 We just heard the Mu'addin call and say, Hayyya lal falah, what does that mean, what is falah? The Mu'addin is calling us falah means success. What? Success? I thought success is having a million dollars in my bank account. I thought success is being good looking. I thought success is being the funniest one. I thought success is having the best job, the nicest car, the biggest house, the nicest hair. The most number of likes or subscribes, subscribers. Hayyya, come, come. It also means come alive. Wake up, wake up. And so this is a reminder, wherever we are, whatever is consuming us, whatever is filling our heart, whatever we're chasing, whatever we're chasing, whatever we're following. In the dunya, it's not, it does not have the power to bring me happiness. It does not have the power to bring me success. And this is a friendly, gentle reminder. Hayyya lal falah, come to real success, to true success. Being controlled by the opinions of others is a malady, is a sickness, is a disease of the heart. I care so much about your opinions. I care so much about my classmates' opinions. I care so much about these people's opinions. So I care so much about it that I let them indirectly decide who I am. Indirectly decide who I am, although I'm convincing myself that I'm making this decision. I'm living this way. I'm doing this. I'm dressing like this. I'm eating this. I'm doing my clothes like this. But indirectly, we're trying to please someone. We're trying to make someone happy. Who is it? Who are we chasing? Who are we... Who is in our heart that we're pursuing and seeking? That's a question for each of us to genuinely, deeply ponder. You know, Atikaf, they do the last 10 days of Ramadan, and you can make it your intention anytime you enter the message, is translated in English as spiritual retreat. What are we retreating from? It's a retreat, not just physical, but also mental, emotional. We're retreating from what's consuming us, consuming my mind, my ideas. And so Ramadan is this madrasah. It's this madrasah. It's this schooling to help us see the truth and see reality because things get fuzzy. Things get fuzzy. Things get cloudy. And so we come here to wake up, and we have to understand that there is physical reality, and there's also metaphysical reality, the unseen realm, and our spiritual journey, our spiritual awakening begins when we realize that our spiritual journey, our Islam, technically we're Muslim. Technically, literally, I'm Muslim. I'm submitting. I'm following the religion of Islam. I'm following the religion revealed through Angel Gabriel to Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, in the line of prophets all the way, including Jesus and Moses and Abraham and Joseph and Isaac and Ishmael and Noah and Adam and Enoch and Lot. And may God's peace and blessings be upon all of them. But our spiritual journey, our heart, our metaphysical journey begins when we realize when we can see the unseen. And I don't mean that literally or physically, but when we, for a Muslim, for everyone, seeing is believing, and for a Muslim, seeing is believing, and believing is seeing. Like we know when Gabriel, Gabriel, peace be upon him, asked Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, tell me about Ihsan, spirituality. He said, And ta'abud Allah ka'annaka tarah. Worship God as if you see Him. Fa'in lam taqun tarafa annahu yarak. And if you don't see Him, then you know that He sees you. And so the eyes of the heart, basira, we want to open them up because the heart can be locked. The heart can be closed in a prophetic tradition, hadith. La tuqtiru il-kalam fa'innakathrat al-kalami bi ghayri zikri la qaswatun liil-kalb. Wa abad Allah, wa abadun nasmin Allah Our Prophet, our teacher, humanity's teacher, the one who was sent by the Divine, he said to us, don't talk too much without mentioning God. Because if we talk too much without remembering God, it hardens the heart. And the furthest people from God are the hard-hearted. May Allah protect us from hard hearts. And so this invisible realm, if we open the Quran chronologically and we read, what is the first description of believers? On the first night of Ramadan, when we come and pray behind Qara'umar or the Imam, and they're reading the Quran sequentially, and he reads Surat al-Baqarah, what's the first description of you and I, believers of God? What's the first description? And that's where our journey begins. My brothers and sisters in this journey to God, in this journey of submission, when we realize that we have something inside of us, this amazing, special thing inside of me called my soul, my ruh, my soul. When we realize that, and it's just in this vehicle, this body, temporarily using this body, we live for the ruh, we don't live for the body. And then we connect that ruh that Allah made it personal. Allah says, He said, He blew into mankind from His ruh. It's something so amazing and special we have inside of us, being carried by this vehicle of the body and the beginning step of this spiritual awakening is realizing that that's who I am. That is my essence. And when that realization happens, then things start to fall in place. Then I don't have to worship the dunya and worship the money. Then I can forgive people that harm me. Why? Because I'm doing it for God. Then I can be generous to the one that's greedy to me. Then I can connect the person who pushes me away because I live for God. And I know all of this temporary delusion, all of this stuff is going to be dust. When we realize our essence, that soul and connect it with all the other metaphysical realities. Seek forgiveness from Allah, for He forgives all sins. God is the author of this religion, Islam, and God is the author of us, right? And God's the author of this world. And so they match, they sync up. And God designed our psychology and our psyche. And He knows that we get tired and we get bored. He knows that we make mistakes and that's okay. That's all right. We are human. It's okay to be human, right? But God designed this religion to help us on our way so we can be the best humans, the most beautiful humans. And this thing, Islam, is not just a religion. We have to understand it's a recipe for happiness. Who knows how to be happier more, me or God? Allah. So He gave us this religion as a recipe for happiness. And so we trust Him more than we trust our own inclinations, more than we trust our own desires, our own wants. I think I want this, but oh, God told me to do that. Then actually that will make me happier than what I think I want. And so Allah understanding this psyche, He designed this religion and He designed it with alarm clocks. This religion has built in alarm clocks, right? One of these alarm clocks is Ramadan. One of these alarm clocks is Friday prayer. We get together. Wake up! We come, one of these alarm clocks is the five prayers. Wake up! Is that classmate in school, that friend, that colleague, are they imposing upon my mind so much that I'm always constantly thinking, what do I need to do to impress him? There's this really cool quote. It says in my 20s, in my teens, when I'm in junior high in high school, seventh grade, eighth grade, tenth grade, when in my 20s, I was always thinking when I was in junior high in high school, I was always thinking, I always cared about what people thought about me. Oh, what do they think about my hair, about my shirt, about my clothes, about my shoes? And then in my, I got a little older, you know, I got in my 30s, and then I'm like, you know what? I don't care what they think about me anymore. I'm gonna be me, and I'm gonna be true to myself, and forget them. So then I start to take more ownership of making the right decisions. And then you get a little older, and then you get in your 40s, and then you realize that no one was actually thinking about you. Everyone was just thinking about themselves. And then you become free from the chains of people's opinions. And as Muslims, we add a fourth one to this quote. We say, when I get a little older, maybe 50s, then I realize that Allah was thinking about me. And that's who I, that's who I want to think about. That's who I care about what they think about me. And that spiritual awakening can happen earlier sooner. And so Allah designed this religion, and we are in the month of Ramadan. And it's a special time. And it's a special time that we, and I conclude with this analogy, with this comparison, with this metaphor. For all of you who play basketball, imagine if there was one minute of the 48 minutes where you don't make two points per shot, but you make 200 points per shot. Are you going to be tired? No. Or any of those who have a job and you make $20 per hour, and you have one week a year where you don't make $20 per hour, but you make $2,000 per hour. Are you going to be tired during that week? Are you going to wake up with energy? Are you going to be excited to work? And then in that week, there's a hidden, there's a hidden five minutes. And whoever is working during that five minutes gets a million dollar, gets a $10 million jackpot. Are you going to leave your desk during that week? You're not. That five minutes is like leilatul qadr. So we're not going to leilatul qadr. It's hidden in the last 10 days. It's hidden in the odd nights. It's hidden. I need to make sure. So we give, if you give sadaqah every night, not just one, we give sadaqah every night. We pray every night. We make our du'az every night because we don't know which one it is. We want to hit the jackpot. So no risk. And then that week that we're making $2,000 an hour instead of 20 is all of the month of Ramadan. So in the month of Ramadan, let's go. Come on. And everyone's going to support me. Your wife's going to say, go to work. You don't have to come back. Don't worry. You don't have to come back for dinner. Your husband, if you work, your husband will say, don't worry. Go work. It's okay. I'll take care of the kids. I'll do everything. Don't worry. Right? Just everyone's going to support. Everyone's going to have so much energy to work so we can make those points in the basketball game or cash in. And this is our month of cashing in. This is our month of cashing in. And it's real. Make du'a, make du'a for people. It's a special, special, special time. And we see this special time with the eyes of the heart. And we feel it because it's real. Allah has God chose special times, special places. And this is one of them. So pray and pray deeply. Pray for people you love. Pray for people you don't love. Pray for your enemies that Allah guides them and helps them and cures them. And pray for people, your neighbors, pray for people you've never prayed before by name. And pray. And if you were generous before, be more generous in the month of Ramadan. And so we're reinvigorating. It's the 13th or 14th now of Ramadan. We're recommitting for the next 16, 17 days. Whatever I was doing, whatever I was doing, I'm going to pray more. And yes, my feet are going to hurt praying behind Qadir Ahmad. Yes, they're going to hurt praying behind Qadir Ahmad. And that's okay. That's okay. Peace and blessings on all the prophets and all the messengers that he sent to us to wake us up from our hypnotized states and our slumber. May God help us see the truth as the truth and follow it and see what's false as false and protect us from it. We ask Allah, we turn to you, we ask you, we beg you as a group, as individuals, as everyone's sitting here and everyone turning to you with their hearts. We ask you, Ya Allah, don't let Ramadan finish unless all of us are forgiven, Ya Allah. Unless all of us are exempt from the fire of hell, Ya Allah. We can't bear any moment or second of proximity to the fire of hell, which is real. Protect us from that punishment, dear God. We admit it's real even though we can't see it, we can't touch it, we can't measure it. We admit it is real. Heaven is real and let us taste it, Ya Allah. Let us smell it, Ya Allah. Let us walk through the doors of heaven, Ya Allah. Let us not be consumed and absorbed by this world, by this life. Let us use this life to beautifully to make the next life more beautiful. Amin, let us be beautiful to our parents, beautiful to our neighbors, beautiful to our colleagues, beautiful to our guests, beautiful to our family, beautiful to those who are not beautiful to us. Let us be gentle to those who are difficult with us. Let us live a life of meaning, a life of meaning, a life of service, a life of love, a life of forgiveness and help us connect and understand your words, the Qur'an. You sent the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Final Testament and all of them are real. And the Final Testament is your last message to humanity and we will read it dearly and we will ponder it and we will hold those words close and dear. We will live by those words and all your prophets are real and the final messenger Muhammad is real and he is our teacher and he is our Roma, our Roma, our example.