"Self-reliance" and "sustainability" are fundamental tenets in today's social, political and economic movements. In his opening address for the School's Sixth Annual Planning Session, Sheikh Din Muhammad Abdullah al-Dayemi redefined these concepts in the context of spiritual life.

In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful, Most Compassionate. I bid you As-salaamu `Alaykum, May Peace Be Upon You, and Welcome to our Sixth Annual Planning Session.

The theme this year is Community Self-Reliance and Sustainability: Lifestyle Choices at the Turn of the Millennium. What an appropriate topic for this year's meeting. It is kind of a special time, the turn of the millennium. Though within the eternal time of Allah (given that the sun still rises and sets, and the moon still waxes and wanes), it's just another day. Albeit, it's an interesting way for human beings to mark the threshold of their experience and change.

In addition to our annual personal planning, this year's Planning Session comes at the turn of the century. Within the last hundred years, we are able to look back directly and see that our world has completely changed from one that we've known, to one that is anybody's guess. Our meeting is also at the threshold of the new millennium. Lord knows, within our small group in the last nine years of this "Community process," many of us feel like we have gone through at least a millennium's worth of change. Perhaps the real purpose of marking the thresholds of time on the calendar is to perform the self-reflection necessary for us to grow, to become the kind of people that we long to be.

This is a special group of people. We are united by a common intention. We may not all have common intellectual capacities, common backgrounds or common tastes in food and clothes. We may have all sorts of differences between us in age, shape, size and economic stature. We may differ in our base desires as well as what we hold important, but there's something much bigger that links us together. It is only the cause of spiritual unity that would have us travel to rural Carbondale, Illinois, in the winter month of January at the turn of the millennium. This unity is experienced in us as a common intention, longing and heart's desire expressed through an intangible, incommunicable collective feeling. We are linked by our collective sense of purpose. We are connected by both the joy in life as well as our struggle to reconcile the meaning of pain.

This is a very unique group of people, one to be highly respected. It is a great honor to sit in the company of a circle like this - a circle of diversity that is heartfelt in its unity. We should never separate ourselves from the feeling of its sacredness, nor mistake the honor that we are privileged to be together. Respect that to come here and work on this project that we call "The School" is a sacrifice of our personal preferences for a way of life that we believe is better. The world offers plenty of playgrounds of distraction where each of us could be doing something other than facing that which we have chosen to face here today. We approach the Work with our own free will. The Holy Qur`an reminds us, it is better to serve God of your own free will than by force or default. Therefore, we are participating in the universal process as it is intended.

"Self-reliance" and "sustainability." I hesitate to use these words anymore, because they have attracted so many political nuances of meaning. However, they seem to be the most appropriate concepts for us to confront at the turn of the millennium. Actually, it was just over ten years ago that I picked up on the new buzzword, "sustainability." It was not yet popular at the time. Currently "sustainability" has become the hottest topic in the developmental, environmental and economic sectors. Of course, "self-reliance" and "self-sufficiency" are principles that are familiar and herald back to indigenous peoples. Modern, industrial trained, capitalistic developers have been straining over these principles quite intensely for the last two decades. Everyone is becoming increasingly aware of their importance. Now, I would like to place self-reliance and sustainability within a spiritual context for our circle and for the world.

Self-reliance is a misnomer. There is no such thing as "self-reliance"! There is no person or thing that is unto itself. Humanity is woven into an interdependent network of life that is completely reliant and utterly dependent - each person upon the other and upon creation. There is no individual self-reliance, period. We are reliant upon the backs and bones of our ancestors as well as all and everything that has gone before us. We did not personally grow the plants, gin the cotton and loom the cloth, so that we might enjoy the adornments that we wear. Although it's chilly outdoors, we enjoy comfort in a home heated with fossil fuel that's been pumped out of the ground and delivered to the door.

Look at any aspect of your life. You will see that even during moments of isolation, where you feel like you want to cut yourself off from everybody and everything, you can't. You cannot cut yourself off from humanity, because even in your isolation you rely upon its existence, i.e., basic necessities, communication technology, goods and services, personal connections, etc. People rely and are dependent upon what creation provides for them. As well, no human can cause life to come into being. Though human beings are often the instruments for suffering, torture and death, still no human being ultimately knows the time of death of another.

This morning, you don't have to consciously bother to control your heartbeat, respiration and autonomic functions to keep yourself awake and alive. It is taken care of for you. Who and what is taking care of that? You don't have to worry whether or not the seasons are going to change, whether winter is going to turn into spring, so that we'll have food and warm weather again. Consider your true position. These things, these laws of action, you rely upon. You are completely reliant, not self-reliant. "Self-reliance," as it relates to the individual ego, the individual person, is a misnomer. It is only a pop-phrase to make us remember being in alignment with our Creator and with each other.

Let us convert the word "self-reliance" from the way that it's used in secular society to mean "individual reliance" or "personal reliance" to "reliance upon the True Self." The True Self exists in each one of us and is the same Self that is imbued into every part of the creation as the Divine Essence of all things -minerals, plants, fishes, birds, animals and humanity. It is the same Divine Essence as contained in the stars, the sun and the moon. The Divine Essence is the light inside of light, the love inside of love.

It is the Divine Essence of our own true Self, and we are completely reliant upon It - that It exists. We come from It, we are sustained by It and we return to It. Our so-called "self-reliance" is really reliance upon the True Self, and that True Self in reality is God/Allah.

Acknowledging the Divine Essence forms Community. Community functions through recognizing the true Self in others as you have discovered the Divine Essence in your own Self. In this age, it is impossible to become self-realized, enlightened or to know the Divine Self and not have a feeling of Community. There is no enlightenment without Community, because as you realize the Divine Self within, and rely completely upon it, you lose the distinction between internal and external and the difference between you and me. Whatever you see, think, hear, know or are in relationship with is automatically your Community. Everything is the reflection of the Divine Self. That is your true Essence.

"Sustainable" means that which maintains and can keep going. Sustainable is a certain way of being, of behaving and of taking action. It is a way in which thoughts, words and actions have positive regenerating effects. Sustainability provides for the continuation of the natural course of things, while not opposing or creating obstacles. For instance, the indigenous people of this continent used to make decisions based on seven generations - before they migrated, cut forests, planted crops, harvested, hunted and butchered their meat. As they performed their various ceremonies and picked their successors, they would carefully determine the effect on future generations.

Seven generations gives a beautiful example of thinking sustainably. However, we must recognize that true "sustainability" is an attribute of Allah. Sustainability is neither a human attribute nor a human-caused function. Human beings are not sustainable. Allah is sustainable, as is Allah's creation - time, space, circumstance, etc. The question raised here is not whether or not creation is sustainable. It is. The issue of sustain-ability, as it relates to self-reliance, is one in which humanity will decide whether or not to enjoin itself in the natural way, which is already sustainable.

The Holy Qur`an, beautifully poetic in its metaphors and depiction of history, has Allah Most High often repeating that a Messenger has been sent in every time, for every people, to speak in their own language, to give them the good news regarding the natural way and to warn them against the ways which are evil and destructive. Of course, I'm paraphrasing. But why won't humanity listen? Did you ever listen? Since Allah is also "oft-Returning, most Merciful, most Compassionate and oft-Forgiving," the Messengers and the Message continue to come. It is as if Allah is still asking us to listen!

How many societies and peoples have found themselves destroyed? Not just whole societies like Babylon, Egypt and Rome, but how many individuals and families have been destroyed - "little societies"? How many nations and states have found themselves destroyed, because they refused to hear the Message? They did not want to pay attention. They did not want to enjoin themselves together in peace, to bring themselves willingly into the natural process. They wanted their own way. By their fighting, they cut themselves off.

The Holy Qur`an also beautifully teaches that if you are "cut off," you will find yourself immersed in hate. Being cut off from Allah, or in other words being separated from the natural way of the Divine Truth and Reality, is a most "fiery hell." This fact is something that we have all had a personal taste of in our own lives. When we felt separated, we were cut off from our hearts. How hellish and painful it feels! This is opposed to the glimpse of paradise that we've all tasted when we've felt in communion with the Divine Beloved. The promise to taste the Beloved has us come to Carbondale in January of 2000 to plan together.

Sustainable self-reliance is the realization that I am completely and utterly dependent upon God and God's creation, and that God's creation is the only sustainable Reality, as I am completely reliant upon God. What a loop! Learning self-reliance means bringing my free will into the harmony and rhythm of God's will, so that I might help to reflect God's will and purpose in such a way that people learn sustainability. Allah doesn't need the lesson; humanity needs the lesson. How gracious is our Lord who gives us the opportunity to have a human form to learn these lessons. What an amazing experience to be here with senses, feelings, emotions and to have the awareness of our own Self in reflection.

The idea of self-reliance upon Allah as our Sustaining Benefactor and Protector as well as the idea of becoming illumined human beings takes on real meaning when we are ready to put it into action. It is a tangible goal to help make a better world so that our children, grandchildren and grandchildren's children have a healthy place to live and work. Perhaps for those of you that have never had kids, sustainable self-reliance is conceptual. But for those of us who have had children, or with ones on the way, it is a reality. If your spiritual longing allows you to conceive of a better way of life for yourself, then service must be awakened in your heart. Out of love, you need to be part of a Community; you have to have a way to put it into action. Otherwise, your high-minded ideals are demoted to mere selfishness.

The ego is capable of taking even the grandest idea and coveting it for its own comfort and pleasure. Personal comfort and pleasure are not the purpose for Allah's creation. Allah does not operate the creation out of limited, vested self-interest. The entire creation has its own grand design, an architecture for a higher purpose, that often times personal comfort and pleasure don't have the ability to see or know.

"Lifestyle choices" means how you are going to convert your heart's longing and life's values of sustainable self-reliance into living action. How do you choose to bring them into manifestation and make them real, so that they not only work for yourself, but work for others as well? Can we face being known as the "selfish millennium" that was so absorbed in its problems, issues and consumerism that it forgot to leave the world healthy for its children? Do you want to stand before your Creator and be forced to look back on history, your previous existence, and be shown your lack of humanity, your lack of love? I don't want to die like that. This School is one small piece of the Work that I am offering so that our collective conscience might be relieved as we realize our life's true purpose.

We can no longer continue in the direction that our society is going and at the same time have Divine Ideals. They are incompatible. They don't go together. If you want Divinity to be personally awakened within, and you desire to serve God through the network of your Community, then you'll have to make lifestyle choices wherein your lifestyle reflects your values. The way that you live must create an environment that is supportive of these spiritual values and that is also an example to others. All should see in your personal character the illumined qualities of happiness, joy, peace and wisdom. There should be reflected the application of you behavior and ideals, the relationship that has produced the spiritual awakening within you.

Remember according to our new definition of "self-reliance," there is no one or thing that is alone or unto itself. Anywhere you go, whoever you talk to, all that you do, each of your relationships, wherever you are, whether alone or with others, you are a witness. You are constantly bearing witness to the quality of your relationship with God the Divine. You are seen and known by others in the way in which they interpret you. As well, Creation is your witness through the True Self which attests to either the disparity or integrity of all your thoughts, words and actions. You are never away from the purview of the Witnessing Entity.

Lifestyle choices at the turn of the millennium means what it takes to put a Vision on the ground, perhaps symbolically in the same way we describe Allah bringing the unseen into manifestation. The Holy Qur`an describes creation as a mysterious, indescribable process. One that Allah simply commands, "Be! and it is." Something happens that is so awesome, so magical, so awe-inspiring that it takes the breath away and makes the mind swoon. Ah, if you could only glimpse the majesty of that moment - the spark - as Allah moves from the non-manifest, impersonal reality to becoming the manifest, personal creation. This movement proceeds from being an "idea of God's" to being the living, working reality of God's. In other words, Allah's lifestyle choice!

And this is our threshold: taking the Vision of our Community's School and moving it forward from being just an idea, to being a living, working reality. If it is going to be a living, working reality, then we will each have to take greater personal responsibility to be in alignment. Being in alignment means maintaining the integrity between thoughts, words and actions and directing that they move together. Set your course towards the single point, your purpose, the goal of your belief. How exalted! At the same time, we know what it's like to he out of integrity. Let's not suffer that misalignment. It's so painful and unnecessary.

Lifestyle choices at the turn of the millennium means that we personally and collectively must commit ourselves to behaviors that best allow all to realize the deepest aspirations of the Heart. God Realization. We must also live within the spirit of right livelihood that promotes the distribution of basic necessities for humans, safeguards welfare for all species and protects the natural environment. This commitment must extend outside of our small spiritual Community.

These choices are not sacrifices. They are a necessity. The fear of our personal, vested self-interest is that we will have to sacrifice something of "mine." When you actually make the choice to be in alignment with the natural way, you realize that there was no sacrifice at all. In return, you only receive benefit, felicity and reward. Who could be better than one who is fulfilled and in alignment? Who could be better than one who is God-realized and submits their whole self to the way of Allah? This is the holy example of the Saints and Prophets (upon them all be peace).

Let us on this occasion be in Divine Remembrance. Let us drop our petty, defensive self-interests, and let us convert them into the open, resilient and flexible interests of the Divine Self-interest. Let us make our niyyat (intention) to find the strength to bring ourselves into greater alignment of thoughts, words and actions. Let us put into place solid choices, and follow through on those choices that reflect what we say we believe. Let us convert our hopes from mental fantasy into working reality. Let us hold forth the small candles of our souls, the flicker of reflected light in each other's eyes and hearts that we know exists. Let's take our individual candles and put them together to form a flaming, raging fire of light. May that light burn down the stronghold of obsolete architecture that has encrusted the status quo of this society and has corrupted the values of our people. Let us burn down the house! May we emerge from the ashes of that fire as a true Community. Let us answer the Holy Qur`an's calls to be a Community of Muslims - the believers who are openly submitted and surrendered to the will of God.

As the Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham [a.s.]) was cooled in Nimrod's fire, let us remember where our true reliance lies. May we learn to cooperate with each other from that same standpoint of spiritual self-reliance. Let us realize from the intensity of that fire, Who and What is our true Sustaining Power, and let us emulate and enjoin ourselves with that Sustaining Power. Let us develop and exercise the spiritual courage, strength and tempered hardening of a sword that is thrust back and forth from the fire into the water. Let our inner swords be tempered that we might be able to wage the true jihaad, the struggle for peace.

The battle is primarily an inner struggle, not an external battle. It is to wage the internal fight with tempered steel. We need the courage and action not to just talk about changing our way of life, not to just think about it, not to just smoke a pipe and sip a cup of coffee over it, not to just go to church on Sunday. We must put those values into everyday real action, that we might be counted among the Circle of Friends. As we depart from this life, we must responsibly leave our children with a place that allows them their opportunity to do the Work. Hand to hand, heart to heart, the legacy of human life on this planet, in this realm, needs to be protected.

Then as always, let us pray that we can relinquish the fruits of our actions. May we forgo any pride of ownership for our Work. May our Work be truly of service, and there may we find love. Oh gracious Allah, raise us up among Your intimates, Your Friends, that we might find ourselves extinguished and enjoined in Your Unity forever, in this world and in the hereafter.

Alhamdulillahi Rabbil `Alamin. All Praises to Allah the Lord of the Worlds. May it be so.