Journey of Tafakkur (Contemplation): Beyond the Head, Into the Heart

July 16, 2024 July 27, 2024

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From the Realities of Mawlana (Q) as taught by Shaykh Nurjan Mirahmadi.

أَعُوذُ بِاللَّهِ مِنَ الشَّيطَانِ الرَّجِيمِ
بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمْ

A’uzu Billahi Minash Shaitanir Rajeem
Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem

I seek refuge in Allah from the accursed Satan
In the Name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful

Alhamdulillahi Rabbil ‘aalameen, was salaatu was salaamu ‘alaa Ashrafil Mursaleen, Sayyidina wa Mawlana Muhammadul Mustafa ﷺ. Madad ya Sayyidi ya Rasulul Kareem, Ya Habibul ‘Azeem, unzur halana wa ishfa’lana, ‘abidona bi madadikum wa nazarekum.

Atiullah wa atiur Rasul wa Ulil amre minkum. Always a reminder for myself, ana abdukal ‘ajeez, wa dayeef, wa miskin, wa zhalim, wa jahl, and but for the grace of Allah (AJ) that we’re still in existence.

أَطِيعُوا اللَّهَ وَأَطِيعُوا الرَّسُولَ وَأُولِي الْأَمْرِ مِنكُم… ﴿٥٩﴾‏ …

4:59 – “…Atiullaha wa atiur Rasula wa Ulil amre minkum…” (Surat an-Nisa)

“…Obey Allah, obey the Messenger, and those in authority among you…” (The Women, 4:59)

If not making the contemplation and meditating, ‘Tafakkur’ (contemplation) is the Islamic word for it, then the depth of the teaching doesn’t make sense. The teaching is not meant for the head. This is not the abode of the head because it goes beyond the ability of the head to apprehend.

Spiritual Teachings Aren’t Meant for the Head

The Limitations of the Intellect or Head

The head to apprehend it’s a touchy-feely that the head only knows that which it can touch and feel. To witness this reality, to understand this reality is in the depth of the heart. That’s why we say – don’t approach the Divine and God by the head but you approach by the heart. The head is for physical matters like – what is this chair, I touch it, I feel it, I get a sense of it. Food – I smell it, I get a sense of what it’s going to taste.

Beyond Physical Senses

But this reality is not based on the physical confines of our senses but based on the limitless spiritual ability of the heart in which,

- The hearing and Divinely hearing has no limit,
- Spiritual seeing has no limit,
- Spiritual feeling has no limit,
- Spiritual knowledges has no limit.

So it’s a timeless, limitless reality that’s trying to be learned by people whom are very timed and limited, if they live within their physical matter and the physical confines of their being.

The Heart: The True Seat of Understanding

Approach the Divine Through Heart

So teaching and spiritual teaching is a continuous state of leave your physicality, leave all of these restrictions, leave the restriction of your hearing, leave the restriction of your seeing, leave the restriction of your ability to think and to think through your heart versus your head because the head has confines or blockages. When you talk too much and the person is of a head-ly nature and that they perceive everything through the head, it like blows a fuse. They’re like, ‘Oh, I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Because it’s beyond the perception of their physical realm of touching, feeling and actually seeing in the physical.

The Role of Meditation and Contemplation

So these knowledges and this path, its depth is only by the heart. That’s why if we don’t keep repeating that people have to meditate, contemplate, otherwise, this form of teaching makes no sense to them. Better they go somewhere else that doesn’t require the meditation. Because those people don’t like meditating and they don’t like these subjects. So you’ll see these types of people based on our spiritual journey.

The Unique Path of Tafakkur

So we come across a group of people, they say, ‘You know I don’t like all of these teachings and this type of talking. Why you don’t just stick to Islamic fiqh (Islamic Jurisprudence)? How much wudu (ablution), how much water we have to make for wudu and read some Hadiths that are for people to understand and do’s and don’ts and forbiddings and punishments.’ They don’t like the esoteric and spiritual and they don’t like meditation and they don’t believe in tafakkur and contemplation.

The Call of the Heart

As a result, we’ve described many times Allah (AJ) puts within the heart of people, they have a yearning – the people of tafakkur. What we described last week, that’s why we never heard any questions about it, is when Allah (AJ) is giving by negation, ‘None will know it but the people of tafakkur.’

(٤٢) .إِنَّ فِي ذَٰلِكَ لَآيَاتٍ لِّقَوْمٍ يَتَفَكَّرُونَ…

39:42 – “…Inna fee zaalika la Aayaatil liqawmai yatafakkarroon.” (Surat Az-Zumar)

“Indeed in that are signs for a people who give thought.” (The Troops, 39:42)

‘None will Know It’ Category

So when you come across people saying, ‘Oh you know my Shaykh just talked about this.’ They say, ‘What is this? This is not acceptable.’ Well, that’s what Allah (AJ) meant by ‘None will know it.’ That’s why the path is not meant that to, to take deep realities and just throw it out to everybody and especially if you’re not the shaykh. We don’t mind doing on social media – take our articles, spread them everywhere but turn off your comments because the ‘None will know it’ will be the ones whom are commenting. The ones whom Allah (AJ) negated to know that they are not to know it, they won’t know it, and hence they’re the first ones to make comments that, ‘What is this? What is that? Where are you come from this? What is this?’ Those are the ‘None will know it’ category. Allah (AJ) already gave us that, ‘Watch out for them, none will know it.’

The Few Who Seek

So out of the 99 percent 0.9 percent, there’s but 0.001 percent that Allah (AJ) inspired to be from people of tafakkur. It means out of seven billion people on this Earth, how many are inspired to deeply meditate and based on their meditation to carry the discipline of Islamic meditation. It means some people got a little bit closer, they want to meditate but then you know their inappropriate dress, inappropriate understanding that has you know one understanding. But those whom also want to contemplate and tafakkur but they want the disciplines of Islam, they want the discipline of the spiritual path then very, very limited.

Importance of Companionship and Guidance

As a result that those whom are inspired by Allah (AJ) to be students of that way of tafakkur and contemplation in which they apply their disciplines, begin to meditate, begin to contemplate, begin to visualize their shaykh. Because they know in this realm of unseen they don’t want to go alone. That they learn how to keep the companionship and that companionship is a source of energy for them, a source of verification for them and a source of the reality of reflecting upon them. That which they don’t have, if they purify their hearts, do their zikr (Divine remembrance), do their practices, keep the companionship of these lights and this mirror so as to reflect upon them a reality.

The Interconnected Realities

Light, Energy and Sound

As a result they enter into tafakkur, they enter into contemplation, the disciplines of contemplation. That now they can go deeper into the knowledges that require light, the understanding of light, the absorbing of light and of energy. It’s interesting that people whom have come to this Earth and have spent their life to reveal, they reveal a common theme that for people to understand the unseen and the unknown, they have to have a strong grasp on energy and light and sound. As a result of that, they can begin to open up limitless realities from the Divinely Presence.

Example of Tesla

So one of the more popular – whom modern day students and modern day people know – Tesla. That he brought knowledges and realities of energy, the use of energy, the use of technologies. Even he’s quoted as saying that, ‘You won’t understand that and you won’t understand these knowledges unless you have a strong understanding of energy and light.’

The Perfection of Prophetic Teachings

That’s an ancient reality that Prophet ﷺ brought. That Islam is the perfection of these realities from the holy sunnah (traditions of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ) and all the disciplines of the practices were meant to take humanity to the highest realm of knowledges, like an astronaut. It’s one thing to learn about the science but it’s one thing to be dressed in the science. It means for all these people when they get a little bit of the glimpse of these realities, they don’t have the entire perfection that Prophet ﷺ brought. That you should dress as a traveller of this reality, you eat like the traveller of this reality, you have the discipline of praying, the discipline of your character, your behaviour, your mannerisms as a time traveller and as a traveller within the realms of light.

The Comprehensive Reality of Islam

So you see that the perfection of what Prophet ﷺ brought was the perfection of its entirety. So some of these thinkers and contemplators and engineers and inventors, they were only getting a portion of that reality but they didn’t get the discipline of how to eat, how to dress, how to pray, how to have an internal discipline. As a result many of the realities had overtaken them and destroyed them because they didn’t have that whole perfection that Prophet ﷺ brought of its entirety.

The Reward for Believers

So that’s the great, the great news and great reward for the believer is that by following the way of Sayyidina Muhammad ﷺ, they have an immense ability to enter into these oceans of reality, to be protected by it, to be protected from it and to have all of the dress and entirety of what can be achieved by this reality through the way of Sayyidina Muhammad ﷺ. So it’s immense, immense.

Continuous Learning and Teaching

That’s why when we’re teaching so much week after week after week and going back and trying to read if people are getting this or we’re just moving too fast and that’s the concern. So when we hear the comments and hear the questions then we get a gauge of you know there’s certain subjects maybe we have to keep going over so that to gauge that people are understanding the subject matter.

Our Curriculum of Spiritual Realities

We said even the books that we have are all related, it’s like a curriculum.

- So once you get the energy book [In Pursuit of Angelic Power], well this is all about energy.
- Once you get the meditation book [A Timeless Reality], well how to unlock these energies is through the tafakkur.
- Once you get the understanding of Surah YaSeen [Yaseen], then it’s the heart in which this energy is coming and the realities of the house of Allah (AJ) that emanating from this heart of Sayyidina Muhammad ﷺ.
- Then when you want to go inside that heart it’s the levels of the heart and the lataif (subtle energy points) of the qalb (heart) [Levels of the Heart – Lataif al Qalb] in which all that occupy the home of Allah (AJ) within our wujud (existence), within our being.
- Then the realities of the hijrah (migration) and the Hajj (pilgrimage) [Secret Realities of Hajj] and a continuous pilgrimage to Divinely Presence.

To Access Deeper Realities, Students Must Study the Curriculum Thoroughly

So it’s a entire curriculum of realities. Like a student who enrolls within a university but this is a University at your own pace. If you don’t have the energy book then you’re deficient in your understanding of energies. If you don’t have the meditation book then you’re deficient in your understanding of meditation and contemplation. Like we said before, it wasn’t written for me because we already know those in which Allah (AJ) has put within the heart, but for the students of this way whom want to take that curriculum and to go deeper into its understanding, deeper into its realities. When they read it, they hear the talks, they meditate, they basically bring and revive that teaching within their daily life. It then gives them the ability to go deeper and deeper and as a result then the Shaykh can talk about deeper subjects of these realities, inshaAllah.

Subhana rabbika rabbal ‘izzati ‘amma yasifoon, wa salaamun ‘alal mursaleen, walhamdulillahi rabbil ‘aalameen. Bi hurmati Muhammad al-Mustafa ﷺ wa bi siri Surat al-Fatiha.

Special thanks to our transcribers for their help with transcribing this suhbah.

Original Date of Suhbah: December 15, 2022

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