The Path To Allah

The theme for this year's Muharram lectures will be about the spiritual journey towards Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala. That this journey takes place inside each and every one of us, and specifically inside our core, which is our hearts.

And that the sole purpose, the sole point, the main priority in each and every one of our lives should be, how can I attain the Qalb al-Saleem? How do I attain that heart which is pure? So that I can, if there are any blemishes on my heart, purify it from every corruption, and take this journey towards God, which is the reason that I was created. And everything else in my life that is moving me away from this reason, is merely a distraction and illusion of Dunya (world). This is the main priority.

Karbala, the whole situation in which Imam al Husayn 'alayhi as-salam, who sacrificed his life, was not to take us just to him. He was merely the symbol to take us to Allah Subhana wa Ta'la. To revive that journey in each and every one of our lives that 1,400 years later, we still remember the story and how much sacrifice one man made on his journey towards God. So we can learn from it, and we can make such sacrifices in our lives on our journey towards God, which is the whole reason why we are here.

And so over the centuries, 'Ulama (scholars) created this science, developed rather this science within Islam called 'Al-Sayr wa al-Suluk'- 'the science of wayfaring, the spiritual journey towards God'. And we, many times in many of these lectures and the books that we have read, we come across all these different lessons from the Imams, from the Holy Prophet, and we want to incorporate those lessons into our lives, but we do not have a mind map. We do not exactly know what steps they take chronologically, which one comes before the other.

And so we need a developed chronological system by which we go step by step and know exactly what we can do in our daily lives as youth, living in the West, but still able to take this spiritual journey within one's heart. It is not just poetry and fantasy, but a real spiritual journey within one's heart towards God, so that we may know God, which is the purpose of our creation: 'man 'arafa nafsah fa qad 'arafa Rabbah'- 'To know ourselves, to know Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala.

And so we go to the Imam, we go to Imam 'Ali 'alayhi as-salam to find out what this first step is. Today, InshaAllah, we are going to speak about the whole map. I am going to bring you the actual map that we can take on the journey towards God and then on the following days, we will dissect this map and each point, which steps to take, and how we can do that.

So that of course, the first step that we have to take, the very first thing. The first thing that we do, we go to the Imam and we ask the Imam. The narrations of the Imams, we have been growing up with them, our parents tell us of them, and we get used to them to an extent that sometimes we see, or read, or hear about a narration or a saying of the Imam, whether it's Imam, Ridha, or Imam Ja'far As-Sadiq, or Imam Ali 'alayhi as-salam, and we underestimate the power and the wisdom of this narration of this quote.

A lot of the time, if you interact with some people that are not from the same cultural or religious background as you and you bring up a narration from the Imam, and you realize how astounded they are by how profound that narration actually is, and you are surprised because you are like, Wow, okay, I knew this. This person has never heard this before yet they are so impacted and affected by it because the world outside is rather empty.

We have had so much wisdom in our tradition, but for a lot of us, we are almost numbed to it, because we are not giving it the time and contemplation with which it deserves. So I am going to say this narration, and everyone here or some people here might think that this is a very simple narration. What I want from you is, as we are talking about putting effort into this journey, it is not spoon-fed to us.

So if you want to really reap the benefits of the wisdom of the Imams, you have to give it time and contemplation.

So whichever narration I am going to say, I want you guys to think it over and think how many different dimensions this narration has, in which ways it can be understood, and how deep it actually is. In the beginning, you might listen to it. It might not sound that deep. And over time and contemplation, it becomes something with a lot more depth to you that will impact you. This is one of the techniques on the spiritual journey: contemplation. That without it, the journey cannot take place.

[Imam 'Ali 'alayhi as-salam tells Kumayl- 'ma min harakatin illa wa anta muhtajun fiha ila al-ma'rfiah 'There is no movement, action, nothing that you can do except that you are in need of ma'rifah before the action]. So we hear it all the time, knowledge, knowledge, knowledge in all these lectures, 'ilm, ilm ilm, all these narrations in all these books.

Yet this is the profundity of what this means. There is no journey to God without seeking knowledge. So if you accept for yourself to be a layperson in terms of, khallas(enough), I know what I know, and I know what I need to know. Don't tell me anything more. I don't want to know. We know a lot of people like that. The journey to God stops right there. The key to knowledge. I'm saying language right now. It's the key. When you begin with the language, ya'ni, the way that slaves were incorporated, the way that they were tamed was by taking away their books and their pens.

When you mentally enslave someone, that is a real slave. Even now there are slaves. They are not shackled, but they have shackles in their minds because they are not educated and they do not have knowledge. When you have knowledge, you are powerful. Knowledge is power. With knowledge, you become a free man, free woman. Nothing [from anything, nothing locks you down].

If you want to give this time, you give it as much time as you can, and you can build up to it. Start with reading. Just 10 pages a day. Just exercise your minds and read 10 pages a day of any book of your choosing. Just think, okay? Don't be asleep. Think. Let ideas bounce around in your mind, at least for a small period of time a day. And then in 10 days, that's 100 pages. In 20 days, 200 pages. In 30 days, 300 pages. Then you finish a book every month, and month after month, this knowledge begins to increase. That's only 10 pages a day, 15 minutes.

But again, those are for the turtles. But the rockets, if you really want to go, you give more of your time. When you really want to become a person of knowledge, you give one hour, two hours, and the tried and tested way is three hours. When we were in Hawzah, and I am still there, but in Hawzah, when we were living inside, we had to sign a contract, when we were going inside because my teacher would say that this is a contract between you and Imam Mahdi. So if no one knows about it, Imam Mahdi knows about it. And the contract was that we had to study 11 hours a day if we want to be part of the Hawzah. 11 hours a day! And that might sound like a lot, but it wasn't.

And really, you don't have a job, you don't have anything else, all you are doing is studying, so you should be studying. Right, but you wake up at 5, 6 A.M., you spend the first five, six hours studying, you take two, three hours break, you spend another five, six hours studying. It's only 8, 9 P.M. I'm not telling you guys to do 11 hours, 12 hours, 13 hours. My teacher would tell us you should do 15 a day. He is like, You have five hours to sleep, six hours to sleep. You have an hour for prayer. You have another hour for eating, an hour for going to the bathroom. And the rest of the time study, what are you doing?

But I am not telling you guys that. You guys do what you want. You guys watch Netflix, play PlayStation, go to school, socialize, but give three hours. Two hours. Khayr one hour. But give time. You have to give some time because [if you do not, and you are fitting Allah around your social time, around making money, wasting time, as you age you will become a nonsensical person].

[We tell people dont do those bad things] we know it's bad and we still do it. We do not apply the knowledge. So we need a level above 'ilm'. 'Ilm' is the first step. 'Ilm, knowledge. 'Ma'rifah'. 'Ilm' is the number one step towards Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala.

If you don't have 'Ilm, then you are not doing this in the correct order. You can, al-hamduli-Llah, with a sincere heart, you can pray and fast as many days as you can, and you will elevate in station. But you will always be limited because you won't have the intellectual capacity to understand exactly what you are doing. What if you are to do all those things and have the intellectual capacity to understand them? Then you grow, you elevate, you amplify everything that you' are doing. So why waste your actions? 'Ilm is the number one step.

We need a step above the -'Ilm, above knowledge, because we need to apply that. We need the Marhala, we need a stage called Iman. Iman- faith. What is faith? Faith, Iman is when the 'Ilm is mustaqir fi 'l-qalb-'once the knowledge becomes settled into the heart.' But it's not enough. We want something even above that. We want the highest levels. This is what this whole spiritual journey was about. This level that people are always so afraid to talk about that is called 'irfan'. Irfan.

'Irfan, in English, translated to mysticism or Gnosticism, this spirituality, basically. 'Irfan, all it means here; what is the difference between Imaan and 'Irfaan? 'Irfaan is that which you believe, but which you also see. So it's not blind. So you know exactly what's happening. You know exactly what's in front of you. You see things as they are. You see the haqaiq (realities), you see the Bawatin- you see the inner realities of things. You understand how everything works. You understand the meanings behind everything, and you see things as they are. So it's 'Ilm, Iman, Irfan'.

'Ilm, and you take the bridge from Ilm to Iman with 'Amal Salih- good action. Iman, there's a weakness. It's not strong enough, we want to be people of Iman. But it's not everything, and there's a weakness. We want to be even more than this.

What does it mean when we say the ma'soom? That the Imam is ma'soom or infallible, that they cannot commit a wrong or a mistake. What does that mean? They are not born in a way in which it is impossible for them to do any wrong. That's not it. They have free will. They can commit whichever action they want, but because they see things as they are so you don't go towards them because they know for sure that this is wrong.

Ya'ni, if there was poison in this cup right now, there's no way I would drink it. If I knew that there was poison in the cup and someone gave me the cup and I was really thirsty and they said, This is really fresh, cold water. And I looked at it and it looked like water but because I could see the realities, I see the poison. Would I ever drink it? No.

The Imam looked at sins, anything that was wrong, the same way that we see the faeces of the dog in the street and we move aside from it. Any sin, anything that was to take away from the path of Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala, that is the inner reality of it, and the Imam sees that. And none of us goes towards the faeces of a dog. A sane person does not go towards that, which does not benefit them and actually makes them feel repulsed. This is what the 'ismah' actually is. I will give you an example. Right now, when I say the word, 'khanzir', how do you feel? 'Khanzir'. We are brought up with the word pig and 'khanzir' as something meaning really dirty or ugly or disgusting. A lot of us here, I'm hoping, a lot of us here, if not all of us, have no temptation to eat pig or bacon or pork.

As much as people outside say, English breakfast and everything else, bacon and eggs and everything. It doesn't tempt us. It's not tempting. In fact, a lot of you are doing this right now. Because it's khanzir, it's pig. And we are brought up in a culture which really finds this thing disgusting. Well, what if you were brought up feeling the same way about something else that was haram? You are ma'soom from khanzir, basically. You can physically take bacon and take ham and put it into your mouth. Physically, you can do that, but you won't. You wouldn't. As much as someone telling you, It tastes so good, you wouldn't do it. Because you know you move away from this. You know how detrimental, disgusting this thing, or at least you were brought up to believe it so much so that you can't.

What else? If it was the way that we dressed or music or anything else, the things that we have a hard time with. And if we are brought up in that way, then this, we would be ma'soomin from this as well. So it's real, it is possible. You have a part of it like that in your life already.

When it comes to 'Irfan, we want that but in everything. We want that to know the inner realities of everything, the inner realities of what we are doing and of who we are and who others are and what it is and what this world is and the meaning behind it all and the purpose behind it all. That 'Ilm, Iman, and this takes years and years and years, by the way. To get to 'Irfan-to know comes from 'Arafa, Ma'rifah.

When one engages in purification of self and disciplining the soul and this takes a lot of practice as well. This is when slowly you begin to purify this heart and become a person of principle and harmony and honour and chivalry and modesty and all these other values that are so dead to this world, but are so profoundly stated in our religion that it takes effort and it takes time. But that this is available to each and every one of us and this is the map. Every night we are going to be speaking about the different parts of this map. Knowledge, 'Ilm, Imaan and 'Irfan. Knowledge, Faith, and Gnosis. In between, there are two bridges, 'Amal Salih- good action, and 'Tahdheeb an-Nafs- and purification of self, and disciplining the soul and there are several techniques for this.

People in the world, they have pets. They have pets that they take care of, that they give their time to and give and feed and take them on walks. Shouldn't we take care of our souls? At least show our souls some attention, at least a little bit more than some people show their pets, at the very least. So all these steps are going to take efforts from us.

This journey towards God is the purpose of why we are even here, why we are created. And we don't have too much time. We don't have too much time, guys. A lot of our times are already wasted by the way that we understand the cultures that we are in and what fun is. At least let some of our time be productive that we can build our afterlife with.

And when we come on these nights, these 10 nights a year that we come on, it's always this revolutionary time by which we can change our lives. It's 10 days of almost like a school for us that we can really take these 10 nights and try to make this inner revolution. This opportunity that Imam Al-Husayn 'alayhi as-salam gave us.

That 1,400 years ago, when he received the letter from Yazid telling him that he has to give bay'ah- allegiance now or that they were going to kill him, and he refused to give the bay'ah allegiance. He said, Someone like me does not give [bay'ah to someone like Yazid].