Abdullah~

Bismillah
asalamu alaykum,


I wrote a quick synopsis of the notes/steps for the heartwheel journal. any mistakes are mine. if anyone has any corrections, especially shaykh Muhammad, please share them. i hope this is alright.

below is a quick synopsis of the notes/steps, but they do no justice to the full content of the lecture. insha'Allah the notes will serve as a quick reference guide to parts of the lecture/journal anyone may have questions on later. they can just check the notes and insha'Allah it'll help.

please keep me in your duas. i pray everyone benefits and is forgiven this ramadan and is accepted, ameen. here are the steps/points, and what follows are the detailed lecture notes


Quick Synopsis of Lecture Notes


Quick Synopsis of Lecture Notes



1. Do your Ultimate Vision - MUST do this

2. Do your Ultimate purpose - MUST do this

3. Do your Heart SnapShot Before (do them throughout month when that page informs you to)

4. Do your What will it take to Score a 10?

5. Heart Food – see day 1, and all days. Heart Food begins each day. research a Quran verse and Hadith on the topic (ex: sincerity)

6. Heart Workout – circle 3 things only, and choose 2 things that bring you closer to 10 for those 3

7. Plan of Tomorrow – do this after Isha, Night before this day

8. What I did Right – write down after Isha at end of this day

9. Write down salah concentration chart for each day at back of journal

10. 15 mins a day is time you can take for all of this journal stuff

11. Do all celebration days before starting journal, you MUST DO THEM

12. If you miss a day, SKIP IT, then follow schedule, you want to start with and end in Ramadan

13. Empty pages in the back are for writing down what you learned, reflections, how things are changing, etc




Heart Wheel Journal Audio Notes | Shaykh Muhammad AlShareef | 9/1/2008



· Talking about how to use heart journal today

· Purpose of heart wheel, done about 2-3 years ago, he did it for himself, put a goal for himself and put a journal for him, focusing on increasing iman.

· What did people of past do to increase iman? Initially, he would go into history books and study their lives and attitudes, and then wrote thesis on what was their mind. But when reading the Qur’an, realized the success strategies of people who went to jennah is in the Qur’an. so a person doesn’t have to study biography of their lives, when studying a person who is successful in this life and in the next you don’t have to, Allah recorded it in Quran

· Anything measured improves

· When people go increasing iman, they actually do not measure it, if they feel it is strong they say yeah it is up, and also down, but they don’t know how to duplicate what made it come up and go down, hence the heartwheel journal. Very long and detailed, 135 pages.

· Page 1, and page 2, some blank pages is so that if you go to printer and printer, you print it front to back, so that every day starts on the right-hand side.

· My Ultimate Vision: importance of it, is what ultimately are you trying to achieve in regards to your connection to Allah and spirituality? First you have to define what you want, if you have not, you will not arrive at destination. It’s like going to counter and flight person asks you were are you going, and you say I don’t know, you are going nowhere. You will go nowhere, lose motivation, get side tracked, ect.

· So write down your beautiful and amazing achievements you want to achieve in regards to connection to Allah, like read Quran with tranquility, be loved by Allah, be in highest level of Jennah, and write it in your ultimate vision, and any time thoughts come to you, you can come back to it, it’s like a GEM board and write what is on your mind.

· Do this when in a state where you are on your own high, stand up, picture it, take a big breath, and say what is my vision for the future, spirituality for the ultimate.

· My Ultimate Purpose: why must I absolutely achieved this heart, all the reasons why. Did 1 yr goals, 90 day goals before (the group). What is my intention, why is this, what I am I trying to achieve out of this. If you don’t have enough purpose you will probably will be de-motivated, and not get the work done. If you have it, it makes all diff in the world.

· today, right now, what will it do, why is it a must, what are consequences if not doing it, and what are the rewards. Brainstorm on this

· Heart Wheel SnapShot Before:

· Next pages are snapshots

· The journal is based on the heart wheel. He had a Life Wheel, which had your heart, health, finances, etc. this is a heart wheel. Things you see there are things related to increasing iman, things that when Allah talks about people of Jennah, these are the qualities Allah repeats through Quran as to why they reached the highest level of Jennah.

· Example: surah mu’minoon – successful are believers, those who have khushoo in their salaat(that is on wheel), those who avoid lahu(distractions, things not important, not urgent), those who give zakah and charity, and then chastity… all of these, Allah says these are qualities of people going to jennah, that is why you see it on the wheel. All of these are related to a person going to paradise.

· Salah - Start writing on a scale of 0-10, how good is your salaat from 0-10, you might say I pray late, am not focused, maybe it is a 2 or a 1, put a number, even if you think it is 0. Fill it in right now if you have chance.

· Thikr Chunks – time when you remember Allah, do you daily sit and remember Allah, consistent habit? Some do, like reading Qur’an daily, or maybe on bus or after, do daily thikr and remember Allah, maybe put like a 6 or 7, or maybe 1 or 2

· Chastity – is next, lowering gaze, dressing in appropriate way, protecting oneself, ask yourself, if you go to school if you have 10 diff boy/girlfriends, give yourself a 0 or a 1. If you are chastity focused, like niqaab since grade 3, lower gaze, dress in pleasing way, maybe put a 9, and don’t worry and if you think you are a 10 and are focused on it, put a 10

· Night Prayer – when Ramadan comes you will have a good chance to build on this. For now, if you pray once a month or a week, great, give yourself like a 8-9, if it’s been since like last Ramadan, might give yourself a 1 or 2

· Upright Character – engaging others, how is your character when you engage others, people closest to Prophet peace be upon him on Day of Resurrection are those with best character, so upright character is essential to being in highest level of jennah, do you treat people kindly, if they hurt you do you forgive them, do you socialize, do you not backbite, etc, how you engage others on a scale of 0-10

· Avoiding Distractions – in DiscoverU Life we are really focused on avoiding distractions, things not important and not urgent, it is essential in order to live a dream life and also a dream life in the hereafter, a person has to avoid distractions. So during day do you spend time on msn chatting or TV, if that is the case then you are not really avoiding distractions, give self like a low #, but if day is full, always active, take care of family, involved in charity organization, give self higher mark, like a 8 or 9

· Daily Sadaqah – your charity you give, doesn’t have to be with $, sometimes it is with body or time, like with body you vacuum masjid or plant flowers for neighbor, with time it might be someone says can you watch my child, and you do that, not taking $, volunteering time, and with $, if giving monthly withdrawal, giving consistently that is great, give self higher mark, insha’Allah you should be ok for that, give self a 5 or 6, maybe could be doing better, but doing pretty good insha’Allah

· Fasting – with month of Ramadan, you will insha’Allah zoom up, he would say when you mark this during Ramadan, mark how focused you are in your fasting, fasting isn’t just abstaining from food and drink and going to sleep, it is not cursing or using foul language, it is really connecting with Allah while fasting, if that is case, you really put heart into fasting, then give self a higher mark, but if you find you are not really – like when fasting a family member says how can you fast and do something like that, then give yourself a low mark.

· So that is your snapshot.

· Next page, Heart Wheel: What will it take to score a 10? This is a critical page here, on this page, what you want to do is actually say what do I have to do in order to get a 10 on these categories . so take for example, like on salah, so if you say in order to get a 10 I have to know God is pleased with me – you’re gonna find out when you’re dead. What if you are wrong, if you are wrong you are in big trouble, so that is not a good measurement of whether you got a 10 or not. A lot of times Allah tells us what we should be doing in prayer, we know that, so let’s make that our 10. So salah with concentration, I would give myself a 10 if I pray 3 of my 5 prayers in masjid, for example, could say 5, but doesn’t what you to copy and make something really hard for you. Say 3 of daily prayers in masjid, if I pray 3 of them, if I read a new portion of Quran at least once in a day, and if I score in a feeling (salah measurement at end of journal), if I score above 35 out of 50 on my salah measurement, then I would give myself full marks.

· For thikr chunks: say if I do my thikr after fajr and asr, then I get a 10

· Chastity: if I lower gaze, if there is a glance and don’t take a 2nd glance, I get a 10. Or if I take a 2nd glance, and do that more than once a day, that is when I not score a 10 – you want to state it in a positive. Ex, if I wear hijab, I get a 10

· Night prayer: if I pray taraweeh, give myself a 10, so on

· Upright Character: state in positive, not negative, if I say I will do something and do it, in regards to taking care of people, I would give myself a 10, he is just doing this off top of his head, you can think about this

· Avoiding Distractions: if I desist from watching TV this month, then I give myself a 10.

· Daily sadaqah: if I sponsor 1 iftar per month, some organizations have a feed a needy person in Ramadan plan, in some countries you can feed orphanage for $30, so if I feed them all month long, give myself a 10 for daily sadaqah

· Fasting: if I fast, wake up for suhoor, go for taraweeh, read Qura’n in day, give myself a 10

· It is not that difficult to do a 10, something manageable and measureable and in your power to do a 10.

· Some people always want to put selves down and they are like, “no I can’t. how could I be a 10. I’m not perfect”, don’t think like that, we are talking about improvement, after you consistently get a 10, then you can work on raising your stds. For now we are working on increasing and doing something right.

· Later on in journal there will be reminders, like going to do a snapshot, so you can have visual of how heart is progressing. When you fill in blocks, the circle represents like a tire of heart, and parts of circle represent air, and shows you how inflated tire it is, outer circle represents heart at its best, and inner circle represents where your heart stands now. So when you want to see how you improved, you can flip through pages and see wow I really improved a lot mash’Allah

· Say if you got a gym membership, you have tendency to work realy hard, you might work hard, and lost 5 pounds and be like wow, then gain all weight. So guess is, you might have it filled up on day 4, and then you’ll slack off and find that by day 10 it is deflated, but insha’Allah you wno’t, something to look out for

· Heart SnapShot After: when you get to end, wants you to really have good hopes in selves, so in end do not mark self a lower number if you really tried hard, if you tried hard and it is end, then take care of yourself and give self a high mark. Next page

· Heart Food (pg 11 or 12): it has begun (it says). This is beginning of each day. Top has reminder on it. Reminders nourish the believer’s heart and soul… this topic is about intentions, is it for Allah, to show off, or to say M. Alshareef did it, I did it. This is connecting with why you actually doing it

· Empty boxes there, so you can interact with what you read. So what is verse in Qur’an about inentions, and also a hadith, write it into the box. You might say I don’t know, great, you can look online and look for article on intentions and right it in journal. Lot diff then looking/researching a book and taking it academically, take it as a fun opportunity. Maybe you go on forums for discover u life and share which verses you were able to get

· Heart work out: this is quick snapshot of heartwheel, only focus on 3 slices only, can do more if you want, focus on 3, circle them slices, and write down 2 things that will get you closer to scoring a 10 on those slices. Ex: circle thikr chunks, and then write remember Allah after Fajr, and also I will learn a new thikr to read. On the other side I might circle avoiding distractions – spend only 1 hr on internet, and also will spend 30 mins doing all activities in my heart journal.

· Model Those who were truly successful: if you see weight loss ads, you see people who lost lots of weight, these are people mentioned, the successful people. Each day diff companions he goes through, who they were before Islam and then after, be living with their biographies

· Next page: For believers, Men and Women, of Understanding

· This is plan for tomorrow, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Tendency for people to skip plan when they do journal, don’t skip, write it down, got to do it. If you did heart workout on prev page already, you wrote about 6 things you plan on doing, so you can write them down that I plan to do them tomorrow, or maybe something else you plan to do to come closer to Allah. Ex: going to read 30 mins Quran, going to call my mom tomorrow, going to buy my spouse flowers, write 5 things you will do that will bring you closer to Allah.

· Plan to Support: when you give, whatever you give comes back to you. If he gives success strategies with someone, he starts thinking them in his mind. If you support and help people come closer to Allah, you will benefit from that. so 2 ways to come closer, 1 think I might say is I’ll call mom and reminder her of hadith or ayah I learned, and then another thing. Right beside that you see Actual: at end of day you want to write check or x on whether you did that or not.

· What Did I Do Right Today: not trying to be perfect, that is for Allah. Write 3 things you did right today. I read 30 mins Quran, bought wife flowers, was about to donate $10 to masjid.

· What I am insha’Allah going to do even better tomorrow…: so maybe something didn’t work out so good, maybe skipped something, didn’t do any of plan, so then write what you plan to do better, and also you have What Did I learn Today?

· Salah Daily Planner: write timings for your prayers, you will get into habit of praying on time. What time do you pray, what time do you get ready, pray 2 sunnahs, do something to increase concentration, will make dua before iqamah. A brother would write down 4 sunnahs before zhur. Tendency when you go to masjid you are like I don’t want to pray extra sunnah, they are watching me and I only do it because they are watching – he said because of heart wheel journal he made intention to pray more sunnah that night before, so he knew he wasn’t doing it because other people were watching him. So actually gave him breath of fresh air

· Salatul Dhuha – bonus. Happens between sunrise and thur. can do 2, 4, 6, 8, etc, can look it up. For qiyyam ul-layl, can do taraweeh.

· Give like 15 mins for journal every day, seems like a lot

· Go to back of journal, all the way back, last 2 pages, it has notes(Blank Pages) If you are like him, you will have lots of reflections and will learn so much, so gives you some pages to take notes on what is happening in life, how things changing, things you learned. He learned his concentration can go up very high in prayer, even if he might not have necessarily prayed sunnahs, he proved the idea that he could wrong – not saying skip sunnah, saying you may find you have some beliefs which are not necessarily true, and you prove it wrong. You pray sunnahs because you love it, but if you can not, you still can have concentration.

· Next page there, Salah Concentration Progress: come to this page at end of day for all 30 days, it is a scale of 0 to 50, each prayer you want to rank it on a scale of 0 to 10, on a scale of 0 to 10, you say it rocked, I was excited, I give myself a 10, then Zhur, it rocked I was on top of things, it was 8, not as much as fajr but it rocked for me, asr, well I was bored, prayed like, didn’t concentrate, give myself a 2, maghrib I get a 5, it was ok, isha better than normal give myself a 10, so that is something like 38, so on scale of 0 to 50 you get 38, and so you fill that in for day 1. You will actually see patterns, super cool, don’t miss it, when you are low and #’s are down, you will see something happening in life, and when high you see something else you are doing, when you are 40 or above, write in notes what did you do that day that made your # so high, in salah concentration, you will learn amazing things so at end of this journal, you will have a formula for self, perfect for self, that when you want #’s up high, all you have to do is write down your formula you did.

· Go back to end of Day 1, like around pg 14.

· You are on Day 2, you see about pg 18, Celebrate, his funniest part of the whole thing

· Treat yourself today by doing such and such, you are on day 3, treat yourself, there are about 4-5 celebration days, write down from now, before you start journal, how will you celebrate and treat self. Like you wanted a toy you wanted to buy, like a care bear, and you say I am to old, so treat self by buying teddy bear you wanted. Usually people buy stuff and they don’t deserve it, so now use those things you wanted to do or spend time on, write them in celebration date, and you MUST do them, do not skip them. People have tendency to be all stuck up and uptight, and don’t want to celebrate and want to focus on goal setting, you’ve got to celebreate and got to enjoy it. One of happiest memories of his life, was day 3 celebration for him, with his family, he had cards for family and it was so nice, one he hopes for you.

· After celebration day, says Take a Day 4 Snapshot, and then go to that snapshot

· That is it, this is Ramadan Journal, so if you miss a day, then SKIP it. Just put x’s on plans for tomorrow because you missed it, because you don’t want to fall behind.

· It might take 1.5 months depending on days you missed, but because you want to start and finish in Ramadan, skip days you missed.

· Short Cuts to Concentrations: towards end of it, just ideas you can take from.

· Discoveru life forum will probably be huge forum for you to share, and you have community doing heart journal with you.

· Some are totally involved in forums and weekly planning, and some are not as involved but still involved, and he thought of hadith of prophet peace be upon him, when he said good friend – outstanding friend – is like a person who carries musk, either you get some musk from your friend, or just by being in their presence you will get a good smell… the amazing people, members of discoveru life, everyone here is like bearers of musk, so time you spend here, either you will learn something new and will implement it, or at very least you will be in company of people who are moving forward to succeeding in lives insha’Allah. And so either way you will benefit, and insha’Allah he hopes you take more and more advantage of it. Lots of great people in the wordl – you want to be focused on bearers of musk, people who share musk, or you at the very least will get that beautiful smell, Alhamdullilah we are able to gather people like that in DiscoverU life.

· QA: for thikr chunks, recommends things from sunnah, like morning/evening thikrs after fajr and asr, and when community, or after prayer.

· QA: for the “Plan for Tomorrow” section, should we put things we do consistently, or things we do not. if you are doing something consistently, and is increasing your iman, or you get bored with it, this is opportunity to mix and match. Can plan 5 diff things, some of them might be things you do consistently. You will find pattern of things you do consistently, it will be habit because you do it so consistently, b/c of heartwheel journal.

· QA: abandoning a sin, where would it fit into journal? A: if you have 5 things you are doing tomorrow – say sin is related to chastity sin, or avoiding distractions, or character sin like backbiting, someone might say in regards to chastity they go to porno sites – may Allah protect us - so they say tomorrow I plan to put some things on my computer to whatever (audio not clear)– it’s like a tawbah, it’s a repentance to Allah and action to move away from that sin, Allahu Allam.

· QA: scheduling, should we only use it and not use the weekly daily planning or RPM, or something along those lines we had? Heart Wheel is focused on increasing spirituality, but what you would want to do in regard to RPM, weekly planning, is in regards to other slices of life, like education, business. This focuses specifically on spirituality and this is what you should be doing anyways, but you definitely have other parts of life you have to deal with so that is where you use RPM and daily planning and things like that.

KHAFAYAH

JazakAllah Khair.

Nabil Q

I have the lecture on MP3 if anyone needs it direly and can't wait to hear the audio..

If I have permission I can put it up to make things easier for people...

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usmanzk

can you please upload or email me the audio
my msn id goes by my nick at this forum but its just at msn dot com
JazakAllah Khayr.

Ola

JazakAllahu kulla khair...that really put a lot of the journal into perspective and kind of motivated me to continue with the journal.

bintNaim

Jazakallah khayran for sharing the notes.
May Allah rewards you.
I would like to have the audio notes.
Can you email it to me too?

shaista

Assalam-o-alaikum warahmatullah can u email me the audio as well.....my id is shaistaa_farooqui at hotmail.com...jazkallahukhairan...assalam-o-alaikum warahmatullah hi wabarakatuhu