To Die Before Death by Holiness Sheikh Bawa Muhaiyaddeen - Lovingly Called Bawange or Guru Bawa by His Devotees

To Die Before Death BY:
In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful, Most Compassionate

"My precious children, please bear with me when I plead with you, you who are like those whom I have given birth to, born of me, to such of you, I gift this Knowledge of Truth, which is, that your belief, that Trust in the Almighty, is your Power and your Strength, your Purity and the Perfection of your Soul. These will determine the destiny of your Soul and ensure the victory of your existence, victory of Perfection and Purity, the victory of Unity, when you attain that conviction that all other lives are like your own life." His Holiness Sheikh Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (Rad) Colombo, 28th April 1981.
The Serendib Sufi Study Circle (founded in 1967) is dedicated to learning, practising and propagating the teachings of His Holiness M.R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (Rad). Sheikh M.R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (Rad) was a revered Sufi Saint, first found meditating in the jungles of Kataragama in Sri Lanka (Ceylon) in the early 1900s. His Holiness has spent his life tirelessly serving humanity until his demise in December 1986. Regular weekly meetings are held every Sunday at 10 AM at the Serendib Sufi Study Circle, 31, W.A.D. Ramanayake Mawatha, Colombo 2, where the teachings of Sheikh M.R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen are discussed. All are welcome to attend! Note: The last Sunday of each month, the meeting and zikr are held after Asr prayers.
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In the Name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate

"Prophet Muhammad, the Rasulullah (Sal.), placed the Qur'an in the hands of his followers and said, "In order to understand this, go even unto China to learn divine knowledge ('ilm)." Within one word in the Qur'an, there are thousands of meanings. Don't hold onto to just one meaning. Look within and there will be another meaning. Within that is another meaning, and within that is still another. As you uncover meaning after meaning, you will see Allah at the very end. When you go beyond all the messengers (rasuls) and look within, you will find Allah. The angels are also there. Go beyond them and look, go beyond everything and look, and then you will see heaven. Go beyond heaven, and Allah is there. Do not pray for heaven. Go beyond and look. Allah will be there." M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, To Die Before Death: The Sufi Way of Life
To Die Before Death: The Sufi Way of Life

This book uncovers the mystery of death, explaining exactly what does happen when a person dies where his soul goes, and what kind of form it will take after the body expires.
M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (Ral.) explains what determines the time of death, what the angel of death is; how one can escape from hell and rebirth, what happens when a body is cremated and when a person has donated organs and what will literally happen from the moment of death to the questioning in the grave. Most importantly, M.R.Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (Ral) explains how to live our daily lives understanding that death is always near.
Destiny
A chapter from the book To Die Before Death, A Sufi Way of Life. May God protect us from the qualities of satan, the rejected one. May God protect us from satan, the rejected one. A'udhu billahi minash-shaitanir-rajim. O God, O God, Ya Allah. O Merciful One, O Merciful One, Ya Rahman. O Compassionate One, O Compassionate One, Ya Rahim. O Ruler of the universes, O Ruler of the universes, Ya Rabbal-alamin.
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Tuesday, February 05, 2013
O Merciful One who rules over everything in this world ('alam) and the world of the soul (arwah), the Leader of everything, the Foremost One who sustains everything, the Lord who created everything, You created everything with Your Grace and Your wealth. The things that You created are very intricate. You have created things that are supremely technical. No one else could have done the research or work that You have done. Everything You did was a novel, wondrous research. You investigated currents, magnetic forces, and all other forces, atom by atom. You are the only One who did the research and created everything. You are the Lord, the Rabb. You know what can be grown where, what can burn what, and what can control what. You are Allahu, the One of unfathomable grace and incomparable love, the bestower of the undiminishing wealth of grace. You are the Lord of all the universes. This is why we praise You. You have all the power and all the benevolence to create, to fashion, to destroy, and to protect. You know what to protect, what to embrace, and what to destroy. You are the One of perfect purity. You will protect everything that is perfectly pure and destroy everything that is impure and does not join with You. You will take everything that is valuable and discard everything that is of no value. Among all the forces (shaktis), You will take the forces that are right and not the ones that are improper. You are the Foremost One of might and exaltedness, O Lord of the universes. This is why all lives pray to You. There is no doubt that You can do everything. We believe this. Anyone who has wisdom, anyone who has absolute faith, certitude, and determination (iman), anyone who has trust in You, anyone who has even a little sense, even a little awareness, will not forget You. Only if a person is fascinated by the world, will he forget You. The fascination of the world and the qualities of satan will make a person forget You. Only a person who has the arrogance of satan will forget You, otherwise he will never forget You. Such arrogance takes possession of man and causes changes to occur. O God, please correct such people and show them Your compassion. Give them compassionate hearts, destroy their pride, and give them qualities of peace and tranquility. Destroy the quality that says, "I," and give them the quality that says, "We." Destroy the quality that says, "Mine!" and give them the quality that says, "Everyone's." Make them give up their anger and give them patience. Make them give up the quality of saying, "I, I, I!" and give them the peacefulness of saying, "We, we, we." Make them give up the thought of "My property, my land, my forest, my country," and let them realize that this is God's kingdom. Everything belongs to God-ourselves, our lives, our bodies-everything belongs to God. When we ourselves belong to Him, how can anything belong to us. The only thing that belongs to us is God. Please give us the clarity and the wisdom to realize completely that our only wealth is God. Please
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give us, who are of the human race, this clarity, and give other lives the appropriate qualities and wisdom, and protect us so that we may understand You. O God, who can fully describe Your greatness? You are the ultimate technician, the greatest scientist. You looked at false knowledge, ignorance, and science and opened up true wisdom. You researched all forces and understood them. You know which force can destroy another, which can control another, and which can be used to create something else. You have created all these magnets and forces. You are the power, and with that power, You rule and control everything. There is no power that is similar to Your power, no wisdom that is similar to Your wisdom, no qualities that are similar to Your qualities, no words, actions, or conduct that are similar to Your words, actions, and conduct, and no compassion that is similar to Your compassion. There is nothing that is similar to You. Other than You there is nothing that all created lives can trust. They can believe only in You. They must accept You. Those that accept Your qualities have peace and tranquility. Those who act with Your qualities, speech, words, and actions attain tranquility and find heaven in their own lives. O Lord of the universes, You are the One who created this condition. Everything praises You-the earth, sky, sun, moon, and all created beings, earth life, fire life, water life, air life, and ether life. O Mighty One, there is no other Lord like You. It is the One who has such power that we call the One God. Other than You each energy, virus, force, germ, etcetera, is just a cell.1 Different aspects arise from each cell and say, "I." But every cell can be destroyed by another cell. Fire can burn the earth, water can destroy fire, air can move water, mountains and trees can block the currents of air. In this way, one thing controls another. The forces of the sun and moon can be subdued by clouds. The connection between the earth and the sky can be blocked by the clouds. When smoke and clouds are widespread, the earth cannot be seen from the sky nor can a person on land see the sky. This is how it is. My love you, jeweled lights of my eye, my sisters, brothers, my daughters, sons, grandsons, and granddaughters. It is the same with our realization of the mystery of God. Just as the smoke and clouds can occlude the earth from seeing its connection to the sky and the sky from seeing its connection to the earth, the clouds of our mind and desire prevent us from seeing the connection between God and the hereafter (akhirah) and our life in this world. These clouds prevent us from seeing the connection that exists between God and us. We fail to see our life-connection. These clouds are the four hundred trillion, ten thousand thoughts of our mind. These viruses, these cells, these clouds come and hide our connection to the future. They hide our connection to God. Religions, races, scriptures, philosophies, desires, attachments, blood-ties, differences of colors, the many millions of thoughts, the thoughts of 'I' and 'you', property, livestock, wealth, desire for earth, women, and gold, and the thoughts of my house, my land, my wealth-these are the countless clouds
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brought about by the mind. Just as the clouds hide the sky from the earth, these clouds hide our connection to God and to the hereafter. They hide our clear connection to peace, and they hide the resplendence of life. By doing this, they prevent us from seeing the power of God and our connection to Him and the hereafter (akhirah). The mind causes all this to happen. If we transcend the mind, God will not be far away from our life. The two of us will be very close. One looks at the other, and both are in the same place. God and we are both in the same place. Within each of us, there is a place where God lives. He lives in a place of truth. He dwells in a place within us where we nurture our wisdom, words, actions, and conduct within His qualities. His qualities, actions, and His three thousand gracious attributes are within a tiny piece of flesh.2 Without our realizing it, they exist in a specific region of our heart (qalb). God lives in that one place. The base desires rule over the rest of the body, but He rules over this divine kingdom. The rest of the body is ruled by cells, viruses, illusion, (maya), darkness, and fascinations. Each of these catch hold of and devour the other. As each one is being destroyed, it shouts, "My God." But the cell which is destroying it asks, "Who is God?" This is what happens when differences arise between two cells. The clouds of the mind are the cause of these things. A person who transcends his mind will see the sky and the earth as one. He will know their connection. Just as the sky is seen when there are no clouds, the connection between God and man will be clearly seen when the mind is removed. When man can either transcend, control, or conquer the thoughts of mind and desire, the clouds of life that hide his vision will move away. When the clouds clear, the sky and the earth are clearly seen, are they not? Similarly, God, the hereafter, this world, and the truth in this world will be seen by man. Man can see this truth and understand it! My love you, my jeweled lights of my eye. Each child must reflect. There are certain ways in which God does things, and there is a reason why the things He does turn out right. He puts everything in its appropriate place. God takes water and puts it back in water; water remains as water and there is no difference. He takes fire, throws it back into fire, and there is no difference. He takes the eightyfour types of air and gases and places them back into the air, and there is no difference. He takes the earth, throws it back into the earth, it joins together, and there is no difference. He takes the earth and puts it into earth, He takes water and puts it into water, He takes the light of the sun and puts it back into light, He takes the cool colors of the moon and puts it into the moon. He takes something which glows in the dark and puts it into other things that glow in the dark. Luminous objects exist in the clouds, and as darkness descends they begin to glow. The moon has this ability also. When the light from the sky falls on the moon and clouds, they glow. That light is cool. The moon and sun both give light, but the sun's light is hot and causes heat and perspiration while the moon's light is cool.
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If the moon is thrown into the sun, it will lose its power. When the sun emerges, the moon loses its power. When sun dispels the darkness, the moon loses its power, because its power exists only in darkness. It is the same way when God gives a man wisdom. As soon as the perfectly pure qualities of wisdom come into him, the world loses its power. Illusion (maya) loses its power, the mind loses its power, attachments lose their power, and selfishness loses its power. When God's qualities, God's actions, God's speech, and God's conduct come into us, the world will change into a powerless entity. All attachments will become powerless. The One Benevolence will show its compassion through its three thousand gracious attributes, and all lives will be seen as one's own life. All sorrow will be one's own, and all tiredness will be one's own. This is how the connection to Truth begins, and in that state man does what God does. Truth is placed in the place of truth and is not destroyed. When God's words are placed in man's words, they are not destroyed; they are protected. Other forces cannot destroy that. When man adopts God's actions, and acts accordingly, they will not be destroyed. When God's vision, His thoughts, His focus, and the beautiful qualities of patience, contentment, surrender (tawakkal), and praise of God (al-hamdu lillah) are established in man, the qualities of all the cells are changed. In the face of these qualities, the four hundred trillion, ten thousand energies become powerless, and the clouds of the mind lose their power. When God took water and placed it in water no differences could be seen. No differences could be seen when He put fire in fire, air in air, and earth in earth. When earth is stirred, earth mingles with the earth and becomes one. When clouds are beaten and stirred they join with other clouds and drift away. The mind can be made to leave in the same way. No matter what sins we may have gathered in our life, when we join truth with truth no differences will be seen. When wisdom is joined with wisdom there will be no differences. When God's qualities are joined with human qualities no differences will be seen. When we take on God's actions and act accordingly, there will be no differences. When we adopt God's conduct and act accordingly, there will be no differences. When we act with God's patience and contentment, when we act with surrender, praise of God, and His qualities, there will be no differences. Then peace and tranquility enter our life, and our soul is liberated. The characteristics of God come within us, the light of God and the heart (qalb) of God comes within us, and His resplendence of perfect purity comes within us. Then we realize that we and God dwell in the same place. The clouds move away and the darkness is destroyed and transformed. Mind and desire are reduced and their thoughts are suppressed, and peace, tranquility, and the kingdom of God can be realized within us. When this kingdom of God is known within us, we realize the truth that God lives within us. We must understand this truth. This is the truth, but it can only be realized in the place where no differences
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are seen. God joins each thing to its appropriate section. He takes what is bad and places it in evil, and He takes what is good and places it in goodness. In this way, that which is bad will destroy other things that are bad. Each of these bad cells will destroy the other. But truth will not destroy anyone or anything. Therefore, truth has to be placed in truth, and good qualities have to be placed in good qualities. These things will cause other things to grow, whereas the bad things will only destroy. God created the world, and it is through the world that He will destroy the world. He created fire, and it is through fire that He will destroy fire. He created air, and it is through air that He will destroy air. He created water, and it is through water that He will destroy water. He will destroy the earth with the earth. He will ruin the sky with the sky. Each cell can destroy another cell. But, truth will protect truth and cause it to flourish. Similarly, each of our qualities destroys another quality and causes us distress. It is our thoughts that bring us difficulty. It is our intentions, thoughts, and actions that torment us. Each of our thoughts hurt us. Each of our attachments torments and tortures us. Each selfish blood-tie torments us over and over again and cuts into us as if we were undergoing an operation. Like this, it is our own thoughts that cause suffering, difficulty, trouble, sorrow, and tears. It is our own thoughts that cause our blabbering and lack of peace. In our ignorance and lack of wisdom, we gather these things. These are the clouds that sever our connection to God. The connection between God's truth and us is a very close connection. God is closer to us than our own life, but our mind and desire hide that connection. Our thoughts, intentions, and attachments hide this connection. Once we push these things away, how easily the connection between God and us can be realized. The world disappears and the hereafter (akhirah) opens up. Allah resplends, our heart (qalb) embraces Him, and there is bliss. There is peace! We can attain peace and tranquility in our life. We must reflect on this. As long as we do not attain this state, it is our own evils that obstruct us. The cells and viruses that we ourselves cultivate are what bring us difficulty. These destructive cells will ruin our life. When truth is placed in truth, it grows and brings peace. God takes what is good and places it in that which is good, and there are no differences. He places what is bad with what is bad, and they continually destroy each other. Religions, castes, and scriptures cause destruction. They are the cause of the destruction of the world. Each specific fire that each man keeps within him burns and destroys something else. The bombs that each man makes destroy other areas. Man's qualities destroy his own life as well as the life of others. The five elements within him and the four hundred trillion, ten thousand qualities are the 'cells' that destroy the world. These cells, viruses, and germs are in man. They are like a magnetic force or an electrical current. When these qualities of 'I' and 'you' join with man, they are the cause of destruction. We must think about this. We must think about this.
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My love you, my jeweled lights of my eye. Try to study within yourself. Understand within yourself and do this research. The connection between God and us is a very close one. It is so close, but the enormous mountain of the mind keeps us from seeing it. Break down that mountain of arrogance, break down the 'I', and develop the mountain of compassion, this mountain is soft like wax. It should be developed in such a manner that it gives and bends with melting love. These qualities of God must be developed. The clouds, the storms, and the viruses of mind, desire, and thoughts should be controlled and destroyed. The mountain of arrogance should be broken down, and the desire that says, "This is mine, this is mine," should be beaten and removed. God's qualities of patience and contentment, trust in God, giving all praise to God, and saying, "God is great."3 should be put there in their place. That station of peace should be placed there. God's compassion and His qualities should be placed there and protected. Then the resonance and resplendence of the One of divine bliss, the Supreme Treasure known as Allahu, will be seen. The eight heavens of this world and of the hereafter (akhirah), the heavenly beings, prophets, the lights of God, the ones who explain, the favorites of God, men of wisdom,4 men of clarity, men with unity and God's qualities will all be seen. As our wisdom expands and keeps unfolding, this tiny place that the eye cannot see becomes larger than the eighteen thousand universes. It is a secret place of God. It is a place of peace, a peaceful heaven. We can see this mysterious place, and if we attain peace in this beautiful place, how blissful that will be. My love you. Heaven and hell, good and bad, do not exist elsewhere. Our qualities alone are our heaven. What we do, our actions, are our decreed destiny (qala qadir). The pen is in our hands, and we write the evidence that is considered for our final judgment. The final decision is based on this writing. God looks at it and says, "This is your destiny (nasib). We will make this your destiny." In some situations, we try very hard to push things away, and when it is beyond our limit we say, "That is our destiny." We try all our remedies on someone who is sick, and when they do not work we say, "That must be his destiny." In the same way, God also gives us the final judgment saying, "This is his nasib." He gave us everything. He gave us all ninety-nine qualities and kept only one to Himself. He says, "I gave man all My wealth, but man does not understand and comes to Me carrying the burdens of hell. Therefore, I will make that his destiny (nasib)." So God says, "You can return with the same things that you brought to Me." God places His signature saying, "This is rightfully yours." We create heaven and hell for ourselves. Whatever aspect we develop becomes our own, and the resulting harm or benefits are created by us. Do we take the section of hell and try to destroy hell? No. We should push it aside and move on. There is no need to destroy it, just move on. If a dog comes to bite us, we just move on. We do not stop and try to bite the dog in return. Similarly, when evil follows us we should tell it to go away and move on. We should not spend time with it. It will
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shout for a while and then leave. Like this, the world will come swirling around us for a while, but if we do not look back, it will go away. Sins will also follow us for a while, but if we do not turn back, they will go away. They will say, "This is not the place for us," and go away. Many things will follow us for a while. If we look back and smile broadly at them, if we become happy in them, then they will overcome us. But if we do not look at them, they will go away saying, "This won't work. This man will trample me. I cannot enter him." Just as a prostitute dances and catches hold of a man, these viruses and this world catch hold of us. Like a prostitute, they decorate themselves with make up, they dance, they act, and they catch hold of us. Each cell does this. All the four hundred trillion, ten thousand qualities do this in order to catch us. But if we do not look back at them, if we have faith, certitude, and determination in the One God, and proceed along the path, they will not come near us. They will stay far away. They will follow us for a while and then leave us and go away. Such things only come to catch hold of our mind and our qualities. If, the moment they try to latch onto our qualities, we throw them behind and move on, they will not affect us. They will promise us fame, gold, silver, women, places, and cities. They will clamor, "Look at this. Look at that. You can have it." But if you do not look behind, they will say, "We cannot do anything to this man," and go away. The four hundred trillion, ten thousand thoughts come in this manner. If we drift toward them, laugh, and embrace them and feel happy, they will grab hold of us. But if we brush them away, they will leave. When a dog tries to bite us, we move on. We do not try to bite it back, because it will bite us. If we bend down, it will bite us, if we stretch up or move it will bite us, if we pick up a stick or a stone it will bite us. Therefore, we must stand still and say, "O dog, why are you coming with me? Go away. I haven't harmed you. Just go away and do your work." Then the dog will move on and we can continue. We should do the same thing with each thing that comes to grab us. We should say, "Oh no, I am not coming with you. There is no need for you to follow me," and move on. Why do the dogs of desire and the monkeys of the mind come and swarm around us? They come to catch hold of us. But there is no need to be afraid. If we look at them without fear and say, "Go away monkey," it will leave. The dog of desire snarls, growls, wags its tail, and walks around. Just chase it away and it will lose its strength. The mind will lose the strength of the 'I'; it will lose the strength of arrogance. Then it can be caught and tied up behind the kitchen. The monkey of the mind and the dog of desire can be caught and tied up, and we can do our work. We have to reflect upon each of our thoughts. The four hundred trillion, ten thousand spiritual energies try to kill, devour, and destroy each other. Nothing good comes out of this.
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One wakes up and tries to kill another, then another one arises and tries to kill something else. This goes on and on. Scriptures, religions, arrogance, karma, and differences of colors that declare 'I' and 'you' are very similar to this. They are all forces that destroy each other. But God's qualities and actions, that truth, nourish everything and make everything grow. Such is the power of God. Everything else is a cell or a virus. They are like magnets that grab hold of things one by one. These have magnetic energies, but God's qualities and actions are a power and they have a connection to truth. Everything else has a connection to these magnetic forces. This energy is found in iron. A magnet can pull upon the iron and separate it from the soil. Similarly, the magnet of illusion, base desires, and cravings exists within man. If this magnet comes near the mind, it exerts its pull upon the mind. As long as the four hundred trillion, ten thousand kinds of energies are present in the mind, they will be drawn to the magnet of illusion and stick to it. This is the magnet that pulls upon the desires and attachments of the senses. Illusion pulls on the mind and separates us from God's qualities. This is the force of satan. Arrogance, karma, illusion (maya), and the three sexual energies which are the sons of illusion (tarahan, singhan, and suran), as well as desire for possessions, anger, miserliness, envy, fanaticism, and the five heinous sins of desire for intoxicants, of lust, theft, murder, and falsehood-these seventeen forces or energies are the darkness within the mind of man. These magnets will pull on the four hundred trillion, ten thousand kinds of thoughts within man. Then they will draw man towards them saying, "Come, come, it is here, it is there," and show him different sights and scenes. God's qualities, His truth, His power are the only things that can put an end to these energies. These energies usually become caught in the net cast by the magnet. Only Truth can change and transform these qualities. We should place Truth among them. Then we can attain peace and tranquility, and we can see the kingdom of God within us. We will see God and the kingdom of God within us. We will see the Light known as Allah. We will see that good conduct, that love and affection which is His. We will see Him and know His state. We will see the value of God and the true value of man. The outside form, the body, is not man. There is a man within him and that man is a resplendent soul. He has attained the resplendent light of the soul. Such a man is connected to God. Of the six kinds of lives, he is the man who is connected to God. Earth life dies when there is no earth. Fire life dies without fire. Water life dies without water. Air life dies without air. Ether life, which is the life influenced by the magnetic forces of illusion and its glitters, dies without ether. God life, the light, the life of man, the soul of God, will die without God. It lives in its connection with Him. These are the six kinds of life. We must reflect on this.
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Each one of these lives live in different places. If they do not have the connection to that particular place, they will die. There are the six kinds of lives, and we must analyze them with our six levels of consciousness. By doing this, if we can find out which life belongs to God, we will attain peace. If we ask who we are, we will find out that we have a connection to God, and that our souls are connected to His power and His ninety-nine attributes (wilayats) that control everything. All the creations have thirty-six characteristics (tattwas). Man has ninety-six. These, along with truth, absolute faith (iman), and divine knowledge ('ilm) add up to ninety-nine. God is the hundredth power. If man develops and acquires these ninety-nine within him, the hundredth one, the resplendence of God, the Nur, will shine within him. Then he will have peace. That will be heaven and paradise. We must understand this. This is what is known as God. This is God. If we do not develop and acquire this state in the right way, then our life will be a hell that we ourselves have developed. My children, it is we who prepare either heaven or hell for ourselves. Our destiny (nasib) is written with our own hands, then handed over to God, and He gives the judgment. The good and evil (khair and sharr) are in Allah's responsibility, the essence and the manifestation (dhat and sifat) is developed by man. God has created us and given us the destiny of a created being. He has given us ninety-nine characteristics (tattwas) saying, "This is your destiny. Go accomplish what you have to with this and come back. If you gather good things, you will attain heaven, but if you gather what is evil, then you will attain hell. Whatever you bring back will be your final judgment. I will finalize that as your destiny. I am giving the decision of your destiny into your hand (qala qadir). Go, finalize it, and come. Whatever conclusion you reach (qada) becomes your decreed destiny (qala qadir)." If we do not realize this and prepare hell for ourselves, then God will not give us heaven. God has not said, "Whatever I have given you is your destiny!" He will change your destiny according to your intention. Whenever you ask for forgiveness, instantly He will forgive you. As you repent and as your understanding of yourself increases, He will forgive you. As you intend Him more and more, He will grant you the benefits. If He had already written your destiny, He would not grant these things. He has given you the ability to repent (taubah), and He has given you forgiveness. Since He has given you both the faults and the remedy for it, He grants forgiveness when you ask for it. Further, if God had already written your destiny, there would be no need to pray. Prayer has been reserved for you, so there is no such thing as a pre-written destiny. For mankind, God has provided repentance, striving, and His forgiveness, and through these, you can gain victory. You should not say, "It is already written and there is nothing more to do." You must make an effort. He has given you the ninety-nine characteristics (tattwas) with which to strive. Ask and He will forgive. Intend Him and He will give. Ask; intend; He will give and forgive. If you knock, it will open. Ask and it shall be given. He will give.
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Don't be foolish and worry about all the things you have heard people say. Use your wisdom and look deeply within. Allah says, "I will forgive. Ask for forgiveness, ask Me and I will give you what you ask." If He had already finished writing your destiny, then He would not grant this. God waits until you are placed in the grave. He waits until the final Day of Judgment, and then He is the One who asks the questions. You are the one who brings the good and the bad. If He had already written the outcome, there would be no need for you to gather good or bad, and there would be no need for the One who had already written your destiny to stand in judgment. But because there is something for Him to judge, He is waiting to see what you bring. If He had already allotted hell to you, why would He have the two angels write an account of what you are doing? If there is something still to be written, then there is room for change and forgiveness. According to the good you do, there is heaven. According to the evil you do, there is hell. Use your wisdom. Prophet Muhammad, the Rasulullah (SAL.), placed the Qur'an in the hands of his followers and said, "In order to understand this, go even unto China to learn divine knowledge (ìlm)." Within one word in the Qur'an, there are thousands of meanings. Don't hold on to just one meaning. Look within and there will be another meaning. Within that is another meaning, and within that is still another. As you uncover meaning after meaning, you will see Allah at the very end. When you go beyond all the messengers (rasuls) and look within, you will find Allah. The angels are also there. Go beyond them and look, go beyond everything and look, and then you will see heaven. Go beyond heaven, and Allah is there. Do not pray for heaven. Go beyond and look. Allah will be there. We have to think about this. Each one of us must think about this and ask for forgiveness. Do not merely think, "Oh, I have done wrong." Instead, if you have done wrong, know that God is the forebearant One who can forgive you. Ask Him and He will grant you forgiveness. Pray to Him. Worship Him. Allah is One who forgives. He is One who gives you what you ask. He is One who can change what has been written. Even though He is the One who gave it to you, He will change it for you. Even though He is the One who said it, He has the power to change it. Each one of you must think about this. During our life, we must gather all that is beneficial. To do this, we must have absolute faith, certitude, and determination (iman) in Almighty God, (Allahu ta'ala Nayan). We must live our life with this certitude; our words, our actions, and our conduct must be as one. To receive His grace, we must live and grow in this way, gathering the truth within our heart (qalb). Our hearts must be God's treasure, and He must be the life within our heart. If we can place that life, that treasure, and His qualities within our heart and then bring them into our actions, then that is the peace in our life and that is heaven.
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Precious jeweled lights of my eyes, every child must reflect on this. In order to receive this benefit, try to live as children with absolute faith, as children with wisdom, and as children with certitude. May God help you toward this. May the One of limitless grace, the One who is incomparable love, grant you His grace. O God, forgive us for whatever we have done earlier in our ignorance, knowingly or unknowingly. May You forgive us always for the wrongs we commit unknowingly and grant us Your grace. Even though we have eyes, we are blind. Even though we have a mouth, we are mute and unable to speak to You. Even though we have a tongue, we are without the tongue with which to talk with You. Even though we have hands, we do not know how to receive Your goodness. Even though we have the legs You gave us, we are unable to walk to You. Even though You gave us the heart filled with the plenitude of the light of Ahmad,5 we do not know how to use that heart to ask for forgiveness from You. Even with the wisdom that You have given, we still do not know how to speak to You and beseech You. We are fools. You created and gave us the twenty-eight letters,6 but we do not know how to speak to You or ask for forgiveness from You through each of those letters. In the name of God, Most Merciful, Most Compassionate (Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Rahim). Whatever You begin and whatever You end is in Your hands. You are the Creator (ar-Rabb). You are the Compassionate One (ar-Rahman). You are the Merciful One (ar-Rahim). We cannot live without knowing You. You are the One who gives us our food and water. Because of that certainty, we have faith in You. Please give us faith, certitude, and determination O Creator, O Compassionate One! Forgive us for all the faults we have done before this moment. Whatever faults my children and I have already committed, forgive us, and from now on, give us the clarity of wisdom and absolute faith. Give us good qualities and good actions and make us go on the good path. Give us an exalted life in this world, a life of living with You, a life of coming to You, a life in which You gather us unto You. May You make this a victory for us and grant us Your grace. O Allah, may You forgive all our sins. We committed them unknowingly in our ignorance. Forgive us. Forgive us. Please forgive us. So be it. So be it. So be it. O Ruler of the universes. Amin. Amin. Amin. Ya Rabbal-'alamin. 1 Throughout this talk Bawa Muhaiyaddeen says the word 'cell' in English. But his use of this word is quite different from its standard connotation. In his book The Guidebook to the True Secret of the Heart, Vol. 1, two chapters are devoted to this subject. "God took one cell, a dot (nuqat) from the alif (the Arabic letter for 'A' signifying the One Allah). He placed the eighteen thousand universes, the fifteen worlds, the appearances, hell, heaven, and everything within that one cell . . . . From that cell God has created everything else." p. 98 3 sabur, shukur, tawakkal, al-hamdu lillah and Allahu Akbar 4 nabis, olis, qutbs, auliya, gnanis
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5 Ahmad is the heart of Muhammad (SAL.). The beauty of the heart (aham) is the beauty of the countenance. (muham, Tamil; muhaiyyan, Arabic) of Muhammad (SAL.). 6 Footnote - 28 letters
Cultivating The Heart

A short talk given by M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen from A Book of God's Love. Amin. Amin. May we surrender all responsibility to God, the limitless Ruler of grace and incomparable love. Amin. May our life, its exaltedness, the good times and the bad be His responsibility. Amin. May He be responsible for our birth, our life, and our death, and for the good and evil we do. May He alone be responsible for the exaltedness of our life, for the grace that will take away our sorrow, and for the duty that will make us grow and bring us to the other shore. Amin. My very precious children, jeweled lights of my eyes, fellow beings who are the life within my life, the source of my eyes' light, my loving children who melt my heart, I give you my loving greetings. May God comfort us and give us His grace. Amin.Let God alone be responsible for everything in our life and for its splendor. May He nurture us on the true path. May He feed us His good qualities and give us His grace, His treasure, His limitless wealth. May He feed us the milk of His love and pour the honey of His grace into us. May He show us the light of wisdom and teach us to understand the secrets of the three worlds. May He show us the straight true path. May He grant us His grace and embrace us with the wealth of His grace. Amin. My loving children, my jeweled lights, consider the world, this earth. We have lands and oceans, jungles and huge mountains. There are places where you can farm, places where you cannot, and places where the soil is rich but of no use because it has not been cultivated. Some earth is salty, some is red, and some is black or various other colors. Brass, copper, iron, sulphur, oil, and precious gems are all found in the earth, but they cannot be found everywhere. There are rocks everywhere, but not precious gems. Water is everywhere, but in some places it is not at the surface. You might find water where none is evident if you dig very deep, but you have to make a great effort to reach it. There is no place without earth, without water, without air, without fire, or without illusion. The elements exist in the earth, in the skies, in the seven lower worlds, and in the seven heavens above. But precious gems, my children, do not exist everywhere.
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Earth is found everywhere, but can we grow crops just anywhere? Water is everywhere, but can we drink just any water? Air is everywhere, but can we inhale just any air? Fire is everywhere, but can we use fire just anywhere? Illusions are found in abundance everywhere, but do we accept them all? There is land everywhere, but can we build a house just anywhere? No, we cannot. My very precious children, these things are all available, but we must know which crop will grow in which soil and what kind of fertilizer is needed. We must know where we can find gems, where the oil is, where the lead is, the copper, the gold, iron ore, silver, mercury, and sulphur. We must examine the earth to discover which stones contain gems, we must examine the world to discover which water will quench our thirst, and we must analyze the air we breathe to know which gases are beneficial or essential. This is the way we have to search for God too. We have to scrutinize the gurus and sheikhs we meet. We have to discover where the wisdom we need exists, what sort of wisdom can be found where, and what wisdom truly is. Just as it is necessary to find the correct place for whatever we need to do, we must also find the place where we can discover that which is of true value, the place from which we can reach God and acquire His qualities, His treasure, and His wisdom. My very precious children, we must examine all this. There are millions of gods which take the name of God, millions of religions which take the name of God, and millions of languages and histories which claim to speak in God's name. So many people put on different robes, clothing, and emblems in God's name. Many such things have been brought into existence in God's name, but on this farm, this world where everything is available, we must cultivate our crops. We must cultivate the land and examine the soil to know which crops will grow. We must find the land that we can live on and build our house, and we must find water which is drinkable. We must think about all these things. My children, if you need a well, you might have to dig two to find one with good water. And you might have to dig twenty, forty, one hundred, or even one thousand feet just to find two springs. If those springs are good, the water will well up continually. If they are not, either your well will dry up very soon or the water level will drop in one season and rise in another. But if you dig your well in the correct place which is not affected by the changing seasons, water will always be available. You have to dig the well in the right place. There is endless water in the ocean, but can we drink it? No we cannot. The water in the ocean never diminishes but it is not drinkable. Similarly, there is so much water in a lake, but if you just boldly walk in, you may drown. And after all your digging, can the amount of water in a well compare with the amount in a pond? No, but the pond water contains germs, dirt, and fungi. You cannot drink it
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directly; it has to be cleaned first, because so many things are mixed in it. Once you examine it, you will discover all the dirt and the stench in that pond. Then how can we drink its water? We have to filter it first. My very precious children, the world is within us. Just as there are different kinds of water, there are different kinds of knowledge. You will find religions, scriptures, and philosophies as deep as the ocean. There are languages as vast as the ocean. There are so many different alphabets--Hebrew, Arabic, English, or Telugu, for example--and so many countless languages, like Greek, Kerandhum, Pali, Urdu, Hindi, Waduhu, Bengali, and so on. There are many, many languages, but can we benefit from them? Can we see God through these letters? Can we see God through the words we learn? Can we know God through any of our races even though they are as vast as the ocean? Although the earth is everywhere, can we plant crops anywhere? No we cannot. Can we inhale any air indiscriminately? If we breathe the air coming from a toilet, we will fall ill. It is air, but we cannot breathe it. Fire is everywhere, but if we try to confine every fire into one place, it will burn us up. Can we bake bread anywhere? Can we dig a well or find a spring just anywhere? No we cannot. My very precious children, we see countless things every day which are of no benefit to us. Do we acquire wisdom through the alphabet? If we study Hebrew do we acquire wisdom? Do we acquire wisdom through Arabic or English? Do we merge with God? No, we cannot achieve that state through languages. They are like the waters of the ocean, salty and incapable of quenching thirst. None of them can benefit us; none of this water can be used to cultivate a good crop. Can we reach God with race, religion, color, prejudice, and discrimination? Can we grow a true crop of wisdom through such channels? No we cannot. Only after examining the soil can we determine where to grow which crop. Only after examining the water can we determine whether it is pure. We have to examine each place to determine its shortcomings and then find a healthy, clean environment in which to live and build our house. This is why we have to consider everything and examine each condition. It is essential and urgent to analyze each little detail. We have everything. We have all these languages, yet languages, colors, and words--this kind of cultivation is of no use to us. Books and stories, like the waters of the ocean, are of no use to us. We cannot grow that crop of wisdom with these. Cells, viruses, energy, mercury, sulphur, gold, and silver are all found in many different places, but who knows where? Only God knows, because He is the only One who does not need any of these. He does not need gold, He does not need gems or mercury, He does not need anything, and that is why He knows everything that exists everywhere. The One who needs nothing knows everything; the One who has discarded everything perceives everything. He knows every bit of the earth and the seas. He
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knows every language, all the scriptures, religions, colors, races, metals, and gold. He knows all about them, but He does not want them. He has pushed all these away and does not even think about them. He does not try to acquire these things. He takes no interest in our languages, our colors, our racial prejudice, our gold, titles, honors, or knowledge. He is not interested in our praise or blame, in our earnings, our wealth, or our histories. He has discarded all this. And because He has discarded everything, He is complete everywhere. My precious children, jeweled lights of my eyes, from the time you are one month old until you are a year and a half or two years old you speak many, many different languages. You speak the languages of all God's creations, yet your parents do not understand or pay attention. Until they teach you to understand their own language, they do not understand yours; it is completely incomprehensible to them. An infant speaks a thousand languages when he says, "Aaah, mmmnn." He knows every language, but although his parents spoke that way too at one time, they have forgotten. As the child grows, it learns the temporary language of the parents and forgets that original one. The parents teach their child, "We are Arabic. We are Hebrew. We are Telugu. We are English." They teach these temporary languages and the original one leaves. The child acquires the separation of 'you' and 'I', and is taught the relationships of my father, my uncle, my grandfather. Well, my children, even though we study many languages, they are of no use to us at all. We knew them once before as children and forgot them. Each language is spoken in a specific place. Birds have their languages, all the animals have their languages. Bees have their own language, as do rats, deer, monkeys, men, and donkeys. The child knows and speaks them all. Who taught him this? The child speaks that nonspecific language which is found throughout the world. All God's creations speak this language. The whole world is within the child: the different gases, all those languages, gold, gems and the light of those gems. Grace, beauty, light, and God are inside him too. Everything exists in totality within the child. Even heaven and hell are within him. He must start to examine all these things. If a child could retain that original speech, he would speak a universal language which everyone understands. And because he could speak everyone's language, he would have no sense of differences. He would think of all lives as his own. Everyone would be his brother or sister. He would trust everyone and love everyone. He would show compassion to every living creature, because he would speak their language and understand. Knowing that original language would enable him to do that. But because he has forgotten this and has learned a temporary language, he thinks, "I am great. This is my religion, that is your religion."
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My very precious children, my jeweled lights, we have a world inside us, we have five different gases in us, we have desire which is illusion inside us, gold, mercury, and every conceivable thing. We have every language inside us. So what must we do? We must start by examining this earth within our hearts to discover which crops can be grown there, what kind of cultivation are we capable of, what can we cultivate that will be of use to us, which languages are we going to speak, which language can we use to invite God to us. We have to start digging into these things to understand them. We have to examine and analyze them to discover where the wisdom, the light, and the completeness originate. Once we sort and examine these things, we will discard everything that is not useful, just as God, knowing everything, discarded everything. Once He created everything, God discarded everything. He is humble and all-pervasive, doing His duty to everyone, everywhere. God does not take any of His creations for Himself. He has given up everything, yet He does His duty to everything. He wants no praise, He is neither selfish nor proud, He has no 'I', no 'you', He has none of this. He learned all there is to learn and then discarded it all. God knows every language and He has discarded them all. He knows every alphabet and He has let them all go. He has let everything go except for one point which is His. That one point is wisdom, and that one point connects us to God. He wants none of our literature or languages, He wants only that atom contained within our hearts. There is a connection between this atom and the mysterious power inside it. God has given up everything else, so what can He do with the languages you offer Him? He has given up literature, so why offer Him writings? He has given up gold, so why try to offer Him gold? He has given up precious gems, so why offer Him gems? What would He do with them? He has given up races, so what can He do with the race you offer Him? He has given up religions, so what can He do with the religion you offer Him? He has given up colors, so what can He do with the color you offer Him? He has given up praise, so what is the point in flattering Him? He has given up selfishness, so what can He do with the selfishness we give Him? Can we reach that One who has given up countless objects by offering Him what He has discarded? We can never return to Him or merge with Him that way. God has none of that, yet He is complete within each thing He has given up. There is no place where God is not, there is nothing He does not see, nothing He has not created, no justice He has not determined, no life He has not fed. He feeds the grass, the weeds, the shrubs, the evil people, and those who are in hell. He feeds the food of hell to those who are in hell. He feeds the earth with earth. He feeds those who possess the truth with truth, those who have wisdom with wisdom, and those who have His grace with grace. To those who have surrendered to Him, He feeds Himself. He feeds the earth with earth, He feeds water with water, He feeds animals with animals, He feeds insects with insects, He feeds ants with ants, He feeds termites with termites, He feeds fish with fish, and He feeds His food to those who have surrendered to Him.
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Each species or category in His creation is fed with the specific food God has reserved for it. That food becomes its own particular food. If we try to hang on to hell, He feeds us the things of hell. If we are arrogant He feeds us arrogance, if we are patient He feeds us patience, if we are wise He feeds us wisdom, if we are truthful He feeds us truth. Truth is the food of the truthful. Our wisdom is God's food, and God's grace is our food. We must investigate and analyze everything that happens, my precious children. Religion, philosophy, literature, color, race, and scriptures are of no use to us because God has none of that. We are all His children. He is the Father of all His creation. And because He is our Father, He feeds and nourishes us so that we may grow. He is the Father of the grass, the bushes, the sun, the moon, of everyone, of every life. There is only one Father for each and every creation, for each of His countless creations. He provides for them all without attachment. He gives them everything, but nothing He provides remains within Him. He does His duty to everything, but receives nothing from them in return. My precious children, there is one point for which we must dig with our wisdom, our faith, our prayers, our worship, and our 'ibadat, our devotion. If we want to return to God and merge with Him, then we must examine ourselves and look for that point. We must discard everything from ourselves just as our Father did. The day we do this, we will merge with Him. When we no longer have these colors, races, religions, languages, and literatures inside us, we can meet Him. But if instead, we bundle together the things He has discarded and offer them to Him, He will not accept them. He will throw them away. He threw these things away before and He will throw them away again. If we offer Him our languages, He will throw them away. If we offer Him our colors, He will throw them away. If we offer Him our races, He will throw them away. If we offer Him our gold or our illusion, He will throw them all away. None of these are of use to us. If we try to profit from the languages we have learned, from the knowledge we have acquired, from our religion or race, nothing will come of it, because God has no use for anything selfish. He does not fight, He has no prejudice, no arrogance, no anger. He does not discriminate. He has no ego. He has none of this. And now that we have separated ourselves from the One who has none of these attributes, how can we return to Him? By imbibing His qualities of patience, tolerance, and tranquility, and putting them into action. We can come close to God through His qualities. When our wisdom develops and our determination accepts His treasures, we will know God. Until we have the wisdom to acquire that knowledge, our religions, races, and colors will only end in a battle which will destroy our nation, the world, our life, and our birth. That battle will destroy our compassion, our patience, our unity, and our family. This war will destroy our connection to that One God.
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It is very difficult to reach God if we have all these wars going on inside. With our devotion in that state, with our faith in that state, with our prayer, meditation, and worship in that state, we can never return to God because He has no battlefield, no armies, no discrimination, no prejudice. He does not notice whether someone is black or white. He gave us the original languages we spoke earlier. Everyone speaks those languages; earth, fire, water, air, and ether all speak those languages. There is a musical note in the air, "Aahaahaahaah." You hear those sounds in the air don't you? "Oohoohoohooh." You can hear that sound in water, can't you, and " Shhhhhhhhhh," the sound in fire. You can hear these sounds in the earth when it quakes, erodes, and resounds, and in the sky when lightning appears and it thunders. All those colors are found in the ether, in maya. All these things are visible, they all exist, do they not? But we cannot go to God with the things we see around us, with the things which exist everywhere. We have water within us, and fire, and earth, and air. We have ether, colors, and illusions within us. We all have all of this. None of it has left any of us. So what basis do we have for discrimination and prejudice? Satan is in our bile. We all have black dots in our pupils, some have black hair, and some wear black clothes. Everything exists within us. If we want to fight, we have to fight parts of our self first. We have to fight our liver, we have to fight our nostrils. Every color is inside us, blue, black, green, and we have to fight them first. Once we finish those wars, that will most certainly be the end. But if we keep all that inside us, what is the point in fighting on the outside and discriminating against others on the basis of language? Some people feel nauseated when they hear Arabic. Others feel sick when they hear Hebrew, others when they hear English or Tamil or Telugu. Why should these languages make people feel sick? When you retch that way only your own gut comes out. The nauseated person is the one who suffers. As long as we retain whatever makes us feel that nausea, we will experience pain. Why should we carry our houses on our heads? Enter your house when you need to and come back out again. Do your work, sleep, or sit there, but why should you carry it around? God does not have a house, does He? True knowledge is understanding all this. It will come when you begin to analyze things, when a good crop grows inside you, when the strength of wisdom grows in you, and when you begin to surrender. What does surrender mean? Does it mean going away somewhere to die? No, it is the state in which our qalb, our innermost heart, joins with God's in perfect faith, saying, "0 my God, none of these actions are mine, everything I do belongs to You. There is no place where You are not. All my suffering begins with not seeing You. All my suffering begins with holding on to things inside myself that You do not keep inside You. 0 God, take everything away from me that You have removed from Yourself. I need nothing other than your path. Everything I have which You do not causes me such sorrow, suffering, pain, woe, and misery. It is hell. 0 God, please remove from me those things
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that are not in You, whatever they may be. 0 my Father, please accept me, and let everything inside me fall away. " That is surrender. It is our duty to surrender all responsibility to God. Nothing else will do us any good. When will you begin to acquire wisdom? When will you see God? When will you merge with your Father? You will never return to Him through literature, languages, or other such things. You will never find God with the things you keep inside. Discard everything which is not within our Father, and try to bring Him only those things He has in Himself. All the languages you studied, whatever language you pray in, all this is like the salt water of the ocean which can never quench your thirst. You perceive it as water, yet you cannot even bathe in it. The only thing it is good for is to relieve the itching of your body. Salt water is very useful for those who have itching bodies. It is good for the itch of your mind. It is good for illusion or maya which keeps itching to go to the seashore, but it cannot help us come to our Father. To do that we must acquire His qualities and wisdom. Anything else is like the ocean water which will never quench our thirst. All the religions, racial, doctrinal, and linguistic wars, all the fighting because of our birth or our death will never be of any use to us in a million years, because none of these things are found with our Father. We must analyze ourselves and find God within us. We must have His wisdom. Just as we extract electricity from water, we must take the light from that light of God, take the grace from His grace, extract our Father from our Father. This is what we have to take from Him. This is the most important thing we have to do. That point must merge with that point. Everything else can be discarded. We must think about this. Precious jeweled lights of my eye, we must come to that place where there is firm determination, wisdom, and prayer, where the Father and His children are together as one. We should think about this. Until that state emerges within us, our knowledge is like a mirage, and all the languages and everything else we have learned in our life is like oil poured on fire. Our knowledge is like oil poured on fire, useless because it will burn. Our actions are like oil poured into hell, like throwing all the decent things we sought in our lives into hell. This is what it is like in hell. Precious jeweled lights, all our flattery, honors, positions, ego, religions, races, writings, and battles are oil poured into hell. Discriminating between this one and that one, between us and them, discriminating on the basis of color--all this is fuel for hell. When you pray with these things, you pray with the oil of hell. My very precious children, think about this. We have to look within ourselves to see our Father here, within our hearts. We must have God's qualities here in the place where He lives, because the qualities of our Father are here. God's actions must be performed here because He acts here in our hearts. God's light must enter our hearts, and we must bring that light-explanation into action in our hearts. His grace, His treasure, and His house must be built in our hearts. Only then will He live
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there. This work must be performed here in the heart. We must realize this point for He will let everything else go. This is His point, this is His light which is connected to us. This point is a light, a treasure which exists in everything. Prayers that come from the heart and actions that come from the heart go directly to Him. Nothing else will be of any use to you at all, my very precious children. Knowledge that does not come from your heart, knowledge or the ability to speak is of no use to you--no matter what you may acquire in the world. Even if with great difficulty you should learn to meditate, or even if you find a spring, your well will run dry when the weather turns warm. When there is a lot of rain and snow the water level will rise, but in hot, sunny weather, your well will go dry. There will be no spring and no water. That kind of knowledge is easy, just saying something is easy, that kind of action is easy, that kind of meditation is easy, like finding springs on the surface of the earth. But you must understand that in the next season the water level will drop and all of these things will be useless. Your knowledge will be useless, your languages, your meditation and your wisdom will be useless. Everything will leave you. You must find that deep, true spring which is eternal. You must discover the spring which will supply you with water for countless seasons, eternally. And you must distinguish this spring from the springs which rise and fall seasonally. To come to that eternal spring we must go deep, right to that original point, to God. When we reach that point, three springs will appear from which the water will flow eternally. You can never lose that treasure because what comes from those springs is God's point. God has discarded everything else. Only His grace will flow from there, eternally. Precious children, jeweled lights of my eyes, we must think about this. None of the things God has discarded are of any use to us. What we hold onto is the oil which is the fuel for the fire of hell. Our prayers, our worship, our learning, titles, and honors are all merely the oil used to keep the fires burning in hell. Therefore, try very hard to dig deep and find the place which connects you to your Father. When will we reach that point? When will we have tranquility? When will we have peace? When will we discard all the things that are not our Father? Only when we have abandoned all these fights over language and all these religious battles, only then will we receive that treasure from God. My very precious children, my jeweled lights, this treasure is called wisdom. It is called grace. We must find that place and release those springs which will flow with the grace of our Father, the grace of His light and His wisdom. Precious children, nothing else will be of any use to us. What point is there in working hard for anything else? That is inviting the very disease which will destroy us. We must discard these things,
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my children, and go on the path to God. We must try very hard to find that one true place. That will be good, my children. My love to you. Amin. Amin. I give my love to all my children. My love and my greetings. If there is any fault in what I have said, please forgive me. My love. M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
"Within your heart in a space no bigger than an atom, God has placed the 18,000 universes, good and evil, and the wisdom to differentiate between them. That is your farmland. If you plow that land deep with your wisdom and sow God's qualities and actions with the knowledge of the difference between good and evil, you will receive the wealth of your soul, the bountiful harvest of undiminishing grace." The Golden Words of a Sufi Sheikh "What we are slaves to will prevent us from praying to God. If we are slaves to all the thoughts we think, if we are slaves to everything our eyes see, if we are slaves to all the music our ears hear, if we are slaves to everything the nose smells and the tongue tastes, if we are slaves to everything the body wants, then how can we ever reach a state of peace? We can never know peace or tranquility this way. We have to escape from this slavery and become a slave only to God." Questions of Life-Answers of Wisdom Vol.1 "Always use positive words, and never use negative or evil words. Cultivate good thoughts, not bad thoughts. Make sure your intentions are constructive intentions. Never be jealous; be grateful. Be tolerant, peaceful, and honest instead of vengeful. Always be compassionate, never proud and arrogant. Praise God, because God
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is the Deserving One. You need these in your life. If you can teach yourself to follow these suggestions, you will have a very good life." God's Psychology (unpublished to date) "You must place your faith in the one indestructible, imperishable God. To do this, you must stop depending on the kings, forces, and armies within you. When you give up all this and stand defenseless and alone, saying, O God, it is all Your will! The sheikh will stand by your side. It is only when you surrender to Allah that the sheikh, who is the explaining wisdom of the Qutbiyyat which guides you on the path of God, will come to stand by your side. 'Son' he will say, 'Now you are ready. Come, let us go'." The Golden Words of a Sufi Sheikh "This is the only path on which we can proceed with ease. It is the path to the freedom of our soul. Therefore, may we protect ourselves and give love to others. May we protect others as we would protect ourselves, love our neighbors as ourselves, and make all mankind our relatives, our brothers and sisters. May we make everyone our loved ones and help them become those who trust in God. May we all go together on this path as the followers of God, as the representatives of God, as the children of the one Father." To Die Before Death: The Sufi Way of Life "To all those who say they believe in God, please realize with faith that God hears every word you say. God hears your every thought. Realizing this, speak only what is truth and act only with God's qualities of love, compassion, justice, patience, and the realization that each life is as important as your own." January 10, 1979
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Is it possible for one to repent sufficiently at the time of death to merge with God?
A short talk given by M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen from Questions of Life, Answers of Wisdom Volume 2. Dr. Mohamed Zahir Markar: Is it possible for one who, during his lifetime, has not reached the ultimate state of being united with God and has not completely annihilated himself in God, is it possible for him to repent sufficiently at the time of his death? And will God accept his repentance, so that he could achieve a state of innocence and union with God at that time? Bawa Muhaiyaddeen: If we make a supplication (du'') to God at the last moment to give us a fully ripe, mature crop, it will not work. What we need to do is water the crop and fertilize it from the beginning. If we fail to tend it at the right time, but then beg of God at the very end, "Please forgive my mistakes and give me a good crop," He will not grant it. That crop cannot be full grown all of a sudden. Similarly, at the time when a man is about to die, when he is preoccupied with writing his last will and portioning out his accumulated wealth, when he is saying what he wants to give to so and so and to so and so at that time it will be impossible to ask for pardon or to rectify his omissions. Earlier there was so much time for the crop to be nurtured and made to thrive. He shouldn't have waited until the last moment, when he is suffering and his tears are owing from his eyes, for at that moment he will be pleading, "O God, will You not forgive me?" and at the same time crying out, "O God, who will look after my wife?"
You have to ask for forgiveness every second of your life, every breath, every moment.
At that time, he will not be able to speak, for the tongue will not be able to move and the death rattle will be in his throat as he suddenly remembers, "O God, my granddaughter is pregnant. I will not be able to see the baby with my eyes. O my God, I wasn't able to tell my people where I kept all my money. I didn't have time to distribute my wealth. I didn't tell my people who I lent money to." All these thoughts will be running about in his mind at that time. The thoughts of what he is leaving behind will keep coming, so he will not have time then to talk to God.
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Just as the thoughts that come to the mind of a crazy man are thoughts about events that happened earlier, the words he speaks will be words he has spoken or heard earlier, not words about what is happening now. When a man goes crazy, he keeps talking about the past, saying things like, "So and so did this to me or that to me." He doesn't talk about the present or the future; he has no notion at all of what is to come. Like that, in the final stage of life, at the time of the death rattle, it is the old reels that will be playing back for him. It is the things that happened in the past that he will be remembering. At that time he will not be aware enough to ask God for forgiveness. He will not remember to ask about what is to follow. Therefore, earlier on, while there is still time, he must keep on asking for forgiveness with each breath. Dr. Markar: I was not asking for myself, but for the sake of others. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen: But it is to you I am saying this. How can the person asking the question speak on behalf of somebody else? This is a question you have to ask on your own behalf. Listen to it as though it is for you. Have you gone beyond this state? If one who has no eyes wants to give eyes to others, how can he do it? You have to ask for forgiveness every second of your life, every breath, every moment. For this moment say, "Al-hamdu lillh (All praise be to God)," and for the next moment say, "Tawakkul'alallh (I place my trust entirely in God)." Try to establish this state, at least from now on every one of you. Whatever happens to you at each moment, whether favorable or not, say, "Shakr (I am content). Al-hamdu lillh." There is no need for us to worry about what is going to happen in the next moment. We only need say, "Tawakkul-'alallh (It is His will and His responsibility)." God is in charge. Whatever happens comes from Him. And when that next moment comes and goes, no matter how it may turn out we must thank God with contentment, and praise Him saying, "Al-hamdu lillh!" From this moment on, if each one of you will do it in this way, all your sins will be erased and taken from you, and you will be in the presence of God. He Himself has accepted all responsibility for you. He Himself is doing every one of your duties. He is the One who is acting for you. We have to hand it all over to Him. This is the repentance (taubah) you are thinking might be done at the last moment. This is true prayer. This is the supplication we have to make to Him. Like that, my child, all the doctors and all the presidents in the Fellowship, all their children, and all the children in the world, every one of us needs to establish within us the state that hands over responsibility to the One who created us, the One who brought us here and protects us here. It is He
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who will summon us back and deliver judgment. If each of us can establish this state, we will never have sorrow or distress or suffering or agitation. Everything happens according to His will. He makes everything happen. We must reflect on this. Dr. Markar: The reason I asked this was that I was remembering a murderer who was stabbed and dying and was brought to the hospital, where his dying declaration was, "I no longer want anything. Please leave me alone. I want only the love of God. Please let me die in peace." And with those words he died. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen: You saw him die and you thought his death was peaceful. That is all you observed.
It is not possible to judge whether a man is good or bad merely by observing the manner in which he dies. Only one who can see his true state can know. And the one who knows will also realize that what is happening is God's doing.
It could be that a man who has performed good actions and given endless charity may suffer before his death, while a man who has committed many murders may have a peaceful, easy death. How does God bring about the death of a person who has given charity? It could be that He might make him suffer. A person who has performed meditation, penance, and prayers might have to suffer before he dies. What could be the reason? It could be that for the duty he still must do God wants to strengthen his determination and certitude, to find out, "Is his faith steadfast? Will he abide with Me, or will he give in to his suffering and stray from Me? Will he forget Me because of the suffering, or will he remember Me in spite of it? Is he more concerned with the severity of his illness, or does he continue to look upon Me as his greater concern? Does he look upon his poverty as more important, or does he see Me as more important?" This could be the reason that God allows suffering to good people. He is the One who knows their hearts. However, it could also be that a man who has committed many murders is stabbed and dies quickly and with ease. He is made to die as quickly as he made his victims die. God says, "In the same way that you killed, you too will die. In the same way that you murdered, you too will be murdered. But after that, the torment you must suffer awaits you over there." It is not possible to judge whether a man is good or bad merely by observing the manner in which he dies. Only one who can see his true state can know. And the one who knows will also realize that what is happening is God's doing.
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Consider this. One man dies of a sudden heart attack. Another man is walking along the road and suddenly drops dead. This is not sufficient information for us to declare that those people were good people (just because they died suddenly, without any suffering). Judging good and evil is Allah's responsibility. He alone knows. He alone understands. Judgment rests with Him alone. Further, it is up to each person to make such a judgment within himself. Others have no way of judging this. Just because a man gave the appearance of peacefulness at the time of his death, it does not necessarily mean that he was good. Do you have any more questions? Are you angry that I said this? Anybody else?
What is Ramadan?
A short talk given by M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen from Questions of Life, Answers of Wisdom Volume 2 Question: Can Bawa explain the true meaning of Ramadn (the Islamic month of fasting) and the revelations that came to Prophet Muhammad (Sal.)? And what is the relationship between the two? Bawa Muhaiyaddeen: When His creations came into this world, Allhu ta'l Nyan (Almighty God), who is the Benevolence for all the worlds (Rahmatul-'lamn), gave His benevolence to each. First He created the world, and then He provided the food, or rizq, for each creation. This food can be found in the trees, the flowers, in water, in air, in the earth, and in many other places. Seventy thousand years before He sent each creation into the world, Allhu ta'l Nyan created the food for that creation. So, man comes here knowing that his food and water have already been provided for him. Everything he needs can be found here, and it is his job to take what is portioned out for him. He must understand which food is permissible (hall) and which is impermissible (harm) and eat only the food that was meant just for him. Anything he covets or steals from others is impermissible. Within each of His creations Allhu ta'l has placed the ability to understand what is hall and what is harm. He established laws regarding this and decreed that no one should obtain his food by deceiving another or plundering and stealing from another. We are all equal when we come into this world. No one comes rich or poor. Allhu ta'l Nyan provided the food, the rizq, of His benevolence in equal measure for all. But satan's qualities and thoughts of pride, treachery, and deceit caused people to grab the food of others and thus eat what was harm. Due to this plundering, some became poor and others became rich. Then, because this state had developed, Allhu ta'l Nyan sent His words of grace to the Rasl (Sal.). He established the qurbn, the acceptable way of slaughtering animals for food. In those times people would subject animals to a lot of suffering when they slaughtered them. They would kill the animal in any way they fancied strangle them, beat them with a stick or a club, beat them to death on a tree trunk, or cut their throats with chopping knives. They would inflict a lot of pain in killing them and would kill as many animals as they liked, whenever they liked. In every single home they would take
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the lives of animals any time of day or night. They slaughtered animals as well as birds such as chickens, cranes, and ostriches. They would catch a chicken in the night, when it was sleeping or when it was glorifying Allah, and kill it and cook its flesh. They would drag cattle off, right in the middle of grazing, and kill them. Because of the torment people were inflicting on animals and birds, Allhu ta'l Nyan sent down the commandment regarding qurbn: "Y Muhammad! Tell this to your followers! 'Before you kill an animal to eat it, you must understand the meaning of hall and harm (permissible and prohibited). You must kill only the animals that belong to you. If you steal or plunder animals belonging to others, that meat will be harm for you, it will never be hall.' Y Muhammad! If people want to eat the flesh of an animal, it must be killed in the prescribed manner and this must be done by someone who performs the five times prayer every day, such as the mu'adhdhin or lebbe.2 The person who kills it must be looking at its face, no matter what animal it is. Then the knife must be positioned on its neck and the Subhnallhi Kalimah must be recited before cutting. The neck must be severed within three strokes. During this process the knife should not strike the bone. The animal must not cry out or regurgitate its food. If it does, that flesh is harm. And if you cut the animal again, that too is harm." There are also stipulations about the size of the knife that must be used so many inches of blade and so many inches of handle for a chicken, and different sizes for a camel or a cow or bull or goat. In this way, conditions were dictated appropriate to each animal. Why were these conditions decreed in the first place? Earlier the Prophet (Sal.) had told the people it was a sin to kill, to take a life. So what did they do? In order to avoid actual killing, they would go by night and cut off the front leg or hind leg of a camel or a goat and cook and eat the flesh Although they did not kill the animal outright it would be dead by morning. Then the owner of the animal would complain to the Prophet (Sal.) that their animal had lost a limb and died. The Raslullh (Sal.) told them that this practice was harm, and that what they did had caused the death of the animal. He told them to reflect upon how they would suffer if one of their own limbs was cut off, and that if they did this to an animal, not only was it harm, but they had caused it agony and suffering and would be subject to Allah's grievous punishment. Soon the house to house killing of animals was stopped, and the practice of performing qurbn only at the mosque was instituted. Thus the number of animals that could be slaughtered was reduced even further, because of the mu'adhdhin's schedule and duties. After finishing the subh (morning) prayers, the mu'adhdhin had to clean up the mosque, dust the prayer mats, and fill the ablution tank with water. Then he would have breakfast. By then it was 9:00 A.M. Now, whenever he performed the qurbn according to the instruction given by the Raslullh (Sal.), he had to give water to the animal, then sprinkle water on it and recite the kalimah. Next the animal had to be positioned so that it looked toward the qiblah.3 One person had to hold the animal's legs down while the other held its head and cut its neck. These things had to be done only by people who prayed five times a day. All these conditions had to be met during the qurbn. After the neck was cut, the knife had to be dropped to the ground. Then both people had to recite the dhikr while looking at the animal's face, until the soul finally left the animal's body. Then the knife had to be washed, while reciting the kalimah. Throughout the whole procedure, they had to perform dhikr to Allah. All this had to be completed before they could start on the next animal. Only if they observed every one of these conditions would that meat be hall. If even one step were omitted, the meat would be harm. This is what the Raslullh (Sal.) told them.
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Prior to the institution of qurbn, there was indiscriminate slaughter of animals a thousand or even ten thousand a day were slaughtered, a hundred thousand on special occasions. But performing qurbn correctly would take fifteen to twenty minutes for each animal. By noon the mu'adhdhin would not have killed any more then ten animals. Then he would have to stop in order to give the call for the zuhr (noontime) prayer. After prayers he would go for lunch. Since there was only a short time between zuhr and 'asr (mid-afternoon) prayers, he might be able to deal with ten more animals at the most, making twenty in all for the day. Dusk came soon after 'asr, and qurbn could not be performed after dusk or in the nighttime. Thus the number of animals that could be slaughtered in a day was drastically reduced. Because of this, the companions of the Raslullh (Sal.) complained that at this rate they would not have enough hall meat to go around on festival days or other celebrations or days of rejoicing. Then Allhu ta'l Nyan sent down words of grace to His Rasl (Sal.) to tell the people that instead of killing forty chickens, they could kill one goat and then share the meat. Instead of killing forty goats, they could kill three bulls and share the meat. If they were going to kill forty bulls or one hundred goats, they could slaughter ten camels instead and share the meat. If they did it this way the people would be satisfied. Just as these commands were sent down to the Rasl (Sal.) to prevent the torture and random killing of animals, Allhu ta'l Nyan sent down other commands to deal with different situations. Why was fasting ordained? A human being needs to believe that his body, his possessions, and his soul all belong to Allah. Everything belongs to Allah. Allhu ta'l Nyan sent down the kalimah, in which He says: First, have certitude of faith in Allah and with that certitude pray to Him and trust in Him alone. Believe firmly, without the slightest doubt, that He alone is worthy of worship, and turn your qalb, your innermost heart, in the direction of the qiblah. Allah is the light, and His grace and qualities are the qiblah. He is the Badushh (Emperor) for that qiblah. And since He is the Imm, the leader of the prayers for that place, turn toward Him. Worship only Him. Thus the first thing is to accept Him and follow Him. The second thing is to worship Him. This world (duny) and the hereafter (khirah) belong to Him. Everything is His property, therefore be aware that you do not own anything. The world is not your property. Even what you earn is not your property, it is merely what He has distributed among all of you. But you are holding on to that common property and claiming it as your own. This thought is harm and the desire for it is harm. Allah said, "Y Muhammad! Explain this to your followers. They do not realize that everything belongs to Me. They keep on shouting, 'My property! My house! My wealth!' and so on. As a result, they are hurting and tormenting others. They covet and plunder the be longings of others. They lend money for interest. They are doing many cruel things like this. They must not harm My devotees and My slaves. I have appointed a Day of Reckoning called Qiymah. On that day I will raise all of them up and will cause them to suffer in proportion to whatever pain or suffering they have inflicted on others. Y Muhammad! Tell them that they will be made to endure the same pain they caused others." God continues, "Tell them that I have ordained five and six obligatory duties (furd). The five are outer duties and the six are inner. Of the five, the first is to accept Me. The second is to worship Me. The third is to give charity, or sadaqah. And what is charity? Because of their state of ignorance, because of the lack of light in their hearts, people have failed to accept Me with certitude and instead made the world their own. They do not realize that it is I who created the nourishment that is permissible for
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them. Anyone who claims the world as his own, anyone who grabs the world and says it belongs to him, has changed into satan and is surely going to hell. It is for such people that I created hell. They have seven kinds of base desires, and these seven will constitute the re that burns them in the seven hells. All the things they cherished in the world will turn into scorpions, spiders, snakes, centipedes, dogs, foxes, lions, tigers, and tarantulas each with seventy thousand kinds of poison. Whatever qualities such persons had, each quality will generate seventy thousand kinds of poisons within them, causing unending torment. Whatever scheming, trickery, deceit, and treachery a person practiced, intending to torment and ruin others, each of these will turn into seventy thousand kinds of poison that will afflict him. I have made each one of those qualities into a scorpion with seventy thousand stings and each sting has seventy thousand poisons. Therefore they cannot escape from a suffering that is many times worse than what they intended for others. "Tell them this, Y Muhammad. I have created food that is hall for each person, and it is there for him to take. Tell him to search for it and nd it. I have given the food appropriate for every bird and animal, and I have also apportioned that which is permissible for mankind. Not realizing this, man goes after the world and grabs what belongs to others. So he must now give it back as charity to those who are in need. But since man has forgotten these first three duties, Allah sent down a fourth, which is fasting. This is called Ramadn. The hunger that one feels when fasting is meant to help him realize the hunger that torments others more needy than himself. When he feels how his body shrivels, how much he suffers when he is hungry, how his desires increase and his body suffers then he comes to realize what older people and children and others are suffering." But even with this, some people's faith still did not become steadfast, and they did not learn what they were meant to learn. Even though they fasted from dawn to sunset, after they broke their fast they would gorge themselves and continue to eat to their full until dawn. Therefore Allhu ta'l Nyan said, "During these days of Ramadn, at least on Fridays, before the khutbah (the sermon given at the midday prayer) tell them to give offerings to the poor. Tell them to give some of the wealth they have accumulated. If they do not do this, tell them to give presents and charity to the poor at least on the twenty-seventh day of the fast." But they did not follow even this. Then Allhu ta'l Nyan said, "These people are not moving out of the darkness that fills their hearts. Therefore, tell them, Y Muhammad, once again, to distribute at least ten percent of their wealth to the poor. There is a thing called death that governs them, and there is also a Day of Judgment. Remind them that on the day of their death they will have to leave everything behind." But they did not accept this either. So Allah sent down His next obligatory duty. He said, "Y Muhammad, the hajj, the holy pilgrimage to Mecca, is an obligatory duty. Tell them that they must fulfill this at least once in their lifetime. Tell them it is their duty to complete this perfectly. In order to do so, before they leave on hajj they must give whatever is due as dowry to the wife and what is due as inheritance to each of the children. Whatever is left they must give as charity and presents to the poor and the needy. Then they must go unencumbered, wearing a white cloth (kafan), as a corpse would be dressed, and in this state complete the fifth duty. To fulfill the hajj, they must be dead to the world. They must make the world in them die. These five duties are the essential obligatory duties of Islam. God has declared that these duties must be fulfilled for mn-Islm. If we complete these five satisfactorily then we can celebrate 'dul-Fitr, the day of rejoicing at the end of the month of fasting.
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We need to understand the significance of these duties during Ramadn, the month of fasting. Some people, however, avoid the duty of fasting and in its place give a measure of rice to the needy. Some just give clothes and presents. Some rich people pay others to fast on their behalf. There are also those who, instead of doing the pilgrimage themselves, pay for someone else to go, carrying the rich person's staff to represent him. In this way, rich people attempt to buy something that cannot be bought. What we have to realize is that the whole purpose of the fast and the holy pilgrimage is to help us realize the difficulties and suffering of other lives. We need to see how we have wrongly claimed as our own the wealth that belongs to Allhu ta'l Nyan. We should understand this and give all responsibility to Him, saying tawakkul-'alallh, al-hamdu lillh. This is the true purpose of the fast, charity, and hajj to hand over all responsibility to Allah and die to make our desires die and the world in us die. This is the duty ordained for us. If we understand this, if we realize the true meaning of this fast, we will not hold on to anything for ourselves. We will not keep anything except Allah. Allah alone will be our property. His qualities will be our treasures. His actions will be our conduct. We will like whatever He likes, and we will seek whatever He seeks. It is in this state that we must fulfill the five obligatory duties (furd) and the six inner principles. If we accept that this is correct, we will have nothing to call our own no property or wealth and therefore we will have nothing to give in charity. A person with no wealth does not have to perform the hajj, but those with wealth are required to. Those who have wealth must give in charity. Those who have wealth must fast. They must perform all these obligatory duties. But one who is poor, a miskn, has no food to eat, no clothes to wear, no strength to walk, and no house to live in. So how can he fast? Allah alone is his fast. His intention is his fast. His yearning is his fast. His fast is to never be separate from Allhu ta'l. His constant thought of Allhu ta'l is his fast. He glories Allah constantly. That is his fast. He surrenders himself to Allah. That is his fast. And for him, to die in Allah is the fulfillment of the five furd (obligatory duties). We must follow the four steps: shar'at, tarqat, haqqat, and ma'rifat.4 As long as we live in the world we must follow these steps. As long as we desire the things of the world we must follow these steps. If we covet or plunder the property of others, we must give in charity. If we have gathered things that are harm, we must give them away completely. If we have earned money by hurting someone else, or by underpayment of wages, that stays with us as harm. Anything we acquire by telling lies and deceiving others is harm. Anyone who imbibes such harm things will lose his mn (faith, certitude, and determination) and his protection. On the other hand mn and protection will be with one who imbibes only hall things. mn will resplend in his heart. His life will be protected and peace will shine in his face. Therefore, we must be in mn-Islm, those who with perfect trust accept Allhu ta'l Nyan's commands and His words of grace. When we say mn-Islm, we mean that mn is Islam. All of everything, in fact, is Islam. Allhu ta'l Nyan has said, "Y Muhammad! If not for you I would not have created anything." Therefore everything is Islam. Everything has been formed out of the five letters alif, lm, mm, h', and dl.5 Without the mm no form could have been created. It was by connecting the alif with the mm that all of creation was created. Understanding this is to know the sirr, or secret, and the sift, or manifestation. The rh, the soul, which came from Allhu ta'l, is His essence, or dht. We must understand that essence and the creations. We must know what is good and what is bad. Dwelling within us are the things that belong to earth and also things that belong to Allah. The section that belongs to Allah is the good (khair), while the section of earth is the bad (sharr). We need to understand these. Khair is the beneficial part, while sharr is the creation, the part that
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appears as forms. If we can understand the difference between these two, then we will know how we must worship and pray to Allhu ta'l Nyan. Allah did not reveal all 6,666 verses of the Qur'an at the same time. Whenever someone committed some evil, the Raslullh (Sal.) would ask God, who would then send down a verse to address that issue. In this way, one after another, the verses were revealed, each more precious and valuable than the one before, each giving deeper inner meanings. It is very difficult to know the true meaning of the Qur'an. To do so we need faith, certitude, determination, and wisdom. The meaning of the Qur'an will be revealed to people of wisdom. They must be people who have realized all four states: shar'at, tarqat, haqqat, and ma'rifat. Shar'at relates to the state of man's birth. Tarqat is the state in which his faith, or mn, begins to be established and he begins to understand. Haqqat is the state in which he has love for God. And ma'rifat is the state in which, without duality, he merges in Allah and disappears in Him, worshiping Him in a state of oneness. These four are present as four parts within one's own body. Shar'at relates to the place of creation, the place we are born from. Tarqat is the region of the stomach, the place of the re of hunger. Haqqat is the chest, the place in which we become close to God and embrace Him in our hearts. Ma'rifat is the entire region above the neck. Here we understand the seven principles 6 and merge with God, surrendering entirely to Him. Only after this can we really pray to God. Understanding both day and night, we must realize that the Sratul-Ftihah, which is the inner form of man, consists of all four states. We must realize that inner form. We must realize that man has to transcend those four steps. Allhu ta'l Nyan sent us not only the verses of the Qur'an but also the reason for each one. Just as He sent each verse step by step, we must learn each of them step by step by step and thereby climb higher in wisdom. As we keep climbing upward, we need to discard thought after thought after thought. We need to cut away every one of our desires. We need to go beyond each period in our life. Finally we must come to the ultimate ending, in which we say, "Allhu!" At this stage, when we resonate, "Allhu!" we will be one with Him. That is His grace, His rahmat. Unless we attain that state, our life will end in this world called duny. We will perish in the same place from which we appeared. Whatever nourished us is what we will die in. What we nourished is what will turn us into insects and worms and make us subject to hell. We must understand all this. To understand it is fasting, hajj, and mn. Only when one grows and understands this state can he be said to be in mn-Islm. mn is Islam. mn is perfect purity. Islam is resplendent light. Only when the light resplends in purity can it be called mn-Islm. It is true that everything is Islam, but it is only when mn grows and its light resplends within the heart that Islam can be said to be complete. Only then can one be called a mu'min, or one of true faith. Those who are mu'mins are blessed to meet and commune with Allhu ta'l. The one whose heart totally accepts Allah, the one whose heart becomes resplendent and luminous, the one whose heart becomes perfectly pure the purity of such a one is called mn-Islm. The resplendence of the innermost heart worshiping Allah without regarding anything as equal to Him is called mn-Islm. To accept Allah without the slightest doubt or reservation is mn-Islm. All children of Adam (AS.) are mn-Islm. But if the hearts of the children of Adam (AS.) do not totally accept Allhu ta'l, if they do not perfect their mn, if they do not transform their qualities, if they still contain the qualities of satan and the qualities of demons, such as selfishness and sucking the blood of others, they will belong to the faction of satan. It is those qualities of satan that are called kufr, or ungrateful to God. God did not create Adam (AS.) as kufr. All the children of Adam (AS.) who
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have accepted Allah are said to be mn-Islm. That is what they are called in the Arabic language. In other languages they may be called pure ones, or those who have accepted God. Those who are pure, those who have accepted God, those whose hearts are pure are the ones who have mn, or absolute faith. Those whose hearts are filled with light, those who have a heart that is luminous and accepts Allah totally, are said to be mn-Islm. All those who have mn have accepted Allah fully. Each one of us must understand this. We are not divided. We all belong to one race, not to different races. We belong to one family, not families divided by color differences. This is the gracious word of Allah. We must understand this and transform our hearts, fill them with light, make our mn steadfast, and glorify Allah. Whenever we pray, or worship and serve Allah, or glorify His name, we must accept Allah totally, with perfect mn. Purity must reign in our hearts. In order to worship Allah, who transcends both purity and impurity, we must stand in the station of purity in our hearts. May we strive hard to worship Him with that purity. mn. May we accept this state with full faith. Today is the last day of the fast. Tomorrow is the day we celebrate the 'dul-Fitr, a day of rejoicing for having fulfilled the commands of Allah. We have observed the fast in God's name, and we have gloried the name of God. My precious children! We confirm that you observed the fast. We are happy and we commend you. But Allhu ta'l Nyan alone knows whether your fast made Him happy. If He is to accept your fast, He will do so only because of your heart and the intentions in your heart. It may be that some children were fasting without knowing the real meaning of the fast, but their hearts were observing it in the proper manner. Therefore, I say that Allah will have accepted their fast. Why? Because in their hearts they have steadfast mn, absolute faith in Allah. Through that mn they have fulfilled the fast. My precious children! What I have been telling you about is the true meaning and significance of fasting: treating other lives as though they are your own life, feeling the hunger of others as your own hunger and offering them food, feeling the difficulties of others as though they were your own and attempting to bring them relief. If we can establish this state in us, if we can perform our duties in this way, we will have made our fast complete. Allah alone will be our wealth. In that state we will have surrendered to Him and have absolute faith in Him. If we are surrendered to Him, we will not own anything. Our hands will be empty. Then what can we give? What can we do? We will be His slaves and He will be our Master, our Lord. We must establish that state in us. We must realize what our fast will be like when we have reached that state. If I were to tell you in greater detail about the conditions that must be observed in order to make this fast truly complete, there would not be sufficient time. And it might make you feel sad. Therefore I will not tell you. May God fill your hearts with light. May He make your hearts luminous. May He accept your fasts and bless you with His benevolent grace. May He fill your intentions with light and grace and make them complete. May He make your hearts the wealth of all three worlds the beginning, this world, and the hereafter (awwal, duny, and khirah). May this wealth be filled with light. May He bless you with the wealth of wisdom. May He bless you with the wealth of His qualities. May He bless you with the wealth of His duties, His wilyt. May He bestow on you the wealth of His compassionate grace. May His look
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of grace be upon you at every moment. May He fulfill all your wants, and may He protect you from all dangers. Now and in the hereafter may He be your protector and safeguard you. May Allah be pleased with you and shower His love on you at every moment. May He hold you in His embrace and protect you from any kind of danger or disaster. May He bless you with remembrance, so that at every moment your intention for Him may be strong and steadfast. Whatever the circumstances be, may He bestow His house on you. May He give you a beautiful house in His kingdom and elevate your position there. May you always be His entrusted treasure. Believe in Him without the slightest doubt and surrender to Him. May you merge with Him who is without partner or equal, and may your worship be free from ascribing partners or equals to Him. There is nothing equal to Him. So worship Him with a prayer that has no equal or parallel. Open your hearts in a state of peace and tell Him what is in your heart. Whatever rises up in your heart, tell Him. Tell Him all your intentions. He is the One who knows everything and understands everything. Knowing what your intentions are, He will help you. Understanding your wants, He will comfort you. Knowing your illnesses, He will treat you. Knowing your mind, He will bring you peace. That Father who is God, Allhu ta'l accept only Him. Glorify only Him. Open your hearts and speak to Him. In that state Allah will protect you. Do not forget your certitude of faith. Do not lose your mn. Do not let go of your steadfast determination. Do not be deceived by the qualities of satan into losing Allah's love. May God give you completion, bless you with the wealth of the three worlds and the light of grace, dispel the darkness, take you on the straight path, and give you victory in the hereafter. mn. mn. Al-hamdu lillh. As-salmu 'alaikum wa rahmatullhi wa baraktuhu kulluhu (May the peace, the beneficence, and blessing of God be upon you). August 23, 1979 2. mu'adhdhin (A) The one who summons the people by reciting the call to prayer (adhn). lebbe (Urdu) A term used in South India and Sri Lanka for a person who performs similar duties in the mosque. 3. qiblah (A) Lit. The direction one faces in prayer. Muslims face toward the Ka'bah in Mecca. The inner meaning of the qiblah is the throne of God within the heart. 4. shar'at, tarqat, haqqat, and ma'rifat (A) The four steps of spiritual ascendance. See Glossary. 5. alif, lm, mm, h', dl (A) Five Arabic letters. In the transformed man of wisdom, these letters are represented as: alif Allah; lm Nr, the light of wisdom; mm Muhammad. H' and dl correspond to the body of five elements (earth, re, water, air, and ether), to the sirr (secret) and the sift (manifestations of creations), and to mind and desire. 6. Seven principles: The seven faculties two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, and the mouth. These also relate to the seven levels of wisdom in man and the seven diacritical marks in the Arabic language, which give sound to the letters of the Qur'an.
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The Significance of Fasting

From The Golden Words of a Sufi Sheikh, Word#548. The sheikh says: My son, fasting is observed in many ways in the various religions and languages. Human beings fast for different lengths of time and for different reasons. But we must reflect on this with wisdom. Allah taala, Almighty God, created the food for each being 70,000 years before it was created. There is no one other than Allah who can feed His creations. This truth was told by Allah to His prophets, and thus to all people. Any man who has the faith to absolutely accept this truth will not covet or plunder the wealth or nourishment allotted to another, either in this world or the next. Why? Because he will understand that each creation has already been given his own share of the treasure of all three worlds: the world of the souls, this world, and the next world. There are some men, however, who will steal the wealth, home, and food allotted to others. This quality of stealing exists only in man and not in animals. In the qalb, or inner heart, of man are craving, avarice, selfishness, pride, conceit, and countless such evil and base desires. Because man plundered the possessions of his brethren and thought he could live happily with this world as his hunting ground, Allah taala sent down to the Prophet (Sal.) the furud, the five obligatory duties. The first fard is to have iman, or perfect faith in Allah. The second is to observe the five times of prayer each day, affirming that there is no one worthy of worship other than God, Allah taala. Third is to give charity. The inner meaning of charity is to keep only the nourishment that Allah has given you for your own and to share the rest. Allah is the only One who supplies nourishment. It was to explain and make man understand them that Allah taala sent the laws by way of the Prophet (Sal.). But the people could not observe them properly because of their pride, avarice, and jealousy. Then Allah sent the explanation of the fourth fard, fasting, to the Rasulullah (Sal.), and said, Tell your followers to observe fasting which will make them feel hunger, fatigue, and loss of strength. Make them experience this so they can realize the suffering of those whose food, houses, and other God-given things they might think of taking. This fard was given in order to make man understand
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that he must not take others property and wealth, but that he must return to others what belongs to them. The fifth fard is to perform the hajj, the holy pilgrimage. To fulfill this duty you must distribute your property to your wife, your children, and to the poor and needy, and go to Allah in the state of death. That is, you die to the world and make your pilgrimage clad in a shroud-like cloth. Kill your nafs ammarah, your base desires, by returning all the wealth and property you took from others. Make your passions die and make the world within you die. In this way, if you make all your thoughts die and take only Allah with you, if you discover the way to pray to Him, if you fulfill the hajj and find Him, you will receive the wealth of the next world. Allah did not lay down these furud to cause suffering, but to make people realize and understand. Allah gave the furud so that each creation would be content with whatever it is given. But we have forgotten this explanation. To have a clear understanding of this, to realize the thoughts within you that are selfishly trying to take what belongs to others, and to make these thoughts die away from youthat is real fasting. All lives must be allowed to experience and enjoy the wealth of the three worlds given by Allah. To value the happiness and comfort of everyone is Islam. To be happy at seeing unity and peace in yourself and others is Islam. Those who live happily and share their food as one congregation, praising and praying to Allah, are the true believers in Iman-Islam. Those who have no doubt in their hearts, those who receive the resplendent light of iman, those who live in the infinite benevolence of Allah, praising Him in every moment and placing their trust in Him for the next momentthey are the ones who will have the perfect purity of Islam. If one has eliminated his desires, his fast is praiseworthy and his heart will receive Allahs wealth of grace. We must understand the significance of fasting and act accordingly.
M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
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Can Bawa Give Me a Special Prayer to Say?

A short talk given by M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen from Why Can't I See the Angels?. Questioner (age 7): Can Bawa give me a special prayer to say? Bawa Muhaiyaddeen: We cannot give you the highest prayer now because you are still young. There is a lot more you need to learn. You have to start slowly, and as you progress you will go higher. The first prayer is: La ilaha illallah, Muhammadur-Rasulullah. Write it down for her. (Bawa Muhaiyaddeen then repeats it slowly and in parts so the child can repeat it after him.) Take this as your special prayer. La ilaha means: There is none other than You. Illallah means: You are Allah. There is no god that can be compared to You or is equal to You. You have all power. You are the only One. You are the One who is alone. You are the One who made all of creation. You are the One who gives food to everything. You are the Father who protects all lives, the One who created everything, protects everything, and sustains everything. You are the One who causes lives to die and the One who revives those lives after death. You are the One who will ask the questions tomorrow [on the Day of Reckoning] about the right and wrong we have done. You are the One who gives judgment tomorrow. You are the only One; there is no god other than You. This is a small meaning of this prayer. Illallah. You are Allah. Muhammadur-Rasulullah, Muhammad (SAL.) is Your representative. He is the Messenger from Your kingdom. He is the representative for Your entire kingdom of grace. He is the Rasul (SAL.) the wise man, for all the creations who are under Your gaze. You made him the Rasul (SAL.) through Your wisdom, You sent Your wisdom to his form. The Rasul (SAL.) is the form of Your wisdom and that is the light to iman, to faith, certitude, and determination. For those who have faith in You, for those who have iman, the Rasul (SAL.) exists as light. Through that light, he makes us know You and see You. Muhammad, the Rasul (SAL.), is Your slave, Your representative, Your wisdom, and Your power. La ilaha illallah, Muhammadur-Rasulullah. I follow and trust the Messenger that You have sent. I accept this truth of iman and the truth of purity, just as I accepted You, I accept Your representative, and I am setting out to reach You.
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Give a copy of this explanation of this word to this child. There are many more explanations for this one word. There is so much meaning within it, but this is just one explanation for your iman, your faith, certitude, and determination. Amin. November 13, 1983
The Laws of Holy War

I seek refuge in Allah from the evils of the accursed satan. In the name of Allah, Most Merciful, Most Compassionate.
My brothers and sisters in Iman-Islam,1 let us speak further on the meaning of holy war, or jihad. If we understand the Qur'an properly, and if we understand the traditions of the Prophet,2 then Islam will be the water of grace3 for the entire world. It will cleanse everyone of their dirt and quench their thirst. It will make all hearts peaceful and be the very pulse of life, the heartbeat for all the children of Adam, for all of creation. A direct revelation4 to Muhammad, the Messenger of God.5 The exalted Prophet, his companions,6 and his followers were constantly being attacked by those who did not accept Allah or His Messenger. With forbearance and contentment, Muhammad tolerated all the suffering that came to him, and he conveyed to his followers the patience and the trust in Allah that was given to him. However, eventually it became necessary to escape from this persecution, and he and his followers fled to Medina. Many of the people of Medina immediately accepted the Prophet, and there he and his followers found some peace. But a few hypocrites and troublemakers traveled between the two cities, spreading rumors, backbiting, and creating enmity. "The people of Mecca want to fight you," they told the Prophet and his followers. "They are destroying your homes and all the property that you left behind. They are killing your wives and children and injuring your brothers." Upon hearing these stories, some of the companions complained to the Prophet pleading, "O Rasul,7 they are causing us so much suffering! They have harmed our families, taken our possessions, destroyed our homes, and chased us from place to place. And now they are calling us cowards for running away. But we are courageous warriors and must live with honor and dignity. We have accepted this disgrace long enough. Now we must fight! "You are the Messenger of Allah. This world and the hereafter8 are one to you, and Allah is sufficient for you as your only wealth. So you are not concerned if people try to disgrace you, but in our state we cannot bear this. We need the means to live in this world as well as in the hereafter. The Meccans have destroyed our houses, our property, and our relations. We must fight to regain our possessions, for our hearts are hurt and we are suffering."
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The companions of the Prophet pleaded like this time after time. But Muhammad did not grant them permission to fight. His heart was crying. The light in his eyes looked toward Allah and his hands were outstretched asking for perfect faith and the wealth9 of Allah's divine knowledge. He spent every moment in this state, asking Allah to change the hearts of the people. The only sword in his hand was the sword of love and unity, the sword of faith, certitude, and determination, the sword of patience, contentment, trusting God, and praise of God. Then, after a while, Hamza10 came with the same request, but the Prophet would not yield to him either. He would not tell his followers to begin a holy war. Instead, he always answered, "You cannot do this without Allah's permission, and Allah has not granted it. Therefore, I cannot give you my permission either. The true holy war of Islam is a war against our base desire11 and against all those aspects within ourselves which are the real enemies to our life in the hereafter." But still his companions pleaded, "We are warriors, and we have been disgraced. How can we live in this world with such dishonor?" Then, while the Prophet waited silently, Allah's answer came. "O Muhammad, tell your companions to begin the holy war in their hearts, to sacrifice the evils in their own hearts. Your companions need to understand this." The Prophet conveyed this to his companions. "My brothers, Allah has said that if you want to begin a holy war, your first duty is to wage that war against the army of enemies that harm you from within. Each one of you must make your heart acceptable to Him. You must make your heart pure according to God's law by performing the ritual sacrifice12 needed to destroy the evils which come to destroy you. You must cut away all the things that occlude your heart. Make your heart light. Nourish it with the food of light which is the treasure of Allah, and avoid all that is forbidden."13 Allah told His Messenger, "Only one who partakes of My food will have his hunger and his desires appeased. The permissible14 food for the heart consists of My divine knowledge,15 My ninety-nine attributes,16 My qualities and actions, My patience and contentment, surrender to Me, trusting Me, and praising Me alone.17 Only such praise will end his hunger. With My angels I will protect anyone who makes this intention the light within his heart, anyone who understands each of these three thousand gracious qualities, anyone in whom these qualities emerge. "0 Muhammad, I will reveal to you the angels that will come to protect you from the armies of Habib Ibn Malik, sent by Abu Jahl.18Each angel will have three thousand heads and six thousand hands, and will wield the weapons appropriate to them. You will be able to see them all. So even if you are afraid, O Muhammad, go forward! You need not fear when you are in a state of Iman-Islam. You have the grace of My protection, the only true protection. I am the only One who can protect you in this way. Those who keep Me as their Protector will never be destroyed by anything in the world, but those who do not seek My help will be destroyed. As long as they have the world within them, they will be destroyed by that world. It is the world which kills the world. That is certain. Tell this to your followers. "The world does not belong to you, O Muhammad. You are here to realize Me. That is why I showed you My actions, and that is why I created all My creations and their secrets. They are all examples I gave you so that you could understand Me. I am the only One who can perform these duties of creating, protecting, nourishing, giving food, and dispensing judgment. No one else can perform these actions.
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"O Muhammad, through Adam, through My creations, through the earth, the sky, the sun, the moon, the stars, fire, water, air, and the clouds, I have revealed My secrets. Then I sent you to teach your followers. Through you, I sent them so many words and holy verses, so many actions, and so much wisdom. I gave the verses of the Holy Qur'an into your hands so that you could understand the connection between Myself and true man19 and through this connection understand your earnings in this world and the hereafter. The nature of your true wealth is explained in the Holy Qur'an. "Muhammad, you have revealed My word. If your followers want to learn the glory of the Qur'an, if they want to understand its wealth, they must have the wisdom of divine knowledge. The Qur'an is the secret20 within the secret, the essence21 within the essence, wisdom within wisdom, grace within grace, the soul22 within the soul, the heart within the innermost heart,23 the light within the light of the eye, the ear within the ear, the nose within the nose, the tongue within the tongue, and knowledge within divine knowledge. The Qur'an is the form24 that exists within the form. They must go within to know its real meaning. "Tell your followers that anyone who is under My protection can never be destroyed, but anyone who leaves My protection and My help to wage holy war now will destroy himself. Tell them that if one man seeks to kill or overcome another man, it is his own brothers that he will be destroying. And they, in turn, will destroy him. Man has the choice of turning into a beast or becoming like his Lord!25 He has the potential to become a true realized being. If he becomes Adam, then I will correct his faults and protect him, just as I protected Adam. "Muhammad, tell this to your followers. They were all in darkness and torpor before they knew you. I made them come out of hiding and follow you, did I not? Earlier they were hidden in satan, but now they are your companions, your warriors. Who were they before? What were their actions earlier compared to their actions now? They were just like the people against whom they now want to wage war. Just like these children of Adam, they were hidden in the same darkness, entangled in the same desires and illusions and elemental miracles.26 They too were buried within satan. "But with My words, you led them out of the darkness, and they began to follow you and to follow Me, their Lord and Creator, did they not? Are they your enemies now? No, they have lost themselves and dedicated their lives to you and to Me. Abu Bakr, 'Umar Ibn Al-Khattab, 'Uthman, and Hamzah27 were all hidden in darkness. Look how they emerged. Therefore, would it be right to destroy others who are in that darkness now? "So, tell your followers, rather than waging holy war, they should try to bring such people out of the darkness and make them understand Allah. Instead of fighting against them, they should help them accept the truth, strengthen their faith, certitude, and determination, and try to change them. "To convert without force is the way of Islam; to destroy and kill and slaughter people is not. Therefore, tell your followers that the holy war they must wage is one of lifting up those who have fallen into the state of disbelief.28 Tell them to use My actions, My words, and My behavior in order to release those who are hidden in satan and buried in illusion. That is the true holy war. That is Islam. Reveal this to your followers." In this way, Allah's commandments came to His Messenger to show his companions the ways of justice. Allah could have destroyed all the unbelievers, but instead He brought them forth from the darkness.
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But not all of the followers of Muhammad were able to attain this compassionate state. Some did not have the strength of inner patience, contentment, and trust in God. They were not able to say, "If God wills," and "Whatever God Wills."29 And so they continued to plead, "Let us ruin those who are trying to ruin us. O Prophet, we are not like you, we are ordinary people just like they are. We have to fight force with force." The Prophet tried to teach them patience, but they had this need in their hearts. Finally Allah gave His permission, "All right, tell them to begin their holy war." But as they were preparing for battle, certain restrictions were placed upon them. They were told, "Do not fight this war for the sake of your pride, to show that you are a warrior or that you are strong. Fight only against those who come to fight with you. You may engage in combat only with someone who has taken your possessions. You must not usurp the possessions of another. You must not touch their women or harm their children. You must not destroy their houses or their farms and crops or kill their livestock. You must not cut down their trees, destroy the countryside, or ruin their wells. You must not kill those who run away in fear, and you must not strike someone who falls down in battle. Only if someone comes at you with a sword in his hand may you defend yourself." The Prophet conveyed these rules to 'Ali and to Abu Bakr al- Siddiq.30 "Go and fight," he said, "but do not go beyond these limits. If you fail to obey these rules you will be great sinners. If you wage war with the intention of acquiring land, houses, possessions, or happiness, forgetting the rules that I have given, then you will be blamed and will have to answer on the Day of Questioning."31Allah established all these restrictions and then told Muhammad, "Tell them to go in this state and regain what is rightfully theirs." This was the way in which holy war was waged during the time of the Prophet. But even so, Muhammad did not take part in these battles. Instead, he spent the entire time praying for the fighting to stop. He remained alone, hands outstretched, praying to Allah. Every second his heart was crying, and the light in his eyes was directed toward Allah. "Change their hearts," he prayed. "O Allah, make them accept You. Make them praise You and pray to You. Give them that certitude and love. Fill them with Your love and grace. Give them unity. Let them drop the swords from their hands and raise the sword of perfect faith." The only sword that ever touched the Prophet's hands was the sword of inner patience, contentment, trust in God, and praise of God, the sword of love and of the unity of brotherhood. We must think about this. A Direct Revelation to 'Ali One day when 'Ali was in battle, his opponent's sword broke and the man fell. 'Ali stood above him, and holding his sword to the man's chest, he said, "If you had a sword in your hand, I would continue this fight, but since your sword is broken, I cannot strike you." "If I had a sword at this moment, I would cut off your arms and legs," the man shouted back. "All right then," 'Ali replied, and he handed the man his sword. "What are you doing?" the man asked, bewildered. "I am your enemy, am I not?" 'Ali looked him in the eye and said, "You swore that if you had a sword in your hand you would kill me. Now you have my sword, so go ahead and strike me." But the man could not. "That was your ignorance and arrogance speaking," 'Ali explained. "In the realm of Allah, there is no fight or enmity between you and me. We are brethren. The real war is between the truth and your lack of wisdom. It is between
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truth and falsehood. You and I are just watching that battle. You are my brother. If I were to harm you at this point, I would have to answer for it on the Day of Questioning. Allah would ask me about it." "Is this the way of Islam?" the man asked. "Yes," 'Ali replied. "These are the words of Allah, the All-Powerful, Unique One." Immediately the man bowed down at 'Ali's feet and begged, "Teach me the kalimah."32 And Àli taught him, "There is no god but God. Nothing exists other than You, O God."33 A similar thing happened during a later battle. 'Ali felled his opponent, placed his foot on the man's chest, and held a sword to his neck. But again he did not kill the man. "Why don't you kill me?" the man shouted angrily. "I am your enemy. Why are you just standing there?" And he spit in 'Ali's face. At first 'Ali became angry, but then he removed his foot from the man's chest and put aside his sword. "I am not your enemy," 'Ali replied. "The real enemies are the evil qualities within us. You are my brother, yet you spit in my face. When you spat upon me, I became angry, and the arrogance of the "I" came to me. If I had killed you when I was in that state, then I would be a sinner, a murderer. I would have become the very thing I was fighting against. That crime would be recorded against my name, and I would have to answer for it later, when Allah questions me. That is why I cannot slay you." "Then is there no fight between you and me?" the man asked. "No. The battle is between wisdom and ignorance, between truth and falsehood," 'Ali told him. "Even though you spat on me and taunted me to kill you, I cannot." "Where did such a rule come from?" "These are the rules of Allah. This is Islam." Immediately, the man fell before 'Ali's feet, and he too was taught the kalimah.
This is the difference between the ways of Allah and the ways of the world. People shout, "Jihad!" which means holy war, but there are two kinds of jihad. The real holy war is an inner war, and those who fight that war follow Allah's rules. But those who fight for the sake of wife, children, or house follow other rules. If even an atom's worth of such thoughts are present, it is not a true holy war, but rather, a political war. It is fought for the sake of land and country, not for the sake of Allah. With wisdom, we must understand what the true jihad is, and we must think about the answers we will have to give on the Day of Questioning. Muhammad and his followers had certitude, unity, justice, and conscience. It was in this state that their holy war was waged and the battles of Badr and Uhud34 were fought. Some people were killed, but after these battles peace reigned in Islam. The greeting of peace,35 the glorification36 of Allah and the Prophet, and the words, "Allahu Akbar! God is Most Great!" resonated throughout the land.
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We must understand this. The Prophet returned to capture Mecca, not with the sword, but with Allah's praise. Mecca was conquered with Iman-Islam, with love, compassion, unity, and faith, with inner patience, contentment, trust in God, and praise of God. It was through these qualities that Islam grew. It was Allah's qualities that conquered the people. Whatever is conquered by the sword does not last. The one who picks up the sword will one day die by that same sword. The one who picks up a gun will die by the gun. Whatever one raises in enmity, that very same weapon will cause his destruction. Whatever trick a man learns will bring about his destruction one day. However, the one who receives the complete wealth of Allah's love, compassion, faith, and certitude will have eternal life.37 That beauty of Islam and that resplendence will not die in this world or in the world of the souls.38 Such a one will be different and his body will be different. Although his body belongs to the world, the qualities within him will belong to the hereafter. He will be like the lotus flower which lives in the water yet does not keep the water within itself. He will live in this world, but the world will not be within him. Only Allah's qualities and His beauty will exist there. Reflect upon this. There is nothing that the All-Powerful One cannot do. Shedding blood is not the way. Instead, we must cut away our arrogance, karma, and illusion. We must cut away this darkness of ignorance and establish light. This is the only way to spread wisdom and divine knowledge. Do not shout, "Allahu Akbar! God is Most Great!" and then kill someone. Instead lead him to the good path, the straight path, and say, "Allahu Akbar." That is Iman-Islam. True holy war means to kill the inner enemy, the enemy to truth. But instead people shout, "Jihad!" and go to kill an external enemy. That is not holy war. We should not spread Islam through the sword; we must spread it through the kalimah, through truth, faith, and love. We have to think about this. If you believe in Allah, the Unique, All-Pervasive Power, then His peaceful state, His greetings of peace, His love, His compassion, His wisdom, His equality, His comfort, and His qualities will be your weapons. This is what was explained to the companions of the Prophet. It is with these weapons alone that we should make our holy war. These are the weapons of Allah, the All-Powerful, Unique One, the weapons of the state of oneness with God.39 Do we really need to wage war against others for His sake? Do we really need to destroy others with swords? No, it is not necessary for us to kill in this way. How can we accept the kalimah of the AllPowerful, Unique One if we do that? Instead, we need to discard what He has discarded. He is the Almighty One who can create and destroy within the blinking of an eye. Allah can do things before we even think of them. Life and death belong to Him, not to us. If we think about it, we will see that there are many explanations in the words of Allah and the words of the Prophet. We must understand the knowledge within divine knowledge that exists in the traditions of the Prophet and the Qur'an. We cannot study only the surface meanings; we must dig deep to see what is within. For every issue, we must think, "What did the exalted Prophet say about this? What revelations have been given about this? What has been said about this to those with divine wisdom? What has been said to the companions of the Prophet, the ones with the clarity of wisdom? And what has been said to the ones without wisdom?" For each question there are many explanations that have been given. For each person's level of wisdom, an appropriate reply has been given. We need to understand the words of Allah that were sent to us. If we understand the inner meanings of those words it will be good. My love to you, my children.
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Allah's holy war is a good thing. It is a battle against all the enemies within us. We must raise His weapons of love, compassion, mercy, comfort, patience, and contentment. Then we will have victory over everything. The weapons used in the outer battles are implements of destruction. Knives and swords can never bring victory; they can only destroy. Allah's weapons never destroy. My love to you. Amen.
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Footnotes
1. Iman: absolute faith, certitude, and determination. Islam: the state of absolute purity. See glossary. 2. ahadith 3. rahmah 4. hadith qudsi 5. RasulAllah 6. ashab 7. The resplendent Messenger of God. 8. dunya and al-akhirah 9. dawlah 10. Hamzah: The paternal uncle and foster brother of the Prophet. 11. nafs 12. qurban 13. haram 14. halal 15. 'ilm 16. wilayat 17. sabr, shukr, tawakkul 'ala Allah, and al-hamdu Allah 18. Habib Ibn Malik: A prince of the major Arabian tribes who was asked by Abu Jahl to question Muhammad in the hope of proving him a false prophet. According to some narratives, Muhammad performed several miracles including the splitting of the moon (referred to in the 54th chapter of the Qur'an), thus convincing Habib and converting him to Islam. Abu Jahl: One of the foremost adversaries of Muhammad. His real name was 'Amr Ibn Misham but the Muslims nicknamed him Abu Jahl, or the "Father of Ignorance." See glossary. 19. insan 20. sirr 21. dhat 22. ruh 23. qalb 24. surah 25. Rabb 26. siddhis 27. Abu Bakr al-Siddiq: The first caliph and a father-in-law to the Prophet. 'Umar Ibn al-Khattdb: The second caliph and a father-in-law to the Prophet. At first he was violently opposed to Muhammad, but later heard his sister reciting part of the Qur'an and was overcome. Going directly to Muhammad, he professed his belief in Allah and His Prophet. See glossary. 'Uthman: The third caliph; compiled the verses of the Qur'an and produced the authorized version which is still in existence.
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Hamzah: Paternal uncle and foster brother of the Prophet. 28. kufr 29. insha'a Allah and masha'a Allah 30. 'Ali: The fourth caliph, son-in-law of the Prophet, husband of Fatimah, and father of Hasan and Husayn. The second convert to Islam, following Khadijah, the first wife of the Prophet. Abu Bakr alSiddiq: A father-in-law of the Prophet and the first caliph. Seeglossary. 31. Qiyamah 32. The affirmation of faith. 33. La ilaha illa Allah 34. Badr: The battle of Badr was fought between the followers of Muhammad and those among the Quraysh who rejected the belief in Allah and Muhammad. Many of Islam's principle opponents were killed including Abu Jahl. The victory of Badr established the ability of the Muslims to defend themselves. See glossary. Uhud: The battle of Uhud was also between the followers of Muhammad and the Quraysh. The outcome of the battle was mixed, the Muslims being outflanked by Khalid Ibn alWalid, a great warrior among the Quraysh who later embraced Islam. The Quraysh however did not pursue their advantage and were forced to retreat by the regrouped Muslims. 35. salam 36. salawat 37. hayah 38. 'alam al-arwah 39. tawhid
Forgiveness
Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Rahim. In the name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate. May that God who is incomparable love and the unfathomable Ruler of grace, who gives us His never-ending wealth and grace, bless us all.Amin.May God, our Creator, watch over us, nourish us and protect us all our lives. Only God can do that. May He forgive all our faults with His grace. Amin.0 God, please forgive the faults which we committed before we knew You. Amin. May this prayer be granted. Jeweled lights of my eyes, precious children, you were born with me as the life within my life. Precious jeweled lights of my eyes, beloved of my heart, treasure of my eyes, children who are exalted and wise, brothers and sisters of my heart, my loving children who are so trusting, I give you my love and my greetings. Precious jeweled lights of my eyes born as my own brothers, you were indeed born with me. We have all come here together and it is important to know why we are here. First, we must understand right and wrong--that is the most important thing we must do. We should not dwell on the past, on old karma, on past sins, on the faults of a previous birth. We should never think that God will not forgive our faults and that we will be subject to rebirth. We must not think like that. Children, we have to recognize that although God is not like us, He is our Father. He doesn't have our qualities, He doesn't think like us, He doesn't have our jealousy or pride, He is not selfish, He has neither anger nor sin, and He does not look for praise, honors, or titles. God is patient, He is compassionate, He is tolerant, He is peaceful, He is
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just, He has perfect integrity. He is the One with three thousand beautiful qualities. He is the One who believes that other lives are His own and then does His duty. He is the One who recognizes the sorrows of others as His own and then does His duty. He is the One who understands right and wrong and then does His duty. He is the One who distinguishes truth from falsehood and then serves us and offers His explanation. He has good thoughts, He is the Father who created us, He is our God. He does not punish us for our faults. He does not get angry, He does not forsake us, He does not send us away from Him, and He does not see differences among us. He is responsible for all lives, and He is patient. He is never angry with us, because we are His children. He forgives the faults we commit until we become wise and begin to understand our mistakes. He understands all the faults we committed while playing in ignorance, all the faults we committed both accidentally and purposefully, and all the lies we told. He understands them and always acts without anger or sin to protect His children. He makes wise men teach, because He wants His children to learn with awareness. He teaches us through our very thoughts, through the trees, the bushes, the vines, the animals, even through the sun and the moon. Through feeling and awareness He demonstrates what we need to know, turning us around and directing us to the path of truth, developing wisdom within us. He teaches wisdom through everything. He continually tries to turn us around and re-direct us so that He can take us back and embrace us. His constant remembrance is to do this for us. Precious jeweled lights of my eyes, He is the One who forgives the faults we commit in ignorance until we learn to recognize them as faults and give them up. God thinks, "They are only children acting in ignorance. Some day they will understand. I brought goodness into being, and I created right and wrong so that the difference between them might be understood. I created day and night so that my children would understand. I brought the body, soul, and light here so that my children would comprehend. I created wisdom and ignorance to develop their understanding. "For this reason I created all the opposites, all the contrasts, to make them see both, to make them accept and act upon the truth and avoid evil. This is why I created both. Those children who know Me have My qualities and the capacity to extract the truth and use My wisdom. Yet even those who act in ignorance, without understanding, who accept what is wrong, are still My children. I am the only One who can judge either group, because I created them, and I have to make a place for both. "There are so many creations, and I exist within them all as their inner awareness. In each heart I exist without shape, without form or color. I exist within as the power and the form of wisdom. Until they emerge from darkness, they will be ignorant and lack understanding. For this reason, I must forgive the faults they commit in that state. "I have created so many forms: the sun, the moon, trees, bushes, weeds, birds, crawling animals, rats, flies, beetles, insects, the atoms themselves, energies, and forces. I created them all to make mankind understand, realize, and have faith." Precious children, jeweled lights of my eyes, we must have faith in God, our Father. We must develop that faith with determination. We must establish certitude and make our faith very firm. That strength of faith will be a staff to support us and help us climb; it is the means to cross the desert without wavering. If we fall very far, we will need this
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staff to climb back up. If we have the faith and determination to understand that there is no God like our Father, then we can climb up, we can avoid evil, and we can act wisely and reach the place where wisdom exists. Precious jeweled lights of my eyes, there is room for realization. There is something to learn from every created thing. There are many, many explanations to understand. Precious jeweled lights of my eyes, everything we see teaches us wisely. Everything we see is there for us to understand and to give us peace in that place of understanding. All the forces and miracles and the power which can rule them have been given to us by God. The wisdom and tranquillity with which we can rule the earth and the sky have been given to us. The most exalted beauty, the most exalted qualities, and the most exalted wisdom, tranquillity, peace, justice, and integrity have been given to us. We can understand through our birth and our death. We have to realize that the explanation of wisdom lies within us. We have to understand this. Our Father is never angry with us. He never says, "I will send him to hell. I will test him and then send him to hell." He forgives us just as we forgive our own child if he misbehaves. We forgive him; we don't hate or destroy him, or cast him away. If we would not do such things in our state of ignorance, if we treat our children with compassion, how do you think God who has true wisdom would behave? We are angry and hasty, but we take care of our own children, and protect them even if they are wrong. We have so many bad qualities, we are so selfish, we are so engaged in the business of the self, we have so many prejudices concerning religion, race, and color, yet we are still able to protect and care for our own children lovingly. How much greater must God's love be! God, who is the unfathomable Ruler of grace, the One who is incomparable love, the One who gives us the wealth of His grace without end, how much greater must His love be! What is the nature of His love? Does He get angry? Does He hate us? Does He test us? He does nothing of the kind. The evil and the mistakes are all inside ourselves. When we act in ignorance, we plunge ourselves into danger. When we behave unwisely, our own faults subject us to accidents and danger. We have to live with the consequences of our own faults, our own actions, and our own qualities. Our Father doesn't test us or get angry with us. He gave us eyes so that we can walk looking ahead. He gave us ears to hear with and a nose to smell both good and bad scents. He gave us a tongue to distinguish good tastes from bad and a mouth to utter good words. We must realize the difference between good and evil, and then use the tongue He gave us to speak about the good. He gave us limbs, hands, legs, hearts, and bodies. We have to understand this, precious jeweled lights of my eyes. We have to use our eyes to recognize good and evil. If we do not understand, we may fall into a hole. That will not be God's fault, will it? Certainly not. We are the ones who have fallen into the hole. We are the careless ones. We cannot blame God. We have to consider the sounds we hear, both good and bad. We have to shun the bad, accept the good, and guide our actions accordingly. If we act on the basis of evil sounds, we are looking for an accident. There are good smells and bad smells. It is correct to pursue the good fragrances. If we associate with the bad smells, we will have to experience the evil from which they come. There are good words and bad words on the tongue. If we use the good words, we will know the taste of peace; if we use the evil words, sin and evil will follow. Is this God's fault? It is our own fault. We must recognize good and bad tastes and spit out what is bad. We must absorb the good tastes, but if we eat the bad food, it will hurt us. Whose fault is that? Is that God's fault? Certainly not!
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We must reflect. Precious jeweled lights of my eyes, our Father does not get angry with us. He does not test us. He is total power, the mysterious One. Would that power test us? Could we bear His test? Are we that strong? We are very small. We are only a particle of a particle of a particle, and He is greater than all the universes. He is the great power, creating, destroying, and watching over all lives. If that power which can make the world appear or disappear in the blink of an eye were angry with us, what could we do? But that power is our Father. What indication is there that He would hurt us? What indication is there that He would test us? Could we bear anything He might do? Could we endure it, could we withstand His test? We have to consider this wisely. Precious jeweled lights of my eyes, He is love, He is compassion, He is patience, He is tolerance and peace and above all His creations. He is our Father. We have to understand that He is God and that He has no anger. He does not try to punish people or send them to hell. He is clear wisdom who always trusts and believes that we will return to Him. Until a child grows to be good, until he sets out on the true path, God tries to comfort him, teach him true wisdom, and find a teacher for him. It is for this reason that God sent the prophets, the lights of God, the qutbs, the wise men, and the rasuls.They were sent from His kingdom to His children to dispel the ignorance, to dispel the lack of wisdom and the darkness so that God's children might acquire His qualities and turn to the path of truth. God always says, "May the children search for their Father. May they come to Him." Let us think about this. This is God's endless work. Through the wise men, the qutbs, the lights of God, the saints, the holy men, and the prophets, He brings His children to realization. With the sun and the moon and in so many different ways, He develops their wisdom, dispelling their darkness to make them return to Him. Precious children, God is trying to bring us to this realization step by step. That is our Father's nature. We have to understand that He will forgive us until the end. As our wisdom grows, as we realize our faults, we can ask for forgiveness, and He will grant it. As we recognize our faults, He will forgive us and accept each of us as His own child. We must reflect on this wisely and understand it. We must be good and avoid evil. We really must strive. If we do not, we will fall into evil ways, and justice will be carried out in that place of final judgment. But until then, God will teach us as much as He can through every creation--through the reptiles, the sun and the moon, currents and magnetism, gold and silver, the earth, wealth, trees and flowers, fragrance, medicine, everything. It is God who teaches us through everything. It is God who makes us correct ourselves and turns us back to the true path. He is always patient. He is never angry with us, He never hates us, He never tries to cast us away, and He never tests us. God only shows us His grace. Let us consider this wisely. Precious jeweled lights of my eyes, God also created satan. Couldn't God destroy him? Why did He give satan so much power in hell? Can't He vanquish satan? Can God overcome him? He can indeed overcome anything, so why did God create a satan? Good and evil are the responsibility of Allah, exalted be His name. Good and evil, light and darkness were created by God so that we might be brought to realization. Until then, until that day, God has to make room for satan. Why? Because satan was created too. God created satan and He will not destroy him. He is not angry with him. Does God destroy us, does He hate us, does He test us? We have to realize that God created satan too, but He also created a Judgment Day at the end of it all, and on that day He will grant heaven or hell according to what each one has searched for. At that time the house of hell will be given to satan, and that is where he will live.
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Precious jeweled lights of my eyes, there are many lessons to learn. There are so many things to filter and learn from the earth, from water, air, fire, and ether. There are so many things to be understood from reptiles, bushes, and trees. There are so many things we have to understand. God has created each thing. He protects it, and He will continue to forgive it until that final judgment comes. Precious jeweled lights of my eyes, we have to realize, understand profoundly, and be clear about the truth. We must realize that once we know our Father, everything we did earlier will be forgotten. Those were unwitting actions performed in a state of ignorance; they were faults we committed when very young. The faults we commit before wisdom emerges are all the faults of our youth. With wisdom comes maturity. Before that we are all small, very immature children even though our bodies may be large. If we realize this wisdom before we die, we can know our Father. But if we do not become wise and turn to the path of wisdom before we die, then we will become darkness. Until our very last breath, until we leave this world, God always holds out His hands to uplift us. He has His hands outstretched to embrace us, to give us His milk, and to teach us awareness. He is inside our hearts, cleansing us. Until the very last breath He embraces each child, trying to bring that child to Him. He strives for this until our very last breath. But if we lose the opportunity to develop our wisdom, if we remain with satan in a state of ignorance until our last breath, then we will be found guilty and subject to punishment. We will be separated from God. But until that very last breath, we are never separated or apart from God. God does not get angry with us, He does not hate us, He does not test us. Precious jeweled lights of my eyes, we have to realize that our Father will forgive all the faults we committed when we were ignorant, and He will not be angry. We must believe this with certitude. We have to understand very profoundly, precious jeweled lights of my eyes, that is why God sent the wise men and the prophets. After He had sent all the prophets, God sent the qutbs and messengers. At any time there is always at least one qutb one wise man, in the world. Through him we must learn to be wise, we must understand the truth, and we must acquire the recognition of what is good so that we can protect ourselves from danger. Therefore, precious jeweled lights of my eyes, search for wisdom. Search for that wisdom which is your birthright. Search for the birthright your Father gave you. Search for that property He gave you. We must intend to return to that place where we lived before. We must try to re-unite with our Father and have His qualities and His actions. We must try to behave as He behaves and make His duty our own. We must act with our Father's patience, we must try to nourish His unity, receive His beauty, and act with His qualities. Precious jeweled lights of my eyes, children who are my very life, you must travel the path of integrity with absolute certitude and really try to search for wisdom. This is most important. Just because we committed mistakes earlier, we should not go on thinking we have done so many horrible things and have so many faults. We have not committed any faults in the eyes of God. We are small children to Him, and He will always forgive us. He will not hate or discard us. We have to think of this until our very last breath. We have to search for wisdom and act as truth dictates. Then, when we become wise, we will not commit our earlier mistakes, and we will not walk the paths we traveled earlier. We do have many faults when we have no wisdom. We do make mistakes, and we have to realize this. Precious children, understand this. Try to live in a good way, associate with good people and adopt their qualities. Find a wise man and try to become wise. Because God is love, because He is just, because He is compassionate and patient, we
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must try to do this. Then we will have peacefulness, tranquillity, and justice. We will have attained the birthright of our eternal life. Precious children, we must realize that we have to know and understand ourselves. We must stop playing. We must try to walk the true path and realize that God will forgive our faults, and He will be tolerant of all our mistakes. Then we will become His children, His babies, and He will give us His kingdom. He will give us His house and His grace. God will give us all His treasures. We have to realize this, precious jeweled lights of my eyes. The world is a lesson to help us realize what we have to know. Everything God created is a lesson, an explanation we have to understand. We must understand everything. Precious jeweled lights of my eyes, we must understand and then we must act on that understanding. It is very easy to talk about this, but we must act accordingly. We must strive as wisely as we can to put this state into action. We must open our hearts and look within. We must open our hearts and understand what that wisdom is, what the tranquillity of that wisdom means, and we must establish this in our lives. This is the secret of life, the birthright of our lives, the completeness, the happiness, and the exaltedness of our lives. This is the state we must attain. We must understand our God, our Father, our Lord, our Allah, exalted be His name, our Rabb, our Creator, and we must find Him. We must find the wisdom, the tranquillity, and the qualities to do that. We must acquire His beauty. Precious children, this is what we must earnestly strive to do. Each one must think, each heart must realize. We must understand, and we must ask our Father to forgive us. When our wisdom emerges, we will be able to speak happily with our Father and become one with Him. As soon as we embrace Him, He will forgive our faults. He will not hate us, He will accept us and say, "My child, now you are wise. My child, now you are a loving child. You have taken My qualities, you have compassion for all lives, and you perform My duty. Now you are My child, now you are My son. Now your sound is My sound, now your speech is My speech, now your actions are My actions, now your conduct is My conduct, now your qualities are My qualities and your wisdom is My wisdom. Now your actions, your behavior, and everything about you has found My duty. My son, now My sound and resonance have arisen within you. " Then He will embrace you, saying, "Now you are My son." We must try to find that beauty and those qualities, precious children, jeweled lights of my eyes. We must transform our lives, merge with our Father, and strive to find that wisdom and tranquillity. We need faith, determination, and certitude; we need that Iman which is absolute faith. We must labor to know clearly that God is our Father. We must have the certitude that there is no other God, we must know that He is the Only One, we must know absolutely that we are one family and that God is our only Father. We must understand, show compassion for all lives, and have that certitude. That is the most exalted path of grace. May each one of us remember, may we all understand this and act upon it. May we actually do this. Amin. Amin. As-salamu 'alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu kulluhu--May the peace of God and His beneficence be upon all of you. Love to all the children, love to everyone, love to all the jeweled lights of my eyes. If there is any fault in what I have said, please forgive me. I am still a student with no wisdom. Please forgive me if there is any fault in what I have said.
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Why We Recite the Maulids

by M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Introduction Maulid is an Arabic word meaning the celebration of a birthday, especially that of a prophet or saint. In this discourse, M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (Ral.) is referring to two celebrations: one for the birth of Prophet Muhammad (Sal.) during the month of Rab-ul-Awwal, and one for Qutb Muhyiddn 'Abdul-Qdir al-Jln (Ral.) during the month of Rab-uth-Thn. Because Qutb Muhyiddn (Ral.) was born during Ramadn, the month of fasting, the celebration of his life is commemorated around the anniversary of his death. The maulids last for eleven or twelve days, beginning after the late afternoon prayers ('asr) and lasting for about three hours. During that time numerous prayers of remembrance (dhikr), traditional stories (ahdth), and verses of praise (salawt) are recited. In the following discourse, M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (Ral.) explains the purpose and benefit of observing these maulids - to honor the wise ones who are our helpers and to praise Allah for sending them to guide us. Note to the Reader: The following traditional supplications will be found periodically throughout the text: (Sal.) following any name used in reference to Prophet Muhammad, stands for Sallallhu 'alaihi wa sallam - Blessings and peace be upon him. (Ral.) following the name of a companion of the Prophet, a saint, or khalf, stands for Radiyallhu 'anhu/'anh - May Allah be pleased with him/her. (A.S.) following the names of angels and prophets, stands for 'Alaihis-salm - Peace be upon him.
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Bismillahirahmaniraheem.
As-salmu 'alaikum. May the peace of God be with all of you. May His benevolence and His blessings be with you all. My very precious children, jeweled lights of my eyes who are born with me, my children who are mingled with the love of my heart and my eyes, it is said that last month was designated as the month of our precious Prophet Muhammad (Sal.), the Chosen Messenger, the Mustafr-Rasl, and this month has been designated as the month of Qutb Muhyiddn 'Abdul-Qdir al-Jln (Ral.).1 It has been this way since some time after 'Umar ibnul-Khattb (Ral.), when the ancient Arab astrologers, the nujumis, divided the year into twelve months and established the nujum calendar. This method has been passed down from generation to generation over the last 1,400 years. It is now 1,402 years since the Prophet Muhammad, Mustafr-Rasl (Sal.) appeared. It is said by the Arab astro-logers that he passed away at the age of sixty-three, however, Allah praises Muhammad (Sal.) saying, "O Muhammad, I would not have created anything but for you." According to this statement, the Rasl(Sal.) was brought into existence before creation began. Allah formed the Rasl (Sal.) within Himself as His Grace, His rahmat. Then, through the Rasul (Sal.), He formed and created all lives; He placed the mm with the sukn in their embryos. Allah created the mm and then stood as the alif that supported the mm.2Allah is the only one who can support and sustain this. Everything is contained within that sukn, the eighteen thousand universes and all the creations that appear within those universes. Allah alone is the alif, the straight line, which supports this sukn, this extraordinary treasure (daulat). If there is no alif, there is no sukn; if there is no sukn there is no alif. Each one is connected to the other. That is the mm which is present in all embryos as the sperm. It is present the moment the embryo takes form. This is Muhammad (Sal.), the sukn connected to the alif. It is clearly evident that Allhu ta'l Nyan, the Lord, God Almighty, brought creations into existence through the mm andsukn; we can actually see the sperm or mm, join with the sukn at the time of conception. Medical science has even conducted experiments in this matter with the use of microscopes and has discovered that the sperm is shaped like a mm. Allhu ta'l caused His power (qudrat), the light known as Muhammad (Sal.), to appear in this manner. He created everything out of His power and the mm. This light known as Muhammad (Sal.) is the treasure that is connected to both the beginning of creation and the hereafter (al-awwal and
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al-khirah). Allhu ta'l had this light known as the grace (rahmat) as a most precious treasure that did not belong to anyone. Then He asked all the mountains, the oceans, the lands, and the trees, "Who can accept this most precious light? Can you take this on?" The power of this treasure caused the mountains, the earth, the oceans, and the trees to tremble. They cried, "O Allah, when You merely mention its name, all of us tremble! We cannot bear the weight of this treasure. We cannot bear it. It is impossible. We cannot accept this treasure. We tremble even at the mention of its name, and we are incapable of bearing it." Later Allah summoned the angels, the resplendent beings, the qutbs, and the heavenly beings. "This is My treasure, a most precious treasure. Look at this and tell Me who will accept this light, this treasure of grace (rahmat)?" Even though they were resplendent beings, when they looked upon this treasure, their own brilliance was swallowed and hidden by its light. Their brilliance was obscured and they spoke to Allah, saying, "O Allah, this light has swallowed all the light that came from us. We cannot sustain this light which is the light of Your power (qudrat). We cannot accept it." Then, the Earth spoke up, "Y Allh, I will accept it." "O Earth," Allah replied, "This is My treasure of perfect purity. It grew within Me, and it is very precious. If I give it to you, it will be a valuable treasure to everyone. It will benefit everyone and bestow grace upon them. O Earth, it will give you whatever you need. You can derive great benefit from it, but you have to return this treasure to Me. You have to place this most precious treasure in My hand." This treasure is known as Muhammad (Sal.). It was made resplendent and complete and was then impressed upon the forehead of Adam (A.S.). This is the light that has been impressed on our foreheads, and it is connected to the time of creation, this world, and the hereafter (al-awwal, adduny', and al-khirah). This treasure is not the son of Aminah and 'Abdullah, the son who was born in Mecca and buried in Medina. According to its secret meaning, when it dies, all of everything will die, because all lives contain the mm. The sukn and its support are present in all lives. The light of Allah and Muhammad (Sal.) is present in all lives; if this treasure did not exist, all of everything would die. However, for those who think it is dead, it is dead. For those who think it is not dead, it is not dead. It depends upon the inner heart of each person. It is alive to those who say it is alive; it is dead to those who say it is dead; it is a sheikh to those who say it is a sheikh; it is a guru to
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those who say it is a guru; it is a messenger (rasl) to those who say it is a rasl; it is the Nr (resplendent light) to those who say it is the Nr; it is Muhammad (Sal.) to those who say it is Muhammad (Sal.), and it is the light of the heart, or Ahmad, to those who say it is the heart. It is An'am Muhammad (the Muhammad that supplies nourishment) to those who consider it to be An'am Muhammad. It is the Hayt Muhammad (the Muhammad that gives life) to those who consider him to be Hayt Muhammad. It is Awwal Muhammad (the Muhammad who is responsible for creation) to those who consider it to be that. And to those who think of it as Athi Muhammad (the Manifested), or Anthi Muhammad (the Unmanifested), it is that.3 This treasure will benefit each person according to what they consider it to be. It will be Nr Muhammad (the Plenitude, the Light that emerged from Allah) to those who consider it to be Nr Muhammad. It will be seen as the sukn supported by Allah to those who consider it to be Allh Muhammad. There are reasons why we must understand these inner meanings. It is not sufficient for us to simply know the words of the Qur'an; we cannot benefit sufficiently from merely reciting the Qur'an. There is a specific intention with which the Qur'an should be recited, a certain manner in which it should be read and understood. This is why the Rasl (Sal.) told his followers, "Go even unto China to learn true knowledge, to learn 'ilm." He told them this despite the fact that they already had the Qur'an, because the only way to understand the wealth of the Qur'an is through the slaves of Allah who know its explanations. Only if the Qur'an is understood in this manner can we understand the Rasl (Sal.). And if the Rasl (Sal.) is understood, we can understand Allah. If we understand Allah and the Rasl (Sal.), then we can understand the one who exists within as the sukn and the mm. And only then we can understand our own self. The treasure that existed as the Final Prophet, (Sal.) the son of Aminah and 'Abdullah, as the First Prophet, in the beginning of creation (awwal), as the Rasl or Prophet in the hereafter (khirah), and as the Rasl in the period before creation (anthi) - this treasure was revealed as Muhammad (Sal.). It was this Muhammad (Sal.) that was initially concealed as a mystery within Allah, for a specific reason. Finally, Allah issued forth this mysterious thing from within Him, as a light that then entered and filled Aminah's womb. This form did not come from semen, neither did it contain earth, fire, water, air, or ether. It was created from light. When this Muhammad (Sal.) was given birth to by Aminah, there was no sign of blood, placenta, or any of the normal signs of birth. It was not like the usual birth of a child. Aminah, was alone, with no one to assist in the delivery. When the child dawned from within the womb, when this light emerged,
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the heavenly beings and houris came in the form of white doves and stroked the stomach of Aminah. She lost consciousness and knew nothing of what happened. Then the sound of Allah came, "When Muhammad emerges, hold him so that he does not touch the earth." According to that command, the form (srat) of Muhammad (Sal.) emerged robed in white silk. This light emerged dressed in a long white silk robe saying, "Allhu Akbar! Allah is the Great One! L ilha ill-Allh! There is nothing other than God; only God is! You are the Great One. You are the One who exists forever." It worshipped in this manner. The houris supported him and the angels surrounded him and all the while Aminah was unconscious, unaware of anything. Then the sound of Allah came again, "Bring My Muhammad to heaven." He instructed the heavenly beings to lock up the seven hells and decorate the eight heavens. He told them to take Muhammad (Sal.) around the eight heavens, bathe him in the water of heaven, and adorn him in pure silk. All the celestial beings, houris, angels, archangels, and resplendent beings came, kissed him on the forehead, and bowed down to him. In this state, Muhammad (Sal.) was taken around the eight heavens so that he could survey them. The umbrella of Allah's grace (rahmat) was given to him, and then he was returned to Aminah once again. Aminah opened her eyes as the child was placed in her arms and exclaimed, "My son." It was then that the name Muhammad (Sal.) was given to him. The one who emerged in this way is Muhammad (Sal.). No one has seen his body, his form, his excreta, or his shadow. Did he have any semen? No, he did not. He had no shadow, his feet never touched the ground, and he had no feces or urine. There were no such signs. Some people will see him as a symbol, others will not be able to do so. Some will see him as Muhammad (Sal.), the son of Aminah, others will see him only as light. This is how it will be. Some people will not know him and others will be able to know him. This is the nature of that which exists as Muhammad (Sal.). Human beings have designated and set aside a particular day for Muhammad (Sal.). However, there is no particular day for Muhammad (Sal.). Every day is his day. Nor is there a particular month for Muhammad (Sal.). Every month is his month. There is no particular week for Muhammad (Sal.). Every week is his week. Every breath is his breath. Every year is his year. As explained in the Qur'an, when the sukn and the alif join together, that is Muhammad (Sal.). When that ceases to be, Muhammad (Sal.) will no longer be. There may come a time when the Qur'an will not be here; that may be on the Day of Reckoning (Qiymah), when destruction comes. Until that time, Muhammad (Sal.) will be here. If there is life in your inner heart (qalb), Muhammad (Sal.) will be the life of that life. If there is breath in your body,
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it will be the breath of Muhammad (Sal.). If there is sound in your body, it will have originated from the sound of Muhammad (Sal.). If this does not occur, then you will be dead according to your limit. Muhammad (Sal.) came and showed us perfectly pure wisdom, perfectly pure light, and perfectly pure ways of being. It is for this reason that we pay our respects to him. This is our way of demonstrating our respect. We do not place a statue or idol of Muhammad (Sal.) before us and worship it. Ignorant people say that we are comparing Muhammad (Sal.) to Allah, that we are equating him to God. They say that we are worshipping a tomb and so on. In government buildings, we see statues of famous people who had been leaders of the country or who had helped the country in some way. Statues of these people are erected and every year they are decorated and a cele-bration is held in their honor. In their own country they make these people important, even though they may be sinners or may have destroyed other countries. Even though one group curses such a person, another group wor-ships him saying, "He is a great man. He helped our country." Like this, many statues have been erected by man. A child honors his dead father whom he loved by reciting verses and prayers in remembrance of him. He pays respect to his father in this manner. Kings are often praised and honored in a similar way. When people honor other people in these ways, should we not honor one who, as Allah's Messenger, showed us the right path, taught us to have good conduct, strengthened our faith (mn), taught us the peace and equanimity of perfect purity, told us to trust all lives as our own life, and protected all lives as his own? Should we not pay our respects to such a great being, such a Prophet, such a Messenger of Allah who showed us the good path? Is it forbidden (harm) for us to honor him? Does this mean that we are comparing him to Allah or placing him as an equal to Allah? When statues of men are being constructed and honored, is it wrong to honor the one who brought us the wealth (daulat) that set us on the right path, the one who helped us in so many ways? Are we making a comparison when we pay our respects to the one who has helped us and when we give praise to the One who created such a helper? When we praise the One who gave us this treasure and pay respect to this treasure for having helped us, are we saying that they are equal? Are we making something equal to Allah? Should we not do what we are doing? Is it wrong to do so? We must reflect on this. Some people who do not think deeply about these issues say that honoring Muhammad (Sal.) is making him equal to God and to the truth. There is one group of people who deny the existence of God, another group that will not speak about God, another group that does not understand the truth, and yet another that continually creates new groups. Only such groups, who want to perpetuate their own glory, say such things.
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On this day (ascribed to the birth of Muhammad (Sal.)), we should praise the immeasurable one of grace, the incomparable one of love, the divine Messenger known as Muhammad Mustafar-Rasl (Sal.) who brought the true faith (dn) and the Qur'an. We should praise this exalted treasure that has the beauty and bliss which will calm human beings and make them peaceful. What is this month that has been set aside for Muhammad (Sal.)? It is a month in which we honor Muhammad (Sal.) and give praise to Allah. We thank Muhammad (Sal.) and praise Allah. This is why we ob-serve the maulid, like we did today. This is not wrong. We are not making a comparison, even though some people may claim that this is what is we are doing. But you, children who are true believers (mu'min), if you have absolute faith (mn), then it is your right and privilege to honor resplendent beings, the qutbs, the friends of God (auliy') and the prophets who came to help us and show us the right path. And it is your right and privilege to give praise to Allah, the One who sent them. It is our duty to do this. This is what we have to do. We should think about this. Many changes are taking place in the world today. Because of false proclamations, situations are developing in which people are ready to destroy the favorites of God and the prophets. These people want to destroy the name of the Rasl (Sal.), the name of Allah, the names of truth, and the names of those who have trust and faith. They have decided to convert men into satan. They want to convert those with true faith (mn), change them into something else, take them off the straight path, and lead them astray. However, children, you who are true believers (mu'min) must try to behave as true believers. Look at how we take care of the teeth that God has given us. When there is a problem, we either extract them, treat them, or safeguard them in some way, do we not? In the same way, should we not protect the treasure that exists as the Rasl (Sal.), as the faith (mn), wisdom, light, and strength within us? We should safeguard this treasure that is so helpful to us, should we not? We should honor it, should we not? We must think about this. We should understand that the treasure that was with Allah in the beginningless beginning, in the time of creation, and in the hereafter (anthi, al-awwal, and al-khirah). We should understand that this treasure alone is Muhammad (Sal.), and it dwells within Allah at all times. It lives in our soul and wisdom. In the place of truth, this treasure and God reside together. My children, there is another treasure that existed as the Qutb (Ral.)4 as God's mystery in the time of creation,(al-awwal). Finally, fifty-one generations after Muhammad (Sal.), after fifty-one signs, the Qutb (Ral.) was sent as the son of Fatimah (Ral.). He was sent as a form, as a symbol. The name
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given to this Qutb was Muhyiddn 'Abdul-Qdir (Ral.). The mysterious Qutb (Ral.) was given a name, made into the form of man (insn) and shown as a symbol or representation to mankind, just as Muhammad (Sal.) was sent down in form as a symbol. When the Qutb (Ral.) was born to Fatimah (Ral.), he, too, was clothed in white silk and the ?nest linen. In the womb, he displayed several miracles and signs. While still in the womb, he settled several conflicts that even kings could not deal with. This treasure spoke when he was only a fourmonth-old fetus; he settled legal disputes and even had a thief imprisoned. After he emerged from the womb, he continued to speak about justice and right conduct. This is the Qutbiyyat 5that came bearing the name of Qutb. He came as a representation, a light known as Muhyiddn 'Abdul-Qdir alJiln (Ral.). Just as Allah sent His Messenger (Sal.), the Rasul, as a symbol, He also sent His Qutbiyyat in a form. This form, like Muhammad (Sal.), also emerged from the womb without any signs of blood. That light was Qutb Muhyiddn 'Abdul-Qdir al-Jln (Ral.), and this is the month designated for him. He performed several miracles and displayed great wisdom. He emerged from the womb during the month of Ramadn and fasted in his very first month of life, refusing to nurse. In doing so, he showed others the way to perform this obligatory duty. The purpose of fasting is to understand hunger, disease, and old age and to realize the hunger of other lives. The Qutb (Ral.) gave us the means to do this. The Qutbiyyat came as a resplendent light and showed us the five duties (furd) faith, prayer, charity, fasting, and pilgrimage. Countless miracles were performed; wonder after wonder was seen. This light started to speak on the very day it was born. One day when he was two months old, he was crawling around outside, and he saw the sun rising. "Can you catch it for me?" he asked his nurse. She said she could not, so he flew upward into the sky. The sun contracted all its rays and its heat, drawing them within itself. It encircled the baby, held him, and then brought him back to the cradle. Meanwhile, the nurse had told his mother what had happened, and the mother was running around crying because she could not find her child. "O God," she pleaded, "I did not have a child for sixty years and now You have given me this child. I asked You for a child and You gave me one. Now I have lost it." As she was running about in great distress, the baby lay in the cradle, smiling. The Qutbiyyat (Ral.) was in such a state that the sun and the moon would come, bow down, and worship him. They would contract their rays and speak to him. Such was the state of the Qutbiyyat (Ral.) when he was only two months old.
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It is said in the oral traditions (ahdth) that if the foot of the Qutb (Ral.) does not touch a person, he will not attain wisdom or grace-awakened wisdom (gnnam)." Wise people have spoken about this in their songs. They say, "If the foot of the Qutb (Ral.) does not touch a person in the beginning of creations (al-awwal), he will not attain eternal happiness and grace-awakened wisdom." The Qutb (Ral.) is known as the sheikh to wisdom, grace-awakened wisdom, and truth. The foot of the Qutbiyyat (Ral.) must either touch a person in the beginning of creation or a person must take the light of absolute faith (mn) and with it touch the feet of the Qutbiyyat (Ral.) in this world. Only when this is done can one attain wisdom, true knowledge ('ilm), grace-awakened wisdom, and divine qualities. This is one explanation. There is a day designated by the world to honor such a Qutbiyyat (Ral.). However, the Qutbiyyat (Ral.) is present every day in everyone. According to the manner and location in which each person has placed the Qutbiyyat within himself, that treasure will dawn there and reveal its strength and benefits. For those who have not done that, this month will at least make them aware of the Qutbiyyat; this month will at least signify to them that they have a Qutbiyyat within them, which is the strength of their wisdom and the guide to their determined faith (mn). Therefore, if we hold a maulid, or a feast, to honor the Qutb (Ral.), are we setting up a comparison? Because the Qutb (Ral.) is a sheikh to wisdom and a guide to our life, our wisdom, and our body, we honor him and give praise to the One who brought him down to us. This is what the maulid is about. We praise God directly, and we also praise Him by honoring the great ones, the prophets, and the wise ones that He sent down to us as guides. We give praise to God and we honor the ones who are our examples and guides. Is this wrong? No, it is not. We do this in a state of true faith. People in the world say different things; they deceive one another in many ways and do many things that are wrong. They say, "Do not worship Allah, the Rasl (Sal.), the Qutb (Ral.), and the friends of God (auliy'). Tear them down, kill them, and throw them out!" In the present time, certain groups are burning books written in the past, Qur'ans from the olden days, the ancient traditions (ahdth), and the writings of other great men. They burn them, saying, "These are all incorrect. If you know of any such books or people, throw them out!" There are large groups of people with such ideas. However, children, you who have wisdom and absolute faith (mn) should praise Allah with absolute faith and honor the great ones. Even Allah's Rasl (Sal.) did this. He paid respect to those who had wisdom, to those who were older than him, to those who had attained divine knowledge ('ilm), and wisdom, and to those who knew the oral traditions (ahdth). We should remember this in the present state of the world. We need wisdom to be able to pay our
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respects, to attain the strength of wisdom, and to realize Allah. We need wisdom to strengthen our faith (mn). It is only through the wisdom of the Qutb (Ral.) that we can understand good and bad, right and wrong. As long as we do not have that wisdom, as long as we cannot distinguish good and bad, we are like animals. A dog cannot distinguish between truth and trash, between good food and bad food. It does not have analytic wisdom, and therefore, it will eat filth, as well as plain rice and specially prepared rice dishes. That is its way. It does not distinguish between good and bad, permissible and impermissible, good actions and bad actions, good food and bad food. Only if we understand the power of wisdom and the divine qualities can we understand what is good and bad in our lives. Then we can know right and wrong, permissible and impermissible, truth and falsehood, heaven and hell. It is to understand these things that we study wisdom, follow those who have wisdom, honor such people, and give praise to Allah. This is why we do these things. Therefore, my children, we do these things for a purpose. Let us try to do this while we still have life. Each child must think about this, strengthen your faith (mn), understand these reasons, and search for the wisdom to understand what is right and what is wrong. At the appropriate times, we should honor the wise ones who have come - the Qutbiyyat (Ral.), the Raslullh (Sal.), and the prophets. Until the time when we commune directly with them and unite as one, we should at least honor them in this way and give praise to Allah. When we finally reside together in the same place, this will not be necessary. Why is this so? Because, at that time, we will be face to face with one another and nothing else is necessary. But, until then, we must pay our respects to the wise ones and give praise to Allah. Establish this in your inner hearts and have certitude. Strengthen your hearts with certitude, despite what others may say. Do not go astray. Let us go to wise people, learn wisdom, and strive to understand what is good and what is bad. Amn, may this intention be fulfilled. May Allah help us. Footnotes 1. Qutb Muhyiddn 'Abdul-Qdir al-Jln (Ral.) was a renowned saint who was born in Gln, Persia about 1077 A.D. and reportedly died about 1166 A.D. (470-561 A.H.). As a youth he was exceptional in truthfulness, patience, insight, and asceticism. After travelling to Baghdad and mastering the study of the Qur'an religious laws, and the traditions of the Prophet (Sal.), he withdrew into meditation for eleven years, after which in a vision God gave him the name Muhyiddn(reviver of pure faith). His simple, clear, and subtle discourses on wisdom, conduct and purity, and the compassionate care with which he humbly welcomed all who sought him, combined with the many
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miracles and visions experienced by those who sought his aid, led to his being called GhauthulA'zam (the supreme saintly helper) and Qutbul-Aqtb (Qutb of all Qutbs). 2. The alif is the first letter of the Arabic alphabet. The sukn is a diacritical mark, and the mm is the Arabic letter for the consonant 'm'. 3. These are some of the eleven causal names bestowed upon Muhammad (Sal.) by Allah before the Prophet was manifested. For further explanations see the book 'Asm'ul Husn: The 99 Beautiful Names of God, by M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen. 4. Divine analytic wisdom, the wisdom which explains; that which measures the length and breadth of the seven oceans of the nafs, or base desires; that which awakens all the truths which have been destroyed and buried in the ocean of maya; that which awakens true mn (absolute faith, certitude, and determination); that which explains to the hayt, to life, the state of purity as it existed in awwal, the beginning of creation; the grace of the dht, the essence of God, which awakens the hayt of purity and transforms it into the divine vibration. Qutb is also a name which has been given to Allah. He can be addressed as Y Qutb or Y Qudds, the Holy One. Qudds is His wilyat, His power or miracle, while Qutb is His action. Wilyat is the power of that action. Lit.: Axis, axle, pole, pivot. Also, a title used for the great holy men of Islam. 5. Qutbiyyat: The wisdom of the Qutb; the sixth level of consciousness; divine analytic wisdom; the wisdom which explains the truth of God.
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The Golden Words of a Sufi Sheikh

Preface from The Golden Words of a Sufi Sheikh. Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Rahim, in the name of God, Most Compassionate, Most Merciful. May the beginning and end and all things be the responsibility of Allah alone. Only Allah, the One of limitless grace and incomparable love, the One who gives us His infinite wealth of grace, knows all the secrets of all the creations in the 18,000 universes. He is the One who created the essence, the manifestations, and the attributes. He created right and wrong, or khair and sharr, permissible and impermissible, or halal and haram, good and evil, heaven and hell. He is the One who knows their secrets. May we praise only Him. May we pray only to Him. May we trust only Him. May our faith, our trust, and our determination become steadfast in our hearts. May that steadfastness grow stronger and become the staff with which we walk through life. May it be the life within our prayers. Each one of us, every child, must reflect and realize the truth of the statement, "One who has iman, perfect faith, is exalted. One who hasiman will receive the undiminishing plenitude of the wealth of God's grace in all three worlds (the world of the soul, this world, and the next world)." My beloved brothers and sisters, we are children who have faith in God. All living beings have faith in God. The earth and the sky, night and light, lives that move and lives that do not move, all have faith in God; and God knows the hearts of all creations. He knows all thoughts and all intentions. He knows the speech of the tongue. He knows every part of every creation. The Precious One, the Exalted One who is Almighty God, Allahu ta'ala Nayan, is the Father of all lives. He is the Almighty One, the Able One, the Creator who showers compassion on all lives. He is Rahman and Rahim, the Most Gracious One, the Redeemer. May we have faith only in Him. Amin. My very precious brothers and sisters, God created insan, true man, as the most exalted of all creations. To this exalted life, God has given exalted wisdom. He has given man seven levels of wisdom: feeling, awareness, intellect, judgment, subtle wisdom, divine analytic wisdom, and divine luminous wisdom. God has fashioned the seven levels of wisdom so that man can know God and understand Him through remembrance, contemplation, prayer, and worship. Human beings have faith in various types of worship and remembrances of God. There are four steps to prayer: shari'at, tariqat, haqiqat, and ma'rifat. Shari'at is creation, the religion of Zabur, or Hinduism, the section below the navel, the section of earth. When man looks at creation and the manifestations which appear from the earth, he must understand what is right and
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what is wrong. If he discards what is wrong and accepts what is right, he will come to one point: there is only one God. Tariqat, the next step, occurs when man's faith becomes strong. Tariqat relates to the religion of Jabrat, or Zoroastrianism, which represents the region of the stomach, the aspects of hunger, illness, old age, and death, and the section of fire: the hell-fire of anger, hastiness, the differences you feel between yourself and others and the evil actions which follow because of these differences. When man discards everything from this section other than the one point, the point of God, he comes to the level of haqiqat. Haqiqat is also known as the religion of Injil, or Christianity. It is represented by the region of the chest, the aspect of air, and contains the vapors, gases, jinns, fairies, spirits, angels, and heavenly beings. When a man discards everything in Injil except for one point, the point of God, he takes on the beauty of God and he becomes very close to God. Next is the level of ma'rifat, or the religion of Furqan (Islam and Judaism), the head, the section of light. Furqan means to understand with wisdom what is perceived by the two eyes, the two ears, the two nostrils, and the mouth, which represent the seven diacritical marks.* If you know these four steps, understand them, and then pray to Allah ceaselessly, unmindful of the difference between day and night, that is true prayer, the fifth prayer, the prayer of Sufiyyat. Sufiyyat is the state in which there is no day or night. The prayer called Sufiyyat is the prayer in which you do not speak and you do not smile. You speak without speaking, smile without smiling, pray without praying, and intend without in tending, and in this way you control and subdue your countless desires. To speak to God without speaking is Sufism. Sufiyyat means to subdue mind and desire, that is, to restrict your own acting in the drama and to control your connection to blood ties, your cravings, illusions, attachments, vanity, envy, anger, the pride of the 'I' and the feeling of 'you', treachery, deceit, hunger, lust, and obsession. To cut away all these myriad qualities of satan, to pull them out and burn them to ash through wisdom and faith, is Sufism. Once they have been consumed we can begin to pray. In the prayer ofSufiyyat, God has ordained 43,242 sajdahs, or prostrations at the feet of God, per day. The man who performs these will see Allah before his eyes. He will see only Allah and nothing else. His qalb, which is his innermost heart, will see only Allah's light. His ears will hear only Allah's sound. His qalb will realize only God's sound, God's light, and God's resonance. His nose will perceive only the fragrance of God. The tongue will speak only to Him in the secret silence, and in this silent speech man will die he must die in Allah. When he dies in Allah in the state in which he speaks without speaking, smiles without smiling, and prays without praying, knowing God without knowing Him that state is Sufism.
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In this way, every word must end in God, every breath must end in Him, and every speech must end in Him. Man's entire life must reach God; that is his true prayer. That is the culmination of the prayer of the Sufi. One who attains the clarity of perfect faith is called a Sufi. When he cuts away all his earlier states and realizes himself, he becomes a perfected man, an insan kamil, and at the stage in which he loses himself in God, he becomes a Sufi. At the stage in which he is dead to himself, he becomes Muhammad. When he loses himself within Allah, he becomes the Nur, the resplendence of Allah, and his treasure is the Nur Muhammad. God's powers appear within him and become the light within his eyes and the resonance of God within his ears. His nose smells the fragrance of Allah and his tongue relishes the wonderful tastes of Allah, while God's kingdom resplends within his heart. The kingdom of God exists and resonates in the prayer within his innermost heart. My very precious children, the attainments and the potentialities of the Sufi are impossible to describe. To become Sufis we must obtain clarity of faith and wisdom. In this way, little by little, we must remove the darkness which has veiled us. We must untie the ropes which illusion has wrapped around us. We must cut away the connections of blood ties and the desire for land, gold, and women. With the sword of wisdom we must cut away all the energies, cells, and viruses which have been burning us, and then we must burn them. This is the state in which we can become Sufis. When we say Sufi we mean the state in which one has attained true wisdom. The state of the Sufi is the state in which, having controlled and subdued all the other states, one becomes the resplendent sun, the resplendent light of God. One who is in this state is called a Sufi, and the state is called Sufism, or Sufi-Sun. With his iman, he will split open and sift everything he sees. He will pierce through it with his wisdom and his firm certitude and determination, without allowing his mind to become fatigued, without allowing his heart to give up. If he can continue to pierce and cut through what is within everything, he will see only Allah. He will see Allah's wealth, Allah's powers, Allah's qualities, and nothing else. In every moment, in every tree, in every flower, and in every blade of grass, he will see only God. In every tree, every fruit, every fragrance, every flower, every bird, every cow, every goat, in whatever he beholds he will see only the secret of Allah, the powers or wilayat of Allah, and the qualities of Allah. When he looks at an ant he will discover Allah's secrets. When he looks at a fruit he will be amazed and say, "What a wonder! How praiseworthy You are. How subtly You have created the fruit. What flavors it contains!" If he looks at a honeybee he will see how much wisdom it has, how it builds its house, what qualities it has, and how it tastes the honey and shares it with everyone.
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In this way we must marvel and praise God, saying, "What a wonder Your creation is." As we open each thing and look inside, we will find that we can praise only Allah and worship only Him; this is all there is. This is the meaning we must derive when we look at anything. Though we will be able to realize it through what we see, we can understand only through wisdom. And if we do realize that everything must be understood through wisdom we will see that all the explanations we find are the explanations of God's story, that the things we see are not merely creations but also His story. Everything He has created is His story. If we look inside this storybook of creation we will find His entire history. And if we look inside God's history we will see only Him, His powers, and His qualities. This is the explanation we must discover. This is why the Messenger of Allah, the Rasulullah (Sal.) has said, "Go even unto China to learn 'ilm;" learn 'ilm or divine knowledge, even if you have to go to China to do it. First, we must seek and acquire wisdom. Second, we must develop and strengthen our faith. Third, we must realize that Allah is the only One who exists. Fourth, we must offer prayers of praise, glorifying and worshiping Him. We must learn certitude of faith and we must develop the wisdom through which to worship Him. Through that wisdom we must discover the right and the wrong in our prayers to Him, understanding that Allah is the One who has no equal and that nothing can be shown as an example to illustrate Him. Each of us must open his heart, his qalb, and transform it into the Ka'bah, the central place of worship. Placing the Rasulullah (Sal.) before us as our imam, our leader of prayer, we must offer prayers of praise to Allah. To stand face to face before Allah and speak every word to Him directly is the true prayer and the true worship which we must fashion within ourselves. Each of the children must pray in this way. Then wisdom will be our support, prayer will be our wealth, and faith will be the house of our qalb, the Ka'bah. We must reflect on this and think about it in our prayers. This is the duty of an insan mu'min, the man of true belief, and of an insan kamil, perfected man. When we say Sufi, it means one who has controlled his words, his tongue, and his heart, one who has controlled and stopped all unnecessary actions within himself. There are so many different kinds of dancing on the stage of the world. Everything dances: goats, cows, trees, shrubs, flowers, leaves, grasses, birds, winged creatures, animals, jinns, fairies, satans, illusions, and darkness. They dance in the sky, on the earth, in the oceans, and on the mountains. But this is not prayer. For one who is a mu'min, a true believer, acting and dancing are not prayer.
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All the others dance the drama of illusion and act the acts of hell, seeking the prizes which are advertised on the billboards of hell. All the labels they wear are advertisements for hell. Their fame and their titles and their attainments are the labels which will lead them to hell. Sufis give up the acting within themselves, burn up even their thoughts of acting, and reach the stage of contentment where they speak without speaking and immerse themselves in God. That is Sufism. Only when that state is established within us, only when wisdom dawns and God's ocean of divine knowledge appears within us, only when we have true faith and worship can we reach God, who is the wisdom within wisdom. Only in that state do we become creations who can reach God and speak to Him directly. We must realize this. The essential requirements are absolute faith and wisdom. Our progress and the states we attain are in accordance with the level of our faith and wisdom. One who has transcended the four steps of shari'at, tariqat, haqiqat, and ma'rifat is a Sufi. One who knows these four steps and knows himself and knows his God is a Sufi. We must acquire the wisdom necessary to reach this state. God has created everything as an example in order that we may acquire and attain that wisdom. Everyone who is an insan, everyone who is a mu'min, everyone who is an insan kamil, and all of us must realize this. My very precious children, my brothers and sisters, we must realize it. May God protect us. This book contains many kinds of explanations. It is full of meaningful words which can be understood only by the faith, the wisdom, and the innermost heart of man. If you realize these words with your faith and understand them with your wisdom, you will discover the state which will guide you along your path. Whatever you read about faith, certitude, and determination must be read to strengthen your iman, your absolute belief in God. The fact that Allah is the only One who exists must be firmly impressed within your hearts. You must begin with this understanding and then search for wisdom with the certitude of determined belief in God. You must search in His guardianship and say,"Al-hamdu lillah , all praise belongs only to God." Begin your search with " Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Rahim. Al-hamdu lillahi Rabbil-'alamin: In the name of God, Most Merciful, Most Compassionate. All praise is Yours, O Ruler of all the universes." Having begun in this fashion, you must understand every saying in this book by using your wisdom. If all of you read this book of Sufi wisdom with open hearts free from doubt, separatism, and discrimination, free from all thought of 'my race' or 'your race', 'my religion' or 'your religion', you
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will realize and understand. You will see that all the children of Adam (A.S.) are one race and that there is no one worthy of worship other than Allahu ta'ala Nayan. Be certain of this. If you think of it with certitude you will realize that even though hundreds of thousands of prophets came to this world they all preached about one God and spoke only His commandments. All prophets placed their faith in only the one God. They did not see Him in different forms as many different gods. There is only one God and one family of Adam (A.S.), and the prophets brought the words of that one God. If we, too, have such certitude we will not create separations by seeing differences in religions or races. If you can open your hearts and read this book of Sufi wisdom with determined faith, your wisdom will be able to absorb certain words and certain meanings. As clarity grows, the darkness of the heart will gradually fade. All the nafs, the base cravings arising from ignorance, will disappear. Attachments will go and the desire for God will grow. His grace and wealth and the treasures of His qualities will resplend within. As wisdom continues to develop, we grow as human beings. Our hearts become increasingly resplendent as we gain more and more clarity of wisdom, and that resplendence will begin to cut away our darkness and our birth. As birth is cut away, death is cut away. When death is cut away, we will no longer be subject to birth or death, and our lives will become long. When our lives become long, we will realize the state of offering prayers of praise directly to God. We must realize this without the slightest doubt. All we have learned so far amounts to only a handful of earth. What we have yet to learn is as large as the whole world. There is so much to know about the mysteries and the wealth of Allah. There is so much more to be known and we will learn it only as our wisdom develops. We must proceed slowly, always learning more and more. There are many meanings in this book. It is not enough to read through it in a superficial manner. Delve into the meaning of each word. If you read it ten times, you will receive ten different meanings. If you read it a hundred times, you will receive a hundred different meanings. That is better than superficial reading. As your wisdom begins to grow, the meanings and explanations will also grow. Read this book with your wisdom. We must all seek wisdom. There are many other aspects of Allah's resonance and Allah's explanations. His rahmat, or benevolence of grace, is limitless; it can never be judged. The power of God's grace, the words of His Tiru Marai, the Holy Qur'an, and all the words and commandments which He has given to the various prophets are impossible for us to estimate. Even if we turn all the water of all the oceans into
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ink and make all the trees and wood in all the worlds into pens and try to write His mystery, it would be impossible to complete it. His mystery is immense. It is said that anyone who touches even one drop of His grace becomes a good one, a good one. If we first become true human beings, then perfected human beings, and finally true Sufis, and if in that state we can touch even one drop of God's qualities and place it on our tongues, we will perceive the treasure of His grace, the treasure of the three worlds (the world of the soul, this world, and the next world), and the treasure of His qualities. We must endeavor to attain the state in which we can touch at least one drop of His grace. It is an undiminishing, eternal wealth. My very precious brothers and sisters, may you read this book carefully, without caste, race, or religious prejudice. May each of you read it and understand it from within. Treat this book as a mother, a teacher, a brother, or a sister who can nourish your wisdom. May this book help you in your lives. May the heart of every child who takes up this book and reads it become full and complete. May this book dispel the darkness in the heart, fill it with wisdom, and explain the ways in which to worship God so that we may understand. May it assist you in reaching the state in which you can lose yourselves in God and merge with Him. May you attain that completeness. There is no state more exalted. May each of you, my brothers and sisters, take this Sufi book and read it. In sha'allah, ma sha'allah, al-hamdu lillah, tawakkal -'alallah. If God wills it, whatever God wills, all praise belongs to God, may we hand all responsibility over to Him. May all real responsibilities, the responsibility of divine knowledge, the responsibility of wisdom, the responsibility of faith, and the responsibility of life be given to God. Amin. M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen *In English, vowels are part of the alphabet, but in Semitic languages vowels take the form of notations above or below the letters, all of which are consonants. Whereas those to whom Arabic was the native language could read the Qur'an with little difficulty in its original vowelless state, those who spoke other languages frequently misvowelled the words or misinterpreted the letter symbols. Thus, the diacritical vowel markings and nuqat, or dots, were developed over several centuries to make it easier for those less acquainted with Arabic to recite the Qur'an properly. In a mystic sense, the diacritical marks are said to give life or sound to the letters which would otherwise be silent. As the openings in the head animate it and take in light and sound, so do the diacritical marks give resonance and life to the Qur'an, also known as Furqan, the criterion of right and wrong.
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Bismillhir-rahmnir-rahm
A talk given by M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen on November 8, 1973 from The Triple Flame - The Inner Secrets of Sufism. Greetings to my children. Bismillhir-rahmnir-rahm, in the name of God, most merciful, most compassionate, the creator, sustainer and nourisher. We say this when we start any piece of business or any kind of work. When God was by Himself, alone, when He was unmanifest in the darkness of anthi before thi, in the beginningless beginning before the primal beginning, at that stage this word known as the bismin came from Him. When He was by Himself, alone, worshiping Himself, when He was not yet manifest and everything was contained within Him, He was enchanted with what He saw in Himself, worshiping Himself, alone, by Himself. He was there alone, worshiping Himself, He was unmanifest, in darkness. This continued for eons and eons, and during that period a light appeared from within Him. His qalb, His heart, opened and the completeness of the Nr radiated within His qalb. A complete light, the Nr emerged, and the word that resonated then from this perfect Nr was the bismin which made this happen. "Bismillhir-rahmnir-rah m, y Allah, You are by Yourself, You are alone. Everything is within You. You have everything, everything in existence within You, every atom is within You, every living thing and every creation is within You. You have everything within You, and yet You have closed Your ears to all this, You have closed Your eyes to this, You have closed Your mouth to this, You have closed Your nostrils to this and You have closed Your qalb, Your heart, to this. You have closed every part of Yourself, remaining there in this state of darkness, but all those beings within You praise You alone, they are all doing tasbh, remembering You, praying to You. They see You, they are agitated, every atom is moving within You there. You exist oblivious to all this. O God look at it, look at what has manifested from You! Bismillhir-rahmnir-rah m, You are its creator, You are its ruler and nourisher; the acts of creation, protection and sustenance exist within You.Bismillhir-rahmnirrah m, You are the One who carries out these three functions, You are the One who must do these three things, yet oblivious to this, You exist alone, without hearing or listening to the resonance, to the meaning and prayers of these lives. O God look at this, look at Yourself, look at the beings within You."
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Then He saw all the universes within Himself, He saw all the living things within Himself, He saw all the power and the grace within Himself. He saw every little atom within Himself, He saw all the sciences, all the maya and the ignorance, the spurious wisdom within Himself. He saw all the sciences, the arts, the businesses, professions and every beauty. He saw all the shapes and forms of birds, of reptiles, He saw the colors of everything, He saw that. "O ndavan, O God, all these atoms are praising You." This word, this bismillhir-rahmnirrah m was pronounced at that time. Then Allah asked, "Y Nr, who are you? Who are you?" "O ndavan, O God, as long as You have existed You have had me within You. Your grace has existed within You, and that is the Nr, the completion. This completeness which is Your light is what You called Nr. Nr Muhammad is the name You gave to Your completeness, the hundred faces merged in completion. If the beauty of all the universes is brought together, if the essence of all that beauty is polished and made into a face, it would not compare with the millions and millions of beautiful things You gathered to completion and transformed into the Nr. Your beauty resembles this beauty You made complete. This plenitude is Your beauty, the beauty of Your face, of Your grace, this is completeness, Your qualities, Your wisdom. This is within You. It dawned within You and emerged from You, this is what answers You now. O God this completeness is there in Your plenitude as one of Your qualities. One form of Your beauty is this Nr, one of Your names is this name, the Nr, one of Your words is this wisdom, this consciousness, and one of Your powers is this grace. That is the beauty You have named the Nr. You named it, You, Yourself, look!" This is the explanation which came from His qalb, His heart, then Allah saw all the lives, all the atoms moving in their different colors. He saw each of these atoms praising Him, He saw the countless ways each atom moved in worship of Him. Observing this, He spoke, "Y Nr, you addressed Me with bismillhir-rahmnir-rah m. What did you mean by that?" "O God You made everything complete, this name means to create, to protect and to sustain. Now You will create all lives. Bismin means to create the world, the creatures, living things and all the beings. Rahmn means You are the king, You provide food for all lives, You are the protector, You are the nourisher and ruler of every kingdom, that is rahmn. Rahm means You give them undiminishing wealth, You sustain them. This is Your task, the task You will undertake now, that is what You will initiate with this word." That is what the Nr said. Now the darkness and torpor within Him receded. All the darkness which had been within Him at the time of anthi before thi, the beginningless beginning before the primal beginning, all that
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darkness left Him. He Himself had been in the form of darkness, now He was transformed into a light which became resplendence. He was complete and resplendent everywhere, seeing everything within Himself before He began to create all the beings. At that moment when the Nr, that beauty and grace emerged from Him, He understood Himself. The period of time before this happened is called anthi, darkness. The period of time when this grace emerged from Him is called thi, and the period when He understood everything, when creation began, is called awwal, the beginning. thirefers to the time when the grace within Him emerged, and anthi refers to the period when He was in darkness. When the darkness within Him receded He continued as light, while the darkness which left Him is known as maya, as illusion darkness and torpor are called maya. As long as there is darkness, maya is there and the torpor of darkness is also there. God, light, maya and darkness are eternal, maya will be there forever, darkness will be there forever. Until the world ends darkness and maya will exist, yet God and the light of God will also exist. God tells us the completeness of His light will always exist, but what difference can we say is there in God before the darkness left Him and afterwards? When darkness and maya left Him He was named God, then the three thousand gracious qualities emerged within Him while the qualities of selfishness, of racial prejudice, blood ties to a wife and children, the qualities of anger, sin, hell, hastiness, impatience, the sense of difference between 'you' and 'I' left Him. Color prejudice, religious prejudice, all the prejudice of caste, race and religion, all selfishness left Him. Hunger, disease, old age, death, maya, illusion, desire, torpor, mind, karma, evil, sin, hell, all these qualities left Him, and He acquired the name God. When birth, death and maya completely left Him He became the king of God's kingdom with three thousand gracious attributes, with His asm'ulhusn, the one hundred divine names, His perfect light and the compassionate qualities of tolerance, peace, patience, justice and truth. He is God, the One who has neither form nor shape. When His shape left His form changed and He became light. His form had been maya, it had been night and desire, what left Him was the form of torpor. Now He is light in completion. In the same way, if these qualities leave us, what remains is God. God tells us that His power and maya do not die, but maya cannot appear in the presence of God's power, His light. Torpor, karma, sin, doubt, satan, darkness, maya and selfishness do not appear in His presence, neither do anger and sin, none of these things can appear in His presence because He is a power who controls, who rules them all, a power who eliminates torpor. Because this power exists in Him He is called God, He is called my God. Because He has no selfishness He is God. He has no hunger and therefore He is God, He has no wife and therefore He is God, He has no children and therefore He is God, He has neither birth nor death and therefore He is God, He has no desire and therefore He is God, He has no selfishness and therefore He is God, He has no pride and therefore He is God, He has no anger and therefore He is God. He has none of these qualities and that is the reason why He is called the
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sustainer, He is called God. The qualities which left Him at that time are called maya, whatever left Him is called karma, whatever was eliminated from Him is called darkness, maya, satan, devils, demons, hell, all that is known as hell. Then God said to the Nr, "Y Muhammad, y Nr Muhammad, what you have said is true, you say all praise belongs to Me. You who are My light gave Me that explanation when I was in darkness, is that not so? In the same way, a light will emerge from whoever controls himself, forgetting the world, discarding everything, concentrating on himself. A light will emerge if he understands himself. That is the completeness which will emerge from man giving him an explanation of his birth, his death, his maya and his torpor. Every explanation will be given to him in the form of vibrations which are the grace, the resonance of wisdom. This is the explanation of the Nr, this is the resonance of grace, this is My explanation." God said, "The understanding of this treasure will come to your family of mankind alone among all My creations, it will resonate giving this explanation to whoever reaches that state. Just as I understood and eliminated these things, whoever knows this will eliminate all the darkness, the maya and torpor within himself. If they leave him, I am he, he will attain completion, he will attain light, he will attain plenitude, this plenitude is his." God said this. "Y Nr, I now make My completeness, My light and My beauty your form. Because you came from My form, because your beauty came from My face, from My qalb, My heart, because that completeness came from Me I name you Nr Muhammad. This is who Nr Muhammad is, it is the beauty which came from Myqalb, it is My grace. I will make you a messenger for all My creations, I will make you perr arivu, divine luminous wisdom, I will make you the jthi, the radiance of wisdom, I will make you plenitude, I will make you completeness, I will give you one hundred names, one hundred qualities and My beauty. This I will make My face, this I will make My body, this I will make My face. The name I give you is Nr Muhammad, I will make you My messenger and send you to live in theqalb, the inner heart, of every human being. When a human being understands you, makes you shine and understands this explanation, on that very day maya will leave him just as it left Me. All the qualities which left Me are the creations of maya, of illusion, they will leave him. Whoever has qualities like these which leave him as they left Me is good, he is God. Tell the people to rid themselves of this state of maya. "What you told Me, what you said to Me, that bismillhir-rahmnir-rah m is the beginning of a human being. When he or she sees you after that, in proportion to his intention, his vision and the state of his qalb, the period of his birth ends, the period of maya ends, the period of darkness ends, his time of anthi is over, the time of his ignorance is over. The time of torpor ends, the period of silence ends, the period of desire ends. That period ends and he is at the beginning, he becomes thi, the light, he becomes man when man appears he is the thi, the primal beginning. When
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understanding and light emerge and maya disappears, he becomes awwal, the time of creation, he becomes the beginning of the beginning of all creation. He must understand the meaning of this. Tell them this, I want you to teach it to each qalb, each inner heart. May you say the word, this bismillhir-rahmnir-rah m to each qalb." This Arabic word was recited at the beginning, and that is the reason why you should say the word as you begin to do anything. This is the origin of the word. When you start something you say bismillhir-rahmnir-rahm I don't know why people do say it, but this is the meaning of bismillhir-rahmnir-rah m You are the creator, the protector, the sustainer, may You protect and nourish me. In the beginning, now and in the future, at my death, now, in this life and in the beginning when I first appeared, may You protect and sustain me in these three worlds, bismillhirrahm nir-rahm. And so whenever you begin something, say this word, that is the reason to say the bismin. There is so much more to explain about it. Just as maya departed and light appeared in God, when the qualities of maya leave our qalb, when they leave our consciousness and our truthful mn, our absolute faith, then wisdom, light, the Nr and completion appear within us, then our birth is cut. Illusion is destroyed, satan is destroyed, hell is cut, anger leaves us, sin leaves us, selfishness leaves us, hastiness leaves us, the distinctions of 'you' and 'I' leave, all the prejudice of race, sect and color leaves, that sense of my race, your race, my religion, your religion all leave. Then God is God, God worships God, God's qualities are known as God. This is the meaning of the bismin. To have certitude in this is called mn, absolute faith, and the light of that mn is known as mn Islam, as purity. This Islam is His completeness, this completeness proclaims there is nothing other than Allah, nothing can be compared to Him, He is infinite, everlasting, eternal. This is that completeness, this is Allah. To say nothing exists but Him is mn. Everything dies, everything disappears; every creation dies, everything dies. That One is the only One who never dies, who is eternal, who beckons all lives, who pronounces judgment on all lives, who sustains all lives, who embraces all lives and comforts them. This is the treasure who controls all living things, who pronounces judgment, who creates, who protects, this is the treasure who does everything, a mysterious treasure who shines without form. This is light, but unlike the light of the sun or the moon, it cannot be discovered by an atom or a non-atom, it can only be discovered by insn's love within love, by true man's love within love. God can be found only in God's qualities. God's beauty can be found only in God's beauty, God can be found only in His wisdom, God can be found in His grace, His tolerance, His patience, His equality. This means that you will only understand Him when you gaze intently into His qualities. If you do not have that point, you cannot detect Him with atoms or currents or instruments, with science or magnets, He cannot be known with any of this. He can be understood through His qualities, He can be known through His qualities, that is the mystery. If you
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can understand it, this is what is known as the bismin. This is the beauty of mn, of faith, certitude and determination. mn, mn, y Rabbal-'lamn, O Lord of the universes. M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
The Affirmation of Faith

I seek refuge in Allah from the evils of the accursed satan. In the name of Allah, Most Merciful, Most Compassionate.
Allah is Most Great: Allahu Akbar. We are the people who have accepted Allah; we believe in the one God and follow His Messenger, Prophet Muhammad, who brought us the holy words of the second kalimah: I testify that none is god except God alone, He has no equal; and I testify that Muhammad is His servant and His Messenger.1 Let us reflect upon this kalimah sent down by Allah to the Prophet. For whom are these words meant? Muhammad was born in Mecca into the Quraysh tribe.2 Does that mean that the kalimah is meant only for the Quraysh? No, it has spread to all the different tribes throughout Africa and the Middle East and to people the world over, of every race and religion. Look how many Muslims there are in the world today. Who has the right to call himself a Muslim and who does not? To whom does Islam belong? Does it belong to one sect more than to another? A person might say he follows one of the four imams: Imam Abu Hanifah, Imam Malik, Imam Ibn Hanbal, or Imam al-Shafi'i,3 but does it really matter to which family or tribe or sect he belongs, or whether he is an Arab or not? Allah belongs equally to everyone. Every tongue that has recited the kalimah with certitude belongs to the same family and dwells within Islam. They all bear witness to the oneness of Allah and to His Chosen Messenger,4 Muhammad, the Final Prophet, the Prophet for the beginning and for the end; everything that was given in the beginning was made complete in him. All those who accept this truth and the one treasure called Allah are part of the same body of true believers.5 They are all children born to one mother. To believe in Islam with perfect faith6 is to live in that one body in unity. Therefore, anyone who has truly accepted Prophet Muhammad and has faith in the kalimah will never harm or kill another who has also affirmed these words, no matter what fault that person may have committed. A tongue that has recited the kalimah, a tongue that has accepted Allah and His Messenger, should never attack another person in any way. By affirming the kalimah, it is possible for us to attain a certain state, but we must remember that those who have not accepted it are still our neighbors. We must love them, not destroy them.
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Neighbors are not there to fight with, they are not there to be our enemies. Once we have recited the kalimah, we must show our neighbors only love, trust, and friendship. We must melt their hearts and make them trust us and embrace us. Then they will begin to act in the same way themselves. Islam does not mean killing or attacking others. When such a thing happens, Islam is harming itself. To embrace others with love and to dispel their hunger, disease, poverty, and difficulties is Islam. To speak to someone from within the embrace of unity is Islam. To be together, to eat together, to live as one life in a state of affection is Islam. That is love, God's love, and Islam is the affection displayed through that love. Islam is the compassion shown by acting with God's three thousand gracious qualities. Islam is establishing the praise of God and establishing the qualities of patience, contentment, surrendering all responsibility to God, and praising God for whatever happens.7 One who is truly in Islam will practice these good qualities and continually beg of God, "O Allah, forgive all our faults and correct us."8 That is what it means to be a true believer. To become one is Islam. Just as the five fingers come together to form one hand, there is one group formed of all those who love Allah. In this world there are seventy-three different groups of human beings, and out of those, there is one group composed of all who have faith in God without the slightest doubt or wavering. That group is in true Islam. For a Muslim there is only one race; there is no black, white, or yellow. There is no fighting and no division. How can we divide Islam and fight over it? How can we listen to people who goad us into conflict by complaining, "Those people are different from us''? The nature of true Islam is to bring together what has been divided. Once we were separate and scattered in many different directions, but the kalimah and Islam brought us together to worship the one God and embrace each other heart to heart. True Islam is unity. We must be one. We must not create divisions by talk of different groups or different status. There are no divisions within Islam. Once someone has said the kalimah there is only one way to describe him: a child of Islam, nothing else. Earlier he might have been different, but now he is a Muslim. He might have followed another religion before, but as soon as he embraces the one God, he is in Islam. Islam is Allahu Akbar, praising the one God as the Most Great. There are no titles or differences in Islam. There is only one great title: Al-Mawla, the Lord, the Protector. We may call men of wisdom by the title of master, or mawlawi, and we may even call those who have converted to Islam mawla alIslam, or friends of Islam, but Allah alone is the Lord and Master of Islam, the only One worthy of worship. We are slaves to Him alone. We must not create divisions in Islam by calling some high and others low. There is no such thing in the kalimah. Can we recite the kalimah and then separate Muslims into different categories, saying some are high and some are low? No, we cannot say that. A tree may have many branches, but the flowers and fruits on that tree are all the same. Is that not so? What does it matter if a fruit is on a lower branch or a higher one? Their seeds are the same. We cannot show favoritism in Islam. We are all the creations of Allah, the children of Adam. The tribe of Abraham, the followers of Muhammad. Allah sends food to all and protects us all. And tomorrow He will question us all, no matter who we are or what position we hold. On the Day of Questioning9 and the Day of judgment, each of us will be judged for whatever good and evil he has gathered. Before that
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time we cannot tell if someone is good or bad, or high or low in status. We are all Adam's children, all fruits from the same tree. Of course, there is one small difference. One fruit may be fully ripe and very tasty, another may be in the process of ripening, and another may still be as hard as rock. But we cannot hurry the unripe fruits by beating them. Each one will ripen in its own time, according to how much sun it receives and whether the wind blows on it from a southerly or northerly direction. Similarly, if we want to help the children of Adam to ripen, we can only do it by showering them with good qualities, not by beating them. We have to ripen them and make them peaceful with the kind of loving affection that regards other lives as our own. We have been told, "Love your neighbor as you love yourself." We have not been told to beat our neighbors, to kill them, or to cut them up. That will not ripen anyone. Only if a man's heart is melting with love can he reach a state of acceptance. His heart has to be right. When we show someone love, compassion, trust, and friendship, he will melt in our embrace. Affection evokes affection. So, let us embrace our neighbors as the Prophet has taught us. Let us share with them the things that Allah has given us. To live together in unity with all groups is the proof that we are all the children of Adam. Love your neighbor as yourself; don't take his land and kill him! You must not accumulate wealth and destroy your good qualities. Money is a corpse. Unshakable faith, certitude, and determination is your only wealth, that is your paradise.10 Nothing other than truth and goodness will stay with you when you die. You cannot hold on to anything else. You cannot divide up the earth and keep a share for yourself; anything taken from the earth will have to be given back to it. Nor can you divide up the waters and keep a portion as your own. You can't hold on to water. Even if you drink a thousand cupfuls, you have to eliminate it sometime. No matter how much you take, water belongs to water and earth belongs to earth. The Prophet Muhammad gave us the laws and the words of God, but he did not seek to hold on to wealth or land or possessions in exchange. He did not want such things. All he wanted was for us to accept Allah. How did he get us to do that? By showing us good qualities. He gave us the kalimah and the wealth of his qualities. He told us, "This is your true wealth; this is what will help you. Take it and share it with others." The Prophet taught us to love our neighbors, to let them follow any religion they wanted to, and to be free to worship any god they chose. If our neighbors wish to come to pray with us, then we must let them come. We should never attack them. Instead, we should live with them in loving unity and be happy together. The Prophet also taught us that one who is in Islam must never attack another who is in Islam. If there is fighting even among those who have declared the kalimah, think how much worse it could be among people who have not. When one who has affirmed these words attacks another who has also affirmed them, that cannot be called Islam. Anyone who has said the kalimah is your own flesh, for you are made from the same form.11 You are one family, the creations of Allah, whom His light has touched. This is the absolute truth, the hidden treasure that was brought to us by the Prophet. Islam will be unified only when Muslims think like this, when they accept this oneness and act accordingly. Only then will Islam progress and this treasure grow. But when one Muslim attacks another, when one Muslim acts treacherously toward another, when a Muslim takes revenge against his neighbors or kills them, such acts hasten the destruction of the world. Should that happen and evil ways prevail, then truth, faith, the wealth of the three worlds,12 and the grace and power13 of the Lord of mercy of all the universes14 will fail to benefit us. They will be wasted.
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A Muslim must reflect upon the true meaning of Islam and the meaning within the divine words of the Holy Qur'an. People quote the Qur'an constantly. But is that enough? Some people can memorize the thirty sections15 of the Qur'an in two or three years. Is that all that must be done? The Qur'an does not consist only of the words we memorize; there are countless meanings and explanations contained within those words. We need to understand every point behind the words we read; we need to understand the meaning of every single thing we do. For example, there is an inner meaning to the qurban,16 the ritual slaughter of animals. Before the time of Muhammad, people could kill a chicken, a goat, a cow, a camel, or any other animal whenever they wanted to. They could just pick up a chicken and wring its neck. Islam put a stop to this. Instead of allowing this killing in every house at random, the people were asked to come to the mosque to have an official person slaughter the animals in the way that was permissible,17 according to the laws. But some people came and complained to the Prophet, saying, "My children are going without food. We waited for the official to perform the qurban, but he had to go to prayers and attend to other duties, so there wasn't enough time for him to slaughter our animals." Muhammad then said, "Instead of a hundred chickens, slaughter two goats. Instead of a hundred goats, slaughter ten cows. Instead of ten cows, slaughter three or four camels. Then, if you share the meat fairly, according to the size of each family, everyone will get what they need." The traditional stories18 also tell of the Prophet saying to 'Ali,19 "Meat is one of the few foods available in our country, but if you eat the meat of any animal for forty days in a row, the qualities of that animal will come into you. 'Ali, never eat meat for forty days in a row. We should reduce our consumption of meat." Little by little, the Prophet gave the people these laws. Because of the strict limitations they imposed, only five to ten animals could be slaughtered a day instead of thousands. People could not simply kill as they pleased; they could take only what was needed. Now, if the Prophet tried to reduce even the random killing of animals, should we increase the slaughter of men? How can those within a brotherhood attack and kill each other? If one person even gossips about another, and that person then gossips about the first in retaliation, fighting and death may result on all sides. There was fighting before the Prophet brought the kalimah, but there is no excuse for it now. Now our neighbor is our brother, whether he recites the kalimah or not. We must trust him and he must trust us. We are in Islam, and that means we are in unity. The true meaning of Islam is to embrace our neighbors and love them as we love ourselves. Each of us must think about this and look deeply into our hearts. We must pay careful attention to all of Allah's words. We must examine the inner secrets of the words of the Qur'an, the truth within every word the Prophet has spoken, and the meanings within his traditions. We must understand all that is contained within the kalimah and embrace each other in unity. If we can exist in that state, we will be in Islam. That is unshakable Islam, the great treasure given by the Lord of mercy of all the universes to those of us who have received the wealth of the three worlds. Once that wealth is ours, we will see peace, harmony, and unity. That is success. May we reflect upon this.
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We must always think: What is Islam? Islam is like a rose. Even if a rose has fifty petals, each one contains the same fragrance. Similarly, even if there are many millions of children in Islam, the beautiful fragrance of Allah's kalimah will emanate from every one of them, no matter which city or country they come from, no matter what language they speak. It will be in their words, in their thoughts, in their actions, in their faith, in their prayers, in their meditation. It will be in their kalimah, in their devotion,20 in their remembrance, 21 and in their deep concentration on God. 22 That fragrance is there in the petals of every heart.23 We must try to know that fragrance. The blood which unites us as one is the kalimah. As followers of Muhammad, we must be one. That is what it means to be a true believer. If we can establish a state of unity and trust, Islam can never again descend to the state it has come to now. Today practically every Islamic country is at war with another. Wherever we look we see divisions, separations, and wars. That is not Islam. To wage war within oneself is Islam; the real fight is an inner one. To dispel evil qualities, evil thoughts, and the differences that lead to separations is Islam. To wage war upon jealousy, envy, and vengeance is Islam. To cut out and discard the qualities of Satan and to fill ourselves with the qualities of Allah is Islam. To show a heart full of love to our brothers and sisters is the wealth of Islam. We must embrace each brother and sister with love and trust. We have to think of each one of God's qualities and fill ourselves with them, one by one, little by little. That is true love. There should not be one trace of prejudice in us. There should not be any words within us that are different from the words we speak outwardly. The words of true Islam, the words of absolute faith, are like rays of light emerging from the sun. No matter how many clouds cover the sun, it will emerge from behind them and shine again. The clouds cannot change the sun. In the same way, the clouds of karma, sin, and satan, and the evil clouds of jealousy and revenge will come and try to conceal our light. But when faith, certitude, and determination stand firm, they will push those clouds away, and the radiant light of truth will once again shine forth from us. To always shine with the beautiful light and form of perfect faith is Islam. And to become sweeter as we think of this is Islam. If we understand God's qualities, we will find them so sweet. If we act with God's actions, they will be sweet. When we embrace our brothers and sisters with those actions and with trust, we will realize what happiness is and know the goodness that comes from it. As we embrace each brother and sister heart to heart, helping them in whatever way they need, we will know what joy and goodness are. As children of Adam, as members of the tribe of Abraham, as the followers of Muhammad and the disciples of Allah, we must understand this. Islam is to join together as one, knowing that those who have not affirmed the kalimah are our neighbors and that those who have affirmed the kalimah are intermingled within our own bodies. This is the most important aspect of Islam: oneness. The tongue which says the kalimah makes us one. This is what must safeguard Islam. To protect our neighbors from danger is Islam. First we must see that we ourselves don't kill them, and then we must embrace them. We must act according to the laws that have been sent down, according to the words of Allah, Prophet Muhammad, and the Qur'an; the words of truth, conscience, integrity, and justice. Every thought in our hearts must follow those laws; we must not stray from them.
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For a human being there are four kinds of justice: God's justice, the king's justice, man's justice, and the justice of each conscience. First we must act with God's justice. Then we must become the king inside our bodies, controlling ourselves and ruling justly over the four hundred trillion, ten thousand spiritual qualities and the millions of actions that are there within us. We must then become that king's subjects, acting with justice toward all mankind. Finally, we must develop the justice of the inner witness, the conscience, and begin to live as human beings in the state of complete justice. We must reflect deeply on this and know what true Islam is and who we are. If we live in such a state, these qualities will spread, the kalimah will spread, and love, trust, and friendship will spread. Therefore, embrace every heart and make everyone your brother. Send forth from yourself the quality of embracing others and let that love touch and touch and touch their hearts, making them peaceful. That is Islam. Do not send a sword, a knife, a hatchet, or a bomb. Send the kalimah, send the words of the Prophet, send Allah's three thousand gracious qualities and His ninety-nine powers.24 Send love forth from your heart to others. If you embrace people in this way, you will realize so much happiness and sweetness, as heart after heart after heart is captured. It will turn them into exalted beings, beings of peace and tranquility. It will turn them into men of wisdom, virtuous beings with compassionate hearts. We must bring God's qualities into our actions and make them an integral part of us. We are told to feed the hungry and give charity, but giving money is not enough. Embracing others and giving them good qualities is a much greater charity. Giving wisdom is an even greater charity. And to have absolute faith and become a brother is the greatest charity of all. Precious children, jeweled lights of my eyes, my brothers and sisters, every one of us must reflect on this and do it without fail. It must come into our understanding and live within our hearts. We must know it in our worship. It must resplend from within our inner beings and emerge from our lives as a treasure. Islam is the greatest blessing we can receive. The treasures of Islam are the grace25 of Allah and the wealth of all three worlds. All that we can ever understand in life is within Islam. Even our burial and the questioning in the grave and the giving of the verdict are all within Islam. It is all one. The words I have just spoken came from my heart. They came in the name of Allah and Prophet Muhammad. They came from the innermost heart of a poor man26 who has not studied or learned anything. Every word came from my heart. If there is any fault in what I have said, please forgive me. Every brother and sister, I most humbly beg you to forgive me in the name of Allah and the Prophet. Amen. May the peace, the beneficence, and the blessings of God be upon you. Back to Top
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Footnotes
1. The al-shahadah kalimah. See appendix. 2. Quraysh: The Arabian tribe from which Muhammad was descended and of which his grandfather, 'Abd al-Muttalib, was chief. 3. The four imams:
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Imam Abu Hanifah: Born in al-Kufah A. H. 80 and died in Baghdad A.H. 150. Imam Malik: Born and died in Medina A.H.94 - A.H. 179. Imam Ibn Hanbal: Born and died in Baghdad. A.H.164 - A.H.241. Imam al-Shafi'i: Born in Askalon, Pakistan A.H.150 and died in Cairo A.H.204.
These four men systematically developed the rules of conduct and law [fiqh] from the injunctions of the Qur'an and the ahadith. Four different schools of thought were established after them and each has a slightly different interpretation of the practices of Islam. 4. Mustafa al-Rasul 5. mu'min 6. iman 7. sabr, shukr, tawakkul àla Allah, and al-hamdu lillah 8. astaghfiru Allah al- Azim 9. Qiyamah 10. firdaws 11. surah 12. mubdrakat 13. qudrah 14. rahmat al-'dlamin 15. juz' 16. Externally, it is the ritual slaughter of animals to make them permissible to eat. Inwardly, it is to sacrifice one's life in devotion to God and to cut away the beastly qualities within the heart of man. 17. halal 18. ahadith 19. The fourth caliph, son-in-law of the Prophet, husband of Fatimah, and father of Hasan and Husayn. The second convert to Islam, following Khadijah, the first wife of the Prophet. 20. 'ibadah 21. dhikr 22. fikr 23. qalb 24. wilayat 25. rahmah 26. miskin 27. al-salam 'alaykum wa-rahmat Allah wa-barakatuhu kulluh
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You Are the Zodiac; You Are Your Destiny

[The following is a response to a recently widowed woman who explains all of her learning but says, I have lost all desire to live. I have many anxieties.] Bawa Muhaiyaddeen: Is this what you have discovered in life? When your husband left, your life left, and you said, I dont want to live anymore. This is an erroneous point in your life. Whom did you trust ? Did you trust your husband, or did you trust God? Did you live your life believing in God, or believing in your husbandin creation?
[The woman replies, God cheated me.]

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen: No, you cheated God. You lived your life trusting a tree. You lived believing in earth, fire, water, air, and ether. You believed in the clouds, but clouds roll on. Colors, rain, storms, darkness, light, sun, moon, and stars, all move on. You cannot depend on such things. You plant a seed in the garden, believe it to be yours, and then live your life trusting that seed. But it will not last. You bring a jug of water from the ocean and think, This is my water. This is my life. This is how you have lived your life. But water carried in a single pot will dry out, will it not? It will come to an end. You may drink the water, put it will run out. This is ignorance. This is maya. Who gave you life? Who created you? Who feeds you? Who gave you everything you have? Who gave your husband everything he had? Who gave you eyes? Who gave you ears? Who gave you a nose? Who gave you a tongue? Who gave you a mouth? Who gave you taste? Who gave you all these things? You must understand this. Thinking your eyes are yours, you say, O my eyes! Look they are my eyes, my ears, my mouth, my hands. You have lived your life believing in these hands, eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and taste. This is the ignorance of your life. You should live your life believing in the One who gave you all of this. Everything else has a limit. The eye is an organ that is consumed by earth. The ears, the flesh, and the bodyeverything will be consumed by earth. Why did you live your life believing in these things? If you consider these things to be the strength in your life, then, when their life and limit come to an end, so will your limit. This is your mistake. The One who is infinite, without destruction, without birth or death, without beginning or end, without wife or child, without relationships or attachments, without race or religion, without scriptures, without house, property, or deed, without anything is everywhere. This All-Pervasive Power is your Father, the Father of your soul and the Father of your life. If you had lived believing in Him, you would not have spoken the words you just uttered. Everything you have studied so far is like words written on water. When you write words on water and look back, they will no longer be there. Even as you wrote them, they were not there. Words written on water cannot be called wisdom. You cannot claim to have studied them, heard them, or lived by them, because this type of learning perishes very quickly. You thought everything written by the mind was a written letter, but those letters quickly wash away, disappearing, one after another.
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You should have faith, certainty, and conviction in your Father, the One who gave you life. He is the One who raised you in the dark room for ten months. With no earth-connection, He gave you food, water, warmth, fire, and air. For ten months, God raised you in this way in the dark room [of the womb]. Then He showed you the school and said, This is the world that you have to comprehend. Look at it. You now understand what is inside, and just as I raised you here on the inside, I will raise you in the world. Without anyone knowing, I fed you here, and I will continue to do so. Look! Look at My creations, My arts-work. None of My creations can nourish you as I do. I am the secret. I gave you food when you were inside, and I will be the One to feed you when you are outside. The One who gave you life will feed you; He will not forget. Understand Me through this show, through this story. Believe in the One who gave you your soul; believe in your Father. Upon telling you this, God displayed the world to you as a show. But did you believe Him? No! You believed what you saw in the world. That was merely Gods art. You believed in the tree of Gods art, saying, It will give me fruit. This is my life. This is what you trusted. You invested your belief in this, acknowledging this as your wealth. You considered this to be God. You believed this to be heaven. You thought this was the world. This is the state you describedthis wisdom, these things you heard and studied. But they are only words written on water. You should have trusted the One who placed you in the dark room, the One who placed and fed you in the world of souls earlier, and the One who sent you into the world saying, Understand the world and understand Me. This same One will invite you back, saying, Come, it is over, your limit has been reached, come. Had you trusted Him, none of these things would have happened to you. If you had studied that wisdom, these things would not have occurred. If that had entered, these words would not have emerged from you. If that had been uncovered, you would not have believed in this. You would not undergo this suffering. You have been raising a cow and depending on it for its milk, but its milk has a limit. When the milk stops, what can it do? Nothing! Then your faith is destroyed. You raised a cow and believed its milk to be yours. But the milk is depleted, its limit has been reached, and there is no more milk. Then you suffer. Now the only place left for the cow is the supermarket. The butcher shop takes the cow, everyone gets a pound of its flesh, and it goes to hell. Its remains enter the earth as fertilizer. Trusting in this was your mistake. You thought this was your life; that was a mistake. Had you believed in the One who is not subject to these changes, you would not have reached this state, and you would not say that your life is finished. When fire and iron merge, there is only fire. When the iron is in the fire, it is fire. It is no longer iron, and if you touch it, it will burn you. However, if the iron stays outside the fire but says, I am fire, it is not fire, just iron. As iron, it can be hammered many times, it can be broken, it can be cut, and it can be bent in many different ways, but it will not burn. Nevertheless, there is fire within the iron. You must understand this. You should either be in the fire, or you should realize the fire within. If iron is rubbed correctly, heat is generated and it will burn when touched. In the same way, if you had at least rubbed and polished what is within you, the heat would have emerged. The heat in the iron would have emerged, and you could have touched it and felt the heat. Even a piece of wood will burn after being rubbed vigorously. When you do this, you will realize that there is heat within the wood. Similarly, if you had scoured and polished yourself, you would have perceived the warmth of God. If you had fallen into the fire with faith, you could have been the fire. A little rubbing and polishing of yourself would have, at the very least, made you realize, O, this is the Power. This is God. I feel the heat.
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You have neither polished nor examined yourself. If you had examined yourself, the fire would have blazed. If you had examined your mind, you would have understood. But you have not done any of these things. You are not in the fire, you did not polish yourself, and you did not examine yourself. You continue to be iron and think, This is life! But iron can be bent in many different ways, and it can be attached to many things. It can be put into cement and into the ground. It will also grow rusty and be destroyed by the corrosion. If it is not in the right state, it will be corroded by rust and consumed by earth. You trusted the iron that can be consumed by earth, experienced what it had to offer, and thought it was your life. Is this wisdom? Did you study this? Did you hear this? Did you understand this? Think about this. It is wrong. This is parrot-learning. The parrot repeats the same thing over and over. This learning does not differentiate right and wrong. The parrot can be taught to say, Here comes a thief, here comes a thief, and it will screech, Here comes a thief! even when a good man arrives. When a man enters, the parrot will say, A woman is here, a woman is here, a woman is here! When a woman enters, it will say, A man is here, a man is here, a man is here! When a thief enters, it will say, A good man is here! Why does it do this? Because it lacks analytic wisdom (pahuth-arivu). This is similar to the parrot-learning and book-knowledge that you have acquired. You understood that kind of knowledge but did not discriminate between right and wrong or good and evil, and so you speak of what you have heard and what you have learned. These are letters written on water, not real learning. Two things are dangerous: if a good man is called a thief, and if a thief is called a good man. If a man is called a woman, that is dangerous, and if a woman is called a man, that is also dangerous. This is what the parrot says. In the same way, your current perception of life is wrong and dangerous. Think about this, think about true learning. You have a limit. There are various things in youfaith, soul, stomach, body, visioneach one separate from the other. And what your husband has is different from what you have. He has a different eye, and you have a different eye. He has a different stomach, just as you have a different stomach. He has a different section, and you have a different section. As he has different judgment, you have different judgment. He has different ears, and you have different ears. He has one nose, and you have another nose. He has a certain mind, but you have a different mind. This is how it is. The two are not one. But you have lived your life believing in those eyes. That is astonishing! You lived your life believing in those ears, nose, body, stomach, hands, and legs. This is wrong. [The woman interjects that she still does not have the will to live.] Bawa Muhaiyaddeen: Even a beautiful apple tree has a limit, does it not? Think about this. If you look at an apple tree you will understand. An apple tree bears fruit, and from a single seed come many branches, leaves, flowers, and fruit. As the tree grows and is laden with more fruit, its burden increases. The branches bend down, but it continues to bear the weight of the fruit. The tree neither eats its own fruit nor blames the fruit for its burden. Birds come to eat the fruit, cows and goats relish the fallen apples, and finally the farmer comes and picks the apples. If the farmer has guarded the tree, he may pick the apples. Otherwise a thief, a satan, comes and takes them away. Therefore, the farmer must guard the tree. Then he can pick the fruits and distribute them to others. The tree bore the weight of all the apples and yet does not eat even a single fruit.
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Reflect a little about what an apple tree does. If you live your life in that manner, if you do your duty like that, it will be very good. I never married. I have no children, yet I have many thousands of children. I have many brothers and sisters, younger and older. I did not give birth to any children, but I have so many children. I did not get married, but God gave me many, many children. God is One. I married Him. I married this one God, and He gave me so many children and so much work. I have to feed a child on one side, give milk to another on the other side, carry one child on my back, and lift another onto my shoulder. One kicks my back, one kicks my chest, one bites my hand, and one bites my nose. But what does it matter? It does not hurt at all. I am not distressed, troubled, or saddened. When their teeth grow, children bite, but I just brush that aside and carry them again. [The woman asks, Is there any hope for me in the future?] Bawa Muhaiyaddeen: Once I asked God (my own Father, Husband, Brother, and Soul), You have placed a limit on everything. Everything in creation has a limit. Everything comes to an end, and people call it fate, destiny. What is this destiny (nasb)? What is its conclusion? I asked this question one hundred and fourteen years ago. To this He replied, I have given you My kingdom, My purity, My light, and My wealth. I have given you the kingdom of God, the kingdom of hell, and the kingdom of the world. I have given you My soul. I have given you everything. I have given you death and birth, that which is deathless and that which is birthless. I have given you every wealth. I have given you wisdom. I have given you grace. I have given you darkness. There is good and evil, and I have given you everything. You have to understand these things. If you do understand, it will be good. You are the cause of death, and you are the cause of birth. You are the cause of grief, and you are the cause of joy. You are the cause of deathlessness and the cause of birthlessness. The limit you garner for yourself is your destiny. That is your limit, your destiny. You are the one to do this. I gave you everything, and you implement these things yourself. You should know what dies and what does not die, what is born and what is without birth. You should understand and distinguish what is good and what is evil. You must understand who I am and who you are. You must understand what is eternal and what is perishable. You have been given the destiny of understanding this comprehensively. This is destiny! You understand it, and you tally up the accounts! When you discover your profit, when you know what is productive for you, you will attain the benefits. But if you do not discover this, it will be your loss. Calculate this limit and these accounts. This is your destiny! When I gave birth to the body, I did not give you anything. When I formed your body, I did not show you this world, the Divine world, or the world of hell. I sent you in perfect purity. You were My baby, My prince, My princess. I carried you then, and when you return, I will carry you in the same way. If you come back in the same state, I will carry you, and you will be My baby once more. In the same way
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that I carried you before, I will carry you on your return. Know and realize this state. The way in which you went and the way in which you return determine whether I can carry you or not. If you come in a carry-able state, I will carry you. But if you change and deviate from this state, I cannot carry you. Your knowing this is your destiny. You create this. I created this show and formed you out of twenty-seven letters. There is one dark letter, and the other twenty-seven are light. This is your form. It is the zodiac. The twenty-seven letters are the twenty-seven stars that constitute the 12 signs of the zodiac. There is a six-pointed star with six wisdoms inside. Within this is the almanac of five letters (panjngam). This inner heart created of five letters1 has six points and six wisdoms.2The five letters are the almanac. Think about this. Earth, fire, water, air, and ether are the five letters. This is your form. Understand it! The sixth letter is the six wisdoms. Together they constitute the six-pointed star. There are twelve signs of the zodiac ( rsi), and nine planets (navagraham) that cause agitation: two nostrils, two eyes, two ears, one mouth, and two openings below. The eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and the openings below will all churn you around. They are the nine planets. Thus, you are the nine planets. Of the twelve zodiacal signs, I am in the arsh [Gods throne in the crown of the head], and the Nr, My light, is here [in the center of the forehead, the kurs]. One sign is in the navel. It was cut away and sealed because of its poison. Ten of the twelve signs are sinful; they are the ten sins.3 You must understand them. If you open the gnostic eye, the kurs, and see Me, you will know that I am in the arsh. There is a connection between the arsh and the kurs. Avoid the ten signs and understand the twoyou and I. You are the light and I am the Resplendence. Understand this. These are the twelve signs, the zodiac. If you look at the twelve signs, you see animals and even reptiles: a crab, a lion, a bull, a goat, a fish. You will not see a [true] human being, just animals. Ten [signs] are like this. When you become a human being, you become a light. Then you will see Me. When you become Me, you will be complete. Until then, there are twelve zodiacal signs and twenty-seven stars. I created you out of twenty-seven lettersyou are the zodiac, and you are your destiny. Calculate and analyze this. This is the nujmcalculation 4 the analysis and calculation of your destiny. When you understand this, you will be a Nujmi. When you understand and analyze this, you are the son, and I am God. This is what God said. These are the twelve signs of the zodiac. The nine planets that churn you are the eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth, and two openings below. One has been cut away and sealed [the navel], and two have to be opened [the arsh and the kurs]. When you see God, you will be the son. When you reach this state you will be God. This is what He said. This is the zodiac. These are the planets. Understand this!
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Footnotes
1. Five letters: Mans heart is composed of five letters, alif, lm, mm, h, and dl. Alif represents God, lm represents the light of God ( Nr), mm represents the eternal messenger of God (Muhammad), h represents the physical body, and dl represents the world. In the heart of a true
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human being these letters are transformed to alhmd which is the praise of GodAll praise is to You, O God; You are the glory and greatness that deserves all praise. 2. Six wisdoms: The six wisdoms are perception (unarchi), awareness (unarvu), intellect ( pudthi), judgment (mathi), wisdom (arivu), and divine analytic wisdom (pahuth arivu). The seventh wisdom is divine luminous wisdom (perr arivu). 3. Ten sins: The ten sins are those wrought by the five elementsearth, fire, water, air, and ether and by mind, desire, arrogance, karma, and maya. 4. Nujm Nujm: The Arabic word ilmun- nujm refers to the knowledge of ancient astronomical calculations through which astrological horoscopes were charted. In this context, the author uses the word to mean mans own analysis of the zodiac within his body to calculate and chart his destiny. Trans.
The Arrogance of the Puffed-Up Frogs

My love you, my grandchildren, my brothers and sisters, my sons and daughters. It is twilight now, and the sun is low in the sky. Shall we go out for some fresh air? Come with me. This park is a very nice place. Everybody comes here to breathe in the fresh air and feel healthy. Do you see the well over there? People can draw water from it when they are thirsty. Let's go closer and look inside the well. Oh, look at all the frogs down there! They eat the germs and bacteria in the water, making it cleaner for drinking. Look at them jumping up and down, leaping here and there, and pulling on each other. They seem to be fighting. But why? Are they fighting over food? Are they competing for insects? Let's watch some more and see if we can discover why they are fighting. Ah, there is the cause! It's not food they are fighting over. The two biggest frogs are both claiming that they are the greatest. Each one thinks he should be the leader. All the other frogs are frightened by their size and are diving deeper into the well to escape. But the two big frogs are challenging each other. They are full of pride and the qualities of the I. Look, my grandchildren, they are trying to swallow each other! But both of them are the same size. What do you think will happen? Let's watch and see. Don't chase them away. If we break up the fight now, they will only start another fight later. Let them finish their quarrel, or they will never have any peace. Look, the first one has a good hold on his opponent and has swallowed his front legs. Do you see how his stomach is beginning to swell. But the second one has also swallowed the hind legs of the first and he too is puffing himself up. Now both of them have lost all the strength in their free legs, which
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are tiny and useless in comparison to their inflated bodies. Neither of them can jump any more. Each frog has swallowed half of the other, and they can't breathe. Oh, no! Both frogs have died! They tried to swallow each other, and as a result both have suffocated and are floating belly up in the water. My grandchildren, sometimes men also try to swallow each other, like these puffed-up frogs. And just like the little frogs who dove deeper into the well, good people become afraid and try to escape when they meet a man who is puffed up with pride and the arrogance of the I. It does not take long, however, until another arrogant man comes along to challenge him. They each boast, "I am the greatest!" Then, just like the big frogs, each man catches hold of the other and swallows half of him. They torture each other, and in the end they both die. Frogs challenge each other out in the open, one on one. But men torment each other in a devious, vengeful, and jealous way. One person kills another, then a third person attacks the winner, and soon they all die, just like frogs. My grandchildren, a female frog lays so many millions of eggs, and hundreds of thousands of them hatch. They all live together, but then, because of their arrogance, they fight with each other and die. Like this, animals and human beings have been slaughtering each other for two hundred million years. And this destruction has been growing worse all the time. You have seen this fighting, haven't you? You must be very careful not to catch this disease. Each man causes his own death by letting them grow inside himself. Eventually, someone else with the same disease will come looking for him, and soon both will die from their arrogance. When you see arrogance, do not confront it. Why should you point out people's arrogance to them? Their time will come, and they will destroy themselves. Those with wisdom who are devoted to God and trust Him must hide from the karma, arrogance, illusion, and pride of the world. Like the little frogs who dove into the well to escape from the big frogs, you have to hide. People with wisdom must dive in God, truth, and wisdom. They must escape by disappearing into love, peace, and tranquility. This is what you must do in your lives, my grandchildren. Become human beings and search for the qualities of peace. Arrogance will always take on new forms, so you must be alert and do your best to escape. Hide in the truth. Hide yourselves in the qualities of the One who is unfathomable grace. Take on the natural and beautiful light form which is God's compassionate, just, and loving form.
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Reflect wisely and try to fill yourselves with good thoughts. You and I must try to live in God's protection. My love you, my grandchildren. God is sufficient for us. He will protect us Amin. Amin. - M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Come to the Secret Garden: Sufi Tales of Wisdom
Quotes by M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen

"Peace, unity, and equality...when we are in one place, when we live in one place, eat in one place, sleep in one place, disappear in one place, die in one place, when our final judgment is given in one place, and when we finally join together in heaven in one place, that is unity. Even when we go to that (final) place, we all live together in freedom as one family, one group. In this world and in the next world we live together in freedom, as one family of peace. This is Islam. If we find this way of peace, this is Islam." M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, Gods Psychology: A Sufi Explanation
Prophet Muhammad, the Rasulullah (Sal.), placed the Qur'an in the hands of his followers and said, "In order to understand this, go even unto China to learn divine knowledge ('ilm)." Within one word in the Qur'an, there are thousands of meanings. Don't hold onto to just one meaning. Look within and there will be another meaning. Within that is another meaning, and within that is still another. As you uncover meaning after meaning, you will see Allah at the very end. When you go beyond all the messengers (rasuls) and look within, you will find Allah. The angels are also there. Go beyond them and look, go beyond everything and look, and then you will see heaven. Go beyond heaven, and Allah is there. Do not pray for heaven. Go beyond and look. Allah will be there." M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, To Die Before Death: The Sufi Way of Life
We must give peace to our brothers and sisters in each circumstance, no matter what path they go on. We must give them peace, so that difficulty does not come to them. Whether they go there, here, here or anywhere, we must only give them peace. Love must be our only form. Love is our path
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towards our brothers and sisters. Compassion must be our point of unity. This is our union. This is union with God. Our union is compassionate union on the path to God. We have come through the ages together; that is union." M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, Suratur-Rahmah: The Form of Compassion
Live with that faith that your body and your soul do not belong to you. Then God will share the suffering that comes to you. Place your trust in God all the time; in every moment say, O God, this is Your property, Your duty. One who was born as a man and has lived as a man will exist in this state. For whatever happens he will say with contentment and gratitude, All praise belongs to God, alhamdu lillah. For what might come in the next moment, he will say, It is Your responsibility, O Allah, tawakkul-alallah, and praise Him." M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, The Golden Words of a Sufi Sheikh
Each of us who came here with wisdom must learn from this school. Heaven does not come from building beautiful churches, mosques, and temples. Man must build his church, mosque, and temple within himself. The house of God must be built within. The place of worship must be seen within. The completeness of God must be built within the self. If man can understand his story and the story of God and then build a church within himself, that is victory." M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, The Wisdom of Man
There is a Power, a Power that controls the moon, the stars and the sun. It is a Power that can burn all other powers. It is the Power that pervades each atom, all that is finite, all that is infinite, a Power that no one can see...It has no assistance. It is completely alone. Original." M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, The Point Where God and Man Meet
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O man, no matter what you have studied or how much you have studied, do not follow the ways of your mind with conceit in your learning. Ask a man of wisdom who is on the path and follow his directions. If you do not meet a man of wisdom, lay your heart open and ask even a tree or a wall. The power of God within your heart called conscience will caution you and guide you. It will say, "Go," or "Don't go," "Right," or "Wrong." If your heart is open, your conscience will provide useful fruit which will benefit your journey through life. M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, The Golden Words of a Sufi Sheikh
If you try, everything you strive for will come close to you, and you will reap the benefit. May God give you that help, that grace, that wisdom, and His qualities. May He do what is good. If you believe in Him, He will never let go of you. If you intend Him, He will come looking for you. If you call Him, He will call you. If you love Him, He will love you. If you search for Him, He will search for you. Know this. Amin. Amin. M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, My Love You, My Children: 101 Stories for Children of All Ages
My children, Allah's greetings of peace and supplications, His salams and salawats, resonate there in that water of divine knowledge. There you will find His representatives, His prophets, His olis, qutbs, auliya' and all those who know Him. Every second, every minute, they are praying and resonating with that beauty of Allah. Whoever falls into this water of divine knowledge will keep changing, until the taste of Allah is within him and he becomes the beauty of Allah. M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, A Mystical Journey
God bestows His Compassion upon all beings, always, and His Love and His Way is to bring lives together by pressing them together. God possesses a Love which spreads and intermingles with all lives. In the same way, among human beings there is also such a true Love, such a true, real feeling. When that Love is operating, when it is working, then it is God's work to take it and put it in its appropriate place. That is the Form of Love. That Love, that Divine Love, has brought us together as
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one. M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, Truth & Light: Brief Explanations
Each of us who came here with wisdom must learn from this school. Heaven does not come from building beautiful churches, mosques, and temples. Man must build his church, mosque, and temple within himself. The house of God must be built within. The place of worship must be seen within. The completeness of God must be built within the self. If man can understand his story and the story of God and then build a church within himself, that is victory. M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, The Wisdom of Man
What has to die will die, and what has to remain will remain. Supposing you dig a well and the water dries up. Just because the well went dry, you cannot say that there is no water there. You cannot say that the spring is dead, for if you dig down one more foot, water will again spring up. If people will only dig a little deeper, they will find the water there. Of course, they can say, There is no water in the well any more, and go away. But those who have real thirst will dig a little deeper, and they will find water there. What is will always be. That which dies is dead and gone, but that which is will always be. M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, Questions of Life - Answers of Wisdom Vol.1
The real fast is the blossoming of the inner heart. Fragrance must emanate. The qualities, conduct, behavior, and disposition that accompany this blossoming make no sound. Light and fragrance must dawn in the inner heart. The one point which is God must resplend. Do fast, but make sure the heart blossoms; make it fragrant. The flowering scent must emanate, and when that space is perceived, the One who inhales that perfume will come. The One who perceives that fragrance will come. He is the Lord. M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, The Fast of Ramadan: The Inner Heart Blossoms
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My beloved children, who are the pupils of my eyeTruth is silent. If Truth has dawned within you, then there will be no further speech. It is silence, and silence is the greatest Truth, the best question. If there is no Truth, then there will be a lot of talk and questions. One is good and the other is bad. If there is good within you, there will be no further noise within. But if you are full of bad, there will be so much of talk, speeches and questions. Therefore, seek the good. God does not make a noise. If you need anything, then you will have only to knock, and if you are tuned to that point, with the sound of that knock you will get an answer immediately. No noise, you don't have to make a sound. This is the Truth. M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, God, His Prophets, and His Children
Before we try to destroy someone else, we should first pass judgment on ourselves. Before finding fault with others, we must first pass judgment upon ourselves. Before we backbite others, we must first pass judgment upon our selves. Before we lie about others, we must first judge ourselves. Before we hurt the heart of another, we must first pass judgment on ourselves. Like that, we have to pass judgment on our thoughts and on all actions done by our eyes, ears, nose, hands, and mouth. The guilty ones are within our own body and mind. These are our qualities which exist in our actions. All these qualities exist within us, do they not? So we have to pass judgment on them. That is the state of Iman-Islam. That is what is called Islam. To first see the fault in yourself and then to pass judgment and correct yourself is true justice. Those who perform that justice are in the religion of truth. They are the leaders of the religion of truth. They are in the state of Iman-Islam. They are the true believers. M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, Benefit to All
Children of any religion who have true faith must realize that God is the only One who knows all of everything. Therefore, only God can judge whether a person has faith, certitude, and determination or not and whether a person lives with that purity that can be called Islam or not. No one else can give that judgment. Do not wave your religion like a banner and go out to capture others. Only one kind of war is permissible in the eyes of God: the war you wage within yourself to defeat the demonic forces of lust, anger, jealousy, desire for revenge, and other evil feelings and attributes that may exist within your heart. God has sent each of the prophets as witnesses to the grace of God and as supports to help us in this inner war. This is the reason for the Qur'an. It is to help the true Muslim fight this
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inner battle and win victory over his own base desire's that God sent the Messenger with the Qur'an. M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, The True Meaning of Islam
Here and in the hereafter, we must embrace all those who with absolute faith accept Allah in their hearts. We must pray to Allah in a state of unity, peacefulness, and truth, and then give greetings of peace to each brother. Standing face to face, our eyes looking directly into our brother's eyes, our hands clasping his hands, and our hearts embracing his heart with love, we must say, "May the peace of God be upon you." This is the unity and beauty of Islam, the beauty that Muhammad (Sal.) brought to the people. Wherever we go, our hearts must be in that state. Our prayers must be onepointed, directed toward the same place, toward Allah, the One who is truth. If we can recite the praises of Allah and the Prophet, then look each other in the eye, give peaceful greetings, and embrace each other if we can achieve that oneness of the heart with all lives, then we will be true believers. M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, Islam & World Peace: Explanations of a Sufi
"What we are slaves to will prevent us from praying to God. If we are slaves to all the thoughts we think, if we are slaves to everything our eyes see, if we are slaves to all the music our ears hear, if we are slaves to everything the nose smells and the tongue tastes, if we are slaves to everything the body wants, then how can we ever reach a state of peace? We can never know peace or tranquility this way. We have to escape from this slavery and become a slave only to God." M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, Questions of Life Answers of Wisdom, Vol.1
"The more you make yourselves humble and ask for forgiveness, the more your true exaltedness is seen. Humility is a sign of exaltedness. The preface of a spotlessly pure heart (Iman-Islam) is patience (sabur), contentment and gratitude (shakur), having trust in God (tawakkal), and praising Him for everything that happens to us, saying, Al-hamdu lillah! Therefore, without feeling shame, ask forgiveness whenever necessary. This will be good. Allah, the Lone One who rules and sustains (Allahu taala Nayan), will protect you and me." M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, To Die Before Death: The Sufi Way of Life
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"My loving children, my children who were created with God's beauty, my wise children, whatever difficulty you may have, do not ever leave His charge. Just as the prophets of God kept their faith firm and were tolerant in spite of the problems they had, no matter what difficulties you may experience, be tolerant, be forbearant and embrace all living things as your own life." M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, The Tree That Fell To The West: Autobiography of a Sufi
"To wage war within oneself is Islam; the real fight is an inner one. To dispel evil qualities, evil thoughts, and the differences that lead to separations is Islam. To wage war upon jealousy, envy, and vengeance is Islam. To cut out and discard the qualities of Satan and to fill ourselves with the qualities of Allah is Islam. To show a heart full of love to our brothers and sisters is the wealth of Islam. " M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, Islam & World Peace: Explanations of a Sufi
"Have good thoughts in your lives. Have good manners, be polite, and have good actions. Be good, have love, and be patient. Never think of harming others. Only think of helping people. Think that others should be made better and that you should be made better. That is how your heart should be. Always wish good things for other people. If you do, then your life will never be ruined, and you will progress higher and higher, and your brothers and sisters will also become exalted. Please think about this. Amin. May God give you His grace." M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, My Love You, My Children: 101 Stories for Children of All Ages
"In God's kingdom there is no fighting. He rules over both kingdom of hell and the kingdom of heaven, giving each of His creations what is due to them, but taking no share for Himself. God is One. He proclaims, My religion is to recognize all lives as ones own life, all religions as ones own religion, all languages as ones own language, all vision as ones own vision. It is in this state that God
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conducts His kingdom. He has no partialities, no religious differences, and prejudices based on skin color, whether it be black, red, white, or yellow. In His kingdom, there is no fighting." M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, Questions of Life Answers of Wisdom, Vol.1
"Everything in this world changes; only God remains the same forever. If mankind will realize this truth, then we can avert disaster by coming together with faith in God and living in unity and compassion. Do not live divided. With compassion for each other, live in unity and truth, in the presence of God. Live according to justice and conscience, respecting the lives and bodies of all others as your own, and knowing the hunger and the suffering of others as your own. Have patience, contentment, trust in God, and live praising God at all times, and peace will be easy. " M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, Islam and World Peace: Explanations of a Sufi
"The things that change are not our real life. Within us there is another body, another beauty. It belongs to that ray of light which never changes. We must discover how to mingle with it and become one with that unchanging thing. We must realize and understand this treasure of truth. That is why we have come to the world." M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, Questions of Life Answers of Wisdom, Vol.1
"One who has not found peace within himself will forever be giving speeches about peace. This world is a pulpit upon which man preaches, and there is no end to this talk! For millions of years man has been speaking this way, but he has not come forward to first find peace within himself. There is no use in making speeches. Man must acquire the qualities of God and live in that state. Only then can he speak of peace, only then can he speak the speech of God and dispense the justice of God's kingdom." M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, Islam and World Peace: Explanations of a Sufi
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"The prayers you perform, the duties you do, the charity and love you give is equal to just one drop. But if you use that one drop, continue to do your duty, and keep digging within, then the spring of Allah's grace and His qualities will flow in abundance." M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, Sheikh and Disciple
"Son, you must not find fault with any of God's creations. You must realize that the center is within you. If you open your wisdom, stand in the center, and look intently at yourself, you will understand the point. Do not waste your time trying to analyze other people: if you look at others and try to figure out what they are like, everything will go wrong, because each person sees his own faults in others. " M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, Golden Words of a Sufi Sheikh
"People with wisdom know that it is important to correct their own mistakes, while people without wisdom find it necessary to point out the mistakes of others. People with strong faith know that it is important to clear their own hearts, while those with unsteady faith seek to find fault in the hearts and prayers of others. This becomes a habit in their lives. But those who pray to Allah with faith, determination, and certitude know that the most important thing in life is to surrender their hearts to Allah." M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, Islam and World Peace: Explanations of a Sufi
"This is the only path on which we can proceed with ease. It is the path to the freedom of our soul. Therefore, may we protect ourselves and give love to others. May we protect others as we would protect ourselves, love our neighbors as ourselves, and make all mankind our relatives, our brothers and sisters. May we make everyone our loved ones and help them become those who trust in God. May we all go together on this path as the followers of God, as the representatives of God, as the children of the one Father." M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, To Die Before Death: The Sufi Way of Life
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" There is One God. He created all beings, And He exists beyond the beyond of religions, Beyond the separations of race, Religion, and philosophies. He is beyond mind, desire, and physical vision He is beyond the world, lust, torpor, and illusion. God resides in that spotlessly pure place known as the heart And sees and knows everything. He sees each and every heart and mind and understands all things. " M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, God's Light Magazine, Vol. 1 #4
"If you have faith in that one treasure which is God, His truth, and the wealth of His grace, if you assume His good qualities and His actions, God will always be with you. Whether you feel happy or sad, in sickness or in health, in sunshine or in rain, His wealth will always be yours and will always give you peace, happiness, and comfort any time you need it. This is the only thing which can protect you and take care of you. Nothing else is of any use. You must, therefore, have faith in God, the One Treasure, who is always with you, who always takes care of you. He is your shade in the heat of the sun. He is an umbrella in the rain and the happiness in your sorrow. He is always there to help you in any situation. " M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, My Love You, My Children: 101 Stories for Children of All Ages
"Always use positive words, and never use negative or evil words. Cultivate good thoughts, not bad thoughts. Make sure your intentions are constructive intentions. Never be jealous; be grateful. Be tolerant, peaceful, and honest instead of vengeful. Always be compassionate, never proud and arrogant. Praise God, because God is the Deserving One. You need these in your life. If you can teach
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yourself to follow these suggestions, you will have a very good life." M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, God's Psychology
"Look at yourself. You came into this world, but what you have to realize is that you came from Him and you must return to Him. The light within you has to merge with that One Light. Then the dark show of life will disappear. My love you, my children. This is the most important thing to understand in life." M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, Come To The Secret Garden: Sufi Tales of Wisdom
"What we are slaves to will prevent us from praying to God. If we are slaves to all the thoughts we think, if we are slaves to everything our eyes see, if we are slaves to all the music our ears hear, if we are slaves to everything the nose smells and the tongue tastes, if we are slaves to everything the body wants, then how can we ever reach a state of peace? We can never know peace or tranquility this way. We have to escape from this slavery and become a slave only to God." M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, Questions of Life Answers of Wisdom, Vol.1
Whenever you look, God is there. But is He a rock or a stone or a sun or a moon or a bone? No. His sound is there and His warnings are there. You can see Him. You can see His sound, His words, His speech. You can listen to the commandments given to the prophets, because they have not gone away. They are within us. We have come here to learn about the creations, about God's secret, and about God's grace. We are the form of light. There are six kinds of lives and we are the form of light. We have come here to learn the sirr, the secret connection between ourselves and His power, to study our Father and the story of where we were before. Within this body, within this show, there is much we must learn. We have come here to learn, not to dance on this dramatic stage or to watch show after show. We have come here to open and look within everything and see our Father. Each thing that we enjoy or feel sorrow about must be opened, and we must see God within. That is the lesson we have come to learn.
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"Know the qualities in each one's heart and then serve him. But first, try to know your own heart. Only then can you understand the hearts of others. If you have that understanding, then whatever words you speak and whatever duty you perform will be true duty, God's everlasting duty. If you are in that state, the love you give to each one will be God's complete love. In every situation, perform your duty with this understanding. " M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, My Love You, My Children: 101 Stories for Children of All Ages
"To all those who say they believe in God, please realize with faith that God hears every word you say. God hears your every thought. Realizing this, speak only what is truth and act only with God's qualities of love, compassion, justice, patience, and the realization that each life is as important as your own." M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, January 10, 1979
"Within your heart in a space no bigger than an atom, God has placed the 18,000 universes, good and evil, and the wisdom to differentiate between them. That is your farmland. If you plow that land deep with your wisdom and sow God's qualities and actions with the knowledge of the difference between good and evil, you will receive the wealth of your soul, the bountiful harvest of undiminishing grace." M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, The Golden Words of a Sufi Sheikh
"Have good thoughts in your lives. Have good manners, be polite, and have good actions. Be good, have love, and be patient. Never think of harming others. Only think of helping people. Think that others should be made better and that you should be made better. That is how your heart should be. Always wish for good things for other people. If you do, then your life will never be ruined, and you will progress higher and higher, and your brothers and sisters will also become exalted. Please think about this. Amin. May God give you His grace." M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, My Love You, My Children: 101 Stories for Children of All Ages
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"O man, no matter what you have studied or how much you have studied, do not follow the ways of your mind with conceit in your learning. Ask a man of wisdom who is on the path and follow his directions. If you do not meet a man of wisdom, lay your heart open and ask even a tree or a wall. The power of God within your heart called conscience will caution you and guide you. It will say, Go, or Don't go, Right, or Wrong. If your heart is open, your conscience will provide useful fruit which will benefit your journey through life." M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, The Golden Words of a Sufi Sheikh
"We should not hold on so strongly to those who are going to leave us some day anyway. We should not feel excessive attachment for them. We have to keep it in moderation. But there is One who will never leave us, One who will never perish. God will never leave us, not in the kingdom of heaven, nor in the kingdom of hell, nor in this world. And since judgment is in His hands, He is the only attachment we must have. If we hold on to only that one attachment, then we will have joy throughout our lives and even at the time of death. On Judgment Day we will know that joy, because we will be with Him." M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, Questions of Life Answers of Wisdom, Vol.1
"Our house is God's house. If our state is correct, our heart (qalb) is God's house, God's kingdom, God's justice, love, compassion, and unity. Before this state of beautiful peace and unity comes, we need a place in which to meet, unite, understand, think, and reflect every minute and second, establishing relationships of unity and peace. Instead of wasting time in the world, we can go to this place five or six times a day to do prayers and worship. We can gather at God's house, focus on God, think about God, pray to God, and remember God. It is for this purpose that we are building this place." M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, March 10, 1983
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"You must place your faith in the one indestructible, imperishable God. To do this, you must stop depending on the kings, forces, and armies within you. When you give up all this and stand defenseless and alone, saying, O God, it is all Your will! The sheikh will stand by your side. It is only when you surrender to Allah that the sheikh, who is the explaining wisdom of the Qutbiyyat which guides you on the path of God, will come to stand by your side. 'Son' he will say, 'Now you are ready. Come, let us go'." M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, The Golden Words of a Sufi Sheikh
The Meaning of the Fast

O God! Through Your benevolence You have given us Your sustenance and grace (rahmat). 1 Please grant us the intention and yearning to accept these gifts and live our lives. Please give us the intention to offer prayers and service with a melting heart. O Grace of all universes! Please give us the resolute faith (mn), certainty, and conviction to accept what You have given and live our lives. Even for those who do not do this, for all those who do not live their lives trusting You, O Father, You have amplified Your sustenance, making it equal and common to all. You have created the world, Your grace, and everything to belong to all. And You have made man to be the most exalted. You created him and gave him Your wisdom, Your qualities, and Your grace, so that he may live in equanimity, peace, and serenity, show compassion and love to all lives, and regard all lives as his own. But for those who have forgotten Your words, You have sent down this fast to help them understand. You have instituted the five duties and shown these to be important through the Rasl, 2 may the peace and blessings of God be upon him. This fast will bring realization to each heart. This is why You made it thrive. The fast has been here for two hundred million years, from the time of Adam (A.S.) until the present. Your words taught the children of Adam (A.S.), who are true human beings. You taught them gradually, one thing at a time. But because they forgot, lost their equanimity, did not consider other lives as their own, and focused on their own bodies and their own hunger without realizing the hunger of others, You instituted the five tasks of mn-Islm. 3 You handed them to the Rasl (Sal.) as divinely ordained duties (fards), so that man would do what was instituted, so that he would grow, realize, attain clarity, and make Allahs common wealth common to all. You have said that everything, the earth, fire, water, air, and ether, the sun, moon, stars, grass, and shrubs, should belong to all. You have decreed that each should be given the sustenance that is his. But the wealth that You spread out for everyone was not disbursed in this way. Man appropriated this wealth and made it his own. He fell subject to selfishness, took what belonged to all lives, and created scarcity today. For man to realize what he had done, You, O God, said, O
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Muhammad, make man realize, make these into ordained duties, make them understand these five tasks. Allah taught this with His divine grace. Allah declared, These will be the tasks which are the ordained duties. This common wealth will be made common to all lives. These are the duties that will show all lives how to share the common wealth. The first duty is to believe in Allhu tal, the Singular God who rules and sustains. Believe in Him and live. Have faith in Him. Have certainty and worship Him. Realize that He has no form or shape and cannot be contained by anything. He has no hunger or illness, no old age or death, no wife or child, no house or property, no wealth or possessions, no titles, no passion, no sex or sexual games, no birth or death. He existed before the primal beginning. Know that He is the Supreme Being, and have faith and certitude in Him. Know that His wealth is given equally to all. I have created the nourishment for each life. Offer prayers and worship to Me alone. This is what He decreed. I worship him who worships Me. I think of him who thinks of Me. I seek him who seeks Me. I believe in him who believes in Me. I speak to him who speaks to Me. If he calls Me once, I call him ten times. If he cries once, I cry for him ten times. Thus declared Allah with His words of grace. He said this to the prophet Muhammad Mustafa Rasl, may the peace and blessings of God be upon him. He declared this and instituted the five duties. The first duty is believing in God. The second is praying to God and believing that all things belong to Him. God decreed this so that everyone may live in equality, peace, and equanimity. Because man did not realize this, God introduced another duty, the third duty of charity. Realize this, and share the wealth you have gathered with everyone. Live in equality, everyone! Live in peace, everyone! Live as one life, everyone! Realize the hunger of all lives and serve. Thus declared Allah. But once again man forgot. He claimed things for himself and created difficulties for everyone. He caused sorrow and poverty. He seized land, took away homes and property, and made others destitute. Thereupon, God spoke His divine words of grace: Ya Muhammad, tell the people to fast, and through this, make them realize the difficulties of others. Through the fast, they will understand their own difficulties, and realize how they lose strength and courage. Within a month and ten days, within these forty days, they will experience how their bodies change, lose strength, and become fatigued. Upon perceiving this, may they realize the immense suffering of those who face this all year round. Make them realize this. Make them realize the sorrow and hardship of those who face hunger and starvation, year after year, with no place to live, no house, no land.
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Make them perceive this suffering through the fast, and tell them to give others a place to live. Make them understand the hunger of others and distribute food. Make them give unto others house, land, and clothing similar to their own. May each life be given what is rightfully its own. O Muhammad, tell them this, God declared. But for those whose hearts had stayed as stone, God further stated, Make them fulfill the fifth duty of pilgrimage, Hajj. Hajj is to die before death, to distribute property to wife and children, to give their extra wealth to others, to distribute wealth to the poor, to mendicants, and to travellers. And after distributing all wealth, they should come to the holy places of Mecca and Medina as corpses, while still alive. To fulfill the Hajj, tell man to wear death garb. Let him put the world to death while he is still alive. May he do this and attain the state of eternal life with Me. Make him fulfill this fifth duty. This is what Allah declared with His words of grace. These are the five ordained duties. The fasting we do is one among them. As long as the benefits of fasting are not understood, it will be of no use to fast. Therefore, understand what the fast means, and give in charity. Understand what others need, and give accordingly. Give peace and tranquillity to others. Comprehend the hunger of others and help them. Donate clothing to others. Comfort other lives as your own. Bring others peace. Have patience and tolerance, and shower others with compassion and love. This is the significance and benefit of the fast. However, being hungry for a month is not a fast if we take away others property and freedom, intending to accumulate more for ourselves. Because such acts cause others pain, the fast will not benefit anyone. All lives must think about this and give unto others food, sustenance, house, and land. We must alleviate the hunger of others, comfort them, give them clothing, and make them peaceful. This will be the reward of the fast. Allhu tal, the Singular One who rules and sustains, declared fasting to be the fourth duty. It was instituted as such on the path of purity (dnul-Islm). These are the five outer duties of Islam important duties, God instructed. My precious jeweled lights of my eyes, may we understand the benefits of this fast. May we understand the qualities, actions, and wealth of God, the Supreme One.
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May we understand the qualities and hunger of our brethrenthose born with us, and our neighbors. May we consider our neighbors as those born with us, and may we comprehend their garb and their countenance. May we bestow peace and show them the way to equanimity. These are the benefits of the fast. Each of you should act in keeping with these benefits. To attain the rewards of this practice, the fast was decreed. The significance of this fast is its worth. Its worth is your paradise. To live in this manner is exalted. To fast in any other way will not be beneficial. To understand this is to fast. To realize this and act accordingly is to fast. May we establish this state, and live. May we understand the hearts of each of our brethren, understand their hunger, illness, old age, and death, and realize their need for food, clothing, and shelter. And because they live with us, bringing them peace will be the benefit and the fast. Reflect on this, my precious jeweled lights of my eyes. Each child, understand and fast. Understand the reasons for fasting. Know its truth, obligations, and benefits, and strive to do it in this way. Understand how to care for your brethren, and do your duty. God said,O Muhammad! When I create a tree, from each of its seeds I will create a thousand fruits. To create the fruits, I will give the tree My grace. And even if the tree takes the grace for itself, it gives fruits to all, without benefit to itself. In the same way, I give man the ability to give to a thousand men, each giving according to his own heart. If one intends to help others, I will place the wealth of My grace (barakat) 4 in his hands, just as I give barakat to the tree. One who is man can distribute it. Giving to others as the tree gives and making others peaceful, will be the benefit. This is the wealth of grace, the barakat, that I give to each life. I created man, I endowed him, so he could give to all other lives. O mankind! You must understand what I give you. Through one tree, I give fruits to so many. In the same way, through one man, through the barakat that I give him, I can help so many. Sharing this barakat with others will be the ordained duty. In all three worlds, this will be his happiness and wealth. Man must realize this. One by one, each man must understand. I create a thousand seeds from one seed. A thousand seeds change into millions of seeds and help mankind. They do not claim any portion for themselves but continue to benefit others, do they not? Similarly, I have made one among every hundred men to be in that state. I have given him wealth to share with others, so that he may look upon others with peace and bring them peace and tranquillity. For every ten million men, I sent down a prophet to the world. Through these prophets, the darkness of mans mind can be cleared. I sent them to bring peace, did I not? In the same way, I have created and placed in the world, a man, one in every hundred, one in every thousand, or one in every ten million.
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And through him I spread My limitless wealth of grace, My rahmat. If he understands My rahmat and does not claim it as his own, if he gives it to others, that will be his earnings. If he does that, I will exalt him. I will unite with him in paradise. I will give him a place in My kingdom. However, if he uses My wealth for himself alone, that very wealth will result in his attaining hell. The desires and attachments he fosters will devour him. That will be the fire of hell. Thus spoke God. Therefore, the sustenance and barakat given to us by the Merciful One should be shared with others. Understanding the hunger of others and helping them, comprehending their countenance and sharing with them, making them peaceful and comforting them this will be our wealth in the three worlds. It will be the earnings of our prayers. It will be the exaltedness of our state. We must trust God, trust that He will reward our faith by granting us His grace, and bestowing on us the Supreme Treasure of the three worlds. Each child must think of this. Understand the duties you need to accomplish in the days of your life. Realize the ordained duties, the principle and the explanation, and accomplish them. Before death and birth come along, we should realize this and live accordingly. We have been born, and one day death will arrive. May we understand this before death approaches, and end earthly attachments. May we extinguish them before we die and attain the eternal life of God. May we attain His qualities and actions and live eternally. To keep hell far away from us in this world and the next, to make this world into heaven and the hereafter into heaven, we should try to dwell in His qualities. We should strive courageously to do this. This is resolute faith, mn. This mn knows that all mankind are children of Adam (A.S.), one tribe, one God. We are one family. There is but one paradise. There is but one society of mankind. Judgment is the same for all. The Doer is One, The Questioner is One, The Creator is One, The Summoner is One, The Giver of life is also that very same One. But it is we who have created the differences by using colors, hues, languages, and races. We have also created religions. But in truth, there is only one family, only one God, and only one abode that is paradise. Each of us must reflect on this, understand, and seek to live in unity as one family. To live in this world as messengers of God, to live as Gods sons in His kingdom, to attain the qualities and actions that govern His kingdom, to be children who have mn, to become Gods children, we
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must do His duties, make the effort to reach the shore, and search with wisdom. That will bear good results. We should search for the house that God, our Lord, bestows, the paradise (firdaus) He bestows, and the heaven He bestows. We should search for these and attain them here. This is the victory of our birth to receive in this world the Supreme Treasure of the three worlds. You must realize and achieve this. This will be the value of the fast, the value of the five duties, and the value of birth. This is the wealth of great worth, the wealth that is beneficial. Each of my children, live in this way. Try hard, realize with faith, and act accordingly. My precious jeweled lights of my eyes, this will be the imperishable treasure of the three worlds. This will be the exaltedness of life. You will be a helper to all lives and bring peace to all lives. All lives will bow down and worship you. This is the state of true man, the exaltedness of man. You will receive the wealth of grace. You will have good virtues and modesty. It will be good to strive hard and search for this. This is an exalted state. This is the exalted wealth of the three worlds. These are sublime qualities. This is exalted wisdom. You will be known as the eminent son who received the power of Allahs grace. Each child, strive hard to achieve this. Act with faith, perform your duties with faith, and before you die, seek the imperishable wealth of the three worlds. mn, mn, Y Rabbal-lamn. So be it, so be it, O Lord of the universes. All praise is to You, O Lord of the universes. Please bestow on My children that grace, that wealth, that explanation, that peace, that tranquillity, and a subtle inner heart. mn. Forgive their sins, bestow grace and wisdom on them, transform their hearts into paradise, and so grace them. Transform their hearts into light, and so grace them. Make their hearts have faith only in Your imperishable wealth, the Treasure of the three worlds, and so grace them.
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mn. Reside within their inner hearts, resonate, provide explanations from within, lead them on the good way, and so grace them. Lead them on the straight way, support them, embrace them to Your breast and feed them with the milk of grace and honey. Nourish them with immeasurable sweet tasting fruits: fruits of love, fruits of grace, and fruits of wisdom. Give them undiminishing sweet tastes by bestowing on them Your sweet tasting treasure, divine gracewisdom (arul gnnam), making them peaceful and tranquil. Please give them the grace to understand and serve all lives as You do. mn, mn, Y Rabbal-lamn. So be it, O Lord of the universes. May the peace, the beneficence, and the blessings of God be upon you. mn.
Footnotes
1. Rahmat: Gods grace, mercy, compassion, benevolenceHis wealth. Everything in God is rahmat. This grace that He bestows is an undiminishing, limitless wealth. 2. Rasl: The prophet Muhammad (Sal.). 3. mn-Islm: A state wherein the pure heart, cutting away all evil, takes on the courageous determination called faith and shines in Gods resplendence. When the resplendence of God is seen as the completeness within the heart of man, that is Imn-Islm. 4. Barakat: The primary meaning of barakat is gracea blessing or spiritual influence which God sends down. Barakat may be found in persons, places, and things. Certain actions may also be a vehicle for blessings and Gods grace. Trans.
The Shepherd and the Tree

A chapter from A Mystical Journey.
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I give you my love, my grandchildren, my sons and daughters, my brothers and sisters. May God help you. Every single part of your body needs Gods help-your heart, your eyes and hands, every muscle, your blood and flesh and bones. You need His grace, His light and His help in your every quality and action. My children, come with me. I have walked along this path before. On this journey there are ten tests for cutting illusion, or maya, and severing the attachments to the world. The ninth test, which you must now pass, concerns the world and the nature of the world. My sheikh, the light form called Nur Muhammad, explained this test to me long ago. Now it is time to show you what he showed me. My children, look off in the distance. Can you see that huge rocky mountain there? Cows, goats, horses, donkeys and many other animals are grazing in the field at the base of the mountain. That land is the world, and it is filled with millions upon millions of grazing beings. When dusk comes, they all climb up the mountain to rest. And in the morning when the light dawns, they come back down to the world again to graze upon the weeds of sin, anger, haste, vengeance, deceit, treachery, property, blood ties and possessions. Yet even while they are grazing upon these evil things, God is unceasingly trying to provide them with good food and to teach them the divine knowledge known as ilm. Above the field, the mountainside is covered with millions of birds and monkeys; bird droppings are scattered everywhere and monkey urine fills the hollows in the rocks. A light rain is beginning to fall and mix with the urine. Look how the animals run to drink from those filthy puddles. My precious children, do you understand what you are looking at? Let me tell you what my sheikh told me about life in this world. The heart is a hard rocky mountain. And what do you find in this heart of stone? All the disgusting things of the world; the waste products of the monkey mind and desire that have been washed down the mountainside by the rainwater of karma, filling all the hollows of that heart with dirty water. Snakes, scorpions and other such creatures come here to this
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hard heart and joyfully imbibe the prejudices of race, religion and caste, the differences of I and you, the desire for land gold and sensual pleasures, and so many other dirty things. They consider this filth delicious and eating it makes them very happy. This is what my sheikh taught me when he brought me here. My children, look at the shepherd standing under the tree over there. Do you know what that tree is? It is called Katpaha Virudcham. It contains the power of God, the light of the grace-awakened wisdom of gnanam. From that power you can receive whatever you ask for, whatever you think of. Come, let us go closer. When my sheikh brought me here, this same shepherd approached us and paid his respects. He carried a flute, a conch, a discus and a staff for herding the animals. Do you know him? He is Qutb Muhaiyaddeen (Ral.). He receives his help from God, from the Katpaha Virudcham, and it is his job to take food from that tree and give it to all people. He is the one who is in charge of the grazing beings that you see. He is the wisdom beyond intellect which teaches, analyzes and controls. That is the state of qutbiyyat. Those who understand and learn this wisdom are human beings, but those who do not are animals. Born in karma, they continue to live in karma, devouring their own hell. Then they themselves are devoured by the earth and fire, only to be born again and again and again. When they first come to the world as human beings, they have six levels of wisdom, but those who fail to understand that sixth level during their lifetime descend to the fifth level in their next birth. From an exalted state they are reborn lower and lower, each time losing more and more of their wisdom, until finally they are born as snakes, scorpions, worms, grubs and insects, without any analytic wisdom whatsoever. The shepherd of all these beings, Qutb Muhaiyaddeen (Ral.), bowed down in obeisance to my sheikh, the Nur Muhammad, and asked us to follow him to a place where there were various daises, or small platforms. Again the shepherd bowed and invited the two of us to sit upon the place reserved for human beings, the dais of grace-awakened wisdom and divine knowledge. Those who are invited to sit here have received Gods grace, His justice, equality, peace and tranquility. Their souls have attained freedom, and they regard all lives as equal to their own. The food given to them by the Katpaha Virudcham tastes different from that which is given to the others. Each being receives whatever is appropriate for his form, his wisdom, thoughts and intelligence, and each will perceive the taste, the sweetness, the light and the honey of this food according to his own qualities.
The Conch and the Flute

My children, it was long ago when my sheikh brought me here and we sat upon this platform. After we sat for a while, the shepherd picked up a conch and flute and blew the conch. My sheikh explained
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to me, This conch is the heart and this is the sound you must make with your heart. The moment the created beings of the world hear that sound, they will all gather round and wait for the music of the flute. The flute is divine knowledge, and the melody it plays is composed of Gods words and actions. You must play this instrument with wisdom and truth, with the music and sound of Gods qualities, and with the faith, certitude, and determination known as iman. The day you reach this state and play this conch and flute, all created beings will come to you for their food. You will be the one who attends to their needs. You must take from the Katpaha Virudcham what each one requires and give it to him. From Gods tree, you must take His grace, His rahmat, and feed it to all creations, even to the weeds, the ants the worms and the eighty-four thousand kinds of insects. You must give to each according to its qualities, actions and needs. My children, this is the connection we must establish between our hearts and God, the One who is our Sustainer and Protector, the One who gives us food and love. With love in our hearts we must praise Him and play the music of the flute for Him. We must say, O God, You are the Katpaha Virudcham, the Pure and Perfect One, the Father of the soul. You are the Most Merciful and the Most Compassionate, the Rahman and the Rahim. You are the One who feeds us, and it is You who must send the food that will fulfill the needs of all these creations. Now children, watch while I play these instruments. First I will blow the conch and then play the flute. Do you see the creations hurrying to eat? Look! Plates of food are floating down through the air to each created being. A plate is also floating toward us, a plate of light with resplendent rays showering in all directions. Look at the ambrosia, the light which comes from God. This is the food for the human beings who have divine analytic wisdom. In each morsel you will find seventy thousand tastes. Now, look at the food which has come to the others. Watch how they eat, like animals. Without even using their hands, they ravenously lap up the food with their mouths. The more they are given, the more they want. Some who have finished their own food are greedily stealing from those around them and frantically trying to devour as much as they can before the next call of the flute. We must watch over them until then. Now, look at the ones who are patiently waiting for the second call of the flute before eating. They are the ones who will one day become human beings. My children, Gods sound must come from the flute and speak to us. Those who find clarity and wisdom in this melody will change into human beings. Those who do not understand will hear the
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flute, but they will not know what it means. Did you notice how some were grabbing the food from one another? That is how animals act. They feast upon the food of others and steal their wealth and property and possessions. Only when they have usurped freedom of others do they themselves feel free. Look closely at those beings. When we first watched them grazing, we assumed they were animals because of their actions, qualities and intelligence. They behaved like donkeys, monkeys, foxes, dogs and other animals. However, my children, if you look closer you will see that their bodies and faces are those of human beings. But this is just the outer form. Look again, even more intently, and you will see all the animals that are deep within them: snakes, scorpions, birds, worms, insects and poisonous creatures. Look at their qualities and the way they eat. What you are seeing is their inner state. My children, one who discards these animal qualities can become a true human being. He can understand the wealth of the soul, the wealth of grace, the wealth of life and true freedom. He can understand the ocean of divine knowledge and receive the wealth from the Katpaha Virudcham, from Gods tree. That tree gives to each person whatever is needed, according to his state and his level of understanding. Did you see the food it brought for you? That food was not grown on the earth; it was not the same as the food the others received. Did you see what came for me? Was it like theirs? No, it was light, the food of the divine knowledge of ilm, the tasty, honeyed food that comes from Gods kingdom. This food is His secret; it contains His taste? His qualities and His actions. You must understand this. Listen! The next call of the flute has come. Those who were waiting have now begun to eat, but some still do not have the wisdom to know how they should eat. Even though they resemble human beings on the outside, they do not yet have enough human understanding to know how to receive what they need from the tree. They only waited for the sound because they were trained to wait, just as they were trained to follow the sounds of their ancestors, who told them to hold onto their race, religion and philosophy. They were simply trained to do what was done by those who came before them, but they do it without understanding. And that is also how they act when they hear the sound from the conch or the melody of the flute. They react automatically, in the way most familiar to them, copying the ways of those who went before them.
The Food of Light

Come, my children, now that the others have finished, it is time for you to eat. The plate made of light may appear to be empty, but it holds a special food that is meant for you. Only your tongue of divine wisdom will know its taste. Place this food on your tongue of divine wisdom and savor it. It is
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the pure and exquisite sweetness of Gods divine knowledge and qualities. Within each drop is the nectar of awakened wisdom and the ambrosia of grace. Place this food on your tongue of divine wisdom and savor it. Each taste has seventy thousand flavors which will satisfy your stomach and sweeten your body and innermost heart. Oh no, look! The animals are coming to steal your food. Do you see how they drool all over your plate with their tongues hanging out? Even though they dont know how to eat this kind of food, they want it, so let us give them some and see what happens. Look at them fight! Its for me! No, its mine! they shout and knock the plate to the ground. My children, those who lack the qualities of human beings and fail to understand the wealth of God, His divine knowledge, wisdom and qualities can never know His taste. Instead, they fight over it and end up knocking it on the ground. They try to devour truth and wisdom and Gods qualities and actions in the same way that animals devour their food, but what do they end up tasting? Only the foul mountain water full of their own feces and urine and the grass at the foot of the mountain. They search for the world, for their birth, and for their karma, and they consider this wisdom. My children, did you observe the way in which those beings treated the plate filled with food for the liberated soul? They knocked it down and trampled it to bits, and now they are busy looking for something else to eat. The creations of the world cannot know the real taste of Gods food. They can only taste it with animal perception, and what they will taste is blood. But when Gods food is tasted with wisdom and Gods qualities, the real taste will be known, resplendent and complete, the sweet taste of the Katpaha Virudcham. That radiant tree of grace is outspread, giving sustenance to all beings in the primal beginning, in this world and in the hereafter, in awwal, dunya and akhirah. Only a true human being can discover the sweetness of that tree. My children, if you understand this explanation, you are a human being, but if you do not, you are still an animal without analytic wisdom. If you have changed those animal qualities, you have become a human being, but if you have not, you are no better than an animal. If your inner form has changed, you have become a real human being, but if it hasnt, you remain only an animal. Now, my children, we will blow the conch and play the flute once again. Most of the human animals have finished their food and are leaving, but look, two are still here watching and waiting. Although they have the appearance of a horse and cow, they seem to understand. Perhaps if the animal qualities within them depart, they will change back into human beings.
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Shall we ask the tree if it is time to go, my children? O Katpaha Virudcham, you have given us our food, and now we ask your permission to leave. Look, the tree has burst into pure light! Can you see how the resplendent brilliance is enveloping us completely? Oh no, the horse and cow are running back to the mountain! When the tree suddenly became ablaze, they could not see it for what it truly was; they could only see darkness, and so they ran away, afraid. That is how some beings react when they perceive the power of light, truth and goodness. They flee in terror, because the selfishness within them makes them perceive that pure light as darkness. Each one will see this tree according to his own state. To those with the qualities and state of an animal, darkness is light and light is darkness. But for the wise man, pure truth is light. My children, this resplendent light is the completeness. It is Gods grace and His ninety-nine duties and actions, His wilayats. This is the Katpaha Virudcham, and its power will give you whatever you ask. Listen! The light which enveloped us has opened and is speaking to us. You have transformed your qualities and passed the ninth test, and you must study for the tenth examination. In this next experience you must learn about death and how to die before death. This is something you must understand. Look, my children. Once again the light has become a tree. And now it is time for us to move on. M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
The Children of Adam (AS.)

A short talk given by M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen from To Die Before Death: The Sufi Way of Life.
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May God protect us from satan, the rejected one. (A'udhu billahi minashshaitanir-rajim.) In the name of God, the Most Merciful, Most Compassionate. (BismillahirRahmanir-Rahim.) May all praise and praising be to Allah, the One who is limitless grace and incomparable love, the One who gives us of His infinite wealth of grace. May He bestow His beneficence and His grace upon us. Amin. He is the One who is the most worthy. With Your grace and beneficence, may You protect us. We need Your help throughout our life. Even in death we need Your help. We need Your help for eternal life (hayat). We need Your help in the hereafter (akhirah), and we need Your help in this world (deny). You are the Father for our lives, the Father who protects us, the Father who sustains us, the Father who creates us and protects us. You are the One who gives us Your grace, the One who is the infinite wealth. You create the light of our soul with such beauty and You protect us. We need Your help everywhere. May You protect us, O God. Amin. Amin. My love you, my brothers and sisters, my daughters and sons, my grandsons and granddaughters. My love you. The creations of God are of many different kinds. We are the children of Adam (AS.). We are all children of one father and mother. Adam (AS.) was created by God out of clay, without a father and mother. Then God took one rib from Adam (AS.) and created Hawwa' (Eve) (AS.). Thus, He also created Hawwa' (AS.) without a father. And in the same way, God created Jesus (AS.) without a father, without semen. So Adam, Hawwa', and Jesus (may the peace of God be upon them all), these three beings were created without semen. The children of Adam (AS.), all who have faith in God and who trust in God are from the family of Abraham (AS.), while those who have lost their faith belong to satan and are from the family of satan. They have changed, and their lives have become lost. All who have faith and who have patience (sabur) belong to the tribe of Abraham (AS.), and it is this state which makes them followers
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of Muhammad (SAL.). They are the same tribe, the same group, with the same truth, all brothers and sisters in one family. It is unity that creates one family, one tribe. There are three aspects to that unity. We all are in one family with the same father and mother, Adam and Eve (AS.). We all have one ancestry, the tribe of Abraham (AS.). And we all are the followers of Muhammad (SAL.); that is, we love, trust, and believe in the One God. Twenty-five prophets have been mentioned in the Qur'an. God gave the same teaching to each of these prophets, one after the other. These twenty-five were amongst 124,000 prophets that God sent down. They could speak with God. Allah spoke to them from within. Other times He spoke to them through Gabriel (AS.), with Gabriel (AS.) as the witness. At other times, He spoke from within them, as grace-to the wise men, to the saints of God, the prophets, the explainers of wisdom, the lights, the learned ones and scholars, the ancient astrologers, and many others.1 We have to reflect upon these things. Our beauty is within us, our search is within us, and our paradise is within us. Heaven is within us. Each person's search, his paradise, his beauty, his light, his purity, and his radiance reside within himself-not elsewhere or within others. Thus, whatever we seek will emerge from within ourselves. It will emerge from our hearts. It will be revealed from our faces. It will manifest in the sounds we make and in our actions. It will show itself in our qualities and in our speech. It will be evident in our conduct. That is how God's beauty is revealedHis qualities can be seen as they emerge from His children. God is the One who knows the state of each child. If you see a mother at the riverside, you do not have to go to the house to see what the child is like, because the mother's beauty and qualities will be reflected in the child. If the mother's qualities are bad, the child will have bad qualities. If the mother is terrible, the child will be terrible. On the other hand, if the mother is beautiful both in looks and in qualities, the child will be also. Our Father, God, is perfect purity, the most Beautiful One, the Solitary One, ill-Allah who is alone. He is the One who rules so many millions and millions of souls and creations, the 8,400,000 different kinds of lives, things that move and things that do not move, things that speak and things that do not speak, things that crawl and things that do not crawl, every current and every energy. He is the cause for the rocks to grow. He is the cause that makes the seeds grow. He is the cause that makes the embryos grow and the atoms grow. If not for Him not even an atom would move. The qualities, actions, and beauty of such a Creator, such an Almighty One, are passed on to us, because He is our Father and our Mother. God is the Pure One, the Beautiful One, the One who is alone, Allahu, our Father. When His qualities, His actions, and His conduct become ours, then He
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becomes our Mother and Father. Who was Adam's (AS.) Mother and Father? God. He created Adam (AS.). In the same way, when we become eternal beings, God becomes our Mother and Father. When we are transformed to the state of eternal life, God is our Mother and Father. In that state, we can know His beauty, His light, His sound, and His qualities, His three thousand gracious qualities and His ninety-nine attributes (wilayats). He does not have the quality of differences. His qualities are those of protecting, sustaining, and giving food, the quality of embracing on the inside and the outside. He is the Emperor. He is the Protector of all the worlds. He is the Almighty One. He is the Great Father, Yahweh. Everything is within Him and He is within everything. Ya Rabbal-'alamin, O Ruler of the universes. Ya Rahman, the Most Merciful, Ya Allah! The One who never diminishes as you go on taking from Him. When His qualities and His beauty come to us, His sound will come to us. He is the Mother of the soul. When that beauty and those qualities come to us, He will embrace us as His children. What other approval do we need? All the animals know God's fragrance, that fragrance. When they perceive that fragrance, all lives worship it. The cows, goats, chickens, and storks, all the animals bow down to it. To the satans, jinns, demons, and ghosts it is a fierce fire. It burns them and they run away. But to all other lives it is a beautiful fragrance. God's light is the fragrance. Evil runs away from it, and goodness embraces it. All that is good will come and join God. All that is evil will be burned. This is the great power of God's qualities. When we receive this beauty, it is visible in our actions. No other proof is needed; the beauty is evident within us. It is apparent in every child. The beauty of the Father shines from the children. The beauty of the Mother is there. The beauty of the eternal Father is there. His sound is there. His qualities come to them. His patience comes to them. The Father's exaltedness is seen in them, and because of this they receive so much respect. They become younger. They do not look like old men or old women. Their faces are clear of wrinkles and shimmer and shine with the beauty of flowing milk. Such is the beauty and greatness of the sound, speech, actions, and conduct of our Father. And when we have that beauty, we will know ourselves. We will know the state where all lives bow down in reverence. Whatever we say will be respected. Everything that comes to our tongues will be sweet. It will be very tasty to the ones with wisdom. But those who have no wisdom will find it a little bitter. Many different kinds of concoctions and herbs and medicines are given to promote strength and vigor and to cure the illnesses of the body. In the same way, God's words, the ocean of 'ilm, of divine knowledge, are given for the freedom, the beauty, and the resplendence of the soul. The taste of that 'ilm is given in so many different ways, through speech, through the breath, and through actions. It nourishes the cage of the soul. It makes the soul young and beautiful and adorns the house in which
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the soul dwells. That beauty comes from that 'ilm and is seen in one's qualities and actions. We can see the proof of this in each child. We can see it in ourselves and in the other children around us. My love you, my children. You will realize the purity of the words in yourself and see the great value in yourself. That greatness and beauty, that form, and those qualities will be seen in you, yourself. When all the words of your Father come within you and shine, that beauty of your Father's words, actions, and conduct will come also into you. The qualities of patience, contentment, surrender to God, and giving all praise to God (sabur, shakur, tawakkul 'alallah, al-hamdu lillah) will enter within you. Allahu Akbar, God is Great. He is the Father to all of us. Is He not the One who is limitless grace? He gives grace. He is the One who gives His beneficence. He gives to all lives. For goodness He gives eight heavens, and for evil He opens the seven hells. Where each person will go is determined by what he sought in life. When we die, nothing will go with us except the good and the evil we have done. Not our race. Not our religion. Not our caste. There will be no inquiry as to what race we are, what religion we are, or what caste we are. Only one thing will be evident, whether we are male or female. That is all. When death comes, our form will change. It will be made of our qualities. If our qualities in the world were like those of a pig, we will take the form of a pig. If we had the qualities of a donkey, we will take the form, the face, of a donkey. If we lived with the qualities of a horse, a snake, or a dog while we were in this human body, then we will assume that form there. The form that we created through our qualities in this world is the form we are going to take after our bodies are claimed by the earth. It is of those forms that the questions will be asked. These forms of dogs, lions, tigers, and others have tongues hanging out that are one-and-a-half feet long. When the word "Kun! (Be!) Arise!" comes, it is these corpses that are raised up. These are the forms you will see when they are raised up. The form each one takes will be according to the benefit each one sought, the property each one gathered, the capital each one earned, and the intentions each one had. When the day of inquiry comes, they do not ask about your caste. The questions that are asked will be, "Who is your Rabb (Lord)? What is your tribe? To whose family do you belong?" "I am a child of Adam (AS.). I am of the good ones, the family of Abraham (AS.), and I am a follower of Muhammad (SAL.)." There are six questions that will be asked. As soon as you see the two angels, Munkar and Nakir (AS.), give them salams with love, saying, "Peace be with you. (As-salamu 'alaikum.) Welcome." Their flaming, fiery faces and fiery eyes will change and become subdued.2 Then one by one the questions will be asked, and you must answer. There will be no place for race, for this religion or that religion. The questions that are asked will be about the One who created us and about
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the one who was created, Adam, insan, mankind. This is what will be asked, and we have to answer these questions. We cannot say we belong to this group or that group. For everyone, God has placed in heaven Adam, Noah, Abraham, Ishmael, Moses, David, Jesus (may the peace of God be upon them all), and finally Muhammad Mustafar-Rasul (SAL.), the chosen Messenger. God has sent Idris, Isaac, Joseph, Jonah, Job, Jacob, Salihu, and Solomon (may the peace of God be upon them all). All were sent by the One God, and that One God gave them their stations. We are all one tribe-human beings. We may be black or white or yellow or brown, but we are all one race-human. What people do in the East, they also do in the West. They kiss the same way, they embrace the same way, they bear children the same way. They do exactly the same things. They eat the same way, although they may have different kinds of food, depending upon what is available in their country. The way a child wails there, a child wails here. "Amo, oh moh! Mow, mee!" A child makes the same sounds whether in the East or West. There, children sleep, wake up, and cry. Here too. No matter what race they belong to, no matter what religion they belong to, they cry in the same way. Do they say different things? No. When they start to talk, they make the same sounds. They sit up the same way. They sway and fall over. They crawl on all fours. This is the human race. What the children come with is the original teaching. What we teach them after that in the schools and in other places is the temporary teachings of differences between races and religions. Before they were all one. If they were asked, "Who is your God? What is your tribe, your family?" they would have given these same answers, "We are the children of Adam (AS.), we are of the family of Abraham (AS.), and we are the followers of Muhammad (SAL.)." These are the three answers that will be given. All the prophets are included in this. These are the answers that come when Munkar and Nakir (AS.) ask the questions. When we are raised up, we will rise up in the form that we have assumed through our qualities. They will say, "Write!" And we will say, "We have no pen, no ink." Then they will say, "Touch your finger to your saliva." "But I have no paper to write on." "Write on your burial shroud. Touch and write. You have the ink. Write down on your shroud all that you have done." When you are raised up tomorrow, you will have to go in the form that you have assumed, and then the judgment will come. O God please protect us. Save us from the suffering in the grave. Save us from the suffering in life. Save us from the suffering caused by our evil qualities. Save us from the qualities of religious and racial prejudice. Save us from the battlefield of "I am different. You are different." Save us from the
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circumstances that surround these battles and murders, the situations where people drink our blood and where one being kills and eats the other. Allah! Protect us and take us on the straight path. Please give us Your grace to always walk freely on Your path. Grant us liberation, divine wisdom (gnanam), Your grace, exalted-ness, light, and paradise in life. Grant us the heaven that is Your wealth (daulat). May You give these to us, O God. Please forgive us our sins, all the sins that we committed before, without knowing, when we were without wisdom. This does not mean that we have attained wisdom. You are the One of wisdom. You are the One of beauty. You are the One who has love and good qualities. You are the One of compassion and patience. You are the One who has equality and tolerance. You are the One with unity and the highest ideals. You are the One who brings us all together as one, and You are the One who rules over all as one. You are the Lord, the King of all kings, the Father of all lives. You are the Leader who protects all lives, the One who is everywhere, ill-Allah. You are the One who is as You are at all times, the One who is alone, the One who is One. You are the Father to the millions of lives, the Eternal Father, the Redeemer of all the worlds, the Eternal Treasure of bliss who exists everywhere as the Lone One, the Leader to all lives that exist as the many. We are Your slaves. May You protect us, O God. May You accept us, O God. May You protect us, O God. O being of eternal bliss, may You forgive all our mistakes. Please forgive us all our faults, O God. Even though we cannot see You, O God, we have trust in our heart (qalb). Even though we do not know You, our qalb trusts You with certitude. It is trying to know You. Even though we do not know how to recite, even though we do not know anything, we believe in You. With our foolish wisdom, we believe in You. May You protect us. Save us who do not know anything. Please forgive us for all the faults we have committed. We do not have divine knowledge ('ilm). We have not learned anything. We do not know how to speak. We do not know how to pray. We do not know how to perform service to God ('ibadat) or the remembrance of God (dhikr). We are doing all this without knowing how. We do not know how to do it. Prayer done without knowing how to pray, Prayer done without knowing any method, The prayer we perform in this world, We pray without understanding prayer and worship. Almighty God, we perform prayer without knowing anything. I do not understand prayer, I do not know about formal prayer (toluhai). I have not learned how to recite or read, I have not learned how to recite or read.
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We are agitating in suspense, living here like corpses, And we scream and wail without knowing divine knowledge ('ilm). I am suffering, not comprehending the differences of race and religion. Perfectly pure Almighty God, I believe that You are One. I am perplexed, not understanding the divisions of race and religion, I believe that my Chieftain, God, is One, And I praise You as the primal, all-pervasive Effulgence. I am Your slave, Your slave, O God who rules us and bestows grace, I am Your slave, Your slave, O God who rules us and bestows grace. Show us how to pray, Teach us how to recite and read, Show us the way to pray and perform service to You ('ibadat). O God, open and reveal the truth to me and my children, O God, show the way to me and my children, O God, show the way to me and my children, Show us the purity of the heart. With Your grace bestow the certitude and absolute faith (iman) With which to worship Your love, To worship that one Treasure in unity, To live together always as one race, To embrace all lives with love as one. Feed us Your grace to embrace with faith and worship The light of grace, the divine luminous light, The radiance of the pearl of gnanam, The light of wisdom, the divine luminous light, The light of the pearl of gnanam, as God. O primal omnipresent Effulgence, May You embrace us and feed us with Your grace, May You forgive all the faults that we have committed unknowingly. You are the God who rules all three worlds, May You embrace us. We are sinners known to no one, Embrace and rule us, O God, Allahu.
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Feed us with Your compassion, Open Your eye and look at us. Earth, illusion (maya), and thoughts come And entice us and make us lose our honor. All the discriminations and differences of race and religion Come and disturb and confuse us. Discriminations of race and religion come and crush us, Every second they torment us. What can we do? What can we do, O God? They are tormenting us, what can we do, O my God? Just as You escaped from all these, May You help us escape from these, O Merciful One. Protect us, O God, Protect and save us, O God, O God who is beyond all imagination, Protect us, O God, Look and bestow Your grace on us, O God. The Treasure of eternal bliss, O Ruler, Qadir, the Powerful One, Dastagir, the Lord, The Eye, the Gem, our Causal Light, The Perfect Completeness, God, Allahu, May You dispel the sorrows of these poor ones And protect all of us. May You dispel the sorrows of these sinners And protect all of us, O God. Look at us all, save us all, O Treasure of eternal bliss. O great Father, O God, O King, Rabbil-'alamin, Lord of all the universes, O Rahman, O Merciful One, We need Your beneficence. Be the Life within our lives. Open the qalb of truth,
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Feed it the honey of grace. Cause the blissful 'ilm, wisdom, clarity, and iman to flourish and grow. You are the fruit of wisdom (gnanam) that makes them grow. I must eat that fruit of wisdom, The fruit of gnanam and the fruit of grace And relish the taste. Please help me and my children, O God of bliss, O God, Ya Rabbal-'alamin, O Lord of all the universes. Amin. As-salamu 'alaikum. May the peace of God be with you. June 3, 1984 Footnotes 1. gnnis, auliy', ambiy', qutbs, olis, 'lims, 'ulam', nujumis 2. A further description of these angels and what transpires in the grave was given by M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen on June 6, 1984 and published in the pamphlet "The Questioning in the Grave."
The Serendib Sufi Study Circle (founded in 1967) is dedicated to learning, practising and propogating the teachings of our beloved Sheikh His Holiness Muhammad Raheem Bawa MIA 123 Tuesday, February 05, 2013
Muhaiyaddeen (Rad). His Holiness Sheikh Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (lovingly called Bawange or Guru Bawa by his devotees) was first found by a group of religious pilgrims in the early 1900s meditating in the jungles of Kataragama in Sri Lanka (Ceylon). Awed and inspired by his personality and the depth of his wisdom, he was invited to a nearby village. Since that time, people of all walks of life from paupers to prime ministers belonging to all religious and ethnic backgrounds have flocked to see Sheikh Bawa Muhaiyaddeen to seek comfort, guidance and help. Sheikh Bawa Muhaiyaddeen tirelessly spent the rest of his life preaching, healing and comforting the many souls that came to see him. He cultivated a farm in Jaffna to feed the many people who came to him and constructed the Mankumban Mosque.
Sheikh Bawa Muhaiyaddeen supervising work on the farm in Sri Lanka.
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The Mosque of Sheikh Bawa Muhaiyaddeen in Mankumban, Jaffna, Sri Lanka.
In 1971, he was invited by his American disciples to Philadelphia, USA. Here too, people from all religious, social and ethnic backgrounds flocked to hear him speak. In Philadelphia, Sheikh Bawa Muhaiyaddeen founded the Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship and constructed the Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Mosque. Sheikh M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen has authored over twenty books on Islam and spirituality and the Fellowship he founded recorded thousands of hours of audio and video discourses. Across the United States, Canada and England, he won recognition from religious scholars, journalists, educators and world leaders as a true saint. Many entered into the fold of Islam through his blessing. The United Nation's Assistant Secretary General, Robert Muller, asked for Bawa Muhaiyaddeen's guidance on behalf of all mankind. Time Magazine turned to him for clarification during the hostage crisis in 1980. Shiekh Bawa Muhaiyaddeen touched the hearts of thousands of people by his overwhelming compassion and wise words. He was interviewed by Psychology Today, the Harvard Divinity Bulletin, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Pittsburgh Press. Wherever he went, he tirelessly answered the many personal and mystical questions that people brought to him.
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Sheikh Bawa Muhaiyaddeen giving a discourse.
The Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Mosque in Philadelphia, USA.
In a cold winter day on 8th December 1986 Sheikh Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (Rad) returned to his Lord (May Allah be pleased with him). His Mazaar is located in Chester County, Pennsylvania, USA.
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The Mazaar of Sheikh Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (Rad) in Chester County, Pennsylvania,USA.
Contact
The Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship 5820 Overbrook Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19131-1221, USA Phone: 215-879-6300 ; 215-879-8604 (24 hour answering machine) Fax: 215-879-6307 Email: info@bmf.or
The Serendib Sufi Study Circle 31, W.A.D. Ramanayake Mawatha, Colombo 2, Sri Lanka. Phone: 11 2447684 Email: info@sufistudycircle.org Website: www.sufistudycircle.org
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To Die Before Death by Holiness Sheikh Bawa Muhaiyaddeen - Lovingly Called Bawange or Guru Bawa by His Devotees

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In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful, Most Compassionate