Full transcript
0:01Çilingir Sofrası 31 / Plato, Psyche, Atman, Brahman ***Translated by Prof.Dr.Nükhet Kardam***
0:03All right, we still haven’t gotten to India
0:06Now at one time a close friend of mine
0:13Believed in some gossip that he had heard about me
0:20He loved me, but he was influenced by
0:27A group of people who disliked me and
0:30who did not want to have anything to do with me
0:33So he couldn’t come near me, but one day he came to a meeting I was at
0:39and sat in a far corner, this was such a good friend in the past
0:42Before we hugged each other at every opportunity
0:48But now he thought that I would be a bad influence
0:52This kind of thing happens, it is not unusual.
0:57When I looked toward him
0:59He averted his eyes.
1:02He was in a difficult spot.
1:05He was right
1:07Serhan: He was stuck in duality.
1:09I am the kind of person who can’t remember any song’s words
1:18But somehow, I don’t know how it came to me
1:22But at that moment, I started singing the words of the song:
1:25(Music) ‘Don’t just walk around dear, come inside’
1:31Come, come inside. He heard me and came inside
1:37and now we are back to hugging each other
1:39We delight in each other’s company.
1:42When we just walk around
1:46that means we are in doubt.
1:50But the believers walk inside.
1:54They are sure of themselves, and they join the sohbet and have muhabbet (love for each other)
2:05Now, what is Vedanta?
2:09Veda is knowledge
2:14and Anta means purpose or aim
2:18So Vedanta is purposeful knowledge
2:23Or goal oriented knowledge
2:29Not causal knowledge but goal oriented knowledge
2:37It is reciprocal. This means we are already in agreement about the goal. If we are not already in agreement, it can’t work.
2:44We have accepted it. If you have a goal, an idea, a utopia in mind
2:50A hope for the future
2:57That’s when you are in a creative mode, otherwise you would live like animals
3:03Instead of going around and around, come inside and see the images, the ideas that will take you to the future
3:08In art, we call this futurism
3:12To live in the future. In religion we call it eschatology
3:16Human beings are created from the future, not from the past
3:20What is created from the past is the ‘besher’ (the body)
3:27Human beings are created by God
3:32God creates you and you get transformed from ‘besher’ to ‘insan’ (human being)
3:39Then you are saved from idolizing the body and realize that the body is just a garment
3:45A garment, you then take off that garment
3:48And appear in the presence of God just like Prophet David
3:54Allah Eyvallah, so now
3:58According to the later Vedanta writings and what was developed in the Upanishads
4:06The multiplicity that we see externally
4:09Disappears in our unifying consciousness and
4:13that is the ‘nafs’
4:17See how ‘nafs’ is defined here
4:20Serhan: It is defined as unifying
4:22The multiplicity that we see outside belongs to the senses
4:26But our consciousness unifies them around a purpose, an aim (Veda Anta)
4:38Serhan: A beautiful explanation
4:40And that’s the nafs
4:45Check out this teaching!
4:49Now, if we had gone to ancient Greece
4:55We have gone there at times for touristic visits
5:00We know that Plato tells us the same thing.
5:04He says that we can see and perceive the multiplicity.
5:16But it is logos, consciousness
5:21That brings them into unity
5:27And owns it. He calls this ‘psyche’. It is the same thing as nafs.
5:33Now, at the beginning of our sohbets, we said that spirituality is similar to artesian wells
5:41They are like an underground river, but you can see where they spring up
5:46You think that’s the only place where they have sprung up
5:50Because you see what is above ground, not what is underneath
5:54You can’t see what’s hidden
5:59The underground rivers
6:02But these wells have sprung up in Greece, in India, and in Egypt from the same underground river
6:07What shall we do now?
6:10Check the taste of the water
6:13Serhan: Maybe they all come from the same river
6:15It is not maybe, I am telling you
6:19What is being said in India thousands years ago and what Plato says are the same
6:25We know that this is also in Islam,
6:28but they were first.
6:32This is unexpected. We might expect this wisdom to evolve over time
6:37Whereas they appeared already evolved to this level. How can this be?
6:41We say people who lived there were not evolved yet, aborigines lived there
6:50How could such wisdom have appeared?
6:54Because there is evolution
6:58And evolution has its stages,
7:01and not everyone has evolved at the same time all of a sudden
7:05Or at the same level, depending on history, climate, experiences
7:11It is the same with biological evolution
7:13In spiritual evolution, we see this today
7:18Look at the people’s faces who have used their brains,
7:24acquired universal knowledge in both theory and experience!
7:32And then look at the face of a villager like myself
7:35Look at both faces
7:37The intellectual face shines brightly
7:40because the face is the mirror of the spirit
7:44I am not saying the face of a villager is bad but
7:46the former’s face is refined
7:48Whereas the face of a villager is tough, heroic, it shows the challenges of nature
7:57The other face is graceful, refined, especially if he or she is involved in artistic endeavors
8:05Such a person is in a different state, this is not related to the body but is still reflected in the body
8:11And that state is attractive
8:13That’s what I mean when I say that spirituality is something artistic
8:17So some people manifest this, others may not.
8:26But we ask: Why are all Indians not like that?
8:30Look at mountains, the monasteries are at the top of the mountain, such as in Tibet
8:35Why are they built at the top of mountains?
8:39There is the issue of up and down
8:42Those who are willing to put up the effort get to the top.
8:45Serhan: Let those who are willing to put out the effort come
8:47Then they go through a refining process, become monks
8:54and see God’s beauty
8:55write about it, and understand it
8:57Don’t expect this from people who have not made the effort to climb to the top.
8:59They ask, why are people in India less developed?
9:02Well, because they live at the bottom of the mountain
9:05What can we do about it?
9:07They need to go up the mountain.
9:09Moses went up the mountain
9:12So did Prophet Muhammed
9:19Christ climbed up to the grove of olive trees
9:25They have all gone up a mountain.
9:29What does this mean?
9:30That means you need to go up to the top of your mountain,
9:33not to any mountain where you will only find flowers and insects
9:38To find Veda Anta, you must look for your purpose
9:49The unchanging unity (Vahdet) can only occur in consciousness
9:55How does the individual reach unity?
9:58The individual self must empty him/herself
10:03From all content considered his/her own
10:09This is what we call reaching Atman
10:13To reach Atman.
10:15Atman is a Turkish word
10:17Turks ruled over Indians, the Chinese and Persians as you know
10:27All civilizations have their specific talents
10:32Turks have two talents.
10:35One is courage, willingness to die
10:39And the other is administration
10:42They went to India and administered India, same with Persia
10:53But Turks don’t have other talents
10:54For example, they are not talented in philosophy like the Greeks,
11:00In artistic talents again like the Greeks,
11:04or law like the Romans
11:10Anglosaxons are good at politics
11:14What do Turks have?
11:17They have never become slaves
11:21Arabs invaded Horasan (where Turks lived), but the men never surrendered and died instead
11:31They made slaves out of children but children are not yet capable of knowing themselves therefore they were not responsible
11:39They took the women by force
11:41and turned them into ‘cariye’ servants.
11:43What we have here in this society now is Arab traditions
11:49They have turned this society’s children (Turks in the region of Horasan at that time) into slaves, the men were killed
11:54Women were forcibly taken
11:57The traditions we have now came from Arabs
12:02Arabs came to Horasan and killed 10,000 people
12:06Hung people on trees
12:10Made women into servants and killed all the men
12:17We accept this slavehood
12:23Who accepted it?
12:24Not the people of wisdom,
12:26not lovers of God
12:32No
12:34So who accepted it?
12:37Only the ignorant accepted it,
12:39the educated people didn’t accept it.
12:42Those who are considered educated were not really ‘alim’ because they did not possess wisdom.
12:45And knowledge without wisdom doesn’t work.
12:49But lets not go there now
12:52Wherever you are, whether you are in Europe or America,
12:59if a person accepts another society’s traditions as their religion,
13:04she or he is no longer authentic.
13:09So come back to yourself or know yourself means free yourself from slavehood
13:14And become authentic
13:17Whoever can free themselves from slavehood becomes Allah’s beloved servant
13:23Such a person would never bow in front of anyone except Allah
13:26La Ilahe Illallah means this
13:29La ilahe means giving up your idols,
13:31it is not a joke
13:33Shall I translate it?
13:35People want to become Muslim, they ask, am I a Muslim?
13:39If you don’t implement the first principle, you will never find Allah
13:43La ilahe means let go of all your idols!
13:50Become an atheist!
13:53Allah won’t manifest in you without becoming an atheist first
13:57It is not enough to recite La Ilahe Illallah, you have to actually live it
14:10First break your idols,
14:12empty out the Kaaba!
14:16That’s when you will find Atman
14:22Atman is proto-Turkish, I said. why?
14:27It means Ataman, meaning Godlike man
14:35It is not a Hindu word,
14:38it is not a Sanskrit word
14:43Brahman isn’t a Sanskrit word either
14:49There is the B at the beginnign of Brahman, B is the ‘besmele’
14:58All cultures have the same thing is what I mean
15:02We need archeologists,
15:05if you open the dictionary to look at the meaning of ‘archeology’
15:12It is a philosophical concept and
15:17means looking at what is beyond or behind, and looking for what comes first
15:23arche - o - logy
15:27What is beyond consciousness, the first causes
15:31Let’s look at what is behind our consciousness, its first causes
15:34Does archeology do this?
15:37No
15:39We look at how people practice archeology
15:42They examine external objects, old cultural artifacts
15:44And claim to be archeologists
15:46Thats not real archeology
15:48That’s not it,
15:51it is about exploring how linguistic concepts arose as human consciousness evolved
15:59Otherwise, why should we be talking about Indian wisdom?
16:07This is not about acquiring knowledge
16:11This is not about a flashback.
16:13Instead it is being fed by what came first, going to the source, to our Rab
16:18And acquire the ability to be reborn, to be recreated in order to meet our Rab.
16:22It is about reorganizing our consciousness.
16:27This is the purpose of our sohbets. We are not interested in providing knowledge
16:33Or to show people how much we know
16:35Look at our table, we only have some water and some tea
16:39Sinan: Our purpose is obvious
16:41This is Veda Anta.
16:45People without an aim are like animals
16:50The Qur’an says that such people
16:54Are even lower than animals,
16:57why?
17:00Human beings have the ability to know themselves
17:02Animals don’t have the consciousness to know themselves
17:07But human beings do, but still don’t try. That’s why such people are considered lower than animals
17:12Serhan: Animals don’t know
17:13Animals, with their nafs, are God’s angels
17:22The Qur’an is full of inspiration for those who look
17:28not for those who are blind
17:31Çilingir Sofrası 31 / Plato, Psyche, Atman, Brahman ***Translated by Prof.Dr.Nükhet Kardam***