, listening is about concern.
Listening is about the desire to listen, because
we believe that it is important.
Hearing aids can cure hearing difficulties, but hearing
aids can't make us listen.
Listening happens when there is respect for the
speaker, when we believe that by listening we
have something to gain, when we are concerned
about the speaker or and about what they
are telling us.
Listening is a conscious decision and happens when
we choose to pay attention.
Remember what is said, take initiative to clarify
doubts and feel meaningful doing all of that.
All this is still only listening, active listening.
Listening with concern, but listening.
Deep listening happens when we open our heart
and allow what we are hearing to enter,
to pluck at the strings of our emotions,
to bring tears to the eyes, to speed
up our heartbeat and energize us to do
something positive.
Deep listening is not merely a communication tool,
it is a way of being different and
more enhanced, powerful, alive, energized.
Deep listening is about listening to understand as
opposed to listening to respond.
The finest example of deep listening that I
can possibly give you is something that I
am sure all of us have seen and
experienced many times.
And that is that we have been over
to a friend's place and these people, we
know they have had a little baby, there
is an infant, and all of us are
sitting in the living room and we are
joking and we are talking and having fun
and the little baby is in the bedroom
next door.
And suddenly you find the mother leaves us
and goes off into the room.
Now a lot of us are left wondering
what happened.
What happened was that the baby made a
small sound and the mother heard it.
We may not hear, but the mother hears
the baby because she is the mother, she
is concerned.
Her being is linked to the baby no
matter where she may be and no matter
what she might be doing.
And when the baby calls, the mother answers.
She must, she has no choice, she is
the mother, that is the role.
Yet she is not the creator of the
baby.
What then of the creator?
The one who loves us and sees us
and hears us and knows what is in
our hearts.
I am going to recite for you from
the Quran, the revealed word of God, the
revealed word of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
preserved without change now for 1400 plus years.
And before I recite what I want to
recite, I will say what the Quran says
about deep listening.
The Quran says, Since
you all understand that, I don't think I
need to translate.
That's right, deep listening.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says the true
believers are those whose hearts tremble, whose hearts
respond to the mention of Allah, to the
mention of God, and whose faith increases when
His revelation, when His ayat, when His word,
when the Quran is recited.
And who as a result of these two
things, the responsive heart, which responds to the
word of God, they place their trust in
Him.
I invite you to focus on your heart
as you listen to me and see what
happens down there inside, because deep listening happens
there in the heart.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says the true
believers are those whose hearts tremble, when His
word, when the Quran is recited.
And who as a result of these two
things, the responsive heart, which
responds to the word of God, they place
their trust in Him.
Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest.
There is no god but Allah.
Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest.
All praise is due to Allah.
It begins, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A
'la is mentioning his own personal name and
it says Ar-Rahman, the compassionate, the most
compassionate, who taught the Quran, who created humanity
and taught them speech.
The sun and the moon travel with precision,
the stars and the trees bow down in
submission As for the sky, he raised it
high and set the balance of justice, so
that you do not defraud the scales, weigh
with justice and do not give short measure.
He laid out the earth for all beings,
in it there are fruit and palm trees
with dead stalks and grains with husk and
aromatic plants, then which of your Lord's favours
will you deny?
The second passage was from Suratul Waqia, which
is the next chapter, 56, the last part
of it, and there Allah Subh'anaHu Wa
Ta-A'la takes an oath by himself
and by the constellations and the stars, he
said, so I do swear by the positions
of the stars and this if only you
knew is indeed a great oath, that this
is truly a noble Quran in a well
-preserved record touched by none except the purified
angels.
It is a revelation from the Lord of
all worlds, how can you then take this
message lightly and repay Allah for your provisions
with denial?
Why then are you helpless when the soul
of a dying person reaches their throat while
you are looking on?
And we are nearer to them, to such
a person, the dying person than you, but
you cannot see us.
Now, if you are not subject to our
will as you claim, bring that soul back,
if what you say is true.
And the last passage, in the name of
Allah, the most beneficent, the most merciful, say,
O Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon
him, he is Allah, one and indivisible, Allah,
the sustainer, needed by all and he needs
nothing.
He has never had offspring nor was he
born and there is none comparable to him.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala invites us to
reflect on ourselves and on the creation around
us and on the fact that one day
we will die and meet him and therefore
we need to ensure that our relationship with
him is strong because that is the only
relationship which remains even after we die.
This is the essence of the message of
Islam, which emphasizes the importance of living responsibly
with a sense of accountability to Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala for all those we share
the earth with.
Today, unfortunately, we have created a society which
is based on principles that even those who
live by them are ashamed to declare them
openly.
Instead, they hide behind deceptive language crafted for
them by wordsmiths, which fools nobody but themselves.
That is why it is screamingly critical to
develop authenticity, genuine respect for one another's differences,
mutual appreciation, not merely tolerance, a spirit of
inquiry and concern and above all kindness and
compassion that transcends our self-created boundaries of
color and race and nationality and politics.
Imagine a world where what is right is
supported because it is right and what is
wrong is opposed and fought against because it
is wrong and neither depends on who is
doing it.
A world where virtue shines forth clearly and
evil is not allowed to masquerade in its
clothing.
Deep listening enables deep thinking.
Deep thinking is sometimes very painful because it
is the name of the mirror in which
we see ourselves as we are, shorn of
all pretense and posturing.
We get to see the truth about ourselves.
That doesn't need to be painful always, but
it can be.
That is why many fear it.
But like the pain of the electrician stripping
the insulation and copper oxide off the wire
until it shines golden so that current can
flow freely to light up the world and
free it from darkness, illumination comes at a
price.
So does darkness.
And that's why we must choose wisely.
Deep thinking inspires action.
Deep thinking helps us to question our preconceived
notions and beliefs, our stereotypes.
Thereby, it breaks our chains of prejudice and
opens us to understanding perspectives different from our
own.
Leading to richer dialogue and less polarized views.
When we realize that our way, our culture,
our views are only one of many equally
valid, equally respectable, equally valuable perspectives, it changes
our worldview.
I don't mean to imply that there are
no universal values of virtue and vice, good
and bad that are common to all cultures.
They are and that is as it should
be.
But not everything is at the same level.
Interestingly, when we look at the walls between
us and others, they are not about core
fundamental values, but about tertiary and superfluous ones.
We have raised them to a level where
they don't deserve to be at and use
them to build walls, which prevent us from
seeing and appreciating one another.
The Quran says about human beings, O
humanity, O people!
Indeed, We created you from a male and
a female and made you into peoples and
tribes, so that you may know, you may
be introduced, you may recognize one another.
Surely, the most noble of you in the
sight of God and in the sight of
Allah is the one who is most righteous
among you.
Allah is truly all-knowing, all-aware.
Allah created us to know and appreciate and
love one another, not to discriminate and denigrate
and exploit and hate.
In the sight of Allah, superiority is based
on one criterion alone, righteousness.
That is Islam.
For any society to thrive, mutual respect must
be an integral part of its philosophy.
Deep thinking can play a crucial role in
establishing this respect.
Deep thinking encourages respectful dialogue, where differing opinions
can be shared without hostility.
However, the key is to remember that this
cannot happen unless we inculcate it from the
inception, which is earliest childhood.
And that can only happen when parents believe
in it deeply and live by the creed
that difference is to be celebrated, not criticized
and suppressed.
Conversations in the home must reflect that.
Openness to the other without othering is built
on the foundation of confidence in one's own
identity.
That is what drives the thought of the
poem that my friend and my dear brother
Jason recited of Jalaluddin Rumi, which says, I
want to meet you in that field beyond
differences.
In conclusion, knowing each other is critical because
ignorance breeds fear and fear inspires hostility.
Knowledge promotes curiosity and respect for difference enables
acceptance.
Only when we are sure of ourselves and
feel comfortable in our identities can we become
genuinely interested in the diversity of others.
So go out and meet others and talk
to them and observe and question respectfully and
listen non-judgmentally.
It's a contact sport.
I lived the early part of my life
with people who are as different from me
in every way as could be.
And that was a huge asset in helping
me to appreciate the power of diversity.
Almost my entire school schooling time, I spent
every holiday, summer and winter with tribals in
the forests of central India.
And then my first job in the first
five years was spent in Guyana, literally in
the boondocks on the bank of the Burmese
River in the middle of the Amazonian rainforest.
And the only person there who looked like
me was me.
I was also the only Muslim.
One.
Huge asset.
Because till today, and I'm now talking almost
50 years, those who are alive, most have
died.
But those who are alive, I'm still in
contact with them.
And that's why I can say with complete
and total confidence that diversity and not homogeneity
is our biggest strength.
But only if we allow it to be.
To be able to respect others and their
differences, which is the soul of diversity, we
must have friends who are different from us.
If we don't, now is the time to
go out and make some.
It's great fun, believe me.
It's important to remember that attitude reflects beliefs
and values and drives behavior, which can't be
changed without first changing what we have been
conditioned to believe.
This can be painful and embarrassing sometimes to
accept that we have been wrong all our
lives about others.
But unless we accept it, we cannot change.
Deep thinking and reflection help to come face
to face with our conditioned beliefs, to question
them and change them to open the door
to a new, beautiful reality.
When we get rid of our prejudice, we
allow ourselves to live in the present and
can let go of our conditioned past and
go forward into a very different world.
Finally, I want to share with you and
end with that very interesting incident that happened
last Friday.
Some interfaith friends came to attend my sermon
and the prayer service.
I invited them to stay for lunch and
thereafter, there were two men, one Jew and
one Roman Catholic and three women, one Jew,
one agnostic and one Presbyterian.
I handed over the two men to my
dear friend, Reverend Patrick McMahon, who attends every
Friday service and who I knew would keep
them out of trouble.
The three women were in the care of
one of our Somali sisters who is a
medical student.
She is at medical school.
Now, after the service, we paid homage to
the only true sacrifice that happens in life,
chicken biryani.
The chicken dies for you and gets nothing
in return.
That's called a sacrifice.
Everything else is an investment.
I answered questions and we spoke about our
different beliefs and cultures and so on and
then one of them said, you know, I
hope one day the world will see that
people like us with totally different beliefs can
have a lovely conversations over a good meal.
I said they can see that today, here
and now.
And that is the truth.
Thank you very much once again.
And you have only Jason to blame for
me being here.
Thank you.