We all have a set of eyes, inshallah, and all of our eyes are pointed outwards, so we see what’s in front of us and we don’t see ourselves. We all look at each other, but none of us look at ourselves. It’s the way we’re focused. We were set up this way from the beginning; man looks out.
One of the great mysteries in existence is that by looking out you can’t see in, and looking in is not done with your eyes. So we all have eyes, and we all look out, and we end up in a relationship with what we see, and we react to what we see, and we do things in accordance with what we see.
Now, what we see with these eyes is the world, and the world is illusory. So we are constantly looking at a situation that is temporary and illusory, and we treat that as reality. Then, out of somewhere, someone comes along and says, “This is all false, this is all a lie, this isn’t real, and what you see is not the truth.”
Where do you look to find the truth? Well, you’re not going to find it with your eyes. You’re not going to find it by looking outside of yourself. Your perspective has to change, and you have to begin looking inside yourself. But there’s more, all of the relationships that you have with what you see outside have to be suspended, you have to give them up, you have to not treat them as your reality.
There is another reality that is real, and this reality has to be understood for its impermanence. So not only do we have to begin to look inside, we have to create a relationship with the outside that doesn’t stop us from looking inside; because as long as we are consumed with our external relationships we don’t have time, or inclination, or desire to look inside. We’re caught up in all of the outside things. And what are these outside things?
These outside things either give us pleasure or give us pain, either bring us praise or bring us blame. So we are trapped in a world of pleasure and pain, of praise and blame, and of trying to avoid one and get to the other.
There is an understanding that, at the time of the Prophet, people understood God through the Prophet. His presence was enough to instill the fervor of belief in them, and that belief became more important than anything else. When that generation passed, and the Prophet passed, there was still the memory of the Prophet, and the memory of that strong belief in Allah, and that strong adherence to ‘Allah alone exists in Allah is the only reality’. Well, that generation passed, and the memory of the Prophet passed with them. So people began to institute a formal way of being, a formal etiquette, towards each other to remember the way people acted at the time of the Prophet. And that generation passed.
When that generation passed, people remembered that at one time they remembered, and at one time they acted appropriately towards each other, and that wasn’t going on anymore…
