Sohbet by Shaykh Taner Ansari
12-13-98 Santa Cruz, CA (Aptos)

Shaykh Taner: When you get going on something, you can't stop, you just keep on going. Now, how are you going to stop yourself doing something over? That is a different thing. That's why you're a Sufi. And there is a long process, and it takes a lot of effort. how you can stop that the Sufi way is, as a psychiatrist, you can ask him, he probably knows another way. But first of all, you have to know the problem. You have to believe in your head that you need to solve this problem. First of all you have to believe in this, mentally, that this is a necessity. How can you come to this conclusion is by project or by figures, you can go to the past and do the graphic of what happened, and you can study others who are like this and see what's happening, and at this point what's going on. and then you have to come to the conclusion that I have to do something about this.

When you intend doing that, when the intention goes into your heart, there comes Allah to work. Then Allah will help you, will show you the way how to do this, because we don't have the power to change anything. We can intend to change it, and Allah makes it possible. Allah is the Creator, we are not the creators. We just create things from what Allah has created before and make new ones or different ones, but still with Allah's knowledge that we can do this that Allah has given us. If Allah doesn't give it to you, you don't have, thousands of people are working to stop cancer and nobody can do anything about it yet. Why? Because Allah has not given the knowledge yet. When Allah gives the knowledge, and then the means, then you can do it. for example, let's say that there is an element called X or YZ somewhere in the universe, but you don't have it. That is the cure for cancer. What can you do? Yes, it's good to know, where can I find this? Well, you can't find it on earth. Well, good-bye, then, what can I do? Nothing. Still Allah is going to provide the means and you are going to do with Allah. But you should not quit your intention of getting better and solving this problem.

So that's what your dream is showing, that you have to intend to do things within the limits. Now , an example. These are all unheard, there are Silat martial arts students, and Islamic martial arts is the best martial arts, in my opinion and in many others. So when there is an action, you have you do the action in the right amount, at the right time, with the right force. Anything more than that is wasting the energy or the time or the place. So you have to learn your limits. When I'm holding this spoon, I hold it with a big force. I don't need to hold it with force if I train myself to hold it with the minimum force I need, then I don't have to get tired.

I coach soccer, and a lot of my students get tired. "We are tired." Why? Because they run everywhere. If you keep your position and keep running, to save energy and to be able to do it, you just keep within your means. this is your line. All you're going to do is ten yards here, ten yards here, back and forth. If you do this you are not going to get tired, you went there and back, went there. If you keep you keep following the ball, which is not your place, the ball is there, that's his job to follow it, not yours. You go there, too, because everybody's attention's on the ball, so when the kids first start they all run after the ball. There's no position or anything, everybody's going after the ball, there is 20 kids right after the ball and there's nobody on this side of the field. So it takes them a couple of years to teach them, at least three years, this is your place, now stay here and keep going back and forth, like that.

It is a matter of training. Allah has given you some basic capital, strengths, eyesight, senses and this that. Now, that is His gift to us. Now what we do with that is up to us. With training we can, this is what Allah is expecting from us is, what are you going to do for Me? We have to train ourselves and do the right thing at all times. Then Allah is pleased with us. and that's why you're here, that's why you're a Sufi, that's why somebody before us said, "O Allah, how shall I do this?" And Allah showed him the way, and he showed us the way, and now I'm showing you the way how to do these things. So it is a process, a matter of process. You have to first believe in this, that this is a necessity, and then follow the instructions.

The hardest thing is of course, dying before you die. If you don't die before you die, all these things are going to happen. and in order for you to die before you die, what must you do? Surrender. How? Complete surrender, not a little bit.

Story

There is a story. There is this rich guy who wants to be a dervish and the shaykh says, "I don't think you can do this, son." He says, "No, I want to, I want to." he says, "Okay, now, if you want to be a dervish, the first thing is go gather all your money and throw it into the sea. Then come here." In the old times there was no paper money, so he gathered all his gold money, whatever, you know, puts them in a bag, throws it in the sea, and ties a rope in case. Ties a rope on the shore. He says, "How will he know? Did I throw it away? I through it away, yes. so he goes to the shaykh and says, "Yes, I did what you said." And he says, "Now, go cut the rope."

Cut the rope. you are not cutting the rope. You are still holding the rope. That's another title of my book, "What about my wood?" These are all real stories, they are not just made up to give a lesson, these things really happened. The one I'm telling here, or I told them all before, but I'll repeat it again, this really happened and I know exactly the place where it happened.

Story

In the 1st World War, after the War, Turkey was occupied by the French, Italians, and Greeks, and our territory was held by the French. And the guerrilla forces are pulling back. They put the resistance, but they can't so they're pulling back to regroup onto the mountains. It is just like Santa Cruz, there is the sea, a little bit of plains, and then mountains. So they are pulling up to the mountains, let's say it's (highway) 17, they are going. And then there is this villager, he doesn't know anything, he just knows he collected some wood on his donkey, he's going to take it to the bazaar from the village into the town and buy bread or some other things and go home. So they say, "Aha! Here is a donkey that we can use." So they say, "Hey! Stop. Where are you going?" "I am going to sell this wood." "Okay, how much is the wood?" "Five dollars." "How much is the donkey? See we need the donkey. I'll give you good money for your donkey." If it is $25, he says $50. "Okay, here is $50 for your donkey, here is $5 for the wood. Now, put the wood down and give me the donkey." And the guy says, "What do you mean? You mean this wood is going to stay here?" He says, "Yes, it's going to stay, it's none of your business now. Give me the donkey." He says, "But, you know how much time I spent to cut this wood, and brought it here, and then you're going to just leave it here?" he says, "Look, man, now when I give this $5 to you, it's my wood now, and here's $50 for the donkey. Now this is my donkey. Now put the wood down, and give me the donkey?" and the guy says, "How can I do that? This wood, I suffered so much, and I was going to sell it in the bazaar," and so on and so forth, and he keeps saying, "But what about my wood?" He keeps saying, "Give me the donkey," and he keeps saying, "What about my wood?" Listen, Allah has bought your wood. He doesn't want your wood, Allah wants your donkey. Get off. He holds onto his wood, "But what about my wood?" I bought your wood. It's mine, now get off. So we are holding onto this wood and not letting it go. Allah doesn't want your wood, Allah wants the donkey.

So, is it easy? No, it's hard, but it's also easy. Once you do it, then it's a big relief. You mean I didn't have to run the world? And I've been doing so? That is really good, isn't it good that someone else is running the world, and you don't have to worry about it? It's very good for me, but for some who want to run the world, it is not good because, What? You mean I am not running the world? I can't do it? And somebody else is going to do this? I want to show them who is running the world. And there are a lot of people who tried this. In a big way. The last one was Hitler. It cost about 50 million people dead, so many people died, so many things did, and the wounded and this and that. Did he conquer the world? Where is he now? Hello? Where are you? He's not there. I can't hear him. Can you hear him? No. Before then, Queen Elizabeth wanted to conquer the world. She succeeded for a while. But I don't see queen Elizabeth anywhere anymore, do you? No. Ottomans did, and then before that, Alexander the Great. At least Ottomans, their job was not to conquer the world, but specifically these guys went to conquer the world. Alexander the Great said, I will go conquer the world, make it one nation and that's it. 33 years old, boom, good-bye. So Clinton is running the world, but he might go any second. What happened? What do they call him, the strongest man or the most powerful man in the world. I don't think so. For a while maybe, but...

So, it is better for us to accept the fact that there is a force beyond us Who's in control. and he is a compassionate, He, She, It, we don't know, there is no gender in there, that He's sharing His knowledge with us, and He made us like Him, but keeping one end of the rope with him, so we won't just take off. To show us that we are not God, but we can learn God within yourself. So you have portions which work automatically, it is not in your control, and you have portions which are in your control. So you are responsible for those parts which are in your control.

If everybody knew. Unfortunately, it is not easy to tell them this. The state of surrender, how great position, what a great state it is. Which we cannot do that so that you will not surrender for the wrong reasons. If I say, what a great state it is, then you will say, oh, why don't I surrender to get this state? And then you'll never be able to surrender. But you can think, contemplate and find that yourself, how a nice place that surrender place is. and that is the only thing that is accepted by Allah, surrender. If you don't surrender, what you are doing is you are attributing partners to Allah, and Allah is one, He has all the powers, all power belongs to Him, so when you attribute something like that, when you claim something like that, then you have to prove it. And if, I don't think you can prove it, so that's why then Allah will prove you that you are wrong. And this proving is going to cost you a lot, that you are wrong. So the easiest way is to say, "Eywallah," surrender, and be on Allah's side.

Allah created us for Himself, so we can do what he wants us to do on earth, rather that what we want to do. but He gave us the choice, to see if we're going to do this or not, that's why you can also do what you want to do. And Allah is letting you do this. But in this one, you are proving, all these actions are proof of your sincerity and your dedication to Allah, do you really want Allah or not? It will be seen in your actions, not in your mouth. So, if you are sincere, then we'll see it in your actions. You can say all you want, I didn't do it, but when the DNA shows that you did it, you can't say, well I didn't do it. The actions are important. So what is the action, you have to know what is the action that I must do so that this force beyond me has approved this? so he will be happy with me?

So that's why you have to know the universal right and wrong. Not your right and wrong, not Rennie's right and wrong, not my right and wrong, but Allah's right and wrong, the universal right and wrong. And universal right and wrong is a definite right and wrong. There are many universes, in this universe there are laws and regulations that are taking place. You can find this through religion, with a belief system you have to take somebody's word, or with science. Whatever we are saying, Allah is saying in Qur'an, is scientific evidence, there is scientific proof. This is not blindly belief system. It is a scientific system.

What does Allah say, for example, what is a good action? First of all, accepting Allah is a good action. Why do we have to accept that there is Allah? Well, first of all, if you want to, like psychologists, if you want to help people, first you have to accept that there is soul, there is ruh, so that you can help them. If you ignore, if you say there is no ruh, there is no soul, there is no brain, how can you help him? First of all, if you say, no there is no AIDs, you can say all you want, this is happening, man. you have to acknowledge the existence of this. because this force is too big to ignore. This force is running everybody's life. Running the whole universe. First of all, you have to acknowledge this. When you acknowledge this, you will get onto the first base. Or first step, saying that, okay, now. When you are building a house, you must build it on bedrock, so it won't be shaky. On solid ground, you have to build your house on solid ground, so you have to build your hypothesis, or your theory, on solid ground. And nothing is more solid than the force that is bigger than all of us. So first you have to acknowledge that.

Once you acknowledge, then you have to say, is this force stupid or smart? Is it conscious or not? Does it know or not? If this force is bigger than you, if you want to know if somebody's smart or not, you look at his actions and what he has created. He has created you. You think you are smart, he must be smarter than you. This is the lesson of Moses. Moses said, why do you making and then destroying, why do you keep making and then destroying, can't you just let things be? Allah says, okay, I know you know this, but you want others to know this, that's why you are asking Me this question. Take some wheat and plant it. So he goes and plants the wheat, of course the time comes for reaping, so he reaps it and then he takes the heads off the hay, he hears, STOP! What are you doing? Well, I'm taking the seed off the hay, the grains off the hay. Why? Because it is not proper that it should stay together. I cannot make bread, it has to be separate so it will be bread, this is going to be food for the cows. he says, where did you get this judgement, this logic? From you. He says, if you have this much, don't I have more? That's why I make it and destroy it, I separate things, reclassify. Allah is the caretaker of His universe, He is Qayyum, He takes care of His universe. He is Muqit, Takes care of His universe, that's why He has all kinds of cleanup team, called microbes, bugs, birds, so many things. If you don't cleanup, He will in His own way.

So once you decide that Allah is conscious and knowing, then you have to accept the facet that there can only be one almighty, all-powerful force, and that's what we call God. Why can't there be two? Because then they will limit each other. but this force, whom we call God, has to be unlimited. so that's why. Okay, do we accept this so far? Do you accept this what I am saying, is it logical? God gave the brain. Anyway, so everything is logical and scientific. To correlate what I said, Stephen Hawking, he's an astronomer or whatever, physicist. He studied the universe, what's that, the Brief History of Time, anyway, so he studied the universe and he said, if there is a beginning of time, there must be a creator of this. And then this universe is the mind of God. That's the scientist saying this. Good for him.

So anyway, and once we plot that there is God there, then he has some communication skills, that He is communicating with us. Is God communicating with us or not? The answer is, yes He is communicating with us. How, is that's why you have 5 senses, outer senses and 10 or 12 inner senses how you can communicate with God. So what's God saying? When you look at the universe, like Stephen Hawking, saying that there is no God but God, there is no other God, there is only one God, which is in Arabic, "La ilaha illa Llah." There is no other one worth worship but Allah. We call him Allah. Because we don't have any gender. So everything in there is saying that to you back. You look at the cell, and you say, well, how is this working like that? What is it really saying? That God is powerful and there's no God but God, who else can make it like this? That is saying to you, scientifically.

What does the flower say to you? You look at the flower, this flower is so beautiful, it smells so nice. But it comes from the same earth. Next door there is another flower that doesn't smell at all. Same water, same earth, but this flower smells so nice. Until we intervene to make it faster, bigger, and them there will be no smell left. You buy these flowers looking like flowers, actually they are synthetic, there is no smell. Carnation doesn't smell like carnation any more. Rose doesn't smell like rose, you can know (sniffs the air) that's a rose. That's in parentheses. But what does the flower say to me, he says look how Allah is so beautiful, look how His beauty is being manifested in me. See how Allah is beautiful? You see me as flower, but actually this is a reflection of Allah in me. If it was mine, I could have held this forever, but I'm going to die, and then new flowers will come up. And there are other flowers, different ones. What does this plot in the chart? Allah is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, draw a line, infinitely beautiful, that's what he's saying to me. How come you don't hear this? Because you are not listening.

Anyway, and then you want to see Allah's power. Look at the boxer, wrestler. And then you look at the bull, the buffalo. I watch these animal shows, and how this magnificent tiger or leopard or lions come up, and you see Allah's power. You think this is the most powerful person. Lion is the king of the forest, but I swear I watched this, there were five, six lions they attacked one buffalo, and they couldn't take him down. The buffalo stood his ground, and he went into the water and that saved him, the lions couldn't do it. They were on top of him, under him, around him, everywhere. And then here comes the elephant. Wow, lions or no, they all run away. and there comes the man, everything gets destroyed.

So you plot again on the chart. A2B2C3D3, then you draw a line, goes to infinity. Allah is infinitely powerful. And this is nothing. This is nothing. When you look at the universe in this big picture, can you find earth? It's very hard to find earth in this picture. Oh earth, let's find the sun. Oh, looks just like a dot. And from that dot you have to count 1-2-3, that must be earth now. And all these powerful things are on earth. which is nothing in the universe. Which is not even a speck. And in this speck, find yourself. And then get out and say, oh I am better than you are, nobody can do this to me, I will show you. You will show me nothing, because you are nothing, your whole solar system is nothing. Forget you, everybody together, the whole solar system is nothing. That is Allah's greatness for you. And you are going to ignore this and say, it doesn't exist. Allah. Who exists then? You? Let me see. I can't find you here. I need ten times electron microscope just to see your planet.

Then, when you come to this, then you are in awe, you say, there must be something, some purpose that Allah has created me for. Now what is this purpose? You can go research it, or I can tell you, and you can benefit from the experience of others, so that this is, science is a cumulative thing, so you can progress, humanity can progress. So Allah has created us to know Him. Isn't it very apparent that He has given you the knowledge? Allah of His attributes are being displayed in the universe. But what good is it if there is somebody doesn't understand what, who's going to appreciate this beauty? Me.

So my attention is important. So Allah created me to appreciate His beauty, or Her beauty, or Its beauty. So my job is to know Him. And to worship Him. When you know, what must you do, oh, that's okay, man, you're God, I know now, let me do my thing. When you know, you have to act with your knowledge. If you know that cigarette smoking is bad, then you shouldn't smoke. When you are teaching people not to smoke, then you shouldn't smoke yourself. if you know that God is great, then you have to do the right thing and not be a thief, and praise Him, that he deserves the praise, acknowledge this. Acknowledging this is part of surrender, is acknowledging that God deserves the praise. When Moses went to, peace be upon him, I love Moses a lot, may Allah be happy with him. He has taught us a lot of things. He wanted to see God. He said, God, I want to see You. You talk to me, but I want to see You. He said, you cannot see Me. He says, but I have to see You. He says, Okay, I'll show myself to that mountain, and if the mountain can take it, then you can also. Of course, why Moses cannot see, because in this cartoon, too, they came up with a Moses cartoon recently, you know, God talks to him. How does God talk to Moses? This brilliant woman came up with the idea, something that he knows. What does he know? His own voice, so God talked to him with his own voice, I believe this. So, when he talked to him with his own voice, he thinks God is something like him. So he wants to see some figure. which God is beyond figure, how can figureless thing come out and say, hey. Because he's looking for it, even if He shows him, he won't see, because he's looking for a figure. Anyway, that is beyond the point, maybe I am off, Allah and Moses know best. And then Allah manifests Himself in the mountain, in my opinion what it means by manifesting is He takes the forms out. When He takes the forms out, he sees mountain moving. and then he looks at himself, he sees the same thing, and he faints. Passes out.

So, what does this answer? What does this say? If God is manifesting his attributes in the universe, as Stephen Hawking says, universe is god's mind, where are we at? Are we outside the universe? Or inside the universe? We are in the universe, a speck of specks, but God doesn't have any, He has filled everything, He's not going to leave anything free. So it must be that this speck also has God in Him.