36. DISCOURSE – SINCERITY IN DEEDS This conversation was held on Tuesday at the madrasa. Date of the speech: 2 Rajab 545 AH, 1150 AD. In this discourse, the following topics were discussed: What are the characteristics of a person with insight? Why is it necessary to be dependent on people? What are the signs of a genuine and solid faith? How does the blessing of not being dependent on anyone other than Allah come about? What position does constant submission to Allah bring a person to? What is the reward for enduring loneliness? These and other topics were discussed… This world is like a marketplace. In an hour it will be dispersed; no one will remain. When a little darkness comes, everyone returns home. Be diligent. Do not take things that are not useful in this bazaar. Do not sell things that will not benefit anyone. Think not only about today, but also about tomorrow.
Perhaps today looks good. But what will happen tomorrow? Think a little about that as well. Seek the things that are happening in the real marketplace of the afterlife. The understanding of the coin-seller is strong. To unite in the oneness of Allah and to seek good deeds for Him are among the valid commodities of the other world. But few of you do these things. *
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O child! Take your mind to your head. Do not be hasty. Nothing much will come into your hands through haste. It is not easy to bring the morning by immediate action. Do not be hasty while waiting for the morning. Engage yourself with other things. Worship. It will come on its own. Find a preoccupation during the day; the evening will come on its own, and you will find what you desire. Be a person of authority. Deal well with people. Do not oppress them. Do not try to take what does not belong to them. They are representatives. Their owners will say to them, “Give!” and they will give. Wait until the command is issued; you will see how giving happens. The punishment for taking someone’s property by force is severe. It is not easy to endure that punishment. Give when you can.
If you can give, you will have given in accordance with the command. That is, in accordance with the existing order. Because no one can give even a grain without a command. They will not give you anything either. It is not possible to take anything from anyone. Neither a grain nor the sea, the ocean, or anything else, but nothing can be taken easily. Only with the permission of Allah… Allah inspires hearts. Through that inspiration, grace comes to hearts. They will give you what you need. The mind understands these wisdoms. If you have a mind, understand these things… Stay in your place. Do not move left or right. The times for food and clothing are divided, and power is in the hand of the Almighty. * Woe to you, what face will you have before Him tomorrow?
In this world, you are going the way of contention with Him. You are always running away from Him. You are going to people. You are committing shirk. You are seeking your needs from people like yourself. When you are in difficulty, you rely on people. Seeking help from people is a calamity. Rely on Allah and work. You are also a human being like them. Most of the beggars have fallen into that state because of the mistakes they made. Only a few of them are forced to beg. Only a few of the beggars beg without being affected by mistakes. It does not suit you to beg as long as you have a hand, a foot, or a mind; if you do, you will be disgraced. They will drive you out from the door you go to. * O child! The most suitable thing for your distressed state is with me. Let me say: Do not take anything from anyone. Do not wait for anyone’s tax.
No one can explain what they do not understand. No brave person will emerge to show what they cannot see. When you are strong enough to give, you cannot take anything that anyone else has given. If you have strength, use it for yourself. Do it yourself. Try to see your affairs with your own hands. Those who travel on Allah’s path work with Him. The Creator shows them amazing things at every moment. He gives them His grace without holding back. He protects them from every evil. * O child! If you have not entered the religion of Islam, you are not a believer. One who does not have faith has no intellect. You cannot gain knowledge of the divine from someone who does not have intellect. You cannot become a person of knowledge. These are degrees. One cannot come without the other. You cannot ascend to the second step without being the first. Those who do not submit to the commands of Islam cannot submit to the true owners of the command.
Become Muslim. Surrender your entire being to Allah, carry out the commands of the sharia, and obey His commands. You must submit to Allah for yourself and others. Do not oppress your own soul. Do not oppress others either. Oppression throws people into the swamp in this world and the hereafter. Oppression darkens the heart. It turns the face black. It removes the whiteness of the book of deeds. Abandon the path of oppression. Do not help the oppressor. In this regard, our beloved Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “On the Day of Judgment, the following voice will be heard: Where are the oppressors? Where are their helpers? How are those who provided them with shelter? Even a little of those who looked kindly upon them? Collect all of them and cast them into a coffin and throw them into hell.” Leave the people. Make an effort not to be an oppressor or a victim. If you can, be a victim. Avoid being an oppressor. Let no one’s right remain with you. If it does, let yours remain. Do not torment anyone; do not fear, for Allah helps the oppressed. Especially if no one helps from among the people. Our beloved Prophet (peace be upon him) says: “If a person suffers oppression and cannot find help except from Allah, the following address will come from Him: I will certainly help you. If you are late, do not be sad, I will do it whenever it is.” Patience calls for help; it elevates a person. It makes a person strong. Remove the intermediaries between you and the Truth. *
Seeking intermediaries is a passion. Leave the ruler, the king, the wealth, and the strength. All these qualities belong to the Truth. O Allah. We ask for patience from You. Grant us piety. Bestow grace upon us. Make it a blessing for us to give up everything and be with You. Remove the veil between us. * O hypocrite, until when will you fall into the trap of show? Until when will your heart be corrupted? O man who shows the opposite of what is inside you, what can this state give you? What can you gain from it? Woe to you; you are not ashamed of Allah. Why don’t you think about appearing before Him? Soon you will appear before Him. The essence of your actions belongs to someone else, but you act as if they are for Him!
You are trying to deceive Allah. You are demanding things through your actions. But know that the knowledge of the Truth is with you. He always knows you. Turn around, correct your affairs. Make your soul for Allah. Work so that every step you take, every bite you take, every action you perform is done with good intentions and is beneficial to the Truth. If your intention is complete, every action you perform will be good. Your actions will be for Allah. And you will perform your duties without difficulty. Worship is doing the acts of worship for Allah. With this intention, things are corrected. After fully submitting to Him and performing worship, the Truth becomes the owner of that soul. When the Truth becomes the owner of a soul, He protects that soul from the bad deeds of the people and does not make them dependent on them.
He frees them from their troubles. As long as you desire Allah, the way is opened, and you become part of His nearness. Difficulties disappear. Love for the Truth is created in the heart. The degree of nearness increases every moment. The degrees of nearness gradually rise. As long as your worship is in place, your nearness to the Truth grows. Then it grows even more. When this state reaches its peak, the heart is filled with the light of the Truth. No one else can find a way to enter there. And no space is left for others there. To reach this state, obey the commands of the Truth. Avoid His prohibitions. Submit to Him. Do not leave His bond in goodness or in adversity. Especially know the good, the bad, the rich, and the poor from Him.
When you fulfill your desires, be careful because most of them belong to this world. Things of this world must be taken with great care. Do not ask for a reward for the deeds you do for Allah in this world. Leave the reward to Him, and He will give it. You will unknowingly ask for a little, and that will be your reward. The real great reward is His nearness to you. That has already been given to you. What else do you want? His nearness is the greatest blessing of this world and the hereafter. Being close to Him in this world is achieved through the heart. Do your deeds only for Him. Do not mix small things into your intentions and corrupt them. See what you do. Activate your external feelings.
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Give your heart to the Truth. If you can give your heart to Him, windows open to the world of the heart. You will look at wisdoms through them. Meaning becomes form. Things that pass into the world of the unseen are revealed outwardly. What is said as news becomes clearly visible. If the servant becomes good for the sake of Allah, he is protected from every inappropriate condition. His condition is improved, and he moves from one condition to another. Every moment he flies to the realm of meanings. His heart is filled with faith. The state of knowledge increases. He enters the realms of nearness and observation. For the people of this state, there is no night, only day. There is no darkness, only light. There is no sorrow, only good. There is no ego, only the heart. There is no nothingness, only existence. There is a world of the unseen that has no present state.
The basis of all this is to find a state of friendship with the Truth. What use is speech; after the relationship of intimacy with the Truth has not been established… You have tested the people, and you have sensed what they are. Take one step forward; the benefits and harms are no longer there. Leave the ego. Do not follow it. Pass it by. As much as you can, draw yourself toward what the Creator loves. You have also tested it. You have learned what its condition is. People and ego are like a sea of two fires. If a person falls into it unknowingly, he is destroyed. Be determined and cross those seas. First, illness comes. Then healing comes. Do not trust either illness or healing. All illness and healing are from the Almighty. No one other than the Almighty sends illness or healing.
If you become used to being alone, love and unity with the One come. If you are willing to be poor, wealth comes. Leave the world, then search for the other world. Then seek closeness to the Truth. Leave the people and run to the Creator. Do not be foolish, for the creature and the Creator cannot be together. The world and the hereafter cannot be in one heart. Even the thought of their union is impossible. It is not permissible to imagine their union. It is necessary to think of the people outside and the Creator inside. Hold the worldly things in your hand. Keep the affairs of the hereafter in your heart. But these two cannot reside together in the heart. Look at your ego, and take what is useful for it. If you want the worldly things, remove the hereafter from your heart. If you want the hereafter, you must remove the worldly things from there.
Choose what is useful for your ego. If you want the Master, remove both the worldly and the hereafter from your heart. Let neither the worldly nor the hereafter remain in your heart. Since you desire the Master, you must remove everything other than His essence from your heart. If even a grain remains in your heart other than Him, you will not feel closeness to the Truth. It will not be possible for you to be in friendship with the Truth or to be at peace in His presence. If even a single thread of worldly matters remains in your heart, it will not be possible for the gate of the other world to come to your heart. If even a particle of love for the hereafter lives in your heart, the divine light will stay away from you. Woe to you, you hide behind a curtain so that the people do not see you. But you have not seen the Creator. How can you keep a secret from Him?
Soon all the curtains will be torn. All the secrets will be revealed. The results of your deeds will come out from your pocket and your home. Every bottle you did not break today will be broken piece by piece tomorrow. Especially the wine cup you always drink from. If you see it being broken! Every good deed will be revealed tomorrow. Perhaps you will be deprived of them. O poison drinker, you will see the signs of it in your body tomorrow. Eating haram food is poison for the religion’s body. Keeping the blessings hidden is a deadly poison for the religion. Soon the Almighty will bring you to account, and because you did not know the value of the blessings, He will reduce you to poverty. You will come out among the people as a beggar. The hearts of the people will not have compassion for you. And you, O one who has abandoned deeds, will be left behind.
Soon knowledge will cast you aside. You will not find the happiness of knowledge in your heart.
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And O fools, if you knew His power and strength, you would also think about giving an account and fear making mistakes. Establish your conduct towards the Almighty and His servants! Throw away the words that are not useful for your work. A certain nature describes useless things as follows: “I was walking and I saw a young man digging the ground very hard. I said to him in my own way: ‘Leave this heavy work and look for lighter tasks.’ I paid a very heavy price for my words. I could not stand up for six months for the night prayer. This was a very heavy punishment for me.”
O child! The real preoccupation is to deal with useful things. Do not put the desires of the ego in your heart; only then will true good come to you. The desires of the ego are burdens. If it were only your own burden, it would also put the place it enters into a burden. Good comes only after the desires of the ego are removed. Leave your bad condition. The Almighty will show you new and good conditions after that. “Until they change their own conditions.” (er-Ra’d, 13/11) O human, listen. O people, listen. O responsible beings, listen. O wise and mature ones, hear. The speech of the Almighty is the most truthful of words. The news He gives is solid. The best of words is brought by the quality of His speech.
No one speaks more highly than Him. Change your ego. Remove the habits the Creator does not like. If you do this, what you love will come to you. The roads are wide, but what is that for you? O sinners, rise up and try to walk. Work and do not be careless. Since the end of the rope is in your hand, do not let it go. And use it in a way that will benefit you. Load your ego, otherwise it will load you. It always commands bad things. In this world it says, “Do it.” In the other world it says, “Why did you do it?” Run away from the predator like you run away from the one who makes you unaware of the Truth. Work for the sake of Allah. Those who work with Him gain profit. Allah loves those who love Him. He grants the desires of those who desire Him. The Truth brings those who wish to approach Him closer.
He grants knowledge to those who wish to be people of knowledge. Listen to me. Accept my words. No one speaks better than me. You cannot find anyone on earth who speaks more firmly and beautifully than me. But do not know these things from me. My power is from the Truth. I call the people with the tongue of His power. And I do these things for the people, not for myself. If I want the world of the hereafter, I still want it for the people. Every time I speak to someone, my speech is for the Almighty. What use is the world; what do I do for the hereafter? What need is there for those within the world and the hereafter? He knows my truthfulness. He is the one who knows all the unseen. Come close to me. The countries are under my command. I operate the mint.
I understand the false coin. * O hypocrite, until when will your lies continue? How much longer will you say, “I am I, who are you?” Even though you have seen everything in the universe, you say, “I.” You deal with things other than the Truth. But when you are in trouble, you say, “I am in friendship with Him.”
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You say that your ego is pleased with the deeds of the Truth, but it is opposed to everything. You claim that your ego has become used to patience, but when faced with events, it becomes tired and enters into disbelief. It is not enough with words. Those who do not have their flesh cells condemned to death by sorrow and grief will not be accepted by those who erode you. It is not possible to enter the world of friendship with the Truth until the scissors of sorrow and grief have not cut your flesh. The calamities that fall upon you direct your heart toward the Truth. The worldly benefit disappears, and the attachment to the hereafter is gone. The love for the world and the hereafter should only exist in the absence of commands and prohibitions. Submit to the Truth. He will move you. You think you are yourself, but you are not.
It is not possible for you to have any position unless you collect this state within yourself. The Almighty, who is Mighty and Glorious, does not demand the wealth of the servant. He asks for the meaning. The meaning of the servant is the states of unity, sincerity, the decrease of love for the world, and not even a particle of love for the hereafter. It is essential that all things stay away from the heart. This distance is itself a meaning. In the end of these matters, the servant reaches Allah. He is loved, and closeness is given to Him. All things are held above Him. * O One, unite us for Your sake. Deliver us from the evil of the people. Make us pure for Your sake. Purify our prayers with Your grace and generosity. Cleanse our hearts with Your mercy. Make our affairs easy. May our friendship be with You.
If we have fear, let it be about going to anyone other than His Essence. Let our intentions be one, and that is Your nearness. May our world and our pilgrimage always continue in Your nearness. “Our Lord, grant us goodness in this world. Grant us goodness in the hereafter. And protect us from the punishment of the fire.” (el-Bakara, 2/201) Amin!
*****
37. DISCOURSE – VISITING THE SICK This conversation was held on Friday morning at the madrasa. Date of the speech: 5 Rajab 545 AH, 1150 AD. In this discourse, the following topics were discussed: What benefits does remembering the hereafter provide to a person? How can we free ourselves from acting for anything other than the pleasure of Allah? Who is the person that Allah is most angry with? When and how do the veils between us and the Almighty, who possesses honor and glory, disappear? What conditions are experienced when we reach the level of closeness to Allah? Is there any good in worship without knowledge and spiritual insight? These and other topics were discussed… The following noble hadith of our beloved Prophet (peace be upon him) carries great meanings for the world we live in: “Visit the sick. Strive to be present at funerals.
Because these things remind us of the existence of another world beyond this one.” Our beloved Prophet (peace be upon him) says this with the intention of saying, “Think about the hereafter.”
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