 Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahima al-hamdulillahi rabbil alamin wa salatu wa salam ala as-sharafi al-anbiya wa al-mursaleen Sayyidina Muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahabatihi ajma'in Allahumma al-lumna ma yanfa'una wa faa'una bi ma al-lamtana wa zidna al-man yanfa'una So we've been talking about the nafs. And last session we talked about how the nafs can become like a defined animal. It doesn't listen to us. We want to go one way and it goes the other way. We talked about how the nafs gets wired to become like that. And in understanding how it can become like that we can understand how to deconstruct that and get the nafs back under control. So some ways to bring the nafs under control is to keep it away from those things that will set it off. So the nafs is like an animal again. So if you bring an animal around something that it really, really strongly desires and can't control itself over, if you bring it in front of that thing it's going to get set off. So keeping it away from things that will set it off or trigger it. The second thing is keeping some boundaries with that animal. So keeping it in the stable or keeping it in a limited area to graze freely. If you let it graze freely without any boundaries it may take off. It may see something or get in an area that will then trigger it. So you want to keep that animal within a fenced area. You want to keep that animal within boundaries and keep that animal in a safe place. And then we also talked about how certain animals when they overindulge in certain rewards what you want to do is give it a break from those rewards. So if it overindulges it's a certain thing give it a break so it can reset and then learn how to engage in that reward in a more balanced way. Or if it's just engaging in a reward that's unhealthy for it. If it's engaging in a reward that's unhealthy for it give it a break from that reward and then it will turn its attention back to rewards that are healthy for it. Alright so those are all ways to bring the animal under control the nuffs under control. Now we're going to be going into a section of the book that talks about how to tie that animal down. So one way is to keep it away from things one way is to give it a break and one way is to tie an unruly animal down. And in order to do that we use our mind. Our mind is when properly trained can tie the nuffs down in the same way when properly trained we can learn how to tie an animal down. So you can't just tie an animal down in any way. So if you tie the foot down to a tree or something like that it's just going to break away. It has the other three feet to leverage off of and push away. You can't just tie the tail because you can't just tie it in a way that's not a strong enough knot. You have to organize your rope in such a way that it's strong enough to hold that animal down. So in the same way with your nuffs you can think of your rope as being your mind. You have to organize and train your mind in such a way in order to be able to hold that nuffs down. So the word for a rope that ties an animal down is iqal. This is a rope that's used to tie an animal down and the word for the mind is iqal. The intellect is iqal, sumi al-aql al-aqlal li'annahu ya'qilu sahibahu. The iqal is named iqal because it hobbles or it ties down the person that has that iqal. So if you can learn to use the iqal properly it'll tie you down. It'll tie your nuffs down but if your nuffs is out of control it's going to be tying you down while it does whatever it wants. So it's important then to really recognize that the way that we can tie our nuffs down is by properly training our mind. And I want to take a little bit of a tangent here. A lot of times people come and they'll say we've tried everything. We've been making to, ah, we've been consulting with so many people. We've done all these things but we haven't been able to get this under control. Family members and then people with an addictive problem themselves will reach out in this way. And we talk to them and we very quickly recognize they haven't gone through an adequate enough training process to get this thing under control. They haven't gone through a strong enough training process to get this thing under control. They haven't trained their mind yet. So, you know, all those things are important. Consulting people are important. Making du'a is important. Hoping from Allah is important. Do that, increase that, but then also use the strategies necessary. Also use the strategies necessary to get this under control. Hoping from Allah, gathering information is important, but then also train and use the strategies that are necessary to get this under control. A man came to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and he said, Should I tie my camel or should I trust in Allah? He said, Aqiluha wa atawakal a'utlikuha wa atawakal. Should I tie my camel? Same thing, Aqiluha. Should I tie my camel and trust in Allah or should I let it free and trust in Allah? And the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, Tie your camel and trust in Allah. So, it's not mutually exclusive. So, making du'a, recitation of Quran and consulting people and getting advice and learning is important. Do that and increase in that. But also important is to take the asbab, go through the training and use everything within your means in order to defeat this thing. So, the training here is really the bulk and the bulk of the next couple of sessions in the book, the whole next chapter and the rest of this chapter, is about how do you train your mind to tie down your nafs, to tie down your addictive behavior. The whole concept in the next session or section is that your addictive behavior is sending you irrational thoughts. How do you train your mind, strengthen your rational mind in order to overcompensate for the irrational thoughts? So, the whole name of the game is tying your camel and learning the strategies and hoping from Allah. So, you don't want to take half measures. You don't want to half hope in Allah and then half take strategies in order to defeat this thing. You want to place your hope fully in Allah and recognize that even if you do these strategies, it's Allah that's going to cure. But at the same time, take the asbab, take the strategies and take the means 100% where people get lost as they do half measures. They do half measures so they have hope in Allah and they halfway take the strategies in order to do this and then what we commonly hear is we've tried everything and we're not able to stop this. I've tried this, I've tried that and I haven't been able to stop this. So, our scholars use this idea of using the aqal to bind the nafs and they take it to the next degree. If you look at the books that talk about how to refine the character and bring down the nafs, a lot of the strategies are how do you use your mind? How do you use your mind in order to get your nafs under control? So, for example, one example we'll go into, Imam al-Ghazali talks about how, for example, somebody who is their nafs is wild with arrogance. So, they're putting other people down. He says, what's the, what is the, they're acting arrogantly. What is the root of this? And the root of this is their mind and their belief that they're better than others. And then he says, well, then how do you train your mind to counteract that? And then he goes into details of, well, if you see somebody older than you, you say, well, this person's worshipped a lot longer than me. If you see somebody younger than you, you say, this person hasn't even had a chance to sin like I have. So, how do you train your mind in order to think in a certain way that then leads to your behavior changing in a certain way? And the books of refinement of the self are filled with these examples of how do you use and train the aqa in order to bind the nafs and change your behavior. Contemporary behavioral science calls this cognitive behavior science or cognitive behavioral theory or cognitive behavior therapy. It's very simple. The idea is how do you use your mind and your thoughts? How do you use your mind and thoughts to change your behavior? So, first of all, you have to understand that your mind and thoughts have a effect on your behavior. So, for example, you can have the same event and two people will interpret it differently in their minds and that'll lead to different behavior. So, somebody had a soccer game. On the right side of the field you have the red team fans. On the other side of the field you have the blue team fans. The red team scores. The same event. The blue team fans are down. The red team fans are excited, elated, celebrating. Two totally different reactions. The same exact event. What happened? What was different? What led to different outcomes? It's all in the mind. What they were telling themselves and their beliefs. And in the same because the people that are the red team have a different set of thinking and beliefs. The people that are on the blue team have a different set of thinking and beliefs. If you change the mind of the red team, put it on the blue team, they'd have the same reaction. So, in the same way, if we want to change our behavior, it's in the that's the area to fix. So, just like the rope with an animal, you don't want to just put the rope anywhere or organize the rope in any way. You want to organize and tie that rope in a specific way, but you also want to use your mind in a specific way. So, what I'll wrap up with is last week we talked about triggers. Triggers lead to cravings and thoughts. Cravings and thoughts lead to a behavior and the behavior leads to a reward. So, triggers, you can avoid the triggers. Then we said cravings and thoughts. Those are things that will develop as an emotion and thought. You can intervene on this level. You can intervene on this level with other thoughts in order to bind enough. So, let's keep it real simple. So, say for example, you have a trigger and then you have some cravings and thoughts to engage in your addictive behavior. Let's say the thought is urges will keep getting worse until I cave in. Urges will keep getting worse until I cave in and then I might as well cave in because it's just going to keep going and getting worse. The logic or the thought that you want to counteract that with, the rope that you want to hobble that with or bind it down with is urges peak and then they die down. That's simply because this is going to counteract your cravings, but also because it's the truth. Urges will always peak and die down. It's impossible for them to persist forever and when they do studies, what they realize is people's cravings, they actually last much less than what they perceive them to act. There's almost like this time dilation. People's cravings, they actually last much shorter than what they think they last as. The second illogical thought is urges make me behave in a certain way. Urges are completely connected to my behavior and the logical thought is urges and cravings always represent a choice. I always have a choice. If I have a thought to use or an urge to use, sometimes it's such a it's such a quick thing urge use, urge use. The logical thing to bind this down is to remind yourself that I always have a choice. I can stay here and persist with this urge and it'll eventually go away or I can give in and engage in this urge, but whatever I do, that's my choice and I'm making that choice. I'm not the victim of that choice. I'm volunteering for that choice and I'll tell you 80% of this game is making a differentiation between victim and volunteer and that's one of the biggest gems I've ever gotten. The other illogical is cravings and urges are a sign that my behavior is getting worse. My cravings, my urges to use are getting worse so this means that my addiction is getting worse, things are getting worse and the logical thought to bind that is that cravings and urges are a normal process of changing my behavior, changing my addictive behavior, whether that be shutting off, making a commitment to no pornography, making a commitment to no marijuana, making a commitment to no opioids, whatever it is when you make that stop or you're reducing your quantity, cravings are going to be a natural part of that. They'll peak and then they'll go away and then the last one we'll go into is giving into a craving is harmless so it's just this one last time and then we come up with really strange ideas like I'm going to do with this one last time because then afterwards I'm going to have the motivation to really really try and change or something like that. It's pretty amazing the type of things that our mind comes up with in order to continue what we're trying to do so giving into a craving is harmless is the illogical thought. The logical thought to counteract that is giving in increases the strength and frequency of cravings so when you do give into an urge and you enact that behavior and then the reward happens it's going to reinforce things and giving in is going to increase the strength and frequency of those cravings so this is just sort of a taste of the major tool that or one of the major tools that we have in order to bind the nefs. I heard it maybe like three or four times this week on phone calls was you know we've done everything that we could and then I'm talking to them and I'm like did you get rid of the triggers for the animal? No. Did you put any boundaries or rules around your animal? No. Did you develop your mind and go through a training program and strategy? Okay maybe a little bit but not adequate in order to get it there so it becomes it gets to a point where you almost have to you know one thing I can promise is that I can't promise people will make it out of this but one thing I can promise is that if nothing changes you can you can expect the same results if there's no changes if there's no training if there's no practice you can expect the same results inshallah with that we'll go ahead and stop and open it up to questions inshallah