Çilingir Sofrası 36 / Malatyalı Niyazi (Mısri) Devam (with English subtitles)

0:00Çilingir Sofrası 36 / Niyazi (from) Malatya / Mısri (Egypt) ccontinued ***Translated by Prof.Dr.Nükhet Kardam***

0:02We are talking about people as well as art quite a bit

0:06There is a reason for it, that’s because Sufism is the art of poetry from beginning to end

0:13If you read a poem to a person (besher)

0:18We talked about what ‘besher’ means in the previous video Let’s say that you recited a beautiful poem

0:21to such a ‘besher’, it could be an inspired poem by a mystic or it could be a Nazim Hikmet poem

0:26Or a poem by Necip Fazil, there are many poets of this caliber,

0:30or it may be a poem by Mehmet Akif

0:33So you are reciting a poem and the person ‘besher’ listens

0:40Such a person hears

0:44But he or she doesn’t hear the words

0:46Sinan: they don’t understand

0:48It is not about understanding, they wouldn’t be affected by it

0:52Their mouths must wet.

0:54This is something organic If you squeeze a lemon in your mouth

0:57You would taste the juice if you hear a poem you may not be affected

1:00Unless it grabs you, grabs your spirit and attracts you

1:06It must take you out of your body, your bodily roots

1:10that’s why, we say that

1:12spirit also means fragrance (rayiha)

1:20I look at a flower

1:22it looks beautiful

1:24Let’s say I see some daisies I love daisies and go near them

1:28because I want to smell them

1:30But they smell of grass

1:34But there is also some jacinth over there

1:37They look down towards the ground

1:40they are not as bright as daisies

1:42but they have such a fragrance that

1:44I am pulled towards them

1:46That’s what I mean by spiritual attraction

1:53It has such a beautiful fragrance

1:56Ruh (spirit) and Rayiha (fragrance) come from the same root

2:03So what did we say?

2:04We had talked about waves in relation to spirits

2:08Fragrances come to us in waves and attract us

2:12So that means that everything that pulls us away from our body

2:17towards beauty is something human, something spiritual

2:21Human beings are pulled towards beauty

2:31Prophet Muhammed said

2:34That’s what he said

2:36According to one of the hadiths

2:39**hadith in arabic language**

2:43God is beauty

2:44and loves beauty

2:47Now my friends say to me

2:50your explanations are very good

2:54and we are told to love Allah

2:55but we don’t see Allah anywhere,

2:58how are we going to love Him?

3:00Sinan: They want to love Allah with their minds

3:01No, they are right, they say how are we supposed to love Allah then?

3:06If we don’t perceive Allah?

3:11You may run into people

3:12who say I love Allah,

3:16It is a lie.

3:19Sinan: it is their own delusion

3:20It is a delusion

3:23For instance, someone is reciting the name of a Prophet

3:25He then started screaming Allah Allah!

3:27I actually witnessed this.

3:29I was at a gathering when the Surah Yusuf in the Qur’an

3:31Was being recited and the recitation was beautiful

3:34The story of Yusuf and Zuleyha How Zuleyha tore Yusuf’s shirt from behind

3:42So this man started shouting Allah

3:43My friend asked, do you know what this Surah was about?

3:49He said I just got excited hearing about Allah!

3:51My friend took him to the Hoca who was reciting the surah and asked him, what were you reciting just a few minutes ago?

3:56He answered The story of Yusuf and Zeliha

4:00how she tore his shirt with passion and so on

4:04So you are saying I love Allah,

4:06you are attracted to Allah based on this story?

4:08I am not saying this is bad but he doesn’t know

4:15The point is it has nothing to do with the essence of the matter

4:16Everyone says Allah Allah based on their own supposition

4:19But what did the Hadith say?

4:22Allah is beautiful and loves beauty Talking about love

4:30That means whenever you see beauty You are seeing God’s love, that you are in love with God

4:35God is loved in all beauty

4:39Let’s see how Niyazi (from) Malatya / Misri explains this

4:42Look, it is very interesting

4:47Everywhere is full of gardens Your beauty has turned everything into rose gardens

4:56From every attribute your essence (Zhat) manifests, says Niyazi Misri

5:03Attributes are the phenomena we see in the external world

5:08Look at nature, all the thing we perceive

5:12Flowers, birds, everything

5:14Beautiful views, the people around us and their creativity, poetry,

5:18cinema, theater

5:21All of them are the manifestations of the faces of God

5:28the beauty in those faces are of God

5:31The beauty that you see in all of this

5:34is the face of God

5:36It is the attributes that manifest

5:37the beauty of His Zhat,

5:40it is not that hard to understand this

5:42So each one of us

5:45You are artists I love art.

5:50They ask me are you an artist?

5:54You always talk about art

5:56I respond saying no, I don’t know about art

6:00But I sure know about artists I understand artists well

6:04SInan, you were in a state of sadness (Hüzün)

6:07I remember a relationship you and I together had,

6:10Not many people saw that.

6:12But I saw your tears

6:15Such tears, tears of purification I witnessed those tears

6:23What was being witnessed in that beauty was Haq

6:27That was an attraction

6:29His ego disappeared

6:31And that was a blessing for us

6:37We call this artistic influence the face of God (Vechullah)

6:41What we mean by beauty is not something that has to be orderly or symmetrical

6:46Witnessing that beauty affected my soul too I had tears in my eyes as well

6:53This was a spiritual interaction

6:55That’s why we can say that from every attribute

7:03God’s beauty manifests through phenomena

7:10What is seen from thousands of attributes

7:14is Haq

7:17You can see His attributes and recognize them

7:20You can see God’s attributes in nature

7:23but you can see his Zhat only in the human being’s zhat.

7:25Why is that? How come?

7:32Because only the human being is conscious of his/her self

7:37Can: will power

7:38Yes, but not just will power

7:41But animals have will power too

7:44What the human being has that animals don’t is the ability to say no (ihtiyar)

7:47Will power works in a negative way the ability to say no

7:53That’s only true in the human being

7:57That’s why we call him/her a human

8:01‘ihtiyar’ is understood to mean old age in Turkish

8:04No, ihtiyar means you have the will to say no To say no to your own nafs

8:08Only the human being is capable of it

8:11An animal cannot control his desires.

8:16for example,

8:19I saw a video

8:22Where lions were attacking an ox

8:26and they started to tear his limbs and eating his meat

8:29They were beginning to pull his limbs apart

8:32I was really shocked when I saw this

8:34As you know, an ox is slow to respond and has a weak nervous system

8:40and doesn’t feel a lot of pain

8:43So the lions were literally eating pieces of him

8:45You would think the ox would scream and run away

8:47No, he was still grazing

8:49Isn’t that very interesting?

8:55He couldn’t stop his desire to eat

8:58He was going to die but he was still eating

9:03so animals cannot stop their desires cannot say no

9:09A human being can stop his/her desire

9:12and is able to say no Can: those who can say no

9:16That’s the Quran says that religions obligate people to fast why?

9:26Fasting is not about staying hungry

9:29Some people say it is good for your health

9:30that’s why Allah recommended it That fasting helps us to become more healthy

9:34That’s just a story

9:36You can make up stories

9:38What’s the point of fasting?

9:43Okay you are not going to eat for awhile

9:47You won’t engage in sexual relationships.

9:49All of these are necessary for life

9:52Suppose you don’t eat or drink

9:55How long could you live like that?

9:58After a while, your sugar level would drop You won’t be able to move

10:01And you would move towards death Especially if you had no water

10:08So this is testing your limits Testing yourself

10:12are you able to stop your bodily desires? See if you can stop them

10:18Can you do this? That’s when you might realize

10:22That what is unable to move, what becomes weak is your body It is your body that is becoming weaker

10:28The point is that’s exactly when your spirit will strengthen If you were eating every time

10:33you are hungry, you want food you can’t distinguish your spirit from your body

10:42Reproduction is also a life necessity

10:45In fact, it is so much of a life necessity that

10:47I would like to give an example, an extreme example

10:51In the Nazi concentration camps When people were subjected to tortures

11:01That’s a separate topic

11:02They starved people

11:04We have seen photos of starved

11:08people who were reduced to skin and bones

11:12but there was something verysurprising there as well

11:15It was recorded

11:17There were some who were saved such as Victor Frankl

11:23who wrote beautiful books

11:25He started a discipline called Logotherapy He also witnessed this situation

11:31What happened was Here were starved people who were just skin and bones

11:35They had nowhere to go in private and yet they engaged in sex

11:42Sinan: They are dying and are still focused on reproduction

11:44I consulted scientists about this

11:47asked them how this is possible. Is this about wanting pleasure?

11:50They said no,

11:51it is about the instinct to reproduce As death nears, the instinct to reproduce increases

11:56In fact, men who are close to death have erections

12:02The Hoca therefore poured on them, hot water on them

12:08Why?

12:09Because both of them (nutrition and reproduction) are necessary for life

12:13So fasting is a way for people to put their willpower to work and to be able to face death

12:20otherwise why stay hungry and then in the evening eat everything that is laid out on the table?

12:25Of course, it is important to eat something to break the fast with some soup, to drink water,

12:32a couple of dates or olives, don’t eat anything else

12:37If you fasted for thirty days like this, see how you are at the end

12:41What will you see then?

12:44That’s when you will be purified of your nafs that is focused on instincts

12:49Purification is the real matter and it is not something related to the mind

12:54This is not about acquiring more knowledge

12:58Sinan: That’s what they call Riyazat (to train the nafs)

12:59If I knew this or that, I will be a better person, they say No, that’s not the way to become a better person

13:02This is true in many cultures

13:04Can: this process exists in the Far East too!

13:06That’s right we are going there

13:09We are going to India

13:12India

13:18Brahmanism is connected to this matter of training the nafs.

13:24Same with what Buddha experienced

13:27(Riyazat)

13:29Fasting

13:33strengthens Willpower

13:36and says no to instinctual desires

13:40rejects them

13:46It is like I am going to decide when you will be fed you tell your nafs when it is time to satisfy desires

13:55This is similar to training horses

13:59That’s why

14:01This process is called ‘feraset’

14:04comes from ‘feresh’

14:07in Farsi Feresh means

14:18Feresh means horse

14:21Do you know what the process of training horses is called?

14:25Siyaset (politics)

14:28So the person who trains horses is called ‘seyis’

14:32Seyis is the person who trains horses

14:37So

14:38So think about the relationship between a horse and his owner

14:41A horse has feelings, gets excited when he sees the owner.

14:47He might cry or gets up on his hind legs

14:54You have to make sure you don’t get a horse angry

14:57He might kick you.

14:59You have to train a horse to bring forth his perception

15:03So that is called ‘Siyaset’ (Politics)

15:05Sometimes they say: don’t mix religion with politics

15:08I tell them that religion itself is politics

15:10But what kind of politics?

15:12The kind of politics where you have to be your own trainer and refine the animal instincts in you

15:21you starve yourself,

15:24you will give yourself a reward when needed

15:27This is training your nafs.

15:28Go to a person who trains horses and ask him how he does it

15:31and then apply that to yourself,

15:33nothing else is needed.

15:35don’t ask for other recommendations or advice

15:38Ask a horse trainer and do the same to yourself

15:42Sinan: I saw a young girl walking with her horse She didn’t have a leash. She stopped and the horse stopped

15:48She made a movement and the horse kneeled or she made another hand movement and the horse took a step backwards

15:54Yes, there was a hidden connection (rabita) between them

15:58Sinan: The trainer must have worked hard for a long time

16:00We don’t need to exaggerate that, that’s not important

16:04Someone might do that in a year, someone else in a month

16:07Remember there was a movie called ‘The Horse Whisperer’

16:11Whisper, whisper to yourself

16:16The word ‘at’ (horse) is a word used by Turks (at means both name and horse in Turkish)

16:20in interesting ways

16:22As you know, in Central Asia

16:25it is still true today

16:29When a child is born

16:31He or she does not immediately receive a name

16:33They call him ‘Nameless’

16:36At the beginning everybody is ‘Nameless’

16:40For example ‘Nameless’ of Yasdimans

16:45We know the family name but the newborn doesn’t have a name yet

16:51and is called ‘Nameless’ such as ‘Nameless’ of the Mehmet family

16:58Whenever a child reaches adolescence When he reaches adolescence’

17:04When that happens, there is a ceremony

17:08I am talking about boys here

17:12They take a boy out and leave him alone for three nights

17:18to fend for himself perhaps in a forest or in a cave

17:21They leave him alone to face his fears

17:24and to fight for his life.

17:27What’s he going to do to survive?

17:33If he escapes or gives up,

17:37then he is not accepted back in society.

17:41People see him as worthless

17:43He can’t do military service

17:45He is not given a ‘horse’ (at) (at means both name and horse in Turkish)

17:52We think ‘at’ means just a name, no, it has a meaning

18:02Someone who has killed a bear may now be called ‘Bearkiller’

18:07‘Bearkiller’

18:12or someone who picks flowers may be called ‘Flowerpicker’

18:15Native Americans do this as well,

18:17they are shamans and have similar traditions

18:22So at that time a boy takes a name and is given a horse

18:29So he begins to ride his horse

18:31That’s when a boy starts to ride a horse

18:33That’s the time of life to educate someone

18:35A person is trained during adolescence

18:38There is a saying ‘A tree is flexible when it is wet’ ("yaşlık" in Turkish means wet as well as age)

18:42Wet here means that a boy can now ejaculate

18:47It is not about age or getting old

18:50So if a boy can ejaculate

18:52He is also ready for training because he has energy now

18:56Libido or Eros is very strong.

19:00We know from our own children.

19:04When they reach teenage years,

19:05they have immense energy.

19:07Parents have a difficult time, but remember

19:08when you were at that age, you were the same way!

19:10But that’s the right age of training

19:12So you leave him alone observe him

19:15to see what he does from afar.

19:19It is important to leave him alone

19:26In Europe, they let an eighteen year old go and explore on his own

19:30Same thing as leaving him in a forest or cave Let him explore on his own

19:32He doesn’t yet have a name or a horse

19:39Once he goes and comes back, that’s when you give him a horse - or a name.

19:42Isn’t that interesting?

19:44Okay, so let’s ride our horses

19:46towards India

19:48but as we are going along we don’t want to gallop there

19:52It is far away

19:53So that means we need to have some music to fill our ears

19:59and have some rest along the way

20:01Can: Dinlene dinlene (resting) Dinleye dinleye (listening)

20:03Çilingir Sofrası 36 / Niyazi (from) Malatya / Mısri (Egypt) ccontinued. ***Translated by Prof.Dr.Nükhet Kardam***