“To Sit Down and Meditate is Better Than 70 Years of Worship”

BismillahirRahmanirRahim

Which of the favors of  your Lord can you deny? If a man sits down and think about the favors that the Lord has granted to him with one eye, not two, not the speech, not the hearing, not the taste, not the smell, not your hand, not your feet, not your looks, not your house, not your treasures, not your pleasures, but just one eye, no reciting of the Quran, no zikir, no Darood e-sheriff,  no reading books, not looking at Imam, not looking at scholars. Just to sit and to think about the favour of the Lord, that Allah swt has given us in that one eye, just that alone, will bring him to higher station.

That is what it’s meant when Holy Prophet (asws) is saying, ‘one hour of meditation is better than seventy years of worship.’ One hour of meditation is  better than seventy years of worship. Who is meditating these days? What kind of meditation?

Not the way that the Buddhist, they are teaching. But Muslims have lost the basic things. They would rather go and memorise wrong things, listen and consult with wrong Sheykh and Imams and Scholars. You don’t need all of that. Just to sit down and to meditate, it’s better than 70 years of worship. To think. To think. Sheyk Effendi sunnat, to look at the flowers and to touch and to feel and to connect. In reality, you are connecting yourself to the creation of Allah, then you are connecting yourself to Allah.

How can you look at the beautiful painting and not think of the painter? How can you look in the nature and not think about Allah? That is where Islam is complete. That is where science and the west, it is incomplete. It is garbage, because they say, ‘everything that we make, we are the creator of that. But everything that is in existence, it has no creator.’ What a complete foolishness is this.  And you look in just the beauty of that one flower, and how Allah swt has put everything perfectly, everything so beautiful and everything, completely different, completely unique, and you enter into that, as Sheykh Effendi is saying, ‘Huh, we only know seven colors in this world.’ Seven colors. And the seven colors of this world, it gives millions of different colors. He is saying, ‘but if a man, just with a blink of an eye, he looks with the seventy thousand colors of the Paradise, not seven, and how that changes in every moment, just from that alone, he’s going to fall down dead.’

He’s going to fall to sejda. He’s going to say, ‘Allahu Akhbar’ with real meaning, not saying, ‘Allahu Akhbar!!’ with that ego. That so many Muslims that they are doing now in the streets. Not with the love. When you enter into that, then that time, Yes, you are making Darood, you are making a zikir, because you are remembering your Lord with sincerity, not just saying, ‘Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah…..’ You are not saying that. You are looking and you are saying, ‘Allah, Allah.’ You are looking and saying, ‘Allah, Allah.’ It hits you. It’s making you to realise. And who is going to look at the flower? How many Muslims looking at the Rose and is reminded of Prophet (asws)?

That’s why the Ottomans, they were very careful about things. They don’t just use anything, just for design because it’s beautiful. Put this and put that without any meaning. Everything they put, must have a meaning, must have a meaning that is directly connected to the Prophet (asws), or the Sahabi e-Kiram, or the Awliya Allah. Directly connected to Allah. Whatever that you are looking is going to remind you of Allah. It’s not design. I saw one. They made one masjid. They are very proud, this is the first masjid that a woman, muslim woman architect. You saw that? It looks disgusting. Because now, when you approach it according to the ego, you can be making big masjid, but it is ego entering, it becomes a sheytanic place. With that ego, you are reading the Quran, it’s going to bring you to Jahannam. With that ego, you are making Darood, yes you can. You are praying with that ego, yes you can. It’s not going to bring you to station of safety.

Never forget, the army of Yazid, they were praying. The army of Yazid, they were saying, ‘quickly, let’s kill the ahle bait, the grandchildren of the Holy Prophet (asws), so that we don’t miss Zuhur.  Quickly finish them. Kill them. Quickly finish them, and all their children, because if we don’t, we might miss Zuhur.’

Ottomans, the rose and the Tulips. The rose representing, Holy Prophet (asws) and the Tulip representing Allah. One, Alif, Allah. They don’t make such a big fuss about it. They don’t write books about it, they don’t have conference, it’s just there. And everything that they are doing, which is why it is Jahannam that we are living now because nothing is connected to nothing. Nothing we are doing is connected to Islam. Then how the man is going to make meditation? How the man is going to make a zikir? How the man is going to remember Allah when there is no connection, there is no wasila? Don’t you know, the Ottomans, even the food that they eat, everything can be traced back to Awliya Allah or Sahabi e-kiram? They eat the Saffron rice, they said, ‘this is in remembrance of Hazrat Hamza.’ They drink, ‘this is reminding us of one sahabi.’ ‘This is reminding us of one Awliya.’ They work, ‘our Pir of this working of the shepherd is Hazrat Musa, Hazrat Shu’aib.’ They cut hair, they said, ‘the Pir of our profession is Hazrat Salman al-Farisi.’

Everything that they are doing, is directly connected, then that time, you are going to feel, yes, the Tajalli is falling. You are going to feel yourself in safety, and your eyes will be opened and you are going to make a connection to the ahirat, and to the Paradises. That time, you already live there. And you are not going to be running after this world to  build Palaces. Muslims had that. They had all the wealth, but they weren’t running to build the Palaces. What were they running?

 

You look, think. Try to think. You think the Ottoman Sultans, for example, they cannot build Palaces for themselves greater than the Aya Sofia? They can build Palaces ten times better than the Aya Sofia, or Sultan Ahmed. But they didn’t. They reserved that, number one, for Mecca and Medina, then, for the tombs and for the Jamis they are putting there. And because they are putting there not for the ego, but Awliya Allah are the ones who come out with the design and the architecture and everything, so it is a reflection from the Heavenly station, people go in there, they already forget, they already enter into the circle of remembrance. So many non-Muslims, just coming into Sultan Ahmed masjid, they are looking and the spirit comes out and they say, ‘I want to become a Muslim.’ They take Shahadat just by looking at the beauty, they are not looking, they are not speaking, ah, imagine that time if they meet and Osmanli living at that time. How they are going to say, ‘this is already an ahle Jannat.’

Yes, that is da’wah. They are living their lives. When you live your life, people they are going to look at your life and they are going to see the Prophet (asws). And that time it’s the biggest da’wah.

Fatiha
Sohbet by Sheykh Lokman Effendi Hz
Khalifah of SahibulSaif Sheykh Abd Kerim Effendi Hz
Osmanli Dergahi NY
December 2012