Sufism is a process of attaining closeness to Creator through love which is attained by purification of your ego.
Love is a legacy you can leave behind and take it with you at the same time.
It is a treasure that you can give away as much as you want but it never decreases.
The more you give it, the more you have it….
Assalamu Alaykum, tomorrow is the 10th anniversary of 9/11. In the eyes of Allah, there are good deeds, better deeds and best deeds in getting closer to Allah. Zest alone will not get you anywhere. You have to have knowledge, wisdom and connection. We have to keep Allah in mind and do actions that will please Allah. The best action is the one He has asked you to do. That is why you need a live connection. Otherwise your actions may be futile. This action done on 9/11 was one of these. It hurt more muslims and islam than anybody else could have done. Now, is Allah pleased with this? Now here in this country we are afraid to say we are muslims. They want to use fear as a wedge to get an edge. Fear will work for a short time. But it is LOVE that gets things done. Love is long term. Now about the muslims in this country, we are all here because we did not like what is happening in our ex-countries, what I have gathered from islamic teaching so far is that your spiritual loyalty is to Allah and physical loyalty is to the place you live and eat. So most muslims in United States know this and we are not threat to our own country and if you don’t have this sense, you should get it. In islam, we first help ourselves and our family then our neighbors, then our town and then our country. We have to act like this. Nobody has the right to declare themselves as the representative of muslims and disrupt the lives of others in the name of Islam and God. Quran is not for the dead people. You have to read, understand and act with Quran, you have to be the Quran. Learning is in this life. When you kill somebody or people, you are taking this chance away from them. When Allah is giving them chances again and again, what right do you have to take this chance of learning away from them? How can Allah be happy with this? We as sufis, believe in peace, tolerance, togetherness and love. We do not believe in discrimination and hatred. We promote the good action and discourage the bad action. We do not judge anybody, only we agree or disagree with the action that is happening.
Time is important, don’t waste your time. Your time should be spent being with Allah or working for Allah. Doing something that pleases Allah.
Euzubillahiminesshaytanirracim Bismillahirrahmanirrahim
A student’s relationship with his/her teacher is a very important one in getting close to Allah. One must follow certain principles in doing so. Shaykh is not your friend, shaykh is an employee of Allah who is helping you to have a relationship with Allah. It is your job to respect the door or the window or the means that you are getting Allah’s knowledge from. The critical point is this: It is Allah who is teaching you through the Shaykh, you have to remember this. Your biat (initiation) is to Allah, your focus is on Allah, your target is Allah, your beloved is Allah, what you yearn for is Allah, don’t forget this. And all praise is due to Allah, it is mentioned in suratul Fatiha. Some people praise their shaykh because they are told Allah’s light is shining through their shaykh’s face. Seeing this yourself is one thing and being told that this is so is another thing. You have to act from the level that you are in. Otherwise, you can fall into shirk. Even if you see Allah’s light in your shaykh, your job is to praise Allah, no matter what. Because Allah the most High says, “Look at the Sun, but adore Allah who created it”. So don’t go too far in praising your shaykh, just respect him or her. Simple titles will be sufficient, no shaykhs praise themselves, no prophets praise themselves, they all praise Allah. Why don’t we all do that?
Allah+ Nafs = You
If you solve it for Allah
Allah = You-nafs
Why is a good question to ask. Should we not present our best face to the world? What is Rumi is saying about it to us? This is a comment than can be contemplated on many different levels. First could be social level, we should not be two faced is clear enough but also, if we keep hiding our true self and live in constant fear of how will everybody like us, we never get to grow and experience life from our point of view. Allah has created us with our own point of view and we must experience Allah from our own experiences. If we act according to how others might like us to be is suppressing our own inner
Ali Baba, A Nakshi shaykh from Toros mountains, Turkey
self and stopping the growth.
Another level of contemplation could be the spiritual, either be one with your essence, which is Allah. Since our true and everlasting self is the spirit of us, if we don’t honor this spirit and acknowledge it, we will be the ones loosing out on a big opportunity of being one with Allah. The purpose of this journey in this planet is to consciously make a trip back to Allah and earn our nearness to Allah. As Sufis, we want to cleanse our nafs and be one with Allah here in this world, otherwise at the end, everything will be facing Allah when we die or when the world finally ends. Why wait? Rumi says, make a decision, choose Allah. For him, he never had any question about this issue. He chose his path to honor Allah and here he is the most read poet of our times, a caller of hearts to the Divine.
