A man in a bazaar was selling watermelons and he was screaming, “The sweetest there is! The sweetest there is!”
A dervish walked into the bazaar and he heard, “The sweetest there is!” and he fainted because he was concentrating on Allah and “the sweetest there is” is Allah. So the dervish didn’t need the watermelon, all that the dervish needed was to be reminded of Allah.
Now, as we go through our life what do we need? How much do we need? What satisfies us?
A man went to a sheikh and said, “I need to find peace. Can you help me find peace?”
And he said, “Go to such-and-such town, and go to such-and-such place, and you’ll find a man there, and he’ll tell you how to find peace.”
So he went, and it took him a couple days to get there, but when he got there he saw a man who was wearing torn clothes, had mud on his feet, mud in his beard, and he looked at him, and he said, “I was told that I could understand happiness from you.”
And the man said, “Do you have a question?”
And he said, “Are you happy?”
He said, “I’m very happy.”
He said, “Why are you happy?”
He said, “Because I have my Allah.”
He said, “Are you satisfied?”
He said, “I’m very satisfied.”
He said, “Why are you satisfied?”
He said, “Because I have my Allah.”
He said, “What do you need?”
He said, “I don’t need anything, I’m a king!”
“Why are you a king?”
“Because I have my Allah.”
Now, the problem that we have is, somehow, we are separated from our Allah, and because of this separation we’re not happy, we’re not satisfied, we think we’re poor, we’re not rich, we don’t think we’re kings because we’re separated from Allah.
So why are we separated from Allah? Because in our priorities we have set values for things in this world greater than Allah. Money is greater than Allah. Fame is greater than Allah, power is greater than Allah. And it’s not that we believe these things, we don’t believe money is greater than Allah, we don’t believe fame is greater than Allah, we don’t believe power is greater than Allah. But we pay more attention to money than we pay to Allah. We pay more attention to fame than we pay to Allah. We pay more attention to power than we pay to Allah. And what’s greater for us? The things we pay the most attention to.
So if your concentration is on money, if your consciousness is on fame, if your consciousness is on power, then your consciousness is not on Allah, and you’ve been separated from Allah. And who separated you? You separated yourself.
People in the world talk about unity all the time and they say there needs to be unity in the nation, there needs to be unity in the race, there needs to be unity in the religion, there needs to be unity in the language, in the country, in the continent. We have to be very careful about what it is that we try to have unity with because we can have unity with things that can’t be unified.
It’s like; I was missing a pair of pants last week, and I was looking for them in my closet, and I looked through every pair of pants and I couldn’t find them. Finally we figured out, Asiya was looking in her closet, my wife, and they were in her closet! Now, I could have looked in my closet until next year and I wouldn’t have found my pants because my pants were in Asiya’s closet.
So if you’re looking for unity in your country you’re not going to find it. If you’re looking for unity in your religion you’re not going to find it. If you’re looking for unity in your race you’re not going to find it. These things can’t be unified…
