Rockefeller’s advice – 4

Auto-generated transcript:We come to Rockefeller's letters and advice to his son, Principle 4. It's a very interesting one. He says, money is fire. Use it or get burnt. And the commentator says that Rockefeller never worshipped money. He compared it to fire. He said it can warm your home or burn it down. It can feed the hungry or destroy the greedy. He donated 500 million and secured his legacy. The interesting thing to understand, as far as money is concerned, is that we live in an environment where we are taught to define ourselves in terms of money, to actually chase money, because we are told that money is what runs the world and therefore your net worth defines you and so and so's net worth is this much and net worth is that much. So effectively you're saying that a person is worth the value of his or her possessions. Now just think about that. Just the thought that your worth, who you are, what you are, your worth is to be measured, or that's what they want you to do, in terms of how many things you have. So whether those are shares in a company or whether they are your houses or cars or whatever, this is your worth. And the whole idea of this is because we live in an environment where the ruling principle is commercialism. The religion is commercialism. And the temples of that religion are the shopping malls, online or online. So you know you buy things with money, you don't say if somebody hasn't bought, if somebody has been in mộtv Bag Que Bagmon Hbt Л ath suppressor dan something bad and then goats come to you. And things like that. Actually I don't think I've done all that, only bought things for myself. And actually I do three things, is to encourage you to buy more. It's to encourage you to buy more, it's to encourage you to buy without thinking because I can always return it. While the people who are selling, they make money as long as they can register a sale. So it doesn't matter how long the person uses that thing which he bought, doesn't matter. As long as he can register a sale, he's fine with that. So therefore, it's something that, you know, therefore the money is what we are chasing. The fact of life is that money is the result of quality effort. So if you produce quality, money will follow. But if you chase money, then money is like a shadow. The more you chase it, the more it goes away from you. If the sun is behind you and your shadow is in front of you, then if you are running behind that shadow, you will never catch it because as you run, the shadow is in front of you. It's always in front of you. You can never catch the shadow. But if you turn around and you face the sun, then the shadow is chasing you. It's not the other way around, right? The shadow is chasing you. So that's how it is. If you are, if you are chasing the sun, if you are chasing quality, if you are chasing quality, then you find that money will come to you. You don't have to worry about money. But if you chase money, then quality will disappear. Because one of the first things that people do when they are chasing money is they are tempted to, I'm not saying everybody does it, but most people do it. They are tempted to sacrifice quality in order to make money. And of course, they will have all kinds of reasons they are doing it. They will make excuses and so on and so forth. But they will try to sacrifice quality and they will try to, you know, take shortcuts in order to make money. This is how the whole thing functions. People are willing to sell their honor because to make money, one of the ways of making money, a dishonorable, horrible way is to take bribes. People will do that. Shaitan tries to tempt them and say that one of the ways of making money is to take bribes. One of the ways to make money is to get into debt. That's how they send you credit cards free in the mail and they sign you on for nothing because then you start buying. You are in their clutches. As soon as you start buying, then of course you have to repay and the longer your repayment, the more money they are making from the interest that you are paying them. So the whole thing is based on how money is made. How money is rolled, how money is used and therefore if you are chasing money, that is a dozer position. The second thing to understand as far as money is concerned from the Islamic principle is that is to remember two things. One is that we are accountable to Allah SWT. No matter what we do, we are accountable to Allah SWT. So no matter who tells you what story. For example, one of the big reasons why people make money and they fall into the haram of interest-based dealings on which Allah SWT declared war is because shaitan and shaitan's agents tricked them into saying that let the money come and once the money comes and we will use it for good deeds and we will do this and do that and give in charity and build a masjid or give money to a mother or whatnot. First of all, all that stuff will still not save you from the wrath of Allah SWT because Allah SWT's hukum and His order is not based on what you do with the money after you get it. How you get the money is an independent question by itself and what you do with the money is another independent question by itself. So one could earn halal and spend haram or earn haram and spend halal but one does not cancel out the other. So if you are earning haram then spending on halal things will not cancel out the haram earning. The punishment of the haram earning remains where it is. And also if it is haram earning then Allah SWT does not accept that money in zakat or does not accept that money in charity. So it's a foolish thing to imagine that. Only people who are ignorant and who have fallen into the drum of shaitan will go on that route. So that's the first thing. Second thing we have to understand is that at the end of the day when we come before Allah SWT we will be questioned about what we did with our money. And therefore if we invest in ourselves in our umrah khairah then one of the best uses of money is to spend it in charity is to spend it to alleviate suffering it is to spend it to help people who are in need and and not in just accumulating all kinds of toys whether they are dinky toy dinky cars or whether they are Ferraris and Bugattis or whether they are little boats or whether they are super yachts they are all toys. And that is the worst possible use of money to do that. Instead of that if you bring smiles to the faces of people who had until then been starving or they needed medical attention or they needed houses or they needed a job or they needed education and so on this is a way of building a legacy which money enables and empowers us to do. So money is like a double edged sword it's like a golden sword for example or a golden knife how you use it is in your control and therefore the important thing is to use it in the best possible way. We have a saying in Hyderabad if you have a golden knife what do you say if you have a gold knife? If it's a golden knife will you commit suicide with it? Because it's golden you stab yourself. No you don't because the knife is a knife whether it's gold or not doesn't matter and therefore you use it wisely for the right reasons and in the right places. So therefore what must you do with the money is I always say this transfer it from your life back account into your Akhira account. Transfer it from this Dunya account into the Akhira account because it's your money it's your money both the accounts are yours if you take the money in this life and spend it in this life you will answer to Allah in the Akhira but if you take the money in this life and spend it on Akhira related things then inshaallah with Allah you will have reward. So it makes eminent sense to take this money and invest it in the Akhira and the investment in the Akhira is in your life. Please do. in all actions of public good, all actions of helping others, all actions which please Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So earn halal and spend halal. This is the winning principle of Islam. But mixing it up is a cause of concern and a problem. So money is fire. Use it or get butt. That's Rockefeller's advice to his son. And that is principle number four.