Çilingir Sofrası 30 / Babil (with English subtitles)

0:00Çilingir Sofrası 30 / Babylon ***Translated by Prof.Dr.Nükhet Kardam***

0:02Let’s talk about Indian Wisdom

0:06I have deduced from my research that there are many different paths to wisdom in the world

0:12Many philosophical perspectives. We know that

0:16One of the oldest of those is Indian wisdom called Vedanta

0:24Its philosophy is called Vedanta It can be read in books such Mahabharata and Bhagavad Ghita

0:29Which is a story of wars but what is being taught here?

0:34The main idea here is Veda Anta

0:45We say Vedas, but there is also the word ‘Anta’ and it is made up of two words - Veda Anta

0:54When you read about it seems like a philosophy

0:58similar to the Antique Greek Philosophy

1:03But its real focus is mystical.

1:15In other words, if we read Vedanta, and we can read it in Turkish

1:20It has been translated to Turkish. We see that it is based on mystical experience

1:26But it aims to explain the end result of mystical experiences in a way that can be grasped by our minds

1:30In short, it transforms divine inspiration into a form understandable by our minds

1:33Serhan: so that the secret, the invisible becomes manifest

1:35Yes, the Qur’an is like that as well.

1:37Many intellectuals search for logic in the Qur’an

1:45But there is no logic which means there is no reason in the Qur’an

1:49In fact, what did the Pope say? He said that Muslims’ Allah

1:52Does not possess reason. Why? The Qur’an is not logical

1:57I have to tell the Pope, yes, you are right, but look at the Bible

2:05Is the Bible logical? Didn’t the philosophers point out that the Bible is not logical?

2:10So now you are hiding that there is no logic

2:13In your own sacred document

2:18But you are telling your neighbor that his sacred book has no logic!

2:22Now, the Qur’an is a poetic text

2:31And is schizoid

2:34Yes, read it and you will see

2:38That at one point, there is an explanation of the rules of marriage

2:43And divorce according to those days’ customs

2:47Improving on those customs

2:52But all of a sudden, we move from a discussion of marriage to a discussion of hell

3:00Talking about burning in hell, wait a minute all of a sudden we are talking about burning hell, what happened?

3:04What’s the connection? I would understand if it was a discussion of what would happened if we sinned

3:09But here we were getting married, and all of a sudden we were thrown in hell!

3:15What I am trying to say is that there is a poetic discourse here

3:20It is creative and artistic It doesn’t offer advice

3:30Because it says in its essence: You, the loved one

3:35I am offering you inspirations

3:46And am ordering you to pass on those inspirations

3:53Prophet Muhammed was not there to teach the inspirations (vahiy) he received

4:00He did not adapt them to the mind, he did not try to make them clearer or more understandable

4:05The inspirations were meant for his soul, not for his mind

4:16The Prophet said that I am just here to pass on the inspirations I received without any additions, without any changes

4:22I am addressing your souls, your souls are meant to be affected,

4:28not your minds. This is not about grasping concepts. My apologies

4:33What is this similar to? I like to talk about things sincerely and openly, and sometimes we cannot do that

4:38Then it is really hard to explain anything properly

4:41We are a group of men here, so let’s look at it from our perspective.

4:44So here is Adam living in the garden of Eden

4:47He is perfectly happy with his life

4:52Presumably we lived like this till we were about eighteen years old

4:57But then, Eve appeared. Since Adam and Eve were both naked

5:02Eve arrived naked. So here is the eighteen year old naked Eve

5:08appearing in front of Adam who is eighteen years old, with all the fruits she possesses

5:14Like the song by Tarkan ‘Is that all yours?’

5:22So my murshid says: My son, Adam was created

5:29By God

5:31And God’s spirit was blown into him and he became alive

5:36He got up and started to walk and said

5:40Alhamdullillah, I can use my feet, my hands

5:46I can do this, I can turn my neck left and right

5:57He blinked his eyes, and there was a fly

6:01He was grateful that his eyes blinked automatically. if I was in charge of blinking, I might have forgotten to blink right then

6:09So that a fly could not enter his eye and make him blind

6:12That means creation is continuous, he said thank you for helping me God

6:22So my murshid is telling this story as if he was there,

6:26if you opened the Torah you wouldn’t find the story there

6:28This is a myth he is creating and presenting to us as if he was there

6:36And we are listening to him eagerly, keep going, keep going!

6:48Adam says, thank God, there is Eve who appeared from behind the bushes

6:52Here she is eighteen years old

6:56Adam saw her and said she didn’t look like a monkey in the garden

7:03Nor like a camel

7:08She is not like any other animal

7:12Not like any other

7:13She doesn’t have any hair, like Plato says, a hairless animal

7:26Adam welcomes her and thinks he found someone

7:33Who he can talk with

7:38But as she gets closer, her attraction gets stronger and stronger

7:43Her attraction causes a change in the snake in the Tree of Life

7:50That blind snake becomes alive when it sees Eve

7:56stood up!

8:01Homo Erectus

8:07Adam says, oh no

8:14Whatever is going to happen to me will happen because of this

8:17Why? Because this is not under my will,

8:21but under the Divine Will!

8:23It doesn’t listen to me. If I say sleep, it doesn’t listen, if I say move, it doesn’t listen. It is independent of my will

8:30I can move my hand, my arm, thank you my God

8:38I'm happy.

8:39But there is this snake on the Tree of Life

8:42When Eve is not there, it is motionless,

8:44he looks at a tree, or a monkey

8:48Nothing happens

8:51But he sees Eve, and the snake raises its head

8:54And says, give me some of your fruit,

9:00some of your forbidden fruit

9:02And when she gives her the forbidden fruit,

9:05they get to know each other and are expelled from Heaven.

9:09What does it mean?

9:11Go and work

9:17And survive with your efforts, only with your own efforts

9:22Can they go to heaven? They can, to the heaven they deserve, but with their own efforts

9:26When you are with your parents, you are in the Garden of Eden till you get married,

9:32everything is free

9:34But once you see the neighbor’s son or daughter

9:38The snake moved, so you are on your own now

9:42Sinan: Now they have to stand on their own two feet

9:43That’s when you have the chance to become a human being.

9:45Can you become a human being if you stayed in heaven?

9:48It is not possible

9:49Sinan: Just like one has to build oneself, one has to build one’s heaven as well

9:52My murshid used to say that there is an island south of India called Serendip

9:58We say Serendip, I don’t know what its other name is, I think it might be Sri Lanka

10:04He says, my son, we call it Serendip Island

10:08And Adam was placed on Serendip island

10:13I am thinking that according to science, humans originated from Africa

10:21science says so.

10:24I am asking, could it be Africa instead?

10:28He says, no, my son

10:31He was placed on Serendip island

10:40Before Adam, people existed, yes

10:51But the first ‘human being’, who listened to the ‘Word’, Adam

11:00Was placed in Sri Lanka

11:03That was the garden of Eden

11:06Sri Lanka, Serendip.

11:08Is that right?

11:11He says, you know there are coconuts, dates and other beautiful fruits there

11:18Just like that, the area around the pyramids in Egypt

11:22Was full of beautiful gardens, of bananas

11:27Now it is not like that because of draught

11:30Same with the area around the Kaaba, those areas were full of gardens, trees and fruits

11:40So this sounded like a very different world

11:43Anyway, it doesn’t matter whether we are talking about Africa or another place

11:48What is the point here?

11:51The point is once we leave childhood

11:55We get to know ourselves and we are responsible for ourselves

12:04Sinan: Freedom means to be responsible

12:07Once you become an adolescent, you find yourself in reality and you are responsible

12:13Before adolescence, you don’t exist,

12:16you exist for others

12:18You don’t exist for yourself.

12:20To exist for yourself means

12:21To have the ability to reproduce, the likes of yourself

12:26In order to do that,

12:29you must find Eve

12:35You are not the one who finds Eve,

12:37it is the Divine Word or intuition

12:40Without homo erectus, can a human being be born?

12:48The world of gods in Mesopotamia, Elohim, Ilah, Allah This whole process

12:58was born in Babylon,

13:01Ziggurat.

13:03What is the ziggurat?

13:05Or the obelisks?

13:08In fact, there is the concrete example, the sculpture of God, the Phallus, you can look it up.

13:14People go and kneel down before it.

13:18What is that?

13:20Let’s look at the word “Babylon”

13:25Our grandparents told us stories about Noah,

13:33but his name was not Noah according to them

13:37They used a different name:

13:40Udbinunuk

13:44What is Udbinunuk?

13:47My grandmother talked about a big storm

13:54where God called on him and ordered him to build a boat

13:58She is talking about the floods, and about Noah

14:00So I say, grandma, you mean the prophet Noah?

14:02She says I don’t know anything about Noah

14:05She did not read about Noah from books.

14:09Udbinunuk

14:11I looked up the Gilgamesh epic and found what she was talking about there,

14:14the difference was in pronunciation

14:17Now, continuing with the same story,

14:23we say ‘pipi’ to refer to a child’s penis

14:29A soft word since we can’t call it by its real name

14:35Otherwise, it may be embarrassing for some

14:43In the eastern Black Sea region, they used to call a child’s penis

14:45Bibil

14:50Where does that word come from? From Mesopotamia

14:54What does Babylon mean?

14:55Babil (Babylon) Bil means God, and Bab means door, so the door of God!

15:00The sculpture of the door of God is the Phallus.

15:03Don’t sperms create human beings? Aren’t they the word of God?

15:11What you see as an instrument of pleasure

15:16Is in reality the bridge of God’s creation, and you are not even aware of it! Babil (Babylon)!

15:21That’s where the souls emerge from, each of the sperms is a soul

15:26When they meet the mother

15:34That’s when they come to life, and God’s breath is blown into them

15:42The are born and appear in this world

15:45What you think of as just an instrument of pleasure

15:49Turns out, in fact, how God sends human beings to this world

15:56Dont play with it! Be a little more respectful, brother!

16:02So Babil (Babylon) means the place where souls are created

16:07Çilingir Sofrası 30 / Babylon ***Translated by Prof.Dr.Nükhet Kardam***