Obedience Opens Spiritual Vision

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

The following is extracted from the teachings of Shaykh Muhammad Nazhim Adil al-Haqqani (q.s.).

The fruits of thariqa’ and the realities of what the Prophet (s.a.w.) was Sent with is not only physical.  The Prophet’s (s.a.w.) physical arrival in dunya was followed by the arrival of the Holy Qur'an and as the Khatim an-Nabi, the Seal of the Prophets.  These physical aspects are well known and many people are teaching it.  The Prophet’s (s.a.w.) ruhaniyat, his reality, was the mi’raj for all Creation; we cannot achieve anything without the Prophet (s.a.w.) first achieving it.  Every door was locked until the arrival of the Prophet (s.a.w.) and the physical Mi`raj towards the Divine Presence.  Then, all Creation is in a mi`raj with the Nur Muhammad towards the Divine Presence.

This is a reminder for those that come to open their hearts to these realities, not just the physical but also to taste the spiritual.  It is always about taste, dzawq.  These energies are real, that the power of dzikr is real, the meditations are real, and that this way, this Diyn of Allah (s.w.t.) is extremely real, extremely powerful.  It is filled with taste, filled with fragrance and filled with energy.  And they come and remind us that it is in stages, and until those stages are met then there is no opening.

There is the stage of ittibaa’, of following.  It is the stage where the ears are opened first and then the eyes of the heart.  The physical eyes do are unable to differentiate the illusions that befall.  And that is why they say this material world is like a magic show.  Anybody can do something for us in the physical realm.  They can make things levitate and make them disappear.  But the eye of the heart that cannot be cheated; it is the real baswirah.  Allah (s.w.t.) Opens the attribute of true hearing.  Thariqa’ trains us in ittibaa’, on following the teachings and guidance.  By following, Allah (s.w.t.) Opens the oceans of sincerity.  As soon as this ocean of obedience opens, then the ocean of the heart begins to open.  Spiritual vision begins to open.  If there is no hearing, then there is no sight.

There are people who claim that they see but they have not been trained by anyone in listening and obedience; the training of ittibaa’ has not been validated by anyone.  It is like someone coming and saying that they are doctors but nobody knows where they got their residency.  It is impossible.  Thariqa’ has a very strict discipline; we do not trust the visions of anyone who has not entered the ocean of obedience.  Anyone who has only obeyed themselves is very dangerous.  It means they have not accompanied anyone.  And, this accompanying has to be for years.  Again, like an apprentice, how many years did they accompany that shaykh?  And what did they go through?  And was that shaykh kamil, a perfected shaykh?  Did they accompany them, and eat with them and drink with them?  And then, were they sent to seclusion?  And, was that seclusion by Divine Order, and by order of Prophet (s.a.w.), and then through the awliya’?  Again, there are darjah of obedience.  They are degrees of submission.

Unless we take a path of submitting the ears, which requires accompanying a teacher, we do not use any vision with them.  We do not talk to them about what we see, what we dream or what we feel.  They do not care because anything we have now is all influenced by the ego.  All they are interested in is ittibaa’.  Ittibaa’ is the law of thariqa’, the law of what the Prophet (s.a.w.) sent to his companions.  The Prophet (s.a.w.) is the master of that formula.  The awliya’ follow that example.  When the Prophet (s.a.w.) went for Mi`raj, this was mind-blowing for the companions but they said, "If you say it, we hear it and we obey it."  They lived their entire life in obedience.  This was to the level that when they saw the manner Prophet (s.a.w.) walk, they walked the same way.  Even when the Prophet (s.a.w.) was not with them, if they heard he went around a rock in a particular manner, they would get off their camel and walk exactly like him around the rock.  They did that and they did that to perfection and as a result of their sincerity in listening and following and taking the khadam of the Prophet (s.a.w.) to be khadam asw-swidiq, they were seeing; they began to see the light wherever the Prophet (s.a.w.) walked, in whatever the Prophet (s.a.w.) did; it left traces of light.  Their baswirah, their heart was opened.  It only opens by the ocean of listening.

The schools of tarbiyyah are to teach the manners and the way of listening.  And in that, they teach that we do not talk about seeing when they have not seen the evidence of our listening.  Everything is based on listening.  Many people come with many different things attached to them; different philosophies, different shayathin and different energies and until they can see the ocean of submission, all these things area veil.  With this formula of listening, the shaykh teaches us that their way is not to trust what we think we see.  As soon as we take the hand of a physical teacher, why do we have to use our vision?  We are in the ocean of illusions seeking way out.  We make up these illusions and we have followed these illusions.  The adab of thariqa’ is to submit to a perfected shaykh.

If our ears have not submitted, do we now say that our higher level, the heart, has submitted?  And that Allah (s.w.t.) has Opened your heart but did not open our ears?  Do we put aside the example of Muhammad (s.a.w.) and they should open a different example for us?  The people of thariqa’ are the real Ahl as-Sunnah; we follow exactly the way of the Prophet (s.a.w.).  Some people think it is physical following.  We follow that and we follow spiritually.  The Prophet (s.a.w.) had to lay that foundation and based on that foundation, the thuruq are formed.  They follow completely the shari`ah.  To them, it is wajib at-taqlid, what we practice has to be from the tabi`in, the tabi' at-tabi`in, the companions and finally from the Prophet (s.a.w.) himself.  We are with those who were with those, who were with those, in that ocean of understanding and listening direct from the Prophet (s.a.w.) himself.

Once we have reverence and an understanding that you are under that Dominion, then everything within our being begins to learn how to submit, especially when we remind ourselves that this world is a training facility.  So the master of that submission is YaSin (a.s.); ‘Yaa’ for yaqin, ‘Sin’ because he is the master of as-Sami’.  It is because he hears from the Complete Perfection of Allah (s.w.t.) and he speaks for Allah (s.w.t.).  That is why the darajat of the Prophet (s.a.w.) is what it is.  He is the master of YaSin.  Allah (s.w.t.) is Telling us that nobody hears Him to the perfection of Muhammad (s.a.w.).  The one who hears with perfection speaks for Allah (s.w.t.), and speaks for Prophet (s.a.w.); it is the same inheritance.

It is not the one who sees because if he does not submit through the ears, he could be seeing anything, he could be seeing shayathin.  If we watch these videos about people who are dealing with spirits and they think they are dealing with angels, it is because they are not in the ocean of submission.  But they keep going through their eyes and they do not know that these eyes see illusions and they do not know what types of beings are trying to talk to them or inspire them.  Are those beings believers, or unbelievers?  Even within the room of believers, everyone is at a different darajat, so would you take everything they say from their mouth as holy?  Imagine then, the jinn who are filling the room here, if anyone of them attached themselves to us and began to teach us, you would think these are angels, spirits talking to us.  It is very deceptive and we can quickly fall into difficulty especially when you find out that spirit is constantly coming against the shaykh who is of the Muhammadan representative.  It means today he comes against one shaykh, then the other, then another, then all the way to the Prophet (s.a.w.).

It is the whole ocean of ittibaa’ and why they send people to the centers.  It is because Allah (s.w.t.) wants their ears to be Opened, not their eyes.  Their eyes carry illusions; we can see whatever we want in the imaginary world; you can sit behind a computer and start to visualise that we are walking through the Seven Heavens and it could all be based on bad desires but the most difficult is the ocean of submission because that is a hand on our head.  At least, at this time, we are aware that we have followed our hawa, our desires.  If the people from the ocean of submission do not listen to the shaykh one day, by the second and third day they are panicking.  They know that all around them, like iron curtains are closing in upon them because everything is Opened by their sincerity, in their obedience to the shaykh.  At any moment, anything can be cut, and everything begins to cut and get closed in their lives.  If something has not opened for them, what do they care how much it is cut?  They are already far away.  That is the difference between those that are sincere in their submission and those who are not.  For the sincere, their support is flowing through that sincerity.  They breathe from that energy, they see from that energy.  Knowledge flows through them is like al-Kawtsar flowing from the shaykh, flowing from the Prophet (s.a.w.) to the Ahl al-Bayt and to the Aswhab an-Nabi and to the awliya’.  If they become disobedient and have no ittibaa’, the door immediately slams shut and we are cut from Prophet’s (s.a.w.) presence because we violated the relationship with his representative.  So who did we come against?  We came against the Prophet (s.a.w.)and against Allah (s.w.t.).  The ocean of obedience is so much more difficult, far more difficult than people who think in the illusionary world.  We see this all the time.  They cannot take tarbiyyah and in seconds they run because every desire they wanted to follow was from their own desires.

The shaykh is inspired by his shaykh, and he is inspired all the way up from the Prophet (s.a.w.), to make Allah (s.w.t.) Pleased.  If we please Allah (s.w.t.), we are ourselves pleased.  If we live a life continuously pleasing ourselves, at some point Allah (s.w.t.) will turn His Holy Face from us.  We greatly fear that because if Allah (s.w.t.) Turns away, then who else do we turn to?  They have taqwa because their hearts are opened.  They listened and their ears submitted and Allah (s.w.t.) Opened their vision.  And from their vision being Opened, their breath was Opened, and the oceans of power, from as-Sami’ to al-Baswir.  From the submission of their ears, Allah (s.w.t.) Open their eyes, and they acquired yaqin and began to witness what Allah (s.w.t.) Ordained in their darajat.  Then Allah (s.w.t.) showed through their tongue, a drop of His Knowledge because Swifat ‘al-‘Alim is Addressing them.  They are drowned in the oceans of Qadir, Allah's (s.w.t.) Quwa, Power.  These realities keep flowing through the thariqa’, through the shuyukh.  These are the realities of thariqa’.

Why do people come?  Everyone has their own reason.  But to teach from these realties, the shuyukh want the ears to submit and everything else shut off.  Everything else may try to influence that person.  If a jinni attaches itself to us and begins to send its energy onto us, we will think we are seeing things, and it opened for us.  No, it did not open for us; it opened from their energy to dress us and begin to show us from how they see.  The energy they begin to impose on our physicality, and unless the physicality is trained to contain them, begins to hurt because they are electrical.  If they attach themselves, we feel very uncomfortable, we feel very cold at times, and we feel very hot at times.  Their energy is not balanced. They do not coming Authorised to put their energy upon us.  And if we are not trained to receive that energy, they keep manipulating.  So people often get sick and have different types of problems, different types of colds, hives or fever, whatever it is because these energies are attaching themselves.

The discipline in this way begins to teach us to detach from all of that.  We are not interested in playing with jinn or spirits.  We are here for the ocean of Submission.  In the ocean of submission, all that is necessary is the madad of the awliya’.  When they see the submission, and seek the perfection through their madad, it means they have begun to accompany us.  As soon as they accompany us, if we are in need something, their energy is immediately there and they are Trusted.  When they accompany us, we are safe.  When an unsafe person accompanies us, we do not know what is going to happen.

The way of perfection when we divorce ourselves from this.  In the Naqshbandiyyah, we do not have three talaqat, but six talaqat from miraculous understandings.  Our shuyukh do not show miracles.  They gave six levels of talaqat that they would divorce themselves from this type of behaviour.  Many other people as soon as something starts to happen, they attach themselves to these beings and then the being comes and says, "I can tell you the lottery numbers,” “I can tell you your future,” “I can talk to the other beings from my clan," and that is how they do fortune telling and how they do all these other fitan and difficulties.  And in this day where Dajjal and all these negative forces are coming, that is the most dangerous ocean to be playing with because as they say, "When you play with fire, you get burnt."

Thariqa’ comes to bring the perfection of character and that perfection is in the ears.  When the ears submit completely in the ocean of submission, it turns everything else off.  When the shuyukh see that submission is there, then they begin to send through their madad.  And through their madad, they begin to open the vision.  And at that time, the vision can be trusted, because it is through their chain that whole authorisation is given to the door of the Prophet (s.a.w.).