Nouman Ali Khan – Where Does Happiness Come From? 02
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
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me. Today is the second installment of a series of covers I intend to give on the source of happiness. Where does happiness come from? Last week I introduced the topic by discussing some things about I am number 58, absolutely yours, we're going to work our way backwards and look at some things from the same soul outline number 57. Where it allows us to actually describes the components that one needs of their life, to get to a place where they're actually genuinely happy. Very mind that the Koran gave a different definition for things that we use conventionally. So for example, success, right? So we have in life doesn't matter what culture you and I come from, even
doesn't matter for most people or religion they come from they have similar ideas of what success means a good career success, a good education success, a good financial situation is accepted as success, health success, these are things that we associate with success. Similarly, we have similar definitions of happiness, similar definitions of enjoyment, the nature is similar, right? So it's not just because we belong to the religion of Islam and somebody else's a Hindu, or somebody else's, a Christian or somebody else's an atheist, doesn't mean that their ideas or their emotions towards happiness towards success towards sadness to triumph and difficulty are different. In fact, Allah
said, we were all created in the same kind of struggle element in Santa Pika, right? So we have the same trials that fall on you and me are the same kind of trials that fall on anybody else, doesn't matter what their religion is, right? But what is the prime do In addition, so we have this common human experience. But what Allah does is he offers us an additional insight, additional wisdom that could only come from him about some of these things that we take for granted, like, for example, success, you and I have a definition, like every other human being of success, but I'll add something to that definition that only a believer has. So now everybody else can see success the
same way. And maybe a percent of that is true for us, too. But there's something else that's been added, that redefines it for us. Same thing with loss. Same thing with, in fact, happiness. And that's actually one of the things we're trying to accomplish in this attempt contemplating is number 57. And 58 are sort of unison, is that Allah is in fact talking about happiness. But
because of that, they should be filled with joy. They shouldn't be over overly happy. They should, they should be overjoyed. So Allah is talking about happiness, but he's talking about it from a point of view. And only at the end of the day, there's a dimension of it that only a believer can truly understand. And experience. So what that does that, for us is something really interesting. there's a there's a kind of happiness that human other human beings can't even imagine. Like, it doesn't exist for them. It only exists for us, there are other kinds of happiness, they can go to Six Flags and want to write and feel happy. And we could do that too. Right? There are elements of
happiness that we have in common with everybody else. But there is a dimension of happiness that is unlocked in the Koran, that if you if you meet these pieces, if you if you have these pieces of the puzzle in your life, that you will experience a kind of divine happiness that is not accessible to other human beings. And that's what we're trying to get to that real truth missing component of happiness. Because at the end of the day, it's easy to say, Well, I know a lot of our sons, they seem happy to, they're happy, and that's true. You can be happy. They can be but there's a side of it that they don't even know exists. And that's the side that we're trying to
And in fact, this one side of it effects all the other dimensions of happiness to effects all of them. So here's where we want to begin. So here's one for me, I said this is towards the end of, you know, really the thick of
the beginning of it. There are two major debates that are happening that the Quran to the Prophet is actually engaged in a very intense back and forth with people who don't believe in. And there are two major subjects, one, whether or not the Brahma is made up by a human being, or is it from a lower notch? Okay, so is it moved on? Is it made up? Or is it? Is it the word of Muhammad Sallallahu Sallam or is it actually revelation? And why is this such a hard thing to accept, because one of the claims of the Koran is very difficult for them to accept. And that is the claim of judgment that is coming. The claim of the afterlife, that is correct, there's a life that's coming up with this
stuff. This is one of the big reasons for them to think that this, these words that are coming are just a fantasy. They're just this crazy story. There's no reason to believe it. And the debate about that, why should you believe this is the word of Allah? And why should you believe that there's an afterlife, that's definitely on its way. That's the conversation that's been happening in sort of units up until now. So we're talking about, I remember 57, this is what's been happening from the beginning all the way to 56. Okay. Now, that's important to know, because now, this conversation is happening with those who are aggressive against the law, they already have an opinion towards the
bar, that it's nonsense to them. It doesn't make any sense. But it's a light, and it's a propaganda to them. It's the enemy's word to them. So there's an ideological conflict that's being talked about. And then Allah takes a pause from that conflict, and turns to the rest of society. So this is really important, because you know, the loudest people in the world, they can get on media and get into debates, right? And the majority of the people are silently watching. They're just silently watching a debate. And the majority of the people are not this way, or that way. They're just watching the show. They're just the silent majority, right? So just because some guy who speaks out
against this law, or somebody who is debating has millions of views on his video, doesn't mean that all the people who watch the video are on his side. They're just spectators. So what does that look like acknowledges that there's a debate going on, but the debate is not happening with everybody. It's happening with the prophets of Allah, a handful of believers and a handful of very aggressive shaking.
But then there's the rest of Africa. There's everybody else. They're just the silent majority. What about them? So what that does now as he takes a pause from that domain, and he turns to the entire majority, and said essentially says, you don't have to have a preconceived bias towards what the Koran is, or isn't you should approach this invitation, this word of Allah from scratch with no previous preconceived notions. And so the IRS begin Yeah, are you handouts, humanity, people, people, this is not the machine if you've not yet you have confusion that you have.
Another thing is, yeah, you and ask people. So it's an open invite to everybody else. And in those words, what's embedded is You and I are supposed to undo the debates we've heard. And so what does that mean for us right now? 2021 as we're listening to this, what that means is Muslims and non Muslims alike, we have certain assumptions about what the Quran has to say.
What the Quran means for me in my life, what its role is and sometimes miss information about that comes from non Muslims. And other times misinformation comes about that from Muslims. Muslims are also often misinformed about what the Quran really says or what it's supposed to me, what role is it supposed to play in my life? Now I'm going to lead those is believer and unbeliever all of humanity are put in one address. Yeah, you guys. And we're basically being told start from scratch. Start over, renew your connection with the Quran. And here's how you define it for yourself. And if you define it in this way, this might have something to do with what I what the real subject is
happiness itself, Joy itself. So what does he say? He says from the moment
that a council, a powerful Council, certainly has come to you from your master. Now this statement, we're going to try to unpack it a little bit and learn something from this first portion of item number 57. Today, I've given some thought about this idea before so I'll you know, remind you of some things about the word moment that's being used. It comes from the word love in Arabic or Wow, bah, bah, bah. And this is actually
qalamoun 11
So this is any speech or any action, any gesture that brings a human beings attention to the consequences of what they're about to do. Moreover, when I translate is counsel, so I'm we're getting more technical. Now, what Moore's law means in the Arabic language is, when you tell somebody something, or you show somebody something by actions, that is making them realize that what I'm about to do is going to have certain bad consequences. So I should stop from what I'm just about to do. So you're about to do something stupid, you're about to do something that was gonna hurt yourself, you're about to see something that wasn't going to be good, you were going to land
yourself in trouble and moan about the purpose of mower is somebody have a word to you, or you saw something, you saw someone acted a certain way, and you realize about yourself, man, I need to, maybe I need to rethink what I was about to do. Right. And that if you took that from the speech, or somebody else's action that you have taken moment, so what we have to keep in our mind, so it's essentially, the kind of speech where you're not just telling someone to do this, and don't do this, you're trying to help somebody understand, if you do this, then here are the bad consequences that might come to you. Or if you do this good thing instead, here are the good things that might come
your way. Right? So you know, often we when we want somebody to do something, or not do something, we just say, do this, don't do this. I got kids, you know, do this. And the most annoying question kids ask is why? Why can't I do it? Why can I you know, the why question. But why is at the heart of being human, like you can't do? You can't really stop yourself from doing something if you don't understand why should I saw, you're really not going to commit yourself to do something until you really understand why should I do this. And a lot of what we do in life is hard. It's hard work. And a lot of things we should start from, like that food tastes really good. Right? It just tastes
really good. And so sometimes stopped meeting junkies and why it is so good. Why, then somebody needs more Eva, right? Or they need to see somebody who's in the hospital because they eat the same kind of food for several years. So they're like, Oh,
can I can we get it? Right? So they're taking more time off from somebody speech, or something. That's a little bit about the word, but the actual word in Arabic is unwell. And
these are the words that are used in the Arabic.
But Allah chose instead, the word mo Eva, with a beam in the beginning, Adama, this is not a soft classroom. But I will tell you that this form of the word is used this this is mean is this Muslim, maybe it's called, it's done to take a word and make it feel a lot heavier. So if this was being translated as the word counsel, or advice, or a sense of consequences, and it would have to be all capital and bold, and the font size might have to be a little bit bigger, because no one is with the meme in the beginning of it, and it's mobile. Right? So it's very serious, create powerful counselors come to you. And what happens on top of that is, this is called a muscular infinitive.
And infinitives in the Arabic language should typically come with in the beginning, so punja at
any moment, but Allah not reveal the idea here. There is no it is not one, it's more about what that mean, is unexpected. What that does for English audiences, is it makes it grant. So it's grant for several reasons. It says it allies and I was trying to translate that in English. counsel, do you understand counsel, advice has come to you from your restaurant, it's not a small word. It's not being said in a small way. And then appreciate the other side of this. The word job, which means to come making that job and the school modular project, you might be familiar with the word, right? Well, Council, the idea of the verb to come or to arrive is actually a metaphor. It's a figure of
speech. It's not literal, because advice doesn't come to you. A person comes to you. Right? an advisor comes to you, right? And it's actually a metaphor for how to reach like, you know how they say the news has reached me. The news reached me. So Well, first, let's understand the difference between advice has reached me. And advice has come to me. Let's understand the difference between those. You know what can reach you, the air can reach you a sound can reach you. Two people are arguing on the street and you're walking, you're walking by and their argument reached your ear, which means it wasn't meant for you, but it still reached you anyway. You understand? news can
spread. The tension wasn't that the news was meant for you, but it reached you anyway. You overheard so reaching
can happen by accident. when something comes to you. when something comes to you, you know whether it was directly meant for you. It was specific for you. So not only is this council remarkable, it's great. It's a huge deal. But it specifically came for you a job, more ethical, it came from all of you. Then there's the other side of it, which is as diverse as
they come. So if you if we ran into the attacks on lower income people, as opposed to
going to Law Review, I thought it was used if I just came home a database, I came home.
But if I came from a long distance, and it was a really difficult journey, then it would be in classical Arabic. It's actually in both my shop guys hard work. It's not an easy thing. What am I indicating there is not only is this very powerful advice, not only is this specific to me, but it came from a long distance. It came from the heavens, humble way to use specifically a special package for you, you know how people get excited. When they see an Amazon package at their door, then they say, Oh, it's for dad, like they gave me
like a package just for you. You know, and then the more you had to wait for something, because it came from a longer distance is being shipped from China or somewhere and you came with lots of stickers. Now you're more excited because it came from a longer distance. What Allah has done for humanity hears people, all of you listen up. Some really beautiful, powerful bit of advice. Grant advice has come all the way just for you. On John's Good lord.
Okay, fine. That's, you know, we got this far. But then there's the other component, which is counsel itself, I told you the technical definition is when you make somebody aware of the consequences of what they write, that's not always a comfortable thing to hear. Like, if your friend told you grow up, one, stop doing that, then you don't want to be the friend anymore.
Like,
I thought we were friends. Why are you talking to me like this? Why are you always correcting me? Why are you pointing that out? And if family tries to correct you, can you stop you starting again? It's not Juma. You don't have to give me a hug.
But
you can get annoying because somebody is giving you counsel, we don't like getting counsel. We don't like because when somebody is giving you counsel, what's implicit inside what's thinking is implicit. The idea is, I'm heading in the wrong direction, I'm about to do something wrong, or I'm engaged in something wrong. I'm saying something wrong. Right? I might behavior has something wrong with it. And somebody is pointing that out. Now, our defense mechanism is when somebody points out that we're doing something wrong, or we could be doing something better than they are attacking us. And, you know, self respect, ego, pride, you name it, whatever you want to, who are you to tell me
how you see yourself. You want to give me more let me give you
you can flip it around, because you are deflecting, or you can deflect not only back to the person who's trying to give you advice, you can deflect to somebody else. You seriously, you're going to tell me what to do. Don't you know there are mass murderers out there that do a lot worse, you can advise them. I'm the only one left in the university legit lives, right? So when we're averse, we're allergic to being advised. It doesn't feel good. It doesn't. It feels like being attacked. It feels like being attacked. What's interesting about the word moment, is that the word and it contains myoglobin color that reaches into the heart. What so it's an advice. It's advice about something
that needs to get corrected. Something that could be better. But it's said in a way that instead of making you make your guard go up, and become, you know, become offended, it comes in a way that actually hits your heart. How can that happen? How can that possibly happen? The only way that can happen because naturally we are allergic to advice is the last portion of this description, moment in the description in the aisle. And that is milk from people from your master. From your nurturing master A lot has the idea of nurturing it, nurturing it, meaning someone who wants to see you Your love is not just someone who owns you, isn't just someone who has authority over you and you're
their slave. Your love ally is someone who wants to see grow, actually wants to see you mature, wants to see you receive more and more gifts. So whenever he gives you some counsel, it's actually for your own benefit. This is a relationship of very serious trust. When you're able to take advice and not be offended by let me give you a scenario. There are athletes that are training for, you know, whatever sport, right? And they have coaches, athletes have coaches. So a coach can be pretty hard on the athlete. You can say Hey, your posture is no good.
Are you doing this for me, they can be pretty tough on them. And the athlete, if they if they realize that this is a world class coach, and I'm very lucky to get coached by this trainer, then even when they're giving the toughest advice, and being the most critical, they are even more grateful that I am lucky enough to be corrected and be counseled by this trainer, because he wants me to win the Olympics. He wants me to surpass all expectations, he will take me further than I can take myself. So a real genuine athlete that wants to Excel is actually going to surrender his ego to his coach, or her coach, and the coach, can you discipline them, make them do extra laps, make them
quit certain kinds of food, make them do whatever kind of exercise they cannot eat? And you know, even when they're annoyed, they will do it because they know this, they see my success as their own success. They're invested in me. And so I'm not offended by the advice that they're giving. Right? Why does that happen? Because the athlete added certain level of authority to the coach. That's the only scenario in which that can happen. Now what happens in school? In school, a lot of you guys, especially in the American public school system, or even in the university system, you have professors, you have teachers, that so many students have genuinely no respect for them. Not at all.
So when the teacher gives you advice, or whatever,
like, it's not like he cares about me or my success. He's just doing his job. And you have this perception that this teacher is not invested in me. So why should their advice matter? The only time you take somebody's advice seriously, even especially critical advice seriously, is when you see how much they're pouring into you how much they're investing into you. And that's the only time you can take that advice to heart otherwise, it's just gonna bounce right off, and there's just annoying words, right? And so what Allah has done here, is given us an invitation by even the use of the word love, first realize what, what has a loving doing for me my entire life?
What has he been doing for me? How has he been taking care? How has he kept me healthy? When I know there are so many sicknesses in the world? How has he provided for me when there's so much bankruptcy and poverty in the world? You know, how many opportunities he has he given me that's people smarter than me never even imagined those kinds of opportunities that he gave to me. So he's been taking care of me, I know, he's giving me advice. And somehow, my immaturity makes me think that his advice is annoying, or his advice is a burden or his advices. To me live. No, his advice is the best possible thing for you're lucky enough to get his advice. You're lucky enough to get as
counsel. So before I, I conclude this clip,
this clip is supposed to be about happiness, if you remember, that's the conversation we're leading to. So it seems like we're on a completely different topic. How are we going to end up in happiness, one of the missing components of happiness in a person's life, but modern psychology might not be able to tell you is that you need someone in your life that is invested in you, and can give you tough advice, real advice, even advice that doesn't feel good when you hear even advice that exposes my flaws for what they are. They expose them for what they are. And you can recognize that even when that criticism is coming, it's coming from a place of love. Now compare this to human beings from,
okay are the people that love us the most in the world. For example, an easy example of that is our mothers, our fathers, our parents. But parents at the end of the day are also human beings. You know, what can happen to parents, parents can get in the habit of only criticizing, they find everything wrong with you. You set the wrong way, you stand up the wrong way, you smile, one way you dress the wrong way. You know, everything's wrong. Everything's just there's constant criticism and what happens to a child, a daughter or a son that's constantly being criticized, criticized, criticized, they become dumb, right? It's like mom doesn't even see anything good in. It's like
that. All he sees is I'm a walking problem. I'm just a walking disappointment. That's all I am. Right? Once it may be three aids, he might tell me he's proud of me, or once in 30 years, and I might hear those words. Otherwise, I hear nothing good from him. I only hear criticism from him. All he's got is advice about what I should be doing what I should be doing, when I should do how I could have done this better than that. Better. Regret, regret, regret, negative, negative, negative, right? But you know what, if someone's always giving you advice, then the relationship becomes blurred because there's no encouragement, there's no affirmation. A lot is not this way. When Ally's
giving counsel, he's encouraging he's filling you with hope. He's also scaring you have consequences. He's also rewarding you it's not a one way relationship. It's not a one kind of relationship. Even beans can become like that sometimes. But a lot doesn't become like that. And finally, what I want to include in this format, is a disclaimer. That was good.
It'll be a couple myself, but I want to include it here. And your thoughts are, are deeper about the subject as we try to get towards the place where we can genuinely live a happy life. So one component of a happy life is what if we don't have genuine counsel coming our way.
And we think that we don't need any advice. I don't need anybody's work. The fact that moment ago was given to all of us, you know, that means all of us are in need of more labor. Right? So I want to give you advice, and somebody says, I don't need advice on what has already said in this I, every one of you needs advice. And there's no nobody's real, nobody's doing okay. Everybody needs it, you're all you and I are all in need of it. But the scary thing here is this disclaimer that I want to tell you. And that disclaimer is that of self righteousness. So let me just explain what I mean by that really quickly. And we'll conclude to this.
What happens is I give you a scenario,
you have a fight among friends, right? And now your friends are talking trash about you online.
And you're like, oh, man, these people I thought they were my friends and look at how evil they are. I'm going to seek some counsel from Allah because Allah has given me advice and abroad, or my family, or my coworker, bla bla, bla, money, they make their schemes, and Allah makes his scheme in response. And Allah is the best schemer, and you're going to post that meme on your Facebook page or your Instagram in response to your friends that are that are trashing you, right? Because now you and you're like to yourself, you told yourself I just saw counsel from the Quran, because Allah gave me comfort by telling me, they plan and allow plans analyze the best kind of that's adorable. But
there's something very deeply wrong about that. Let me explain why that's not clear. In this scenario, what did you do you assume that the grand word of Allah, in the conflict that your your petty little Facebook conflict that you have with your friends, the great word of Allah is on team you?
Right in spiritual for you to get back at them, and you're not in the service of the word of Allah. But Allah is there unless there to make you feel better about the position you're in, you're already without any false, you're already right. And they're the ones that are wrong. And now you can cite the word of the law to justify yourself even more. This is not you humbling yourself to the word of your master, this is you humbling the words on your master to you. This is a serious problem. So when people take when you take items of honor the council ally is given. And instead of actually taking the council, you use them as a weapon, you recognize the word against somebody else, you
weaponize it against someone else. This is a mockery of the word of Allah. This is not how Council was taken. And the idea that the reading actually protects us from falling into that trap. Because of us as Yeah, you have Natsu on the job at como resort to men.
Because when you call him you're, you are no longer in a position of using his words the way you want for your belief that makes you feel better, to project yourself onto the word of Allah. But actually you and I come to it with an understanding that we are slaves for the slaves. And he has given us counsel from a position of supremacy from a position so we don't become self righteous and say this higher This is about this is what my friends
is I think about that. For a moment, just contemplate that for a moment. This was about
trying to spread the word of Allah on earth, spreading the line. And in the meantime, the glacial realizing that the profits were to spreading quickly and spreading quickly was becoming a big problem and look up and they're having late night meetings on how to take care of this problem should be getting killed. Should we pay somebody to create, you know, new scandals against thing? Should we create the allegation that he's a poet or he's stealing this material from somewhere else? How should we undo this spreading of the brahma makine they're having late night discussions about this, they're doing good macker and the propositional on the other side is not having counter
meetings on how to undo their propaganda. He's standing at Dodger. He's standing there reciting Koran, and so on the one hand is the slave of turning to a line sharing his word, and on the other people that have converters to destroy the word of Allah spreading in the world. And Allah looks at that scenario and says, Yes, they're doing that. Don't worry about that. I'll take care of that. I'll take care of that for you that nobody's seen. When a slaver Mullah is there just saying the buzzword and those whose conspire against that person, that messenger Allah will deal with them directly? You're taking that idea to use it for the beef you got between your friends or your
cousins. You see, how do you turn that something something so grand, and you turn it into something so can you so the product is for everyone grows not just about the time of the Prophet, so I have to apply universe. That's not how you apply it. There's a missing ingredient here is the love of the community.
You know,
There's a lack of humility and there's a self righteousness that somehow beforehand is always on your side which means you can't belong everybody else is wrong.
That was a question for someone who
don't consider yourselves pure. He knows better who has done what he knows better who has done so yes, we I have to encourage myself to encourage all of you to seek counsel from a buzz word with almost understand, but with that counsel, there's a way to take it. There's a way to take that and we're gonna unpack that as we as we make our journey towards finding real happiness in this life. And lastly, practice real hard in this life and in the next month with
the guidance and the light and the wisdom of the mind to all of our hearts in the hearts of our families.
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