How to build Tawakkul

Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the messengers and messengers. Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and peace and blessings be upon him. Tasliman kathiran kathira famma ba'du. My brothers and sisters, in Jammu al-Tirmidhi, there is this hadith where Rasulullah, peace and blessings be upon him, is reported to have said, If you were to rely upon Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, with the required reliance, then He would provide for you just as a bird is provided for. It goes out in the morning hungry and returns full. In Jammu al-Tirmidhi, the hadith is reported where Rasulullah, peace and blessings be upon him, is reported to have said, the meaning of which is, If you were to rely upon Allah, if you were to rely upon Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, with the required reliance, then He would provide for you just as a bird is provided for. It goes out in the morning hungry and returns full. We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, to help us to have tawakkul on Him and on Him alone because only He is worthy of being and He is worthy of being relied upon. The question is, how do we build tawakkul? How do we build this reliance on Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, and on Him? And the answer is that we build reliance in the same way that we build reliance on anything else. And that is, by focusing on the power and the strength and the ability to provide of that entity that we are intending to rely upon and also to look at our own history in that relationship. And that is why they say, we should trust, we should verify, verify, verify, verify, verify, verify, intending to rely upon. And the second one is interesting because the second one starts from where the first one finishes, which is that having learnt about the greatness and glory and power and control of the entity we are intending to rely upon, to actually have this reliance, to have this tawakkur, there has to be a leap of faith. A risk has to be taken. At that point of risk, our true belief on this entity is called to question. You really believe. If you really believe, then step forward. I want to tell you two stories. One is a hypothetical story, it's a teaching story. And the other one is a true story that happened to me. The hypothetical story is that there was this man, it's a teaching story, so it's very useful. There was this man who wanted to climb the Matterhorn, which is one of the most famous mountains in India. And he was one of the very difficult mountains to climb in Europe. And he wanted to climb it, climb one particular phase of it, which was a very difficult phase to climb. And nobody had until that time attempted it solo, alone. This man decided that he wanted to do that. So he trained for it and so on, a couple of years. And he came to this mountain, and he said, I want to climb this mountain. And he said, I want to climb it. They were kind of quick people. They were kind of quick people. They were kind of quick people. They were kind of quick people. They were kind of quick people. They were kind of quick people. They were kind of quick people. They were kind of quick people. They were kind of quick people. They were kind of quick people. They were kind of quick people. They were kind of quick people. They were kind of quick people. They were kind of quick people. They were kind of quick people. They were kind of quick people. They were kind of quick people. They were kind of quick people. They were kind of quick people. They were kind of quick people. They were kind of quick people. They were kind of quick people. They were kind of quick people. They were kind of quick people. They were kind of quick people. They were kind of quick people. very early. As he was starting to climb, the weather changed. And it looked like the weather, there was going to be a storm or something. And the weather was not conducive to climbing. So the people around him, they tried to dissuade him. They said, look, just wait. He said, no, I have no time. If I wait, then I lose this opportunity. Then I trained for this for two years. And I have to climb. And let's see, maybe the weather will change for the better. He said, no, the weather prognosis, the weather predictions are that it will get worse. Anyway, the man didn't listen to the advisors. He started climbing. And as he went higher and higher and higher and higher, the weather kept on worsening until it came to a point where this man was... It was very high up. And it became pitch dark. And there was a terrible wind and gusty wind and pitch dark. And this man is climbing on his own. No help. And then the inevitable happened. He reached up for a handhold. He caught a place in the rock. And as he was lifting himself up, his whole body weight on his one hand. The rock gave way. And he fell. It's pitch dark. He can't see anything. And as he's falling, his whole life flashed before his eyes. And he screamed. He said, Ya Allah. He said, Oh God, help me. He screamed, Oh God, help me. And as he's falling, free falling through the air and, you know... They were kind of quick-witted people. They were kind of quick-witted people. They were quick-witted people. They were quick-witted people. They were quick-witted people. They were quick-witted people. They were quick-witted people. They were quick-witted people. They were quick-witted people. They were quick-witted people. They were quick-witted people. They were quick-witted people. They were quick-witted people. They were quick-witted people. They were quick-witted people. They were quick-witted people. They were quick-witted people. They were quick-witted people. They were quick-witted people. They were quick-witted people. They were quick-witted people. They were quick-witted people. They were quick-witted people. They were quick-witted pendulum but hanging. The fall had stopped. He tried to look around, he can't see anything. The wind is still bad, weather is still bad. But the man screamed again, Oh God, help me. And he heard a voice and the voice said, Do you think I can help you? The man said, Yes, only you can help me. There is no one who can help me except you. Please help me. Please save me. And the voice again said, Are you sure that I can save you? The man said, Yes, only you can save me. Only you can save me. The voice said, Are you sure? He said, Absolutely sure. And the voice said, Then cut the rope. You know, climbers always carry a knife for any emergencies. So he had his knife. The voice said, Cut the rope. The story goes that the storm passed and the sun came out the next day. The whole night passed. The sun came out the next day and a search party went out to look for this man. And they found him clutching his rope with both his hands, frozen to death, four feet from the ground. Four feet from the ground. So reliance means to cut the rope. Cut the rope of the dunya. Cut the rope of reliance on Gairullah. Cut the rope of reliance on anyone. And I want to end with the story of which I told you the personal story. I was climbing. I was actually learning to rappel, learning to abseil, which is you come off a cliff or off the wall, in this case, our case, off the wall of a fort on a rope. And you descend on this rope. So I was learning to do that. And I was with this group of people in the rain. They were kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of you know, that's not your weight, so there is no way on earth that this rope can break when you are hanging on it, and so on and so on, all the fathail of the rope. And then he strapped me into the harness, and I was the leader of the group. Believe me, I was terrified, because I was standing on top of the wall of the fort, a fort called Sinagad, which is in Maharashtra, near Pune. I was on top of the wall of the fort of Sinagad, and I had to abseil, which means walk off the wall backwards. You know, what is worse than that? You're not even looking down where you are. He said, don't look down. You look down, you start feeling dizzy, because it's a few hundred feet down on rocks. So the... The fear is that if you fall, then that's it. But I was the leader of the group, and, you know, I think the only thing which I was feeling is two things. One was fear, one was shame, or the potential shame. But if I say I can't do it, then, you know, I will shame myself before all these people. That is something that I absolutely wasn't going to do. So, after putting on all this stuff, and so on, I remember, this is, I think, easily about 30 years ago. I still remember this, in the pit of my stomach. I took one step off the wall, and I was falling free in the air. Now, obviously, the rope was, you know, if I had completely fallen free, it would have come up short, and they would have got me. So there was a safety rope, and so on. But point being that, at that point, I came off the cliff, and I took that step backwards into air. I cannot describe for you the fear in my belly. And then, I realized that I am in control, and I knew how to lower myself gradually off the wall of the fort. So my legs are braced on the wall, and now I can go up or down as I wish.