Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim

Sohbet given by Seyh Abdul Kerim

October 24, 2004

Osmanli Naks-i'bendi Dergahi
Sidney Center, NY

Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim

Meded ya Sayyidi, Meded

Selamun aleykum.

Rabia, may Allah be pleased with her, was a Muslim saint. Some scholars had come to her for advice, to learn something from her. She told them, "Oh, our astaghfirullah that we are making, we are in need of turning to make astaghfirullah for that astaghfirullah that we are saying in ghaflet." Tell me about ghaflet now - heedlessness. Oh, Oh, Oh. How are we going to say? Forgetting the constant fight to ego. This is what it is, nothing else - constant fight. You are sitting down. Now you start feeling relaxed- very nicely. Move right away. Get up. What your ego doesn't like that time - the cold water. Go and make a wudu with a cold water. After a while you get used to that. You like it. So what the ego doesn't like now - praying. Get up and pray. After a while you get used to it for the prayer. So now, ego starts fooling you from that angle now. Oh, you are praying so good. Masha'allah, becoming Evliya soon. So your ego is fooling. You are this one; you are that one. Look - You are doing this; but that one is not doing. Ego is always showing something to you. As soon as that happens - leave that voluntary worship, not the obligations. Obligations are obligations. So your ego likes it now from what side? The prayer. Now I am sitting and relaxing - very good. Ego is going to fool you from that side now. What is hard for your ego now? - to make zikir. Sit and make zikir. Your ego is fooling you that way. What is hard for you to do now? To go out there to work. Go to work. The fighting the ego is not only fighting ... everyone is thinking. If I ask, they go. I watch their hands. Even that one is holding tasbih now. Masha'allah How many you make? If I ask from the beginning of the sohbet up until now "how many zikir you make", and what kind of zikir you make, they are not knowing. So, ego is fooling from that side now.

That is the saint saying our astaghfirullah is in need of saying astaghfirullah again for that. That veli woman, she used astaghfirullah. What about if you are saying in ghaflet "la illah il Allah"? What about if in ghaflet if you are saying salawats to the Prophet salla Allahu aleyhi ve selam? We have a long way to go. So, ego is never going to leave you. Ego is never going to leave you alone. Always going to run from that way. Your ego says to you, "You don't like tea, you like coffee." Drink tea. Because your ego has the one it doesn't like. You have to drink that, not: "I want that". You are serving your ego or are you serving your Lord? What you want? What Allah put in front of you - water! Ego is saying: Alhamdullilah Ya Rabbi. Ego is saying: "I don't like it!" Who are you? You don't like it? If your Lord likes it and gives it to you, who are you to say, "I don't like it?" It's not only in one way - every way, ego saying - eating - "it's very good - this part". It's very good now? Yes. Give it to somebody else. That's the way to fight the ego. Otherwise, somehow, someway it's going to knock you down. And that fight must be continuously, and it will go, it will bring you up to the grave. And that time now you see you win. Now you are sitting, relaxing. And you say, "Let me relax a little bit more." [You start slouching in your chair.] Before you know, so many people I am watching, they almost end up laying down in front of other people. First respect, the tarikat - the first is manners. Manners. Good manners. If you have no manners, you say whatever you want. You claim whatever you want. Anyone can claim, anyone can say whatever they want about you. You may reach to certain stations, if you don't have proper manner, from that station, Shaytan is going to knock you down. He is going to find the way to bring you down. No way that you are going to reach to your station, he is never going to let you reach there. He is just going to fool you at certain times to say, "Look you are progressing. That means you are doing right." Look look look. This is a dangerous area now. From there, he knocks you down. You find yourself all the way down and you never can climb up again.

Ego is the enemy of Allah. Ego is the enemy of our spirit, of our ruh, our real being. Allah put it there to us in this body, the ego and the spirit, and the ego and the spirit are continuously struggling. The intelligence never likes what the ego likes. Put it to intelligence, you are going to see. Anything that ego likes, when you put it to intelligence, it doesn't fit to intelligence. The spirit will be supported by intelligence. Ego is supported by Shaytan. So, what the awliya are saying - Bastami al-Bayazzid qas - "The one who has no Sheykh, that one's Sheykh is Shaytan". That shows to us that if you do not have a Sheykh, your ego is directing you somewhere, somehow. And the ego's Sheykh is Shaytan. Shaytan is showing way to ego. Anything that ego wants, as Grandsheykh Sultan Evliya is saying, you should do otherwise, if you want to win. So many times, people don't like working. He says "Why you don't like working?" No one can really come to say to Him, "I don't like the work for this reasons. Why you don't like the work? Allah is putting there for you. Allah is saying to us, through the ayats sometimes it is good for you. That's why I am putting this benefit in it for you. The man through reading books and doing certain things may reach to certain stations but if you don't have the proper manner ...

So many wahabbis, they know the Kuran perfectly. So many wahabbis, they are very punctual for their prayers. "Brother, not yet brother, one more minute, brother. OK, call adhan brother." They never delay. But you see them standing and waiting with a sourness in their face. They are tired. They are kind of upset that the time is coming again. They are blowing fire from their nose when they are making wudu. Thinking. The time is coming to prayer. "Selam aleykum". [No response - just frown]. That time, you're watching them. They are fighting, but they are still going to the prayer line. They are not benefitting, because they are doing it with anger. Anything with anger, it is from Shaytan. Anything you are doing with anger, you speak with an angry voice, it is from Shaytan. He is going to knock you down somewhere again.

So, we have to do what our ego doesn't like. Whatever it likes, then you are going to say "OK, do this [first] and I'll give it to you later this ." Because you cannot fight so much too. OK. Did you put sett? If you put sett and say "I will never give it to you until I die", ego is going to fool you someday. Say to it, "OK. You don't like this drink. Drink this now, then I am going to give you what you like [later]". When you drink that, look how the Mercy of Allah is going to reach you at that time. You are going start enjoying the first drink, and you are not going to take the other inside. Because it is ego. There is nothing there that is a big difference. It's ego.

So are we here to support our ego or are we here to learn how to knock down our ego, how to step on it. Because if you go with the ego, you are not going to reach anywhere - not in dunya, not in ahirat. If you go out from this world with your ego, you are not ... You did not clean your ego. You didn't come out from that mess. You are entering into the grave with the dirtiness of that ego. And the grave will close that time on you. They will squeeze the grave, and you will find that it is very difficult. Now you cannot leave, you cannot run.

That little cat over there [in a box] is screaming. If we let it, it is going to run around. It is not going to scream. It is going to reach wherever it wants to sit comfortably there. But if it sits comfortably there - there [in the box] is comfortable also. "No, I don't like it. Open it. Let me go." Sit. That's how our ego is. We must make it, we must force it, we must work against our ego. That time, we will reach what is destined for us. Otherwise, you only claim. You can claim. So many cannot even claim. So many claiming, saying "I went; I did." Illusion only. You're thinking on it; but you've never been there.

Alhamdulillah aRabbi alemin, it is a very heavy work of course, but without that work we cannot reach what we are aiming. The ego is fooling people very specially from laziness. Shaytan likes - loves - lazy people. He loves them. Shaytan loves dirty people, and Shaytan loves those people who sleep too much, who eat too much, and who talk too much. "And these are my number one special workers. They are working for me", Shaytan is saying. Although they think that they are working for Allah; but they are in my hand; because as long as they have these characters and they are not working to break it down, they are working for me, someway, somehow. He will bring us down.

We are asking support from the holy ones, especially from our Grandsheykh, to fight against our ego. The war, the war, the big war is that. The big war is to fight against our ego. The biggest war, the biggest jihad, and if you die while you are fighting your ego, you will become the biggest martyr. The martyr is not only that one who goes to a war and physically dies. That one is a martyr too. For the sake of Allah he dies. But which one is the greatest work, the bigger jihad? What one does Prophet say? Prophet said, "The biggest jihad is the jihad you are making against your ego. So, if you are making jihad against your ego, and at that time if you die, then you are the martyr. You are reaching to the highest station. So that way, to know the reward is big too. Again alhamdulillah. And Allah knows best. Ameen. That's enough now. Your ego wants tea. Give tea now.