 The main reason that Allah created the human being was to get to know Him. He says in the Qur'an, A'udhu Billah Mujad An-Ar-Jimu maa khalaqtu binna wal-insk illa liya'budun that we only created mankind and jinn in order to worship Me. And the famous commentator Ibn Abbas mentions that it means in order to know Me. That we only created mankind and jinn in order to know Allah. This is an experiential knowledge. A knowledge that as we go through life, as we go through the ups and downs, as we go through the adversities and the good times, we begin to experience Allah in our lives and get to know different traits about Him. The traits of Ar-Rahman and Ar-Raheem. The traits of Dujalali wal-Ikram. The various names that Allah has that manifest as attributes and that manifest as experiences in our life. But the more and more we begin to know Allah, the more and more we also begin to achieve a state of inner peace and inner happiness. But the heart, as Allah says in the Qur'an, the only thing that will matter on the Day of Judgment is to have a sound heart, a kalb salim. And this heart is the vessel, it's the organ. It's a spiritual organ. It helps us to either know Allah or to get into the mullah. The more that we go through life, the more that the heart either collects rest or begins to be certified. One thing that we have to understand is that our various experiences in life will influence the state of our heart. A certain thing that you and I do could put a black spot on the heart. A certain negative experience or a certain type of difficult experience has an emotional impact on the spiritual heart. Different, if we stop worshiping Allah, for example, the heart begins to collect rest. And Allah mentions in the Qur'an that their hearts have rest on them. And so Allah is trying to teach us that everything we see, everything we hear, everything we say will have some impact on the heart. There will be some negative or positive impact. There's no neutral. They're either ascending or we are descending in some way, shape or form. Now many of these images though that the heart takes on, many of these experiences that the heart takes on, they might come early in our life and then they negatively or positively impact us as we continue to progress in life. And so they can prevent the heart from recognizing Allah. A barrier can be formed between you, between me and Allah. A cloudiness can form in the heart. Just like right now we have a cloudiness and a windiness that is here. And just like 40 minutes ago it was sunny and then before that it was rain, there was some rain, right? The various seasons that happen in the world, they're also a metaphor for the types of seasons that you and I are going to experience in our life. But the more cloudiness that there is, the more of a barrier there is between us and the bright light of the sun. The more cloudiness that there is between us and Allah, the more of a barrier there is between us and the light of happiness, the light of tranquility, the light of trying to achieve a state where we actually feel calm and good and spiritually close to Allah. And these are impacted. This cloudiness is impacted by the experiences that we have. Now when we go through our day, there are two categories of good deeds or bad deeds that you and I can do. There are things that are just between you and Allah and then there are things that are between you and people. There are things that are between you and Allah. Let's say we're talking about sins that we might commit between us and Allah. Someone looks at something, haram, they drink, or they might smoke, or they might eat something that they shouldn't be eating. These are any number of sins that are going to have a negative impact on the heart and a sincere toba can cleanse these sins. A sincere toba sincerely repenting to Allah, apologizing and saying, I'm sorry, we'll begin to cleanse these sins. And then there are the issues that happen between you and me, between people, between family members, between friends. The heart is impacted in a very different way by these types of issues because if that person doesn't forgive you or if you don't forgive that person or if that relationship is not mended, the heart will hold on to these issues. And these become major blocks on our path and they ring and ring inside until we resolve them. Or they block us from achieving a state of nearness to Allah. And so maybe we had a major falling out with somebody, maybe it was with our family members, maybe it was with our spouse, maybe it was with our siblings or cousins or friends or someone like that. And we're still holding on to something deep down inside. We say, oh, I forgave them, but deep down inside we haven't forgiven them. We haven't let go. We feel uneasy around them. There's a certain type of negativity and negative energy, a darkness that we feel when we're around that person or when that person is around us or when we think of that situation which caused this rift. What happens then? Right? A certain type of trauma begins to form in the human being. Emotional trauma is a very, very real thing. Maybe we had a rocky relationship going up with our parents. There was a lot of fighting. There was a lot of problems. Maybe you said things that you shouldn't have said. Your parents said things that shouldn't have said. There was tension. And that created a certain type of trauma. Or maybe our marriage is in that type of situation where it's never peaceful. There's constant bickering of some sort. There's a tense relationship. Or maybe we have that with other people in our life, our cousins or our family members or our friends. That's going to start to have an impact on you spiritually. It's also going to have an impact on you and I physically that many of the health issues that we face according to traditional views of medicine mentioned that when you have a certain type of negative experience and negative relationship, a damaging relationship that's causing stress, that's causing anger, that's causing resentment. It manifests in your body. It manifests in health issues. It manifests in energy blockages that prevent the body from functioning at its optimal capacity. This common sense would tell you that this stuff has been studied and you and I have experienced it in our life. When we're stressed, we don't feel the same. We feel different. We can't sleep. We might not be able to function the same way throughout the day. Now imagine someone who's carrying stress from an incident that happened or a trauma from an incident that happened for 10, 20 years and they haven't let it go. Imagine the type of negativity that could impact you. Just from an emotional point of view, let alone from a spiritual point of view. Then what starts to happen here? When you and I beef with somebody, allow beef with somebody, when we have an issue with someone, when we have a grudge, it begins with this anger and Imam al-Ghazali, he described it beautifully in the Ayah al-Lumuddin in his book on anger. He said it starts with something that causes anger. You have a disagreement with somebody. How could they do this to me? How could my parents say this? How could my siblings say this? Because you're upset and then it doesn't get resolved because nobody was the bigger person. No one said sorry or if someone did say sorry, it was superficial and we didn't really resolve the situation. Then he says, what does it result in? It results in eventually you start forming a resentment towards that person and negative feeling towards that person. You don't want to be around them. You don't want to say salam to them. You don't want to get up when they walk in the room. You don't want to reply to their call. You don't want to reply to their texts. You don't want to virtually zoom with them because that's all we can really do today. You don't want to do anything. You don't want to see them. You block them on your social media. You don't want to do anything with them. But you say, no, no, that's cool. I forgive them. That's not forgiveness, right? Because there's something there. So he says anger turns into resentment. And then he says that actually turns into it's unresolved. It turns into hatred. And you begin to hate that person. You begin to really feel a negativity towards that person. That's kind of a loving forced relationship with, let's say, a family member. That hatred might manifest in a very different way. You just kind of hate being around them. But you've got to force, you've got to pretend it's kind of like them still, but you can't stand them. Right? And it results in damages later, later on in life. Someone has an issue. I know people who have major issues with their parents and they have like, you know, a kid and they can't even stand their parent coming to be with their child when they're a baby or watch their child or come and be there with them for the delivery. Because of the negativity of problems that happened that were left unresolved. Right? Growing up. And if there's issues on both sides, right? It's not always just one person. Somebody had a problem and that resulted in a grudge. It resulted in anger. And then it resulted in resentment. And then it resulted in hatred. And now what happens? This is what's important and what I want to get to. One or two of those problems they start to take over your world view. One of the hardest part works is corruption from one category messes up all of your categories. You and I cannot compartmentalize our spirituality. Many Muslims do this. They compartmentalize. They're all good when it comes to praying in the message. Meanwhile, outside being rude, arrogant, you know, not obeying the rules with regards to the mass and social distancing thinking they can do whatever they want. Right? Just having a very different attitude. Meanwhile, when it comes to certain types of worship we're all about it. Compartmentalization of spirituality is not spirituality. The Prophet ﷺ said, the best of you are those who are best in character. That deals with action. So spirituality is an inward phenomenon that manifests outwardly. So when you and I have a very negative relationship with somebody, or if we're doing something that's between us and Allah the Taraf, we're sure it's going to impact other areas. We're sure it's going to impact other areas. People who struggle with drug problems or struggle with alcohol or struggle with pornography, they don't have the same type of calmness and the types of positive relationships that people who don't have those that's just without a spiritual aspect to it. And then you find spirituality, of course they're going to have a damaged relationship. Their heart is going to be damaged. And then that manifests in other ways. All of their worldview is then influenced by those sins and those relationships that have been damaged. And so what starts to happen in this situation? You and I have different traits that can impact us and that can take us over. Different parts of our soul that influence us. Imam Ghazali he describes a whole kind of inner world that you and I have running and going on. But for the sake of time we won't get into all of that. One of the traits he describes is you and I have what's called a dog soul. Imagine like a part in us that can be good or it can be guided towards evil. It's called the irascible faculty or other kind of work. This faculty, this dog soul, they're not talking about as a cute little puppy dog. They're talking about like a very, very vicious evil dog that the more you feed it anger, the more it manifests corruption inside of you. And then the more its worldview is an angry worldview. The more its worldview is a worldview filled of prejudice and hatred and problems. And then whatever position that person is in, in their families or in society or in a job, that negativity will manifest with them if it's something small it'll just influence that it'll feed the dog in a small way. But if it's something big it feeds them in a big way. And you and I have all heard the saying hurt people, hurt people. When you have been hurt emotionally or physically when you're young you will manifest that stuff if it's not cured and it's not taken care of when you and I are older. There's actually many studies that show that people who commit some of the most heinous crimes when they get older are people who have very very significant problems. Some type of verbal or physical sexual or other types of abuse when they were younger. So we have to keep in mind that the issues that we have we've got to resolve that. Because otherwise they won't impact the person. Sometimes we think like man this person said this to me I'm never going to speak to him again. And we think that it's somehow hurting that person if we're holding a thread. No, it's hurting you. It's hurting you and me. It's affecting our sleep. I know somebody who has had a major falling out with a family member of theirs with their child and they told me I can't sleep at night. I tried to ask them like why don't you fix it why don't you resolve, why don't you apologize they're like no, you should apologize to me I'm the older one. And it was like he's immature and he might not apologize to you you've got to do it. It's affecting your sleep it's affecting your health it's affecting your spirituality, it's affecting all of these things. Right? But sometimes we're encouraged to go and say sorry to resolve these things and it's going to affect us negatively we want to try to have a situation where we have a sound heart between us and Allah and between us and other people I'll say this to you Alhamdulillah So all we need to do to start this process is just think first and foremost. What do I mean between me and someone else? What kind of relationships have been damaged? Alhamdulillah if something is not the damage we're in we should be really grateful that Alhamdulillah we don't have major tension between us. And if we're young, we should make a commitment to not let that type have that type of approach to not hold grudges against people and hold things against people and get into fights and situations. Getting into fights is not the biggest fear in the world we're all going to fight with someone or not or fight with our spouse to argue that happens don't resolve it is the problem it's not the issue it's the lack of resolution that we have to figure out. So start to think through what is the problem here that I have and then look at who do I follow who is my leader, who is my role model you study certain families for example there was a book that described the details of the Trump family and you just look into that and I didn't read the book but I read some of the synopsis and it talks about major broken family major fighting all the time problems between the siblings, problems between the parents, all of these different types of issues that manifest and then you can see how those problems manifest we don't need to explain that but we have to look who is our role model the public service and what did he do you had people who threatened his life who tried to assassinate him family members of his, his own uncle who was literally trying to do anything possible to survive a living problem everybody in Mecca at some point so many people were against him but what did he do when he entered Mecca he could have literally like captured all the people put him in jail and had them dealt with there's a lot of things he could have done I mean he's entering Mecca as the conqueror we're talking about Mecca when he enters again after when he's entering now as after he's living in Medina but what did he say, he says no he forgave everybody on that day he said the same thing Yusuf Alayhi Salam said when his brothers finally came back to him after all of the problems that they caused him to try to kill him all these things and he finally saw them later when he was in the top position in Egypt and he says you're forgiven there will be nothing that held against you today he forgave them a serious proper forgiveness such that that is Ayat in the Qur'an the words he said were earned such a high degree with Allah that they're in Ayat in the Qur'an so now think about it these are our role models the Prophet Salam wouldn't hold on to Gregory he just wouldn't he wouldn't hold on to Gregory he wouldn't hold on to things between him and other people we might say we are not the Prophet Salam we know that so we have to aspire to try to act like him in some way to perform and then let's at least begin the process and forgive him and Allah says that those who restrain themselves he says that those who restrain their anger and they pardon people they pardon people they forgive people they let stuff go Allah loves those people who are constantly virtuous who are kind and fired excellent so the last thing I just want to mention is that you and I we have issues between us and Allah in certain ways I can't think of a single person who would say that they don't want Allah to forgive them we all want Allah to forgive us you want Allah to forgive you forgive someone else be a forgiving person be a merciful person be a pardoning person we say in Ramadan Allah allows us to reach Ramadan and make it a beautiful Ramadan like there used to be let us pray together you love to erase let's forget literally forgive and forget pardon all my sins pardon what I've done erase it let's do the same in our relationship let's make a commitment as we enter into this new year that we're going to forgive people we're not going to hold on to things people who we have issues with from the past we're going to make an intention to resolve them we're going to go and say sorry we're going to be the bigger person the Prophet ﷺ said the bigger man the stronger man is not the one who the one who can outwrestle somebody else not the one who is muscular but the one who is able to hold their anger what is the sign of holding anger it means that you can forgive because if you can't forgive it means the anger is still there don't let your dog soul, that inner dog that negativity outrule the positivity you and I have positivity in us we have that positivity channel that positivity and use it to wipe out the negativity in our relationship and the problems that we have in Allahumma alayhi ta'ala Peace be upon you Allahumma tzera ala teena peace be upon you Allahumma tzera ala teena peace be upon you we ask Allah that you pardon us we ask Allah to forgive us we ask Allah that you allow us to pardon others and to be forgiving all of our problems and our prejudice that we have against people Allahumma tzera ala teena peace be upon you