 And cold in here, the heater is getting turned on as we speak, so, inshallah, it should warm up shortly. And, you know, global warming, the weather is all over the place these days. May Allah assist us, inshallah, and give us Taufiq to take care of this Earth. One of the, it's mentioned in the Quran that Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, created the human being as a caretaker for the Earth. And it's very unfortunate that with the way we live in society these days, with the amount of overconsumption that has happened in the last few centuries, that we have basically consumed more of the Earth's resources the last few centuries than did many people before us, for many millennia before us. That's not the topic for today. So, inshallah, we'll go ahead and continue this discussion. We've been spending the last two or three classes focused on the spirituality of wealth. We talked about zakat. We talked about saddukah. We talked about the importance of prioritizing generosity and the importance of prioritizing giving, in addition to how we balance all of the different complexities of earning in this society, right? And of course, how do we make sure we excel in our work and how do we make sure we also are able to balance our deen while we're at work. So, I'm going to just finish off that topic, inshallah, for today. And really, today, the focus is going to be on what are some of the teachings, how do we apply the teachings that we've taken from the last, I think now we've been doing this, inshallah, for a few months, from the last few months, and really apply them practically in our life, in the context of, and I think many of the people who are here are working, but in the context of working, in the context of just living in and how do we apply them to maximize our potential to grow spiritually every single day. One of the things we mentioned is that our deen is not something you and I do in just one big boost on Saturday, and then there's no deen for the rest of the week, and then another big boost in Ramadan, and then there's no balance for the rest of the year. Rather, our deen is something that we actually want to be growing in every single day, and at least maintaining a minimum level of consistency in our religious practice every single day. So what that means when it comes to our work week is we want to make sure we have a minimum number of spiritual activity that we're doing throughout the week. So we're going to start off talking about some of the biker, and we discussed in the early chapter, some of the biker that the Muslim should be ideally trying to do every day and how that applies to work, and how that applies to kind of an everyday work, healthy practice, and then we'll talk about how do we manage our stress and anxiety that comes with just that going through life and going through the ups and downs of work, and how do we manage that with still trying to make sure we can excel in our deen and in our dunya. So it's going to kind of be the focus for a bit of a lot of things to talk through, but going to try to keep it fairly succinct and get through a fair amount of it today. Yes. I was just noticing that we're facing north, we're supposed to be facing the Kibbutz East, and this next year is set up so we're facing like we're really facing almost due north when we break. That would be a that's a topic that you can bring up with Sundiata, the Amir of the Masjid or Imam Zaid, and that's something that in the class is probably the focus for the class, but thank you for bringing it up. Alhamdulillah. So the where are we? Alhamdulillah. So a couple of principles that we've chatted with or that we've that we've already chatted through, right? First is the importance of doing things with Ehsan. So the Muslim is the person who applies Ehsan or spiritual excellence in every aspect of our life. What does that mean? It's not just that when we come to the Masjid and when we come to pray or when we engage in learning or we engage with our family or so on that we apply Ehsan or spiritual excellence. It means literally in every aspect of our life, the way we interact with people, the way we interact with Muslims, the way we interact with non-Muslims, the way we interact with our employer, the way we interact with co-workers, the way we interact with colleagues, the way we interact with people at school. We try to apply this principle of Ehsan. This entire book that we've been working through the Book of Assistance by Imam Abdullah bin Al-Wayhadat is a book on how to achieve a state of Ehsan. When somebody achieves a state of Ehsan internally, a state of spiritual excellence, everything they do externally will manifest spiritual excellence. So they will become a person who is a person of spiritual excellence. What that means is in their interactions, in their intentions, in their thoughts, in the way that they speak, in the way that they discuss things with the people, in the way that they work, in the way that they study, in the way that they chat, whatever it is, you will see a level of Ehsan. Ehsan is very closely linked to Taqwa. So the person who is God-conscious, the person who is mindful and who is mindful of Allah in every interaction is now on their way towards achieving the station of spiritual excellence. Now how exactly does that apply to the life that we live? We don't, as Muslims, divorce success in this world and success in our religion. We very much can link the two. So what that means is if we take the vehicle, if we apply what we've learned to succeed in our deen, that is meant to help us succeed in our dunya. They're not divorced, right? Practical example here and then we'll talk through some specifics. We chatted about this a little bit last time. We don't believe in talking bad about people, right? That's that's that's a core aspect of our faith that we try to protect the dignity of human beings. So when we are in faced with a situation where everybody else is gossiping, everybody else is backbiting, the Muslim is somebody who because we protect, we want to protect our own dignity and the dignity of people around us, we don't backbite. We try to divert the conversation. Now that ends up not only producing a healthier spiritual heart, but it ends up producing a healthier society and a healthier group of people whoever you're interacting with, because the more bad blood there is between people, right? The more negative energy exchange that's happening between people, the less harmonious that society will be. So you'll see in our society, at least here in the US, at the upper echelons of society, people outwardly might pretend to like each other, but behind closed doors, there's all this smack talking always going on. Always if people just have no respect for each other anymore, people have no respect for each other's dignity and that energy manifests. What that means is when you meet somebody, you have a certain energy that's going on inside of you, right? And if you are a person of light and the person of Esan, that energy will manifest and it will positively affect that person before you even ever say anything. If somebody is a person of light, this was the way of the Prophet SAW that he would affect people from just being in an area in the entire region for those whose hearts were open would be affected by how strong his light was. And there are people who are from the people of hypocrisy or from the people of kufr, their darkness will also affect people, right? And shaitan, he looks for people who are dark, who have darkness inside of them who are out there to spread corruption and to spread to spread darkness that to use them to corrupt us and he prevents people who have light inside of them to benefit others, right? And so the Muslim, the Muslim as a as a just context as into the rest of the discussion, ideally as somebody who works so much on increasing their light and their noor, that they then spread it to people around them, right? The foremost that they spread it to their family, to their community. And then of course, to people at, you know, in their school or at work or wherever, wherever else, wherever else it is. So that's, that's the first point is it's what we what we do in our religion is supposed to help us in every other aspect. If you're finding that you're doing something religiously, and you're not seeing it the results of that manifest somewhere else, it's worth checking on like, are you something wrong, something off, like there's something that's not calibrated, right? Because it's supposed to be improving the day. It doesn't mean that you're going to like start to pray, and then you're going to see a bunch of, you know, money or something, you start to fall from the sky. That's not what we mean here, but you will start to see more positive. You could say positive signs start to manifest in other parts of your life, because you'll see the benefit of your religious activity. Right? So that's one thing. The second is another, another example of this rather, we have a principle in our religion of Shukr, right, of being grateful. That means that we try really hard to not complain and to focus on the positives. How would that apply kind of in our daily context? Allah says in the Quran that if you are grateful, surely I will increase you. That if you are grateful, surely I will increase you. The heart that is a heart that is robed with taqwa and has ehrsan at its root is a grateful heart, right? You will have achieved the station of gratitude of Shukr. If you are grateful, that means that Allah gives you more to be grateful for. How does that apply to our context? Let's say you are going through a certain situation at work, right? Or at school. What the normal inclination for most people is going to want to be to just really focus on the negatives and just complain, complain, complain. This happened. This person did this. This person is so rude and just completely focus on all of the negatives. What we usually tend to miss, to tend to miss out on in that approach is everything that's actually working well around us, right? So Alhamdulillah that we even have a job to go to and Alhamdulillah that we even have an educational institution that we can go to and how many millions of people around the world don't have either, right? Alhamdulillah that we have benefits in our again, I'm talking in the context of your work, someone has benefits with their employer such that they have health care and access to health care and partial coverage and so on or full coverage such that they have other types of benefits. They have paid time off and there's so many of these benefits. The majority of people will only focus on what's wrong and won't will forget about all these other things in the time when they're struggling. The person who's rooted in the religion will focus on everything that's working well and will not will try to divert focus. Oh yeah, there's a couple of issues I had. Yeah, this person's you know, probably don't have the the best the best manager or whatever and maybe maybe they are being a little bit difficult, right? And in a certain situation or maybe a teacher I have, right? This would happen often at university. People would focus like talk smack major smack about about like a professor or a teacher, this person and this person and just go on and on and on about how bad of a teacher they were, right? And what that does is it's showing Allah this person is a person of ingratitude, not of gratitude because gratitude manifests as mentioned by Mahmood Razali and many of the scholars. It manifests on the limbs. You can't be a great you can't say I'm grateful and then your tongue doesn't testify to the gratitude, right? So the tongue is the first limb that testifies. So if it's if it is worshiping Allah now you can claim that okay I'm trying to be grateful never always you never really make the claim completely obviously but you try okay I'm trying to be grateful but if the tongue is complaining and you're saying yeah I'm grateful I'm grateful Alhamdulillah for everything but but but but but but but this that's a sign okay there's a there's work to do we all have worked through but that's a sign major work to do because the tongue is yet to focus on the positives and Muslim usually always looks at the glass half full if not entirely full because these things at the end of the day are not it's not the purpose of our life, right? And we have a deeper purpose to our life, right? So that would be another way in which the what we've been talking about the yakin that you and I try to attain the the the firmness in our spirituality that we try to attain manifests and it's really really important because in our time people divorce the two so they they think religion is just kind of what you do in the masjid and with how much you pray and how much Quran you recite and then meanwhile good character thrown out the door the the house group you list someone is at work and with workplace and with income and with what the food that they eat and so on usually is not seen or often in our community I should say is not seen as part of religion. No our religion is holistic it's supposed to create a holistic successful human being all the way around right and every aspect of their of their life right so that would be another another example and so the two things that the scholars mentioned here is often try to have a practice of gratitude right so when you're feeling overwhelmed I remember I was just this happened to me the other day I was feeling overwhelmed with work lots going on tough conversations with my boss and I was like okay they could be better one on a walk and I was like okay let me just count some some of they're not basic blessings but you know the the the most essential blessings right okay alhamdulillah eyesight and able to walk and able to think and able to process and then able to do this and then and then it started okay then it all put in a perspective of oh it's just a job it's okay it was just one situation oh it's just one day in an overall you know many many many months of of things that were good and it helps things put things in perspective before the tongue starts to sin right because the tongues natural inclination is going to be to want to call somebody or start messaging someone or slacking someone can you believe that and then boom back fighting back fighting that and then all the different sins start to manifest and the darkness starts to manifest in the heart where the complaining becomes the dominant trait one of the main ways to to measure how much spiritual progress someone is making is how much do you and I complain it's a good thing good to ask our spouses this if we get the courage to and they'll be able to tell us right or your family member anybody you know how much do I complain right because someone close to you will tell you and you complain a lot everything is if you're always complaining oh the food isn't good and there's not this much salt and this that there's a bit as a big problem right because alhamdulillah you even have food in the life of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and in the life of the sahabah they would eat very very simple foods and it was a huge luxury to have more than one sauce like one wet dish you could say one one you know salan curry sauce type of thing to to to to moisten to give to give additional taste to the food that was a big deal let alone the amount of sugar they would give just for having for having the blessing of dates and water and bread and whatever other things basic state what we would consider staple foods that they would eat right and so again all of this begins to manifest in our life in some way so how you and I live at home how we are with our family how we are with our parents our spouses at work and so on that's a testament to how we're doing spiritually and so everything hopefully we've been talking about now to date in the class we're gonna try to bring a lot of it together to figure out okay how do we make sure in every aspect of our life we are manifesting the state of a of a Muslim this and the state of a true person who's trying to be a person of excellence who's trying to be a person of excellence so pause there before I get into the get into a lot of the specifics for any questions that might have come in any questions yeah yep yep good question question was how do you balance gratitude and justice important to think about personally and then also important thing about society very very important topic so the the balance with gratitude and speaking out and addressing a wrong is that internally you're like okay i'm accepting of the situation of what's going on right so let's say in a kind of a more minor situation where you're at work and um you don't feel like you're earning as much as someone else is earning right so internally you're like okay i'm accepting of the fact that Allah is this is what Allah wrote for me Allah has given right now externally it doesn't oppose that by saying you know what i'm going to go and check the data on how much someone is making and go and make a case to my boss or to hr whoever it is to say i want to make sure that i am being compensated fairly for the work that i do the two are not opposed where gratitude becomes compromised is when someone just completely loses it internally and it's like just doesn't accept the fact that this is the test that they're being put through right that okay maybe their their their income or wealth whatever it is is a test in that situation that's like a more um you could say uh minor example at a major level let's say something going on incorrectly in society and you know something is being done unjustly you're you don't you don't have gratitude for that situation what you have is acceptance internally right okay this is how Allah is manifesting the decree at this point now i have to do my job as a muslim who is supposed to be a worker of of of justice in society too um and and one of the traits Allah loves is the Allah you have been moksitin Allah who loves the people who um essentially are people of justice it's one of the ways you could you know mention that word so fist is like an equilibrium in justice right so Allah loves those people who tried to enjoin justice and it is one of the four cardinal virtues and in our faith is is the trait of justice so you would go out and still work to do that but except internally this is where the internal and external become important except internally that okay this is how the situation is manifesting i'm going to submit to the situation no matter what the end result is but i know what's going on in in the circumstances i'm in might be wrong and i'm going to work to fix it right uh but when it's a more personal one that's where gratitude is more important than just acceptance does that does that nuance make sense okay any other questions that's far i think okay cool just uh raise your hand if anything comes up i don't know all right so um now we're going to get into the into some of the i'm going to start with just some of the frameworks that we should have when it comes to like applying what we've been discussing and um actually just quick raise of hands here how many folks here are either working or have work or plan to work soon so i can tailor the content okay and how much people in school studying currently okay cool so yeah fairly applicable sounds good um okay so we'll go ahead then and um and continue so the first thing that i think most most often happens in our society is people define themselves through their careers it's very very normal right like oh what do you do is the first question most people ask and we literally start to think what we do is who we are it's not who we are right that's definitely not who we are it might be a part of it it might be a really big part of our identity for some people that's not at the end of the day who we are the person who applies the principles that that have been taught thus far their goal is you know yeah i am working but i'm working for something deeper right i'm working for something bigger i'm working for the hereafter at the end of the day that's really the the main focus of that person and what i do in this life it's a means to help me do that it's not the end and that's the the most important distinction to make so it's the first big takeaway i would say from from this conversation is everything we've been talking about to date is to help us reorient our focus to be more on the hereafter than just in this world and that means that we remind ourselves from time to time everybody will get caught up we remind ourselves from time to time okay this is not everything right i have a deeper purpose to my life versus for some people for people who don't believe in an afterlife this is the end all be all that's it i'm here i don't know what else to do i gotta make make a name for myself in this life right and that's their entire that's their entire purpose for us as long as you're you've made a name for yourself yourself in heaven don't worry about what goes on at the end of the day in this life is if we live a good life right because you want to make sure you are well known and renowned in heaven that you're famous in heaven that you have followers in heaven not that you have followers and fame and power and this this and that here and and then nothing is waiting for you and i in the next life so that's the framework of the muslim that framework is extremely liberating from the chains of the capitalist society that you and i live in because it's most of the time everything is about money money money money money money and power and status and fame and so on right and so that will help us orient now that doesn't mean though now the balance here doesn't mean that you and i don't want to succeed and don't want to do well and don't want to forget promoted and get you know solid degrees and do an excel and grow and so on it's just a matter of internal versus external internal the what we've been talking about if we apply the bicker that we're supposed to do regularly every day and we'll refresh that today inshallah if we apply some of these other spiritual principles if we apply the principles of trying to pray often in jamaa if we apply the principles of donating often and making sure of course to do our basic zakat but to do charity on top of that if we apply the basic pillars of our religion and then some a little bit more we will be able to start having this experience where internally we are progressing and externally we're also progressing that's what you and i want you don't want to only be progressing outwardly in your life and dunya and so on but there's very little internal progression that's that's where the problem starts to come if you're getting promoted externally in things and growing you also end in age and in in whatever else you also want to make sure that internally there's spiritual progression and you are progressing in the stations of nearness to Allah right and there are signs of that and we can inshallah talk about those signs so what the goal though is okay if i do something that will help me spiritually i make that a priority and then i also do whatever is going to help me in my dunya what i don't do is i don't flip the two i don't say i'm gonna first help myself in my dunya and then worry about my deen that becomes somebody who prioritizes this life over the next right it prior and you don't want to be amongst those people who Allah asks in the front you see those people who trade they trade the next life for this life because Allah will give this life he doesn't this life means nothing so like the world itself wealth and in all this stuff doesn't mean anything to Allah as it comes in very sadi the next life is what matters with God right so he'll give it but you and i don't want to be duped into thinking just because we're doing well here and we're also doing well there we want to make sure okay i'm also prioritizing what's going on next so examples of two or three things we got to make sure we have down and we talked about this last time is in relation to our everyday life minimum our prayers that we're doing them on time and getting to the point we're doing them at the beginning of their time right so we don't let our work or our school get in the way of our Salat that's that's something we don't compromise on right we can it doesn't mean we have to pray extra or nuffil at minimum the basic fard prayers that we have during the day we never miss them because of work or because of school right so up late studying for an exam we don't want to make that the reason we miss fadir the next morning right up late working on something you know a project that has to shape or whatever it is we don't make that the reason that we miss fadir right major meetings come up we during the middle of the day we don't make that a reason that we miss the heart no we we have the courage courage is also one of one of the essential virtues in our religion to speak up and say I got to go pray I'll be back in like five minutes give me you know I need to take a five ten minute break here right and to block off time on our calendars if we are in a class tell our professor right I got to I'll be back in five minutes right if we need to that most of the time once you know people people and people are fine with everybody taking the time to do whatever is that they need right but that would be one example and then we talked about Juma as well last time right that would be another example and the third example here is that we don't compromise on the source of our income we don't compromise on the source of our income right so like there might be a really appealing opportunity at a company that just like outright does something haram like visible right okay maybe a a beer company you know an alcohol company and it's like yeah they might offer a lot more money and they might offer a strong position we don't take that position just because we're like oh I can make more money no no no that would be compromising the principles of our religion right it's like vet the companies we're working at to make sure that majority of their income that their revenue streams are halal and permissible there will always be a minority where there's so much debt financing and so on out there in the world you're not going to ever clear it the promises I mentioned that at the in the latter days that the dust of interest will be everywhere it will impact everything right so like it's you can't go to every come back have you ever taken a loan before and have you ever done this every and then you would never be able to work anywhere no but the majority of Allah knows best here this is this is you know general general generally speaking from what I've learned from my teachers but their advice the majority of which though should be come that that the where the actually generating revenue from should be coming from permissible permissible sources from the left and then we get into when we're actually going through the day to day so we've now talked about a number of different spiritual exercises someone can do to bring themselves into balance and equilibrium as anyone remember what we've mentioned what happens when you're out of a state of spiritual equilibrium out of a state of balance like what traits manifest what feelings might manifest inside maybe even even if if it wasn't what we talked about like what do people experience when you're just feeling off and not feeling like spiritually aligned what do you meant yeah low confidence and low self-esteem yep those could be too yes anxiety the big one yeah unmotivated just kind of like not want to do anything right anybody else yep those are basically those three and then the stress which is very much linked to anxiety right so the the dean of Islam is a life force that literally gives like a core vital purpose to the life of a Muslim that's that's what this dean does when the dean when the dean leaves you and me when you and I stop practicing or we stop prioritizing slowly and slowly that life force may diminish it could be filled by other things but those are vacuous usually but those are empty things so you could have somebody like think about it as a container the heart is a container the container needs to be filled with something for some people it's filled with with with Allah right and I'm talking obviously figuratively it's filled with with prioritizing Allah prioritizing what's important prioritizing the next life and when that's when when that's what's filled when that container is filled with with those things that person will naturally feel purpose in their life then they'll feel a state of tranquility often not always but often they will feel a sense of purpose know why they're why they're there they will have a reason to get up every morning and a very very purposeful reason for that day right kind of to the point about not feeling motivated and a variety of other a variety of other traits right the stress will be less likely to hit that person at least majorly because they'll be able to remind themselves oh I'm gonna die eventually and this is all gonna go away and everything inshaAllah in the next life if things work out it's all gonna be good right there is no worry there's no stress there's no sickness there's no pain there's no cancer there's no problem there's no no income issues none of that stuff exists inshaAllah in the next life and jannah so that's a way that somebody manages some of these stressful situations versus the person who their container their spiritual heart is filled entirely with just let's say money and the pursuit of money that's every all they care about just got to make the most amount of money I gotta get the highest paid salary I gotta do whatever I can to make a lot I gotta do whatever I can to to win over others and to compete right and that eventually then is is a disease that will start to manifest in other ways that okay somebody might do something haram or illegal in order to to get that and might mean that oh well it doesn't really matter like if everybody's drinking I gotta drink it's just the only way to get up and to grow and to succeed and just principles become compromised because the heart is being filled with that desire in the time of the prophet alaih saratu islam there was very obvious manifest shirk of idols it was clear right like okay there were idols in the Kaaba that the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam eventually went and and these idols were destroyed and he went and stopped all of the shirk that was being committed at the time in the arabian peninsula right and tohid was a core principle of islam you don't really have that happening much in this world today you don't you you very rarely see physical idols that people are bowing down to and that they have physical idols set up in their home or whatever it is what's happened now is there are are more figurative idols that people bow down to right and the the idols that people bow down those have just as much of an impact and can be just as much shirk as the other idols right so what do we mean here and this is where again learning learning about yourself and learning what are my idols becomes really important because the heart is a metaphor for the Kaaba just like the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam cleared all of the idols that have the out of the Kaaba and made it the center of Allah's worship on this earth the heart for the human being is supposed to be the center of worship and it only has supposed to have room for God not supposed to have room for all the other idols but idols will collect in that heart over time so you we will have the idol of again of dunya of fame of position of power there's idols of appetite sexual desire and so on these idols will start to manifest and they each have little they can manifest in small ways or large ways as you go through life the more thicker somebody does the more someone understands true toki the more those idols become wiped away and they become cleansed and they become cleansed and they become cleansed and so the there are people who may be bowing to Allah but really physically they're bowing to Allah but their mind is completely elsewhere right and we we've all had I mean I've definitely had that experience we've all had ups and downs where we lose that focus but if that becomes to the point where we lose our worship over something else that becomes our idol whatever takes your place whatever takes the place of religion in the time where religion is mandatory becomes an idol so if the super bowl takes the place of religion and the whatever is being manifested on the super bowl and the the haram the haram that's showing up and we just say I'm going to miss all my prayers today because I just want to watch this that's an idol for the day football became greater than Allah right because Allah Akbar is Allah's greatest so it's a lie to say Allah Akbar if Allah is not actually greatest in our life right and you will see that Allah Akbar is a way of crushing the idols as is la ilah illallah and these are powerful adhqar that will crush the idols in our life and so all of the adhqar that we're supposed to do there's a reason why we do it it's not just performative this is not just ritualistic we might have seen a version of Islam in our life or growing up or if we're from another country we might have seen it back there as just rituals you just do something and then that's it and it doesn't actually sink deeper no the religion is supposed to sink so deep that as soon as somebody meets you they say the sign of a saint of awali is that he or she when you meet them they remind you of Allah they are a means a biker of Allah and there are people I'm sure all of us have met you just meet them and you just say Allah it's like their spirituality is so powerful that's a goal in mama haddad the author of the book that we're reading is one of those one of those types of people right and so that's the ultimate goal of what we're trying to do so when religion is off all of these traits start to manifest right and when when our spirituality is soaring and we're doing really well you will see a far lower amount of these traits manifest we may have tests and challenges that come up and stress could come up but our predominant state won't be anxiety stress worry sloth lack of motivation laziness a lack of productivity and so on because the Muslim who's applying everything that the Prophet ﷺ did is quite high functioning quite productive quite clear and acute with what's going on right quite intelligent able to apply themselves fully and feels purposed this sense of purpose and that's just in their dunya let alone spiritually you know all the other things that they might be so that being said let's talk a little bit about what you and I can do practically to help here any questions on just pause real quick actually any questions I want to just mention nope okay something like so there's a Hadith with the Prophet ﷺ told us that he told us that those who make all of their aspirations of this in this world one main aspiration that of the next world Allah will take care of their other aspirations what that means is if you and I have goals which you know we should have goals inshallah right and we we make our main goal though the pleasure of Allah and attaining a nearness to him and prioritizing to hear after Allah takes care of our other goals he will literally take care of them inshallah that that can manifest in a variety of ways for different people but the main thing here again it goes back to prioritize Allah and then everything falls into place deprioritize Allah things may look like they're falling into place but they're really falling out of place and you may not know that until much later on in life right and and yeah it's like that put God first and Allah will be added to you right right put God first and all things shall be added unto you shall be added unto you hmm yeah subhanallah so it's it's it's really really important to prioritize to prioritize God and in our life at the basic level we're going to start kind of from the beginning of our day till the end inshallah and then we'll go ahead and then yes great question excellent question so the question was when what's kind of considered prioritization right if you have a lot of work that you actually have to do it's put upon you it's a responsibility and you are giving priority to your religion and I get I guess in this case you mean like the obligations right like the far right and doing doing a little extra right and then from there but you're giving a lot more time to our jobs yeah that's a really good question or to academics so priority here doesn't mean quantity at all we're talking here about quality so um it's unlikely you'll you'll be in a situation and we don't need to be in a situation we're not required to be in a situation where you have to give if you give eight hours to your work you have to do eight hours of prayers right and then it's like well when are you going to sleep then right you also have to hang out your family and eat dinner and so on this is where the intention becomes essential the first second chapter that we covered in the book was about intention and the intention of the Muslim is so powerful that the Prophet said the action is literally by its intention so if you intend let's say to um and you should intend this right you are going to work to earn a halal income for your family the entire time you are at work for a man it's far it's an obligation when you have a family to work you cannot you cannot just just just not have that obligation it has to be taken so you are actually earning the reward of a far the deed the entire time you are at work and you are fulfilling the contract that you and your employer have set for but if you don't have that intention right then you didn't know that that that shortcut existed that's kind of some of the things we were about to talk about you didn't know that that shortcut existed and you're like okay well I'm there inshallah you're getting some reward for it but it's not as powerful as the one who actively makes the intention and for women who are doing that and who are actively contributing it's all saddaka all charity that's that's some a woman who works and earns and decides to contribute to her home but she's not required to something like she's so so so she it's completely up to her in that instance right for prioritization would be that if if juma time comes and your boss is like I need you here you got it you that's where you have to say no no no hold on I got to go to if there's only one juma in the community you got to go to that one if there's like some musjibs have like two or three juma salas you got to pick one and you got to go right in that case it would be a a misprioritization if someone was like well I'm just going to work today and not go to juma because it's a command and it's a farth action to go to juma it takes priority over the work that you would have to be doing right same thing if doha prayer comes or if us are prayer comes but if someone is doing their basic prayers and doing a little bit extra and then has the right intentions in our time and tries to do a little bit of thicker here and there a little bit of learning here and there that's very very that's that's exactly where we want to be right and then you grow from there does that does that make sense yeah yeah because our spiritual has been all the time yeah you have to have your principles that you have to be remembering about it always get what always comes right right exactly yeah so the the the spirituality will ideally manifest throughout our life right so even in this instance let's say like hanging out with your family if someone is is has children hanging out with your children giving them time that's all part of deen it's a deen is not it's just again praying and reciting put on but if that distract somebody from the prayer and someone is like oh I was with my family at the park and I just missed all the prayers today that's that something was wrong there but if someone is balancing properly and their intention is correct the beauty of the deen is a little bit goes such a long way right a little bit of priority giving giving giving priority to what's obligatory and doing a little bit extra makes your entire could make your entire day a day of just reward because the intention was correct is that that makes sense yeah yeah yeah um so so starting with the at the at the beginning right in our in our content so we spoke earlier about the importance of prayer and importance of prioritizing the prayer the most critical prayer that if we can unlock it in our life that we'll start to see a lot of benefit come is fajr it's lots of fajr and fajr is that the first time light enters the day there's a metaphor there as well if you want light to be present inside you want it to be awake at fajr ideally someone's awake before fajr and doing seeking Allah's forgiveness but that's a higher aspiration what we want to minimum make sure that we do is pray fajr and we will unlock seek we will unlock blessings in our dunya and in our dean from that right and this is where the balance comes the muslim who prays fajr you will always see a better day than a day when you don't pray fajr it's just that's just how the prayer works right and the muslim who capitalizes on the early morning and really make sure to use that this comes in a narration with the barakah the umma of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is in the early morning the early morning is the time when he sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was born so there's a big secret in the early morning so you'll see again success in your dunya as well if that that time is parakeh so that would be the first the first thing to do at the beginning of the day the second thing that we that we had also spoken about is to try and do extra after the fajr prayer so we had specifically talked about the sunnah dhikr that the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would do every morning and it's compiled in a collection which takes maybe seven, eight minutes to to recite or to just follow along called the where the latif and it's the sunnah adhkar that the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would do every single morning right and it's most of the adhkar that he would do every single morning and it's a it's a means of bringing blessings in your day it's a means of bringing barakah in your day it's a means of productivity in your day it's a means of bringing light in your day it's a means of repelling the sheyateen it's a means of repelling the dark forces it's a means of repelling nazar and ayn and all of these other bad bad things that could be coming to us right and so it's like one basic shield someone is putting around them to as they go about as they go about the world because you know it's living here in the world there's a lot of darkness that could come our way whether we ask for it or not whether we do something to bring it about or not there's just a lot that could come our way right so and the the the place that all of this vicar is compiled there's a there's a tiny url link but I highly recommend writing it down where we have there's like pds seven or eight pds of different vicar that we talked about throughout the class that are compiled there and you can just you know go to that link it's google drive tiny it's tiny url.com and tiny url.com slash awad and that's where you'll find the where the latif as the the one that I would recommend the where the latif was actually compiled also by imama haddad the author of this book so he looked through the sunnah uh this the various sunnah narrations of the prophet sasam and he compiled it all into something that's manageable in our time to read right so it's it's known as the um the subtle litany and uh again it's in the in that link you'll find various of the car but this one specifically is the one to do in the morning time any time from fudger up until voher ideally you get it done in the morning and if someone has more himma it's good to do also after us or um or any time after us or until ishah it's also good to do or until the night time there's a night time version of it a little but at minimum in the morning time right and that now you'll see more benefit in barakah coming in your day right so this is what i mean by something extra someone says okay i'm going to pray the basics i'm going to do extra biker right in addition to the basic fudger prayer yes no no no no no no no sorry this is set anytime someone can find five minutes between usher and ishah they would do this uh maybe it takes like anywhere from five to 12 minutes depending on how slow or fast someone reads precisely right um and if you don't you can't recite it you can just follow it you can listen to it on youtube it's a very well known litany um you listen to it and just follow along right most of the half of it is surah from the quran the people know then there's other basic and then and then other biker from the sunnah of the policy song so yeah no it's it's it's it's five 10 minutes but it has it's really potent has a lot of impact right so this is an example of something someone adds now to their daily practice and i would highly encourage that if there's anything you take away from at least these discussions we've been having on biker and and work and productivity it's to do some extra form of biker ideally the sunnah biker of the prophecy salam compiled that that we just discussed in the morning it will transform your it will literally transform your life completely transform your life i remember when i was in college and i was struggling with a few things and um just like struggling to to uh the the struggling to just maintain consistency and i remember when my teacher told me that oh this is the biker that you should do i was like okay and i was like i read i looked at it was long i was like oh come on five seven minutes this is a lot of stuff like i'm a college student like i'm i didn't i didn't want to do it and then one day i was like you know what you got to try it at some point and i just remember one day i just tried it i was like i'll just sit and recite it and listen follow along and it was so at the whole day it was so much easier to just exist it was so much as a as a muslim male in college it was so much easier it was easier to lower your gaze it was easier to not get impacted by music it was easier to not get impacted by um um uh just the stresses of college life of studying and all the grades everything else that's going on right and just the worries about job and finance and finding into all the different things that were that might have been going on at that time and i'll quite remember everything it was just easier to process not to go okay that was nice let's try it again the next day and you try it again they're like okay another day too pretty good this was good and then just then at some point you just i'm like getting to a rhythm and then and you start then you then you what will happen is somebody will feel off if they don't do it you'll feel off something's wrong if you have a regular dicker you do every day and you don't do it for a day your heart starts to feel weird like what's going on i need that it's like a it's like a vitamin right like i need that as a um because you're you're trying to align with the sunnah of the provisional psalm and every sunnah has a light and the light again it's like a spiritual vitamin and if you don't get it you you feel the the effects of it so that would be the the the second thing to do in addition to praying um slats of fudger the third thing that you'll see manifest if this happens is this is the time after fudger praying fudger and the time after fudger where risk is being distributed according to various narrations so praying you actually have a direct link between praying fudger and doing vicar after fudger and seeing an increase in your risk that means like more uh like more money more promotions more success you there's a direct correlation this is a time where um the one who is able to stay awake ideally and we also mentioned this in an earlier chapter was able to stay awake after fudger do thicker until sunrise so let's say right now fudger that like um let's say someone prays at six six fifteen six six o'clock and sunrise is i think like six forty five or so six fifty and then someone is awake at that point someone stayed awake tried to do as much thicker as possible and then you pray to rakat of ishraq or salat of doha which is another very virtuous tunna anytime about 10 15 minutes after the sun has risen somebody you will get the reward that we talked about last time of a complete hajj and umrah and you will see inshallah an increase in your risk because you use the time when risk was being distributed in the worship of Allah right so these are again shortcuts many times people want to succeed in their dunya which is totally fine but they don't avail these shortcuts these shortcuts are present in our religion right this will be a faster way to succeed and get promoted and do well then um constantly asking your boss when can i get promoted i can't guarantee you that you're asking the real boss you'll give it to you because it's easy it's easy but you just have to put in a little bit of effort right put in a little bit of effort the um fourth thing that we can do we touched about we talked about this briefly is make intentions as we go throughout our day right so as you go throughout the work day you make an intention if you're about to interact the beginning the morning intention i intend to do this to earn money to support my family right that would be a primary intention and then many i intend for my work to be a means of growth in my dean and in my dunya i intend to help people when they need help i intend to be of assistance many other intentions somebody can make right just brains from the intention then the entire day the whole time you're just getting the reward for all the intentions for all the intentions right and as you can get into a space to enter into a difficult conversation with somebody you know they're stressed out to make the intention i intend to try to help them navigate their stress right and try to be try to be the person who calms things down and ground the situation versus making the situation worse and again this can manifest in any other part of our life and school with our families wherever else right the fifth thing then when it comes to prior when it when it comes to our jobs is to prioritize our zakat right and again we we talked about this two to a few class ago but just just to make sure to drive the point home 2.5 percent is due on for anybody who makes above a certain amount which generally speaking if you're live you know earning an income in the bay area you'll most people will be above this amount that and and that is will this the amount is due on the amount someone has accumulated for one year's time right so essentially you could say like what is in your savings account after you have paid off like the the debts of that month or the payments of that month and then you give 2.5 percent of that right so let's say that somebody always gives zakat and ramadan which is common ramadan this year comes around in april and someone has $10,000 in savings okay and that's the they don't have any extra jewelry or anything else that's it and they don't have a 401k it's a basic $10,000 it would give 2.5 percent of the 10,000 right so you know $250 in zakat right that's that's it's $100,000 $2,500 in zakat and so on as that money increases and you also have to calculate value of stocks the value of investments and the value of anything that's a liquid not like the value of a home and the value of a car or something like that um it's not a class on the thick of zakat but just to mention that if you you and I do not pair zakat we can say goodbye to blessings and our wealth zakat is the door to blessings and our wealth in our career in our um in our family environment if our wealth is the main wealth that our family environment is functioning off of right you do not want your wealth to be rotten wealth the zakat is the the what purifies the wealth as you go throughout the year the money you and I earn has impurities right and zakat purifies the wealth so that that's that's the fourth point the fifth is to make sure you and I are prioritizing our spending on um minimizing any haram that we have and then on maximizing the amount of spiritual benefit we can get right so through you can have worship with your body you can have worship with your um you can have worship with your body you can have worship with your money you can have worship with your mind through your intentions your heart and so on right worshiping with your money is possible in a few ways let's say someone has a lot of debts someone took out loans and those loans have interest accumulated on them right now interest in our religion essentially in all circumstances is is is categorically haram right so somebody if they were earning it becomes a heavy priority to pay off that interest as soon as possible like make it really really really big focus right it's actually really downplayed in our society these days that it's kind of taken lightly oh you know it's only 3% apr whatever it is it really doesn't matter what the percentage is unless it is what's what would be considered an Islamic loan in which the the contract structure is fine and the interest doesn't apply but in other circumstances if we have interest so we have student loans whether we didn't know or we didn't we might not have been you know at that point practicing whatever it is um we prioritize paying that off and like a lot we don't just do the minimum amount we don't even do a little we just as much as we can give towards getting rid of haram in our life we get rid of it because the haram will will impact the blessings in our life significantly and it will be a source of um could be a major source of spiritual uh of spiritual detriment to us right so we prioritize what is it what do i mean by prioritize let's say someone has $10,000 that they have to pay off in debts before someone takes a vacation before somebody spends on a car before someone does anything that they don't have to do they pay off that debt if it's a community interest if it's just debt it's zero you know zero percent interest um you could decide between you and whoever lent you the debt whenever you want to pay it off right that's it's virtuous to pay it off sooner because that's not a virtuous that's not a good thing in our religion but that's between you and that person but if there's any interest associated with it we prioritize it right so the minute we start earning okay going to get all the the loan payments out right the next thing is if there's anything else that somebody might uh be doing that is uh sending money on something haram right this was a course taking out a loan let's say someone is now spending money on something haram you limit that because it's a means of removing a means of increasing blessings in our life to remove anything we're spending on that that would be considered impermissible um you know most of the time most practicing Muslims it's unlikely you're sending on like alcohol or or weapons or i mean uh weapons for protection not necessarily but like weapons to create you know crime and whatnot this is what i'm talking about um it's unlikely someone is spending on that but if someone is like they know hey i'm doing something wrong with my money right and i'm or i'm i'm uh doing something that is questionable with my money you go and you get clarity on that right and say okay make sure that um that spending is done so if like someone knows oh i'm missing credit card payments and credit card payments have insane apr is 20 plus that's a problem right you say no no no no i got a rain in my spending i got to make sure i never miss a payment because i can't let the haram of interest impact my money right so that would be um when it comes to spending the the fifth thing to keep in mind and the last thing here is just daily management of uh the anxiety and the stress that we do feel as we go on throughout our life and there's dickered that exists in the sunnah and in the Quran in the sunnah to help us with that right and so applying this means you will actually see this is actually really amazing sometimes your spiritual path may be through something that's not at all spiritual your spiritual path could be through something that doesn't actually look spiritual in any way and what i mean by that is Allah may put you in a situation where you will find yourself relying on him you will find yourself going to the going you know trying to turn to him through dicker and and dua and prayer and asking for him and trying to place your trust in him but what the actual situation may just be like school or it may be again work it may be a situation at work it may not be something like it's not necessarily this amazing spiritual event that's causing that you to learn those traits but the amazing thing about our deen is there's no linear spiritual path it's not like everybody at stage two of the path at age 31 will experience this and then at 33 will experience this and at age 40 will experience not how it works Allah has everybody's story in this room is different story on what they do in their day to day on the stage that you and I are at in life everybody's story is different but Allah is bringing everybody on their on a spiritual journey it's just if the the the eye of the heart is awake enough to notice what is the lesson i'm supposed to be taught today what is the lesson in this what is my lesson in this situation and the people who are perceptive and the people who do a lot of bicker and the people who prioritize the religion they'll know oh okay there's something here for sure now i gotta figure out what it was there's some lesson in this right and it might be something again super mundane like some random interaction with a colleague but there was might be some lesson like you know what i was a bit a bit harsh with that person today maybe Allah wants me to become more gentle because it's among the traits of Allah to be he's Allah if he is the gentle and it's among the traits of provisism to be gentle right i met to some random mundane interaction but you and i will have lessons in our life that will or day um aspects of our life that Allah will want to teach us the principles of this being through and so in this instance what i mentioned that trying to apply the sunnah adhkar of the provisism when we are going through anxiety and stress everybody will have different anxieties and stresses but the bicker is the bicker and the bicker allows you to draw near to Allah and it allows you to establish a state of firmness in the heart such that the next time that stress happens it's easier to deal with and the tenth time it happens it's even easier to deal with because you already have the medicine right so among those there's there's three that we would highly recommend and the first is to regularly say hasmon Allah when it will be that Allah is sufficient for me and this was the the famous bicker of Sayyidina ibrahim alayhi salam that when he was being thrown into the fire he was being cast into this they built this huge fire and then they built a huge catapult to throw him into the fire because he wouldn't worship their idols and they were really upset so they put him on this catapult and he's being thrown in and as he's in the middle of the air jabriel ibrahim alayhi salam appears in the archangel gabriel and he asks him he says do you need anything anything i can do for you and he looks at him and he's now saying that ibrahim alayhi salam obviously like he's amongst he's the khalil Allah he is the um he is a very very close friend what's the best way to translate khalil like um yeah very very close friend of Allah you could say and so he is being thrown at this point and he says as for from you no i don't need anything Allah is aware of my situation hasbunallah wa nimal wakil Allah is sufficient for me now who's the one who sent the archangel gabriel Allah sent him so what's going on here he was in such an amazing state of of witnessing Allah only that he just was i'm only going to rely on hasbunallah wa nimal wakil Allah is sufficient for me and then Allah turns the fire into just complete he says it'd be cool and it literally turns into as mentioned some of the tests here like a bed of flowers for him and they all think that he's burning in the fire and he's in a complete state of tranquility and it becomes completely peaceful for him Allah commands the fire to be bardan wa salaman for ibrahim cool and peaceful for ibrahim alayhi salam now that was Allah making a situation that was very very scary and anxiety inducing and stressful and life threatening because his servant was relying on him and he turned to him and he remembered him he made that situation easy for him and he made that situation completely peaceful for him it means the lesson for us is that outward may be really difficult but Allah can change how we respond to it if we rely on him through through the difficulty and it could be in our family it could be with the situation it could be with our health it could be at work whatever it is but hasbunallah wa nimal wakil is an extremely potent bicker to help us do that the second one is to do regular salawat upon the prophet alaihi salatu as-salam Allah salli alayhi wa sallam Muhammad it is a means of bringing spiritual balance to yourself and it is a means of reducing anxiety and managing stress as well so try at least 10 times a day to say Allah say Muhammad at minimum 10 times a day you can do more on 100 is really good 300 is even better a thousand some people do a thousand every day try to do at least 10 times a day and you'll see a lot of benefits in it there's a there's a ton of virtues of salawat amongst those that every time you you pray upon the prophet salam once Allah prays upon you um Allah prays upon you right and and you get the reward of Allah prays upon you 10 times and you get the reward of the prophet alaihi salatu as-salam if you say um send salawat upon him that he responds to you on Fridays if you do this he responds to you and he says if you were if you know city fenton is doing it right and he says a salatu as-salam alaika ya rasoolallah he's responding by name and he's taking your name and your father's name and um returning the salat so there's a lot of virtues to salawat and the third is there's specific du'a as we have in our religion for moments we're feeling really constricted there's du'a is found in that url link that i mentioned before and it's found in the but it's it's it's uh Allahumma ni'a'udu bi kamman al-hamni wal-hazan when i a'udu bi kamman al-ajdi wal-kasal when i a'udu bi kamman al-jubni wal-bughal when i a'udu bi kamman al-halabat al-dani wal-qahri yajal that oh Allah seek refuge in you from grief and sadness from weakness and laziness from cowardice and miserliness from being overcome by debt and overpowered by other people so um if anybody needs to know the du'a just come up afterwards and we can repeat it yes sorry i can't hear because of the heater yeah a really good question um so the question is we mentioned Hasbun Allah wa nim al-wakil and then then there's a hadith of the prophecy some mentions to trust Allah but to tie your camel so the line is depending on you you you and i need to know the state that we're at none of us are ibrahim al-islam so none of us ever would be in that situation where we would just say no no no i'm not going to seek the help right that's that's a station reserved for the elect of the elect in our situation we trust Allah internally and then we do what we need to do externally right so let's say someone is like after this class the walking outside and um it's late right it's not like we just every single person who's walking by we just completely trust that they're like oh yeah this person is a good person it's going to trust and god no no no no we make sure we are scrupulous we make sure that ideally we are walking with other people to make sure that nothing happens to us right and we we seek Allah's protection and we tie our camel in this specific example that helps us on said tie your camel to prevent it from being stolen it's not like oh yeah i'm coming to the much that i'm going to leave my car unlocked and hope nothing happens no something could happen that would have been on us the internal assessment someone starts to get is where let's say you are dealing with a sickness right and someone is ill trusting in Allah does not contradict taking medicine what contradicts take trusting in Allah though is if you think the medicine can do anything for you without Allah's help right so it's because this is all about inner the whole the inner world is really the main focus here so someone thinks oh i'm taking this medicine it's going to heal me the doctor is going to heal me the doctor can't do anything the medicine can't do anything Allah will heal us so if we don't pray in addition to taking the medicine if we don't seek his help if we don't internally place our trust within him then we will be in a situation where we are contradicting trust but it doesn't mean we don't take the medicine right so i remember one time one of my teacher mentioned he said i was about to go into the for like this treatment and he said okay internally you have to just place all of your trust in Allah right but go and do the treatment but place your trust that Allah is going to be the one who gives the shifa but you have to still do the treatment you have to go to the physician you have to get assistance you have to get guidance um someone may get to a level where they let's say oh instead of taking a med day of a minor pain instead of taking a medicine they'll say you know what i'm going to just going to pray two raka and i'm going to pray another two raka and i'm going to pray another two raka and i'm just going to really pray that the medicine goes away as a way of increasing their trust that that could be a choice somebody makes but you have to know where you're at it's for the majority of us it's not what we would do majority of us you'd pair it with taking the medicine and then also increasing in prayer does that does that make sense yeah okay cool so we'll go ahead and um i apologize for getting late and and he's putting out some delicious food here so we'll go ahead and and and now just with this concept that um the most important thing is we orient our focus on the afterlife while also living in this life the muslim has to live in this world we have to interact with people we have to build our character through people we have to work we have to have families and so on so it's all these different things that are that are going to happen in our life however our focus should be how do i use all of these things as a means of drawing near to Allah rather than these just being the end of itself and if we inshaAllah do that we apply what we've been talking about and we apply um and we try to get to a couple of these specifics by making sure we have our prayers down making sure we never compromise on our prayer to prioritize fajr to prioritize doing a little bit of bikr and to prioritize doing um specific sumna bikr in different situations that will actually become a means of us getting near to Allah and a means of us succeeding in this life and so we ask that Allah make that easy for all of us we'll just do a few minutes of questions in case anybody has them and then we'll go ahead and sorry sorry we went a little late today yes yeah good question so the question was um bikr well how does it apply is bikr can also can bikr apply to seeking knowledge reading the seerah of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam which is the bryat biography of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam or is it only like when you actually um say allahu akbar la ilaha illallah no it would be so bikr is anything which allows you to remember allah right so seeking knowledge is a form of bikr right sit outwardly saying allahu masalla sallallahu alayhi wa sallam or la ilaha illallah is a form of bikr praying is a form of bikr but reciting quran is a form of bikr seeking knowledge is actually one of the best forms of remembering Allah it's highly virtuous it's more virtuous if somebody does the basic sunnahs to then spend extra time learning in our time then it is to just spend time doing bikr right especially because we have a we don't have much knowledge in our time anymore so anything that allows you to remember Allah and that guides you towards remembering Allah is a form of bikr what i was talking about in this instance could manifest a seeking knowledge or a specific bikr when i was like a it's like a bikr phrase or a bikr formula that might be like a verse from the quran or a specific bikr that the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would do so saying la hola wa la quwwata illallah la ilaha illallah liradim helps you with stress because you're just okay there's no strength or power except Allah right reading about the meanings of la hola wa la quwwata la ilaha illallah liradim also might be a better way of helping in addition to saying this and then reading in the seerah about how the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam applied that would be even more virtuous so it just it's kind of like you want to pair all of them together and depending on the moment and the situation you're in you want to pick pick what what's most applicable does that make sense yeah yeah oh yeah that's yeah so for example someone is going out and reflecting going on a hike going to the ocean going wherever and remembering Allah and saying subhanallah and just feeling grateful for everything and reflecting on all the beauties that Allah that's one of the best forms of bikr you're now applying the biker of the tongue with the biker of the heart with the reflection and with the eyes seeing Allah's beauty until you're appreciating it it's it's very very really important to do that and it's also really virtuous way so yeah the recreational activities can be a way of manifesting it as well yeah does that make sense going to the gym and intending to gain strength so that somebody can can become more firm in worshiping Allah and and and and be in good health would also be considered could also be considered as long as someone is avoiding the haram a form of biker right it's just about the intention somebody makes yeah a form of worship I should say yes okay any questions any questions on the sister side yes yep great question so the question was when you're going about your day in this specific situation in college there's a lot on your mind and maybe someone is worshiping and praying and so on but it's hard to actually focus practically what can you do to help help us slow down and help us get there that's a really good question so the probably the most the best advice I've gotten in this I don't apply this often and I need to apply it more but the best advice I've gotten is have five to ten minutes a day or even two to three minutes where you sit alone in a room close all the lights be in a complete state of you just be alone be with you and Allah and try and imagine yourself in your grave and try and imagine that at one point you will actually be in there and it will only be you and Allah the remembrance of death is so potent that it takes away everything else it just clears it right and just completely makes it like oh this is real and what that does now is it starts to also develop a longing inside of the heart because deep down inside the human being just longs for Allah all other forms of love and these are all just forms of metaphors for the love that the creation has for the creator and so the deep down inside you and I have a longing to just want to talk to Allah to just want to be with him to just want to have kind of like alone time with him but we don't get time with everything else going on so if you can do that that would be really, really virtuous if the remembrance of the grave is too much it might say hey maybe I'm not necessarily you know ready for that at least being in a room alone and or it doesn't have to be a room but a place alone where it's just you and Allah and having five to ten minutes where you just have a conversation express your needs and it doesn't have to be in the form of prayer form of dua form of just a conversation and try to limit the main thing is limit sensory inputs so people at the time of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and at the time of the Salaf they would have very few sensory inputs where they were worshiping because like walking is good but sometimes like I also struggle with this I'm like trying to walk and focus especially in urban environment there's so much going on I'm like oh I'm now I remember this one thing because I saw the car I'm like where how did I end up on this random topic in my mind so that's where no phone no no no auditory inputs no visual inputs and it's just you and Allah and now you can focus those three or four minutes will be so powerful that it's mentioned in the had it's mentioned in Ariesh Nirmal Ali radi allahu anda a moment of reflection and this type of powerful reflection is better than 70 years of worship because you have focus and because it's inculcating a desire to want to worship more is that does that make sense so I would I would try that and then inshallah see how it goes yeah yeah question that's really really good advice yet the the most mentioned for anyone in here is that during wudu for in terms of trying to attain a state of presence in a state of khushu and focus to actively think about as you're washing each limb to actively think about everything you might have done with that limb and that you're washing it away and that you are as you are cleaning your eyes you are literally washing away anything you might have seen as you're cleaning your hands anything you might have done and to try to attain a state of presence actually mentioned in the books that the key to focus in the prayer is focus in wudu and so focusing in wudu is wudu is not supposed to be like splash splash like we're done and then we go and pray it's supposed to be it's it's worship right there's worship that's happening during wudu the excellent point thanks you for bringing that up okay any other questions for the side is this your side any questions okay hamdallah online I think there's one uh question we saw okay somebody asked about uh how do we deal with trying to be grateful during trying times it's a really good question um the main thing that I would recommend here is to try to be grateful for all the blessings that you have in your life so you count every blessing so Allah always mentions in the Quran often that we have given them sight and hearing and understanding and yet few of them are grateful so you you actually give great gratitude for your site for your hearing for your understanding for your kidneys for your organs for your limbs and so on and try to really just express gratitude for that will take at least five minutes just count all those all those things right and then recognize that times are difficult and to pray then for the people who are struggling in um in in in those situations right uh but the difficulty is not supposed to upset our gratitude it's supposed to be a means of us actually being grateful with everything we do have and then inshallah praying and hoping that things will get uh better so we'll go ahead and end here for the sake of time you know again quite late if anybody has other questions just come up afterwards inshallah and we can um discuss them and with the dua inshallah and we have learned Allah we ask you poor mercy into our lives and into our hearts and into the lives of our families and our loved ones yalla we ask you lift all of our difficulties and all of our problems and all of our worries and all of our anxieties and any issues that we are having that you remove them from us yalla we ask you draw us nearer and nearer to you yalla draw us near to you yalla and every moment and every intention that we have let us be near to you yara we ask you yalla for everything good to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam asked for and we ask you for protection from everything evil that he asked protection from was sallallahu was sallam abarak ala sayyidina Muhammadin