How To Attain Contentment

Bismillah Al-Rahman Al-Rahim a salaam aleikum. In this clip, we're going to be discussing and reflecting upon how to attain contentment and I won't profess to be an expert at attaining contentment, but I can safely say that in my heart I am contented with the blessings that I have been given. And when I look at what I came from in terms of, again, that type of culture, that more or less allows you to do whatever you want to do and yet does not provide that knowledge of the soul, that knowledge of the self doesn't provide any guidance with regard to the reality of our existence, it doesn't show you the inner meaning of things. I can safely say that I am contented Al-Hamdulillah.

People sometimes say that, you know, since coming into Islam, is that anything that you regret? Is there anything that you miss? And I could really say that Al-Hamdulillah my heart has been filled with such contentment since choosing to follow this path, I really don't have regrets; there isn't really anything that I miss when I look at the culture that I was indoctrinated into and I'm using the word indoctrinate.

People often use the word indoctrinate in relation to religion. As we know, Richard Dawkins says that and many other atheists say that it's child abuse to indoctrinate children into religion. Well, I would say that you're either going to be indoctrinated into one thing or you're going to be indoctrinated into another thing. And at the moment, we've got our youth and our children being indoctrinated into the vacuous, valueless realm of the entertainment industry or the vacuous, valueless world of corporate industry generally.

This is the, you know, the main two influences that are taking place in our society. And, of course, we are being told and indoctrinated with ideas about how we are to attain contentment. Unfortunately, many Muslims around the world have fallen for this propaganda. They have fallen for this indoctrination in terms of attaining wealth, in terms of attaining social status, that if only I could earn X, Y, Z and get this type of house or get this type of car or live in this type of neighborhood or marry into this type of family and attain this type of status, then I would be contented.

If only I could get to triple A for my A-levels, if only I could become this type of doctor and not that type of doctor. If only I could find this type of spouse are not that type of spouse, then I would be contented.

But really, this this is a very narrow criteria, actually. You know, you're setting themselves you're setting yourself some very uncertain goals and aims to reach that you think will then bring you contentment. But I would say that all over the majority Muslim world, I'd say, you know, majority Muslim countries, a good proportion of those Muslims are chasing after that elusive dream of contentment that will come from having a flash big kitchen to show your friends or being able to have the funds to put on a lavish sofra to impress the neighbours.

And of course, this is something that Holy Qur'an speaks about very clearly, that the life of the next world is better than all of this. And contentment doesn't lie within this. What the Holy Qur'an is teaching is that everyone in life guaranteed is going to have good and is going to have bad allocated to them. They're going to have ups and they're going to have downs allocated to them. OK, so you may have an up. You may you may have an achievement.

You may have reached a certain goal. But as Imam Ali alayhi assalam says, while you are attaining one thing, you're losing something else. While you're reaching one place, you're losing another place while it's sunny on this side, it's raining on that side, so, it's never really possible at a material level to attain everything we want to attain and therefore then to reach a certain level contentment that we think we will reach. And as we may know, very often, the people who have dedicated their lives to attaining a very high social status in terms of finance and wealth and position and the country in the city where where they live in, very often if you get into conversations with those type of people, you will find that they don't know what life is about. They haven't found the answers. They don't know what their existence is about. They don't know what they're doing. They're not even doing anything in particular.

When I was in Iraq, I heard of two hotel owners out there. One is Lebanese. One is Iraqi. They separate cases, but they're both owned hotels and both of them, although they didn't know each other. Both of them were discontented. They were earning pretty probably pretty well from their hotels in Karbala, but they had no other aim in life and they didn't know what supposed to be doing in life. So one sat in the reception chatting to his friends all the time, and then he would travel because he'd get bored and the other one would sit in his hotel watching movies because he was also bored and often suffered from depression because he was separated from his family back in Lebanon.

So material wealth does not always bring you contentment. What really brings us contentment is to give, what can bring you contentment is to give and to make other people smile. If we can make our goal in this world, which is what the Holy Prophet peace be upon him, his Holy Progeny has said, you know, the aim of a Muslim is to contribute something positive. And we can certainly say that in the world that we are living in, it desperately needs positive contribution from all of us in whatever field. I read an article where adoption agencies in the states are saying that they need people to cuddle newborn babies who have been taken from their parents because the parents may be drug addicts as an example and actually giving love to newborns helps their brains to develop healthily.

That's just one example of the way that we could give of ourselves to give back to humanity, to leave this life and then to be able to stand before Allah Subhanah Wa Ta'ala and and say, you know, when we faced with this real of our life, you know, I guess he's saying to us, I gave you this opportunity to excel as a human being. How did you use that opportunity? What have you done for me? What have you done for my humanity that I created? Are we going to say that? Well, about a massive house for myself. And I bought a you know, the latest car for myself and I I only wore Calvin Klein. I made sure that I had the latest brand of handbag. This is what I've done online. I've done a lot for myself. And although I haven't got a clue about the meaning of my existence and I don't know anything more about myself than I did when I was a teenager now. But I'm 78 and I'm dying and I still don't know who I am. But yeah, I would retain these things for myself.

That's not an achievement. So we want to be able to go before Allah Subhanah Wa Ta'ala to say this is what I gave with the gift that you gave me, this is what I did with it. I changed something in humanity. I changed people's hearts. I changed people's minds. I gave some people a glimmer of hope, not through being so great in myself, but just through holding someone's hand that, you know, they were able to have some little hope in humanity because they have become disillusioned with humanity.

This is desperately what we need today to find our contentment in service. This is one of the basic principles of Islam is service to humanity. And it is in this as an example that we can find contentment.