Choose your memories


*This transcript was automatically generated by AI and may contain errors. *

Alhamdulillah wa’ala alamin wa salatu wa salam ala ala ashrafil al-anbiya’i wa’al mursalin Muhammadur Rasoolulahi salallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam Tasliman, kasiran, tasiran I am walking here in the Ashdir Zawahir with another dear friend of mine whose name is also Omar So I think all these Omars ask good questions so he is asking me questions He said I guess a years of time comes in your lives where your contemporaries, your elders and so on they would have passed on and you are kind of left alone so what does that feel like? So I said to him that I am getting there, I am getting there myself because alhamdulillah May Allah grant them genital fructose without his help, both my parents have passed away and my wife’s parents and of course several of my teachers have passed away and also now for a while now actually some of my contemporaries which is people I went to school with and some people who are younger than me, Ms. Wulfi for example who was in his forties and Afzal who was my student and alhamdulillah went up to the level of ADG assistant director general of police in Bhopas and that is the sound of jet blast of phantoms because you are in the flight path of an air base So that was the jet blast of a phantom because you are in the flight path of an air base because you are in the flight path of an air base So Saeed Zafar Waiq, school friend who passed away Seven years ago, around 2010 or something, Bertie Swaros, very very dear friend of mine, one of my dearest friends, she passed away and many others So I am trying to see what is the best way to answer the most questions and I think the best way, at least that I can think of right now is to draw parallel from what we are seeing here which is a scene of passing away which can and should be a reminder for us The scene of fall, of autumn, the Americans have a way of saying things very directly They don’t say autumn and where you are left to kind of now guess what is the meaning of autumn What does what happens in autumn? So if you are in America they don’t call it autumn, they call it fall So no need to guess, fall is fall, and fall is only one way which is downwards So the thing to therefore remind myself is that how does it feel? Well, I think it’s a combination of two things One is that whenever I think about these people I have beautiful memories and I associate with them and my time with them and some of them are not, I mean not every single memory is beautiful Some memories are beautiful, there are some memories which are difficult Maybe in the case of some people he would say, well I wish I did not have that memory To a great extent that depends on what I would have given importance to in my life, in my relationship, in my interactions Because we only remember what we give importance to So if you have in a relationship, if you are focusing on being critical and finding fault and all that kind of stuff Which happens a lot more than we would like it to happen because we allow it to happen We allow it to happen, it’s a tragic human tendency to remember and recall the negative more than the positive Because in any relationship there will be a negative and positive because Moolas Rahim Tala created it like that And he gave us the choice of what to do with it So what we should do with the negatives is to learn the lesson And then forget the data, forget the incident, learn the lesson, take the lesson and forget the incident And forget the incident because the incident is obviously up to the edge And if you are super critical and you want to remember every little thing that happened to you Well guess what, the time will come when you will be left with your memories and all those memories will be negative Now that is not something that I would want to wish on anyway So, rice is ours Here is one goose who had the same issue with her feather, this one feather sticking out Now this goose is waiting for a man who comes here in the morning and feeds her It’s strictly illegal, they are not supposed to do it But people do these things, but the goose is waiting for him, that’s the reason why she is here alone And that’s a beautiful reflection of the sun So this is the story, the thing is what do you choose to remember So how does it feel to be without your friends and so on? I would say that I’m not without my friends, I’m just with them in a different way They are there, they are with me Every time I go into the wild, in the bush, in the forest, I remember three people as if they are walking with me Narmad Aziz, Uncle Rama and Bertie’s Forest Literally as if they were walking with me and I guess in a way they are in terms of my memories They are not walking with me literally obviously In terms of the time we lived together, what we did, what we liked In the case of Uncle Rama and all three of them we went through some situations in the forest which were dangerous But we faced the danger, we lived to tell the tale The lessons I learned from them are all alive And again the message is that it’s what I choose to keep alive And that same thing applies to every single one of us, what do we choose to keep alive As I said before and at the risk of repetition we are not alone Repetition, we tend to keep the negative arrive and we tend to forget and ignore the positive which is regrettable I’m going to try and get a close up of these birds, there are a few gulls We are not too far from the sea here, we are probably, how far do you think we are from the sea? Let’s see, let’s see Because the sea is in, if you go to Connecticut, if you go to New London and Groton, that’s the sea It’s a long island sound and if you get out of the long island sound you are on the Atlantic So we are not so far from the sea So these gulls to come here is not unusual in terms of distance but it’s unusual in terms of the fact that they choose to come here There’s the alarm call of the geese and the gulls decide to listen to them But then they realize that there is really nothing to fear because we are not trying to harm them in any way So they land back there and we did one more So memories and that’s why I think my message to myself and to all of you is choose your memories Choose your memories very carefully because the day will come when that is all that you will be left with Your memories and if you want to be left with a lot of painful memories, that’s your choice But if you want to be left with a lot of beautiful memories, that is also your choice And that’s irrespective of who the people were involved You will get both, you will get memories that you would be happy about because of the learning And only memories that you will not bear to watch What we choose to keep is up to us I ask Allah SWT to grant us the wisdom to take from life all the positive that He sent us And to leave behind the negative that sometimes it comes covered in And I want to end with the hadith where Rasulullah SAW said Allah SWT sent Jibreel SAW and he finished making Jannah He said go take a look at it So Jibreel SAW went and took a look at Jannah And came back and Allah SWT said what do you think? And of course Allah SWT knows everything, these are all conversations for us to run So Jibreel SAW said, Yaroob, it is so incredibly beautiful that not a single person will miss getting in there Every single man and jinn that you created will be in there So Allah SWT said I will surround it with Makkari, with temptations, all kinds of temptations And then Jibreel SAW said, Yaroob, if you do that then I fear that not a single one of them will be able to enter Jannah And indeed that is the reality because Rasulullah SAW said you would get into Jannah only by the grace and mercy of Allah Not by your deeds So none of us is exempt from or free from or protected against the Makkari, against the temptations of this life The key is to try to keep ourselves safe from it by ensuring that our environment is free from them Which means the first thing you do as far as temptation is concerned is not be brave and fight but run like hell Run like hell Run away, there is nothing shameful or cowardly about running away from Jannah So run away And the second thing that we can do and we should do if despite our efforts we do fall into it, which happens And which can happen for another month is immediately, immediately without delay make a stekhwaram taubar This is the thing that distinguishes and distinguished our father and mother Adam SAW and Havah SAW from Satan, from Iblis Because they immediately made a stekhwaram taubar, they said Whereas Iblis said give me time Give me time Said give me time until the day of judgment So anyone who is doing something wrong and procrastinates and delays and thinks or imagines or says that they have time And one day someday when I am old, when I have done Hajj, when I have done this, when I have done that I will make a stekhwaram taubar He is following the path of Iblis and there is no guarantee that that day will come And then Allah said Jibreel Salam and said go look at Jannah And Jibreel Salam went and he looked at Jannah and he came back and said yaarab it is so terrible, so fearful, so fearsome So fearful, so fearsome, so terrible that not a single person, no Jinn, no human being will ever do anything to get in there And that’s why Allah said I will surround it with your hawads, with best desires And Jibreel Salam said yaarab, if you do that Then not a single one of them will escape it, every single one of them will be in Jannah And once again we rely on the immense forgiveness of Allah SWT And Allah said all my slaves who have transgressed against themselves do not despair of the mercy of Allah Truly Allah SWT is of forgiving most merciful Truly Allah SWT will forgive all sins And truly Allah SWT is of forgiving most merciful So I remind myself and you, let us remember the good things from our lives, experiences, relationships, people, friends And forgive them and forgive ourselves for whatever is negative Take the lesson, leave the story and continuously and constantly keep seeking the mercy of Allah Run away from everything which is halam And towards the mercy of Allah by seeking His forgiveness and by repenting Wasallallahu ala ala Billah, Kareem wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa as-salaam, barakuhu wa s-sikari, haum