 Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, Alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen wa sallallahu wa sallim al-barak ala sayyidina Muhammadin wa ala alihi wa sahbihi sallim, Alhamdulillahi. So we are going to continue on in this series where we've been talking about different desires that the human being has. And today we are going to move on to a desire that is very, very prevalent in the world that we live in. And this is the desire for fame and the desire for followers. So what we're really going to be focusing on is to understand why do we as human beings, why do we have this desire to be famous? Why do we have this desire to have so many followers? Why do we have the desire to have the most amount of views and to have the most amount of people constantly watching us and praising us? And what is the spiritual cause for that? And what are the spiritual cures for this desire for fame and this desire for followers? So we're going to try to keep it brief, inshallah. And as you have questions come up, please feel free to post them in the chat, whether you're following along on YouTube or anywhere else. So we live in a society where followers and fame are really, really, really big part of the culture that we live in. It has become universalized and almost democratized in the last 10 or so years where as before it could be that you had to be among a very, very specific class of people. You had to have a very, very certain type of privilege in order to kind of rise through the ranks and become famous. That's no longer the case. And now with the advent of more and more social media platforms and with all of us having our smartphones, it's very, very easy to just put something out there and to try to become famous and to try to get followers and to try to get views and to try to get likes. And while there's nothing inherently wrong with trying to do some type of good or spreading some type of benefit using different types of platforms, it definitely becomes risky when you and I start to desire this stuff. When we actually start to want more, I want more people following me on more. I want to be more famous. I want to be more in charge. I want to get more and more people under my purview. I want to get more and more people listening to me. I want more and more power. I want more and more control. That actually becomes very dangerous for the human being. That's why it's called a desire. And that's why it's actually warned severely against in our religion, because what it can do is it can eventually go on to ruin you and me, that you and me desiring people to follow us and people to be like us and to people to like everything it is that we say and everything it is that we do, it can actually end up ruining us spiritually. And this is important because you and I won't notice this when we're young, but as we get older and older and older, the more and more we let this get to us, the more and more the impacts of this start to happen and they start to creep in, the more and more we start to become stressed out and the more and more the spiritual ramifications start to take hold. And we've seen this happen in all realms of life. We see this happen where somebody begins their life in a very, very specific way. They began their political career or their social media career or whatever it is. And initially, right? They're just trying to do something. And then from there, what happens is people start to like what they do and people start to inflate them a little bit and they start to get a little bit of a bigger head, right? And then from there, it starts to become about how much money am I going to make through this? So we touched upon this in two, two classes ago, where we talked about the desire for money and we talked about what the desire for money is linked to and why the desire for wealth can very, very much ruin us because the Prophet ﷺ, he said in the hadith, I mean, he indicated this, that the love for money and love for wealth are worse for a Muslim than wolves are in a flock of sheep, among a flock of sheep, right? As I see somebody says, Salamu alaykum, alaykum salam, alamutullah. So the love for wealth, love for fame, the two are linked and we'll talk a little bit about that, but that can ruin you. It can really, really, really ruin you because your whole life becomes about pursuing empty things. That's at the first level. Remember, you and I are here for a very specific reason. We are here to try to get through this life and to try to get to the hereafter. We are not here to collect fortune. We're not here to collect a bunch of things. We're not here to collect a bunch of fame and a bunch of followers because, guess what? When you die, your bank account doesn't go with you. Your social media following doesn't go with you. All the likes that we collected don't go with us. All the views that we collected don't go with us. None of that's going to go with us to a grave. All of our stocks, all of our investments, all of the money that we've gathered, none of that stuff is actually going to go with us when we pass away. So what is going to go with us? Our good deeds will go with us. The amount that we gave away will go with us. These types of things are what go with us when we pass away. So the perspective of the Muslim is always a perspective of what am I going to have, not in the life that I'm living right now. No, it's what am I going to benefit from after? What am I going to benefit from when I leave this world? Because the afterlife, that is at the end of the day, what matters? Well, it's better for you, right? It is better for you than where you are right now. So that is the reason, one of the reasons why this desire for fame and status and followers and rank and all these types of things are very, very condemned. And we'll talk now a little bit about what it does. So what it does as you and I start to spiritually, the impact that it has as you and I start to follow our desires is it starts to ruin you slowly and slowly and slowly. So people become very much destroyed by searching for this type of stuff. And we see in the Hadith of Prophet Salaam says that love for rank and property causes hypocrisy to grow in the soil as water causes like plants and leaks and other types of things to grow. So just like water will cause certain things to grow in the soil. The love for rank, the love for followers, the love for people watching you and people being and basically kind of sort of in a very, very many way, many worshiping people, that love in the spiritual heart, in the soul, it causes hypocrisy to grow. Now, what is hypocrisy? Hypocrisy is to do one thing on the outside, but to actually be somebody else on the inside. And why is it that this grows? Well, one of the reasons it could be Allah knows best is because when you and I are trying to do things for other people, we are not necessarily doing things sincerely only for the sake of Allah. That we require a certain amount of work on ourselves first and foremost. We have to work on ourselves before we start doing things publicly because otherwise the hypocritical aspect can come in. And even if we still do all that, the hypocritical aspect can still come in. But that's where we ask Allah for protection and we ask for assistance. And Allah says in the Quran that we have made the hereafter for those who do not seek elevation on the earth. They're not going about and seeking elevation. Like, what does that mean? That sounds, you know, very, very like a big, big word, big phrase, right? What does it mean? Allah is saying that if you and I are not going out and actively seeking that I want to run the show, I want to be the boss, I want to have be the most popular, I want to be the most famous, that that is who the hereafter is meant for. And this applies to all aspects of our life. So we really have to think about this, that the culture that we live in glorifies and magnifies people who are popular and glorifies and magnifies people who are famous. It glorifies and magnifies people who have some type of inherent popularity or fame about them, right? So maybe they're in the like, for example, these days, the royal family, these types of things, these types of things are irrelevant. What does it matter whether somebody's popular? We know this in high school, we really see it in high school. I remember in high school, high school is a scarring place, very weird place because it was all about like, well, what are the popular kids doing? You know, popular kids going to this party and this and dude, at the end of the day, like nobody even remembers the popular kids anymore. I mean, and if we were among the popular kids, OK, cool. But like, what did we do that actually is going to benefit us later in life? Most of the people that I knew that when we were in any of those circles, most of the stuff that those of us who got caught up in that stuff, it hurt us, right? It ends up hurting you. But that's all irrelevant. Why does it matter? Who cares these days? Everybody's talking about the royal family and this thing and that thing. I mean, why are we giving so much attention to these monarchs who colonize so much of the world? They're irrelevant. They should be completely irrelevant. I mean, the wrongs that they do, we need to notice them and we need to call them out. But like, they've been doing wrong since for the last, you know, many, many centuries. The fact that they even get attention is a problem, right? But it's because, oh, they're famous and there is this fame. And same thing with celebrities. You see this all the time. A celebrity does something and everybody's talking about it. Who cares? Why do we? Why is it relevant to us when you and I die? Is that person going to be relevant to us? No. So why do we give so much of our worldly attention than to that? It's because they're famous. And when they're famous, there's a there's an aspect of we elevate them. And actually what ends up happening in spiritually, this is something mentioned in our religion that what ends up happening is they become a mini God that we worship. They do become a mini idol that we worship and I'm worshiping this athlete. I have to know everything about them. I'm worshiping this celebrity. I'm worshiping this president. I'm worshiping this prayer. And it's not that you're bowing down to them. Actually, when you make sajdah, right, in prayer, you're bowing down to Allah. But when you spend all of your time and when you and I spend all of our time thinking about something and always just being obsessed with it in a mini way, we have that mini worship. And that's what the desire is, because Allah says in the Quran, have you seen the one who takes their hawa, their desire as their Lord? So the one who takes their desire as their Lord is the one who gives something preference, overgiven preference to Allah, right? And so we have to think about the danger of this stuff. And now what ends up happening is we grow up in a culture that magnifies this stuff. And then we ourselves want to be magnified. We ourselves want to be elevated. We grew up in a culture that emphasizes so much on fame and popularity and rank and now it's so easy. Everybody wants followers. Everybody wants likes. And then we grow up and that's what we think we have to do. And we end up in this stressful pursuit all the time of these superfluous empty things. And it ends up impacting us because we don't focus on the big stuff that matters in life. This is something just for us to keep in mind for us to reflect on. This is not something that goes away immediately, but we have to at least think about it. We have to know about it, right? And so let's talk about why spiritually, why the human being wants this, as the scholars mentioned. And again, as anybody has comments or questions or anything, just please post them in the chat. So why do we want it? The human being, what you and I want is we have a desire deep down inside of us to want everything. That's really what it is. And so we wonder why do people want fame more than they want wealth? Right? So you get to a point in life where you're rich. Let's say we see this a lot. People are rich, but at some point the fame, the wealth is not enough. And the money is not enough. Now I've got to be, I have to become famous. I have to be, have a certain type of profile. And even higher than that is the people that desire for power. After you become a certain level of fame or have a certain level of fame, you want a certain amount of power and control. We'll talk a little bit about why that happens. Slowly what ends up happening is you and I, just like we have control over a bunch of things. So like, oh, I have this thing and that thing. Now I acquired this, I acquired that, I got this. I want new clothes. I want new, we're just always buying stuff, right? There's just this desire for wealth and I want new cars all the time and just keep getting, keep getting. What ends up happening is that the human being also desires now control and influence over people's hearts and over people's attention. So it's like, oh, I got this much now. How many people can I get to follow me? How many people's attention can I get? Oh, I have 20 people. I have a thousand people. I have 10 million people. How many people's hearts have I captured? You can't buy your way to someone's, someone's attention. It's not going to work. You have to influence your way. They recall these days, everybody's an influencer. You have to influence your way to them. And the more and more I have, the better it is. And you start thinking of yourself as something. Elevate yourself. And it doesn't matter where we are at in life. That elevation does happen because people, they give their worth, they base their worth on this. Many times, you and I have been introduced to people like, oh, have you met this person? They have 1 million followers. OK, great. Well, if the people are following them towards something good and their ego is not full of themselves, right? OK, masha'Allah. But if they're following to hell, frankly, to sin, I mean, none of that stuff is relevant. And even if they're leading someone to good, but they're full of themselves, they think they're all that. We see this happen all the time in Muslim communities. Somebody will achieve a certain level of rank and followers and people being influenced by them. And then they go off and they do something super corrupt. They're like embezzled money or they have like a scandal by having secret wives and this type of thing. I mean, what is that? Where do you find that in the sunnah of the Prophet Sallam? You don't find it because these people, they didn't prioritize correctly. They went too quickly after fame and the wrong things without grounding themselves. This is why grounding is so important. So this is now let's walk through a little bit of this kind of deep, deep spirituality that's linked to this desire for followers and the desire for fame. This, and if this gets at all complex, just please post a question and we'll do our best to address it. So the human being, you and I actually have a very, very deep spiritual nature. We have a very angelic nature. And we have a nature that is directly from the divine presence because Allah says in the Quran that he says that the spirit of my Lord, he says the spirit is from the command of my Lord. That's what he says. That he tells the Prophet Sallam to say, that say that the spirit, the Ruh, is from the command of my Lord. Now what does that mean? That means that deep down inside of us, we have something inside of us that has a very, very high nature, right? Because it's from the command of our Lord. Now, all of us at the same time, the soul, the nafs, so that's the spirit. That's the elevated part. Then you have what's called the nafs, the ego. The nafs has a desire for fame and deep down inside of it. As Allah says in the Quran, right? That Pharaoh, he says, I am your Lord most high. The nafs has that desire. The nafs deep down inside wants to be the Lord most high. So Pharaoh was the personification, the embodiment of the nafs. So he had no hesitation in saying such an arrogant and very frankly problematic statement that I am your Lord most high. Even though Allah is the Lord most high. Allah is the only Lord, right? But Pharaoh had no problem saying that. And human nafs has a tendency deep down inside to actually want that same thing that Pharaoh wanted to be the boss, to be in charge, to have as many people. But you and I know that we can't have that, but we can't have control over everything. We can't have control over the sun rise in the sunset. We can't have control over the planets and the stars. We can't do that. So then what we end up doing is because we can't have control over all of those things, we settle for what we can't have control over. And that is we can have control over how many people we are able to influence and how many hearts we are able to capture. That we can have control over. So then we start desiring that. And remember, there's a big difference between somebody who starts this with the wrong intention and someone who says, okay, look, I know that there's risk is out there, but I'm going to work on myself. Big difference. Allah does not tell us to be perfect from the get go, but he does tell us to have a good intention and to be sincere from the get go. That is not much God tells us. So when we go out about doing what we're doing, we can't get so influenced by Western culture and by Western pedagogy. And by the way that the West, frankly, generally speaking, a culture dominated by white men that they're trying to teach us to do, we can't let them influence us. No, we have to have our own ways, our own paths. So their technologies are created in such a way that everything is about followers and everything is about views and everything is about likes and everything is about influence. Okay, we can use it, but we gotta know when it's gonna get to our head and we gotta know what to use it for and to not use it in the same way that is where it can become negative or negatively impact us, right? So eventually what we end up doing is we want control and influence over people's hearts and their attention span. The more we can get that, the more elevated we become. I go, I got that, I got one more, one more, one more. And eventually it becomes a thing that I got 10,000 more, 20,000 more and more and more followers, more and more fame. And that is the essence of the problem. That's not where our hearts supposed to focus. No, no, no, no, no. You and I are not supposed to be focused on that. We are not. We are supposed to be focused on worshiping a lot, getting through this life without trying to collect all these things. But the one who collects themself, they will eventually get ruined. That's what's gonna end up happening. And how does that happen? Just let's talk about where it's happening today. It happens all the time. That the people who get the most famous and they get the most amount of power and the most amount of followers, they become full of themselves. They become super full of themselves. We're seeing this happening right now with certain political figures here in the United States that there were moments of extreme fame, extreme popularity, extreme amount of followers, a lot of power and arrogance and control and then what ends up happening? Well, you think that you're invincible, but what goes up must come down. And so now these people, they get exposed. They get in scandals. They get caught in their sexual abuse and sexual assault scandals. You will rarely find somebody who's risen to the top in these types of ways that has not done something wrong, majorly wrong along the way. Heard people, abused people, assaulted people. I mean, it's so rare in the time that we live in that they start to get exposed because that fake kind of image that they've put out can only last for so long until some people realize not, this is who this person really is. Now it's time for them to get exposed and Allah eventually does expose many of these people. And if he doesn't expose them in this life, the hypocrites are exposed in the next life. We already know that they're exposed in the next life. But that happens many, many, many times that you become, you think you're invincible because of the number of followers, because of the fame, because of where you're at. And then slowly life starts to, and we have a lot of protection for all of us, our brothers and sisters and all the Muslims that this never happens. But that what ends up happening is slowly and slowly and slowly, right? The, exactly, someone says that facade can only last for so long. Totally agree. Thank you for mentioning. That fake miss can only last for so long because you're just like, dude, that's not really who you are. You put on a facade. And guess what? Even if it does last, let's say that somehow you can get it to last for as long as possible right before you die, it's not gonna last past your grave. And all those millions of followers are not gonna visit your grave. How many people visit the grave of celebrities and like actually do something beneficial for them? No. The Muslims, we have people come to our graves, they read Quran, they make dua for us and they're praying all this type of stuff. But like how many people does that happen? Right? For when fame becomes the primary motive. That's not, it doesn't happen. It does not happen, right? So that is something for us to keep in mind. This will ruin us. It's just a matter of when. So we have to know what the cure is. What is the harm? So first and foremost, the cure for this type of thing, the cure for this desire for fame, this desire for popularity, this desire for followers. Just to just reorient your mind and reorient my mind. We have to start thinking this is a bad thing. I cannot be, this cannot be my motive. I might have a deep intention, let's say that you are teaching people or you are doing something in which you need to get, you need to try to access as many people as possible. So you make like a Facebook page or something or you're like an Instagram page or something and you're trying to sell something for your business or whatever it is that you're trying to do. Okay, nothing wrong with that. But if you start to become like, you're literally worshiping, oh my God, oh my God, I have this many followers, oh my God, I have this many likes, oh my God. And you're just like, that's all you get. You literally get off on that. There's a problem because you should not get that excited about anything related to this dunya, to this lower world. We might get, that might happen because we're weak. I know I get excited about stuff like that because I'm weak, but I gotta know the whole goal of spirituality is to know what the top, know what the kind of top goal is, right? And then work our way from where we're at. So like, if I know this is the aspirational goal, this is the son of the Prophet Muhammad, but I'm like all the way on the ground, one day I just gotta get as close as possible. I mean, I'm never gonna reach the full nearness, but I just gotta get as close as possible. And Allah says, those who strive in our way, surely we shall guide them. So for anybody who has an intention to get closer to Allah, to become more sincere, to stop desiring followers and faith, let's just make that intention right now, to make that intention right now. Somebody asked a question, where are you from? I'm from the, originally I'm from Pakistan, but I live in the Bay Area, in terms of scope area. So that is the cure, that is the first cure. Just realize how problematic it is. The second cure is to just realize how harmful this is. The harm of rank and this kind of empty hollow followers and rank and all this time, the harm. What is the harm? First of all, you'll always be tripping about when something goes wrong, what's gonna happen here? What are people gonna think here? What are they gonna say? Right? Oh, what are they saying in the comments about me? What, how much are they hating on me? How much are they praising me? That's just gonna occupy your mind. And I guarantee you will eventually get to the point where it occupies your sleep and prevents you from sleeping. It will get to that point, because it's not natural for the human being to have that type of things always occupying their mind. And unfortunately we see this happen in the celebrity culture that we live. That many of these celebrities, they end up getting to a point where like drugs and significant, we're talking significant drugs become their recourse because the stress of the press and the paparazzi and the followers and the fame is not something that's manageable. It's not manageable. You can manage it for a little bit of time, but you cannot manage it sustained for a long period of time without at some point impacting you spiritually and then at some point it will impact somebody psychologically and deeper at a mental level. And that's just a reality that all of us, especially those of us, we're young, we're growing up with this technology. We just have to keep that in mind. This stuff is not sustainable over a long period of time if we don't use it in a healthy way. We have to know principled ways and healthy ways of engagement. I'm not saying we leave all this stuff, we use it in a healthy ways, right? So that's the second thing to keep in mind that we have to know the stress that it's going to bring, right? The third thing is we have to know what danger lies ahead if we embark on this journey. But okay, it sounds pool like, oh, I'm gonna, you know, I got famous, I got the followers, I drive the bends, I'm gonna buy this car, I'm gonna become like, you know, all the, and then eventually I'm gonna get power, I'm gonna be the top dog, I'm gonna come to control. Like all that sounds great until you realize that like the more and more, if you don't manage it, the nuffs, the spiritual soul deep down inside, it just becomes black and dirty because you become arrogant and full of yourself. Look at the past president of the United States, but just look at him. I mean, just, I don't even need to say anymore, but just look at what his journey of life led him to, right? And where he's at right now. That like, yeah, you might have the fame, you might be in power, you might have all this stuff, but like, dude, I mean, where are you at really? I mean, spiritually, where are you at, right? I'm always surprised at like the Christian, the people who are, you know, Christians who can vote for somebody like that because, you know, it goes against every single ethical teaching. That person's character goes against every single ethical teaching that does exist in the sayings of Jesus, peace be upon him and the Bible and whatnot. But, you know, that's a whole different topic. The fact is, is that we have to keep this in mind, right? So the third thing that will help us is we have to know that we will die. That will help us a lot. And I know this is like a heavy topic, but at the end of the day, if we can remember that we're gonna die, all this stuff becomes a little bit easier because even if people were to literally worship you, like you could have five million, let's say three billion people following you and they worship you and they prostrate to you and all the stuff that some of these people desire, when you die, that's all gonna go away and nobody's gonna do it anymore. And it's not gonna benefit you even if they do do it. It'll actually just hurt you because Allah doesn't like that type of stuff, right? So we have to just have that perspective in mind, right? And the last thing is if we're serious about working on this and we know it's damaging our heart, we will slowly leave the places, right? That people are overdoing it with regards to praise for us and with regards to following us and what not if they're overdoing it and we will slowly leave or take breaks from time to time because we know, hey, this isn't good for me spiritually. I gotta work on myself. Everybody knows. And the last thing I'm gonna say, and Shala will end, and if anybody has questions or comments, please post them, because I'll get to them right now, Shala. The last thing I'll mention is you and I know where we're at spiritually. We know what hurts us spiritually. The way to gauge if something is hurting you spiritually is if when you do it or after you do it, you feel a certain trepidation and a certain anxiety, right? And that that comes with it. You know then that there's something likely spiritually off with regards to it and the way to know if something is beneficial. And again, this is a general rule Allah knows best is if a calmness and tranquility descends when you were doing something or after you have done something, generally speaking, that will be spiritually beneficial for you. So you and I just have to know where we're at spiritually. Ramadan is coming. We have about a month till Ramadan. Let's take this time to invest, to work on ourselves, to get rid of some of these deep desires and to know that at the end of the day in our 60, 70, 80 year lifespan, whatever our lifespan is, we gotta know what's important. We have to prioritize what's important. We can't let the culture and the society that we live in brainwash us into thinking that superfluous superficial things like followers, like fame, like having a lot of power, like having a lot of control over people that we can't brainwash ourselves into thinking that that's important. No, we have to know what's important. What's important is that we are in this life to try to do our best to worship Allah and to eventually meet Allah in a good state. And when we compare million, 10 million, 100 million years in the next life, again, remember the next life is eternal. There's no number, but let's just say you assign the number 10 million because it's hard to quantify eternity. You compare 10 million years to 70 years. It cancels out. The 70 literally means absolutely nothing because so if you spent your 70 years, just most of them in a good state. And even if you didn't spend most of them in good state, you tried your best towards the later part of your years and you repented, you just did your best. Inshallah, all of that eternity, that 10 million years and longer will be good and will go well for you. But if you spent that 70 years in a bad state, dude, was it really worth it? Was all that stuff really worth it? Was ruining your soul really worth it then for the negative consequences that could come after? That's just something we have to keep in mind and we have to know our focus. We have to know what we're trying to do. We have to know what we're trying to accomplish. And inshallah, let's keep that in mind. May Allah bless all of you. Alhamdulillah, if anybody has any questions or comments, please post them. Otherwise, you will end. I know it's a matter of time here, at least where I'm at. Alhamdulillah, so we'll go ahead and proceed to end if there's no quick questions. Jazakum Allah Khair. Somebody had asked if we can do more lives, inshallah we would do more, inshallah. Alright, cool. So I'll do a quick du'a. I'll wait for any questions. Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. We ask Allah that you accept us that you pardon us that you cleanse our hearts that you can remove any difficulties and any spiritual impurities and any dirtiness from our hearts. Ya Allah, it allows us to get near to you and allows us to be good people, Ya Allah, who are clean towards other Muslims who are people of good character, who are people of good akhlaq, who are people of gentleness, who are people of kindness, Ya Allah, it allows us to be people who are sincere, Ya Allah, with you who do not desire the life of this dunya, Ya Allah, who did not desire the followers and fame and all the other things it is, Ya Allah, that could ruin us, Ya Allah. You know best what ruins us, Ya Allah, so allow us, Ya Allah, to be in a state of purity and allow us, Ya Allah, to be in a state of your protection and give us everything good that the Prophet says on the Asgore and we ask for protection for everything evil that he asks for and we ask that you allow us to prepare in this month of Sha'ban, for this month of Ramadan and allow us to reach Ramadan as it approaches. Wassalaamu Alaikum, Wa-Salaamu Wa-Alaikum, Wa-Alaikum, Wa-Alaikum, Wa-Alaikum, Wa-Alaikum, Wa-Alaikum, Wa-Alaikum, Wa-Alaikum, Wa-Alaikum, Wa-Alaikum, Wa-Alaikum, Thank you so much. And I don't see any questions, I will wait just for a second here in case anything pops up. Alhamdulillah. So nobody has any questions or comments, please post them in the chat and we'll get to them, insha'Allah. Okay, Alhamdulillah. Well, then I don't see anything so we'll see you all next time, insha'Allah. We're doing this every Wednesday, 7 p.m. Pacific time. We do this short class, 20, 30 minutes on a different desire and we'll wrap it up before Ramadan and we'll do one right before Ramadan and Ramadan prep as well, insha'Allah. As-Salaamu Alaykum, Wa-Alaikum, Wa-Alaikum.