Keep a Path of Silence

Keep a Path of Silence from Sufi Meditation Center on Vimeo.
From the Teachings of Mawlana Shaykh Hisham Kabbani
Shaykh Nurjan Mirahmadi
Sufi Meditation Center, Vancouver, BC

InshaAllah Mawlana Shaykh is describing from the ways of perfection, and this is always a reminder that these (teachings) are from the ways of a saintly character; it is not for the common life or if we are choosing to be just a common person, their teachings are from saintly realities that they have achieved from their path and they come back and convey that reality for us to uplift ourselves. And we are asking to be from the husna 'l-rafiqa, those who are like them, loving these saintly people who are inheriting from the prophetic reality. It means the obedience to the Divine Presence is perfectly completed only by the prophets (as), and obedience to the Prophets is in the hands of the hands of the ulul amr, the people of authority. And husna 'l-rafiqa are those who love them and try to keep their company; they like to keep the company of authorized people both from dunya, from the material world and from the spiritual realm, and they are trying their best to follow their examples and from their teachings.

Mawlana Shaykh is teaching that for these characteristics to open, and that reality to open, a very important reality, which is as-samt or silence, and keeping the path of silence, so that it can begin to open its reality for us. There is a silence of the tongue and a silence of the heart. And what they are teaching for us is that, "The ultimate is the silence within the heart," because the heart is always whispering and as this whispering is manifesting, it is the root of all sickness and the root of why we are here on this Earth; it is from a fire of Iblis or Satan and bad characteristics. It means the fiery nature of that reality on Earth, and we are heavenly beings, and as we are sent to Earth this is the understanding of our role in life, that this fire is always chasing us to plant itself within us. So then "the fire" and the root of all bad characteristics is "the fire of ghadab," which is the fire of Iblis and the fire of disbelief. And the Prophet (s) taught that, "Anger is the opposite of faith, and faith is love and obedience to the Divine Presence, and the one who fell from Divine Grace, his fall was due to anger." Iblis thought he was the representative of God, and an Order came and he said, "No," that was from anger and that is the root of (all) anger. And that root of anger comes down to Earth and the Divine said, "Now you are being sent to Earth for your purification and your testing."

So then Awliyaullah begin to open our hearts and teach that understanding, that the secret of bad character, because there is secret of the good and the understanding of the bad; that the root of all bad characteristics is this fire of Iblis. And when we understand (the nature of) fire, that any time you give in to fire, it increases in intensity. So then the fire of anger (leads to us saying) "Why can't I just release it and get angry at people?

If I get jealous and angry at people, then I will feel better afterwards, or why can't I just be jealous or envious, why can't I be violent? And all the root of these characteristic are found in, and lead us back to that fire. Why is somebody jealous? It's because they are angry." Why do you have what I don't have? And, "I want it, why should you have it?" And what causes the jealousy and the enmity and all the defects, is that fire; it becomes anger, so the fire manifests and takes us out of belief and manifests and begins the burning process.

So they teach us that, "If you have made a camp fire, or on an old stove, that lights up and as much as you begin to given oxygen to that fire, it begins to rage, it doesn't go away. So if you think that you can allow yourself to explode every now and then, and that you will feel better, but actually, what they are teaching us is that, "If you give in to this fire, you are fuelling it." You may be able to hide it after two minutes but five minutes later, you are angry again. And that fire begins to rage and begins to make the body sick, as it affects the body, and it begins to make the mind sick because in a state of rage and disbelief you are capable of doing anything crazy. It makes your mind to be sick and so your mind and your body are harmed. And if your mind is harmed, then the Prophet (s) already describes that, "It is disbelief, it is kufr." So the opposite of Iman is ghadab. If your heart is filled with love, it is a heart full of faith, if we are filled with anger and anger keeps coming, and then it is a test for us that the faith is lacking or completely missing depending on how much we give in to that characteristic.

So then their mission in life is to teach us, "If you take that fire and like a candle, put a top on it, and suffocate that fire, don't let any oxygen get to it. It means any bad character defect that you attempt to conquer, and to attack that defect, means you want to suffocate it. As much as you can suffocate it, it lacks oxygen and lacks ferocity and the ability to keep burning and destroying and harming. So then they begin to teach us, "The root of everything is that fire, and that fire must be extinguished. So then all the practises are based on extinguishing and controlling ourselves. And that fire is not going to be found anywhere in the body but in the heart. Because the bad character or Diablo or demons, whatever we want to call it, we call it bad character for people who are more scientific and this bad character is going to root itself upon the throne of Mankind. And the throne, the Divine sits upon the heart of the believer! So then there is always a fight for the heart, not for the head or feet or hands, whoever controls the heart, controls the entire being. If you want to control the kingdom, you go sit on the throne, and from the throne you control everything, why do you want to deal with the feet, constantly battling when the orders are coming from the throne?

So the fire of bad character, as soon as we are born, all sorts of conditioning are coming in our life, and these little flames begin to enter into the heart and it is the only place where it wants to plant itself. And then we lose our purity at age nine or ten or thirteen and we start to do things that are not so nice and that fire begins to take its place and it begins to root itself in the heart of those seeking the Divine Presence.

So then they teach us that, "The root is the fire, and how (we should) control that fire." Then Mawlana Shaykh is saying, "One important reality for controlling that fire is in understanding the link between our mouth and our heart." And what comes from our mouth is only a sign of what exists in the heart, so then there is no hypocrisy. So then if I say, "This is from my mouth and (what is) my heart is different," or "O my heart is (saying) this, but I am saying something different," no, they are directly connected! It means the heart is the container for that fire and what is coming from your mouth is a result of what is in that container; if the container is filled with nectar of sweetness, then how can there be so much difficulty coming out from that mouth? So much fire comes and so much of everything (keeps spilling out of the mouth). So then Mawlana Shaykh is reminding us always that, "The vessel is the heart. It is containing that light or that fire. What is spewing from the mouth is a result of the sickness within the heart." So the stage of as-samt, the stage of silence, that Sayyidina Abu Bakr as-Siddiq (qs) was teaching, and for seven years he put a stone into his mouth and that there was a reality of why he put a stone in his mouth,

1. Because the stone has a tremendous zikr, it has a tremendous reality. That reality of the zikr he put into the mouth, is to control what is happening within the heart. It means that if it is a matter of the fire, and if we don't control the mouth, the fire within the heart is just raging. So then this vessel or vehicle to contain it, they are teaching us to control our mouth, "Hold your tongue, don't speak too much," because the words that are coming out are showing the condition of the heart.
2. So they begin to say, "Take a path of silence," silence your mouth everything is silence. There is no guidance, there is no teaching; everything is a path of silence until you have muffled the mouth and by muffling your mouth and controlling the mouth and not speaking for years, where people say, "You speak very little."

And then the process of tafakkur is that, once you keep silence of your mouth because it keeps spewing out information that is of no need, and even if it is wisdoms and know ledges, unless it has been authorized that you have achieved a level where your heart is purified and now your tongue is authorized to speak. Because the light that the Shaykh is putting within the heart, is a very powerful angelic light, it is meant to go into the heart and stay there, and as much as you keep speaking for no reason, you are pushing that light out! And it is increasing the intensity of the heart and the fire within the heart, and arrogance within the heart, and many different defects begin to grow within the heart.

So then they are teaching that, "Keeping a path of silence means that immediately you keep silent, and from the madad and their support, they begin to send light into the heart." These lights, wa qa ja al haqqa wa zahakal batil is that haqq comes in as "a light" and "an energy" and (opens) many divine realities. And as this begins to flow within the heart then if you don't have control of the tongue, it flows out, and it's just being wasted; and the condition of the heart never changes.

So then Mawlana Shaykh is reminding that, "As soon as you take a path of silence, and say, 'Ya Rabbi I want to control my tongue and stop my tongue. I want the energy and the light to hit my heart and as it hits my heart, I want to close my mouth.'" And now they see that you have sealed your mouth and stopped the process of talking or teaching or guiding or anything that your mouth is doing, then they say, "With your taffakur and contemplation pay attention to your heart, how is your heart whispering? Because what Allah (SWT) wants is the control of your tongue." And the tongue is going to perish and die (and be left) on this earth. The Divine does not care for your tongue but for the people of Gnosticism and reality, they are teaching us that, "What comes from your tongue is a result of your heart, we were interested in the heart." It means that as soon as you are able to control your mouth and you "put a rock in your mouth," then meditate and contemplate at every association and every teaching and interacting, pay attention to the heart.

If the heart cannot be silenced and the mouth is speaking with a non-silenced heart, then all sorts of sicknesses are emanating from that mouth. It means that the mouth is backbiting, it is not giving wisdom, but it is backbiting. Being in the company of the Shaykh is most dangerous because the Shaykh is going to engage you to see if you backbite, to see what type of things are going to come from your mouth. His job is to pull it out from you to show you your sickness. It's not that you sit with the Shaykh and you start backbiting. The Shaykh is the doctor and encourages you that, "Let's see what you are going to do? Pull it out." Eh, once again you start with backbiting, everybody from left to right. It's not because he needs any information from you, no, he doesn't even need to know what type of sohbets you gave to people, especially if you are giving from his wisdoms to other people and then back to him. What for? Mawlana Shaykh taught that as soon as he asks "What did that person say?" Say, "You know best Sayyidi, nothing, what can I tell people?" And not, "This is the sohbet I gave him, this is the knowledge I gave him, and these are the things I conveyed to him," that is from the sickness within the heart that you are a show-off, to whom? Are you trying to convey the faith? To whom? The condition of your heart is still not settled. Your heart is spewing and over-boiling with information, it has to be contained; the volcano has to be stopped.

As soon as you take the path of silence, say, "Ya Rabbi I am going to take a vow of silence." Sayyidina Zakaria (as) took a vow of silence and Sayyida Maryem (as) took a vow of silence and throughout the Holy Qur'an is teaching to, "Take a vow of silence." Just as Sayyidina Abu Bakr as-Siddiq (r) put a stone in his mouth for seven years saying, "I won't talk," and took a vow for seven years, saying "I want to work on my heart." As soon as we take a path of silence, and condition the mouth to stop, then at every association and every teaching, and every interaction go back and do muhasaba, accounting, meditate and contemplate, "Why is my heart feeling like this? Why am I thinking of this person or of this issue? Why is my heart aggravated with what he just said?" Because they want to teach us how to silence the heart and (show) that the heart is almost in a state of death and annihilation, that no condition may agitate the heart. Because as much as there is activity, it means that fire of bad character is being ignited in the heart; it wants to say something or talk about somebody. It wants to do something and is waiting for you to open this oven, (and you give-in to this), "I am going to say something," and as soon as the mouth opens the fire is now raging again. And then you have to start again from step one. Every time the heart rages, and the mouth opens, and oxygen flowed in, now the heart is again raging of fire and that fire cannot be silenced unless it is through the path of the mouth.

So then Mawlana Shaykh is opening for us a deep reality a reminder for ourselves that, "Meditate and contemplate how much our mouths are opening, and how much this mouth has something to say. And as much as it is saying, that much is being wasted." Think of it in a different way. Think of it this way, "Ya Rabbi I want Your Reservoir of Light like an ocean in my heart," but if this fountain is running all the time, its being emptied, its being wasted and thrown everywhere. And the Divine is looking and saying, "As much as you put into this person's heart, it is flowing (away). Why are you wasting it like that? Why are they not getting it and understanding it?" So then a reminder for us that Mawlana Shaykh is saying, "If you want these lights and you want these realities and you want the uplifting; then silence your mouth. There are enough people who can talk." And if you want that reality to open, and for the heart to open then, "Take a path of silence." And as soon as you silence your mouth then, "Take your path towards taffakur and contemplation." And contemplation without a silent mouth is worthless, because what you are contemplating? All the sohbets you gave, and all the teachings that you are spewing out for no reason? Your condition is not yet purified. If the condition is not purified then the words are wasted; you can't give what you don't have.

So then Mawlana Shaykh is teaching us that, Allah (SWT) is asking from us, the Divine Presence is asking from us that, "You cannot give what you don't have. Although you think you are (qualified) but first you have to achieve, and you have to have that rank." And that light has to shine within the heart; the light of Iman has to shine within the heart, and the light of Ihsan has to shine within the heart and then they sign you off. When you are signed-off, they are saying, "Now your heart is silenced. And you took a path for many years of having a silent mouth.

Once your mouth is silenced to achieve the silencing of the heart, now we give you permission to speak and when you speak, you are speaking on our tongue, not your tongue. Your tongue may cause many different problems, it may say many things that affect people in different ways but when you speak on our tongue, it means our heart is dressing your heart and your tongue is submitting to our tongue. And our tongue is from the Lisan as-Siddiq ." It means that the Awliyaullah's tongues are on the tongue of Sayyidina Muhammad (s), on the Prophetic tongue; Lisan al-Haqq is "on the truthful tongue," and at that time when it speaks, then it is Ilm la-dhuni wa hikmat as-Saliheen, giving from "Heavenly Knowledge" and "wisdoms and understandings." But that cannot be achieved if the mouth is not silenced. And when the mouth is silenced, the boiling of the heart begins and when that begins now it becomes time to meditate. Meditate and contemplate why all these things are aggravating me? And then you take muhasaba, accounting, and write down why you backbite this person, and why you talk about this and why are you angry about this, and why you have to say something about this, why ..why...why?

But it means that you keep writing this accounting, this muhasaba, and then we begin to point out our character defects. At that time we are able to understand what is within us that is making all of these things to come and manifest, and only at that time can we begin the purification and the cleansing process. So then they want us to understand that the tongue and the heart are directly related. And they teach that just like an ice-burg, you see a tip of an ice-burg but there is an entire city that is below. It's not the ice-burg that is frightening, its how much of that mass of ice that is hidden. So then Allah (SWT) was telling the Prophet (s) in the Holy Qur'an and throughout the Holy Qur'an, "What they say is nothing compared to what's in their hearts. If you are bothered by their words, imagine what's in their hearts? It's only manifesting a little bit," because they were trying to control all the words they were trying to say to the Prophet (s). It means for us it is a daleel and an understanding that what is in the heart is far more dangerous and the only way to put that fire out is the direct link with the mouth.

And as soon as we are silent and we begin to meditate and take an accounting of everything that is happening within the heart, at that time that fire goes down, goes down, down and the steadiness of the heart is in that zikrulla; ta'tma inal quloob. Tatma means a state of tranquility, there is no more up or down and there is no more excitement, like the heart beat of a dead person, because our way is a state of death before death. And if your heart is easily excited or easily brought down, you are bi-polar. It means you are in two of these polar opposites; that everything is making you ecstatically happy and the next minute ecstatically sad, very sad, "I am going to jump out of the window because I am sad." These are two very different realities and they are trying to take us to that state that, "Nothing should make you so excited and nothing should make you so sad. This dunya is going. And then the zikrullah, ta'tma inal quloob is what brings us to equilibrium." And the equilibrium to be like the dead, it is a flat line (ECG reading). If things happen and you check the heart, (there is) no excitement and if sad things come, there is no excitement because the heart is a steady rate and is always connected. And Allah (SWT) says, "There is no fear nor (do they) grieve. And their heart is always tranquil." And we are praying to reach their understanding through their dress, and through their realities that they are teaching us, to bring down the ecstatic happiness to a more logical level and to bring back up the excessive sadness, and that way is going to be achieved by the silencing of the tongue, and by taking a path of silence. It means then, "Take an accounting of what is happening within the heart." Subhana Rabbika Rabbil izzati amma yasifoon wa Salaamun alal mursaleen wal hamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen.