Mirza Yawar Baig – Live with awareness
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the concept of the past and how it affects our future. They emphasize the cycle of adult learning, the importance of working with people who believe in the same way, and creating a personal connection to Jesus for continuous improvement in one's life. They also emphasize the cycle of improving one's experiences and reflective observation, which affect our future.
AI: Summary ©
I was having
an online conversation with a friend of mine,
and he said that divisions in Islam are
suicidal.
So I said to him, I agree with
you,
And that is why
that is a choice because suicide is a
choice.
Right? Suicide doesn't happen. Suicide is done.
Suicide is a choice. So if you're saying
the divisions are suicidal, it means that this
is a choice we are making.
Why are you making choice?
So the point I want to make for
you and myself is,
I want you to think about this a
little bit conceptual, but I'm sure you can
understand that. Think about these 3,
3 groups or 3
spaces.
This is called the past.
This is called present,
and this is called the future.
Now everyone has this
irrespective
of where you are, irrespective of
your nationality, race, religion, whatnot,
irrespective of your time. The people in
the year 10/24,
1000 years before today, had the same, they
had a past, they had a present, and
they had a future.
And the people today in 2024
have the same thing which is the past,
the present and the future.
Now what is our past?
Our past
is the future
of the people
in, say, for example, 10/24.
Not only 1000 years, but whatever. Right? So
their future is our past.
What affected their future? What created their future?
What they did in their present.
What they did in their present
created something
which became our past.
So now our past, whatever it is, at
an individual level,
your parents, my parents,
siblings,
where I was born, how I grew up,
whatnot, whatnot,
at a
larger level,
the nation, the state, the community,
the whole Muslim,
whatnot. Right? So we have a past.
So in this past, we have kings and
we have,
you know, queens and we have,
ordinary people and we have good people and
we have nasty people, everybody.
Dispassed.
Our present is right here.
Absolute immediate presence is we sitting in this
meditation room in Springfield College
on the today's what? 27th
of April? 28. 28th April,
2024. This is our our March. 28th March,
a 2024.
Right now, this is
our present.
The past is starting from 5 minutes before.
Right?
So
going going all the way to where we
were born and then, of course, beyond that,
history.
Now how do you deal with this?
The way to deal with that
is to treat
our past as a story to learn from.
That's it.
There is no other relevance of the past.
Right?
If you allow the past to bleed into
the future into the present,
then the past will color our present
and make
us act in ways which are not necessarily
productive always.
So the past
show suppose somebody say, okay, then in that
case, just forget the past. Ignore the past.
No. No. Do not forget the past. Do
not ignore the past because the past is
a very big wealth. It's a big database
of knowledge
for us to learn from.
I don't have to fall into the same
hole
as somebody else if I know the the
hole they fell into and why.
Right? So then I don't know. This is
not the right thing to do. This is
what happened in history. This person had the
same kind of dilemma that I have today
and they did this and this is what
happened to them, bad things. So why would
I do the same thing? But if I
did not have that memory,
if it was
quite clean, then I would have to go
through the same pain. There's no need to
go through that pain if you read history.
That's why history is important. So we treat
history as a
history lesson, as a as a story to
learn from.
Then what do you do? Then what we
do is
in our present,
we look at our challenges
and we try to do the best for
ourselves in today's world,
taking some lessons from history.
Now not everything from history can be applied
and the idea of learning from history is
not to do the same thing again,
but definitely to learn from that and to
apply it in our context today.
So it's not the exact data point, but
it is what is the lesson from that
data?
The conceptualization
of that data.
So take for example, one of the most
famous,
now before I go to this. So now
what we do
becomes our future
because our action today produces some result.
That becomes our future. So the important thing
to understand is
that our future is entirely in our hands.
Allah gave us the power to write our
own destiny
in this world as well as the next.
Whether my life is going to be happy
and productive and beautiful,
full of wonderful friends and relatives and full
of beautiful relationships,
whether I'm going to be influential,
I'm going to be beloved of people,
and so on and so on. All of
that
is in my hands.
Nobody else.
Everyone of that.
All the opposite of that is also in
my hands. I can choose to become the
most hated and and, you know, person in
the world, or I can choose to become
the most beloved person in the world. Choose
to.
Whether
I accept this or whether I am conscious
of this choice or not, it is my
choice.
So whatever I'm doing or choosing not to
do is affecting me
in the future, and the future is right
now. Like, out of this door is future.
Right? So it's very important to understand that.
Now take for example. So how do you
conceptualize?
I want to give you another format. One
is what we call a concrete experience.
Right now, we are sitting here in this
meditation room
talking about something which is
potentially
useful.
So concrete experience.
From concrete experience,
we go to
what we call,
reflective,
introspection.
Right? So you you you think about the
experience. You say I was here. This is
what I was doing. This is what we
were thinking.
And,
the reflective introspection
or reflective observation.
So in your mind, you run that picture.
I
had a meeting with this person.
That meeting went well, didn't go well, whatnot.
He said this. I said this. Now after
the meeting,
reflective observation,
reflective introspection, you say, well,
what could I have done differently?
How could I have approached it in a
better way?
Right?
Maybe I got angry and maybe I expressed
my anger.
Maybe it was all for the good, meaning
that the anger was justified and so on
and so forth. But
was there a better way of dealing with
that situation?
I yelled at people, should I have yelled?
Was there another way?
Even though I might say, well, you know,
I yelled for a good reason,
it was a justifiable
yelling, but
was there another way of dealing with that
without the yelling?
Could I still have conveyed the same message
equally passionately, equally seriously, but without the yelling?
Is it possible? Of course, it's possible. I
didn't think about I didn't think about that
at that time, but
now what was the consequence of the yelling?
Next day, I have to go and apologize.
Naturally, because I mean, some people get hurt
so, you know, it's it's my responsibility. If
I did the yelling, then be prepared.
You also have to say sorry.
Now no matter how painful that sorry might
be, it is painful,
but it has to be done.
So lesson learned,
why did you put yourself in that situation
where you had to now humiliate yourself and
and and
because you
yelled. So next time before you yell,
think about what are the consequences. This yelling
is going to produce that, I don't want
to think, so don't yell.
Then there's no need. Right? So this is
the way we learn from our own life
experiences.
So we call this conceptual
concrete experience,
then abstract
observation or abstract reflection, reflective observation.
3rd one is conceptualization,
And
that's what I just said. What's the concept
out of this?
Find a way of saying what you need
to say, especially if it is critical, especially
if it is if you are angry about
something. Do it in a way where you
don't put yourself in a spot where you
have to go and apologize.
Because having to go and apologize is not
nice.
It's a painful thing. So don't get into
that situation in the first place.
Yet, but at the same time,
should you just keep quiet and let things
roll and let things happen, red or wrong
thing? No. No. No. No. Of course not.
Of course not. You should not let wrong
things happen. Wrong things must be stopped.
If correction has to be made and if
you are, especially if you are an authority,
you have to correct.
But there are different ways of correcting.
So conceptualization is correct people in a way
which is
with compassion, which is respectful,
which does not put you in a spot
where tomorrow you got to go back and
apologize to the people.
And then we come to the 4th stage,
which is called active experimentation, which is try
it next time.
This cycle, which we call this we call
this a cycle of adult learning. So
this present is the most important time in
our life because
whatever we do here, whether we like it
or not, is going to affect our future.
And the future is our destiny, whether it's
in this world and, of course, in the
in the hereafter, in the akhara. Whatever I
do here, it's getting recorded in the hereafter,
so therefore I will I will be rewarded
for it or not.
Now
what do you do, therefore, if you inherit
a situation which
is negative from the past?
Right? I'll be be as I said, we'll
be under the Shia Sunni kind of thing.
So now if you
if
you get landed with that so supposing now
you are working in a situation where you
have,
you are a Sunni and you have Shia,
colleagues
and bosses and whoever whoever. Right? Or the
other way around you, and the other people
are Sunni.
What do you do? Can you work with
them?
Of course. Why not?
Can you work with crystals? Yes. Can you
work with Jews? Yes.
Do you believe the same as their no.
We don't believe the same. We believe different.
So why can't you work with them?
Because we say
belief
is in that space. Let them believe whatever
they want. Our workspace,
the belief doesn't come into that,
or
the parts of the belief which come into
it are common.
For example, don't lie, don't cheat, whatnot, whatnot.
Why? We don't do that.
But
in the way they pray,
they do it differently.
Some of their beliefs, the aqayd, are different.
We don't believe in the same thing.
The way I remind myself is that is
true for anybody else. That's true for the
Christians. Do we believe that Jesus do we
believe that Jesus is son of God? No.
Allah is Allah.
There's no one worthy of worship except Allah.
Who is Jesus? A prophet of Allah. What
is our
relationship or connection or attitude towards Jesus?
Of the greatest respect, of greatest love,
we revere him.
Right?
As a prophet, we believe in him. As
a prophet,
we believe that he was divinely inspired. We
believe that he had no father. His
was his mother immaculate conception.
Allah
produced Jesus as a sign like he produced
Adam alayhi salaam Adam also as a sign.
Jesus had no father. Adam, alayhis salam, had
no father or mother.
Jesus was born as a baby. Adam, alayhis
salam, was born within quotes as a full
grown man.
That is why people get confused.
Adam was created
in his image and they say Adam was
created in the image of God. No. Adam
was created in his own image.
He was created in the image of man.
He was the prototype. He was the the
model
based on which the human race
was going
to be propagated, and Allah
created that prototype,
called Adam. Adam
was never a toddler. He was never a
2 year old. Right? He was never a
teenager with all kinds of,
problems.
He was a full grown, mature man the
moment you want his eyes.
Now why does Allah do that? To show
his own power, to show his.
So we worship him as
you are the creator.
So the present that we have is the
most important part of our lives. So this
is very important to understand. That's the reason
why we must live
consciously. We must live
with awareness,
Not just go through day or morning night,
morning night, morning night, so many days pass.
No.
That is why the prophet Muhammad, peace be
upon him, he said,
for a Muslim, no 2 days should be
equal.
No 2 days should be equal. He said,
every day must be an improvement on the
previous day.
And that is why the du'a of this,
the Bedouin made this wonderful du'a,
where he praised Allah
in very beautiful ways and then he said,
O Allah,
make the last part of my life the
best.
Make
my last deed the best deed
and make my last day the best day
the day that I meet you.
Such a beautiful prayer, right? He said, make
the last part of my life the best.
Meaning what? Meaning my life must be on
a constantly improving
path so that the last part of my
life is the best.
Make my last deed the best. Meaning what?
Meaning,
every deed of mine should be better than
the previous one
until I come to the last one which
is the best.
And make my last day the best day
of my life when I meet you. And
I make this dua for all of us,
InshaAllah. May Allah make the last day of
our life the best day when we meet
him, and may our lives always be on
a path of constant improvement,
so that we become better and better people
as we as we develop.
And the key thing there is to live
with awareness.
Not not,
routine random living.
Routine random living is is animal living. Animals
live like that. All mammals live like that.
Right? You get up in the morning, you
go eat some food, go go back to
sleep, whatnot, whatnot. No. We are we are
mammals. Yes. But we are not mammals in
the sense of we are not cows and
buffalos or something. We are human beings. Allah
has given us intelligence,
and therefore, this must be used.
Right?