Breaking Through The Illusion of Dunya - Corrected Transcription

The Consequences of Misplaced Love

So do you see what's happening here? What's supposed to be on our mind most? It's our Creator. What's supposed to be the first thing we think about when we wake up in the morning?

Laa ilaaha illa Allah - the first thing you're supposed to say when you get up. But it's not what's on our mind.

What's supposed to be the thing that we're most afraid of losing? It isn't supposed to be our money or our spouse or our children, it's supposed to be Allah. So what have we done? We have taken these things, which were gifts, and we've put them in a place that only Allah should be.

The Torment of Misplaced Love

What's the result of doing that? Allah tells us in the Quran again and again, we hear about Jahannam, we know and we think about Jahannam as being something far away. Jahannam, hellfire. We think of it as being something far away. It's in the hereafter.

Yeah, that torture and that torment is far away. But what we don't realize is that the torment and the torture of taking something other than Allah and loving it as you should only love Allah will torment you and torture you in this life before the next life.

That same thing that answers all these questions, what do I think about most? What am I most afraid of losing? What makes me angry? What's the first thing on my mind? What do I think of in my salah?

That same thing, whether it is your family, your kids, your husband, your status, your money, what's this person saying about me, what's that person saying about me, my image in front of people, what do people think, whatever it is, that same thing will become the cause of your greatest pain and torment.

Going Against the Law of the Universe

You see how it works? Because you're not supposed - you're taking something Allah has designed this universe in a specific way. Allah has designed the human heart in a specific way. When you change that design, when you go against that design, you feel the pain.

Because you're going against the law of the universe. What is the law of the universe?

Laa ilaaha illa Allah

لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا ٱللَّٰهُ is not just a statement that we say. In fact, we say it many times a day, but it isn't just a statement. When you're saying لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا ٱللَّٰهُ you are saying that there is nothing worthy of being put at the center of my life except for God. There is nothing else worthy of being what occupies my mind all day long.

There is nothing else worthy of being the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning, the last thing I think about before I sleep, what occupies my mind during salah. There is nothing else worthy of being that important, of defining me in that deep of a way except for God. That's tawheed.

That's what it means to be a Muslim. Allah has designed the world, the universe, the human being around لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا ٱللَّٰهُ. When you go against لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا ٱللَّٰهُ and you take your money and you make that your ilah, you will suffer.

Because you're going against the law of the universe. When you take your spouse and you put your spouse in that place, you will suffer. When you take your children and you put your children in that place, you will suffer.

You will feel it because you're going against the law of the universe. This isn't how Allah designed it. Allah made our hearts in such a way that it is only to be filled by Him.

The Heart Like a Cup

And so when you fill something with a substance that it wasn't intended to be filled with, it breaks. When you go to the gas station, and you need to fill up your gas tank, and you decide that today, you know, you're not going to put gasoline in the gas tank, today you're going to put orange juice. Well, not a very smart decision, because what happens? What happens is, your car is not going to work, and in fact you will break that car.

When you fill the gas tank with orange juice, you're filling it with something that it was not designed to be filled with. Our hearts are the same. Our hearts are like a cup.

And you can fill that cup with whatever you choose, but if you choose to fill it with this life, if you choose to fill it with dunya, if you choose to fill it with money, if you choose to fill it with status, if you choose to fill it with what people think, then that cup will break. That heart will never feel at rest. That heart will not feel peace.

Until it is filled with what it was designed to be filled with. And that is Allah, and the remembrance of Allah, not the remembrance of the creation. We should not be obsessing our minds and our hearts with anything other than our Creator.

The Balanced Approach of Islam

Now this brings us to the question of, well, what about all these roles that we have to play? We can't go and live in the mountains, and we can't just be in the masjid all day and all night. So how do we reconcile?

See, Islam is the religion of fitrah, the religion of our nature. Islam is the religion of the middle way. It does not tell us ever to take extremes. So when we talk about filling the heart with Allah and nothing else, it does not mean that you don't get married and have children and have jobs and get involved and enjoy yourself. No, no, no, that's not what it means.

In the Hand, Not in the Heart

It means that when you do have those things, they are in your hand and not in your heart. And there is a very, very deep difference between what you hold in your hand and what you hold in your heart.

Because what you hold in your hand is something that you love and something that you enjoy, whether it is money or it is your husband or your wife or your children, but it does not become the center of your existence.

It will not be what you think about all day. It will not be the first thing on your mind, the last thing on your mind, what makes you cry, what makes you happy, what makes you sad. No, no, that is for what's in your heart.

So you understand here that what we have and we hold in our hand is something that we love, but something that we can ultimately live without. It means that when it is taken away from us, we don't crumble and die. We don't become so devastated that we can't find a purpose to continue to live.

The Example of Abu Hanifa

Lots of people have money, but they don't always hold it in the same place. Some people, you know, we know there were companions who were rich, but they held their money in their hand and not in their heart. What does that mean? What does that look like? It means that if it is taken away, it isn't the end of that person's life.

It doesn't devastate. There is a beautiful example of this. Abu Hanifa, one of the great scholars, he also had property, business. He had wealth. And while he was teaching one time, some people came to him and told him, your ships have sunk. So a portion of his wealth was presumably gone, lost.

So what he did is he paused, he was teaching, he paused, and then he said, "Alhamdulillah," and then he continued teaching. A little while later they came back to him and said, actually we made a mistake. It wasn't your ships that sunk.

So again he paused, he said "Alhamdulillah," and then he continued teaching. So later on when he was asked what that was about, he said that when first you told me that I lost my ships, I paused and I

examined my heart and I found it unmoved. And so I said Alhamdulillah that my heart was unmoved by that.

And then the second time when you told me that I had not lost my ships, again I paused and I examined my heart and I found it unmoved. So I said Alhamdulillah that my heart was unmoved.

You understand here, he has the money, but if that money comes or that money goes, that's not what controls him inside. He is not controlled inside except by Allah.

Interacting with People

Similarly, we interact with people, right? No one is going to tell you that you should go hide out and never see people. We get married, this is the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ. We have children, we have families, we have parents, we must interact.

But what happens when the people are happy with you and they're praising you? How does that affect your heart? And then the next day they don't like you anymore. They're not pleased with you anymore. Now they're criticizing you.

Now they don't love you anymore. I'm sorry, I don't love you anymore. I think I'm going to leave now.

What happens to you? If that person was in your heart and that person controlled you inside, then when they don't like you anymore or they're criticizing you, it breaks you inside. But if those people, yes, you love them, but your heart is for Allah. Your heart is not moved by the movement of the creation.

Your heart is only moved by Allah. Then what that means is, yes, people come and they go from your life. People are going to be happy with you sometimes. Sometimes they're not going to be. Sometimes they're going to love you and sometimes they're going to hate you. But you don't allow your internal state to go up and down with the creation.

Because your internal state should be stable with Allah. Should be linked to your relationship with Him. And externally you interact with the creation. It isn't something that controls you inside.

The Solution: Seeing Something Better

This is the goal, right? How do you get there? It seems very hard, right? Something far off. We can't really think about how do we do that.

How do we love our families, for example, without allowing them to compete with the place that Allah should be inside? I think the easiest answer to that question is by thinking of this example.

The Toy Ferrari Example

You know when a little kid first sees a really special toy? Maybe that child is watching TV and sees a commercial. And on the commercial there is this toy Ferrari.

And the child falls in love with this toy. So that child becomes obsessed. Every day asking his parents, please can I have that Ferrari? Please can I have that toy? Finally he gets it.

Now that child holds on real tight to that toy, right? Try taking that toy out of the child's hand. It's not going to be easy, right? Because he is obsessed and in love and attached to that toy.

But what happens when that child grows up and sees a real Ferrari? What happens to that child's attachment to the lesser model? Now when you try to take that toy out of his hand, is it hard anymore? No.

Because his eyes are on the real thing. The real Ferrari.

What does that have to do with us? The reason we become so attached to this life is because we don't see anything better. We don't really see the better life. So we don't have anything better to compare it to. All we think about is Dunya. All we talk about is Dunya. All we compete for is Dunya.

It's only about how much do I have, how much do they have. What are they wearing, what am I wearing? What are they saying, what am I saying? Where am I invited, who didn't invite me? Whatever it is. Who has more status, who has less status? That's all we see. We are just surrounded by it.

And so all we see is the toy car. That's all we see. That's why it's so hard to let go. That's why if you try to take even a little bit from me, I would never let it go. We aren't willing to sacrifice even a little bit of our Dunya for Allah. We aren't.

We can't even sacrifice, okay, you know, I'm not gonna get this interest-bearing loan. I'm not going to sell alcohol. I'm not going to dress in a way that is displeasing to Allah because it's my fashion.

We can't even sacrifice seriously. When we look at the sacrifices that people before us made, and we compare it to the sacrifices that we're not willing to make, we don't even want to give up this much for Allah. You tell me to wear hijab, no, but I don't want to give up the fashion. You tell me to dress modestly, but that's in fashion. We can't even sacrifice fashion, let alone our lives or otherwise. So we aren't willing to let go even a little bit because we're like that child who only sees the toy car.

The Concept of YOLO

It's all I have, and so I don't want to let it go. You know this thing that the youth say, YOLO, you only live once? If you think that you only live once, you're not going to let it go. If you think this is all I got, there is no other opportunity, this is it, then you will hold tight, and you will never let it go, even a little bit.

But if you see something better, if instead of being so consumed with this life, and you instead see that there is a better life, that there is the real version of the car, the real version of this life is akhirah, is the hereafter, but we don't see it.

Even when we read it in the Quran, it's like, you know, we just read it with our tongues. We just have this like theoretical concept, oh yeah, I know Jannah exists, I know there's a hereafter, but is it really real to you? Is it really something you actually think about and pray about and ask for and hope for and look forward to? Realistically, no.

We're looking forward to the party we're going to next week. That's what we look forward to. It's just dunya. That's what we see. We haven't been able to see farther. That's why it's so hard to let go.

But believe me, when you are given a choice between something better and something lesser, it's a non- choice. It's obvious. We're gonna choose what is better.

The Quranic Perspective on This Life

And Allah tells us in the Quran:

"But you prefer the worldly life, while the Hereafter is better and more enduring."

Do you prefer the life of this world when the hereafter is greater and more lasting? What about this life? There's two things that make us really sad about this life, that disappoint us. First is that it isn't perfect. We want things to be perfect. It's in our nature. And we become very disappointed when things are not perfect. We want our children to be perfect. We want our husband to be perfect. We want our wife to be perfect. We want our job to be perfect. We want our figure to be perfect. We want everything to be perfect, right? And we get disappointed when it isn't.

Allah is saying that the hereafter, that Jannah is (خَيْرٌ - khayr) - greater because it's actually perfect. It's none of this, yeah, okay, one thing goes right in your life but something else is falling apart. It's none of that. There is no sadness and there is no fear in Jannah.

There is sadness and fear in this life, right? There is definitely sadness and fear in this life, but the hereafter doesn't have any of that.

And second thing that makes us sad is that nothing lasts. No matter how beautiful you are, no matter how thin and how nice your skin is, 20 years later, you don't look the same. And you can throw all the money in the world into plastic surgery, but it isn't going to make you live forever. Is it right? And it doesn't matter if you're an atheist or an agnostic or a Muslim, you can't deny that. And it's very difficult for people to accept that.

That's why we have so many products out there, you know, all the creams and all the Botox and the plastic surgery. What's that about? We're trying to make a Jannah in this life. We're trying to make this life last forever, but it's impossible.

And that hurts us in a very deep place to think that everything is passing away. It hurts us, but that's because we only see this life. We don't see that there is a life where nothing passes away, that you don't get old, you don't get tired, you don't cry, you don't bleed, you don't get scared. You don't have to worry about anxiety and all these things that plague us.

So why are we so caught up in this life? Allah is asking us this question and it's a ridiculous thing that we do. We are preferring the toy Ferrari to the real Ferrari. That's what we're doing. But the reason we do that is because we're like that child hasn't seen the real car yet.

The Hotel Room Perspective

Our hearts really haven't seen the hereafter. We haven't really experienced and focused on the hereafter enough. And when you do that, through your remembrance of Allah, through your relationship with his book, with the Quran, when you start to do that, you will find naturally that this life doesn't become as important anymore.

It becomes like the hotel room. It becomes like the hotel room because you know you're leaving and everything is in perspective. The reason you don't get attached to your hotel bed is because you have perspective.

You know, I'm only here for three days and I'm leaving. But if you thought that you were staying in that hotel room forever, you would act very different. How do we act with our houses versus the hotel room? Because in our mind, this house is permanent.

So we want to decorate it and we want to get very attached to it, etc. Our mindset is that we're staying here. But if we gained perspective, proper perspective, and we saw this life as temporary, and we saw this life like the hotel room, and we saw this life like the toy car, then it would be much easier to not be so obsessed with it.

And now all of a sudden, our concerns will change. Oh, you know what this person said about you? It's not the end of the world. You know what this person is doing? Or who invited you? Who didn't? Who called you? Whether or not how you appear in front of people, your image, it doesn't become as important anymore because you see something more important. You see something better. You see the real car.

Seeing Allah with Our Hearts

Similarly, when all we see is the creation, all we see is the creation, then the creation becomes the most important thing to us. And the reason is we haven't really seen the creator. And of course, I'm not talking about seeing Allah with our physical eyes because that's for akhirah, inshallah. But we can see Allah with our hearts.

Seeing Allah with our hearts means that we focus on Him and our heart is full of the remembrance of Allah as if we can see Him. Isn't that what the Prophet ﷺ said? He said:

(Bukhari 50, Muslim 8)

"That you worship Allah as if you can see Him, and if you cannot see Him, then know that He sees you."

That's ihsan. That's the highest level. And if you can't know that He sees you, if we could see the real car, if we could see Allah, we wouldn't be so caught up in the creation.

You know what that means? It means the more that I focus on and worry about what does Allah think of me? Or how do I appear to Allah? Or is Allah pleased with me? The less I'm going to be worried about what do the people think of me? What are the people saying about me? And are the people pleased with me? It's just natural because you're looking at something better. You're more concerned with something better.

Reflection on Surah Al-Hadeed

I'm going to end actually with a reflection about one of the ayat that was recited so beautifully from Surah Al-Hadeed in which Allah is telling us - He's describing this life to us:

"Know that the life of this world is but amusement and diversion and adornment and boasting to one another and competition in increase of wealth and children."

And He begins by saying (اعْلَمُوا - i'lamoo) meaning know - it's a command to know, don't just think, don't just suspect, know, it's a fact that the life of this world is (لَعِبْ - la'ib) - play.

The Life Stages and Their Obsessions

And it's interesting because when you study the life cycle or the life line of a human being and you think about when a human being first enters this life, what is their world revolving around? What's the most important thing to a child? Play. Playing with toys, right? That's it.

You want to get a child a gift? You don't get them a fancy purse. You don't get them fancy clothes. You get them a toy. Play. So the dunya, the entire world revolves around play when you first come to this life - لعب

Then the ayah goes on to say (لَهْوٌ - wa lahw) - entertainment, amusement. You know when a child grows up a little bit, middle school or so, what's it all about? Entertaining. Their favorite thing to say at that age is "I'm bored," right? It's like they need constant entertainment, constant stimulation - like entertain me, I'm bored. Unfortunately we sometimes don't grow out of that, but at that point, that's all it's about - video games, movies. You know, it's like they constantly just want amusement and entertainment.

So dunya is about entertainment and amusement. And then we get up and we grow a little bit and then we enter into high school. High school now is that time when it's not about playing with toys anymore. It's not so much about video games anymore, although some people also never grow out of that. It's more about how you look. How you look becomes of utmost importance. Right? Your image. This is when you are like taking two hours to get ready in the morning. Right?

Allah says (زينة - zeenah) - adornment. At this point in life, everything, your entire life revolves around adornment, around how you look, how you appear, your image.

And then you grow up a little bit and you graduate or now you're starting to look for colleges and programs and now you're trying to prove yourself - (تَفَاخُرْ - tafaakhur) - that showing off, that boasting. Now it's not so much about playing with toys or video games or what you're wearing. But now it's about: Well, what college did you get into? Oh, well, I got into this college. What program are you? Or what job did you get? So now everybody's trying to prove themselves. And everyone's trying to compete. And everyone's trying to show off. Boasting.

And then you get older and you settle down. And now it's not necessarily about playing video games, you know, what's your adornment, although some people also don't grow out of that. But now it's about (تَكَاثُرُ - takaathur) - competition. Now it's about collecting money and children. Now: "Oh, did you see her house? Or did you see her car? And my car?" Versus: "Well, what's her kid? How much did your cousin pay for their wedding? And how much are we gonna pay? How much did their wedding cost? Oh, but now they paid - you know, they spent 100,000. We have to spend 120,000." This type of thing. It's this competition now about money and about our children.

The Garden Analogy

"It's like a rain whose [resulting] plant growth pleases the tillers; then it dries and you see it turned yellow; then it becomes debris."

It's like a garden that makes the farmer really happy. So the farmer is really pleased with their harvest, the plants. And then Allah describes what happens. So the farmer is really happy with their harvest and their plants. But then what happens to the plants? It starts to crumble. It starts to dry up and it becomes yellow.

See this rose? Is this even real? It's real, right? It's really beautiful, right? But what happens after two weeks? The most beautiful rose in the world after two weeks it becomes brown and it starts to crumble. This is a sign. And Allah tells us that the life of this world is just like that - (فَتَرَاهُ مُصْفَرًّا - fataraahu musfarran) - you find it becoming yellow, brown (ثُمَّ يَكُونُ حُطَامًا - thumma yakoonu hutaaman) - it becomes debris, like just, you could take that rose that used to look like this and now you can actually crumble it in your hand and it becomes nothing and it would just blow away in the wind.

What Really Remains

After all of that, what's left over?

"And in the Hereafter is severe punishment and forgiveness from Allah and approval."

After all of this stuff that you get so caught up in just passes away and crumbles, it becomes brown and it crumbles, what's left? One of two things: The punishment of Allah or His forgiveness and His pleasure. That's it. That's all that really remains.

So either the (عَذَابٌ - adhaab) - the punishment of Allah, and we ask Allah to protect us from that, Ameen. Or the (مَغْفِرَةٌ مِّنَ اللَّهِ وَرِضْوَانٌ - maghfiratun mina Allahi wa ridwaan) - forgiveness and the pleasure of Allah.

"And what is the life of this world except the enjoyment of delusion."

Subhanallah. Very, very profound. We need to reflect on these things. Allah has just in this ayah summarized everything we run after. Everything we run after our entire life. But all of it is passing away, just like the farmer who likes the plants for a while and then it passes away. What really remains is whether Allah is pleased with you or displeased with you.

Closing

Was-salaamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakaatuh

Peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah and His blessings.

Subhaanakallahumma wa bihamdika ashhadu an laa ilaaha illa anta astaghfiruka wa atoobu ilayk

Glory be to You, O Allah, and praise be to You. I bear witness that there is no deity except You. I seek Your forgiveness and repent to You.