Monday, December 31, 2007

Malfuzaat Baba Sahib 1

The urs of Hazrat Baba Fareed Ganj Skahar -RA is upcoming on Moharram 5. The urs is celebrated at Pak Patan [near Multan] every year. The whole city bubbles with love and spirituality of Baba Sahib.

I will now be sending sayings of Baba Sahib till the urs. These sayings were recorded by Hazrat Badruddin Ishaq -RA. Hazrat Badruddin was a murid as well as son in law of Baba Sahid. His mazzar is also at Pak Patan. His compilation is named Asraar-ul-Aulia.

I will continue with Mun Chaley the Sauda later on.

Wassalaam, Ovais

Friday, December 28, 2007

Mun Chalay Ka Sauda 11


Thursday, December 27, 2007

Mun Chalay Ka Sauda 10

Monday, December 24, 2007

Mun Chalay Ka Sauda 9

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Mun Chalay Ka Sauda 8



Friday, December 21, 2007

Mun Chalay Ka Sauda 7

Ramzan is an another guide of Irshad. By profession Ramzan is a cobbler. He has been put in jail for repairing shoes on a footpath and not having a proper shop.





Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Mun Chalay Ka Sauda 6






















Monday, December 17, 2007

Mun Chalay Ka Sauda 5

Irshad has gone to England for some personal business. Irshad’s spiritual guide Muhammad Hussain is explaining him a few concepts on phone.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Mun Chalay Ka Sauda 4

Abdullah is also a guide of Irshad. He is explaining a few concepts below to Irshad.


Thursday, December 13, 2007

Mun Chalay Ka Sauda 3

Abdullah is also a spiritual guide of Irshad. Interestingly Irshad has three guides, although they have different professions but are actually same in person. One person is playing all the three characters.


Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Mun Chalay Ka Sauda 2

Scene before the following Dialogue: Irshad is traveling in his car. A dacoit intercepts him and demands valuables from Irshad. Irshad resists and a fight ensues between Irshad and the dacoit. A man witnessing all this from nearby joins in and starts helping Irshad in overpowering the dacoit. Although the dacoit and savior have a different attire, the man inside the clothes is the same; both look like Mr. Hussain, Irshad’s spiritual guide.


Monday, December 10, 2007

Mun Chalay Ka Sauda

Mr. Ashfaq Ahamd is a famous writer in recent times. He died a few years back.

He has written numerous plays and one of them is Mun Chalay Ka Sauda. PTV also produced this play and the play became quite famous. This play is about a modern man who gets fed up with his life and turns to sufism for solace.

Since Mr. Ashfaq was himself a murid of a eminent sheikh, and he has tried to convey what he learnt during the 12 years of companionship with his sheikh. The dialogues in the play are truly outstanding in terms of portraying the essence of Islam and Sufism.

You will find series of dialogues from this play.

Irshad: the man in search of solace

Mohammad Hussain: one face of Sheikh, a man of esoteric knowledge



Maarifat

Saturday, December 08, 2007

Faqr [Dervish-hood] is my Fakhr [Pride]

Faqr [Dervish-hood] is my Fakhr [Pride].
-Prophet Muhammad [s.a.w]

Faqr is not the renunciation of zad [possessions], it is the renunciation of murad [covetousness].
- from Kashful Mahjub , Syed Ali Bin Uthman al-Hujweri

Our sense of who we are determines what we perceive as our needs and what matters to us in life -whatever matters to us will have the power to upset and disturb us. We can use this as a criterion to find out how deeply we know ourselves.

What matters to us is not necessarily what we say or believe, but what our actions and reactions reveal as important and serious to us. So we may want to ask ourselves the question:
What are the things that upset and disturb us?

If small things have the power to disturb us, then who we think we are is exactly that: small. That will be our unconscious belief.

What are small things?
Ultimately all things are small things because all things are transient.

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Don’t Grieve for What Doesn't Come

Remember the incident of Muhammad [PBUH] and the eagle.

It happened that as he was listening to this inspired baby, he heard a voice calling him to prayer. He asked for water to perform ablutions. He washed his hands and feet, and just as he reached for his boot, an eagle snatched it away! The boot turned upsidedown as it lifted, and a poisonous snake dropped out.

The eagle circled and brought the boot back, saying, "My helpless reverence for you made this necessary. Anyone who acts this presumptuously for a legalistic reason should be punished!"

Muhammad [PBUH] thanked the eagle, and said, "What I thought was rudeness was really love. You took away my grief, and I was grieved! God has shown me everything, but at that moment I was preoccupied within myself."

The eagle, "But chosen one, any clarity I have comes from you!"

This spreading radiance of a True Human Being has great importance. Look carefully around you and recognize the luminosity of souls. Sit beside those who draw you to that. Learn from this eagle story that when misfortune comes, you must quickly praise. Others may be saying, Oh no, but you will be opening out like a rose loosing itself petal by petal.

Someone once asked a great sheikh what sufism was.

"The feeling of joy when sudden disappointment comes."

The eagle carries off Muhammad's boot saves him from snakebite.

Don't grieve for what doesn't come. Some things that don't happen keep disasters from happening.


Maulana Jalal-uddin Rumi, RA

Be Careful: Pride

A disobedience that bequeathes humiliation and extreme need is better than an obedience that bequeathes self-infatuation and pride.

Ibn Ata Illah, Kitab al Hikam

Meanings:
bequeathes: that leads to
self-infatuation: liking oneself

Order, Prohibition, & Decree of Destiny

An order calls for strict attention and quick response.
A prohibition calls for holding back, recoil and disengagement.
A decree of destiny calls for acting dead, for disappearing into non-existence.

Shaikh Abdul Qadir Jilani Mehboob-e-Subhani, RA
-Revelations of the Unseen

Two Forms of Devotion

There are two forms of devotion: one is mandatory, the other is supereroga­tory.

Mandatory devotion is that from which the benefit is limited to one person, that is, to the performer of that devotion, whether it be canoni­cal prayers [ namaz], fasting, pilgrimage to Arabia, invocations [wazaaif], repetitions of the rosary [tasbih], or the like.

But supererogatory devotion is that which brings benefit and comfort to others, whether through the expenditure of money or demonstration of compassion or other ways of helping one's fellow man. Such actions are called supererogatory devotion. Their re­ward is incalculable; it is limitless.

In mandatory devotion one must be sincere to merit divine acceptance, but in supererogatory devotion even one's lapses become a source of reward! May God grant success!

Hazrat Nizam-uddin Aulia Mehboob-e-Elahi , RA, Morals for the Heart

Look for Hidden Vices Within You

Your being on the lookout for the vices [al-uyub] hidden within you is better than your being on the lookout for the visible realities [al-ghuyub] veiled from you.

Kitab al-Hikam , Hazrat Ibn Ata Illah, RA

TWO KINDS OF INTELLIGENCE

There are two kinds of intelligence: one acquired,
as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts
from books and from what the teacher says,
collecting information from the traditional sciences
as well as from the new sciences.

With such intelligence you rise in the world.
You get ranked ahead or behind others
in regard to your competence in retaining
information. You stroll with this intelligence
in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always more
marks on your preserving tablets.

There is another kind of tablet, one
already completed and preserved inside you.
A spring overflowing its springbox. A freshness
in the center of the chest. This other intelligence
does not turn yellow or stagnate. It's fluid,
and it doesn't move from outside to inside
through the conduits of plumbing-learning.

This second knowing is a fountainhead
from within you, moving out.

Hazrat Maulana Rumi, RA

Remember The Originator

How ignorant are those who forget the Originator and preoccupy themselves with the secondary cause, clinging to the latter and abandoning the former, forgetting the Everlasting and enjoying that which must pass away!

The Sublime Revelation, Shaikh Abd-ul-Qadir Jilani, RA

Don't Miss The Root

If you miss the root, your preoccupation with the branch will not be accepted of you. There is no benefit in cleanliness of the physical parts of the body combined with the defilement of the heart.

The Sublime Revelation , Shaikh Abd-ul-Qadir Jilani, RA

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Accept Your Present Situation

Know that your appointed share will not be lost to you because you give up chasing after it, just as you will never get what is not your share, for all your greedy seeking, effort and exertion. Be patient, therefore, and resign yourself to accepting your present situation.

Revelations of the Unseen, Shaikh Abd Al-Qadir Al-Jilani -RA

Monday, December 03, 2007

Humility: The Consummation of all Virtues

Humility is the root, branch and consummation of all virtues, whereby the servant attains to the stations of the righteous, those who are content with Allah in joy and sorrow alike. This is perfection of piety.

Humility means that the servant never meets anyone without assuming him to be more worthy than himself. He will always say: "Perhaps he is better than I in Allah's sight, and higher in degree."

If it is someone young, he will say: "This person has not offended Allah as I have done, so he is undoubtedly better than I."

If it is someone older, he will say: "This person served Allah long before I did."

If it is someone learned, he will say: "This person has received something I have not experienced, and has acquired something I have not acquired. He knows things of which I am ignorant, and he puts his knowledge into practice."

If it is someone who is ignorant, he will say: "This person has offended Allah in ignorance, while I have offended Him knowingly. I do not know what end He has in store for me, nor what end He has in store for him."

If it should be an unbeliever, he will say: "I don't know; perhaps he will embrace Islam and come to good end, and maybe I shall become an unbeliever and come to a bad end."

Revelations of the Unseen, Shaikh Abd Al Qadir Al-Jilani -RA

Sunday, December 02, 2007

Hiding the Faults of God's Servants

On the night of ascent [Mairaaj] the Prophet -peace be upon him- was given a cloak, and that has been called 'the cloak of poverty.' On returning, he summoned his companions and told them: "I have been given a cloak, with the directive from God: 'Give the cloak to the one who gives that particular answer to my question.'"

After that he turned to Abu Bakr and said: 'If I give you this cloak what will you do?'

Replied Abu Bakr: ' I will be righteous and obedient, zealous but generous.'

After that he asked Umar: 'What will you do with this cloak?'

'I will be just and show fairness,' replied Umar.

Then of Uthman he asked the same question: 'What will you do with this cloak?'

'I will be liberal and generous as well as zealous,' he replied.

And finally to Ali he put the question: 'What will you do with this cloak?'

'I will wrap myself in it
,' replied Ali, ' and I will also wrap in its folds [i.e. hide] the sins of God's servants!'

The Prophet -peace be upon him- said: 'I give this cloak to you Ali, because your answer is the one which I was informed.'

Morals for the Heart, Hazrat Nizam-uddin Aulia -RA

Saturday, December 01, 2007

Accept The Now, Surrender To It

He who wishes that at a given moment there appear other than what God has manifested in it, has not left ignorance behind at all!

Kitaab al-Hikam, Hazrat Ibn Ata Illah, RA