Video: What if our guidance contradicts what we feel we should do?

As-salamu alaykum everyone, we’re going to continue talking about guidance and the difference between what we want, what God wants, and why should we follow what God wants when sometimes it’s uncomfortable to what we want. And how do we rectify that?

First of all, a lot of people, especially when they begin the path, they really don’t know what God wants. In fact, in a lot of ways, they don’t really know what they want either, and they don’t have the guidance to know what’s right. So, for example, you’re in a relationship, you start to fight with your beloved and all of a sudden it doesn’t feel good anymore. Now you’re in this place and you’re like, “Well, what do I do? I love them but it also feels bad, and I want to leave, what do I do here? My heart wants to run, I want to go.”

When you go inside, you see your desire is to get away from the pain, and what you’ll do unconsciously is you will pull out teachings that you’ve picked up that will support your desire. You’re going to say, “Okay, I’m going to leave. Well, let’s see, I read this person. This person said when you’re uncomfortable you should go.” So, your guidance becomes you should go.

You see, what happens is guidance is kind of like a collusion, you’re colluding with your desire nature and your desire nature is often based on not experiencing pain, you don’t want to experience pain, but what if what’s going on in the relationship is what you need to experience to grow?

Let’s say, for example, you’re in a relationship and your partner is saying to you, you need to be more gentle. And you’re saying, well, I just want to be who I am. And they say no, but who you are is too hard, who you are is painful, who you are is aggressive, who you are hurts me. And you’re saying yeah, but that’s who I am, I want to express myself, I want to be what I am, and in fact I’m not really that aggressive, I’m not those things and so I don’t know what you’re talking about.

You see, when I go to my guidance, if you’re aggressive, you say I should be who I am, right? But if you look deep into Allah’s guidance, you see Allah balances everybody’s hearts. Allah looks to the person speaking to you and says this person has a very fragile heart. Let’s say they’re like a really thin wine glass, and you on the other hand are like a very hard piece of glass, you’re solid and strong and very little affects you, but your partner that you drew in is this person who has this thin, thin glass of a heart. And if you just hit it, it cracks, it can be broken so easily.

So you’re saying I’m hard, I’m strong, I want to be who I am. Yes, but you know what? Your partner can’t tolerate that. So, if you go to God’s guidance, God looks at the nature of that heart, that wine glass, and says that person does need to strengthen their heart, but this moment, that’s where they are. And God then says you are powerful, you have that very strong piece of glass, you’re going to break that wine glass, you have to learn to be gentle. And you say why do I have to be gentle, why can’t I just be who I am? Because when you are who you are, you break their glass, and if you break the glass they’re going to leave, they’re not going to be able to stay with you. You can’t break that glass, you see, so God knows that.

And God goes back and says my love, you have to learn to be gentle with your beloved because they have a very gentle heart. That’s how God’s guidance works, it works direct, which is different than personal guidance which says, “I want to be who I am,” or something like that. You see the differences? We have to learn in a deep way how to follow God’s guidance, because God’s guidance reflects the deeper truths, the deeper capabilities, the deeper moment of what goes on in any particular situation.

If you have a wine glass, you have to know the capability of that glass, how long will it take that wine glass to learn to be strong? Maybe 5 years, you see what I’m saying? And maybe, in that time, if you keep hitting at them with your energy, you’re going to break that glass. Once you break it, they’re going to leave, they’re not going to stay because their heart is broken.

You see, you can’t follow yourself, you have to learn to follow Allah’s guidance and for that, it comes back to that deep bowing and that really deep sort of opening to be able to receive and to really be able to hear because initially we say as-Salim al-Alim. As-Sami is divine hearing, al-Alim is divine knowing. We listen and we hear that guidance from Allah, glory be to the Most High, so that we can receive what will bring the love between two people.

And it’s an ongoing story. Nobody gets it right the first time, or the tenth time, or maybe even the hundredth time. It takes time to learn this, and sometimes you break a heart, or you break a glass and that’s your teaching, but that relationship may be over because of that broken glass. But the next time you won’t break it, so these are part of the teachings.

With God’s help, we won’t break the glass if we listen, and we will be able to establish the love. We will be able to have what we really want in our lives. Thank you for listening.