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CONCERNING HAPPINESS, PATIENCE AND LOVE
Happiness
Allah Almighty likes His servants to be happy — not hippie, - to be happy; yes, yes. Allah Almighty loves His servants to be happy, not to be sad ones. Yes.
What makes servants happy? Big iman (faith) makes servants happy. As much as your iman is growing, happiness is growing, increasing in hearts; when iman grows pleasure grows - increases — yes!
Therefore, Allah Almighty is ordering and offering His servants, the children of Adam, to believe. “O people, believe in God” - To believe in God gives believers such happiness that their pleasure and happiness is immeasurable - yes!
O people, believe in God Almighty and be happy! When you believe in God, you receive happiness from the Lord, Almighty Allah. Give and take: give your heart to the Lord, Almighty Allah. Give it empty, take it full.
But mankind is heedless, is insisting on being heedless, insisting on not believing. Allah Almighty sent, thousands and thousands of prophets, one after another, all of them calling people to believe, calling them to be happy, - because, if you think about it, you will never find anything which makes you happier than to believe in God, Almighty Allah.
Materialism
People think that the ways to happiness are money, wealth, health, high ranks, big knowledge. They think that such material things are the sources of happiness; but all of them are nothing. They are not the real means of happiness because money you may lose; rank you may lose; health you may lose; wealth you may lose; mind you may lose; servants you may lose; lands you may lose; beauty you may lose. Everything that belongs to this life is going to be lost. Therefore, they are not real reasons for being happy, no, because all of them may or may not be. They may last for some time but they are not going to last for ever.
In eternity none of those things is going to give a person happiness. Only being with Allah, the Lord of the heavens, the Lord of the universes — that is real happiness for you. He is never going to leave you. And if a person feels that Allah Almighty is with him, looking after him, supporting him, protecting him, granting to him, he must be happy because Allah’s grants are never-ending, forever increasing, increasing.
We think that we have reached the twentieth century and we are lucky people. Who are lucky people? Those who are happy! To be lucky is to be happy; but nothing from material things makes a person happy -- no. The twentieth century's civilization is based on material technology and nothing else. It does not make people happy. In fact as long as it is increasing, the problems and difficulties which are making people unrestful and unhappy are growing. That is the real reason which is causing the whole world, from east to west to suffer.
Sufferings are coming from people's beliefs. As beliefs are becoming weaker, happiness is going to become less and less. When iman, faith, finishes, happiness is also finished; yes.
Faith and patience
What makes our faith stronger? We know that happiness comes from our iman; that happiness is a Divine grant to believers, to His servants. What makes our faith increase? Nothing is going to be more useful for our faith, to make it increase or grow and be more powerful, than being patient. As long as you are patient, your faith gets stronger.
We need, throughout our whole life, to be patient. Patience is the most important factor for our lives. The one who can be patient should be a more happy and joyful one. Every day Allah Almighty creates so many things that people don’t like. People want life to be like paradise. It is not easy to be in paradise on earth, but people are asking for their lives to be without difficulties, without problems. Yet they are not listening and obeying. If you are not listening and obeying, how can you ask that your life should be like the life of the people of paradise? When you are learning to listen and obey, it makes your faith grow.
To listen and to obey, - those are the characteristics of all the prophets, and particularly of the Seal of the Prophets, Sayyidina Muhammad (p). His most important characteristic in the Divine Presence was to listen and to obey the holy commands of Allah Almighty. Therefore anyone who listens and obeys, his faith is going to grow; and we are in need of that. You must try to take more power of iman. Pure faith gives your heart the pure love of God, Almighty Allah.
Love
When love enters hearts that is happiness, real happiness. Without love in your heart, how can you say you are happy?
What makes you happy? Love of dunya never makes you happy; it disturbs you. As long as love of dunya increases in your heart it brings you so many problems — every day, every hour. The love of dunya and everything that belongs to dunya makes your heart dark and disturbed; but the love of the Lord, Almighty Allah, when it enters the heart of His servant, first takes you out of prison, the prison of your body. Divine love just honours you with freedom from every bad characteristic of your ego.
As that love grows in your heart, faith grows also, and according to our faith, we are granted to be happy ones. Therefore, all prophets and awliya [saints] are happy ones; and they are keeping love in their hearts — keeping love in their hearts because big iman gives big love, and nothing is more tasteful than Divine love! Divine love has entered the hearts of those pure servants; real love came into the hearts of real believers, into the hearts of obedient servants. And you may find them and take from them, because their Lord has granted them iman, so that both more iman and more Divine Love are coming to you.
When Divine love comes, even if all sorts of difficulties are coming on a person, it never affects them. It may affect our physical bodies, but our hearts are in the hands of the Lord, Almighty Allah; and no one's heart gets into the hands of the Lord, Almighty Allah without Divine Love being with him. When you have Divine Love in your heart, then Allah Almighty accepts you.
So Allah Almighty mentioned and taught His servants how to be happy in their lives. If anyone is asking for more happiness, he needs more love. And whoever is asking for more love must try to follow the Seal of the Prophets (p), who was granted by his Lord, Divine love in his heart. And that love has poured into the hearts of awliya in every period. And for every century up to qiyamah all awliya are taking Divine Love through the heart of the Prophet (p). If they were not taking Love they would have quickly finished and disappeared.
(March 13 1989) (TDP 6 t 36)
