Leaving Evilness & Migrating to Sainthood (Awareness and Repentance)

Mawlana Shaykh Hisham Kabbani

Courtesy of www.NURMUHAMMAD.com

Step 2 Awareness & Repentance  

It is a long journey because it is full of obstacles, whenever you see something as long it is because it is full of difficulties; whereas sometimes you see something short because time is passing quickly because you are entertaining yourself and you are happy.

While someone busy with his work sees it as a long time to reach his vacation.   Also in this journey of self-realization that it is a long journey but when you reach you begin to entertain and to feel the pleasure of dhikrullah (God's remembrance). But until you reach, then you feel the pleasure. But it is a long go. When you do dhikr (remembrance) you feel pleasure an you feel the time is running. But until you reach there you have to be aware that there are obstacles that will face you in your life.   So we said, that when you want to make tawbah (repentance) you will be taken away from the group of oppressors, as Allah said, fa man lam yatub fa ula’ika hum adh-dhaalimoon. 49:11 

• So it means if you ask for repentance, they will take you out of that 'dhulm' (oppression) that group; you will no longer be called dhaalim, oppressor.

  So when you decide to repent and you are asking Allah swt to repent, as Allah said in the holy quran, he said to the prophet to say: qul ya `ibadee alladheena asrafoo ala anfusihim.   Don't despair of what – of Allah’s mercy. Allah will forgive. Allahu akbar. That is something we were not paying attention before now mawlana is opening.   He said, la taqnatoo min rahmatillah. Don’t lose hope in Allah’s mercy. He is saying qul, ya Muhammad. To my servants who were oppressors to themselves, don’t lose hope of my mercy.   And what does Allah say in another verse. Wa law annahum idh dhalamoo anfusahum…   And what did he say la taqnatoo min rahmatillh   And in another verse ma arsalnaaka ill rahmatan lil alameen.   Don’t lose hope because Muhammad is with and he is going to intercede for you.   Don’t lose hope for Allah’s Mercy, because of Muhammad Allah will forgive all sins. You put these three verses together from three surahs, you realize that Muhammad is that rahmat (mercy), and he is addressing the oppressors, don’t lose hope.   So when you decide to go to the door of the Prophet (s), and ask intercession, and ask Allah’s forgiveness. 

• It means they are willing to audit themselves, to make an account. So they come to ask forgiveness. How do you do it. You say I did this wrong, istaghfirullah. Then the Prophet (s) is obliged to ask forgiveness for them. Then they will find Allah forgiving merciful.
• That is the 2nd level you have to have Tawba and you cannot have tawbah without going to the Prophet.

  3 verses: ya ayyuhalldheean dhalamu…  la taqnatu min rahmatillah  wa ma arsalnaaka…    when you realize you are a sinner and you have problems, you realize you need an intercessor. You need someone who is more sincere to take by the hand. who is the most sincere, the best one. Sayyidina Muhammad. Also you cannot go directly. You need someone who is an inheritor that will know the obstacles that will face you and he will take you by the hand. You know when you have bushes, they have different kind of instruments to cut grass and bushers, mowers. If the grass is not thick you have a cheap mower. If it is thicker and the bushes are deeper you need what – a rototiller.   It turns heavily in the dirt. Now you find this is the easy ones. You go into the jungle in Africa or Malaysia or Indonesia. You cannot enter with a mower or rototiller. What do you need at that time, you need a bulldozer. Sometimes they even need dynamite to clean everything.   If your guide is a mower he will clean in front of you a little a bit. If he is a rototiller he will clean deeper. If your guide is a bulldozer he will clear space. I f you guide is dynamite then he can open road for you to reach your destination.   That means you need an inheritor that went thru that journey, went through that way, he looks at you and guides you thru your heart and you have to do what: to audit yourself.    

How do you audit  yourself.  

• Ya ayyuhalladheena amanaoo ittaqullah wal tandhur nafsun ma qadamat li-ghad.

Fear Allah and let every soul look to what the provision he has sent forth for the morrow.   It means what every soul has prepared of provision for tomorrow. Not the body - the soul has to prepare provision.   When the Bedouin came and asked when is judgment day. And it is long hadith. The Prophet (s) did not answer he was giving Jummah (Friday Prayer).   He asked 2nd time. The prophet did not answer. Then he asked again, mata as-sa`at ya rasulullah, but he asked with compassion, with passion.   So Jibreel came and said, tell him something, he is sincere.   He said, It is a long way, a long ride, a long way to the day of judgment. But why are you asking. What kind of provision have you put for that day. That way is full of difficulties, full of problems. Every step you take you are stepping with your ego. You are stepping with full confidence of your shaytan (Satan), trusting him. wherever he tells you, with your bad desires you are walking. This is what happens to us. What are you expecting what are you preparing.   Fal-tandhur nafsun ma qadamat li-ghad. Auditing, muhasabah in Arabic.
After you decide to repent and after you begin to audit yourself and what are the bad desires, then is the real journey. Is your repentance real or it is not real.
Audit Before Auditing of the Grave Starts:  

• Are you going to say I made the auditing and this is what I did wrong.
• Then you have to repent from everything that you have written counted in your journal.
• That is the day to put every forbidden you have committed, are you going to go back to it another time or you are going to move forward.

  So he said to the bedouin what have you prepared? What are we gong to prepare? We need bulldozer and dynamite to get there to clear the way.   But the Bedouin was a sincere one, a pure one, a lover. He was someone that understands wisdom. What did he say? Mahabatik Ya rasulullah. I don’t have anything. What am I gong to find. How am I going to solve my problem.

• How am I going to go on my journey without your love.
• Your love is my beacon, my flashlight my spotlight, my sun my moon, all the stars in this universe, guiding me like the north pole star, guiding everyone to the direction of north.

  Where is the north? Always we say north and point up is it not? How do you say north. The direction is up. You never direct north down, although it is a circle north might be down. Why is south down not north down. It is the earth, round. But always the direction of the highest level, when you want to say something high you say north.   Always north is standing up. So when you are moving you always have to make sure that you are gong higher. And what is the symbol of the highest when you are going at night. It is the north. The Prophet (s) is the North. It means he is the guide. Because the north pole, or the north star is the guide for all navigation. The entire navigation system for cars for ships, for satellites, for GPS is north. They say north. South is down   And who is the highest? It is the Prophet (s). So he is the north. It means he is the guide for everything, as the pole star is. The pole star can be seen from every part of the world. And what happened? They will be guided.   So what did he say? Your love ya Muhammad. You are that star that we can relay on.   So you need these heavyweight commercial bulldozers. Here are commercial, industrial, and residential. There are type of awliya (saints); residential awliya and industrial awliya. Industrial awliya, with heavy equipment, heavy pistons   Residential, every three or four months you have to change. Industrial you don't have to change. When you take his hand you never have to change because you signed a contract with him.   But the residential after some time it breaks and you have to go and say, I have a warranty. But commercial, it goes for hundreds, thousands. Waste of money to buy warranty for that machine.   The normal Shaykh is like residential, quickly they break down they cannot move three feet in the jungle and it might be that one lion comes and they are gone. But how many are there, fake. But industrial, never fake, always standing up. Like the north pole, like the pine tree, always standing up.   Summer green, winter green, standing up.   Residential Awliya, not industrial Awliya, but shaykhs are like bushes. A mower will eat it. But a pine tree, how will a mower eat it - it is impossible.   Fal-tandhur nafsun ma qadamat li-ghad so let every soul have to look to what you have provide for tomorrow.  Then what will happen. At that time you will fear Allah swt. If you have done something wrong and not provided for tomorrow, then you have nothing. If you don’t fear him you will not provide anything for the future.   That is why the Prophet (s) was proud of seven, whom Allah will shade on judgment day.

• One of them is a girl or boy raised in Allah’s obedience. That means if you kept the covenant that you promised Allah on the day of promises and kept what Allah asked you to do in your lifetime then you will be saved. Else you are a loser. So what do you have to do now?

Now that you know you have to repent you must provide for your soul. You repent of what your body has done of sins, you ask for fear of Allah. It is not fear, it is taqwa. It mean sincerity, piety. When you have sincerity and piety, then Allah says I will teach you.  

wattaqullah wa yu`allimakumullah.

When you have love to Muhammad and you are moving with your guide thru that big jungle to that love of Muhammad and you show that love, then Allah will tell you that is enough. That is enough sincerity for Me. I know you are weak. If know Iblees is after you I know he was after adam, is he not going to be after you? But I need that love. Before you come to my love you have to come to love of the Prophet (s).   As the Bedouin said, Your love ya rasulullah. He didn’t go in the masjid (mosque) even, he went. He was so happy so overwhelmed that the prophet spoke to him. as when you are walking and the king speaks to you.   You see the president on tv. Sometimes he says hello or salaams if he is muslim. to someone in the crowd, that person will be very happy.  The best of creation telling him it is enough. It overwhelmed he didn’t know what to do. He left. He was an innocent person, no impurities in his heart,  it is clean. So when the Prophet said it is enough he left. Alhamdulillah, that is nice.  
So when you love me that is a sign of sincerity. There are many people who don’t love Allah swt. They are falling into so many, they don’t know. But there are some people who love Allah  and

Allah said, wattaqullah wa yu`allimakumullah. What will he teach us.   And he said, wa fawqa kulli dhi `ilmin` aleem.

It means he will keep raising you in Gnostic levels. Knowledge after knowledge, infinite.   Wattaqullah wa yu`allimakumullah. When he teaches you never you have HEARD When he teaches thru the heart, thru inspiration, never you can learn thru books it is impossible that is why traditional scholars,

Allah gave to their hearts. Like imam ghazzali, like ibn Arabi, like shah naqshband, like ahmad al faruqi, like jani-janan. Like … sahaba. The four imams were able to write and explain. how? because Allah inspired their hearts. That ilm (knowledge) coming from top, from higher level to down.   Or he said wattaqullah wa yu`allaimakumulah. Then you can learn more and more.   Or else you will still be in that jungle. Not able to cross. Sometimes the jungle is very close together you will not be able to move. That way is a very difficult way, the cross section in their life.   People take their beads and they do dhikr.

• They do dhikr. It  is not to do dhikr first.
• It is to eliminate the mistakes first.
• You do 5000 Allah Allah it takes 15 minutes.
• To do 1000 la ilaha illa Allah takes seven minutes.
• That is simple but not to look on forbidden is difficult.

Grandshaykh said, if you saw something wrong, it is not written against him. 2nd look is forbidden. He says ya Rabbee that is prohibited to look on it, it is far better than if he does 500 obligations but leaving one forbidden is more valuable to Allah swt because he is stepping on his ego and leaving it for Allahs’ sake. It is very tough to leave something that you desire and the ego wants it.   That is what we need to do. Not to leave the dhikr, but you have to daily eliminate what you have counted, from your decision to repent. For each one that you have done, you have to say istaghfirullah for that. I am repenting and not gong back to it.  

That is the level of muhasabah.

That is the level of reaching every soul has to check what it has provided for the future. That is the way to reach the 3rd level on the way to becoming a mureed.   They don’t block these whispers. They want you to block it yourself. When you reach the level of mureed they block it. But before it they want you to.    When you become a mureed, thru you they don’t want you to get darkened, they want to keep the light there.

That person is like a receiver for the Shaykh, they see thru his eyes, they hear with his ears, they do with his hands.  

• When you are in the presence of the Shaykh, too many waswas comes.
• When you are in his presence he is causing that gossip to ‘upload’. All those bad gossips are being uplifted from the heart to bring it out.

Even if you don’t take bayah, if you are written to be in his group, he will test you, but you will not be aware. They might not physically take bayah. They were assigned on the day of promises to be in his group.   Some people saw the Shaykh in the dream and they never met Mawlana Shaykh. And they go to him.