Where Does Happiness Come From? #04

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was submitted to me by today's my fourth haba on these two ayat of surah tunas, in these ayat I mentioned towards the end of them, Allah azza wa jal said for be Danika, for your for who who are hydrometeorology around because of all of that they should be filled with joy. And based on that statement based on that statement, I commented that these ayat contain the Quran prescription for what it takes to be happy. What does it mean to be happy? And what does it take to be happy. And earlier on in this series, I talked to you about how happiness is one of the most or if not the most common pursuit among all of humanity, human beings just want to be happy, right. And we've been

looking at the Korans building blocks for this feeling, and this goal, if you will, that is different from what we all share already. So the unique elements to this happiness that Allah has outlined and today's an opportunity to discuss the third of those elements well, who then so Allah says, The first of them in this series was Padishah, at Como, Everton rugby calm. So if you want to hear about that, you can listen to an earlier recording of this series, the second time around what she thought would be my first solo, we can't be focused in zoomed in on the second phrase healing for what lies inside of the chest. And now it's the third component that is mentioned. And that is

simply a single word well done. And it's remarkable that this the first two phrases that Allah mentioned more in Latin, and she thought when they had additional qualifiers, the scholars have another call it so now reggaeton may not have become the middle of becoming an additional qualifier. So it's not just Council is cancelled from your master. Right? So there's a qualification there. Then the in the second case, it is Shiva, one Lima for sudo. So it's not just any kind of healing, healing particular to what lies inside of our chests, our emotional and our spiritual states. But when it came to guidance, there is no paid there is no hidden min rugby COMM For instance. Right? Or

who then look, there's no qualifier at the end of that. And what that does is the lessor, it opens things up. And so we're going to look at this this term guidance, first of all, from a point of view in the Arabic language that's very important to understand, which is called a siara. And Timothy, this is this concept in the Arabic language that words paint entire pictures. So you know, when you think of a word, you don't just think of that word, that abstract word you think of an entire portrait that's being painted. And the word guidance is one of those words we use it very commonly, because it's become a religious phrase, right? So May Allah guide this person, or we are seeking

guidance or the Quran is guidance and the word the more commonly we use words, the less thought goes into them. They become

second nature, we see them without thinking deeply about them. So today's an opportunity to step back and look at the word guidance for what it is, and how it was understood even outside of the context of the art, and then apply that to what Allah is the same here, okay? So the term guidance or hidden is most directly used for somebody who's traveling. So if you're on a journey, and you need directions on where to go, then you are in need of guidance. And of course, anybody who's traveling has a purpose. So when someone says they are in need of guidance, or they're following a certain guidance, that necessarily implies that that person has a goal, that destination they want

to get to is their goal, right? So you can you can never have a conversation about guidance, without actually having a conversation about a goal. And this is true. Now, if you think about the journey example, if you think now of any other example, in any part of your of your life. If you want guidance on how to do better in school, your goal is doing better in school and you're going to get tips from someone advice from someone on how to reach that goal. That goal became your purpose, right? You can go athletes go to a coach to get guidance on how to perform better to improve on certain weaknesses that they have in their skill set. Right? You go to your professor for guidance

on a certain chapter that's giving you a hard time. The other chapter says this one's giving you a hard time, you need some extra guidance on it. And your goal is to understand that chapter better. In other words, that association I want you to make in your minds to start with his whenever there's a conversation about guidance, there's always a conversation about what about a goal about a purpose at the end? Okay, so the traveler has a purpose. The traveler is not just walking in any direction, the traveler wants to take every single step that takes them closer to the direction they want to get to the destination they want to get to. So when Allah says Hooda, then Allah has doesn't have to

mention that he gave us a goal. The goal is already understood, the goal already exists. Now human beings have been given guidance on how to attain that goal. And this is really powerful, because we in our life have many goals. We don't just have one, you can see the ultimate goal for a believer is what you know, when my alarm be Kalamunda that your master is the final end. In fact, life itself our our inhale and exhale is actually also a journey. Time is also a journey. Allah says in naka de Haan, Illa rhombic, RocketHub hand formula p you are marching relentlessly whether you like it or not two words your master and eventually you shall lead him like this life itself is a journey, the

destination of which is Allah Himself. Right? It has stops along the way, my grave is the next stop. And judgment is the main stop after that coming out of the grave, then the march towards the meeting with Allah. And I pray that Allah enters all of us into his agenda. Right. So that's, that's our next these are our goal after goal after goal and then meeting with Allah azza wa jal, these are goals. But even before all of that, in fact, every single day, we have goals. It's not even just the author, which is the ultimate goal. I have goals to accomplish every single day, you better you have many, many goals every morning, you got to wake up at a certain time because you have certain things

to finish and get to work on time, there's a project at work, you have to finish that has a goal, there's a certain amount of money you want to save, because there's a certain expense you need to fulfill or there's an investment you need to make, or there's a loan you have to pay off, or there's whatever else financial goals, academic goals, there's a there's a book you need to finish the paper you need to write, every single thing you do is made up of targets goals, and we're running after them one after the other after the other. Incidentally, I want to share with you something I read recently about a an athlete, I won't name athletes, because it's no need to embarrass them. But the

story is important. It was a professional athlete, very accomplished in his career. And he retired. And once he retired, these athletes make quite a bit of good money, right. So they're doing very well for themselves. But it turns out in a couple of years, he actually ended up going to jail for drug abuse for you know, beating up on his wife and then ended up homeless and ended up being found drunk asking people to buy him a drink and all that and his other colleagues who also retired, some of them became sports analysts, some of them wrote books, some of them did other things. They went into real estate or whatever else. And they were all close friends, and they were interviewed about

this one athlete that ended up his life and ruin and they said he couldn't find himself a goal. But he would. So in psychologists talk about this in the absence of a goal. Human beings experience three things. They experience boredom. I don't know what to do. They get bored. And boredom is actually a pretty lethal feeling. It's a restlessness inside you that I need to fill this empty space of time with something like kids in the middle of summer vacation. Right? Like it's it's almost a kind of pain. Boredom can be a kind of pain. And then associated with that when

You're bored and you have nothing to do, then your mind travels to not read because you're not engaged in reality in front of you. So your mind goes in two directions, either anxiety or depression. It goes into these directions. So, so not having a goal in the world, not in the world of Islam, not in the world of Eman in the world of psychology, not having even smaller goals, actually leads to boredom, which then is tied to anxiety and it's tied to depression. This is something people that study the human being have discovered, you know, Allah tells us in the Quran, somebody him i Atina, Phil FRP, or she and forcing him half a billion, I don't know how we're going

to show them our miraculous signs in the skies. And we're going to show them our miraculous signs even inside of themselves, even inside of themselves. Allah has revealed to us what guidance, what does that mean? Allah has given us something that constantly keeps our eyes on a goal. He's given us a goal. And it's not just like I said, In the beginning, not just the goal of Jana, what has he done, he has guided every one of my other goals. In other words, if you have financial goals, now they have been guided to be the right kind of financial goals. If you have, you know, a professional goals, they've been guided now to stay within the line of what pleases Allah. That's part of the

guidance of Allah. Right. So one of the things that guidance does is it doesn't let your goals become the wrong targets, you're not running after the wrong thing. And even if you're running after the right thing, sometimes you can take the wrong approach, right, you want to provide for your family, that's a good goal, but you want to go about it the wrong way. Allah won't just guide you to the destination, which is good you should be providing for your family, but he's going to guide you in a way that doesn't violate yourself and others in doing so doesn't approach haram means. Doesn't doesn't approach the one. So what what Allah has given us in Hooda, which is, again, the larger

subject of this series is our connection to happiness. First of all, you can immediately see a connection, people that always have a sense of purpose, don't have time, to be dwelling don't have time to sit and people talk about highly functional people that are otherwise if they have like, a day off, they become restless, right, there are people so they're so high functioning, and they're so accomplished in life, and they're very happy at work, they're very happy when they're when they're when they're active in sports or whatever else, but give them a day off, just to do just relax. They can't do it. It just it just starts bothering them. Because they're so goal driven.

They're so driven by purpose, constantly driven by purpose, that not having a purpose, even for a day or two days, then the vacation becomes a burden. The became the vacation becomes something difficult. This happens to people that are used to working, you know, men and women perhaps but also especially I know that among friends, at least men that have a job and some something happens they lose their job. Right. And in between the time of losing their job and finding the next one, they go through extreme depression, extreme bouts of sadness. Why? Because they seem they feel like they have no purpose. You know, folks that retire, you know, older folks that retire, they need to have a

sense of purpose. And what is ALLAH given us, He has given us a constant sense of purpose. Other than like, like I said, In the beginning, we share happiness with the rest of humanity. You don't have to be Muslim to want to be happy. Right? So we have something in common with them. Similarly, career goals, professional goals, athletic goals, health goals, those are all goals we share with other people too. So what is Allah adding that they don't have that we have? There's a formula Allah has given us here that other human beings don't have Allah has especially given to us. And that's what I want to bring our focus to today is that Allah has given us a higher sense of purpose. Allah

has given us every everything that everybody else calls a goal. For us. That's actually not a goal. There is another goal behind it. That's just that's just a milestone. And you should understand the difference between a milestone and a goal, right? Somebody who's in a race and the races, 100 meters, maybe 50 meters is a milestone, but they don't start celebrating once they hit 50 meters. Now they're ready to actually make it to their final goal. You understand? So for us, something like providing for a family graduating from college, getting a job, getting married, having children, whatever goals you have, whatever goals you have, all of them by the guidance of Allah, they

actually turned into milestones.

They were never your goal. They were just yet another step that you have to take to get to a larger goal and that larger goal is actually open and that's this is the tricky part that I want to make sure everybody here understands Inshallah, Allah told us in Soto salah, who learn Yama, Lu Allah Shakeela he for a book on animal demon Hua

And sebelah has a very beautiful iron total Islam. Allah told every one of us to work hard, according to the Shakeela, the predisposition, the shape, the form, that he has been created with, meaning I have been given a different set of skills, a different kind of different set of genetics, different set of talents, different strengths than you, you were given a completely different kind of mind, different kinds of opportunity, different kinds of genetic makeup, you were given something else, I was given something else, somebody else was given something else. The first thing is Allah said, work in accordance with what you have been given. What happens when we don't understand this

guidance of Allah? Everyone starts thinking, I my goals should be based on my comparison to that person, this person reached this goal, this goal and this goal. How come I didn't reach it? They didn't visit? My brother did so well in medical school. I hate biology, I'm a failure. Right? What someone not understanding the Shakeela of your brother is not your Shakeela you might be an Olympic athlete. I don't know. You might be a remarkable writer. I don't know. You're, you're something other than what was given to your brother. You know, whether that avendo ma football Allah who will be here but whom I love that Allah says in surah, Nisa, he says, Don't wish for what Allah has given

some people preference over you in Allah give someone an advantage in some things, and he made you put you at a disadvantage. And he gave you an advantage. And he gave others a disadvantage. So the first part, this these ayat, I'm tying them in. Because when Allah simply says he's given us guidance, we in other words, Guidance means we have to get to a destination for a lot of people now, especially nowadays, they're asking the question, so what's supposed to be my goal? What's supposed to be my goal? The general goals are the same. We want to we want to please Allah azza wa jal, we don't want to disobey Him, we want to be able to meet him on Judgement Day with success. That's all

understood. But you know what, beyond just staying away from haram, and doing halaal, and doing your prayers, and doing your fasting, above and beyond all of that, Allah gave you a skill set didn't Allah give you a set of talents didn't. And he wants those talents to be guided, so that even the worldly things you accomplish that degree, you get the job you get, the business, you start, even that business, even that degree, even that career, whatever you're able to do, that becomes a way of expanding guidance for others to it becomes a way of goodness being spread in the world to it's a, it's a purpose greater than yourself. It's a purpose larger than yourself. You didn't just

accomplish something to make your parents proud now that they're proud now what now what do I have to accomplish? Now? It's already done. This is all I was fighting for. That's already done. Now. I'm pretty much depressed.

And now I'm angry because I don't have a purpose. There's a larger purpose. And that purpose has to be designed by you. Based on the Shakeela Allah gave you ever had people come and say, you know, so tell me what I'm good at? No, no, no, I can't tell you what you're good at. But in San Juan de basura, you're refusing to look at yourself carefully. Look at you acknowledge the gifts Allah has given you. Allah says, Well, maybe netravati Rebecca had this what what the gifts, the blessing Allah has given you your master has given you talk about it. It's not just the external blessings. It's the internal blessings Allah has given you. The talents, the mind the opportunity that is Allah

has given you talk about it, and you how can you talk about it someone else? If you haven't even acknowledged it for yourself? How can you even do that? So when Allah gave us guidance, He gave us a real true sense of purpose, a powerful sense of purpose, which is different from the kind of sense of purpose that cultures condition into their offsprings cultures condition into the offspring. When you get to this age, you better buy a house, when you get to this age, you better get married, when you get to this age, you better have this, this job, this degree, etc, etc. These are the goals that one generation they see successful people accomplish these things. So they want that to be the

purpose for their children, right. But the world changes. And these goals change, societies change. But if if young men and women were brought up understanding that you have to define a high sense of purpose for yourself, and they'll stop comparing themselves to everybody else, they'll just have this sense of I need to accomplish something serious for myself first, I need to I need to accomplish great things. And so the last part of this which is again, part of this, this word guidance that Allah has given us, is that sometimes a young man or young woman says, I have an amazing idea. I want to teach the whole world the Quran, I want to do this. So I like big goals,

which it's amazing that you have big goals. It's a really cool thing to have big goals. It's a really great thing to have vision, but you know what happens sometimes you're sitting at a park bench talking about transforming the world and three years later, you're sitting on a park bench talking about transforming the world.

Man inshallah you know my goal

Really? Yeah. What have you done for those goals in the last year? No, no, but I have these goals to tell as soon as the opportunity opens up. You know what? The one who's traveling doesn't say, I know the city's 1000 miles away. But I'm going to get there. Oh, I'm going to get there. All right. Yeah. But did you take a step yet? No, no, no. But as soon as I find a rocket ship, I'm gonna. What? Why can't you take a step? Why can't you take a step? You know, you the fact that you don't take a single step towards a goal? And what are the first steps the first steps are to prepare yourself? You want to be a great teacher? Before you become a great teacher? You have to be an incredible

student.

Where's your where's your eagerness to become an incredible student? Let me I want to do a lot of data on a principle, okay, great. You want to give a lot of data. But you know what, before you give a lot of that, well, you better take some data yourself. And you better immerse yourself in learning, you better immerse yourself in what you want to become good at. So when you set up a higher goal, the first milestone, because we talked about milestones, the first milestone is actually conquering yourself. overcoming your own laziness, overcoming your own self doubt, overcoming your own lack of belief in yourself, overcoming your own, you know, a lack of willpower

to struggle. As soon as a struggle becomes difficult. You sit back down. Ah, yeah, my goals are still really amazing, though. But I ran out of breath a little bit. Yeah, okay, fine, you ran out of breath, sit down, catch your breath, get back on it. Let's go. We have goals to accomplish. Life is short, you got things to do. This is actually part of the meaning of what also will help me what I'll also the southern southern grit resilience is where counseling each other to the truth, we're pushing each other to push you know, because nobody can push me further than I can push myself. But the moment I'm losing a little bit of steam, I have a support system around me somebody around me

that says no, you can do more, you can push yourself more. And so when Allah says a Giacomo Satomura become what she felt will leave after pseudo well hidden and guidance than the guidance is in the word of Allah. The guidance is how valuable you see yourself. The guidance is how every one of your goals turns into a milestone for something even bigger and bigger and bigger. So you don't think small like other people do. You don't think small. And when you don't hit a single milestone, you don't feel like that's a failure. Because that was never your goal. Anyway, that just means it'll take you longer to get to that milestone. So if people are getting ahead of you in worldly things,

you're not feeling like you missed out on something in life. That's not That's not your thought process at all. Because you and even if you got well ahead of everybody else, you're not looking back at everybody who you left behind and going look at how far from those guys I've come man, we started at the same place, but look at where I am. And look at what are those guys still are. You don't feel a sense of accomplishment because you think you've beat somebody else, because the only one you're conquering is yourself. You're pushing yourself. And this this sense of guidance is self driven. Yes, we should have a support system if we can. But at the end of the day, we are the

religion of Ibrahim Ali. We are the followers of the prophets and the prophets did not have a support system. They had drive within themselves and demand within themselves. So stop waiting for someone to pick you up. So waiting for someone can you tell me something to motivate me? This is a sickness, tell me something to motivate me. Allah has given you already. Moreover, Allah has given you already she felt the office will do. Allah has given you Hoda already he's given you those things. You're just sitting there waiting as if somebody else is going to say it and then finally it will have an effect. That's because you underestimate yourself. And Allah would not give these

valuable gifts. See, look at how much Allah has done that mean of the of the HIPAA, right? The gift the gift here is the Quran. It's *, you know more as autonomy of Rebecca shifa only Murphy sudo. Hood and it's a remarkable gift and a great gift. It's not given to someone who's not worthy.

So the Whitehead is mentioned, the HIPAA is mentioned the gifts as mentioned, but the MO Huub the one the gift is given to is valuable. If you weren't so amazing to Allah, why would he give this to you? If you weren't worth it? And you weren't capable of carrying it? Why would you have it? Why would you be given this gift you are you are chosen to be able to carry this responsibility and to live up to some amazing good things, some amazing things which starts with pushing yourself I have to start with pushing myself and the moment we start sitting back and real and not and forgetting that we have a higher goal to accomplish. And we stopped becoming start becoming petty and narrow

minded like others around us that you should only feel sorry for though they seek financial, social, you know,

shallow goals, you know, goals and how many followers do you have? Or how you know how much money

Have you say what kind of car do you have like these are shallow goals. And when these become goals, then then what's the difference between us and the people who have been given this remarkable gift, we've been given something way bigger to seek after, to seek our purpose after So I pray that every one of you is able to find true purpose in this life, based on the talents, the gifts that Allah has given you. And you're able to pursue that within the guidance of Allah azza wa jal, and that you're able to find the willpower and the strength to really refine yourself, to beat yourself up to truly you know, enable yourself to meet your full potential. Now you can leave this is the last thing I'll

share with you how you can live fuller, who knows and allows Aha, Allah did not burden any person except with their own water was aha, this is lava is really interesting. It's got two dimensional meanings. One, Allah does not put a burden on you more than you can carry. That's one everybody knows that meaning. The other meaning of this also is Allah did not burden you with anything except with your own potential. In other words, nobody else knows your potential. Somebody else might be really impressed with you that you've accomplished so much, you've done so much, but you know, you didn't even touch 10% of your potential. And Allah made you responsible to live up to the potential

that he gave you. Your wisdom is much bigger than what people see. And what even my you have, you might have seen in yourself. So the gift Allah has given us is one of us not under estimating ourselves and living up to the remarkable guidance that He's given us. This is why that the Sahaba saw value in themselves. They saw the the the responsibility in themselves that were able to transform the world as we know it. They really they just transformed the world as we know it. And I pray that mentality, that mindset that strong grit full mindset, embeds itself, especially in our young generation, that they don't run after shallow goals. But what everybody else considers a major

accomplishment. You just consider a milestone to get you ready for the next one. Mark Allahu Allah kung fu Qurani Hakeem on a new year.

hamdu Lillahi wa salatu salam ala everybody. Ladino Stouffer also had offered him Mohammed Ibrahim, Mohammed. Meanwhile, early he also had the EH my name, Allah azza wa jal, Vicki Wu Karim Bada and Buddha arugula him in a Shakeology in Aloha woman, Erica, who you saw Luna island you handed in Amanu Sallu alayhi wa sallam Lucas Lima Allahumma Salli ala Muhammad Ali Mohammed masala Tala Rahim.

Allah mean in the middle Majid Allahumma barik ala Muhammad and Muhammad Ali Ibrahim Ibrahim Alameen in the Middle Ages, about Allah, Allah insha Allah in Allah he will it will extend what he is in quote about when Halle fresh out you will one cup full of equal love we have never met up in Salah in nosological Mini Nikita Makuta