PRACTICAL TIPS TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE | SHEIKH OMAR SULEIMAN | MOTIVATION | ISLAMIC LECTURES

you know honestly i wanted to just kind of leave everyone with some practical tips because allah azza tells us in the quran that those who seek guidance will be guided dear brothers and sisters i'm going to try to inshallah i'll make it short i'm not going to go longer than maghrib so i won't go more than 30 minutes insha'allah and you know honestly i wanted to just kind of leave everyone with some practical tips because i know that one of the things that usually happens is when you go to a convention when you go to a conference wow that talk was mind-blowing that was awesome did you hear what what what brother naman said did you hear what this what this speaker said did you hear what brother omar said you hear what brother costume said what did you did you hear that did you hear what dr otto said but at the end of the day we really don't make much change there isn't really much practicality sometimes that's the fault of the speakers sometimes that's the fault of the listeners um and here's the thing i know that this topic has probably been regurgitated hundreds of times under the guise of different titles different khutbas how i can change now but you know he said something very powerful because allah tells us in the quran that those who seek guidance will be guided those who seek it will be guided so essentially what allah azza tells us is that if you really want to change then the first thing is that you have to want if you really want to change then the first thing is that you have to recognize that there is something about you that needs to be changed looking at yourself recognizing those things as brother naman said not blaming anyone else for anything not looking at the world and and suffering from analysis paralysis you know where we'll just sit around and complain and whine and the same brother that's talking about how terrible everything is in is in gaza and how terrible everything is in pakistan and africa is the same one who won't do who won't put forth even an hour's worth of volunteering towards his masjid or towards any islamic cause but i want to really focus more on the individual i think brother man covered very well the idea of a society you know how we how we can change as a community but if a person is changed then allah subhanahu wa inshallah through that person would change many things in the community so it starts with each and every single one of us here's the thing if you want to change when a person is really deeply involved in some sort of thought when something is is heavy on his mind heavy on his heart then everything around him will be a guide towards that thing let me put it to you this way uh how many of you guys have met annoying newlyweds where's your hands how many of you guys are annoying newlyweds nobody no i don't think so i was about to call you out good call none of you are annoying you know the people that go around and all of a sudden you you put like a thousand pictures on your facebook the day after your wedding and i'm like shouldn't you be doing something else today after your wedding and uploading a thousand pictures and and it's like you've got these cute little shirts that point to each other and there's thing one and think two and i'm hers and i'm his and all kind of stuff and it's like people really don't care that much about your life but anyway the thing is is that whenever you fall in love or whenever a person gets engaged let me tell you what happens from a guy's perspective one day this same guy wants to play basketball all the time wants to always hang out annoys his married friends because he's not understanding enough to understand that the married guy has to get home by midnight wants to go hang out all the time and every you know at any time in the day then all of a sudden he gets engaged and he never answers his cell phone again until a year later whenever he wants to run away from his wife and he wants to hang out again look for an excuse to hang out right but the point is is when that person is in love when that person is overwhelmed when that person is overcome when that person is really in that mood subhanallah everything they look around everything they see around them reminds them of love right like oh that empty paper cup in the parking lot it's so beautiful look how it just goes with the winds i wish i could be that paper cup in her house and just float around and all that stuff you know like all that here's the thing you love allah subhanahu wa ta'ala everything around you has meaning all of a sudden every single thing you really have a sense of urgency allah subhanahu ta'ala will show you the way to change because you know what at the end of the day it's different for everybody all of us have our different demons including me including brother nurman including brother qasim including dr araf inclu all of us we've all got our own set of problems and every single problem has its specific solution allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is the one who guides you to that but the first thing you have to have is a sense of urgency don't worry about anyone else don't worry about what other people are doing may allah have mercy on a person who is too busy with his own faults to be worried about anybody else's faults a sense of urgency i've got to make my relationship right with allah subhanahu ta'ala i'm going to meet allah subhanahu wa ta'ala maybe tomorrow it could be very very very soon i need to make sure that when i meet him i'm prepared for that interview so here's what i'm going to give you because i know that we all have practicality issues with some of the lectures so i just typed up five things these are five tips if you want to take notes you can if you don't take notes and lectures then you waste your time in most of your lectures the first one eliminate the poisons in your life that aren't allowing you to change how many of you guys have ever seen a person um i know i deal with bums all the time right anyone who deals in relief work or any imams any imam or something like that you'll always have the guy that you know that was a loser from a dunya perspective and usually when you're a loser from a dunya perspective you're also not very disciplined spiritually walks into the masjid reeking of alcohol brother you know i thought we agreed you're going to make a change i thought that something was going to happen oh i'm a changed man i go home more now i go to work every single day what's he not recognizing the alcohol right the same way spiritually you have to recognize the poisons in your life that will prevent you from coming close to allah subhanahu wa it's do you really think allah subhanahu ta'ala is going to give you khushu and your salah when your eyes have been all over the place all day and all of a sudden you think you're going to go to salaam salah is going to be okay you really think allah subhanahu ta'ala is going to allow you to enjoy that relationship with him if right before salah you were sitting on g chat and facebook or whatever and you know you're chatting with whoever it is and then two minutes left in salah time astra's at 4 38 it's 4 36 brb gotta go make salah right then you put a smiley face or something like that you go hurry up and rush and make your salah and come back and you write fml almost missed my salah or something like that uncles don't understand that don't work on that acronym okay the point that i'm trying to say is you really think allah is going to give you change like that you really think your will mean anything that you'll be able to get any out of that and essentially what that teaches us is that the prophet salallahu he taught us about this heart this is what your kalba is a space you fill it up with you fill it up with anything else you're not going to be you're not going to have any space for allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in there so the very first thing the very first step to making that change as an individual eliminate the things in your life that are a hindrance to you excelling in your relationship with allah subhanahu wa ta'ala get rid of those things before you go do good deeds you know what like imam safiyani thought allah said a very beautiful statement he was asked where is the priority is doing good deeds or seeking forgiveness and he said if you have a dirty thobe you don't accessorize it you clean the stain you clean the stain you wash the stain off if you got a big old brown stain on your white shirt and you go and you put 200 cufflinks on people are not going to notice the cufflinks people are going to look at the stain get rid of the stains then you can start talking about all these all these things that you can do unfortunately you know subhan allah spirituality the notion of spirituality so this this concept of progressive islam slash just spirituality and ignoring the commands of allah subhanahu wa is essentially the same thing that the christians did essentially what paul proposed it allows you to act as a fool your entire life not do anything in accordance with the quran and the sunnah but to do like something super spiritual so that you can feel good about yourself so essentially what you're doing is you're giving to allah subhanahu wa ta'ala what you want to give him not what he wants you to give him you know i'll go and i'll pray and i'll do this extra qiyam the problem is not the qiyam the problem is that you're doing the things that will stop your qiyam from being accepted the problem is not your dua the problem is what you do after dua and before dua that's the problem that you're having eliminate the stains from your life and then you would find that you naturally would start to come close to allah subhanahu wa ta'ala because once your heart becomes clean and honest your heart starts naturally inclining towards allah subhanahu wa into allah your fitra so eliminate the things that corrupt your fitrah number two an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure you know some people subhanallah they wait for really really really bad things to happen they wait to see the consequences of their sins before they change those things an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure what happens is that shape on claws he digs you into this hole or you dig yourself into this hole it's a lot harder harder to climb out of that hole than to have taken care of it in the first place he says and i want you to think about this prevention before you commit mistakes you know some people subhanallah are just very weak we're all weak right but some people just wait to mess up and then i'll try to figure it out put aside the flaws you already have don't go any further he says that every single action that you commit every single sin that you commit goes through the following stages number one it's passing thoughts number two after it's a passing thought it becomes a fikra subtle thought you start thinking about it hey what about that you know shaitaan caught your gaze with something he caught some he got you with some sort of interest let me start thinking about this you start to entertain that thought you were not strong enough to cut off yourself before you could entertain that thought you know some people subhanallah immediately the instinct because their iman has become strengthened it takes a long time to really to raise yourself to purify yourself the minute that something walks by or the minute that they see something or that they're approached by something that's haram immediately they go into there's no time there for that i mean the amount of time the time that lapses before they do is to go back to allah subhanahu ta'ala is very small some people passing thought then i start entertaining the thought after i've entertained the thought enough shaytaan has told me about how great the benefits of this action are going to be and essentially we commit sin because we think that it's going to serve some sort of benefit to us we think it's going to give us some sort of pleasure and it usually does for a temporary time then it becomes a knee i have the intention to commit that sin after i have the nea the intention to commit that sin once i've made the intention to commit something nothing's going to stop me then it becomes azimah i'm determined to commit that sin no matter what stops me right at first i was very hesitant now i'm full force you know i'll give you an example there is a sister that i knew that wanted to take off her hijab just to rebel against her father that's that was the only reason she wanted to offer hijab she was telling my wife she was saying the first day she went to school she felt so uncomfortable without her hijab that she threw her hoodie on she didn't wear hijab but she threw her hoodie on next thing you know the hoodie came off a few days right i have the intention next thing you know then the tank tops came then the cleavage came then the short skirts came too why because you start becoming determined then to commit that sin your heart became hard into that that sin has become humanized to you hey this isn't so bad you became an addict and that's why once you have azim it becomes it surfaced it became action once it becomes action it becomes ad becomes a bad habit once you have a systematized sin in your life trust me that will kill your dua that will kill your salah that will kill your your opportunity to get close to allah subhanahu wa s to purify us from the sins and from the mistakes that cause our duras to be cut off and that caused the anger of allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to descend upon us if you keep on with a bad habit if you keep on with the sin i want you to think about this subhanallah rasulullah islam tells us that at one point you become defined by your sin just like at one point you become defined by your good deed in bukhari the prophet saws said that a person would tell the truth so much he would be so truthful till he's written with allah subhanahu ta'ala not that he told the truth one time this is a truthful person this is someone who is truthful in his faith and then a person would lie so much not that he told the lie here or there until he's written with allah subhanahu ta'ala your name with allah is a liar subhanallah you become defined by your traits you become defined by your deeds so the second thing dear brothers and sisters again is that an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure stop yourself before you fall into those situations number three i just type these up by the way so i'm using my iphone i'm sorry number three anyone ever heard of the acronym kiss nobody keep it simple stupid that's what it means now because some brothers always get offended whenever i say that in khutbas i changed it to keep it simple sunnah just to make it okay for everybody some brothers like brother you should have said keep it simple smart don't insult your brothers okay keep it simple sunnah we can all agree upon that rasool allah tells us that when a person goes to his grave and surname that he would it's not that he's going to want to come back and he's going to want to establish he's going to wish he would have a moment to come back and establish khilafah and liberate palestine those types of things or you know build the new masjid and those types of things yes those are great things i'm not saying those are bad things but when you go to your grave what are the things that you're praying for what are the things that you miss what do you really want he would come back and wish he could just offer two rakas just two so that allah might forgive him with those two find something small in your life that you're capable of doing and stick with it eventually that will accumulate eventually that might be the cause of you entering into jannah subhanallah when a person finds something small that he can do i can't change the situation in palestine right now i can at least try to change it right now in my own community can at least do something here you know subhanallah most masajid whenever there are the the new board elections and the new committee elections and things of that sort you have like 30 committees that are formed right and brothers bring out their nice agendas i don't know the politics of any of masajid here by the way none so you can't accuse me of being being involved in anything here but usually what happens in every masjid brothers bring out their long agendas this is what we're going to do this is what we're going to do this is what we're going to do three months later wait i'm on a committee you know what are you talking about i didn't know that people completely forget what they committed to that's why the prophet saws said what is narrated that the most beloved actions to allah you know the most consistent of them even if they're very very very small i'm going to give you guys a story actually do i have time i have time to tell this story inshallah i'll give you guys the story and imam at the peak of his life before the fitness start even after the fitness started was the most famous man in the muslim ummah hands down fact that imam and allah says this was the largest janazah that took place in a matter of one day he died and he was buried in the same day you had 1.3 million people come and pray janaz on him that's more than the pope more than pope john paul with all the all the media and holding his body out imagine how popular and beloved he was used to go around to his students halakhas used to go around seeking knowledge from other people wrapping his face so people wouldn't notice him very humble person because he didn't want people to put him on a pedestal one day he was traveling to asham to syria what's what we would call syria today but of course it's syria palestine lebanon and jordan hashem and he tells the story and of course back then you know you don't imam rahim allah didn't have a facebook page [Music] he didn't know how he looked he walks into a masjid to spend the night and the hardest the guard of the masjid tells him get out is closing he said but i have nowhere to go i don't know where to go he said get out get out is closing he didn't sit there and say by the way no he didn't play that card just get out picked up his stuff and he slept on the steps of the masjid the harris came and started hey move go you can't even sleep here go move away like where am i going to go i don't know anything this man not knowing who he's messing with picks up imam ahmed rahimahullah by his legs and he drags him to the middle of the street and drops him then what happens a baker who owns a bakery right across the street he comes to him and he says you can come sleep in my bakery tonight i'll be doing some work you can come sleep here so he opens the way for him observes this man he's sitting there and he's you know putting the dough together and he's putting in the oven and everything that he does while he's kneading the dough he's going subhan shocked usually people get tired of testimony after two minutes three minutes shocked this guy is constantly making tasmir at his workplace he's not sitting in that just at his workplace he has nothing better to do right back then they didn't have little wayne or um you know or junaid jamshad pre what we know he is now right he didn't have his ipod or anything constantly goes how long have you been in this situation he says what situation making tasbih to allah says my whole life this is what i do he says what have you seen from allah subhanahu ta'ala as a result of all this tasbih that you make all these days that you make tasbih obviously jannah and imagine rasulullah tells us each one of these is planting trees and mansions in jannah you can imagine what this man has with allah subhanahu wa ta'ala talk about chains except that he answered it allah he gave it to you he repeated i never made dua to allah for anything except that he gave it to me he said except for one thing brought to tears he embraced this man but then he said subhanallah he said here is allah he brought you ahmed dragging him by his feet to your bakery if it wasn't for you i could have slept in peace at the masjid subhanallah think about that he made use of his time how much time do you kill at a red light going to work how much time do you kill in front of the tv how much time do you waste of your life that you could be planting trees and palaces in jannah that's changed keep it simple sunnah have have a way to have a with not one of these words that's made up by some sheikh somewhere that you're going to be doing no go to the sunnah of the messenger salah and that's sufficient find the things that he used to do on a daily basis and incorporate that in your life so that's number three keep it simple sunnah number four think progress why do i say this is so important how many times do we see a sister that says i don't think i can wear hijab anymore or i'm not going to wear hijab because i feel like a hypocrite because i don't even pray right yeah i've seen it a lot i feel like a hypocrite i feel two-faced when i wear hijab because i know that i'm not really what people think of me we've seen that a lot i don't even pray my five times my five prayers on time i just i can't do this i'd be a hypocrite how shaytaan gets you he makes you think backwards are the brothers in my community who always do this let me tell you what the greatest cop-out of not going to hajaz but sheikh i work in haram how can i use my money and i can go to hajj and then come back and work in haram so instead of getting rid of haram i'm just not going to go to hajj convenient thinking instead of fixing my internal life i'm just never going to wear hijab right or how many times have you heard this question is it halal to fast if you don't pray and have you heard that question before a lot of times a lot of times i hear it all the time and you know some shiv they say no that person should fear allah he's not even a muslim he shouldn't be fasting he should start praying first these types of things why don't you start praying and add that so that your fast can become validated subhanallah think progress don't think backwards shaitan always pulls you this way i didn't mean you by the way it just happened the phone happened to be coming at the same time always pulls you this way and allah subhanahu ta'ala always calls you forward make progress the most profound lecture i've ever heard in my life arabic or english i was going through my old tapes cassette tapes by the way i don't i don't listen to lectures in english anymore honestly i can't subhanallah i love listening lectures in arabic i just that's my own personal inclination there is one person who always does it for me one lecture i found he did this in the 80s called islam means progress it's my cassette i popped it in my car alhamdulillah i don't drive a new car so i still have a cassette player popped it in my car islam means progress one of the greatest lectures i've ever heard in my life if you can find it online find it i don't know if it's been transcribed or it's been put into mp3 islam means progress number four is to think forward number five and this is my last thought insha allah because i promised you i'd finished on time and i've been trying to be good with that recently uh one time a convert two years ago um he converted to islam in the amarat actually in the uae british convert and subhanallah he was reflecting on the manners of the muslims and he said something very profound and i saw it repeated on on facebook a few times and things of that sort he said on your way to becoming a good muslim don't become a crappy human being spanish becoming a more religious person should not make you a jerk it should not make your character worse it should not make you more condescending towards people it should make you make you more humble should make you more loving it should make you more compassionate it should make you more caring don't become a terrible person on your way to becoming a good muslim it starts off just as i was saying with your parents you know subhan allah tells us what what's going to be judged on the day of judgment your that's the heaviest thing that's the heaviest thing your character and when you have nasty manners that is a reflection that on the inside you are actually devoid of iman because if we look at the woman who the prophet saws mentioned who prayed a lot of prayers fasted her fast did all the rituals did all the good things but she was abusive to her neighbor let me put you let me put this in perspective for you and we shouldn't be judging other people the prophet saws was making an example of this woman we it's not our job to do this but let me put let me put this in perspective for you you know a person who was extremely religious and foremost and coming to the masjid all the time and doing all the halakhas if they have bad manners if they have a bad attitude the most you would say is you say that person might get called out on the day of judgment for their bad attitude but you know alhamdulillah they still do this they still do that and we're supposed to make excuses for other people we're not that's our job we make excuses for other people we just don't make excuses for ourselves but the prophet saws said what about this woman what did he say someone tell me no one remembers this hadith the woman who abused her neighbor who was abusive to her neighbors with her tongue she didn't go beat him up she just was abusive to her neighbors with her tongue she prayed she fasted she did what she was supposed to do from a ritualistic standpoint what did rasool allah saysam say about her brothers or sisters she's in hell fire he said something else too rasulallah there is no good inside of her she's in hell fire think about that there is nothing inside of her that's good he often not all of that was was superficial what really counts is when your inner beauty changes that will reflect with your outer beauty too that's why rasulullah says taught us when we look in the mirror we say allah we ask allah for change every time we look in the mirror when you change your clothes you ask allah for a different type of change what do you say the way you beautified my appearance you know you gave me these clothes you allowed me to change into this new pair of clothes you created me you know with some form of symmetry what do you say next correct beautify my inside so we ask allah subhanahu ta'ala to make us amongst those who experience real change who search for guidance and who are guided by his mercy allah amin was

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Keywords: omar suleiman, how to be ome better muslim, self improvement, islamic lectures, motivation

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Length: 29min 13sec (1753 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 15 2020