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Asalamu alaykum warahmatullawa barakat. There was a time many years ago when man was in direct communion with Allah. During this time, all men had wisdom. All men understood truth. All men were without differences and without separations. There was a unity in existence. There was a unity among men. There was an equality among all beings. And Allah spoke directly to humanity, either Himself or through His angels. And this communion was constant. However, this communion slowly got lost. And as man gave up his attachment to God and changed his attachment to the world, the connection to God got lost. And man changed from being a human to being an animal. And man took on animal qualities and lost the divine qualities. Our path now in this world, in this day, in this age, in this time, is to reclaim what we once had as humanity, to reclaim our humanness, to reclaim our exalted nature of communion with Allah, to reclaim that place where man and God intermingled, where man was close to God, and where God was the center of all of man's thoughts, ideas, and activity, where man's belief in God was without question and without any deviation, where man's faith was so strong that the connection between man and God was strong and existed and was an ongoing situation. There's a story of a man who saw someone who looked like a monk and he was a recluse. And the man said to the monk, he said, Are you a monk? He said, No, I'm just a person with a dog inside of himself, and this dog bites people, so I keep this dog separated from humanity, and that's what's happened. We've changed from communion to an inability to live with others in a human way, to an inability to live with others in unity, to an inability to stay in connection with our Lord. Now, to make this change into true man, to make this change into becoming real again, to make this change where our connection to God isn't lost, we have to give up our animal qualities. And we have to give up all of that which is not part of Allah. When man lived with Allah's qualities within him, and those qualities were strong, and man was cognizant of those qualities, his relationship with God was strong. Without godly qualities, we cannot have a godly relationship. Without being like God, we can't understand God. Without bringing ourselves into a state where we carry God's qualities, we cannot be at one with God in the same way that we cannot be at one with humanity. Allah is at one with all of his creation. Allah doesn't see differences, Allah doesn't have prejudices, Allah doesn't see race, he doesn't see religion. Allah sees this great unity among all mankind. And for us to be able to see the truth, for us to be able to be truthful, we have to enter into that state. We have to enter into that state where we are in communion with those qualities, and then we can be in communion with all of humanity. That which separates us from our fellow man separates us from our Lord. And what has happened is man has begun to actively choose to separate himself from his fellow man. We find so many ways to separate ourselves. We separate ourselves by language, we separate ourselves by nationality, we separate ourselves by race, we separate ourselves by religion, we separate ourselves by caste, we separate ourselves by wealth, we separate ourselves by poverty, we separate ourselves in so many different ways, but we are incredibly class conscious, religion conscious, race conscious, as opposed to unity conscious. We are full of differences as opposed to seeing sameness. And this is where the great separation happened between man and God. As we began to see differences, we began to drift from reality, we began to drift from the truth. That which became the priority in man's life changed. The Quran says, Those who strive for me, they shall be taken care of by me. I will bring them close to me. But man doesn't strive for Allah anymore. Man has found different things to strive for. Man has become fascinated by the glitters of the illusory world. The elemental world has become very, very important in man's life, and accumulation of elements is what man strives for now. Bawa explains it like this. He says that man at one time used to decorate his heart. And how does one decorate one's heart? One decorates one's heart with the divine qualities. One decorates one's heart with compassion, with mercy, with gentility, with kindness, with love, with graciousness, with gratitude. However, man is not so interested in decorating his heart anymore. Now he's interested in decorating his house, in decorating himself, in decorating his car, in decorating his wealth, his bank account, in decorating his reputation, in decorating his titles, in essence, in decorating all that he thinks belongs to him. So man's ownership over things has become a priority in one's life. Now, we always need to understand the word attachment, and we need to understand what attachment means, how attachment works, and what is it within attachment that causes positive and or negative situations. To be attached means that you are somehow pulled in the direction of whatever it is that you're attached to. So when a fishing line is thrown into the water and the fish takes the hook, the fish becomes attached to the hook. As the line is pulled, the fish is pulled along with it. Well, there are many attachments in this world that are much more subtle than that hook. People become attached to praise. So anybody who tells them how wonderful they are, they follow them. People become attached to money. So they will only mix with people who have money or who have the ability to earn money and they follow them. People are attached to wealth that way. People are attached to fame. People are attached to so many things in this world. However, people also have to work, people have to earn a living, and people have to do things. We don't live the life of monks, we live the life of householders within the world. So the question and the dilemma that each one of us faces is: can we partake in the world and take from the world and use the world to supply our needs and our families' needs, and at the same time not consider that which we take from the world to be the most important part of our life? Can we do our work in the world and accumulate things in the world and not be attached to them? Can we walk away from them? Or are they the most important part of our life? In the times of the first Sufis, scrupulous behavior was incredibly important in their lives. They couldn't make mistakes. And if they made a mistake, they had to correct it. They couldn't violate God's laws. They couldn't violate the laws of appropriate behavior. And they would go to great lengths to straighten out any mistakes that they had made in respect to that behavior. For instance, there was a story of Ibn Abraham, Ibrahim, who had bought some dates, and mistakenly, one of the grocer's dates that he hadn't paid for fell into his bag, and he was, and he left with an extra date. It is said that angels came to him and he saw them talking to each other. And one of them said to the other, Ibn Adam Ibrahim has fallen a degree. And the one angel said, How? And then he explained about the date. Ibn Abraham then walked for a day and a half to return that date from the place where he had gotten it. And then he saw the angels speaking again, and they said he had been returned to favor. His mistake had been corrected. The point is that they were incredibly scrupulous about their interactions with other people. They tried to be as honest and as without fault as possible. Now, all of us in our dealings with the world should try and do that. And if Allah blesses us with reward, we can take advantage of all of these things, but at the same time, we have to not be attached to these things. There is a story of a madrasa, a school of learning, that was supported essentially by one man. And this man would make a rather large donation every year, which kept the school going. Then one day the man decided that he was going to stop doing his business and start learning himself. He wanted to go to the madrasa. So he gave up his business and he joined the madrasa and began to learn. Well, when that time of the year came when he had given the money, he didn't have the money to give. Now, because you ran your business and you were able to help support this madrasa, hundreds of people were able to learn Allah's way. But when you stopped doing your business and stopped supporting the madrasa, now the madrasa faces closing because you thought you should do this instead of that. Your place in this world was to run the business and help support the madrasa. Please go back and do that, and your reward will be forthcoming for what it is that you do. So there are many ways in which we can do Allah's bidding. There are many ways that we can do Allah's work. We need to make sure that what we do is Allah's work. We need a clear picture of what it is that we're doing. We have to be able to visualize what it is that we're doing and set up a path to accomplish it once we visualize it. There was a Zen master who was an expert archer, and he could hit anything at great distance quite accurately. And one day he took his student with him and they went out into the woods where he was doing his, where he would usually do his shooting. But this time he had the suit, the student sent set up the target, and then he came back, told the student to come back with him. And he was about 900 feet from the target. And he asked his student to put a blindfold on him. And he put a blindfold on and he shot the arrow. And then he told the student to go see where the arrow had landed. And the student went and he saw that the arrow was nowhere near the target. It didn't even hit the tree that the target was on. He couldn't even find the arrow, he was so far off. And then he went back to his master and he said, You didn't hit the target. You missed everything. And the master took the blindfold off and he said, You have to see what you're shooting at. You have to be able to see what it is you're trying to accomplish. You can't walk in this world blindfolded. You can't walk into this world without your eyes open. You have to be able to visualize what it is that you're trying to accomplish. So while we are in this world, while we work, while we do whatever is necessary to take care of ourselves and our family, we also simultaneously have to visualize what is the purpose of our life? What is the reason for what we do? Why do we do things? What is the ultimate that we are trying to accomplish? And how are we trying to accomplish it? What is the state of our connection with the world? And what is the state of our connection with Allah? What is the state of our consciousness? What is the priority of our consciousness? What are the things that we consider most important? Or are we just walking around in the dark, getting attracted to and interacting with whatever it is we happen to run into at that moment? We need to have a plan for our lives. We need to set out a Path for our lives. And Allah has told us very clearly what this path is. This path is the straight path towards Him. This path is the path of denouncing all that is not of Allah and only accepting that which is of Allah. Now, as those who know the history of the Prophet, you know that he was known for his honesty and for his justice, and that he participated in business when he was young. When he married Khadija, Khadija put him in charge of many things. She was a wealthy woman, and she put him in charge of many things in her business. So obviously, it is appropriate to be able to do things in that way. You just have to be just and honest about all of your dealings. But it's certainly not forbidden. As a matter of fact, it's encouraged to do business in a wholesome way. Without commerce, without business being done, everything would come to a standstill. Let's understand that we all deal with economies, and economies need people who are entrepreneurial who can take care of things and make things move within society. And for doing that, there are monetary rewards. These need to be used appropriately and need to be used in a way that help not only your family, but also help others. And that's the reason for charity. The ones who have been able to make more than others have this obligation to help others. And in this obligation to help others, they use what they've accumulated to spread out among those who have more difficulty. We need to understand the nature of justice. We need to understand the nature of Allah's qualities. We need to attempt to visualize returning to a place where man communed with Allah. And we need to visualize what it would take to get to that place. What would we have to do in order to be able to enter into that place? And once you begin to think about it, it becomes evident. All of the things that take up our consciousness, that take up our attention, that direct us in certain directions that have nothing to do with Allah, pull us away from Allah. It's not more complicated than that. Also, what do we look at? Do we involve ourselves in things that are none of our business? Or are we able to concentrate on that which is important to us? People who are constantly involved in everybody else's business and in everybody else's affairs and everybody else's doings can't possibly be concentrating on Allah. Every time they are talking about somebody else, they are not talking about Allah. Surat al-Asir says, those who are not involved in my work and in my words and in my understanding are lost. So when we are not involved with work that takes us towards the path towards Allah, we are lost. And we need to bring ourselves back from being lost to being found. And how can we be found? We have to find ourselves and put ourselves in the straight path. That means that we have to have some control over our actions. We can't just be let loose. We can't just run free like chickens in a chicken ranch. We have to have discipline in our life and discipline in our existence. Discipline that we put upon ourselves to require ourselves to worship our Lord. And how do we worship our Lord? There are so many ways to worship our Lord. There are the obligatory ways, there's the repetition of the names of God, and then there is the active intention to integrate the holy names into our being and to become those names. So in order to commune with God, you have to become God-like. So we have to vision, we have to establish a vision for ourselves, entering into a path where our actions are God-like, but not just for a moment, not just for a day, but as a consistent part of our life. Constancy and consistency is what's going to alter us. Six minutes a day here or six minutes a month here are not going to alter us. Prayer that is not sincere is not going to alter us. Going through the motions of obligatory duties is not going to alter us. What's going to alter us is sincerity. And sincerity comes through fear of Allah. And fear of Allah is described in many different ways. Some describe it in what would be a very straightforward explanation, which means one fears the wrath of Allah. But others describe it in a much different way. They say fearing Allah means fearing not being involved in His qualities, fearing being away from love, fearing being away from kindness, fearing being away, being separated from justice and from mercy and compassion. In other words, we internally understand so strongly how important these qualities are to us that we never want to leave them. We understand internally what these qualities do for us that we never want to separate ourselves from them. So what is the fear of Allah? The fear of being separated from love, the fear of being separated from mercy, the fear of being separated from compassion, the fear of being separated from kindness. So we have to constantly strive to be just and be kind so that we never leave that truth. We never leave those qualities. We never leave his presence, that we are constantly with his presence. And that's what it was like in the past. People had these qualities ingrained within them. And they were so deeply embedded in people that there was a unity among all of his existence. That has left man, and man must return to that. Man must once again have these qualities deeply embedded in him so that there is no other methodology for gratification. You see, man has become confused. Man thinks that accumulating the world will give man gratification, and in truth, it won't. It can't. The only thing that can bring true gratification is peace. And peace comes through God's qualities. Peace is one of the names of Allah. Salaams is one of the names of Allah. Without peace, we have difficulty. Without peace, we have sorrow. Without peace, we have regret. But once we have peace, we can then have mercy and compassion and kindness and love and justice. They all travel together. They come as a group. They are inseparable. They are all connected to each other. And once we bring one into our life, the rest come into our life. It's as if you open up a direct channel to those qualities. And when we allow them to run through us, then we become an asset to this world, and we strive to do God's work. And when we strive to do his work, he strives to help us. So it's cyclical, it's circular. As you do for him, he does for you. So we need to instill in ourselves the attitude that we are his servants, his slaves, because there is no greater status for man than to be God's slave. Because when you are a slave to God, God is a slave to you. The prophet was known as Abduhu Rasulallah, the slave and the messenger. But first he was the slave. So if we want to enter into a true relationship with our creator, we have to give up everything that isn't our creator and take on all that we know and understand that is our creator. And we have to swallow it. We have to imbibe it. We have to drink it. We have to drink the nectar of his truth. We have to drink the nectar of his justice. We have to breathe the air of his truth. Breathe the air of his justice. And as that happens, we begin to blossom with the flowers of his qualities, and we give off the fragrance of his truth. And there is no greater accomplishment in our life than to be able to do that. May it come to pass that we all begin to know and understand the nature of our Lord, and that nature becomes our nature. Amin. Amin. Ya Rabbilal Amin Asalam Alaikum Arahmatullah wa barakaku.