—
*This transcript was automatically generated by AI and may contain errors. *
—
As-salātu wa s-salāmu ʿalā sh-sharafī l-anbiyā’ī wa l-mursalīn, Muḥammadun Rasūlu Llāhī ṣallāhu ʿalayhi wa ʿalānihi wa ʿasabu ṣallū tisli’i wa ʿanqasīl. Muḥammadun, if you think about this life, think about it in the context of, say for example, if you are sitting in front of your computer and you move your mouse, two things happen. One is, of course, the movement of the mouse, but two things happen. One is the cursor moves on the screen, right? And then by the way you click something happens. It performs some operation. Well, life is like this, which is that we do something here and it has an immediate effect and then it has an effect in the Akhira, in the Hiram. So you smile at somebody, it has an immediate effect, which is that person feels nice, you feel nice, and it is saddakha, so it goes in your account as a good deed. Just smile at it. Similarly, everything else, if you have some charity, you are kind to someone, you are respectful to the elders, parents, whatever is the good deed. Also vice versa, the opposite, that is sins. Something you do wrong, it causes its effect here, plus it’s a debit in the hereafter. So it’s very important to keep this perspective in mind and to live our lives and to decide on our actions based on this. Not just go by, I’m doing something, I like it, I don’t like it, it’s fun, it’s not fun. So what is the effect of that in this duniya as well as in the Akhira? That’s very important. Because things can be, almost as a rule, not always, but almost as a rule, we have, this is a sad commentary on our society and how we have structured it. Almost everything which is fun, almost, I don’t mean it doesn’t apply to everything, but almost, is either useless or it’s a sin. Either it won’t earn you any benefit or it’s a sin. So we need to, even fun activities, we need to look at it from the perspective of how can I do something which is fun and which I enjoy, plus it’s giving me some benefit. Because the time you have is the same. If I spend one hour here or I spend that one hour watching something on television, one hour is one hour. Same 60 minutes. And it goes from my life, it’s not going from somebody else’s life. I can’t say let me spend one hour out of your Isha’s life. No, it’s my life. It’s my life. So how do I want this, how do I want to spend this? Because the most important thing, nobody asked me what’s the critical difference or distinguishing feature of Islam. Now I said the critical distinguishing feature of Islam is that we are accountable to Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala. For everything that we say or do, we are accountable to Allah. No matter what it is, no matter who the person is. I am accountable, you are accountable, everybody is accountable. So therefore obviously it makes sense that if I am then doing something, I will do it with that perspective. I have to give account for this. Is it something I want to do? Is it something that I want to do or I should not do? And with that in perspective, believe me, there is absolutely fantastic, you can have a beautiful life, have great fun, enjoy yourself. But as long as you keep that focus, if you lose the focus, then we go off somewhere else. Right? Now in the question, in the context of using it, when we say akhirah, also think in terms of what is the effect of my actions today in my life itself here. Like I was asking, why are you guys coming for the seminar? I was thinking here is a free seminar that is happening in UMass. Right? No limit. That kind of a seminar for that duration, two hours, usually if I was doing that commercially, you would be paying $1,500 per person. Right? Go look up AMI International catalog, see what seminars cost. The dollar value of that is $1,500 per person. You’re getting it for free. Benefit is the same. You know, somebody getting $1,500 is not getting anything more, he’s getting the same thing which I’m teaching. If you don’t go, it’s your loss. And I’ll say clearly lost because you are at a stage when how to get a fast track career is something which should be a life question for you. If it is not, then there is something seriously wrong. Right? At your ages, you are starting out in life, starting out in business, starting out in your careers. You must know what should I do, what should I not do, what helps me, what doesn’t help me. You will discover. I mean everybody, I’m not saying that if you don’t go to my seminars, you will fail. No, you won’t fail. You will learn. Maybe you go somewhere else. But otherwise, there are two ways of learning. One, you learn from somebody who knows. The second one is you learn on your own. The problem with learning on your own is that it’s expensive. And it’s painful because you have to make the mistakes. So when you make the mistake, you suffer. And not everyone learns from the mistake. This is the other big problem. People make mistakes and they make the same mistake again and again and again. So if there is somebody who is presenting you those lessons as an extract, it makes sense to take benefit of that. So think about this. Think about your actions, your time. How do you spend it? How do you track it? Before you say spend, you have to track the time. I have 24 hours. So my 24 hours, how are they going? How many hours of sleep? How many hours in what I call maintenance activities, bathing and this and that? Then what happens to the rest of the time? So sometimes you must spend in your physical development. For example, you go to the gym or go for a walk, go for a run, play some games, sport, whatever. So it is physically you are fit and you’re moving and so on. Then what else? What else do you do with the time? Even if you are in college and so on, so you have some schedules and you have to read some books and whatnot. But your own orientation to how will I use this time for my benefit? Take all the names of business people, but the same thing applies to anyone. Take for example, a guy called Sabir Bhatia. Did you hear his name? Sabir Bhatia? Anybody knows? No? Have you heard Hotmail? Anyone who doesn’t know Hotmail? Right? Sabir Bhatia is the guy who invented Hotmail and sold it to Microsoft for half a billion, 450 million pre-internet, internet-based email. So here was a guy studying in college. Obviously he was thinking. Same story with Mark Zuckerberg of how Facebook got him into it. Sitting in college, here and here is a co-inventor sitting in college in Harvard and saying, well, how can we communicate with each other and so on and create a program? Same people. You didn’t go to college alone, right? I mean, they must have been, how many thousand people were in college? Not everybody made Facebook. I am not promoting Facebook here. I am just saying that here are things where same people have, people have the same opportunities. Some will leverage their opportunities, some will get additional benefit from it. Why does this time pass? Time will pass. Time doesn’t stop anyone. Time will pass for you, time will pass for me. The question is what do you do with that time? So for that it is very important to track the time. So as I said, make a daily timetable and strike it off and say, well, so many hours of sleeping. Sleeping, you have to sleep some of hours, not necessarily as long as you sleep, but some hours plus some time for maintenance activities. Beyond that, what do you do with that time? How do you use that time? This must be clear, right? And every night write down, write down, literally write, I am saying not on your phone, keep a notebook next to you, but write down three things that you must do the following day in order of priority. That’s very important. So you think that you must do the following day in order of priority. Then next morning you already have a checklist of say, okay, I have to do these things. Start with that, start with the first one, finish it, go to the second one, finish it, go to the third one. If you get interrupted, go back to the same thing until you finish it. And make a new list every day. Don’t take the, if something got left over the previous day, don’t put it back. Don’t put it into the next day’s list unless it has value there. You do that as a conscious decision. Simple exercise. I’m teaching you a very, it’s a very simple thing, right? There’s no technology involved, you don’t need money or anything. Just structure your time, make this list of things to do, three things, three things in order of priority for the next day. Make it in the night before you go to sleep, right now. Make it absolute rule. You don’t sleep until you write that list. You can see how your life will become hugely productive. That I’ll guarantee you, you can think about it, you can tell me later how your life changes, but this will happen if you follow this. Inshallah. Inshallah.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (8.2MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | Email | Youtube Music | RSS