15 Ramadan 1427/7 October 2006
A`udhu billahi min ash-shaytaan ir-rajeem
Nawaytu'l-arba`een, nawaytu'l-`itikaaf, nawaytu'l-khalwah, nawaytu'l-riyaadah, nawaytu's-salook, nawaytu'l-`uzlah lillahi ta`ala fee hadha'l-masjid
Ati` Allah wa ati` ar-Rasula wa uli 'l-amri minkum
In the previous session we said that Grandshaykh mentioned that sainthood, asceticism and those whose prayers are accepted (du`a) and different levels that Allah I gives to his servants only comes thru humbleness. There is nothing else anyone who has in his heart of pride or arrogance never will see haqiqat or never will Gnosticism (ma`rifah).
How much there is evilness, misunderstanding and negative energy and `ubudiyya, far distance from the Divine Presence, hypocrisy, disbelief all comes from arrogance. So make sure that arrogance you throw from your heart. Arrogance destroys everything you are building. And arrogance, under arrogance different categories come.
One of them is that, and this is most important, is that you don’t accept any advice, and you are stubborn with your opinion and if anyone says to you anything you get angry. If he says, “This way is better” you say, “Why is he saying this?” And even if you accept still your heart inside is talking. If you accept what the guide is saying, physically but still you bring some words that show your heart is still complaining and not happy. Any word that comes out of your mouth after a session and the Shaykh is bombarding no your negative chars, you want to bring one word to show that you are excused and Allah I said, wa laa tuzakoo anfusikum.
I went one time to Mawlana Shaykh. As it is said in Qur’an, Laa yuhibb al-jahra min al-qawli illa liman dhulim…`aleema.
Allah I doesn’t like anyone to speak loudly and complain on anything except that one that has been oppressed. If that one has been oppressed and really has a right then Allah I does not like anyone to respond to any oppression or aggression if it is not really oppression. If it is from your Shaykh cleaning you with bombardment as it is mentioned in that Surah. La yuhibAllah… Allah I doesn’t t love that, not only your tongue. Your tongue doesn’t move if the heart doesn’t move. Like the nerves of the body. The nerves get information to the mind and this comes to the mind like waves and the nerves give the order to the muscles to move. The command goes as an order from the brain and goes to any part of the body that needs to move because these veins give the signals to move, move the feet or the hand or the leg. So the tongue will not move unless the command comes from heart to the brain and the order will come from the main center to move the tongue. So as soon as you criticize you cannot hold it, you cannot give an answer. Very rare people that don’t answer back, they keep quiet. So that arrogance, Allah I said, ihdina as-siraat al mustaqeem. Guide us to the straight path.
This is straight path, straight forward, if this is straight path and we take stick and draw line and we take stick and draw another line but a little zigzag, it arrives to the same end but one is zigzag and one is straight. The one that goes this way and that way, you are on the right track, then it goes this way and this way and you come back. This is where shaytaan plays with you. But shaytaan has no power except to play with you. So if you stretch that zigzag line it is longer than the straight line. You will reach, but it takes longer. You are under baya`, so your Shaykh has the duty to bring you there, but it takes longer. You can see the distance is more. The size of the line is same but the distance is longer as you go right and left and back and forth, you are crossing the main straight line. These vibrations that take you right and left are detected by the awliya. Then don’t ask, “Why I am not receiving my amanaat?” That distance is becoming longer. Although you end up there because they take the responsibility to get you there, but you have to know that distance is longer than going on siraat al-mustaqeem. That is “Men who kept their covenant with Allah I.” They are always straightforward.
And that is what we said yesterday, when Sayyidina Shaykh Sharafuddin ?, if even a child comes to him he would stand up and if a king comes he also stands up for him. So for him the king and child are equal in front of him because both are servants of Allah I and both have angels with them. So don’t tuhaqqir ma`rufa - don’t disrespect anyone. Just because that one is not to the station, or not performing the `ibadah in same level don’t say this is not my group. The Prophet e came kaafatan lin-naas[i] and wa maa arsalnaka illa rahmatan lil-`alameen[ii]. We have sent you for all human beings, for the whole race. You cannot say I am coming only for Sahaaba and not for others.
The Prophet e described the Sahaaba, “You are my companions, Sahaaba, but they are my beloved ones.” They said, “Ya Rasulullah e who are they, are there move beloved than Sahaaba. You believe in me seeing me but at the end of the day there are those coming who believe in me without seeing me.”
See how much importance he gave for us, though coming with all kinds of sins and corruption the importance is not the sins and corruption but that we believe without seeing.
The importance we are in association of a guide, who I representing highest level of awliya in this time, Mawlana Shaykh Nazim ?, may Allah I give him long life. He said that in the time of Shaykh Sharafuddin ?, out of his high status and level that Allah I gave to him he was training Grandshaykh daughter her name was Rabi`a, who passed away before Madiha, 2 years before, he used to giver her food in his hand, raising her up under his supervision and he said she used to begin fasting when she was young and he was teaching her to pray by encouraging her by giving her money. He said, “She was always awake before him at sahoor time.” She used to come to her father Grandshaykh and because Shaykh Sharafuddin ? was uncle, she said, “When I wake up and go to Shaykh Sharafuddin ?, I see something extraordinary from him. I see him at night get up to take ablution.” And then was not like today’s bathroom. They have to go outside the house and there is a wooden chamber that they go to do what they do and then come out for ablution. All that area is full of flies. Flies come on dirt. If you go to a desert or jungle if you see dirt of animal or human, you see flies coming. From where do they come? He said, “Don’t be like black flies like those who look after people faults and dirt.”
Don’t be like the black fly, be like the butterfly that goes on a flower and is very beautiful. Be like a bee, don’t go to this low level.
She said, “When at night I see him going for ablution, I put light for him, as soon as a fly approaches his body immediately it burns. Nothing can come on him from these flies.”
He said, “That is the reality of `ishk, the fire of love that energy that he built in himself, love of Allah I and love of Prophet e that doesn’t allow any kind of badness to approach him. These flies represent the bad characters, when those bad characters approach him he defeats them with that light and shaytaan cannot approach him. So these black flies symbolize the bad characters they are burned and killed.
This is character of awliyaullah. We are supposed to look and follow their way. To be like them we must not look to bad behavior of people and criticize them. Allah I knows best, leave them to Allah I.
Now Mawlana Shaykh here is saying, and this was written 40 years ago, anyone who can read Arabic can come and check it. He is giving very high teaching and this is to where you direct your love and direct your self in order not to fall into a huge valley that you cannot be brought from it, except the hand of Shaykh can bring you out of it.
It is surprising that it is coming within this talk and he said:
“Mubarakayn, I have two blessed students, Shaykh Nazim ? and Shaykh Husayn ?.” Always he says, “I have two apprentices Shaykh Nazim ? and Shaykh Husayn ?, yajtami`u alayhim kullun naas. All the people gathered around them.” It means when the Shaykh is not present the mureeds gather around these two pillars, Shaykh Nazim ? and Shaykh Husayn ?. And this is 40 years ago. People think yadhunoona annahum awliya - They think they are saints. They think that they are saints.”
He is directing us, “Be careful, when I am present, living, your focus is on me. You cannot focus on someone else. Even Shaykh Nazim ? and Shaykh Husayn ? are there, in one second they are under my authority.”
It means you cannot make people cannot gather around them; then you lose the reality of the Shaykh. If they gather around them they have to be very careful how they direct the people. They must not make the people to love them but make the people to love the Shaykh and this is 40 years ago. And he said “That is a sickness that people are gathered around them. Then they lose love towards me and if they lose love towards me then there is no way to bring them back.”
He gave the example of Shaykh Sharafuddin ? when he was explaining to him about Shah Naqshband ?. Grandshaykh was in seclusion and every day Shaykh Sharafuddin ? comes and gives Grandshaykh a lecture. And one day he was explaining to him about Shah Naqshband ? and how Shah Naqshband ? was so great and how on Judgment Day with the intercession of Prophet Muhammad e so many people will be sent to Paradise and from awliya’s intercession how Shah Naqshband ? will fill so many paradises with Naqshbandi mureeds. That is in The Naqshbandi Sufi Way book. He spoke about Sayyidina Shah Naqshband ? and the secrets he is receiving from Prophet e. Then in heart of Grandshaykh there was immediately established a love for Shah Naqshband ? and the love begins to grow and love is love in the heart, like when you have a laser light, you can as long as you are more and more it is more power it gives. As you concentrate it more and more it has power to heal. But when that laser light is divided into two, each beam has less power. So now the love that is in his heart, but though increasing it has been divided into two lines and it begins to grow in him like that. So after a while Shaykh Sharafuddin ? came to him in seclusion and that was in a vision, and I mentioned that in the Naqshbandi Sufi Way book. He used to get food every day from his wife. He knocks and she brings the food. One day he didn’t knock, 2nd day he didn’t knock and after 3rd she went to Shaykh Sharafuddin ? and asked him, “I think he might have died.”
Shaykh Sharafuddin ? said, “No, he is ok, don’t bother him. He was in a trance.” So when that love of Shah Naqshband ? grew in him, Shah Naqshband ? came to him and showed him some of the greatness of Shaykh Sharafuddin ?. He told him, ‘Ya waladee, be careful. You cannot water two fields with one windmill. Your love must be focused to your Shaykh.’”
That was a lesson to me. He said, “People are gathered around Shaykh Nazim ? and Shaykh Husayn ? and he said that although these shaykhs direct the people to me, but because of the way that they handle them they are attracted and there is a sickness created in the mureeds so that they cannot know which way to focus and direct their attention and that sickness is reflected on the mureeds and that sickness is reflected back on me when they come to me.”
So that is marad, illness. These are private suhbat to us, only me and Shaykh Adnan ?. You have to be very careful when you call the people. That is the major problem that people will face they begin to direct their focus in a way that takes them away from love of the Shaykh and if you don’t fix it it will keep going far that you cannot control. This is 40 years ago.
He said: Haadha maradun haythu yajtimoona an-naas hawlihim wa la… “This is an illness that makes the people to come to the representatives and not to the Shaykh. Take the four enemies and put them in a can and abandon yourselves and make yourself absent. These words are the spirit of hadith, tariqah and Qur’an.”
It means that when you begin to feel that a certain love is being created in the heart of the student, around you, not to the Shaykh destroy that. That is an illness that will take you to the jungle of the ego. Because then that ego will be thinking I am something, I am something, at the end it will grow. When later it is seen that you are at a high level it is very difficult to cut it. That is already rooted, and then you cannot cut it. Make sure you don’t fall into that sickness.
It means:
ادْعُوهُمْ لِآبَائِهِمْ هُوَ أَقْسَطُ عِندَ اللَّهِ فَإِن لَّمْ تَعْلَمُوا آبَاءهُمْ فَإِخْوَانُكُمْ فِي الدِّينِ وَمَوَالِيكُمْ وَلَيْسَ عَلَيْكُمْ جُنَاحٌ فِيمَا أَخْطَأْتُم بِهِ وَلَكِن مَّا تَعَمَّدَتْ قُلُوبُكُمْ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ غَفُورًا رَّحِيمًا
Ud`uhum liabaihim huwa aqsatu `inda Allahi fain lam ta`lamoo abaahum faikhwanukum fee alddeeni wamawaleekum walaysa `alaykum junahun feema akhtatum bihi walakin ma ta`ammadat quloobukum wakana Allahu ghafooran raheeman.
Call them by (the names of) their fathers: that is juster in the sight of Allah I. But if ye know not their father's (names, call them) your Brothers in faith, or your maulas. But there is no blame on you if ye make a mistake therein: (what counts is) the intention of your hearts: and Allah I is Oft-Returning, Most Merciful. [33:5]
Call them to their parents. You have to know your spiritual father. Call them to that spiritual father. Don’t call them to yourself or to your spiritual father and later when they begin to fall and begin to create a confusion in themselves on where to focus then you will be blamed. If you correct them and still they are falling in that illness and still believing that door is that door, you have to tell them no it is not. Don’t keep quiet, if you keep quiet then ta`amadat quloobikum. Then you will be judged. If you correct them and say no this is the way. When you see there is a confusion going, stop it, don’t let it continue.
Two years ago, that one came from Washington, Magdy. I was in presence of Mawlana Shaykh, may Allah I bless him and he pulled a paper from under a table. How many papers come to Mawlana everyday? Thousands of paper. If someone goes upstairs to see where he sits you see thousands of envelopes. And a paper this one never goes there. Rarely, one time. That time you gave that paper [yes]
Thousands of papers and Mawlana pulled that paper from thousands of papers and said read. I was reading. It was 4 lines.
In Arabic, when you are addressing to someone it is known it is to him but you are addressing the issue. He was sending to Mawlana Shaykh Nazim ? thanking him for sending Shaykh Hisham ? to America.
First he said, Alhamdulillah was-salaat was salaam ala Rasulullah e and praising Grandshaykh and then praising Mawlana Shaykh Nazim ? but not by name and praising me by name and a spiritual name that was given to me. Mawlana Shaykh Nazim ? said, “Look he made my name absent, as if I don’t exist.”
That is an illness. People have to be called to spiritual father. Now I have to defend him and I defend myself and Mawlana didn’t want to listen. So I realized that this is a teaching in order to make sure we are following the right way. It is very important to understand that and it came thru the suhbat and Grandshaykh mentioned 40 years ago.
Although he mentioned me and Shaykh Adnan ? in his will from him we were given that title but we have to know our limits. So we have to be very careful when we address an issue. You cannot leave that issue growing or it becomes like it did with many others and like a trunk—then you are losing. Although your intentions are highly appreciated. That must be killed. Kill that in yourself when you see himself growing. Like this one when he came at the beginning how much he was doing of difficulties but look at he came back to the right track. He was focusing on someone else, everything, and forgetting Mawlana Shaykh and forgetting everyone and that one was telling him, hijack this, hijack that.
That is correct? [Shakes head]
So that is important. I don’t,… Mawlana does not care who comes or doesn’t come. But he cares for the ones who are very near to his heart not to lose their love and lose their input in tariqah and not to lose their way and then the creation of that huge tree you cannot stop it its big trunk and branches. Then you have to kill it from the roots. Then when it is so huge you need a chainsaw. When it is still an `ud, a small stick you can crack it and break. Don’t let it become a huge trunk. May Allah I forgive us and bless this meeting.
Bi-hurmatil habib bi hurmatil Fatiha.
I said to myself, “I am not going to go into this,” but it came in the suhbat, and it is very faded written by pencil.
But this problem is everywhere. This problem is everywhere and that is why everywhere mureeds everywhere have to learn that their love is Mawlana Shaykh Nazim ? and their real love is to Mawlana Shaykh Nazim ?. And we don’t want to fall into hands of shaytaan. My duty is to tell people that our Shaykh, Mawlana Shaykh Nazim ? and dhakkir fa inn adh-dhikr tanfa` al-mumineen -Remind for by remind you achieve benefits. You will be on the right track. You don’t care if you love goes to the Shaykh. Let the Shaykh be everything and be nothing. Don’t say, “I want to be something,” then you will get nothing. This is how it works. We struggle, we want to be known and be respected it is our nature, that is correct. But we need to get rid of that nature. But when we insist that we are building the way to bring people toward the Shaykh and we see this sickness growing, then cut it. That will be the only way to prevent form putting us in fire.
When I begin to go to Cyprus and see people coming to sit with me, I cut that. I am not speaking there at all, not to say one word, just go in to see the Shaykh. The followers are his followers, his tariqah, they belong to him. We are only as Grandshaykh said, “the hunter needs a dog with him,” so we are dogs of the hunter not more.
The hunter loves his dogs and the dog is loyal to the hunter but the dog doesn’t eat the prey. Does he eat the prey? I have to be very careful. And falling, falling, falling. So we must not touch the pray. Our duty is to bring the prey but not to eat it. That is why the trained dogs carry the prey with their mouths, although it is delicious to them it is their dish, but they don’t take it they take to Shaykh. If the Shaykh wants to give a share to dog to eat he will give. If he wants to give him spiritual station and raise him up he will. That is tariqah. He wants to se how far you go. If he gives you something, Alhamdulillah. If he doesn’t, Alhamdulillah. If he doesn’t give physically he will give spiritually, for you heard work. You are doing hard work. It cannot be evaluated with money or with any physical contribution from the Shaykh to you. He will give you a spiritual one that you never imagined you can achieve with your amal. Only when the Shaykh knows he is happy with you, he give, he gives. You will find on the road later, when suddenly you will find the jungle turn to paradise. At the beginning, you will find obstacles, obstacles… and then suddenly not more.
كُلاًّ نُّمِدُّ هَـؤُلاء وَهَـؤُلاء مِنْ عَطَاء رَبِّكَ وَمَا كَانَ عَطَاء رَبِّكَ مَحْظُورًا
Kullan numiddu haulaa’i wa haula’i min `atai rabbika wa maa kaana `ataa rabbika mahdhooran
Of the bounties of thy Lord We bestow freely on all- These as well as those: The bounties of thy Lord are not closed (to anyone). [17:20]
Wa maa kaana `ataa rabbaka mahdhoora. Your Lord’s favors are never limited when He gives He gives with plenty. But they don’t show you. You are running, running not getting anything. Now I am getting they don’t want you to get it. No, your duty to keep running you are on runway you cannot back up then. You are on the runway; they chase you until you reach there. That heavenly paradise. So don’t stop. Wa min Allah at-tawfiq, bi-hurmatil Fatiha.
[i] وَمَا أَرْسَلْنَاكَ إِلَّا كَافَّةً لِّلنَّاسِ بَشِيرًا وَنَذِيرًا وَلَكِنَّ أَكْثَرَ النَّاسِ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ
Wa maa arsalnaaka illa kaaffatan lin-naasi basheeran wa nadheeran wa laakinna akthara an-naasi la ya`lamoona
We have not sent thee but as a universal (Messenger) to men, giving them glad tidings, and warning them (against sin), but most men understand not. [34:28]
[ii]
وَمَا أَرْسَلْنَاكَ إِلَّا رَحْمَةً لِّلْعَالَمِينَ
Wa maa arsalnzaka illa rahmatan lil-`alameena
We sent thee not, but as a Mercy for all creatures. [21:107]