What is a Big Condition for the Nearness to Allah?
We place much emphasis on worship and expect Allah ta'ala's nearness. In reality, Allah ta'ala is attained via the Faraaid action and not via abundant Nawaafil.
When you gain Allah ta'ala's nearness through the Faraaid, then the Nawaafil will enhance and strengthen the Faraaid and raise its status. It causes any errors and deficiencies to be removed. Thus, one may only find Allah ta'ala through the Faraaid deeds, because the Nawaafil cannot be compared to the status of a Fard action.
We tend to place greater emphasis on voluntary actions. This is because Shaytan has diminished our hope in the Faraaid, although we should be focusing on it more.
On the other hand, despite performing the Faraaidh, we fail to attain Allah ta'ala. In many cases, a person has faith and engages in abundant worship, yet he is still far from Allah ta'ala. This is because his worship is incomplete.
In reality, there are two parts to worship. Performing physical acts of worship and shunning sins. Until we implement both parts, our worship is incomplete.
Five daily prayers are compulsory upon us and they are sufficient. We are not required to exceed beyond that. However, we must remember that it is also compulsory to refrain from sins. The real hard work is to reject disobedience and sins in order to protect our worship and receive the true effects of our worship. We often pray and thereafter curse others or violate their rights. What is the benefit of our prayers now after our sins have corrupted them?
The problem is that we commit sins with each limb of our body, yet fail to regard sins as a major thing. We become complacent with our worship and forget where the real effort lies.
Shaytan prevents a person from being connected with Allah ta'ala. We should all keep this in mind when we rise each day. We should intend to abstain from sin every single day if we desire to be connected to Allah ta'ala. Having concern for the Hereafter is to have concern over our sins. If we have not developed this concern, then our entire life will be destroyed and we will remain deluded by worshipping physically without shunning sins. This is because a person cannot attain Allah ta'ala's nearness whilst he commits sins.
We should aim to remove every sin from our body and this is the true path to attaining Allah ta'ala. A believer should live his life with great caution in saving himself from sins. This is the sign of a person with Taqwa. We should create this awareness within us and analyse ourselves.
The method of abstaining from sins is to repent. This does not mean to recite istigfaar, as this is merely a litany and sins are not removed in such a way. True repentance requires a few conditions. One should make a firm intention to reject the sin. He should make a firm promise not to repeat the sin again and he should stop the sin immediately without delay. This method is considered sincere repentance.
Allah ta'ala knows that we are human and prone to sin, however, the best person is he who sins and repents. We must repent as many times as we sin. If we sin a hundred times, we should also repent a hundred times. We should never give up repenting and should never become hopeless and despondent over our sins. A penitent person is the one who is truly trying hard.
The biggest cause of our failure today, is that we consider sins to be insignificant. We should destroy this mind-set because in reality, every sin takes a person to Hellfire. If you consider a sin to be insignificant, you will keep repeating the sin and become habitual, and you will never repent from it.
We should weep sincerely in repentance to Allah ta'ala and realise that this sin is capable of sending us to Hellfire. The more a person has fear within him, the more Allah ta'ala will be pleased with him. This is the way to reject the sins.
In reality, one can only adopt this attitude and rectify himself once he has created a connection with someone for the purpose of self-improvement, like a spiritual guide, otherwise, the student is not able to travel on this path alone. We should aim to build a spiritual connection with a pious person so we can remove our sins, otherwise our physical worship is a waste of time.
If you are not following a Sheikh, then you're following your nafs. A person's sins are not diminished until he observes his weaknesses and his defects are extracted by a teacher. Errors are removed by the Sheikh, however, every Sheikh has his own style of extracting sins but the effects are the same.
You should seek a Wali Allah with the intention of saving ourselves from Hellfire and to be rectified, not for any worldly reason. Assign yourself to his company. Request him to rectify you and implement his method of removing sins. Ultimately, Allah ta'ala looks at the effort of a person!
If love for the world has not been removed from your heart, then your dhikr and company of your Sheikh, is not benefitting you. It means that your intentions are not correct.
The biggest sign of a pride within a person is he who is staunch upon his sins. Those who have pride, can not be rectified. It is pride which prevents them from visiting a Sheikh. Shaytan does not allow them to submit despite recognising the teacher as superior. This is oppression against themselves. One who has pride won't even smell the fragrance of Paradise.
If one doesn’t perform his rectification the way the Quran has prescribed, he is in severe darkness and deception.
My prescription consists of two things,
1) Tazkiyah - Abstain from sin
2) Dhikr of Allah ta'ala in abundance
When a person performs these 2 things, he goes on to implement the Sunnah with love and considers his life incomplete without the Sunnah.
The Sheikh prescribes dhikr because through it, a person's sins are eradicated. If you want to follow this path with faith, you desire Allah ta'ala's nearness and desire to be safe from Hellfire, then find a Sheikh and follow his prescription. Allah ta'ala has promised to forgive you and you'll be successful!
We place much emphasis on worship and expect Allah ta'ala's nearness. In reality, Allah ta'ala is attained via the Faraaid action and not via abundant Nawaafil.
When you gain Allah ta'ala's nearness through the Faraaid, then the Nawaafil will enhance and strengthen the Faraaid and raise its status. It causes any errors and deficiencies to be removed. Thus, one may only find Allah ta'ala through the Faraaid deeds, because the Nawaafil cannot be compared to the status of a Fard action.
We tend to place greater emphasis on voluntary actions. This is because Shaytan has diminished our hope in the Faraaid, although we should be focusing on it more.
On the other hand, despite performing the Faraaidh, we fail to attain Allah ta'ala. In many cases, a person has faith and engages in abundant worship, yet he is still far from Allah ta'ala. This is because his worship is incomplete.
In reality, there are two parts to worship. Performing physical acts of worship and shunning sins. Until we implement both parts, our worship is incomplete.
Five daily prayers are compulsory upon us and they are sufficient. We are not required to exceed beyond that. However, we must remember that it is also compulsory to refrain from sins. The real hard work is to reject disobedience and sins in order to protect our worship and receive the true effects of our worship. We often pray and thereafter curse others or violate their rights. What is the benefit of our prayers now after our sins have corrupted them?
The problem is that we commit sins with each limb of our body, yet fail to regard sins as a major thing. We become complacent with our worship and forget where the real effort lies.
Shaytan prevents a person from being connected with Allah ta'ala. We should all keep this in mind when we rise each day. We should intend to abstain from sin every single day if we desire to be connected to Allah ta'ala. Having concern for the Hereafter is to have concern over our sins. If we have not developed this concern, then our entire life will be destroyed and we will remain deluded by worshipping physically without shunning sins. This is because a person cannot attain Allah ta'ala's nearness whilst he commits sins.
We should aim to remove every sin from our body and this is the true path to attaining Allah ta'ala. A believer should live his life with great caution in saving himself from sins. This is the sign of a person with Taqwa. We should create this awareness within us and analyse ourselves.
The method of abstaining from sins is to repent. This does not mean to recite istigfaar, as this is merely a litany and sins are not removed in such a way. True repentance requires a few conditions. One should make a firm intention to reject the sin. He should make a firm promise not to repeat the sin again and he should stop the sin immediately without delay. This method is considered sincere repentance.
Allah ta'ala knows that we are human and prone to sin, however, the best person is he who sins and repents. We must repent as many times as we sin. If we sin a hundred times, we should also repent a hundred times. We should never give up repenting and should never become hopeless and despondent over our sins. A penitent person is the one who is truly trying hard.
The biggest cause of our failure today, is that we consider sins to be insignificant. We should destroy this mind-set because in reality, every sin takes a person to Hellfire. If you consider a sin to be insignificant, you will keep repeating the sin and become habitual, and you will never repent from it.
We should weep sincerely in repentance to Allah ta'ala and realise that this sin is capable of sending us to Hellfire. The more a person has fear within him, the more Allah ta'ala will be pleased with him. This is the way to reject the sins.
In reality, one can only adopt this attitude and rectify himself once he has created a connection with someone for the purpose of self-improvement, like a spiritual guide, otherwise, the student is not able to travel on this path alone. We should aim to build a spiritual connection with a pious person so we can remove our sins, otherwise our physical worship is a waste of time.
If you are not following a Sheikh, then you're following your nafs. A person's sins are not diminished until he observes his weaknesses and his defects are extracted by a teacher. Errors are removed by the Sheikh, however, every Sheikh has his own style of extracting sins but the effects are the same.
You should seek a Wali Allah with the intention of saving ourselves from Hellfire and to be rectified, not for any worldly reason. Assign yourself to his company. Request him to rectify you and implement his method of removing sins. Ultimately, Allah ta'ala looks at the effort of a person!
If love for the world has not been removed from your heart, then your dhikr and company of your Sheikh, is not benefitting you. It means that your intentions are not correct.
The biggest sign of a pride within a person is he who is staunch upon his sins. Those who have pride, can not be rectified. It is pride which prevents them from visiting a Sheikh. Shaytan does not allow them to submit despite recognising the teacher as superior. This is oppression against themselves. One who has pride won't even smell the fragrance of Paradise.
If one doesn’t perform his rectification the way the Quran has prescribed, he is in severe darkness and deception.
My prescription consists of two things,
1) Tazkiyah - Abstain from sin
2) Dhikr of Allah ta'ala in abundance
When a person performs these 2 things, he goes on to implement the Sunnah with love and considers his life incomplete without the Sunnah.
The Sheikh prescribes dhikr because through it, a person's sins are eradicated. If you want to follow this path with faith, you desire Allah ta'ala's nearness and desire to be safe from Hellfire, then find a Sheikh and follow his prescription. Allah ta'ala has promised to forgive you and you'll be successful!
May Allah ta'ala allow us to implement. Ameen.