Retaining the Blessings of Sohbah
قَدْ أَفْلَحَ مَنْ زَكَّاهَا وَقَدْ خَابَ مَنْ دَسَّاهَا
He has succeeded who purifies it, and he has failed who instils it (with corruption)
[Surah Al-Shams 91:9-10]
Tazkiya means to purify oneself. Allah Almighty sent the Quran and the Prophet (Peace and Blessings be upon Him), so that we may become pure enough to get access to the Paradise, to become eternal companions of the Prophet(Peace and Blessings be upon Him) and to become beloved of Allah Almighty.
Tazkiya means to make ourselves so pure that we are able to gaze eternally on the most pure Being i.e. Allah Almighty and reside eternally in the purest place called paradise.
We need to purify different parts of our self :-
1- Purifying our minds:
Purifying the thoughts, by thinking what types of thought we would think in Paradise in front of Allah Almighty; those are the thoughts we need to think. Many times in a good company we can do acts of worship but can’t do Tazkiya (purification), and after coming back we come back to the old impure self. It’s a life long process, a person has to be constantly on watch of his/her thoughts since many of us allow ourselves to think impure thoughts and thus whatever noor we got from the company and remembrance of Allah just by that thought it takes away the noor we got from worshiping and remembering Allah Almighty. Since many people who are students of Tazkiya , many times they adopt the blessed company, they don’t know how to retain the benefits of that company.
Allah Almighty commands us in the Nobel Quran :
وَكُونُوا مَعَ الصَّادِقِينَ
(And be with those who are true)[9:119]
But after we are separated from that company , one thing we should safeguard ourselves from is bad/wrongful thoughts. What Satan does is to make us think of some sinful thoughts because of which we lose the benefits of good company.
E.g:
1.Thoughts of materialism: love for this world– Planning and calculating on the future and keeping all the trust in the means without putting any trust on Allah Almighty.
2. Secret desires, wishes, evil thoughts for another person, jealousy, envy etc. Impurity of the thought leads to a deeply offensive chain of thoughts.
2. Purifying our homes:-
Tazkiya of our home ensures we stay steadfast with piety, otherwise love for Allah Almighty will only be in Shaikh’s (spiritual teacher’s) company and in places of worship.
It means to purify our homes and bedrooms from anything that reminds us, invites us or gives us the opportunity to sin.E.g. People in America say that I don’t ever want to have a gun in my house, similarly if that novel or magazine entices you to look at sinful pictures they are like guns against our Qalb(spiritual heart), –
After returning from the good company, the true students do Tazkiya (purification) of their house and their mind, their greatest worry is to preserve that noor they got from that blessed company.
3. Persevering in our relationships with family members:-
The second we do disobedience or have arguments with our family members, we lose the noor we got from the good company. So we should purify our relationships from any unrealistic expectations and arguments.
Then we will be less dependent on creation after the good company. But if we don’t take care of this aspect of purification, we will lose the blessing of that good company.
4.Purifying lifestyle:-
Once we leave home, and go into office or school we are not leading a pure lifestyle e.g. after sitting in the blessed company when one returns to their friend or workplace and return to a life where they don’t safeguard their gaze, and if they re-expose themselves to those sinful radiations they will lose the blessing, noor and blessing of their spiritual teachers.
How we can purify our lifestyles?
A Disassociate from bad company:
– Disassociate from all those interactions and relationships from people who are distant or disobedient to Allah Almighty. If we sit in their company we’ll lose the blessing that we got from the company of our Spiritual Teacher.
– E.g If one were to sit with a person who sells perfume even if one doesn’t apply perfume, merely sitting with him, one will get that fragrance and just like that the opposite effect is of sitting with the black smith i.e. at least the smoke will harm a person.
– No matter how much good company a person may have we can never have the 100 percent immunity from the negative effects of negative company. We should never think I’m immune now, we will again lose the blessings the second we slips in the negative company.
B At work place:-
– Even if we can’t control the environment, if the work place has a sinful environment it will have a negative effect on a person.
– How to save oneself from the effect of negative company?
By becoming a person of constant repentance one wipes away the negative effects. By making constant repentance to make sure we have vigilance of the Heart. Always thinking thoughts of Allah Almighty and feeling the feelings of Allah Almighty. When we slip we should repent .
Purifying the lifestyle means enough vigilance of the Heart that even while at that university and workplace we are always thinking and feeling Allah Almighty, if we slip and fall into the disliked and forbidden we should make repentance. Its our responsibility to maintain that purity.
5. Purification of our heart:-
Most importantly, we need to look at the impurities of our heart:-
First impurity:-
1- Love for the material world:
Prophet (Peace and Blessings be upon Him) said :- (Love of this world is the Source of all evil)
If a person feels a feeling of inclination or desire towards the material world then it’s a problem, they have started loving it. We must purify ourselves from the love of those actresses, sportstars, false love, we should only love the pure hearted .
– We should make dua that O ALLAH Grant me a heart that in my heart there is only love for the pure hearted
– Thoughts of how to save money in this way or that, or having thoughts and love for the material world we need to stop that.
– Living in the world striving in the world is allowed, but loving the world isn’t allowed.
Hazrat ji once said “even if we strive with our full effort for this world we can not stay here forever, we’ll end up leaving this world. People still put so much effort in increasing this world and, we can’t spend a single moment away from Allah Almighty, for that we don’t strive. The reality is, what we need is Allah Almighty alone and even one moment without Him means we didn’t satisfy our need. We NEED HIM every single moment of our life.
LOVING SOMEONE FOR THE SAKE OF ALLAH ALMIGHTY
We should have Love for the prophets , the truthful ones, the martyrs, the pious ones more and more. The more love we have for them, more will be the blessings we’ll have in our time. We should try to return to beneficial company to nourish the spiritual heart.
One way to lose that love of the material world is vigilance of the Heart and loving things that Allah Almighty has made permissible to love.
LOVE FOR ALLAH ALMIGHTY:-
If we don’t have love for Allah Almighty then the love for the spiritual teacher won’t benefit us. The best way to please the Spiritual teacher is to please Allah Almighty, Ultimately and pan-ultimately pleasing Allah Almighty. The more and more we love Allah Almighty the less and less we’ll love the material World.
How to get this?
The more and more remembrance a person does, the more and more love of Allah Almighty enters their heart. So after a good company, we have to make a decision not to return except by having that Remembrance of Allah Almighty to interact and interrelate with people around us. Once we get the love of Allah Almighty we must purify our heart from the love for everything other than Allah. We should not harbor any thoughts , love or feelings for anyone of the opposite gender. We should become Fida and fana for Allah Almighty, once such a state of love for Allah Almighty comes, it takes away all the unlawful loves, then we will be able retain and preserve the blessings we get from our spiritual teachers.
Then, whenever we spend time in the company of our spiritual teachers, it’ll have a long-lasting effect.It’ll have a long-lasting after effect.
But, instead if we don’t follow the above mentioned steps, the blessed company might have an effect, but the long after effects won’t be there. Even if a person doesn’t always get the good company, a person should keep going through this process of purification and whenever they’ll get that good company it’ll be a light upon light and they’ll be able to get baqa and sustain those blessings and positive feelings they had in the company of their spiritual Teachers by doing a lot of Remembrance of Allah Almighty so that the love of Allah makes one fida, fana and baqa, its that baqa that connects us to the blessing of our spiritual teachers.
In summary, we must purify our Mind, home, family and relations, lifestyle and Spiritual Heart, so that our engagement in this world is pure.