Change 40 times a day

Bismillah.

O son, today I want to share with you a glimpse of the madness in the corporate jungle where one gets to see plenty of hypocrisy.

I am grateful to Allah that with the barakah of my gurus I have been taught not to respect people for their position but for what they are; to respect people for the good values they have. So I don't bother to butter anyone out of fear or to win a favor, InshaAllah, I seek refuge in Allah from such behaviors.

No matter what our job is, our wages are from Allah and we do things liwajhillah - for the sake of His countenance. Throughout my career I have seen close to a dozen of my company's chiefs gone into history. It is unfortunate that people respect them for their position and now that they are out, who cares?

O son, be an ahlillah (people of the Lord), for an ahlillah, the older you are the more valuable you become. Wordly positions are irrelevant for ahlillah for they are honored by the possessor of Honors, Al-'Ali, Al-Muta'al.

While I was pissed off at one person with position for his hypocrisy, I searched for some balm to heal my heart, and I found it in Jila' al-Khatir - 'Purification of the Mind.'

The venerated Shaykh Abdul Qadir al-Jilani said:

'One of the righteous persons is reported to have said: "The hypocrite remains in one and the same state for 40 years, while the truthful person changes 40 times every day." The hypocrite is involved with his lower self, passion, his natural inclination, his devil and his wordly interests. He never leaves their service. He never expresses an opinion that is different from theirs. He never says anything that contradicts what they say. His whole concern is with eating, drinking, dressing up, indulging in sexual intercourse and amassing properties.

The truthful person on the other hand does not remain in one state because he is involved with the Transformer of hearts, submerged in the sea of His power, with one wave raising up and another sending him down. As far as the actions of management and transformation of the True One are concerned, he is like a feather in the dessert, like a stalk, like the corpse in the hands of the washer of the dead and like the ball in front of the polo player's mallet. He has surrendered his outward and inward to Him and he is satisfied with His management. He is not concerned with his eating, his sleeping and his lustful desires but rather the whole of his concern is with the service of his Lord and His satisfaction with him.'

O son, may Allah protect us from hypocrisy. May Allah honor us with valuable knowledge of Him so that we reflect His honors and so that people respect us not for what we are but for what He has manifested of Himself in us. Subhanallah wa bihamdih. Subhanallah hil Azim.