Sohbet 191025: Expectations, Progress on the Path

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Transcript

Shaykh Ibrahim

Assalamu alaikum. So, Alameen asks: “I have a continual struggle with a particular nefs, expectations, which presents itself particularly in relationships. This one feels at times I make progress, but inevitably get caught in having expectations. So the question is, how does one know you are making progress with the nefs? Is it better to have no expectations?”

So that's a good question. I don't think it's possible to live without expectations, but I think it's important to understand why we have expectations. So my question to you is, what is the purpose of expectations? so there's hope a hope good yes you're quite right okay hope pull ourselves i've been thinking about?

Speaker 2

relationships and expectations as well recently and i think what has come to me is that i think there's different levels say if you're talking about say like a marriage relationship or something you've got there's sort of like a soul level in which you're connected to someone in that sort of um i guess the uh the unconditional part you know the unconditional love that's there but then there's a lot of your sort of pragmatic day-to-day and that's where i think kind of the expectations coming and they kind of almost have to because it is a bit more transactional then it's like well i'll do the washing up you do the cooking i'll do the gardening and you do the you know like there's a little bit of a trade-off because we are humans and we're in physical space and we have limited energy and time. It's like you're managing a household with a partner and it's a bit less free and easy on that level and it has to be constantly negotiated and renegotiated. As long as everybody's happy with and keeps negotiating, I think it's good. But if you don't communicate, I think that's when those expectations become problematic because it's like, well, I expected this. well did you tell me you expected that you know or did we have a discussion about that expectation and whether we both agreed with that you know so i think there's that kind of level where even though on the soul level you might get each other and you might be in that unconditional love place and that's the reality that's the deep reality that's the huck of it but on the in the world playing that out requires that constant communication and renegotiation and and and arguments and you know like this there's always going to be a little bit of argy-bargy because humans do have nafs and we also have limited capacity to understand everything we come from our own point of view and we gotta you gotta put yourself in the other person's point of view and learn from them and it's it's not um yeah it's not simple or magical on that

level it's very that's the hard work you know okay so on the material level the matter stuff is got to keep open and be allow things to be as you say transactional it's a good way to put it

Speaker 2

yeah yeah and not to make too many assumptions i think it's important expectations and assumptions is a bit different because you can tell someone your expectation but if you assume that someone's going to fulfill an expectation without expressing it then that's where you get resentment and trouble

Shaykh Ibrahim

because you they don't know you know they're not in your head yeah boy if you've been learning a lot

Speaker 3

you know it's been 10 years now or 12 years yeah that's something yeah now the question was

Shaykh Ibrahim

why do we have expectations? Where do they come from? What is their purpose? I will start with some of the ideas that I've been thinking about this for a few minutes. So we come from millions of years of learning how to survive. So it helps us imagine situations and acts as a predictive machine to help us sort through different scenarios so that we can be prepared for a situation or a scenario that we can rehearse and we can work out patterns of behavior to see if they are what the best way to be. Maybe we can go ask other people about it and get some information so it can prepare us to survive in different situations but what happens is the nefs kick in on any of these levels and is a trap in the expectation circle so as soon as it becomes uncontrollable when all of a sudden you you go into expectation mode and you get worried and you develop an anxiety about a situation and you go, God, I don't know what I should do here. If she says this, I have to do this, but that's not going to work. And it builds and it creates an imbalance and anxiety and stress. So that's when you need to identify that it's gone out of control and turned into nefs. Chris, you understand what nefs is?

Speaker 4

Is that breathing?

Shaykh Ibrahim

No. Actually, it comes from the Arabic nefesh, which is breath, which gives us life. But nefs is a distortion of breathing. It's habits or attachments or anything that you fall into it as an, that it's me. It's an identity that's not true. Like I'm a loser or I am great or I'm very smart or I'm stupid or whatever you identify with or hold on to that is not really you is nefs. so in regards to expectations there may be a pattern that you fall into where you think every time i get into this situation i mess it up i don't know you know what i mean

Speaker 2

yeah go ahead millie i was gonna i'm just reflecting is there anything with which one can identify without it being nafs apart from a lot but even but then you're like well in what form you know like so like if you say i am a teacher or i am a farmer or i am a pilot or i am a doctor or i am a you know whatever you want or like you say i'm terrible or anything there's there's nothing really that you can say with an I statement like that, that actually can be true. Absolutely. Right. You can say, I am currently doing some test piloting or something, or I am currently learning how to play music. But when you start saying I'm a musician, then you're like, that can't really be true because that's not the whole of who you are. Right. So that's interesting because it's like, well, Is there any kind of identity that is useful or is only, is all of those identity statements, identity associations and attachments unhealthy in the long term? Do we have to like pick them up and put them down? Is that how it works?

Shaykh Ibrahim

So you can watch them pass by.

Speaker 2

Yeah. Because I feel like if you don't pick up the mask for a little while and try to understand what that feels like you're missing out on the experience of that but if you get stuck on it then it you're kind of it's an outdated mask it doesn't work anymore this is kind of where

Shaykh Ibrahim

understanding acting and the math comes in because it's like it's a lot we we are an aspect of allah experiencing creation so it's like allah putting on a mask and saying oh i'm an employee of this great corporation yeah this is the experience of this isn't this interesting and then you take the mask off the thing is we forget to take it for you but but it's mask on mask off if you forget

Speaker 2

to take the mask off you have a problem it's in that case it's interesting to try and understand like if i i might have to get like just a little bit personal for this but tell me if i'm too personal like for example in my life I right now I feel like you know a few statements that I probably have is I am a husband I am a teacher I'm a father and so but some of those is like you know lifelong things like you don't really stop being a father you know you don't stop being a husband hopefully so I may not always be a teacher but it's it's also like a consistent career path that's been kind of there. I suppose it's the anxiety you talk about, when the anxiety of losing that or the anxiety comes along with the responsibilities involved in that is when it becomes maybe problematic. Like if I get, you know, really angry and controlling with my children because I'm their father and I want to make sure that they are safe and all that, but it gets, that can go too far. Or these children to learn something, that can be, when it gets to that point where you're getting graspy and anxious about it, is that a good signal that it's sort of, there's that attachment that's in play and it's, you're going in the wrong direction?

Shaykh Ibrahim

Yeah. And in understanding your own expectations and anxieties or nets, it's also what's going on is an unlearning if you keep aware of what mask you're wearing. So the unlearning happens when you go, oh, my God, I'm getting anxious about this. Where is this coming from? And then you can look at it and go, what is this mask? What is this? Where did this come from? And then you can start backtracking to the source of where that comes from. In that sense, it then becomes the teaching. It becomes your suluk, your path of learning.

Speaker 2

Why are you getting anxious? What's really behind that? and where's the error there that's causing that?

Shaykh Ibrahim

That's right. And accepting that this is the teaching. This is Allah teaching you directly. You don't have to go anywhere. You don't have to read any books. You don't have to watch YouTube that much. Allah is showing you exactly what you need to know. And to grow, it requires us to accept that. And it is painful very often because that means I have to change. I don't want to change and I don't want to see myself that way. And this is all part of accepting that we're all idiots here and we're trying to do our best. And very often Allah goes, good, you want to do your best. let me help you. And sometimes we get into a little argument about that. But the idea is that it reminds us that to grow requires us to remember that we have to use the strategies and tools of the soupy path that we've been given. And those tools are, The big one is learning how to calm the brain down so that you can breathe again. If you're not breathing, you're being breathed. Breathed? Breathing. Breathing. So there's learning, you know, some kind of calming, whether it's meditation, walking in nature, grounding, zikr whatever works for you an affirmation the idea is to bring yourself back to your center back to your heart and one of the ways that I find that really helps is to as soon as you feel you're starting to get anxious is to go into breathing slow deep breathing and a zikr that might help you maybe a salam I find Lailaha Illallah works wonderfully for balancing when I feel out of balance or I feel like things are going off kilter Lailaha Illallah brings me back to

Speaker 2

even that one's great because it's not about anything else except that it's Allah's universe it's very hard to say laylah haylah like you're thinking about yourself because it's it's focused out there to everything belongs to allah so it's like what are you complaining about you know what are you

Shaykh Ibrahim

upset about yes a miracle you're experiencing put your soul into this meat bag and you get to experience what it's like to be matter Isn't that exciting? Enjoy. Exactly. So the other part of Alamein's question was, how do you know you're making progress and you're moving forward in fighting your nefs when you are dealing with these expectations? And we have expectations, of course, of how we should be now that we've been along the path for a couple of years. What does that look like? Shouldn't I be ascending or something? Shouldn't I be part of the rapture? Yeah, where's the T-shirt?

Speaker 2

I've developed a very good list of whether I'm making progress. How often I get fired. I've been like moved on because I didn't get fired the last couple of years I've just been moved on a lot people didn't renew my contract or it's like oh this is changing so we can't keep you here and it's like I say so I go to a new place I meet new people I learn something new and then I'm like well I guess I must have learned something because you're moving me on again

Speaker 4

Well, for me, I find the progress is the duration of going back. It's like you get over it a lot faster than you used to. That is my only progress I can measure because I still got lots to do. But for that, I'm grateful, that's all. So I get over it a bit faster than previously. Small progress.

Shaykh Ibrahim

It's a good note when you can recognize it. There's a couple ways I've found that help. But in regard to that, one of those is like, look back at yourself a couple years ago. Where were you at then and where are you now? the thing is we tend to look at things incrementally and we just look back at the last mess up we've done or the last firing or whatever the last you know event that hurt brings us back but yeah getting over the uh crush is um finding a way to understand well this is what I signed up for this is Allah teaching me I should be grateful I don't I don't feel grateful I feel immensely no no I'm grateful I'm really I'm grateful

Speaker 2

I'm feeling a bit disappointed. Oh, I'm being positive. I'm being positive. I'm grateful. I'm grateful. I'm positive. And then it's like,

Shaykh Ibrahim

I'm not grateful. Yeah. And that's part of it too. Yeah. And it's kind of like what we talked about in regards to the Insani Kamil group book that we're working on. We got into a whole discussion about the witness. that we have a part of us that's watching the show, that's observing. Some people have difficulty getting to that, what we call a witness. And what came up was we were talking about, I don't know, it just hit me once as we were talking, like we say, I witness that there is no God but Allah. and i've got what witness what does that mean why don't we say i when we what we're saying is i am witnessing that means there's a kind of little little driver back in the skull somewhere yeah

Speaker 2

this morning i was driving with the family down to the markets and just like thing came up again of i really feel that connected at the moment i'm not feeling like about my best and this old thing yeah well you just had an expansion what comes up from expansion attraction you've been through this so many times now and it was like you were saying chris like At least it's a bit easier. It's not the end of the universe anymore. It's just, oh, I'm not feeling as good as I was, you know, six months ago, whatever. Oh, yeah. Well, it's a contraction, isn't it? And it's like, well, I'm just witnessing that and identifying a little bit more with the witness than with the person who's in the show. Yeah, going, oh, what's happening to me? You know, why is this happening to me? Because, you know, I guess after a while, someone's got your back and it all happens for a reason. And so it's like practice. The practice is in those times where you're not feeling so crushed and you're not at your best and everything isn't going the way you hope it would go that you trust that this is just the transition to the next bit but it doesn't make it easy but it makes it less um less intense or less immediate you can like you say step back and watch it and go okay i'm just gonna watch what happens here you know watch this person trying to live through a story of some sort that makes

Shaykh Ibrahim

but you remind me it hit me so hard when I got registered as an artist it's a really difficult thing to make your way I fell into depression I mean severe depression because it was about me and before I met Shake and all that But it's like I didn't know how to find a witness there that was watching the show. And then over 30 years now, it's kind of like it just flows. It's a little bit easier. It doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. Yes, it does. But it's kind of like, yeah, it's that. I know that really well now. It's just don't get attached to it. But it also makes me think about people who do fall into depression, and we all do, and how to understand that from the sense of how to be sympathetic or empathic with that, to be understandable. Well, when you think it's all about you, these are the things that are going to happen because you're not connected to the bigger picture. Some of the ideas I have about how you can tell you're making progress on the path is, one, that you can go into breath, the breathing, slow breathing at any time. And that you can bring that up even in a crisis or a catastrophe of any kind. That you can go, and just take a moment to bring yourself back into a flow. That you're being taken care of. That you know Allah is there and Allah is helping you. That Allah is your helper. Next, another one is that you are doing intermittent assessments, personal assessments over time during the day so that you're returning back to your heart and you're saying, hey, heart, how you doing? Are you doing OK? What's up? And then listening. It's one thing to ask. It's another thing to listen and listening and saying. What do you think? What's happening here? And they're taking the time for that. And doing that with the breath I find really helpful. Another is keeping a diary or journaling, whatever you want to call it, where you are writing and articulating in words what is going on with you, with your nafs, with your understanding of Allah, what your observations are, what names of Allah you were evoking or seeing in this particular moment or issue. What do you think you're learning in this period? That's all very helpful, I find. Another is what I call your spiritual first aid kit. You know, find a Transformers lunchbox or something that you can put some goodies in, like poems, seeds, stones, pictures, USB of songs that you can go to when you feel really disassociated. That can bring you back to your center, things that make you feel centered. Finding for yourself where you get your peace and joy. What gives your heart joy? What brings you a solid sense of purpose and meaning and love? What is that? What does that look like? For you, for example, Mui, the drawing, writing, coloring, painting, are looking at a pine cone and going oh my god what is this this is the fibonacci series right

Speaker 2

here right yeah yeah i think the difficulty for this one is that because of the um the underlying chemical depression problem sometimes nothing does those things lose their magic and i found that rather than get caught up in, well, what can I do to feel better? You know, what can I do to reconnect? It's more about letting go of the need to feel okay and having faith that it will pass because sometimes you've just got to ride that wave, you know. I'm sorry, I'm tearing up a bit because it does, it used to get to me a lot more, but sometimes there are just times where nothing will help and it's just about yes or no. But most of the time, yeah, most of the time there's those things like art and interests and nature and, you know, nature almost always helps. It's very – usually nature works. But even some days, you know, I don't know why this one has its path, but sometimes it's just – you've just got to hold on.

Shaykh Ibrahim

Yeah, it sounds like brain circuits go offline for a while.

Speaker 2

Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead.

Shaykh Ibrahim

Sorry.

Speaker 2

I'm just saying the difference is, like, when you're talking about making progress, I think the difference is when you've been through it a number of times over and over again, you get the sense of the rhythm of it, and so it's not as scary because you know that the key will even out again.

Shaykh Ibrahim

Right, it comes back. Yeah. So for you, Chris, do you find joy or peace in service? Because you mentioned you work in the healthcare industry.

Speaker 4

Yes, and also the nature, the walking, writing, everything, whatever that comes. So when you write... Not something specific, you know. I just don't know how to do the walking nature.

Shaykh Ibrahim

What do you write?

Speaker 4

Oh, just write journals, whatever.

Shaykh Ibrahim

Good. Very good. The other things that help is watching. It's kind of like taking a reading, like, you know, you check your oil, that kind of car, or checking your battery. See what your gratitude level is. You know, where's my gratitude here? Do I understand that I should be grateful that I am alive and experiencing things? Or am I angry because I didn't do the wash? And when you look at that, it's time to maybe restock the gratitude. And look around and just stop for a second and go, I'm breathing. This is fantastic. and I get to hear stuff and I get to see these things and I have this and I have that and it's kind of like it could be a lot less and the last one it could always be less and the last one is when you can be of service when you can be available to allow your hands to be Allah's hands and bringing comfort and peace to someone else where they feel that you've heard them, which is like, that's a big thing. Does that make sense? Is there any other things that you want to talk about in regards to expectations? Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2

It talks about colours and symbols that you would see in dreams and things like that as indicators of progress on the path. What I have found is that, and this may be more of a personal discussion, but with the dreams, I feel like I get a mixture of things that they're talking about, say, from the first level, from the fourth level, whatever. you know and I find that a bit confusing because it's like well does it mean that there's sort of you know there's some progress there but there's some things that still need to be looked at or is that are those symbols am I misinterpreting them or something so maybe we can talk about that later but

Shaykh Ibrahim

yeah a bit of spiritual dream world dream and when you wake up you go well this was the spiritual part but this, I don't have to worry about that, that was just anxiety or stress or something I find also that the spiritual dream also can get mixed up in rehearsals dreams where you're trying to try out a new idea in a situation and that's kind of hard to take and separate and

Speaker 5

feeling different criteria

Shaykh Ibrahim

this gets more personal for you

Speaker 3

yeah

Shaykh Ibrahim

but part of understanding the progress you're making, the dreams give you a whole lot of data about what's going on but for some of us it's learning how to adjust the subtlety meters and i'm also talking about the colors and symbols and stuff too that kind of awareness is a readjustment of of the lens of like what is subtle and what is not and that happens over time but it also requires intention on your part and everybody's part to go deeper yeah but in that you're also saying I want to know how to do this better you ask Allah exactly so you go I need to look deeper Help me to know how to look deeper. So you ask for help in that. And it happens. And then things become more clear because you are shifting your focus. yeah and part of it again is unlearning what you think dreams are supposed to be as well as what you think you're going to get. The thing is, is that my experience with the, shall we call it the subconscious? And this takes me back to my realization of what the first King Kong movie was about, which was the idea of the subconscious is having, is just kind of primeval. It's just raw energy and symbols. And then that has to go through the big door that takes us into the conscious mind. So those symbols like dinosaurs and King Kong itself and fear and love and everything has to be translated into understandable conscious symbols so that we can go oh i dreamt about my mother but it has to come from all these others which means part of our job of understanding ourself which is our duty that's our job is to learn our vocabulary of symbols of energy because it is there i don't believe in so much in universal human symbols there are some iconic ones like the snake and the sun and the moon those are iconic everybody has those but what is the symbol for mother you know it could be a cat it could be it could be a tree everybody's different so learning your symbol vocabulary and the way that you check it is with your shake and with your heart you know this is that um and find out what what connects with the heart in that regard so that when you do dream you can then begin to go ah this was this was a river and the river was this flow and you go and you go you find your own personal interpretation that makes sense to you so that you can have this ongoing communication with your inner your zahir along with the batin the outer so that's how you make progress is learning how to learn this vocabulary of the outer and the inner and well that reminds me shake loved bruce almighty yeah he's driving down the street

Speaker 2

he said give me a sign and all these signs are going

Shaykh Ibrahim

that is so good love that movie

Speaker 2

so as you're looking at things and they're suddenly talking specifically to you

Shaykh Ibrahim

yeah and you go okay the way I deal with that the first thing that I do when I get something like that is go no that that's my imagination then it happens if it happens again i go no that's my imagination you want to make something it's got to be three times if it comes back a third time i go all right i

Speaker 2

understand when it's pretty much to come come through different ways at the same time as well

Shaykh Ibrahim

yeah okay this message is pretty cool yeah and the thing is is that people expect a law to speak in a certain way right the clouds part is thunderbolt and whatever way you think but that's not what a Allah uses. Allah uses the creation to speak to us if we are tuning into it. If we don't, that's okay. You don't have to watch. You don't have to be, you know, no effort.

Speaker 6

So you can not listen all you want. You can disobey, or you can hide away or whatever, or you can be, even if you feel disconnected, just because you don't feel like you're with Allah, it doesn't mean Allah's not there.

Shaykh Ibrahim

Yeah, so again, we're playing a game. It's a game. I'm an individual. Oh, yeah, sorry. I'm an individual. I have no strings attached. I am professionally separate. Let me say,

Speaker 2

Shabbat shalom.

Shaykh Ibrahim

Wa alaikum as-salam wa barakatuh.

Speaker 7

Thank you for joining us, Chris. Thank you. Back to you, Chris. Have a great weekend. See you, man. Bye. Bye. So. you

Speaker 5

Yeah, I think there were two things that were a little bit more personal. Yeah, Dreams recently, it's been a lot of snakes and also a lot of things representing baggage,

Speaker 2

like having to pack things, like you're moving, having to, like things that haven't been packed, like it's like, oh, I've got to move, but all my stuff is still not packed. and that sort of thing going on. So I don't know if they're just anxiety manifestations and like getting bitten by all these snakes. And it was like, I was scaring the snakes out of the hidey holes and then they looked like little baby snakes, but one of them like reared up and I was like, "Oh, that one's gonna bite me." And I tried to get out of the way, but he went, then he got me.

Shaykh Ibrahim

And I was like, "Oh." - Did the snakes have any color?

Speaker 2

In my mind they were dangerous, they were brown snakes. But not necessarily actually brown, but like that's the kind, like the Australian brown snakes that you gotta be careful.

Shaykh Ibrahim

- I have seen some perch in the water.

Speaker 2

- Yeah, yeah, we've had a couple around here as well, so that makes sense, in my mind, but yeah.

Speaker 8

- That is, is this? - Yeah.

Shaykh Ibrahim

- Like, I think it was, it was a big one, a big one for naps.

Speaker 5

- Yeah.

Shaykh Ibrahim

but because you have this idea of moving and you have the bags, you are in transition and that, that this is good. This is just indicating your mind is telling you we're working on this. We're gathering up. We're getting, got some new stuff. We're getting ready for, for change. So you're in the middle of a transition. We turned up recording.

Speaker 8

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