After Dhuhr at Naqshbandi Center
A`oodhu billahi min ash-Shaytani 'r-rajeem. Bismillahi 'r-Rahmani 'r-Raheem
I was not supposed to give a lecture, but I think your presence here pushed me to speak. I have realised that many of you are not aware that when we do dhikr there are angels that descend on the association where people are doing dhikr. And with their presence, if we have a bottle of water here, that water becomes blessed water and it will cure all kinds of diseases. This is true especially for difficult diseases, and most of the difficult diseases are addictions to drugs and to liquor. At the same time it will cure normal physical illnesses, like asthma or heart problems or kidney problems. It will cure what people are suffering from. The Prophet (s) confirmed this fourteen hundred years ago in the Prophetic Medicine. When his companions asked him about blessed water, he said:
الْفَاتِحَةُ لِمَا قُرِئَتْ لَهُ
Al-Fatiha lima quriyat lahu.
The Chapter of the Opening is for whatever it is read. (Hadith)
This means that if you read Fatihah on water for a sick person seven times, that water will change its form and become blessed water, and will be able to cure all kinds of diseases if you have a strong belief in that. This was 1432 years ago.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi tried many different rituals from different religions, especially from the Islamic Sufi background, and he found that, of all methods, the strongest and most important help comes from the Sufi background. So for those who are suffering from any kind of disease or depression or stress, or any kind of problems, it is good to bring bottles of water and put them in front of the dhikr. Then all these Beautiful Names have different reactions with the water, and every Name has its own cure. (Mawlana Shaykh Hisham refers to the research of the Japanese scientist, Masaru Emoto, on the effects of energy on water) That is why saints say dhikrullah is not only a cleansing process, it is a curing process. So you have to attend it at least once a week.
Don't take this very lightly. You must make sure you always do it. It will clean you inside and cleanse you from any kind of bad energy, and it takes you, when you become clean, to approach the Divine Presence. People say, “When we are meditating we close our eyes, and sometimes we are seeing, sometimes we are not seeing. What do we have to do to make it consistent?” Well, yes, you have to know there are veils, and these veils are blocking you from seeing what people cannot see. These veils, which are like curtains, close your vision. If we put curtains on these windows, what will happen here? It becomes dark and we cannot see each other. If we take these curtains away we can see, because everything becomes light.
In Indonesia, every time when I give a dhikr or speech, they put in front of me so many bottles that would fill at least a room this size or bigger. The bottles are in boxes and they are open. There are hundreds of boxes and they use the water for sick people and, alhamdulillah, many of them get cured. Once I was in a masjid and I gave dhikr and a speech, and there were around 20,000 people. Do you remember? `Ali must remember this too. Where is `Ali? Do you remember, when we finished they told us to come out and I thought, “Yes, I will go with them.” They brought us to a room twenty times bigger than this room, full of bottles of water! They had there a donation box and for a donation anyone was free to take, one, two, three bottles. They didn’t ask how much; you were free to give what you could, just something to support the cause.
Everyone has a problem, everyone has a difficulty. And we try to take these difficulties through all kinds of different approaches and different teachings. I will give you an example of a problem that you might not be aware of, but it is a problem that veils you from seeing through your heart, to feel the meditation working. It is something that might make a veil on your heart that people might not be aware of. Many people, and most of you, if not all of you, go to restaurants. Isn’t it so? Anyone that doesn't go to restaurants, raise your hand. I never went to a restaurant in my life until I came to America and I was forced to, due to some important event.
I have never smoked a cigarette, I never went to a movie theatre, and I never drank anything. In the university I went to my class and then I ran away. I never spoke with anyone, although my father was very rich and every day I used to go to university with a different car, and many girls were running after me. Many friends came to me; boys are okay to have as friends, but you don’t know when you might be tempted and fall. There is a proverb in Arabic, “Allah gives the meat to the one who has no teeth.” This means, as the boys used to tell me, “You have a car, you dress nicely, and get good grades, and all these girls are around, and you don’t speak to them!” Now I am changed, she says (referring to Hajjah Naziha), I speak with girls now. It was not because I didn’t like to speak with girls or with boys, no. If you speak about school and study and courses, it is okay. But within the disciplinary way you have to be very careful.
So we go back to the example. You go to restaurants, all of you. Some of you sit by the window, isn’t it so? You are watching who is coming and going. Correct? One person passes, you look at him and he looks at you. One girl passes, you look at her and she looks at you. Many people pass. One person is homeless, he has no money and he looks at what you are eating. Now, if you bring food here, all of our minds send electronic messages to the stomach to feel hunger, and saliva comes. Correct? So when that poor, homeless person passes and looks at your food he will salivate, and it reminds him that he is hungry but that he cannot have what you have. He builds up in himself, “Yaa layt, I wish I could be like this one, eating this food.” At that moment, that negative energy will come from that homeless one to the food, and that food will become negative energy to the one who eats it. Immediately a veil of negativity will block your heart. I am giving a very small example.
So don't eat in front of people. Not like here; here there is no problem. In your home there is no problem, in your cousin’s or friend’s home there is no problem, but in an open street you have to be very careful. If you need to go to a restaurant, we are not saying, “Don’t go,” but go inside where you will not have this problem. This is one of the smaller examples, and there are others higher than this. I don’t want to frighten you, but sometimes our teachers order us to say things, in order to open the mind.
So the Prophet Muhammad (s) said:
يولد الإنسان على الفطرة
Yulid al-insaanu `alaa al-fitrah.
No child is born except in innocence… (Narrated by Abu Hurayra. Bukhari, 2:23:441)
That means everyone is born pure but his parents change him. They make him either Jewish or Christian or Buddhist or Hindu or Zoroastrian or Zen Buddhist, or whatever. People are born in light. And that light is always on, a pilot light is always on. You know how you have a boiler and the fire is not always burning, but there is always a pilot light on. When the boiler gets cold, the pilot light ignites the fire and then that boiler begins to boil. So in every person’s heart Allah (swt) created a pilot light, and when your heart is in need, when it is cold and in need for ignition to warm it, that pilot light will give energy to the heart and the heart will bloom and flower.
These meetings are the pilot light. In these meetings, that pilot light in the heart ignites in order to bring blossoms, small flowers that later turn into fruits. And the pilot light can detect the very smallest changes in the heart; when the heart changes so that it needs to be warmed, the pilot light ignites. The pilot light can work with meditation, it can work with lectures, it can work even with nothing, only by sitting with the teacher. The light of the teacher comes out and that light will ignite the whole heart.
For example, is there a living species on the Moon? On the Moon it is freezing, minus 100 to minus 200 degrees Centigrade. Then, is there life on the Moon? No, we think not. Is there life on the Sun? No, because the Sun is hot and the Moon is cold. But we are mistaken; that is wrong. There is life on the Moon but we cannot see it. There is life on the Sun but we cannot see it. That is why there is life in the heart even when it is cold and there is life in the heart when it is warm, because the heart gets reflections and power from the Sun and Moon. The evidence is that the Moon has no light. Is this correct? The Moon gets its light from the Sun, so the Moon is a reflector of light. If you are a Moon you will be reflecting the light of the Sun. That is why Allah (swt) described the Prophet (s) in the Holy Qur'an as the Moon, wa mubashiroon, giving good tidings; he is the reflector of Creation.
يَا أَيُّهَا النَّبِيُّ إِنَّا أَرْسَلْنَاكَ شَاهِدًا وَمُبَشِّرًا وَنَذِيرًا وَدَاعِيًا إِلَى اللَّهِ بِإِذْنِهِ وَسِرَاجًا مُّنِيرًا
yaa ayyuha ‘n-nabee inna arsalnaaka shaahidan wa mubashshiran wa nadheeran wa da`eean il-allahi bi idhnihi wa siraajan muneera.
O Prophet! Indeed We have sent you as a witness and giver of good tidings and as a warner, one who calls to Allah with His permission, and as a light-giving lamp. (al-Ahzaab, 33:45-6)
So, yes, he is reflecting the light of the Sun, where the Sun represents knowledge, and that light is reflected through you. And there are many lights we cannot see on the Moon, because, according to our eyes, we say there is no life there. No, there is. And on the Sun there is light. Here is an example as proof: when a married couple have no children and they want to have a child, what do they do? They take the sperm from the husband and they freeze it. They pull from the husband every time -- I am saying, I think everyone is adult here. Every time the husband ejaculates, millions and millions of sperm come out, so they freeze it. If the wife is not getting pregnant, they take that sperm and they hook it with the egg in a tube. Then they put it back in the wife and she gets pregnant.
How was that sperm living below freezing point? How was it living at minus forty degrees Centigrade? Can you live below forty degrees Centigrade? You will freeze and die. Why, then, doesn't the sperm die? That means there are living species that live below freezing point. That indicates that, in spite of the coldness of the Moon, there are species that live below freezing point. So we can say there are species living on the Moon that scientists did not discover yet.
We gave that example to explain the veil, so we come back to the veil. The Sun, can anyone live under the intense Sun? Go to the sea and if the Sun is 40 degrees Centigrade (104 degrees Fahrenheit), try staying continuously under that intense temperature. What will happen to you? Bye-bye! What happens when we do a laboratory test on blood? They take blood and put it in a tube. What do they do with the tube? It is centrifuged; it turns at a very high speed, creating hundreds of degrees of heat, at which temperature you cannot live. But that blood, after being centrifuged at that high speed, is put in machines, and if you put it under a microscope you will see bacteria and different species living inside. How do they live?
This is an indication that our Creator is Great and you have to put your head down for His Greatness. This is an example from within you, that He can make you live under heat and He can make you live under freezing conditions. That means there are species living on the Sun that Allah (swt) has created; we cannot see them, but there are living species there.
And look in the middle of the Sun at how many atomic reactions happen, non-stop for millions of years. These atomic reaction bombs are exploding in the Sun and the Sun is never breaking into pieces! They threw one bomb on Hiroshima, and in one second Hiroshima was gone. And in every moment in the Sun there are huge atomic explosions and it is still in its place! Who is holding it there? Who? Allahu Akbar! There is a driving force from four sides that is holding it together.
Do you know how many degrees Centigrade it is in the middle of the Sun? And these species are living there. How much, 600 million? Allahu Akbar! He went too far, but it is 15 million degrees Centigrade in the center of the Sun. So, since the One made species live there on the Sun, and the One made species that live on the Moon in the freezing cold, cannot that One make your heart a living heart? He did, but you need to take the veils away. The veils are between us and Reality, which is the reality of the heart, as the Prophet (s) mentioned in the hadith:
الا وان في الجسد مضغة اذا صلحت صلح الجسد كله، واذا فسدت فسد الجسد كله، الا وهي القلب.
alaa inna fi’l-jasadi mudghatan idhaa saluhat saluha’l-jasadu kulluhu wa idhaa fasadat fasada’l-jasadu kulluhu. Alaa wa hiyaa’l-qalb.
(On the authority of Abi `Abdillaahi al-Nu`maan ibn Basheer (r), who said:) “I heard the Messenger of Allah (s) say, ‘In the body there is a morsel of flesh which, if it be sound, all the body is sound, and which, if it be diseased, all the body is diseased. This part of the body is the heart.’”
(Bukhari and Muslim)
And this is the heart. As we said at the beginning, Allah has created everyone pure, with a pilot light in their heart. But as we grow up surrounded by parents and other negative energy, there is a domino effect. When we have pressed on one button it connects to all the other veils, and there are 70,000 veils between us and the presence of the Prophet (s). From here (Mawlana Shaykh Hisham shows his whole tasbih, down and then up) all the way there are veils. The first veil (Mawlana Shaykh Hisham holds up his jubbah to his eyes) is thick like this. You cannot see through it. So if you take the first veils by what is necessary in the Sufi way, or Islamic way or Jewish way or what Jesus (a) came with, if you follow it correctly you begin to take away veil after veil.
As you are taking away the veils, the veils become thinner (Mawlana Shaykh Hisham shows a single layer of turban cloth), so now I can see everyone (looking through at the audience) but if I put all the layers together I cannot see anyone. So we are removing veils, and if we reach here we can see everything as clear as the Moon and the Sun. That is why awliyaa, saints, were able, through their progress and their isolation from worldly desires, to accomplish a positive energy that can carry the whole Universe. Don’t think it is too much! If God wants to give He will give, and if not, whatever you do you cannot get it. But God wants to give, He’s waiting! But come to Him! In many different ways, everyone can come in his own way.
That is why the Prophet (s) said:
الطرق الى الله تعالى على عدد انفاس الخلائق
at-turuq ila Allahi ta`ala`bi `addadi anfaasi ’l-khalaaiq.
The ways to God are as numerous as the breaths of human beings.
So everyone has his own way to reach; it never ends. But follow one way, and if you are lucky you will find the shortest way. If you are struggling you might go different ways, longer ways, but at the end you are going to reach death. If you had taken the shortest way you would have arrived during this life. If you took the longest way you might be cleansed in the grave. No one can run away from the grave. Even though people are cremated, still they cannot run away from the grave. Allah (swt) will bring you back whether you are ashes or you have disintegrated in the soil. The proof is that fourteen hundred years ago the Prophet (s) said in a hadith:
yafnaa Bani Sayyidina Adam illa u`jubu ’dh-dhanab.
There is nothing of the human body that does not decay except one bone; that is the little bone at the end of the coccyx, of which the human body will be recreated on the Day of Resurrection. (Narrated, Abu Hurayra. Sahih Bukhari)
That was fourteen hundred years ago when the Prophet (s) said that part will not die, that the whole body will disappear except that. Recently scientists read this hadith and began to think about it. They said, “Let us see what the Prophet (s) means by that. Because when you die, you die.” They took a dead person and they cremated him completely. You know, when they cremate it is six thousand degrees Centigrade. So don't cremate your people. At six thousand degrees Centigrade, you are burning them! They took the ashes to the lab. They found that from the end of the coccyx there was a small molecule that was still living. Moving. They said, “Who is this Prophet, who was able to predict something like that when there was no science, fourteen hundred years ago?!" The Prophet (s), no one can understand his greatness.
Then they took another body, and they ground him completely. They made powder of him. And they checked the coccyx and again they found one small molecule still moving, which was the end of the coccyx. It is as the Prophet (s) said, “The whole body will disintegrate except the coccyx.” Who can do that? That is Allah (swt) and the one who said of His Greatness:
سبقت رحمتي علي غضبي
sabaqat rahmatee ila ghababee.
When Allah completed the Creation, He wrote in His Book which is with Him on His Throne, “My Mercy overrides My Anger.” (Narrated by Abu Hurayrah. Sahih Bukhari)
It means, “My servants make Me angry and that is why I threaten them. I will punish you.” And what did He say? “My Mercy overrides My Anger.” That means. “My Mercy will take you all back to Paradise.” If the court gives judgement and says you have to go to prison for your whole life, and the next day the judge calls you and says, "O `Abdul Mateen, we found that you did something good in your life, so you are free,” what will you do? Be happy? No, you will be thankful, you will be hugging and crying, like the miners.
So Allah (swt) said:
لَئِن شَكَرْتُمْ لأَزِيدَنَّكُمْ
wa la’in shakartum la-azeedanakum.
If you are grateful, I will surely give you more and more. (Surat Ibraheem, 14:7)
And thanking is by not doing drugs, by not being a criminal. Thanking Him is through being a good person in the community, helping and doing everything right.
So everyone goes to the grave and two angels will come to question him, “What did you do in your life?” There was a scholar; this is a true story. There was a very well-known person, very rich, very wealthy, and he died. Before his death he wrote a will and in it he said, “When I die,” he wrote to his son, “and they put me in the grave.” Some graves are like rooms, Muslim or otherwise. They take the body and put it down in the room in the coffin. And he said to his son, “As I love you and respect you, I tried my best for you, and I gave you a house, I gave you everything, a wife, and I was supporting you.” He was doing too much; all of us are like that.
“So I want one favor from you. When I die you stay with me all night in the grave, or find someone who will stay with me all night until morning, because when they put me in, these two angels will come and ask me questions.” That is a hadith of the Prophet (s).
So that man died and after they buried him in that room the son sent a message, “My father will give anyone who goes down with him five thousand golden coins.” Who is going to stay? Zombies will eat you! They are afraid, everyone is afraid. Go to the cemetery at night, at one in the morning, can you do it? No. Everyone will run away. Yet he wants a person to go down with him at night, into the grave. One old man said, “I will go. I have my children and my grandchildren. What is he going to do to me? He is dead.” He was going to cut wood to sell in the market, and he said to the son, “I will go down.” The son said, “Okay, you go down and we will lock it, and in the morning you come out and we will give you five thousand golden coins.”
Listen well. Listen well, because this is to give us an example. So they opened the grave for him and he went down, then everyone left. As soon as everyone left he saw the two angels coming, Ankar and Nakeer, because there you can see everything. That is why saints order their followers to do seclusion in graves, to make them very strong. They get afraid, yes, of course, but that is how it works. People today want to see and are not doing what they need to make them see. So anyone who wants to see, I give him permission to go to the cemetery and open a grave and stay there for forty days! (Much laughter)
So those two angels came and looked. “Oh! what happened here? One is dead and one is living?” They began to wonder, “Who are we going to ask first, the dead or the living?” They said, “The dead one is dead, so we’ll ask him later. Let us ask the living one.” They began:
“Who is your Lord?”
“Allah.”
“Who is your messenger?”
“Sayyidina Muhammad (s), Jesus (a), Moses (a).”
“What is your holy book?”
“Holy Qur'an, Bible, Tawrat, what Jesus (a) came with, what Moses (a) came with, what the Prophet (s) came with, the Holy Qur’an, the Last Book.”
So they were discussing, “This one is answering well.” (...)
One of his (`Abdul Qadir Jilani) mureeds died. The two angels were coming. Immediately `Abdul Qadir Jilani was at the grave, and still his mureed’s soul was going up. He said to the angels, “What are you doing here?” They said, “We are questioning him.” They said to the mureed,
“Who is your Lord?”
“`Abdul Qadir Jilani.”
“Who is your Prophet?”
“`Abdul Qadir Jilani.”
“What is your belief?”
“`Abdul Qadir Jilani.”
So they said, “Okay, take him to Hellfire!”
He said, “Look, this is my mureed, you have no right to take him to Hellfire!” And he punched them.
Then Sayyidina `Abdul Qadir said to them, “He is saying, ‘`Abdul Qadir Jilani,’ so it is at least a courtesy that you come and ask me. O angels! If you ask him any question he will say, ‘`Abdul Qadir Jilani.’ Even if you grind his blood, every piece will say, ‘`Abdul Qadir Jilani.’ I’m taking his soul back! I’m not giving him to you.”
What were they going to do against `Abdul Qadir Jilani, such a powerful wali? Nothing. That is a story from Grandshaykh (q). Now the soul was with him and these two angels could not go without the soul. Then they heard a voice saying, “Leave him! He is a student of My beloved shaykh, and I am giving him thirty-seven years more of life. Send his soul back!” And good tidings for us that we have Sultan al-Awliya, a shaykh who can intercede for us. May Allah (swt) forgive us and keep us at the threshold of Prophet (s) and the threshold of our shaykh, Shaykh Muhammad Nazim al-Haqqani!
So we have all these veils, and they will go one by one. Don’t think you need to jump to the end to get to the last veil. Be patient. Look, Allah is patient with his servants. Look, for seven thousand years we are killing and spilling blood and He is being patient. Be patient, seek the truth, follow your heart and your mind, and try not to follow your bad desires.
Wa min Allahi ‘t-tawfeeq. Al-Fatihah. Taqabal Allah!