Created to Adore: Rediscovering the Heart of Worship.
With Samia Bano

Acts of worship like prayer and fasting are meant to bring us closer to the divine. But for many of us they can cause stress, guilt, shame, even fear, for example when you miss a prayer and think you'll go to hell because it is a grave sin to have missed the prayer...

What if such fear, stress, guilt, and shame are actually blocking us from feeling closer to God?

This episode dives into how shifting from anxiety-driven worship to love-centered #devotion transforms our #worshipexperience and fills our lives with happiness.

We explore what it means that we were created to #worship God (as stated in the Quran, the Holy Scripture of the Muslims). This episode reframes worship as adoration—the highest form of love—and invites us to consciously deepen our #lovingrelationship with God.

NOTE: This episode is a recording of a live that Samia did during #Ramadan2026. #Ramadan is the Muslim month of fasting. As such the above mentioned concepts have been discussed primarily in the context of how Muslims understand and engage with Ramadan. However, you don't need to be Muslim to benefit and apply the concepts discussed in this episode. If you're someone who desires to further your #SpiritualGrowth grounded in compassion and love, this episode is for you!

To Book your Free HAPPINESS 101 EXPLORATION CALL with Samia, click: https://my.timetrade.com/book/JX9XJ

#RamadanReflections #LoveOfAllah #ArRahman #FaithJourney #IslamicReminder #HeartCenteredWorship #BeyondRitual #DivineLove #MuslimMindset #PositiveFaith #InnerPeace #ConsciousRamadan #spiritualgrowthmatters #spiritualgrowthmessage #spiritualgrowthtips #spiritualgrowthinislam #spiritualgrowthjourney #liveyourbestlife #islamicreminder

Here's the audio version of this episode:

Transcript generated automatically

Assalamualaykum, Shalom, Namaste, Sat Sri Akal, Aloha, Holah, Ciao, Bonjour, Buna, Privet, Mabuhay, Dzień Dobry and Hello!

Yes, it's Ramadan, that's right.

It's the Muslim month of fasting. And I'm just so happy and excited to be doing this sharing with you guys because Ramadan is one of my favorite times of year. And I really wanted to think about and reflect on why Ramadan is so cool.

Why do I love it so much? Why do we love it so much? Pretty much every Muslim that I know who practices, who engages in Ramadan with Ramadan, loves Ramadan, right?

And so why do we love it? And how can we continue to grow in our love for Ramadan and go even deeper in our engagement with Ramadan? Because this is a very common problem that we can face, is when you are doing something year after year, year after year, you can get used to it, fall into a routine, and you can so easily begin to lose the joy that you feel when you first get introduced to something and start engaging with something.

And it just takes some conscious effort to make sure that doesn't happen to us and that we are able to really continue to grow and engage in an even more meaningful way with Ramadan. If you're going to do it, let's do it right and let's do it even better than we did before. True or true?

So I think for that to happen, there are many things that we can do, of course, and that we do. And one of the things that has been really helping me is to reflect on why Ramadan, like the purpose of Ramadan, and how does it really help us? How is it really meant to help us?

So I was really listening to a lot of other videos, and during Ramadan, there's all these Ramadan videos that come out, and when you go to the mosque, there's lectures on Ramadan, and talking about how to prepare for Ramadan, and all of that kind of good stuff. Recently, I've also been watching videos meant for kids to explain Ramadan to kids, because I have nieces and nephews, and their parents put on those videos for my nieces and nephews to help them better understand Ramadan and what we do and why we do it. So a lot of what I've been hearing, I notice, is you know, very usual kind of things.

I mean, usual to what I have been used to hearing about Ramadan since I was a child. So you hear things like, okay, well, you're fasting, you're giving food and water, and that helps you to learn more self-discipline, to learn more self-restraint. It helps you to develop more patience. So that's one level of answers about why Ramadan.

And then the other thing that gets emphasized a lot with why Ramadan is, well, you're supposed to practice being on your very best behavior. And so you don't criticize, you don't judge, you don't complain.

You know, you minimize all of that and you're supposed to do more charity and be more kind and more patient and more compassionate. So that's another aspect of why Ramadan. And usually that's about where people stop.

Well, no, there's actually one more thing that gets talked about a lot. And it's actually one of my favorite aspects of Ramadan. And that's the aspect of community connection.

It's like, why Ramadan? What's so great about Ramadan? Well, it's a time for us to connect with our community.

And one of the ways that we do that is when it's time to break fast every day, because we only fast from dawn to sunset. We get together at sunset, and we break fast together. So we're sharing a meal together, but then we also pray together.

And then oftentimes, you know, there's discussion and dialogue and learning together, right? And so it's a great time for the community to come together as well. So usually, these are the main reasons that are given for why Ramadan.

So I know I have some people who are already tuned in. Does anyone want to pitch in any other reasons for why we fast during Ramadan? Why we engage with Ramadan?

What's the point and purpose of Ramadan? Hey, thanks for tuning in to this episode. Hope you're getting value out of it.

For your information, this episode has been sponsored by the Happiness 101 Program. Are you a ChangeMaker, coach, trainer or healer? Are chains of fear holding you back from making the impact and income you desire?

Using a unique combination of positive psychology and the spiritual wisdom of our most effective ChangeMakers, the Happiness 101 Program helps you break through your limiting beliefs and manifest the abundance and success you desire with fun and ease. Interested? Book a free Happiness 101 Exploration Call with me, your Happiness Expert, Samia Bano.

Just use my online calendar link in the show notes. Now back to the show. Don't be shy.
Let me see. I'm going to check on my other device for if anyone chats anything about this. So that's why my eyes may be going here and there.

Okay, let's see. Okay, so I'm not seeing any chats. Oh, no, wait.

Maybe going here and there. Oops, oops, oops. Okay.

Oh, no, wait. I do see a chat. Okay.

So in the chat, we say one person says I always learned it's about more self-discipline and to be more patient, kind, and generous when you feel others' pain. Right. And okay.

Yeah. So some of that I covered as well. And then also we have a comment and that says to come closer to Allah.

Okay. Okay. Yeah, I think definitely that's a huge reason.

And actually that one, I think, doesn't get talked about enough. Oh, and we have another comment. It says it's about reminding ourselves of our connection to God.

Okay. Okay. Yes, absolutely.

Because for Muslims, you know, this is an act of worship. So I think at some level, we all know and understand that we are connecting with God. This is something that we are doing for God.

And so there is definitely a consciousness of that for us. So that's really good. So now I'm going to actually challenge us a little bit to go even deeper in our understanding and thinking.

So what I want us to think about now is if we focus on the idea of coming closer to Allah, reminding ourselves of our connection to Allah or God.

You know, like a lot of times, the problem that I have sort of had in my experience is that a lot of it, it's like at an intellectual level, like we think about our connection to God, and we try to reflect on our connection to God, but it's at a very intellectual level, and it's like difficult to actually feel. Like if I'm thinking about my connection to Allah, my connection to God, like what are the feelings? And whatever my feelings are, how the good feelings that they like love, if I want to deepen those feelings, are they actually getting deeper?

How do I deepen them if they're not getting deeper? And I think that was like a big struggle that I had, is that one, I didn't feel very much, and two, I didn't know how to deepen my feelings, because a lot of the focus in the way that I was taught to practice was on the outward actions, on the outward observances. And for sure, the way we behave has an impact on the way that we feel, but like for me, it remained relatively shallow.

It remained at a relatively shallow level. And so how do I know that, or how do I judge that to be the case? Because for me, with all that I did, all the efforts that I put in to do prayer, and of course, I observed the actual fasting itself, in terms of giving up the food and water, and trying to be on my best behavior, giving charity, things like that.

Even after my best efforts with doing all of that, I still felt a certain amount of stress, a certain amount of unhappiness, a certain amount of worry, when things were challenging in my life, and so forth. And it just kind of... So basically, like, whatever I did to help myself have less stress, have less worry, have less fears, et cetera, et cetera, it helped to a certain extent, but I couldn't go beyond that extent.

And I didn't know if I could ever go beyond that extent, or if that was just it, until I started to really focus on learning about how to be happy, because I'm a happiness expert now. Right? And so I went through a lot of education and training outside of the strictly Islamic context to learn about happiness, for example, in the context of positive psychology, in other faith traditions, in other more spiritual approaches that people take to faith and spirituality, that were not necessarily things that I was exposed to in the context of how I learned and practiced Islam.

And so, when I started to learn about happiness and about how to be happy and so forth from a lot of these other perspectives, I did find myself starting to become more happy and feeling the feelings of happiness and love and care more strongly. And I found that, yes, I could actually go deeper in that experience of love and happiness. And it's like amazing.

You think, oh, I'm already so happy. But then guess what? Turns out there's room for improvement and you can become even happier.

And it's been like such a cool, amazing journey in that way for me, especially in the last few years, and especially in the last year. I will say I've made some huge progress. And so, and then a lot of what I learned, it helped actually bring me back to Islam, and come back to the practices of Islam like Ramadan, and understand, oh, how can I practice Ramadan in a deeper way, so that I actually feel even more happy, more at peace, and so on and so forth.

So that's some of what I'm hoping to share with you. And that's why I'm doing this now, right? And so, yeah.

So, so, let me see, does anybody want to share any comments or thoughts about what their experience has been with the feeling part of feeling more love, feeling more peace, feeling more happiness in your life in general, but also especially think about it in the context of your relationship with Allah, with God.

I was recently, while you might be thinking about and typing up your comments, I'll share with you. I was recently having a conversation with my mom. Well, we have this one pretty often comes up over and over again. And recently, it's been more like for me, I get more excited. When I hear my mom say the things she's been saying my entire life. So she's, for example, one of the things that she was commenting on the other day was, okay, you got to pray.

You got to pray on time. You got to, you know, do other various duties that we have as Muslims, like reading the Quran. You have to do it more diligently and this and that.

And then she says, you know, something along the lines of, oh, and if you don't, you know, or actually she was even referring to herself. She was like going to be late or she was late in offering her prayers. And and then there's like this fear that she has around that, that, oh, my God, this is like such a bad thing.

It's a sinful thing if I miss my prayer. And, you know, basically, I'm it's a sin and I'm going to be punished and I'm going to like suffer basically because I failed in this duty and I therefore committed a sin. And, you know, there's this.

Yeah, and so like praying becomes associated with stress. If you miss prayer, if you are late for prayer, it creates stress, it creates anxiety, it creates fear. And so the reason that I've been getting excited these days when I hear my mom say things like this is because like for me, that creates a wall in my ability to feel love, feel closeness to Allah.

And so it's actually something that I've come to realize as a big problem. Like when you have this kind of fear, and you have these judgments, right? I mean, it just naturally then puts thoughts in your mind about, oh, I'm not worthy.

I'm not good enough. And then you think, oh, am I deserving of Allah's love? I'm not deserving.

No, I'm not deserving. I'm not worthy. And then, you know, from there, you know, like when I used to have those thoughts and I had those thoughts a lot, it like I could feel myself not being, I mean, I couldn't, I didn't want to face Allah because I didn't feel worthy.

I didn't feel deserving of it. I didn't feel good enough, you know. And so I put out walls.

I imagine this in the context of a human relationship. Like if you really admire someone, you really adore somebody, love somebody, but you don't feel good enough for them. You don't feel you deserve them.

You know, what's that going to do to your relationship? What kind of a relationship can you have with a person you don't feel worthy of? You don't feel you deserve to have a relationship with?

You know, or if on the other side, you think there's someone who is not good enough, worthy enough for your love, you know, can you really truly love them if you don't think they're good enough for you or not worthy of your love? So I'm seeing in the comments that when Ramadan comes around, I think I personally can slow down and focus more on small actions, which have big impact on my spirituality. Oh, and then we have another comment on I have felt that guilt often.

Oh, so the guilt around not being worthy, not being deserving, maybe because you failed in whatever you duty, you're supposed to be performing and so forth, right? Yeah. And so this is actually, I mean, the traditional discourse that I hear a lot of times is that, Oh, no, look, we have to have fear of Allah.

And if you don't have fear of Allah, then it's, you know, it's sort of like the fear balances out our sense of hope and expectation that we have from Allah, that Allah will forgive us and Allah will love us and so forth.

And the fear that we have keeps us in check. It prevents us from doing wrong.

It prevents us from sinning and so forth. And so it's needed and it's a good thing. But for me, I've come to see the problems that having fear in our relationship with Allah can cause.

And so I want to like really do a deeper dive into this whole idea of love and what it is and how do we love each other more and better. And I don't just mean each other like human to human, but also, I mean, how do we love Allah and be loved by Allah more and better? So any thoughts on that?

Like when we think about Ramadan practices, what we're taught to do during Ramadan, how does that help us to love Allah more and better? Or how can it help us love Allah more and better? And there are so many different elements to Ramadan, by the way.

And that's a beautiful aspect of Ramadan. So we can pick on anyone and think about, well, how does that aspect of Ramadan practice help us? Or how it can help us to love Allah more and better?

And to be loved by Allah more and better? So for example, if you think about prayer, or if you think about the giving up of food and water, or we think about increasing or engaging in charity during Ramadan, or if you think about the community aspect of the community coming together in Ramadan. If you have any thoughts about any of that, think about that and share those with me in the chat.

And while you're doing that, I'm going to share something with you.

So, my thesis that I'm going to share with you is that actually, Ramadan is an invitation from Allah to experience Allah's love for us more clearly and deeply. And when we do experience Allah's love more clearly and deeply, then we can't help but fall more deeply in love with Allah. Okay, I see one comment.

I think to love Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, we need to know who He is. So connecting to His words, His blessings in our lives, are connecting to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in our duas. That is such a good point.

You cannot love someone you do not know. So for sure, that is such a great insight. And so when we think about who Allah is, oh, oh my gosh.

So these days, I've been having really, like every time I think about who Allah is as the Rahman and the Rahim, but also as the Rabb. Oh my gosh. I just get so happy.

Because these are three of the qualities that Allah has shared with us of himself. Well, certainly the Rahman and the Rahim are probably the most often shared qualities of Allah in the context of the Quran. I'm not sure if I'm technically right about that, but I'm pretty sure I'm right about that.

Right? And then Allah identifying himself as the Rabb, as our Rabb or even Rabbul Alameen, the Lord of the worlds, the Rabb of the worlds, that's fairly common in the Quran. And it's actually the very first, the Rabbul Alameen is actually in the very first verse of Surah Al-Fatiha in terms of how Allah introduces himself to us, that he is our Lord.

I mean, actually the Lord of the worlds, right? So he's the Rabbul Alameen. Oh, and OK, OK, I don't know if we have enough time to go into all of these three qualities or aspects of Allah today because we could spend, I mean, an entire day just on each one of those.

But but OK, let's let's start with the the oh my gosh. Wait, which one should we start with? Are Rahman, Rahim or Rab?

Vote? I want to vote because I mean, they're all so cool. Let's see.

OK, I'm not seeing any particular votes for anything yet. OK, so OK, I'll just start with Rahman. OK, because hey, the Quran starts pretty much every chapter of the Quran by Allah reminding us that he's the Rahman.

And Rahim, the Rahman first. Right. And so generally speaking, we understand that Rahman is the Compassionate, right?

That's the most one of the most common translations of the Rahman. And you may have heard also that the root of Rahman is the same as the word for the womb. So the compassion of Allah as the Rahman is also connected to the womb.

Now think about the womb. What is the womb? The womb is a place where life grows and it's protected and it's safe, right?

I mean, as safe as it possibly can be and it's growing and it's being nurtured. And so when we think about Allah as the Rahman, the fact that Allah uses the word related to the womb to describe his compassion, so there's this nurturing quality, a protective quality, a very loving, intimate quality to that, right? The Rahman.

Another aspect of the Rahman that the scholars talk about, is how universal and unconditional it is. Because it is, whether you are a good person or a bad person, like you could be the very worst person in the world, but the Rahman is still the Rahman for you, for everyone. For all of us, unconditionally.

And it is the Rahman because of whom, actually creation is continuing to be nurtured. All of creation, not just humans. There's the chapter titled Surah al-Rahman, the chapter that focuses on helping us understand Allah as the Rahman, this quality of Allah as Rahman.

And in that chapter, if you look into that chapter, it talks about and describes all these different aspects of nature, you know, like the sun and the moon and the stars and the balance with which everything's been created and sustenance that we are provided with through the sea and how there is, you know, like all these amazing different blessings that we get to enjoy and benefit for and that are necessary for our survival and our sustenance and all of that is available to all of us. You know, there's no discrimination between the somebody who is a Muslim or not a Muslim, someone who believes or doesn't believe. It's like a very universal, the applied, unconditional kind of love really that you know, we get to experience.

And so, there is definitely an unconditional love that Allah has for us as the Rahman. And for me, the more I've been connecting to that feeling of unconditional love and what that really means, like, you know, when earlier we were talking about feeling unworthy and questioning whether we deserve someone's love and this and that with the Rahman, none of that, none of that applies. None of that matters at all.

It's just, the Rahman... By the way, no human is capable of being the Rahman, or being Rahman. This is a quality that only Allah is capable of.

So in the Muslim tradition, you know, you're not, you don't name any person Rahman. No, no human person is named Rahman. Because we realize, we understand that we are, we are limited as humans in our capacity for compassion and, and love.

There, there's no way we can be so unconditionally loving and giving as Allah is, as, as the Rahman. So, so we don't even name our, any, any person Rahman. And I want you to really remember, I want you, I want me, I want all of us to really remember that Allah loves us unconditionally as a Rahman.

Because this is going to be really, really, really important. Like whenever we begin to, you know, have those feelings of unworthiness and guilt and shame and things like that, we have to remind ourselves and connect with the Rahman and know that, I mean, those things don't even apply. They just don't, don't, they don't even, I mean, oh my gosh, it just, like, there's nothing, there's no score keeping, you know, when you, when, I mean, if we started getting into comparisons, we started trying to compare ourselves with Allah and, and, you know, trying to become worthy enough, become good enough.

That's just, I mean, such a, I mean, totally losing battle. Don't, do it. Don't do it.

You can't, you can't, I mean, that's not a way you can ever, ever, ever get close to Allah. Never, ever. Cause we are just tincy, tiny, tincy, tiny parts.

Allah is the whole of, I mean, existence, everything. You know, so how can we compare ourselves or, you know, in any way be good enough, you know, like what, I mean, there's just, there's just no, no way. Right.

And so don't even try. But that's the beautiful thing about love and the unconditional love that Allah has for us is that it's not about scorekeeping. It's not about comparing.

It's not about, you know, any of that. It's just unconditional love. And so, if you think about, wow, how do you even begin to respond to something like that?

You know? And the closest, I think, one of the closest experiences that we can have of that kind of unconditional love, is, you know, you think about a mom and her baby, or a dad and his child, you know, or if you don't have children of your own, any child, little baby, I'm talking about little babies, right? Who are helpless, all they can do is eat and they can't even eat.

When they're first born, they can only drink milk. And that's when you give them the milk to drink, right? They can't even hold their own bottle, for example, to drink milk out of.

And then they sleep and they poop, and there's nothing else they can do. And they're, like, completely dependent on whoever is going to be taking care of them. And so, if you think about having a child, a little baby like that, so helpless in your life, and when you take care of that baby, oh, and you go, aww!

You know, you just fall in love with the baby. I'm sure a mom or dad's love for their baby is nowhere close to what I feel for my nieces and nephews. Um, but it's like, okay, because I'm not a parent, I'm not a parent, but I do have nieces and nephews that I love so much.

And the time I've been spending with them, I mean, it's just like the love that I've felt for these little babies. It's like nothing I've ever felt before. And it's just, it's the closest I've ever come to feeling unconditional love because like if you think about it, what on what condition would I be loving those babies anyway?

There's nothing they can do quite literally except eat and sleep and poop. But actually, if you think about it, there is something that they can do that makes you love them even more. And that is when they receive your love and they respond to that love, right?

So when you hold them and they're relaxed into you, I'm just remembering my, just the other day, I was holding my niece and at another time, my nephew. And they just like put their arms around you. And then, you know, they're like, and they just relax into you.

And then they fall asleep. Oh, and it's like, oh.

You know, and so you feel that trust. Because if a baby didn't trust you, it wouldn't relax into you like that. It wouldn't fall asleep in your arms like that.

Right, and so when they let you love them, when they receive your love and they receive your care and they just relax and you know, when they learn to smile and they smile at you, oh my gosh, the heart melts. Oh, you know, you just have total heart melt, right?

Oh, my God. So now think about us as the babies in relation to Allah, right? Because in relation to Allah, we actually are just as helpless and just as dependent on Allah's care and love, probably even more actually than the little baby is on the adult caregiver, you know?

Because like, at least with a human baby and human adult, you know, there are multiple adults that could step into that role of caregiver for the baby.

And so forth. But for us, if Allah was to stop caring for us, if Allah was to stop providing for us, stop sustaining us, we would cease to exist. We couldn't even continue to exist, right?

And so we are actually even more dependent on Allah than a baby is on their human caregiver.

But you see, even though there is this huge power and balance between the adult caregiver and the baby, and they can't give you anything, physical and stuff. But nonetheless, when the baby loves you back, in whatever way it can, in terms of receiving your love and smiling and just relaxing with you and so forth, playing with you, it does deepen your bond and your ability to bond with the baby even more, right? Because there are times actually with babies also, like if you stay on the theme of learning from babies about love, there are times when the baby will get triggered by something or the other.

Like my nieces and nephews, for example, the little ones, the ones that are still babies. I don't know what happens. Sometimes they'll just start crying and I don't know why they're crying.

I check their diaper. No, diaper doesn't need changing. Then I try to give them some milk in case they're hungry.

Nope, they're not hungry. They're not sick. I'm like, oh my gosh.

Okay, so not sure what's going on. But the thing is, when they're crying and they're in that mood, then here I am, like I'm there and I'm continuing to absolutely love them. Like there's no, there's no ceasing of my love and they're crying.

Right? And I'm still also trying to take care of them. But the baby can sometimes get into that state where they're like so busy with whatever is distressing them.

They're so focused on that and they're so crying so much. I'm trying to comfort them, but they're not receiving the comfort, right? And so, I don't know what might be going on for the baby that's making them maybe feel unsafe or stressed or something.

And I'm there, I'm there, still loving on them, taking care of them, trying to, you know, take care of them. But they're not receiving that love and comfort in that moment, right? And so, actually, the same thing can happen with us in terms of our relationship with Allah.

Like, Allah never goes away. Allah never stops loving us. Allah never stops caring for us.

Allah never stops being the Rahman. But sometimes, we get so busy with whatever it is that we get busy with, whether it's our fears, our worries, our stresses, or just busy with the business of surviving. But also, you know, sometimes you can get busy with doing things that are actually supposed to help us get closer to Allah, but they end up not really helping us as much as they could or maybe not helping us at all.

So, for example, with actions like prayer, actions like charity, even the act of fasting itself, and this was like a huge realization for me, huge, huge, huge when I had it, is that like sometimes we give more importance to the doing, like we get so busy doing, we get busy doing the prayers, we get busy reading the Quran, we get busy, you know, doing whatever it is that we're doing, and it's all good stuff, right? That's supposed to help us, but it's like unconsciously, our focus is on the doing, and we forget or we lose focus on why we're doing it. So it's like you're praying, and you're so busy with praying and fulfilling all the, all the rituals and the requirements and making sure you do enough of it, right?

But the way we, you know for sure, if you lost connection with the purpose of it, and you didn't actually fulfill the purpose of it, is if you don't come out of it feeling happier, feeling more peaceful, or even while you're praying, if you are distracted, thinking a hundred different thoughts, or even though you're praying, you're still feeling worried, you're still feeling stressed, or whatever other heavy emotion, you may be feeling, so you're praying, but those heavy emotions are not reducing in intensity, they're not going away. You're continuing to struggle with them. So that is a sure fire sign for you that whatever it is that you're doing, there's room for improvement there.

There's something that has gone a mess in terms of that action, actually doing what it's supposed to do in terms of connecting you to Allah. Prayer is supposed to connect us to Allah, but it doesn't actually always connect us to Allah. And the way we know it, if it's worked or not worked in terms of connecting us to Allah and help us deepen our connection with Allah, it's the feelings.

Are you feeling more peaceful? Are you feeling more happy? Are you feeling more joyful?

Why? Why is that the case? Because look, just think about it.

When you are feeling loved, can you be... I mean, do you feel happy or not happy? I mean, can you think of a time when you were feeling truly loved, truly cared for, but you didn't feel happy?

That's actually not possible. Because when you feel loved, when you're feeling loved, feeling cared for, it naturally relaxes you and naturally puts you in a state of happiness, of joy, of peace. And so if you're not feeling those feelings, then you're not feeling loved.

You're not. And so it's like, why are you not feeling loved? Why are you not feeling loved?

The Rahman is still there. Rahman is always there. Unconditionally present, unconditionally lovingly present for us, providing for us, caring for us, sustaining us.

And yet there are all these times when we are not feeling the love. And so turns out it's not, you know, when we don't feel the love, it's not anything to do with Allah not loving us or reducing his love for us or anything like that. No, it’s actually about us.

We are putting a blocks and blocking the love of Allah from reaching us. We are not receiving the love. Just like that little baby, when it gets into those moods and even though it's being hugged and taken care of and loved, but for that time when it's like crying, crying, crying, crying and it won't receive the comfort, it won't receive the love.

We are like that. We are like that with Allah, right? So we can get busy even with something like doing prayers and what happens there is like we get more focused on the doing and not and we lose focus on the being, we lose focus on the feeling, right?

And so, yeah, yeah, that's actually a huge, huge issue, huge problem, you know, like, there's so many of us who, I mean, we are doing everything we're supposed to be doing. We're praying, we're fasting, we're giving charity, and yet either the benefit we're receiving from it is limited or, you know, like, we're not receiving the benefit. And so, like, really, we have to be like, what's going on and what can I do about it, right?

And so, so, my gosh, we have been going on for a while. I think it's probably going to be close to time for us to wrap up. This is a really important thing.

Does anybody want to have any comments or thoughts to share or questions about this whole thing that we've been talking about, particularly like in terms of, of, you know, receiving Allah's love, how we can block Allah's love, how, you know, or, or anything, actually, anything else.

Okay. So just so you know, my intention is that throughout Ramadan, I'm gonna continue to do these lives at least once a week. Maybe if we get some asks for more often engagement, we can do that too.

But at a minimum, we'll do this once a week. And so definitely next time, we can continue on these reflections and go deeper into thinking about, well, how does Ramadan actually help us fall even more deeply in love with Allah? Because I really, really, that's I think the thing for us to remember is that that's actually the point of any worship that we engage in, of any Imbadah that we engage in.

And we often, so often lose focus from it, you know, that the reason for the Imbadah, I mean, the whole point of our life, actually, is to engage in Imbadah, is to engage in worship of Allah. At least that's the Muslim perspective. You know, there's the verse in the Quran.

It's in Chapter 51, verse 56, in which Allah says, quite literally, Allah says, I created the jinn and humankind only so that they may worship me. Right? And so if you think about what is worship, love is an integral aspect of worship.

When you worship someone, worship is a kind of is a way that you relate to them. So it's a kind of a relationship that we have with someone. And so Allah is saying to us, I want you to worship me.

So Allah is saying to us, I want you to be in a certain kind of relationship with me. And so what kind of a relationship? It's a relationship where we feel reverence for Allah, that is deep respect, you know, and adoration for Allah.

It's like adoration, you know, right? Adoration, like such a, there are different levels at which you can love someone. And with worship, it's like actually adoration, which is the highest level at which you can experience and express love for someone is to adore, is to adore them.

And, you know, so Allah says, I want you to adore me. Yeah, that's right. Allah wants us to adore Allah.

Yes. And so and so it's like, if you are going to be like all, you know, I mean, so just think about that. Think about that.

Allah is saying, I want you to adore me. I want you to adore me. And don't remember, forget.

I mean, this is not just a one way thing. Allah already loves us unconditionally, loving us unconditionally. And he's saying, I want you to love me back.

I want you to adore me. That's not too much to ask. When Allah loves us so unconditionally, so completely, so continuously.

I mean, it's not too much to ask to say, hey, adore me, love me back. Right. So, yeah.

All right. So let's see. Last check for comments or questions.

Nope, not seeing any. Let me check on the other platform. Nope, not seeing anything there either.

All right. So I will go ahead and wrap up here for today. Thank you so much for joining me and for all those of you listening later to this as a recording.

Also, thank you so much for your attention and your time. And until we connect next time, I just wish you lots and lots of peace and joy.