A`udhu billah min ash-shaytaan 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

As these sessions have to be in succession, we were discussing the different stations in the previous session, and we explained the first station, the station of repentance.

After that station is the station of al-wara, or God-awareness.  It means to be … that you, if we say this one has wara, it means he has given complete attention and nothing can change him or move him from what his goal is, and that is Allah .

It means he will try to do as much as he can in order to achieve Allah’s love.  As we said, when someone begins to regret his wrongdoings, he begins to repent.  When they repent it means they are trying to be more religious; to progress further in the journey of seeking Allah’s presence.  We say that person has wara: it means he has awareness.  He is no longer heedless, that heedlessness is in the first station where we described the moment of heedlessness that comes and takes him away from Allah’s obedience.

The Prophet (saws) said, "There are seven different stations in which Allah will give shade from the sun on Judgment Day;” that day on which the sun is burning every head.  Allahu Akbar!

 Imagine you are in the heat of the desert, at noontime in summer.  What will happen to your head?  Your brain will be boiling.  On Judgment Day Allah orders the sun to move from its solar system and it will be 70 dhira`a, - 70 arms from the heads, or double the height of this ceiling over the earth.  The Prophet (saws) said that Allah will give shade to seven different levels of human beings.  One of them is nashat fee hubbillah or nashat fee ta`at illah - A child raised in Allah’s obedience, meaning that anything he did in his life was in obedience to Allah and to the Prophet(saws).

One question: who can raise his hand and say "from my childhood I was in obedience to Allah ?”  Can you?  [No]  Can you?  [No]  They might, because they are young.

Can anyone else?  So then they will erase it.  Today if someone wants to do a business he studies all the possibilities and he makes a feasibility study to see if that business will lose money or earn money.  Say?  He continues with it or he stops?  [he stops]

That is a feasibility study.  Allah is calling us and the sun is above our heads.  The Prophet (saws) said that Allah will give His shade to one who was raised in complete obedience to Allah .  There is a risk there.  How can we eliminate that risk?  Have we thought about it; how to eliminate that risk?  No. Why not? - Because we are heedless.  We didn’t think about it.  Shaytan didn’t let us realize that there is a risk.  Go ahead, you are ok.  You don’t need to check.  After destroying yourself and coming to an age of 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 still Allah is saying to you, "Repent, I will forgive you."  Subhanallah!  See that mercy that we never understand the meaning of:  that Allah is saying, “I am not closing my door, come at any time.”

So that wara, that love of Allah and the love of the Prophet (saws) makes you try to do more; to raise your level.  Like in college if you get a ‘D’ or a ‘C’ they tell you to retake the test in order to get an ‘A’ or an ‘A+’.  As long as we breathe Allah is giving us a chance.  It might be that you take a breath and make istighfaar and repent and then Azraeel comes to take your soul...

So they asked Rabi`a, “Why you don’t marry?”  She answered, “I am busy.  I am busy in istighfaar, seeking forgiveness from Allah .”

After you say your prayers you make istighfaar.  You pray and after it we say istaghfirullah, istighfaarullah al-`adheem wa atubu ilayh.  It means we are doing istighfaar of the prayer we just finished which is not perfect and incomplete and asking Allah to forgive us for any shortcomings in our prayers.  That is why the Prophet (saws) used to say istaghfirullah after every prayer: to teach us our pray because our prayers have a lot of shortcoming in them.  Alhamdulillah we prayed but if not for Allah’s mercy they are not even accepted.  So these shortcomings need istighfaar.  The concept of wara means to be aware that any `amal we do has shortcomings in it.

So that wara is to try to progress in making Allah satisfied with us.  One of kibaar al-qawm, akaabir, we say, those people who are the elite of the community and society. Who are the elite of community and society?  [prophets].  That was a good answer, the way you answered that.  The elite are not those who are leaders of ministers or congressmen or members of parliament… the leaders and elite are those who are following the footsteps of the Prophet (saws).  Those are the leaders, the pious, and the saints whom Allah gave that description, ala awliyaullah la khawfan alayhim…

And don’t be sad.  He said ‘the elite of society’ - that means the saints; that means to be faithful to Allah , follow the footsteps of the Prophet (saws), and do not let your heart be away from Allah’s presence for the blink of any eye.

To repeat, not to let your heart be away from Allah’s presence for one moment or a blink of an eye.

That means those people spent their lives, always and every moment of their lives, in the awareness, the alertness, and the awakening that Allah is looking at them and at the same time they are looking at His manifestations that he is blessing them with and they are approaching nearer and nearer to His divine presence.

Every moment of our lives what are we doing?  Eating?  Is there anything else?  Sleeping?  Sleeping is good; at least you don’t commit sins when sleeping.  Eating, sleeping, or watching TV.  Going here and going there, with no awareness.  That means no real love in the heart.  When you are in love your heart is occupied with the one you love.  So what do you think if your heart is occupied with Allah’s love?  Those elite, those saints, they said that wara means God-awareness; God wariness?  They say that you should not talk about anything.  Keep your mouth closed.  Keep your mouth shut; don’t talk.

Sayyidina Ali said that if you want safety, don’t talk; keep silent.  Is anyone silent today?  If the house is not on fire, people cannot live happy.  You know what "on fire"   means.  It means that if they don’t fight with their wives or husbands they don’t sleep nicely at night.  They have to fight with someone…husbands and wives.  You did this, no you did this.  No you did that…

Sayyidina Ali said that there are four things that guarantee you Paradise… if you keep these four things.  One of them is silence.  Either speak something beneficial or don’t talk.

That is wara.  You become too religious.  Or you don’t become religious and you become more extreme, more violent.  When you become more religious you become more loving of whatever Allah has created.  You love them: you don’t want to harm them.  That is wara.  So he said the importance is for the servant not to talk.  If he wants to talk only answer what is necessary to be answered.

There was one lady in Egypt, (she died now, but she was famous), who, from the age of nine years old memorized The Holy Quran.  There are people from age seven who memorized The Holy Quran.  I know very ingenuous people who, from age five, memorized The Holy Quran.  That lady who, from age nine, memorized The Holy Quran never answered any question that her husband or her children asked except by an ayah from The Holy Quran.  She never spoke anything that is not in The Holy Quran.  She was able to put the ayats in a sequence from beginning to middle to end and give an answer to any question.  That was very well-known.  She did not want to be asked on Judgment Day about what she had spoken in her life.  She didn’t say anything except from The Holy Quran.  There are people like that.  Let us look at ourselves.  We get our answers from where? - from The Holy Quran?  When we fight, how much angry we are and we are fighting and arguing for issues that only disturb our lives and the lives of others.

So he said, that pious person, “You don’t need to talk except what is haqq.”

You speak the truth, whether they like it or not.  Your job is to speak the truth.  That is from wara.  When you are taken by Allah’s love, you must speak the truth and you cannot speak other than the truth.  All your attention and all your focus is on Allah and His Prophet (saws); nothing else.  You want Allah and His Prophet (saws) to be happy with you.

“Al-jidaal yudfi` nur al-qalb - Argument extinguishes the light of the heart.”  So any kinds of arguments you make, as they tell you in these talk shows, is crossfire.  You’ve seen that?  What do they do?  One is sitting on this side and one is sitting on that side.  [debate]  What is a debate? - That is a debate.  They took a PhD course on how to argue: only destructive argument.  Nothing constructive comes out of it.  It is to teach people not to accept anyone other than themselves.  That one argues and that one argues.  They cannot cross section in anything; they are parallel.  When you are traveling parallel - never can you meet.  Then why argue on TV; to confuse people.  That is why the Prophet (saws) said that argument extinguishes the light of the heart.  So your heart is the focus now, how much can a heater resist argument that comes from within you?  Try always, but shaytan tries to bring the argumentative nature from within you in order to create fitna; confusion.  Look at children's behavior: don’t look at yourself.  You consider yourself elite.  Look at children who, when they argue, they don’t necessarily argue by talking but by shoving each other.  That is tabi`a al-`adwaniyya: the antagonistic nature even in a child who is pure…They are shoving and beating each other.  And if someone bigger is not looking after them, like seven years, they go to others and best them or they might harm each other because of that antagonistic nature.  So how can we keep away from that?  The heart must be aware of what the heart is hearing, what it is seeing, and what it is speaking.  Then, that heart acts accordingly.

So the one who chooses that way, he has to know that he has three years of hard work in front of him.  Some people tell you that they have three years for the PhD after the Masters.  They need to study for three years; they are so busy writing and studying.  You have to know that for anyone choosing the way of Sufis, the way of seeking the way to Allah, the first three years of his journey are going to be a certain way in order for him to achieve his goal and this is still only in the second station of wara.  The first year of his journey is maqsouratan` ala khidmat il-khalq.  The first year has to be dedicated only to helping people; to giving service to people - that is the first year.  You cannot do anything else if you want your PhD.  If you truly want your PhD then that is your job.  Who is doing that? - No one.  How do we say we are in tariqah?

So the first year of that journey has to be spent giving service to everyone.  A few people are doing that in their lives.  They dedicate their lives to the shaykh.  They go and sit with their shaykh and do whatever he needs.  I saw that all my life while being with Grand-Shaykh and Mawlana Shaykh and these people come and stay with Shaykh and dedicate their lives.  They were in the service of their shaykh for five years, ten, fifteen, twenty, or even fifty years.

Grand-Shaykh had a servant.  Not a servant but someone who is wari.  His name was Abu Bakr and he was from Dagestan.  He dedicated his life to Grand-Shaykh and he lived for 108 years and died in Aleppo.

Since he was young, Abu Bakr was serving him in the way of Gnosticism until he died.  If I recall he was with Grand-Shaykh for at least 99 years.

There are people like him who they gave their lives for their shaykh.  What is needed from us is to be in service to everyone - every student or every follower or everyone in need of help for one year?  Let us look at ourselves.  Are we doing that?  Some might, but not everyone.

In the first year when you show Allah love, it means you have to give service to his creation.  That is first year because the service you are giving is because they are Allah’s servants.  For every person Allah manifested a different name and that person appears with that name.  That is why the Prophet (saws) said that every person has seven names: one that your parents called you six names that refer to the heavens that they will call you there.  There is a certain name for you; not the name everyone knows.  When you do service to Allah’s servants because your love to Allah is so great, you have to love his servants.  We said many times when you love your shaykh then you have to love the mureeds as you love the shaykh.  It is difficult to love the mureeds but it is easy to love your shaykh.

The second year of service is to be in the service of your Creator.  Your level has been raised; you learned how to serve humanity so now you can go to the level of being in service to your Creator.  Allah doesn’t need you but you need him.  He is independent of everyone but you’re in need of him.  You need that worship in order to be connected to your lord.  So the second year is to be in service to your lord by worshipping Allah : nothing else.  Love of the Prophet (saws) and love of mashaykh.  That will push you forward.

The third year is to keep focusing, muraqabat al-qalb.  To keep observing where your heart is, turning.  Yameelu.  You have to make sure it is always turning to Allah .

By the third year, after service to humanity, and service to the creator, your heart is focusing nicely on Allah’s divine presence.  At the end of the third year, if the years have been completed well, your shaykh will dress you with the reality of shaykh-hood and you will become a deputy who can run the affairs of the shaykh for his mureeds.

It is not an easy task to be a representative of the shaykh without following this procedure.  This is the second level, or second station, and insha-Allah we will continue to the third one next time.

Many of those whom you called just now have appeared and they were looking at us.  That is why we felt like we had goose-bumps in the last five minutes.  You feel the pleasure of their appearances, and we were in the presence of the Prophet (saws) in Rawdat ash-Sharifah.  They have taken us all there in the last five minutes.  We don’t know when these doors and windows are opened and that is why it is important to keep doing these things, as sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn’t and you don’t know when it will happen.  When you are praising Allah and reciting then for sure that moment will come and tonight we had a moment of those precious Divine Appearances and that is why Mawlana ordered me to sit and to observe the Divine Appearances here.

May Allah guide us and may Allah support us and your coming here is not for wasting time

In one of Mawlana's talks in Sri Lanka - in one of the books, Mawlana said, “I am going to put a qiblah in the middle of this continent, in the Midwest, for everyone to reach the destination he is seeking.”  That means to seek the journey to Allah’s presence.  Now, twenty years after what he said, suddenly, out of the blue, we took this place here.  It’s not Makkah, but we took this place here that became a place like qiblah; not a qiblah like Makkah but a place here that you feel is like Makkah.  In 1993 Mawlana Shaykh came to America specially to open that place and Alhamdulillah Allah opened for us his endless favors and may Allah make every step, however many footsteps you have taken, may Allah multiply with thousands and thousands more for your reward that you are coming for love of Allah , for the love of the Prophet (saws) and the love of Mawlana Shaykh.  May Allah forgive us all - bi hurmatil Fatiha.

Now we’ll see you tomorrow and salaam is enough.  We meet in morning; you all come.