Stay Silent and Control All Your Senses

June 26, 2021 November 29, 2021

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

A’uzu Billahi Minash Shaitanir Rajeem, Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem

I seek refuge in Allah from Satan, the rejected one
In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful

The Base of Spirituality is Love and Purification of the Heart

We want to achieve a rank of purification for the physicality. The journey doesn’t end with the purification of the physicality; it is merely a beginning, in which to reach towards our timeless reality. The timeless reality is the soul and that soul is governed by, and its energy, is going to be love. The guides teach us that how to open that reality is what is important. Then heart and love, the seed of love is the heart. So every direction you look, you have to come back to the heart. What they want for us to understand is the spiritual and the physiology of the body. That is because you are trying to achieve a rank by disciplining the physicality, to open the reality of the heart, the spirituality, the base of the soul which is based off of love.

The First Step is to Accept Allah’s Oneness & Say No to the Head

Then the guides teach because it is an eternal loop. In the beginning phase the head has to be in submission. So the first zikr is laa ilaha ilAllah (there is no deity except Allah). Laa – you bring your energy to the forehead, ilaha – to the right (side of chest) ilAllah to the left (the heart). It means the energy is coming in and moving that energy to the head. Head is laa. Then to the right, ilaha. And then bringing all the focus of the energy into the heart, ilAllah.

So laa ilaha ilAllah (energy from forehead, to right side, then towards the heart on the left). So then it is the testimony of Oneness, ‘there is nothing but God, there is nothing but God, there is nothing but Allah.’ You can’t even say God because they have gods and goddesses. Allah has no plural, Allah is the Arabic word for the Divinely Presence. It has no plural, no masculine, no feminine. So laa ilaha ilAllah (forehead, right, left) to bring into Oneness.

The Ego Partners with Satan and Hijack the Head

The guides begin to teach that the only way to open the heart is to bring the head into submission. So then they begin to teach us, the focus of what we are trying to learn is that the head has to submit. The head is the governing entity of this body, incorrectly. That kingdom that the head has claimed, is through the ego and the partnership of Satan. There can be no partnership with Allah , with God, so there is no sharik (partner) with Allah . What Allah is warning us is that your ego is becoming a partner with Satan. And the two of you are coming against My Heavenly Kingdom. My light should be within your heart and My Kingdom should be in your heart, as it is in Heaven. As you want it to be in Heaven and you want to be under My Dominion and in My Kingdom in Heaven, then you must be a mini kingdom of that reality. We must have that light in our heart and the dominance of the Divinely Presence within the heart.

So they begin to teach that Satan and they are in partnership to bring us down. They have hijacked the head. So then our first goal is to cut the head, in spiritual terminology not the physical. By saying, “Laa ilaha ilAllah,” it means you are trying to teach yourself there is no importance in my head, that my head is confusing everything. My head is confusing my path. I am contemplating through my head, who Allah is, a’uzubillah, astagfirullah, who Prophet ﷺ is, who my Shaykh is, who my teacher is? Who is everyone? I am putting it through my head. And the head does not have the faculty to know anything.

We Must Discipline the Ears To Open the Heart

Then the guides begin to teach, if you want to open the heart, focus on the head. Know that the first thing that has to come into discipline is the ears. The ears have to be, ‘I heard and I obey, I heard and I obey.’

سَمِعْنَا وَأَطَعْنَا غُفْرَانَكَ رَبَّنَا وَاِلَيْكَ الْمَصِيْرُ

2:285 – “…Sam’ina wa ata’na, ghufranaka Rabbana wa ilaykal masir.” (Surat al Baqarah)

“…We hear, and we obey: (We seek) Your forgiveness, our Lord, and to You is the end of all journeys.” (Holy Quran, 2:285)

Then we begin to realize how difficult that process is. That is a lifelong process. It means it doesn’t come complete, you have mastered it, and now you go on. No, because even Allah (AJ) was asking us: “Don’t talk to Prophet ﷺ by saying, ‘listen to me,’ but ask Prophet ﷺ to look at you,” because his ﷺ hearing is in perfection for God, for Allah (AJ).

…يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَا تَقُولُوا رَاعِنَا وَقُولُوا انظُرْنَا وَاسْمَعُوا

2:104 – “Yaa ayyuhal ladheena aamano, laa taqolo ra’yina wa qolu unzurna wasma’o; … ” (Surat al Baqarah)

“O you who believe! Do not say (to Prophet Muhammad (saws)) Raina, listen to us, and say Unzurna (gaze upon us) and you listen (to him (saws), … ” (Holy Quran, 2:104)

To Control the Ears, We Need to Accompany a Guide

Then they are teaching the perfection of hearing is to reach that level of perfection. So then my focus is on my ears, my ears have to be in submission. So then how are they going to be in submission if I don’t accompany a guide? Then I am listening to myself and submitting to myself. It is impossible! That is the sharik and that is the partnership that God said, ‘Watch out for.’ How can you be submitting if you are only submitting to yourself? Your self is already partner with bad desires and what they call Satan; the bad desires and bad characteristics. So it means you have to find and seek a guide, a teacher. By listening and trying our best to submit to their teachings, to their understandings, I am able to calibrate myself.

The Important Part of Listening is Not Talking

The most important to listening is not talking. Because the more you talk, the less you listen. The ego becomes so big, that as soon as it hears something, it is going to say five things back as a rebuttal. Because the ego is saying inside, ‘Don’t tell me anything, I know everything.’ So then in the formula for this energy to work, is to open the ears to listen, to listen, to submit. Not where you forcefully submit, but you take the teaching and then you put it upon yourself and say, ‘I am going to try my best to submit to that teaching, to take that understanding, to take what is being said for me.’ Why? Because I am in need to show my humility to my Lord so that my heart can open, so that my soul can reach its timeless and eternal reality.

Then the guides begin to teach and teach, and interact with them. So as much as that energy is coming to the ears, they said then, ‘Put a rock in your mouth,’ because as you are hearing, you are going to try to speak. Why? Because your speech is going to negate what he (shaykh) just said. So then you didn’t go forward and you are going backwards.

Learn the Way of Silence from Abu Bakr as Siddiq (as)

That is why everything in the way and on the path has tremendous secrets. Why did Sayyidina Abu Bakr as-Siddiq (as) put a rock in his mouth? He is teaching us that as the message is coming, these realities are coming… He is the father of our way, he says, ‘Put a rock in your mouth so as to not speak.’ Because the energy that comes, who is going to want to speak? Not your soul, but the bad characteristics, the ego, and Satan within us. The Satan wants for us not to achieve the rank but to fall from grace as he fell, as Satan fell. So it means as much as we are hearing, as much as we are hearing, as much as we are hearing, they recommend, don’t speak, don’t speak. Take it into your heart. Take it in and digest it, digest it, digest it, and bring that reality into your being.

When We Hear Shaykh’s Teaching, an Internal Battle Begins

Then you have to have your internal fight. Now this knowledge and this information comes into your ears and now moves. Who is waiting inside there? The ego and satan saying, “What did he just say? No way.” Here we go, waooo waooo waooo, like the cartoons, all the different beings are now talking and fighting. We are going to see who comes above. Information comes and you are going to see who came out victorious. You see them the next day, did they come out victorious or the other one won, and the soul was put down and crashed? So then that path is very real, the battle is very real and we experience it on a daily basis.

Guides are Not Interested in your Opinion, They Teach from a Curriculum

Then here (in the presence of guide) don’t speak. The guides are not interested in any knowledge or information that you have. Keep it for yourself. This is not a collective resource academy where you bring two things that you know, you bring two things that you know, you bring two things you know, and we put it together like a kalle pache, a soup with the head; the eyes and ears (of sheep) in one soup and say, ‘Ok this is now our reality.’ No! They don’t care for it.

The guides have a curriculum, a lesson and teaching to be taught for anyone who has the ability to learn. They don’t care about any other curriculum; they don’t care about any other book and they don’t care about any other website. They don’t care about anything other than what their Shaykh (teaches them), through their sami’na wa atanaa (listening and obeying). [img 1]

It means they achieve what they achieved by what exactly they are teaching; they achieved it by reaching a station of listening and obeying. So as the guides listen, they listen only to their shaykhs; they don’t listen to anybody else. If they listen to anybody else that would not be a guide. That would be sort of a political system, everybody votes and puts their opinion and based on the greater opinion then everybody will do something. No, they have a curriculum of spirituality that has to be achieved.

Second Step is to Discipline the Eyes

The guides begin to teach that discipline the ears and stay silent. As they begin to teach you to discipline your ears and begin to understand the teaching, discipline your eyes. Keep a path in which your eyes are closed. Negate the vision, negate the importance of what your eyes are seeing. Your eyes are seeing everything as an illusion, everything as a deceit. Keep a path in which your eyes are closed and don’t fall for all the allurements of this dunya (material world).

Prophet Yusuf (Joseph) (as) Teaches that Material World will Always Entice You

This was the reality of Sayyidina Yusuf (as). That when Sayyidina Yusuf (as) was put into the kingdom, and Zulaikha kept running after him. Zulaikha represents the love of dunya. Because his beauty was a heavenly divinely beauty. That dunya keeps running after and is going to entice him. So what did he asked from Allah (AJ)? “I think it is better that You put me into jail.”

قَالَ رَ‌بِّ السِّجْنُ أَحَبُّ إِلَيَّ مِمَّا يَدْعُونَنِي إِلَيْهِ ۖ وَإِلَّا تَصْرِ‌فْ عَنِّي كَيْدَهُنَّ أَصْبُ إِلَيْهِنَّ وَأَكُن مِّنَ الْجَاهِلِينَ ﴿٣٣

12:33 – “Qala rabbis sijnu ahabbu ilayya mimma yad ‘oonanee ilayhi, wa illa tasrif ‘annee kaydahunna asbu ilayhinna wa akum minal jahileen.” (12:33)

He said: “O my Lord! The prison is more to my liking than that to which they invite me: unless you turn away their plan from me, I might (in my youthful folly) feel inclined towards them and join the ranks of the ignorant” (12:33).

Not that he was running after her, because she was running after him, scratching him from the back. Means they are going to teach this is a barakah, there is tremendous barakah (blessing).

قَالَ هِيَ رَ‌اوَدَتْنِي عَن نَّفْسِي ۚ وَشَهِدَ شَاهِدٌ مِّنْ أَهْلِهَا إِن كَانَ قَمِيصُهُ قُدَّ مِن قُبُلٍ فَصَدَقَتْ وَهُوَ مِنَ الْكَاذِبِينَ ﴿٢٦﴾ وَإِن كَانَ قَمِيصُهُ قُدَّ مِن دُبُرٍ‌ فَكَذَبَتْ وَهُوَ مِنَ الصَّادِقِينَ ﴿٢٧

12:26-27 – “Qala hiya rawadatnee ‘annafsee, wa shaheda shaahedum min ahlihaa in kana qameesuhu qudda min qubulin fasadaqat wa huwa minal kadhibeen. (26) Wa in kana qameesuhu qudda min duburin fakadhabat wa huwa minas sadiqeen. (27) (Surah Yusuf)

He said: “It was she that sought to seduce me from my (true) self.” And one of her household saw (this) and bore witness, thus “If his shirt is torn from the front, then her tale is true, and he is a liar!”(26)But if his shirt is torn from the back, then she is the liar and he is telling the truth!” (27) (Holy Quran, Joseph 12:26-27)

This reality is real; begin the practice of keeping the eyes closed, that nothing from this world is of any benefit for us. As soon as you meditate and keep your eyes closed you are asking Allah (AJ) to go inside.

Try Heart Meditation and Let your Soul Come Out with Salawats

This is all the way of opening the heart. We said that how could that be popular today? Heart meditation? No, everything is brain meditation, they don’t teach you to shut anything off. They teach to hallucinate and visualize anything you want. They go and spend a thousand dollars and become a master in a weekend, or spend three or five thousand dollars just to open the faculty of the head and hallucinate.

But to come and say, “No, no, you have to discipline your ears.” Why the ears? because it is the door to the soul. You have to discipline the eyes because it is the window to the soul. It means for me to pull your soul out it is going to be through sound. That is why as soon as they play the salawat (praises upon Prophet Muhammad ﷺ) and begin to meditate, they are able to pull the souls out. The soul comes out like butter out because it loves the salawat, it loves the praising upon Allah (AJ) and like butter to a knife it begins to move towards that presence because they have that secret. [img 2]

They teach us then discipline your eyes, begin to take a path of keeping the eyes closed and what I want is not from here yaa Rabbi I want from the eternal reality.

Breathe with Zikr and Consciousness

Discipline the breath and the importance of the breath, and our whole way is built upon the breath. That my existence is based on the breath. As soon as I am disciplining myself and I understood the importance of hearing, trying my best to hear, try my best to stay quiet. Try my best to not be under the allurement of my eyes, keeping myself closed. Then beginning to listen to these beautiful sounds and praisings upon the Divinely Presence, praising upon Prophet ﷺ and then breathe.

That when I breathe, then asking to breathe with Zikr Hu, where Allah says, Qul Hu, “Say Hu” say Hu Allah.” And everything coming in Huuuuu [Shaykh demonstrates with saying Hu in his breathing] with the zikr of Allah in the heart “Allah, Allah, Allah….”

قُلْ هُوَ اللَّـهُ أَحَدٌ ﴿١

112:1 ″ Qul HuwAllahu Ahad. (1) (Surat al Ikhlas)

Say, “He is Allah, The One and Only. (1) (The Sincerity 112)

All of that to open the power of the breath. It means our reality is based on that breath, our being is based on the breath. The soul’s energy is the breath. If you energize the breath, the soul, like a rocket, moves into that Divinely Presence. So then you begin to master the breath, that every breath is with a zikr, every breath with a consciousness.

Everything you See and Hear Affect your Heart

If the breath is being mastered, then from these seven openings, the last opening is the tongue. The guides begin to teach that was the tongue that had to be closed because the ears have to be in submission. So keeping a path of silence and silence and silence because they want the focus of this head, for you to begin to understand your heart. Because everything coming through your ears is affecting your heart, we don’t know it. As soon as you hear their words, oh, oh, you feel an agitation in your heart.

You start looking at all these different things and you find your heart now leaving Allah and running after dunya (material world). It is coming from your eyes. If Allah (AJ) took your eyes away, what would you be doing? If tomorrow, God forbid, that Allah took your eye sight away there is no more hub of dunya (love of material world), you can’t even comb your hair. You will be sitting on your sajadah (prayer carpet) crying and praying to Allah (AJ) that it is time to go, I don’t want to be here anymore. They are teaching us our psychology that that hearing is directly affecting your heart. Your eyes are directly affected to your heart.

Be Grateful to Allah (AJ) for Your Breath

Your breath is going to be the consciousness of your heart. If you don’t care for your breath, what are all the other things that you are not grateful for? Allah says: how many of My Signs are you not grateful for?

فَبِأَيِّ آلَاءِ رَ‌بِّكُمَا تُكَذِّبَانِ ٣٠

55:13 “ Fabi ayyi alayi Rabbikuma tukadhdhiban.” (Surah ar Rahman)

“Then which of the favours of your Lord will you deny?” (The Beneficent)

So then it opens up gratefulness, it opens up what we call the Breath of Mercy, it is Allah’s Rahmah. Yaa Rabbi thank You for the breath that You gave me, that I breathe it in with a consciousness.

The Last Opening is the Mouth

All of that is now teaching me in my heart. Then they say that now because you are understanding, the last and most powerful opening, is your mouth. If the mouth really has a rock and you try to hold back your mouth from talking back to what he says, and what you have heard, and what you have learned. Because everything you are going to nag about it. ‘Why is this Shaykh like this? Why this Shaykh said like this? Why that Shaykh said like this?’ It is not coming from the soul. It is coming from the ego.

Through Silence You Become Conscious of the Fire within the Heart

As soon as you put a rock in your mouth, now you are becoming conscious of your heart. Because they begin to teach you when Allah (AJ) says in Holy Qur’an, ‘What is in their heart is far greater and far worse than what is manifesting from their tongue.’

…وَدُّوا مَا عَنِتُّمْ قَدْ بَدَتِ الْبَغْضَاءُ مِنْ أَفْوَاهِهِمْ وَمَا تُخْفِي صُدُورُهُمْ أَكْبَرُ ۚ قَدْ بَيَّنَّا لَكُمُ الْآيَاتِ ۖ إِن كُنتُمْ تَعْقِلُونَ ﴿١١٨﴾

3:118 – “...wad doo ma ‘anittum qad badatial baghdao min afwahihim wa ma tukhfee Sudooruhum Akbaru, qad bayyana lakumul Ayaati, in kunum ta’qiloon.” (Surat al ‘Imran)
” …Hatred has already appeared from their mouths, and what their hearts conceal is far worse. We have made plain to you the signs, if you have wisdom.” (Holy Quran 3:118)

So now your volcano, they are showing, the fire is within the heart. What is coming from people’s mouth is the lava. People think they have a bad mouth and Allah says, ‘Wait, what is in their hearts is far worse’, far worse! So as much as you allow your mouth to erupt, the volcano is becoming stronger and stronger. So here in western philosophy they say, ‘Shout, get it out, go and yell at people.’ Well, your volcano will become more fierce. The guides want you to shut it, destroy it, suffocate the oxygen from it, so that it burns no more. It doesn’t give up.

Don’t Explode like Volcano, Call upon Allah (AJ)

So now we understand that we are actually working on the heart through the faculty of the head. This is the crown of creation. If that crown cannot imitate God’s Kingdom, He says bring it into submission. As soon as you focus on your mouth and you keep your mouth quiet, you begin to see how much your heart is boiling. Keep silent, keep silent, keep silent, make sajda (prostration) and cry to Allah (AJ), cry that I am frustrated, cry to Allah (AJ) that this is like this, this is like this. Then Allah says, “qul ya naru bardan wa salaamun alaa ibrahim.”

قُلْنَا يَا نَارُ كُونِي بَرْدًا وَسَلَامًا عَلَىٰ إِبْرَاهِيمَ ﴿٦٩﴾

21:69 – “Qulna ya naaru, kunee Bardan wa Salaman ‘ala Ibrahim.” (Surat Al-Anbiya)

“We said, O fire, be cool and Peaceful upon Abraham.” (The Prophets, 21:69)

Allah (AJ) wants us to know from all the prophets, that Sayyidina Ibrahim (as) was being thrown into the fire. He (as) comes and teaches us that at this level of what you want, is ask Allah (AJ) that give me a coolness from this fire. I am angry at everyone and whatever they say to me, I am very angry from it. I am just a volcano in Your Creation, hurting everything and everyone. Allah (AJ) says, that is not what I want from you of Paradise. Hurt no one, stay silent, cry onto Me until I begin to send that fire down and and down and down. Once that is moving, they are registering and seeing that the ears are reaching submission, the eyes are leaving the love of dunya (material world).

The Four Enemies of the Soul
Dunya (material world), Hawa (desires), Nafs (Ego), and Shaytan (Satan)

They say that you have the four enemies that are blocking the soul. That the love of dunya is blocking the soul. The soul has been quartered into four sections. Why the soul is not whole because of the four enemies, which are the dunya – the love of the material world, the hawa – the seeking of physical pleasure and physical entertainment, nafs (ego) and Shaytan (Satan). These four enemies have quartered the soul, not to be whole. When we begin to focus on these realities we begin to understand that when the head is submitting, that these realities are being worked on, it is actually working on the heart. As soon as we begin to work on the heart, we begin to see if I can keep silent, the flame and the fire and the agitation within my heart begins to go down, to go down, to go down, using always the reality of wudu (ablution).

Put Out the Fire of Anger with Wudu (Ablution)

Why Prophet ﷺ said, ‘To wash,’ is to take the fire. As soon as you are feeling angry go make another wudu, go wash and ask, ya Rabbi, let the water put away this fire, ‘qul ya naru bardan wa salaamun alaa Ibrahim’.

قُلْنَا يَا نَارُ كُونِي بَرْدًا وَسَلَامًا عَلَىٰ إِبْرَاهِيمَ ﴿٦٩﴾

21:69 – “Qulna ya naaru, kunee Bardan wa Salaman ‘ala Ibrahim.” (Surat Al-Anbiya)

“We said, O fire, be cool and Peaceful upon Abraham.” (The Prophets, 21:69)

Then the reality of the water begins to take fire away. More important is that every action provides a reaction from Divinely Presence, that as you wash with that intention on your physical being, Allah sends a rahmah (mercy) on to the soul. Because you can’t wash the soul with water, but you provide the action and the niyyat (intention) that I am washing with this water to take away the anger that is coming upon my heart. It is not allowing my heart to open.

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

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

Original Date of Suhbah: Mar 30, 2014

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