Spirituality #09 The KEY to Self Improvment

Nowadays, even among people that are not religious, the idea of gratitude journaling, for example, has become somewhat of a fat. Why because there's been studies that have been done on it has shown to improve physiological and psychological state, the increases your dopamine, it balances your mood, all these kinds of things. But of course from an Islamic perspective, you know, this has been one of the main prescription spiritual prescriptions from day one, it's in the Quran as sits actually off repeating the Quran. I'll just give you one or two verses to whet your appetite on the issue and then you can go ahead and you know, research this yourself. One I find very powerful in

the Quran the verses will ensure customer as he then Nicola Inca Feltham in the other Bellagio did that if you are thankful I will increase you. And if you are ungrateful than my punishment is painful. Allah subhanaw taala and this is something hustle bustle which is quite you don't Yeah, Malibu, Shangri La, constrained the near term of Allah the blessings of Allah with the Shaka of Allah with the with the thankfulness of God. What are the key principles here is if you want more things in dunya, and akhira, in this world, and in the next, then thank God for what you already have. What's interesting is that when you start thanking God for what you already have, it amplifies

in your mind what you thought you didn't have, which is a very powerful thing. L has only for example, in effect on on the dean, he's got a whole chapter on this. He starts off by saying that Ashoka really is one of the divine attributes, some names of Allah subhanaw taala, are congruent with some of the kinds of states that we can be in or attributes that we can be described with, however, obviously takes a completely different reality, but a Shaco or that Allah subhanaw taala is the thankful one is one of the names of Allah subhanaw taala what is a shocker Tari fan of a definitional perspective, the word Shaka really means the latter off open Yama or admitting,

confessing to the fact that you have been given a blessing and then praising Allah, in this case, obviously, for it. And as I mentioned, here on the dean, there are three aspects of Shaka and each of those three are divided. So let's go through them, they're very important to know. The first one is knowledge. You see, you cannot be a thankful person unless you admit that you have certain things. And this is where artificial humility is actually not humility, but it's ironically, the opposite of that. Some people will be praised with certain actions and told that they have certain things in life and they will deny that mashallah, if you've done really well, you've set for

yourself now and is not really anything brother, you know, no, no, there is something and it's something that you should be thankful for. But you cannot be thankful for something you don't think you even have. So you must confess to yourself, that you have these blessings. And we're going to talk about what kind of blessings. So number one, the knowledge of the blessing, everything starts with that you cannot be thankful it's a prerequisite for a shock of you cannot be thankful until you admit that you have gotten a blessing of some sorts, that is there they exists. That's number one. Number two, the connection with the person with a servant, you must realize that, okay, I possess

this is changed my life in these ways. So that's another knowledge you need to kind of connect the abstract blessing that you've been given with the applicable reality in your own personal life. And then the third thing is the nature of the Bestower. Nowadays, we hear a lot of people who are atheists say I'm grateful, that is something people say, You're grateful to who, who is the object of gratitude? What is the object of gratitude, some of them will even have the audacity to say, Mother Nature gave me such and such with the universe. So there was a universe that it as if the universe now has an intellect, and has mind and has these features, sentient features. So if you

don't really have an object of gratitude, your gratitude will never fulfill the objective really, it will always miss the mark or be off the mark. So these three things are always met. And obviously ultimately, Allah subhanaw taala he is the one who provides all the good things, and in fact, all the things all existence. If any Thankfulness is to be done is to be done to Allah. But the prophet muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam also told us when the national renessa Masha Allah, whoever does not sack the people does not thank Allah sometimes Allah uses as a cause, person X or person y of person set these individuals sometimes they bestow something upon you, which you also need to be

thankful for. So your husband or your wife, we are your parents, your children, even why not? Men let me assuredness the Michigan

Law and it doesn't say men law musical Muslimeen. It doesn't say that those who don't think the Muslims, it can even be disbelievers that have done something for you. Sometimes in the West Muslims, for example, living, we have this very ungrateful attitude to people, teachers of ours, doctors of ours, who are non Muslims. And this puts people off us. And as a result of the religion of Islam as well, it's not actually in line with the Islamic ethic at all. So he said, the first thing was knowledge. The second thing was the state, when you are now acknowledging the blessings of Allah, then your state bill has only mentioned should be a humble one. Why should you be humbled and

joyful? In fact, it's a natural thing for you to be joyful, happy, when you're thinking about all these things. That's why people put memories on their phone, take pictures, videos, and so on. So they can remember good moments. But why don't these moments thank God for them? Instead of going, Oh, that was nostalgia, sort of that just thinking, oh, you know, this was humbler that we've had, that God blessed me with these gifts. But you should be thankful for three reasons, or joyful. In fact, for three reasons, you know, as I mentioned, one of them was that because of the thing itself has value, whether it's monetary value, or sentimental value, or any other kind of value, the thing

itself has value intrinsic value. In fact, the second thing is that, you know, Allah gave this to you. So knowing that Allah gave you a gift itself should make you joyful. And the third thing is because whatever has been given to you has utility has utility. And so the fact that you are able to benefit from the thing is also something we should be thankful for. And as a result of all of this, the third thing is we said number one is knowledge number two is state and number three is action. And the action here is Amel. Calbee are the actions of the heart, which eventually makes its way to the organ of the tongue, where you saw saying and humbled and humbled and humbled Allah and you're

thinking about how great God is that He gave you such a blessing. And that even if he didn't give you such a blessing, he'd still be worthy of praise because it Hamed is not just by the way, it's not just a shocker, it is authentic as well, which is praised for the intrinsic, essential attributes of perfection that God has. So Hassan after speaking about all of that, he mentioned some of the blessings. And he said, Look, if you think about it, you've got two kinds of blessings. You've got general breath blessings and specific blessings. General blessings include things like air, like I When was the last time i Oh, you said you know, subhanAllah hamdulillah for the

for the oxygen I've been given. And he put some very interesting stories that you know, a king at the time of I think it was the best it's maybe that he was said he was so thirsty. And someone said to him, Listen, I'll give you a cup of water so long as if you were told that if you give up your kingdom, I have this cup of water, what would it be in your last dying moments of thirst he said, Of course I will take a cup of water. So the wise man said to him that therefore this cup of water is a bigger blessing than your entire kingdom. A bigger blessing. Every human being on the face of the earth has a heartbeat, otherwise he wouldn't live is that not a molten shocker is that not a place

where you can thank Allah subhanaw taala and you will always find something to thank Allah subhanho wa Taala for whether it is oxygen or the heartbeat, the energy that is used to sustain the body of the human being whether it's done through food or glucose drip or whatever is there is a baseline we're all living things that are able to do so can thank Allah subhanaw taala for those things, that they have to give them a life. And so they these are kind of general blessings, by the way, you'll find that children are most able because of their innocence to identify these blessings, the general ones as for us when we get older and stuff like that we have this entitlement schema where we start

to think well this person has that why don't meet Why don't meet Why don't meet why this person has that. Why don't we so things which we consider to be basic necessities. We don't even see it as a reason to thank God. Yeah, I've got water of course I've got I've got food. Yeah, of course. And that's why we need to go to places where the prophet Muhammad wa salam said and this is one of the medicines the main medicines for ingratitude on Douro Illa man who is Fela Minko look at those people who are lower than you in the dunya and don't look at those who are above you and and because I mentioned this in detail for US dollar intestinal now much like that is it is something which if

you do you can deny the blessings of God you always go look at that. We'll look at the age of Instagram people look at people's cars of Bugatti and this one on that one. We think I wish I had ELA Teddy with them, it will tear carbon. I wish I was given that wish cartoon was given. What do you mean? Are you not thankful for what you already have? You're probably especially if you're listening to this in the English language understand that you'll probably have more than 95% of the world's population what's wrong with us? That we can't thank Allah subhanaw taala for these things. The reason why and in fact Hill has mentioned this for two main reasons we're heedless offline and

journal were ignorant and where he lists because of the age of distraction when tied to

Old. So we need to remind ourselves of the blessings of God when taught to Namath a lie that saw her. And Allah says if if you count the amount of blessings that He gave, you will not be able to enumerate the biochar Calimesa tomorrow. And he gave you from all that you asked for some other verses in the Quran Subhan Allah, how ungrateful we have been.

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