In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise be due to Allah, Lord of all the worlds. And peace and blessings of Allah be upon our Master and Prophet Muhammad. The great power of his family and companions. And peace and blessings of Allah be upon him. Since we are in this month of striving, I just wanted to share just some of the guidance of the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him. And the early Muslims about rushing to make the most of the moments of one's life. The Beloved Messenger, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, mentioned in the Sahih Hadith that A sikhah و النعمتان مغبون فيهما كثير من الناس. That there's two tremendous blessings that most people miss out on. نعمتان. Two blessings. مغبون فيهما كثير من الناس. That most people miss out on. That they're cheated off. And the term مغبون is from losing out in a transaction. Because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala describes this life as being a transaction. إن الله اشترا من المؤمنينة انفسهم و مؤالهم بأن لهم الجنة. That Allah has purchased from the believers their lives and their wealth in exchange for paradise. So this life is a transaction. And what you put into it, it's an investment. What you put into it is that you will have the return and the hereafter. But the Prophet ﷺ says there's two tremendous blessings that most people miss out on. What are they? السحة والفراغ. Health and free time. And this Hadith is a Sahih Hadith related by Imam Bukhari and others. And there's a number of similar narrations. Two great blessings that most people miss out on. Health and free time. And that health they say is at different levels. The health that you lose out on one is the health of youth. When you have strength and once you reach adulthood after a certain stage you're only going to get weaker and you're only going to get less able. But the other aspect of losing out on it is the fact that while you can while your heart is still beating while you're still breathing you still have some semblance of health. And as long as you have it make the most of what you have. Make the most of what you have. Don't lose out on whatever you have because sometimes people say well what can I do anymore?  As long as you're breathing you can be remembering Allah SWT. You can be doing the good that is facilitated. But one of the other aspects of that as well is to see that that health is a trust from Allah SWT. It is a trust from Allah SWT and taking care of your health not just because you want to live for a long time but rather because this is the abode of opportunity. The Prophet SAW was asked who are the best of people. He said Whoever's life is long and whose actions are good. So being a little careful about what you eat at Suhur is a religious consideration. Not just because it's not a good thing to eat too much but because the preservation of your health is part of intelligence. Because you're trying to maximize the good that you can attain in this life because you want to maximize the returns in the hereafter. You want to attain Allah SWT's closeness. As one of the ulama put it so beautifully said your body is a horse that you ride into infinity. Your body is a horse that you ride into infinity. So take care of it. This is your don't lose out. Just to look at the kinds of things people do. Around Ramadan you say we have some spectacular cases of ultimately it's foolishness the way we can take care of our bodies. You eat so much you're not able to get up for tahajjud. You eat so much you're not able. A lot of people say you know I had so much at so and so iftar I couldn't even make it to Tarawih. Mashallah that's great. So there's two tremendous blessings that most people miss out on. Health and the other is free time. But health we should really look at one the moments Allah has given us of health that when you find within yourself the ability to pray standing to do these things make the most of it. Even if you're sick you still have the basic health and it's a religious responsibility. Why? It is the Fouqaha tell us it is personally obligatory to take the means to have the health that enables one to fulfill one's religious obligations. Which includes for example taking care of your health such that you're able to pray standing. Someone who out of their own remissness doesn't take care of their health so they're not able to pray standing they will be culpable for that because they've fallen short of worshipping Allah as he has commanded. There's things that are out of one's control. You have an accident you have a bad back trouble this and that but someone who just overeats and doesn't take care of their health etc. That could well be sinful. Similarly to have the health by which you are able to fulfill your worldly responsibilities in terms of earning a lawful living etc. This is a religious obligation and taking care of one's health for the sake of Allah is a door of drawing closer to Allah. The other tremendous blessing is time. Two great blessings that most people lose out on. Cheat themselves off free time. And one of the biggest lies that people say is I'm busy. And it's a lie. Many of the early Muslims there's certain things that they didn't like asking people nor did they like responding to. One of them was, how are you? They said it's both the question and the answer are dishonest. If I were to ask, how are you? Most of the time no one wants to hear that well there's 10 problems right now. It's like how are you? You don't really mean the question and the person will say I'm fine. They don't really mean the answer. Imagine you go to someone's iftar and say uncle how are you doing? And they say beta you don't know all the trouble. What's wrong with this guy? Abu Talib Al-Mikki mentioned this in Khutul-Qur. Many of the early Muslims didn't like asking that question and they didn't like answering it. And similarly another question that they didn't like was what's going on? How are things? Why? Because again the question is not honest and the typical answer would be things like oh I've been really busy. It's a lie. And most people actually they say people who spend extra hours at work it is very rare that people who put in extra hours at work are actually working. And it's just part of how the human being works that people like the stress. So people have like a big deadline coming. Most people aren't actually doing a lot of hard work. They're sort of putting things off and drinking some coffee and stressing, doodling, surfing other websites, doing other things. And it's rare that someone's genuinely putting in 60, 70 hours a week. There's always a lot of fluff time. It can be clear fluff where they're just pretending to work and they're doing other things or they're doing other things on the side. And are you really busy? Usually the answer is no you're not. No you're not. Or okay even if you are working 10 hours a day at work, 12 hours a day. What's happening the rest of the time? What's happening the rest of the time? A lot of times when people get religious one of the questions they start asking is how do I reduce the number of hours I sleep? And the prophet said I mentioned that excess is not in sleep. Excess is in waking. Don't worry about whether you're sleeping 6 hours or 8 hours. That's only a quarter or one third of the day. What's going on the rest of the day? What's going on the rest of the day? And that's something to ask oneself that the hours of one's day are we using them in a manner that optimizes one's standing with Allah SWT. They mentioned about the main teacher of Imam Abu Hanifa, Hamad ibn Abi Sulayman, that if he said to Hamad, that if Hamad was told that you're dying tomorrow he would not be able to increase in his good works. Because he was already going full tilt. And you see people like that, right? We're that careful of their time. Imam Ahmad used to make dua for one of the biggest criminals of Baghdad. Whenever he was mentioned he would noticeably make dua for him. So he was asked like why do you make dua for this man? He's a criminal. He said because when I consider this man and the vileness of what he's engaged in but then I look at how much he is striving to fulfill his vile aims I can't help but reflect on my own life and the nobility of what I'm striving to pursue and he reminds me of how intensely I should be pursuing that noble matter. These are signs. I had it for no good reason. I had Sahur at a friend's house right in downtown Toronto after Sahur we prayed Fajr and we're walking outside. It's like 5.30 in the morning. Downtown we're walking and there's all these fitness centers or there's one of my friends called the fitness centers. They have the glass windows because they want people to see it and we walk by two or three of them. I don't know where we're going actually because we could have taken a cab right in front of his house we were just talking about changing the world. They're half full. I like 5.30 in the morning. Why? Because people are seeking dunya and they're seeking it intensely but one should consider like in your time what are you trying to maximize? Are you losing out on time? That is one of the things. One of the great spiritual works in the month of Ramadan is a work in which you're not actually doing anything outwardly. It is reflection. One of the things to reflect on is your life and how are you spending your time and to do some personal accounting that my weekly schedule, what do I actually do? A lot of times you ask people, do you spend time with your children? I'm so busy etc. But it's not real because we have escapist tendencies and now we have a lot of comfort zones. It's very easy to get into an internet argument with someone about something random but I'm too busy for my son. When's the last time you had a conversation with your daughter? Things are so hectic and stuff, they're not. We waste a lot of time.  A lot of the Olympics aren't even sports. There's an 80-year-old horse riding this is an Olympian who's like 80 years old competing. Or this one in shooting, what do they call it? No, they shoot these guns. There's a lady who's eight months pregnant who's competing in the Olympics. Why do you care about how someone can shoot? What does it do for you?  No, a lot of it. You're emotionally attached to soccer and whatever, it makes you happy. But do you need to watch that much of it? No, a lot of things that we do. So really to take oneself to account, how are you spending your time? It's not a question of just add extra worship of Allah. One of the greatest doors of drawing closer to Allah is our social relations. How much time do you spend with your parents? How much time do you spend in excellent ways with family? How much time do you spend serving others? Little things that have tremendous consequences. But I'm too busy for that. And it's not a question that you're too busy that we're wasting too much of our time. Because in reality, I'll sound a friend of mine who is a senior HR manager for a very large company. And we're talking about hiring someone for something. Broadly, there's two theories of who you should hire. One thing is to look at who's available, but another way of hiring someone is to look at who's the busiest person and give them the job. I said, why? I said, because the person who's busiest already is making the most of their time. They're already doing eight things, so they squeeze the ninth thing in. But the person who's not really doing anything, if you give them that one thing to do, they probably won't do that either. So this is something that requires serious reflection. And that's why there's an entire Surah about time, Surat Al-Asr, and to look at how one is directing one's time. And one of the best things you can do in this month is to fix your direction in life. So that you can honestly say that that my life, my prayer, my devotion, my life, and my dying are all for the sake of Allah, the Lord of the worlds. So this is something that one should be thinking about in this month. And this is one of the great wisdoms that there's both a spiritual dimension to this month and a deeply social dimension to this month. So that we can recalibrate our social relations. And they have a spirit. The Iftar is a sunnah. We know that there's great reward in it. So we can recalibrate those relationships as well. So we can direct ourselves to Allah both by devotions and in our social life. So take some time out. And sometimes it helps to actually write these things down. Like ask yourself, look, how do I spend my time? And how do I change the way I spend my time? It's not just what you spend your time on, but the things that you do themselves. How do you use them? The hours at work. The hours at work. Am I going to work with a high intent? Am I working for the sake of Allah, Subhanahu wa ta'ala? What are the sunnahs of the Prophet ﷺ related to work? Such as keep your tongue moist with the remembrance of Allah. Have multiple high intentions in your work. What are the opportunities of worship of Allah, Subhanahu wa ta'ala, at work? People take breaks in the mid-morning. You know, even productivity-wise, it helps to take breaks.  You look at what are other sunnahs related to work, and there's dozens of sunnahs related to work. You go to work with the intention of upholding good character, of being of assistance to others. It changes your attitude at work. You're not just sort of minding your own business, but you're striving to be of assistance to others. So you go for your lunch break. You have someone else on your work team. They're not taking a lunch break because they have a deadline because they're slacking off the last three days.  Why? Because you're not just working with what's called the GSB, the general state of blah. You're working with spiritual purpose, that I'm here at work to seek the pleasure of Allah, Subhanahu wa ta'ala. How? By the way, I conduct myself with work. By the way, I do the work itself. The work itself is meant to be spiritual, right? Because you're trying to excel in that work, not just because you want to get ahead in your career, but because Allah is beautiful and He loves beauty. Allah has decreed excellence in all matters. So that work has a spiritual purpose. You have the intention that people benefit from this work in the best of ways. As you're thinking about your career, as one should, right? You're thinking not just about how do I get to a place where I can make more money or have more procedure, but you're thinking about how do I earn the pleasure of Allah, Subhanahu wa ta'ala, in my career? Because this time that Allah has gifted me with, I want to maximize the good in it. So you see, okay, what are career choices where I could be of greatest benefit to Allah's creation? Right? Which maybe right now you're stuck in something that would be hard to argue of particular benefit. But it pays the bills instead, it's good, right? But you could have a plan to gradually go to something that is of genuine benefit. You know, in some industries, frankly, some lines of work, like if you're in the pharmaceutical industry, there's some, you know, the kind of medicine that you're doing, you're involved with, is deeply problematic. But pays the bills is hard to say, how can I be transitioning gradually to something that is of genuine benefit to creation? And that changes one's thinking, right? So look carefully at your life. And it helps to write these things down. Just look at what you do in the course of the week so that you don't fall under the category of people that the Prophet SAW mentioned in this hadith that there's two tremendous blessings that most people miss out on. Health and well-being. And we'll close with another hadith of the Prophet SAW which you've, that the beloved messenger SAW told a person whom he was advising, that take advantage of five things before five. Shababika qabla haramik. Your youth, before your old age, wassihataka qabla saqamik.  Waghinaaka qabla faqrik. And your wealth, before your poverty. Your wealth, before your poverty. So when you have money, you should be thinking how do I seek the pleasure of Allah SWT with this, right? Wa faraqa qabla shughlik.  Because sometimes things happen that busy you that now you don't have that discretion. You have a parent who slipped down the stairs and you have to be taking full-time care of them, for example. So now you don't have the discretion to go and study and learn and this and that. So you missed out, to some extent. Wa hayataka qabla motik.   So may Allah SWT make us of those who take advantage of these matters. Because as one of the early Muslims, Muawiyah bin Qura said, Aqtarun nasi khisaban yawma al qiyama al-sahi'u al-fariq. That of the people who are most thoroughly taken into account on the day of judgment is a person who had good health and free time. Who had good health and free time. What did he do? And really, like, look carefully. Because so many people and, you know, my father's in the category of, you know, the wise old uncle, right? And they say some very insightful things. One day I was driving with my father. He doesn't usually speak a lot. And sometimes it gets kind of awkward with your, especially with fathers, because you don't know what to say.  And I'm like, what do you mean? And he said, you know, the way work is structured in our times is that people come back home and they're like drained. It's like they've become a potato. And all you can do with a potato is put it on the couch. So the potato came before the couch. And there's a lot of people, they say, I don't have time for anything. But what time do you get back to work? What time do you go to sleep? What do you do in those four hours? Five hours, right? Look at that. And one of the ways to get things done as well, they say that, you know, to get things done between every two things that you do, put in a third. So you're at home and now you get to work. But what do you do on your commute to work? That's a great opportunity, right? So, well, you know, I'm radio. And sometimes some spending of money is worth it. Like, you know, instead of spending the time listening to the radio to figure out whether there's traffic on the route, get a GPS that has live traffic updates. You spend $50, but you don't have to listen to the radio anymore for that. And instead, listen to something of benefit or engage in the remembrance of Allah. So look at those opportunities. You have a lunch break of an hour. Like, what do you do in that hour? Right? You have a lot of discretionary time. You have a friend of mine, really successful professional. He reads about two or three juz of Quran daily during work. I ask him, how do you do that? He says, basically, you know, you work, you know, you work in bursts and stuff. And as he's working, read a few lines of Quran. Do some more work, a few lines of Quran. And through the whole day, you know, lunch break before heading to lunch, that's 10, 15 minutes, squeezes it throughout the day. He's exceptionally successful at work, but he has that sense of urgency. I am seeking Allah SubhanAllah. And the way that is facilitated for different people is different. The doors of good are many, but we should strive to really do a personal accounting that what's going on in my life. And it can help write it down and make a commitment. And one of the things, they say, you can be rewarded for doing less more than you're rewarded for doing a lot. How? If the less that you take on is something that you're committed to making consistent throughout your life. But there's not a call, look, it only prayed four rakahs of tarawih instead. But to look at all these things that you are doing, how can you convert these after Ramadan into positive routines? How can he maximize the good through them? So we ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala that He grant us insight and understanding and also that He grant us beneficial knowledge and awareness of the sunnah of the Prophet SAW so that we're able to uphold the sunnah in the things that we do so that we can seek Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala in whatever circumstances He places us in. And may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon our Master and Prophet Muhammad with the great power, and upon his family and companions and may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon the world. Praise be to Allah. One of the reminders of the month of Ramadan is of our responsibility to remember Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. And this is a month of remembering Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. One of the most beautiful explanations of the reality and purpose and transformational nature of remembrance of Allah is one of the aphorisms, one of the hikm of Ibn Ata Illa. Ibn Ata Illa was a distinguished Egyptian scholar from the 7th Islamic century. And he was a distinguished faqih and theologian being specialized in Islamic law and Islamic beliefs but then he found his spiritual guide, Abu Abbas al-Mursi and after having been a very distinguished scholar he was teaching at Al-Azhar he traveled the spiritual path as well and he compiled these aphorisms there's slightly over 200 spiritual wisdoms and when he presented them to his sheikh to Abu Abbas al-Mursi Abu Abbas al-Mursi said My son, you have summarized the Ihiya of Imam al-Ghazali and added to it and it's an incredible work and at a peak of eloquence too it's very beautiful and there's dozens and dozens of commentaries on it Imam Ahmed Zarruq, who sheikh Hamza quotes so often he himself has 34 commentaries on this because this is something that he used to systematically teach it was part of his spiritual teaching he'd always be teaching on a weekly basis the Hikam and each time he'd write a different commentary on it about a number of those are published and this is about not leaving the remembrance of Allah and the consequence of that but there's a beautiful story related to this because one of the distinguished Imams of Islamic spirituality in the 20th century who has a book written about him as well is sheikh Ahmed Al-Alawi from Algeria from Mustaqanim Martin Lings did a biography of his in the early 1930s he visited Damascus from North Africa from Algeria and sheikh Abdulrahman Al-Shaghouri who is the teacher of sheikh Nuh Keller and one of the distinguished Imams of Islamic spirituality and a great theologian as well he was at that time in his late teens or early 20s when sheikh Ahmed Al-Alawi his world famous scholar came to Damascus and everyone was talking about him because a big deal sheikh Ahmed Al-Alawi is in Damascus and sheikh Abdulrahman at that time was in his late teens early 20s he was quite excited so he gathered his friends and let's go see him and at that time the French because after the first world war Syria was under the French mandate so there's quite strong anti-French sentiment sheikh Abdulrahman when he first saw sheikh Ahmed Al-Alawi this great visiting scholar the first thing he noticed about him was his socks Abdulrahman used to work in the textile industry like he was a scholar but he used to work in the textile industry and in Damascus at that time the socks that they had available were very thick socks they're quite rudimentary this sheikh was wearing very fine socks and he was in the textile industry so he knew about good socks and he was like how could this be a sheikh someone wearing socks like that would call himself a sheikh because the only way you could get socks like that in Damascus were French imports so the only people who'd wear imported French socks would be people who were deeply influenced by the French so he's looking at him he said he was young at that time and not as mature as he perhaps should have been it's like what could he have to say about the saw-woof about Islamic spirituality with wearing socks like that but he got curious so he was following him and the sheikh took off his socks to make wudu and he's standing there how could this man be a sheikh what could he have to say about the path to Allah wearing socks like that like these really fine socks of course North Africa had French influence had actually trade with the French for hundreds of years so these kinds of things were actually quite common from before so then the sheikh put on the socks and Sheikh Abdul Rahman was looking at him so he said he sort of sat at the back of the masjid who is this sheikh anyway? what does he have to say? but then the sheikh explained this hikmah that I'll be reading to you about not leaving the remembrance of Allah and Sheikh Abdul Rahman in his shoes was like whatever just get on with it but then one Sheikh Ahmed Al-Alawi explained this hikmah very soon Sheikh Abdul Rahman was completely attentive and at the end he said I had to kick myself in the heels and say if that's how you talk about spirituality I don't care what kind of socks you wear because it was very profound the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said لا يزالوا لسانك رطبا من ذكر الله keep your tongue moist with the remembrance of Allah a man had come to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam asking for advice that messenger of Allah the teachings of Islam are very encompassing so tell me something that I can hold fast to the teachings of Islam are very expansive because at one level Islam is very simple but in another way Islam is very deep it has both aspects Islam is an easy religion it is very beneficial in one's life to have the five obligatory prayers every religious obligation has obvious even worldly benefits if done properly the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said سوم تصحوا fast and you'll become healthy if you make it a part of your regular routine and learn the lessons from it so at one level it's very easy but it also has great depth it has great depth which is why the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said إنها دينة متين this religion is deep فأغلو فيه برفق so enter into it gently don't overwhelm yourself this is the way of the one who is described in the Quran قم الليلة إلا قليلة stand at night in worship except for a little half the night or a little more or a little less but you can't do that tomorrow it requires it's a high perfection it requires a lot of striving so this man came and said oh messenger of Allah the teachings of Islam are so encompassing are so vast tell me something I can hold fast to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said لا يزالوا لسانك رطبا من ذكر الله keep your tongue moist with the remembrance of Allah keep your tongue moist with the remembrance of Allah so ابن عطا إلا in this aphorism that we will read explains why we should remember Allah SWT and the benefit of remembering Allah constantly even if you're distracted even if you're distracted so ابن عطا إلا says لا تترك الذكر لعدم حضورك مع الله فيه do not leave the remembrance of Allah because of your heedlessness of Allah in your remembrance I don't leave the remembrance of Allah despite your heedlessness of Allah during the remembrance فإن غفلتك عن وجود ذكره أشدوا من غفلتك في وجود ذكره because your heedlessness of the remembrance of Allah is worse for you than your heedlessness during the remembrance of Allah so you're driving your car you're going to work you have 101 things in mind there's meetings in the morning and you have to do these projects that you have to follow up on and you have this and that you have a whole schedule and you're thinking about all this stuff that's going to happen and actually more important than that Ramzan is over you're saying okay where am I going for lunch? that's like number one and then did I talk to the minister of interior about what we'll be having for dinner and you're thinking about all these things so you think to yourself like why should and it's a sincere feeling perhaps that this is not an appropriate time to be making ذكره of Allah my mind is busy but Ibn Atali says do not leave the remembrance of Allah despite your heedlessness of Allah during the remembrance because your heedlessness of the remembrance of Allah is worse for you than your heedlessness during the remembrance of Allah why? he says because it may well be that Allah will take you from remembrance in which there's heedlessness to remembrance in which there is wakefulness ومن ذكر مع وجود يقضى إلى ذكر مع وجود حضور and then he may take you up from remembrance in which there's wakefulness to remembrance in which there's presence of heart with Allah ومن ذكر مع وجود حضور إلى ذكر مع غيبة عما سوى المذكور and then he may take you from remembrance in which there's presence of heart to remembrance in which there's absence from other than the one remembered سبحانه وتعالى and that's the wisdom that change does not happen by merely wishing it a change happens by making something consistent and with that consistency you bring excellence into it because if we all decide from this moment I'm not going to be heedless of Allah it's not like okay it'll happen you need to strive and the nature of remembrance of Allah is that it necessarily begins with a tongue and from the tongue it goes towards the heart so the heart becomes wakeful some of the meanings will come but then from wakefulness you have presence of heart you're active it's not just that you have moments of consciousness but your heart is present with Allah and then if that ذكر continues it goes from presence of heart with Allah سبحانه وتعالى to a state described by the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam that that spiritual excellence that you enter into a state of worship of Allah as though you behold him and if you behold Allah you're absent from other than Allah سبحانه وتعالى it goes from ذكر in which there's heedfulness to ذكر in which there's absence from other than the one remembered and then and that is not difficult for Allah that is not difficult for Allah that the fruits of one's spiritual works of one's remembrance are from Allah sبحانه وتعالى but we have to take the means and this is one of the means that one should strive to bring into one's life to make it's a prophetic council لا يزالوا لسانك رتبا من ذكر الله keep your tongue moist with the remembrance of Allah even if your heart and mind aren't all there because eventually it'll become like second nature before when you start driving a car you have to be thinking when you first start driving a car the whole mind especially if you learn how to drive stick shift you have to be thinking first gear now put into second gear now put into third gear it requires thinking automatic is a bit much easier but still like you don't have to be thinking let me look around now check rear view mirror check this you're thinking about all these things but then become second nature you can have a conversation with someone while driving the car you can be listening to a podcast or the radio or whatever and you're driving the car similarly with the remembrance of Allah sبحانه وتعالى and other activities of course this is not at every moment you're having a meeting with someone you might not be it may not be appropriate to be engaged in the remembrance of Allah while someone's telling you about the business report or someone is making a presentation and you're obviously engaged in zikr but much of our much of the moments of our life you're sitting with friends and family and uncles talking about episode 246 of Pakistani politics so what do you do you're sitting there passively you can still listen you quietly to yourself without making a show just engage in the remembrance of Allah sبحانه وتعالى and that is that becomes transformative this is the prophetic council so there's a few comments regarding this that Imam Ahmed Zarruq from one of his commentaries on the hikm that he mentions that when the author says don't leave the remembrance of Allah because of your lack of heedlessness of Allah in the remembrance he says that rather you know what we understand i.e. from Islamic teachings from the Sunnah of the Prophet s.a.w is that one should be striving to remember of Allah s.w.t in whatever circumstances one is in why because Allah s.w.t says regarding remembering Allah that you should remember Allah as you remember your parents or more intensely than that meaning the way you think about worldly matters you're always thinking about something that you should be thinking about Allah s.w.t remembering Allah like you remember worldly matters but rather even more so i.e. if you think about how much time we spend think about worldly matters how much time we spend thinking about Allah we should be thinking about Allah at least as much if not more but the way you do it is you engage in the remembrance of Allah regardless of what you're engaged in okay and this is one of the aspects of Islamic spirituality Islamic spirituality is lived not in retreat from one's worldly concerns but it's lived through one's worldly concerns right the believer they're at work and they're excelling at work but their heart is with Allah s.w.t you're with family and you strive to have the best of character to be the most helpful and most concerned member of your family but your heart is with Allah s.w.t they say it's a bit like the court of the king right that you're that the king has a court but then he has private chambers and the one who loves Allah s.w.t is with Allah s.w.t both in their general life they're in the court but they're also with Allah s.w.t in their private moments right that and it becomes a situation where one is conscious of Allah s.w.t even if one's tongue is not busy with Allah s.w.t and that was a state of the prophet s.w.t the Sahaba were once shocked because the prophet s.w.t went to sleep and he was lying down and he got up and he went to pray and the Sahaba had immaculate adab with the prophet s.w.t but they're also very straightforward if they saw something that they didn't understand with the utmost of adab and respect they would ask and that's one of the aspects of adab that are ignored and that we should instill that we should have the highest of manners and respect for our scholars for our elders and instill that even in our children that they should be able to question us but with respect that if they see us doing something strange to ask that I just wanted to know you know and with full respect that they should be able to object but respect so the Sahaba said ya Rasulullah you've told us that if you go to sleep lying down we should make wudu but we saw you sleeping and now you're praying and he said s.w.t I am not like you my eyes sleep yet my heart is awake my eyes sleep and the ruling of that is unique to the Prophet s.w.t because his sleep was a state of complete wakefulness such that he was in a complete state of remembrance of Allah and that's from what's considered there's an aspect of the sunnah the sunnah can be haram to follow the sunnah there's certain things that the Prophet s.w.t that are haram to follow they're called the khasa'is the things that are unique to the Prophet s.w.t and there's a wisdom to them that we are commanded to emulate him but there's certain things that are distinct about the Prophet s.w.t and these are things that are not like dispensations for the Prophet s.w.t but they all show his high rank and higher level of relationship with Allah s.w.t even while sleeping his heart was still in slavehood to Allah s.w.t in worship of Allah s.w.t but it becomes a constant state because true remembrance is remembrance of the heart and the tongue wakes up the heart they say it's like a house in which on the ground floor is this really lazy person who's asleep and your goal is to wake up that lazy person and get them to be doing something meaningful in life so to wake the person up you have to make some noise so your bedroom is on the first floor that's like where the tongue is the heart is asleep on the ground floor so you gotta make some noise so that eventually the heart wakes up and says what's going on up there and once it wakes up it'll start hearing what it's saying then it'll get closer to okay what exactly are you talking about and then it'll understand and then the meaning of what was being said will go into the heart but you have to wake up the heart and the heart takes time to wake up and one of the wisdoms of that struggle is that it expresses sincerity it expresses sincerity because if being conscious of Allah s.w.t was so easy that you didn't have to strive for it it wouldn't require any sincerity anyone could do it but it's just a Sunnah of Allah s.w.t that's something that is precious requires effort and part of that requirement of effort is do you really want it do you really want it this is why they say the sign of loving Allah is love of His remembrance and the sign of loving Allah s.w.t is loving His remembrance and this is a divine command and Allah s.w.t tells us in Surah Al-Ahzab verse 42 remember Allah with much remembrance zikran kathira and he doesn't simply say adhkfurullah kathiran adhkfurullah zikran kathira remember Allah with much remembrance and that's not sufficient he says and glorify Him by morning and by night. Sab'ihuhu from tasbih. But they say here, it's not referring simply to saying subhan Allah for example, but glorify Him in your remembrance by morning and by night. And many, many other universes, والذين آمنوا أشدوا حبا لله. Those who believe, what is their say? They are more intense in their remembrance of Allah, in their love of Allah. Why? Because they remember Allah at all their times. الذين يتكرون الله قياما وقعودا وعلى جنوبهم. Those who remember Allah standing and sitting and on their sides. And the Prophet ﷺ said, ألا أخبركم بخير أعمالكم. Should I not tell you of the best of your actions? And the purest of your actions with your Lord. وخير لكم من انفاق الذهبي والورق. And better for you than giving gold and silver and charity. And better for you than for you to meet your enemy. And for you to fight them and for them to fight you. The Sahaba said, do tell us, O Messenger of Allah, what is better for you than any other work? More beloved to Allah. Better than charity. Better than jihad. Do tell us, O Messenger of Allah. He said, ذكر الله عز وجل. The remembrance of Allah, mighty and majestic. ابن حجر العصطلاني. In Fatah al-Bari, his commentary on Sahih al-Bukhari explains. Because anything that is done with the remembrance of Allah is greater than that very same thing done without the remembrance of Allah. In any action. And in reality, the very purpose of every other action is the remembrance of Allah. Why do we pray? Allah SWT says. إنني أنا الله. لا إله إلا أنا. Indeed, I am Allah. There is no God but me. فعبدني. So therefore worship me. وأقم الصلاة لذكري. And establish the prayer for my remembrance. Okay? What is meant to be the state of the believer in their work. In their business. In their leisure. Allah SWT tells us, right after the Ayat al-Nur, the verse of light. رِجَالُ اللَّاتُ الْهِيْهِمْ تِجَارَةٌ وَلَا بَيْعٌ عَن ذِكْرِ اللَّةٌ Right? Those accomplished ones whom neither trade nor transaction busy away from the remembrance of Allah. And establishing the prayer and giving zakat etc. Right? So the state, the desired state of the believer at work is what? That their work does not distract them from the remembrance of Allah SWT. And they work and they excel in their work. But they're working because the work itself is done for the sake of Allah. Seeking the pleasure of Allah. Striving in everything they do at work to make it pleasing to Allah SWT. But in that they are engaged in the remembrance of Allah. And one of the aspects of the remembrance of Allah is the remembrance of Allah beautifies everything else. Why? Because if you're walking down the street right? So Zubayr is walking down the street and he's sort of just in a GSB general state of Allah. He's just sort of thinking about Zubaydah and how will he ever talk to Uncle Jamil that he wants to marry her and he's scared stiff of Uncle Jamil. Because he used to give him a hard time doing tarawih when he was a kid and he's been scared of him since. So he's just thinking about this and that and looking here and there checking his Twitter feed and just distracted. Right? So how will he be in his walking? He'll just be drifting down the street. Whereas what was the Sunnah of the Prophet right? It won't even be in his mind, but someone who walks, remembering Allah will be walking with purpose and if you're remembering Allah with your tongue it's only a step or two away from the critical question in life. How do I walk in a manner that's pleasing to Allah? So you're going to walk with purpose. You're going to walk, how did the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam walk? How do you walk with resolve? The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam read about his walking. It's incredible. The Sahaba talked so much about how the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam walked. He walked as if he was walking down a hill. He used to walk with purpose. He used to walk fast. The Sahaba said we used to we were younger than him but we used to struggle to keep up with him. Yet he used to walk with complete composure and grace. They said it was like a ship that was cutting through the ocean. Majestic. Yet people who walk fast if you have if your boss is walking down the corridor and they're walking fast would you stop them? No. Someone who's walking purposefully they're going somewhere. So you just leave them alone. After a pair of relasives headed out of the door you leave them alone. Though he walked fast and with purpose and resolve he walked with such calm and grace and concern for those around him that no one would hesitate to stop him Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam because he combined between complete majesty and complete mercy. Complete concern. If you remember Allah Subhanahu Alaihi Wasallam you'll be reminded of these sunnas. If the Prophet said someone who's walked he'd always be smiling, he'd always be cheerful. If you pass by someone he would be the first to initiate greetings and it's not just a sunnah for Muslims you're walking down the street you pass by someone we should be the first of people to be upholding those social graces of making eye contact of smiling of saying those little things sometimes just a nod would be appropriate other times you greet with the best of the etiquette that is suitable to one's context in other situations that work you know someone you'd say those social niceties but if you're in a state of remembrance of Allah Subhanahu Alaihi Wasallam your walking would be different you're remembering Allah Subhanahu Alaihi Wasallam your talking would be different you remember Allah Subhanahu Alaihi Wasallam your spending time with your parents would be different you having suhur would be different because you wouldn't just sit there you remember all the opportunities you have of seeking Allah's pleasure I don't just sit there waiting for everyone else to do whatever you'd be the first person to serve other people to try to give them water to help clear up because that's so that's one of the which is why and we'll close with this when Allah Subhanahu Alaihi Wasallam tells us about the prophetic example he says verily you have in the messenger of Allah the most beautiful of examples for whoever seeks Allah for whoever seeks Allah and the last day you have in the messenger of Allah the most beautiful of examples for whoever seeks Allah in the last day but then it mentions something that people forget وذكر الله كثيرة and makes much remembrance of Allah why? because if you go to sister Zubayda who Zubair wants to marry and she's sort of just drifting in her deen you know she used to have 10 classes at the MCC when sheikh Yahya was here but then sheikh Yahya left and she didn't take any of the new classes that MCC started after Ramadan she's just drifting you know she asks her do you think you should be following the sunnah of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam no muslim would say no I don't think so it's not in my 2012 plans no one would say that you see your family members who maybe not as religious and you follow the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam no one would say no I don't think so but why doesn't it happen everyone would accept that yes we have in the messenger of Allah the most beautiful of examples but there's two aspects that make us not follow the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam one is Allah says you have in him the most beautiful of examples for whoever seeks Allah in the last day so you need to have that sense of purpose that you're seeking Allah in your final life but the other one is and makes much remembrance of Allah what brings that sense of purpose into one's life that I need to be seeking Allah no one would say no I don't think I should be seeking Allah and the next life dunya is enough for me no muslim would say that but what is it that keeps them from actually having a reality in their life is the lack of remembrance of Allah you have in the messenger of Allah the most beautiful of examples whoever seeks Allah in the last day how is that sense of seeking Allah stirred up through the remembrance of Allah because that's exactly what you're making Allah primary in your concern and consciousness that's what remembrance of Allah is and it is that remembrance then brings into mind the urgency of taking the messenger of Allah as your example and not just as any example to take him as the example in the most beautiful of ways because he's the most beautiful of example he's not just an example he's the most beautiful of examples whoever seeks Allah in the last day and makes much remembrance of Allah that's why the remembrance of Allah is something that we should strive to make an integral part of our life how do we do that first is have daily routines of remembrance and the Prophet SAW told us how and when he said strive for complete uprightness in life but know that you'll fall short so what do you do he gave us three keys he said three words and this is from the Jawaamil Kelim the encompassing words of the Prophet SAW remain steadfastly committed do the best you can if you can't do something completely you know you're falling short that's how I am do the best you can you know you're falling short you're not you heard that the Prophet SAW prayed 8 rakaz of night worship so the first few days of Ramadan you did it now you're struggling to do 8 rakaz you can't do the whole thing do the best you can you're not able to do 8 to 4 you can't do them like lengthy do them fast but remain steadfastly committed do the best you can and be of glad tidings because it's a tremendous gift you're trying to seek Allah SWT doing the best you can to do that it's a tremendous place to be and then he said seek assistance in the early mornings and the late afternoons and a little of the depths of the night seek assistance in what in striving for that complete uprightness that complete Allah's centricity but you know you'll fall short so what do you do remain steadfastly committed do your best and be of glad tidings how do you make that happen in your life seek assistance in 3 critical times the early mornings which is the beginning of the day and he left the general because someone could do it at Fajr time someone could do it before they head off to work most people take an incredible amount of time even if they think they're in a rush take a you know it doesn't take that long to have breakfast reading the you know you check your flip board app on your iPad and you know you even though you live on the west coast you're subscribed to the New York Times and you know you know if you were to do some what's called you know you know net eternal analysis NEA or ERA eternal return analysis anything you read in the New York Times couldn't possibly be as beneficial to you as remembering Allah SWT as reciting a little bit of Quran the fact that Romney, Dist Obama in Oklahoma has nothing to do with the only thing that matters is really to be informed that on election day when you put your vote who should he be voting for most of the news that you find out about it's kind of useless anyway it's not that important to know that if he wins his 22nd medal or not big deal but seek assistance in the early mornings have some routine of remembrance of Allah of Quran, of zikr at that time warrohati and the rohah refers to the time of rest which is when people finish work and they get home or it also refers to the time of returning home that late afternoon once you're done work and they say around asr time but the process I'm left to general because people's circumstance is different on your return home you're done work now and actually even productivity wise people who stretch their work to all times of the day it's not good for stress levels it's actually not good for productivity you'll get actually less done at work it's good to have a time where you're focused on work and time when you're doing other things so you're done work, take a break on your car ride back take a break remember Allah swt or do something else of benefit or once you get home what do you do once you get home you spend some time with the family you freshen up etc then what are you doing engage in a little remembrance of Allah and by little five minutes we're not saying hours once you got home every day you engage in five minutes of remembrance of Allah after spending time with the family etc by the end of the year that would add up to 30 hours of worship that you've engaged in wa shayin min ad-dulja and something of the depths of the night and the expression in Arabic is so beautiful wa shayin min ad-dulja something of the depths of the night as if the depths of the night are this really rich treasure or you dip into it just a little bit I was telling this to a relative of mine from my wife's side one of my in-laws so it's like you mentioned Hadrabadi sweet dish so it's like that it's really rich I don't like that sweet dish something like that something really rich shayin min ad-dulja a little of the depths of the night that even a little worship at that time will change your life and this is something if you could institute that in your life and this is what Ramadan is teaching us that one of the great wisdoms they say even if you're full you should still get up for sahur and have a little something one of the wisdoms of that is that it's easier to convince yourself to have some sahur it's harder to convince yourself to get up and pray to rakahs but we finish sahur 10-12 minutes before fajr time why? you can engage in a little remembrance of Allah at that time but try to make a commitment you're able to do it for 30 days in this month or 29 try to carry that on the rest of your life get up 10 minutes before fajr engage in some worship during this month you can do it the rest of the year and this will be transformative you can't do it all the time do it on weekends and keep your tongue moist with the remembrance of Allah in your daily business of life it's not that difficult to walk to your car most of us can do it without too much struggle although I have a tendency to stumble and trip and bump into things but it's not that difficult to walk so what are you doing while you're walking nothing much remember Allah swt you're in the mall it's not that difficult to get to the store you want to get to the apple store and finally buy the macbook pro with the retina display what are you doing in the meantime nothing much really remember Allah swt and it'll take you up in the levels of remembrance from remembrance in which there's heedlessness to remembrance in which there's wakefulness and remembrance in which there's wakefulness to remembrance in which there's presence of heart with Allah swt to that remembrance in which there's absence from other than the one remembered and that's not difficult for Allah swt so may Allah swt make us of those who become of those who are constant in their remembrance of Allah and whose remembrance is transformative so it changes us in our relationship with Allah


Good morning, John. A couple of weeks ago, Tumblr changed how it displays reblogs, and I did not like this because it was change, and I was frustrated. And then last week I went to Yellowstone National Park, potentially the coolest place on Earth. It was the first national park ever created, and it's one of the most dangerous things on the planet. Not like to individuals traveling in the park, though that can be dangerous too. I mean to the whole world, really. Part of the reason Yellowstone is so interesting is that it is a very, very big volcano. Three times in the last two million years, the Yellowstone Supervolcano has erupted, spewing out tens or even hundreds of cubic miles of debris, affecting global weather patterns and laying ash down as far away as Texas. Now this isn't going to happen again anytime soon, but it will happen again someday. And when it happens, the park will basically be gone. But the remarkable thing is that it happened 600,000 years ago, and as you travel the park, you drive over the rim of the caldera formed in that eruption. And other than that, the desolation that eruption caused is pretty much invisible. Life just rushed back in to fill the void created by that massive event. The ground is a thing that doesn't move. If you're grounded, you're like a rock. People change, the things we make change, but the land remains the same. And yet it doesn't. In Yellowstone, more than anywhere, places do not stay the same. Geysers turn on and off, new springs eat through the ground. As the water cools, crystals are deposited, building into giant mounds. And the ground itself rises and falls in ripples and domes across the land as hot gas and magma surges beneath the surface. Everything constant is a lie. And my life continues to remind me of that. We want stability, but we can't have it. And that's both sad and wonderful. Now we apply false stability to Yellowstone. Its most famous landmark, of course, is Old Faithful, a geyser that blasts every 70 minutes or so with remarkable regularity, but Old Faithful will one day cheat on us. And everyone knows that.  Here's New Blue Spring, now dormant and white. And this is Constant Geyser, so named because it never stopped spurting until it did. But Yellowstone has broken no contract with us. It makes no pretense of stability. It's honest in a way the rest of the earth and even life isn't. An honesty that reminds me that the inevitability of change, though it terrifies me, also excites me. That incurable illness that makes me always want to know what's next to see the future, the future where things are not like they are today. The future that will allow me to look back and miss what once was, that will scrub my present day of the dinginess and the crud until I only remember the brilliant sparkles and the deepest gashes. We're all standing on that cliff beyond which there is nothing until there is. And we always believe that it will be there, especially those of us who have been so rarely burned until someday it isn't there and your life has changed, your world has changed, and there's nothing you can do to get it back again. Yellowstone doesn't lie to me. Yellowstone reminds me that even something as constant as the ground beneath my feet could just one day fly into the air and land in Texas. And so maybe the way my re-blogs look on Tumblr isn't the thing I should be worrying about. John, I'll see you on Tuesday. We've been in a really long traffic jam. We don't know what we've been in a traffic jam for and when this minivan moves we will find out what is it. It's a bison. It's a bison. There it is. Goodbye. It was nice to meet you.


Hi, doggies. We're here today. This is really exciting because we're here to talk about our first living thing. We've been dealing with science. We've been dealing with chemistry. We've been talking about, dude, what is this class going to be all about? Well, the study of life begins with the study of cells. Now, please do not forget that the reason why we looked at chemistry is because we have to know what cells are made out of, especially today. We're going to look at the cell itself, but in order for a cell to function as a living organism, it has to have parts that totally work, and those parts are smaller, and the parts technically are not alive. So we're going to look at what is inside a cell, and none of the stuff inside a cell is alive, but the cell itself has the emergent property of life. There are so many different kinds of cells. Studying the cell is really, really interesting, and we could spend the entire semester studying different kinds of cells. So check this out. What is this? This is like, well, first of all, this is a cell that you would actually find in your body. Does anybody want to guess what kind of cell that is? That's a neuron. So that's like a communicator in your body, or maybe it came from a rat. It probably came from a rat. But there's the link, so you can totally go look that thing up and find out, oh yeah, Riggs is so smart, because she totally knew it came from a rat. This thing, hopefully, this is not found in your body. That is some kind of single-celled organism. You are not a single-celled organism. Most of you are not single-celled organisms. You're multicellular, and so you have lots of different kinds of cells inside your own body. Other organisms are one-cell total, and that's the whole critter. So this is some kind of protozoan. I'm sure we could find out what kind it is, but yeah, you can go look that one up too, because there's the link right there. Good luck reading that thing. Let's go look at some more cell types, because it's really actually pretty cool.  Look, here's its tiny little nucleus, and then this is its giant fat blob, and hopefully we have a reasonable number of these in our bodies. They're awesome for storing energy. That comes super handy. What kind of cells are these? These are cells inside your body.  Look at how different they look. Very different structures, because the structure of these cells enables their unique functions. Another white blood cell. I think this is a giant macrophage. Doesn't it look like a jellyfish, but that's inside your body. And guess, that's not just one cell. Here, the blue guy is one cell, and it's reaching out with little hands in its... They aren't really hands, just so you know. But they're reaching out. Guess what it's going to do? It's going to yumptualize all of these cells. Those are not rat poops. Those are not purple rat poops. Those are purple bacterial cells. And this macrophage is like, dude, hook me up with some bacteria, because I like to yumptualize bacteria, and it keeps you healthy and well, as long as you make sure you're sleeping. That's awesome. So there, human cell and other critter cell. And we're going to look at, you know, why is that bacterial cell so tiny? More bacterial cells. What, really? Look at these. These are little spiral bacterial cells. And if you ever take microbiology, you'll get to learn all about the cool characteristics of that thing right there. Here is a yeast cell.  Yeah.   Oh, my gosh, this is so cool. That is a microscopic view of somebody's cutting board. What? Yeah. And it's clean. That is not a dirty cutting board. That is not like the cutting board that lives in Wendy Riggs' house.  Whoa, like let's just start counting all the different kinds of cells and things that we see on this cutting board. Oh, hopefully it makes you a little bit nervous. Clean your cutting boards. Lots of different kinds of cells. I think it's really interesting to think about like a total number of cells in our body. The estimates range from 10 trillion to like 100 trillion, and apparently these guys decided that, no, it's actually 37.2 trillion, which if you start thinking about big numbers, that's a huge number of cells inside your body. And then I also think it's interesting to think of how many different types of cells. So there's 37 trillion cells in your body, but then there's actually like 300 different kinds of cells in your body, and each cell has different structures that carry out different functions. And like what kind of cells are they? Dude, I was just looking at this list going, oh man, like this is a lot of different kinds of cells. Look at this one. I never knew this kind of cell existed. A Bowman's gland cell in your nose. And listen to this. It washes the olfactory epithelium. Do you know what that really is? The Bowman's gland cell is a snot maker. So you have cells in your body that do nothing but make snot, and you can call them Bowman's gland cells if you would like to. The list is huge. Yeah, go ahead and you can explore it like, whoa, look at all those different kinds of cells in our bodies. So when we talk about cells today, we're going to be looking at lots of different kinds of things. First of all, we're going to take a look at like what makes a cell a cell? How do we know if we actually are looking at a cell? And then we're going to look at, okay, what are all the different kinds of cells that we can explore? Knowing that basically we're going to be talking about cells for the rest of the semester because the cell is the fundamental unit of any living system. Shall we start? Let's talk about what makes something a cell. How do we know if we have a cell? Okay.


What we have here is an Annabelle hydrangea, very popular in our part of the country. They grow easily, they bloom profusely, they bloom on the current season's growth. So late October, early November is a good time to go ahead and cut them down and that way you won't have all the dead flower heads remaining there through the winter, which may be an attraction to you or they may not. So there's a lot of opinion involved in this. You can go ahead and cut them down this fall, if you don't you can have to cut them down next spring. I prefer to go ahead and cut them down in the fall. So what we have here is a spent flower head. And what we want to do is we want to go all the way down and cut this back as far as we reasonably can here with this little hand pruner and bingo. We cut it off very, very easily, okay?  We'll do the job very nicely.  What we have then left here is a bunch of stumps which certainly aren't attractive, but next spring they will be flush with new growth coming out and reward you with an abundance of flowers which everybody loves. They're completely hardy here so we don't need to do any more with these than this. The Anabil hydrangea is a perfect plant for growing in our northern plains region and rewards us generously with these beautiful flowers in the summertime. Hello, my name is Todd Wyman. I work for the Cass County Extension Office with NDSU. Today I'm going to talk about Canageneralis. Canageneralis, otherwise known as Cana, is a perennial plant that is zone 9. We are zone 4 here in Farter North Dakota and Canageneralis will not survive the winter. After the first light frost, this is what you'll get. The plant will become a nice brown, kind of a mushy look to it and it's time to dig it. We're going to dig this plant and look at the root system and talk about storage this time of year in the fall. When you're digging the bulbs, you want to make sure that you don't damage the roots and you'll know because you'll slice them right off, but we'll dig it up and we'll take a look at it. If it is bad, it will have a mushy appearance to it and if not, it will have a light pink whitish appearance to the root system. Never wash the roots of these. If you're going to storm, just brush the dirt off gently the best you can, but don't wash them. It doesn't help at all with the storage. These roots look very good. As you can see, they have different plants ready to go for next year. The dead plants parts we won't use anymore and we want to cut them off about 6 to 8 inches and I'll show you that in a minute for storage in peat moss at about 40 to 45 degrees. These are looking very nice yet. Here, this one's a little bit mushy, but this one's doing pretty good yet and we'll storm in the peat moss over winter in about 40 to 45 degrees in a cool, dark place. You want to check these once a month because you don't want them to dry out and if the peat moss is dry, you want to add a little bit of water to keep the plant going. You can cut the stock of the plant, several utensils, but I prefer to use a shovel since I've got one here already and just a swift cut with a sharp shovel should make it nice and about 6 to 8 inches and there you go. Once you've got it in this stage, take the bulbs and place them in some peat. Gently cover the plant like this, add a little water and this plant should be ready until next spring. In the spring, what you want to do is start your plants indoors before the frost, before your scheduled first frost. Plant them in peat or some sand or some perlite, a light soilless medium will work fine and get them going before the first frost. As soon as the danger of the first frost is done, dig a hole for each root bulb. Try to get three or so eyes, here's just two bulbs with the eyes on there, here's two bulbs, but if you can get three, that would be great and plant them individually in each hole about 4 to 6 inches deep at the very least. Water them good and they should have you a beautiful plant. Today we're going to dig up some tender perennials with rhizomias roots and this first one is Xanthodicia aethiopeca or what everyone calls cala lily, a little easier to say. After the first frost it's a nice time to dig these, if you wait too long the roots will get mushy and be unusable. If you don't dig these, the roots will stay in the ground and nothing will come up in the spring. I'll dig these up and then I'll show you how to store them and talk to you about what storage requirements are needed for these. They have a nice rhizomotaceous root system, rhizome as you all know is actually a stem. You can look here, these are looking pretty nice. You want to gently brush the dirt off of them, don't wash them, they don't store well, they'll actually start to rot. What I do with these is I gently tear this off, brush the dirt off the best I can and then I'll place them into some peat moss for storage. What you want to do is check these monthly and if they are drying out add a little water. You don't want to be sopping wet. Store them at about 45 to 50 degrees in a well ventilated dark area, a little peat moss here and I'll add some water to this later and you're good. For next year when you plant these, plant them in a partial sun to full sun area with good drainage, fertile soil and water. They're also a plant that you can plant by ponds. They don't mind boggy areas. They're a nice looking plant for Caila Lillis. I have some bulbs here. If you look they're nice and healthy, there's no disease or damage to them and the scale or the outer tunic is intact. This is what you want to look for. For orientating a planting you want to plant them this way up. Well, let's get to it. I'm going to dig a hole here now and I'll have it between 4 to 6 inches deep. For the tulips, I worked this soil up earlier this week and it's nice rich soil with good drainage. The tulips should do fine here. Whenever you plant tulips you like to plant in odd numbers. It'll give your mind and your eye a little better perspective of the beauty of them when you plant in odd numbers. Place them so that the basil plate, which is the bottom, is actually on the bottom. The little pointy end is up. Space them out. I like to add a little bone meal. The soil, depending on where you're at, for example here, should have plenty of bone meal with it but it doesn't hurt to add a little more just in case you're low for some reason. Following the directions, you apply it according to whatever your bag says. I tend to just go like this though, just a light sprinkling and then I add some water just to kind of make sure that just a little bit to get everything kind of soaked in there. Now I'll add some soil over the top of that, a little more water, some more soil and you're done. One thing you want to try to do is prevent the squirrels from digging them up. There's different methods you can use.  However in the spring, you need to remove that before the tulips start to grow or they'll have problems working their way through the wire. The other is you can apply a mixture of ground red pepper and also ground garlic and sprinkle that over the top of the tulips. Just a light dusting, there's not an exact recipe for that. And that will deter the squirrels from digging them out.


Hello family, welcome to another Narc Survival Live video and in this one we're going to be talking about what narcissists think of you when you finally leave. They see you as their possession, you're this thing that belongs to them, an object that exists to meet their needs. Yes, that is how they see you, that is what they think of you. They don't even see you as a real separate human being, they just see you as a tool. It's something that they can manipulate into being or giving what they want. Which as we know is narcissistic supply and they see it as though they own you.   Something that is rightfully theirs, which will really irritate them because of their arrogance and the sense of entitlement, they're really not going to like it when you do that. It will cause a narcissistic injury, they will feel rejected, they will see it as an attack and they're going to do anything they can to get you back. They may try to love bomb you if they think that that's going to work, if they believe that you are still susceptible to their manipulation, if they believe that then yes they will try to hoover you, but if they believe that you're not going to fall for it anymore, if you've already confronted them and you've made it very clear you're not happy with them and you're not going to give them another chance, then at that point they see it as though they've got no choice. It will cause a narcissistic injury and that will be followed by narcissistic rage which may be passive aggressive or it may be overt and at that point they are going to do everything in their power to take you down, to punish you for leaving them and for showing them everything that you thought was wrong with them because they do not want to be seen as bad or wrong, they do not accept any criticisms or any blame. So they're going to try to prevent you from moving on because that's the last thing they want to see is you going off being happy whether it's by yourself or with someone else.   They view you as their possession, an object, a tool, an appliance, this thing that belongs to them, to where when they say jump, they expect you to say how high, they don't expect you to say no or for you to have your own agenda, your own intentions or objectives, that's not part of their plan, that doesn't align with what they want and they expect you to be tied and attached to them, not having your own thoughts and interpretations of what you are planning to do, that's not a part of their agenda, they expect you to exist to serve them, remember they're self-absorbed, they lack empathy, you're just an extension of them, you're meant to exist for them, not for yourself.  Despite everything that they were doing to you, all of the abuse, they're not even thinking about that, they're just thinking about what are you going to do next, how are you going to serve them? They don't see any reason why you should get to be who you want to be or why you should get to move on with everything that you are, it doesn't matter how hard you worked to become the person that you are or to achieve the things that you've achieved, it doesn't matter if you worked your entire life, they look at it like you belong to them. So everything that you are, everything that you have, that belongs to them as well, that's rightfully theirs. There's no separation between you and them. There's no boundary where it's like, okay, this is where I end and this is where you begin and there's a distinct line there that I cannot cross. Narcissists do not think that way. They have no identity, no sense of self, so they can just take anything you've got, whether it's you as an actual person or something that you possess, whether it's a quality, a resource. In their minds, they could just take it because they're chameleons, they're shape-shifters, there's no separate identity of their own, so they can just mix and match. They can do whatever they want to you and then in another moment, they can be another character and be good to someone else because there's no boundaries, there's no separation, there's nothing that really distinguishes them as a separate individual themselves and as we're then so without, so they don't see you in that way as well. In their minds, they can just mold you into whatever they want you to be, into whatever suits their agenda, into whatever works for them because they can do that with themselves, so why can't they do that with you? That's how they look at it. They don't see any reason why they can't do that and this is why it's exactly how they will treat you. They will treat you in that exact way and it's a horrible experience to go through. We have to consider that murderers and rapists, they're narcissists as well and they have this exact same mentality.  Murderers and rapists, they have families, these people could be someone's mother, someone's father, brother or sister, uncle or auntie, even their own child or maybe their co-worker, their neighbor, it could be someone close to you who ends up being a murderer or a rapist.  They have no sense of self, they have no identity, they're chameleons, they're shape-shifters, they can chain from one moment to the next, they can do something so horrific in one moment and in the next, they're the nicest, most friendliest person in the world to everyone else and another thing with narcissists and yes, murderers and rapists, they're narcissists as well.  There's no difference between them. There's no difference at all, the only difference is the behavior and I know many of you. Some of the things that you've experienced, you may feel like I might as well have been raped physically, I might as well have been murdered, I might as well have taken my life because that's pretty much what they did, the only difference is that I'm still alive and that's the thing, because this is when their behavior gets the most extreme, it's when you finally leave and that is, in some cases, when they do not only become stalkers, but they may even become rapists or murderers. As I said, the narcissist, not all of them, but some of them, they may be the type to, even though you've left, you've moved on, you want nothing to do with them, after all of the abuse, they're the type of person who may be if they still have the key to your home.   I mean, they've done everything else, maybe they've done worse, because yes, I'm sure.  These are all horrific things to do to someone. When you leave, you need to be very careful because they're not looking at everything they've done to you. I mean, I've had situations where it's like I've been attacked by narcissists for years, they pushed me over the edge and they just pushed and provoked me to the point where I finally snapped, just for a moment. And then despite everything that I went through all of those years, then suddenly they pull up their phone, they record me, and then they got me in trouble. Then they made me look guilty. And not only that, but it made me blame myself in that moment. Of course, now I look back, I can see. I was tricked. But then that's the thing with many narcissists is that they're really that self-absorbed to where they're not looking at anything they're doing to you. They can abuse you for years, and you snap, you react just one time and they're pointing the finger at you. They're not even thinking about everything they did before that. Yes, some of them really have, really just completely lack self-awareness that much. And I'm sure many of you have experienced things like that. They live in a distorted reality. It's not even real. A reality where they are blameless and faultless, where there's nothing wrong with them, where they can do whatever they want and they shouldn't be held accountable for it, or where they just didn't even do anything.  They'll lie to everyone. And the entire time it's them. And yet they're blaming you and they'll start a smear campaign against you and make everyone believe that it's your fault. Or the reality may be that everyone else, they're just as crazy as the narcissist, just as delusional. So of course they'll go along with it.  I mean, just think about that for a moment. Who does that? What kind of a person would do that? Even if you do believe that someone did something wrong, are you really going to harass them like that? But this is what an narcissist will do. And it's especially damaging. If you're going through a divorce, of course they're going to file for alimony. If you have a child, of course, they're going to file for child support. Of course they're going to milk you for everything you've got, even if you were taking care of them the entire time and they never lifted a finger. Of course they're still going to do that. They're self-absorbed and they lack empathy. They're not even really there. They're just like robots on a mission, constantly in survival mode, just doing everything they can for themselves. Not ever thinking about anyone else. They're really menaces to deal with. They're an absolute nightmare. They're the type of people where, once you get involved with them and they do things to you, they will make you wish that you never met them. You may have remained hopeful until the end. You may have tried to see them in a good light, but they will do everything in their power to show you when you made a big mistake, to show you why they are the worst people imaginable. They are as bad as it gets. No matter how much you try to believe in them, they will always make that clear to you in the end. And really when you look back, it's like this person is like the definition of evil. There's like not even a villain in an action movie or a monster in a horror movie who even comes close to this narcissist. It's like if someone could write a book of, and with like some evil character, and the author wanted to describe the most evil possible character in the world of all time, who does the most horrific things imaginable. And this character has these certain characteristics, these certain traits, these certain behaviors. It's like straight away, that's the narcissist. That's exactly who they are. Like if we went to the brainstorm together, let's just act like we didn't know anything about a narcissist right now. And together we just imagined a character. What was the most evil, horrific things imaginable? Let's just write it down. What's the worst things you can do to someone?  Projection, denial, gaslighting, the double bind, devaluation, psychological torture, triangulation, discards, stalking, smear campaigns. It's really like one of those things where it's like, it's the most evil things imaginable. Without them like grabbing a knife and stabbing you 100 times. Although, yes, someone else says do take it to that extreme, but now these days they're becoming more efficient at hiding it, at creating a code of silence to where it's like they stab you a million times, but they do it psychologically. So that there's no evidence because that's really what they're doing to you. These people are murderers.   That's so much hatred they have in their hearts. And the envy, the resentment. Well, you know what? You know what I think they would do? Because they're really that evil. They wouldn't just murder you because that wouldn't be satisfying enough for them. They'd probably do something where it's like they'd lock you up in some room in that house, in the basement maybe. They'd have you tied to a chair. And they'd give you just enough food just to keep you alive from day to day. Just enough water so that you don't die because they want to keep you alive. And yeah, they tie you to a chair. Probably tip your eyelids open so that you can't close your eyes. They probably brainwash you in a screen with old pictures and videos of when you were together, making you believe that it's real. Meanwhile, they've got a knife and they're just slicing off a little part of your body a bit at a time. A little bit of your finger here.   Weeks, months, years go by. They've sliced chunk after chunk out of your body. Meanwhile, you're being brainwashed on this screen.  And if they had the ability to, if it was possible, they would resurrect you.  Am I right or not? Would the narcissist not do that? If they could, if it was possible, if they believed that they could get away with it, or if no one would find out, of course they would do that. That's exactly what they've been doing to you all of these months or years psychologically and not even feeling bad about it. So why wouldn't they do that? This is to wake you up and make you realize what you're dealing with. And some of you are thinking that the narcissist can change, that they can be better. You really think there's any hope for someone like that? Of course not. They are very sick, evil, twisted people.  And then they'll come back just to give you a little bit of hope. That's only so they can do it again. They will put you in a pedestal just so you're that much further away from the ground. When they knock you off, that's the type of person they are. And as I said, murderers and rapists, it's the same personality. They're narcissists as well. Keep that in mind.  It's not because that doesn't do it for them. I'm sure it would. The only reason they don't do it is because of their false image. They're worried they won't get away with it. I could say that they're worried about what people might think of them. But I can't even say that for the narcissist because even then, they're only worried about what people think of them because of the image it reflects back to themselves. They're that self-absorbed. People are just mirrors. We're mirrors, we're objects, we're tools. This is what you're dealing with. So what do you think they think of you when you finally leave? Of course, they can't stand you.  Never mind that you invested everything you had into the relationship. You did everything you possibly could to make them happy. It was never good enough.  Despite all of that, when you finally leave, they're just looking at it like you've still got the strength to get back on your feet and move on. That means you didn't give it enough to me. And then it just resurfces that bitterness and then they really just want to take you down once and for all. They're looking at it like if you're going to move on, you're going to move on with nothing and no one. You're going to move on in a state where you're not going to be good for anyone else, where you're going to be so broken down that you can't even think clearly, but you don't even know which way is up or down, left or right, but you're so scared and broken that you're terrified of your own shadow. And you guys believe it or not, that is a thing. I remember a psychologist Richard Granan from Liverpool, he spoke about it in a video. He had one client before who was involved with a narcissist for so many years by the end of it. She was quite literally afraid of her own shadow. That's what these people will do to you. They are the worst of the worst, the lowest of the low. They are crazy. They belong in a mental institution. That's where they belong because they're, that's f'ed up. They really are.  They don't want that for you. They're gonna blame and accuse you. They might make up something and say you tried to do something to them just so they can get you locked up and get you a criminal record so that it destroys your reputation and then you can't get a job. You can't provide for yourself. You can't be independent. And maybe they might do that so then you're stuck with them. You're dependent on them. They're willing to control you. They're extremely dangerous people. They're really no different to the people you see on the news. The murderer is the rapist. It's the same personality. I know sometimes they do videos and we laugh and joke about things. Even regarding arsicis. And you know laughter is the best medicine. It really is. And it can be healing. Those can be quite dark like this one. But this is really what it is. How I'm describing arsicis in this video, this is exactly how it is. And I know it sounds dark, but this is real. This is the type of personality we're talking about. This is what's going on in their brain. And the only thing that will really stop them is that fear of getting caught. And sometimes even that doesn't stop them because they're so impulsive.  Or it may be reactive abuse and they'll get you in trouble for that. Or they'll smear your name, spread this false narrative about you. Just to make sure that they have this perfect clean image. Meanwhile, they are extremely dangerous. Destructive people. And in all honesty this is what makes them even worse than what you might find in a mental institution or even a prison. This is what makes them even worse than that. Because these people are, they are kind of clever enough so that they don't end up there. So that they can move on without any accountability. And of course if they can get away with it, they're going to do it again to someone else. So they're worse. They're even more dangerous than what you might find in a mental institution or a prison. They're really that bad. So messing with one is a really bad idea. And when you do leave you need to be very careful. Because you never know what they might do. You may think you know them but they will do something you've never seen before. And I'm talking about this from my own personal experience. It's like when I was with them I thought I knew them. I thought okay yeah, you know they can be a bit messed up. They've done a lot of hurtful things to me. But this one maybe they are a bit self-righteous. They wouldn't do that. They wouldn't go that far. And then you give it a bit of time and that's exactly what they do. That's exactly what they do. So never put it past them. You never know what they might do. Be very careful. I'm not telling you not to leave. But what I would advise is to speak to a therapist or coach. You can even book a session with me by going to narcsurvivor.co.uk or there's also BetterHelp which is a service that I trust and I have used in the past. You can go to betterhelp.com slash narcsurvivor for that. To book a session with a licensed therapist. Yeah speak to a therapist or coach and tell them about your individual situation before you go no contact, before you leave because it may save you a lot of trouble. I know there's a lot of coaches on YouTube who are saying yes the best thing you can do you've got to leave, you've got to go no contact straight away I can sometimes be a very big mistake. Dependent on your situation, dependent on who you're dealing with and again I'm not telling you not to do that I'm just saying speak to a therapist or coach first. Remember you're dealing with a very dangerous person. Narcissists are dangerous, they're self-absorbed and they lack empathy. That means they don't feel what you feel, they don't feel your pain which means they could do anything to you and not even care and sometimes you just got to look back at their past at the things that they've done to people before to realise just how dangerous they are to realise what they're capable of they will play it out as though yes I did that to them because they did this to me because they were bad, they were crazy as an example maybe they cheated on someone to get with you you could have worked it out and realised that if they did something to get with you if they did something to someone else before you who's to say that they won't do that to you or that they won't cheat on you to get with someone else because that's typically how it goes it's like if you have a friend and when this friend is with you they're always gossiping about people they're always talking about them behind their back telling you all of their personal business I mean at some point you've got to think what is this friend doing when they're with other people when they're away from you I mean of course they're probably gossiping about you they're probably talking about you behind your back and spreading your personal business because they can tell you things about someone else so why can't they do that to you because they've already shown that they're capable of it and this is what we need to identify in people because someone with a strong character who has morals and good conduct they're not going to do that with anyone it doesn't matter if it's you or someone else they're going to be like no I don't gossip, I don't spread rumours I don't talk about anyone behind their back and somewhere like that you know you've got a good friend if they don't do that to anyone or for anyone like if you're going to this friend and it's like you're asking them private things about someone else who they know and they're like no I can't reveal that information they may not want you to know you may feel like that's not a real friend if they're not telling you what you want to know but actually that means that you can trust them that means they're very loyal it reveals good character and that's typically the way that I am as well I mean of course I've I can't speak too much about it but I've had clients in the past who would ask me personal information about someone about people who we mutually know people who also create content and although yes I did have a certain information I had to say no I can't reveal that information to you just as when I'm working with a client I'm not going to reveal that information to anyone no one's going to know their personal information I don't do that I set boundaries there's a very clear distinction between myself and other people unlike with an narcissist where it's like we're all just extensions there's no separate individual and it's like you don't know what's yours and what's theirs you don't know where you end and they begin that's because they have no identity and they have a weak sense of self that's how they're able to have this sense of entitlement they can view you as a possession, as an object, a tool an appliance, an extension of them that comes from a weak sense of self and why do they have a weak sense of self and no identity of their own no individual characteristics that distinguish them from other people the reason why is because they have no inner sense of value and you will know that from dealing with them all they ever did was rob you of your time energy maybe your qualities, your money and resources and anything else they could get their hands on because there's no boundaries, no separation there's no line between where you end and they begin or where they end and you begin everything's just enmeshed because they have no individual identity of their own they have no sense of self and again that's what makes them so dangerous that's why they're like chameleons, shape-shifters and at one moment they could be the nicest most friendliest person in the world and in the next they can do the most horrific things that's why you can never trust them because you never know what they're going to do next especially when you leave them very unpredictable, which makes them very dangerous they destroy people's lives and many of you may think that it's just you you may not know what they've done in their past because the odds are you're not the first they've destroyed people's lives before you they've driven other people insane they've got another people locked up put into a mental institution made them homeless they've done that to other people as well they've ruined other people's lives and you may not even know about it because they don't even care they can just move on, create a new character somewhere else they're chameleons, they're shape-shifters they're crazy they're completely insane they're sick twisted people and they are very dangerous just being around them you are putting yourself in harm's way all they do is destroy if you're around them long enough, they will destroy you because that's really it once they see you they want to own you they want you to answer to them to be their little puppet and their puppet master they're pulling the strings they want complete control over you and your life they want to own you like their little toy, their little possession and at the same time they don't want any accountability at all because they use these false characters when they're playing their little games when they're doing these things to you they give you one false character in the beginning to manipulate you then another one when they're harming you and then they've got another one where they've discarded you and they're off with someone else, no accountability they don't stand for anything they have no values, morals, beliefs or principles they can change from one moment to the next and you should know that already you should have seen already that they are capable of doing that and not even feeling bad about it not even feeling like they need to correct it extremely dangerous people I see we've got 152 live viewers and only 48 thumbs ups it will take you just two seconds to hit that thumbs up button down below it supports the YouTube algorithm and it helps to get this message out there to other survivors as well so please do that if you can they appreciate the support but yeah be very careful around them as soon as they set their eyes on you it's like they already have these plans and they're just thinking about how they're going to rob you of everything that you are everything that you have not all of them will actually go as far as to murder you I mean that is typically quite uncommon but they will murder you psychologically yes they do have a murderous mentality a rapist mentality and also a child molester's mentality as well they groom you they prepare and train you for a purpose for their own agenda regardless of what you want for yourself and your life they don't care about that rapists, murderers and child molesters are all narcissists and that's why if you study murderers, rapists and child molesters you can just watch the videos on YouTube on YouTube about real criminals and their personality, their mindset you will see that it's exactly the same it's the exact same thing as what they've been doing to you maybe you're not a child so they haven't been physically or sexually molesting you maybe they haven't physically raped you or murdered you but just study the mindset, the personality you will see that they've groomed you they've molested you, raped you murdered you psychologically and perhaps the only reason why it didn't become physical and they didn't actually sexually molest and rape you or take your life perhaps the only reason why they didn't do that is because they feared the consequences they feared being exposed that may be the only reason why in many situations it may be the only reason why those of you who are still under the illusion that they may be good people they may be able to change you need to wake up that person you're dealing with it doesn't matter maybe they have a business they may be a CEO they may be quite physically attractive you're dealing with a monster that's really what you're dealing with that's why you need to be very careful if you decide to leave them be very careful they may try to take your life and I don't mean they might physically murder you because remember they have a fear of being exposed they're very protective of their image they don't want to deal with the consequences they don't want to go to jail that may be the only reason why they don't physically murder you and instead they will take your life in every other way possible they will destroy your self image your identity they will completely change everything about you and your life they will rob your reputation get you fired from your job target you financially destroy your business that's essentially murder they've robbed you of your life they've robbed your identity your self image the murderers it's the same personality same mindset, same mentality the only thing is that they're cowards they're pussies they have a fear of being caught a fear of the consequences that's the only difference between them at least with a murderer they've actually got the balls to go out and do what they want to do and I'm not justifying murder but that's the difference they're the worst of the worst but not only that they're also the lowest of the low that's what we're dealing with that's what they are quite a dark video today I know it's just something to wake you up when you see the false self you get manipulated and you start to think maybe they can be a good person this is what they really are underneath the mask they're really dangerous people and those of you who feel like you're slipping back into the illusion you may need to watch this again drill it into your mind until you begin to accept it don't fall for the mask this is what they are this is what they're always going to be and they're never going to change just look at what they've done to people before you they've ruined people's lives they're really bad people if you found this video helpful hit that thumbs up button down below let's get this message out there so that other people will see it as well maybe they need to see it before it's too late so please do your bit it takes just 2 seconds to hit that thumbs up button down below let me know your thoughts on this topic in the comment section I am reading your comments every day and I try to respond to as many as I can if you would like to donate you can go to my PayPal it's paypal.me or you can leave a super chat or a super thanks in the comment section hit the subscribe button and click all notifications so that you will be notified when I upload a new video and if you would like to book a one-on-one coaching session with me go to my website it is and you can also follow me on Instagram it is again I hope this video was helpful to you and I will have more videos coming very soon I believe there is a video premiere beginning in 5 videos so keep an eye out for that again thank you all my family for joining me on another Narc Survival Live video I appreciate you all and I look forward to talking with you in another one very soon


This systematic review and meta-analysis has demonstrated that commercially available AGRDTS have a high clinical accuracy in detecting SARS-CoV-2 infection in the first week of symptoms. This finding suggests that these tests could be useful in the early detection of SARS-CoV-2 infections, which could help reduce its spread. This article was authored by Lucas E. Brummer, Stefan Katzenschlager, Mary Gaydirt, and others.