Connecting with Allah through the Shaykh Contact, Correspondence, Sitting in Meditation, and Tawajjuh I think that I am going to spatter among my talks some instructions. So I do suggest that you come with pencil and paper and write them down, because you might not hear them again. Part of the reality of living a Sufic lifestyle is to refine your life around the instructions that are given. So one thing that I would like to suggest that you do is add to your devoted and dedicated nighttime practices that you do, Subhāna-Llāh alhamduli-llāh, subhāna-llāh al-adhim, and Subhāna-Llāh wa alhamduli-llāh wa ilāha illa-llāh wa Allahu akbar, when you are doing your durūd sharīf 100xs. What that does is lead to the creation of love of Allah. It makes your love, your capacity to love much stronger. You all know that it is easy to observe practices or injunctions or admonition when things are easy and favorable, when you are fulfilled, or when you are healthy, or when you are not worried about money, or when you are relaxed. But the real tests come when situations become difficult, or when there is illness, or lack of capacity, or food, or time. These are the time to be really steadfast because a person who is steadfast at these times is showing love for Allah. We saw that in Iman. We saw that in Grandma Laura. Two people who we lost this month. I am going to keep coming back to that until we realize just how fragile life is. So following the injunctions, or the admonitions, or the teachings, or the Shar īah, during these times is really an act of love of Allah, of trust in Allah. Everyone one of us passes through different stages and phases in our day to day life. Sometimes we are happy, and sometimes we are sad, and sometimes we are expanded, and sometimes we are depressed 1
and contracted, or lazy. When we are lazy and contracted, then doing the minimal injunctions of the Sharī ah are difficult. But if we persevere and are steadfast during this time, not only are we showing our sincerity and our ibāda, we are also showing that we are not a slave to our moods, nor to the external circumstances around us, and that strengthens our love for Allah. That is why you do extra things, especially when it is easier to do them, not look for excuses not to do dhikr or to attend the sema or pray on time, or whatever. Needless to say, what is enjoined on us should be followed. But if one really wants the advice and the guidance that is provided, then we have to learn how to turn toward the Provider. Allah says in Qur an: And those who strive in Our cause, We will certainly guide them to Our path, for truly Allah is with those who do right. Building love for Allah (swt) is building a love for what is good and what is right. The most effective way of doing that is to avail ourselves of those guidelines and practices that are given to us, and most likely given to us at a good time in our life, very positive time, when we are receptive. I don t think many miserable people come and ask for ba īat. [It allows us] to benefit in the companionship that Allah (swt) has given us, because as we have see, we are born alone and we die alone. I shouldn t say alone, because certainly the people who passed had loved ones next to them, but the words I am trying to find are difficult. There is a story in which a person once asked Hazrat Thambi (quddisa sirruh) about the famous verse Yaka zamana suhbat bi awliya bekhtar asad salat ta ata bahriya. Momentary companionship of the friends of Allah is better than 100 years of sincere worship. He said, It seems to be an exaggeration. How is that possible? Hazrat Thambi (ra) replied, It was no exaggeration at all; moreover, the message was not completely conveyed. If the poet had said, Yaka zamana suhbat bi awliya bekhtar ased 2
la salat ta ata bahriya. Momentary companionship with the friends of Allah (swt) is better than a million years of worship, it would still not be an exaggeration. Why is that? That is because the company of the awliya-llāh, the pious people, is where you get the example of sincerity and patience and perseverance and love. You get this love of Allah (swt) from those people and from that kind of companionship. That is the secret which is not such a secret. Another benefit is that the company of such people allows you to repeatedly hear very useful things. In the company of such good people, the shaykh, and the believers, and the companions, you get good ideas; you get good advice; you get good tips for life, and how to put them into practice in your day to day life. Whether you listen to them or not, well that is another story. But if you stay in that contact as much as you can, then you will start to listen. That doesn t mean just living on the same property. Then also, you get the benefit of their du ā, and what do you see? Hopefully, in such company, you see devotion and dedication and selflessness and love and patience and perseverance and tolerance and service and kindness. What did you see in the last month among people? What are you seeing now in terms of people serving people in need? That is what you see, isn t it? What you see is people praying for others, and praying that they have the strength to pray for others, and continue to serve others. Inshā a-llāh, there is a real belief that the prayers are accepted. If you keep company with people like that, you admire them and, indeed, you even begin to imitate them. If you do that, that speeds up your spiritual process. You gain this kind of essential knowledge, knowledge of the essence, from this kind of suhbat, this kind of nearness; but it has to be for a considerable period of time not months, but years, as you know. Sometimes it takes years before you even click in, years before you say, Where was I? Where have I been all these years? I am sorry it has taken me so long to finally 3
understand how much of my life I have wasted. I just got a note like that recently. Actually, I got three notes like that recently. If you acknowledge that this company is important and you spend a considerable amount of time in it and you are sincere, then you become more obedient and it bears fruit. Being in physical company, in the presence of these friends of Allah, and especially the shuyukh, as much as possible is important, and in different settings not just the same setting. That is important, because then you see how the shaykh acts in different circumstances, too. I just got a letter, yet again, from somebody in India who wants to study with me, who was a student of Hazrat s and went only up to the 10 th ashra latā if he and his wife. So e-mail and skype and other things are good in cases like that. I got another skype from the man in Saudi Arabia who is studying with me about his brother and the trial he is going through, the legal trial. He asked us to make du a for this brother. Contact, and correspondence, and sitting in meditation are critical for spiritual improvement. That is how that statement can be made about the company being better than worship, because this kind of suhbat is really vital. We all have busy schedules. I drove to Charlottesville and back today, and we all have busy schedule. I had to go down to the lake to get something. A lot of things have happened to complicate our lives, as you know, but what about priorities. How do you set priorities? When you think about big things, you don t have much trouble setting priorities, perhaps. But what about all the priorities you set in a day that you could re-set in a whole other way? What about those priorities? Understand that it is important to set and change and re-set your priorities every day because tariqah is flexible. It is dynamic; it is not rigid. If you make that understanding primary in your life, then the priorities you change, and how you prioritize will be proper, good, will help to deepen your spirituality. But more than that, it will expand your understanding of yourself and of life and of Allah. Read 4
and study. When was the last time that you picked up my book or Hazrat s book? How much of the Qur an do you read every day? It is very beneficial to read the khutbahs because they are small, intensive talks, only twenty or forty minutes in length with lots of references to Qur an. Then there are the books of our shuyuk, and listening to these discourses. Make the effort to be with good company. It is not just having the good company because you are living in the community. Think about the effort one has to make to be in good company. Farah had to drive from Charlottesville for all those years. When you have something, you forget the value of it. One of our shaykh said that the goal is achieved quickly if you are in such company. It is very important, of course, to follow the Sunnah and the Sharī ah, but the whole life of Allah s beloved, Prophet Mohamed, is a lesson for us everything: what he wore, how he lived, what he ate, what he did from morning until night, his relationship with people, his family, with his wives, the way he worshiped, his mannerisms, how he dealt with the external things, how he dealt with the government and the economics. All of that is very, very important. All of that is a different face of the same person. If you follow these activities and follow that understanding, then you become inspired yourself. Nothing is easy. Everything needs some kind of force to get it moving. Getting that initiative in the beginning might be difficult, but gaining awareness of this, the Sunnah, is very, very important and to make the dhikr. Subhāna-Llāh alhamduli-llāh, subhāna-llāh al-adhim. Subhāna-Llāh wa alhamduli-llāh wa la-ilāha illa-llāhu wa Allahu akbar. Astaghfirh -Llāh, astaghfirh -Llāh, astaghfirh -Llāh, astaghfirh -Llāh rabbi min kulli zanbi wa tuba alay. 5
Allahu ma saleh allah sayedina muhammedin wa salah tiyalayk wa alleh was salim. Lā haulā wa lā quwwata illā billahi-l-adhim All of these: one hundred times. Nothing else is going to take up a lot of space that you were using for something else. That is what is important. If you don t take advantage of what is important, then what is going to take advantage of us? So you have to pay attention. You have to pay tawajjuh. And it is not just a practice. It is not just turning your attention toward the qibla or toward your heart. But when you are making tawajjuh, you know you are facing the heart of your shaykh, who is facing the heart of his shaykh, who is facing the heart of his shaykh. I think I have given the example before. The reason that we have the shuyukh is the same reason we have ma mun. Remember that? Because you cannot look directly at the sun, you look at the reflection of the sun, and you face that. If you want to connect with Allah (swt), you have to connect with the shaykh. Literally, this paying attention, this tawajjuh, is orienting yourself, turning your heart, orienting your heart toward Allah (swt). In our tariqah it can either refer to the murīd turning toward Allah (swt) and being vigilant, muraqabah, or it can be referring to the guide himself, the murshid, and the murshid s intent, du ā, intention for the murīd. So it can either be the murīd paying attention, turning their heart towards Allah and being vigilant in muraqabah, which, of course you do, inshā a-llāh, twice a day. Or you can refer to the shaykh turning attention with all the knowledge and love, toward the murīd. We do both. Especially at the time of transmission, you pay attention to the Shaykh and the Shaykh pays attention to you. Isn t that what happens. That opens up the channel. In a hadith, the Prophet (sal) made a supplication, O Allah. Strengthen Islam with the dearest of the two of you. Do you remember this? I spoke about it not too long ago. 6
And another hadith says, O Allah strengthen Islam with Umar ibn Khatab. It is clear that what Allah (swt) is trying to have us do is pay attention not to take for granted, not to be just grateful, but to pay attention. The best things for the murīd are these active things, like being grateful is being active. Paying attention is active. This is that dynamic part of our day to day life. We float through life. We put energy into work. We put energy into problems. But we don t put anywhere near that energy into the muraqabah. That is the truth; isn t that what happens? What we really need to do is understand the benefit of paying attention, of tawajjuh, and what happens automatically when we do that. Now in the old days they would make tasawwur. You had to hold the image of the shaykh in your heart, as having to look at the sun through the moon. We don t ask people to do that, except only when we are giving the transmission. Not all teachers are at the same level. There are those who are accomplished as guides and connected with Allah (swt), but they really did not control all their greed or their desires. Eventually, one comes into the contact with a murshid al kamil, the accomplished murshid, shaykh, guide, who is spiritually connected; yet has the ability to connect with others. He can pay attention to you or me and turn your attention to Allah. That is more our path. Of course, there are other ways. There is just the general suhbat. There is hanging out with the right people for a period of time, as we discussed in detail. There are also wrong ways of doing it: becoming mechanical in your practices, coming up with excuses to not do them, not appreciating the beauty of the jewels of life that Allah (swt) has given to us. Maybe they are even real jewels. But the key is the suhbat. That is the key. I will read you something: They say that murshid is like a roof duct. Spiritual outpouring descends from his heart to that of the connecting murīd. In accordance with the hadith, man is with whomever he loves. Then what happens is that the murshid takes that hadith and internalizes it, so it is not going out to so many people, but waiting for those who come in. It is having the door open, having a sign that says, Fresh, homegrown 7
produce. You slam on the brakes, stop, and you say, Wow! That is great! Then you look at the box that it is in from California. What home grown is this? Whose home did it growd in? On my way to South Carolina a week ago, stopped at a fruit stand and got some homegrown peaches for the trip. I said, These are very hard and I don t think they are going to ripen by the time I get there. Do you have some softer ones. She replied, Yes, we have softer ones. I asked if she would mix them in with the harder ones for the few days to come. So she did probably about a peck of peaches. So I said, How much do I owe you? I got Granny Smith apples, too. How much do I owe you? Three dollars. Three dollars? How can it be three dollars? She said, Those soft peaches I am giving them to you as a gift. I said, But you have to sell them. She replied, No, we have plenty to sell. You take these. Ask and you shall receive, it says in Injeel. I didn t ask for peaches. I didn t ask for money. I didn t ask for donation. I didn t ask for anything, but she perceived a need. She perceived there was a plan that needed to be executed. I wanted to have some soft peaches for the rest of that trip. They were delicious, by the way. In his Fihi ma Fihi, Mevlana said, There is one thing in this world that must never be forgotten. If you were to forget everything else but did not forget that, then there would be no cause to worry. Whereas, if you performed and remembered, and did not forget every single thing, but forget just that one thing, then your whole life would be nothing. It is just as if a king had sent you to the country to carry out a specific task, and you go and perform 100 other tasks, but you have not performed that particular task on account of which you had been sent out to the countryside. It is as if you had not performed anything at all. Because you had nothing to show for it. Each of us has come into this world with a particular task that is our purpose, and if we don t perform what we need to perform, if 8
you come out and you don t complete, like a young person in school, you have done nothing, accomplished nothing. Allah says, We offered the trust to the heavens and the earth, and to the mountains, but they refused to carry it and were afraid of it. And man carried it. Sure, he is sinful and very foolish. Even the person who is foolish, or doesn t seem to get it, or seems disinterested has another form of contact with Allah (swt), with other human beings. We take on that trust and Allah gives us the power, gives us the guidance and gives us the support. But it is also very, very important, working out in the world, as we do with our organization, to remember what is needed at home. What do we need here not in Kyrgystan, not in Morocco, not in Libya what do we need here? I don t mean just mechanical, physical things. The earth receives the seeds and it bears the fruit. Well, we have gardens. We put the seeds in. We get some fruit and a lot of blight. Suffer, loss what do we do about it? Is there some linkage between other things that have gone on in our lives, or ourselves, or our capacity, or our khidma? Do you think there is a linkage? I do. I certainly do. We offered the trust of the heavens, but they were unable to accept it. Just think about how many tasks are performed in the heavens. Just think about what happened when minerals got crushed into diamonds, and veins of gold were placed in the earth, what affect it had on human consciousness not just in trade between human beings, but consciousness. We are building our castles. What was the subject tonight? What was it? Somebody tell me. (Tawajjuh, paying attention.) Yes. Tawajjuh. Paying attention to what? My daughter asked a question tonight, Sometimes I am thinking, during meditation, I don t know what did Hazrat say? I don t know whether the thoughts are coming in or going out. What are we supposed to do with them? Pay attention. When you come out of muraqabah, when you come out of ghunoogi, and you realize that time has passed, a lot of time has passed, but you don t recognize that time has passed, what is happening? Tawajjuh, you are paying attention to what has just transpired. That strengthens your 9
iman. You realize you sat in meditation and you drifted. It went well, and you had a good meditation. It strengthens your iman. We have to understand where we are created from, and then do it well. Salaam aleykum. 10