The highest state that the human creature can be is to be in submission. Submission to REALITY - that is why our Prophet Muhammad refereed to himself as ‘Abd, the slave, the submitted. The road to being in Islam is through being 'abd Allah - slave of Allah.

To be muslim is easy. Millions of people say the syahada, pray, pay zakat, fast, and go to hajj. How many do you recognize as submitted to Reality? As a person enslaved - 'abd to Allah, the Real, the Truth, the Existent? What a difference between taking the name muslim and actually being in islam.

To be in Islam is to be in the state of willingness to surrender, to let go of anything. It is the beginning of the awakening of your inner sight. The awakening of intelligence. If you are willing to let go of everything, whatever anxieties, fears, expectations or desires you have, then your energy is available. Your intelligence is sharper. Your actions will be more successful because you can see whether they relate or not.

Nothing is in abstraction in this life. Our deen, our life-transaction, is not a philosophy. It is a way of living. The only way to contentment is to negate false values. The life-transaction of Islam is understood through negation; negation of the self. The self is the tarnished reflection of the Reality from which it had come. Through the grace of God it was conceived and through His grace it will return. He is the final resting place.

You are never separate from your Lord, everything you have is directly or indirectly from Him. So cut off what is in between and be direct, Abd Allah! If your actions are free and spontaneous it means you are enslaved by the Truth. You cannot have freedom without enslavement. You cannot understand even the letter - "F" - of freedom until you have put your foot in the letter "S" of slavery. Everything is rooted in its opposite. You cannot have life without death. You cannot have life without death. You cannot have health without illness. You cannot have ease without hardship.

The actions of the Abd Allah are in the name of Allah. In other words he says, ' I am acting in the name of Allah - Bismillah.' , because he cannot say 'I am acting for Allah in Allah.' It is not the right courtesy. ‘Allah’ the name indicates the Absolute, the Essence. The only meeting point with Reality is the instant. Experientally there is only now. Living in the instant is being fresh all the time, being fully alive. This is the meaning of freedom, from past and future. Every action has an opposite and equal reaction, so if you want freedom, enslave yourself. To the Real. Go against your meaningless desires, improve the direction of your actions. Expand them, make them for others, for service, humanity, Islam. Start with whomever you like and whom your heart is drawn towards, then move on until you end up with a circle of true worshippers – real servants. It does not matter what level you are serving at, it does not matter who you are serving. What matters is the purity of your attention.

The biggest enemy of submission to the Reality, of being in islam, is pride of the self. Replace that pride with the outer humility and inner pride of being ‘abd Allah. Give up to the Reality of the-way-things-are, be grateful for being given breath and life in order to serve. Inner pride is for having the opportunity to glorify the Creator, for the intoxication of moving into greater and deeper knowledge, for being able to pronounce the name of the Prophet and being able to follow some aspects of the way he lived.