Trait #7: Avarice

The speaker begins by expressing gratitude for the opportunity to gather and remember Allah. They emphasize the importance of removing oneself from worldly distractions and focusing on Allah's name. They discuss the illusion of time and space and the need to prioritize Allah over worldly desires. The speaker then delves into the destructive nature of greed and its connection to the ego and nafs. They urge listeners to rid themselves of ego and connect with their souls. The speaker emphasizes the importance of gratitude and the remembrance of Allah in overcoming greed. They stress the need to nourish the soul and strengthen it against the temptations of the world. The speaker concludes by highlighting the simplicity of a grateful person and the dangers of falling into the traps of the ego and material desires. BismillahirRahmanirRahim Assalamualaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh Alhamdulillah Our gratitude to Allah For having able us to be here on this very blessed Thursday evening In the state of good health and Iman May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala increase Our Iman, increase our Taqwa And protect us until our very last days Amin Ya Rabbil Alamin Like I said, we could be anywhere else Doing everything else Except for remembering Allah We have to be in a state of Atmusyukur And for that Allah Has saved us for the past few hours From sinning, from doing things Which are Haram, from falling into Whisperings of Shaytan From drowning into the darkness Of Dunya, from Fanning our egos to become Ourselves and from saving ourselves From all of the darknesses In the pit of this world And for that Allah has brought us from Minal Zulumati ila Nur From darknesses to light And the light can be found in Majalis Gatherings such as this When nothing except Nothing except for the name of Allah Is mentioned And that is what this Thursday Zikr is all about It is about removing ourselves from Darknesses, being in a state of Minor seclusion Small Khalwa, what we call Uzla Detaching ourselves from the Dunya Momentarily and saving Ourselves momentarily from All of the Dunya And its pits and its falls And we are here Mentioning the name of Allah Removing ourselves from time and space Not in a Sci-fi understanding But time and space is understood By Ulama Sufiyah For Ahlul Tariqah We must understand, we must believe And we must know that Time and space is an illusion Because our goal and maqsud Is not limited by this time and space So whether you have money Whether you have the Health, whether you have the capability Whether you have the Whatever it is physically Doesn't seem that you are able to come For Majlis Zikr But if you look at it, you are understanding You are evaluating Yourself according to time And space But when you remove all of that Time and space and the illusion of it Then you look at it, I am with Allah And Allah is the one Who will bring me there, so when we step out And we say Ya Allah, I am going for your sake I am doing your work And remembering you Remembering Allah standing on your side Sitting on your side Then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will pave And make the way easier for us to remember him And that is the reason Why Majlis Zikr Are very very important In this day and age, because there are many Classes, there are many Workshops, there are many forums There are many talks, but they do not Give you the pleasure and effects like A Majlis Zikr does Which also means The obstacles of getting to a Majlis Zikr Is immense, because shaitan doesn't Want you to have this Ta'tma'inul Qulub Verily in the remembrance of Allah Do hearts find peace And where do you remember Allah If we look at this verse, you are supposed To remember Allah in your heart And not just in your Mind, but in your heart The seat of Iman But today's topic Of the ruinous trait that will take us Away from this seat Is actually greed Tamak, avarice This is the trait that has Destroyed many Muslims, whether they Realize it or they don't And that is the reason why the first thing A murid must do In this way of discipleship If you have not been listening for the past Few weeks of sohbah, please return Back to the videos and listen What is discipleship What does it mean, what is Loving the world, what is the tree Of bad character, all of this I've been mentioning For the past few months If you have not Listened to it, I highly encourage All of you to go back to these videos They are on the playlist on YouTube To listen one by one That starts where you see the poster Starts, and then I go, I name Each and every one of them So this is tamak What is tamak, greed And as we know, the Quran Has mentioned many places about greed Why are you not satisfied with what Allah has given you Some of these verses And Nabi s.a.w. Has given us so many remembrance About greed, if you look and you read the hadith That it is greed that Destroys a person Because we want what others have And this is the first thing Not the first thing But one of the things that will start to arise If we do not take out The ego Because the ego works hand in hand With nafsu To fend The greed, so when ego and nafs Comes together, then greed Is inevitable That is why The first step that we need to do Is to get rid of the ego And how do we do this By connecting ourselves The ego plays this illusion So what happens is the nafs Loves a certain thing, like food Right We see greed is always Connected to the belly The food Wanting more in terms of dunya In terms of wealth, in terms of lust In terms of desire, in terms of Passion, in terms of This feeding of the bodily Physical self So the ego You know the nafs will tell you It's nice, this food is nice For example The soul will say Enough Because it wants to worship Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala And then the ego, this is where the ego comes in The ego will come and say Look, I want one more I want another serving So the nafs puts out the intention The ego Phrases it By saying it wants more, I Because the I is the ego And then it pushes There is a battle now between the roh Because the roh says if you eat anymore It will be difficult for me To remember Allah But now because the nafs is being Fanned by the ego Right, the I is very important Now it becomes a battle, greed has presented To you a battle Between your nafs Are you going to give importance to your Nafs or Allah And this is a constant battle Whose trickery is all of this Is the ego Because the ego, the greed Works with the importance of the I I want this, I want that The nafs is Excited by the pleasures Of dunya But it is the ego that pushes it to get even more One is not Enough, I need three Three is not enough, I need ten Ten is not enough, I need twenty And Allah has given the remembrance of The cure for this If you remember me I will remember you If you are shukur to me I will increase If you are not shukur to me The azab The punishment is greed And the punishment here Don't only think you are waiting For lightning to strike the ground To break so that you fall Within etc, no The punishment is that you are not able to get Out of the greed even more, you continuously Be in a state of greed So you become shackled by this Lust There is nothing wrong with If it is right, if it is halal, if it is yours, okay khair But when we become Too drowned In the sweetness of the body Then it becomes Difficult for the ruh to return back to Allah Ulema has mentioned In their kitabs Sheikh Shah Waliullah Dehlawi, he mentions That even after a body, a person Has died It will take hundreds of years For the ruh to be separated From the physical body Why? Because it loves The sweetness of the nafs If that is the case For someone who has died Then can you imagine The better it will give For someone who is still alive Still tasting this dunya That is the reason why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Has given us Do not fall For the traps of the nafs And the traps of the ego Especially because through the ego Your nafs will be enticed You are going to be enticed The ego is like the salesman It tells you Look, your nafs is this So what you should be Listening to is iman The iman Comes from the ruh Because you have seen Allah Am I not your lord? Yes, ya Allah, you are So it realizes that the goal is bigger Than the body The goal Is bigger than the Body, the sweetness of this darkness Of dunya But once it entered this body It forgot about it, it is being put into this Darkness, this thing which is Dark, because it is made out of Soil, it is made out of earth It is made out of Blood, where else the ruh In itself has nur, has light So Allah SWT says Be shukur Be thankful That is why I have given to all of you the zikr In your heart to say everyday is Alhamdulillah wa shukrulillah Alhamdulillah wa shukrulillah Say it in your heart For 5 minutes everyday, time yourself No need on your tongue Because you need to now Feed the ruh We have been feeding the body We have been Feeding the mind But when was the last time We gave the ruh its sustenance And Allah says If you are Thankful, I will increase So where is this thankfulness? It should be in the heart When we are thankful to Allah Within the core of ourselves Then bit by bit The ruh will receive its sustenance Its tajalli from Allah SWT And when the ruh receives the sustenance The tajalli from Allah SWT The light, then you are giving more Nur to the ruh, it becomes stronger And stronger and stronger For it to overcome the darkness And the sweetness of the body Of dunya Its a very simple formula And people in new age Nowadays are starting with gratitude Practices etc But your gratitude to whom? Here we are giving Our shukr to Allah The one who is the owner of all Of the wealth in this dunya The owner of all of the greatness And the sweetness in this dunya And Allah says I will increase My friend You know We human beings Would never say enough for dunya Never Don't say I am ok I am a very simple person The more simple they think they are The more they are easy to be Tricked by dunya I am a very simple person That in itself Is a trick from the ego Its better to say I aspire To be a shukr person A simple person Is a shukr person A simple man Can be a con man But a simple servant Would never be a con man Usually all the Con men they are very simple I live a simple life But before you know it they already tricked you of 3000 dollars Their words are sweet easy and simple Because it Fends the ego You go to a Sales person Ok I won't say sales person I used to be a sales person I know what it means Ya this is very easy its very good Very simple They go ya its very easy Very good very simple How much is it 3000 easy Don't worry Fall for it Easy good simple Just add one more plate One more this one more that Ya easy good simple but then who is suffering The ruh Bit by bit The vision the goal Yaani Allah the tajalli that the ruh has Becomes what Further and further and further Reason being The sweetness Is now the space of dunya The space of yours becomes what Wider and wider and wider Which means your focus On dunya is growing The gluttony The tamak becomes more I want more dunya I want more dunya I want more dunya When are we going to see I want more Of the tajalli of Allah The problem is not the greed The problem is the ego Same thing nowadays Tamak is not only for food Many people now don't eat But they are spending a lot of time On their screens So is tamak for more screen time Tamak for more Screen time tamak for more screen time Tamak for more screen time People are spending more time On having the tamak For other things now its not only food This drink called Prime Right Its dangerous This drink I want more of that I want more of energy More of this energy for what Ulamak Sufi Sheikh Yusuf Al Hamdani He mentions That the more you abstain Your stomach The more hungry you are the stronger you get in Ibadah But dunya the people of dunya tells you The more you feed your body the stronger You will be So if you are feeling weak Because of zikr It is because The zikr has cut the body Of its sweetness of dunya And bit by bit The strength of the ruh Is getting stronger the body doesn't like it Funny you know we come for zikr We can fall asleep But if you go to eat You can spend 2 hours waiting For a steak You won't be sleeping If you are dozing off In the majlis zikr then your body Has controlled you Go and take another booster Whatever the booster that you want to take Prime won't help you Redbull won't help you Nothing will help you unless and until You tell your body If I wake up I am sustaining my ruh I am not going to follow you Until you tell your body If not Then the tajalli Is coming but you are pushing it aside Because the ego is blocking it The I You get what I am trying to say How is it that Our awliya Allah s.a.w They are able to stand up Pray so long They are able to fast Not just Monday, Thursday Almost every other day Their awliya Allah s.a.w They don't take any wealth of dunya But they can become so rich Like An-Nabi s.a.w Allah could have changed Uhud for gold Into gold for him But what he says, no no Doesn't like me with the poor That doesn't mean He Wants all of us to be poor, no What he is trying to say is He is not limited He is so rich In Allah That he has no problem being with the poor Because he can give He is not asking you to be poor But he asks you to be zuhud To be people that do not have The greed of dunya in your heart Their ego Will tell us We need big things Iman will ask you Isn't this small thing sufficient for you Naturally we all want To have a luxurious life Natural, human things But people Who have faith will say Yeah I want a comfortable life It doesn't have to be a pompous life The Awliya Allah There are many stories of this Someone was saying You are preaching to us about zuhud Not to be having Tamak, but I see your house Has a lot of wealth He says okay, I'll prove to you He says call all the people in the town Take all my things Everybody came, took everything In their house In his Awliya house, nothing is left Within the next Within the next few hours, people keep coming back He says I heard your house is empty I don't know what happened but here's the thing People keep coming back and bringing things to him Then his house was back Full again Then he says look Did I ask for this? No You want me to give this all away again? No need, I think you've proven your point Because his heart only has Allah Allah makes Dunya what? Serve him He doesn't have Tamak Even in Dawa He doesn't have Tamak Or I know I have 3000 Plus followers That can translate into 6 million Something like that I need another 5 million to become Golden Award Of students or something like that Go lah, go Go for Golden Horse Award or something like that Golden Globe Golden whatever But are you golden in the sight of Allah? So that's all you need is just one murid Why go through all this trouble to have Thousands of murids? Sometimes all we need We mistake thirst for hunger Sometimes all we need is another glass of water But yet We go and order another plate of riba and steak If we had quenched and followed the way Of eating like Nabi s.a.w Eat what is closest to you Do not be picky Whatever is there you're supposed to eat Eat lah Imagine now we go and order I want this, I want that Cook this way, cook The wok, the balik, all must cook That is Tamak That is actually ego That's why we're supposed to go for khalwa Eat what? Eat nothing Feed your ruh, not the body That's why Alhamdulillah Allah given us the month of Ramadan But even with that We retaliate Even more Even more Even more Why? Because a few hours of Hunger for the body The body retaliates And then the ruh says, I was just about to receive this Tajalli and then now you go and retaliate Even more So hunger is good I tell you, we live in a time We don't know hunger We don't know hunger We do not know hunger because food is just In too much of abundance for us And that's not necessarily good Because it's what kind of food If you're eating a lot Just to be satiated Compared to people who eat a little And they feel satiated Which one is better? Little and satiated Right? Why? Because it's barakah So what we need to do is to be seeking Barakah in our sustenance If you're constantly hoarding If you're constantly hoarding Be it in terms of dunia Food and you know In this and that In materials and all of this Then know that you are suffering from greed We Singaporeans have this problem Each time we go overseas, we must shop Even if there's nothing to buy, we buy It's a form of tamak Because we're so used to it The body hungers for this It's a form of fulfillment If I go open a shop At Pagor that sells erasers Even that will sell What are you selling? Erasers How many do you have? 10? I'll buy one Why? It's cheap here It's tamak It's the ego We don't see the risk That we have in barakah But we see it As a way of It's cheap, I can buy Cheap or cheap? Cheap cheap That's how we are Ego So the zikr we do Is to get rid of this To remind ourselves It's cheap for you Because Allah has given you the risk It's not cheap because of the currency It can be cheap and you can be broke That's even worse Imagine you say Oh cheap what? Then you check bank account Cheap cheap Your pocket? Cheap chop Your wallet? Chop chop Finished Now what use is it? You cheap Where's your spending power? Greed Greed Greed Ego Everest This is us We all Including myself We're all like this No need lah times 3 Buy 10 lah Buy 10 only Cheap That's real That's real towards Allah Some people might argue No I'm supporting our Muslim brothers Is that the way you support them? Really is that the way you support By taking advantage because of your currency? You're exploiting them in a way It's like greed Everywhere we go in Singapore McDonald's give the IKEA Pencils we take These things Don't have pencil at home? These are the things that we have In dunya We forgot All of this is risk Where is the shukur? Alhamdulillah First step To remove the ego Always be in a state of shukur Don't say cheap Say Alhamdulillah Alhamdulillah Allah has given me the power to afford this Alhamdulillah Allah has given me The strength to buy this Alhamdulillah Allah has provided me The seller so that I can receive this In Islam buying and selling is an aqad It is a ruling We say I buy I sell This is actually for Shafi'i We are supposed to say this Thank you, cheap Empty You fool here Empty here Finish Because it's cheap We only look at the value of the paper We've forgotten the value of the heart The ones that are cheap are us We only have this paper We don't have the heart That's why the people over there keep quiet Alhamdulillah These heartless people are here They like to throw their paper money Okay Who is the real awliya? The ones who are rich in their hearts Not gluttony in their hearts Not comparing Not showing off And this is the day and age that we live in Don't go only outside of Singapore Go within ourselves Where do you stay? Really? You're not living in a Good class bungalow? No, I'm not living in a good class bungalow I'm living in a good class car park Must be a loser Useless fellow So, you know Useless in your sight of greediness But in the sight of Allah He says, Alhamdulillah, Allah has given me a car park How do you know the house he's going to have in Jannah? If we believe in Jannah Oh, I believe, Murshid Are you sure? If you believe in Jannah, then you continuously will try to fight your greediness Every richness, every one cent that you receive Subhanallah Despite my sins, Allah has given me this rizq Every morsel of food that you come Alhamdulillah, despite my sins Allah has given me this rizq We always, you know I always tell my wife Alhamdulillah, Allah has provided for us What work do we do? This is not an MNC, you know Right? This is not whatever so and so Whatever so and so company Always be in a state of Syukur And if you catch yourself In a state that you are showing off Then you need to find yourself F-I-N-E Not F-I-N-D Enough of finding yourself Oh, I did a mistake because I'm finding myself No, no, no, no In this tariqah, we find you Because you already found yourself When you took your bayat Now you need to find yourself Because you're too action Too greedy, what you do? Five thousand salawat, ten thousand salawat Increase the salawat For every one time you do greed You react with the ego Do sadaqah Your sadaqah should be more than your lunch money Oh, can or not? Oh, can or not murshid? Because I need to eat, I need to work No, no, kerja itu ibadah Makan pun ibadah Makan macam Lahabau, everything We have multi-level chef cooking shows now What do you call that? Where they go level 1, level 2, level 3 What show is this? RMZ, right? You know that? You should watch, now there's multiple levels Of cooking show, in one show How much food we want to eat? Last time I only know Martin Yan If Yan can cook That's the only fellow Now there's a whole channel Full of people talking about food This is dangerous There's no The refinement Of the soul To get the subtleties of the ruh Is knowledge To get The subtleties of the jasad The body Is discipline Not regimentals, two different things Because this discipline arises from Wanting to love Allah If it is regimental If it is a discipline You become a body builder There's a lot of people now They avoid food And they just do what? Workout Because it's for the body But Shaykh al-Akbar is trying to say No, it's actually for the love of Allah Yes, a believer who is stronger Is more loved by Allah But people are now just working out Pumping up One thing to look good This is what we call Vanity, remember? We were talking about this All of it is interconnected If you have all of these illnesses Then know that We have to spend extra time Sitting down and connect Let the tajalli come Once we are full with the light of zikr Then can we differentiate This is tamak So if you are not doing this You are not connecting and you are not allowing the light of zikr To be filled within you Then you are going to go into battle With the nafs It will retaliate 300 times more So like I was explaining Just now, imagine if this cup Is filled with coffee Misal, coffee Then I keep pouring water into it What will happen? The water will Fill up the cup The coffee will now be raised to the top Because it is filled with what? Water The water is zikr The coffee is the The tamak Same thing that is happening to you You do your zikr You get connected with the tajalli The nur of the silsila From Sayyidina Muhammad s.a.w To Sayyidina Ali To Shaykh Abdul Qadir Jilani To all of the mushriks until it reaches you One day, 0.1% Tomorrow, another 0.1% Another 0.1% Until it reaches 1% Misal Then you still have how many more percent of the greed To get rid But that 1% That nur Bit by bit is growing You are doing another 1% Another 1% Then you can tell I greed Must remove Maybe you don't stop eating Like you are eating 5 meals a day Cut down lah tu 4.5% Oh, trust me The nursery Tell it, 400% Then another Because you cut down right You feel good, you take a picture You post it on Instagram Alhamdulillah, practicing what my murshid say Then you take Then you take Hanka Esenia You decrease in the food intake But you increase in your E Ah, selamat lah nak How it happens My murshid say, must cut down on food Alhamdulillah, I rejected my mother's sate Then next story Went for pizza at Sopranos Sopranos Oh, because it's healthier, it's baked Ah, you just got baked Your ego just baked you Oh, murshid, how not to eat There's so much beautiful food in the world Eat, Imam Ghazali said Eat only what is needed For you to establish your prayer For you to establish your prayer So the food energy Now we all calculate right How many calories When you do your solat, your zikir How much energy is needed That amount of food Maybe just a handful Of rice It can be less Kicap, telur That will be enough for you for the whole day No, not enough Because I need my organic It can be less Then it can be less, it only feeds on barley All these kind of things The food today is this Also destroyed And that is what causes us to grow even bigger Because there's a lot of things inside So that's why it's important for us to Recite salawat on our food before we eat Good But also recite salawat on it After eating or before eating There's two opinions on this You can recite Four times or seven times This is to get rid of the poison in the food Okay Don't think Oh, I bought this Halal Korea chop What about the ingredients That has all of the chemicals inside That too is halal That's causing all of your Your cells to be destroyed So recite And then If you're having a majlis You're inviting people to come You're not sure if the food is going to be Enough Recite this on your pot Once, three times, seven times With the barakah of salawat It'll be enough You don't have to keep looking You get what I'm trying to say The food we eat causes waswasa If you don't take care of the food that you eat Causes all of the problems In our hormones So, read This If you don't have time to read before You're too hungry Because it's four and a half meals a day now So eat it after, at least When you wash your hands Seven times As our ulema has mentioned As our ulema has said, four times Both are also good So we want the success In our suluk We want Allah to grant us, not we want We hope Allah grant us You get what I'm trying to say By us doing all of this, it means nothing Only when Allah, there's this story Abu Jahal went to The Prophet Lift your leg And the Prophet lifted his leg And he says, lift your other leg While this leg being lifted He says, no, that's not possible He says, if that is not possible How can you say You went for Isra or Mi'raj And the Prophet Beautifully he says That's where you are wrong I did not say, I go What I say was, I was lifted Asra Here did not mean He travelled But he was lifted So we want to be lifted Inshallah May Allah guide us Forgive us from all of our greediness And replace it with Contentment, inshallah Replace it with Iman, inshallah Replace our greediness, our tamak With all of the shukur, inshallah And the state of praising him always, inshallah And make it Make it such that we become people who Practice what we preach, inshallah In our zahir, in our batin, in our dunya In our akhira And we will be people of abdan shukura People who are always in a state Of contentment Despite what the world presents to us Despite what the dunya presents to us Despite what shaitan presents to us Our ego presents to us Make us choose the path of contentment, ya Allah The path of shukur, ya Allah Like the way all of your anbiya and awliya Has done, ya Allah Make us be with them in the state of shukur Amin, ya Rabbul Alamin So I'd like to thank all of you And I hope that this year will end with this note By knowing that we'll be abdan shukura The servants who are thankful, inshallah For all that we've been given, inshallah Amin, ya Rabbul Alamin