 So, okay, Bismillah Allahumma Sayyidina Muhammad, the breezes of Ramadan, I'm so excited to see my brothers, Masha'Allah, my sisters They're already here, like look at this We're so lucky to be Muslim Seriously, we're so lucky to be, we're so lucky to be Muslim. It's it's the only truth remaining and You're you've been invited and You've grabbed onto it and that's why you're here right now and and it's amazing right so Malik and and so Islam is submission not to yourself Not the American way submission to yourself. Okay, by the way, Shaytan every generation Tricks people and every generation he has different tricks. It's very important. So, you know Historically he tricked people and he said hey bury your daughter alive Or your son and that's a good thing He tricks people in the Quran of Allah says he says he Zuyina lahum soot wa hamali him. He makes that their ugly act beautiful to them and Every generation there's different tricks that Shaytan does so the tricks the way he told other Generations in the past is not the same trick. He's telling us today Right and the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing people he doesn't exist All right, so he told people he told people bury your child alive and people will do that And and they would be proud of it. I did something noble. Yeah, and people were like wow I need to respect that person. He put his daughter under the ground. Wow. What a noble person like Shaytan did that That's nasty. That's disgusting. That's crazy. Well, what is he tricking us today? That we think is beautiful, but it's actually ugly Isn't that wild isn't that frightening that we think is beautiful. It's in the air. It's in it's accepted by the culture It's normalized That it's beautiful and honorable, but it's actually disgusting putrid Demonizing this ugly. What is it and for for our for our for our time? I propose that it's individualism It's actually individualism, right? Serve yourself worship yourself submit to yourself surrender to yourself Surrender you're entitled to being comfortable in every moment You're you're entitled to look perfect and eat perfect and perfect vacations and perfect this you've been tricked that you're in paradise It's not you're still in dunya dunya I'll keep it, you know, it's we're not in paradise you he tells you that You have your freedom. You're free. You're not you're a slave to God obey God Okay, so he takes this wonderful concept of freedom distorts it distorts it and takes it to an extreme Right, and then he tells you your feelings to define for you right and wrong is all based on individualism our feelings are important, but they don't define right and wrong and then and this is all related to individualism and then And then he comes in a tricks us and he says that Ah, yeah, that you need so much personal space that you just doing yourself you alienated yourself and made yourself lonely and Anyone who breaches your feelings or who breaches your personal space or who breaches Your feelings your was the victim victim mindset. These are the tricks of Satan today Right, so it's in other words submit to myself Right and and religion is an alarm clock. It wakes us up wakes us up from our slumber And Ramadan is one of those beautiful amazing moments with this divinely designed religion Where we're invited we came from God. We're returning to God and in this small temporary period You know, there's like not a page in the Quran that doesn't talk about the temporary nature of this world We weren't even made do you guys know we weren't even made for this world. We're not made for this world We're just here visitors. We're just at best. We're strangers or visitors at best We came from God. We're returning to God, and we're here for a few years Be with God right so Allah sent us this amazing messenger. So Allah Al Hamid and He sent us this amazing message called Islam to tell us in between our beginning and our end Hey connect with God and it's called Islam and don't surrender to yourself in the satanic demonic way where shaitan's tricking us, right? Right and instead submit and surrender to God, right? And the muddaan is one of those ways now. I didn't come to talk about that, but I was passionate and wanted to share that anyways Because I'm excited about that, right we came to talk about but it's related, right? We came to talk about Preparing for Ramadan, which is inshallah Allah ma balliqna Ramadan say I mean May we reach Ramadan safely and may it be beautiful I Need some help can we distribute these papers I need everyone to have a paper Thank you. I need everyone to have a paper And here are pens as well There are more pens there and there's more papers there. I need everyone to have a paper everyone to have a pen We're gonna do something beautiful. I have about 15 minutes remaining and it's gonna be amazing You're making you're making you're making a beautiful thing. You know why? because scientific studies have shown if you write down if You write down your dreams if you write down your aspirations if you write down your plans and goals You are about 300 percent more likely to actually achieve them It's amazing. That's all you have to do is write it down And you're about three hundred percent or something like that more likely to achieve them. Okay, so Now this paper, okay, I need a board nice and prepared the umma is rising. This is a sign This is it will lie. This is a sign Seriously, the umma is doing good There's a beautiful verse in the Quran that says surat al-Baqarah 2 18 I think I The people they had They had difficulty They had tribulation and they had earthquakes until or they were shaken until they said When is the help of Allah coming? Indeed the help of Allah is near so the umma Just had difficulty had tribulation and just had Earthquakes so the help of Allah is near say I mean, okay, so Khair Muqba inshallah All right, so I have 14 minutes, okay So we want to benefit from this this notion this concept. I can't see the board I want everyone to see it That if you write down Your goals your dreams your aspirations you're about 300% more likely to achieve them Do you know your goals your dreams your aspirations? Can you list them off one two three four five? Do you know them because if not then what are you doing? Eating sleeping good. I mean, yeah, that's enjoyable right? And it's beautiful and you can get rewarded for that. Oh, we want to dream we want to be dreamers I'm not afraid to dream one of my teachers said they'll all bless and say I mean I'm not afraid to dream and neither are we We want to dream Your potential your ability your pricelessness with God. What can you do? Who can you be? Seriously Seriously every human being has amazing potential If they actually know that they have that potential and if they don't know it then they don't have it and You have it every human being has it right and so we want to dream. Okay, so on this page This is my page. We're gonna we're gonna put it. We're gonna put it landscape Okay, landscape. Okay, so, you know, we put it landscape. We put it sideways like that Okay, and we are going to break it into eight Into eight Cubes eight sections. Okay Now this is you This is you you're defining yourself and I'm gonna ask you eight questions and you're gonna fill in eight sections. Okay Well, I'm sorry, I said no Muhammad. All right. Bismillah. Rahmanir Rahim. Now I Love how this this was actually set up body mind soul amazing mashallah Okay, right these Write these down want to make sure I don't myself. Bismillah Bismillah write these down And interestingly this roadmap Actually encompasses the previous two sessions that you guys did here it is Okay, number one I am taking license to tell you your first dream And it is to be a Wally everyone write that down. I am taking advantage of my teacher role and Telling you your first dream Right, and it is to be a Wally It is to be a Wally is to be a Wally is to be a Saint is to be a friend of God What else is there? What else do you need? Well, how amazing would that be? What else? Foo forget a billion-dollar lottery Forget being gorgeous and pretty and handsome forget having a being a VP at a big company You're a Wally. Oh, how amazing, you know There was his father and he actually took his son out one day His son was like 15 years old and he took him out And they were walking in the streets and he said son. You see the garbage on the floor there He said yes father. He said if I knew that The pleasure of God was found and picking up garbage son. I would raise you to be a garbage man He said, okay, I would raise so we all want to be a Wally. That's our first goal. Yes I asked one of my teachers one time if it was permissible to ask that we could be a Wally. Yeah Okay, yeah, thank you. So be specific. Yeah, yeah, that's actually it's a good point Thank you. So we want to be a Wally of God Be a Wally of God, right? In the only yeah, Allah, you know, hope on them. Well, I don't know. It says in the Quran the only yeah the Wally right And uh the Wally Or the Wally are the only yeah, laa hoofun aleyhim wa laa yahzenoon. They have no fear and no sadness And what does that mean? That means they don't fear the future and they're not sad about the past They're in their moment and in their moment. They're with God That's the Wally, right? They're in their moment and they're in their moment. They're in their God So so okay, so I'm I'm taking the liberty to I know your first dream. It's all to be a Wally, right? And I'm a serious no if this wasn't your dream Consider it and explore it because what else is there? Why are we here? What what else is going to make us happy Islam is the recipe to be happy The recipe to be happy individualism is the recipe to misery It's kind of ironic There's actually the correlation of happiness and thinking about yourself is inversely correlated. So the more The more you think about yourself the unhappy or you are the less you think about yourself the happier you are Right and so if you empty your heart from yourself And you fill it with others and service of others and God you're actually a happier person It's it's wild when we think it's the opposite. Oh, you know Anyways, I'm not going to get into that right now Um, okay. So Bismillah, let's jump into it. I have 10 minutes left long so yeah, say no Muhammad. All right Now this one this first box. I want you to think deeply for a moment What is What are this box three? What are the three most Desperate I'm the keyword is desperate Things that you want from God There was a woman she's been married for 16 years unable to get pregnant Tried every single medical every single medical procedure to get pregnant with her husband They were married 16 years didn't get pregnant She got pregnant in her 17th year of marriage My Wife asked her, what did you do? She said masek the dua be ramadan She said I gripped dua and ramadan That was her answer. I'm just sharing it with you. There was a man. He was 380 pounds His whole life he was 380 pounds When I saw him he was this Beautiful muscle man, and I was like doing with mashallah. He's like, this is me 10 months ago and he showed me his picture 380 pounds I was like, what happened? He's like, I'll tell you what happened he's like he's like Last ramadan In the last 10 days, I desperately asked God for three things It's like what is it? I asked him to lose weight. I asked him to For for me and my wife to get pregnant. They weren't able to get pregnant for like five years And I asked for for some third thing and he's like all three of them came true Right, so the key to dua is being desperate Why the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him was promised victory at bedr, but what did he do the night before bedr? He stood up and he raised his hand so high his cloak would fall off and say never becker What's that? Yeah, that's enough. That's enough. You you bring it off. That's enough and you put his jacket by his cloak back He can't read it's enough get some rest The sahaba slept and he stood up. Why? Siddique is Siddique is showing the truthfulness in his Neediness his neediness. So desperation is the key And in the hikm Ibn Attaillah says if you want gifts from God to come your way Then perfect your spiritual poverty My desperation and the opposite is Man humans went out of bounds when they saw themselves independent. I don't need God Independent, right? That's the opposite Right, and so I want you now In the next 60 seconds to think Deeply and desperately when you call God with these three things Your heart just shatters and trembles and feels the closeness of God What is it? And the reason I want you to do this is not necessarily to get those three things But I want you to use your want of those three things to get God You see the difference Does that make sense? I want you to use your desperation in those three things to get God Because you call on him So I want you to write the three things that you want and put them here Right, and it's confidential right if you want to put a key word So no one you know a symbol so no one knows what it is that you're thinking about you can do that And go ahead take the next 45 seconds and write it down Now these three duads you are going to make Every prayer every prostration In terawih You're going to make these three prayers more than any other prayer and therefore your Ramadan will be a Ramadan of connection Because du'a is the core of connecting to God Du'a is the core so you're going to use this desperation this neediness to connect with God and making it a Ramadan of connection Okay, so it's important to identify these and listen Remember if you write that these down you're more likely to fulfill this and do this shaitan's whispering right now Shaitan's whispering. Oh my god. This guy has seven and a half minutes left Oh my god This carpet is green Oh my god I want to go eat dinner Shaitan's whispering. I hope the person next to me takes this seriously. They really need it You know So make this a meaningful moment Make this a meaningful moment not a forgettable moment write these down Okay All right, Bismillah now we're going to proceed now I want you okay in the top half of this box in the Quran. I want you to dream remember we're dreaming I'm not afraid to dream. I want you to write down your high aspiration and goal of how many pages of Quran You're going to read every day in Ramadan How many pages of Quran you're going to read every day in Ramadan? Don't be afraid to dream Okay Quran is the greatest form of zikr The greatest form of zikr is reading Quran in prayer and after that it's reading Quran outside of prayer It's the greatest form of zikr and zikr is remembering god Keeping your tongue moist. Nice. Mashallah. What's your name, darling? Mashallah. What's your name? Yes, yes Iman, how old are you Iman? Eight Allahu Akbar. May Allah bless you Iman. Everything I mean. Look at her studiously writing You're going to be a Waliya. Inshallah, you're going to be a friend of Allah. You want to be a friend of Allah? Isn't that amazing? Take me with you to Jannah. Okay, inshallah That's right made a deal Iman. Mashallah Okay, so I want you to write it down. Okay, so you're you're high go. I'm going to read this year. I'm going to do 10 Khatim. I'm going to do five Khatim 100 pages a day 50 pages a day 20 pages a day. I want you to dream. Okay, whatever it is. Okay Whatever you write. Okay. I'm going to do 40 pages a day. I'm going to do 420 pages or whatever you write. Okay. Now, Bismillah. We're proceeding because I have I know you guys are looking at your clock You're like, yeah, six minutes left. Okay. Now, Teraweeh. I want you to dream. How many rakhaz of Teraweeh? How many prayers of Teraweeh? You're going to pray every night Dream, dream big. Think big. Okay. How many are you going to do? 20 12 8 How many and this includes night prayer when you're by yourself? I'm going to pray 40 I'm going to pray 100 Every night. How many rakhaz you're going to pray? Okay. You're going to pray 100 100 rakhaz You're going to pray 50 rakhaz. Okay. How much you're going to pray? Bismillah. Write it down 10 seconds. I'm moving forward. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on Next box is dhikr down here. Now remember dhikr is the only thing this is actually pretty remarkable The only thing in the Quran that Allah says to do a lot of It's so amazing We're never a dhikr as mentioned Allah says Remember Allah abundantly. So you may have victory. It's amazing. So the kathira So I want you to dream how much dhikr are you going to do and this man once he came to the prophet peace be upon him And he said, yeah, Rasulullah, he said Islam has become the rules of Islam have become too too much for me telling one thing to do And he said let your tongue never stop being moist in dhikr That's it. Keep your tongue moist in dhikr. And by the way, this is important Because when you get tired in Ramadan and you know it's day 10 day 15 you get tired in Ramadan This is your fallback plan. Just hold those prayer beads It's your fallback plan my prayer beads It's your fallback plan and intend intention. I want to regain my energy I need to eat some ice cream You know, just don't go to salt and straw 13 dollars a pint. You know They have an endless line yellow leaf, right? This is your fallback Your fallback dhikr when you get tired in Ramadan. Just keep this And this is a tool to remind your tongue your tongue is a tool to remind your heart and then Your intention I need to regain my energy. Okay, so write it down here. Think high dream dream dream dream 500 1000 10,000 Okay, dream next now this box relates to your body Taking care of your body things about exercise things about staying healthy What what goals you do you need to do to stay healthy with your body? Right. Are you going to do are you going to walk? 20 minutes a day. Are you going to do 100 push-ups a day? Are you going to do what are you going to do? Write it down here and dream dream be that noble elegant human being, you know, this person once said Uh, this person once said You know when that like person they're just like amazing and looks like what they did is a miracle It looks like a miracle from the outside. He's like from the inside It's actually he did the same little thing every day For for many days Allah's most of all the consistent even if small That's a hadith Allah's most of all the consistent even if small it looks like a miracle from outside from the inside He just did the same little thing every day for many days. Okay, so physical the exercise. Okay. I'm going to do 100 push-ups I'm going to walk 30 minutes. Okay Next intellectual, right What do you need to do to stay healthy mentally? What do you need to do? Do you need your zen time? You want to go do your meditation? You want to go do your your yoga? You want to go, uh Read a book you want to go contemplate you want to go hang out with your buddies You want to talk to your mom you want to do whatever write it down intellectual something to stimulate you intellectually Relax you but mentally to be intellectually stimulated. I want to read this book this text I want to listen to this lecture. I want to listen to sheikh. Hamza may Allah bless him or any other teachers Okay, so I want to read this xyz Okay Now, okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Good. We're moving forward now. Bismillah Now here is I want you to put Here is something very important now. We're taking these boxes and perforating them In half no not this one perforating them in half and now my brothers and sisters ladies and gentlemen We are writing the bare minimum The bare minimum and when I mean the bare minimum, I mean like I'm going to floss one tooth And this you're going to hang this up and you're not going to go to sleep before doing the bare minimum I don't care if it's one push-up I'm serious I am Very serious And I want you to write such a low number. You think you can't write anything lower I'm serious Don't be like well my bare minimum. I want to make it high. No You pray of the devil. No, I want you to write a low minimum number Okay, so and my bare minimum number. Okay, I'm gonna read. Okay two pages You know, I am gonna do two raqas I am gonna do 10 push-ups I am gonna do 10 La ilaha illallah 10s la ilah 10s la ilah I am gonna I'm gonna read. I'm gonna call my mom That's my intellectual exercise and and dad We forget dads All right, my time is up guys Okay, Bismillah So I have to call my mom and we forget dads because it's your mom your mom your mom and then your dad, right? So we forget dads, right Now write the bare minimum go ahead fill that out, please write that down Okay now Bismillah our last box And remember I didn't fill out these dreams because if you don't know your own dreams Take a moment and figure them out Okay, but this last box it says contract and this comes from the Islamic tradition of our civilization And this is how we build habits and grow and and the steps are Number one you're going to choose One habit that you want to make or break And this is going to be your contract with yourself Okay, and we're going to make a contract and we're going to think about the consequence if the contract is breached Now i'm going to give you advice on how to choose the consequence because it's very important The remedies and how to cure the contract the breach of contract. So first of all the contract step one We said musharata. Okay musharata. You make a contract. What is it? I commit to Calling my mom because you know what? I have an unhealthy relationship with her. I'm going to call my mom every day Think of a habit. You need to make or break. I am going to You know pray fajr on time I'm going to x yz Think of a habit. You need to make or break my time is up. I have 60 seconds Commit to this contract. I am going to x number two is muraqaba So number one. I will x number two is monitor yourself That's step number two. Number three is musharata. Witness god Witness god because that's that's what everything is about musharata I'm going to write that in arabic letters transliteration witness god. He's he's observing you And number four, this is the important part muraqaba the punishment for breaches Now you have to choose what that is right now. For example, no coffee for the day The punishment is very important Because it can't be too severe and it can't be too easy. It has to just sting a little bit Because if it's too severe, you're not going to do it and if it's too easy then it has no impact no effect No consequence. So you have to choose something that's going to sting a little bit. I'm going to donate $100 to zaytuna college I'm serious. We're lying. I'm serious. This is just right on the bond. You couldn't continue it after But you're going to do this just right on the bond. So maximum you miss your goal every day. You donate it $3,000 Or maybe it's donate $20 to zaytuna college. Maybe you're really rich. It's donated $1,000 whatever, okay But you have to think isn't that stings a little bit no coffee For one hour when I wake up because you know, we're on that it's too severe Okay, no coffee for the first hour when I wake up or something like that Okay, so think of the punishment the muraqaba and do this and train yourself Because the greatest enemy is in between your own two sides. It's called our ego Adi adi wika bayna jambaik according to our prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam And this is our Ramadan road map on how to be a wali may Allah make all of us olyat Right and our soul is going to continue on after we die When we leave our money behind us when we leave our looks we leave the mirrors when we leave our Friends and we leave our family. We're going to take our soul with we're going to take our soul with us and so we're here To beautify our heart and we ask Allah For victory and we ask Allah for openings And we ask Allah to accept this gathering And we ask Allah to bless the organizers and to give them openings and victories and we ask Allah to We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to To answer all of our duha. Ya Allah say amen Ya Allah we witness and acknowledge you are near and you hear And you answer the one who calls you the caller who calls you and we are calling you with this desperation That we know you are the only one who can fulfill our needs And all we offer you a bunch of neediness A bunch of brokenness a bunch of mistakes a bunch of sins a bunch of arrogance a bunch of Vanity a bunch of envy a bunch of ugliness a bunch of backbiting. Ya Allah leave And we ask you to exchange it for us with a bunch of generosity And a bunch of mercy and a bunch of love. Allah. How amazing are you? Ya Allah, thank you for inviting us to islam. Thank you for sending us prophet Muhammad peace be upon him Ya Allah, we ask you to bring aid to the umma this ramadan Amin and send breezes that carry us forward and give us victory over our own egos Give us victory over shaitan and the whispering devil and give us an ability to see To see clarity in this time of confusion Amin and to see truth as truth and follow and see falsehood as falsehood and protect us from it And we ask you for everything good. Ya Allah that our teacher Our beloved teacher prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam that he asked you for and we seek protection from every harm that our teacher our beloved prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam that he sought protection from and send peace and blessings on him and his family And his companions and and all of those who follow him until the last day