{"id":901,"date":"2016-01-30T19:18:52","date_gmt":"2016-01-30T13:48:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/naqshin.azurewebsites.net\/?page_id=901"},"modified":"2016-01-30T19:18:52","modified_gmt":"2016-01-30T13:48:52","slug":"essence","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.naqshbandiphilippines.com\/?page_id=901","title":{"rendered":"Essence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This Way consists of continuous worship in every action, both external and internal, with complete and perfect discipline according to the Sunnah of the Prophet It consists in maintaining the highest level of conduct and leaving absolutely all innovations and all free interpretations in public customs and private behavior. It consists in keeping awareness of the Presence of God, Almighty and Exalted, on the way to self-effacement and complete experience of the Divine Presence. It is the Way of complete reflection of the highest degree of perfection. It is the Way of sanctifying the self by means of the most difficult struggle, the struggle against the self. It begins where the other orders end, in the attraction of complete Divine Love, which was granted to the first friend of the Prophet, Abu Bakr as-Siddiq (r).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Necessity for being a Shaykh<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The master must have four qualifications:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>He must be a scholar in all the obligations of the religion;<\/li>\n<li>He must be a Knower\u00a0(<sup>c<\/sup>arif);<\/li>\n<li>He must be an expert in the way of purifying the Self;<\/li>\n<li>He must be authorised by his shaikh to give guidance.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Being a Scholar in the Obligations of the Religion\n<ul>\n<li>The master must be a scholar in all religious obligations, such as the conditions of prayers, the conditions of fasting and the conditions of zakat (obligatory charity). He must be knowledgeable in the Jurisprudence of Islam and all necessary matters of Islamic Shari\u2019ah. He must be a scholar in the Science of Tawhid (Oneness) according to the\u00a0Ahl as-Sunnah wal-Jama\u2019at,\u00a0and all the and all the other conditions of faith (iman).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Being a Knower\n<ul>\n<li>To be a Knower means the master or murshid must have the knowledge of the conditions of the state of\u00a0Ihsan, as mentioned by the Prophet (s) in the hadith, \u201cWorship Allah as if you are seeing Him, and if you are not seeing Him, know that He is seeing you.\u201d A Knower must bear witness in his heart that Allah is the Unique One in His Essence, and in His Attributes, and in His Actions. He must know about His Attributes through Vision and Taste, by experiencing self-effacement in the Divine Presence.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Being Sanctified\n<ul>\n<li>The Master must have already purified or sanctified himself as a seeker under a master of his own. He will have come to know the different stages of the ego, its illnesses and its defects. The Master must be fully aware of all the methods Satan uses to enter the heart. He must know all the ways to sanctify others and the methods to heal his followers in order to raise them up to reach the State of Perfection.\u2028If a seeker comes to the shaikh with perfect sincerity and truthfulness, asking to be initiated in the order, the shaikh must not hurry to initiate him, until he knows that he will remain trustworthy when he reaches the Goal. He must look at his capability. If his capability corresponds to the capability of the Close Ones\u00a0(muqarrabin), then he will show him the way, as it is the way of the Trustworthy.\u2028That way is built on killing one\u2019s own will, and connecting and submitting oneself to the will of one\u2019s shaikh. One must do as the Prophet (s) said, \u201cDie before you die!\u201d He must leave his natural will, which causes him to move according to his mind, and leave all his affairs to the will of his shaikh. The shaikh will lift him up through a path filled with difficulties, train him through worship, and guide him to a state of complete Self-Effacement. Only this will elevate him to the Divine Presence.\u2028That is why Khwaja Ubaidullah al-Ahrar said: \u201cWho is the shaikh? The shaikh is the one who can know, through the vision that Allah has granted him, the capability of his murid. From the day he meets him to the day of his death, he will know which state the murid will attain, and in which way he will taste, and in which way he will reach the Divine Presence. If the shaikh cannot summon that knowledge, it is forbidden (haram) for him to give the seeker initiation.\u201d\u2028He continued, \u201cThe shaikh must avoid the wealth of his murid. If the murid wishes to help the shaikh it is his choice. The states of guidance are above all states, and the master must not ask except from the Divine Presence.\u201d\u2028\u201cIt is said that one time a murid of Junaid came to him and wanted to give him all his money. Junaid refused and said, \u2018No.\u2019 When that same murid reached the State of Perfection and was lifted up to the Divine Presence, he came to Junaid and again wanted to give all his money to him. At that time he said, \u2018Yes. Now, I accept, because when you give now, you will not regret later.\u2019\u2028\u201cThat is why we don\u2019t like our murids to give all their money to the shaikh. When they haven\u2019t reached the state of perfection, they might regret later and be in doubt, and they will be harmed. But when the murid reaches that state he will give sincerely and will never regret it later. The evidence of this is that Sayyidina Abu Bakr and Sayyidina \u2018Umar came to the Prophet (s) and from the first Sayyidina Abu Bakr gave all his money. The Prophet (s) asked, \u2018What have you left for your family?\u2019 He replied, \u2018I have left them Allah and his Prophet (s).\u2019 When the murid reaches the state of real generosity and real perfection, then the shaikh may accept what he gives. If he has not reached that state his gift must not be accepted.\u201d\u2028The shaikh must not order any of his followers to do something he himself cannot do or would not do. He must know all the obligatory and forbidden actions according to the Shari\u2019ah. Similary, he must know all the States of spirituality, and must have tasted all Tastes, so that he is an example, and when he speaks he speaks with real knowledge.\u2028An example of this is a lady who came to a perfect shaikh one time with her son, saying, \u201cMy son is always asking for sweets. Please pray for him to leave that desire, as I don\u2019t always have sweets to give him.\u201d He said, \u201cBe patient for three days and then bring him back to me.\u201d After three days she brought him back and the shaikh told him, \u201cO my son, don\u2019t eat candies, because it is harmful for your stomach.\u201d From that day the child never ate sweets again. Some time later someone asked the shaikh, \u201cWhy did you wait three days to give the child that advice?\u201d The shaikh replied, \u201cWhen the lady came to me, she asked me to prevent her child from eating sweets. I couldn\u2019t do that for him because I myself was under that temptation of eating sweets. So I stopped eating sweets for three days. When I had stopped, I was able to make a du\u2019a for him, and that du\u2019a was acceptable.\u201d\u2028Qushayri relates in his\u00a0Letter\u00a0that\u00a0 allaj was once asked to talk about poverty. He said, \u201cWait a minute.\u201d He entered his house, went out somewhere and came back. Then he sat and spoke, saying poverty consists of this and this and that. One murid asked him, \u201cO my shaikh, why didn\u2019t you speak like this from the beginning?\u201d He said, \u201cWhen I was asked, I had one dirham in my house. I couldn\u2019t speak about poverty while I still had something. So I went took that dirham, went and spent it in Allah\u2019s way, and then I could speak on poverty.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Having His Master\u2019s Authorization\n<ul>\n<li>The Shaikh must have authorization from his Master for training and uplifting his followers and showing the Way of this Path. That\u00a0ijaza\u00a0(permission) must reach him through the chain of the grandshaikhs from one to another, all the way back to the Prophet (s). As the wise person will not go to a doctor who has no license in healing, so the seeker in this way must find a perfect guide who has received the license, the ijaza, from his shaikh.\u2028Imam Muslim said, \u201cThis great knowledge [the knowledge of the self] is by itself the religion. So you have to know from whom you take your religion.\u201d In the book of\u00a0Hafiz ibn Ali\u00a0Kanz al-<sup>c<\/sup>Ummal,\u201d the following hadith is found. The Prophet (s) said, \u201cO Umar, your\u00a0din\u00a0is your flesh and blood. Look at those from whom you take your\u00a0din; take it from those who are on the right path and don\u2019t take from those who deviated.\u201d A knower said, \u201cKnowledge is a spirit which is blown into the hearts, not philosophy or pretty tales to be written. So be very careful from whom you take it.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The Signs of Mastery\n<ul>\n<li>The main indication of mastery is that when you sit with a master you feel a breeze of faith, spiritual pleasure. He doesn\u2019t speak except for Allah. He is always advising the good. You will benefit from being in his company as you benefit from his words. You will benefit when you are far from him as you benefit when you are near him. You must see among his murids the picture of faith, sincerity, humbleness and\u00a0taqwa\u00a0(God-consciousness), and you must remember, when you are mixing with them, the highest state of love and truth and deference to others. You must see that his followers represent all different kinds of people in the community. That is how the Companions of the Prophet were.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This Way consists of continuous worship in every action, both external and internal, with complete and perfect discipline according to the Sunnah of the Prophet It consists in maintaining the&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.naqshbandiphilippines.com\/?page_id=901\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":841,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-901","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.naqshbandiphilippines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.naqshbandiphilippines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.naqshbandiphilippines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.naqshbandiphilippines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.naqshbandiphilippines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.naqshbandiphilippines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/901\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.naqshbandiphilippines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.naqshbandiphilippines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}