said oh uncle left and he got married and he's wearing shorts and on the beach in this country i'm like uncle has grandchildren yeah the grandchildren got in high school uncle is in the late 60s at least right yeah but i don't know it's mid midlife crisis i said that ain't no midlife crisis that's end of life crisis like how long you expect to live right so if you know the thing with with with with these uh unfortunately with this culture you're never safe right it's always like people don't don't ever don't ever say oh i'm nothing's gonna happen to me i'm fine my email is strong and that's those are the people that would lose it all of those people say nothing they're so arrogant about it just be humble so you know الله help me الله you know you saw الله i'm doing my best and try to stay away from people that would take you the worst thing in life young for the young people i know there's a lot of a youngster with miftah the worst thing in your life is number one is your friends either the best or the worst your friend can take you to hell or literally be a partner to take you out of the hell and put you in paradise if you have good friends if you're bad friends you're a bad but you know you know that a bad friend is worse than a poisonous snake and that's the reality of it because a poisonous snake obviously it hurts your body but it's in the bad spirit it hurts your body and your faith and your your religion so that's number one thing and number two is this is these gadgets if you can control this don't let it control you if you control this you're a successful person you're amongst the people of sa'ada but if it's controlling you it's kind of like you know the person they say that is it the the horse takes in any direction it wants the sleepy rider if you're a sleepy rider is the horse that takes you in directions but if you're a visual and rider it's you that's controlling the horse if you can control this horse then you're in good shape you know where it's not controlling you other than that i think you know inshallah it will be fine but those those are the two main things inshallah these lessons are just for life reflect on them see what it means to you what it means in your life what it means in your mosque what it means in your household what it means in your society most of the problems of the muslim work this good son of sa'adi used to be on the table for every president in France as a gift when they took office after sa'adi come on they had that for for for century that's that was a gift everyone who came in that to be the gallistan the the chapter not only just the chapter on the king but the chapter on the darwish as well on the on the citizen and on the four people of the country and that's why they use this and then we have another way we have john stewart we have other style of governing you know the uh macky valley style as well and we have we're seeing that this is the you know is what uh bishar al-assad is doing in syria that that's under the style they pick up those that they don't pick up this this style of of teaching which is founded in wisdom and mercy in wisdom and mercy and this is one of their stories in the gallistan and where and he talks about a uh annousheer one of our deal annousheer one was one of the kings of persia and he was famous for the idle for the just king he said that one day he went hunting and they they hunted a deer and they brought it they slaughtered it and they barbecued it as they were grilling it and they said they realized they didn't bring any salt and food without salt there's no taste in it right you have to have salt so annousheer once sent uh one of the the commander told us one of the soldiers should go get some salt from the from one of the stores in this in the city so he was getting on his horse to go get salt annousheer one called him and he said make sure that you pay for the salt when you when you get it from the store and the soldier said oh my master oh the king what is that what is a little bit of salt that i take from them and bring for the king if i don't pay for it and he said the foundation annousheer one tells the soldier and there's a beautiful example and you would see how i just look at pakistan look at Afghanistan uh look at all of the muslim countries just look at them and you would see that how true this example he said all oppressions start very small and they keep building and they keep building and they keep building he said if the adi then comes and he goes he says if a soldier of annousheer one gets an egg from his store the lieutenant will get the chicken and then the commander will get the lamb and then he will go he said by the time he gets to the commander in chiefs he will take the entire village apart and take everybody's well food and everything but all start with salt just a little worthless salt right so he says no pay for it so we don't we don't put the foundational break up oppression we don't want to put that and unfortunately in many of our countries not the foundational is there but the walls have been built and the castles have been built and and and and take it and reversing this is only one way it's only one way it's through عل it's through knowledge it's through education and people once they come see this book was taught and and a lot of the muslim countries non muslim countries hindu seeks that i made seeks that have more glist on memorize than i do literally they have even they were like five six years old they memorized it so their people and they implemented it in their life so if we implement these things we can change we can bring a revolution of of character that's what's needed there's too many revolutions around the world every muslim everywhere you go is destroyed like you can't we don't even have a vacation spot for muslim everywhere you go is like you know you want to go and you want to see is just we need a you know اخبار said he said تري خديم اغر انقلاب هو بيضا عجب نهي هي كيه شارسو بدل جحيم that if there's a revolution within yourself if there's internal revolution the revolution of the heart an ethical revolution it is then that your surrounding will change you can't change your surrounding by force where you can change it with love ربا بلس فحاني said if love exists amongst people then who needs justice you really don't need justice if there's love we justice is needed in absence of love and we're living in a society that there's no love people have no love their most support goes to pakistan and afghanistan from immigrants who live in america and in uk and in europe than the people there and those people are much wealthier than the people who are sending from here much wealthier they have more money but they don't have their own people they see them suffer they don't care and that's what we need to change we need to have a internal revolution of the heart a revolution an ethical revolution that we change and bring these teachings to life and we'll see within a generation you can change our societies إن شاء الله زاكا لحيدنا السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته next week is the last session إن شاء الله and we will close this chapter on the gulestar أعوذ بالله من الشيطان رجيم بسم الله الرحمن الرحمن الرحيم الحمد لله رب العالمين والصلاة والسلام على سيد المرسلين وعلى آله وصاحب يجمين أعوذ بكلمات الله يتحمى تم يشارما خلق صلى الله عليه وسلم محمد وعلى آله وصاحب يجمين برحمة الله الرحمن الرحمن first of all apologies for being late one of the thing that say you say نصر said that he said I would like to be a muslim in every way except being late because it's becoming like the culture of the muslims to always be late but our Prophet ﷺ was the most on time person in a tradition that he was never late for an appointment and he always honored time because time is sacredness from Allah and Allah swt is by time because Allah doesn't swore by anything insignificant so while I swore by this time of because it's it's sacred Allah is a creator of time and we are stuck in time and space so we should honor that but I do apologize for being late for your patience إن شاء الله today is the last class of the four week course on the Gullistan of Saudi Shirazi one of the thing about the poets that separates them from everybody else is that the foundation of Islamic teachings is what we call the أخلاق or the ethics of Islamic teachings is أدب and without adab there is nothing in our civilization I'll give you an example if someone has a lot of money and they have you know they're very wealthy and they even give charity without adab nobody appreciates it so if they just throw it in your face here you go here's a hundred thousand dollars for your mosque just throw there's no adab in it so that money has no value if you give a gift to someone without any adab right even if it's an expensive gift and you throw it at them it has no value right this is why the the person they said that even a leaf of a tree which is the most worthless things on the planet because they just keep falling right everywhere there's leaves of tree if you give it with أدب like a درويش would give it has more value than you know if somebody gives gold without أدب so knowledge what is the foundation of knowledge so there's a prerequisite in every science there's a prerequisite so you can't go get calculus if you didn't have pre-calculus right can't get algebra if you don't have so all of these sciences that we study like English class when you go to college I have a classmate of mine with the college together here with the college they you do a test and then if you English is good they give you the English 1A if it is not good they give it a well when you were back in college 100R which was like the writing and 100W was the you know the writing in the reading classes so those are the classes you have to take that in order to get to English from 1A and then so you're ready for it so knowledge in itself this this this علم that that Allah is talking about in the Quran and our Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم presenting to us has a prerequisite to it and the prerequisite of learning is أدب you have to have أدب أدب in reality the meaning of أدب obviously means comportment it means but the reality of it is to put things in the proper places that's what أدب is so there's أدب of dressing right so you know everything goes in its place so you you put the ring you know the the sunna fingers you know these are the sunna fingers right that the صلى الله عليه وسلم put the rings so you don't put the ring you know some people put it in here and it's just it's lack of أدب like literally he was an أديب the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said that he is perfected that level of أدب and this is أدبني ربي فأحسنة أديبي الله has taught me أدب and how beautifully he has taught it to me so he learned أدب from الله taught him how to be because this is he is the best exemplar that Allah put on earth so we can emulate him right so he's this is the pinnacle of of of أدب that he's that he's embodying in his action in his words so what separates the poets from everybody else is that they have أدب with words so they put words in the proper places I'll give you an example if I tell you a line in prose right because there's like if you if you get like people who are interested in Farsi you can get the Musnari of Rumi commentary by Gulpinadri the great Turkish scholar so what he did he put the he put the poem the actual version Farsi poem and then he put the Nasser he put the the poem in a line just like in in prose so what it means because a lot of you they read the line and they can't really understand it fully so then he put it like just in regular Farsi like in in prose and then he did a shout on it but if you read the line first it doesn't affect you when you read the poem it affects you why is that because the line is there just it's kind of like it's like two buildings you look at one is a building that was built just for purpose built for let's say dormitory or for an apartment complex where they say how could we make a building where a lot of people can fit in there and the least amount of space right then you look in another building that they built it how could we make this a beautiful building that architecture is alive in this building so when you look at this building you're like oh my you're awestruck when you look at the other building like it's it's just it's uh it's a building another building you pass by it doesn't even attract your eyes so look at it second time but a beautiful building you keep looking and you stop and you want to take a photo because it's amazing the same thing with poetry poetry is like the they're like architecture like actual post like architect that they they beautify word because they put it in in beautiful places so one of the things that the poet said they said look at your face he said look at your face if you take the eyebrows from there and put it below the eyes you will be ugly it's perfect where is it at? الله has designed everything it's it's like the adab of the face how everything is exactly where they're supposed to be right the eyes the nose the teeth the lips the everything in the human body is exactly where they're supposed to be and that's it's it's you know that's where we have the potential to become people of adab out wordly and inwardly so they have adab with words and that's what affects people and this is one of the thing that in our tradition poetry was at the foundation of teaching i don't remember having a class with one of our teacher dr. barakatullah حفظ الله with you know we studied under him that every class there was a line of poetry or something that would a proverb that he would bring up and the thing with poetry and proverb is that it explains something so complex in a very simple way you have for the proverb English proverb Persian Arabic every language have proverbs but proverbs they come from poetry is the the gullustan of sa'adi is filled with proverb but they're all poetry in motion it's words in motion that becomes poetry so we will finish today inshallah going over a few more of the stories from the gullustan of sa'adi a book of real masterpiece of Persian literature it is probably one of the greatest books that was ever written in the history of of literature not just Persian the likes of it is impossible to find in within the Persian literature either because nobody could everybody kind of like salute the gullustan so it's a book and in a category of itself there was a lot of copycat that came there's a lot of people that try to imitate it uh nobody can imitate this this style uh because he was such he was such a genius and he was uh as we mentioned in the first session what he went through in life the the 30 plus years of traveling and being in a dungeon of of the you know during the crusaders and and just all of the life experience because one thing that مولانا رومي says is that if you look at the ney which is the the symbolism for انسان الكامل in the musnary uh the the flute is that if you look at the ney because he started his book when he started his book with the ney like بشنوه ني شون هكو ياتميكو and i'd listen to the read that the flute it's telling his story he said the reason why it sounds really good there are a few things and you know uh the scholars have talked about this but i i was fascinated by the ney for many many years and and i've been doing a lot of research on the ney like what's why would he use the ney why not a guitar why not something else why the ney as a symbolism for himself for rumi that he's saying he is the ney there are a few aspects to ney one is the outward of the ney if you look at the ney uh abdel qadr bedil the great poet of india said as as he said the reason why ney reached this maqam this high station of of singing this beautiful tune is because it abandons the leaves what are the leaves it's called right these are attachment that on the path of spirituality have to detach yourself from the things of this world so a ney detaches itself from the leaves so they it's smooth on the outside then it's everything that's inside of the ney they take it out right everything it becomes hollow from the inside and those are what we call spiritual diseases of the heart like kibir and you know we call arrogance and envy and uh similar in all of these diseases of the heart spiritual diseases of the heart they take these out of the ney so it becomes empty from the inside from everything that is other than our law in that in then that's not done see a lot of people go through the first step maybe i'm a zahid i don't have any attachment to the world but fill the inside they backbite they think they're better than other people oh i'm a zahid i'm better than other people i give up a night prayer i'm better than other people and this is in this story that we're not going to cover because it's it's just a lot of there's a lot to cover in this book in this story zahidi mentions about uh you know a man who gets up for fadr prayer and then there are people who are sleeping and he prays and then in the morning he said oh these people were sleeping while i got up and did my fadr and made the du'a and did the tahad he just goes on about his ibad and look at these guys they were all sleeping in in the seat of gifla and forgot about god and then zahidi said i wish you would have slept and not pray for you then to get up and then look down upon everybody that it gives you arrogance that you're better than anybody and then you're backbiting the whole day collecting sins and seeing people as as lower than yourself so your sleep would have been better than your prayer as a prayer of arrogance a prayer of of just showing off a prayer that i'm better than other people so one of the things they do is that but you have to do is the detach from outside and then the hollowness from the inside but one of the most important thing that a lot of people don't talk about is is still the nays that are going to sound there's no sound will come out of it until you have the holes you have to have the holes in the nays in the flute so once you in that is what we call the experience of life the experience of life will will mold you into something amazing if you see what's coming if you see what's coming if you see what Allah is doing with you and some people they don't you know roomy said gharbahar and if you get irritated with every rub how do you expect to be polished and turn into this beautiful perfect mirror right so that's what destiny does and if you're patient with it and if you learn the lesson from these the point of all of the trials and tribulation in life is to learn the lesson if you don't learn the lesson you will you will repeat the same the same thing will come over and over again until you learn the lesson that is all from الله سبحانه وتعالى and you have to submit so that's the nays is the experience of life and in sa'adi did that all his life and then when he came back to shaira's about 32 34 years after he left when he was a teenager that's when these poems just came out of him and and it was right outside was beautiful like the nays inside was hollow like the nays and he had the holes of the experience of life and that's when it came out and it's so beautiful so that's very important to know that that these things um it takes time um when when the musnabi of roomy the first chapter he wrote the second chapter there was a long delay between because you know he there was death in the family and also uh uh one of his student passed away as well but i hear so there was there was two tragedies in his in his life uh and one of the thing that when he starts the second chapter he says this musnabi it delayed for a period of time you need time in order for the for the blood to turn into milk and that's what happened when roomy gets pregnant it's it it they start having milk right but it takes time in the pain of pregnancy they have to go through uh in the pain of child but so he said until you don't give birth to this child the spiritual child of yours and in other words you don't go through this hardship of life this difficulties these moments this the night the sleepless nights and travel and whatever you have to do you said the blood will not turn into milk so there are difficulties in learning knowledge there's difficulties in in in getting these moments in the station of spirituality this is not fast food nation where you can go and say hey can i get my burger with extra cheese on top and it comes within 30 seconds now this is like when you out when you want real food it takes a whole day to prepare the real food sometimes two days you have to get this stuff you have to marinate it but that's a different food than than a burger but now is everybody wants fast food spirituality and fast food knowledge you know six months course become an island i'm like man what was that when i was young okay so we will do um uh we couldn't do this uh the last two i don't know if you guys have it or not but there was a the last week they only printed one page it was three pages but if you don't i'm going to read it out loud out loud so this is about it still we are in in the chapter two of the gullistan on the bob of the uh darwish uh that are the characteristics and character of an ethics of the darwish and darwish is the people that we call them the people of the door uh they're the people who are who have no attachment to the dunya no attachment to the world they don't have anything of the world and they don't want anything of the world they just that people just busy with themselves and their lord they're just busy purifying themselves and going through the the uh all the the things that they need to do um in order to get closer to الله and busy with their worship so it says دوز دي بخوني بارساه درومد بارساه means a zahid we've talked about it it means someone who is detached from the world in persian zahid is obviously a more universal term that use in arabic in persian and ordo but parsa is a is a is a is a farsi word دوز دي دوز دي is a thief خانا obviously is a is a house uh and parsa is a zahid دوز a thief and goes into the house of a zahid this man who is detached from the world خانا دوز تيزي نايل no matter how much he searched around the house he couldn't find anything in other word uh there was nothing worthy of stealing from the house like he goes and he looks everywhere and there's nothing you know and thief has worked very hard and you have to understand people who steal they don't just walk into somebody's house to steal they do their research they're watching who has what and then they have to find out a way how am I going to enter which wall am i so they really they put effort into their their the wrong action but there's effort put into that like it's just a random guy just walks in and steal no they actually calculate everything yeah uh there's a lot of movies like the western movies that that actually show that like how uh people are a fan of uh avengers but like the anguish uh movie how he like before he steals something he has all of the information and the maps of the house and all that before he goes in right there's also obstacle that comes in when he goes steal you know they have money but then like it's supposed to be somewhere but then he goes you can't find it right because people constantly move their value from one place to another okay so so no matter how much he searched in the house he couldn't find anything to steal their tank should he was really upset like man i i was really hard to come and steal something and there's nothing in this house there's a head he kind of had a feeling he opened like you know cracked his eyes and he he saw that there's a thief in his house he's looking for something to steal so he had a expensive galleem galleem is a carpet and usually it's like the handmade carpet that's the only valuable thing he had and it's a sleep on it so he rolled and he took it out of like that was his little mattress basically sleeping on the floor with a little with a little carpet so he took the carpet and he threw it on the way where when the thief is exiting the house so he can see it and he takes it with him so he doesn't leave disappointed from his house i mean what kind of people were they like you just have to think about it and now this is the poem he said i've heard that the people of god these are what we call ريجال الله the people of god they don't even want to hurt their enemies they don't want to break the heart of their enemies how could you achieve this station right to become a ظاهر to become a parsa to become a man of god right to become the name how to become an insan al-qamil to become a saint how could you reach that مقام that station when you're always arguing and fighting with your friends that's how they treat their enemies how do you think the parsa and the ظاهر and the man and woman of god treat their friends if that's how they treat their enemies so he's saying you would never achieve that مقام because you're always arguing and fighting your even the people that you claim that you love them your friends واتشاد بيشمير so the people of اهل صفاء اهل صفاء is the people of purity the people like ظاهر the people who are uh parsa and pure either in front or in the back either in front of you and in your back because there's two relationship people have this is extremely important to know the relationship we have when we are together then relationship we have when you know the back in person it's a beautiful word because when you depart you turn your back towards each other and you depart you go your separate ways so now you know what are you going to talk behind his back is you're going to be the same you talk to him in front of his back what are you going to talk in front of her or is going to be the same behind her and this is one of the tragedies of our time and i know you know when you do counseling it just it breaks your heart to see people who are friends for like 10 20 years and they found out that their friends will be training them and they were talking about them and a lot of stuff that happened in their marriage life and their family life with their parents with their teachers with all in at work it's all from their friends and those people that they expected the leech and this is why the great one of the greatest gifts in life is to have a good friend and we've been blessed to have like really good friends and this is now it's kind of impossible to have to find somebody that actually is a good friend who who is the same in front of you and the same behind you who someone in in one time i mentioned this and a friend of mine called me right after my class we were i think it was we were in conia we had a car out of a teaching class at rooming and i said their friends i think about my friends is that if i have to leave or something happens to me right i have to go somewhere and my wife is home alone with all our belonging and our wealth right which one of my friend i would trust to say hey go sleep in my house to protect my wife and my wealth and i know that he wouldn't touch either one right and that's how i think and that's how i know like who are my friend these are the people i trust so immediately one of my friend called he goes uh freydun if ever happens to me you are the only one that i said listen you were number one on my list too but i have four people on that list which is amazing to have that like you know that kind of that kind of people in your life in any case and one of them sitting in this class is one of my good friends and i trust them with my life uh you know people that you know for three decades just trust them so that's that's the that's the prerequisite for trust yeah because all these young kids that your kids when they're a teenager comes and my friends my friends said okay you think they're friends we'll talk about it 20 years ago if you remember their name then they're your friends so he said the people of احلى صفار whether in front of you or behind you they won't say behind you they will not say any i've i've his deficiency it's a very important word to to learn this word because when you have a given example if somebody is is drinking alcohol right good man hardworking man family man but why drinks alcohol he has that that's a that's a so he is good he just has an if he removes that he's he's all good right so you can remove عيب عيب is it is an attachment to you it's not part of you got it so it's not your احلى so in logic you have essence and you have accidents right so not accident like car accident but accidents in the accident for example the color of a rose is the accident it the so you can't say oh that's not a rose because it's not bad even if it's white it's a rose even if it's blue it's a rose the rosiness is different from the color so عيب is not your essence so people there are people who are good people they give charity they pay five times a day they fast and Ramadan they are beautiful but they have foul language they always use that f mom they just they have foul language that's an عيب they can let that go they can purify themselves they can say you know what i'm not i'm not gonna speak foul again and i know people i mean we grew up in this country in high school we used to i mean there was normal but there was a point in my life that i said i will never ever use foul again in my life and there was point that i really wanted to use it you just you get frustrated uh in this dunya and i said i made an oath to myself and my lord i'm not gonna use it so you can do that people can control their tongue if they want to so that's the thing is عيب is something so if your friend has an عيب that's not part of the essence for example you have a friend that smokes cigarette or you know or backbite you should tell them in a beautiful way so they can remove that عيب and become that حرصة to become that ظاهر that person that is pure from inside and outside instead of talking about it behind their back where they're not there to defend themselves right so we don't know Allah knows like the people's situation so he said they were not uh behind you they will not talk about your عيب and and in front of you in other words the word means you know they don't die for you one of the worst relationship is what i call an extreme relationship so when you we can friend with somebody or your family members and then when you see them you're amazing you're great i miss you i love you you just keep going and it's the whole عيب you're like that and then when you leave it's done that is a fake relationship that's our real because if it was real it would continue after that as well like not you know you would text every day you will call that's you know that's like ليلة مجنون relationship with like 24 hours a day nobody's like that so he's saying don't go to the extreme in front by over praising over loving over doing thing and don't go to extreme in the back we say oh you know what look at hand talk about this look how hard he works he neglects his children you know just tell them listen you're working too hard it's good you know you're supposed to work hard that's a good thing but remember just just maybe take a couple hours extra off a week spend with your kids they miss you too you know it's important beginning you say it in a beautiful way أدبائي one of the things that i love about the gulistan and you can see this he is giving advice to all of us but look how beautiful he's given it to he's not telling you oh you stupid man who's wrong with you you know if it comes to your house you probably get a gun and shoot him look at the people like that's how what he's saying he's just teaching us a lesson in a beautiful way so always going to give him advice please do it in a beautiful way so he says that in front of you uh they they don't die for you they don't overexaggerate but behind you they don't see you right that's that's the real the people of purity and if you have friends like that you should do two units of shukr prayer that Allah has blessed you with friends like that okay so he has a point but we will go to the next one because i just looked at the time we went there by 20 minutes okay so we'll do one more uh this is again أخلافة that we've shown uh hikaya number 13 uh so this is the story number 13 second chapter of the of the gulistan people translated obviously in english and other languages people want to follow it in the original in the translation so he says كزاخ مَا بَلَنْ دَاشْتَ وَبَهِهِ اِجْدَارُوْ بِهْنَمِشُوْ i saw this this plan here doesn't mean nothing so he says i saw a parsa again the word parsa comes here i saw a parsa uh in near uh a river that he had this zachum and in other words he had this this uh he was sick and this this he had this this wound that was really uh uh incurable it wasn't getting healed like literally it was uh it was it was horrible it wasn't getting healed no matter how much medicine he would take no matter how you know doctors will come medicine he wouldn't get healed right no no medicine could uh would help him for a long period of time he was just uh uh in pain and suffering and in depression sadness you know range range means someone who has range and range is when you're when you're down right when you have pain and suffering when you're down in pain and sickness can bring you down and make you depressed and this is one of the reason why hospitals they all have that nice light blue color they paint it because it makes you happy so people go there are sick people so at least their symbolism of happiness and now you know one of my friend my cousin uh beloved cousin of mine had a surgery a kidney surgery he he donated his kidney and we went to visit him at stanford hospital and i went to his room walked in i saw it it was like a five star resort and amazing view giant window this beautiful he i said wow this is amazing he was like i told the doctor i'm ready to go today like i feel good but i really don't want to leave this room because it's like a really nice room so the nurse came in and i said is it because you want them to be absolutely wanting this will make them feel happy and better and the colors and the window and it's all purposely built so they can get here faster so so this man is basically he's he's down with this because obviously he doesn't have that that hospital or that view uh but he says but he's in a state of gratitude شكر يا الله شكر يا الله so he's he's doing uh شكره الله سبحانه وتعالى non stop is in شكره الحمد لله شكره الحمد لله فرسي دن داش so they asked him why are you instead of شكر in the attitude but what are you making شكر for right here you are you have a chronic disease painful wound that's not being healed you're taking medicine nothing is healing it and you're in constant pain and suffering why are you instead of شكر you reply شكره انك بالمسيبات يغرف دوره نبما سيبات so if you can see those two word مسيبة and معصية right both of them are Arabic and you know why we talked about this before any word that has the word sawd in it is from Arabic it's not original potion so he says that i'm showing gratitude because i'm afflicted with the مسيبة with a trial and tribulation from Allah not with the معصية not with a state of disobedience and sinfulness in other word i rather have pain i rather have a wound i rather be sick than to be healthy and use that health against my creator indeed instead of sinfulness in معصية and this is the wisdom that people don't understand sometimes you get sick and you're at home and you can't do it you can't go out they say oh i wish i could get better and then people said you don't know if you're better you might be in a nightclub dancing if you're better you might be drinking if you're better you might be fornicating you're better you might be stealing so Allah's wisdom we don't know so he's saying Alhamdulillah that i'm sick but i'm not a state of sinfulness and disobedience to my lord so if my beloved right is killing me in a worse way right because there's there's multiple way of killing like the poet said you know there's a thousand ways to get to get killed but death is one right you die but there are a thousand ways of getting killed there's an Afghani joke i'm sure you will enjoy this but you can only make fun of your own culture if somebody else doesn't you get offended but you can do it out of your own so they say there's three Afghanis who were who committed crime and they said you're all all of all three of you need to be killed so they stood them in line they said you have three choices so the first choice is is the sword and we chop you until you die oh man that's bad the second one is the gun and the bullet one bullet and then you're done third one is the gluten you just put your head you drop it it's the fastest and then you're done for the one man say man just do the fastest you know i don't want to get tortured so they put his head down and they release the gluten it came right before his head it blocked it stopped and the man said oh man he must be innocent let him go so he got jam so they let him go he's happy he's dancing he's going to the second one say what he was now when the gluten too you know he's hoping you know he gets jammed the hands they put his head down it comes right before his head it gets jammed and it stops and then he said oh must be innocent let him let him go to the third one say what do you want he said obviously the gluten is out working properly so get the gun please so there are many ways to get killed but all of them goes to one so he says if i'm getting killed by the beloved i died with a lot of torture or whatever way it is right i don't want you to think for a moment that you know because if you're being killed if you're being tortured and killed it's you know you it's painful right and people cry it's it's human nature like you know nobody's made out of steel or rocks so people cry so if you are if if you see he's saying the if you see me crying if you see me in the just in he said i don't want you to think that oh i'm worried about my my my my life but i'm oh i have pain so that's not what i'm crying for that's not that's not why don't the the don't let the form that you see dilute you that's not it because when you're getting killed obviously someone is going to cry obviously someone is going to be in a state of uh just shouting or whatever he said i'm not crying because i'm being tortured or because there's pain on my body no no no i'm saying what wrong did i do what wrong what sin did i commit what wrong what sin did i commit that my beloved is upset at me and he put me through this that is what i'm worried about i'm not worried about oh i'm going to be in pain i'm going but what sin did i do that Allah is sending this calamity on me right that Allah is upset at me that's what i'm worried about and this is the foundational teaching of sa'adi we're living in a time that is the exact opposite of what you just read whenever something happens what's wrong with other people why is he doing this why and sa'adi in the entire gulison there's so many lessons in here as a matter of fact i was reading another uh this chapter last night again and in this chapter he has beautiful advice that you know when calamities come everybody thinks about what did i do why is Allah sending to me what wrong have i done how could i rectify myself how could i fix myself this is the the the vision now the easiest way is to point finger at other people but like they say whenever you point finger at other people three fingers you're pointing at yourself one at the other because really it is our fault everything that happens we plant the seed every actions of ours has a metaphysical reality you can't have it you know if you if you know one of the best commencement speech is ever given uh in the within the western culture that the muslim culture that uh that i've seen there might be better ones but that thing is john fawcett wallace uh and it's on youtube and everyone should watch that every muslim should watch that it's called this is water and in that he talks about uh he gives all these stories about he said you know you're driving down the freeway and then here's this guy what is this you know lady with a huge suv you know a 12 cylinder that drives by you and you're in your you know you know in your car trying to save gas and save the planet you know and he said like what's wrong with this guy and then you see this guy just cutting you and then going like a crazy madman right and you almost had an accident and just like what's wrong with this person and then you're going to the grocery store and then there's this overweight person in front of you with with hundreds of stuff on on her shopping so that when is that going to be over i'm standing in line and and so all of these incidents he talks about like and then at the end he says what if you know what if that lady in the large suv had a car accident when she was young and she feels insecure in a small car she has to drive a big car otherwise she can't drive just out of fear what if the man who was driving he has his child in the hospital and he's just called that he isn't he's about to die so he is just trying to get to the hospital to give blood or something so he's telling all these in that basically the whole talk is from our perspective is about what's not done you have good opinion of people like when you when something's you know when things happen you make an excuse the professor said make 70 excuses for people right and that 70 doesn't mean you know one through 70 that means just keep making excuses for people like we live in an age that nobody wants to make an excuse of if you do one wrong many of the divorces in our community and unfortunately it's on the rise and uh many of the divorce in the community everyone that that that i was involved to to uh mediate has been over stupid stuff and i tell you something sometimes i it was really hard holding myself from laughter like literally when they were saying this would either this which i'm like really like uh we all should have been divorced day three of our wedding like literally if you go by that concept of oh no like people have to be patient you know you just have to have first love that like not everything that everybody says they mean it and one of my favorite thing is you know in in the uh in the person uh literature is about the the cursing of a mother because the mother they they curse their children like they literally say may you die like a mother would say that which they get upset may you die you know may you may you go to hell like they say these stuff to their children and until you don't become a parent you don't know like there's no way i can explain to you the love of a father to a child there's no until you're a father you know those who don't know those who don't know don't know right children would never know what does it mean to be a father what like how much their father loves them and how much their mother loves them they would never know this until they become a father themselves and then it's too late because now their love has gone to their children that they can't give that level of love to their parents because everything within human being is limited there's nothing unlimited and and within us right even the breath are limited your certain breath you inhale exhale once it's done you're gone say say say goodbye to your life the last breath you inhale you can't exhale because it's done it's a chest with with uh number of breath that are allocated for each and every one of us some of them has only one they they they are born they inhale they can't exhale and they're done some has thousands and whatever number of breath it is that's what our laws allocate it so everything is is love is like that too so people you know that's why like when people give all these love to the material things where do you have the love for our law and his messenger and your children and your spouses and your parents and your family and community so that's the thing that you know like a lot of these these things they fall apart is because we always we don't give an excuse to our spouses to our children like sometimes children say stupid stuff and then we try to uh uh you know court martial them right like literally i remember when i was young i said a lot of stupid stuff uh i still do sometimes uh i actually had a conversation i'm uh one of a good friend of mine i've been helping him out uh coaching him for a few years and he's a beautiful man convert uh very very smart super duper smart and uh so he said we were just talking right before the class like that's one of the reason i was late i think i didn't look at my watch and he said that i say stupid stuff so uh and i'm turning at this age so i and i said you know uh of the qadr bedel رحمة الله عليه سيد uh he said even if you're the most intelligent human being on this planet know that madness is like a shadow walking with you you can you can say something really stupid even if you're a genius and how many geniuses we have seen they said stupid stuff like people like you know like everybody like i don't want to mention name but even in the west western culture that people who are like you know how could this man were like four phd say something so stupid like all these people who are you know they think they know religion and look at their their view on Islam this is stupid stuff like really like you didn't read anything about Islam what did you read what do you know and you're supposed to be an expert on Islam and the same thing with engineering but but the most thing is within marriage people sometimes say stupid stuff right but especially one of the thing you don't want to do you don't want to court marshal your children with everything that slips out of your tongue you pretend as you didn't hear it that's the better way right if sometimes they say stuff out of anger or or they just want to but if you just do that it will have a better so they would know that oh five minutes he didn't hear it right you pretend you didn't hear you just keep yourself busy and then like and then you pretend as a normal conversation hey what's going on you want to go do this you want to eat so this way relationships are not ruin because once that door opened where there's no honor and respect between father and the son and the daughter or the mother and the son and daughter that that that's that's a dysfunctional household so you have to make sure uh but then you discipline discipline them through teachings and also through being a character just stops if you are not practicing which you preach it's not going to work in the household so uh three fifty six so good timing um I think I covered everything in here is everything was everything on that cover today yeah okay awesome so thank you very much to everyone here thank you زاكالخير to uh uh مفتصاب الوحب زاكالخير for all the brothers and everyone who's watching this and uh الله بلاس all of you and this is the work of the great uh ساعدي شيرازي اهل السنة والجماعة سمي scholar uh from حرجة from Iran but is modern to Iran and he with the immense love for Allah the Prophet ﷺ the خلصة and if you if you read the the بوستان and just the first home of the بوستان it will tell you how much love he had for Allah for his messenger and for the صحابه and the same so and well and with the greatest home ever written about the Prophet ﷺ and there's a lot of home like the بوستان and the most amazing home but when I'm talking a poem I'm talking about the shortest poem about the Prophet ﷺ ever written and with the with the highest meaning that everyone in the Arab world and the Ajamm work memorized it and it was in the when I went to Turkey it used to be hanged in the blue mosque in four corner because this is four little lines and in each line was in four direction on a huge on a huge frame calligraph very beautifully but now they're being renovated as people know in the top coffee so insha'Allah hopefully when it's done they will put those back in there so he says about the Prophet ﷺ in the shortest most succinct phrase of the Prophet ﷺ who he is and that is natural is the entire أخلاق of the Prophet ﷺ that everything about him is at the level of perfection is all of them are beautiful and perfect he was the most perfect human being physically that Allah created and we know that he was more beautiful than use of right he was more beautiful than use of and إقبال said you know look at the beauty of use of he said when they saw the beauty of use of the woman is starting to cut their fingers right they give the orange they start cutting their fingers he said my beloved the Prophet ﷺ is so beautiful that when the moon saw his finger it cut in half شق القمر the splitting of the moon happened because of you know when the Prophet ﷺ his fingers pointed to the moon مولانا رومي he said this is moon is one of the lovers of the Prophet ﷺ there's only one he said there are countless number of lovers of the Prophet ﷺ like the moon right he said he said if you look at my heart is the splitting of the moon at every moment it's the splitting of the moon at every moment and I'm going through that moon when one time I'm going through it at every breath right this is this is the way of our people these people are lovers of Allah and his messenger and these are the books that they left in order to increase that love and also to live an ethical life a life based on أخلاق a life of rectifying our wrongs being good to ourselves because our bodies are right over us and being good to other people and seeing the beauty in Allah's creation and seeing beauty in everybody else and not seeing عيب and deficiency and as he said in one of the stories he said I don't see the عيب in him and I don't see the غيب right I don't know the unseen so what I see outwardly I say I don't judge people by saying oh I think he has bad intention how do you know he has bad intention Allah knows the intention it's in the hearts of people so don't look at people with their eye of deficiency look at people with eye of beauty and say that which is beautiful or keep in silence like the pops Allah said and practice these these these teachings because if we don't practice it we have done it the service to Sa'adi and the work that he has done and left behind so maybe we can take each one of us one thing from from this and that would be not to talk behind our friends and not to excessively praise them in front to be to be just beautiful people because extreme is from shaitan and balance is from what Allah loves in the Prophet ﷺ love everything about the Prophet ﷺ was balance and we have made you as the middle umma and Allah has put this verse in the middle of surat al-baqara literally is in the middle of surat al-baqara so there's this miracle this verse all of the verses are miracle but just being a person of balance now go to the extreme in this side and that's right the same way as Salah said that the all of the virtues is that which is in the middle so you can be a person of bravery but if you become too if you go too far to the right you become reckless right if you go too far to the left you become a coward but that in the middle is right in the middle is that which is balance and my love is people of balance إن شاء الله و تعالى جزاك الله خير صلى الله و تعالى رسينا محمد اللهم صلى الله و تعالى رسينا محمد انتبى القلوب و دوائها و عافة لبداني و شفائها و نور الابصاري و ديائها و قوة الارواح و فذائها و على عالي و صاحبين برحمتك يا رحم الراحمين صلى الله و تعالى رسينا محمد جزاك الله خير and thank you very much and I bless all of you إن شاء الله


Home soil. First look at the line-up for St. Benedict's Scholar J defending champions and look at that pretty much on change. Quad minus of course are two big players. Tariq Lidi secondary schools play of the year. Well, however, Anthony Williams will come in as well as Jaden Grant will get an opportunity and number eight Dorel Garcia. All eyes certainly will be on him after that NGC Super Cup performance. Randolph Boyce continues on the bench. Well when you look at the formation and look at Mauryan there to provide cover for Ocho and Grant to get forward Garcia as we mentioned three goals in his first outing on Saturday. He will be wanting to be amongst the goalscorers again a familiar four one four one four St. Benedict's College. Osan one north. They are ready and rearing and without Larry Noel the league's top goalscorer last year. That role will be taken by number twenty-one. Jaheem Dan Clare and from all indications he is a top player. Lindell Swain continues after his TTPFL debut season and Nathan Quashy who also participated for W Connection in the TTPFL and a big grab from Ratch Rivals QRC comes into the lineup. Jerry Mo the very experienced coach is on the bench for this team. Yeah, when you look at the line-up Quashy and Lewis very important for today's outing and being able to spot the danger in that San Juan midfield. Look for new boy Dan Clare to try to follow in the footsteps of Larry Noel. Of course, a very big shoes fill but we would be. Afternoon and evening as San Juan North secondary take a famous fourth through win over St. Benedict's College at home. Let's look back and see how it started. It started here. Some good footwork Quashy the new band and setting up for another new man. Dan Clare. Jaheem Dan Clare getting the first item and San Juan will up 1-0. Quashy transferring from QRC and want to start his career at San Juan. Dan Clare replacing Larry Noel was the top scorer last season but then Gibson Benedict's College had no surprise as Dorel Garcia was able to squeeze away past a big guy, a long guy in goal and he made it one all to the defending champions. More from Garcia showing his pedigree and Grant the recipients of his bursary and he put the Laramie Lions 2-1 ahead. Exceptional footwork. Grant with the gift. And San Benedict's were ahead 2-1. Bukmanacius boys though depended on Lindell Sweene and another number 10 and Quashy. Cronning the icing on the Cape with a scintillating finish and that made sure that the teams went to the break level. Reverse pass and a kiss of death from Quashy and then Sweene involved at the corner and Joseph getting his purchase and that puts San Juan 3-2 ahead early in the second half. Certainly enjoying that moment. Was there to be more? They wanted more and there was more. No surprise. The boogie man, Sweene. Top bucket and that's a goal that certainly will dominate all of the highlight reads for the entire season. 4-2 to San Juan at that stage and they felt the job might have been over. Talk about making yourself a cult hero. St. Benedict's were rolling over like that fan at that stage. But the Laramie Lions are not defending champions for nothing and Jones made sure that we would go down to a nail biter. Getting his head on this heat seeker in the area. That made it 4-3. But then time ran out and his joy would run out as well as San Juan would win this one by four goals to three. Let's look at the numbers and San Juan certainly improving in terms of shots. Much closer. Very very tight. Little between the teams shots and shots and target. Tills of falls while a very rugged big boy contest. 19 falls in total. 11 to St. Benedict's college and possession. San Juan north dominating that statistic. 53 to 47 and the final scoring this one. 4-3 to San Juan secondary and the match as close as it looked on the numbers. While I tell you what wasn't close or choice for man of the match and he's standing by with hands of ease. Thank you very much James Saunders. Two assists getting one behind the net as well. Mr. Sween. How does it feel to be man of the match today? Well it feels really good to be man of the match playing against one of the best teams in the league last year and coming and beating them this year in the first game. It's a good feeling. Well I like the way you're tied in last year into this year. What can we expect from you and Sauer north secondary in 2023? Well I could expect plenty goals, plenty assists and you understand playing football that I like to play. That's your love to play. Congratulations Lendil Sween. Right now we get ready to speak to our coaches. Brent Sancho is on deck with Randolph Boyce. Now joined by coach Boyce. Coach of course a disappointing result for you. How did things pan out throughout this game? Well as you can see it was a very interesting game. The Sauer team have a lot of energy. I think the atmosphere and everything through them right and they had more energy than us today. They work harder. Work harder off the ball, on the ball. You could see that they really wanted it. We were kind of lethargic in terms of getting into the game and I feel something didn't click right today with the guys on them. Well obviously we have a whole season ahead of us but there's seven goals conceded in the last two games. Certainly a concern for you. Yeah definitely a concern. Insurance definitely had a work on the defensive aspect tightening up things. Something with the mind and just a little kind of like we could fix it. I believe we could fix it. Certainly so thank you very much coach and all the best. No problem. Of course I'm now joined by the winning coach coach Moore. Of course a happy man. Amanda normally don't show emotions but tell us your thoughts on this 90 plus minutes. Today was a tough one you know. We really really earnest started preparing for this tournament less than two weeks ago you know after the results come out and we still have a couple of boys trying to get into the school. So it was a difficult preseason for us. You know it was very inconsistent in terms of the numbers. That's why you see a lot of guys cramping up you know and they got victory again the defending champs. I mean if you had to tell me again I'd draw and I'd take that. Much less a four or three victory. Well you got your win so is it now that San Juan North have their eye on the prize winning the SSFL Premiership title. Well that's my job to keep the guys grounded you know. You got to get one game at a time and the SSFL have no easy game. So my job is to get them grounded and get ready for the game on Saturday. Thank you very much coach all the best. You're welcome.


Start planning for your retirement. Plan now and make your golden years golden. Welcome to part two of the three-part series on retirement planning. The series is brought to you by the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank and the National Television Network. In part one, we touched on making the transition from work to retirement. And in part two, we will be getting into the nitty-gritty of things where we speak on estate planning, maintaining property value, insurance, and NIC benefits. My name is Elijah Williams. I'm the moderator for today. I'm joined by my three panelists to my immediate right, Miss Trudy Glasgow. She's an attorney at law. Center stage, Mr. Linus Bernardin, who is a representative of the National Insurance Corporation. And to the far end, we have Mrs. Vuna Henville, who is a representative from NARGICO Insurance's Limited. Good day to you guys. We can probably just go straight into the discussion as I indicated. In part one, we touched on some of the ways that people could get themselves ready to take that transition from the workforce into retirement. Quite a few areas of discussion came up, but we want to zone in on some specific things. Maybe we could start with you, Miss Glasgow, from the standpoint of estate planning. What is it like in your field when it comes to estate planning? What advice would you provide them with? Well, thank you for having me. Well, in terms of estate planning, largely what we look at is wills, and we encourage persons to do wills as soon as possible. People tend to think that they should do it when they retire, and it's actually a little late in the day at that point. You should have done a will well before then, but certainly if you're retiring and you haven't done a will, I encourage you to go out and get a will. Now what is a will? A will is essentially a document that the testator yourself is advising what you would like to be done to your assets after you pass away. So the will does not take effect until you've passed away, and that's a very important fact. And so if you are of sound mind, you're over 18 or over, and you have to make a will particularly if you have children and you have assets, it is important to make a will so you make provisions for what you would like to have done with your assets. We generally hear, especially when it comes to kids, we hear the term illegitimate child. Could you probably shed some light on that? Because I think some people think it's just automatic that if you have a kid, especially if you acquire a child through marriage, that it's just automatic that if something happens to you that whatever assets that you have will probably be equally shared. How does that work out? Okay, and this is why we talk about a will. A will will dictate exactly what happens to your assets for want of a better word. If it is that you don't for whatever reason get along with your children, you can leave it to your favorite aunt or your cat. And we have had persons who do that or a friend of yours. If you don't make a will, it means that you've died in testate and that means that then members of the family will go to court to decide what happens to your assets. When you talk about legitimate and illegitimate children, this is a little more involved. If it is that you're a single man or woman, there is a provision in the civil code which says that your children will inherit. But that is a little complicated because it depends if you get married subsequently, or did you get married and have other children. So all these things have to be looked at before the courts will decide how your assets will be divided. I think people normally think that if somebody is deceased, that automatically the spouse gets full control over everything. Is that in actuality what the case is? It's not exactly right. There are other deciding factors.  We're talking about if you haven't made a will.  It's up to you. But if you die without a will, the law then takes effect in the civil code. It's from section 579, which talks about legitimate children, but also what the divisions will be. So it's really important to consider what you would want because a will is something that you can change at any point, and there are persons who have made more than one will in their lifetime, and it is the one that is the most recent that takes effect, and others can be ripped up to shreds. What about common law situations? How does the absence of a will affect the common law situation? Okay, again, if you are living with someone, again the question becomes, do you have children? Don't you have children? If in a situation where you don't have children, the common law spouse may be entitled to certain things if the parents have to see. So if you've died and your parents are still there, your parents actually inherit. And this may not be your wish. You may like to leave something to your common law spouse, and if you have made provisions and had a will, then the law takes effect, and that means that your parents actually jump ahead of your common law spouse in that situation. Very interesting. You guys, you can feel free to join in the discussion. Also, with our medical insurance, we do not have a will for you to bring a will, really, but on the enrollment form, if you have life insurance, there's a part where you have to complete who you want to leave the life amount for. If it's your cat, as Ms. Glasgow said, or if it's your common law spouse. So without this being completed, then you'll have to face the call for a letter of administration, for us to know exactly who that money goes to. In a scenario like that, Ms. Glasgow, does that form being filled out at the insurance company serve in effect as sort of a will for that allocation of your... No. A will is a separate document. It has to be in a prescribed form, okay? So you can have a written will. You can actually go away and just write something and sign it. We would advise against that because your relatives can actually challenge that. So what you should do is go to a lawyer, and the lawyer will put it in the correct form as prescribed by law, so that there are actually two notaries present. It has to be registered. It does not have to be registered, but it has to be signed off by two notaries in your presence so that it is witnessed, and actually each page is signed off as well. So it's a very involved process. This is helpful because when you have life insurance, this is very, very helpful. Ms. Henville mentioned letters of administration. This is when you don't have a will. You do a probate if you have a will, but you do letters of administration if you don't have a will. And the letters of administration means that you've gone to court, and this document come forward as to what you would want to done with your life insurance. Well, what about other assets? What about other assets? What do you want to happen to that? You haven't made provision for that. So then the court would make a decision based on varying factors on what happens after that. Let's just assume someone is not of sound mind. What happens then? Wow. Okay. If someone is not of sound mind, it depends on when that happened. You have individuals, and you have to be very careful as an attorney because I remembered early in my practice being called to a hospital where someone was on their, sad to say, had a few days to live. And my boss at the time took one look at the situations that were leaving. We never engaged with him or anything like that because we didn't realize he was so dire. But in speaking to the doctors, we realized that this is beyond the pale and we cannot. He's not of sound mind, it's not the correct term here, but he's not capable mentally to make a decision. He's on the DRS, some sort of DRS. Death is imminent. Yeah, his death is imminent. So his decision-making factors are obscured here. So we can't do a will at this point. Now that is quite different to someone who may be an elderly person and so on. But he's very sharp mentally and is not feeling well maybe in bed for a few days or something like that. But very sharp and you get advice. The doctor would then advise the lawyer, look, yes, she's able to and you can make that decision for yourself that they're able to do the will because a will can be challenged and what can be challenged is your mental state at the time of doing the will. If you're mentally on sound just to make in the will, that's an entirely different matter and the will will stand.  Okay, we do for a short break. When we return we'll have some more discussions on the issue. I noticed that you built your retaining wall on my property. You'll have to give me my land back or compensate me for that. My contractor isn't dumb. I trust that he will not build anything and this situation does not require you to go to court. Looks like we have to go to mediation here. Mediation is a way people resolve conflicts like this. Someone, a third party comes to speak to both parties. This person is called the mediator. The mediator is impartial. He or she makes sure that communication between both parties is effective and efficient. So, the mediator is a judge? No, the mediator is not a judge. Mediators, unlike judges do not decide cases or impose settlements. Let me get a mediator to handle this retaining wall and that kitchen. Kitchen? Yes. Your kitchen also falls on my land. Let me call the mediator. And welcome back if you just joining us. We are having a discussion on retirement planning. This is part two of a three-part series and joining me is my esteemed panelist to my immediate right, Mr. Trudy Glasgow, attorney at law, Mr. Linus Bernadine who is center stage representative of the National Insurance Corporation and the Mrs. Bernadine representative of the National Insurance System. Mr. Bernadine, let's go to you. The NIC. Tell us from a standpoint of benefits what the NIC has in place for retirees. Good day, Elijah. Thanks for having me. What the first thing I'll say is you need to get ready for retirement. Retirement cannot just come and you're unaware that it's coming. So if I speak to a group of people I'll tell them, within five years of retirement you should come down to the NIC to find out exactly what you are going to get. Because you need to know what the amount is so you can budget for it. So preparation for retirement, that may be a good time to see if you can section of your house so you can rent a portion because whatever money that you're going to get from NIC you need to bear in mind that it might not be able to pay your mortgage that you are going to fall sick that you got to pay them you have to pay your phone bill and all of those commitments must be met. So you need to get ready for retirement you come down to any of our offices to find exactly what your amount is going to be. And once you have a pretty good idea what it's going to be then you can start gauging whether you can take it at age 60 which is the minimum age at which you can take it or the actual retirement age which is 65. Bear in mind however that if you decided to take it at age 60 that your pension is going to be modified the actual retirement age is 65. Why is it modified? Because we want you to work up until you are 65. Because the way the system operates is active workers are now paying pensions for those out there and when that percentage or when that ratio begins to get closer and closer it means that you are beginning to have a problem it means we are unable to collect enough to pay current retirement expenditure and we need you to stay in working as long as you can possibly work. However if you decided to take it at age 60 or whenever you decide to take it the minimum number of months that you require for retirement is 180. Now that doesn't have to be consecutive in any way. So you can have 16,000 one in 1979 once together it comes up to 180. You become entitled to a minimum pension or a minimum percentage pension. So let's look at it in one of two ways. A minimum of an average is 40 which is the minimum amount that you are going to get or the maximum is 60 of an average. What that average is is determined on the number of years that you've worked on, the number of years that you've contributed plus the size of your contribution. So there is no minimum contribution as it is. So I have seen people coming with say 1,000, I remember working in customer service and I saw a lady came in with what total contributions were $1,300. But she had been getting a pension for a number of years because she worked in places that the money whatever they were contributing it wasn't big money so to speak. So 25 cents can be a month $500 can be a month. However together they create $180 which is the minimum required. Once you have that you become entitled to your pension and you will get that for as long as you live. If there's one thing that's guaranteed and Ike's going to pay you for as long as you live. Let me throw a question at you. The perception is that your pensions will be calculated on your last few years of earnings. Is that accurate? Is this a scenario where if you are a very high earner in your earlier years and you probably have regressed in terms of salary. Is it a scenario where you really need to come and check to ensure that you get in or you're going to get what you think you're going to get. That's an interesting question actually. Yes and no. The pension for most people they earn more to the tail end of the careers as opposed to the earlier years. So you begin you've left so after you left whatever you enter as a clerk eventually you become a manager and you earn more. As such once you earn more you contribute more. Yes So to answer your question however no it is not exactly right. So we use the best five years of your contributions wherever it is so it can be at the beginning of your career or it can be at the end of the career the best five years wherever they are whether it's 79, whether it's 80 whether it's 2015 wherever they are we use the best five years to calculate that average which I spoke of and these are the figures that I use to calculate your pension. However every month that you contribute is important because they add up to the 180 which is the minimum requirement to be entitled to a pension in the first place. Earlier on Miss Glasgow spoke about wheels and estate and so someone may retire and receive that pension however that person will eventually die. So the question is kind of one will the pension know one cannot will the pension because analysis legislation is quite clear it's about survivorship. Survivorship is simply it's a relationship of dependency so were you dependent on the person who died. So the question is whether you have to be married or whether it need to be a common law no the legislation speaks to dependency so if you are living with somebody for more than five years then that's dependency there is a relationship you understand there is a relationship between between the two of you you pay the electricity I buy the food so that's how the legislation speaks to survivorship so if you die as a pensioner then your spouse whether married or unmarried your spouse becomes entitled to that pension however who is your spouse so in our own society we have peculiar kind of society so a man or woman can be married but he is left or she has left her husband for a number of years and as such she has now begun living with somebody else so why does the wife may come forward the legal wife may come forward in terms of determining who is the survivor and I see looks at the relationship the dependency was the wife dependent on the pensioner and if that relationship could be established then whoever he lived with whoever cared for him a household with that's the person who becomes entitled very interesting points of discussion a whole lab thought we'll continue the discussion when we get back we'll discuss how can we think about the children think about the children how will we say them and calls and GMOs are not the solution use organic and join excessive agrochemical use additives and genetically modified foods are harmful to health and the environment join the good food revolution Revolution, Grow, Buy and Consume Organic, a message from Rye St. Lucia and the Ministry of Sustainable Development with funding from the GEF Small Grants Program, UNDP. And welcome back, again we are discussing part two or three part series on retirement planning and let's just get straight into back into the discussion. We have a representative from NGICO Insurance here, Mrs. Henville. Mrs. Henville, when people get to the age of retirement, obviously there are certain things that become of permanent concern. People want to know how they could save up monies, can they maintain the insurance premiums, because I mean we all know that what NIC does is give you a contribution. It may not be enough, as Mr. Boone and Dean said, for you to maintain the standard of living that you were once used to. People tend to fall back on insurance, especially in the area of medical insurance, when as you know the older you get, sometimes your health begins to win. What are some of the ways that somebody who is coming up on retirement can deal with the insurance companies to ensure that they maintain good levels of premiums, they maintain their coverage, etc. We have scenarios where people are part of medical insurances and upon retirement that goes out the window. What are some of the ways that people can deal with the insurance companies? Luckily there's an article, and what we offer right now, we do offer retirees cover so persons we have in short. So acceptance age is 18 to 60. As proposal stages, we accept those persons. Going into retirement, you will not have any trouble because we already put the retirement benefits and the retirement premium in that proposal that's already accepted by the business person. So you have retirees cover. So it's an easy transition into going to the retirement stage where you get certain benefits. We do offer that. Really also, when persons are retired and they pass, say they pass and they have a family that they have to take care of, we have that coverage where the dependent spouse would automatically be the primary insurer. So your spouse pass, he was 65, and there's a spouse, there's the dependent spouse. We do not say, okay, I know you're sick and okay, the primary insurer passed, your husband passed. We no longer want to see. This person become the primary insurer, apnagical. So they just need to maintain the premiums. They need to maintain the premiums. Once you're 65 and you pay in your premiums, again, once you have retirees cover, we do keep you on the plan. There's coverage for you. We do not limit them to say, okay, you cannot get this because you're retired. The benefits are the same for retirees or persons below 65 years. Some people, myself, for example, would choose to become an entrepreneur. That would be their retirement plan simply because a business has the ability to generate revenues even after you physically stop working. From a standpoint of protecting an investment of that nature, you look at business insurance. What would you advise somebody who is an entrepreneur, a current entrepreneur or somebody seeking to venture into being a business owner from a standpoint of business insurance and being sure that they're covered even after they get to the retirement age? We offer small group plans, minimum persons four and maximum 10 as a small group. We do offer that for small business owners. The same age range between 18 to age 60. We still offer that same. But it will be lower premiums because the person just starting on, we do not have much money, the salary is not too high. The premiums are a little lower than our number group comprehensive plans. What about providing insurance for the business itself? If I'm retired, I now have staff working for me. I'm probably concerned about somebody being a bit shady. Is there any sort of insurance coverage for scenarios like that or probably just fire catches at my business place? What are you? I mean, it is my retirement plan, so how can I protect that? Yeah, we do offer that. Unfortunately, it cannot give so much information. But if you do, you call magical, we offer different types of policies. How do you find yourself? Actually as a business owner, I do have contents insurance. I'm very interested in your insurance for businesses as well, for individuals in there. So we'll need to talk afterwards. How do you, from a standpoint of law misclass, how do you manage the varying scenarios? Because you may have somebody who has no will, who has beneficiaries listed on their private insurance plan, but they may have a spouse, et cetera, listed at NIC. How do you manage somebody who has passed and how do you deal with the assets? Well, okay, so we're talking about this, they've passed away and family members perhaps come in and indicated, well, we last for various documents, this is going to become a court matter and we're going to do a letters of administration so that we can find out as much as we can about the individual who passed away, if they have any relatives that didn't, it weren't on, say, the insurance or life insurance, if they had life insurance. So we have to have a holistic picture of the individual, particularly if it wasn't a client of yours and be able to proceed to court with all that information. So, I mean, for clients of mine, I always indicate, because I do a lot of divorces, I indicate to them that if they have a will that once the divorce is finalized, they need to do their will again, because that actually negates the will and a lot of people will realize that. So you can just rip your will up the moment your divorce is finalized, because the law provides that it's no longer valid. So once your marital status changes, this is very important to know that. So if you have a lawyer, your lawyer will always advise you, look, you need to make a will. For those who don't have a lawyer who just didn't get around to doing it, I'll, when I retire, then I'll do a will. I would really encourage them not to do that. My own dad said to me, I did my will when I was 35, and, you know, he had his three daughters by then, he didn't have his grandson, but he's made provisions for that. So you need to be actively involved and think through what you're doing. Obviously, if your assets change substantially between 35, and I won't see my dad's age, but older, or now you have a grandson, you may need to revisit your will, because perhaps you want to leave something to your grandson who was not born at the time when you made your will at 35. So these are the sorts of scenarios we look at. We look at the individual client and tailor our advice to suit them. Very interesting discussions. Time is already upon us. The time goes by so quickly. I guess we were having a lot of fun on the program. But I've noticed one common theme with all of you when you've spoken, that the time for retirement planning is now. It's not about the waiting until you get to 50 or 55, in the case if you're a civil servant, et cetera. The time for planning is now. It puts you at a more advantageous position. It allows you to make adjustments when your life situation changes. And all of you have basically encouraged people to start as early as possible in terms of getting their premiums sorted, ensuring that they are on track with their NIC benefits. And of course, in terms of leaving a last will in testament. Thank you very much for joining us on the panel today. Hopefully you guys at home can join us when part three of the series rolls around on retirement planning. Miss Trudy Glasgow, thank you very much. Thank you. Mr. Bernadine. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Start planning for your retirement. Plan now and make your golden years golden. Come, let's make it happen.