March 2nd, 2002, Serial No. 00140, Side A

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Tawba Ya Allah, tawba. Astaghfirullah, astaghfirullah, astaghfirullah. Tawba Ya Allah, tawba. Shukr Ya Allah, shukr Ya Allah, shukr Ya Allah. Astaghfirullah. Alhamdulillah, la ilaha illa Allah. Wa an'amu la sharika l-awla wa l-amulika wa l-alhamdulillahi wa alayhi wa alayhi. Bi yadihi khairu wa a'ala kulli shay'in wa qadir. Good morning. and there are many truths in the universe and I'm very happy today to be able to invite a truth to be spoken by my friend Yasir Chadli.

[01:30]

We've been friends for several years now and I'm touched by it deeply. Yasir is originally from Morocco. He's been here for about 20 years, I believe. And he's the imam at Masjid al-Iman, which is not so far from here. It's at a storefront mosque. It's near the on-ramp by Children's Hospital. Martin Luther King and it's a remarkable place of faith where tremendously diverse and very warm and inviting and each time I go there I'm deeply moved so I feel we're very fortunate to have Yasir here with us tonight today and also his

[02:33]

And so welcome. Thank you for having me here. This is a very honorable place. I never thinking one day I'm sitting like this. And with people with so much discipline and silence and watching. Every country must have some borders checking you, who's coming, who's going, especially now with what happened. Every place there is airplanes going, coming, there must be people checking and machines checking, checking your luggage, checking. We must also have something that checks inside of us our thoughts, what thoughts are coming there.

[03:40]

We must check these thoughts, good ones, bad ones. We must have guards guarding our inside to see which thoughts come in. We have to check if there is something unwanted, must be thrown away. If countries can do this, we can do also inside of our inner country, which is bigger, very, maybe 4 trillion, 10,000 dots coming in and out, in and out, endless. And so I think the discipline here is guarding and everyone They have guarded their inner self. This place is for exercising this kind of control over our country, our inner self.

[04:44]

And no need to say more than this. Everyone very, alhamdulillah, the people here very well armed. with those people, this check-in, check-in, check-in, check-in. Now, those people, or I call them people, the people that you have to check inside of you, they are always check-in, watching, watching. Now, I don't know if they have rest, or weekends off, to stop from watching. Because this is endless. Our mind endless, going like a fan, always spinning, turning, turning. While we are sitting here, we may be sitting in one room, but each one has their own living room by themselves. Each one saying something, looking at something. And this place I am feeling that is to get people to know themselves.

[05:51]

And that's a big step as in Islam, Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, he's saying, first you have to know yourself. If you know yourself first, then you may get to know Allah, Divine Presence. And so to switch it to say, I want to know Allah, it's to go over your country. First you have to know the borders of your country and their limits. And each one take according to their capacity. America is a big country, it takes so much. But if you are a small country, you must also just watch the borders of your own country. No need to go bigger than yourself. So according to that capacity we have, each one may find something somewhere, as long as they're looking for it, then that question of why are we here, where do we come from, and where are we going?

[07:02]

This is questions everyone asking, where are we coming? And that should be after you know your country first, and you have your borders really well defined. And this Earth is like airplane airplane station. There is departures, people, he told me these names of people that took the airplane departing. And there is arrivals, people being born every day. So arrivals and departures. The arrival and departures, every day people arriving, people departing, and some people are waiting in the room to depart. or waiting for somebody to arrive. This whole earth like this. So I was praying for these ones that departed and giving my honour to all of these ones that are there and praying and giving my most respect to most respected one

[08:15]

Buddha who brought this kind of understanding of your country, your borders, check. After that, if you are guarding very well, then that guard needs rest also. So we are looking at this ocean, this ocean and we are looking at the waves of thoughts that are coming in, coming in. We are looking at them. But that one looking may get tired from looking. We like to give rest to that one looking also. Because if that one is looking, is never resting, always observing, when is that one going to say, it's enough, I want break. Must be when that one dive in that ocean to look for pearls, deep water.

[09:22]

Not looking for waves, but must be swimming in that big ocean, infinite ocean. There are so many infinite oceans we have to get in them to swim. And glory, glorious oceans Subhanallah, we say. Subhanallah bihamdihi, glory to the one that make all these infinite oceans, we like to get in it. Subhanallah bihamdihi, subhanallahul azeem, glory to the greatest one. Maybe this whole earth and the Milky Way and everything we see could be a little speck When you see those specks, the ray of the sun coming, those little specks floating, this whole Milky Way, little speck going floating. SubhanAllah adhi, greatness of Allah.

[10:27]

And astaghfirullah, astaghfirullah, sorry for not understanding the greatness. So we like to, I like to join with you in this praying, all these words that are made by angels, they are always saying, Subhanallah wa bihamdihi, Subhanallah wa al adheem, astaghfirullah, astaghfirullah, forgive me. Subhanallah wa bihamdihi, glory to you with your infinite oceans. SubhanAllahul Azeem, glory to your greatness astaghfirullah, sorry. SubhanAllah wa bihamdihi, SubhanAllahul Azeem, astaghfirullah. SubhanAllah wa bihamdihi, SubhanAllahul Azeem, astaghfirullah. SubhanAllah wa bihamdihi, SubhanAllahul Azeem, astaghfirullah. Subhanallah wa bihamdihi, Subhanallah al adheem astaghfirullah. Subhanallah wa bihamdihi, Subhanallah al adheem astaghfirullah.

[11:34]

Subhanallah wa bihamdihi, Subhanallah al adheem astaghfirullah. Subhana Allah wa bihamdihi, Subhana Allah wa bihadhimu [...] astaghfirullah. Subhana Allah wa bihamdihi. Subhana Allah wa bihamdihi. Subhana Allah wa [...] bihamdihi. Subhana Allah al-'Azim astaghfirullah. Subhana Allah wa bihamdihi.

[12:36]

Subhana Allah al-'Azim astaghfirullah. Subhana Allah wa bihamdihi. Subhana Allah al-'Azim astaghfirullah. Subhana Allah wa bihamdihi. Subhana Allah al-'Azim astaghfirullah. Subhana Allah wa bihamdihi. [...] Subhanallahul Azeem astaghfirullah, Subhanallah wa bihamdihi. Subhanallahul Azeem [...] astaghfirullah, Subhanallah wa bihamdihi. SubhanAllahul Adheem Astaghfirullah, SubhanAllahul Hamdihi, SubhanAllahul Adheem Astaghfirullah, SubhanAllahul Hamdihi, SubhanAllahul Adheem Astaghfirullah Astaghfirullah, Astaghfirullah, sorry, forgiveness, forgiveness.

[13:47]

Forgiveness O Allah, forgiveness. Forgiveness because our egos likes to be something, likes to be important. Therefore, sitting so high like this making my ego feel happy. Astaghfirullah. Even if I try to say, I am nothing, my ego say, no, you are something. It never gives up. This is the biggest fight. Jihad is against our nafs. Nafs, number one, enemy. Nafs, number one. And the word, attractive of the word. After that, pleasures. Pleasures. And then, bad intentions. These four enemies, not saying other people are your enemy, only your nafs, your ego.

[14:53]

dunya, this world, attachment to it and pleasures. They're abstract but this America full of pleasure. Everyone attracting pleasure, pleasure, come for pleasure and bad intentions, bad ideas. May Allah forgive us from straying away. So I feel this place, the vibration of this place for guarding and getting watching, seeing. We have to say, Allah is watching me, Allah is with me and Allah is in my company. If we do this, we know we don't want to do something by ourselves when no one is watching. It's easy to act well when we are together. We are in this place, in a sense, very good environment.

[15:58]

But if we go out driving and somebody may be driving suddenly in front of us, forgetting to stop, we may say bad words. Quickly everything we learn here means nothing. No control. Our anger, anger, that's what we have to control, our anger. But positive anger is okay. If you went to garden, you must get angry a little bit, cutting bad leaves and with the wind now cleaning all the leaves falling, making the garden to look good. Our inner garden must be also weeding out all the bad weeds from it, making our garden to be good. And you must have fence over your garden. If you don't have fence, any animals can come and eat your fruits. animals, not animals, but human animals that are not discovering how to be humans.

[17:03]

So you must guard your garden with a fence, this fence, and making sure to weed your garden first. They ask a gardener, what is important, to water or to weed? He said to weed. Number one, if you water without weeding, Bad plants can grow also. And they be having bad plants, cactus, so much thorns in it, touching, hurting people. And short temper, somebody you may speak with, quickly they are thorny. And they say, how come I don't have any friends? They themselves are repulsive. Whenever they are taking bad weeds out, throwing away. And Someone, they clean their weeds very well, clean their gardens, everything, but they don't have any friends. Anyone can come to their garden, enter it quickly and take care of eating all your fruits that you've been planting.

[18:04]

Someone come eating and then leaving. And that happens between sometimes relationships, mostly some big problems. coming from someone saying, I've been nice to you, I love you, and then they come, eat all your fruits. You have nothing left. You must make a good fence for your garden. Training this place, training for that. And in Islam, we call our fence, it has a name, we call it Sharia, means rules and regulations. It must have those rules and regulations. to protect your garden. And without those rules and regulations, anyone come and eat in your garden, all of it, finish. So that's why Islam is not liked by people who don't like the fence.

[19:06]

They like to grow their garden, they say, we are open, anyone can come. But ask them, do you close your door at night when you sleep? They said, yes. You close the back door? They said, yes. When they put their bicycle, you said, do you lock your bicycle? They said, yes. And they put their car, you lock your car? They said, yes. Why leave everything open? They said, no, no, no. Must be someone taking advantage of my things, must be guarding. And no one leaving their door opens. before we sleep at night because at night you are vulnerable. You sleep in, you don't know who's coming, who's going. If she's sleeping before me, my wife, she said, make sure you close the doors. She's making sure. And you close the back door. You know kids, they have their bicycle downstairs. Make sure that down in the basement, that door also must be closed. Why? We're closing everything.

[20:08]

If we are doing it for our houses, our cars, our bicycles, why not for our inside selves? Why not closing everything? Making sure no one stealing what we are having. Must be some system of closing. Some kind of system. In Islam they give you that system. They say here is that system. You must close your inner garden with this fence. And then you can open the door of your garden and invite people that you like. Say, you are suitable for my garden. Come, we'll sit and have a relationship based on love. And here is the kind of fruit I have. Each one have special fruits on their own garden. It is said that everyone has their own this one.

[21:09]

Templates. Police, they say, if you put your templates, we know who you are. It means you are something no one can have but you, this. And that's why people fight between them. Everybody has a unique way of seeing something. And when we use our uniqueness, then it's easy to fight. Because everybody is true to their uniqueness. If we are using our oneness, five fingers, five fingers, that oneness, everybody can be together. But we have both. We have both of them. So because we have both of them, sometimes the misuse of the uniqueness and the oneness, when we misuse them, we don't understand each other. Instead of allowing somebody to be unique and get into the oneness with them, That person is unique, I am also unique.

[22:11]

Never we are going to meet each other because my uniqueness is very powerful. That uniqueness could be for the individual, could be for a whole country. America is unique. They are the only one who they have Thanksgiving on Thursday. Last Thursday of this November. Nowhere else you can find this one. to themselves and everybody must follow Thanksgiving. It's very unique so there is a general uniqueness and there is your own uniqueness also. And that one because of this there is wars between countries because everyone are seeing something unique. Some we are saying 9-11 that what happened is very bad. Others they say no, it was a self-defense, a unique way of seeing it.

[23:18]

We were defending ourselves, so I have to go there to defend ourselves. They are using their unique way of seeing it, they say self-defense. We're saying no, it's terrorism or it's how we see it, how they see it. That's using our uniqueness. If he was in oneness they wouldn't be able to do that because those people are us. If you kill someone as if you killed all of us. We are that person. I worked at the pool and I was always believing I am Moroccan and these people are Americans. I am unique because I am Moroccan. And of course the ego likes to be important so I'm big shot. And it's easy if you're Moroccan to say, back home I used to jump over seven donkeys. Who's gonna try to find out if you really do or didn't?

[24:20]

So you can do many things. So you are unique. And then one morning I was taking the covers off the pool, six o'clock in the morning in the winter, it was dark. And I was working with another lifeguard and showing him how to pull the covers. And he was coming out of the door and he screamed, he said, Oh my God. I said, why? What's happened? He said, look there. And I just looked at the backpack. And I said, this is just a backpack. You were thinking it was a raccoon. You're afraid of a raccoon. He said, now look by the backpack. There is a man. And he couldn't move. He was shocked. I went running. I squatted and looked. There was a man face down. And there was a gun in the water, in the shallow pool. This is king pool. I was looking at that man floating. Hands, thumbs inside here.

[25:22]

Fetal position. Going back to original. I was looking at him. I told him to call police and at the same time I was looking at him like that another side of my mind never accepting a human being dying was saying the other side of my mind was saying this man lost a toy yesterday with his son they were playing that gun is a toy and there were some other toys and he was looking and he doesn't want to be bothered and he has goggles. Even though he didn't have goggles in the water he was moving and he was looking all night long. That's one side. Never human being accepting. And then the connection between me and him there's no more he's American I am Moroccan. We are one human beings.

[26:25]

That place So in dying, we connect, all of us, same thing. So that was a lesson. Even though we can speak about oneness, you have to experience it. Just say, ah, we are one. We speak about it, speak about it. May Allah forgive us. So he was 32 years old. He left a message in his backpack saying, I am finished, I would like to go. So he has left there but he left a big impression in me about human beings and how his heart was very construct or small couldn't find any solution his heart was not wide to accept burdens part of the fate is to accept burdens and problems and He was restrained so much that he couldn't stand it anymore.

[27:26]

He said, I am leaving. So he left. That oneness between all human beings is what we should seek for. And the uniqueness that everybody has is what makes us to fight between each other. Even if you are with your wife, she has something unique about how she does something. Even when I drive with my wife, we always fight. If she is driving, I am sitting near her. I want her to do park here, turn left here, don't go there. And I can't help it. Even though I am back seat driver, I am front seat driver. And telling her, go here, go there, go there. She was going to park far away there. She was going to turn. I said, no, no, don't turn. Go closer, because I don't want to walk all the way from there to here.

[28:27]

I'm a very important guy. And then we saw a red cone. He was standing, fixing the place for us. And that was something that we didn't plan. Therefore, there must be something you don't plan, but it is there. Only in America, I found something they do ahead of time, before anything appears, they have it. It's called TV Guide. They have a whole week of every program, what's going to happen, even though the week is not even lived. If they, human being, can make programs, TV Guide like this, What do you think about divine TV guide? Where everything is programmed. Now they have computer, they say program. You program everything ahead of time. There is another program for everybody where they were going to sit today, how many breaths you're going to take.

[29:29]

Everything is there in that program. And sometimes program may change. Because baseball game is this, we're not going to show. If the baseball game is longer, change in programs. But it is there. We have to understand that we are seeing everything as something that is programmed ahead of time before us. We don't know it, but doesn't mean it's not known. It is there all the time. There was a man trying to look at that divine TV guide and he's looking in the place where is written Who is going to be with who? And he's looking, this person must marry that person, putting them in sticks like that. I put them together, together, together. And one young prince, emperor, the son of emperor said to him, what are you doing?

[30:31]

He said, I am putting people together that I am seeing in that program. Whoever is there, I am remembering it. He said, how about me? Who is with me? He said, I see you going to marry the most poorest girl in this country. And she's born and she's only eight, nine months. And she's the daughter of the most poorest shepherd in this country. And he gave him the name and the place. And the emperor's son was very angry. So if I marry her, what are the people going to say? They're going to treat me like nothing. I want to change the program. So he was thinking about how to change the program. He said, if I get rid of her, then she will not be mine. And he felt sorry about getting rid of her because of the parents. He said, I will give them two gold bags in exchange for her life. So at night he went, took with him a sharp

[31:34]

a knife and cut the throat like that and left the bags and left running because it was dark. He did this quickly and left. The mother wakes up every one hour and a half, two hours. She must wake up because she has a small bladder. She has to go to the bathroom. She can't sleep full night. And she's used to do it so many years, she doesn't have to put the light on. She knows where the bathroom is and comes back. My wife does this all the time. And then she went, she found, she heard something, she looked, she found her daughter in that position. She took her daughter quickly to this doctor and give him half of her bag. She said, save my daughter. The doctor was very good. He so quickly saw her, saw everything and put her back. And then she lived. With the other bags of gold that was left, she put some in the stock.

[32:39]

Put in the stock, the stock market, the dojo, the dojo, Nascar. Is it called NASCAR or something like that? NASDAQ. NASDAQ. He put in the Belgian and NASDAQ. They say there is not enough petrol oil. They say sometimes the price is going up two pennies down, two pennies up for the price of gasoline. Sometimes I see on TV they say gasoline is going up, gasoline is going down. And then sometimes I see those NASCAR ones. They are wasting gasoline going round and round. Why wasting so much? For what? And people are looking, those people going around. Burning gasoline to reach nothing. Going around, around like this. So the dojo and everything went up. The price of what she invested, double, triple, quadruple, she became very big success.

[33:48]

And after her daughter grew up, they were having big mansion with this horses running, stallions running and workers everywhere and cheerleaders whenever they come they have cheerleaders cheering them, Dallas cheerleaders. And music, Sosa music, that kind of music playing around. And so when the emperor, the son of the emperor became adult they told him that you are ready to get married with the most suitable for you, that girl. So they marry her, they marry him, that girl. And through looking at her, he found out something there. He said, what is this? She told him the story. He said, I was that one. Because the program cannot lie. What's there must be. So what he did, he forced the program. What he did actually forced the program to be just the way it's supposed to be.

[34:53]

So sometimes we are forcing our own programs. Don't say we are changing the program. So the best way to do what? Surrender. I'm accepting this program. Sometimes somebody tells you, if you take this shortcut, you'll come to this house half hour earlier than you go 101 this, this, take 580. Then you take 580, find big sign saying road blocks. They are fixing something. And then what that person told you to come early becomes the other way around. The exact opposite. You're sitting behind your cars, in front of your cars. You can't leave. You are sitting. New programs must be surrendered. I'm accepting this program. But we get mad. Who is there looking around? What's there? How can I get out of here? Must be that program. So every program is coming to us according to where we are at and looking at your life, finding the program, looking far away to your life is some kind of awareness that people do here.

[36:09]

I am thinking. I don't know about Buddhism except him. I know him. But I'm thinking that it's about watching your thoughts, what's going on, what's going in, something like this. I'm not very good with Buddhism. But I think there is a connection of oneness and watching the watcher, Raqib. It's one of the names of Allah, is Al-Raqib or Al-Shahid is watching, the watcher, watching. Must be good for human beings to watch themselves. Unfortunately, our egos, that is the problem. And everybody has a tunnel ego. Some have long tunnels, mostly going forward. They come out from there and say, no, no, I have still a little bit more. Okay. Some have short tunnels, they quickly come out and say, I don't want to be like this. I want to control myself. I think we are here with the awareness of how to get off from this tunnel.

[37:13]

This tunnel that is inviting so many people come down to that dark place. These tunnels that keep us miserable. Most miseries come in from this invitation to go to tunnel ego, pleasures, desires, attachments. That is very similar to what Buddhism is teaching. I think To talk a little bit more, Sun Luki must bring me a big coffee latte. And chocolate croissants. Then I can talk a little bit more. How about, first of all, this glass of water. No caffeine. Since your instrument is I wonder if you would play and sing something, because if the instrument's there... It must be for use.

[38:15]

That's right. And then maybe you can take some questions. We'll have questions, some questions here, and then we go outside and have tea. But it'd be nice to have a few questions here, but I think we have tea. It's not in tune. It's not programmed to be in tune today. La ilaha illallah, la ilaha illallah, la ilaha illallah, la ilaha illallah.

[39:19]

La ilaha illa Allah, la ilaha illa Allah, la ilaha illa Allah, la ilaha illa Allah. La ilaha illa Allah, la ilaha illa Allah, kullu rabbit sayyibu. Mada jarid, mada dawid, shaji la mshitub. Hadi la mshitub, zriba luliyan. Hadi hidar nibi, liba ghayat salan. Whoever wants medicine, drink a cup of milk. Drink a cup of milk and give it to the Arab. There is no god but Allah. There is no god but Allah. There is no god but Allah. For the sake of my Lord. Thank you very much.

[41:03]

It was called Gimri. And I think la ilaha illallah means it has negation and like yin and yang has one negative and one positive. La means no. So the first letter that is important in Islam is the word la is no. It is good to say no. Before you say yes. If you say no, you have room to say yes. But if you say yes, it's hard to say no. If you say no, after you said yes, they get angry at you. So, you said yes, now you say no. But if you said no, later when you say yes, they are happy. So now they are teaching not to say no to children. Everything children say, yes, [...] yes. Now you say no, children they lay down, they do tantrum. I've seen them in a shopping place, laying down doing tantrum.

[42:08]

Because everybody saying yes, yes, yes. Why? Say no. You want something? No. Please, please, no. Only if you do this, this, this, this. Only I need to make a fence on your garden. Then after this, okay, ah, thank you. Yeah, somebody wants to marry you, say no. And then later on, please, please, please, okay. If he say yes, finish. So that la ilaha, no deities or nothing should be important on this world, la ilaha. And then illa, bad, Allah. Means everything here is not real. Only Allah is real. What is Allah? Something beyond your mind conceptions. You cannot know what Allah is. Not know. That's why we say who? Means him, not him who is not here. Like my son Ibrahim, he is not here, I say him.

[43:12]

No, who is here and there but unknown. No one knows what Allah is. No one. Only Allah knows Allah. For someone to know Allah, must be also Allah. Two to know each other. That level. But it cannot be two. Only one. Therefore, we don't know. Everything you say this is Allah, it's not. Whatever you think Allah is, it is not. It is something beyond. Therefore, Buddhism say don't think about that. Work on yourself, which is good. After you reach that place called Allah, there is no need for words. It is beyond words. It is something else. That word is called La ilaha illa Allah. La ilaha illa Allah. La ilaha illa Allah. There is no one real but you. You are the only real one. Everyone saying la ilaha illallah, [...] la ilaha illallah.

[44:26]

And when we say it in movement, we say la is no, ilaha, no deities, illa, we drop it down to the navel. And Allah, we put it on the heart. We put Allah in our heart. Since Allah is infinite, means our heart is infinite. It has that place. So we hit it there. We say, la ilaha illallah, la ilaha illallah, la ilaha illallah. But illallah, just like if you have a barbecue and you put in charcoal, sometimes you have something that goes like this to fire the charcoal. You fire your heart with that Allah. You keep going like this, like this until your heart burns with that fire of love. Allah saying, I was a hidden treasure and I wanted to be found so I made you guys. You have to find me. But there is a price to find that treasure.

[45:28]

You have to offer yourself to find that treasure. I'm not good at answering questions. If we went to your mosque, would we be chanting? Is that how you have your service? We have two services. There is a Friday service where we sit like this. There's a sermon. I used to say serments, but they say sermon. There's a sermon, two sides of that sermon, and then everybody stand up and we do our prayers, the surrendering of the body. That's on Friday, one o'clock. And then on Saturday, we have a group, we do circles, and we're sitting together, men sitting with men, women sitting with women in circles, or they're laying on the wall, and we all chant together.

[46:33]

Yeah, we close the lights, So it's dark because we are working on the hearts. So we don't look at somebody and say, oh look he has glasses, this one has grey hair, that one is wearing glasses. Because you have to get rid of the five senses completely and we're just saying la ilaha illallah, that's one. And we do other things like what we did subhanallah wa bihamdihi, subhanallah wa azeem, subhanallah wa bihamdihi, subhanallah wa azeem. Or we do sometimes just Allah, [...] like that. And we do it for about an hour, 45 minutes on Saturday. That's called dhikr. this stick because every TV must have a receiver. And because Because we live by the moment.

[47:44]

If I had written a speech, for example, yesterday, or two days ago, or three days ago, I wrote what I'm going to speak about Islam. That written down speech will be fresh at that moment. But if you bring it today, and I start reading for you, looking, reading, it will not be fresh like now. So, to be connected, you have to have a password like a computer and then you log in. So, I used this, I did like this three times and I said, O Allah, I have to repeat it to see because sometimes you forget the words. Allahumma tahhar qalbi minal kufri wal nifaq. O Allah, clean my heart. from covering the truth and being a hypocrite.

[48:48]

Being a hypocrite, I can speak about great things that I myself don't do and covering the truth. So I did this, O Allah, clean my heart from hypocrisy and to cover the truth. I did it three times and I will put it back here. Now it's lagging. Because we like fresh sticks. I used to take bath from here to Concord. I used to be a cook there. I used to cook Moroccan cuisine. I used to be chef for four or five years. I didn't have the license to drive. I didn't know how to drive. So I had to take bath. When I take bath, first thing I do look for used to be empty because three o'clock. four o'clock going to Concord. No one going there at that time. And I look at newspapers. Because what are you going to do sitting down like this? You must read something. So I look at newspapers.

[49:51]

I find them. Sometimes people leave newspapers. I find them. I look first the dates. If it's today, I read it. If it's two days, three days, no need. Because we like fresh things today. They say give us our daily bread. because I don't want to give you two days old bread. You'll be stalled, you want fresh bread. So to prepare yourself and this is because every moment is a fresh moment, it's just coming. The moment we're coming, walking, now we are sitting and after this moment we are moving to another place where this moment will be finished. It will not repeat itself again. Each moment is unique and great and wonderful. So we have to take advantage of that moment. If bringing all papers and reading, they kill the presence of the moment completely. This is called miswak and the prophet used it.

[50:56]

It kills a germ in the mouth. They said they try to put this in Colgate to see which one. They said the chemical from this kills the bacteria for three days. Because we have a lot of it there. And then the Colgate, two hours, again we are rebuilding. So that's what we use this for. And it gives good speech and takes the phlegm out of the phlegm you say? Phlegm. Phlegm. Without pronouncing the G. Takes the phlegm out of your throat. It's called miswak. It's done by the prophet. Prophet before he spoke he used this. And he prayed like that. So this is we are repeating something. This is some so many little things unknown about Islam. Unknown. One more. After you sat down, I looked up and I said, Oh my God, it's the lifeguard. And when King Pool was closed, you and the people who swam there came over to Willard Pool, where I swim.

[52:09]

And as you were speaking, I was thinking, I mean, within two weeks, you knew everybody's name who swam at Willard Pool, in addition to all the people who were swimming there from pink king pool and it was 530 in the morning and you had this same very friendly energy and I don't have a question I just wanted to say that it's very obvious to see the connection between the practice and the work life and I really appreciate that. Because every human being you meet you must try to understand that it talks to universe and It took me, I am 47, it took me 47 years to meet some people. 47 years on this world to be here today, meet him, meet you, meet you. This is very unique. So many years took the universe to make us so we can meet this moment. We can see it like that or say, some people are here, they go on.

[53:16]

I try to see everyone as very unique and they have angels on their right and on their left. Those angels sitting, writing, not with the pen, but they're recording what you're doing. On the right one, writing everything good you're doing. He's the chief. On the left one, writing bad things you do. But cannot write until this one tell him, okay, write that one. After three days, if you don't say sorry for what you did, then that one will be written on you. At the end, they give you your videotape. Here is your videotape. You take the videotape to the borders, you know, flight going. When you take your traveling, they check you. What's you have in this videotape? What did you bring with you? If you bring So many things you didn't understand, they put you in a place called a hospital. And that hospital is a spiritual hospital. They call it Hellfire. I call it a hospital. You go there because if you go to the hospital, it's a place for punishment.

[54:21]

You see people hanging their legs. Some people, they put food here. You can't chew on it. You have to... liquid going. They say you can't eat, you have to have it like that. And everyone is sitting... Go to the hospital, you'll see. That's only for the physical body, what we call our donkey here. But a spiritual hospital, it takes your anger away, your vengeance, your deceitful things to work on you there in that hospital called Hellfire. And each one has a term to stay there. Some days stay for 3 months, 4 months, 5 months. But that time there is different than here. One day is 1,000 years there. So you don't want to go there. After they work on you there, they let you go to paradise. But everybody will know that written on you, written, just been released from hospital. Say, what have you done? I know I was doing this. So hellfire is good, it's not bad.

[55:24]

It's a hospital to clean people that didn't want to clean themselves here. Therefore, this place here, what is this? It is a hospital to work on your inner self. There is some kind of hospital, so when people come here and they sit and they reflect and they watch, they go out healthier. Those who don't watch and they don't care, they go to the hospital later on. Say, come you didn't watch yourself, stay here until you know what you are doing. May Allah forgive us. Thank you.

[55:52]

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