Yasmin Mogahed – Why Do People Have To Leave Each Other?

			Assalamu alaikum This is Jasmine Mujahid and you're listening to serenity streaming live on one
legacy radio. Today we're going to be talking about something which is sort of a personal struggle
that that I have had myself and something that I wanted to share with you in order to sort of share
my own lessons and my own realizations and hopes that maybe that can help those out there, who
struggle with the same types of, you know, things that I struggled with, really, throughout my life.
And I wrote, I wrote recently an article about this, this this particular aspect of my personality
and kind of what I came to realize through my experiences in life and, and you know, something
		

			really amazing happened, I think, when I share that experience with people is that people really
responded and I think people really, you know, saw themselves in, in those experiences, my own
experiences and, and really could relate. And so I want to share it inshallah today, with you on air
and one of the things I want to do is really encourage you, too, you know, give your feedback and,
and, you know, join in into the discussion. On the chat box. We want to hear from you. We want to
hear, you know, your questions, your thoughts, your reflections, your your experiences, this show is
for you. So please do participate in the chat box. We want to hear from you. So basically, when I
		

			was 17, I had a dream. And it was an interesting dream. I was sitting in the masjid. And a little
girl came up to me in the masjid. And she asked me a question. And the question that she asked me
was an interesting question. She asked me, Why do people have to leave each other?
		

			And it was, it was interesting that the question was chosen for me, because I was someone who this
was, this was an aspect of life, which was very difficult for me, even as a child, it was really
difficult for me to let go of things, I got very, very attached to things and I and I got very
attached to many things. And one of the things that I would get attached to was other people. And
one of the things that would hurt me a lot was when people had to leave, or I had to leave. So
separation was something that was very, very difficult for me. And even as a child, my parents used
to say that, like, if I started crying, it just wouldn't stop very easily. So it was like I was I
		

			was very, very sensitive. And, you know, if you if you upset me, it was it was very difficult for me
to recover easily. And, you know, if my parents, you know, like, if they dropped me off at,
		

			at the daycare, other people, you know, usually kids, you know, you see with your kids at the drop,
you know, some kids, they just get over things more quickly, I wasn't like that, you know, I would,
I would cry for a long time when they would, when they would, when they would leave me. And, and
basically, throughout my life, you know, this temperament was sort of carried on throughout my life
where I became, I was the type of person who always needed a best friend, I always needed to have
somebody, you know, like a relationship that I could depend on. And I used to put a lot of stock
basically, I used to put a lot of my, I used to invest a lot in my relationships. And, and one of
		

			the things that I used to do was, I would have very, very, very high expectations of the people
around me and of everything, in fact. And so basically, what came along with this type of
temperament and with this type of personality was sort of like constant disappointment, where it
would be like I would, because I would expect so much from people and I would put so much of my own.
		

			My own my own self worth, and my own happiness was so dependent upon these, these relationships that
that I would end up inevitably being disappointed over and over. And it was kind of like, if you
think about if you take a vase, and you put the vase at the edge of a table, and what's gonna happen
is that inevitably, when you put a vase close to the edge of the table, what's going to happen is
that vase is probably going to get knocked off. And when it gets knocked off, it it shatters, it
breaks. But the problem wasn't, you know, that, that these vases kept breaking, it wasn't a problem
with the vase itself wasn't a problem with these people that kept letting me down. It was a problem
		

			with the fact that I kept putting the vases at the edge of tables. Because what was happening is
that through my attachments, I was dependent on my relationships to fulfill my needs. So I allowed
those relationships to define me. They defined my happiness, my sadness, my fulfillment, or my
emptiness, they define my security and even sometimes my self worth and so on.
		

			Just like those vases, they that, you know, if you put there, they'll inevitably fall through my
dependencies, I was really setting myself up for disappointment. And I set myself up to be broken.
And that's exactly what happened. And that's what I found, it was one disappointment, and one break
after another. But here's the key point here. And that is that the people who broke me we're not to
blame any more than you can blame gravity.
		

			Because the vase broke, right? We can't blame the laws of physics when we hold on to a twig. And
then it snaps because we held onto it to support us, because that twig itself was never created to
carry our weight. Our weights can only be carried by Allah subhanaw taala. And we're told in the
Quran, Allah subhanaw taala tells us in certain bahara, and this is verse 256, of tillbaka chapter,
which is chapter two, whoever rejects evil and believes in God has held on to the most trust, worthy
handhold that never breaks. And God hears and knows all things. So there's a really crucial lesson
in this verse. And that's that there's only one handhold that never breaks, there's only one place
		

			where we can lay our dependencies. And there's only one relationship that really should define our
self worth. And there's only one source where we can really seek our ultimate happiness, fulfillment
and security. And that one place is God. But here's the problem. This world is all about seeking
these things. Everywhere else, we look everywhere, but in God for these things, we look everywhere.
But God for our happiness, our fulfilment, our security, our self worth. And, you know, some of us
will seek it in our careers. Some of us seek it is seek it in wealth, some of us seek it in status.
And some like myself, seek it in our relationships. And, for example, in her book, Eat, Pray, Love
		

			Elizabeth Gilbert, this is you know, bestseller. She talks about she describes her own quest for
this type of this, this happiness. And she describes like moving in and out of relationships, and
even traveling the globe in search of this type of fulfillment. she seeks that fulfillment
unsuccessfully, in her relationships, in meditation, and even in food.
		

			And that's exactly where I spent much of my life trying to seek this inner void. So it was really no
wonder that the little girl asked me this question in my dream, because really, the question was a
question of loss of disappointment. It was a question about being let down a question about seeking
something and coming back empty handed, it was about what happens when you try to dig into concrete
with your bare hands. Not only do you come back with nothing, you break your fingers in the process.
And I learned this lesson. I didn't learn this lesson by hearing it in a lecture, I didn't hear this
lesson. I didn't learn this lesson by hearing it from a wise person. I learned this lesson by trying
		

			it again and again and again. And so that little girl in the dream was essentially my own question,
being asked to my own self. Ultimately, the question was really about the nature of this life, as a
place of fleeting moments and temporary attachments. it as a place where people are with you today,
but they leave or they die tomorrow. But see, the problem is that this reality, it hurts our very
being, because it goes against our nature. The thing is that we as human beings are made to seek and
love and strive for what is permanent and what is perfect. We're made to seek what is eternal.
		

			But we seek this, if you think about it, we seek this because we weren't actually made for this
life. If you remember our first and true home was Jen was paradise. And Jenna is a land that is both
perfect and eternal. And so this yearning that we have inside of us is a type is something that's
very natural.
		

			And it's it's you know, this is something that, that that Allah subhanaw taala put in us because
really, we were not created for this life we were created for Jenna. But the problem is that we try
to find that here. And so what we do is we try to make this dunya into a paradise right? We try to
fulfill that that need that we have inside of us that yearning we have inside for us inside of us
for what's perfect and what is forever. And so as a result, we create angels
		

			creams, we create cosmetic surgery. And it's a desperate attempt to hold on, and a desperate attempt
to mold this world into what it is not, and will never ever be. And that is exactly why if we live
in this dunya with our hearts, it will break us. That's why this dunya hurts us. It's because that
the definition of this life the definition of dunya, as something which is temporary and imperfect,
by definition, goes against everything we are made to yearn for, see a lot put a yearning in us that
we can own that can only be fulfilled by what is eternal and perfect.
		

			But by trying to find that fulfillment in what is fleeting, we really are running after a hologram
or a mirage. We really are digging into concrete with our bare hands. Seeking to turn what is by its
very nature temporary into something eternal is like trying to extract fire from water what ends up
happening, you just get burned. And only when we stop putting our hopes in dunya itself. Only when
we stopped trying to make dunya into what it is not and what was never ever meant to be, which is
Jenna, will this life finally stop breaking our hearts? inshallah I'll go ahead and take a break now
and please do write your comments, your thoughts, your reflections into the chat box.
		

			Welcome back. This is his name Mujahid and you're listening to serenity on one legacy radio. And
we're talking today about disappointment. We're talking about being let down. We're talking about
basically why this dunya breaks our heart over and over and over. And we have a couple questions
from the chat box which inshallah I'm gonna I'm gonna go ahead and read and address one person
asked, I have heard that the best gift Allah subhanaw taala has given to us in this life is
friendship. So would it be wrong to have a close relationship with a friend? Absolutely. It's not
wrong to have a close relationship with a friend and in fact a Lost Planet. Allah gives us many
		

			gifts in this life. But here is the key point. One of the gifts that are lost without it gives us is
friendship. One of the gifts that allows parents it gives us is the marital relationship allows
pentatonic says in the Quran that women AR T and Haleakala come in and full circle as well as and
later schooner, la Ha. And he says, what's meant the meaning of this area is that one among the
signs of Allah subhanaw taala is that he created for you spouses from among yourselves, that you may
dwell in tranquility with them. And then he goes on to say that he created between those spouses
mawatha and Rama, that love and mercy and this is a les proctitis says that this is a sign of Allah
		

			subhanaw taala. So these are obviously these are gifts that Allah, Allah gives us. In addition to
these gifts, one another gift that Allah subhanaw taala gives us is money, right? Allah gives us
money as a gift. But here's the problem. The problem is when we take the gift and we become
dependent on the gift instead of being dependent on Allah subhanaw taala it's when we take that
money, and we put that money in our hearts. And that money is is it takes takes up a part of our
heart instead of Allah subhana wa Tada. So, it's, it's, it's, you know, a lot of data is our head he
loves to give to give us gifts. And and we ask Allah subhanaw taala to never deprive us of his
		

			gifts. But the main The key here is that when we get those gifts and they become a test for us, when
we take those gifts and we love them more than we love Allah subhanaw taala or we depend on them
more than we depend on Allah subhanaw taala and so the main point here, it doesn't have to do with
loving, you know, loving people, you love people and in fact you you may seek help from people. But
the key here is realizing that all of these things are only a gift from Allah subhanaw taala they
cannot actually harm you or help you except by the permission of Allah subhanaw taala and you know,
again, our dependency and our and our reliance our teleco needs to be on Allah subhanaw taala not on
		

			these gifts of Allah subhana wa tada because he's the source, you know, and it's like, it's like, if
I'm, you know, I think that my provision is coming from my salary or from my boss, then I have lost
sight of the source Allah subhanaw taala is the source and it's the same thing with with our
relationships that Allah subhanaw taala is the source and that's why you'll find in this area where
it talks about the marital relationship or the that romantic relationship between a man and a woman
that romantic love that moment.
		

			That Rama, that mercy and that love. He says Allah subhanaw taala says it's a sign of Allah subhanaw
taala it's, it's something to show us that Allah is so imagine if Allah gives us this mercy and this
love between two people. Imagine the mercy and love of Allah subhana wa Tada. It's to make us
realize a loss of pancreatitis, mercy and love. It's to make us think Allah subhanaw taala it's a
sign of him. Now another question that we got in the chat box. And please continue to you know, give
us your feedback. Give us your questions, we want to hear from you in the chat box. Another
question, shouldn't we keep in touch, even if they treat us badly, or leave us? And this is a
		

			beautiful question. And in fact, this was the Sunnah of the prophet to live send them, he said that
the prophets I send him said that he used to keep keep in contact and keep and and and, you know,
try to stay in contact even with those who try to cut him off. And he would be kind, even to those
who were not kind to him. And so this absolutely is this is the way that we should interact with
people. But you have to notice something very, very deep here. This is only possible when you have
the correct perspective, which is what I'm what I talked about in the first half of the show. If my
dependency is on that person, then everything I give to that person, I expect to be repaid by that
		

			person. You see, if my dependency is on the person, that means that that I need them to repay me.
But if my focus is on Allah subhanaw taala, and my transaction is not with that person, but my
transaction is with Allah subhanaw taala, then even if somebody is not good to me, I can continue to
be good with them, because my reward and my transaction is not with them, my reward and my
transaction is with Allah subhanaw taala. And that is only possible when you're able to see things
in this way where your ultimate dependency, and your ultimate source of fulfillment and happiness
and reward. And this is key that your ultimate set, your ultimate reward isn't coming from the
		

			person themselves. You're not dependent on what you're getting from the person themselves. Your
ultimate reward is coming from Allah subhanaw taala. And so your dependency is on his reward, and
not on that person's reward. And I mean, honestly, when you The closer you can come to this, the
more you really become liberated because you no longer you're no longer go up and down, depending on
how people are with you. Right? You're not sad one moment when the people are, you know, people like
me today people are nice to me today. So I'm happy, right? And then tomorrow, while they're not nice
to me anymore, they don't like me anymore, or they or they hurt me or they do something to me, which
		

			hurts my feelings. Now I'm not on now. Now I'm down. So basically when you when you live in that way
you give people the power to control you. You give people the power to control your happiness, your
sadness and and and that's because you have made your dependency on them rather than Allah subhanaw
taala so inshallah you know, if you if please do continue to write, we want to hear from you. What
are your thoughts? What are your questions? One of the things I want to go on and and explain is
this, that nothing happens without a purpose. nothing, not even broken hearts and not even pain.
Never think that whatever pain you're going through whatever hardship you're going through whatever
		

			broken heart you have encountered, happened without a purpose. it for sure happened with a purpose
and that broken heart and that pain are lessons and signs for us. They are warnings that something
is wrong. They are warnings that we need to make a change. Just like the pain of being burned is the
thing that warns us to remove our hand from the fire. emotional pain warns us that we need to make
an internal change that we need to detach. Pain is a form of forced detachment. If you think about
it, like the loved one who hurts you again and again and again. The more this dunya hurts us, the
more we inevitably detached from it, and the more we inevitably stop loving it.
		

			And pain is also a pointer to our attachments. That thing that makes us cry. That thing which causes
us the most pain is where our false attachments lie. And it's in those things which we are attached
to, as we should only be attached to Allah Subhana Allah, which become the barriers on our path to
Allah. But that pain itself is what makes us makes the false attachment evident. That pain creates a
condition in our life that we seek to change. And if there's anything about our condition that we
don't like, there is a divine formula to change it. Allah subhanaw taala tells us in the Quran
Verily, never
		

			Will God change the condition of a people until they change what is within themselves. And this is
chapter 13, verse 11. So you'll notice that the fact that we keep getting disappointed by dunya is
exactly what is making us detach from dunya. So it's like, it's like you're holding on to something
so hard, and it keeps on hurting you and hurting you and hurting until eventually you have to let
go. And this is, this is a mercy of Allah subhanaw taala that he gives us that this dunya hurts us
that this dunya causes us pain. The reason why this is a mercy is it pushes us towards Allah
subhanaw taala it pushes us to stop loving this dunya and to stop putting our hope in this dunya and
		

			instead put our hope and our focus and our love to Allah subhanaw taala. Now for me, after years of
falling into the same pattern of disappointment and heartbreak, I finally began to realize something
profound. See, I had always thought that the love of dunya meant being attached to material things.
And I wasn't attached to material things. I was attached to people, I was attached to moments, I was
attached to emotions. So I thought that love of dunya just did not apply to me. What I didn't
realize was that people, moments emotions are all part of dunya what I didn't realize is that all of
the pain that I had experienced in my life was due to one thing and one thing only love of dunya.
		

			As soon as I began to have this realization, a veil was lifted from my eyes, I started to see what
my problem was, I was expecting this life to be what it is not and was never meant to be perfect.
And being the idealist that I am, I was struggling with every cell in my body to make it so it had
to be perfect. And I would not stop until it was I gave my blood, sweat and tears to this endeavor,
making the dunya into Jenna. This meant expecting people around me to be perfect, expecting my
relationships to be perfect, expecting so much from those around me. And from this life,
expectations, expectations, expectations. And if there's one recipe for unhappiness, it is that
		

			expectations. But here is where my fatal mistake lies. My fatal mistake was that was not in having
the expectations itself. As human beings, we really we should never lose hope. The problem was in
where I was placing those expectations and that hope, at the end of the day, my hope and my
expectations were not being placed in God, my hope and expectations were in people relationships
means ultimately, my hope was in this dunya rather than rather than in Allah. And so what I came to
realize was a very deep truth. And a I began to cross my mind, okay, and I'm going to share this a
inshallah. And then I'm going to ask you to go to the chat box. And then we're going to wrap this
		

			up. But this area was it started to sort of cross through my mind. And then I realized that this
area was describing me and the area says chapter 10, verse seven, those who rest not their hope on
their meeting with us, but are pleased and satisfied with the life of the present. And those who
heed not our signs. See by thinking that I can have everything here, my hope was not in my meeting
with God, my hope was in dunya. But what does it mean to not place our hope in dunya? And here I
just want to give some practical, you know, some practical steps, and then shall go to your
questions. How can this be avoided? What the way what it means to not put your hope in dunya means
		

			that when you have friends, don't expect your friends to fill your emptiness. When you get married.
Don't expect your spouse to fulfill your every need. When you're an activist, don't put your hope in
the results. And when you're in trouble, don't depend on yourself. Don't depend on people depend on
God. seek the help of people but realize that it's not the people or even your own self that can
save you. Only Allah subhanaw taala can do these things. The people are only tools and means used by
God and they are not the source of help or aid or salvation of any kind only Allah is the people
cannot create even a wing of a fly unless panel data tells us in the Quran. And so I'm going to
		

			inshallah, go ahead and take some questions. One question is, I understand that ultimately the
source of everything is from Allah subhanaw taala but I struggle with having a balance and still
living this life rather than secluding myself and and this is a good question because
		

			You know, the point here is that Islam does not tell us to seclude ourselves. Islam tells us to have
to have everything. See, when people say balance, I feel like that's not necessarily the right way
to look at it. I see that the way we should really look at it is that we have one goal and
everything else has a means everything else is a vehicle to get to that goal. So I want to get to
you know, San Diego, and I'm going to get there using a car I'm going to get there using a bike I'm
going to get there using a train, but I want to get to San Diego I only have one goal. And and and
the and the point here is that we only have one goal and that's Allah subhanaw taala and being with
		

			him and Jenna inshallah and everything else in this life, our work our relationships, our emotions,
our our school is just a vehicle to bring us to Allah subhanho wa Taala and that's really I think
the way that we need to conceptualize everything in this dunya according Holly Heather was toffolo
Lila come in Nova una Rahim. So panicle ovahimba conditional LA LA LA and welcome to Blue Lake was
Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato.