BismillahirRahmanirRahim

Tafakkur: Make Tomorrow Better Than Today

Insya’Allah we are asking from our Sheykh to send us something that is going to give us benefit now. We are not going according to script. We are not going according to what we plan to say. But it is something that is sending, in reality not to me but to everyone, what is necessary.

The Holy Prophet (asws) is saying, ‘One hour of meditation, it is better than seventy years of Nafila Ibadat.’ One hour of Tafakkur. Don’t think meditation means what so many people thinking, in today’s Muslims, meditation they are taking from this they are taking from that, they are taking from everywhere. Well, once upon a time, everyone is taking from the Tasawwuf, from the Masters of the Tasawwuf. These days we are seeing, so called masters of Tasawwuf they are taking from everything. Eh, Ahir Zaman. That means your well has already dried up. That means there is nothing there, so you go to different sources of wetness to get it. You pass it off.

So one hour of meditation, one hour of Tafakkur. What is meditation in Islam? It is not what you think it is, just empty your mind, put your hand like this, just free your mind, just concentrate on your breathing and just let go. What does that mean? Let go, what? Concentrate in your breathing, why? That is right, you can meditate. You can meditate on your breath, you can meditate on your desires, you can meditate on this world, but you can also meditate for the sake of Allah swt. But what is Tafakkur that the Holy Prophet (asws) is saying? What we are learning from our Sheykh SahibulSaif, what is Tafakkur?

If you know, which I cannot say none of you don’t know, meaning everybody knows what Tafakkur is, but if we know and we are not practicing, that’s a big problem. If we know and it is not showing from our face, from our words, from our actions, the signs of that actions, Tafakkur which is better than seventy years of Nafila Ibadat, for one hour. Imagine if you make one hour every day, how much more higher station you are going to be coming closer to Allah swt. Of course today, they are following different ways, different traditions for you to have Taffakur, for you to have purification of your nafs. You are going to pay money, you are going to have nice mountains and vista and lake and you are going to sit like other traditions and that’s the time when you are going to reflect on yourself. That is the most, how shall we say, fake way. Because you must know yourself in your natural surroundings. You cannot know yourself in unnatural surroundings.

What do I mean? Of course in a nice place, you are going to be nice, in a nice place you are going to act very nice, you are going to wear nice clothes, you are going to eat nice things, just like what? Just like a vacation, a retreat. Everyone (saying humbly), ‘SelamAleykum.’ ‘Aleykumselam.’ So that is just a vacation that you are going to do. To understand your nafs, you have to understand it in your own natural surroundings, not unnatural. You have to understand it when you are working, when you are with your family, when you are going through your day to day activities with people that you like and people that you don’t like. So what is the difference now between that and everyone else that goes through life just with people they like and people they don’t like, with their families, with their friends. What is the difference?

The difference is, when we talk about purification, I’m going to go back to tafakkur, how this is related. When you look in your natural surroundings and you try to purify yourself, when you are taking the sohbets, the association, the advice that the Evliyaullah that they take from the Quran, they take from the hadiths, they take from the sunnah, they take from the riwayats, and everyday they are making it new, everyday they are making it fresh for you to eat again, to give you more nutrition to your spirit, not just telling you what the recipe is, like some Sheykhs they say, ‘just read the book. Read this book, read this book, read this book.’ Prophet (asws) never told the Sahaba e-Kiram to read any book. What the Evliyaullah they do, they take from this Holy sources, and they make it, and they read your book and they gave according to what you need. Now you, if you are awake, you know what you need. You know what you need. The Sheykh can offer you, like what Sheykh Effendi is saying, a supermarket. In the supermarket. There’s so many things in the supermarket, now according to what you need, you say, ‘today I need this. I don’t need all the rest of the thousands of things.’ The next day, you say, ‘I’m going to need this, I’m going to need this.’ But how are you going to know that the sohbet of a Sheykh, taking from the advice from the Holy Prophet (asws), how will you understand that it is a supermarket and it is not just words, a recipe, something from a book? Which today Sheykh, they read from book. They look in the book and they give.

So, now, how are you going to understand that what your Sheykh is giving to you it is one big emporium of wisdom of advice? If you don’t have tafakkur, you will not understand. Tafakkur, it is better one hour than seventy years of worship. Because your aim is to know Allah. We are here to know Allah. We cannot know Allah if we don’t know ourselves. Tafakkur makes you to sit down and for you to understand yourself, understand your nafs, to understand your dunya, to understand your desires, and to understand your sheytan. To understand this. That all these is inside of you. Don’t say, ‘Oh, sheytan is out there, dunya is out there, the desires are out there. Nafs? I don’t have a nafs.’ Today’s 21st century muslims, none of them say, ‘I have nafs.’ That’s why they are not following a guide. They say, ‘I’m well.’ Because a guide is a doctor. If you are well, you don’t go to a doctor, correct? If you are healthy, you don’t go to a doctor. You only go to a doctor when you are sick. So every majority of Muslims believe that they are healthy. You don’t need guide. You don’t want guide, you don’t need guide. ‘My guide is Allah. My guide is the Prophet (asws),’ they are saying, ‘not just any man.’ So Tafakkur, what we said about earlier, the believer’s today has to be better than yesterday and tomorrow must be better than today.

Who is waking up in the morning, saying that, ‘Ya Rabbi, my intention is to make my today better than yesterday.’ Who is doing that? to openly say simple prayer. We are not asking you so many memorization, so many secret duas. People are very interested these days., they say, ‘read this dua you are going to get a lot of money. Read this ayat, whatever you lose you are going to find. You like this girl? Read this ayat seventy times. You want to destroy someone, read this Asma ul-…..’ You see, now Tasawwuf and Islam has become like a bunch of magic spells. Just magic. To do all of that, anyone can do it. If you are a munafiq, you can do it. If you are a bad person you can do it. It’s not asking you to be a believer. It’s not asking you to be a person who is close to Allah. It’s not asking you to be a man who is in the Siratul Mustaqim. Dajjal is going to come with a lot of magic spells. Don’t worry, those who are looking for that, you are going to find it with dajjal. Mahdi (as), he is not coming with a rose. He is coming with the sword. He is coming with shariat. And that shariat is to bring justice to the whole world, don’t say it’s only Muslims, no. He is going to bring justice to the animals, he is going to bring justice to the the creatures in the sea, he is going to bring justice to the skies, to the earth, to every single living things, men and women. Whatever religion, whatever culture, whatever beliefs. If you believe that this world now is unjust, if you believe that this world now is being oppressed, if you believe now that tyranny and terrorism is everywhere, if you believe that those who are in power they are being tyrants and oppressing and killing and massacring and murdering everyone else, if you believe that and you are hoping for that change every single day, if your heart is crying when you see a little kid cries across the world, then you are preparing for Mahdi (as), to bring down the Divine law, to bring protection.

If you are saying, ‘the world is okay, the world is beautiful.’ I’ve heard so many they said, ‘the world is so beautiful. I see so much beauty in everything. Look at this, this is beautiful, this is beautiful.’ Some saying, ‘I wish I could see with your eyes because you are seeing everything beautiful.’ I say, ‘yes. Definitely there is beauty in this world. But don’t get caught with that.’ Whose eyes you want to see? Of course these days they are saying, ‘you are telling me to see through the eyes of my Prophet? No, I want to see with my eyes,’ they are going to say. Now according to the eyes of the Prophet and the Evliyaullah, this world it is a prison. No prison is beautiful. Even if the prison it is a castle, it is a palace, it is still ugly. And this world right now, believe me, it is very ugly. Just because in your town, in your city, in your country it is so beautiful, all you have to do is you just have to scratch a little bit and you are going to know that reality. Because Mahdi (as) is going to come to remove that ugliness, that dajjal is only going to show you the beauty. He’s going to put a veil there that everything you see, everything is beautiful. But the Evliyaullah they are going to say, this world already turn to Jahannam. But dajjal is going to say this world is Jannat. There’s so much hope for everything.

How are we going to know that our today is better than yesterday if we don’t sit down to think what did we do yesterday, to think what do we do today, to have hope to be a servant to Allah swt, to become better tomorrow. Don’t look too much. Sit down and understand. Yesterday, how did I ignore my Allah? How did I ignore my Prophet (asws)? How am I ignoring my Sheykh? What are the things that I’m saying and doing that is only for my ego, that there is no remembrance; there is no closeness to Allah? The one who is sincere he is going to find. And the one who is sincere and he finds, he is not going to be stuck at that level of saying, ‘oh, I’m such a bad one. I’m such an evil one. I’m a no good one.’ No. because he is sincere and he says, ‘because I’m not good, my tomorrow has to be better than today. My tomorrow must be better than today.’ He is not going to say, ‘because I’m such a bad one, I’m just going to leave everything just like that and to be lazy.’ No. because he is going to that time become more responsible and obey the Prophet (asws) who says, ‘the believer his today must be better than yesterday, and his tomorrow has to be better than today.’ Before you do, you must think.

Before you do, you must think, ‘today what did I lose? What did I gain? What did I put in my grave? I did not put too much. I did not. I did not make enough zikr. My prayers were just like this and like that. Most of my days it was just in ghaflat. It’s not even to satisfy my ego.’ 21st century Muslims, it’s just in heedlessness. Where the wind blows, you are going to go. If you understand that then you are going to say now, ‘today I am like that. I didn’t send too much. My tomorrow, insya’Allah I will stop from all of that. My tomorrow, I will put more love of Allah in the actions that I am doing.’

It’s easy to have this meditation when you pay money for a Sufi retreat, top of a mountain or in front of a beautiful lake and to think all these things. MashaAllah. No, we have to understand how the Sahaba e-Kiram received these teachings from the Prophet (asws). How the Tabi’ins received it from the Sahabis. How the Tabi’ut Tabi’in received it from the Tabi’ins, how the Sheykhs from that time until now teaching it to their murids. A Dergah, definitely is not a retreat centre. A Dergah it is like a hospital. Hospital is never a retreat centre, unless you go for rehab. But even a rehab is not pleasant. In the hospital, according to your sickness and you need that much medicine, and the medicine that you are going to get for the benefit of our spirit to step on our ego, it is not pleasant, it is not easy. It is not.

Our aim is for tomorrow to be better than today. That’s why we are here. That’s why we are here, top of a mountain. Because once upon a time, our today was yesterday, our yesterday was today. Meaning before we came here, we say, ‘I want to have a good future for myself and my kids and I want this good future to be for the sake of Allah and His Prophet (asws).’ You see the teachings of our Sheykh. Now you have that understanding and you say, ‘my tomorrow must be better than today.’ We make the move. We make the hijrah. It’s not the time for reconquering yet. It is not the time to even fight yet. This is the time for hijrah. And the hijrah of the Sahaba e-Kiram and the hijrah of the believers is never for the dunya. It is for ahirat. It is through running to serve Allah and to make Allah to be happy with us. So you need the hijrah to come here. Maybe some have a different idea, saying, ‘now we are coming. It’s going to be so nice. Everyday we can see Sheykh, we can make zikr, we can listen to sohbet, we have our family, da, da, da.’ But since Sheykh Effendi pass, we made it very clear what our mission is too. And it’s not going to be easy.

So when you come through difficulty, the ego first thing it’s going to do is to blame everyone. ‘because of this one say this to me…because of this one did this to me..’ otherwise everything was okay. ‘this one give wrong information…this one made somebody else to make…’ everyone is outside. All the blame is from outside. Never from the inside. If you do, you just say it for lips service, ‘ya, ya, ya. I know, I know, I know. I’m the worse person da..da..da..da..da.’ you know how the game goes. But we want our tomorrow better than today. Which is why we are here. And in the hospital, in the cleaning area, which we want ourselves to be clean now before we enter into the grave, it’s not going to be that easy. If you are facing difficulties, it is normal.

What are you going to have? You are going to have peace in your heart. Knowing that you trust your guide and all this is going to make you to become better. If you don’t trust, then no reason to be here. Because a lot of it is very heavy to carry. And we are here for the love of our Sheykh, to be with him. His entire life has not been easy. His life, especially the last few years is not easy. But he was not caring. Because Allah swt had sent peace to his heart. Whatever people are doing, they can only attack him from the outside. They can never attack the peace that he has in his heart because he knows what his tomorrow is and he is aiming towards that. Today is going to pass. Tomorrow. This is our intention insya’Allah. May Allah forgive me and bless you. This much is enough. Wa minAllahu Taufiq. Fatiha.

Sheykh Lokman Efendi Hz,
Khalifah of SahibulSaif Shaykh Abdulkerim el Kibrisi (qs),
OSMANLI DERGAHI- New York
8 Zul Qaida 1437
August 11, 2016.