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Salamalaikum. Welcome. I am very happy that we have been invited to be part of the ‘Long nights of Ramadan’ program
so many of you have turned up. This gives us even more strength.
The Sufiensemble has just brought you into the world of the orient and set the mood right.
Metin Effendi will hold speeches on the theme of fasting, its power and what it brings spiritually.
The Dervish who is also fasting will, with Allah’s grace, have the strength to show you how the Dervish whirls.
I wish you a pleasant evening.
And anyone who wishes to experience more is always welcome to our Sufi Centre.
I hope everyone has received a flyer and if not, please approach me.
Let yourself now be transported into the world of Ramadan. Have a lovely evening.
Salamalaikum.
Bismillahirahmanirahim. We begin in the name of the Almighty, the merciful one and welcome you to the ‘Long nights of Ramadan’.
It is rather trying when you have to talk and sing while fasting. One of the reasons behind fasting is to talk less.
One can always sing though.
But we will try our best to explain a few small things
in the frame of traditional Sufi music.
Sufi music is a part of a specific path, an accessory leading to the goal.
Sufism is a spiritual way that leads to heaven, to the Almighty.
Hence we thank Him that we are here, that you heard the call in your heart to be here
and that He gave us the strength to transport ourselves here.
There is a difference between hearing the call and following the call.
People are physically in this world. But the physical being is not the only presence.
There is something we cannot see, the spiritual side, a subtle side.
And at times there is a conflict between what the subtle side wants and what the physical mass is ready to do.
The Ramadan month is one of the three holy months in Islam, the last of the three.
It is a month when Muslims fast.
Fasting is a tradition that every prophet who was sent to this earth did and shared.
Fasting is the forte of service to the Almighty. And to serve means to put oneself in the background.
The one who serves places the will of someone else before his own. That is service, it is voluntary.
That is why fasting is the entry into serving.
That is the personal forte of serving.
Independent of the fact that one does not eat or drink from dawn to dusk,
one also surrenders his own will, his own ego, to the Will of the Lord.
You do not eat or drink, because the Almighty requests so.
That is the first step to learning how to serve.
So it is wonderful that we can come together as Ramadan is also
when the community should be supported and should get to know one another.
There are nightly prayers when Muslims come together.
And events like these also bring people together. We can get to know what others preferences are, what his tastes are.
We want to present something. We want to give you a taste of this path.
Whether through the music or the words, it should help understand who we are,
who the Sufis are, what traditions we follow.
One cannot know who someone is unless one speaks to the person.
We share with you what we are about, without taking something from you.
Your hearts are the greatest gifts to us as each heart holds a divine secret and you have brought it for us as gifts.
The more you are, the more we are blessed.
This is regardless of whether you are a child or an old person.
The children and the old people provide enormous blessings
and that is why it is important for them to also be here.
Everyone has heard of fasting. Some have tried it themselves.
Apart from the physical difficulty, and its rejuvenating effect,
there is a highly spiritual aspect behind it.
Our ego tells us what we should do. Eating and drinking are where we get strength from.
When you do not eat or drink, you refuse your ego these things.
This is the basis to finding the strength to refuse.
That is why in this month you do not eat or drink, the basics needed.
This attitude is when your higher essence shines. That is the beginning.
There are different practices to achieve this. Fasting is to conquer one’s self and not be under the control of the ego.
We have planned to have small speeches. We also wish that you hear more music.
More of the Sufi tones. I need to save my saliva too as there is nothing to replenish. I hand you back to the music masters.
Usually our Dervish elevates himself, but since it is Ramadan and he is weak, he can’t.
When Mevlana whirled back then, the people, the witnesses of the Sama,
the Dervish whirling, said his feet were no longer on the floor.
Mashallah, our brother even though he is fasting, found the strength to whirl.
We must also ask ourselves what our lives revolve around. It has to revolve around something.
We are not on this earth to be there and disappear. There has to be a centre we revolve around. A sun.
Mevlana found such a sun for himsels, Shams Tebrizi.
The sun, Shams Tebrizi, made him who he is. Mevlana Rumi, the world’s most popular Sufi poet, wrote poems that found their way into hearts.
He made his living as a poet of knowledge and light.
But he wasn’t born so. He needed a master too, a sun. That made him a Mevlana. His master made him who he is.
The whirling Dervish shows that everything revolves around something. The earth rotates too. It is not whirling around you.
When the Dervish whirls, it is not around himself but around something that remains his secret. His heart.
This action of whirling is a ritual, a spiritual practice. By whirling, the world swims, the meanings that are so strongly anchored in this world turn themselves inwards.
They turn inwards and look inwards. Sama comes from the word ‘listen’, from hear.
Mevlana called it Sama as one can hear his inner side.
It is not easy to distinguish the inner voices but one has to listen carefully. The Almighty speaks in us and our ego speaks too.
You need to listen inwards and find out what is being said. What is being said within me?
We Sufis collect pictures as it gives us a better understanding.
There are things that make our lives sweet or bitter. The secret of our ego is that it can make our lives sweet.
It may seem like the ego brings only negative vibes, but there is sweetness to be found.
Think about a glass of tea and you put a sugar cube in it.
We are the glass, the vessel that holds a specific chemistry. It is not enough that sugar is put into the glass to make it sweet.
Through this turning, something happens to the sugar, to our ego. The more the sugar dissolves, the sweeter the contents.
The more the ego dissolves, the sweeter our lives. The harder our egos are, refusing to dissolve, the bitterer it will be.
No matter what touches us, the hard ego will always make it bitter. It has a feeling of sweetness but the after taste will be bitter.
This whirling action thus is to dissolve the ego. It is a ritual. It is a beginning. So we must also ask ourselves, what is the central point in my life?
Do I have a sun which I revolve around? One that gives me warmth and light for my life?
Is this something that will remain with me when I leave this world or will leave me?
One must ask himself this question. For the Dervish, he revolves around love, to experience and hear this love.
And as long as our ego does not dissolve, life will remain bitter. We will now continue. My brothers want to sing.
What you have heard is what we call the Asma al husna, the beautiful names of Allah. There are 99.
But there are unlimited names for the one truth, the only name. He is given many names to be called.
They are the core of change.
When we take over the charge of representing Him on earth, we must then reflect the characteristics of His names.
Therefore are the names there to be said aloud. Every name has its own power, its own effect and these powers change us.
When this world gives us problems, they bring about feelings that bring us down.
Every feeling has a power, we govern different powers thus. Both positive and negative powers.
For us, as people, they are characters. They are essential for us, because we are these feelings.
We stand for what is called the negative powers, and also for what is seen as positive.
But at the end, every power is neutral. It is only what you do with this power that turns it into a positive or negative element.
That is why one should control these powers regardless of whether they seem in our comprehension to be positive or negative.
We need to learn how to differentiate these powers.
Therefore is fasting also one way. When one does not eat or drink, one does not know what to do the whole day.
Because the acts of eating and drinking occupy us so much, that we do not spend time on ourselves.
That is why fasting is a great boon to get to know ourselves. The power opens our own inner eye.
That is why when fasting, you suddenly get to know more about yourself. There is not much left to do.
You have to get to know yourself, see how much strength you actually have. Which power leads me where?
What happens to me? What does this power hold? Where does this power come from? Those are the questions.
We have an ego. It is our lower self. It also wants authority. But it must be controlled and led by us.
It is like you sit on a horse and say “ride”. But the horse does not know where to go.
Probably it wants to go to the next water or food source. But it will not want to achieve a higher goal.
My person also wants to head to where water and food are. Our prophet, peace be upon him,
1400 years ago came as a simple man in the desert and he said, “My people”, meaning everyone,
“At the end, people will only be thinking of what to eat and drink. One will be the poor because they have nothing to eat,
the other the rich because they are used to thinking about what to eat”.
Just like he said, we do wake up in the morning and already think about what to eat for lunch.
At lunch, we think about dinner. We are so occupied by what our ego wants, we do not get to know ourselves. Who are we really?
This is a question we must ask because we are here not without reason. He sent us and He will take us back.
Let us recite the names, the beautiful names of the Almighty. Every name has an effect, a power. This is what changes us.
The effort to make gold out of stone can only be done with support from above.
When the support from above does not come, the chemistry does not change. The chemistry of our ego also holds its own manner.
To change it, we need support from above.
That is why we sing these names, the holy verses, the psalms, the mantras that we know.
The singing is to change ourselves into something better, something good. That is why we are on earth, to spread goodness.
Our essence as humans is elevated over everything else. We are above everything that exists on earth, as human beings. We are representatives of the Almighty on earth.
Our actions make us what we are and what picture we present to this world. A good or bad person?
It is reflected by our deeds. This is the essence we try to reach, to be the truth being. So we sing, and we call. When you call, it comes to you.
The power you call. When you call a negative power, negativity comes. Positive begets positivity.
That is why we need to know who and what we call, because it will come to us.
That is one aspect of music in Sufism. That through singing, the Almighty’s blessings are attained.
Back to fasting. The field must be made free for self-realisation.
It needs to be freed from our egos. When you do not drink or eat, then you take your ego to the side and bind it.
You are free to see this field and explore and plant new seeds and let new things grow.
The garden needs to be trimmed. Our inner self also needs to be trimmed, cultivated.
You also do not let your hair grow wildly, that is why you trim your hair. You do that because you want to make something beautiful out of it.
The Almighty says it too, limit yourself. Look at the commandments I have given you.
Look at what is allowed and what is not allowed. Abide by them; limit yourselves so that it will be beautiful.
That is the fact behind these commandments. They are there to limit us so that something beautiful will come out of it.
My brothers have many repertoires. I also need to observe the time. We Sufis can talk from dawn to dusk. But in Ramadan it is lesser.
What we feel today and what our hearts have expressed to us here, are because of a unity.
When we see how we achieved this unity, we realise that we are diverse and different.
But we have still achieved a feeling of oneness, something that binds us in unity. Where does this come from?
How has this unity been achieved? That we do not see one another as strangers but rather as people. A person who is also on this earth.
Yes, we are strangers here. Our homes are elsewhere. Just like how you came here.
You did not think you would remain here, that you would pitch a tent here. You will return home.
What makes us think that we can camp here? We are also strangers here, we are here in transition.
That is our life, our time here. We will return eventually to where we came from. Unity is what binds us.
Is there unity in something that is one-tone? Like this screen, although it is not currently one-colour.
No one will consider an art piece art when it is just one colour. Nobody will stare at a black screen for hours.
Yes, naturally there are some who do that but nobody will pay money for that. In an auction when masterpieces from the great painters are sold, then the prices are sky-high.
Because they hold great worth. They have managed to present in unity different colours in a picture within a frame.
Something beautiful has been presented, demonstrated. Unity is only beautiful with diversity.
When not, unity is not something beautiful. Nobody will call that art.
There is nothing that displays solitude like one colour. We need to understand that. We are here as different people, with different characters so that there is a reason for us to find out about each other.
When someone is exactly like me, why should I get to know him? Is there a reason to get to know him?
If he is different, then there is a reason to get to know him because he is the splash of colour, who with me, will make the world complete.
He is the other colour that I am not to mark this unity. That is why the unity must begin with us, inside.
We must find the unity inside ourselves first. To become one. What does it mean to become one? We have two levels.
On one level the Almighty reaches out to us. The other, you look below and wish something from this world.
Unity is only present above. Below is the diversity. For unity, you need to create the connection.
The atmosphere here is a peaceful one. It is not a strange atmosphere.
It is an atmosphere of trust, of mutual trust.
It occurs when we gather in unity. The reason why we gather is to sing in unity, to sing about the one.
Here it is about the Almighty. And where He is, is beauty. And we feel this beauty.
We only have to learn how to bring back this beauty that we feel here in our hearts.
also encompass it into our lives. As mentioned, we are here on earth only for a stipulated time.
We will return to where we came from. Just like how we will return home to where we came from.
Everyone goes back to their homeland, to their house. That is why we are here on earth for a limited time. A transition.
A rest place along the road that leads to the goal. Everyone eats something different at this rest place, what his preference is.
Tastes are different. What someone else’s preference is, even though it is not mine, is valid.
Tastes are different. We cannot argue over that. Over colours and tastes we cannot fight.
Everyone has a different preference to taste and colour and that is why everything has its own validity.
We have to understand that everyone on this earth validates his own actions. It need not please us.
But it pleases someone else. We also need to learn that if something does not please us, it might not necessarily be bad for us.
It is good for someone else and we need to respect that.
You have received a taste of what our preference is, what gives our lives this flavour. That is what you see.
This address, the music, the community. The togetherness of the community.
If it is your taste, then you are welcome to enjoy more. For those who did not like it, it is also ok.
Also a valid preference and we respect and accept that. We do try.
We come back to fasting. It teaches how to position ourselves in the background and to put someone else in front of ourselves.
Just to say, “Please, what is your wish?” It brings peace because it gives a connection from which respect stems.
Through this connection there is exchange. And this leads to respect which creates love.
And perhaps this is one way we can co-exist with one another. That perhaps we can fulfil someone else’s wishes by placing our own needs in the background.
Maybe if I fulfil one person’s wish, my own wish will be fulfilled.
If I do not fulfil someone else’s wish, then my own wish might not be fulfilled.
There is a saying we know, “Your luck can be found in the luck of another”.
If I make someone happy, he will make me happy too. That is a mutual give and take. I need to give first, to be able to take.
We have time for one more piece. Inshallah we will do Amentu Bilahi.
Amentu Bilahi holds the pillars, the pillars for eternity, the principles that eternity is based on.
Amentu Bilahi sings of the Almighty whom we believe in, the angels Whom we believe in,
the books that He sent that we believe in, the Prophets which He sent whom we believe in
and the fate of everything, that good and bad is within our destiny
and the faith that there will be a life hereafter.
That is Amentu Bilahi, what we will sing inshallah.
Whoever wishes can sing along. My brother will present the lyrics on the screen.
We thank you for your attention. We wish that you will find the right path in your lives to a sweet point, that gives a sweet taste.
The last taste that you leave the world with should be a sweet one. Hopefully this sweet taste opens our eyes to the next world.
Mevlana said that when you do not close your eyes in this world you will not be able to open them for the other world.
It is just like the sun setting and you think it is gone but it is rising for someone else on the other side.
And so we have a limited time but we hope that it is a new beginning for a further journey.
So we would like to close this with a prayer that the Almighty will always lead us on the right path and where the end is sweet.
That we will receive a sweet taste from this world without a bitter aftertaste.
He sent us to this world, He will take us back. And we hope He will take us back over a nice path.
Like a climber who climbs a mountain.
He will have to come back down. Question is how he comes back down.
Unhurt or broken, something we do not wish.
That is why we also wish for a path that leads us back unharmed. Amin.
Thank you and hope we meet again. Salam alaikum.