[this is a quick transcription, please excuse error and ommissions and send us any corrections]
Suhbat
Shaykh Muhammad (s) Hisham Kabbani
09-24-2007
Audhu billah min ash-shaytan ir-rajeem
Bismillahi 'r-Rahman i'r-Raheem
Nawaytu al-arba`een nawaytu al-`itikaaf nawaytu al-khalwah nawaytu al-riyadah nawaytu al-sulook lillahi ta`ala al-`adheem fee hadha al-masjid
Kalimataan khafeefataan alal-lisaan thaqeelataan fi ’l-meezaan Subhanallah wa bi-hamdihi, subhanallahi ’l-`adheem istaghfirullah.
As we said in previous session Bayazid al-Bistami asked Allah swt “how do I come to your presence?” and the answer came back, “leave yourself and come.” Don’t come to Me with something impure of this dunya, don’t claim you are something but you are only a creature that I created and I am your lord.” “Wa fil abdi abdun wa fil rabbi rabbun - The lord is the lord and the abd is the abd.” And Mawlana is asking that from every human being he has that claim that he doesn’t open his mouth except a bad smell comes and that bad smell is the claim that he is like Fira`un, “ana rabbukum ul-`ala - I am your most high lord.”
So that claim, people claim it and that is destroying us from reaching the divine presence or reaching our trust. When we drop it from our lives then we are accepting Allah in our lives. He said, "how difficult it is on the ego to say ‘my master, Sayyidee or Sidi?’”
It is so difficult when you are the highest master, the most high lord. When you become high through drugs you don’t see anyone higher than you. So that egoistic problem makes people higher. So they think there is no one higher than them and there is no one higher than them and this is from the tricks of the ego. He said you want to succeed, “yahtaaj al-insan an … amrihi - The human being must be concerned of the matter of the self, what is good and what is bad.” How? By making his self – what you need to do with yourself. What did Ibrahim ibn al-Adham do? Lower himself. By what? By taking the clothes of masterhood and mastership and putting on the clothes of servanthood. By taking the clothes of servants and giving them the clothes of the sultan.
So what is the remedy? to make yourself lower. You don’t need to throw your clothes because you are not able to do that. You aren’t Sultan Ibrahim ibn al-adham. You need to jump on the engine or the wagon of the big trains - you know these big trains. What do you need to do? Jump in one of these wagons; and who are these engines? They are these guides.
Li an taj`al nafsika tahta nadhara al-murshideen - To put yourself under the supervision of one of these guides. They know the conspiracy of the ego, they know the sicknesses of the self and they will be able, when you accept them, to guide you, they know what kind of tricks the ego is trying to do. He said that we are always listening to our shuyukh because from them we are getting the madad, always, they don’t leave us. We think the leave us but as soon as we take baya initiation they are present in our lives.
Because if they leave us, there is a sign if they leave you, when they leave you your tongue becomes `iwaj, crooked and cannot anymore be straight forward and that is why you begin to say things that people begin to run away from you because it doesn’t make sense, like a drunk person, as soon as he drink, drink, drink he becomes drunk, high and he says things that make no sense.
To awliyaullah we are drunk when we are away from them. We were with them then we separated. Because dunya needs its , that people look at dunya that this is what I need for my life and you separate from your shaykh in order to go for dunya issues and when you separate and you become far and you begin to lose that connection.
Or when you became separate from your guide by thinking you became a master and you need your self, and that is why there are some mureed who think they know more than their master. Like the mureed of one wali and he was worshipping, straightforward and straightforward until he was able to see the preserved tablets. And he saw his shaykh was written from the people of hellfire. O my shaykh is going to hellfire. He went into sajda and was paying o Allah I love my shaykh take my shaykh from hellfire and put him in paradise and until he saw that his shaykh was taken from hellfire to paradise. Then he was so happy he had saved his shaykh from hellfire.
That is when you have to correct your shaykh but this is dangerous. You see yourself correcting your shaykh.
So he came to his shaykh and said, sayyidee I saw this and this and this and I prayed and prayed until I changed your destiny from hellfire to paradise. And the shaykh said, "I will break you as I broke the miswak, until you pray and you put me back in hellfire."
So the shaykh when he is in that state he doesn’t care he will whip the mureed until he goes forward, like a horse you hit, it goes faster and faster. But the donkey it will go backward, “Why are you whipping me?” “Because you are a donkey.” You want to be a horse the door is open, be a horse. Both are the same category but one with mind and heart and one with nothing. The one with nothing thinks himself everything. The donkey, as Mawlana said the story of the donkey. The donkey you always see him in meditation. This is what Mawlana said, not me. Then suddenly you look at it , you have donkeys in your country? Here you don’t see it, you see horses here. But in our countries, suddenly “heehaw heehaw” he begins to cry. You were there when Mawlana was telling that story. “Why are you crying?” Shaytan comes to him, and says, “O donkey.” “What my master?” “All female donkeys have died; you are the only male donkey left.” Then he begins to cry and cry and cry. Then shaytan feels a little sorry for him and says to him, “O donkey.” “Yes master!” “You know what?” “What?” “I found one female for you.”
So we must not be like donkeys as the shaykh is whipping us, we must go forward like the horse. Not like donkey, then we will be like
يَحْمِلُوهَا كَمَثَلِ الْحِمَارِ يَحْمِلُ أَسْفَارًا بِئْسَ مَثَلُ الْقَوْمِ الَّذِينَ كَذَّبُوا بِآيَاتِ اللَّهِ وَاللَّهُ لَا يَهْدِي الْقَوْمَ الظَّالِمِينَ
Mathalu allatheena hummiloo alttawrata thumma lam yahmilooha kamathali alhimari yahmilu asfaran bisa mathalu alqawmi allatheena kaththaboo biayati Allahi waAllahu la yahdee alqawma alththalimeena
The similitude of those who were charged with the (obligations of the) Mosaic Law, but who subsequently failed in those (obligations), is that of a donkey which carries huge tomes (but understands them not). Evil is the similitude of people who falsify the Signs of Allah. and Allah guides not people who do wrong. 62:5
Allah sent and revealed the book, they carry and then they left it is like a donkey carrying his burden, like a donkey carrying books on his back. He is ignorant, whatever he is going to learn he cannot learn.
One time you know Joha, the one who makes a lot of jokes, Mawlana Nasruddin Hoca. They pt him sitting on the donkey on the opposite side, on the back of the donkey. The king at that time said, the king has a donkey in his kingdom and until someone makes that donkey to read, he will try everyone, and anyone who cannot make that donkey to read, they are going by force, they cannot say no, that is the ego. They bring the donkey, read. What to read. Alif, ba,ta, jim. He cannot read. He cannot look at the book. Everyone was going to prison y’Allah. Nasruddin Hoca came, he said, I will save all of you, I will make the donkey to read. He put the donkey in front a book and the donkey is moving and from one page to another . the people asked Mullah Nasruddin, what did you do? I put barley on every page.
So that is donkey character. That is ignorant character. The most worst and disgusting voice is the voice of the donkey. Don’t be like that. Why Allah mentioned that. Because it is a characteristic that is in us. As soon as we open our mouth the smell of the bad characteristic will come out. And what we have to do? We have to connect to a murshid. Don’t say I became more expert than mashaykh. I have to open my own store. You had a supermarket with your shaykh . no I have to open a hypo market. Hypermarket. Superstore. A bigger one. Because he think himself independent now. That is the problem.
So always we have to say, he said. We say madadak Ya sayyidee. That is why we are continuously saying support, saying madad Ya sayyidee. Without your support we will be in vain, we will be losers, we need your support. Madad Ya sayyidee. Allah will give.
Here Grandshaykh is trying to understand, he speaks from different angles about the tricks of the ego, in order to guide us and direct us to the right direction and we will be going in it. Not to be in every direction we don’t know what we are doing.
So that is what Mawlana shaykh said, that today all that we are seeing of centers that claim to teach spirituality of different kinds is but only a waste of time. Only for businesses, nothing else. There is nothing for Allah swt. This is how people think and this is how they deviated from the right teaching. Prophet prohibited on teaching of Quran and teaching of Shariah to take money yet today it is becoming a business.
Not only Shariah but they are making up, the spirituality of today is being blended with all kinds of beliefs that come from the east. That is dangerous because you are deviating from the main road. After a while, at the beginning, it is still a branch in the tree, but as the branch begins to go off it begins to go right or left, only the trunk goes up. So the main master, the main guide the main teaching goes up all the way to heavens, showing the direction of heavens up. The branches go on the sides. Sometimes the branches as they go far from the trunk they break and fall down. That means all the teaching becomes nothing because it is no longer connected wit the trunk. They say “O never mind we have to make it so they understand.” You want to bring them in not take them away from religious roots. You are taking them by stretching the branch so much right or left and at one point it will break. At that time you aren’t connected and you become your own branch master and at that point the leaves will all dry one day. That branch has no fruit. Might be it has dunya taste but no akhira taste. Might be has some bulbs and people enjoying its colors like Christmas lamps. O different colors going on and off, people look at them and enjoy them but after a while they burn, finished gone.
What do you need to be? To be with the trunk. Glued to the trunk. Don’t lose your wagon from the engine, by going far and separating you are losing and one day comes when everything becomes dry and you are away for some time, then you slowly begin to forget, you were at beginning so attracted and attached but because of dunya issues you are leaving and suddenly heavy wind comes and the branch is broken. The trunk is there but you wasted your life. that is from conspiracies of mastership making tricks of the ego. You are a master, you are a shaykh or a deputy. But what they are teaching, these people, they are blending many flavors. You don’t know what flavor you are bringing any more.
They say blended tea. What kind of tea you don’t know. So what kind of spiritually you don’t know. That spirituality of the trunk is no longer there, you cut it down and it became like camel walking, not faster and you are still lost in the donkey, in huge desert like Mauritanian desert or Algerian desert, you cannot know the beginning to the end but if you are in a rocket in one second you be from here to here.
He said, what these students, they think they become master and they yatafakharoona imam an-naas, show off in front of people by blending things together, but the wali can see what they are blending. When you blend you don’t know the ingredients, the best one. Because you are using the crushed ingredients. But the awliya can put the head in its place, the legs in their place the arms in their place. But these so –called deputies, are ajeeba, deformed human beings, why? Because they don’t do what the shaykh is doing. They want to do their own blending. They put the feet on the head and the arms on the and the child being born out of their teaching are a deformed human being. So their teaching is deformed and that is why their students become crazy. Those who follow them become off. That is why we see those who pretend they are shuyukh and have secret but you see in their student they cannot carry them and they being to lose them in crazy situation and sometime those students go in the jungle they don’t want to do with anyone.
He said, “from sickness of the ego, anyone who wants to have authority from us, `ala an yatakallam an yaj`al kulli shayin fee mahalihi. The one who is responsible to talk
Wa hal yumkin an al-talib fee saff al-awwal an yashrah al… the one who is in nursery school can he explain the subject in the way his teacher does?”
So we end with this to make people happy. There was one poet who wanted to praise the king in order to get certification that he is a good poet. And the king gave him an appointment and brought with him two or three people around him.
He recited some poetry. The kings listened and said, “I heard this before.” Then the poet said, “Ya sayyidee, I wrote it.” Then he called the man and said, “you! do you know it?” He said, “Yes” and he read it word for word. And then he called the second one and asked him “did you know it?” He said, “Yes sayyidee.” And he read it. And he brought the third one and he recited it the same. The poet said, “no I wrote it.”
So those poets were like a photocopy machine. Awliyaullah have students that are like a mirror and immediately they reflect their knowledge in the heart of their students. These are rare students and they are true reflectors of the shaykh’s teaching.
We continue next time.