BismillahirRahmanirRahim

Question: Has anything changed since the making of the video “Sheykh Effendi in three words” ?

Years ago, couple of people, murid ‘X’ and all the rest asking, going and interviewing people and asking people: In three words, describe Sheykh Effendi. You have seen that video sometime right? You should make it soon, again. And everyone is saying things. I said couple of things. So now, you are asking if that has changed?

Of course it hasn’t change. It has grown. Sheykh Effendi, before he was in front of us. Now, he is all around us. Please, for some of you don’t play games. You are going to make rabita to your Sheykh, don’t think your rabita to your Sheykh is imagining your Sheykh is sitting right in front of you and you and him you merge and you morph and you become one. That is partnership, isn’t it? If you are not understanding at least that your Sheykh, as Quran is describing, that they are like mountains, at least that you are tiny and they are like mountains, you are not making any connections at all. They are beyond that of course. And our Sheykh is in a mountain beyond the mountain of Qaf. And what is the mountain of Qaf? People thinking, ‘oh it’s a mountain somewhere. Mountain, mountain.’

Imagine if you take a ring and you throw it in a desert, endless desert. Endless desert, you throw a ring in there. That ring is the dunya. That endless desert, it is the Qaf. Don’t try to think. Don’t be busy with that. But we are trying to understand the greatness, everything must point to the Greatness of Allah swt. And if we are worshiping to this world, we will never worship to Allah, because you are going to think that Allah is like this world. People talking about Divine Presence so cheaply. When Jibreel (as) he wanted to see the Paradises, and there are seven, eight and beyond levels of Paradises, and Jibreel (as) is one of the most beautiful and one of the most powerful angels to have ever been created, and he is able to travel beyond the speed of light, beyond the speed of thought, beyond the speed of will. And he spread his, how many wings? Six hundreds? Doesn’t matter, you can say six hundreds, you can say six million wings, he spread his wings and he flew and he flew and he flew and he flew and he flew until he became tired. And he wanted to know how much of the Paradises he has seen. Sheykh Effendi is saying, Allah swt said, ‘Ya Jibreel,’ imagine this is the shape of one paradise, (Sheyk points to an A4 size magazine), ‘what you just did with all your speed and all your tiredness, what you just traveled, is just from here to here (Sheykh points to the tip of the magazine) of the Paradise of Hz Abu Bakar as-Siddiq.’

Oh you are greater than Jibreel, I think huh? People are bigger and greater and more powerful than Jibreel, they have Divine union. You are not understanding, then why are you saying, ‘Allahu Akhbar’? Why are we saying Allah is the greatest if you don’t even understand these things?

The Holy Prophet’s (asws) Paradise? Unthinkable. Beyond that. Unthinkable. Divine Presence, unthinkable. Holy Prophet (asws) spent 40 x 40 000 light years travelling from Sidratul Muntaha to Divine Presence. But 21st century Muslims (are saying), ‘ohhh, I want to get closer to Allah.’ Everyone says, ‘I want to get closer to Allah.’ Eh, than what? You get closer to Allah, than what? ‘No, just to feel good, you know.’ Huh! You’re still spoiled. You still have no idea than. Just to get close to Allah, why you want to get close to Allah? Why you want to get close to Allah when you don’t know Him? And you get close to Him, then what are you going to do?

Holy Prophet (asws) went close to Allah. Sahibul Qalba Qalsain, nearer than two bow’s lengths and even nearer than that, just to sit and to be comfortable? He did something. So many they want to get close to Allah just to ask for themselves too. Holy Prophet (asw), one of the things, when he was close to Allah swt, is to ask help and support for his nation, not for himself. We don’t care about Prophet, we don’t care about this nation. We only care about ourselves.

How we got here? Oh, I don’t know. Because we are talking about Sheykh Effendi, how to describe him. So yes, he is great. He is the greatest man I know. People may get upset and say, ‘no, it must be the Prophet (asws). He’s the greatest man. Don’t say that. That is wrong.’ I don’t know the Prophet (asws). I know his name, and you know what? I know the Prophet, whatever little that I know, it is from him, it is not from me. I learn this religion from my Sheykh, not from myself, not from my ego, not from my own research, not my own understanding. Allah swt gave that faith to him to give it to me. What we can talk about the Sheykh, even other Tarikats are going to say we are committing a shirk. What we talk about the Prophet (asws), oh, imagine then.

You will not know their greatness unless you understand where you are. You will not understand their greatness until you understand our lowness. You will not understand that mountain, until you understand, when you are standing in the foot of the mountain how big it is. You can see that mountain pictures thousand times, you can study about the mountain until you stand next to the mountain and you realize, ‘oh, I am like this (tiny) and this is like that.’ That’s the time you will understand and you will appreciate the mountain. Because when you are just looking at the mountain in the picture, you say, ‘I’m bigger than the mountain.’ Isnt’ it? ‘It’s just a picture.Oh, mountain is very nice.’ So many are reducing their Sheykh to that. Then that time, with that proper manner and that proper awe, and that proper love that you have to your Sheykh, that you are running to step on your ego and to serve, than that time they bring you into the majestic presence of the Holy Prophet (asws).

If I ask you to stand next to, I’m not talking about mountains, just this building, stand right next to the edge, right at the edge of this building and to look down, so many of you won’t be able to do it. Now although there are some movers amongst you but you won’t be able to do it, correct? Why is that? There is a fear. There is an awe. What is the fear? That I’m going to drop.Is anyone pulling you? No. Is anyone pushing you? No. But there is that, Allah has put in us a respect and an awe in something that is bigger than us. If you go to the Niagara falls, same thing. If you go to Grand Canyon and you stand next to it, you don’t look and you stand next to the Grand Canyon and say, ‘what a great person I am.’ You are going to say, ‘what am I within all these?’ What about those ones who are the friends of Allah? Don’t get too close. You are next to the fire. What about the Holy Prophet (asws)? Because we have reduced him, especially in these days, we reduce him to become just one of passive person. We reduce Maulana Rumi to be a passive person. Now we are going to reduce him to become a Hollywood actor. That’s what it’s going to be seared into people’s mind, when they think of Rumi they are going to think about this (hollywood actor) I don’t know what his name is, his face there.

So you stand next to him, you feel the fear. Nothing, it’s just there, its presence. It is there when you are standing next to it, it is there when you are not standing next to him. It is there when you are sleeping, it’s there when you are waking. It’s there. But when you come close, that reality, it appears. What is that reality? The fear of who you are, what is he capable of doing. So the reality of Allah, it is beyond our understanding. The reality of the Prophet, don’t. If you are approaching him like that, then slowly you are understanding His greatness. His greatness, because he is the greatest Prophet. If you reduce him, you are not understanding his greatness. You may feel a little bit more comfortable, but you are not knowing him.

We are here in this way to understand the Greatness of Allah and the Greatness of the Prophet (asws), the Greatness of our Sheykh. Only when you are riding on your ego like a Buraq and you are travelling, the Israk and the Mikraj, then you are going to understand the greatness, of your Lord. Before that you think, ‘there is no Lord. Greatness is me, because I exist, I jump up and down.’ You can only understand the Greatness of your Lord when you are riding on the ego.

Ramazan is supposed to make us to understand all this. But we are more concern with our desire. In this month thousands are running, they can’t wait for bayram. Yes, of course there is some joy, of course there is some celebration, of course. But bayram is there because of Ramazan. You know bayram is there because of Ramazan. If there is no Ramazan, you think you are going to have the same kind of joy for bayram? Never. That’s why the Qurban it is a bigger bayram than Eid ul-Fitr. But not too many can understand that. Because the situation and the understanding is much higher. Because this bayram, this Ramazan, we are just staying away from food and drink and certain activities. We are just burning our ego, correct? Ramazan means to scorch, to burn, and we are just burning our ego. But Qurban, it’s not burning, it’s not torching, it is Qurban. It is, you are finish with your ego. And only those ones who have experience that, they will experience the Qurban. They are going to experience Eid ul-adha. Who is making these connections, so that our religion make sense to us? No, busy with nonsense.

May Allah forgive me, insya’Allah. Our Sheykh, we cannot say anything about him. If we live every single day, every single moment, every second we speak about him, it is never ending. Because he is Rijalullah, he is the man of Allah. Holy Prophet (asws), until Qiyamet, no one can speak enough about him. No one can write and praise him enough. If you take all the trees and make them into qalam, if you take all the oceans and make them to become ink, you can never finish describing Rahmatan lil Alamin. And those in his way, same. Astaghfirullahal adzim wa atubu ilaih. Waminallahu Taufiq. Al-Fatiha.

Sheykh Lokman Efendi Hz,
Khalifah of SahibulSaif Shaykh Abdulkerim el Kibrisi (qs),
OSMANLI DERGAHI- New York
26 Ramazan 1437
July 1, 2016.