A`udhu billah min ash-Shaytan ir-rajeem
Bismillahi 'r-Rahmani 'r-Raheem
Nawaytu'l-arba`een, nawaytu'l-`itikaaf, nawaytu'l-khalwah, nawaytu'l-riyaada, nawaytu's-salook, nawaytu'l-`uzlah lillahi ta`ala fee hadha'l-masjid
Ati` Allah wa ati` ar-rasula wa uli 'l-amri minkum
Allah swt made for everything a base. That can hold it that structure. Every structure has a foundation and what holds us standing and balancing is our feet. If you don’t have feet you fall down. Compare the feet to the body, how big they are. This much to this whole body and SubhanAllah this so much small yet it can carry the whole body.
To Allah swt there is no small and there is no big. When He wants something [He says:] “Kun fayakoon -be and it will be!” Look the feet of the elephant, how big they are? Like your feet. [laughs]
It is so small, this big is it not [size of plate]? But it can hold one ton, or it might be 2 tons, an elephant, weights 5000 lbs. and Allah swt made these feet of the elephant to hold the elephant. And Allah wants you to hold yourself also, he gave you your heart in order to build it up.
The structure of the heart, the foundation if you look into it, SubhanAllah, always Grandshaykh used to say “There are five levels in the heart. First is the heart itself, qalb, you can see it [shows two hands joined] and in that heart are four different levels. First secret, sirr, second is secret of the secret, sirr as-sirr, and then hidden, akhfa, is for the Prophet (s) and the most hidden, khafa.
And if you dissect the heart you will see there are four chambers. One is secret, one is sirr as-sirr, akhfa, khafa.
And Allah also put a small entrance there for Shaytan. Allah’s wisdom is to see how much you listen to him or you listen to Shaytan. Little bit he made an opening for Shaytan to go in. but he cannot go to the secret, sirr, to sirr as-sirr, khafa or akhfa. he cannot see them, hear them or even know about them, they are completely hidden from him. Sirr is where awliyaullah can enter. They can enter that chamber and from there they detected what is in the heats of their followers. Don’t think awliyaullah are deaf, blind and dumb. No they know they hear, they speak and they are not blind, they can see and they can hear and they can talk to you through that level. But they veil it from you as we don’t deserve it to be opened yet. it is like a chip that they keep filling it up. What do you call it? A memory chip. You are always filling it up and when it is full you try to download it to your computer. Then bring another one more and more. Secrets never end.
So awliyaullah they can all go there. The Secret of the secret is only for special group of awliyaullah that can go there, 7007 wali, they are at a higher level.
Then that is their limit, no more. Then you go to the next higher level, one level is state of the Prophet (s), he can control that in the heart of every person, it is akhfa, hidden and khafa, the most hidden. And the fourth is for Allah where the Prophet (s) doesn’t enter there except with Allah’s permission.
What all that Allah gave Shaytan permission to go into the main chamber in order to check on us. Are we going to listen to Shaytan or we are going to listen to Allah swt.
Allah swt, he made the structure of the base of the heart, the first level of these 4 chambers, the earth of the heart that awliya can steep on it in everyone’s heart in the level of secret, that base is called the first step in ma`rifatullah. Ma`rifah begins from there. If you have any kind of reception for these informations that are coming into the heart you have ma`rifah. Or else you know nothing. It is there in your heart but you need to open it up.
One time Grandshaykh used to say this story about a mureed of Sayyidina Abdul Qadir Jilani قدس سرّه, one of the greatest shaykhs 1000 years ago:
He called his mureed, come we like to walk together on the side of the river
Do you know Shaykh Mustafa, how to swim? [yes.] Ok, I don’t know.
So he pushed him. Falling down, the mureed didn’t move. Going all the way down and the Shaykh Sayyidina Abdul Qadir Jilani قدس سرّه, seeing the heart, the secret, not the main chamber where all kinds of gossips and all kinds of dunya issues go there, and Shaytan goes there, your family goes there, your bank account goes there, how many cars you have, which kind of colorful turban you are going to wear, how are the children doing in school, how I can cheat on my wife or the wife how to cheat on her husband - everything goes there. Sayyidina Abdul Qadir Jilani قدس سرّه was not looking there.
You know you have black bags for garbage, or white bags for garbage.
I was thinking about how they used to dump their garbage in old times. [there was no garbage] Ah, no garbage! It means they were eating everything, wasting everything. Not like us today. Like children, taking so much food on their plates then throwing it away. Look at your children how they are putting on their plates. Many times I look, you cannot speak with the children their parents become angry. Don’t tell them anything, they become [psychologically] complexed in the future. You are spoiling them, leaving them grazing like a sheep, so a wolf will come and eat it.
That is how we spoil our ego, we let it graze wherever it likes. Wherever you like to go, no problem, give it space.
Now children are so spoiled as soon as they become 16, 17 and finish high school, they say “we want to be independent.” Independent on what? On drug addicts, on gangs in the street? “I want to live alone.” What is the difference between living in the house and living alone? Living alone means they want to get all the boys and girls inside? Why do they want to live alone? What is there “alone”, “alone”? Their egoes tell them like that and we spoil them.
So in that heart Shaytan enters. But in the first level only. The secret is only accessed by 124,000 awliyaullah. So he looked and saw his mureed is submitting to everything. Not shaking like a salmon fish, going all the way up the hill and kill yourself. Lay your eggs at the bottom of the hill. Why do you have to go against the flow of the water. And at the end what? You die.
Allah wants to show us the example of the salmon fish, going against the ego, up and up and up, then at the end you die. That means the ego will die.
When you are struggling and not giving the ego what it wants, you are killing it then it reaches ma`rifah. When you control it you can enter the first chamber and get secrets there.
[Grandshaykh said:] So he wanted to check his mureed, he pushed him. He looked at the heart of the mureed: he is submitting, nothing.
And immediately he was reaching his hand under his feet and in that few seconds he was falling he reached him and was catching him and bringing him back up.
He gave him his trust.
At that time there was a Naqshbandi shaykh. One of the shaykhs of the Golden Chain of that time. He said, “If that was my mureed I would not give him his trust, as he doesn’t deserve it yet.”
Look at the difference between one Sufi way to another Sufi way. In that Sufi way he gave him his trust and in the other the Shaykh said, "no I will not.” Why? Because that Naqshbandi Shaykh was able to enter the second level, sirr as-sirr, secret of the secret. He was able to go there. Sayyidina Abdul Qadir Jilani قدس سرّه didn’t go there - he looked at the first level (sirr). Allah made him to look at the first level in order to bring out all this ma`rifah and knowledge.
[In reality, the other Shaykh said,] “How I can give him his trust when in the second level, the secret of the secret, he was complaining?” He detected it. Like today you have these satellite dishes, they can detect thousands of channels. But many of these channels are blocked; you need a code to enter them. So that wali had that code and was able to enter the higher chamber. He looked, “no you cannot get your trust yet.” Why not? Because there was a complaint in the heart of the second level. He zoomed in more. The first wali zoomed out more, so the picture became bigger. Then you cannot see every detail. When you zoom in you can see more detail. That [Naqshbandi] wali was using his microscope. He said, "No, you cannot give his trust to him.” That is why in the Naqshbandi Order it is very difficult to reach your trust. Until there will be no garbage from you, then they give it to you. There is no more garbage to throw. Finished you cleaned yourself.
At that level he was complaining and what was he complaining? Even he was complaining which was good complaining, he said “no!” to his trust.
He was saying [in his secret of secret heart] “I am not objecting to my Shaykh pushing me down in the river, I accept that, but what is the wisdom in that?” That is an objection in the Naqshbandi tariqah. You cannot get your trust. See how much tariqah is subtle. It is very delicate, you cannot break it.
He said, "I will not give him his secret.” That is the second level. What do you think about the third level that is in hand of the Prophet (s)? He can detect every smallest detail in your life and in your afterlife in … he can detect the smallest level of detail. Not just one tariqah or another, but all of them. And what do you think about the fourth level. So how much Allah swt is patient with us? That if these observations that they are observing in our heart what is going in from one level to another level is a lot of mistakes that might throw us in punishment. That is why Allah is hiding everything. He loves His servants, He created them; He wants them to be perfect.
So that is the bottom line, the earth of the heart. That is the first level, sirr, the secret. That secret leads you to ma`rifah, because when Sayyidina Abdul Qadir Jilani قدس سرّه looked at his mureed in that level, the earth of the heart was solid. It was the beginning of the journey of gnosticism and ma`rifah. That means that mureed will be given a balance:
وَالسَّمَاء رَفَعَهَا وَوَضَعَ الْمِيزَانَ
wa’s-sama rafaha wa wada` al-meezan. - And the sky He hath uplifted; and He hath set the Balance. [55:7]
The heavens He raised it and He put the Scale so you don’t overload the self from bad doings.
أَلَّا تَطْغَوْا فِي الْمِيزَانِ
Alaa tatghaw fi ’l-meezaan - That ye exceed not the measure. [55:8] [It means: ] “Don’t destroy the balance I gave you. Balance your things.”
وَأَقِيمُوا الْوَزْنَ بِالْقِسْطِ وَلَا تُخْسِرُوا الْمِيزَانَ
Wa aqeemu’l-waznu bi’l-qisti wa la tukhsiru’l-meezan-But observe the measure strictly, nor fall short thereof. [55:9]
[It means:] “Be sure you have the right balance and right measure in the Balance I gave to you.”
What is the Balance?
فَأَلْهَمَهَا فُجُورَهَا وَتَقْوَاهَا
fa alhamaha fujooraha wa taqwaaha – And inspired it (with conscience of) what is wrong for it and (what is) right for it. [91:8]
[It means:] “The balance is I inspired you of what is good and what is not.”
That means you know what is good. Don’t say, “I don’t know.” [Allah says:] “I am going to judge you.” There you cannot hide information from the court. In the Divine Presence you cannot say “no, I didn’t do that?” [Then the Divine Justice will say:] “Ok, then I get a witness. Do you want a witness or do you want My decision?”
Don’t say “I want a witness.” Then He will charge you. Say “I did it.”
[The Divine Justice says:] “But if you think yourself you are doing good. No. What you are doing good is for yourself, it is not for Me. You want witnesses? Bring the two angels!”
They cannot lie. They have videotape and they have cameras. They took your picture already when you were doing something not accepted. But there is “erase” on the camera. Push a button then it will erase it. That is repentance. That is why we have been ordered before every prayer even to recite 100 times istaghfirullah. We are declaring the shahada ashhadu an la ilah ill-Allah wa ashhadu anna Muhammadan `abduhu wa rasuluh - that Allah is our creator and Muhammad is his messenger and then we are saying istighfaar and then we are declaring Allah’s Oneness by reciting Surat al-Ikhlaas. After repenting we declare that Allah the Creator, is unique, independent of everything.
Then that has been erased, that camera doesn’t exist at that moment. But we have to keep doing that until the last breath in our life.
That knowledge the gnostic will take you to get information from these lights that Allah swt will bring it into your heart to shine in the horizon of your heart. There will be no more limits to your navigation. As the say there is no more limit to navigation, they say to you navigate the atmosphere, Google the atmosphere, and seeing more and more millions of stars and getting more detail and more detail and more detail. As soon as you get the code of that first chamber, as much as you zoom in, as much as information comes to you. Why? Because Allah swt in every 24 hours He is observing you and He is sending to your heart without your knowledge, 360 times, showering you with manifestations of His Beautiful Names and Attributes. 360 times He is sending knowledge to your heart. He looks to your heart 360 times in 24 hours and every time he looks to your heart every time he is sending you knowledge, ma`rifah light and everything that makes you eligible to enter Paradise. He doesn’t want his servant to be in vain or to be ignorant. He is filling up our heart but out duty is to know how to open up this information and learn it. That is why he said, " neither My heavens nor My earth contained Me, but the heart of the believer contained Me.”
Let our hearts be opened. And to open them is to do as much as possible. We are not saying to do 100 % but let us do even 1 percent. Then prophet is happy, Allah is happy. To do one percent of not doubting your brothers and sisters. Not backbiting your brothers and sisters. Not harming your brothers and sisters. Mawlana said that “If you have sins from east to west Allah will forgive you, but if you harm your brother or sister or anyone then there is no way to repent. The doors [of repentance] are closed and until you go to the people whom you harmed and ask their forgiveness. But [Allah says:] “If you disobey Me, I will forgive you. But if you harmed anyone else, then you have to go to them first and say, ‘do you forgive me or not?’”
So it is not something that is so easy and so simple. That is so simple but the ego doesn’t let you do that.
Sayyidina Adam did that. He said, "Ya Rabbee! I ate from the tree and I made the mistake, what is good is from you and what is bad is from me.” And what did Iblees say? Look the difference, he said, "What is good is from You and what is bad is from You. You made me to do that sin.”
So may Allah open for us that ma`rifah. Without opening to us from our weakness. Because if He looks at our weakness nothing will be opened to us, but with His mercy everything can be opened.
As-salaam `alaykum.