How do we stop the waswasa when it comes?

BismillahirRahmanirRahim

Question: You said in a couple of sohbets that you can see that you’re wrong when you get into this sohbet with your own sheytan, that you kind of start sinking into this. I’m asking, how can we stop that at the first moment that that waswas is coming? Because so many times we see that by the time we realize it, we’re deep inside and that’s been going on and it’s in our head. How do we stop it in the first second, before it comes or right when it comes?

Everybody knows when it first comes. It first comes, you are, we are fighting, no? If you’re fighting, it is very foolish, now, to say ‘oh, I didn’t realize the enemy was coming,’ when you are fighting. Because when you are fighting, you are looking for the enemy, correct? You see the enemy coming from far away. Then you’re already preparing. These things that is happening to us, it is our enemy. don’t think of it as our friend first. Meaning, the waswasa, the doubts, the questions, the opinions, everything, first attitude you have to have: ‘this is my enemy.’ If you say it is your friend, then it’s going to come closer, closer, closer, closer to you, with you, inside you, suddenly he becomes an enemy. It’s too late. It’s too late. It is already destroyed, inside your house. Then you cry. Why you cry? You know it is an enemy. You don’t know, you’re being told it is an enemy, watch out for this. You’re not sure whether it is an enemy or not, that waswasa. Then, before it comes close, ask. Ask. Be in sohbet with the Ahli Zikr. Don’t ask yourself, don’t ask your nafs, don’t ask your sheytan. Your nafs and your sheytan will say ‘no, that is your independent thinking. You have a mind.’

So, with practice, then you understand these things coming from a long way. Then you understand, also, sometimes you know it’s coming, but you just let it to come. Why you let it to come? Because you like to feel that way. Because sometimes, people are stuck in this for years. That is the only feeling that they have that is giving them a lot of passion, a lot of life. When they pull to themselves then they feel very sure of themselves. That is their identity. We know that you cannot just break it in one day, too. But if it’s years and years and years and years and years, continuing, then, it’s not getting fixed, it’s only going to get worse. They are stuck. They are thinking, ‘okay, now I pull into,’ like so many, so many of us. Everyone, into that situation where you are the victim, everyone is victimizing you, everyone is in an abuser, you are the victim. Meaning everyone is wrong, you are right, nobody understands you. Breh, it’s okay if you are thirteen years old. It’s okay if you are sixteen years old. But why you have to have that kind of understanding when you are twenty-six, or thirty-six, or forty-six, or fifty-six. Some people, they are still stuck there. You should not be. Because after a while, you say ‘okay. All these things happening to me, why it happen to me? It cannot be everyone is wrong and I am right. What did I do?’ Now, that’s the time when you become adult, you grow up a little bit. Because to stay in that way, getting stuck, it is no good. It is not giving you anything. But you like it, because you feel, you are doing this to yourself (stroking, comforting), ‘oh, it’s okay. It’s okay…’ Doing this to yourself always. Cannot.

Now, if you want to do this in this way, you found a wrong way. Okay? We say nicely, we say this way, we say that way. We say so many different ways for you to understand, but you’re in the wrong way. Maybe you can go to other ways. They will pet you, and you will pet yourself too. But when you have cancer, you don’t pet. When you have cancer, you don’t pet. When you have cancer, what do you do? They make you to go through, they give you poison. Poison. Correct or no? When the cancer has taken over, they give you poison. They don’t pet you. You think our spirits, some, you don’t have cancer in you? But they say ‘no. I don’t like it. Because it’s too much, it’s too harsh.’ We say, okay. But do you understand the cancer? ‘What cancer I have?’ We say okay. Then EyAllah. You don’t understand you are sick, you don’t believe it, you don’t see it, what can we do? Sit there and wait for the Angel of Death to come. Then you are going to understand. You are so sick, the doctor is going to take a knife and open, cut you up. Now, the disease of the body, eh, like this or like that, it doesn’t matter too much. Because you live, you die, you have eternal world to enter into. You live your life properly, this world doesn’t matter to much to you. But we are talking about disease of the spirit that is going to be there forever.

So this is not an option. People are thinking ‘oh, if only I didn’t enter into Tarikat, I wouldn’t have to deal with all these things.’ We said, yeah, that’s true. You don’t have to deal with all these things now, with hundreds of people around you that can help you. You will deal with these things later, when there’s no-one there to help you. And then sheytan is saying, ‘you see? Your Lord is not just. He is not merciful.’ That time, you lose your faith. Finished. Everyone has to go through it, no? May Allah forgive me and bless you, insyaAllah. Wa minallahu taufiq, Al Fatiha. Amin. 

Sheykh Lokman Efendi Hz  
Khalifah of SahibulSaif Shaykh Abdulkerim el Kibrisi (qs),
Osmanli Dergahi, New York
27 Rajab 1439
April 13, 2018