Text Box: بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم   Eid-ul-Fitr Sermon   HAZRAT AMIR’UL MOMENEEN MUHYI-UD-DIN AL KHALIFATULLAH   Munir Ahmad Azim   09 August 2013     EID MUBARAK   (Summary of Eid Sermon)     After having greeted all his followers (and all Muslims) round the world – mentioning the nearby islands, India, Kerala, Trinidad and Tobago etc. – with the Salutations of Peace, Hazrat Khalifatullah (atba) read the Tashahhud, Taouz and Surah Al Fatiha and he said: Eid-ul-Fitr Mubarak to all my brothers and sisters and children in the Muslim world and also in Mauritius. As the Khalifatullah of this era, I am very pleased to wish you on behalf of the Jamaat Ul Sahih Al Islam, a happy Eid-ul-Fitr which comes to close the fasting month of Ramadan. My dear brothers and sisters, always stay faithful to the religion of Allah (Islam); you have indeed observed that fasting for purification and spiritual renewal. It is with family that you have experienced the greatest moments of Ramadan. We need to give the torch to the younger generation, teaching them on religious and moral values. Each of us must have a high regard for family. We must sincerely believe that the family is the fundamental unit of society, where love and life, respect and acceptance of others is lived and transmitted. We have to understand how our moral, spiritual and religious values are being challenged by the rapid and continuous advances in information technology and communication, which sparked a cultural revolution. Through the multiple interconnections which have become possible on the 'web', the disclosure of information opens to infinity. It becomes more and more difficult for young people to find solid benchmarks. The family is the essential place for the proposal of spiritual and moral values ​​as benchmarks to guide the life of a man and a woman in the actual expanded modern society. So, together, we are invited to contribute to the stability of the family institution. Through the family, we can help our young people learn the values ​​of hospitality and respect for others, justice and truth, solidarity towards the weakest and poorest as the teachings of Islam advocate. One must remember that the highest spiritual state that a person can reach in this world is where he finds his solace in God, and where all his satisfaction, all his ecstasy and rapture is centred in God. This state is called the heavenly life. It is in this way that man enjoys heavenly life in this very world, and this he acquires, in recognition of his sincerity, purity of soul and his perfect loyalty. Other people expect to find paradise in the afterlife, but the adept (the sublime servant of Allah) enters paradise in this life itself. Upon reaching this stage, he realizes that the acts of worship that were prescribed to him in fact served to feed his soul and his spiritual life depended largely upon it, and that the realization of paradise is not only reserved to the future life. All disapproval he imposed on himself in relation to his previous defiled life of sin, but which however could not effectively arouse his desire for virtue and disgust for his vile desires, and give him some force to adhere to virtue, all this disapproval will be transformed with the new consciousness that brings his acts of worship into a force which constitutes the beginning of the development of the soul at peace. Upon reaching this stage, the individual is able to know total success. Leering features of his ego fade and a refreshing wind blows through his soul, so that it is with regret that he perceives his previous weaknesses. At that moment, nature and habits are completely transformed, and the servant departs significantly from his original condition. He is purified, and God inscribed in his heart love for righteousness, while Himself eradicating (from that person) the filth of vice. The forces of truth penetrate the citadel of his heart, and righteousness seeps and settles into the corner of his nature, and the truth prevails, and falsehood lays down its arms and flees. God's hand is on his heart, and it is in the shadow of God that he makes every step. Allah Almighty alludes to all this in the following verses: “But Allah has endeared to you the faith and has made it pleasing in your hearts and has made hateful to you disbelief, defiance and disobedience. Those are the (rightly) guided. (It is) as bounty from Allah and favour. And Allah is Knowing and Wise.” (49: 8-9) “Those are (the ones) whose hearts Allah has inscribed faith and supported them with spirit from Him.” (58: 23). All that has been just described belongs to the spiritual condition experienced by an individual who has reached the third stage – no one is able to enjoy the true discernment, if he has not reached that stage. The fact that God has inscribed faith in their heart with His own Hand and help them through the Holy Spirit means that it is impossible to know the true righteousness and purity of soul unless one is aided by the divine. At the stage of the soul that rejects vice, the condition of the individual is such that he repents from time to time, but that does not stop him from continuing to stumble, and he often falls into despair believing that his case is hopeless. He goes on to live this situation for some time, and at the advent of the appropriate time, when a light impregnated with divine power descends upon him. With the arrival of the light, he transforms with wonder, and he feels the presence of an invisible hand that supports him and he discovers a wonderful world. At that moment, he realizes that God exists and his eyes fill with a light hitherto unknown. What to do to find this path and acquire this light? Bear this in mind! For every effect there is a cause. There is no smoke without fire. To acquire any science, there is a very specific method which is called the right path. We cannot accomplish anything in this world without strict compliance with the rules imposed by nature. The law of nature teaches us that to be able to do anything, a specific route has been prescribed, and the goal can only be achieved by traversing this path only. For example, if we are sitting in a room where it's all black, the right way to go to enable light to enter the room is to open the window which faces the sun. When we do this, light immediately enters the room to illuminate it. Thus, it is clear that to gain the love and grace of God, a window must exist and there must be an accurate method to follow to live the true spirituality. So it is for us to seek the right path to spirituality, like we adopt a particular method for success in all our affairs. This path is not the one where we seek to meet God by making use of reason, or by using methods that we improvise ourselves. The doors which can only be opened by His powerful hands will not open by our logical reasoning or our own philosophy. We cannot find the Ever-Living Lord, Subsisting by Himself through our own means. The only way that is right for accomplishing this is that at first, we have to sacrifice our lives and devote all our faculties for the cause of God, and then occupy ourselves in strongly begging Him to grant us this meeting with Him, and thus find God through God Himself. This is (indeed) a very broad topic. For today, I will stop here and Insha-Allah, may Allah give me the Tawfiq to continue on the same subject in another sermon. Again, I wish all my brothers, sisters and Muslim children, a very happy Eid-ul-Fitr – Eid Mubarak. I extend to you the friendship of members of the Jamaat