Futuhat al-Khalwat

Suhbat 11-10-2005

Futuhat al-Khalwat
Shaykh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani

Audhu billahi min as-shaytan ir-rajeem
Bismillahir-rahmani ir-raheem

Nawaytul arba`een, nawatul `itikaaf…

Madad ya sultanul-awliya.

In the previous session, we said that the state of witnessing is the state of Gnostics and that the light of the Prophet (s) is accumulating all these lights or gathering all this light, an-nur adh-dhaati, the light that describes the essence; it is the secret that is running into all names and attributes. So when that essence, which cannot be described by this description, but to give it an understanding, [it is similar to] when a volcano comes up, it gives all this lava and erupts and all this fire comes out – lava -- and it begins to go running and wherever it goes it melts everything; even rocks will melt. That is in order to understand. So when the light of the absolute essence comes, that light that even the Prophet (s) does not know, these lights are running into the heart and manifesting in the heart of the Prophet (s) and create all these oceans of enlightenment. Wherever these oceans of light run, it will run like a river and like the river, which polishes the rocks, the river will begin to make a shape, just as the lava where it flows creates a shape. So this light will go to awliyaullah and will run in their spirits and souls and becomes like a carrier, that carries that wali and dips him and then drowns him, like diving -- feeling the taste and diving into the buhur al-ahadiyya, the oceans of uniqueness, raising one from the taste of oneness to the taste of witnessing, as happened to Sayyidina Bilal al-Habashi (ra). This is the station of Gnostics. When you reach that station of Gnostics, these oceans will open their treasures and stores to you, like the safe box in which you hold treasures. These cabinets or closets which contain these oceans of treasures of knowledge and enlightenment, just as the tsunami took everything in its way, it will take that wali moving him so strongly into the epicenter of the `ayn al-wahdat, the ocean of unity. Everything you will be seeing will indicate to the Creator, everything is coming from Allah (swt) and there you will experience complete submission. That makes you not to be able to hear, not to be able to see, not to be able to sense except to your lord to come to him through the prophet (s), then through the shaykh.

So at that time you don't hear except through your shaykh, see, feel. Then he will take you to a station where you don't hear except through the Prophet (s)… then he will take you to the station where you don't hear except through Allah (swt).That is fana fillah fana fil habib, fana fi'l-mashaykh – annihilation in Allah, annihilation in the Beloved (the Prophet (s)), annihilation in the shaykhs.
That shaykh who takes you there is the light of your soul. When it was created, your soul was blended with the soul of your shaykh, and he is the life of your soul and his soul is the secret of your reality. Because from his soul your reality is coming, because you have been assigned on the Day of Promises; so through him you understand your reality and through his reality comes all knowledge and comes all understanding of the universe around. Nothing can come outside his reality, for his reality as his soul is the secret of your reality and his reality is the knowledge of what is going around, so too his soul is from the reality of the prophet. Like a chain reaction. As he is to you, he is to the prophet. As he is the life of your soul, hayat ruhik, so too is his life of the Prophet (s) and the life of the Prophet (s) is coming from Allah (swt).

These knowledges that we keep explaining, cannot be understood except through the state of humbleness -- when you humble yourself and humiliate yourself. As Sayyidina `Umar (r) did as we described before, you will be able to understand and learn . Or else you will be far from understanding these knowledges, unless you are very well experienced and very well trained in humbleness. That is not by showing yourself humble, by eating on the floor or dressing in dirty clothes, or you are doing this or that to show yourself humble, such as sleeping on the floor or sitting on the floor. In reality, humbleness is within you, that you forgive people if they harm you. That is humbleness. Humbleness is not to show an act or gesture of humbleness. That is simple, everything can do that. But it comes if someone is irritating you or aggravating you or doing something you dislike, and still you are forgiving him and trying to approach more and more towards him, that is humbleness.

Like Sayyidna `Ali (r), when the wrestler spit in his face, that is humbleness. He said, "If I kill you now, then humbleness is gone." Like the neighbor of the Prophet (s), seven years dumping his garbage at the door of the Prophet (s). And when he was dying he visited him. He never said anything about it to anyone. He didn't know that one is hurting him? He knows, he is the Prophet (s).

Like the ones who asked Sayyidina Musa, "How many years does our neighbor have of life," [the neighbor] who was a tyrant? Sayyidina Musa (as) said, "300 years." Then he said, "La hawla wa la quwaatta illa billahi il` alee al `adheem." Then the man's wife asked asked Sayyidina Musa, "how many years does our neighbor have of life?" Sayyidina Musa (as) didn't say to her, "Go ask your husband, I already gave the answer." He said, "300 years." Then she said, "La hawla wa la quwaatta illa billahi il` alee al `adheem." Then the man's son asked asked Sayyidina Musa, "how many years does our neighbor have of life?" Sayyidina Musa (as) said, "300 years." Then he said, "La hawla wa la quwaatta illa billahi il` alee al `adheem."
So the man said, "La hawla wa la quwaatta illa billahi il` alee al `adheem." the wife said, "La hawla wa la quwaatta illa billahi il` alee al `adheem.", and the son said, "La hawla wa la quwaatta illa billahi il` alee al `adheem."
Then that neighbor died. Then Sayyidina Musa said, "How Ya Rabbee, you said 300 years. Allah (swt) replied, "When they rendered to me, then I must respond."

That is humbleness. You have to eliminate arrogance and pride, and put in humbleness. Then these oceans of knowledge can come and stay in the heart. That humbleness will elevate in you and create within you patience. As you become more and more humble, you become more and more patient to those who are hurting.
And in showing humbleness to the shaykh…you say how to show humbleness to shaykh? That is not to give him his shoes. That is love. Humbleness is to leave everything to shaykh, to accept whatever he says. That is when the heart becomes more polished and clean, then he can throw in it knowledge. If you are patient through humbleness, then what will shaykh do? He will feed you bitterness, in order to teach you. When he sees you are in a level that you don't object, he will try to give you the bitterness of what he can, by preventing you from the desire of this world, and then make everything difficult to see how much you can carry and bear. Yutimuka al-murra. He will feed you the bitterness and sourness by preventing the pleasures of this dunya. Everyone likes to have a video camera, everyone likes to have a cell phone. That is from pleasures of dunya. We are like children in eyes of shaykh. We like candies. What is the best candy, to have a cell phone. Not a normal cell phone. To get a non-physical cell phone. What is the nicest cellphone? To connect directly to the heart of the shaykh. Without any battery. everyone wants something out of following. No one says, "I follow to polish the heart." That is why there are many that follow for thirty, forty years and then at the end they begin to go astray and get doubts and begin to question because from the beginning they were seeking to get something. That is becoming a dangerous issue. Now you see them coming to the shaykh for many reasons. Most are coming for dunya issues. No one coming to be around the shaykh to learn from the shaykh.

Then when shaykh sees that, he gives them one sip of bitterness. To check. He doesn't give them a big cup -- they will die, they will run away. Then he checks. Oh, they are struggling now. It is a sip, and they struggle. [struggle with faith]

Instead of giving you pleasure of this dunya, wa yahrimuka min tamata` biha - forbidding you from enjoying any worldly pleasure, because he wants for you the pleasures of akhira. Because he wants for you the pleasure of akhira. We say, why he is doing this for us when he does not do for others that we know. They are around him and getting all the crumbs from him and why he is not doing to them, only to us? Why he keeps petting them, giving them what they like, living with him, sitting with them in the room. Yes, he is giving them because he wants to give them dunya. For you he gives you bitterness of dunya, in order to give you akhira.

What do you want? How much? Money for business, take and go. He gives. But for you, he makes you to get upset and to get frustrated. They are like me, why he gives them and not me? Because he is training. He is not training them, he does not care for them. That is difficult, very difficult on the self. That is why between mureeds, in any Sufi training, the master might give some more than others. And they say why he is preferring them more than us. Even they are wasting what he gives them, they are not praying as we are, they are not doing dhikr as we are, and he gives them more attention to them than us and when he speaks to us he shouts at us. That is the way, if you like it accept it, and if not, struggle like a salmon fish. Everyone struggling according to his capacity and according to his level. What he wants for you is pleasure of akhira and pleasure of jannah. He wants for you what was promised to the prophet (s), highest level of paradise, maqam as-sidq` inda maleekin muqtadir, station of truthfulness in the divine presence.

So be patient with the long turning away from you of the shaykh, when he doesn't give you attention, jafa, but he mistreats you and ignores you completely, and always showing himself as disgusted with you, has nothing to do with you, doesn't talk to you, you are the worst of his followers, criticizing and complaining. That is where the secret is. For the roots of knowledge, or epicenter of knowledges or source of knowledges, is between his frown and huffing and puffing nafaraatihi, his disdain. Between his grimness and his disdain is the epicenter of knowledges.
Knowledge, Allah (swt) hid it there, he gave to prophet (s) and prophet (s) gave to awliya and said, hide them.
That is what Allah (swt) said in Quran: `abasa wa tawalla in ja'ahu al-`ama…
He grimaced and turned away from the blind man that turned away from him.
Allah said, "It might be that blind man will come and get knowledge."
In the secret, the prophet (s) grimaced and disdained, to polish quickly the blind man and raise him quickly to receive those secrets for akhira.
When the shaykh grimaces, he is trying to take that peacockness characteristic to dump in the ocean of disdain, he got that burden and carried it and nafara minhu -- it means to repulse it away and dump in the ocean of peacockness of Iblees, because he is the dumpster. Between these two, the grimace when he does that, especially if you know him very well for many years, then you can think nothing but, O the shaykh is angry with me, then there is where you can take knowledge. That is why if you don't taste the bitterness in childhood, never in your adulthood will you reach anywhere.

Childhood means your first years in tariqah. If you don't learn the bitterness in what shaykh is trying to polish you, then you cannot become an adult, because it is impossible to change anything when you become older. When you are older it is difficult to expand and to learn more. At that time it has expanded to its capacity and it cannot take more. That is why those who come to tariqah when young are better than those who come when they are old.
So if you don't taste bitterness in your dunya life, you are going to drink from the fountains of ignorance all your life.
Imam Shafii said: "fa man fattahu ta`leem fee waqt shababihim fa kabbir alayhi arba takbirata - Whoever misses learning in his youth, make four takbirs over him." That means he is dead. Then make funeral prayer over him. That is why it is very difficult to change someone when he becomes old, if he was not trying to change his life when he was young.
That is why you see many people when they are moving on the right way, they flip back. You see them on the right way, right way, and then at the end they turn back. That is the great danger. That will destroy us.

So what is the summary of the conclusion of what we have gone through? Khulasta hayat al insan. The life of the human being is connected with knowledge, and through knowledge to reach the best way possible. You are not yet perfect. Prophet (s) is the only perfect one. Then after him the Sahaba and after them the awliya. So the conclusion of the khalwah, whatever we have discussed before, is that the life of the human being is through knowledge, righteousness, piety, humility, patience, reflection (ta'amul), meditation, contemplation and finally through rabitah connection which is the initation you take from the shaykh. All of these above, `ilm, salah, taqwa, tuqa, tawada`, ta`ammul, taffakur, murabitah, all these are wrapped by tadhallul lirabbika, humiliating yourself before you lord, less than humiliation, it is self-effacement before your lord. That all takes you to state where you see yourself very low and your lord is the generous one, and whatever you are doing is still the lowest of the lowest and still you have to believe that peacockness characteristic is still on you and goodness didn't reach you yet. If you didn't realize that then you fall into trap of shaytan. Then there is no recognition of yourself by your Lord, by the Prophet and by your shaykh.