Full transcript
İnsan, küreyle değil Kabe’yle (Küp) sembolize edilir.
0:00Çilingir Sofrası 26 / Space, Time, Humanbeing ***Translated by Prof.Dr.Nükhet Kardam***
0:02We left off at the question of why the Kaaba has six faces, right?
0:06Why aren’t you reminding me?
0:08Sinan: I reminded you!
0:11You are reminding me now based on what I just said!
0:15What a miracle!
0:17This is a dangerous guy!
0:21We had said that the sphere is the symbol of God
0:26That it was both limited and unlimited
0:31But the human being is symbolized by the Kaaba
0:36which is the shape of a cube.
0:37Why?
0:40Looking at the Kaaba from outside,
0:48If we look from a corner, we see two walls,
0:51if we stand at the center of a wall, we just see one wall
0:53If we look from above, we see the top,
0:55and the bottom is hidden to us
0:58In other words in order to perceive the cube completely, I must go inside
1:05If we go inside (the human body), looking from outside
1:11My body doesn’t look like a cube
1:14When I am inside my body, then I can see the cube
1:22How do I see it?
1:25I close my eyes and look above, I can perceive the ‘above’, the sky
1:32I look down, I can perceive ‘down’ towards the earth, another face
1:41I can turn left and right, two more faces So we have the face above, face below, left and right
1:52But there is also the ‘zuhur’. Did you know that?
1:55which means "back"
1:59"Zuhur" also means manifest
2:02So people became manifest,
2:07We came from Adam’s rib ************Zahr means shoulder "Ridge" or rib*********
2:14That means we all came from Adam’s rib
Zahr, Zuhur, Zahir, Zühre
2:23What an amazing language!
2:25Sinan: it keeps giving birth!
2:28Should we give up this ancient language?
2:31They ask me to explain all of this in everyday Turkish!
2:35I am telling them, why don’t you open yourselves up
2:39And enjoy the depth of meanings here?
2:42You are saying let’s eat jam instead of honey
2:48Okay, but I left some honey on the shelf. I forgot about it for three years and nothing happened to it whereas jam becomes moldy
2:57Why is honey so valuable?
2:59We hear that honey is good for our health
3:02But really the point is honey doesn’t carry any microbes
3:07It doesn’t get moldy, bacteria don’t grow there
3:12What is another valuable item in our world?
3:16It is gold. Gold also doesn’t carry microbes
3:23Sinan: Babies were fed with gold spoons in the past
3:24Because they didn’t rust. Gold doesn’t rust
3:27Sinan: It doesn’t get oxidized
3:31Why are these used as symbols?
3:33Because they point to something important,
3:41that human beings should emulate these characteristics,
3:43Silver is good but
3:46It becomes oxidized and turns dark
3:54If I want to use it, I need to polish it often
3:59But suppose I want to paint with silver
4:01Then I might want it to be oxidized
4:07That means any item’s characteristic is good depending on its function
4:14That’s how human beings are too
4:16That is, I might not think a person is acceptable but in fact,
4:21a human being is acceptable in whatever circumstance he or she is in
4:25I mean that he or she may be acceptable in another society, it is all relative
4:32For example, I don’t like imitators
4:38Who try to be funny
4:42Do you like them?
4:44Sinan: Depends
4:45But when an artist is doing it as a creative act, then it is different, I would go watch him because that is an art
4:56I admire that,
5:00but with ordinary people who are imitators,
5:02I don’t know who I am talking with
5:07Serhan: Who are you?
5:08Are you real or not?
5:11Sinan: I am remembering Metin Akpinar who impersonated a monkey! You think there is actually a monkey on stage but he is a grown man!
5:28Serhan: He is a respected actor, who has received training in theater performance
5:34What I am trying to say is,
5:37a person who is not trained and who tries to mimic or impersonate others, that just doesn’t work. It is superficial
Allah mukallitleri sevmez.
5:44That’s why it is said that God doesn’t like imitators.
5:47If He doesn’t like imitators, what is the opposite of that?
5:52Serhan: People who are "Real"
5:54Yes, God likes originals;
5:59such people don’t just imitate someone else’s voice but instead may take it and use it.
6:04I heard that
6:06Your father apparently plays the saxophone with his mouth
6:13Is that true?
6:16If you accompanied him with your guitar
6:19Do you think we could hear some jazz?
6:23Let's see
6:26Sinan: Let’s see
6:27So this is not going to be an imitation. This will be a performance
6:32Let’s see what happens
Doğaçlama Performans: Serhan Yasdıman gitar, Sinan Yasdıman “saksofon”
“Çilingir Sofrası’na işte bu yüzden çağırıyoruz, bahçe bahçe geziyoruz, konferanstan bıkmışız.”
13:01Allahu Ekber
13:08Why are we inviting people to ‘Cilingir Sofrasi’? This is why.
13:12Sinan: We are walking around different gardens.
13:16We are tired of conferences.
13:18Sinan: Enough of that
13:19Discussions with ‘edges’
13:27Sinan: Thank you.
13:29Excellent.
13:34Let those who want wisdom not just knowledge,
13:38and those who want a remedy to their pain come
13:42As Niyazi Misri says
13:46As you know, there is Aristoteles, one of the most important philosophers of humanity
13:51He says that philosophy begins with amazement at nature
13:59Everyone looks at nature, but they are not necessarily amazed
14:04They get bored, if they look at the same view for three days, they might say, I know this place
14:07Isn’t there some other place?
14:09Human beings get bored easily,
14:14human beings are also forgetful
İnsan unutan varlıktır.
14:21"insan" (human being) comes from ‘nisyan’ which means forgetful, also ‘isyan’ which means rebellious
14:30It is good that we are forgetful.
14:32Suppose someone we loved died, if we didn’t forget,
14:35we would be in terrible shape
14:38There is the River of Forgetting
14:42that Plato talked about,
14:47Lethe river
14:49Then the River of Remembering.
14:51What is ‘river’?
14:52It is time
14:53that flows
14:55Time makes you forget.
14:57But we can journey in time but not in place
15:03We cannot go back in place but we can in time
“Mekanın türevi zamandır; İnsan, mekandan zamana geçene diyoruz.”
15:07A human being can move from place to time, spirituality involves moving from space to time
15:13That’s what spirituality is about, our body is in a particular space, but our spirit is located in time
15:19we can travel in time
15:22But we can’t travel back in space.
15:26Can we go back five days in space? No
15:28But we can go back in time, even as far as five thousand years
15:33But with amazement, what do you acquire?
15:36Knowledge
15:38What kind of knowledge?
15:40Technology,
15:41ability to use objects
15:43But you are not part of it
15:45For your comfort,
15:47you can build aircraft carrier,
15:48airports or luxurious cars
15:53but you are still the same person
15:56You are the same whether you board an airplane or a donkey,
15:59what is the difference?
16:00What about you, yourself?
Malatyalı Niyazi: “Hayvan nice anlar, hayran olan anlar bizi.”
16:05So Niyazi from Malatya (Misri) says years ago:
16:12"How can animals (Hayvan in Turkish) understand us?"
16:15"Only those who admire (Hayran in Turkish) can understand us."
16:17That means that
16:19amazement at nature
16:22allows us to acquire knowledge
16:25But admiration for a human being
16:27allows you to know humanity
16:33A human being is different.
16:36A human being can attract,
16:37is attractive
16:40A human being may have such states that attract you and might pull you away from yourself
16:47You may wonder if you will ever get yourself back
16:53Do you really want to be returned to yourself?
16:56No, you hope that you will never be left outside,
17:03you want to remain in his/her heart
17:08This is the second womb (rahim), the first one is when we emerged from the mother’s womb
17:12The second one is to be born out the heart’s womb
17:15Even though you don’t want be returned to yourself
17:17He will give yourself back to you
17:20and you will remain in yearning
17:22Let’s remind ourselves of the surah ‘Asr’ again (103) Wal-asri innal-insana lafi khusrin (Time is witness that, surely mankind is in yearning)
17:27So there we are, thank you so much, it was a great performance
17:34He (Sinan) also plays the trumpet
17:39They are asking you to play the trumpet too, but it can’t be all in the same day
17:44Serhan: He also plays the bendir
17:46We will do that too, instead of tabla, we can play bendir
17:53Sinan: We were in India once, and the drummer disappeared
18:00So I took his place and drummed and everyone danced for ten minutes, they just kept on dancing
18:13The artist is not limited to one instrument
18:18To be able to play any instrument, to be free of just one instrument
18:24and play other instruments requires expertise.
18:27But you can’t just say I can play any instrument,
18:29It requires effort, we salute whoever can actually do this right
18:35Çilingir Sofrası 26 / Space, Time, Humanbeing ***Translated by Prof.Dr.Nükhet Kardam***