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Sufism/ Tasawuf (Islamic mysticism)

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As for those who strive for Us, We will definitely guide them to Our paths and (then surely you will see that) Allah is with the doers of good. (Qur’an 29:69)

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In masnavi Rumi, Molana Rumi explains that the heart has a beat which is like beat of a drum or music. The heart not only pumps blood in the body but also does Zikr of God through this beat. Then he explains that this gave me a thought that why cant i do zikr of God on the beat of music.

He writes about himself that he wanted to be a scholar and give sermons, so he educated himself by reading and travelling to learn. He had an irregular body and since his childhood, people would make fun of him. He was over weight and fat. He was going into depression that all the scholarly knowledge that he possessed couldnt him happiness in the heart that he yearned for. He used to give sermons but made hardly any impact.

And this state continued till he met his spiritual teacher. He said that the craving in his heart grew very strong- craving to become a sufi, to understand divine love which the books couldn't give him feeling of, the thirst to seek God started to grow wildly inside him.

Sheikh Shams Tabrez R.A met Rumi R.A, took him under his wing, mentored Rumi and guided him. He transferred spiritual blessings through his words, actions, eyes inside Rumi and now Rumi started to get his heart beat going in the direction of divine love which he couldnt do so previously with the knowledge of books. His sermons started to hold value as people would flock over to practice zikr of God. Hid body started to transform in slimmer shape, his face grew attractive and he would get dimples while smiling, something that he never had.

He now started to write poetry and sentences immersed in divine love and he and his words will be remembered till eternity.Such is the importance of spiritual teacher in the life.
 
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Data Ali bin Usman Hajveri Gunjbuksh R.A is a very versatile buzurg. Those who can see him narrate that he talks in a very soft tone and speaks urdu instead of Punjabi. Sheikh Hindi is usually present around him.

Many years back, a young dervish visited Data Ali Hajveri Darbar and since the dervish was a regular visitor so the conversation started to take place. Data GunjBaksh R.A told the dervish that two women, who are sisters are in need of help and guidance. They are exotic dancers in a certain area in streets of Lahore. So your face will be shown to them in dreams for 30 days and on the 31st day, you will arrive here and they will also be here and they will recognise you and approach you and then I will give you more instructions.

Both the sisters started to have dreams and would see this young dervish in their dreams. On the 31st day, as the young dervish was entering the darbar of hazoor Data GunjBaksh R. A, the women recognised him and approached him from the men's entrance. The security tried to stop them that this is men's entrance but the women shoved the security aside. The sisters then started to follow that dervish as he made his way towards Data Ali Gunjbaksh R.A Hujra Shareef (tomb). The security opened door and told him to go inside. The sisters followed him. Now the sisters introduced themselves and told about their problem of leaving the profession. The dervish listened patiently although he knew the story before hand.

Then instructions from Data Hazoor R.A started coming to the young dervish. The sisters were to continue profession for next 30 days, on 31st day their rishtas will come, 32nd day onwards their new life will start. They had to start a garment business for living and their husbands will get them houses wherever they want.

To explain in simple words, girls prayed to God and also used to visit Data Gunjbaksh R.A darbar. Due to their visits, Data Gunjbaksh Ali Hajveri R.A had prayed to God and got the plan from God and found a human in the form of a young dervish to tell the approved plan and life to those women.

God works in different ways and there is no one way how help from God reaches mankind.

The women listened to the instructions and went away. They left the dancing job after a month. Their marriage proposals came from faisalabad and Layyah. They started garment business and are prominent garment brand holders these days. Their husbands bought them houses in DHA Lahore.

I sometimes think that People in Lahore have Data Gunjbaksh R.A at their disposal. A spirit which is alive and still working today for mankind after abandoning the body in its grave. Thousands are fed on lunger everyday and thousands make dua to God standing at his Darbar.

Prophets used to get word of God from angels but that stopped 1400 years ago. The system now is through dreams, spirits of wali Allah and dervish in current era. These alive dervishes show karamat ( Allah blessings ) and not moajzaat ( miracles ). Miracles are domain of prophets only.
The dervishes who have passed away and become pious spirits don't sleep don't eat and carry on serving humanity just like they did when they were alive. Lucky are the ones who can see, feel or talk to these pious spirits of auliya karam.
 
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A brief overview and a Few words on spiritual teacher or murshid or peer or sheikh ....I am going to talk about true or real ones, not drama or fake ones. And I'm not talking about Gaddi nasheen, they are different even if they are referred or called Peer's.

Explaining about a spiritual teacher is a massive topic on its own.

A spiritual teacher is not a common man like you or me. He is trained, blessed with spirituality and possesses different senses or powers that a common person does not have.

Who trains a spiritual teacher ? His teacher and the pious spirits of the spiritual silsila that he belongs too. Long description but God approves also since after becoming a teacher, the teacher has to be in constant contact with God for the benefit of his Mureed's or disciples or students.

Why is he blessed with powers ? Because he has a responsibility to carry out for the rest of his life so he is given all the tools of the trade.

How is he given powers ? Most of these spiritual teachers are made to through different levels of tests, trials, tribulations. During his training, He could be sent anywhere like mountains or deserts or jungles, asked to pray Salah with different surahs in a certain ways or recite different Surahs at certain times of day or night, standing or sitting or standing on one leg, standing in water, standing in caves or rain, too many variables.

What is his responsibility ? God sends those people to the teacher whom god loves. These people are sent to him to become his Mureed's. Teachers duty is to guide them about Islam and general life, get rid of their problems, save them from black magic and illness and other afflictions, ensure they eat well and sleep well at night. A long list.

How does the teacher do all the above apart from other things ?
The teacher is given telepathy, ability to teleport, ability to listen and view sitting far away, Ability to read thoughts, ability to change thoughts, ability to influence soul of the Mureed, ability to talk to Mureed' soul as well as Mureed as a human, ability to travel and be present at 72 places simultaneously in spiritual form and 73rd would be his human form.

So what does a teacher do all day and all night ?
He is not allowed to sleep at night. He is guided by pious spirits of buzurgs of his silsila.
At night he has to do a lot of tasks. He has to view the households, spiritual, religious, worldly lives of his Mureed's. He is ensuring to block magic on them, praying to god for certain to get jobs, crying to god for others to get babies, kneeling to god to save some from illness etc. He is making deals with God at night as an example that I will recite a Surah 1000 times this night so please do this task of my Mureed. Usually by morning, that task is done by god.
Something's may sound silly but bear with me.
A teacher also checks if Mureed's have food in fridge, money in accounts, clothes in cupboard to wear, shoes to wear etc. If anything is less or missing, the teacher gets to work begging god again n again.
If a Mureed has a bad boss, bad land lord etc, the teacher starts warning Mureed and making Ways for Mureed's life to be easy at office or home.
Most of the tasks that a teacher does for Mureed, he doesn't even mention to Mureed.

In return for inducting more humans or jinns under his wing as Mureed's to help them, the teacher gets closer to God, after all it was God who sent afflicted or tormented people to teacher to help them.

The spiritual level of the teacher starts to rise, he gets noor or light on his face, his words become honey affecting hearts of people, God starts to put respect for him in hearts of people and Mureed's.

A teacher is also given power and authority to transfer any power that he possesses into any Mureed or human to whom he sees worthy.
 
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I love Sufism and Sufis.. . All they provided to the world was positive and good stuff , not any single bad thing came from them . I like them , full humane .
 
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"Tasavur e sheikh" ( vision/picture/thought/ feeling of teacher )


Murshid/ teacher/ sheikh teaches the Mureed a form of telepathic communication which has been used since centuries for communication between teacher and disciple. The procedure is very simple but takes time to master and it pays dividends once mastered.


The Mureed is told to memorise a picture or form of teacher, most notably the face. It's preferable to memorise a picture in which the murshid is in his spiritual ecstasy form wearing the full attire (pahgri/ dastaar etc) of his silsila. The face is important because of colour of skin, face expressions and most importantly the eyes. In later stages the Mureed sees the expression changing, colours of face changing, smile, serious or loving expression etc.

INITIAL STAGE
The initial stage of memorising the picture of teacher is very difficult. Different people go through different patterns of stages. For the most devout Mureed's, it's very easy as the teacher already lives in the heart. Satan plays its part too. Satan tries to invoke different pictures of animals, dirt, nakedness etc in mind when the Mureed is trying to create an image of murshid in the mind. If the Mureed doesn't not give up, Satan gives in and the teacher also helps when he sees the amount of effort that the Mureed is putting in to get a clear vision of teacher in his mind. It can be done with eyes closed, eyes opened(though difficult but easy with practice).


PROCEDURE
When the mureed gets the image fixated i his mind, then the vision is used whenever the mureed needs to contact the teacher. As soon as mureed brings the picture of teacher in mind, the teacher atonce within milli seconds gets the Signal that somebody is remembering him, calling him, thinking of him. The teacher switches on his radar and gets to know which mureed is creating his vision in his mind. Now the teacher has many choices how to respond, the teacher can:
1. Reach the place spiritually where mureed is and sit/stand next to him, check his whereabouts, stay with him for a few minutes or as long as he wants. Now the teacher can also leave a feeling, a typical perfumed smell (every teacher is blessed with a perfumed smell different from other teachers, mureeds think its a perfume he is wearing but this fragrance is not found in perfumes), even show himself, show his face, show a glance of a second, move something like glass near mureed...basically leave a sign that the teacher answered his call.

2. Show the expressions through his face which the mureed is seeing in vision. Even better talk to mureed through that face. The mureed gets sentences in his mind that someone is talking to him or hear the sentences properly also. The mureed can also ask for help to pray to God about any affliction.

3. sitting at his home, the teacher can view whats happening to mureed and if there is a problem then solve it through his powers, but usually he atonce contacts God and then gets a signal whether to use powers or keep making dua.

4. send a creature (moakil) to mureed to get full report.

5. Even ignore (teacher can have his reasons and they usually do). If the mureed is disliked temporarily, the mureed may see a face with stiff expression and skin red in colour.



USES

There are many uses of tasavur e shaikh.

1. A mureed in ishq/love of teacher yearning to see the picture of teacher again n again, stays in this state when talking, eating, at work, in front of computer and then starts getting elevated in his spiritual journey. He cant think of any bad deed since murshid face is always infront of him. he remains away from sins. Thought of murshid keeps him clean, pious and focused always.

2. The first face is of murshid, then after sometime (years) mureed sees the face of murshid's own teacher and so on and so forth till he starts seeing Hazrat Muhammad SAW (takes ages, decades to reach this stage). Remember the teacher's job is to take mureed towards God and last prophet SAW.

3. An example would be of Hazrat Nizammudin Auliya R.A, the favourite mureed of Hazoor Baba Fareed R.A. who got all his spiritual blessings and powers through staying in vision. No hardship of chilla/manzil etc. Just staying in vision made him one of the famous saints of subcontinent in Delhi.

4. Mureed gets closer to God as whenever God sees him and checks him, the mureed is in vision of his beloved, ofcourse teacher is a beloved of God more than common humans.

5. At a later stage, the face of mureed starts to become the face of the teacher (ab mein, mein nahi raha, tu ho gaya). The noor and brightness of teacher comes on his face, people start to think he is a relative or brother of teacher. Other spiritual creatures (jinns etc) dont come near him, as they see his teacher inside him. The fragrance of teacher starts coming from him also.He starts to become a carbon copy of the teacher. Worldly problems stay away from him as they see the beloved of God (teacher) residing inside him.

6. Tasavur e shaikh is the direct hot line/path to teacher even if mureed is sitting 1000 miles away.The tarrap( longing) of mureed in vision keeps reaching the teacher so the teacher becomes forced (in a good way) to visit/ think of that mureed.

7. Concentration in salah becomes easy because vision is about concentration on one entity, one face, one being. Meditation on zikr of Allah becomes easy.
 
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Faith (Yakeen) and Doubt (Waswasa)

In Islam as well as Sufism, faith forms the basis of every step that a person takes to reach God, to identify God, to love God, to respect God and understand God's existence. Whenever a candidate approaches a dervish or peer or buzurg for becoming his disciple, usually the buzurg asks the mureed to make an informed decision, observe the buzurg that he is behaving according to shariah, sunnah etc, also to take his time in knowing the principles of that spiritual silsila/tareeka,
When the disciple enters the domain of discipleship under the counsel of his Peer, the amount of love (ishq) that the disciple holds in his heart for the Peer is directly proportional to the amount of faith that a disciple has in his Peer.

In the heart, only one thing can reside; either faith or doubt, not both.

What is Faith?
Faith is a belief that a disciple holds for his Peer. Its a belief that the Peer is capable of doing achieving anything through his prayers to God. Faith can move mountains as well as shake the Earth.

It was the faith of Hazrat Ali R.A in God and Hazrat Muhammad SAW that the Gate of Khyber was lifted up and thrown aside by him (R.A).

Why is faith important?
One should have faith in God and thats it, right? Logically whenever a person starts any journey, he has faith he will reach his destination. He makes ways to reach his destination but having faith gives him hope,keeps him positive, motivates him to keep going forward. The disciple should have faith in his Peer that the peer will guide him through thick and thin, empower him with instruments of success, pray for him and show him his weaknesses so he improves his personality, stature and thinking.

There are many disciples who doubt their Peer. They doubt the order he gives, they doubt his words, doubt his intentions, doubt his abilities, doubt his spiritual status and doubt the ways and means through which he performs actions. Doubt (Waswasa) is an effective weapon used by satan to derail a disciple from the path intended for him by his peer. A teacher/peer/Murshid knows the disciple inside out, he knows what the disciple needs since he is guiding the disciple. But when doubt starts to sink in, things start to go wrong. Doubting causes self damage.

The Peer obviously knows whats going through the disciple's mind. The peer has been blessed with the schematics and system of acquiring such know-how before he was made Peer. Even then the Peer loves his disciple and guides him without any prejudice. The Peer knows that the disciple is damaging himself by by doubting the Peer, a 50/50 mind set is a confused mind set. Either go in 100% or dont go at all. Its like wasting own time. The Peer wouldn't mind if the disciple decides to leave the silsila by cancelling the ba'it. That's one less mureed to worry about for the Peer. Most people in live like this with half mindset accepting the Peer and half mind doubting him.

People do the same with God; accepting what they find easy and ignoring what they think is difficult to obey and adapt.

Those disciples who don't doubt their Peer,their sisila, the closeness/affiliation of the Peer with God... those disciples have clean heart and clean mind. They start to get blessed by the Peer. God Himself wants those disciples to get blessed since they don't give in to Satan and his network of doubts. These disciples then attain spiritual blessings, their everyday life starts to become easy and their matters start to get solved.

A Peer is farsighted, He is capable of foreseeing much farther than an average person.

A few types of Doubts(waswasas) are explained below

SCENARIO 1
When disciples come to him and show their interest in acquiring a job or wealth or property or anything that they have set their upon, the Peer may ask them to do otherwise or tell them to do something else instead. The Peer could tell them to avoid this idea and concentrate on something else. Thats when the doubt starts to sink in:

1. Maybe the Peer is incapable of doing such and such thats why he is asking to divert.
2. Maybe the Peer doesnt want me to do excel.
3. Maybe the Peer doesnt have enough knowledge and doesn't understand that how modern or useful or financially viable such and such thing is for me instead he is asking me to do something else.
4. Maybe the Peer wants it for himself and is diverting me towards something else
5. The Peer is not as educated as I am, what would he know.


SCENARIO 2
There are lots of trials, tests and tribulations in spirituality and sufism. Testing is a way of blessing with spiritual power or worldly gain like a job. When the Peer tests a disciple by telling him to do certain thing or complete a task,the disciple is expected to act on it without having any doubts or second thoughts, juts like military when an order is given.The task may not make sense to the disciple but on the basis of faith he must carry it out.This is a way of testing faith also.

The task maybe as simple Peer asking disciple to meet him everyday for next 7 days, a very simple thing. But since it could be a test, the disciple will get busy the 3rd day, work will come in the way, his child or parent will get sick or he will get sick and would not be able to meet the Peer. The disciple will consider himself justified but this is where faith comes in. A small test was sent on him on the 3rd day and he simply gave in. He did not think for even a second that he agreed to follow an order. Maybe the Peer wanted to bless him by meeting him everyday at certain time. Maybe some pious spirit told the Peer that tell your disciple to come and meet you everyday for 7 days and then he will get blessed with such and such thing, spiritual or worldly.
If the disciple has faith, he will not care if he gets sick, if work comes in the way etc, he will ensure that he manages everything and makes effort to meet his Peer. After all, if he gets sick or a problem comes in the job, it will be the Peer who will be praying for him to God at the end of the day.

This is what happens to many muslims in offering salah, reciting koran, giving time to God. Something comes up and God is given secondary importance .

SCENARIO 3

When the disciple starts to rise in worldly life (career, studies, business etc) through the prayers of his Peer, he starts to think that he is rising up in the ranks due to his capabilities, knowledge and intelligence. He forgets that before meeting the Peer, he was jobless, his business was in tatters or he used to fail in subjects or get low grades as a student.

Credit has to be given where due.

Humility and humbleness goes a long way but it has to come from the heart. Its the Peer who stays up all night praying for the disciple's job, health, family, security, forgiveness, money, food etc, while the disciple sleeps at night and gets everything in the morning.

The disciple starts giving credit to own self, he may also start dwelling in arrogance. True that he put in the effort and did hard work, but a mason also works hard lifting bricks all day and cementing them, he doesnt make enough money than a person who may work less and put in less effort than the mason.

There has to be Faith; that my Peer is capable of making impossible into possible. People used to flock to sufi saints like Harzat Baba Fareedudin Masood Ganjshakar R.A to ask for children, wealth, status etc, because they knew he is closer to God than them. He R.A is beloved of God.And the esteemed Baba Fareed R.A would bow his head and shed tears in front of God and God would accept his prayer and people would get what they want.

If the Disciple has doubts in his head, he will never get blessed. Doubts will confuse him, keep him restless, make him negative and hopeless. Even if God wants to bless that disciple through his Peer's prayers, that disciple's heart and mind will be filled with doubt and he will not be able to understand whats God intends for him. Peer is just a medium being a beloved of God. Peer has done the duty of ensuring that God agrees to bless his disciple but now the onus is on the faith of disciple.

"Faith and Doubts" is a massive topic in sufism and spirituality, I will make new episodes on this and post them from time and time since i need to cover other topics also.
 
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Another example of faith, how faith changes lives.

A story of Faith

There was once a man who was very pious, he prayed and fasted for 50 years. He was in search of spirituality but never found a true teacher(dervish).

Once, while he was at a mosque for his Friday prayers, he heard the imam say that a Sufi dervish is one who stays awake at night, in jungles, to pray, regardless of how they appear to be doing it. They could do it while walking or within wells or any other way and these are the only ones who can bless a person with spirituality.
A few days later this man went to the jungle at night, in search of someone like this, the same parameters that masjid imam had described for a sufi dervish. While there, he stumbled upon a band of thieves who were stealing and also tried to steal from him.

This man didnt care about their stealing antics and remembered what the Imam masjid had said, so he hugged one of the thieves and said ,

‘you must be a Sufi dervish because I was told that they stay awake in jungles to pray at night and it can appear in many forms’.

The thief tried to tell him that he was, in reality, a thief but this man would not listen although they had stolen from him. The man said take me to your leader, he must be closest to God as you and him are up all night.
The thieves took the man to their chief. This man fell at the chief’s feet thinking that he must be a very elevated sufi saint. The chief told him to leave because they were actually thieves and had stolen from him too but the man refused.

So in order to get rid of him, the chief then took the man to the door of a mosque and instructed him to hold the door of the mosque unless told otherwise. The innocence of this man was such and he knew that faith pays dividends so he did as was told.

He kept holding that door of the mosque for days. People told him to let go and join prayers but he refused stating that my master has instructed me to hold on. 40 days and nights passed.

Allah was watching this man’s heart and his actions. He instructed his angel to go in the form of a Sufi dervish and tell the man to let go of the door and resume prayers. And also to tell him that these men in the jungle were robbers. The angel did as told but the man still refused to budge stating that his teacher had ordered him to stay this way. He said to the angel appearing as a Sufi Dervish,

‘Unless my master tells me himself to move away, I will not move away’.

Talk about un-shakable faith !

The angels were then instructed by Allah to go in the form of angels, their true form. They arrived at the door of the mosque and showed themselves as angels and told the man to move away and tried to reason with him, telling him that they were robbers but the man still refused stating that,

‘I don’t care how they appeared that night. I have spent 50 years in doubt and spirituality evaded me. Now I don’t have a shadow of doubt left in me. That man is my teacher and I will wait till he orders me to move away’.

When Allah SWT witnessed the steel willed faith of this man, he instructed his angels to find the thieves. When they found them, they were in the midst of robbing someone. The angels hugged the thieves and in the process, their spiritual sight (inner eye) was awakened and they were made into Wali-Allahs (Friends of Allah)(sufi dervishes). The angels then hugged the chief of the group and he was made into Qutb-ul-aqtab (A high spiritual station).

The angels then instructed the chief Robber, now a Sufi Dervish, a Qutb-ul-aqtab, to go back to his disciple and order him to let go of the door. When the chief reached there, he hugged his disciple and that man too was made Qutb-ul-aqtab (A high spiritual station).

Allah blesses his creation on basis of faith.
 
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