You Can Win In This Life…BUT START NOW

If our highest purpose in life as a

human being is khilafa, is stewardship of the

creation,

then we should know that we don't deserve

that

role until we've purified ourselves

and we've improved ourselves.

And so Abagal al Suhani,

then he moves into

here's the project of self reform. Here's the

project of

developing the self. How are we gonna do

it? Right. We've just established the motivation

as to

why. What are the steps? How are we

gonna get there? And he he gives 3

parables and they're all interrelated and they're all

sequential.

So the first parable he gives is that

of a boat.

So imagine that

you are on a boat. Okay. Is it

possible for a boat to stay absolutely still

on the water?

It's not really possible, especially if you don't

have an anchor. It's gonna drift this way,

it's gonna drift that way, the boats in

motion. Okay. Everybody

who exists in the world, they're on the

boat.

Whether they know it or not. The boats

moving.

Only a few people are aware

of the fact that the boat is moving

and so they're making preparations for what's gonna

happen when we hit land.

What do I need to do? What's the

first thing I'm gonna do when I hit

land? Like, what needs to be taken care

of?

Most people,

they're just asleep. They're on the boat. They're

looking at the water. They look in the

sky. All this is nice, but they have

no idea.

If we want to give a modern day

example, maybe we can compare it to a

subway or a train or something like that.

Right? The the train is not

staying still. It's moving.

And so if it's moving. Okay. If it's

moving,

how much does it make sense

to imagine, imagine this, imagine this. Okay. You

go to the subway or you go to

the train

and you've got your bag and it's full

with clothes and it's got, you know, some

things that you need for your trip.

Would it make sense to open up your

bag and just like spread out everything?

Start hanging your clothes off the railings,

you know, put your books, set up your

computer, everything as if as if you're

in your final destination, as if you're in

your hotel room or you've reached home. That

doesn't make any sense at all. Why? Because

it's just a transitional state.

You're in the train just to get from

one place to another.

It's never meant to be your final resting

place.

Right? There's something after that's going to come

and you need to be ready. Right? When

your stops coming, it's announced over the over

the intercom. You have to have your bag

in hand, all your stuff collected, and then

you need to you need to get off.

Right? Imagine this person who, under their delusion,

they thought that the train was their their

final destination and they got all their stuff

spread out and then the the captain or

the the conductor, you know, says over the

intercom, oh, here's your stop.

What are they gonna do?

They're gonna have to scramble around and gather

their things and they're probably not gonna make

it. Right? So that's the first step is

to wake up. This life that we're on,

it's like a boat or it's like a

train. It's moving.

We're gonna die. There's an afterlife.

Instead of spreading out all of our things

here

and imagining that this is our final destination,

it's not. It's actually just a train car

that's taking us to our final destination. And

so we need to have our bags in

hand

ready for the second win.

Our time is up and the angel comes

to take our soul so that we're ready

to step off that train to get to

where we're finally going. The second,

parable that Aragua El Farhadni gives when it

comes to how do we embark on this

journey of improving the self is,

is about light. And he talks about the

famous Eiyansuerta Nur,

which the chapter is is named after.

Nur run al Nur. Right? Like, there's this,

like, light upon light. And

the scholars, they have so many different interpretations

of of what this particular verse means. What

does it represent? It's very very symbolic. It's

very metaphorical

and so it's open to interpretation.

And Rong al Suhani himself,

he understands it as,

the light

of

revelation.

What happens when it is matched with the

light of intellect?

Okay. He that's what he imagines the light

upon light. There's a light that every single

person has inside of them,

which is their capacity

for intellect,

and then there's a light that comes from

outside, which is the light of revelation, a

Quran, a sunnah, the things that Allah has

given us. And when you combine those two

things,

when you use your intellect in the way

that Allah intended to submit to the revelation

and you use your intellect to apply the

revelation

and you use your intellect to,

you know, to

preach the revelation to other people to spread

it and to make sense of it in

an appropriate way,

then this is the

it's like a multiplying effect. It's amplified and

so this is how a human being is

supposed to be. This is their tools. Right?

So the first parable kind of answers the

the sense of urgency, the motivation.

Okay. I've got my Netflix show coming on

tonight. I'm gonna go watch it at 6

and I've got this other thing here and

it's all kind of

tied to my dunya and my livelihood and

things like that. What's going to give me

the motivation

to improve myself? It's the urgency that's provided

when realizing that I'm just in this train

car getting to my last destination.

What do I use? What are my tools

to improve myself? Here's these 2 tools. Light

upon light. The light of revelation and the

light of the intellect.

The 2 tools that Allah gave me. As

he said in Suratul Mulk, the two regrets

of the people of hellfire.

If only we had either listened to the

revelation or

used our brains,

right. So these are the 2 tools that

Allah gave you in order to write yourself,

in order to fix yourself.

This is what is your,

your capital

that was given to you in advance.

And the final parable that that the author

gives is that of a farmer.

Okay.

He compares the world to a field

and

the plants are like your your actions or

your good deeds.

Right? So you're going to plant this seed

and then you're going to tend to it

and then you're not going to truly harvest

it until your death. Okay. The moment of

your death, that's the harvest.

And so, if you look across from farm

to farm to farm, you're gonna see a

lot of different things. Right? You're gonna see

some people who

only planted a little bit or only planted

like a mono crop. Right? They're just like

one type of of good deed. And some

people, maybe they planted a lot of seeds,

but they didn't cultivate them. They didn't tend

to them. They didn't protect them from showing

off or from arrogance or from pride or

these sorts of things. And so they have

seeds all over the place, but then there's

weeds and there's all these other sorts of

things that have taken over.

And there's other people whose gardens are just

absolutely immaculate, you know. Everything is just so

clean and and the the fruits are enormous

and ripe and shining and

then you have some people

who they're just they're just sitting watching the

weeds grow. They didn't even plant anything.

That's the person in the train car who

spread out all their things. They think that

we're just here just to watch the weeds

grow.

Right? And so when the end of life

comes and it's harvest time, then we're going

to get to the

to the to the barn. Right? Where everything

is weighed. Okay. Everything you're gonna see everybody's

fruits on display. This person has nothing. This

person has, okay, funny looking fruit. This person

has, like, wow. Like like very, very professional

looking fruit. Like, that's going to be the

day when and then you're going to have

to pay. Right? This is also part of

the, the metaphor.

How do you get the seeds? You have

debts to pay.

Right? You gotta pay back your creditors. You

gotta pay back the person who lent you

the tools. You got to pay back for

the seeds. You got to pay for the

labor. You got to pay for all this

stuff and then you're going to find out

what's left

what's left in your scale.

Did you plant enough good deeds

in order for you to pay back all

your creditors and have something left over Or

did you waste your time? You wasted your

tools. You waste your energy

and you don't have anything.

In fact, you're still in debt. So these

these three parables

Aragav al Suhani gives us in order to

show us the sequence, the first sequence for

itself improvement is to wake up. That gives

us the urgency.

That gives us the motivation.

The second is about guidance,

right, and the tools, the innate tools and

the external tools that Allah gave us to

improve ourselves.

Revelation,

guidance

and intellect.

And the third thing, the third parable, is

meant to draw our attention to action,

Right? All this stuff is just theory,

unless we actually start doing good deeds, unless

we actually start getting into the field, getting

our hands dirty,

hoeing the garden. Right? Removing the weeds, watering

those sorts of things.

those sorts of things.