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Oppose the Self and Satan

Shaykh Hisham Kabbani

20 February 2016 Burton, Michigan

As-Siddiq Institute & Mosque (ASIM)

A`oodhu billahi min ash-Shaytaani 'r-rajeem. Bismillaahi 'r-Rahmaani 'r-Raheem.

Nawaytu 'l-arba`een, nawaytu 'l-`itikaaf, nawaytu 'l-khalwah, nawaytu 'l-`uzlah,

nawaytu 'r-riyaada, nawaytu 's-salook, lillahi ta'ala al-`Azheem fee hadha 'l-masjid.

أَطِيعُواْ اللّهَ وَأَطِيعُواْ الرَّسُولَ وَأُوْلِي الأَمْرِ مِنكُمْ

Atee`oollaha wa atee`oo 'r-Rasoola wa ooli 'l-amri minkum.

Obey Allah, obey the Prophet, and obey those in authority among you. (Surat an-Nisa, 4:59)

Al-Kareem likes for His weak servant to call on Him, that is why He made him a servant. In the religious meaning, an `abd is someone who is obeying Allah (swt), so if we obey Allah with the good intentions that we are asking, yaa Rabb, with Your Generosity, with our weaknesses we have no way to be in such a Garden of Paradise, Majlis adh-Dhikr, but as Grandshaykh (q) said if you say the intention then that meeting will become a seclusion and whatever awliyaullah receive from Rahmatullah and Rahmatu ‘n-Nabi (s) they distribute to people who are in khalwah, so this becomes a real khalwah through which Allah will grant His servants endless rewards that He and the Prophet (s) describe as:

قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم: إذا مررتم برياض الجنة فارتع. قالو وما رياض الجنة؟ قال "حلق الذكر"

Ibn `Umar reported that the Prophet (s) said: "When you pass by the Gardens of Paradise, avail yourselves of them." The Companions asked: "What are the Gardens of Paradise, O Messenger of Allah?" He replied: "The circles of dhikr.” (Tirmidhi)

When you pass by the Gardens of Paradise, sit in them. The Sahaabah (r) asked, “What are the Gardens of Paradise?” The Prophet (s) said, “The circles of dhikr.” So we start with dhikr and see where we end up, 40 minutes with the intention of khalwah. [Khatm.]

Allah (swt),Huwa al-Kareem, narju karamahu wa `afwuhu. Fa Huwa ‘l-kareem, lahu ma yashaa, nahnu `ibaadun `aajizooon, natlub al-maghfirah, wa naqool yaa Rabbana afid `alayna min tajalliyaat as-samaa, afid `alayna min tajalliyyaat al-jinan, afid `alayna min tajalliyaat rahmatak wa baddil hadhihi ‘l-jalsa ila khalwa hatta nuktab min al-muqtadeen li- Llahi `Azza wa Jall bi hurmati 'l-habeeb bi hurmati ‘l-Fatihah.

A`oodhu billahi min ash-Shaytaani 'r-rajeem. Bismillaahi 'r-Rahmaani 'r-Raheem.

Nawaytu 'l-arba'een, nawaytu'l-'itikaaf, nawaytu'l-khalwah, nawaytu 'l-'uzlah, nawaytu 'r-riyaada, nawaytu 's-salook, lillahi ta'ala fee hadha 'l-masjid nawayna as-siyaam `an al-kalaam li ‘l-mustami`een fee hadhal majlis fee hadha ‘l-makaan fee hadha ‘l-masjid inshaa-Allah.

Yaqool ibn `Umar as-Safadi (r): wa khaalif an-nafsa wa ‘l-hawwaa wa laa tuti`huma, aydan Imam Busayri and awliyaullah and prophets say oppose the self, whatever the self asks you to do, do the opposite, be sure you disobey your desires, both the nafs and the devil, if you want to reach al-Hayyat, the Eternal Life. Therefore, the key to Eternal Life is disobedience: disobedience of the self. Allah loves His servant when He disobeys his or her self, and Allah hates those who obey their desires and their selves.

Ibn `Umar as-Safadi knew that secret and said, “Disobey them,” try not to think about it, say 'no'! Someone will say, “I don't understand much Shari`ah, I don't know my hudood, limits, so how can I know what is good and what is bad?” Awliyaullah say Allah (swt) is giving you a scale to check what is good and bad.

وَالسَّمَاءَ رَفَعَهَا وَوَضَعَ الْمِيزَانَ أَلَّا تَطْغَوْا فِي الْمِيزَانِ وَأَقِيمُوا الْوَزْنَ بِالْقِسْطِ وَلَا تُخْسِرُوا الْمِيزَانَ

He raised the Heavens and He put the Scale so that you do not exceed the measure (limits), so observe the measure strictly, nor fall short of it. (Surat ar-Rahman, 55:8-10)

Allah gave you a scale to measure what you are doing. We have to balance everything, but how? Awliyaullah said everyone has a capacity to understand somewhat, although not the same because everyone cannot know everything, but they know something:

وَمَا أُوتِيتُم مِّن الْعِلْمِ إِلاَّ قَلِيلاً

(O Mankind!) Of knowledge, only a little is communicated to you. (Surat al-Israa’, 17:85)

Allah gave you something in your mind, and how big is the mind, the dhaakira, where you download all the information? It is not larger than a lentil seed. You can download all your life in it; sometimes you forget, but that chip is there and it does not forget. That is why we have to be careful to do istighfaar in every moment, “Astaghfirullah al-`Azheem wa atoobu ilayh,” because we don’t know what we have done, we have forgotten. Al-insaan min an-nisiyaan, the word ‘insaan’ is from nisyaan, to forget. If you don't forget you cannot live as you will see every moment of your life you are doing shirk, disobeying Allah (swt) and His Prophet (s), obeying yourself and your ego! That’s why Allah makes you forget.

اتَّقِ اللَّهَ حَيْثُمَا كُنْتَ , وَأَتْبِعِ السَّيِّئَةَ الْحَسَنَةَ تَمْحُهَا , وَخَالِقِ النَّاسَ بِخُلُقٍ حَسَنٍ

Be conscious of Allah wherever you are, follow a bad deed with a good deed so it will remove it [the bad deed] and treat people with good manners. (Ahmad, Tabarani)

When you do something wrong, immediately follow it with something good, it will erase the bad. Don’t postpone it or you will forget to do it, then the opportunity is finished, gone. Can you count how many sins you have done? No. Can you count how many good deeds? No. When you do something and you don’t record it, after a while it goes, but that chip in the back of your head will count every good and bad thing like a timer.

إِن كُلُّ مَن فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ إِلَّا آتِي الرَّحْمَـٰنِ عَبْدًا لَّقَدْ أَحْصَاهُمْ وَعَدَّهُمْ عَدًّا وَكُلُّهُمْ آتِيهِ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ فَرْدًا

All the beings in the Heavens and the Earth must come as a servant to (Allah) The Most Gracious. He takes an account of them (all), and has numbered them (all) exactly and every one of them will come to Him individually on the Day of Judgment. (Surat Maryam, 19:93-95)

Allah has counted every single thing and has numbered them one-by-one and all of them will come in front of Him one-by-one on Judgment Day. This is not limited to human beings: Allah has appointed angels to record whatever good you did and whatever bad you did, wa `addahum `add a, and one by one they will come in front of Him on the Day of Judgement. Wa-kulluhum aatihi yawm al-qiyaamati farda, all our`amal will come to Allah (swt) to witness on us whatever good and bad we did. If you say, “Laa ilaaha illa-Llah Muhammadan Rasoolullah” once, it will be your heaviest deed in the Scale against all your sins. So when you realize you did something wrong and you want to balance it, Allah gave you a chip, that mind, to tell you according to your capacity:

لاَ يُكَلِّفُ اللّهُ نَفْسًا إِلاَّ وُسْعَهَا لَهَا مَا كَسَبَتْ وَعَلَيْهَا مَا اكْتَسَبَتْ

On no soul does Allah place a burden greater than it can bear. It gets every good that it earns and it suffers every ill that it earns. (Surat al-Baqarah, 2:286)

Allah does not ask of you more than you can do: He created you, He created everyone, subhaan-Allah, and Muhammadan Rasoolullah is the one to whom Allah showed His Creation, because:

وإعلموا أن فيكم رسول الله

And know Allah's Messenger is in you. (Surat al-Hujuraat, 49:7)

Noor an-Nabi (s) is in every `abd! I will leave this for now. So He counted them for you and that chip you have in the back of your mind is recording everything. We are explaining the work of the two angels, on the left and on the right as assigned to every person. The first one on the right will immediately write the reward for the good `amal, and the left one will wait 24 hours for you to seek forgiveness, wa-atbi` as-sayyi’ata al-hasanah, for you to follow badness with goodness. He is waiting, so don't run away! If you did something wrong, it's okay [there is a way to correct it]: make istighfaar and immediately it will be erased and Allah will reward you. So we use the mind Allah gave us to balance any situation according to our capacity. If our mind says it’s okay and there is no harm from that, then it’s okay to do it. If your mind says there is something wrong with that thing, then don’t do it, don’t follow your desire. Immediately the mind will present you the two choices, the good and the bad from that issue, as Allah opens your mind to see what is good or bad, according to the verse:

فَأَلْهَمَهَا فُجُورَهَا وَتَقْوَاهَا . قَدْ أَفْلَحَ مَن زَكَّاهَا

He inspired the self of its good and its bad. Truly he succeeds that purifies it. (Surat ash-Shams, 91:8-9)

Through His angels, every moment Allah inspires the self to know what is good and what is bad, according to your capacity. Now a wali might look at something and to him it is a sin because he is looking from a very high level, so he says, “No, that is shirk al-khafiyy.” But we are weak servants, we don’t know, so our capacity is very small, we cannot measure against ourselves what they consider a sin because they are higher, and that’s why a wali continues to rise up:

اتقوا فراسة المؤمن فإنه ينظر بنور الله

Beware the vision of the Believer, for he sees with the Light of Allah. (Tirmidhi)

He observes with Allah’s (swt) Noor, using that power/energy to see according to his level, which restricts him much more than the weak servant who is like a 2-year old child you carry when he falls down, but you cannot carry an adult. Our small sin is big for awliyaullah and that is why Allah (swt) rewards them according to their opposition to any obstacle: ar-rukhsah hiya ‘l-`azheema, yanzhuroon min taraf al-`azheemah, they look from the highest level and that is why they guide us.

The Prophet (s) looks to the Ummah from Qaaba Qawsayni aw Adnaa and he raised them up to that level; also, his intention is to raise his Ummah up to that level, but what can we do? Don't be proud of yourself, you are nothing! When you see yourself as zero, then you are everything.

So he said to reach the fruit, if you want to taste the sweetness of Paradise, oppose and to disobey your nafs. When you ask--that is why the Prophet (s) said:

لا راحة في الدين

There is no rest in religion.

“There is no taking a break in religion.” Laa raahata fid-deen, raahat is in the end when you reach the shore of safety, on the other side. Dunya is ad-daniya, the disgusting one. So disobey your self.

Today no one is disobeying himself or herself. Even the children they tell them, “Keep them on their nature, do what you want,” they run left, they run right, no one says anything. They build them up on wrong ways, leave them to their nature. For what to leave them to their nature? Someone who has no mind you leave to his nature? A child has no mind! He doesn’t know, you are throwing him in fire. So when you clean yourself by disobeying yourself you have to remember that the Prophet (s) said:

قُلُوبَ بَنِي آدَمَ كُلَّهَا بَيْنَ إِصْبَعَيْنِ مِنْ أَصَابِعِ الرَّحْمَنِ

The heart of the servant is between The Two Fingers of The Most Merciful. (Sahih Muslim:2654)

Not “two fingers” in the literal meaning, but between His Irada, so when Allah (swt) sees that you are coming to Him walking, He comes to you running and when you come to Him with a clean heart, He will turn it for you. Like with old-style, small toys that you wind up then they move, when you drop yourself down (lower yourself), Allah winds you to guide you to as-Siraat al-Mustaqeem. That is why He said to Sayyidina Bayazid al-Bistami (q), Itruk nafsaka wa ta`al, “Leave yourself and come to Me.” Allah wants His `abd to come, but the `abd says “No, I am busy.” Busy with what? “Dunya, yaa Rabbee.” Astaghfirullah.

رَبَّنَا آتِنَا فِي الدُّنْيَا حَسَنَةً وَفِي الآخِرَةِ حَسَنَةً وَقِنَا عَذَابَ النَّارِ

Our Lord! Give us good in this world and good in the Hereafter, and defend us from the torment of the Fire! (Surat al-Baqara, 2:201)

Allah gave you in dunya, but not to turn it upside-down; rather, to walk through it like a minefield to teach you how to avoid Shaytan and move forward. Dunya is a training area, like in the army you use your instruments and be careful. Allah gave us instruments also in this dunya: say, “A`oodhu billahi min ash-Shaytaani 'r-rajeem. Bismillaahi 'r-Rahmaani 'r-Raheem” and Shaytan will run away, but we forget, that is why we are insaan, forgetful, from the word ‘nisyaan’.

If I give you an accounting report of numbers, you will understand them now, but 2-3 days later you will forget them; you lose that time limit. If you audits the report of your deeds for Akhirah, you will find lots of your mistakes in dunya and if you balance it by doing istighfaar immediately, before you sleep, Allah (swt) will turn them all to hasanaat. Don't say ‘no’ to that, because Allah said:

قُلْ يَا عِبَادِيَ الَّذِينَ أَسْرَفُوا عَلَى أَنفُسِهِمْ لَا تَقْنَطُوا مِن رَّحْمَةِ اللَّهِ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَغْفِرُ الذُّنُوبَ جَمِيعًا إِنَّهُ هُوَ الْغَفُورُ الرَّحِيمُ

[O Muhammad!] Say, "O my Servants who have transgressed against their souls! Despair not of the mercy of Allah, for Allah forgives all sins, for He is The Oft-Forgiving, The Most Merciful.

(Surat az-Zumar, 39:53)

To whom is He saying, “Don't lose hope of Allah’s Mercy.” If you did something wrong, ask forgiveness, subhaan-Allah, you will be amazed! Look at the human being’s system, how Allah made the heart synchronize with the kidney, the kidney with the mind, how the order comes to the stomach from the mind; first it comes through the heart and goes to the mind, the mind sends messages, very strong emails to the body to follow the orders that are coming. Who did that? How many letters are in ‘Laa ilaaha illa-Llah’? Twelve letters. How many letters are in ‘Muhammadun Rasoolullah’? Twelve letters. Also there are twelve letters in Sayyidina ‘Abu Bakr as-Siddiq’, Sayyidina ‘`Umar ibn al-Khattab’, Sayyidina ‘`Ali bin Abi Talib’.. Who did that? Laa ilaaha illa-Llah Muhammadun Rasoolullah! Look at what Allah (swt) is saying:

سَنُرِيهِمْ آيَاتِنَا فِي الْآفَاقِ وَفِي أَنفُسِهِمْ حَتَّى يَتَبَيَّنَ لَهُمْ أَنَّهُ الْحَقُّ

We will show them Our Signs on the horizon and in their own selves until it becomes evident to them that it is the Truth. (Surah Fussilat, 41:53)

This means you have to reach your horizon, but which horizon? When you reach it, there is another horizon and then another, it never ends. Still, the order is to reach your horizon and you will reach it, but not by your effort. When Allah (swt) sees you are serious in following His orders, He will order His angels to carry you from this side of the ocean to the other side, even without a vessel, as the Bedouin who came to the Prophet (s) said, “Yaa Sayyidee, yaa Rasoolullah! The principles of Islam are too much for me.” Like we hear people say today, “My mind does not work,” like me and you. It is better to admit that we have no mind, because if we say we have a mind, then Allah will judge us according to what we said, so it is better to say, “Yaa Rabbee! My mind is in Your Hand and my heart is between Your Two Fingers! I cannot do anything, You can do everything. Inspire me,” then Allah will give.

So the Bedouin came to the Prophet (s) from the desert saying, “It is too much, I cannot handle it.” That means even if he worshipped `ibaadat ath-thaqalayn and Allah does not want him to be in Paradise, he cannot be in Paradise, and if he worshipped `ibaadat ath-thaqalayn and Allah wants him in Paradise, His will puts him in Paradise without looking at his worshipness. Yaa Rabbee, put us in Your Paradises without looking at our `amal! [Ameen!] That does not mean you don’t have to pray; no, you must do your obligations. Just as you eat three times a day, you need to pray five times a day. However, we are like Imam Sahib said today in the Jumu`ah Khutbah, “The human being is a talking animal.” So that Bedouin knew whatever he did of Shari`ah he has to do it, like we eat three times a day and we pray five times a day, but if he is proud of his knowledge that is not going to take him to the Shore of Safety. That is a big obstacle, because all of us see our `amal and are proud of what we are doing. That Bedouin was not proud of himself, he knew it was not going to take him anywhere because he knew he could not claim to be something, when the Prophet (s) says:

قُلْ إِنَّمَا أَنَا بَشَرٌ مِّثْلُكُمْ يُوحَى إِلَيَّ أَنَّمَا إِلَهُكُمْ إِلَهٌ وَاحِدٌ فَمَن كَانَ يَرْجُو لِقَاء رَبِّهِ فَلْيَعْمَلْ عَمَلًا صَالِحًا

وَلَا يُشْرِكْ بِعِبَادَةِ رَبِّهِ أَحَدًا

Say, "I am but a man like yourselves, (but) the inspiration has come to me that your Allah is one Allah. Whoever expects to meet his Lord, let him work righteousness and in the worship of his Lord admit no one as partner. (Surat al-Kahf, 18:110)

I am like you, a human being.” He (s) can say that, but we have to say he is a human being, but not like us as he reached Qaaba Qawsayni aw Adnaa and we reached nothing except to the soil: we put our feet on Earth and Allah elevated him (s)! That is of great significance to Ahlu ‘l-Islam, that Allah took His Prophet (s) and praised him and raised him high with his Ummah, Prophet (s) would not go without his Ummah, all the souls of his Ummah followed him:

قُلْ إِن كُنتُمْ تُحِبُّونَ اللّهَ فَاتَّبِعُونِي يُحْبِبْكُمُ اللّهُ وَيَغْفِرْ لَكُمْ ذُنُوبَكُمْ وَاللّهُ غَفُورٌ رَّحِيمٌ

Say (O Muhammad), "If you (really) love Allah, then follow me! Allah will love you and forgive your sins, and Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” (Surat Aali-'Imraan, 3:31)

“If you love Allah,” and of course Ummat an-Nabi (s) loves Allah, “then hold the jubbah, robe, of the Prophet (s) and follow him and Allah will love you.” When you see a nice child, you hug him, hold him and love him. Allah has given the Prophet (s):

كُنتُمْ خَيْرَ أُمَّةٍ أُخْرِجَتْ لِلنَّاسِ تَأْمُرُونَ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَتَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ الْمُنكَرِ وَتُؤْمِنُونَ بِاللّهِ

You were the best of Nations evolved for Mankind, enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong and believing in Allah. (Surat Aali-`Imraan, 3:110)

“You are the best nation that Allah has sent to humanity,” because of the Prophet (s), so when He invited Prophet (s) He also invited the whole Ummah with him! You cannot invite a father and not invite his one-year-old or one-day-old child. All of us are not even one day old, we are not but a moment old--this moment! Past, present, future is all but a moment and you cannot base yourself on something that does not exist! The moment is what is important. That moment when the day comes is not existing, every moment appears and it has a past, it is present and it has a future and the future becomes past and then you forget. Allah brings you back. Allah does not forget, you forget. So what will He do?

He will present you your `amal, saying, “This is what you have done. Do you recognize that?”

“Yes Rabbee, I recognise that, but I did not do it!”

“How you did not do it?”

“Shaytan did it and yaa Rabbee, You cursed Shaytan and You let him run after me.” Allah will inspire you to say something to defend yourself: He wants to save you! “You cursed Shaytan and brought him from Paradise and put him on Earth, You put us on Earth and you are looking at us, laughing!”

[Laughter.] Allahu Akbar! Allah is merciful and likes His servant to have a sense of humor. The Prophet (s) sat with his Sahaabah (r) with a sense of humor. Awliyaullah have a sense of humor; in their suhbah and advice they taught us these things to keep the environment happy and your students will do better, so give your students A+ even though they don't deserve except F, failure, and they will be happy with you. That is what Allah is saying, “You make one hasanah and I give you ten.” He is happy with us.

So when He invited Prophet (s) to Qaaba Qawsayni aw Adnaa of course his Ummah followed him. From that high level he is looking and of course it is different than when you look from Earth to Earth--when you look from the plane you can see the whole city, but when you are on the ground you see one house, or one street. From above you can see everything. Allah gave Awliyaullah power to see from the top. That is why He said:

أَلا إِنَّ أَوْلِيَاء اللّهِ لاَ خَوْفٌ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلاَ هُمْ يَحْزَنُونَ

Alaa inna Awliyaaullaahi laa khawfun `alayhim wa laa hum yahzanoon.

Behold! Verily on the Friends of Allah there is no fear, nor shall they grieve. (Surah Yunus, 10:62)

It means, “I am opening My Treasures to them, I don’t make them fear something. I am opening everything to them bi rahmatee.” Allah opens everything for them so they look from up and see everyone. So what do you think when Sayyidina Muhammad (s) entered Mecca victorious. What did he say?

اذهبوا فأنتم الطلقاء

Go (as you please) for you are freed. (Seerah of Ibn Hisham, Tarikh of Tabari)

“I am freeing you all although you abused me, you tortured me, you abused my family, my Sahaabah, killed us, I am forgiving everyone.” That is Islam, it is not to take revenge. That is how to come to Allah (swt) not by revenge but to come to His Mercy. He said, “Who comes to Me walking, I will come to him running.”

قَالَ اللَّهُ عَزَّ وَجَلَّ أَنَا عِنْدَ ظَنِّ عَبْدِي بِي وَأَنَا مَعَهُ حَيْثُ يَذْكُرُنِي وَاللَّهِ لَلَّهُ أَفْرَحُ بِتَوْبَةِ عَبْدِهِ مِنْ أَحَدِكُمْ يَجِدُ ضَالَّتَهُ بِالْفَلَاةِ وَمَنْ تَقَرَّبَ إِلَيَّ شِبْرًا تَقَرَّبْتُ إِلَيْهِ ذِرَاعًا وَمَنْ تَقَرَّبَ إِلَيَّ ذِرَاعًا تَقَرَّبْتُ إِلَيْهِ بَاعًا وَإِذَا أَقْبَلَ إِلَيَّ يَمْشِي أَقْبَلْتُ إِلَيْهِ أُهَرْوِلُ

Allah the Exalted says: I am as My servant expects Me and I am with him as he remembers Me. If he remembers Me in himself, then I will remember him in Myself. If he mentions Me in a gathering, then I will mention him in a greater gathering. When he draws near to me by the span of his hand, I draw near him by the length of a cubit. When he draws near me by the length of a cubit, I draw near him by the length of a fathom. When he comes to me walking, I will come to him running. [Sahih Bukhari 6970. Muttafaqun `alayhi]

So you try to make the Ummah feel welcomed by forgiving them like the Prophet (s) forgave all of the people of Mecca. What did he do for Abu Sufyan, the worst enemy? He freed him! So Awliyaullah ask Allah to free us from Hellfire and that is what we need to ask. Do you ask for Paradise? Yes: Rabbanaa aatina fid-dunya hasanatan wa fil-akhirati hasanah. “We ask for good in dunya and good in Akhirah.” In dunya, good is to be given to work for Akhirah and in Akhirah good is to be in the highest level of Paradise to see Allah azza wa Jall, as Allah promised, “They will see Me in Paradise.” May Allah make us from them, that we can reach that level; that is not something in our hands.

When the soul is coming out, someone is dying you don't see anything, but you can see he is talking and opening his mouth, but what is going out? That Qudrah, Heavenly Power that He put inside your body to make your body move, ar-Ruh. You can understand it, but you cannot see it. Like you know electricity illuminates lamps, but you cannot see electricity, although its’ energy exists everywhere in different magnetic waves. If you use them correctly you can do with these waves all kinds of things that cannot be done. Awliyaullah are using these waves, because ultimately they are waves of energy.

At-Taaqah is the energy from the main source, through a transformer. You cannot directly take energy from the main source to illuminate lamps at night, you have to reduce the power from high voltage to low voltage, like 110 watts. It depends on where you are channeling it. Awliyaullah use that energy Allah has given them, they have transformers and they lower it to the level the mureed can carry and slowly open to him different waves of energy that allow him to understand himself. That electricity is the same: with a transformer you can power a lamp or air conditioner or a heater, or a microphone for a speaker to speak as the transformer drops the power to a level that you can use. Awliyaullah don't burn you, they don’t send you 360 volts! They give you maybe 6 volts, it’s enough, or maybe 1 volt is enough.

Awliyaullah know the soul is from Bahru ‘l-Qudrah, from the Ocean of Taaqah, Al-Qaadir, Al-Muqtadir: the soul comes from that ocean and when Allah takes it, everything stops. May Allah (swt) give us from heavenly sources all kinds of taaqah, energy. Dunya energy, electricity, can lift any kind of heavy container that even a hundred people cannot move, but with a crane and engine that works on taaqah, energy, you can lift ten or twenty thousand pounds. So what kind of power is in electricity? Do you think Awliyaullah don't have power like electricity? Allah gave them power to improve their followers from within them, which is why Allah said:

وإعلموا أن فيكم رسول الله

And know Allah's Messenger is in you. (Surat al-Hujuraat, 49:7)

He can be with his Ummah the whole time and the Ummah will not be separated from his gaze! “I observe the `amal of my Ummah. I look at them and I see what they are doing,” because he is within us!

Mawlana Shaykh Nazim, may Allah bless his soul, said that we are created from three Lights: min noori ‘Llah, ar-ruh bi-amrihi, allahu nooru ‘s-samaawaati wa ‘l-ard. From that Noor, from Noor an-Nabi (s)--khalaq al-khalq min noor an-nabi (s) wa min noori Adam (a) thalaathat anwaar kul `abd yataraqqa fi hadhihi ‘l-anwar ath-thalaatha, every servant of Allah will ascend in these three Lights.

The first level is to ascend in the Light you have been given from Sayyidina Adam (s), the worldly level. and Awliyaullah they take from that Power, then higher they take from the Prophet (s), Wa`lamoo anna feekum rasoolullah, from within them they enter the Light of the Prophet (s) and whatever the Prophet (s) opens to them to prepare them to reach the Divine Presence, the goal: to see Allah (swt) in Heavenly Lights and Paradises in Akhirah, to be ready to see what Allah wants them to see.

May Allah make us from that group! May Allah support us and bless us. Wa min Allahi 't-tawfeeq, bi hurmati 'l-habeeb, bi hurmati 'l-Fatihah.

[A mureed introduces a Hare Krishna man.]

Mawlana: How are you, sir?

[Better now! Pray for me. Thank you for seeing me.]

It’s your reflection.

[I am also trying to listen to the mind, but am finding it a struggle.]

All our actions are stored there, past present and future, because future becomes present and then becomes past, then new past, new present, new future. So keep struggling, then one day it will blossom as a flower. Thank you for coming. Anytime you want to come you are most welcome.

[He (a mureed) made me feel that way.]

He is a good person. He is struggling also.

[It feels better when I struggle with others. I’ll certainly be coming back.]

Thank you. God bless you.

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