FIGHTING DESIRES

Fighting Desires from Sufi Meditation Center on Vimeo.

From the teachings of Mawlana Shaykh Hisham Kabbani

Shaykh Nurjan Mirahmadi

Naqshbandi Sufi Meditation Center, Vancouver, BC

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And Mawlana Shaykh is teaching that there are many different realities we are in search of. And what we are in need of most is protection from bad desires and from other difficulties that are constantly moving towards us. They attach themselves to us, making us fall and lead us to make wrong choices and bad actions, eventually leading to difficulty upon the soul. Those who are inspired by the Divine to be seekers in life find themselves present here in such associations; their soul is seeking its reality and pushing the physicality, pushing the body to seek that reality. And the way of tariqah and Sufism come to explain the physiology and understanding of the "self".

And Mawlana Shaykh is teaching that if you focus on your external and keep building on that, focusing just on the physicality, then there is no protection, no Light, nor any feeling or taste; all of it becomes only a facade. We were describing before that you can cook a turkey very fast, if you put it on high heat you can make the whole outside look brown but if it's not well done inside and you bite into it, it is all raw. It means that those who focus only on the external, on the form or the body, they find that they have no protection, nor the ability to defend against bad desires and are always afflicted by confusion just like everything else in the material world. It is just like if you make a beautiful structure on the outside and the inside has no substance, has no power and benefit, and it is just a facade then anyone who comes can blow that house down in one huff and puff. It means that Shaytan can come in any form, and anyone who is only working on his external form, by doing all their practises related only to the form; they have no taste and cannot feel what they are reading, then many different energies can attack them and make them lose to their bad desires and therefore fall into oceans of difficulty.

And Mawlana Shaykh comes into our lives and begins to teach us that will prevail unless you focus on the inside, and it is the secret of Qudra; the secret of power. It is that secret that the Divine wants us to build, our inside, and to strengthen it and build the heart.

The only chakra which we call lataaif, is the subtle energy point that we keep our focus on, and it is the heart, the core of the entire body. If we build the energy within the heart we build the power of the soul and then the core becomes empowered. At that time the soul is energized, because the heart has been cleansed and purified with the chanting and the practises, as well as the breathing and anything that has to do with the spirit, not just the physicality. You cannot just leave the physicality, but you have to put a discipline upon it. Sufism comes and teaches that you should first focus on the inside. We begin with the cooking process, and we do not worry about the browning of the turkey but "cook" our inner self; make our zikr and practises; look into our heart, meditate and contemplate and sit by our self, with our self, in the presence of the Divine Creator on a daily basis. And we have daily accounting, daily hisaab, breathing and meditating and as that energy begins to build that core begins to strengthen and it begins to send the energy that will protect the physicality. If there is nothing happening inside, the outside is like a paper lion, it will fall easily. If one test or hardship comes that person falls to pieces and we have had examples before.

If the inside is strong and someone comes and break down the door, they will never be able to enter because the inside is fortified, it has power to protect. But if a burglar tries to come in and from the outside there is nothing to protect, and the inside of that person has nothing of any value to the Divine Presence, then he breaks in, and smashes the door and goes straight through. Shaytan sees there is nothing inside to provide protection and the outside was very flimsy, just like a glass door, a very subtle protection and it's so easy to get through. But if there is power on the inside and protection, it will begin to send a shield to the outside and then there is no way to penetrate that barrier, and that example becomes the reality of our inner self; as much as we focus on our heart and focus on our practises, it builds the reality of the heart and the soul. And when we practise meditation, contemplation, breathing, our accounting and do the chanting by reading the awraad and the zikr, it brings the Divine Gaze to the heart. Allah (SWT) says, "I am neither in the Heavens nor on Earth but I am in the heart of My believer, Qalbun mum'in baytullah." So if the Divine Light begins to shine within the heart then energy begins to emanate and it begins to protect the body.

And many times Mawlana Shaykh has said that we are just like the earth; the Divine is teaching us that He will show us His signs upon the horizon and within our self. So then people who don't want to look within themselves can go study how the earth is protected. What is creating that shield of protection for the earth so that everything in the outer space, the stars, planets and other objects do not fall upon our heads? It is the magnetic core; the heat at the core of the earth moves the metal within the core and is making it magnetic from molten lead and iron within the center of the earth, and the energy released from these metals is creating the energy belt around the earth and is described as the "layers of energy." So when things are trying to penetrate the earth most of them burn off before entering the earth's atmosphere. And the Divine is teaching us we are no different; the energy within us needs to be developed through the heart, the core of our body is pure water and has to be kept purified. And the iron within our blood, if not oxygenated/polished and stamped with zikrullah, it becomes a source of sickness in our body. And so they say most staff infection is from the rotting iron (free radicals) which attaches itself and immediately increases the sickness.

So hijama/cupping will take away all the excess iron and pull the dirty blood from the body. In many different spiritual practises when we chant and also during the spiritual practises, this nasma and qudra and all of that Divine energy (that is surrounding us) attaches itself to the iron (haemoglobin), not to the liquid part within the blood, and then moves all over. The iron in the blood begins to heat the water/liquid of the body and begins to change the state of our whole being; we can either be a fiery person and as soon as something happens we become angry and we flush, or we can be a spiritual person where we have practised and opened the energy within our heart and made it a Baytullah, "the house of God" (within us). And with every pumping of the blood when we are breathing the Divine energy comes through the breath and goes into the lungs which nourish the blood and it moves into the heart. And as it enters into the heart it will be stamped by the heartbeat which is Allah Hu (between cessation and pumping) if that heart has become "the house of Allah," it is then stamped with the zikr of Allah (SWT). And once that energy has been stamped upon the blood, the heart shoots it to the eleven essential organs of the body (reflection of the solar system within).

That is why they say that every step (in spiritual progress) is based on the breath; every spiritual order talks of this, the spiritual consciousness of the breath, because this is the Divine blessing that is coming to us. Before (this realization) you want money, you want a wife or a husband or children and this or that, but the Divine is saying, "You want so many things in life but did you thank Me for the nafas/the breath? And you are given 24,000 such gifts during each day and you don't thank Me even once for those breaths?" So then we have all our wants but we have no thankfulness to the Divine and that is the formula for depression and sadness; you are always sad because you have wants but you never thank. And that is Divine teaching, we always have to be thankful constantly saying, Alhamdulillah wa Shukranlillah, Alhamdulillah wa Shukranlillah....because we have life. If God gets sick of us He may end the breath and we would be gone and all our complaints go with us. The Divine is teaching us to thank Him on a daily basis and hamd is different from shukr. Alhamdulillah is that everything, yusabihoo wa bi hamdi...that "everything is praising the Divine" and I am also praising with all my being, I am praising You my Lord. So keeping chanting Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah for what He have given us and Shukranlillah because there is our breath which is coming in easily. Go watch people who suffer from breathing, we have said this many times and it is Mawlana Shaykh's training; when we think we have a hard time because our sustenance is short, go to the children's hospital and watch children who have asthma; they cannot breathe or take in air, they are small and innocent and they haven't smoked or done stupid things to harm themselves; it's just the way the cards have been put out when destiny was written. So when we go to those situations and see the difficulty of their breath, and the hardship that they endure, and what suffering really is, then we say Shukranlillah, Shukranlillah, Shukranlillah...you make it a thousand times a day and it still won't be enough.

The Divine is teaching that is the key when we are thanking and praising, and to be thankful for everything that we have. Then they begin to teach us that this breath coming in is thanking the Divine as it is moving through the body, so we should be busy all day long with our chanting whether we are asking forgiveness for the things we have done wrong, known or unknown to us by saying astagfirullah or then praising the Divine Presence and praising the Prophetic reality constantly. It means the heart is now busy and it becomes like a factory constantly praising and purifying, as it is purifying it's now stamping with Divine energy, and every blood cell flowing through it is now being stamped with that praise. With that stamp, the blood now begins to go to each organ and fight on our behalf; before, all the organs were under satanic and bad energy attack and each organ was prone to collapse, bringing every difficulty to the body. It's not a coincidence that kidney failure and liver failure are the most common diseases in the world. It's because bad energy is encouraging us (into wrong actions) and wants to take over our being. Shaytan wants to come and take over our heart completely and presses us, "Why don't you smoke?" And as soon as we smoke we put all that horrible energy into being and it gets to move freely through our blood.

So the Prophet (s) described that Shaytan moves through the blood in our bodies, by always whispering, "Why are you taking a long time? Start smoking," so then bad energy can enter very quickly and hit our heart. It results in heart disease through heart attacks, and from there it will move through our blood into our liver, kidneys and our lungs. And later Shaytan will inspire us to drink! "Drink and put spirits inside your body," they don't call it heavenly names, but they call it "spirits". What spirits are coming into our body? These are negative spirits and they want to dilute what we are made up of, that is pure water. We are asking to purify this water and fill it with Divine chanting and Divine energy, but negative energy comes and says, "No dilute that water and make it to be like fire, fill it with all sorts of spirits." And then the blood becomes like fire; it begins to de-nourish all the organs and starts to shut down the entire body. So we are under attack, whether we know it or not, the reality of Sufism is to come and teach us how to defend our self until we regain a consciousness and become aware of what the Divine has guided us to. You keep thinking (on the surface), "I thought I was just sitting on this carpet and chanting?" But the Divine is saying, "No, you are under a negativity attack and it is overtaking you," and (it will not stop) unless we begin to chant and practise and understand our focus is on the inside, on the heart and its energy. As soon as we empower the heart then nasrullah, "Divine Help" is coming. The Divine energy starts entering the heart providing support, and all our internal energy changes, all the organs of the body will be protected, and now we begin to secure the kingdom within.

This (body) is a kingdom that the Divine has given us and before we can open the reality of the heavenly kingdom we don't even know our own kingdom which is (constantly) under satanic attack, how then are we going to witness the grandeur of Divinely kingdom? Many people who are zahireen focusing only on external practises, wonder why nothing is opening for them? Why is there no understanding and reality opening for them? Mawlana Shaykh is teaching what would Allah want to show you from His heavenly kingdom when you don't know your own kingdom? You don't know who you are and what king is sitting upon your throne? What king is sitting upon your heart? Is it a satanic king of bad desires, bad action, and bad will and wants? Or is it the Divine King? Thy kingdom come Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. It means the kingdom of the Divine must come into the heart. The Light of the Divine comes into the heart and begins to push down all wants and desires by this internal energy, and begins to protect with this energy every external (bad) influence. Under the levels of the Naqshbandia murshids, Mawlana Shaykh is all of those realities.

But the Shaykh al-Tarbiyah and Shaykh al-Tazkiya is the same; they give us from their tarbiyah and from their understanding which means there has to be amongst you a Shaykh that teaches tarbiyah, teaches manners, teaches what is right and what is wrong and the understanding of the self. As you begin to bring tarbiyah/discipline and etiquettes of understanding the do's and don'ts, what's right and wrong, you can begin the internal cleansing. There has to be a guide that teaches that tarbiyah and it is all about mannerism. We have the expression bay-tarbiyat and it means "vulgar, rude". So it is the opposite and when there is no tarbiyah how could there be tazkiyah? How could you have purification if you have no manners? It's impossible. So the guides of tarbiyah come and teach, "Don't do this but do that... don't do this, now do that," they have perfected their manners so when you see them, they have the best of manners, loving and humble and always seeking God's support, Mercy and forgiveness because they know they are always under attack.

As soon as the tarbiyah comes then the Shaykh begins to inspire from the reality of tazkiyah, and now the zikr and practises will finally start to take a hold on you because your manners are finally trained towards goodness. And they begin to give you zikr and from their nazar/gaze that zikr is now housed in a beautiful vessel to hold it. If you hold your cup out to them and it has no tarbiyah accompanying it and you are asking for a zikr, that is like asking for liquid gold and as soon as it is poured in that cup it melts everything, and since the vehicle in which we are asking to place that is not yet purified, they begin to teach us by starting with tarbiyah. So then the same Shaykh, teaches from the reality of tazkiyah, he takes note that we have followed all the tarbiyah, choosing right from wrong, because they jumped us through hoops and our character is now corrected, and the manners are corrected, then the zikr they give us will hold onto the soul. It brings a light and a tremendous energy inside and begins to provide a powerful energy outside and prevents the hawa; stops the desire of dunya, overcomes the ego and begins to fight Shaytan. Without the inside being strengthened, the outside is definitely under attack. We pray that Mawlana Shaykh opens more and more understanding for us on how to build that inside energy and how to follow their tarbiyah and tazkiyah and that our hearts begin to open, and that energy begins to shine within our heart. Subhaanaka Rabbil izzati amma yasifoon wa Salaamun 'alal mursaleen wal Hamdulillahi Rabbil 'Aalameen.