And always a reminder for myself ana abdukal 'ajeezu, dayeefu, miskinu, zhalim, wa jahl, and
but for the grace of Allah (AJ) that we are still in existence.
Alhamdulillah that we got asked again that, ‘Why in other people's meditation teachings
they talk about connect to the Divine within or breathe and just connect with the trees,
the oceans. And in tariqah (spiritual path) and the Islamic understanding of
tafakkur and contemplation why does it require a shaykh and the connection with the shaykh?’
And alhamdulillah that that question came at the same time of this month and all the talking
about the ‘Mirror’ and the reasoning for that is that what we've been talking for this whole month
is that - if you sit to meditate to get a higher understanding, to get a greater reality
of the Divinely Presence and you don't incorporate the understanding of the nafs (ego) and
shaitan (satan), anyone who sits just by themself is going to be sitting with their nafs and shaitan
and the only thing that they're going to learn is the nafs and shaitan because the nafs and shaitan
will sit with them and push to them all their desires and everything is nafsani (egocentric). To
reach to a higher level and a higher plateau it requires a mirror of truth, so anyone just sitting
with their nafs ‘Oh what should I do?’ ‘Oh you should do this’ [nafs replies to person]. ‘And
how am I?’ ‘You’re great’ [nafs replies]. And that was the cartoon that ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall
who's the fairest one of all.’ And that had a deep reality, we talked about that many years ago
that you know these cartoons and these shows that shaitan puts out,
Ar-Rahman (The Most Compassionate) has a hidden message within everything
and the majority - 99% of the world is with that mirror, they look to a magic mirror of their
nafs and shaitan and say ‘Well mirror mirror you know who's the best one of them all?’ ‘You are,
you are the best you don't have to change anything you're perfect, you're great, you're beautiful,
you're fantastic’ [nafs replies]. And that lying mirror tells us everything we
want to hear not what we need to hear, and that mirror is a… something in our life
that just continues for everything and begins to teach us - what we want, what we want,
what we want, what we want to hear and what we want, and it just keeps exploding
the nafs and the desires and the desire becomes something that grows way out of hand.
And tariqah comes to open the truth about the ego and shaitan, and the last person that we
want to sit with is with ourself and the last one we want to hear from is shaitan, that self is the
one that has made all the problems already and that's the life that we're suffering from is this
nafs and shaitan desire that has completely sort of destroyed our lives and following our desires,
and the whole way is built on reaching towards the mirror of truth and that's why when we learn
first how to make the connection, visualize the connection, asking for the connection to
be present, the shaykhs to be present ‘Ya Rabbi please keep me connected with all those whom
You are with and whom You love and You favor. Nabiyeen, Siddiqeen, Shuhadayi was Saliheen.’
And this is ayatul (the verse of) Qur’an so this is not somebody making something up,
Allah (AJ) is saying ‘I am with Nabiyeen, Siddiqeen, Shuhadayi was Saliheen -
they are the best of company to keep.’ So we ask ‘Ya Rabbi then keep me in that
company at all times.’ So I can't be with nabiyeen (Prophets) but the nabiyeen must have connected to
siddiqeen (Truthful). So who are the great Siddiqs that we want to role model our life from and these
are the great holy companions and Ahlul Bayt (holy family of Prophet ﷺ), and these nabiyeen
and siddiqeen they made immense amounts of shuhada (witnesses) - these are mushahadah and those whom
they followed them and their hearts opened. And that's why we have to find a shaykh whose heart
is open not a beginner and not somebody reading from something but someone whom has been trained
by all his shaykhs, not one born into tariqah - that you know you can… I can say that ‘My father
is a doctor therefore I’m going to practice medicine’ that has no relevance who you're
born to because we're all Ahlul Bayt and all descendants of Sayyidina Muhammad ﷺ which is the
highest affiliation but if you don't do something with that and you're not trained with that and you
haven't opened the reality of that then you know congratulations for you, that lineage that you
talk about is something that is a responsibility and an achievement that one has to achieve.
So that we accompany those whom they have been certified, they've been tried,
they've been tested and they're Ahlul Basirah – that their hearts are open
and that they live by that system, they are strongly connected to the great Siddiqs
who their faiz (downpouring blessings) and their madad (support) is continuously dressing them
and those Siddiqs their hands are tightly and firmly in the hands of Sayyidina Muhammad ﷺ,
as a result of this mushahadah and the hearts that witness and that they have been martyred
in the sense that their desires have died, their personality has died and their seed has died and
what you see of them now is a completely different reality - a tree with many many
fruits. The fruits that the people eat from these shaykhs - they become saliheen (righteous). So
when you accompany a shaykh that bears fruits from this garden of reality,
everyone who eats from these fruits becomes saliheen because these are the fruits from
the gardens of paradise and from the gardens of Sayyidina Muhammad ﷺ. They eat from the fruit and
when they say they ‘Eat from the fruit’ means that they accompany them, they took their knowledges,
they were trained that make the knowledge to be something real, that your character
has to be real according to these knowledges - that you can't be angry, you can't be stingy,
you can't be stealing, you can't be doing all of these corrupt characteristics and that your life
is to fight those characteristics and let the knowledge to be real within your heart. If it's
not changing you then that's something else - the fruit is not bearing its fruit within your reality
and the whole tariqah is based on I want to eat those fruits and I want to be from that reality,
and my whole fight is to come against my bad characteristic and never to fight other people.
So your stick is not on people but your stick is to hit yourself - not to attack anyone but attack
only yourself in everything. If you can do that then you are someone whom has lowered themselves,
and extreme amounts of testing Allah (AJ) will send testing from many many different
locations and personalities and you continuously continuously ripened until Allah (AJ) describes
you as ‘Rushd’ (grown). What did Nabi Musa (as) want, he said ‘I want to be taught a knowledge
of a higher reality so that I can become rushd - ripened with these haqqaiqs (realities)’ with
all the reality of speaking to Allah (AJ). So it means this has a… is a great understanding
- doesn't matter who you are and who you think you are and who you think you're related to,
this is someone whom is ‘Kalimullah’ - who's speaking to Allah (AJ),
he's humble enough to take a path in which he wants to meet a servant of Allah (AJ) that may
teach him of higher realities and as a result - I will become rushed - I become ripened, I become
something that been dressed by the sun and ripened. Means that the awliya (saints) they grow
the reality, they grow the student - they train them, condition them, teach them
and then this audience in the presence of the light of Sayyidina Muhammad ﷺ sweetens them.
So means that once they become sweetened and ripened fruit
they have a sweetness with them - they have a sweetness in their character,
as a result of that sweetness they have a juzbah and a magnetic attraction - people are attracted
to this sweetness of this fruit because of its character – its khuluq. Its knowledges that became
real for that servant that raised that servant and as a result of the khuluq and the character
of that servant the sweetness it draws the focus of people towards that reality. So alhamdulillah
this is the tariqah way of tafakkur (contemplation) and the Islamic way
is that - I want to meditate with this mirror of truth, I don't want to follow my bad desires and
sit by myself following every inspiration that comes to me, I want to be trained and when I sit
that I want to be in the company of these pious servants and those whom Allah (AJ) has favored,
and when I sit with them and meditate and ask for their faiz to be upon me, their light upon me,
that their madad to be there even if I don't feel it or see it I know that the madad and the light
is there. And then when I want to understand my inspirations and my actions and my character
that light begins to push the correct understanding within the heart,
begins to push the heart to understand not to do the bad things, not to act the bad way,
not to follow one's own desires but to follow the higher reality inshaAllah.
We pray that Allah (AJ) inspire more and more for us as this is now running towards the completion
of this year and we pray that Allah (AJ) grant us the reality of entering into Dhul Hajj, and that
the hijrah (migration) and the oceans of faith to be completed and all of the real realities of the
realities of hajj (pilgrimage) and all that Allah (AJ) gave to us to achieve of the realities of
hajj and all of its realities in the perfection of faith. We pray that Allah (AJ) dress us from those
bless us from those. This is the time in which the year is ending for us, our year it doesn't end at
Christmas and new year's eve we have nothing to do with that, don't plan your life based on
a system of disbelief and satanic understanding - our life it begins and ends with Dhul Hajj.
So means that year is coming to an end do all that you can do, do all goodness that you can do,
those are the ten days in which to clear your accounts with Allah (AJ) of what you owe, what you
wanted to do, what you wanted to accomplish, what you wanted to achieve. We said before the qurban
is not something of a distribution of meat - these are the charities and the work that we have to do
to distribute, but when Allah (AJ) describe that ‘We sacrificed and with a tremendous ransom.’
Means what was about to happen to Sayyidina Ismail (as) of sacrificing his life for this reality,
that his father was sacrificing his family but the child
which is the Muhammadan haqqaiq (realities), the Muhammadan haqqaiq comes from
Sayyidina Ismail (as) because from that light of self-sacrifice comes Muhammdun Rasulallah ﷺ,
come to teach - we’re not a people who give away our property
but in the end when Allah (AJ) calls for us we will give ourselves gladly in that way,
and that's the haqqaiq and the Muhammadan haqqaiq. So when Allah (AJ) describes ayatul
kareem (the generous verse of Holy Qur'an) in reference to Sayyidina Ismail’s (as) sacrifice,
Allah (AJ) describes the qurban (sacrifice) as ‘A Tremendous sacrifice.’ That this giving of
a qurban of what it carries of realities, what difficulties it takes away from insan (mankind)
of hardships and what their inability to achieve in this year of ma’rifah (Gnosticim) of all the
sins of their bad character and their bad actions, Allah (AJ) doesn't want in this way of ma’rifah
to close the account on the servant, so that they don't achieve what they needed to achieve so means
there's a tremendous reality in that qurban. The qurban - that every badness will be put into that
animal as a way of that animal reaching its ma’rifah because the animal is sacrificing
and the energy of that animal it's actually the isra (Night Journey) and mi’raj (Ascension), the
mi’raj for that creature is this action for Bani Adam (Children of Adam) because all of creation is
trying to serve Allah’s (AJ) favorite creation, so by them giving themselves, carrying these burdens,
taking on these difficulties - this is their mi’raj in which how Allah (AJ) will elevate
the reality of their light. But for insan and for people - don't miss that light don't miss
that reality don't overlook that as something small but Allah’s (AJ) own Divinely words is
that ‘This was of a tremendous sacrifice.’ We pray that Allah (AJ) opens that reality
of that sacrifice and takes from us all our difficulties, all our badness, all the
incorrectness within ourself and puts that into the qurban so that our Arafah and our
hajj and this year of hijrah to be accepted by Allah (AJ) Divinely Presence, to be accepted by
Sayyidina Muhammad ﷺ, to be accepted by Ahlul Bayt (holy family of Prophet sws) and Ashab
an Nabi ﷺ (holy companions of Prophet sws) and awliyaullah (saints) fis samayi wa fil ard (in the
heavens and
on earth).
Bi hurmati Muhammad al-Mustafa wa bi siri Surat al-Fatiha.