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.