Çilingir Sofrası 12 / Laotze, Krishna, Shankara, Eric Clapton, Hegel, Merkez Efendi (w english sbt)

0:00***translated by Prof.Dr. Nükhet Kardam*** Çilingir Sofrası 12 / Lao Tsu, Krishna, Shankara, Eric Clapton, Hegel, Merkez Efendi

0:01As Ibn Arabi says, the wise person does not limit him/herself

0:05to one creed and is able to go from one creed to another.

0:09What this means is

0:10that a wise person can recognize the manifestation

0:13of Allah’s beautiful names wherever he or she sees them.

0:16Prophet Muhammed says that if there is knowledge in China, go get it.

0:21During that period they may have called it ilim (knowledge)

0:24But really what is meant is Marife (Wisdom).

0:30How are we going to do it? Even if it is far away,

0:36the point is to make an effort to find it. So that’s fine.

0:40But let’s look at China during the same time that Prophet Muhammed lived.

0:44There was someone called Lao Tsu

0:46In China during that period. He taught Tai Chi.

0:50That means China was receiving wisdom as well.

0:57You think only the Arab desert received wisdom.

1:01And the rest were left poor and deficient.

1:05God says that each society received wisdom.

1:09In China there is Lao Tsu.

1:16In India, there is Krishna.

1:19During the same time period as Prophet Muhammed, who is in India?

1:27There is Shankara, a manifestation of Krishna. Read Shankara’s works and

1:30you would wonder if he was a Bektashi or Melami murshid!

1:36How can this be? Same approach, same taste, same expression.

1:41You would say maybe they learned from Prophet Muhammed!

1:44Or maybe we learned from them. No, that’s not it.

1:45This is like artesian wells that erupt in different places.

1:49The same Reality that is hidden

1:53Manifests itself in different venues, in different individuals and groups. They are like different rivers that flow.

2:01Each of them are like springheads.

2:04So in India, there is Shankara. I am just talking about the time period

2:08during which Prophet Muhammed lived.

2:13But this is a matter of generations. When we look at different manifestations,

2:20we see that a new generation appears to teach us approximately every 700 years.

2:26Every 700 years there appears a new generation.

2:36For example, there is Suzuki in Japan.

2:40Same thing in our own time period. How can we say that enlightenment has ended?

2:44You look around and find that an artist or a philosopher has emerged who enlightens people.

2:50We can’t limit God’s manifestations by our creeds.

2:57We can only say yes, if we witness them.

3:04Allah says there are so many ‘ayat’ (signs) that I have created,

3:07But they don’t pay attention and learn from them. That means we must see the signs.

3:13Now when we say ‘witnessing’, there are two different forms of witnessing.

3:21One is şahit (witness) and the other is şehit (Martyr).

3:24These two words come from the same root.

3:27Witnessing means that we can feel (witness) something that someone else is experiencing.

3:34This happens in duality.

3:36Let’s say that you see someone crying. You ask why he or she is crying.

3:43Perhaps their son died, or they were in an earthquake.

3:48Of course, you would be influenced, you would be upset.

3:54And you would say, I understand you. But the other person would respond: no, you can never understand me.

3:58You say: Why wouldn’t I understand? I see that your son died.

4:03But that person would say, yes you understood it with your mind, but can you really feel my pain in your soul?

4:09You would say, no, I can’t.

4:11That’s why, those who witness,

4:14those who say “Eşhedü” (I witness)

4:18are in the state of ayn al-yaqin.

4:21They are not in the state of haqq al-yaqin.

4:26Haqq al-yaqin means someone who has lost a child,

4:33would ‘know’ the pain of a person losing a child.

4:40It is very interesting. You are artists yourselves.

4:44I want to point out something that attracted my attention.

4:47You know that there is this famous British artist, guitarist called Eric Clapton.

4:53This guy followed B.B King, went to Mississippi

5:00and learned to play beautiful City Blues.

5:08B.B King also does Blues with his knight’s ring on his finger.

5:12But that is a show.

5:15So he has turned it into an art. But what is Blues itself, in its essence?

5:21Comes from ‘blue’ note. Being ‘blue’ means being sad. It means "ağıt" in Turkish.

5:26It is the music of Ağıt. Where does such music come from?

5:30You bring people from Africa as slaves and put them

5:34to work in your cotton fields in America. Separate families, the man goes somewhere

5:40his wife and his child are separated from him. There is yearning for each other, for the country they left behind.

5:44Just so that they would produce cotton for you, you have turned these people into slaves.

5:50They have absolutely no time to turn inward, no time to do anything except serve the master.

5:57If they try, they are whipped and punished. Now how can we possibly feel their pain?

6:01Is it possible by just reading a book or seeing a movie about them?

6:05No, it is not possible.

6:06These people try to satisfy their spiritual hunger

6:12when a train passes. The trains used to go slowly and had

6:19a particular rhythm. Another rhythm

6:27was added as they passed through barriers

6:33and then there was their whistle.

6:38As you know, the cotton fields are very wide so it took a long time.

6:43At least an hour for the trains to pass by.

6:47So what was happening during this process?

6:50The slaves were hitting their shovels

6:56to accompany the train’s rhythm.

7:03That’s how they manifested their internal, instinctive pain, making "Blues" or "Ağıt"

7:11Blues is something like this. It is the scream of a slave.

7:17So B.B King, your grandfather did this, and now you are taking it and earning money from it.

7:21It is okay. We are not against it.

7:24Eric Clapton was B.B King’s student. He played the Blues and became very popular.

7:33All good,

7:35but then,

7:37he had a lull in his productivity and turned to drugs.

7:44Later he emerged again and made a best seller album.

7:49The most critical piece in it

7:53is called “Tears in Heaven”.

7:58I cried too when I listened to it.

8:03The song touched my soul.

8:06I already was an Eric Clapton fan, but this song really affected me deeply.

8:11Because this song manifested genuine pain.

8:17The birth of real Blues. How could this be?

8:23I found out later that Clapton’s son died by falling from the top floor of a skyscraper in the U.S.

8:29Here is deep pain for you.

8:35That pain, that sincere, authentic pain

8:42combined with his artistry, spirituality manifested and turned into real Blues.

8:49The ‘"Ağıt"’ of the Alevis' from Anatolia, are precisely the same, they are also the same as Blues.

8:57There are international music groups around the world who have taken these "Ağıt" and adapted them to jazz.

9:02There are Spanish groups, Americans, Germans and others.

9:07They focus on these rather than something else. Why?

9:14Because they are real. This is what I mean by "Izdırap" (pain).

9:24It is not joke. Sohbet and Muhabbet involve pain,

9:28the yearning for where we came from.

9:35“Vel asri innel insana lafi khusrin Illalladhina amanu wa amilus-salihati Wa tawasau bil-haqqi wa-tawasau bi-sabr” (Surah 103 al-Asr)

9:43Look at the lives of human beings. They are in pain, in yearning,

9:48yearning for where they came from.

9:52But they forgot where they came from.

9:55Whatever a person receives in this world does not satisfy him or her.

9:59Hegel, the famous German philosopher, calls this

10:02The famous German philosopher of the Romantic Period says:

10:08Spirituality cannot be satisfied externally.

10:12‘Tin or Maneviyat’ in Turkish, ‘Geist’ in German and ‘Spirituality’ in English.

10:21Spirituality cannot be satisfied externally.

10:26By ‘external’ we mean the sensate world.

10:29All the ownership of goods, riches, high positions, ‘things’

10:32will not satisfy the spirit.

10:35Why?

10:37The spirit can only be nourished by spirit, by itself.

10:44Only in artistic creation (which encompasses everything) is the spirit

10:50satisfied, is nourished.

10:56Therefore, the essence of religion is artistic.

11:02And Tasavvuf (Sufism) is the esthetic essence of religion.

11:07If you take out Tasavvuf (Sufism), religion is nothing but a collection of rules. Nothing else.

11:13It is not enjoyable. Should we reject the rules?

11:17No, we can’t live without rules. Rules are rationality.

11:21But only when spirituality underlies rationality, and when there is ‘pain’ or ‘Blues’

11:27If people have not experienced pain, and who do not have the ‘Blues’, they are superficial.

11:30Check out people around you who haven’t experienced ‘Blues’ or pain.

11:33If they have not experienced pain, they respond to everything by laughing, by waving it away.

11:39They don’t take anything seriously.

11:43They are superficial. I am not criticizing them.

11:48I am saying that there is no depth, no base.

11:51In music if there is no bass, then there is no depth.

11:54What is the base?

11:56Your own soul is the base.

11:58If you have received wounds, and you feel pain, then you have depth.

12:04Such a person forges a connection between his/her mind and soul.

12:09Prophet Muhammed says that my mind has not misled me,

12:15And my soul has not negated my mind.

12:18This is about the overlap of the mind and the soul.

12:21He is talking about the stage in Tevhid called the Mutmain Nefs (Satisfied Self).

12:27This is not related to a creed, or a belief system. This is existential.

12:33This is about humanity, becoming ‘human’.

12:35This is about what must be lived by all of us.

12:39Serhan: So that means that the Prophet has lived what all of us must go through.

12:44Exactly, The Prophet is showing us the way.

12:54We pray

12:55and we ask for help.

12:59Okay.

13:01Let’s imagine an animation, a conversation.

13:05I am praying and asking for help and God might say:

13:08Didn’t we give you a mind? Yes you did.

13:12So put it to use!

13:14The Quran says that those people

13:15who don’t use their minds

13:18are in trouble.

13:22Let me put it this way.

13:24We gave you a mind, and you are not using it.

13:29We gave you all these capabilities.

13:30You are not using them.

13:35So sohbet opens up (furkan) and then collects and synthesizes (Kur’an).

13:41What did we say?

13:43Those people who are focused on one creed are angry.

13:50They don’t like the people who don’t belong to their creed.

13:53They force them to accept their creed.

13:55But, there is no forcing in the essence of religion.

14:03Serhan: Such people want to be validated.

14:05So they try to convince others that their creed is right.

14:10But people with a different creed are also trying to convince them.

14:16There is no communication between them.

14:19So they remain in the "şahit" state (witnessing)

14:22We also talked about the state of "şehid"(martyrdom)

14:27That is about actually feeling pain and manifesting it.

14:31And that’s what Eric Clapton did by manifesting the pain of losing a child and created the Blues.

14:37And therefore he became a "şehid".

14:41Tears in Heaven

14:46See there is a teaching in everything.

14:52There is a teaching in everything, from every location.

14:57So when the ayan al-thabita (fixed essences) manifest as

15:06ethics, when our habits turn into ‘beautiful ethics’,

15:12Then we are Sibgatullah (colored with God’s paint).

15:17Such people are not in denial but in acceptance.

15:22For example, when they hear or watch a Native American ceremony or dance around a totem pole,

15:30They know that it is done out of need

15:36responding to an authentic spiritual need,

15:40that this ritual is a divine gift.

15:47So they don’t deny its purpose but accept it and say this is the right thing at this stage.

15:52For example, if we recite the Qur’an to them, they won’t hear it because their conditions are not amenable to that.

15:59They see Haq in every station, and everywhere

16:03and therefore they are not in denial but in acceptance,

16:07they become like ‘Merkez Efendi’ (Musa Muslihiddin Efendi) ("Merkez" means center.)

16:16Beautiful!

16:20Musa Muslihiddin is Merkez Efendi’s real name.

16:24Now a murshid is about to leave this world, and he calls his three sons.

16:31He says come over here, my sons.

16:38I have received the news that I am going to die soon.

16:46And move to the spiritual world.

16:50So one of you will receive my inheritance and the other two will support him.

16:54One of you will be the ‘Kutup’ (Pole) and the other two will be the left Imam and the right Imam. The threesome.

17:00That’s how they say.

17:03But you need to prove your servanthood.

17:09If you inherit my position,

17:15suppose that you took my position, what would you do?

17:22One of them says: I have learned from you that

17:28there is ignorance in this world, which causes great difficulties.

17:36In fact, the Qur’an says that the human being is both ignorant and cruel.

17:40So I want to help get rid of this ignorance and

17:47to be in service of spreading knowledge and wisdom.

17:55So the father turned to the other son:

17:57What would you do?

18:00As my brother said:

18:02The human being is ignorant and cruel.

18:08He is going to try to remove ignorance. Cruelty means there is no justice.

18:11So if I am given this position, I will restore justice.

18:18All right

18:23He turns to Musa, and says: one of your brothers says

18:30he will fight ignorance,

18:34and the other says, he will restore justice.

18:41What do you say?

18:43He says: In our education, we saw that everything is as it should be.

18:51Because they don’t know Allah’s wishes,

18:53they say these things. In my view, Allah’s wishes are just as they should be.

18:58The father says: You have found the center, Musa. And you, the other brothers are going to be his assistants.

19:04So we don’t deny that we need to fight ignorance. The person who finds everything in the center is the ‘kutup’ (pole)

19:11And the others are his assistants: one is knowledge, and the other is justice.

19:20Look at the beauty of this process.

19:23They say, what is all this about?

19:26What do you mean by Irfaniyet (Wisdom)?

19:29Look at Europe that has advanced.

19:31What are you talking about?

19:32Serhan: And these Arabic words we don’t understand?

19:37Some people have gone to the moon!

19:40I say, what does it matter,

19:41whether you go to the moon or to take a ride from Istanbul to Izmit.

19:48You might have gone to the moon but you are still the same.

19:51What we are talking about here is your internal transformation.

19:55You can’t change yourself by going to the moon. We are talking about internal transformation, not about changing physical locations.

20:04For example, when you receive the yeast for kassari cheese,

20:08we can’t call you milk anymore or yogurt.

20:10And you can’t return to being milk anymore either.

20:14So we are sitting on top of a vast tradition about transformation.

20:20That fire is not extinguished but is covered by ashes.

20:26So people say that tradition doesn’t exist anymore.

20:30We just need to blow on it. That’s all.

20:32They say it doesn’t exist, just blow on it.

20:37What shall we recite now?

20:56“Ömrün şu biten neşvesi tam olsun erenler” by Yahya Kemal Beyatlı adapted to music by Süleyman Erguner.

23:03***translated by Prof.Dr. Nükhet Kardam***

23:07Çilingir Sofrası 12 / Lao Tsu, Krishna, Shankara, Eric Clapton, Hegel, Merkez Efendi