I thank you for inviting me to this temple. I don’t deserve it. I would like to thank all those who came and all those who helped to prepare this event.
We have just heard Sufi poetry from a great Turkish saint, Yunus Emre and we have heard poetry from a great saint, Jalaluddin Rumi.
These people, these human beings their souls are free. That is why we feel their presence today here in this place. They found the reality and anyone who finds reality will find himself or herself. Sometimes we take a plane, flying, traveling from one country to another country. And our luggage doesn’t come. And then we go to a place where it is lost and found to declare that our luggage did not come. And then they begin to research where is our luggage. Today, many times in the life of the human being there are up’s and downs and I don’t hide, [Shaykh cries]… people they have lives, and their lives are looking for something to hold to. And I was thinking what I am going to speak. Because I feel there is something lost. I feel since it might be two weeks, three weeks, I am not in that good mood. Although, praise be to Allah, everything around me, family, children, everything is ok, students, teachers, but you feel that there is something missing.
And I didn’t... was thinking what I am going to say and I said whatever comes from these saints whom they control our hearts through their connections to the main source of sainthood, which goes back to the Divine Presence and to all prophets. And I didn’t find any subject to speak. Because usually I don’t prepare what to speak. And I was entering to here and they told me no, you have to go to another room and I was walking and thinking. And I said, “what am I going to say” and I saw in front of me something that struck me on a bulletin board outside, it was written "lost and found."
I said to myself, “I am lost.” And I want to find myself. And here I am hearing Rumi, trying to find himself. And where is his connection. And why he was created. And why did he come to earth, and why not to Mars or the Sun or Jupiter or Venus or Pluto or another galaxy why here on earth. Why Buddha went leaving his kingdom, leaving his father, the king, and wandering where he can find himself? Because he was lost. And then he found the reality that satisfied him.
We are really lost. But the manifestation of the beautiful superpower, God, that has manifested His mercy on humanity, His love, His universal love that everyone tries to look for it and tries to live into it and tries to dress it. It is there and this is our hope. We are like these candles, they take a long time to burn, but in reality they are burning from inside. And they are melting from within. Those who are melting from within they know how much it is difficult for them. Because they feel that pain of flame, although it is the flame of love, the flame of reality, the flame of happiness, although it is the flame of Divine Presence, but still it is a flame. That flame hurts. Because it has to burn the bad energy that we have built in ourselves, in order to be polished and to be swimming in the ocean of oneness when it completely melts. At that time we are there, but how long it is going to take, that is the question.
To be lost, is very easy but to be found is very difficult. To found your luggage at the airport takes a lot of time and sometimes the tell you sorry, this is 100 dollars for you. So ourselves, when we are losing yourself into action that we are doing and not trying to fix it, it is no way to find our self.
And I want to tell you a story that happened with one of the biggest saints in history, he was a king. His name is Ibrahim ibn al-Adham. He was living in the
When he was addressed by his name, and not by his title of Sultan, so at that time Ibrahim felt that this is not a normal person. He said, “I am looking for my camel.” He said, “On my tower? Do you think a camel can fly and come on my tower?” He said, “O Abraham, there is a possibility that a camel will fly and end up on your tower, but there is no possibility for you to find the truth with the situation you are in.”
From that moment that sultan, Ibrahim ibn al-Adham, left his kingdom and was looking for reality to find himself.
It is a long story until he was becoming a big saint and an ascetic. That is why it strikes me when you hear Jalaluddin ar-Rumi, saying, “I don’t know myself. Am I a Christian, or a Jew or a Muslim or a Zoroastrian? I feel I am everything. I feel that I am part of everything that Allah created. I feel that everything is in me.”
Because he reached the complete submission. Because his flame melted all the candle within him. There is no more Rumi there. He is seeing only the Divine Presence. He is seeing only the love that originated through Him and bringing him to reality to find to emerge in the Ocean of the Beautiful Names and Attributes of our Lord, in His Beautiful Names and Attributes to manifest these Names and Attributes and to understand them.
So us as a community from different faiths, whatever faith we are, there are things that suit me in this faith and there are things that suit you in that faith. It is free, as long as you find yourself not to be lost and as long as you find reality, that is ok. That is a way of liking and loving all of us together, because we are coming from earth.
That is why we were speaking yesterday on the meaning of evolution and we were discussing that subject and we know that all of us we are created from this soil, as she mentioned It before, the Mother Earth. We are all of us created from the earth, the womb, that the soil of humanity that clay, that mud that has been taken to Paradise and created Adam and Eve from it, the first father and mother and all this generations after generations came is the same soil that the trees are living in, the same source that the flowers are living in the same soil that the animals came from the same soul that the birds and butterflies came from and we are one sharing in the womb of the earth. That is what Allah gave us to enjoy not to throw each other with weapons and rockets not to destroy the earth and to kill each other…that Allah manifested on us.
We who love peace must always come to such meetings that share with us, when you share with others you can find your mistakes when they advise and the can find their mistakes when you advise them. That keeps everything in harmony. That is what Rumi meant when he said, "I don’t know what I am. I don’t know if I am Muslim or Zoroastrian, if I am Jew or xtian. That means let us mingle together, let us mix together in order to bring a happy musical life to humanity. I traveled mostly everywhere around the world I met president ambassador, kings, princes, every kind of walk of life, common people., normal people and I found as the Prophet Muhammad said, an-naasu sawaasiyatan ka asnaan al-musht – human beings are equal as the teeth of the comb.. What is going to differ a king from a normal, common poor person? Nothing, both of them going to die one day, both of them going to be buried one day. What shares with them is the love with each other, that relationship with each other. That keeps the relation the symbol that … that is nothing left behind and we go where God wants us to go. And that is what the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him and upon all other prophets, that there is no difference between human beings they are all equal like the teeth of the comb, except in righteousness. In piety and sincerity. That one is sincere and that one is not sincere., that is our message today and I hope I was able to find myself through you because it awaken me up to look into my mistakes and try to correct myself. When I look at history and find all these interfaith. Today they say it is important to have interfaith and it is important. Of course it is important. It happened in many beliefs and in many religions. Everyone is happy with his candle. One is red, one is black, one is white but they all give flame.
Like these flowers they are white and read they give a nice flavor. If just red, just one flavor. We are one garden with different colors. May God bless you and may God support all of us. May God help us to find ourselves. I was planning to keep you one hour and a half but I felt these words were important and if we.. can achieve a lot.
Let us go when we go out and look at the bulletin board and read what is under the sign, lost and found. But read that word lost and found, because we cannot find our self if we are not lost. So lost is a requirement. Don’t say no, we don’t want to be lost. It is ok, loose yourself for some time. Especially to adults, no I mean teenagers. But you have to know you cannot taste sweet without tasting sour. Tasting the sour give you how much the sweet is important. It gives you how much you can feel the happiness when you begin to feel a little bit of sweetness, after a lot of sourness you feel yourself very happy. I was explaining yesterday the difference in our beliefs. There is sour belief, you believe in God and your belief is sour, not ripe, like fruit. So you see them not ripe; you don’t taste them. Then there is belief that is very sugary, very ripe. And in between there might be a belief that is with equal or Splenda or with sweet and low. It is giving the taste but not the energy there is nothing in it. So if we don’t be lost, … that is why Rumi said, “I am looking for myself.” When Buddha was saying “I want to look and find myself, my reality.” Where every person is looking to find reality. The Prophet (s) was going into the cave in order to find himself. Then after forty years the
Why Rumi didn’t have difficulties? He only had difficulty of the pain of love keeping him from the Divine Presence. He didn’t have difficultly of eating and drinking but had the difficulty of finding himself
O brothers and sisters of different religions, let us pray all together that may God give us inspiration and revelation to find ourselves and thank you very much. salam alaykum.