Reading The Book Of Life;

Ever wish life came with margins full of notes? We walk through a practical way to read the Book of Life—decoding the outer signs you can see and the inner signals you can feel—so guidance stops hiding in plain sight. Starting with one burning question, we map how energy exchange shows up in everyday places: sunlight to leaf, raw food to shared meal, emotion across a family, ideas in a team. We even unpack why information is physical and why that matters for how we store, transmit, and act on what we know.

From there, we turn inward. The heart speaks softly, often as a first thought that arrives before the mind builds its case. We share simple tools to hear that quiet voice: returning to breath, using early‑morning clarity, and making brief check‑ins through the day. Boundaries are at the core of inner reading. You’ll learn to tell whether your anxiety is yours or borrowed from the room, and how to name and release old scripts when the nafs tries to run the show.

We also sit with the hard line between adab and truth. When is peace the wiser move, and when must the heart speak to protect what matters? We offer state‑based tests, practical phrasing, and a few gentle experiments to explore your opposite so you can find the middle. Zikr supports this work—ya Sami and ya Basir to hear and see clearly, ya Haqq in measured doses for truth, ya Latif for subtlety and ease, and ya Muqaddir to activate right action. To anchor insight, we close with a journaling approach that moves signal from heart to page without the inner editor.

If you’re ready to see patterns of exchange everywhere and cultivate a steadier dialogue with your heart, this conversation offers a grounded path. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves contemplative practice, and leave a review telling us: what question burns in your heart right now?

Salaam Alaykum, murids, seekers, curious and interested listeners,

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Transcript

Framing The Book Of Life;

Shaykh Ibrahim 0:16

Fatiha t

External Signs And Getting Out Of The Way;

Holding A Burning Question;

Speaker 2 0:47

So today I would like to talk about what I am calling reading the Book of Life So that might get your mind thinking in some ways. What do I mean the book of life? Allah is right here, always in front of us, always behind us, within us, and outside of us, all around us. But we're so smart, we tend to uh forget about all that and think about ourselves and think when we look at something to go, oh that's so me. Oh, look at me. Oh, that's me. Rather than thinking this is Allah, what is the lesson here? What am I seeing? What am I observing? What do I understand from this that I'm seeing? So there's two ways to begin to read the book of life. Some of the instructions are come from outside, from what we observe if we're looking. And some of the instructions come from inside within. But we've also figured out how to stop that and just again think about ourselves. I'm talking about the book of life, how to read it, and that there's two forms that it comes in. One is the external and the other is the internal. Zahir and Batin, as usual. So in reading the external, that is how to read the signs, you first have to get yourself out of the way enough to be able to allow the information to come in. If you're thinking about yourself or what you're going to do next, or whether you pissed off your husband or wife, or whether there's some kind of thing that needs to be taken care of, you're not there. You're not you're not listening or able to observe. The idea about observation is to see as though you are not there, but Allah is seeing Allah. In other words, a kind of recognition that this is some information.

Energy Exchange In Nature;

Shaykh Ibrahim 3:32

Now, one of the best ways to begin to do this is to have a question in your heart. Like, how how does money work? What is money? And have that as a question and understand it from a very uh let's think of both as a vertical question and as a lateral question. The vertical being the physical manifestation of it here, and then what is its like? What is its analog in the spiritual world? Is there money? Well, there must be some kind of exchange of some kind of energy, because it's all vibrations, whatever form things are in, it's going to be some kind of vibratory rate. So this vertical idea of having it happens here in the material world, and it happens here in the spiritual world, in what form does that take and what might that be like? And then the lateral idea of allowing your mind to um what's called what we call reflecting, allowing it to go where it will in following this idea and this question. And then as you watch and observe in the actual world, and you have this in your this question in your heart, you begin to see how energy exchange might be happening. For example, if you watch it in nature, okay, we're watching grass. All right, how does the grass stuff work? Well, the exchange happening is the energy from the sun is being captured by the chlorophyll and being brought into the body of the leaf to continue to grow. Therefore, there's an exchange of energy going on that way. What else might be an exchange of energy?

Speaker 7 5:34

The the energy exchanges that I'm thinking of are like emotional ones. So with family and partners, um, and then also just connections with um friends and people at work and stuff like that sometimes.

Shaykh Ibrahim 5:50

Okay. And that's an important part of being a human being. That kind of helps us know who we are in relation to others. Emotional exchange, good. I like it.

Speaker 7 6:04

What about like negotiations at work, like in meetings and stuff like that?

Shaykh Ibrahim 6:13

Okay, so uh I are we talking about in terms of information?

Speaker 7 6:18

Yeah, information ideas, yeah.

Shaykh Ibrahim 6:21

Yeah, that's that sounds like an exchange too, right? So in that sense, I I I'm reflecting on that idea. I would I would take that into collaboration in with projects that there is an exchange of energy of creating something other or beyond us, outside of us.

Speaker 7 6:44

Yeah, definitely. Definitely, yeah.

Speaker 6:48

I was thinking about the food exchange one has, the relationship one has with food, with being able to process food.

Shaykh Ibrahim 6:59

And processing of the food in the food, yeah.

Speaker 7:02

Okay. And as well as the exchange of food that we have with each other. Yeah. So it's like sort of the inner exchange. Okay. And an outer exchange.

Shaykh Ibrahim 7:15

All right. And reflecting on that, where where my mind goes is to also the idea of the sensory input of taste and smell and textures, and even the process of changing of cooking and of changing that energy from like you know, raw beans to, you know, nice cooked sauteed green beans with a little bit of flavor added in. Yeah, that's that's a cool exchange. That's kind of almost uh uh chemistry.

Speaker 7 7:49

My brain also jumped from that into like the photosynthesis sort of plant energy exchange from sun into energy.

Shaykh Ibrahim 7:57

Right. Yeah. There's a creature they found in the water, in the I think it's in fresh water, that is the only animal that uses chlorophyll to keep it alive by ingesting, I think it's algae, and it takes the energy from the algae, and and you can see it, it's kind of translucent, and you can see the chlorophyll stuff inside its body. And it looks like a leaf, but it's an animal. So I forget what it's called, but it was like, whoa, that's amazing.

Emotional And Informational Exchanges;

Speaker 1 8:33

That's actually what I'm um teaching this term to year nine is energy exchange. Lots of different examples, like gravitational potential energy when something drops to the earth, changes that gravitational the distance, creates a potential, and then it gets pulled back, and that's changes into that kinetic energy, the movement, and then it can be used for other things like driving motors or whatever. Um and like when we get energy from you know solar panels or you know, lighting a fire changes the the chemical energy into heat and light. So those physical ones, and then I really like what Rakai said about emotional transfers because that's very important to and information transfers recently like that does been a lot of work in in physics about information being physical. It's not it's not just ideas that you can't have a recorded piece of information without having a physical substrate. So everything if if I have information it's it has to be physical. So it's either stored in your brain or it's stored on paper or it's stored in a hard drive or it's stored in the universe. But there's no such thing as information without physics in this world. Whenever you have information, it has a physical reality to it and it can and it has physical effects.

Shaykh Ibrahim 10:05

So you're saying the the wiring in my brain holds some of that information?

Speaker 1 10:12

Yeah, yeah, and you could transfer that information in it's not direct, but you know, you can you can you have a thought, you write something down on paper, you're recording information, but you have to use some sort of physical substrate. So you're using paper and pencil or pen.

Shaykh Ibrahim 10:37

So that is a transfer.

unknown 10:39

Yeah.

Speaker 1 10:39

Yeah, it's it's a it's a physical thing. Like there's a certain they've done in the maths and there's a certain minimum physical changes you can do if you want to transfer information. Um yeah. Sorry, I'm not sure I'm explaining it well, but um, but it's like we tend to think of information as abstract, but but it's it's they're finding that it's it has to be some sort of physical reality to it.

Shaykh Ibrahim 11:06

So it's quantifiable?

Speaker 1 11:08

Yeah, I mean in the way that science talks about information.

unknown 11:11

Okay.

Speaker 3 11:12

No, I think whenever I look at life, everything is uh energy, a word, when I meet people, the thought, everything has energy and uh it transforms. And everything is kind of alchemy. If we really think about it and observe, we will be able to see that. Nothing is stays in one form, it's constantly changing one to another.

Information Has Physical Reality;

Everything Transforms Like The Water Cycle;

Turning Inward To The Heart;

Listening For First Thoughts;

Boundaries Between My Feelings And Yours;

Shaykh Ibrahim 11:41

That makes me think of the water cycle. That it's in constant shift of from one state to another. And it, you know, it goes from like we have water here and then it evaporates, it goes up into the clouds, and just kind of moves through as vapor, and then it collects enough to finally drop back down again. It's amazing that that it goes through all these processes, as well as turning into snow and ice. It's a very transformative uh element. So the idea about where this gets started is learning to read the book of life, that Allah gives us all of this information every second, tons of data, and we tend to ignore it. But as Sufis, one of the things we want to do is be able to be readers of this story, of this information, and be able to help us in our life. So this external observation of energy exchange is part of that. Then the other side of that, the zahir part, is the internal of finding information inside of us. So how to do that now? Imagine that our heart is connected to Allah all the time. And again, because we are so involved in ourselves, all we think about is us. However, every once in a while, something comes through that isn't us. We're talking about how to read the book of life, meaning looking at the external, learning how to observe, and the observation we're talking about is energy. I was giving an example of like, let's say I have a question of like, how does money work energistically in in a way of energy, and looking at it vertically from uh a way of in the world of matter and form and energy, and then in a spiritual way, there must be a way that it is exchanged as well. So, in this world, as we observe, what are those examples? And we have examples of things like emotional exchanges, food exchanges, information exchanging, life, life itself exchanging, and uh the elements changing things like uh water and fire do a lot of energy exchanging. And then as we go into the internal part of it, to read signs, to be able to understand what is Allah telling me, you first have to get yourself out of the way enough to be able to observe outside yourself. In other words, uh what we sometimes talk about is letting your witness, uh your shahad, the writer, what I think of as the soul, is writing us and going, Hey, what is what am I learning now? What have I got to say? What am I what is this? And this is the one that reports back to Allah through our heart, and that we can do this looking out and looking within. To do it within, though, requires a little bit more practice because we're so used to having our mind chattering all the time about this and that. So, how do we do that? And the trick is that, like I said, we're connected with Allah all the time with our heart. But because the mind is always at work trying to get us to do stuff and think about stuff and think about the future and the past and our regrets and our things that need to be done, we tend to push aside any other thoughts. But there's a thing I'm going to call for the moment first thoughts. The idea that there's something that every once in a while comes through and we push it aside. And the trick is that's our heart trying to get through. And the heart in communicating with us is not going to push, it's not going to insist, it's not going to yell at us. That's not what it does. It's a very what called the quiet voice. It's it's very quiet and it isn't interested in making big signs that you need to pay attention. You have a choice. And the choice is to listen to it and not ignore it. This takes practice. But every once in a while, if you if you have a question in front of you that you want to keep going, that you want to go into more, you want to really understand it. What Shake called a burning question. It's in your heart, and you go, I really got to know what this is. And you keep that, like when you're working with your nafs in the forefront of your consciousness, and you go, This is what I want to know, and you're looking both externally and internally, an answer will eventually come. But you have to be looking for it, and you also have to be listening for it. To listen is different than hearing. Listen, as Stravinsky says, requires effort. A duck hears. So listening requires concentration and effort. And that first thought is the one that we're trying to get to. Because it usually has a really great answer, the one that we're looking for. But we're so used to going to what's important. Hey, listen, I got a meeting, I I gotta go. Sorry. And that brushes away and kind it makes that answer invisible for the Sufi, like being able to watch the signs by keeping ourselves out of the way externally, looking for that first answer or first thought is what we want to be able to get to, and that requires a quiet mind. And however that works for you is important for your life. Sometimes you can find that feeling of being open to your heart when you first wake up. Because you haven't gotten back into the routine yet of the day. So you're still open. And that's a great time to tune into the heart before everything goes nuts. Tune in and you and you go, So heart, how are we doing here? And you work on developing a dialogue with the heart. And you keep working on that over through the day. Even in a busy moment, and this is where the breathing practice that I've been talking about cuts in. Because that's the time when you take your breath and go, okay, I've been external here. I just need to take a moment and come back to my breath. And as you do that, you can then tune into your heart and go, Hey heart, how are we doing today? I'm feeling a little anxious. Oh, really? Why? There's a person in the room that that's upset and and I'm feeling that. Oh, okay. Now, this happens often, but w our mind is like busy all the time. But to get to that place, it's important to be able to, when you check in with your heart, to be able to distinguish between external signs and internal signs. The external is if somebody is upset and they're in the same room with you, you're sensitive. Your heart feels this. But if you're not clear on what's what's inside and what's outside, if you're not clear on what what's the boundary here, then you'll think it's you. I but I'm anxious. Well, it may not be you, it may be somebody else, and you're picking up on it because of vibrations, we will tend to empathize with that person without recognizing that it's them. Does that make sense? So it's important to be able to distinguish between me and you, and the idea of Sheikh Sheikh used to say, okay, I'm going to outline where I end and you start. And he can go like this. And you go, okay, I see. I see. There's there's an outside and an inside, and there's a boundary. And learning that's part of what we first learn as we begin to understand, well, who am I? Who are you? There are feelings that you have and that you need to be aware of, and there's feelings that other people have that may impact us, and it's important to recognize that so that we aren't mutating into all these different people, which I used to do. I used to be very mutable. Everybody always knew who I'd been with because I was acting like them. I had no boundary. So the idea of finding where you are, what is within you and what is without you, is Really important. So when you're checking in with your first thoughts, you have to make sure it's yours, first of all, and that you are focusing on a question that you're trying to get an answer to, like I was saying. So what is energy exchanging? What is that all about? How does this work within us? So for me, I I do have to work at getting my mind quiet enough to be able to hear my heart and be able, and if I have a question, I'm trying to get answered to like get everybody calm and go back to breathing and be aware of my breath and go so and then ask the question. So, heart, what do you think about that? What what does that make you think about? And this will then take us into reflections, unless we're picking up something from somebody else, which will affect everything we think, unless we recognize that boundary. So, this idea of learning how to read the book of life, that Allah is providing us with everything we need. We just have to learn how to read what's being given to us, and then to understand that there are outer influences both going on around us and also within us. Because there may be also, as we're turning, tuning into our inner observation, there may be emotions that we haven't dealt with, or regrets, or we haven't finished with a certain action or activity that is impacting everything else we do because it isn't letting us go. And so it is affecting us and being able to recognize that and go, you know, I am anxious, and it isn't about anybody else. I'm anxious about a meeting next week, and I don't know how that's going to go. Or I'm going for some of us, I'm going on a date, and I have no idea what's going to happen, and I don't know if I'm ready. Do I need and then off your mind goes into all the possibilities and rehearsals of what's possible and all the ifs and thens. Questions?

Speaker 24:39

So when you're when you're having that experience that your mind goes off into possible scenarios or the ifs and thens, is it just coming back to your breath and doing zikr?

Quieting The Mind With Breath;

Shaykh Ibrahim 24:51

Is it you have to make a decision at that point whether this is something that really needs to be dealt with now, uh-huh, or this is um un yeah, unnecessary. It's just kind of freaking out, you know, and you have to say, okay, that's enough. And breathe. Good question. Uh and this is kind of a a continual assessment, as well as returning back to your heart and being quieting the mind. And what we would like best is to have an ongoing assessment with the heart, of checking in maybe every twenty, thirty minutes to go, whatever's going on, okay. Let's stop, take a breath. Heart, how are you doing? I'm freaking out. You're freaking out. Why? I'm I don't know if I'm doing the right thing. Why? What do you think you should be doing? And you have a dialogue with the heart, and you kind of listen to what it's saying. This will help you move into a more confident state that your heart knows what you need. It always knows what you need. We tend to argue with it because everybody else does. And that is the norm of our culture, is to like push that aside. Like that's not right now, no. We've got important things to do. And the heart's going, I just want to cry. And this is part of living as a human being. We enter into these paradoxes all the time of like, wait, I'm supposed to be being with the law, right? But I've got this meeting and I have these responsibilities, and we haven't really washed the sheets yet. Learning to live with the heart and the world is part of our journey. That's the suluk of this, that each of us has this journey that we're on, and it's specific to us with our own specific needs and problems and uh concerns and strengths and weaknesses. Questions?

Speaker 3 27:18

Um normally I try to observe and I try to talk to heart, but as you say, that is very subtle. So, and my mind is very busy for sure, I know. And um, I see it, I try to be quiet, I try to do meditation, and I try not to control my thoughts, let it go. But still, when I try to talk, normally there is always two voices, always there is a direct conflict to one another, and I am always in that position, and when I take a decision, when I do things, I do it with a logic, but I really want clarity, but I never arrive in that position that where is there is clarity, and I know, and my heart is just my heart and brain, they're just aligned doing the work together. But there's a conflict, and I can see it. One is someone trying to protect, and another one is just so naive.

Ongoing Heart Check‑Ins;

Speaker 1 28:40

Only to say that I commiserate and that I share the experience. I've been really dealing with that one a lot recently. And I think it may have something to do with you know the people that raised us and their attitude towards getting the stuff done, what was urgent, what was important, what wasn't, versus um the way the heart works. And also I think you know, there's a trust thing there too. If you've been let down a lot, if you're your um your controlling mind often wants to take charge and make sure that things get organized properly so that you don't you know get hurt again. It depends on the person, you know, but there's lots of different reasons. But it's often, I think, because of our past experience that we have. When certain things happen, it sets up our alert system, and we go, wait a second, gotta control this because I might get hurt, then you're in the valley of the nafs. The tricky part for me recently has been figuring out well, how do I trust Allah? Um, whilst being wary of certain people and protecting the heart. So that's that's a tricky one because people uh let us down, but Allah doesn't, the heart doesn't. So there's those situations that come up and you want to trust, but it's it can be tricky, and it's like well, like Sheikh says, you know, you've got to quiet everything down first. And make the time and the effort to let it all out, let it go, and find that stillness, let the glass of water settle down so that you know what the truth is. And the effort I find is is the the the biggest effort is carving out that space. Because if you do that, everything goes well, and if you don't do that, everything doesn't get true.

Trusting Allah While Protecting The Heart;

Shaykh Ibrahim 30:48

I think what what helps me is coming once you're in that situation, I think it helps to know which path you need to go on. Do I need to do adab or do I need to speak my heart? Because to speak my heart may cause pain to the other person, or may cause conflict, and or may cause uh disturbance. Sorry?

Speaker 1 31:23

Crucifixion.

Shaykh Ibrahim 31:26

Yeah, anything can happen here. There's gonna be blowback. So what you want to do is avoid that if you can, uh, in in a relationship situation, because it may be better to follow the adab here and going, uh, the adab is to keep peace. Peace is primary, therefore, I won't say I'm right. I will say okay, we'll do it that way. This brings peace. I'm I'm just going on the hadith from from our prophet about this. That this that's probably a better way. It doesn't mean that you're not having feelings. It just means are those feelings import more important than peace or more important than finding maybe if we can bring this to a nice bring it down a couple temperatures, a couple degrees, maybe we can find another way to resolve this. But that requires time and also the ability to stay with your heart without worrying that you will be belittled or things are taken away from you. If you stay with your heart and you choose the adob part of that of going, well, let's do it your way. You're not hurting anything. Your heart is usually will go, yeah, that's probably better. I I know that I I want to do it my way. And and then the brain will go, I know I'm right. And the other part is going, I just want peace. I just want this to be resolved. What we're trying to get to is a place where the heart is at peace. Just a second, I I want to answer one of Taz names. She had a question there, kind of about prayer and getting to being able to stay with the heart. That's one of the purposes of zikr. In our zikr, one of the last of the zikrs we that we do is Ya Latif. And Latif is the subtle one. And learning to learning that name, Latif, also brings our mind and our body and our whole system into that name. The names are energy, like again, everything's vibrations. The name is a vibration itself, your latif. And so that puts us into that place and brings us into that portal of subtlety. So it makes us aware of that, among other things.

Speaker 1 34:12

So, yeah, go ahead. Just to be clear, I just want to make sure you're not suggesting that if someone is doing something that is, you know, potentially harmful or or wrong, that we should just let that go for the sake of peace, though. Not at all. It's more about the like you said, the if you're talking about subtlety, uh, the the the wise way to handle that. Yeah?

Speaker 4 34:35

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 34:36

Like how how is it how can you be effective without creating unnecessary conflict, protect what needs to be protected without going into the territory of anger and naps and and and conflict?

Choosing Adab Or Speaking Hard Truths;

Shaykh Ibrahim 34:50

The prestige is safe, comfortable, trust, nurturing. That's where the heart can find its place. Yeah.

Speaker 7 35:00

How do you find the line between a dub and for those of us who have that maps, people pleasing? What was the second word? People pleasing.

Shaykh Ibrahim 35:13

People pleasing.

Speaker 7 35:16

Because that's a hard one because when you're taught that from parents' role models, etc., that the quote adab is to let the other person win, sort of thing, basically. How do you how do you find the actual adab? Like where does that sit? Well, that can get tricky.

Shaykh Ibrahim 35:37

That's a that's a Suluk kind of thing. You this is gonna be your answer to that. For some of us, we needed to do the exactly the opposite and annoy people, and that was okay for a little while to know what that experience was like, so that we could. It's kind of like um you ever heard about the snake in the pipe? The idea is there's a snake and it lives in a pipe and it's learned how to be straight all the time. So when you first take it out, it's gonna wiggle like crazy until it comes to its norm, which is to be sneaky. So when you first take something out of its stricture, its box, it wants to do everything that it wasn't able to do when it was in the box. So one of the ways to deal with that is to have a place or time that you can do that, either with your imagination or with role-playing or some kind of way that's safe but allows you to be that. And it could be improv theater, it could be playing Dungeons and Dragons, it could be uh bumper cars in in a fair, just something that that allows you to do that and that you can get that out of your system, to be a bad girl. You're a bad girl. And you go, yes, I am. And you know, get it out of your system so that it isn't preying on you all the time. Because if you keep pushing it away, it'll just keep coming back in all these different forms. And that's no good. We don't want that, doesn't help. So what we want to do is find a way that cancels it out. So finding the opposite energy kind of discharges that and eventually it it uh discharges.

Speaker 7 37:45

So it's kind of about finding the two extremes to be able to find the middle.

Shaykh Ibrahim 37:50

Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 7 37:51

Yeah.

Shaykh Ibrahim 37:53

Shukran. Yeah. So if you, you know, I see you getting dressed up and going goth in uh downtown Wollengong or coming into Sydney with you know black lipstick and and going to emo concerts. I'll understand.

Speaker 7 38:11

Chikan's right. So what you're saying is I need to do a shopping spring.

People‑Pleasing Versus True Adab;

Shaykh Ibrahim 38:18

The just second, the uh what somebody called the modern day hunter-gatherer mode, where you're going and you're going, I need to carry, get berries. Uh I am, you know, I need to gather the the the food for the house. I will do this through retail therapy. I will gather things and take them home where my home will be better, and I'll be able to feed on these items for our family, for our children.

Speaker 1 38:47

25% off of them.

Speaker 7 38:49

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 38:51

Bargain.

Speaker 7 38:52

So you can get more in that case, so totally more berries. Yeah. Right.

Speaker 1 38:55

So you get four times as more berries. Yeah.

Speaker 6 38:58

Yeah, exactly. This is how we match 100%. Couple of things. Uh, one thing you mentioned a little bit a while ago about um being annoying. And I thought, well, isn't that part of a shake's job to be annoying to us?

Shaykh Ibrahim 39:18

Yeah. You got a problem with that?

Speaker 1 39:22

He does very well with that, don't worry.

Speaker 6 39:26

That was just a little humor there for the thing.

Shaykh Ibrahim 39:32

Well, I hope so, yes.

Speaker 6 39:41

But something um I was thinking of about this process, and that's Sheikh and Museum as part of the work I'm doing here. There are some wazifas that work with this process about observing and getting to the truth of something, getting to the heart of something, and that's what she gave me was um ya sami, ya basir, ya hok, ya latif. And you know, one of the meanings that we use for latif, which has many meanings, is that it comes with ease. So to to hear and see and find the truth, and that it comes to us with ease, not consternation.

Safe Ways To Explore Opposites;

Shaykh Ibrahim 40:41

Yeah. Um that's good. I I would just my recommendation is have a nice this is a nice uh spice mix of of the names, because the what you don't want to do is too much Yahawk. Because that that can become very yeah. It just it can be that's enough. I I don't need any more Yahawk. I got what I need. But but to to but to nice it to to blend it like that. It's kind of herbal in a way. Yeah, yeah. It's a nice remedy. So that that's uh that's a suggestion, then. If you want to know more about reading the book of life, you have Ya Sami Ya Basur Basir Ya Zahir Ya Latif.

Speaker 6 41:35

Yahaq Ya Latif.

Shaykh Ibrahim 41:37

Oh, Ya Haqq, Ya Latif.

Speaker 6 41:38

Yahak Ya Latif. Sami Basir Ak Latif.

Shaykh Ibrahim 41:44

Beautiful.

Speaker 6 41:45

And then she followed it with after sitting with that a little bit, she followed it with Yamukadir, Yaqadir. So you come to this place, inshaAllah, and then what do you do? You know, are you supposed to do something, or do you just learn from it? Or there can be action after that.

Shaykh Ibrahim 42:12

So to activate nice.

Speaker 6 42:17

It's a combo.

Shaykh Ibrahim 42:19

Yeah. Yamukadir, yeah.

Speaker 6 42:27

I find personally that what happens for me is that I don't necessarily have something come right then. But I still do the the zikr and open up, open the heart, the mind, senses. And then maybe sometime later in the day or a few days later, in the middle of something else, something opens up and comes in.

Wazifas For Seeing And Subtlety;

Journaling And Delayed Insight;

Spotting Nafs And Old Scripts;

Shaykh Ibrahim 42:59

So yeah, each person is different in regards to how that works. Now, for some, journaling is where actually the actual realizations come through because you've now you're changing, as as Moe suggested, was taking what's going on inside the black box and putting it into ink and paper. You know, and uh I was just reading about uh Barack Obama would write letters and he'd do two versions. He would write to people, he would take like 200 a month uh people that would write letters to him. He would write back, but he would make sure that he was writing on with pen and paper because he said it was a direct connection with his brain, and that trying to type notes and letters and things like that didn't do the same thing. And so that he would do that, and he would do a rough draft, and then the one other Other one on White House Stationer. Which I thought this is and he would do this every day or night at night. So this idea of journaling and the idea of getting when you're doing it in this form, you don't worry about spelling or grammar or sentence or even meaning. You just get down whatever comes out. You don't put an editor on it, you don't try and make it perfect, and this is part of also learning not to be nice, because you're just letting yourself come out. There's nothing filtering that. That takes practice, but it's also part of the process of learning who you are. Because you'll be surprised at what comes out. Especially if you can get yourself enough out of the way to just let it flow. Again, that takes practice. It's not something that just happens immediately. For some people, it happens when it happens. The energy kind of coalesces into an actual symbol, and that symbol turns into a word, and that word turns into an idea. You don't have uh control over when or where that happens. It happens when it happens. And that's part of trusting your own heart energy. That things take time to process. You may have an experience, and it may be weeks before you actually capture the whole idea of what just happened because it's taken you into a new understanding of things work. Or at least maybe a uh a compartment that has that script in it. And one of the things that you were saying earlier, Moe, about situations, about things going on and what a dog uh you should choose, this is where you also are able to observe the nafs. The nafs come in when a certain set of circumstances seem to be repeating and a script becomes active. And you go into knee-jerk or or response or reaction, because that's what you always did, or that's what your family always did. And recognizing that is also seeing how your heart reacts. Usually when the nafs kick in, there is no ability to hear the heart. It's kind of like it overrides. But the trick is, is like, wait a minute, I was just listening to my heart and now I can't. What happened? Ah, the script kicked in. This is why it's really helpful to try and stay with your heart as much as possible. And that it's the odd time is when you aren't with your heart, as opposed to the opposite. All of a sudden you're not with your heart and you feel like, wait a minute, I'm just floating here. What happened? Oh, that guy pissed me off. Ah I see. And then you can begin to recognize that Nefs, that it's a script. That's just an old script, and you're finally able to see it when it kicks into gear. That's great. This is a really positive outcome. That's wonderful. Now you can do something about it. Before you couldn't do anything because you didn't even witness it. That witnessing is the beginning of the next step that allows you to take care of it. Thank you for that, Rosie. That was very helpful. So as you go about your days and nights, learning to keep aware that Allah is trying to teach us. That's why we're here. We're here to learn. Uh we're not here to be happy or sad. We're here to learn. And we learn from each other, we learn from Allah, we learn from the external observation, and we also learn from internal observation. And when we go internal, that we have to make sure that we know who's who in internally. Uh, because it may not be you, it could be somebody else affecting you. Or it could be a memory coming back that you had forgotten about, that something triggered, that now all of a sudden you go, oh, that happened when Uncle Jack came over and he got drunk. Oh yeah. So recognizing these things helps us and understand that this process to allow the heart as part of the process, because the heart knows, this is why we say surrender to Allah, because if you interpret it in terms of the heart, the heart knows what you need. And the lessons that come will be through the heart. And when you don't hear the heart, that means there's something there that you need to become aware of. You need to see that that's a problem area, and that's probably where there's a nefs and making the intention to go, I want to know. I want to know the truth. What am I doing that's kicking this into gear? What's happening? What is the reality? Bismillah, Iraqman Irahim, Alhamdulillah, Rabil Alamim, Yurachman Fatiha