BismillahirRahmanirRahim

THE ACT OF LIFE

Sohbet given by Sheykh Abdul Kerim el-Hakkani el-Kibrisi

Friday 11 Raby' al-Thani, 1426
May 20, 2005.
39th Street Dergah, Manhattan, New York.


Selamun aleykum. Meded Ya Sayiddi, Ya Sultan Evliya,
Mevlana Sheykh Nazim al-Hakkani. Meded.


Tariqatuna sohbet wa khayru fil jamiat. Our way is through
association, through gatherings, and through gatherings we will know
and we will learn what we are missing and what we need to learn and
to make our spiritual journey. Before anything, first, man must
discipline himself, his options and his way of life. Children are
born and when they grow up they are free. They are running around
doing so many things. Nobody is putting any boundaries to them. We
are putting certain limitations on them saying, "Don't pass beyond
this," but they are free growing up. But after they reach to a
certain age and when they go to school or anywhere, first they have
to discipline themselves. In the kindergarten they don't care so
much but when you start growing up then you cannot lie down. You
have to sit. Then you have to sit on chairs. You have to sit
properly. When you go to university, you have to sit property and
watch correctly what the professor is saying to learn. People need
to discipline themselves for anything they do in this life. The
religions are coming to people to discipline them, to put certain
discipline to their lives and then to bring them to their own
stations.

We don't give value to each other so much but the Creator is giving
very big value to everyone of us. We don't even give that much value
to ourselves so many times. But the One that has created us has made
us very valuable ones, and He has forbidden us fighting, destroying,
killing and doing all these wrong activities. To be able to follow
and lead according to that we need to discipline ourselves and
discipline our lives. And the more we are disciplining our lives the
better it is for us to be able to continue on our journey. What we
are looking for and what we are understanding, that's what we will
prepare ourselves for.

There are different ways of disciplining. (For instance) through the
prayers. In Islam we have five prayers in different times, meaning
whatever you do, drop it. Come to pray. You are disciplining
yourself. Not this and that, but you have something that is
priority. You always keep something very high priority and for that
you drop these worldly values. And that is one way of disciplining
yourself very highly. Once you start doing that, then once the body
is learning what it's going to do, then you are going to pick up
easier and better whatever is sent to you.

There are actors and actresses who are acting. In reality we are all
acting. This world is a theater and we have all been given something
to act for this world. If we do our acting part correctly and if we
understand what has been given to us and we act according to that
then we are the winner. We will find safety. If we don't then there
is no safety. In the theaters they have to act correctly. They
cannot act as they like. They have to act as they were programmed
to. Whatever they show to them that's what they have to act. They
cannot say, "I don't like that. I have to act like this." You have
to act according to that. And then you become a good actor because
you are acting according to what is in it. Not according to what
your ego likes or what you like. Acting is not easy. I learned
from `X', the master here. I think it is pretty difficult (Sheykh
smiles).

But acting in this world is more difficult than acting in a theater.
First you have to find out your own reason of creation and you have
to act according to that and you have to live according to that
action. You have to live and you have to pass. If you did that
journey properly then you will find safety. Otherwise, there is a
very difficult time waiting for a man at that time. So if we are
thinking that this world is a place of acting and there is that One
who put down the script saying, "This is for you, that is for you."
You have to find it, you have to practice it and then you have to
live according to that. Then you will have a good picture because
that One writes very good script. Elhamdulillah. We are not seeing
so many good pictures in these days because everyone tries to act as
they like, as their ego is saying.

So as small communities and small groups of people, we must
concentrate on our own acting. We are not responsible for the world.
We are responsible for our own selves. If an individual does what is
for him then the community instantly changes, then the world will
change too instantly. We are not giving up hope for anything because
only unbelievers give up all hopes. Hope is never ending and until
the last breath of our lives we have to try our best for acting
correctly and properly for our own selves, to others and to what is
around us. It doesn't matter who says what, it doesn't matter who
attacks, it doesn't matter who curses, it doesn't matter whatever is
coming. We don't have the same luxury to turn the same way to act
the way that those people are trying to act to us. Then we will
become one of them. Then we will lose. We know better and we have
to act correctly according to what is given to us. We have to open
our eyes, our hearts, our hands and our ways to everything around
because mankind is only suffering in this world today. Majority of
people suffer. They suffer. They have everything. They have no
peace. Then maybe with one word that you are going to say to them
they may find peace.

So many people are hesitating, talking or trying to exchange it, but
don't. You don't know what action is given to you, what act you have
to do and with that act you don't know where you are going to reach.
You don't know who you are going to influence for that person to
come out from the mess, from the hopeless and helpless situation
that they have entered. I never knew before the so-called
word `Depression.' I learned it very well now in America. Half of
America is under depression and I am finding that half of the people
are under pills. They go to a doctor.

(I say), "Why do you go to a doctor?"

"I was thinking so much."

"That's why they give you pills? Not to think anymore? "

Now there is a problem (Sheykh smiles). If man does not think then
he cannot know what is right and what is wrong. Once the man stops
thinking for a little bit, he will be under depression. Then you go
to doctor, the doctor looks and says, "Oh, you need to have some
Prozac." All these kinds of drugs we are finding now. What happens
after a while? After a while they are killing their brain cells and
they are not even acting anymore. They are becoming a whole bunch of
zombies.

We were not created for that and I don't see any reason for that,
specially for the first world countries. We came from third world
countries. Third world countries should be under Prozac or
depression. But they are not. They are all happy. (Sheykh smiles).

"What do you have?"

"Nothing."

"What are you so happy about?"

"Don't you see that I am alive? Don't you see that I am happy about
it?"

Of course. People have everything but they are not happy. What is it
that you are looking for? The spirit is not happy. That's the
problem. When the spirit is not happy then your physical form is
going to get tired whatever you give to it. You can feed yourself
the best food, you can go to the best restaurants, you can go to the
best clubs, you can go to the best night-clubs in the nighttime and
in the end you are going to come home circling around either drunk
or losing yourself not really knowing what you are doing. That we
must not try because that is not giving happiness to us. It is just
bringing us more into delusions, problems, divisions, depressions
and (we will be) finding big walls in front of us which we are not
going to be able to break through then.

So when man loses hope from His Lord, when man disconnects his
spiritual world, one way or the other he is going to circle and he
is going to end up in that mess. The system is going to use you as
much as they need you. As soon as they finish with you, it's like a
lemon. They squeeze the juice and then the rest is not good. They
throw it to garbage saying, "You are retired now." Retired
means, "Pack your packages from here, take your special names from
here, go home and sit and wait to die." Hmm.

So now we are watching and facing that reality. Every one of us.
Don't wait for somebody to tell you that you are retired. You retire
yourself from this world correctly and start working for your own
reality. Then you will always be alive, you will always be active in
this world and when the Angel of Death comes to you, you will say to
him,

"Welcome."

"Do you know who I am?"

"Of course I know. I was waiting. My time is up. I need to go now.
Take it."

You will give it so easily because now you are going somewhere that
you know. It is not unknown to you anymore. It is known to you. And
when it is known to you then it is not a hundred times, it is not a
thousand times, it is millions of times better than what it is that
you are leaving. But although we know that, still we cannot go
there. If they gave the option to me I would say, "I don't want to
live. Take it now." But you have to live according to the breath of
life that has been given to you. You cannot die even if you want to.
People are running away from death but they cannot die. (Sheykh
inhales and exhales a couple of times). If the breath of life that
is given to a man is not complete, he cannot die. The life is not
given to us daily or yearly. It is given to us according to how many
breaths of life you are going to inhale and bring it out. So in
reality when we are knowing that, we can no longer say that we are
so free. We are prisoners! We are prisoners. When we realize that we
are prisoners between two breaths then we know, "Oh, it's really so
close." If the permission is not given, the air does not go out and
you die. If the permission is not given, the air does not come in
and you die. Tell me how free you are now. Aren't you a prisoner
between two breaths? Tell me otherwise.

So now we know that we are prisoners between two breaths. So there
must be something beyond that. There must be some secrets beyond
that. Eh, people say, `Sufism.' Sufism means that when man is
running to perfection and he is reaching to higher stations and
slowly he is able and capable to leave this animal body because this
body has the same characteristics that the animals have. Eating,
drinking, sleeping and having sex. Majority of the people today are
living for that only too. Even animals don't. But the people, that's
only what they are running for. Eating, drinking and enjoying.

But there is an unknown destiny. Aren't you seeing that there is an
unknown destiny waiting for you? How are you enjoying so much? If
you are knowing that unknown destiny then you must be enjoying. If
you are not knowing, and if you are saying, "I am enjoying myself"
then you are just fooling yourself. You are not enjoying yourself.
And before you end up in the doctor's office, please, come here.
Don't go to the doctor's office. Those people will roast you using
Prozac and all these kinds of poison. You are only killing yourself
faster then. Don't use those. I will give some programs to you and
if you enter into that you will come out fast from that depression
if it ever circles around you or if it comes around the people you
know. Of course, we are not charging money. It's pretty cheap.
(Sheykh smiles). It is only what you have to do to your own self.

Safety. Safety in Dunya, in this world and safety in the hereafter.
What I said I did not write down to say. It's coming from somewhere
and I am giving it to you. I am just a tool. My master, my Sheykh is
sending saying, "This is what you need for tonight." Take it. If we
take it, if we put it and apply it to our own lives then we will
find safety. If not, there isn't too much safety.

Wa min Allahu taufiq.

Bihurmatil Habib.

Bihurmatil Fatiha.

Transcribed by Nakshobondi@yahoo.com