제 이름은 유순 김입니다. 지금 저는 모바일에선 전원을 제공하고 있습니다. 전원의 디자이너입니다. 그리고 스티페런입니다. 전원을 소개합니다. 오늘의 일상은 하루 종일 일상입니다. 그리고 이 아침은 키노트입니다. 네. 전원에선 전원에선 전원을 제공하고 싶습니다. 이 기간의 일상은 여러분께 brief background of itobos입니다. 제가 하늘에 있는 김에 오신 김입니다. 저는 한국에서 일하고 있습니다. 저는 한국에 있는 기술과 디자인에 오신게도 매우 강한 배경입니다. 저는 많이 많이 그려줬습니다. 그리고 자연스러움을 얻었으며 한국에서 전공 디자인 기술과 시장에 오신 것을 가치면서 오랫동안 전공 디자인의 전공 디자인을 배우게 되었습니다. 타이포그래피를 만들고, 포스터를 만들고, 로션을 만들고 전통의 미디어에 관심이 있었습니다. 그리고 많은 아티프를 만들었죠. 그리고 또는 이슬랄 기술을 만들었죠. 새로운 기술을 만들었을 때에 더 관심이 있었죠. 포헤런스, 플로이리디, 심플리시디. 전통의 미디어에 관심이 있었죠. 제가 계속 전통의 미디어에 관심이 있었죠. 왜냐하면 항상 이슬랄 기술을 만들고 싶어요. 왜냐하면 가장 중요한 데이터를 생각하고 싶어요. 그리고 모든 공간을 생각하고 싶어요. 그래서 더 쉽게 타블렛, 넥스탑, 또는 TV를 생각하고 싶어요. 그리고 또한 이 시각, 우리의 시장의 미디어에 관심을 만들었죠. 이 이슬랄은 제가 shared with you입니다. 모바일폰 팩토리에서 가장 큰 기능이 있습니다. 가장 큰 기능이 있습니다. 하지만 항상 더 디테일한 게 있습니다. 두 번째 페이지는 타블렛을 만들 수 있습니다. 액션을 만들 수 있습니다. 그리고 자리에서 자리에서 자리에서 자리에서 자리에 적용할 수 있습니다. 모바일콘 팩터가 아주 중요합니다. 그리고 같은 데이터를, 같은 데이터를 다른 레이아웃으로 어떻게 우리 레이아웃과 데이터를 옮겨야 할 수 있을까 싶어요. 그리고 또는 타블렛 디자인입니다. 두 번째 주인공은 이 주인공은 아이폰은 10년의 생방송이 되기 때문입니다. 아마 이 주인공은 동일한 플랫폼, 모바일 프로팩트, Android, 또는 Second Biggest One, 또는 outside of the States, and San Francisco, probably it is the biggest one. 그래서 제가 말씀드렸던 이유는 모바일 폰을 포함하고있을 때, probably the ratio and screen size was not that many to design for as a designer, so a lot of designers, like me started with the big ratio on the individual phone size, individual phone devices, but it's been already more than 10 years. There are so many devices, if you just think about Android, probably no exaggeration, like more than 100,000. So as a designer or to developers, we cannot design one by one. We need to think about how the experience going to be on different form factor and platform, and how it's going to scale, even bigger screens. So coherence means here is we instead of focusing on individual screens, we focus on what users would want to achieve on their form factor, what's their main task, what they're trying to do. So this really allows us to think about harmonious experience on different devices. So this is phone, and this is iPad. We give them the same experience, but similar functionality, but it's optimized for its form factor. So they can see more detailed information by just tapping it on the chart or contextual actions in this case, they can change different chart type or dive into more detail, or select and dive all those different ways. And this is the screen, actually users can even change the query. We wanted to think about how would even users want to change query, like asking questions and answering those business questions on the go, even on the mobile form factor. And third one is fluidity. So animation transition is both even getting more and more attention in the US industry, and it's huge. It's not just about giving creative pictures. In analytics, it's fundamentally hard to achieve for users to understand. So we really wanted leverage is fluidity to help them even, they don't have to try to hard to understand data. So the way we did is we want to take advantage to evoke their emotion or to delight their experience. Also the lastly, as you can see here, it's not just showing the animation per se, but this animation actually helps to users understand the data. You can throw left and right on the legend, but that is connected with the donor chart itself. So by tapping one of those, it's connected to the legend. So you can immediately see those slides if it's what those segments are on the chart. And as you can see here, each data when you change different chart type, for example this or change query, filtering dimension or measure, or data, we really wanted to connect the thread of the data while they are exploring. So they always know their contacts where they are, and how they are actually transforming. We do. So this kind of visual momentum, first of all, it looks really cool. So the sales teams loved it because it was very easy for them to demo to their customers. But for the end user perspective, it helped connect data to the same data even when the visualization changed. So this is a really, really key element of the design of the analytics tools. So if you see now in the industry, a lot of people probably, a lot of companies and product provide like this, we actually started like four years ago, but it was pretty revolutionary at that time. I'm very proud of it. This didn't exist on the phone back then. And last principle, simplicity. Again, this is mobile phone. So really want to think about what's the most important data users would want to see. And we really need one, two, three, down. And also fundamentally analytics with this chart, but by providing the most important information on the top, on their hands. Let's talk over one by one on this screen. I'm not going to go over too much details, but what I want to say on this screen is we want to show what users want to do on individual screens. The last most, first screen is the dashboard landing page. Second one is users can drill tapping into individual charts and see the more details. Third one is actually opening up those widget charts. And next one is seeing the detailed data and then following with the contextual actions. So primary actions would be probably here I want to scroll up and down to see data or double tapping on the chart or rotating the donors or tapping those segments and I see information. But while providing the primary actions and then this key point, we also want to, there is more when users want to see more data. So users can tap, shake or double tapping, wiping but we don't want to override them users by showing all these up front. That naturally progressively users naturally find it. And this is the last part. 10 minutes, I think it's okay. Then I want to talk about briefly and then I want to close this talk with our design process and in Salesforce how we innovate and create this amazing product. So service innovation is always understanding our user's needs, what their current pain points, what their experience is like. So we collaborate with researchers a lot like Steve to understand their current pain points and then having like a really deeper empathy. And do you want to talk about? Yeah, a couple of things that we observed. So the mobile research teams do a lot of work observationally. So that means is in some cases we might actually bring mobile users into the office or into a lab and observe how they use the product. That gives us some of that gestural and facial information. More valuable is watching how they work in the field. And especially from a sales use case, what we noticed is that sales people, especially sales people who do their work on their mobile device aren't just tethered to the mobile device. They have multiple other devices. They also have paper that they use in their car or in their vehicles. So one of the things that we learned through doing observational study was that things like findability were really critical. If a person is driving, ideally stopped maybe on the side of the road, maybe not actually driving, it's really critical for them to be able to find the right sales metrics right before they visit with a key client. Another thing that we do is we do interviews. And through the interview process, you probably know if you've heard me talk before, we know that asking users what they want isn't the best way to get information because users are just reacting to their current challenges. But we want to understand what problems are they experiencing. So through interviews and through observations, we learned things like, well, I really wish I had landscape mode so I could see this. Right now, the product does not support landscape mode as far as I understand, right? Not on mobile. Okay, yeah, so the mobile is still portrait only. And when we talked about why did they need that, the ultimate goal was, I need to be able to see this number in context with these other numbers. So maybe landscape mode is absolutely the right way to go, but there might be other more elegant design solutions that also satisfy other uncovered problems that we would go for. The last area of needs is coming through feedback that we'd get primarily through our various listening posts. So any kinds of instrumentation in the product or any kinds of surveys that come in. We basically hear the kinds of feedback that people give us as they're interacting with the product, either in aggregate or individually. This is a great way for us to find evidence of bugs if it's a shipping product or evidence of unmet needs. And we'll talk more about that in a moment. That's the fourth stage and next stage is creating concepts. We have this amazing culture generating ideas. We collaborate a lot of stakeholders, researchers, other PMs, even other designers. And this is the time we often call it like design thinking. There's no boundaries constraints. Don't think about the technology for feasibility. How it can help users to improve their daily tasks or make it efficient and effective. How it can help, they don't have to stay in their office and they enjoy their life more. So yeah, this is the time we draw a lot of sketches and post-node time and generating idea like you did in the workshop, like crazy ideas, the folding paper. Crazy eights. Yeah. And the next stage as a designer, I think about how I am gathering all those information and then this is down and then creating flow and trend flow and make a wireframe. And this stage probably not every time, but we a lot of times also talk to customers sort of like a validating concept. And next stage is code solution. This is the time we actually collaborating with developers and product type, our designs. And creating high fidelity prototype and also get usability test out of it. Last stage is releasing product. We have a three release product in sales worth per year. Three release per year. But mobile is not necessarily following this release cycle because we need to submit to store, app store, or Google Play. And we have a feedback channel we are still getting from users. There is a section feedback. And users keep continuously giving us feedback. What's right, what's wrong, and what's not working and how we need to, how they want us to improve their experience. And the reason also we are releasing more than three times a year is like there is a platform we are supporting besides Salesforce. Like iOS platform, Android or Windows. And they always have every year new OS. And then we need to keep up with it and make it work perfectly on both platforms. And also tons of other bugs. So there's a bug patch to be released soon. Not tons, not tons of bugs. Just some bugs. That's mine about bugs. You want to make? That's true. Yeah, so I will say probably if I say the top size is three releases per year, we probably mobile probably once every other month or even open then. So yeah, this is the feedback channel. I don't know if you want to. Yeah, I just mentioned we have a three-phase feedback channel process. We have listening posts embedded in the product. So analytics usage data shows up so that we can understand what users are using in aggregate. It also lets us know what features are being adopted and the velocity of that adoption as well as what features aren't being used which allows us to do qualitative research to understand why is this feature not being used. Maybe it's not needed or maybe it's not discoverable or maybe it's not usable. And then the last listening posts are as a user interacts with the product, the product does the thing that most of us don't find super exciting. It says how do you like it? And if they say oh I like it, we'll say oh would you please consider writing us a review and also giving feedback. If they say I don't like it, we'll say we really want to hear your feedback and we have an embedded feedback survey in the product. There's also a feedback survey that people can use at any time. And when they click that, it provides us the ability to identify first of all whether or not there might be a bug or a defect every time iOS or Android changes their platform, maybe that broke something. So we get early warnings about that. And then second of all we hear the wish list items. Customers say I really wish I could do X. That gives the research team a great opportunity to do additional research and the design team opportunities to start ideating and creating new concepts. So this is the brief of our design process. And as you guys know obviously every step is very iterative and there's no like it's not a linear process. So take away, we talked about briefly user centered design and for design principles use cases target audiences. And but wait, there's more. There's more. I want to guys download an experience. We have on Apple App Store, Google Play Store and if you guys downloaded there is a record sample data. So you guys don't have to process the test for license because of the way we did. Yeah, there's sample data sets that you can use. You can use it on your device right now. I'd recommend please don't fill out the feedback survey unless you find a real problem or you just want to say hi. All feedback goes directly to me as well as the mobile analytics team. That's it. Thank you.


And I thank God that now I'm here and some don't like the idea that I'm here, but God sent us. That's right. He sent us and gave us a divine skill just like He gave him the apostle fall. You are not qualified to be an apostle. The Bible says that evil men and imposters will grow worse and worse, deceiving men and being deceived. There is such a person or such people out there, obviously there are many out there. But there's one for some reason has just kind of got me stirred. I'm the kind of person who really doesn't like to see or to hear about someone kind of being bully and boastful and arrogant. And obviously there are many out there.  And it really is kind of what I want to do now. Gino Jennings calls himself an apostle. There's a reason why he wants to do so because there are men who desire to be something or someone special. My name don't have to be in the Bible, but I tell you what Jesus did say, give me Luke 11 49. That's it. Amen. Luke 11 and verse 49. What justifies my arrival. Listen. Luke 11 and verse 49. This is a promise that Jesus made. He said, I will send them. I will send them. I will send them. Prophets and apostles. I will send them. God said I'm going to send them. Prophets and apostles. Now, you must continue to look for that until God comes. That's right. He said, I will send them. And remember, Paul's name wasn't mentioned there either. That's right. Paul came after, long after. So the scripture says in the book of Ephraegius chapter 4 and verse 11, it atomized the officers, the positions that God have set in his church or among his people. Why is all these offices given? For the perfecting of the saints. For the completion of the development of God's people. For the work of the ministry. For the work of what? For the work of the ministry. That's why these offices is here today. So the same things that God had then. The glory that God he has right now. And I thank God that now I'm here. That's right. And some don't like the idea that I'm here, but God sent us. That's right. He sent us and gave us a divine skill. That's right. Just like he gave him the apostle fall. When he makes a statement that he was sent by God and he's here to educate us and to perfect us and to complete us, it's kind of a boastful statement for somebody like that to make. And the way he kind of validates himself is that he declares himself like many others in the past. He has declared himself to be an apostle. But the fact of the matter is he is no apostle. Paul is a different kind of apostle. Paul was taught by the Lord himself for three years apart from the other apostles. And it's interesting. A lot of people today will call themselves apostles. And let me say unequivocally, we have no apostles today. Amen. They're gone. The age of the apostles is over. There are no apostles today. According to the book of Ephesians chapter two, the apostles and the prophets were the foundation upon which the church is built. I don't know how many foundations your house has. Mine only has one. The foundation is done. We do not have apostles today. The apostles have the authority to give us the scriptures. We do not have people today who have the authority to give us the scriptures. We do not have apostles today. When the Bible talks about an apostle, we need to understand really what the word is and how it's used. The word apostle or apostolize, the Greek word just really means to send or someone who's been sent. You'll see this word being used by Jesus in reference to God when he uses the word apostolamos, which is the one being sent or that when Jesus says that you sent me. And so the word just kind of in this generic sense just simply means to send or even if it's in the passive tends to be sent. It doesn't necessarily connote an office or a gifting. Anyone can send someone to do something or be sent. It's sort of likened to what when we use the word an angel or a messenger, it's just simply someone who's just giving a message. Nothing necessarily special about them unless we're talking about who sent the person and why they were sent.  But when we talk about the apostles in the sense of the office of the apostle, make no mistake about it. There are no more of them. I can send someone to do something and someone could rightly say that I am an apostle, but they are my apostle. And so when you say that your Cory Miners apostle, that didn't really mean anything special because of who sent you and what he sent you for. I can send someone to the store and pick up some bread and milk. Well, there's nothing special about that. And so anyone can be an apostle technically, but when we talk about apostles, you all kind of know what the person's meaning and what they're implying. They're implying that they are something a little bit higher up than the average person. More than the average preacher or teacher, they are something or someone who has been sent in a special manner. Well, to be an apostle or to have this office, there's some qualifications and we won't make this too exhaustive, but there's some glaring things about this office that it's easy to see that this person, Gino, who's a fraud, does not qualify for. First of all, an apostle must have seen the risen Christ. According to Acts 1, 22, let's look and see what it said. When it was spoken of Matthias being the one to replace Judas, who by the way was not an apostle, it tells us in verse 22, one of the main characteristics, one of the traits, and that is this. Beginning from the baptism of John to that day when he was taken up from us, one of us, one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection.  You'll find other verses to kind of bolster this in chapter 22 verse, verse 14, I believe, also in 1 Corinthians 9. So one of the criteria is that you needed to have seen the risen Christ. Well, here's a quick question and let's just count this up. I don't know how old Gino Jennings is, but Christ's resurrection was some 2000 years ago. Let's just start adding up days and let's just see if you're old enough. You're not. And so just by that simple criteria, you are not qualified to be an apostle. Secondly, you had to be specifically sent by Jesus. Each of the apostles that we see, they were all sent by Jesus. Including Paul. Now he likes to kind of, Gino likes to kind of equate himself to a Paul because, as he says, Paul was not specifically mentioned when Jesus makes his statement in Luke, which is a silly statement that he makes. And so that he also was not mentioned like Paul, but Paul was an apostle just like he is. He ain't say he was the last one. No, no, I didn't say that. That's a lie that July has been telling. That's right. He wished he was the last one. So no, Paul wasn't the last one. No. Hallelujah. Glory to God. Not at all. No. You also know how I became one. God appeared unto me. Amen. Hallelujah. God did. Hallelujah. I said, God Almighty appeared unto me. Amen. And spoke to me like you did, Brother Paul. Yeah. And let me know why he appeared. That's right. Unto me this day to make thee a minister. A minister. And a witness. That's right. No, Paul wasn't the last one. No. And neither am I. That's right. The arrogance and the boastfulness of this person, so you can see why he needs to kind of be taken down a peg or two or ten. We know Paul was specifically selected by Christ and we also know that he was affirmed by it. We'll talk about that in just a second, but to be an apostle, you will have to say that I was selected by Christ. But don't come with this thing. Well, he came to me in a dream and he selected me. Another criteria that we see that all of the apostles had some sort of miraculous power coming with them. Namely, when you see gifts being poured out and when you see, let's say, someone speaking in these other languages, not this gibberish babbling that we call tongues, but a natural language, every time you see it happening, it was under the hand of what? An apostle, someone who was sent by Jesus. You also see these gifts of healing and things like that that are happening under the hands of the apostles. Well, the reason why is because, remember what the Bible tells us, that he is going to build the foundation of the church on what? On these apostles. On these, in this case, he's 12 plus now Paul, these 13 apostles. And the other 12 dealt with Israel, dealt with the Jews. And then you have Paul being an apostle, sent to be an apostle to whom? To the Gentiles. And that is the foundation of the church. And as the Bible says, Jesus being the chief cornerstone. Why? Well, because he did not want to have this divided church. And so he starts off first with the Jews. Then you see it going to the Samaritans and the Gentiles and to the rest of the world, right? And so you have the Jews and the Samaritans covered by those 12 apostles. And you see, and history tells us where these different apostles went to. What was interesting is that them scattering and spreading the gospel was because of this next apostle, Paul, who comes and persecutes the church, but then Jesus comes to him and then he becomes an apostle to whom? To the Gentiles. What's interesting about his apostleship and that Paul on occasion sees it necessary to defend his apostleship, he's also defended by other apostles, namely chiefly among them, Peter. Peter talks about Paul and he even equates Paul's writings to those of the rest of scriptures. So an apostle, especially these are going to be validated and affirmed by other apostles, also by their works and miracles. One of the things that each of the apostles had to go through was just some time in ministry. One, they didn't declare themselves apostles, they were chosen by Jesus. They spent time, they grew in him. This wasn't some kind of quick thing that happened and they decided to claim themselves an apostle. In this case, we see how Paul spent time to confirm and to make sure and the rest of them actually journeyed with Jesus. And then Matthias, he also was around, he was one of the disciples that were around and then he was chosen, he also seeing the resurrection. And so we don't want to nowadays to find men or men nowadays who want to call themselves apostles and even prophets or something special, Bishop, they want to convey these titles upon themselves without having actually put in really any real meaningful time. And then here's the other clincher. All the apostles suffered greatly in their ministry and to finish out their earthly ministry. I doubt that any of these men who call themselves apostles or bishops or prophets or whatever, I doubt that they want to go through and suffer the same thing that any of these apostles actually went through. And people always go, ah, but wait a minute though, rather, you know, we got Paul, right? Paul had his own encounter with the Lord. I had my own encounter with the Lord. So I'm an apostle, just like Paul was an apostle. Well, at the end of Galatians chapter one, in verse 18, Paul says, then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas or Peter and remain with him 15 days. Why? After the three years that he spent with the Lord, did Paul go to Jerusalem to spend 15 days with Peter? He didn't say. But chapter two, beginning in verse one, this is shortly after his statement about going up for 15 days after three years. Then after 14 years, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me. I went up because of a revelation and set before them, though privately before those who seemed influential, the gospel that I proclaimed among the Gentiles in order to make sure I was not running or had not run in vain. Paul didn't say, yeah, I had my own experience. I'm going to possibly my own right. After three years, he went up and spent 15 days with Peter. Why? To make sure that what he had been given was in line with what the 12 had been given. Then after 14 more years, he went up again to make sure that his gospel lined up with the gospel of the other apostles. And so since these men are the foundation and there's only one foundation, all we can do is build on the foundation with godly doctrine. And so one of the surefire ways to determine and to see if a person is or is not an apostle, of course, again, there are no apostles today. And if he is, check the person's doctrine. Look at the persons, the people today who call themselves apostles and prophets. Look at their doctrine. See if it lines up. Explain how I know what I know. How is it that I'm able to go into the scripture to strip them down? That's right. As using fractions, break them down to the lowest common denominator. That's right. My divine skill was godly given. I didn't go to no seminary school, never took no Bible course, and never studied theology. Amen. Never. Never. I didn't go to no seminary school, never took no Bible course, and never studied theology. Amen. Never. I didn't go to no seminary school, never took no Bible course, and never studied theology. Amen. Never. But you question me about this God of heaven. That's right. Question me about his law. Amen. Pick up any stuff that you want to talk about in the Bible. That's right. And say if the God of heaven don't drop me in it, take it apart, split the atom, and show you the nucleus of it. That's right. Wonderful. That's right. That's true. My skill is god-given. Amen. I have to credit God. I can't credit nobody else. That's right. I didn't get this from my mother. No, no. No, I didn't get this from my blood father. Amen. I got it. I got it from God. That's right. Only God Himself can instill such boldness within a person. Amen. He did not see himself as an independent apostle. He did not see his gospel as beyond question and separate from the gospel that the other apostles preached. He knew that his gospel must be the historic gospel. And he says if it wasn't, then he too would have run in vain. I didn't go to no seminary school, never took no Bible course, I never studied theology. Amen. Never. One of the things that we do because whether a person understands the actual original language is Hebrew or Greek or not. If you've got sound doctrine, then the person who understands Hebrew and Greek, their understanding of the Bible will line up with the other person who doesn't understand it. Because if you are really sent by God, your doctrine is going to line up clearly and perfectly with the languages that God Himself ordained. He's the one that ordained this Bible. The Old Testament would be written primarily in Hebrew and the New Testament primarily in Greek. That was God's doing. And so if rules of Greek grammar and Hebrew grammar don't line up with this apostle's doctrine, surefire way to see that this person is off. So with a person like Geno Jennings who believes that there is no such thing as a trinity, a person like Geno Jennings who believes that you can lose your salvation, a person like Geno Jennings who believes that we are supposed to speak in these ecstatic languages, these babbling, these tongues that he calls them. You can see where his doctrine is off. And so you'll see other videos that we'll do to kind of expose him and his doctrine. And so this is not going to be an exhaustive video about him, but it's kind of the first in a series of a couple to let you know that this is a person you need to be warned of and to stay away from. If he's got any issues with it, I would love to hear what his issues are. And I'm pretty sure I'm going to hear from some of his followers. But we're going to go to the Bible and we're going to use the Bible to be what navigates us through the scriptures. Not anymore of this kind of tough talk, this loud talk, this angry scow that you have on your face. Almost like, and I kind of wondered, where have I seen this before where you've got the man reading this scripture and your hype man beside you, like they're your bodyguards or protectors. Where have we seen this before? What word from the originator? Look at now. Then every man is a potential son. Yes. So this is kind of indicative of a of a Farrakhan or some of these other guys, these other men who want to be something special. And so you are no apostle. There are no apostles. Why not just simply let the scriptures be what they are and you be a teacher and a preacher of those instead of being somebody special? Let God be the one.  And so the best way that I can conclude this video is just to use Gino Jennings' own words to describe him to himself.


Ssssss... that's drunk. Let's keep plugging away at those single screen puzzle games. This one is called Push Over, developed by Red Rat Software. They usually publish stuff for platforms like the Amiga, games like Wild Wheels and Screaming Wings, and sure enough Push Over is also on the Amiga and the Atari ST. Turns out this is the only game they developed for the Super Nintendo. Push Over has some weird trivia associated with it, though. The Amiga and Atari ST versions were sponsored by a British snack called Quavers, and And the story of the game revolves around finding lost bags of the stuff. These things are not in North America, and as far as I can tell, they look like puffy potato versions of Fritos. The Super Nintendo version, both in North America and PAL regions, does not have anything to do with Quavers. Instead, the story's been changed to some rat stealing all your money or something. You play as an ant, G.I. Ant, to be exact, some kind of super soldier ant, I guess, and its mission is to dig down into this cave, level by level, to get the money back that Captain Rat stole. Boy, they really got creative with the names here. Thankfully, the gameplay is a bit more creative. Your task is to manipulate these dominoes into a sequence that ends with this trigger block that has three stripes. Like most puzzle games, you're given very simple stuff to solve it first, so you can get the hang of the game. And you'll need that practice time, because the controls here are a little odd. There's a bit of a 3D effect going on here, where you press up behind a certain domino to get behind it, and down to get back out in front of everything. You can pick up, move, and put down any of the blocks by pressing B, except you can't move the final trigger block. You gotta set up a sequence that leads to that spot, and you gotta do it within a time limit. First, you get behind a block by pressing up, then press Y to push to the left or A to push to the right. That's an important distinction that took me longer than I'd like to admit to figure out. There's tons of special dominoes here, too, each with their own particular function that activates either when pushed or knocked into. There's an Ascender block, with one vertical stripe that floats upward until it hits something. There's a Splitter block, which knocks over blocks in both directions. There's a Stopper block, which stops everything coming toward it. There's even the Tumbler block, which is inconsolable and goes on the internet to write about how difficult it is to be a teenager in the United States. No, I'm just kidding. It keeps going until hitting a Stopper block or falling off a ledge. There are nine total special blocks, and already you can see the problem with this arrangement here. They're all red and yellow. What was the visual designer, a big Hulkamaniac, or something? This game would be a lot easier if each domino had its own color, or something, to make it a little more distinct, because the entire time I played this, I was constantly going back to the start menu to remember what was what. The stripes didn't really help me a whole lot, and with the incredibly short time limit here every second counts, so the quicker you learn the domino patterns, the better. There's a hundred stages here, spread out over nine different worlds, and the backgrounds and sprite animations here are pretty nice. The platforming here is reasonably well done, but again, that's provided you're able to quickly get used to moving your character from the foreground to the background, and how you get used to placing blocks exactly where you want them, because you have to be fast here. That's another flaw in my opinion, the time limit is just way too short. You can reconcile this by allowing you to earn tokens.  So yeah, you're not locked into the timer, even if it runs out you can still finish the level. Also a hint appears on the pause menu once the timer expires. If you're able to finish and you've got a token left over, you can consider it completed, so that's cool. And there is a password system here as well, which is handy. I will say this game does a nice job in gradually introducing new elements and platforming pitfalls the further you progress. It's a gradual difficulty curve rather than just hitting a brick wall. It's just that, like I said, it's kind of tough to remember on the fly what block does what, especially when you've got three or four of them in one level. It's a bit irritating to have to pause the game to bring up the menu every so often. And like most puzzle platformers, like the Lost Vikings and Krusty's Super Fun House, this one gets really tough later on, beyond just knowing what sequence to set up. You have to act and react with flawless timing to get through some of these puzzles. So yeah, Push Over is a pretty decent but pretty frustrating puzzle platformer. I really wish they'd done a better job differentiating the special blocks, but whatever, maybe it'll have an easier time getting used to it than me. I should also mention this game is single player only. It'd be nice to have a split screen competitive mode against a second player, even the computer, but it's not here, oh well. Still, if you're looking for a creative puzzle game with platforming elements, Push Over is pretty decent.


Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Alhamdulillah wa salatu wa salamu ala ashraf al-anbiya'i wa al-mursaleen. Sayyidina wa maulana wa habibina Muhammad. Sallallahu alayhi wa salam. Wa ala alayhi wa sahbihi wa salam tasliman kathira. Salamu alaykum everyone. Alhamdulillah.  The second day, official day of Rajab. Alhamdulillah. The blessed month of Rajab has entered. I pray to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala that all of you are doing well and are keeping safe, inshallah. So we're going to just pick up from where we left off for those of you who are joining us. We are reading from agenda to change our condition. It is a text. Alhamdulillah.  So today we get to start on chapter four. I'm going to go ahead and screen share inshallah so that we can have some slides to look at and we'll go from there. So bismillah. Give me one moment. I will do that. Alhamdulillah. All right, there we go. So here we are chapter four. Now this is the chapter four as it stated exercises for attaining taqwa. So we covered taqwa earlier in the book just defining it and that was in I believe it was chapter one. It was taqwa, it's definition and benefits. But now we're going to talk more about the practical application how what we can do to attain taqwa. So let's go ahead and get started with the slides here. So this is just a summary of what the what this chapter is going to cover and actually I'm going to read more from the text today. I don't the slides are going to compliment what I'm reading, but there's a lot of text in this chapter. So I'll be reading quite a bit, but here right away in the beginning it says what follows which is this chapter is an agenda which is Latin for a set of things to do. So they're going to introduce a series of exercises designed to help achieve taqwa practically through protective vigilance of the eight inroads of darkness to the heart. And this this includes prayer, tongue, eyes, ears, the stomach, private parts, hands and feet. And so there are sections throughout this chapter where we're going to inshallah as we read along will get to but for the first part before we even talk about those inroads we there's just a lot of commentary here. So I'm going to go ahead and read from the book after they mentioned these eight inroads. They say that the duration of each exercise is 40 days. So basically practical exercises to do but you have to commit to doing them every day consistently for this period of 40 days. And this is based on the verse of the Quran in which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala promised to meet Musa alaihi salam after 40 days. This respite of 40 days enabled Musa alaihi salam to prepare for that August meeting in his commentary. Imam Asawi states that the complete service of the servant toward his Lord and the gifts that result from his Lord are completed in 40 days. The meaning of this comes from the following hadith. The Prophets like some said that the completion of vigilance on the borders or that is 40 days. So these inroads are at the borders of the heart and this technique has proven effective for many people if done for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala it will benefit the one who uses it to achieve taqwa. So we know there's a lot of you know self help books and programs that also emphasize the importance of committing to a practice for some say a month some say 40 days some say longer than that. So there's definitely an idea that if you want to create new habits you want to change bad habits or get rid of bad habits that you have to commit to doing something for a long period of time and this is also one of the great benefits of Ramadan. Of course we know Alhamdulillah whether it's 29 or 30 days just having a consistent practice every single day of fasting. InshaAllah we're doing all of our prayers we're reading extra Quran and doing the vikr and maybe inshaAllah we're doing other charitable good deeds throughout that month. What we arrive at by the end of the month is that it's quite possible to do because we've done it and so that will help you inshaAllah whenever you get those thoughts and ideas from your nafs or shaitan that you know you can't commit to something or it's it's too much of an effort I don't have time. These are a lot of common things that people will say to excuse themselves but once you actually do something for a consistent amount of time it helps to overcome those weak points and inshaAllah take on really good practices. So they go on to say read through the eight exercises and look deep within your heart of hearts to determine your areas of weakness. All of us of course are on different paths so everybody is going to have different things that they need to focus on for instance you may not be disobeying a law with your feet or your private parts if that is the case and there's no need to do the exercises corresponding to those areas however you should maintain vigilance and continuing to guard them. So inshaAllah if you if that's just let's say you're married you're inshaAllah in a good relationship you don't have that fitna of you know the many people are tested with and you're in a committed relationship so in that case inshaAllah you're safe from from that from from that fitna you don't have to do those exercises however continue to of course do whatever you've been doing to guard yourself right. If you find that you have weakness in the other five inroads then determine which is the worst for most it will be the tongue and that's really important for most of us you know again if you look at the slides here you know it includes the eyes the ears the hands the feet the stomach but here they're emphasizing that for most of us likely the one that we have the biggest problem with is the tongue and of course there's many hadith that also confirm that what gets most people in trouble and actually takes them to the hellfire is what is between the private parts and the tongue essentially the mouth lips right so these two areas are what gets most people in trouble and many other hadith that also confirm the same so then they go on to say make the commitment to guard all of these inroads but take the tongue as your first exercise and commit to mastering it every day for 40 consecutive days. The reason for practicing only one exercise at a time is the tradition of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam who said this religion is accommodating and no one attempts excessive strictness in it without it overwhelming him. And again such a beautiful and hadith that really we have to internalize and understand the wisdom in it. Shaitaan some people for example they assume that Iblis only inclines us to evil which of course is true but he also knows our nature and he's aware that we burn out quickly so sometimes he may overwhelm us with wanting to do too much so having too many goals all at once can also be something that he inspires us to because he knows it's like the pendulum right you're going to swing one way really fast you'll you'll you'll go back the other way and so we have to take heed of this advice to not overwhelm yourself to take your practice easy and rather than trying to do all of the exercises simultaneously to really thinking of it more like incrementally like once I once I you know master this part and I can be consistent then I go to the next and the next just for again ease inshallah and to be motivated and to prevent that burnout from happening they'll go on to say that announce to your friends that you are committing to this path and that you need their help. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says he says we'll help one another with righteousness and taqwa and do not help one another in wrong doing and aggression and this is in chapter 5 verse 2 so again a really important reminder here that if you wanted to be serious about your commitment to your spiritual ritual your spiritual path your ritual practice but sometimes you do need to send those little memos out to friends and family like listen I I'm going to be doing this and I really need support encouragement please don't when you're around me for example you know don't do this and you can get into specifics depending on your relationship or you can just keep it pretty general and just say I will be working on some really intense spiritual you know endeavors or efforts and I need support and help and then you know at that point inshallah they should hopefully respond with encouragement and be there for you so that you don't feel like you're doing it all by yourself. They go on to say we must take this verse seriously and express a deep desire to better ourselves and true friends will support us initially we are shocked to find out that it is very difficult to break bad habits of many years but rest assured it is possible Allah does not ask of us more than we are able to bear we can conquer these bad habits and destructive tendencies many great men and women of the past and present have gone down this road and arrived at its destination in a medic entitled his book on what the the well trodden path if others can overcome their bad habits we can as well and should derive from their examples of strength and courage once we've mastered the first exercise we must be vigilant and maintaining it and move on to the next most troublesome trait it may be for instance the eyes or the ears we should practice each exercise until we are ready to commit to the next and again the advice here is that start with the tongue but then go in look at the list and figure out what is next and if you know we're being honest with ourselves especially now in quarantine most of us are likely not going to places where there were inshallah we're engaging in Haram because we really can't go very far but so that might not be something you're being tested with right now but remember we have these devices what we're using right now all of us to be tuned into each other to connect with one another that is a portal to the entire world so even though our feet are not walking to different places we are still able to navigate this thing called the Internet and access a lot of things that obviously go through our eyes and our ears so paying attention to what we're consuming via those inroads right and then also extending that to other media that you're listening to or watching if you're on your televisions a lot Netflixing or watching you know different shows and programs or films or YouTube accounts or you know tick tock I know it's very popular and a lot of people spend hours and hours on there or Instagram if you're just consuming all of those things you have to take inventory of what are you consuming isn't beneficial knowledge are you looking at images of people in inappropriate clothing and I think again in our society some of us have become so desensitized to just seeing skin that we may not think of that as being harmful but if you're watching for example programs and shows where they are dressed you know inappropriately or revealingly and you're consuming that it is affecting you or if you're listening to anything that has foul language or just ideas that are also problematic then that's also affecting you so taking inventory of those inroads is probably more relevant right now as we're in quarantine then then again the feet and the hands of course we can also talk about what are we doing with our hands that may be problematic you know if there's any violence I mean would be the first thing that comes to my mind may Allah protect us in our homes and our families but if you have a habit or a problem of striking anyone in your home this would certainly apply because our hands are not meant to harm that there are a lot of you don't harm people so we have to really fear Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and if you have at the habit and many people because these things are usually cyclical they find that you know homes where this type of abuse or just physical you know abuse occurs is usually because individuals were also victims of abuse so they just repeat those cycles but you can break the cycle inshallah and with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's help by just realizing this is not there's immense accountability and punishment for harming innocent anything anyone innocent and we can go into more detail about that maybe another time but just the point I hope is clear that if you really are paying attention to yourself and taking that inventory you can determine what are you doing with these limbs that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has given you these gifts that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has given you that you shouldn't be doing and for everyone that's going to look differently right so then they go on to say excuse me I lost my space here in no way should we completely ignore the others while focusing on one Allah commands us to guard all of our limbs at all times but in order for us to keep from being overwhelmed we should focus on one exercise at a time if we focus on one at a time it enables us to be more vigilant about the others obviously our bad habits stem from our own heedlessness therefore as we become more conscious of our behavior in one area we will do so in others as a result if Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala wills we will see the results immediately but we should take heed as Shreyfan increases his efforts in proportion to ours also a really good point to be mindful of the more we make a concerted efforts to correct ourselves to get closer to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala the more Shreyfan will try to attack us and bring us further back because obviously he doesn't that's his ultimate objective right so he's not going to sit back and just watch he will try to persuade you to go back and default to your bad habits to give up it's too much or possibly even push you into something worse just because he overwhelms you so you want to be very careful not to overwhelm yourself and that's really the gist of that advice if we focus on one at a time it enables us to be more vigilant about the others obviously I'm sorry I already read that if Allah wills we will see the results immediately but we should take heed as Shreyfan increases his efforts in proportion to ours he will work on our hearts and try to instill pride in us for our efforts he will attempt to make us think we are better than others for struggling with ourselves we must not succumb to these whispers and we will hear them that's also another important point so there's two directions this could go he could try to dissuade you from continuing your path by just making things seem way too harder than they are or he could fill you with this pride and arrogance because now that you're taking on the spiritual practices more regularly you suddenly start to feel more superior over others so to be very mindful of our thoughts and the path of self-effacement for the sake of Allah demands that we view everyone is better than us the Muslim should never elevate himself over anyone in creation even if we maintain humility we must remain vigilant because shaytan will endeavor to make us feel pleased with being humble the path to taqwa has many pitfalls according to the Quranic narrative shaytan swore an oath regarding this path and he says I shall lurk in ambush for them on your straight path then I shall come upon them from before them and from behind them and from their right sides and from their left sides and you will not find and you will not find most of them grateful and this is in chapter 7 verse 16 to 17 subhanallah so you know this is he's laying it out he's laying out his plan on how he'll attack us and then that last point he you know he's very firm and his opinion that we are ungrateful which is what he says here or which is excuse me let me just read that again I don't want to misspeak here and you will not find most of them grateful yeah I'm not sure if that's actually the words of Iblis speaking or if Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is just making that comment clear that we because in other verses this is also repeated that most of us are ungrateful so just yeah I'm not sure about that I can look into that for next time but for now it's a pretty clear mean he's laying the plan out right then notice that he says that he will lurk in ambush on the straight path and he's unconcerned with the wayfarers on a crooked path more over he does not say that he will come from above or from below the secret in this is that revelation and guidance come from above and by maintaining a state of humility and keeping our foreheads to the ground we open our hearts to the guidance from above Allah has not given shaitan authority over the guidance of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam or his humbled servants who follow that guidance so some how he's he's quite weak he cannot overcome if you truly committed to the path and following the process and he cannot overcome he has no authority over that guidance right subhanallah this is the ancient heroes journey and successes by Allah not by deeds but by grace alone is this achieved we must see our progress as to fiqh providence from Allah which means our gratitude must increase the spiritual growth occurs it cannot be done without effort but it is not effort through which it is done subhanallah that's really important we can't arrive at these destinations spiritual destinations without putting in the effort but it's not our effort that takes us there it's really is from again the providence of Allah that's to fiqh Allah is giving us success he's facilitating he's drawing us closer use bifocal vision to see paradoxical truth and submit to it let us keep our eye on the goal ahead let us constantly remember our mortality and know that we will be considered among those who reached the goal before us even if we die before reaching them this is why we pray cause me to reach the righteous and this is chapter 12 verse 101 so that was the commentary before we even get into the next section on attaining so there's a lot to digest there but a lot of great advice about basically pacing ourselves being aware of our thoughts making sure that we don't let ourselves get too carried away where we start to get prideful of any progress we make and that we attribute our progress to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala as success only comes from him alhamdulillah so now I'm going to change the slides here inshallah to the next section which is exercise one and this is on guarding the prayer and likely because the section is quite long we're going to stay on this until for the rest of the the evening because it's a pretty long section before we get to exercise two which is guarding the heart the tongue excuse me so on guarding the prayer of all the actions that a Muslim will do in his or her life none is more important than the five prescribed daily prayers it is the central pillar that supports the entire edifice of Islam the Quran defines the believers as follows. Those who believe in the unseen and established prayer and from what we provide for them they give out thus prayer is mentioned immediately after belief it is a believer's expression of gratitude to his Lord for consciousness itself the gift of life and awareness a divine tradition which is hadith Qudsi related by Imam al-Hakim on the authority of Aisha radi Allah and has states. There are five prayers that Allah has ordained for his servants whoever dutifully undertakes them without belittling the right they embody in any way he has a covenant with Allah that he will enter him into paradise. Commenting on this hadith Imam al-Munawi states the use of the definite article in the in the prayer indicates that what is meant is the complete prayer which fulfills the pillars near integrals confirmed Sunan recommended matters and all the other conditions of the prayer. There is no doubt that the one who fulfills this will be a true believer he is someone who would avoid the prohibited matters and fulfill his obligations. He would engage his soul in the obedience of his Lord indeed Allah says in his book that was revealed to his ennobled servant surely prayer prevents anything foul or indecent that's chapter 29 verse 45 anyone who possesses this state is worthy of being spared from the punishment of Allah and of being given the garden without any accounting and Allah knows best so that was the commentary from from Imam al-Munawi on this hadith Qudsi about this covenant that Allah Subhan Allah has made with those who pray and take seriously their prayer and are dutiful to their prayer that he that they will enter paradise Subhan Allah may Allah accept all of us in that amongst that group inshallah Allah also says in the Quran surely prayer has been prescribed for the believers at specific times. This is chapter 4 verse 103 he also says seek assistance with patience and prayer and surely it is a difficult matter except for the believers that's in chapter 2 verse 45 so all of this I mean it's pretty clear right we're talking about guarding the prayer and how do we guard the prayer we have to first and foremost prioritize the prayer I was just in another event prior to this hadaqa and I just shared some words and reflections I also shared a quote that I'll read in a moment from this text but I spoke just about the importance of really having the mindset that I was we were all created for one purpose and one purpose only which is to worship Allah Subhan Allah so nothing else should proceed the prayer the prayer has to be our top obligation or our top objective every single day when you wake up or when you're planning your day if you're not factoring in your prayer you're not setting alarms for example for Fajib and then you wonder oh I'm struggling with Fajib well if you're not setting an alarm or doing your due diligence if alarms aren't working let's say you know you have a phone alarm and it's not working you still you know let it snooze and then it's then you need to get creative and figure out something else maybe it doesn't need to be right by your phone but by your bed there's many people who that's been effective just moving the phone and keeping the alarm super loud but away from the bed which forces you to get up right if it's right next to you it's very tempting you know to just hit snooze and go okay five more minutes and then how many times has this happened to all of us right you do that it's a trick of shaitan and all of a sudden it's two hours later and it's bright bright broad daylight outside and you're like what just happened I just will you know I swear it was the alarm was just ringing no when you're in that state you're you're not of your mind so you have to think before and plan ahead and that's why just a simple adjustment with you know getting a new alarm system or having some sort of a plan with your family member who maybe they have an easier time waking up for a fudger or they can help you or a friend if you live by yourself but you got to just show your sincerity to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala I've talked to many people who they just kind of act like you know it's fudger is really hard for me and they'll say comments where it's like they've given up already and they've just accepted that that is the prayer that is just too difficult for them they cannot do it but that's not showing real real sincerity you're not guarding your prayer if you're going to give up like that you got to really go to the whatever lengths you have to to fix the situation and of course ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for Tophir throughout so that's the most important thing prioritizing your prayers making sure that before you schedule something you know there's times people want to meet you there's times you have appointments for like the dentist or the doctor I have to go pick up this medication I have to go do this run this errand you have to factor in the prayer first before you make those plans otherwise you how many again times have people fallen into this trap of letting life like living their life and then the day of when they're out the door oh no I don't have will do oh no I don't know where to pray oh it's okay I'll just pray it when I get home that's what is that doing that's not showing any responsibility and I used an analogy recently too just talking about if any of us got wanted to get a job and we applied for a job or we got hired let's just say we got hired for a job and the job description was very clear like this is your task you have one task you know let's just say you know you're an accountant okay and you have to you know just do the run the books right every single day set at your computer from this time to this time but this is your job you have no other job nobody wants you to do anything else don't fax don't print don't email people just sit and do this right if that was a clear description of your job but then you're not doing that job and you're doing everything else right how long what would we last in that position we likely wouldn't last at all we like to be fired pretty quickly but all of us out of this generosity is giving us time and time and opportunity opportunity to keep fixing ourselves to waking up to not getting distracted by life and forgetting what we were created to do and so you gotta have to look at that here we are created to worship Allah but how many of us fail in fulfilling the most basic obligation and not basic as in I mean basic as in this is the most important fundamental thing that we have to do we're not fulfilling it but then we're doing everything else and we make excuses well I had to take this you know had this appointment I had to do this for work I do this for school my child needed to me I need to talk to my kids teacher and we make a lot of excuses not realizing those are not part of your job description right your job as as insane as a human being is to worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and nothing should get in the way of that so really having that paradigm shift where prayer really is my my priority in life and if I don't I'm not going to worry about hurting other people's feelings or being you know or anything else I'm going to schedule my prayers and then everything else can fall in into the schedule afterwards but I don't put everything else in and then go oh yeah what about prayers that's not the right priority right so that's you know the the most important message from this first section and then you know emphasizing the importance of time of understanding that prayers have times that are set out and spread out through the day and there's incredible wisdom in that we are very forgetful and I mean subhanahu wa ta'ala we forget a lot of important things it's just human nature to be forgetful and so Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala knowing us he knows that we need reminders to remember our job our purpose our function and that's what prayer is is set to do and it's also an opportunity to remember to call on him that this life is difficult we're going to be challenged we're going to have health problems we're going to lose people we love we're going to have tribulations that come maybe from places we just wouldn't expect them people are betrayed all the time in this life from the closest people to them and it's very painful and it hurts but if you know that you have this consistent something consistent for you that your heart is attached to and it's never failed you and it's always been there and it's always been a refuge for you the prayer it makes life easier because people will fail you people will disappoint you point you people will hurt you but Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala doesn't ever do any of that and so that's one of the most important reasons to also understand the wisdom of him giving us these prayers throughout our day so that we're reminded you're not alone you have a refuge ask right almost probably wants us to ask of him and so they mentioned again the importance of respecting the prescribed times right of the prayer now on the next page for those who have the book I'm on page 44 at the top we have some more commentary here inshallah still on the prayer it is one of the extraordinary insights of imam manik that the first section of his muwatta which proceeds even the section on ritual purity is on the times of the prayer so before he even talks about will do he's talking about the times of prayer now let's see why it is the times of prayer that obligate purity observing the times of prayer is the first thing we do when we wake and the last thing we do before retiring to bed it is done in the middle of the day and it is and in its decline it is an unrelenting reminder of to whom we belong why we are here and where we are going subhanallah so beautiful I mean that's it think about you know when we wake up inshallah we're thinking about fadr prayer when we go to sleep we've just prayed Isha and we're hopefully setting our line our alarms for fadr prayer so we're constantly mindful of times inshallah we're praying all of our prayers on time but I love the beautiful eloquent way with which you know he described why it's this unrelenting reminder right of to whom we belong subhanallah we belong to Allah and that is why we are placed on this planet and this earth we are placed here to worship him imam manik continued and he he wrote I heard from nafi who heard from ibn umar that umar ibn al-Khattab radi allah on him wrote to all of his governors saying the most important of your affairs in my view is the prayer whoever protects it and observes it carefully is protecting his religion while whoever is negligent about it will be even more negligent about other things subhanallah I mean that's just such a perfect advice that if you don't prioritize your prayers everything else will just you know you'll you'll fall through you'll fail because you're not even prioritizing the most important thing you were meant to do so how would you be responsible in other areas right you're just going to start becoming negligent about a lot of things about paying your zakat or just eating the halal or your fasts making up prayers that you missed just other responsibilities that we all have in our homes to our parents to our children to our loved ones to our teachers we just start getting really we slack off right and this is the nature of the human being you get into bad habits and it just kind of starts to have this ripple effect and unfortunately that just becomes you know who we are so we want to seek refuge in Allah from that and so he's giving us advice that get the prayer right and he's writing to his governors and to me that's really also a really important point because you know most of us we have our you know our families that we we we we're in charge of and we we protect and we take care of and then we have our work and maybe some extended family members so it's like you know small in turn in in in contrast to someone who's in a public office position right a governor I mean to consider how many people are under their care not just their own families but you have entire cities or states or what have you so for him to give this advice that you know he's saying very clearly the most important of your affairs in my view is the prayer he's telling them that you know don't prioritize your work and this is a good message for workaholics out there or mama holics or a dad a holics or whoever brother a holics whoever it is that you are prioritizing you know and we do this subconsciously sometimes you know you're up at night working on your project for work and you're so stressed out and you issues in but you're too tired and you're just like it's okay you know no you can't prioritize your work projects above worshipping Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and so again this advice is for it for all of us to remember that nothing precedes our worship so don't make excuses I have deadlines I'm I'm worried about this X Y and Z pray and inshallah watch how Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will facilitate your affairs for you but if you don't then be prepared for a lot of failures may God protect us so we're still on page 44 and they go on to say this is advice from the man he's they're talking about and said now I'm on for the Allah and home so this is advice from the man whom Satan completely avoided so if our mother went down a path shaitan would take another route and we know that right he was afraid of them surely remaining in a state of purity and being regular in prayer will keep shaitan away from us and this is also you know the advice that we have about keeping your will do being consistent in your will do does attract the angels and repel the shaitan so that's just another you know little side note there but it's important to to keep in mind because in order to facilitate your prayer you also have to you know think smart not hard you know you sometimes people think of they don't plan in advance they don't really think about how to make the prayer easier for example keeping your will do as a rule or trying to always maintain will do no matter what and especially before you leave your house like that should be a written rule somewhere in your mind as I at least that you know I don't leave the house without Lou because then if you happen to find yourself in a situation when you forgot to pray and have that you don't have to worry about scrambling around trying to find a bathroom to make your will do and or you know thinking about oh no it's so dirty in public bathrooms we know are just not clean most of the time so you're removing that burden by keeping this rule that I don't ever leave the house without will do and also being mindful of how much you're drinking if you do leave the house that's also a personal rule of mind I try to be very vigilant about how much I'm drinking because if I'm going for example my family and I would like to sometimes go to day trips to San Francisco and other local beautiful sites and when we get in the car sure the kids will have little snacks and we'll you know I'll have our drinks but I always am mindful to remind myself and them to slow down don't drink too much because we need to keep our will do we don't want to be out and about and oh I have to again use a restroom and now now I have to worry about will do for the next pair because likely we're not going to be home it just gets too complicated but if you make these little practical adjustments and rules for yourself you're making it easy and inshallah you won't have problems you'll be able to pray and everybody everything will be fine inshallah but it takes that type of effort and mindfulness and practice to get there so the ritual prayer is the believer's protection and connection with his Lord the prayer is a science and an art that takes many years of serious and vigilant practice in order to arrive at its true reality the first and most important matter is to learn its form this involves studying a valid text from one of the canonical schools of Islam with a teacher who is licensed to teach the section of the rules of fiqh jurisprudence so when seeking a teacher keep in mind the hadith related by Imam at-Tirmidhi and others that the great scholar Ibn Surin said sacred knowledge is the essence of religion so let each of you examine well whom he takes his knowledge from so finding a teacher that's amazing to see how they're we need to learn how to do the prayer correctly so studying the fiqh of prayer and of course we know there's four schools of thought in this Sunni Orthodox Islam and so we have you want to find a qualified teacher who studied the fiqh of the jurisprudence of one of the four schools and ask them to teach you the next stage is to be vigilant about ritual purity Wudu and Hussal and about the avoidance of urine and any other impurities Najasa be sure to study both the section on impurities and the section on purification according to the great scholar and a reviver of the last century Imam Muhammad Maulud Ali Yaqubi the rules of prayer should be reviewed every six months in order to keep them fresh subhanAllah that's advice for all of us to take some of us may have learned that these rules when we were younger when we were children or maybe later in in our adolescents or young adult stages but as we grow the mind of course we know can be for you know we can forget and so it's important to renew our whatever we've learned and to to go over those rules just to make sure that we're not forgetting finally let us all heed the advice of the great Moroccan scholar Sheikh Abdulrahman Al-Aqdari who says in his text on the prayer and so now this is going to be a quote from Imam Al-Aqdari the prayer contains a vast spiritual light that radiates in the hearts of those who truly pray but it is only obtainable by one who has humbly submitted himself thus should you come to the prayer empty your heart of the ephemeral world and what it contains and occupy yourself with vigilant awareness of your master for whose sake you are praying firmly believe that your prayer is humility and a basement for the sake of Allah exalted above attribution is he by means of standing bowing and prostrating moreover it is a form of reverence and magnification of him by means of saying Allahu Akbar subhan Allah and other general remembrances thus guard your prayer as it is the greatest of all acts of worship do not allow shaytan to play with your heart and preoccupy you during your prayers to such an extent that he blinds your heart's eye and deprives you of the pleasure of the spiritual lights of the prayer therefore have constant humility in it for surely it prevents you from committing foulness and misdeeds because of that very humility in it seek help from Allah for surely he is the best of those whose help is sought so that was the quote of Imam al Akhiri alhamdulillah so many gems and beautiful points there but really just to remember what is the point of the prayer the point of the prayers to connect us to Allah subhan Allah to show our humility to him and to really rid ourselves of the filth of this dunya to stand before him and abject humility and to ask of his forgiveness for our you know our misdeeds and our sins and all of our transgressions and to ask for guidance so they're so it's a process it's not just a robotic event that takes place five times a day where we get up and speak in a language we may not be fluent in or know and we're thinking about you know our day to day activities and that if that's your experience that's normal people we all struggle with with intrusive thoughts during prayers this is very normal so it's not you know we're just speaking about the ideal the ideals that we want to pursue in prayer the perfection of prayer is to stand before Allah subhan Allah totally focused aware of him and really in that impoverished state because that is the point it's to show our reverence our need of him our just complete you know we're lost without Allah subhan Allah and that's what the prayer should reflect is that you're aware of that you need him and so martial beautiful description there the duration of the exercise for the prayers 40 days we should stipulate with ourselves that for 40 consecutive days we will pray all five prayers at their respective times without missing one while fulfilling each prayers conditions pillars near integrals and recommended acts if any of the prayers is not prayed on time then we must start the 40 day period over subhan Allah that's that's intense but this is again this is the purpose of this whole text it's changing ourselves it's transformation and so you want to look at it like that's that's a pretty big you know goal but it's it's definitely attainable and there's people who've done this and so how should you do it you know do you have a journal do you have a record you have some way of keeping score so that you can see did I do my prayer on time did I fulfill all of the requirements of this 40 day challenge and if not then you're you reset you go back to day one so I think it's it's really great you know because a human nature we are forgetful but at the same time when the consequences are so severe we tend to be more mindful so the fact that you're aware of having to go all the way back to the starting point by one misstep one misprayer should be inshallah the reason why you have so much more presence and are so much more aware and inshallah will succeed so I think it's a really brilliant way of doing this the exercise may take the exercise may take a long time to complete but this is the struggle of the believer so we should never despair for a man this exercise is preferably performed in congregation and preferably in the mosque but due to the fact that many people in Western countries do not live near a mosque that is not always an option if one can pray at least the dawn prayer and the night prayer in a mosque and the reward is greater a family is counted as a congregation therefore it is important for a husband wife and children who are seven years of age and older to pray together in the house if congregational prayers are not held in your area so I think that's really great general advice but also really does apply to all of us now we most of us are still not able to go back to our local misadjid and so or if we are the times there's a lot of restrictions there so this is a really good advice about just starting to do these congregational prayers in your home with those conditions of children being seven and older and making that the habit and this you know it's really again it's just it's relevant because so many of us this could apply to and it's easy for us to inshallah people are working from home I know with my family and from enough for the most part we try to do our prayers always together because it's we're all here and it's just makes sense that way so the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said if people knew what was in the congregational prayer they would attend it even if it meant they crawl subhanallah they just visualize that for a moment you know people crawling to the masjid just because they want the reward because they're aware of the reward right but we we're we're not told that the specific reward but in many ways we are told the reward just by virtue of these words we can understand that there is immense reward in going to prayers inshallah that are congregational in the masjid and this is you know more so for for men it's certainly required more than for women the early companions also said that if someone did not attend prayers in the mosque regularly without a valid excuse they considered him to be a hypocrite Audhu Billah a sure sign of hypocrites is that when the prayer time comes in they are lazy and procrastinate until the time is almost out Audhu Billah may Allah forgive us right and you know when we hear these words I know they can sometimes you know be jarring because you don't ever want to think of yourself as a hypocrite you know and many people are really trying their best and so sometimes we fall short and these words we shouldn't take them to shame to shame to you know to make us feel bad and and so ashamed of ourselves that we don't even think there's any point no that's from she thought it's just a matter of we expect we you know we should do better we can do better so it's really a matter of trying to encourage all of us to do better right so this is a chapter 4 verse 142 if they get up to pray they do they do so sloughfully right so that's stuff will again the sign of someone who has any factors that they don't pray with that you know this is what I have to do this or that resolve isn't there they kind of drag their feet to the prayer so we should be mindful is that how we approach the prayer where it's like as if we're being tortured all the time this is a meeting with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and yes maybe physically we're tired we're exhausted where we just want to sit around and do nothing but the prayer is not that you shouldn't target the prayer with those feelings right that's it's not the fault of prayer coming in that you should feel that way towards the prayer it's that you are maybe need to readjust your schedule maybe you're not sleeping enough maybe you don't have the time management so that when a prayer comes in you feel burdened by it but if you were more organized you would just see it as something you have to do and that you want to do and inshallah you don't have that attitude towards it let me see the time here so I'll read okay I'll read the last section it's just one page and then we'll stop for questions and inshallah will be ready next time for exercise to guard the tongue so this is the remainder of the section the three prayers that require special vigilance are the dawn sub the midday asir and sunset so the dawn is also fudged right some people miss the dawn prayer out of laziness or too much activity into the early hours of the morning it is sinna to retire at night after the night prayer is performed and there is great wisdom in that practice as in all of the prophetic traditions the midday prayer is probably the middle prayer that the Quran warns us of when Allah subhan that it says be vigilant about your prayers and particularly of the middle prayer and that's in Surah Baqarah chapter 2 verse 238. So Imam Malik following the opinions of Ali Rabiullah and Ibn Abbas and considered the middle prayer to be the dawn prayer so the fudger the hadith in Abu Ghraib mentions the midday prayer as the middle as the middle prayer and in some ways the middle prayer is like the night of power it is hidden within the prayers so we should be vigilant about all of them subhan Allah so you can see that all the scholars on them I had different opinions about which prayer does this verse apply to right be vigilant about your prayers and particularly of the middle prayer it's like a little clever as the text mentions we don't quite know which night of Ramadan is like a little we have an idea some people assert certain things but we really don't know so in the same way this verse about the secret or you know the superiority of the middle prayer is also unknown to us but mashallah there's great wisdom in that because and to me it makes perfect sense perhaps it was revealed we would we would only focus on that prayer and then not do well and the other prayers right subhan Allah or not or kind of slack off on the other prayer so I think there's just immense wisdom in it being a secret that's something we should pursue inshallah so so I'm just checking my messages here I have a message from brothers and I want to make sure I'm not missing anything one moment please okay so then we have the next section that the sunset prayer has a very short time in which it must be performed whereas the post meridian prayer and the night prayer have longer valid time frames and are more flexible for people's schedules should people need to delay them which is also another mashallah such great mercy from Allah's father knowing that the daylight and times when people work and so he's given us these longer windows right upon faltering in an exercise we need to levy a self-imposed penalty to discipline the nefs such as spending in charity or fasting it is also better to do this with others as a way of enjoying each other to righteousness and so if you are doing this practice of trying to commit to your prayers for 40 days and let's say you miss a prayer in addition to having to go all the way back to step one they're suggesting that you set up another system of you know sort of a penalty for yourself so that you know not to let your nefs get the best of you again you can do that for by yourself or with a friend once we're performing the five obligatory prayers with regularity then it is certainly worthy out it is certainly worthy worth our efforts excuse me to begin increasing extra prayers especially the late night prayers the Hajj late night prayer is one of the defining qualities of a saw to have a righteous person also called a wedding a friend of Allah regarding the late night prayers for the Iyad said that if a man was unable to do them it was due to his wrong actions during the day may Allah make us the fitting to stand before him here and in the hereafter I mean I mean I mean so so many wonderful just like I said gems throughout this portion and of course throughout the book but that last point about you know really trying to perfect our prayers because again people who are tuning in maybe at different levels so if you've arrived at that place of of really taking your five daily prayer seriously then this is the next level which is committing to the Hajj prayers and also if you're consistent with your Tahajjud prayers and you miss them then you should certainly take yourself into account what did you do during the day that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala with held the Tahajjud prayer from you as as in some way you know a bit of a punishment right or a penalty what did you do during the day so everybody is at different levels but I think this really speaks to all of us that when Shala we have to find where we are in this you know in trying to fulfill this this exercise and in trying to perfect and guard our prayers inshallah and and do what we have to do so may Allah give us all to think that was the end of section one or exercise one on guarding the prayers in two weeks time we will go over exercise to which will be guarding the tongue and the other sections that follow so I'm going to see a brother Salman told me a couple minutes ago there were no questions but maybe now that I've opened up or I'm opening it up I should say there will be so I'll just wait for him or let me actually stop the screen share and I can also check come to do that so let's see we have a few minutes inshallah we can hopefully address anything that needs to be addressed I'm on Facebook I don't know where you are Brother Salman if you are on YouTube on Facebook I don't see I just see Mashallah salam thank you Benjetta Harrison Mashallah salam aleykum aleykum salam and ecchi I want to say or ecchi I don't forgive me if I'm pronouncing it wrong but thank you for your salams alhamdulillah I don't see any questions there and brother Salman is also telling me no on YouTube as well so it's a quiet night maybe alhamdulillah thank you for tuning in everyone it's always a pleasure and an honor to to do these gatherings with all of you and alhamdulillah we're getting we're making way through this text so inshallah we'll hopefully be getting through it or to the end of it soon but thank you for your patience and thank you thank you so much Latanya thank you aleykum salam Avion I see some lovely comments thank you shahnaz juzak ala khayran Mashallah you guys are so kind to leave comments and Dua's amin to all of your Dua's thank you so much we'll go ahead and end in Dua inshallah and we'll see you in two weeks SubhanakAllah huma wa bi hamdika shabwan la ilaha ila antara astaghfiruk wa natsubu ilayk Bismillahirrahmanirrahim wal'asir illa linsan ala fi khusr illa ladina amin wa amin asfali hati wa tawasaw bil haqi wa tawasaw bil sabr amin amin wajbain juzakum ala khayran again everyone have a wonderful remainder of your evening inshallah and we will see you in two weeks