The Wise Man and the Serpent By Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad

more hey Bo hey Mel Akutan more labor mallacoota may Emma's wanna mihawk doser Uzi the fussy dose arrow z-buffer see [Music] but I hear of many raheem alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen or salat wa salam or other acromial MBA even more saline sada normal habib allah muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'in awfully salary more house ready for ali muhammad most of us all of us in law in this blessed place in trebles in in germany we are going to be honored with the opportunity to dip into the ocean of the mass nadi discrete Daria this great extraordinary a fusion of the soul of someone who is so closely linked to their inward as well as the outward greatness of hostility for columns in O Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was Madonna Jalaluddin Rumi and to attempt a brief dose of the Minerva Sharif insha Allah and we will be looking at one of his well-known stories which is a story that even though it comes to us from a distance century and a distant place is something that cuts to the heart of what every one of us is about as a human being and we will see its relevance in due season and this is from the second volume of the mass Navi lines one eight seven eight onwards to the end of the section brand Johnny Donnie or Marie hoof deer or k-mart are the harness off table this is the story of the man the the nobleman the Amir who saw somebody into whose mouth a snake slid and we'll see the symbolism of this as we go along bismillah awfully bar us Muhammad's of our Dorothy Han hoffmeir of tomorrow a awfully an intelligent man a person have Apple was riding along on a horse when he saw a snake going into the mouth of a man who was asleep and in some versions of the story some of the commentaries the man is asleep by the roadside underneath the tree and he sees this this dreadful sight on Savar on Rob eddied ramesha tuft tari marnet martyr for Sidney oft and the rider the one who was under horse saw this terrible thing the snake going into the man's mouth and make haste to try and stop the snake doing it but he didn't have a chance he didn't have a faucet to do so he was just too late chunky as a leash Farrar von would madad Chum CC RV bull huffed is odd since he was well supplied with intelligence and and intellect he took out his his stick his his mace and struck the guy who was sleeping several times there's not able to move the snake but he starts hitting the sleeper bullet or rzm underboss see circuit zoo giri's on table easier yet their art and the guy wakes up he's being beaten by this stick by this this soldier this is officer and he's driven away and he finds a place underneath a tree so he's chasing him and his underneath the tree CB proceeded apathy booed Realtek goofed us in a bed dart Aviv ter a lot of apples had dropped from the tree and were rotting and he tells the man into whose belly the snake has gone he says you who are in the grip of pain start eating these apples Siebe Chandan Mara revoir darl hold dad cuz the Harnish bars beer on me for Todd and he stops the man with apples he pushes these rotten apples into the poor man's mouth so many that they stop to come out again and the man starts crying bunk Musa K mu K Amir architecture our pasta monkara de taüll Nardi de Johar and the man is starting to cry and to sob and saying I've not done anything wrong to you I've not suffered any you've not suffered any injury at my hand so why are you doing this why have you pumped on me and welcomed me up with your unpleasant military stick and you're forcing me to eat these rotten apples girl Torre's awesome thusly assed barge our names satis tears and yak biragi horn embarrass if you have some kind of if you've got a bone to pick with me if you've really got it in for me some kind of ancient feud and challenge then just take out your sword and stabbed me and and shed my blood just do away with me shumsa at Kassadin bart bart all tidied a hunka andhra cairo v tuna deed how inauspicious how ill-omened was that time when you first saw me happy certainly is that is that person who's really torn Aidid who's never seen your face degenerate be gonna be peace o come mulehead on joys nada and in shutter incertum I've done nothing I have no guilt no sin I have not done in good anything outrageous even the mall hey Don even the people who have no belief would not regard this as being ethical or decent behavior me major had home as DeHaan embossing on a food ah ah hey McCafferty talked on blood is pouring out of my mouth together with my words oh Allah I heard ah I beseech you give this man this wicked soldier the retribution give him his punishment Riccar fetish how does a man meet golfed all naphthene know ohm is a candle in suffer I bid all so with every moment he is coming up with some new curse he's completely outraged being chased around around a tree by the strange soldier who's hitting him and forcing him to eat these rotten apples and he's cursing him and the rider is continues to beat him and says keep running around in this field suffer me that bozo swore him so bad me dahveed wear bars dull row with me for Todd with rider who was as quick as the wind and with the blows of the mace following him he kept on running we had no choice and sometimes it stumble and fall down on his face dad warned me for Todd want Elly the hob knock they saw support powerful yesh thought his Iran Sutton thought he was full of apples now and getting exhausted and his whole body and his feet and his face became covered with a hundred sod has Iran luckily showed a hundred thousand wounds Tasha Balki mica she'd vehicle shot does tazza Safra I showed on bar a very for Todd and at for the rest of the day until the sunset the rider keeps on chasing him around around the tree forcing him to eat these apples until at last - and he starts to vomit and he throws it up Zuba are mad holiday hi ash - enugu Mar bar on holiday Bureau and just a zoo so all other things that have been eating all the good things and the bad things came out from him he vomited it up and at the end of it of course the snake comes out along with everything else that he's been eating so that's the beginning of the story and as so often Mevlana Rumi likes to hold our attention with with humor with the joke it's an inherently absurd situation is this innocent guy wakes up because somebody has stopped and starts beating him up and forces him to eat these rotten apples and at last this make emerges so what is the symbolism here well as you've probably guessed the symbolism here is that the snake the Mahr is that is the ego the lower self and lefse and mara basalt now the snake is a symbol that's used in Medellin for that aspect of the lower self which is deceitful and sneaky and plays games it's not really there in our organic account of the fall it's not the snake that causes Eve to tempt Adam but still the snake is a symbol of the human possibilities that are represented in in the self through animals and others would be donkeys lions goats and so forth there are certain animal qualities that are exemplified in animals that we find represented in our literature has particular virtues or vices or or human types personality so the snake is one of the lowest because of course all the creatures one that stays closest to the old to the dunya kind of slithers along doesn't have any possibility to rise above the ground and it wriggles that it squirms it does have any mr. comet or going straight and one of the ways in which mallanna develops this image is that when you see the snake that's within you there's black snake which is your lower possibility that the envy the biliousness the cruelty the selfishness appetites that part of you the dark part the part that stays close to the ground the worst thing you can do when you've detected such an animal such a reptile within yourself is to feed it so often we find the image of one giving a snake milk to drink this is quite common in the mercenary and the divan and he says beware of feeding the leather self because if you do so then it might grow and the snake when it becomes larger can turn into something like a dragon pouch their house their heart it's as if the snake which is it's a kind of Junior dragon and when the dragon is there there's very little that can be done and you are just completely in the grip of it and Nestle Amara and you're a kind of hard-hearted gangster egotist CEO who makes his money from asset stripping torturer whatever it might be there's lower periodic possibilities within us are due to the fact that instead of trying to deal with the snake within we've been nourishing it and instead of doing so we need to be starving it not giving it what it was what it once is to be gratified each time you say no to one of the egos impulses it becomes hungry and becomes weaker each time you say yes to one of the egos impulses it becomes a little bit stronger a little bit bolder and next time it's going to be harder for you to to deal with it so that's the image that he's using and Mevlana in his quite frequently talks about this snake that we have within us and in a famous series of verses where he really talks about the meaning of the nobility of Bani Adam and losses got cut alumni Benny Adam we have honored the descendants of Adam never Lana says yes through the roof that is within us but the clay also contains that Denari possibility this is the had a now on Notre Dame we've guided him to the two paths as well as the angelic there is demonic human beings are uniquely amongst orders of creation caught between those two possibilities so sometimes uses images such as human beings are half honeybee and half snake that is diagnosis of the human condition you have the capacity to be diligent and to gain sweetness from from creation and to produce nutrients to creation we also have the possibility to be poisonous and to be base and to be slimy base entities in creation yeah this is the line as best navaids somewhere else in the book zonka karim should adams after your memes and bore us Alfred Nima maher so we have enabled the descendants of Adam because he has the LTR and actually some kind of free will is important for me belong a room in this LTR this capacity that we have however illusionary however theologically difficult however nowadays scientifically difficult it might be we do have this capacity to choose and it is in this that our nobility consists the fact that we are half of us is Sunbury I said the the honeybee and the other half is the mod the snake we actually have the possibility of changing that balance we have both within us but because of this ennobling whose original sign is Tanaka at the moment Rob BG Kelly Matt I hadn't received a word from his Lord Viterbo Ali and he relented towards him we have the capacity through this mysterious paradoxical impossible thing called free will FDR to discipline the snake to starve it and to nourish the honeybee so the lamb becomes our basic identity so that becomes our basic identity and is habitually what we are because our definition of Allah holic in the singular is an established condition in the self from which noble actions proceed without any need for forethought if you think before acting virtuously you're not virtuous it's only spontaneous virtuous actions that consist in in which virtue consists so if you're going to be instinctively a person who always reaches for what's good in each situation but always sees the best in every individual will always detects the fragrance in any corner of God's earth rather than following the lower snake-like part of us which always looks for what is dark what is disagreeable what sheds negative light on other people and their intentions then you become a honey bee and just like the miracle of the B that produces sweetness from just flowers and the earth of creation you too can bring about this this miraculous transformation so yeah another image that Mevlana uses is we are half snake and it also uses the image of the the mahi the the fish he says human beings are like fish this is a useful image and what it means is that we have a natural odhh natural bird really is the ocean and the ocean in Mevlana is always an image of the the limitlessness of the divine mercy that's our natural habitat taken out of it we don't really flourish and the fish has in its deepest instinct and nature the desire to return to the water take a fish out of water and all it can think about or what is its craving to return to the water and thus is it with human beings take us away from what is holy what is beautiful what is virtuous what is in line with the true nature of things and we kind of flap about and gasped for breath and behave in a generally disagreeable way why is it that we have those bad o'clock it is nothing other than the fish slapping itself around damaging itself damaging others even because it's a soul thought is to get back into the ocean that's why the fish does that that's why human beings behave badly because they're away from the ocean of holiness they're away from the world of purity and the abode where there's no dimension alarma calm and therefore we behave in this strange and aberrant an unnatural way so fish is another nice image that Mevlana uses so in some of his prose works for instance the thehe mafia mallanna says man is a mixture like his recipe is that there is passion chakra within him there's also uncle and this is usually translated as intellect but in meth lana offal means something a bit more than our contemporary understanding of intellect which basically just means cerebral capacity it means the ability to be wise and to detect the existence of the true nature of things and to find the golden mean and the true just balance in everything it doesn't just mean the mind is some kind of computer so he goes on to say he is half angel and half beast half snake and half fish his his fish pulls them always towards the water and his snake pulls him towards the dry line because the snake doesn't deal with the water and confer the snake into the water that's not his natural habitat that's where the snake will start thrashing around and we'll drown pretty quickly the snake exists for the dry land and the fish exists for the water we have both of those possibilities within us so whenever there is any disturbance within to human soul whatever its outward explanation or manifestation it might be it's because it is in a battle the lower part of us saying that it's slither around on the dry land and the higher part of us saying hey guys let's go back to the ocean which is actually our true homeland ocean is the original divine source the context of the rules our last day of am I not your Lord and the ocean is again this is so common and roomy where you find treasures because we look at the ocean we see the surface and if you're not a quick sure that dwells in the ocean and has experience of being in the ocean you'll think well it's just ripples on the surface and not so interesting but beneath the surface there are so many wonders there are pearls and there is coral and there are amazingly beautiful things to be seen and thus is the true world the real world which normally we don't we don't see beyond the surface of things we are even though we think we see things in three dimensions in fact we only see as far as the surface of things we don't see the meta physics behind the physics but an infinitesimal distance behind the surface of things there is that the the true world there is the mellah court there is the world of Madinah beyond the world of hesse and in that world all kinds of wonders happen space and time don't quite behave in the way we would like them to Karamat become normal rather than occasional everything becomes prophetic and a world of vision so though shouldn't contains these pearls let me give you one more of my sort of roomy quotes about these animal images this is in another of his book the 7/7 gatherings and seven sessions modulus issa bar so he says Allah tells us in the way that I wish to make my treasure manifest this is the control concern mafia so also I wanted to manifest your capacity to recognize that treasure okay so Allah has two desires as it were to Arad as first of all to make his treasure manifest in other words the the potentiality of the plenitude of his nature manifest so the world exists so also he wishes to make manifest the human capacity to recognize that treasure and even a lot of scientists now say understanding the material world has two big dimensions first of all understanding what it is and secondly understanding what it is to understand it the strangest thing in creation being that there is a human subject it can look and actually make sense of things observe things human consciousness so there's two hidden treasures in a sense that that's Rumi is speaking about just as I wanted to manifest the purity and gentleness of this ocean so I wanted to manifest the high aspirations through and growth through the gentleness of the fish and the creatures which dwell in the ocean hence they maybe hold their own faithfulness and manifest their desires the high sea bear Nestle and your truck or any alcohol or a man will whom now you've done all famous verse from the Quran do people think that they will just be left to say we believe and they are not tested there was also test because there always a sign there is always the increase and the decrease of faith and there is always the need to differentiate between what is truly over to you from what is actually a vice and this becomes a subtle thing so he goes on to say there are hundreds of thousands of snakes which make the claim that they are in fact fish they indeed have fish forms but their reality is that of snakes so there are some human beings who seemed to be outwardly or even in the kind of religious walk that they walk to be part of the world of the Lamech on the limitless ocean without sure but in fact the inward reality is something else and this is perennial warning that the shakes give us along the path always judge with your deepest intuition don't just judge by people's capacity to take formal boxes of exoteric religion you can tick all of the boxes of exoteric religion and still be a snake within and such such people are legion so he says there's hundreds of thousands of snakes which make the claim that they are in fact fish and the same goes for the virtues because it's quite possible for any virtue in fact to be a secret advice if the intention is not correct so even if we see in ourselves or another something that really seems to be courage or generosity or hospitality or self-sacrifice or telling the truth whatever it might be the outward form of that might be one of these fish its natural home might be the ocean but his inward reality may well be something very perverse and that may even be veiled from the person who thinks that he has these virtues there's no room ever for complacency or for justifying the self even say no yosef who's given that amazing temptation alayhi salam says well mat or bodily or NFC in the Neph said that i'm mariaogtone besought I'm not trying to claim that my self is innocent the self is always inclining to evil even in that amazing moment when he was almost seduced and all of that could have befallen him and he says no hmm he does not attribute that no to himself but it's the the proof of his Lord and he himself recognizes despite his prophetic perfection despite the fact that he has given victory over the Shaitaan over the snake within he is still humble and that's the sign of a class which is one of the the tricky things because a rillette will should come happy as the only prophet tells us Allah I think you were stolen that ostentation is they he idolatry or polytheism shirk is a big word but it's the one that he uses I leave solid to us a noun because if you are outwardly practicing something that looks wonderful and pure and good and compassionate merciful and generous and hospitable but inwardly you are doing it because you hope other people will admire it or because you hope you yourself will admire yourself then you have got more than one pitler you're not doing it for the wife hid alcohol you're doing it for him and also for him and for him and for her and for the self that's why the word shirk is used which is a very subtle thing and half of this path that mallanna is talking about is trying to get us to recognize that there are idols within Idol to that well I'll probably never see an idol of Kobol and Alette in my life that's not really on my horizons of possible spiritual threats but the idols within are subtle and difficult this is why it's described as Earth I mean they're being emulated so that Alice authorities some fill a lattice Alma there's lots of hadith and authorities have the same meaning that the hidden ostentation this hidden idolatry is more hidden than the creeping of a black ant on a plain rock in a moonless night really difficult to see that that scorpion within that snake within its imperceptible and this is one reason why the two most common images in our literature for the lower self that which is kind of poisonous and which bites and which hides under rocks a sort of base demonic efreet within the two most common images are the scorpion and the snake and those are also used in the hadith to indicate the torments of the grave the torment of the grave is about scorpions and snakes why because if in this world you would allow those things to dwell within you and you've never really taken steps to kind of shock in some antiseptic and to fumigate it and to call them pest control and deal with it do you live your life with those pests within you then they're going to continue when you're in the pretty unimaginable Barossa world beyond the grave and this is just something a kind of internal zoo that you've cultivated in your life by feeding them and you have to deal with it in in the air Farah and this is just part of the divine justice Rama's Allah Muhammad Allah were lurking kennel and for so home yes anymore Allah was not than just to them they were unjust they brought darkness to their own selves so you can see now what this story is about the story is about the fact that the guy wakes up somebody's hitting him doesn't know who he is and forcing him to eat these green apples it's a weird scenario so with the teacher the real spiritual guide a lot of the time you don't really know what he's doing he might just be sitting there or might give you a look or I might tell you to clean up the toilet so he might did it sometimes can see I seem arbitrary and strange in fact he's got his stick there's just bitty beating him again and again and again not because he wants to hurt you but like a good physician in the surgery surgery might be painful the tooth extraction might be painful but that's not what he's trying to do he's actually trying to get out to make you vomit to get rid of this this pollution that's with it so this person who seems to be the bane of our existence actually turns out to be actually turns out to be the one who's our our healing and in whom we can find deliverance from this this catastrophe of going for our lives with these kind of parasites within us which is certainly going to obstruct any hope for real inner serenity and Happiness chullpa deed as heard beyond an Marah such day of art omnigul cara de la when he saw okay the man vomits up the snake and he sees the snake he falls on his knees in front of that kind and compassionate man suddenly he sees what it's all about there was that thing within me I understand why I was being beaten up Sam it on ma ma RIS yah as eshte left Shawn buried under tar as Viper oft so as soon as he saw that big ugly hideous horrible snake in front of him all of his suffering went away all of his grief and his pain and the bruises vanished he no longer cared just as if you come out of the dentist and his pulled out the tooth that's been giving you pain for a long time okay it might a Cal ittle bit but you're gonna complain about that not really you won't even notice he is so happy that the tooth is gone and the same for surgery and any other major medical operation there's going to be after effects and side effects but who cares if the sickness has been done away with and even though it really hurts you go to the dentist and you're sincere in thanking him for having carried out the operation it's just an irony of the human human condition coughed tourgee breathe cough the whole tall jib really rough Matty yahoodi' icky Valley enormity he said you are like the Gabriel of divine mercy one moment he's been a thug beating him up with a stick and the next moment is the Gabriel of divine mercy you are Valley anonymity you are the one who is responsible for all of my my good fortune a Mubarak Sarty KD damn morro da budem John Johnny talk buff she damn that Johnny - Johnny no books you down how blessed was the hour when you saw me I was dead more of a boredom and Johnny now buck she died and now you have given me new life tomorrow true yarn masala mother on mungeri's on us talk man and Koran you were chasing me as a mother chases in other words the mother that's trying to stop the child from falling off the cliff or running onto the road it was that kind of chasing and I was running away from you like a donkey running away from its owner like the heart like the donkey and here's another of Ruby's famous animal images and we seem to be looking at a lot of them today that one aspect of the self is there is snake there is the scorpion but there's also the donkey we are often donkeys and in most religious traditions the same kind of human archetypes exists the donkey is stubborn the donkey is difficult the donkey must be brought into obedience the donkey is often irrational and very much in the grip of its lower possibilities so the room he often speaks of the Cheshire card the eye of the donkey and says close the eye of the donkey and open the eye of the intellect what you really are stop seeing things in terms of your desire to get stuff out of other people and out of creation dare to scan the world looking for treats for yourself close that eye and instead opened the eye of looking at the world in terms of looking for what is luminous and what is bright and because light is the instrument of physical sight you can see how well this image works you can look at the world whenever you open your eyes if you're not blind and you can see things in terms of the darkness and a shades or you can look at exactly the same thing and you can see the light that produces the meaning of the darkness into shades these are two eyes and sometimes in our tradition we say that the the Dajjal the Antichrist has one eye because it's not capable of moving from the perception of the shades the zalem at the shadows that constitute the differentiate of the world towards seeing things in terms of the light which is the one which is the divine name at Welli because Allah while you ladina a man of your original home me nas Illmatic Allah nor Allah is the protecting friend the guide of those who have Iman he takes them out of the shadows into the light again Mevlana uses this imagery a lot the what and speaks that Allah bringing us out off can't do it ourselves if still his his never his grace out of the shadows into the light shadows they're always in the plural the light is always singular in the bottom because the differentiate of the world which is the consequences of the shadows thrown through the refraction and differentiation of his 99 names are multiple if you only see the shadows and you don't see the light that is shedding that shadows then you've kind of misunderstood what it's all about which is the problem of a lot of say contemporary science where they look at all these physical constants and the protons and the nucleus and the Higgs boson and it's all amazing but they don't see the the unified ground of it all that is actually generating this this complexity and this this masterpiece this extraordinarily vast panoply of time and space they don't see it as as the consequence of a single principle in that Moroccan Arabic except for those who do into it that well this must come from something there are principles that must have established these constants but if you only look with that eye the eye of the donkey that will be what you see and I have the donkey functions it sees the world and it can operate materially but the other high the either that the gel does not possess is the eye that enables us to see things in terms of the light that generates the differential in the first place and take away the light what a shadows going to be that's the relationship between the creatures and the Creator we think this world has gone on for billions of years it's so cool and these physical laws can't be overthrown but without the light what is the meaning of the shadows so we need to recall this so the ego as a donkey that lower self our normal selves are non adem excels as donkeys and we need the right we need a bridle for the donkey there's another of his common images and other words we need to pull it back and this is common in Siri for instance as the image of the lower self as a stallion the wild horse or Bronco hug you how you're going to ride it how you're going to progress through life on yourself on yourself is craving this pleasure and that pleasure and backbiting and jealousy and all of that kind of not not not restful but manly be ragda Jamaa Feynman kyat her come a rod to G Merkel Haley bill you to me who's gonna help me control this wild stallion where are the the the rains that are going to enable me to pull it and make it under control it's only the divine Anaya that can help because these these passions are strong and in a certain sense they constitute what we are in our current shaped reality we are our intentions we are what we do we are what we desire and if we're honest most of what we desires is dubious and even the things that are not dubious that we desire we may desire them for dubious reasons we are in a mess we're caught in this December ass we see things with this donkey's eye so what's the solution well the message is to find the teacher because the teacher may well be able to hit you so hard and stuffy with apples and do other weird things actually you kind of get rid of it and you can finally experience the truth equal law and the the Tomatina be thickly led ultimately no law with the remembrance of Allah two hearts find peace back to the ocean the fish back in the ocean can calm down it's in its natural element its native habitat and we can stop slapping around and feeling desperate and being dangerous back to the ocean but to find the teacher means we have to find a teacher who is not asinine that is to say a teacher who is not like a donkey and Ann has warned us explicitly we have it in revelation that we are to be aware of religious scholars who are like donkeys carrying Scrolls cajamar EF Miller as Farah this was a trap into which some earlier communities fell masha'Allah so many books being carried by donkeys in other words despite the immense wisdom of that community's texts the some of the leaders were still in the grip of their passions there is no guarantee in studying calamitous ear and hadith and filk and al Qaeda and all of those things that you won't still be a donkey at the end of it and actually if you are a donkey who knows all of that stuff you're much more dangerous because people will assume that you're practising those things and it's time to go into a donkey and there's a lot of this in the world today people are looking at the Muslim world Muslim communities and seeing this that and the other say oh it's because of all of that religious stuff they're doing that's very dangerous so that's why the Quran warns us against being like the community which had leaders that were like donkeys carrying scrolls that's really a catastrophe and America's ally in his Khattab damaja role in the medina specifically warns us against all I'm at a soup the the automat who outwardly meticulous and punctilious and following the religion but actually all kind of full of rivalries narrow-mindedness suspiciousness attacking attacking attacking criticizing criticizing criticizing which is all from the law and that in Neffs not from a genuine zeal for Allah's religion but because of an insecurity anger Envy resentment that just makes them hypocritical the sign of the true scholar in the time of difficulty is that he tries to make things easy for people and he makes allowances for everybody to the extent it was a possible interpretation in some view of sharia the sign of the scholar who is not responding with this spiritual wisdom to the crisis of the age and is still a donkey is that it's always looking for new things to forbid even though people a week he wants to find more things to forbid them and that's the sign of the donkey is prevailing because there's no wisdom there there's no mercy no compassion the intellects eye is not open the donkey's eyes looking at everybody and just sees the people in the Majlis and all that the sees that's wrong that's wrong she's wrong that's that's the donkey and unfortunately this is a something that that is common and Madonna who had his own problems with some donkeys amongst the Illuma of his day most of the on amount of Kanye loved him of course he was Friday Imam of the Dean mosque but some of them weren't really happy with his kind of ecstatic and rather radical critique of a certain type of formulaic religion so his this is an explanation of some external but mainly Kalam scholars I get Donna oh Donna daal hacia - Hara Jeff had he died by on each / he heard from Hari he knows the attributes of every substance is a kind of Kalam differentiation but when he tries to explain his own substance he's a donkey kiha Madonna Mia jaws Valaya jaws hoard Nadar neato yeah Jules er Jules he says I know everything that the Sharia allows and disallows but how is it a woman dajjal's that you don't know whether you yourself are halal or Haram hmm he's got so many photos about this and that and the other being lawful or unlawful doesn't know whether he himself is halal or Haram you know the value of everything in the market except your own value and that's idiocy John's wrongly enemy heart inist in cuba donnie manikyam darlin yeoman dean key and our yama dean the essence of all religious knowledge is is this all bombers boils down to one thing to know who you are going to be on the day of judgment ultimately is it about the self it's not about your judgments of other people that is going to be effective Allah is Ahmed Hackerman is the best of judges is not going to consult you at the judgment seat it's between Allah and each individual soul so pay attention to yourself judge yourself sort yourself out because you are the one who is accountable for yourself to Allah Subhan Allah to Allah and the others will have their own separate reckoning so yes lots of stuff about the donkey's he talks about the the donkey of Jesus for instance that some people see Satan at ASA Jesus alayhi Salam upon him be peace with his donkey and they're more interested in the the noise and the apparent physical usefulness of the donkey then they are interested in said no he said they listen to the donkey's braying just because it's louder and they're not listening to his sweet discourse that's another human aberration and it is human nature we can't deny it if you open up television nowadays but random 999 times out of a thousand it's going to be something that caters to the kind of donkey within us whether it be reality TV or stupid advertising or inappropriate images or whatever it is it's the donkey that is what they're advertising for and maybe once occasionally you see something that is about our higher possibility and dignity and in charity but not so often so let's not be complacent the advertising people have done their research and they know what we like okay so we get back to to the master B text her dad as HOD Arvind Oskari Sahib Ashdod paese nee Go Go hurry donkey runs away from its master because it's just a stupid donkey hmm doesn't know that master it belongs to the master and also going to feed it and the owner runs after the donkey because the owner wants to look after the donkey this is similar to the relationship between human beings and their creator we run away from him because we're really stupid and we want to follow our egos Allah subhana WA Ta'ala is pursuing us not because he needs us but because of his his Rahman not as pi sword paya sword there's yarn me - leak tada gorgish na da da da - he seeks him not because he's going to profit from him or lose from him but because his he wants to look after him in other words he's afraid that a wolf or some other wild beast is going to rip him apart that's why the owner wants to reclaim possession of the donkey a hog honor our cabina draw a tow yard ARF Todd nagahama dark Booya - Coria - Oh whoever sees your face the donkey owner is happy felicitous whoever comes to your abode quarry at all will be come to your boat suddenly will be a person who rejoices so now he's speaking to the army officer has been beating him up and he's praising him era von epoch of Beast auditor our chunk of time Josh will be Halldor Torah o you who the pure spirit has praised how many stupid things I was saying back to you in other words all the curses and all the implications in the complaints that sick man was saying to the one who is pursuing him this is what human beings do when they complain about a teacher whether it be a child complaining about the schoolteacher or a spiritual seeker doesn't really understand the nature of his guide and thinks that things are a bit rough or difficult or the guide hasn't asunder hasn't understood properly or the human being protesting about aspects of God's religion or protesting about duties that he has to perform all peasant protesting about the weather or protesting about any other misfortune that might before him in this world that is the donkey complaining to the donkey owner on the basis of a misunderstanding of what the donkey owner intends that unfortunately is the case of those who are not in the true sense in Islam complete submission to their Lord so now our talk now that's how we as stupid donkeys should be when we return to our merciful Lord rather than running away well the Lord is trying to look after us saying we don't want those apples stop hitting us nope the reality is that the Lord has a wisdom which we haven't understood so love for the teacher love for the teacher is important not just recognition that the teacher is a teacher but love for the teacher and this is an ongoing sumner and it is an essential part of our way in Islam because to follow the teacher is to follow the one who is following one who is following one who is following the founder sallallahu alayhi wa sallam insofar as he is a legitimate teacher he is in the footsteps of the chosen one salawatullahi wa sallam or are they so something of the beauty of the mustafar ali so that was something of his authority something of the prophetic charisma something of the majesty of the Holy Prophet something of the wisdom of the profit with his Sahaba with one ilaha illah him has been inherited down the years to the present day and is there in the one who is sitting on the minbar or the one who is sitting in the place of authority and teaching even if it be any fragmentary the prophetic light is so great that just experiencing some tiny spark or fraction of that is more important than anything else and is sufficient in Charlotte to illuminate your life so that is why it is not just a question of obeying the teacher and accepting that the teacher sometimes is going to meet you when you don't do your homework but actually loving the teacher because what could what service could be greater than to call somebody to vomit up a snake well the only service that's greater than that is to find somebody who can encourage one to get rid of one's lower self the lower possibilities the donkey the snake the scorp in all of that that's what we all desire in our happiest moments the time when the spirit is at peace not moment of agitated since all happiness but times of real serenity and reconnection with what we really are that's a de that happiness only comes about because we are in a state of detachment from the lower self you've said no to the cravings you've turned off the devices we've started to tune into and log on to the needs of others we start to go through the streets instead of instinctively noting the faults of others I wouldn't wear that I would have bought that that child looks ugly whatever it is that the lower self the donkey craves instead to see the best in other people that child is beautiful that person is modestly dressed that person is being helpful that person whatever it is to scan to use that radar so that the eye of the Apple the Trish miracle is active and to see the world in a different way it's the same old world with plenty of shadows but to see it in that way always to see the best in others is as part of this way which mallanna is reminding us is the way of the chosen one sallalaho aleyh wassallam because as part of asanas on having a good opinion and looking for a la science one of the meanings of the commandment to look at our last signs and to look for our last science which is a fundamental commandment of the holy quran is that in every situation you look to see where those signs might be in other words you see the best in every situation you see what is holy in every situation you don't look at a particular image in the world or listen to a particular sound or smell something or whatever the sense experience might be in order to see what in it is distant from the Lord to see the shadows no you want to see the signs and that is a key to faith that is a way to enhancing ones inward life to the extent that we see our last signs faith is increased in the vehicle customer what you allowed work till I feel a leave on the heart that are yet in Leo Lin and Bab Allah says this in la Mer on in the way the heavens and the earth are created and the succession of night and day are signs for people of understanding so to the extent that we see those signs not just the outward two-dimensional surface of the things but our inner wisdom can Intuit the meaning of those signs even if we couldn't put it into words we see the sunset or some other stereotypical wonder of nature and something happens within us that maybe we could write a poem about it but probably wouldn't do justice to the magnificence of the moment that those situations are the forms of nourishment that cause the self to start to to be itself and to return to its true nature and that is where the fish resumes its life in the sea and realizes that it was in the sea all along because any idea that you can actually be out of the totality of the Huq is a kind of misunderstanding if everything the bought distance is just a kind of human point of view a subjective thought bob is the reality Allah describes himself as El Caribe in the Quran but never as al buried so many other opposition's of Corbett all bosses or affair or coffin many of the divine are in pairs but not this one what he says for you there so okay Betty I need for India party when my slaves asked about me say I am near not once in the Quran I am distant no he's not distance he is Rob what you let him in Hubli worried closer to us in the jugular vein but we are something else we are distant and that's as a result of our STR to open this donkey eye and not to see things with with the true I wish me did the eye of the heart which is that with which we were born so the love for the one who teaches us to open that eye so we can see everything in terms of whatever is most beautiful in a given situation how wonderful that would be so we have this idea of this teacher who can be a surprise that because we don't really know ourselves and what's wrong with ourselves it's the most mysterious thing we ever encounter is the self we think we understand other people but the self is weird so probably we haven't understood other people so on what basis do we judge them well we do it anyway with the self this low mysterious thing with snakes and the scorpions and the higher possibilities the honey beam is so mysterious that any successful treatment of it is also likely to be mysterious and that's why the believer when he sees or she sees misfortunes in creation says maybe this is the blow of Mercy Dharavi Rahman maybe the sickness this bereavement this financial loss is there because I need to have a particular snake ejected I may not understand how that's happening maybe just a punishment Allah give us our fear and protection from our last punishment but let us assume that the divine physician has not lost sight of us and our needs and therefore every misfortune that we encounter we ought to be experiencing as and interpreting as a sign of the divine mercy the blow that brings us to our knees very often the real tober which turns out to be the most precious and luminous moment in people's lives is caused by some disaster some traffic accidents and bereavement some cancer diagnoses immediately thumps that person into waking up and it turns into a thumping that succeeded where nothing else could have succeeded so this is essential that we love these guides and there's a hadith in which the holy prophet Ilyas electrum is reminding us of the importance of the guides who are the heirs to the prophets where he lana talks about the the hadith that says meThe allah almighty Kamath elesif init in north my ummah is like Noah's Ark and so he has this to say marvelous harbin through our gosh T in North hair ki dust under Zanardi about the futur iron my companions are like the Noah's Ark whoever boards it all clings to it will find a foot or a spiritual opening when you are with a spiritual teacher you are very far from ugliness night and day you will travel in a ship protected by the spirit of that captain who is at the store of spirits you sleep in the ship and you still move on do not violate the commandments of the prophet of your time do not rely on your own abilities and your own chosen path even if you are a lion if you travel the path without a guide you will just be somebody who sees himself astray and ultimately disgraceful be careful fly only with the wings of the guide then you will see how his armies come to your assistance and the example of al-qaeda is one case that the honor mat will give the kid those instructions - Musa seemed strange to say no more so alehissalaam but there was a hidden wisdom that Musa despite his prophetic perfection and his possession of the the tablets of the law had yet to discover and so it is for instance with that extraordinary alchemy of souls that we find between Mevlana and and shams in Tabriz because if the strangest thing in the world and that part of the world that present a possible opening to the world of reality in the world of spirits is within ourselves not in the stuff of matter which is just a solid carapace but within ourselves because the Roth which is from the command of the Lord is within ourselves then it is the case that that aspect of creation that most surely signposts just on to the real world is actually the human signpost so we can see the sunset and the seas and everything and we can be woken or at least aroused spiritually by that but a stronger sign is actually the sign that is an perfect human being or sometimes in a terrible way in somebody who is absolutely in a disgraceful situation and who's disgraceful situation reminds you that actually we weren't meant to be like that and can also Joel - or the kind of tawba but much more effective is to meet somebody who is a guide who has been refined is a spiritual sage who can just by looking at you help to sort you out that is the precious thing and that alchemy of souls is to do with the the mystery of one human mystery the raw encountering another mystery another raw which is why our love for another human being will be slightly much stronger than I love for a cat or the sunset or a particular City love for another human being is of a different order right because there is a stronger divine sign a stronger Tardelli of the divine qualities in another human soul than anything else you'll see in creation and love is nothing other than the recognition of beauty and perfection and hence the presence of the sacred in something else that's what it is more likely to be present in somebody else what's and all we can still love people because of aspects of beauty and perfection that exist in them so with Rumi and chefs we find this strange experience that they were drawing this mystery out of each other and it's kind of strange alchemical relationship wasn't even a teacher pupil relationship is something deeper stranger it's more like a profound spiritual friendship that they were nourishing each other and the honey continued okay so he's now talking about okay this is a long speech that Rumi foots entered the the mouth of the the teacher who is trying to explain why he didn't explain to the man why he was beating him and stuffing his mouth full of rotten apples coughed a garment of Timmy Ramsay as on Zahra - f - t arms among he says if I'd even given you a hint of what I was doing your gallbladder would instantly have turned into water because you would have been so terrified Garrett or a monk of t'me al-safi ma tells us Janet but our deed them all if I told you what that snake was like you would have been so frightened it would have died most of our farm would agar gooey embarrassed Chiron dushman kadar Johnny sure must Sahara ha a poor deal on hem Dodd's near about rah-rah-rah Macari harad the Holy Prophet said most of us said if I was to tell you correctly the description of the enemy which is in your ownselves even the gall bladders of Heroes would burst such a person would neither be able to walk nor return to work there Dillashaw Taba man adds darlin a ARS net Enosh raha wetsy rules even Amar's rows every namaz neither would he have the strength even to continue praying nor would he have the strength to continue fasting and enemas hem chill more CP Shakur Bell Arshad hem true but I pish Garrick as Jive arrived had he had become so useless that he'd be like a mouse hypnotized by a cat unable to move he would be as terrified as a lamb confronted by a wolf so under all Nehalem arnaud Nala wash Pascoe Nam nag off dare tom Van Pelt pauravaraj such a person would be so terrified that he would not be able to make any plans or even move and that is why I treated you without speaking him to Abu Bakr a Barbie tons are no dust Sean Dawood our hands are numb I am silent like Abu Bakr a robber be I handled the iron like david and abu bakr r.a Barbie was somebody well in musician who used to be a disciple of Rumi who was said to be such a great musician that just the sound of his music even without words would make people weep the quality of great traditional musicians in the near East like Farabi is said to have been such a great lutenist that he could make people cry or laugh just from his music so an even silent sometime with a great musician in this this tradition is said to be enough to get people into great musical state so he's a great Rabab great grab a play and award of course famous for his singing and just the beauty of the voice of Satan that award are they slam was enough to promote to provoke repentance even without listening to the actual actual words so yes he he he proceeds [Music] who'd bid on each one but our a Tsar as a hub cut insured cut insured what logo album will be so AB how is it possible to explain the actions of the divine or the actions of prophetic wisdom or saintly wisdom to people who are in the state of asleep how is it possible to assess or to predict or to interpret the love that ensues when people see what the work of prophecy is really about taking them out of the lower selves into a kind of garden paradise in the spirit how is it possible to explain that he says when you raise your head hmm so as hard from this sleep that you're in that's when you'll understand it huh tomorrow Allah Ireland will be so up that's it and Allah knows best what is right in other words is now closing with the image of sleep and wakefulness that the person who is in the grip of this lower eye is actually in a state of false consciousness he's not really using his inward faculties in the way that they're designed he's doing something one-eyed and abusive whether or not he takes himself to be doing it in the name of ostensive religion is not really the point if ultimately he is a donkey and he see things with the donkey's eye instead of being like the honey bee those unborn are so then he is in the state of false consciousness he's in the state of slumber and sleep and this idea of the Hobby off let the sleep of heedlessness is again an axiom for Mevlana that is our conditions we are mium we are we on the air we are sleeping we are not fully alert we're not fully awake we're in a kind of somnambula condition not fully present in the moment they dreaming about the past fantasizing about the future not being even or what's not being in the state of truth are we she which is being so detached from material pleasures that we actually fully in the moment and belonging to the moment that the forms of the world take us away from the world and an indifference to the sensual possibilities of the things that are out there except in what is halal and therefore settles the soul rather agitated a detachment actually makes us more in the world and this is why we speak of the virtue of halwa dara and rahman solitude in the crowd which is semi-permanent state in the world of the tario cut which is that because you are in the crowd but not in terms of the usual jostling of egos but only scanning for is beautiful and scanning for opportunities to be of service you are as it were a stranger in that crowd but you are still part of the crowd you're still Beni Adam but you are a kind of Ruby amongst the rocks and this is how the anbiya wa alaykom al-salam this is how the awliya are required to be this is how the real person who has surrendered to allah the true Muslim is supposed to be that in whatever situation he finds himself with human beings whether they're believers or unbelievers or saints or sinners he knows that's always good things there that he can identify and focus on and he knows there's always things that he can be doing for those people and he'll be scanning for that in every situation and by doing so he actually belongs to the situation more fully than the person who is in a state of denial and denigration and despite if you are with people and your instinct is to be kind of critical of them you're not actually with them but when you're with them at the same physical distance and maybe in the same social situation and you are looking for ways to be of service to them and looking for the correct add up in that situation you are really very close you are in a huddle with them and this is why in the context of married love physical togetherness is only a kind of outward image for the for the inward togetherness that comes from the the mutual status of in Abbas and as a deep deep wisdom in this that's one aspect of this sign Aite I'm a local equipment and for cecum as word at one of his scientists that they created spouses view from amongst yourselves so that you can experience the the wonderment of being drawn out of your own selfishness in the service of somebody else and acknowledging the the Kurama that Allah has placed and the other that is also a path of spiritual transformation so the the lesson of all of this really is to remember that in whatever circumstance we might find ourselves we are never off the hook we can never be on holiday from this fundamental human need to get rid of the snake within at least acknowledge that we have it and probably not just the seven deadly sins but a whole bunch of snakes within ourselves to be aware that we are carrying that rubbish around within us and as Madonna says to get into a spiritual zone where we are with people and truly with them in other words we actually recognize their value we recognize that humanity would recognize their needs and we find our Sarah our happiness in spotting their needs and seeing there's anything anybody could do for those people or if all they need is as the Holy Prophet says one shintali ik a smiling face or some kind of positive human interaction that we give them that form of nourishment in that situation and places like this are always important in our civilization in that they represent a kind of laboratory where this takes place in an intensified form whether adeb and the the quality of human relations are the subject of a very fine focus at the hands of the shape of the hands of his assistants the the dervishes are on the serf unit nor they are traveling together in order to experience the joy of true human fellowship the happiness that the Sahaba or the Elohim had amongst themselves was partly due to the fact that they had been liberated from the suspiciousness in the tribalism and the false divisions imposed by the jahiliya and found themselves a bad ilaha Juana as a last servant as brothers which is wonderful experience for any human beings so happiness is what we all seek let us find true happiness in Mayville Ana's vision of recognizing the demon within and loving those whoever they may be even if they're not teachers but anybody whose presence with us gives us opportunities not just to obey the snake but to open the eye of the heart must be grateful for those people because this is a way of more Amala our religion is a way of engaging with others it's only through engaging with others that we can hope to be transformed if we run our own we're on our own but with ourselves which is usually pretty bad company so may allah subhanaw taala inshaallah open our hearts and open the hearts of the ombré to this teaching and to give us something of the reality as well as the words of the master of the earth mifflin and roomy and insha Allah to make us people who are devoted to the text regularly consulted spread it insha Allah and internalize this meaning which is that we'll only find our true happiness and Saadat insha Allah in the Darwin in the dunya and the a fira through this idea of looking for others looking out for others looking after others and putting the self number one last this is the silliness added barakallahu fecal coliform encanta salam o alikum enough metal not more cable mallacoota more they bore her mallacoota may Emma's Oh wanna mihawk no sir Uzi prophecy Oh sir Uzi prophecy [Music] Oh [Music]

Channel: Ihya Archive

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Length: 75min 22sec (4522 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 29 2018