Naqshbandi Haqqani Digest for naqshbandi
We have said before, and we talked about it earlier today, that this way is a very delicate way – like a spider web. A spider web is an amazingly beautiful creation, both in its intricacy and its symmetry, but how often in our lives have we destroyed them? The etiquettes of the Sufi path are providing the silk for a beautiful web that the Shaykh is weaving on your soul, so you must be careful how you speak, and how you interpret the words of your teacher. Everytime the Master addresses an association, his speach is like a ballet of words filled with amazing subtleties that may not reveal themselves for many years, so you must listen very carefully at all times because the words of saints have many layers of meaning. In one association they are able to individually address the hearts of everyone listening, and speak to each one according to that person's level of understanding.
Mawlana Shaykh Hisham is teaching that for every letter in the Holy Quran there are 12,000 knowledges. The Quran contains about 600,000 letters, so for every letter these saints are able to take 12,000 knowledges! Naqshbandi saints are inheriting from that secret, and everything they say is filled with oceans of wisdoms.
We are still in kindergarden, so there is no way we are going to understand the level they are speaking from.
Every Master, must say he is nothing, that he is not a Master, and that the only Master of the Naqshbandi Order is The Sultan , Mawlana Shaykh Muhammad Nazim al-Haqqani. Mawlana is saying that our connection must be to The Sultan, our meditation must be to The Sultan - not to him - because he is saying he is not the focus ; he is nothing; he is just a student of Shaykh Nazim. It is true – Shaykh Nazim is the The Sultan and he is the head of the Naqshbandi-Haqqani Sufi Order, but don't for a second believe that Mawlana Shaykh Hisham He is Qutb al MutaSarif! The Shaykhs always say that they are nothing because they are Masters of Annilation. So when they say they are just students, or that they are nothing, they are saying it out of humbleness. But in reality, these Shaykhs are Kings in Divine Presence, and when Kings speak to one another they speak in a very diplomatic way. So when Shaykh Hisham says "Shaykh Nazim is the Shaykh. I am not the Shaykh. I am nothing." No doubt that Shaykh Nazim is the Sultan, but don't think that Shaykh Hisham is nothing!
Know Your Limits
In this Heavenly Kingdom we are asking to be Ghulam or Servant for the Kingdom. Servants must know there place. Image you hire a servant and that servant Keeps asking you Questions? Firstly, why would servant ask questions, who are YOU to ask , your job is to serve. So our sickness begins to overtake us thinking we are something so we begin to ask. Who are You, Who owns this House, What is your rank or
station, Who are these people and what do they do. This is an example of a very nosey and rude servant, that asking questions which have nothing to do with you, we are servants here to serve. Serve with all your heart the Sultan of Awliya , if not in his presence then our duty is to Serve His Servants.
It is confusing some people and they are asking "who is the Shaykh?" We must remember that our number one duty is to be a servant, and a servant has no business getting involved in the diplomatic relationship of Kings. That is something way above your station. Your station is that of a servant, and your job is to clean the palace. Don't start asking "who owns the house? Who has authority in this house? What is the rank of the people living in this house?" Who cares? Why are you asking? There is no way for you to know the station of your Teachers, and you're not going to inherit the house anyway. Stay busy with yourself, turn your attention inward, rather than trying to inspect the Shaykh. It means, do the awrad and the spiritual practices and come to the associations to serve people.
Inspectors of Shaykhs
Come to Be Less Than ZERO But many people are wanting to inspect the Shaykh because they still have pride. We are so pumped-up with pride that it is difficult for us to sit in a Heavenly association and be nothing. We are trying to be something when the reality is to be nothing. But it is difficult to be nothing because from childhood we are pumped-up into such big balloons. Everyone tells you "you're so great!" or "look at this
amazing artwork! I'm so proud of you! You're going to be something someday!" You are pumped-up so much that you forgot about the afterlife, and that is the deceit of this world. You become so pumped-up that you only see yourself, you don't see anything else. But the more inflated you become, the farther away you are from Divine Presence. That is why Jesus (as) said,
"It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a pride-filled person to enter Paradise."
All the Prophets were teaching us to be nothing in the face of God's Greatness. That is why, in Sufism, all of the Prophets are tremendously important because they give us spiritual realities which nourish our souls. Perhaps the most important for our time is the story of the Prophet Moses (as) and his dialogue with Pharaoh. What was Pharaoh saying? "I am the Lord, Most High!" We make our ego to be Pharaoh, saying "I am your Lord, Most High" and everyone is following their ego. Whatever the ego desires, they submit to that desire.
So then the Quran asks us,
"Have you seen the people who make their desires their Lord?" (The Criterion 25:43)
The ego wants us to be something, but the Prophets and the saints are teaching us to be nothing. When you are nothing, in reality you are everything. This means you must be able to crush yourself by humiliating
“the Self “ in the presence of others. To be inspired to come on the path is not something small. It is a
tremendous gift from the Divine and it comes with tremendous responsibility because this path is going to deflate you back to nothing. How? Through obedience to the guide. Some people don't like the concept of being obedient to someone. In reality, we are obedient, but only to our ego – so we must always identify the sickness. You are sick because you are obedient only to yourself, saying "I know what my issues are. I know what I need and I will self-medicate myself." But that is not a remedy for success. Even doctors go to another doctor when they are sick, and they have big egos!
To reach towards Divine Presence you must say to your ego, "I am nothing," and we only learn how to say that by following a guide. That is why the Shaykh will often say "I am nothing. I am a XOXO. I am gulam," because they are teaching us how to be nothing. But because we are still very much connected to this world, we interpret what they say according to the standards of this world. So when the Shaykh says "I am nothing. I am a xoxo," immediately people believe he is nothing because in this world you are taught to build yourself up into something, and then you are taught to tell other people that you are something. That is why you make a business card and put your name and all your titles on it and you pass it out to people. But Sufism is the exact opposite of that reality. It teaches you to become nothing, to annihilate yourself so that you no longer exist, because your individuality – your ego – stands in the way of connecting with Divine Presence. So materialistic people come to the association, and the Shaykh gives a talk where he says "God is my witness. I am saying that I am not the Shaykh. I am nothing. That one is the Shaykh." And people get confused, so they go to the other Shaykh and he also tells them, "I am not the Shaykh. I am nothing. That one is the Shaykh" because these Masters are not competing in being Shaykhs, they are competing in being nothing. They are existing in
the negative. The more Nothingness more Fana in Divine Eternal Oceans.
It is like a linear equation. In this material world, they want you to become something, and the more you become something, the more you move to the right of "0": 0,1,2,3,4... the more you pump yourself up the further you are from "0". In arabic, there is no "0", there is just a nuqt - a dot. Sufism starts to the left of that dot. The Saints begin at negative 1 and continue all the way to -124, 000 because there are 124,000 Saints. So the one who is negative 124,000 is the one in the highest possible state of annihilation, and we call that rank the Sultan of Saints, which is the rank held by our Sultan, Mawlana Shaykh Nazim Haqqqani.
Understanding Huwa Hu [ He is He]
These Shaykhs are the Masters of annihilation; they love to efface themselves. When you go to see Shaykh Hisham, you are not going to see Hisham Kabbani, born 60 years ago by his mother, so-and-so. That person
doesn't exist anymore; he died 30 years ago. But if you're looking for Mawlana Shaykh Nazim, you will find him reflected in Shaykh Hisham and Shaykh Adnan , because they are annihilated in Shaykh Nazim.
“My slave draw near Me with anything I love more than what I have made obligatory for him. My slave continues to draw near me with super obligatory actions until I love him. When I love him, I am his hearing with which he hears, his Sight by which he sees, his Hands with which he strikes, and his Feet with which he walks. He will become Rabanniun and say be and it will be ” (Sahih al-Bukhari, 81:38:2)
That is the reality of annihilation. If you annihilate your ego, the light of your Shaykh will flow through you because you are no longer existing. This is the secret of the "huwa hu." Hu means the Divine essence which
cannot be encompassed and cannot be seen. That essence manifests in creation as a reflection through Prophet (s) and the saints are reflecting the light of Prophet (s). Prophet (s) must always have a presence in this world, a khalifa, a representative. That representative is called Sultan ul-awliya, the Sultan of all 124,000 Saints. The Sultan of Saints is the perfected reflection of Prophet (s). He is annihilated in the light of the
Prophet (s), so when you are in his presence it means you are in the presence of Prophet (s). Then that light is reflecting from the Sultan to his authorized deputies, likw Mawlana Shaykh Hisham . The Sultan is The Sun for all Awliya, Shaykh Hisham is His Moons. They are perfect reflections of His Holy Lights.
They are refecting the light of Mawlana Shaykn Nazim, like a series of Heavenly mirrors which reflect the same image thousands of times. Therefore, when you are in the the presence of moon it is reflecting the
ONE light of the Sun. The Moon will tell you that is not a source of light but the reflection of the Sun. The Sultan of Awliya.
When in The Presence of Shaykh Hisham you are actually in the presence of Shaykh Nazim. Shaykh Nazim is hearing through his ears and seeing through his eyes. One-time we were with Mawlana and he was going to Disneyland, and some mureeds were with Shaykh Nazim in Cyprus and they said that Shaykh Nazim was saying, "Why are they sending me to Disneyland? I ‘m going to Disneyland." But he was in Cyprus!
That is the secret of what we call tawhid – oneness. There is only one God, there is not two Gods. Ahadiya Unique Oneness. There is only One RasulAllah, Wahidiya Oneness Likewise, there is only one Shaykh. There cannot be two Shaykhs. They are all reflections of the same light.
We have to know, for Shaykh Hisham to have reached that station means he is more powerful than you can ever imagine. He is not like you! But secretly the ego is not accepting anyone to be its Shaykh. But then why did Shaykh Nazim appoint Shaykh Hisham to represent him in this area? Remember that Satan also refused to bow to Adam (as) and wanted his connection directly to God. It means, if you'll cut out your Shaykh and go directly to the Sutlan, if you get the chance you'll cut out the Sultan too! The saints don't accept that character, so they bring it out into the open. Like we said, these saints are Masters of annihilation and they love to efface themselves. They compete in being nothing. How do you make your ego to be nothing? Through humilation.
Humility is not serving tea to people, humility comes through being humiliated. So if you go to Cyprus with that understanding, you will see how truly amazing Grandshaykh is. When you go to Cyprus to see Mawlana
Shaykh Nazim, you see he is surrounded by crooks! People come and give him
Grandshaykh acts like he doesn't know what's going on. Of course he knows what's happening! His soul is powering this universe! But people go there, and they see he wears a funny bell on the top of his turban, and a whistle and they are thinking, "this is the Sultan?" Because they are seeing with material hearts. He wants you to think he is nothing. If Mawlana Shaykh Nazim is the Sultan of all the Saints, it means he is negative 124,000; he is the one able to take the most humiliation and the most abuse from people. So he purposely humiliates himself in front of people by dressing funny and surrounding himself with crooks and pretending
like he doesn`t know whats going on because the saints know that they aren't going to raise all of their followers to sainthood. Maybe 1 or 2 or 3, but more likely only 1 student is going to reach that station. So what about the rest? The miraculous nature of these Saints is that they actually encourage people to throw rocks at them.
You read the stories of Bayazid al-Bistami or Al-Hallaj? They were big saints in their time and they were stoned by their people. Our Masters have had horrible insults and abuse hurled upon them. These Shaykhs are like Kings in Divine Presence, so when they are wronged God is going to say, "you have something against this person and you are very dear to Me. Would you like this person to be punished?" And they are going to plead for that person's forgiveness and carry them into Paradise. Through their intercession, all of their followers are going to be granted Paradise. That is just one of the realities of their sainthood. Fatiha.
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