JOURNEY TO THE DIVINE PRESENCE

Allah Almighty has sent to us Sharia, Tariqa, Marifa and Haqqiqa. Sharia is the means by which we could reach to Haqqiqa or Reality. The Sharia is like a ship and Tariqa like an ocean across which you have to move towards Haqqiqat, your destination. Without Sharia, Tariqa would be useless. It would be like parking a boat in the beach. You have to take it to the ocean to use it. So Sharia without Haqqiqat is nothing. Whoever keeps to the Sharia must enter the Ocean and move on his direction to his destination, be it east or west, north or south. There are forty-one Tariqat’s and each one is an Ocean. You can use any one of them according to your destination. All of them keep to the Sharia and expect its followers to keep perfect Sharia as without a ship you cannot cross over the Oceans. The knowledge of our destination, which is Haqqiqa, is called Marifa. We ask for Haqqiqa or for the Reality, which is Allah Almighty. Therefore Sharia is like a boat, Tariqa like an Ocean, knowledge of your destination is Marifa and your reaching the destination is Haqqiqa.

The question now is do you need a Sheikh to reach to that destination. For example, you need a Captain in a ship or a Pilot in an airplane to take you from one place to another unless you can steer and guide it yourself. The final destination of people is the Divine Presence of Allah Almighty. The forty-one Tariqat’s are like forty-one Oceans and you may choose any one of them. If you want to reach anywhere you have to move your boat from the beach to the ocean. Similarly Sharia must be practiced through Tariqa. The Sheikh is like the Captain or Pilot. He is the one who is experienced in going back and forth. We novices cannot lead. It is enough to choose a way with one guide. All the Prophets were guides while those who guide after them are their Inheritors. In Mecca and Medina we need the guidance of a Mutawwaf who holds us by the hand and takes us around the Ka’aba etc. So what of going to the Divine Presence of Allah Almighty.
All the Prophets before Islam taught their believers Tariqa , as without it Sharia would be
useless. As we said before a boat serves no purpose on land. Its usefulness is only in the
Oceans. Once in the Ocean it can reach its destination from different directions.
The forty-one Tariqat’s are forty-one Oceans needing different types of vessels to traverse
them. Some need very high tonnage vessels while a simple boat will do for others. Allah
Almighty created many Tariqat’s so that each one could choose his mode of travel according to his capacity.

If you have a big capacity ship you may move through the Oceans, seas or lakes to your destination which would be the same from any direction. Keeping Sharia only, is like keeping a boat on the beach. So take it to the ocean. The Tariqa, the ocean would never take anything away from Sharia, therefore, you should bring the whole of Sharia into Tariqa and taking anything away makes you an imperfect Tariqa follower. It is not acceptable to Tariqa.
Tariqa demands a perfect following of the Sharia as leaving anything out would be like making a hole in your vessel, and that hole is enough to drown you.
Therefore, Tariqa people try to keep more firmly to the Sharia than the others. Finding our
destination is a very serious subject. Allah Almighty will ask why we did not take care in
finding our destination. Only the Wahabi’s, mindless, empty headed and square headed
people don’t understand the Seal of the Prophet Sayyidina Muhammed (on whom be peace). The Wahabi’s do not understand Tariqa. Leave them and keep to your way.

ASK PERFECTION FROM A PERFECT ONE

Now we are in this temporary life. Tomorrow, next week, next month, next year or maybe the next century we are going to leave. We must leave this life and move from this world to another world, which is described to us by the Prophets. No one may open the veils from the coming days, and no one can know what will happen after tomorrow in the endless future. Only He Who created you, mankind, may know what is going to happen in the future, and He is the Only One who can remove the veils. He is the Creator of the coming days and the Designer of every day’s program. Don’t think that any day may come by itself without a program, no. Every day must come by His Will, and everything, which is coming into existence, which will appear tomorrow, is programmed by Him with all the details, not only with the headlines. Yourself and every creature, everything, is representing our Creator’s endless power, His endless perfection. It begins with the smallest representative of creatures, which is less than an atom, then continues to the atomic world, the solid world, the plant world, the animal world, the human nature world, mountains, oceans, the earth, stars and galaxies. Everything shows Allah’s perfection, and He puts perfection in everything, never leaving any imperfection in any creature in any of these worlds. There is a perfect connection between everything, from the smallest unit in the atomic world, to the gigantic star systems in the world of the galaxies. Nothing and no one can be by itself, by himself. By that connection everything in existence knows its Creator. This is a common connection between everything in existence, that they know, or must know, their Creator- heavenly beings, earthly beings, the smallest creatures up to huge, gigantic galaxies. None among the countless creatures are going to deny the existence of their Creator. Only fully foolish, drunken people from mankind deny this. The second common connection among everything in existence is that all creatures give their most high and endless respect to their Lord, which is their glorification. Everything must glorify! They are saying that some things are not alive, but everything in existence has a life, and everything is alive with that glorification. If something is not glorifying the Lord, it is going to vanish, finish, it will lose its life. Everything that is coming into existence must glorify its Lord Allah Almighty. Oceans are glorifying, mountains, earths, skies, sun, moon, stars, galaxies, plants all are glorifying Him, even animals, your body is glorifying. But mankind, because they are heedless, are not using their tongues to say: “Subhanallah”- “Glory be to Allah Almighty! “ Therefore the events which are going to happen tomorrow are in their most perfect position. You can’t find any imperfection in anything in existence. Events are in their full perfection, because He, who created that event and that creature is in His endless perfection. So perfection may be taken from a perfect person. An imperfect person can’t give perfection to someone else, because if he is imperfect, he must give from his imperfection. I can only give from what I have. If I haven’t, what am I going to give to you? If I have perfection, I am giving perfection. If I have imperfection, I can only give imperfection. There is no imperfection with the Lord of the Heavens, and He gives to everything its perfection. He is asking His servants to ask for what they are in need of from Him: perfection. But people ask for this or that. No, ask from Him, from His perfection oceans, to give you perfection, so that you don’t come to His Divine Presence in an imperfect condition. He may ask: “Why you are coming in such a condition? Why are you not coming to My Divine Presence with perfection? Why are you coming imperfect?” If the servant says: “I never asked for more than this, I didn’t know where perfection was”, then Allah Almighty may say: “Oh My servant, why didn’t you look for a perfect one among My servants? If you had asked, you would have found someone, but you never asked, so you never found anyone and you are coming to Me not becoming perfect. If you were asking for perfection from Me, I would have granted it to you, but you didn’t ask. You asked for this and that, although perfection was the best thing for you to ask for, and the highest honour was to come to My Divine Presence with perfection.” It is important. Ask, and you can find. There must be some people who have perfection. It is not for common people, but if you ask, you can find a perfect servant and he may give to you. This is the meaning of the Prophet Muhammad’s (sal) saying: “If knowledge is to be found even in China, you must go for it.” At that time China was the last known place on earth, beyond which no country was heard of. The Prophet (sal) knew better, but he was addressing the people in front of him who knew only China as the furthest place. He meant to say: “If you are asking for knowledge, and the person who can teach you that knowledge is in China, then run to him.” What kind of knowledge? The knowledge which gives you perfection. Not the kind of knowledge which is only written down to make books, no. There are millions of books. But try it yourself, can you take perfection from them? You can? Oh, very good; but you can’t find the perfection which belongs to you. There may be a big warehouse full of keys, thousands of keys, and you are in need of a single key, and you are coming and saying: “Oh keeper of this warehouse of keys, I have lost my door key, give me the key.” But he doesn’t ask what kind of key it was and what it looked like, he only says: “This is the key,” and gives it to you. And you go and try the key, but you can’t open the door. You come back and ask: “Give me another key and then another.” But up to the end of the world the keys are so many and never ending and they do not open that door. So there are millions of books full of knowledge, but which one is giving you perfection? You need maybe a million years of lifetime to try and find out which one is for you. Oh heedless people. Never ending… even in a million years you will not finish. But that person, who is an expert, is saying to you: “What are you asking for? What kind of lock do you have, tell me.” And then he is looks and says: “Bring this key to him.” Therefore that person must know the perfection that you need. And that knowledge may be found in sometimes in China, but not in books. Real knowledge through our hearts is what we are asking for. So that is the wisdom of what the Prophet (sal) was saying. Knowledge is knowledge, here or in China. But if that person, who may give you that perfection is living there, run to him and take from him. He may give you the key to open your treasures. May Allah forgive us and make us understand something from perfection. Look for His representatives on earth to reach Him. If you don’t find them, you can’t reach Him.