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We are on 75 going from Fort Toddy to Tampa and on the right is the Evacuates National Park. And almost for probably 50-60 miles we had the channel which they have cut, repeat the road in the park. We saw alligators, we saw cosplays, we saw cowherds, greater or lesser egrets, all kinds of things. So the reason I’m saying all this is because on highways, on roads, I always remind myself, I knew that this is a tariq, this is the way. And there are things about this which parallel our lives completely. Now the way is leading to something. You don’t just get onto the road and start driving. You go onto a road and you’re driving to a destination. And so also in life you can just live or you can live with a purpose to get to a destination. You get on the road and when you want to get to a destination, nowadays it’s very easy because of GPS and so on, but otherwise even otherwise you would look for the shortest way to get there, the fastest way to get there which might not be the shortest but which has less traffic or you might say I want to take a scenic route because I want to see some stuff on the way and so on and so forth. So the choice of your routing is also a conscious choice that you’re making. So also in life when we want to live our life and we want to look at the pathways that we choose, that it makes sense to do that consciously and say what kind of life do I want? And I don’t mean just for us just to say that you know janla, janla is yes, that is default inshallah and we hope so, but what will get me to janla? What is the best way of living by life in a way that I can get to janla? So that is the detail of it. Now for that imagine that you are on this bus and you have a driver who’s an expert driver and who is one of the best routing heroes, so what to do? So you go to the driver and say when this is I’m getting on this bus, this is the bus taking me and you know I like to see something and so on and he says we have to ride, go ahead. Then what you concentrate on is the quality of your journey. You don’t spend time or I would say even waste time in trying to make friends with the driver, in trying to have a social life with the driver, in trying to have you know interactions with the driver and stuff. That’s not your problem, that’s not your focus. Your focus is to get on the right bus, stay on the right bus, see the sites you need to see, learn what you need to learn. What I’m saying is that because today we live in a world where society has among the many ways in which society fools us, it fools us into what has been called the tyranny of feelings and the tyranny of feeling this works like this. It says that whatever I feel is supreme. This must take supersede, this must supersede and take precedence over everyone else’s feelings. It doesn’t matter what anyone else feels, what I feel must happen and it is the job of everyone else to modify their behavior in order to suit my feelings and if they are not doing that, they are the problem. This is how our society works which is why you have for example children going to school and teachers are taught that you must engage the children, the children must be engaged in your class, the children must find your class interesting, the children must find your class entertaining. Whether they’re learning something or not is not top of the line. I don’t say that’s not important but that’s not what they ask teachers. They ask them about how engaged are the children and so on meaning that if they are engaged enough, if they are entertained enough, if they’re happy enough, they will automatically learn. Nothing can be further from the truth. The reality is that you go to a teacher like you go to an oncologist because you have cancer and because this oncologist only Allah can cure and give life but for the sake of my example, this oncologist knows what to do to cure your cancer. You don’t go to the oncologist to make friends, you don’t go to the oncologist to take your water data. You go to the oncologist because you need the oncologist otherwise you are dead. So if the oncologist tells you to stand on your head, you stand on your head. You do whatever the oncologist tells you to do no matter how painful it is, no matter how you dislike the oncologist’s face, you go there because of his knowledge and because you know how this knowledge can help you. Believe me between you and me especially with regard to this, I have seen so many people lose the benefit of good teachers because I don’t like the teacher. I had an interpersonal conflict with the teacher. Go ahead, don’t like the teacher. It’s your life. If you don’t like the oncologist at most you will die but you will die anyway. Cancer or no cancer but you don’t have to go to jahannam which you might end up doing if you do the same thing with your Sheikh, with your Islamic teacher because you don’t like the Sheikh. Let’s get our priorities right. We are not there to like and dislike, we are there to learn and if you are there to learn, focus on yourself not on the Sheikh. As far as the Sheikh is concerned, as far as the teacher is concerned, it doesn’t matter a damn to him whether you learn or you don’t learn because his job is to teach, he’s not to teach you. If you don’t learn somebody else comes to the likes. When Ibrahim Adhem Rahmatul Ali was the king of Balf of one of the kingdoms of the Lion Mask court of Afghanistan at that time, when he went to his teacher, the first thing his teacher said to him was he’s pointed to the stable of his horse which was some way away from the house and if you have ever been inside a stable and taken a deep breath then you will know why the stable was away from the house. So the Sheikh pointed to the stable, he said go in there, make a space for yourself, clean that space for yourself and stay there and make dhikr of Allah swt, tell her food will be sent to you. So this is the king from Balf. He goes to the stable, he obviously the stable is a stable so he cleans on part of it and he puts his bedding there and he stays there, he’s making dhikr. Now in the evening when the groom brought the horse from the pasture, the Sheikh says to the groom, there is a man there in the stable, when you are grooming the horse and parking the horse, he says throw some dirt on that man. When you’re sweeping the floor of the stable, throw some, flick some dirt on that man. Now this is not, he’s not trying to torture him, this is treatment, this is treatment for the nuffs which is happening there. This is the equivalent of cancer surgery which is happening. Is it painful? Yes, it is very painful. Is it necessary? Well you decide. So the man does that. The groom knows because such people come to the Sheikh so he flicks some dirt on Ibrahim Adhem, the Qaddaf of the Laleh. Now Ibrahim Adhem doesn’t beat him, he doesn’t curse him but he just gives him a dirty look. So the job of the room now is of course having applied the treatment, he comes back and he says to the Sheikh, the Sheikh asks him what happened, he says this is what happened, he gave me a dirty look. The Sheikh kept Ibrahim Adhem in that stable for 12 years. For 12 years, all he did was stay there and make dhikr of Allah. Now think about this, Ibrahim Adhem was not chained to a stable in the floor, he didn’t have a collar around his neck and a rope which was holding him there. He could have walked away from there at any point in those 12 years. He could have said like what most people today will say, this chef is crazy, I came here to learn the Qur’an, I came here to learn Hadith and Sunnah and so on and so forth, instead of teaching me that he puts me in a stable and he treats me like a saint. He puts me in a stable and he treats me and is this what Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam did and show me a pioneer of the sahaba, did this happen, did that happen, then the man throws dirt on me, this chef is useless and I’m going to go five point another. He could have done this at any point in those 12 years. He did not. He stayed in the stable. He didn’t stay in the stable because he loved the horse. He stayed in the stable because he loved Allah. He stayed in the stable because he recognized that I have a disease and that disease is called kibbon. That disease is the disease of kings and the disease of scholars, arrogance and this disease is a not just a fatal disease, this disease is what takes you into Jannah the fastest because Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam said Allah subhana wa ta’ala says that kibbon is my cloak. If anyone tries to take from it, I will destroy him. He will never realize this. He said this is what I have and the cure for that is this, is to be humiliated until you realize who you actually are, until you realize that you are a drop of seminal fluid which when it was released, both your parents went and took a shower because it made them nudges. That is who you are. That is who you are. That is who I am, a drop of nudges fluid. So I want people to respect me. You respect a drop of nudges fluid. I want people to bow to me. You bow to a drop of nudges fluid. Anyone who bows to a drop of nudges fluid, what will you say about that person? You will say, oh in sale, this thing should be washed away. It has, it is not just nothing, it is less than nothing. If we are respected, if we are loved, if we are valued, it is because of the cloak that Allah covered us with. People are seeing the cloak. They are not seeing being here, they are not seeing you. They are not seeing our reality. They are seeing the cloak and that cloak is so beautiful that people respect you. They show you love, they respect you. They respect you in the cloak. They respect you in the cover that Allah covered you with. And I am not saying this, you remember Shab-e-Ramathura, he said this. He said, if people respect you, never let it get to your head. Don’t think it is you. It is not you. It is the cover of our Rabb, Jalla Jalla Jalla. If Allah takes off that cover, then you will know. And that’s why I want to end with the Hadith. Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said that on the day of judgment, a slave will be presented to his Rabb. And his Rabb will say to him, on this day you did this and this. And the slave will say, yes, you are Rabb. I did this. And then his Rabb will say to him, on that day you did this and this. And the slave will say, yes, I Rabb, I did this. And then Allah will say, on that day you did this and this. And you said this and this. And the slave will say, yes, my Rabb, I did, I said this, I did this. But how is the slave going to deny what his Rabb tells him? Because Allah knows. So he was with me, whether I was singing in public or whether I was singing in private, I chose to forget. But he was there. So he will remind. And the slave will say, and he will make a deraf. And he will confess. Because what else is there to do? How can he not confess? And then the slave will say, yes, Rabb, I did all of this. I confess. But in the world you did not allow any of this to become public. You covered me with your cloak. And you did not let anyone know what I did. But today on the day of judgment, when everybody is here, my parents, my children, my students, my teachers, everyone, on this day I am standing in public and they are all watching and they are all hearing. And today they all know by reality. Allah swt will say to it, turn around and look. And the slave will turn around and he will look. And he will see that Allah has placed a curtain of light between the slave and everybody else. Allah will say, my slave, I covered you in the life, in the world. And I covered you here. Nobody knows except me. Now I forgive you. Go into chanda. I forgive you. Go into chanda. This is Allah. This is my knowledge. This is the meaning of Islam. This is what makes those who come into Islam special because Allah is entering us into His mercy. We ask Allah to always keep His cloak over us. We ask Allah to keep us in His mercy. He calls us to enter His mercy. We ask Allah to keep us there because He is the God who gives and never takes away. And we ask Allah to forgive us and to keep us in His protection.
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