4 Enemies of the Soul

From the Teachings of Mawlana Shaykh Hisham Kabbani

Sufi Meditation Center, Vancouver, BC

http://vimeo.com/9434533


We are always asking, “Ya Rabbi keep our association to be under the flag
of Sultan al-Awliya, Mawlana Shaykh Muhammad Nazim al-Haqqani (q) and under
the flag of *Laa ilaaha il-Allah Muhammadun Rasulullah*, and under the
guidance of Sultan al-Awliya Mawlana Shaykh Muhammad Nazim al-Haqqani (q) ,
and his representatives, Mawlana Shaykh Hisham Kabbani (q) and Mawlana
Shaykh Adnan Kabbani (q),” this teaching is coming to us through them, they
are the shaykhs, the peers, the *ustadhs*, the masters of reality and I am
nothing. We are seeking to enter the Ocean of Nothingness and as we have no
title, we are always in need of and beg for their support, and ask for
their guidance and permission to give *nisaar,* an understanding, beginning
with myself and to anyone who is interested in listening to their
teachings, and sharing from our life experiences.

*Alhamdulillah *in the meditation we are asking to bring our desires down
and open up divinely and heavenly realities that exist within our soul.
Mawlana Shaykh’s teaching is showing that our reality, our soul, is cut
into four sections that are blocking us from reaching that reality.
Sayyidina

*
*

*Ibrahim (as) had asked Allah (SWT) in the Holy Qur’an, “Ya Rabbi show me
how You revive the dead.” And Allah (SWT) asked him, “Don’t you believe?”
He said, “Yes I do believe but to give me tatmain’al quloob, a certainty
and peace in my heart, show me how the dead come back to life.”*

Then Allah (SWT) asked him to take a bird and cut it into four and put each
piece on four corners and then to call that bird to him. Sayyidina Ibrahim
(as) did this and placed the pieces in four different corners and called
the bird as Allah (SWT) had ordered him to, and the bird flew back to him.
And Mawlana Shaykh is teaching us that Sayyidina Ibrahim (as) is the
gate-keeper of the *Nafs* *ul*-*Mutmainnah*, “The soul that has controlled
its ego and is reaching towards its Certainty;” each prophet is teaching us
how to reach our reality, it is a team work, and each one is teaching us
what we need to know to unlock our potential, to unlock our realities. And
Prophet Abrahem, peace be upon him, is a major symbol in *marif’aa, *in
knowledge of ourselves, and knowing the realities that are dressing our
soul.



*The teaching for us is, that bird represents the soul and in our daily
life the wholeness of the soul is blocked by the four enemies,*

   1. that we have *dunya *(worldliness),
   2. *hawa *(vain desires),
   3. *nafs *(ego) and
   4. Shaytan.

It is teaching us that if you call your soul with permission of the Divine
to its reality, then these four can become one and we can reach that
reality of oneness. And *alhamdulillah*, Allah (SWT) is guiding us to the
Way of His love, Sayyidina Muhammad (s) and to the Way of His *Awliyaullah*,
and His greatness is what He taught to His saints and *alhamdulillah* we
are under the Sultan of Saints, Mawlana Shaykh Nazim al-Haqqani (q) and his
representatives Mawlana Shaykh Hisham Kabbani (q) From Mawlana Shaykh’s
teaching to us, all of Sufism is based on how to destroy these four
enemies, and control them to bring the wholeness of our soul, so it can fly
back to the Divine Presence.

*So then the biggest enemy to the soul is dunya, it is our material desire*.
It means the first level that comes and blocks the reality of the soul is
the *dunya*, the material desire, and the more we have of that, then the
less we have of the soul’s desire. That is why people who are heavily
immersed in material desires don’t understand the spiritual associations;
they don’t understand this meeting or the purpose of what we are saying,
and they have no patience to sit like this, because the desire is material;
the whole mind has overtaken the body and its only concern is how to get
more materials and this is a waste of time for them. They ask, “What are we
gaining from this *- I could be making some cash*.”



So then the first thing that the masters teach us is to know how to take
someone to their reality when their reality is the material world; to lower
the material world for them and hence some of the teachings may be hard on
the ego and they say, “O why is he teaching like that, why is it like sand
paper?” Because their wisdom is that you have to take away the desire of
materialism from the eyes of that person and once you can do that, the
heart follows. So then their teaching is that, by nature the material world
enters us through our eyes, and the first thing the Shaykhs teach us is
that you want to *control your eyes, they are a window to your soul*, and
if they are infatuated and intoxicated by material surroundings, it is
going to block the reality of the soul. So just like our computers,
technology gives us an understanding to know ourselves; if your computer is
running audio and video files, capturing and downloading three or four
videos at a time, it crashes the hard-drive because it was overwhelmed; the
size and magnitude of that files overtook everything. So they are teaching
us, *“How do you sit and empty yourself, and contemplate and move to the
Divine when your hard-drive is filled with material desires?”* As soon as
you sit, all your thinking and visualization is on your material desires,
whether it is on money or sex or violence, whatever your eyes are
capturing, it will be (reflected in) your meditation. So as soon as they
sit to meditate, they see the things they love dearly and what they want
the most, and it is their meditation.



So then the saints are teaching us, “Start controlling your eyes as it is
affecting your heart’s desire; spend your time in meditation and
contemplation.” Try to format the heart and say, “O my Lord, I don’t want
to see those things any more.” Control what your eyes are seeing and if
they are *seeing excessive nakedness or wildness or all sorts of physical
desires, it is affecting the clarity of the heart*. So they teach us,
“Control your eyes, your eyes are hungry, and you cannot control them
without lowering your desires,” so they mention *nazar bar qadam*, means
the *Awliya* were teaching a thousand years ago, “To keep your eyes on your
feet;” keep your vision down and as much as you look around you will never
be satisfied; if you buy something and you look around you, you will say “O
everybody has a better thing than what I bought,” and then again the heart
is affected and if you complain about everything that you buy, the desires
will never be satisfied. So then when the vision moves down, they are
teaching us, “You are training yourself to be humble,” and when you keep
looking at your feet then you will be happy with just the shoes you have on
you and you realize there are people who have no feet and many people have
sicknesses’ and difficulties.



That means everything is a training to start lowering our desires and when
we start to keep our eyes closed, we realize, “Ya Rabbi open in my heart
what is important. I am worshipping the wrong things*.” W**aqul jaa
alhaqq  wazahaqa
albatil inna albatila kana zahooqa** (17:81)*, means I am worshipping
falsehood and Allah (SWT) is teaching us that falsehood is perishing by its
nature, and the things you love are perishing, so why are you running after
that? This *dunya* and its money, all these things will go, some faster
than others, so worship that which is eternal; open the reality of your
soul and reach towards heavenly realities which are eternal and
never-ending. So then in these levels of training they begin to teach,
“Control your eyes, keep looking at your feet, keep control over what you
are watching and say, ‘I don’t need to watch that now, I need to control
these desires’” and every time sit and meditate and contemplate and ask
yourself, “What is it that I want and what is my need. I am so busy wanting
that I don’t appreciate what I have.” You can spend so much time wanting
things and in the end if God takes away one thing that you didn’t
appreciate, at that time you understand what you needed and what you
wanted; the fullness of our life is having a spouse and children and
health; those are the things that make our life dear and sweet. *All the
things that you buy with money have no value in that life, it doesn’t
improve anything from that life, it is an illusion, all the things that
money can buy; if the core isn’t good and it isn’t sweet, no matter how
much sugar or how much dressing you put on it, it is still dirty, it is
still rotten inside*. It means if our life has no purpose and we say to our
self, “If I make some money I am going to be happy,” or in the midst of all
the battles you tell the your family, “You wait we are going to make some
money and everything is going to be okay,” it is like taking a rotten apple
and then dressing it with caramel and candy to make it look good, but if
you bite into it, that apple it is still rotten.



So then Mawlana Shaykhs teaching for us is “You have to make your core
good, you have to find a purpose and happiness within yourself.” Nobody can
make you happy, only you can make yourself happy, and the reality of that
is that your *Lord must send happiness to your soul. Then when I am happy
with myself, it’s because I am beginning to know myself.* If you sit and
contemplate and say, “I want to control my desires,” then the saints are
telling us, “Close your eyes, your eyes are like the mouth of your desires,
as much as you keep looking you keep getting hungry.” So even when you eat
you only look at your plate, you don’t need to know what somebody else has
and don’t say, “O I could have that.” Look at everything you have and begin
to meditate and close the eyes. And you find that many people don’t like
mediate and to close their eyes because they are not comfortable with
themselves, they think all of this *dunya* defines them and if they don’t
have it, they don’t know who they are. So many people lose their jobs and
their sustenance and they are lost because they don’t know who they are
anymore. So then Sufism and meditation is coming to teach us, “You are who
you are, and the greatest gift is to find who you are.” So then you
meditate and contemplate, “O my Lord, I am asking to find myself, to find
Your reality that exists within me; the secret that You have planted inside
of me, the Majesty that You have dressed me with.” And so you begin to
contemplate and focus on your heart and that reality and focus on that
Divine love.



And they say to take ourselves out of sadness and depression, keep
saying *Alhamdulillah
wa shukrulillah*, which is a constant *zikr* for that, because sadness and
depression is an affliction from the soul; from the Divine Presence to us.
And Mawlana Shaykh describes it thus: “You have a ticket for a vacation to
Paradise and your soul knows it has this ticket, but your body is not
packing for the trip.” If anyone has a ticket and they find out the flight
is tomorrow and they have not yet done any packing, and you have the taxi
honking outside, you go crazy because you are not ready yet. The soul is
sending us a warning bell that, “You have a ticket and we see it here; you
are to meet your Lord,” and the soul knows the departure date, but we
don’t; it may be one hour or thirty days or thirty years. And the soul is
telling us, “We have this ticket and you are not preparing and wasting all
your time.” And when the Divine really loves you the wake up call comes in
a very strong way, a heavy depression and a very heavy sense of anxiety -
which makes sense - because He wants you to know that you have a ticket and
if He kept you heedless, you would go to your grave not knowing of that
ticket. And you see many people like that they don’t care they constantly
intoxicate themselves not to know about that ticket.



But when the Divine is saying, “You are a special soul and you have been
dressed with a special reality and the angels must take you to that
reality,” the angels then inflict God’s Will upon our soul and they say,
“God’s Will is that you must reach that reality, wake up!” And every
sadness and anxiety begins to hit the body and begins to inspire us
that, *“Seek
out the means and the Way, seek a path and there are teachers who can teach
you the reality of that departure.”
*

*
*

*Door of Tariqat Holy Quran 9:111 Allah hath purchased of the believers
their persons and their goods; for theirs (in return) is the garden (of
Paradise): they fight in His cause, and slay and are slain: a promise
binding on Him in truth, through the Law, the Gospel, and the Qur'an: and
who is more faithful to his covenant than Allah. then rejoice in the
bargain which ye have concluded: that is the achievement supreme. **
9:111 Inna Allaha ishtara mina almumineena anfusahum waamwalahum bianna
lahumu aljannata yuqatiloona fee sabeeli Allahi fayaqtuloona wayuqtaloona
waAAdan AAalayhi haqqan fee alttawrati waalinjeeli waalqurani waman awfa
biAAahdihi mina Allahi faistabshiroo bibayAAikumu allathee bayaAAtum bihi
wathalika huwa alfawzu alAAatheemu*


****

It means that *Awliyaullah* don’t specialize in *dunya* affairs, on how to
make more money, but their *specialty is how to take your money and how to
take your dunya* and your desires away from you because as Allah (SWT) says
in Surat at-Tawbah, that the beginning of this journey for the
*Awliyaullah*their
*marif’aa* starts from nine, eighteen, twenty-seven, ascending through
twelve veils of nine. In Surat at-Tawbah Allah (SWT) says, “We purchase
from you your *dunya* and We exchange Akhirah for it,” and you have to buy,
to make a trade, you have to say, “Ya Rabbi this is the extent of my *dunya*,”
and Allah (SWT) says, “No problem We will take your material desires and We
are going to give you your heavenly reality, We are going to open the
realities of your soul.” Then Allah (SWT) describes, “That is the best of
bargains.” If that gift begins to dress us then we have reached the best of
gifts. These *Awliyaullah* specialize in destroying the material desire,
everything that the eyes are always in love with and they begin to show you
that “What you see is an illusion and is very dirty. It has no benefit and
by its nature it is false and perishing.”

” You Can’t sit on your Bank Accounts like a Rooster and Hope to Have an
Open Heart “



And so, when you see that as real, you see that power dress your soul and
that dress is on you, and it becomes harder to have excitement for work and
for all the things that you wanted to buy, and you realize they are not so
important and you start to say, “I need to improve my soul and it’s
realities and my connection with the Divine Presence,” because these are
just desires from *dunya* which Mawlana Shaykh is teaching us to knock down
this *dunya* desire, and start opening up your heavenly ones. When they
begin to open for us the heavenly desire our taste for the material world
begins to change. And then we know that association is real and their *
Baraka* and blessings are powerful, and the *Awliyaullah* begin to pray for
you in Divinely Presence that, “Take away that desire and distraction,” and
no matter what we do, we are not successful in it because we are building
our house on a cliff. And the Divine is teaching, *“Build your life on a
solid foundation.” *



So until we realize who we are, we won’t understand what we should be doing
in this *dunya*. As soon as we sit in this association and in the
meditation then we realize that, “I should be looking into myself, I should
be searching for that reality I should understand what is bringing me
blessing and opening the reality of my soul and what is distracting me in
this material life.” And they begin to teach us that the satisfaction of
our life is by building that reality by everything that we are doing to
support that reality. Whereas before we were doing for *dunya* and taking
care of ourselves, *Awliyaullah* begin to teach us, *“You work in dunya but
make it for your Akhirah,”*  *rabbana atinafee ‘dunya* *hasanatan wafee
‘l-akhirati hasanatan waqina adhaab an-naar*, “Give us goodness in this
life and give us goodness in the Hereafter.” Mawlana Shaykh’s teaching is
that not to just ask, “Give me a lot of money in this life and then a big
Paradise there,” but they are teaching, “Give my life a flavour, give my
life a reality that in this life let it be *a life that builds my house in
Paradise*. Whereas before I was just interested in building my house in
this life, now I want to build my soul and build a reality in Paradise.”



So then they begin to inspire us, “Work and take care of yourself and your
family, and don’t make it so that you leave no time to build your self*.
And from what you have, support your community and your Way and something
that you believe in.” { Support Nothing You Believe in Nothing } *And that
support is the greatest opening to our reality and that support is what
many people do not like to talk about; many teachers are definitely not
interested in talking about this or teaching this, and many people hear
this but they say, “We hear, but at this point, we have turned off all
listening abilities!” *Bismillahi Rahmaani Raheem. Ati ullaha wa ati ur-
Rasul wa ulil amri minkum*, I pray first for myself, and for all of us too,
that we understand and *inshaAllah* ask in our hearts for an opening of
what they are teaching us, and to know what our *niyat,* intention is.



Our intention in life should be that, “I want to reach my potential, my
reality.” I want my material desire to go and I want my heavenly reality to
open, and the saints tell us, *“Then come be a shareholder and a
participant in your reality.” *

Most of us live our life like somebody laying on a train track and asking,
“I am laying here come and save us; I am just going to lay back, let’s see
what happens.” And these *Awliyaullah* are so merciful and so loving that
they save us even if we are not able to save ourselves; they lift us from
these tracks and they make openings for us that we can’t even imagine, and
they make *karamat* with nothing from our doing. They begin to inspire
that, “When you wake from your drunkenness and your heedlessness, why don’t
you save yourself from the tracks and begin to understand your reality?”

The *tariqah* says you want to open up your realities, and the Farsi word
is *pushtibanee, supporter*, they want us to understand *tariqah; * when we
have it, something begins to change and when the veil of ignorance is
lifted from us, we begin to rise in our consciousness’ and an understanding
begins to open in our heart, “Ya Rabbi I am moving towards that reality,
towards opening that reality, I am asking that my *dunya be a means with
which to build my reality of Paradise*, and I am going to stop asking You
what You are going to do for me, *and if I didn’t get that, I would become
upset with You*.” And they are teaching us, *Ati ullaha wa ati ur- Rasul wa
ulil amri minkum* that “Ya Rabbi my obedience is to You and now I will ask:
What can I do for You?” Because everyone comes and asks “Allah give me
this, Allah give me that, give me, give me…My name is Jimmy,” (laughter)
and no one comes and asks, “What can I do for God? What can I do for any or
all of His messengers,” we said this before, when you love them, come and
say, “I love Sayyidina Isa (as), tell me Shaykh what can I do for him?”



These associations are not associations for hand-outs, it is not a *Homeless
People*, that is on gettos; if you are looking for homeless people, you
give help on Poor Areas, but when we come here they are not asking for your
help or *sadaqa,* they are asking you to be a shareholder in their
realities. *They are asking you, “This reality is from Heaven and what have
you done all your life in giving it some participation?” *

They have an advertisement from a certain company that says, “I own shares
in this big search engine or this big company,” as if there is some pride
that you own shares in a big search engine, and do you go to say to Allah
(SWT): “I own shares in this big search engine,” He will say, “Okay, then
try and search how you can get yourself out of this mess.” And it will help
you with nothing. But the Lord will ask,

“What did you do with your life?” and you can say, “O my Lord I did many
wrong things but this blessing that You sent to me, my eyes opened, and my
soul has begun to open and however late  it came to me in life, I realize
that I must support this with my life and my death, and my family, my
sustenance,

*Qul inna salatee wanusukee wamahyaya wamamatee lillahi rabbi ‘l-‘alameen
(6:162)**,*


****

that I must support it.  Allah (SWT) is not poor that you think that by
giving five bucks you are feeding God, and His Rasul is definitely not
poor, and His *Awliyaullah* are definitely not poor, and don’t say, “They
don’t need it,” of course they don’t; if they did you would find bearded
men sitting on getto street saying, “Please can I have five dollars.” No!
That is a wrong understanding that you have to give, and they have to ask.
They are teaching us that when we wake from our sicknesses’, and we want
our lives to have a meaning, a purpose, then say, “I want to support that
reality, I want to support the Divine, and the prophets, and most
definitely the *ulul amr,* and I want to support them with everything I
have, with a monthly support,” and every time you put into that basket and
give a monthly support to the *Awliyaullah*, give as much as you can, and
make your intention to Sayyidina Muhammad (s) and all the other prophets
that, “I am a supporter of that reality and that path. I am not helping but
I am a shareholder, I have a stake in that entity that whatever they are
doing,” and whatever unimaginable blessing that Sultan al-Awliya is
receiving; you are a shareholder in that, because you are giving in this
Way, these association are under his flag.


And this entire hemisphere is under the representative of Sultan al-Awliya
(q), *the Qutb al-Mutassarif, Mawlana Shaykh Hisham Kabbani (q) *who is a
major flag for Sayyidina Mahdi (as).  And everything that we are doing in
our lives is not for ourselves and not because we are asking people that we
need to feed ourselves, but we are asking, “Be a shareholder in these
realities,” so that every night you can say that to your self. And
everybody is buying shares at their own speed, some are buying less and
some are buying more and every night we come to our self and say, “Ya Rabbi
I am a shareholder in that reality, I have a stake in that reality and
because of that I am going to learn from that reality,” and you find that
the people who donate the most, have it written the most, because they paid
for it; they are a part of it, they want to take something from it. Imagine
if you went to college and paid ten thousand dollar tuition, and you just
sat there and you didn’t know what came and what went on, and you barely
attended, and you didn’t understand what was happening. The first thing you
will receive is a letter from your parents asking, “What’s going on? We
paid so much in tuition and you did not participate?”



The *Awliya* know the secret of these realities, and they know that if we
become a supporter in that life, then we view it as something that, “I am
supporting it with my whole life, with all my effort and all my prayers,
and I am going to take the most of what I can achieve from that reality
with the time that I have been given in this life.” Some have been given
thirty years, some thirty days, some thirty minutes. We pray just from the
reality of *dunya* that our eyes begin to lose their desire and the heart
begins to open and as these months are opening, the month of Rabbi al-Awwal
and the month of the Secret of Creation and the Light of Creation and its
birth, it is the best month to give support and the best month to
participate and bring food and sustenance, and the reason we are teaching
is not for the few people who are here, but for all that are hearing. And
all these teachings are disseminated through the Internet and through
websites and for those that are hearing and understanding and have heard
before, then they may learn. And when we learn something and you talk to
other people about it and hear them say, “Why do you have to give them,
they have so much?” Say, “No, you are incorrect; they have a lot but I am
giving from my soul and it has nothing to do with them.” The Shaykh’s
sustenance and Mawlana’s sustenance is from Allah (SWT) *ana fakiru
bilAllah Ta’ala wa Huwa ‘l-Ghani*, “I am poor in Allah’s Way, but Allah
(SWT) is Rich.” If they make a *dua* the whole mountain of Uhud can become
gold for them, they are not in need of our support but we are in need for
them to accept our support, and we are in need for them to make us a part
of that entity, a shareholder in that reality.



And then as we said before, they are the *wakils* for us, and when we give
and send to them, they are like our attorneys; every night in the Divine
Presence and in the presence of Sayyidina Muhammad (s) they are making a
representation for us and they are saying, “Ya Rasulullah (s) make them a
part of that *Baraka*.” Imagine when fifty people are reciting Surat
al-Fatiha and every letter has twelve-thousand oceans of reality, times 10
people or 50 people, times ten *hasanat* per letter, all of that is being
put into an account with Allah (SWT), and *Awliyaullah* are dividing that,
and when they come at night they are asking the Prophet (s) that, “They are
shareholders with us, they have brought food, they have spend time and gas,
they took off from work and they travelled to that association, they did
what they could for that association, share these blessings and heavenly
emanations with them,” which can’t be found any where on this Earth except
in heavenly associations, and we begin to fill our accounts and those of
our children’s and all our loved ones accounts, and all that blessing
begins to dress them and you find many people coming to that reality that
you never thought would be present at these realities.



Don’t doubt the power of Allah (SWT), they say, “God works in mysterious
ways,” how many people received healing? And how many began to receive the
light in their hearts and in the hearts of their loved ones that we could
never imagine. It means this is the *Baraka* and the light of the
associations and the light of Sultan al-Awliya, Mawlana Shaykh Nazim
al-Haqqani (q), may Allah (SWT) raise him higher. We pray that they open
more and more realities for us, and we still have the desires of the *dunya,
* of *hawa,* and the *nafs* or ego and our Shaytan and we are prone to move
towards evilness in our nature. *Subhaana Rabbika Rabbil izzati amma
yasifoon wa Salaamun alal mursaleen wal Hamdulillahi Rabbil ‘Alameen. * *Ila
Sharafi 'n-Nabiyyi (s) wa `alihi wa sahbihi 'l-kiraam, wa ila mashayyikhina
fi 't-tariqati 'n-Naqshbandiyyati 'l-`Aliyya, khaassatan ila roohi imami
't-Tariqati wa Ghawthi 'l-khaliqati Shah Bahauddin Naqshband Muhammadi
'l-Uwaysi 'l-Bukhari, wa ila Mawlana Sultanu 'l-Awliya Shaykh ‘Abdullah
al-Fa;izi ad-Daghestani, wa Shaykhuna Mawlana Shaykh Sultanu 'l-Awliya
Shaykh Muhammad Nazim al Haqqani **wa  Mawlana Shaykh Hisham Kabbani,
Mawlana Shaykh Adnan Kabbani, wa Shaykh Abdul Khaliq Ghujdwani, wa Sahibu
Zaman Imam Mahdi (as), Ruhu’llah Sayyidina Isa (as), wa saifullah Sayyidina
Ali (as) wa sairi wa sadatina wa siddiqeen al-Fatiha.     *


Graciously Transcribed Saira K.


Nurjan
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