Omer El-Hamdoon – Taraweeh Reminder #03 – Time to Upgrade

			So now why do you want to lie about my, the respective brothers and sisters? I asked her last time
to keep you well. And so how long? Isn't amazing how already two days from Roma Juan have gone?
That's so sad isn't this How am I so quickly we just entered this month and now, you know, it's just
running very quickly. And that's why it makes it all important that we do try to make the best of
this month. And this reminder today that I would like to give you is about how we change for the
better. Because every individual has a capacity. And you are that individual who has the capacity to
become better in any ways that you can think so how do I end it? And if you look at yourself, and I
		

			think this is something that I hope that you can take away from this reminder today is to say, How
can I you know, if I reflect on myself as an individual,
		

			and almost look at someone else, who is you but say, how is how is this other person? How can I make
him a better self? What is the better version, if you like of yourself, and I mean, every This is an
individual practice, we could have an ideal kind of scenario and ideal person or has all the top
qualities everything but that's not what we're talking about here because we're not talking about
you becoming the ideal, idealistic, maybe also unrealistic person, but we're talking about how can
you become that better person and every one of us has strengths has weaknesses. And the key is for
you to really reflect and this is why Ramadan has to be the opportunity when you're depriving
		

			yourself of food, it's designed
		

			to make you a little bit more clear in the head. So that you can think as an individual, how can I
		

			model handle what how does my better version of myself look at look like in terms of my
		

			knowledge, in terms of my a baddha in terms of my practices, in terms of my lap in terms of my
morals, in terms of my emotions, in terms of in terms of and so on, you could list so many things of
how you can be a better person, but you need to do that. Because the path of changing makes to is
important to have a process in place. And when we talk about upgrading to your better self, it means
that you have to
		

			you have to think about how do I go through a process of change. And so how long
		

			sometimes we have to actually stop and think and say okay, I need to you know, I'm here point A I
need to get to point B what is involved in this process.
		

			And I like to give an example here, which I mentioned to some of our brothers and sisters who are
who are listening in on the WhatsApp. And that is the example of how a loss pantalla shows us. You
know, as probably every creation of a lot there is examples for us to look at. If you look at the
example of the caterpillar,
		

			how Allah has made the caterpillar in a way it is it's really it's a very, it's a very amazing
creature. This Caterpillar when you look at it, it's an animal which has, you know, so many legs,
10s of legs, it has, there's no apparent wings to this creature, it is a creature that just is
ultimately eat as much as you can kind of animal is just always eating. I think some of these
biological documentaries will tell us that, you know, the caterpillar eats four times or 10 times
its weight in every day, but it's always just increasing increasing. a caterpillar is very much that
creature that is you know roaming the ground and is attached an eating and drinking and you know,
		

			getting bigger and bigger, but for the caterpillar to change for the caterpillar to upgrade for that
pathway to be the better self if you like. It means that that Caterpillar has to go through a
process and that process is a very hard process. It's a process of deprivation. You know, it's a
process of reflection is a process of
		

			You know, contemplation, seeing how can I change to become the better version of myself and it takes
a lot of work a lot of effort. And you have to make that choice as well. You know, that's a lot of
the people, a lot of people and I mean, 90, maybe 95% of people are happy with the status quo, you
know, their happiest way I know they can't see because changes is hard. It's difficult. You know,
you want to lose weight, you want to have a better physique is hard. It is extra work, you have to
look at what you eat, you look at your training regime, etc. You want to be you want to educate
yourself is process. How many times have people come to me and said to me, brother, we want to learn
		

			Arabic communities, Arabic? And I say, Yeah, fine. Let's do that. And they come for the first lesson
come for the second lesson. But then third lesson, fourth, five, it then gradually, they just start
to disappear from the lessons because they think that learning a new skill, learning a new language
learning or are learning how to use learning, understanding the deen is something that just comes
like that No change has to be by the very nature of change, it will be a hard process, it will be a
process that needs you to put efforts and Ramadan. Ramadan is designed to get you up to that kind of
process. You know, that process where you are reflecting within yourself and saying, Yes, I do want
		

			to be a better person. And I have that time to think about, think about all the bad habits that you
have that you want to throw aside. Do you think bad habits is? You know, we know, we know that, in
fact, and I'm sure you can answer bad habits, you can't just shed them aside. It's very hard, you
know, those people who especially people who smoke, for example, have some sort of addiction, you
know, you can ask them, it takes it's hard, it's not easy, it's not something it's not in switch on
and off, where you want to be a, you want to be a not just a, you know, give up the bad things, but
the good things that you want to increase in your life, you know, Hamdulillah, we're trying to get
		

			into this habit of praying in the night, we're trying to get in the habit of reading more, and we're
trying to get in the habit of so all of these things are part of the the change process that you
have to go through as well and try to make that process happen in your, in your life and struggle
to, to do that, when you look at a great examples of the people before, you know those who really
struggled to,
		

			to not I mean, if I look at the message, the messages of the messengers before they had a mission,
their mission was to convey Islam, they worked hard, they had to keep on and they changed. Not only
you know, how they dealt with things, but they changed the whole methods, you know, they were trying
different methods, trying just to attract people and look at the prophet SAW lysenko he did Tao in
so many ways, you know, he was you gave power to people, you try to encourage people to give huge
sometimes access people's generosity, you know, no generosity where people's greed, if you like,
people wanted things, so he would give them he would give them because he knew that that would
		

			unlock a key inside them, some of them wanted to see certain, you know, certain miracles happening
in front of them. And although he wasn't, you know, quick to just respond to whatever whoever asked,
but sometimes he would, he would do that, you know, he will sometimes look at people's, you know,
		

			secret inclinations, if you like, and he would, he would tap into that. So different aspects of how
the process this is all about changing methods. You look at the Sahaba, you look at the this
righteous people, the scholars, you look at the scientists, you look at the people who you know, the
inventors, you look at every aspect people who really achieve something in their life, where people
who are ready to go that extra mile, because they needed to change, you cannot expect change to
happen overnight. You know, it does take time. And rammohan gives you that impetus that you have to
start here. And you have to work hard, and you have to work on yourself so that you can achieve but
		

			unfortunately for us, what happens is we enter Oman, we are propagated, we have the enthusiasm, we
keep doing a lot of things, but we don't change our psyche. We don't change our attitudes. So we're
gonna move on and we revert very quickly back to our old ways. So the challenge for you in this
number one and now we're at the beginning is how do I change my attitude, my mentality so that after
Milan, I would have truly upgraded and not that when Ramadan ends, my whole system crashes and
		

			I just have to get a noose, new phone or new gadget or whatever, because that's what's going to
happen if you crash
		

			Then you're going to just revert back to the older system which might not be working as well. So a
lot is the time for change. Let's make the opportunity in sha Allah to Allah and we can achieve that
with the will of Allah.