Good Character – Part 2

Hamza Yusuf

Date:

Channel: Hamza Yusuf

File Size: 9.83MB

Episode Notes

Share Page

Transcript ©

AI generated text may display inaccurate or offensive information that doesn’t represent Muslim Central's views. Thus,no part of this transcript may be copied or referenced or transmitted in any way whatsoever.

00:00:00--> 00:00:19

Somebody was dead. His heart was dead. Because I didn't even measure the proposal I sent him said on the DF Corolla, Villa de la Corolla Telfer, sulforaphane, and he will measure the difference between the one who remembers a lot, and the one who doesn't remember a lot is like the difference between the living in the dead.

00:00:20--> 00:00:24

So somebody can be their bodies alive, but their heart is dead.

00:00:25--> 00:00:56

And just like the physical heart dies, the spiritual heart dies. And just like you can have physical diseases of your heart, in fact, one of the mysteries of the heart in western medicine is it often is disease, and there's no symptoms is very interesting. In other words, they can have 90% blockage in their cardiac arteries. And they don't, there's no symptoms, and suddenly, they have a heart attack. And they didn't even know it. They say he was fine, nothing was wrong. You hear that all the time. So he has a heart attack, they say

00:00:58--> 00:01:02

he was fine. In fact, I just played tennis with him yesterday.

00:01:03--> 00:01:45

He didn't even read have it, he was in such good shape. So people say he was only 45. He just dropped dead. Because somebody can look like they're in perfect health and their heart is diseased. The same is true of the spiritual heart. Somebody can look like they're in perfect. spiritual health and their hearts disease. They don't even know it. Sometimes they don't know it other people not like a doctor, if the doctor knows that. The doctor knows signs, signs and symptoms. Yeah, I'm in medicine, your signs and symptoms, signs, the doctor can see themselves symptoms, they come from the patient, the difference in medicine, your signs, and you have symptoms, and and that and that. They

00:01:45--> 00:02:21

have to tell you what it is. But the signs, you can see them yourself. Somebody has yellow eyes, they might not know that they've got hepatitis, but if a doctor sees him, they have yellow eyes. They're jaundice. And they're tired, they're exhausted. They're urines, yellow, he knows their livers disease, he might not know that, because he doesn't hadn't studied medicine. So the spiritual heart has signs and symptoms as well. There's signs and symptoms. And some people recognize they're sick, other people don't you can meet people like that. A lot of people don't know they have that.

00:02:22--> 00:02:23

I'll give you an example.

00:02:24--> 00:02:54

And I mean, this is one of those things. You know, we'll call the Annika angle and as you say, to your own I, oh, I remember other people have eyes to yours. When you find faults in people, people can find the faults in you. But I just gave you an example. Maybe you benefit from this, I was with a scholar once and there was a student of that person who studied with him. This scholar mentioned the line of poetry.

00:02:55--> 00:03:04

And it was a difficult line. And he asked his student if he understood it or not. And I don't think he did. But anyway, he said this person Oh, I heard that from you last year.

00:03:06--> 00:03:06

That's just bad.

00:03:11--> 00:03:44

You know, somebody tells you a story. Maybe you did hear from last year, listen to maybe you're you're a year older, maybe you're a year wiser. Maybe you'll understand something in it. You didn't understand the first time and Won't you know last minute. The believer never gets tired of goodness. How many times can you hear a heartbeat, the same heartbeat. And you get a new meaning out of it. One of the things I had the good fortune, a long long time ago, of studying with he's one of the most learned people I've ever met named chef of the year when

00:03:45--> 00:03:53

he was a party in the Emirates he still is he was the head of the maximum Sharia. And he's happy with the meaning of the word he knows.

00:03:54--> 00:04:13

Amongst everything else, I mean, he knows lava, lava, the lava, he knows for an karasawa masala is ocean of knowledge. I remember I used to read these things. And I go tell him something like a story. And he used to listen and say, Panama.

00:04:14--> 00:04:23

And I realized later you know it was just my own, maybe enthusiasm, whatever, you know, but later I realized what impeccable edit he had.

00:04:25--> 00:04:39

Because sometimes you tell somebody something they say yeah, I know that. I heard that before. And he really did I No, I didn't say anything that he memorized. He could give me the commentary. He could tell me all the rhetorical subtleties of that Hadith or whatever.

00:04:40--> 00:05:00

And that's the way he is. He's a deep, you know, he has perfect Adam. So there's a lot of things about our nature we're not even aware of and other people see it and we don't see it. And that's why I mean when you're actually modeling the believer is the mirror of his believer. One of the things is Shakespeare says in Macbeth, that God has made it such that we can only

00:05:00--> 00:05:06

See our faces in mirrors, you can't look at your face. It's amazing. If you think about

00:05:07--> 00:05:18

your last name that you can't see your face unless you look into reflection. And yet everybody who looks at you can see your face, they can see the egg on your chin, you can't see the egg and they go like this.

00:05:20--> 00:05:41

Right? That's what people do. You know, if you're talking and some thing, they'll go like this, because you can't see it, everybody else can see it, and you can't see it. And that's what the believer is, is a reflection of his brother. In other words, you see your faults in him. You see your faults in you as a gift of a movement.

00:05:42--> 00:06:03

And one of the things about them with a character is that they have too much pride. So they get angry, they get angry, and there's other people Mmm. shafter is somebody asked him, but I'll be learning how he has such impeccable character. He said, I always listen to my detractors. And I took to heart what they said. And then I worked to remove their criticisms.

00:06:05--> 00:06:19

And another one said, somebody asked him, How did you learn everything, you know, he said, I took every person I ever met as a teacher, either he was better than me. And I learned things to improve myself or he was worse than me. And I learned things to avoid.

00:06:20--> 00:06:59

So everybody can teach you something, the rude person, you remember when somebody's being rude to you, you have to remember how what you're feeling is how other people feel when you're rude to them. So that's the gift of becoming aware that the heart needs help, is that you can improve, you can get better. And we have to we should get better. I mean, we owe it to this oma to become Odia. I mean, the Buddhists have a really interesting thing. They have these vows. And these monks have to save them every single day. They're really interested in they have these four vows. They vow to overcome themselves every single day.

00:07:00--> 00:07:21

They say today, I vow to overcome myself. And it's an interesting thing. If you think about that, you know that, that you make a conscious vow. Today, I'm going to do it. I'm going to overcome myself. And then they have a vow to give up desire every day. Today I'm going to give up wanting Jr.

00:07:23--> 00:07:27

and then they have a vow to master the sacred law.

00:07:28--> 00:07:37

Because they have a law you know that their books they study, but they make a vow every day to master the sacred law before they die.

00:07:38--> 00:07:58

And then the fourth one is they vow to help other creatures. And we have another we have similar thing but I didn't know that. But I just thought that was interesting that idea that every day you recommit to this work, this is the real work I mean, once you realize that the only thing benefits you are normal pm is a sound heart,

00:07:59--> 00:08:11

then we should get to work on the heart because at our innocence just the motiva either solid, solid has just Dooku for either festival, festival or just a Dooku.

00:08:13--> 00:08:21

There's in the breast, a lump of flesh, if it sound, the whole body sound. And if it's corrupt, the whole body is corrupt, isn't it the heart.

00:08:22--> 00:08:30

If you look at the world today, every single thing you see out there that's wrong with the world emanates from the human heart.

00:08:31--> 00:08:39

Every war that's ever been fought, every act of cruelty that's ever been perpetrated every act of injustice,

00:08:41--> 00:08:42

every Salah

00:08:43--> 00:08:47

every test, every act of backbiting

00:08:48--> 00:08:56

every act of minima, every dissembling and every act of hypocrisy it all emanating from a human heart

00:08:57--> 00:09:08

and had that heart been sound, that act wouldn't have manifested. The only way the corruption can come into the world is that it emanates from corrupts hearts.

00:09:09--> 00:09:16

If the heart is pure, the actions of that person are pure. And if the hearts corrupt, the actions are corrupt.

00:09:17--> 00:09:21

So if you want to rectify the world, you have to rectify human hearts.

00:09:22--> 00:09:30

Because that's what destroying the world. It's not us a pollution. The problem is not pollution. Pollution is a symptom.

00:09:31--> 00:09:33

Free will say Look at all this waste

00:09:35--> 00:09:41

is a symptom. All of that's a symptom. Look at all these wars. Why are people fighting?

00:09:42--> 00:09:59

Those are all symptoms and if you work on the symptoms without going to the root causes, then you're just wasting your time. The person suffering from malaria goes to a physician. The physician cannot treat him until he moves out of the malarial swamp because he's just going to get ruined.

00:10:00--> 00:10:00

affected,

00:10:01--> 00:10:35

you have to change the conditions that are causing the disease and the conditions in the world, all the corruption in the world. It's all being caused by unsound hearts. And so that's where you have to begin. And that's why the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said in the mapper, so we can nema muckety muck of luck. I was sent a perfect character. Where does character emanate from? Sound hearts sound hearts. in them. Our goal is to lead with Amina McCormick.

00:10:36--> 00:10:43

I was only sent to perfect noble character. Why was his heart washed three times

00:10:44--> 00:11:15

it was taken out of his breath this a heart surgery was performed. On the Messenger of Allah Salah incident was like, angels are beings of light, they cut open his breath. Now they have laser lasers just light light, a sterile, light is not contaminated. So angels open up as best. They put his heart into a cup that has ice in it. If you have ever watched a heart surgery, when they take the heart out for a transplant, they bring the heart in in eyes.

00:11:18--> 00:11:32

That's what they do in the hearts that's in the Sierra. Since they put it in a bowl of ice, that's what you have to do because it slows down the metabolism of the cells so that the heart doesn't die, and then they poured over Zamzam.

00:11:33--> 00:12:02

Now the other thing that they do, they bring in this there'll be a guy with a pitcher. And they're pouring on it what's called cryonics fluid. And it's fluid that has electrolytes in it potassium, and natural muriaticum. And they're pouring it onto the heart, because there's metabolic exchanges going on. So they keep the heart alive by giving it electrolytes. And one of the interesting things about grams of water is it's got high potassium, and high sodium content.

00:12:04--> 00:12:11

What they were doing was in accordance with modern knowledge, really, divine surgeons, you know, from Allah.

00:12:13--> 00:12:26

They knew what they're doing. I mean, it's an amazing thing, because I was actually worked in a cardiac unit. So I dealt a lot with cardiac surgery. But I just, it just struck me as so amazing when I when I was studying that because I knew that.

00:12:29--> 00:12:32

So the problem is that his heart was pure.

00:12:33--> 00:12:37

And that's why the people around him their hearts were purified by being in his company.

00:12:39--> 00:13:04

Because that's what happened. If you keep company with good people, you become like good people, you keep company bad people. You've come like that you one things about recidivism in prison, you get people that become Muslim in prison, or they become Christian wherever they go back. And one of the horrible thing, look at this in parole, I don't know that this could have been in America, in the parole system in America, the prisoner has to go back to the place where he was arrested.

00:13:06--> 00:13:13

It's total madness. And they put him right back in the in the environment that destroyed him in the first place.

00:13:14--> 00:13:53

So it's like sending somebody who had malaria, now he's been treated, you send them back to the swamp. That's what they do. It's a horrible thing. These people, they really are trying to get better. A lot of them actually really trying to get better. And then they go back, all their friends are there who haven't changed. Here's somebody, he's really changed. He's become Muslim. He's praying, he's fasting. He's got some spiritual strength. Suddenly, he finds himself back in the same boat and all these old buddies come, and he feels strong. And this one thinks he got a rope reminder. He said, Never trust enough. If you've fallen into disobedience in a place, never feel

00:13:53--> 00:14:05

strong, about going back to it. Because he said, that's how maaseiah reoccurs is you get weak, you go back and you say, No, I'm not going to do it. This time you go back and you do it again.

00:14:06--> 00:14:45

So this is what these people do. They go back to these places. And then people say, Oh, just come down and honor I'm not doing crack anymore. You know, I gave that up. Yeah, that's okay. You don't have to do anything. Come on, just come down. See, you know, Joey's down there and just come down and see, we'll hang out, man, you know, don't worry about it. And he's, well, I don't want to you know, he's like, cuz he's his friends and this and that goes down. Suddenly, they're all firing up the crack cocaine and they're also Oh, man, I feel is really good. Come on, and just say one head wasn't gonna do. This is how it happened, though. This is being repeated right now. There's people

00:14:45--> 00:14:49

right now. I guarantee you. The cycle starts over again.

00:14:51--> 00:14:59

And this human being, that's why you have to be in company. There was an interview of this monk, I saw and the monk said they get up every morning.

00:15:00--> 00:15:24

Three o'clock and start there chanting. And this guy said, isn't that difficult? He said, You know what? If I had to do it on my own, I'd never be able to do it. But there's 100 monks here, everybody said, he said, it's really easy. It's the same here. Everybody's here is easy to go play in the gym, because everybody's going to the gym. But then when you go back to these plays, you know,

00:15:28--> 00:15:48

a little tired. That's what happens. But here everybody go is the strength of Gemma in the La Jolla allows with the Gemma and that's what we've lost. We've lost Ghana. When she came from Mauritania to America, he said that he knows nobody smiled, because one of the things about looting Kenya, right.

00:15:49--> 00:15:56

He's out in the desert. They're all smiling, right? People smile, all the suffering, because smiling is actually part of

00:15:57--> 00:16:10

the process of license smiled all the time. One of his name is a behind the one who always smiles. He smile all the time, one of the habits from the day I became Muslim I never once saw the messenger who likes the smile.

00:16:13--> 00:16:18

From the day he became Muslim, he said I never once saw the Messenger of Allah except the smile.

00:16:20--> 00:16:23

is actually similar to smile. He

00:16:26--> 00:16:29

is a human being you smile, he smile, you feel good, he feels good.

00:16:33--> 00:16:34

And then you get these people.

00:16:38--> 00:16:40

Seriously, you're going to

00:16:44--> 00:16:53

try little harder on that one is a little harder. like Santa Monica. You don't even have to Suzy some people is like getting a tooth out of them

00:16:54--> 00:16:56

to get a salon with a smile.

00:16:58--> 00:17:40

But he said the reason he thinks no smile is because he said he noticed they do everything alone. So he said there, they have champagne with them. They get depressed because chiffon rides alone or article in Washington. There's somebody who rides alone is a shared bond, and two of them to share bonds, three is company you look at in the West, everybody in their cars alone. And who are they listen to ship on on the radio is amazing. They're listening to Chapin. They're driving alone. And then they go to work and they sit behind a cubicle alone. They don't talk to anybody. In California, they say, send me an email. They don't even want to talk to them physically. They tell them send me

00:17:40--> 00:18:09

an email. Some of them have a sign. They just hold up the sign they won't even say anything. Share Humphrey. When he was in New York, he said the strangest thing he saw. They were in a all these cars, a traffic jam. And he said he looked over and he saw cargo in this play. And it turned around and then he said it stopped it rolled down his window and it spoke to a box. And he said it in the box. He said Candela will be the standard policy. It spoke to him in a clear tone.

00:18:13--> 00:18:21

And then he said the car drove up a little further. And he said some hands came out of a window with a white bar.

00:18:22--> 00:18:29

And he said he gave him money and they didn't say anything to each other. He said he spoke to the bots and he didn't speak to the person.

00:18:31--> 00:18:43

It was a fast food restaurant. But he was just looking at it. Just seeing it for the first time is he you grew up seeing this thinking it's normal. It's not normal.

00:18:45--> 00:18:58

It's neurosis is a sickness. This is actually pathology. And somebody in Tripura can see it for what it is but people that are out of fit or they can't see it. That's what he said go to work. And then they go home they eat alone.

00:18:59--> 00:19:20

Somebody if you eat one person eat alone, Chapin eats with you. And Chapin just gets stronger and stronger. This thing about shape and people don't realize the shape and get strong with heedlessness, he gets weak with Vicar. The more hafla he gets strong physically because he's eating if you don't do that, when you eat like say Bismillah he eats with you. And he gets fat.

00:19:21--> 00:19:59

He has energy because he's got caloric strength. But if you say this minute he can't eat, he starts getting weak and withers away. If you save this meal when you go into your house, he can't sleep with you. And that's the two shoppers it sounds as if they met one was weak, the other was strong. He said What's the matter with he said I have a horrible assignment. Every time he eats he says Bismillah when he sleeps, he said this really loud when he goes his wife does this when I am not getting any strings. He said oh I've got a good one. He never says this guy when he and I eat us all I want we goes home I have a nice bed to sleep in. So now look at the whole

00:20:00--> 00:20:37

world I mean Christian they used to say, bless us, Lord for these gifts which we're about to receive, they used to say that and inshallah benefited them. They don't say that now just gobble it down. And so the shell thing are getting bigger and bigger. And now they can just say their shell thing. They actually can say it now they come out, really they come out literally insane. Like rock bands. They say that that were Satan. And they literally announced it. I saw this guy, he had a thing I worship Satan, literally on a T shirt, spiked hair, and he said on his t shirt, I worship Satan.

00:20:39--> 00:20:43

And this is happening in Christian land. They used to be