Tamara Gray – Tahajjud Waking Soul & Society #06 How to Wake Up for Tahajjud

Let's pretend, or let's say for the moment, that, yeah, I want to

get up and pray to haju. I want to do this. You know, I really want

to implement this in my life. So how do you do it? How do I What

are some practical tips to make it happen and make it happen easily?

Let's look at the day. First we want to we want to use the day to

help the night, and then we use the night to help the day. How do

we use our day to help our night? First of all, we want to not

overeat, especially at night. So we don't want to have inospanola,

the the heavy, heavy dinners of nighttime that are actually quite

common in many different countries that I've been in are not helpful

for paying tahajjud. The habit of eating light, lightly at night or

not overeating at night is much better. Going to sleep with an

empty stomach is much it makes it much easier to wake up at night.

And we all know those of you, and I'm sure it's most of you, because

this is the way of the world today. Most of us have been on a

diet, and one of the first things they tell you, when you're going

on your diet, don't eat at night. Don't eat at night. Don't eat at

night. It's not only something that isn't good for us physically,

also spiritually, it can take away from our ability to wake up at

night. So that's one thing. Secondly, if you can take a nap in

the day, especially if the nights are short, try to take a nap in

the day, a power nap, like a 10 minute nap, a 20 minute nap, this

will also really help you to wake up at night. In fact, that in

itself, was a piece of advice from rasulallah himself, where he

advises us to seek help in eating at night for fasting, and to seek

help with a little nap in the day, for tahajjud. So now we have two

things. We have eat less in the day, or at least eat less at

night, and we have to take a nap in the day. Now, the prayer at

night is something just like anything. When you want to get it

done, when you want to start a new habit, you need to be thinking a

lot at first and less later. So in the beginning, start out by

choosing where you're going to pray. Set it up before you go to

sleep. Set out your prayer clothes. So if you are so if you,

if you don't know where your prayer clothes are, set them out.

Have them folded. Maybe iron them. Lay them out nicely. Have that

prayer carpet laid out already. Maybe have the most half open to

the place you want to recite. Have some lighting out. Put a candle

there with the thing. Don't run around the house at three in the

morning looking for something to light the candle with. You're not

going to light it. Have it there and ready. Have everything set up.

So when you get up in the morning, all you're doing is making mud and

praying,

and it's a comfortable, beautiful feeling and setting.

Now, there are a couple of things I want to, I guess, warn you about

to pay attention to because these are things that will get in the

way of developing this new habit. One of them is bitterness. A heart

that is full of bitterness, a heart that is full of grudges, is

a heavy heart, and that heavy heart is very difficult to pull

out of the bed at night. So try during the day to be aware of what

your heart is saying, what your heart is feeling, and avoid the

bitter, angry, ugly heart that is doing Riba. Riba of the heart is

when you're talking about people in your heart. Namima of the heart

is when you're slandering people in your heart. Bitterness of the

heart is when you can't stop you keep on repeating it, repeating

it, repeating. Why did they do this? Why did they do this?

All of this stuff. Try your best to become a person who's calm on

the inside, who doesn't have all of this ugly talk about

individuals or groups of people on the inside, basically become the

person we're supposed to be, become a person who follows in the

footsteps of Rasulullah, become one of our early community, one of

those who stood out in front of the rest of the world As people

who were of the best, who called for what is good and pushed back

against what is ugly. This is we are the Ummah to be this. We are

called to be the Ummah that brings forth beauty, that brings forth

positivity, pushes back on all that is ugly and harmful. A heart

full of bitterness is harmful. And let me tell you something, it

doesn't harm the person you're bitter towards. Sometimes we

think, if I'm, you know, my ain't my inner anger, oh, they'll see

they don't care. Doesn't hurt them. It only hurts you, and it

does hurt in helping to wake up for tahajjud. So that's one thing

to work on in the day, to make sure that the heart is a heart

that is clear.

Of ugliness. A second important tip for the of how to sort of a

spiritual tip out, I'll say, is to note the actions of the day. Note

the actions of the day. Do your best to have a day of goodness.

The more your day is full of goodness and kindness, the easier

it becomes to wake up at night, the more good deeds you have in

the day, the more your intention is in a good place, all of the

more the day is filled with beautiful work, actually, like the

work that we're doing to help others, to care for others, caring

for ourselves, the more this is going to give us the strength and

ability to wake up at night. Now the prayer at night is a sensitive

thing. But in the beginning, when I say sensitive, what do I mean? I

mean the prayer at night is something that,

because it fills us with gas, fills us with fuel, gives us the

strength that we need to do the work that needs to be done.

It's sensitive to a day of rafla, a day of heedlessness. So it's a

beautiful thing, because it becomes not a vicious circle, but

a beautiful circle. The sensitive night of prayer fills our day with

the strength that we need to do the deeds that we need to do, and

then doing those deeds gives us the hymn, me the strength to get

up at night and pray.

Now, if you miss it, what are you going to do if you miss it? If you

miss it, just start again. Just keep going. You missed it one day.

No problem. Keep going if you're sick and you can't get up for a

few days. Subhanallah, if you're praying before your illness, it's

as though you're praying during those days, this is the generosity

and the effect of tahejud on our spiritual lives. So set up your

space, create that habit, make a day that helps your night, and

know for sure that your night will help your day. Becoming a person

of tahajjud, begins with you, begins with me, individually, but

pretty soon the family can become a family of tehshut, and all of a

sudden now we have this beautiful home where in every corner there

is recitation of Quran, there are angels descending to listen to

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members of the family, five, six, however, member, however, many

members of the family there are, and it becomes a home of beauty

and and worship. If you are saying to yourself, oh, that will never

happen, don't. Don't get stuck there. You're not praying to make

other people pray. You're praying tahajjud, because this is the

worship of the believer. This is the worship of the Noah fill. This

is the worship the nafila. This is the worship that makes us of those

whom Allah loves. This is the strength that we need,

but also look to the beauty of the possibility of that spreading in

the home. What happens then begins to spread to the community. We as

a community, as an ummah, change. We begin to grow in strength and

beauty. We begin to become as the people of the early generation. It

is time for us to shed, to shed the the shackles of this dunya, to

shed the shackles of what holds us back in in in hardship and in

difficulty, and know that the cure for us is in tahajjud. Seek it.

Grab it. Grab it as the most wonderful, amazing gift. Make it a

habit. Make it the thing that gives you energy, and know that as

you do that, it will be giving energy to people around us. Our

masajid will grow because the boards of the masajid, the people

in the masjid, are going to grow. Our nonprofits will grow in

goodness and in health because the people of the nonprofits, the

workers, everyone is growing, our communities will grow, because as

we have spiritual strength, we will begin to reach out to the

places around us with that spiritual strength and bring

goodness. We will follow truly, truly in the Sunnah of Rasulullah

sallam. We will truly walk in the footsteps of the words of the

Quran calling out to us to be of the Ibadah Rahman calling out to

us to be of the worshipers calling out to us to be of those who pray

to hazju calling out for us to be of those who Qum Lail, who stand

at night. May Allah make all of us, of those who stand at night,

of those who benefit from the nightly prayer, of those who who

soak it in and in that soaking are able to spread it like glitter

mercy wherever we go, spread it like droplets of beauty wherever

we go, and let it, let it be of that thing that grows us,

individually, as families, as.

Communities as an ummah to be at makam and Mahmoud, ah, at that

praised and blessed state that brings us personal joy, communal

joy, global joy, sha Allah, taala, sha Allah, all of us will be of

those who pray tahajjud and be thinking of one another at night

and praying for one another. Alhamdulillah, mean Allah,

akandesino na Vienna, Muhammad, you.