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Asalam Asalamu alaykum Arahmatullawa Barakat The world is an upside down place. People have belief systems that don't make any sense. Yet they hold on to them as if they were reality. They hold on to them as if they were the truth. And no amount of convincing will make people change their minds. Abdul Qadr Jalani, the head of the uh Qadiri order of Sufism, had at times a test for people who walked into the place, and there was a pot in front of his darga, and there were flowers in it. And people were asked to write down what they saw in the pot. And the answer was simple. It was a rose. But not everybody could come to that conclusion that easily. And if they didn't write rose, he wouldn't accept them as students. And he was asked why. And he said, understanding the ordinary is the path to the truth. If you can't see what's in front of your face and recognize it, you won't be able to see the truth as one tries to explain it to you. And this world suffers from that constantly. And in the United States right now, we are going through certain kinds of denials, making certain things our norm that just aren't appropriate and of course aren't normal. One of the things that I'm talking about is the fact that boys are allowed to participate in girl sports if they say they feel like they're a girl. So if in your mind you feel like you're a girl, you can participate with girls who are physically less the uh strong, less uh capable of doing certain things that men are doing because men have stronger bodies. But yet we accept this as if it's some kind of truth. Now, in some places, they're beginning to do away with it, but a lot of places are holding on to it as if it were reality. There's a story of a man who was put into a coffin, and as he's about to be interned, as about he's about to be buried, he lifts up out of the coffin and starts to talk. And people are shocked. And the uh the uh funeral procession had a police detective leading the procession, and they asked the detective if he could determine whether the man was alive or not. And so he asked him, Are you alive? And the man answered that he was. And he asked the people who were there, there were about 50 people in the funeral procession. He said, Well, is he alive or is he dead? And they all said, Well, the doctor said he's dead, he must be dead. So the man said, Well, I conclude he's dead, bury him. This kind of inability to just recognize what's in front of you and move in that direction clouds the entire world. And we individually should learn to just be able to see things for what they are and react to things for what they are. It's not complicated, it's just the way we need to be. Now, in this path that we're on, in this Sufi path, one of the things that attracted us to our teacher, one of the things that brought us onto the path was his incredible ability to touch our hearts. He interacted with us in a way that we felt he was part of us. And since he was part of us, and since he treated us as he would treat himself, we were able to trust him and to follow his lead. Now, this kind of sincerity, this kind of being able to project our own being into others and love others as we love ourselves, is an incredibly important part of this path. In unity, there can't be separation. In unity, it's not about others agreeing with us, it's about our including others, whether they agree with us or not. The ability to embrace everyone and everybody, no matter what their personal distinctions are, and whatever their personal feelings are, is part of truth. Allah embraces all of humanity. Allah embraces and gives to all of humanity. Allah does not discriminate. He doesn't discriminate. Now, the world will tell you that God does discriminate, but a simple ability to comprehend creation would tell you differently. It's obvious that God created many, many different kinds of people throughout the world, he gave them all the same gifts throughout the world, he maintains and sustains all of them throughout the world. If God can do that for everyone, why can't we? Why do we walk around with separations within us? There's the story of the man who was knocking on the door of a darga, uh begging for food. Somebody came and answered the door and he said, Can I have a loaf of bread, please? And the dervish who came to the door said to him, I can't help you now. The sheikh is talking, come back tomorrow. And he went back and sat in front of the sheikh, and the sheikh said, What was that? And he said, It was a man asking for food. I told him to come back tomorrow. You were talking, and the sheikh said, Go take a loaf of bread out of the kitchen, chase him until you find him and give it to him. If God has seen uh, if God has given him a soul and has taken the time to implant that into him, who are we to deny him a loaf of bread? This understanding that the student didn't have, the sheikh had. The student was happy to push away the beggar. The sheikh wasn't. It's said sometimes that when a student is given power, the downfall of things begins to happen because he doesn't have the insight or the love or the truth of a Sheikh. Um it's difficult to comprehend the immense love and compassion that a true man has for other beings. A true man is a very rare state within humanity. An insanal, one who has reached that status of being a true man, is different than ordinary humanity. And as long as we are on this path, we have to understand that one of our objectives for each of us is to become a true man, which of course also means a true woman. And we can't do this unless love and generosity is opened up within our hearts. Allah is incredibly generous, Allah is constantly giving, and all of humanity is the recipient of that giving. We, each of us, has to become generous and loving in our own lives. In this generosity, we create a flow that comes from Allah through us into humanity, and as we give it out, more comes to us. We get as we give. We receive as we give. Among the guests at the birthday party was a thief, and the thief found a place to hide up the stairs around a little alcove, and he was waiting for the party to finish, and he figured he could steal from the gifts that had been given. And the party went on and on. Finally, people began to leave, and the recipient of the gifts had opened up all the gifts and had separated them on the table. Many of the gifts consisted of things that were either gold or silver, others were pieces of art and many different kinds of things. The thief is thinking to himself as he sees what's going on uh, well, I'll take the silver and the gold, the other things I can leave. It would be easier just to take them, and then I can get out. Well, finally, everybody leaves, and as the place is emptied out, the man whose birthday party it was calls to one of his servants and says, Prepare a meal for one. And they a few minutes pass by, and a meal is brought down, and the man had seen the man, the thief who was hiding in the alcove, and he says, You and the alcove, come down, we've prepared food for you. And now he knew that he was found, so he came down and he ate. When he was finished eating, the man whose party it was gave him a bag that was full of silver and gold and said, This is a present for you. Go on your way and do good with this. Ten years later, it is now this man's 80th birthday party, and he's having another party, and his son had invited people from all over the community again, and was welcoming the guests as they come in. Well, one man came in who he didn't recognize, and he said, Uh, we don't know you. Are you from here? He said, I know your father, I've met him before, and I'm sure he'll be happy to see me. So he let him in. And as the party's going on, the uh the man is greeting all of his guests, and finally the man who the son didn't know who he was comes up to him and he says, Excuse me, I don't the the the man whose party it was said, Excuse me, I don't recognize you. And he said, Well, I met you years ago, I brought you a gift, and he gave him a very valuable gem, which he put down on the table, and then he said, Well, how do I know you? And he said, Well, 10 years ago, I came to your house with ill intent. You gave me a bag of silver and gold, and you said, Do good with it. It changed me internally. I went out, and my attitude all of a sudden became different. I understood that there are people in the world who willingly help others, and I thought, maybe I could become that way. And I began to help others, I began to do good, and instead of looking for devious ways to make money, I looked for obvious ways to make money, for legal ways to make money, for halal ways to make money, and all of a sudden, things began to work for me, and I got wealthy and got to a status that I am now. Now, of course, I'm not as wealthy as you are, but I'm doing very well. And the man, of course, recognized him and he said, You're the man from the alcove. And he said, Yes, and he said, I have to tell you, the story is much more valuable than the gem you gave me, although it's a very valuable gem. We, each of us, constantly are put in situations where we can alter the lives of others. And in altering the lives of others, we alter our own lives, we change ourselves for the better by bringing something better to someone else. We are all aware of the hadith that says a smile is charity. Well, the point of that is incredibly important, and that is that if you can interact with somebody else in a positive way, if you can interact with somebody else to bring them up somehow, to bring a smile into their life, to bring something positive into their existence, you are doing good for them. And of course, you're also doing good for yourself. It says the teaching is the interaction between the teacher and the student. Both benefit from the interaction. In 1991, uh I got the chance to go to Mecca and Medina. Someone arranged the trip for me, and all I had to do basically was show up, and I went. There were about 15 of us. I got a call from the people who had been sponsoring the trip, and they said, uh, we'd like you uh to be our point person so that we can know what's going on with the rest of the group and report to us. And so I did. The next uh year I got another call from these same people that says, We'd like you to come again and take another group. And uh I said, but I already went, other people should have an opportunity, and they said to me, We need somebody that we can trust that's leading the group so that we can actually know what's going on, and so I agreed to go. And after the second trip, I realized that the reason I was able to go the first time was that somebody made it very easy for me. So I began to make arrangements for people to go to Mecca and Medina without a lot of uh difficulty on their part through the help of my friends who lived in Saudi Arabia. Um, the main person responsible for this in Saudi Arabia has passed now. His name was Razen, and uh bringing him to mind, I just would ask Allah to have mercy on his soul and be um and be pleased with him. He's a wonderful man. Anyway, because I was able to make these arrangements for so many other people to go, I got to go. So I got to go to Mecca and Medina 10 or 11 years in a row because I was taking groups of people to Mecca and Medina, and it was good for them, but it was also good for me. So we should all understand that there is something reciprocal in being an aid to other people, there's something reciprocal in being kind to other people, there's something reciprocal in being good to other people, there's something reciprocal in doing God's work in this world if you help God do his work in this world, God is going to help you. That's really very basic and a very basic, simple understanding. What better help can there be for you than God's help? What better help can there be for you than Allah pushing you along, taking you along, bringing you along because you are doing his work. Allah supports the one who support him. Allah gives to the one who gives on his behalf. Allah helps the generous, Allah gives to the generous. Generosity on your part opens up a flow between you and the creator, which creates a flow of wealth of every sort. Kindness is a wealth, love is a wealth, compassion is a wealth, mercy is a wealth. Wealth isn't just monetary. Wealth is all of the qualities of Allah. And if you have any of these qualities, you are wealthy. If you can walk around with love, you are wealthy. If you can spread love around, you are wealthy, and you are spreading wealth around. A positive attitude brings joy to everyone you come in contact with. One of the reasons that people came to the sheikh's room, that people came to the sheikh's presence was it would change their demeanor. Being next to a resonance that was so positive and so loving and so kind infiltrates your own body and brings you to a place where you feel that resonance and you feel that kindness and you become those things that he is, and they are brought into your being, and then you can go from that place and also dispense it to the world. Now, each of us has a tiny pool that we can hold this love in. Each of us has a tiny pool that we can distribute. We have to be careful not to go beyond our limits, but we should also understand that this pool can be expanded and expanded and become bigger and bigger as we become kinder and more loving. And as we become easier in the path of truth, as it becomes more attuned to reality, as our path becomes more attuned to reality, our reservoir of love and kindness will grow. Our reservoir of patience will grow. Our ability to handle the difficulties in life will grow. Patience is a gift. Patience is a gift that will take you through the trauma of your existence. Without patience, severe things can happen to you. Anxiety overwhelms you. Stress overwhelms you. But if patience is in your reservoir, it's a tool to keep you in a state of equanimity in your life. Love is that same kind of tool. Compassion is that same kind of tool. We are in fact practitioners on the path. Practitioners of what? We should consider ourselves practitioners of kindness. We should consider ourselves practitioners of love. We should consider ourselves practitioners of compassion. We are trying to learn the reality of compassion. A doctor learns how to heal people through medicine. Sufis learn how to heal people through love. Sufis learn how to heal themselves through love, how to heal themselves through compassion, how to heal themselves through mercy. And upon becoming healed, you can then take this healing to others. We have to be well before we can help others become well, which means we have to be in a place where we are content and we are receptive to that which flows from Allah, that we are receptive and cognizant of the constant gifts that are being given to humanity at every moment, and that we are recipients of every moment. When we are in a state that is positive, positive things begin to happen to us, and things come about in extraordinary ways. There's a story of a young boy who wanted a drum, and he asked his mother for a drum, and his mother didn't have the money for a drum. She was a single mother, and the best that she could do uh was feed the family. Uh there wasn't enough excess for him to get a drum. But on the way home one day, she saw this long stick, and she said, I couldn't get you a drum when she got home, but I got you this stick. Well, the little boy was a happy little boy and was very positive in his nature, very kind and loving, as he'd been taught by his mother. He took his stick and began banging everything that he saw. And he was walking along, banging his drum, and he saw this lady who was in distress, and he asked her, What's wrong? He said, The wood in my fire is a little too green, and I can't get it started. I'm trying to bake bread. He said, Here, take my stick. And it was a dry stick, and the fire started right up. And she said, Wait a minute. And after the fire started, she began to make bread and she gave him a loaf of her bread. So he walked along with this loaf of bread. He wasn't hungry. And he comes along a woman who's crying. And she's in sitting in front of a little shop where they're selling pans. And he says to her, What's the matter? She says, I don't have food for my baby. Nobody is buying any of these pans or pots that we're trying to sell. He said, Here, I have a loaf of bread. Take it. And she was very, very grateful. And she said, Here, take one of these big pots. Nobody seems to want them anyway. So now he's got a pot that he begins to bang as he's walking along. And he runs into some women who are trying to wash clothes. And he hears one of them say to the other one, Our life would be so much easier if we just had a big pot to hold these things in. And he looks at him, he says, Here, I have a pot, and he gave it to them. And they were very thankful. And they gave him this beautiful coat, heavy coat. And he wasn't cold, so he just threw it over his shoulder and he was walking. And he continued to walk, thinking, drumming things in his head. And he saw a man under a bridge who was shivering and holding on to himself. So he went up to him and he said, Here, take this coat. And the man was incredibly grateful because he was very, very cold. And he said, Son, I'm old. I have an old horse. I can't use him anymore. It's just too much for me to feed him. Why don't you take him? And the boy took the horse. He didn't know how to ride, so he was just walking with the horse. And he's walking back to his home and he comes across a wedding party. And they all seem to be in distress. And he says to them, What's wrong? He said, Well, it's our custom that the groom to get married has to ride in on a horse, and we don't have a horse. He said, Well, I just happen to have a horse. Take my horse. So he gave him the horse and they said, What can we do for you? And he looked and he said, Well, you have this group of musicians here. It seems one of them has two drums. Could I have one of those drums? And they gave him the drum. And now he's hitting the drum and he comes back home and he says to his mother, Look, Mom, your stick turned into a drum. Now, if you can stay positive, if you can be giving, if you can go along with what is presented to you, amazing things can happen to your life. You need to believe it. It'll take time, it'll take process, but the process will result in positive things for you as long as you yourself can stay positive, as long as you yourself can keep a positive attitude within your heart and bring it into your interaction with others. This is not such an easy thing to do because everybody has disappointments, everybody has difficulties, everybody has stress, everybody runs into situations in this life that are overwhelming. When I was with the sheikh, one of the things that I felt very, very strongly was that we were sort of in a cocoon of protection. Because of our relationship with him, we were somehow protected. And because of that, I would run to him very often to reinforce this sense of protection, to reinforce this feeling that everything was going to be okay as long as I put forth positive effort. When he passed, it was difficult because this manifest source of protection wasn't able to be seen. But we had to transfer that to understand that this manifest source of protection was a proof of Allah. And that was why he came to us to prove that Allah existed. And his passing did not mean that that true source of protection had passed. That true source of protection was always Allah, and he was working through and for Allah. So we had to shift our focus from the manifest to that which is unseen. And we had to begin to believe that that true source of protection comes from the unseen. And this is faith. And this faith has to become strong in us. Now, Allah sends these manifest situations so that we can grow strong in understanding. It's like the story of the man who was trying to teach a parrot to talk. The parrot wouldn't respond to him. So the man brought a mirror, put it in front of the parrot, and spoke to the parrot from behind the mirror. The parrot saw something that looked like himself in the mirror and began to react to what the man was telling him from behind the mirror. Allah is behind the shaykh. Allah is behind each and every one of us. Allah is the one who sustains us. Allah is the one who maintains us. Allah is the one who protects us. And when we believe in that protection, we change. Think about the placebo effect with medicine. When you believe that you are taking a medicine that's going to cure what's wrong with you, cures happen, and cures happen in amazing percentages. Well, we need to believe that we are protected. By believing we are protected, all that negativity within us, all of the wrong thought within us, all of the, as the psychologists say, all of the stinking thinking goes away, and we begin to think in a positive way, knowing that we are in fact protected. And when we are cognizant of that, when we know that, when we are strong in faith in that, our reaction to the world becomes different. It becomes incredibly positive and it becomes incredibly easy because we know we are buttressed by the Creator. We are buttressed by the Lord who loves us so much that He shares with us His qualities. And that is for each and every one of us. But we spend so much time lost in the negativity of the world, in the differences of the world, in the separations of the world. We have to leave all those separations. We have to leave all those differences, arrive at unity, and arrive at a true faith in a Lord who gives to each and every one. And when our heart opens and we can connect our heart to the individuals that we encounter into this world, we allow Allah to pass through us into the next one and the next one and the next one. Allah is a cornucopia of giving. There is no limit to what he can give. And whatever he gives does not diminish him in any way. And Allah is pleased to give. This is what he does. And if we can open ourselves up to giving, then we become a conduit for his giving. And he comes through us to aid and assist others. And when we can begin to believe that and hold on to that belief system and make that part of who we are, we become elevated, we become transcendent. We become more and more like true humans are supposed to be. Humans are supposed to be conduits for God's qualities to each other. Humans are supposed to be gifts to each other. Humans are supposed to be helpmates to each other. Humans are supposed to be positive influences on each other. This is our true work. This is what man is supposed to be. This is the archetype of humanity, the one who communes with Allah and gives through himself of Allah. When we understand this, and when we reside in this place, then truth becomes our speech. Truth becomes our action. Truth becomes our reality. And Allah becomes the one who walks with us wherever we go. May that be each of our lives. May that be the way for each of us. May we all be brought to that place. Amin. Amin. Ya Rabilal Amin Assalamu Alaikum Rahmatullawa Barakakur.