Our Agreement with Allah in Pre-eternity The Subtlety of Dhikru-Llāh and Taking Responsibility Asalaam aleykum. Allah (swt) says: Alasta bi Rabbikum. Am I not your Lord? He says this in pre-eternity. He says this before creation. As soon as we come into this material world, into this dunya, we forget. We forget about pre-eternity, and we forget that if the question is asked, Am I not your Lord? then the implication is that if you say, You are my Lord, you remember that. So the path of Tasawwuf is the path of dhikru-llāh/remembrance. This challenge for us to remember is a way of remembering our way back to the Truth. What is the Truth? Am I not your Lord? Yes. [The truth is] that Allah is our Lord. When Allah created our rūh, He asked Alasta bi Rabbikum? and all of our souls answered Allah. Junayd (ra) said that Allah (swt) gathered before creation a world of all the spirits and He said, Alasta bi Rabbikum? And they said, We testify that you are our Lord. And then Rasūlu-Llāh (sal) said, Men are asleep and when they die, they wake up. The people of Tasawwuf are those who begin to wake up before you die, who begin to remember from within our own souls, because our remembrance is part of our reality. We remember; our selves remember we made an ancient agreement with Allah (swt), a contract with Allah (swt) that was before creation was created. In that, it was to the rūh that the question was asked. That is the beginning of the end of forgetting. For us, it should be not just to remember, but that every moment is a possibility for a new beginning or a new remembrance. It is a dynamic universe in which we dwell in and realize that every human being and every soul was picked for a very specific time and a very specific place, our qadr. The prophets were picked, and the awliya- 1
Llāh were picked, and their followers were picked. We were all picked by Allah. We were all picked by our shaykh in pre-eternity before creation when we were all at peace in the realm of the rūh, the realm of the spirit world, so to speak. When we said, Yes it is so, a lot of things began to happen. At that moment when all the souls said yes, everyone was organized, everything was assigned every murīd was assigned to a shaykh, and every shaykh a murīd; every prophet to his people, and every people to their prophet. When we realize this, and we should realize this, we should realize that when we give ba īat, we are fulfilling a promise that we made in pre-eternity. That promise has to be fulfilled and upheld. We don t remember it from pre-eternity, and it is the shuyukh that help is to process this and remember. Because it is the nature of dunya to forget, we have to remember the oath that we made on that day. That is why this is called the path of remembrance. It is also why people should take the path quite seriously, understanding the importance of not just collecting a shaykh (or a shaykh collecting a murīd), but getting to the one that you belong to. Is it possible not to? Yes, it is possible not to, if you are swayed by preference or something else. If you don t have the nisbat, the attraction; or if the time is not there for you to examine; or if a demand is made by person to a shaykh without the person feeling that nisbat, then there is a problem. Yes, we do have choice, and even things that are destiny, even wrong choice are part of our destiny. You remember that. Qu ran gives us a message about a state we are in, once we are in that state; and tells us about the Paradise and about the prophets. The prophets are reminding us of the time of pre-eternity and the promises that we made. Often they remind us as nations what we are expected to do, like the Ba nai Israel and Musa (sal). The shaykhs take us to that time when we made the promise through remembrance, and through the means to understand the journey, to understand the Prophet, who is the 2
means/wasila; the means that show us the limitations of the dunya, and show us how powerful the dunya is and how limiting it is. It is through our shuyukh that we learn about our nafs, our ego and we learn about this world and how we were made to forget and how easy it was to forget. So there were means given to us to help us remember: dhikr, prayer, even the wudu. It is said that no wudu is valid unless a durūd is made with it, unless you make a du ā. Fasting, which of course is a means of restraint (refraining from food), is also a means to remind us to think of Allah. Each one of those (and others) has their own stations. That is places from which one does not fail. Once one understands the reason for the fasting, it something you commit for life, or at least while your health permits you to. It is the same thing with prayer. Once you understand the prayer, you would not think of stopping it. You have attained the maqam of salat. It is the same thing with wudu. Once you understand and feel purification that takes place, not just the symbolism of it, then you have arrived at the maqam of wudu. There are these stations along the way that Allah has given us by practices that have a much deeper and more profound meaning, which is to taste of the station, to understand about progress, and to remember because you have to remember to pray, and remember to make the wudu, and remember to fast. There are so many lessons. For example in fasting: on one level, because so many people are fasting, we say that we feel unity with all those fasting. Another side of that is you don t see otherness. You see inclusivity, not exclusivity. Even though our fast is very deeply personal, as our hunger is or the changing of our nature is during that time of Ramadan, it is also extremely inclusive as we say, to be a stranger amidst the crowd. That is something someone can learn from sawm/fasting. 3
No one really sees the benefit of the fast other than the person who is the faster. You can see the person who is fasting, but you don t see the benefit of it for that person. Only the person who is fasting, sees the benefit of it. As full as this world is with so many distractions, when one focuses, those distractions go away from you, but they don t go away for everyone else. I can t take those distractions away from Isa or Abu Bakr, but they can focus. They can not only focus on the fasting, but they can focus on the shaykh, which takes us to another aspect of dhikru-llāh, and that is the question of the shuyukh and ba īat. Gaining knowledge of remembrance begins, often, with keeping the shaykh present with us. Just as when we make durūd, or du a or salawat, we should be sitting as though we are in the presence of Rasūlu-Llāh (sal). You should sit as though you are in his presence, so that when you are making the praises of the Prophet (sal), he is before you. How is that possible? Well, it is possible through the imagination, obviously, but it is also possible through the light, through the light of what that du ā is meaning, what its purpose is, and how powerful it is. There was a publication, not too long ago, I think Yusuf Islam had something to do with it. It was a really long list of very nice du ā. When we are remembering Allah (swt), we are in the Presence of Allah (swt). When we are in the Presence of Allah (swt), we realize that we are always in the Presence. We are never not in the Presence. We are always in the Presence and the beauty and the majesty and the light and the justice and the injustices and the fears and the doubts, all of which point us in the direction of Allah (swt, but it is that consciousness that makes us stand out. That is again, another secret, if you will, of the fasting. It is very hard to fast and not be conscious of fasting. Isn t that true? It would be like going on Hajj and not being conscious of the Ka ba. It is very, very hard to fast and forget your fasting. That is the way dhikr should be. 4
You say, How are you always in the presence of Allah (swt)? Go through your days when you are fasting. When you do those things when you are fasting, the fact that you are fasting is never very far from your consciousness. Is that not so? Similarly, it is so in dhikr. You can go through your day keeping Allah s Divine Presence near to you. How do you do that? You spend a large part of your night preparing for the days ahead. You spend a lot of time in muraqabah. You spend a lot of time in dhikr, with the tongue always moist with the Name of Allah (swt). It was said of Abu Bakr Sadiq that his tongue was always moist with the dhikru-llāh/remembrance. Then there are all the things that happen because of that. One s memory is better. One is healthier, usually. Where there is darkness, there now is light. Where there was misunderstanding, now there is understanding. Where there was a question, there is an answer. You gain knowledge. You learn, and you learn from Allah (swt) humility, good adab, good conduct. The interesting thing is that you have to approach the du ā with those qualities in order to get, the next level if you will, or the dimension of those qualities. The humility that you approach the du ā with opens the doorways to a humility, which is greater, much greater than you had before. Just remembering leads us to higher and higher levels of remembrance. What are higher levels of remembrance? I walked out of my office today. I had set something out, and I walked out of my office and forgot it. When I walked to my car and I looked, it came into my mind, Do I have this thing with me? I looked and I didn t have it. So I went back into my office and I got it. That is a simple act of remembrance. There is a more subtle act, okay. It is not just me looking at something, remembering to take it and taking it. I don t know if I can even articulate this. Let s say I put my earpiece to my phone on my desk and I say to myself, Don t forget to take that when you leave. I get up from 5
my desk and look at it, and I remember that I told myself not to forget. I don t just take it and put it in my pocket. I tell myself. You instructed yourself not to forget this, and so you are taking it. That is different from me just getting up and putting it in my pocket. Do you know that? You say, Well, they are both the same act of remembrance. No, not exactly. One could be more habitual. One could be more unconscious and the other is more conscious. Yes, I could walk out of the door and say, Aren t you proud of yourself. You remembered to remember. There are times when I am glad that I remembered. But being in that state where you remember to remember is different than just remembering. If you are given authority over something, take something simple, like the world the amanat. If you are an authority over it, do you wait until something goes wrong to exert your authority? If you have responsibility for things of this world, what do you do? (You anticipate things and what you need to do.) You anticipate it; that is a good word. I was thinking in a similar way: you are scanning all the time. If you know what your responsibility is, you are always scanning. Do you understand that? What does that require to do that? (It requires that you keep your responsibilities in front of you.) It requires that you take your responsibilities very seriously, and that you know what it is. Allah assigned it. Responsibility do you know what it is? Do you know what your responsibilities are as human beings, assigned by Allah? Tell me some: (To remember this, [what you are telling us right now].) (To worship Allah.) (To improve our character.) (To vie with others to do good acts.) (To serve others in a mutually beneficial manner.) (To care for the world.) 6
Thank you to care for the world, the physical world. So you do know. You do know. No one said to wait to be told what to do. How come no one said, to wait to be told what to do? How many of you wait to be told what to do? One honest person. What does that mean? If you know, but you don t act, then what? Are you going to stay in remembrance? What has happened? You remembered what you were supposed to do or should be doing, but you are not associating it with Allah. You are just thinking that it as something you should be doing. You are not giving it enough value. You are not understanding how this is a contract that you made in your soul. You are not really accepting the fact that you made an agreement in preeternity, and so you are probably not really believing in pre-eternity. Now you can call that arrogance or stupidity, but that is how powerful it is. This is the subtlety of remembrance; this is the subtlety of dhikr. This is why, as Sufis, we don t consider that just standing up and repeating Allah s Name is the only dhikr there is. In fact, we see that only as a tool to remember, to become so sensitized that you are remembering all the time what your agreement is. You are remembering to remember. You take it very seriously. All those things you said are true. Do you understand why I am saying scanning? You are always on the lookout, intentionally; not being told what to do, but always being on the lookout. When you are like that, certain things happen. That is why you can say that dhikru-llāh gives you health, or gives you knowledge, or sensitivity to compassion, or whatever, because this actual remembering to remember is a very humbling experience. It removes doubt, and it puts us and our life in a context. When you are, so to speak, in the flow of that which is a sort of mystical mumbo jumbo, what you really are is fulfilling your destiny. What you are really on is the path to success, fallah. And whatever you need to complete your good intention and 7
your task is provided. Whatever you need, if it is your destiny to have health, for example, is provided. Whatever you need for your service to others is provided. Why? Because you are remembering Allah. That is the short speak. But we become so used to the short speak, we forget what it means. It becomes like an idiomatic expression. We forget its origin. We forget what the intention of it is. We use an idiom in a way that is very culturally unique, but I am not talking about an American English idiom, for example. I am talking about a universal truth. Do you understand the distinction there? We should all understand that this is a little bit more subtle. Every circumstance is made up of many elements. At first glance, things look the same. All rich people are rich. All poor people are poor. All blond, blue-eyed people are.whatever. We generalize, and everything seems to be the same, but every circumstance is made up of unique elements. To understand what the actuality is in a circumstance takes some investigation. It takes some effort. We all know, especially in the work that many of us do, that if you generalize too much, you can get into a lot of trouble. You can make general statements about Moroccans, or Arabs, or Indonesians, or wherever we may work, and they seem to be true. They seem to bear out, but every specific circumstance has unique characteristics to it. Knowledge of those unique characteristics begins by looking at the totality of a circumstance, but not stopping at that, and looking much more deeply into that. What is ascribed to a circumstance can vary according to the difference of the elements themselves, according to the various degrees of possibilities that are contained within those circumstances, or within that circumstance. Something, therefore, can be correct because of what is intended by it in one moment; and it can be incorrect by what is intended in another moment. What is permitted in one 8
circumstance could be forbidden in another circumstance, or vice versa. For example, something that is halal and something that is haram. In Islam, something that is haram can be accepted if you cannot find anything halal. If you are dying, and you have to eat something that is haram, it is acceptable. It does not change the principle of haram and halal. Circumstance changes certain things. Do you understand that? Every circumstance whose rulings refer to a very fixed meaning is either praiseworthy or blameworthy. The essential matters are matters like belief, and disbelief; and judgments about them don t vary according to what is ascribed to them. There are certain things that are relative and there are certain things that are not. When we are in a process of dhikru-llāh (remembering Allah), this discrimination becomes obvious to us, because in the dhikru-llāh, we are overcoming our nafs. Doing what some of you said, we are overcoming the lower nature of our nafs. The discrimination that you develop through that dhikr, through the meditation, through the guidance of our shuyukh, through the guidance of Rasūlu-Llāh (sal), through the light/nūr allows us to understand the principle and to understand the moment. But we don t use our preference as an excuse. We don t go looking for an excuse to eat something that is haram, for example. You don t make something that is blameworthy into praiseworthy because you like it. There are certain things like anger and lying that are blameworthy characteristics, but sometimes they are praiseworthy due to some kind of temporary circumstance. There may be some person who has to make dissimulation in Arabic, tahiya. Sometimes you have to dissimulate. There are very many philosophical discussions on this. The point of this is that you please not think of dhikr as being a technique. Do not think of dhikr as being monolithic. Do not think of dhikr as being something that just 9
is repeating the name over and over and over again. Think about the remembrance of Allah as going back to the original covenant, the original agreement that our soul recognizes. We recognize, we know what we are to do. We know what are responsibilities are. We know what the opportunities are. Then, by our shuyukh, by our shaykh, we are given the means. That is the means to have Rasūlu-Llāh or the light that is the Rasūlu-Llāh to be the wasilah, the means. And try to, as you go through the day, to scan, to understand, not just the exceptions that rūh has, but what is expected of us in the moment, by our soul s agreement with Allah. Does this make sense to you? How can that be harmful? How can that stand in the way of your joys and your happiness and your pleasures? It can t. All it can do is make you feel uncomfortable by showing you how forgetful you are. You feel discomfort at that. Asalaam aleykum. 10