Sleep Less

Life Increasing Light

Sir, sleeping little is not only a concern of the Islamic world, a particular sect or a particular denomination, it is one of the fundamental problems of the entire human world, just like eating little. Eating little is the custom of the righteous and sleeping little is the custom of the righteous. Because, like eating too much, sleeping too much makes the heart groggy. It numbs the mind. It makes our body sluggish. It causes forgetfulness and many diseases. In addition, sleeping too much causes us to be deprived of the various spiritual blessings of the night and many divine feyz and mercy. In the Holy Qur'an, it is possible to find verses about the night in different sūrahs such as Surah Al Imrān 17, Furqān 64, Muzammil 1 and verses 4, Human 26, Isrā 79 and Zariyat 17-18.

The aforementioned verses are generally addressed to the Holy Prophet to get up at night and worship. Of course, this is addressed first to the entire Islamic world in the person of the Holy Prophet and then to the entire human world. Because, our Master is Rahmatellil âlamin. Therefore, his every word, his every behavior encompasses the whole world of humanity. Our Prophet said in one of his hadiths: "I have such a moment with Allah Almighty that neither a prophet with a book nor an angel who is close to Allah can enter between us." Shams-i Tabriz-i Hazretleri, while interpreting this Hadith, says the following: "With this saying, our Master is not telling us about himself. There is a call to his ummah here. In other words, do such a thing that your state will be like my state. These words should not be understood as our master's own state, but as a call to us to that state." This interpretation of His Holiness Shams-i Tabriz-i is of course a very high, very correct understanding, it broadens one's horizons. Both the verses of the Qur'an and every state and every word of our Master is a sign for us. It is an infinite door to the realm of secrets. For this reason, it is necessary not to stay only on the surface and the form of the matter, but to investigate and learn the meaning, the essence, the essence, and to act accordingly. Our Master said that one cannot pray in a house where there is a known image. To think of this image as pictures hanging on the wall would be a very shallow, very sterile thought.

Hadrat Najm al-Dīn Kübbrā says that the verses mentioned above refer specifically to the night because of its connection with sleep, and he divides sleep into two.

As you know, Necmüddin Kübrâ Hazretleri is the Pir of the Kübreviye sect. Our Prophet Mevlana walked on that path and became the sultan of the lovers on that path. Hz. Mevlana's father Sultanu'l Ulemâ, who is accepted as the first murshid of Mevlana, was a disciple of Hazret Necmüddin Kübrâ. It is also accepted that another of his disciples, Baba Kemâl Cendi, was a disciple of Shams-i Tabriz.

As for the two states of sleep according to such a great sultan:

1.The truth of sleep

The wisdom of sleep
The truth of sleep: "It is to close the external sense organs so that the sense organs in the heart can open. In other words, it is only when the external sense organs are closed that our spiritual sense organs are opened."

Sir; as it is known, our outward feelings also have an inward dimension. That is, the spiritual dimension. How can the eye of the heart be opened if we do not close the eye of the head? Of course, this closing is not sleeping long at night. If it were so, they would not say sleep less. In the Masnavi, Hazrat Najmuddin Kübrâ explained what he called the truth of sleep, i.e. closing the external senses, in a language we can all understand as follows: Clt.1. 390: When the prisoners in the dungeon sleep at night, they are unaware that they are in the dungeon. Those in high positions and happy people living in prosperity also lose everything when they fall asleep.

In sleep there is no sorrow, no worry of winning or losing. Nor dreams of this or that.

The state of the ascetic is the same when he is awake. The ascetic is asleep to the world even when his head is open.

Allah Almighty used the expression about Ashâb-i Kehf: "They were asleep."

Don't say, "How can this be? They have fallen asleep in the world day and night. They are like a pen in the hands of Allah Almighty.

The one who cannot see the hand that writes, sees only the pen moving and knows that the pen does the writing."

Allah has given examples and illustrations from the state of the sages so that the people would fall into the sleep of sensation, the natural sleep, and at least close their eyes to this world when they sleep and get rid of their worldly ambition.

Even today, there are many Ashâb-ı Kehf in the world who may be standing right next to you.

The friend who was their companion is now in conversation with them in the cave. But since your eyes and ears are sealed, what good are they to you?"

Sir, as it is seen, Ashâb-ı Kehf did not remain centuries ago. There are many Ashâb-i Kehf living among us now. It would be a great mistake to think them centuries behind. As our Hz. Pir said, there are many Ashâb-ı Kehf living right next to us, but what good is it for those who do not see or know. Also, as you realize, sleep and wakefulness are inseparable. Sometimes the name of sleep is wakefulness and sometimes wakefulness is sleep. Either we will be asleep to the world even during the day like Ashâb-ı Kehf, or we will be awake in dhikr, thought and gratitude at a certain time of the night while everyone else is asleep. The choice is left to us. The important thing is which sleep and which wakefulness we are in.

Masnavi clt.3.1222: "There are many people in this world whose head eye is open, but whose heart eye is asleep.

The person whose heart is awake, even if he closes his head eye, hundreds of clairvoyant eyes are opened to him. If you are not a man of the heart, be vigilant. Always be awake. Ask Allah for a heart and work for it.

If your heart is awake, don't be afraid, go to sleep with your head and sleep pleasantly. Neither the seven floors nor the six directions will disappear from your sight.

The Prophet said, "My eyes sleep, but my heart never falls asleep. May my life be sacrificed for those who sleep with their eyes open."

These couplets reminded me of a very beautiful saying: "The sleep of the ascetic is much better than the worship of the ignorant," because even when they are asleep outwardly, their hearts are in a constant state of dhikr. Maybe their head eyes are closed, but their heart eyes are open. Their sleep is the essence of worship, the very essence of servitude. Therefore; Hz. Mevlana: It is more difficult to recognize the friends of Allah than to recognize Allah. Do not compare the states of the guardians with your own. You eat honey and it becomes poison. He eats poison and becomes honey. Hz. Umar's drinking a bottle of poison brought by a Byzantine emir like rose sherbet is a very good example of this. In fact, because we confuse the behaviors manifested by the friends of Allah with our own nafsani feelings, very few people in this world have had the opportunity to know these blessed people. It is much more difficult to recognize and know the friends of Allah because they are hidden. Allah Almighty is in the open.

Also, this couplet is very important: "If you are not a man of the heart, be vigilant. Always be vigilant. Ask Allah for the heart and work for it."

However, we all think that we have a heart. Unfortunately, our hearts are hurt or broken at the slightest thing. We don't even think about what is broken, what is hurt. If everyone had a heart: Yunus Emre said: "Hodja, if you want to go on a thousand pilgrimages, the best of them all is to enter a heart"? What kind of a thing is called a heart that it is more efficacious than a thousand pilgrimages. In Masnavi: "You say that I have a heart. You say so, but what you call the heart is on the arch. However, you are the lowest of the low. Everyone knows that there is water in black clay. Everyone knows, but everyone also knows that ablution is not performed with that water. You cannot call your heart that has turned into black slime a heart." Niyâzi Mısrî Hazret has a very beautiful couplet with the same meaning: "You cannot call a heart that has turned into black clay." Yes, sir, unfortunately, this is the truth of the matter. If we return to our own subject: Rubais clt.4.146: "One walks the path at night, for the night is the guide of secrets. The secrets of divine love and the pleasures of meaning come to the heart at night when everyone is asleep. For only at night do the doors of the heart open."

The verses I mentioned at the beginning always corresponded to the night. Why is it always at night that the doors of the heart are opened? Because the material hustle and bustle of the daytime, dreams and fantasies draw us into such a realm that we lose ourselves in the world of matter, not to feel the climate of meaning. As you know, most people do not even have time to pray five times a day, let alone to go to Friday. Even if they have time, they will not find peace, they cannot find peace. Because on Friday, he is still busy with his own work. He even listens to the sermon from the voice of his own soul. This is the place where the saying that the sleep of the ârif is better than the worship of the ignorant is valid.

If we go back to the beginning of our conversation: We were talking about the truth of sleep. We understand this briefly from the couplets presented: To close our physical senses and thus give the opportunity for our spiritual senses to open. Since our subject is sleep, we will close our head eye so that our heart eye can open. If we close our eyes at night as much as the body needs, only our soul will rest. Too much sleep beyond the need disturbs the soul and makes the body sick. But if we can close our eyes against the world even during the day like Ashab-ı Kehf, our body will be healthy, our soul will be calm and peaceful, and we will also have spiritual vision Insha'Allah. The important thing is to use our eyes, along with all our organs, in accordance with the purpose of creation, to establish a balance between the sîret and the sûrah, and to try to make our eyes our friends. As a matter of fact; Niyâzi Mısrî Hazretleri: "An eye that does not become an example in the eye of the beholder / It is the enemy of its owner on his head".

As for the wisdom of sleep according to Najmüddin Kübrâ: "Our soul is in a "strange" state in this lowly body of ours. By reforming this body of ours, it tries to obtain what is beneficial and get rid of what is harmful. As long as the person is awake, the soul is trapped in the body. When the person falls asleep, the holy spirit goes to its original homeland. It rests with the peace in the realm of the unseen. When it goes to the realm of Melaküt, it sees the realm of Shahadat with its images.

If a person of Mujahadah eats little and sleeps little and dissolves the dominance of air water fire earth fire on him, he can see the world of melākut even in this world with his heart's eye. In other words, they see and know everything through dreams, not through dreams."

If you remember, in one of our previous Masnavi talks, we talked at length about this issue of knowing through dreams.

Hz. Mevlana; Friends of Allah who have vision see what they will experience from the day they are born until the day they die. In fact, they know what all the people in the east and west will experience, not just their own. But they do not change Allah's providence by taking precautions. The best examples of this were the Prophet and Prophet Ali. These issues have been explained to you in a very wide way with the couplets of Masnavi.

If we go back to the wisdom of sleep, it means that as long as we are awake, our soul remains imprisoned and troubled. It is only when we sleep that the soul goes to its own realm, finds some peace, and is freed from worldly troubles. In order to understand all this much better, I would like to summarize some couplets from the Masnavi. clt.1.396: "At night, the souls of the people go to a field that has no cause or reason, to the realm of souls. Their souls rest in the world of souls and their bodies rest where they lie.

Allah Almighty then brings all souls back to their traps with a divine sign. He invites them to be a good and just person.

Then the light of dawn appears, the vulture of the sky flaps its golden wings, and the sun rises in the morning.

Allah, the Creator of the worlds, takes all souls like Israfil and brings them from that country, from the world of souls, to the world we see now, to the world of form.

It binds the souls that are scattered and scattered around with the skin, with the body. Thus, he makes the bodies pregnant with souls again.

At night, when a person falls asleep, he strips the body saddles of the horses of life. This is the secret of the hadith "Sleep is the brother of death".

But in the morning he ties a long rope around the feet of the spirits so that they can come again and take care of the skin.

Ties them so that they come back from the meadow of the spiritual world in the daytime. So that they can take the burden of servitude again.

Ibrahim Hakki expressed the same issue and he expressed the same things as Necmüddin Kübrâ and Hz Mevlana. I would like to present it in summary in order to be a different example on this subject.

"Man has come from that higher world to this lower world as a "Stranger". And he has been engaged in the affairs of the animal soul. He runs for its benefit. He also tries to prevent its harm. He is attached to the nafs and clings to the body. Therefore, in a narrow and difficult world, the soul, which is "Strange", has become a prisoner in the body. When sleep overtakes this body, the soul rises to its own reign and finds two kinds of benefits.

The first is this: He is completely freed from the laborious toils of expatriation in this world of blessing and disgrace, and he is freed from dealing with the nafsani affairs of the body."

Sir, I would like to reiterate once again. The nafs belongs to this world. The soul, on the other hand, has come from the realm of eternity and is a stranger in our mortal world. "The verse "Help the strangers" in the Qur'an first commands us to protect our soul, which has come to this world from beyond and is a guest in our body, and not to help it. Because the real stranger is our soul. Unfortunately, when we think of strangers and foreigners, we only think of Muhajireen who migrate from one land to another. Insha'Allah, may we be blessed to understand the verses and hadiths in their different meanings. As you know, many people with psychological disorders unconsciously fall asleep or are put to sleep by their doctor. The reason is the same; to try to relieve the soul, which is under the captivity of our animal emotions, even for a short period of time. To relieve it from the worries and troubles of this mortal world. But let this not be misunderstood! The sleep in question is only a temporary artificial comfort for the soul that is helpless at the hands of the nafs. It is never a permanent solution or a real healing for our body. How much of a real life can we be in a state of artificial inhalation? True peace of mind is achieved by sleeping little or by being asleep against the world like Ashâb-ı Kehf. When we combine little sleep with dhikr, thought and gratitude, we will be healed. We cannot fight with ourselves at night, rebel in the morning because we slept too little, and expect material and spiritual peace and healing as a result. Just as dieting and riyâz are not the same, so too, the merciful sleep and wakefulness are not the same as the nafsâni sleep and wakefulness. I would also like to mention the following: Both being away from one's original homeland and the endless human desires of the body in which one is imprisoned disturb the soul, but they do not make it sick. Because the soul does not get sick. In the Masnavi, Mawlana says the following: Clt.4.3788: "Those who deteriorate and change are the emotions and habits that belong to the body. The place of change is the body. The immortal soul is a bright divine sun. That soul, which is like the sun, never changes, never deteriorates, never takes on another form. Attributes such as sickness, sleep, aches and pains belong to the body. The soul has nothing to do with these attributes. The soul has been cleansed from these attributes, which are mortal."

Sleeping too much in heedlessness or living a life based entirely on matter is contrary to the purpose of our creation. Therefore, our soul becomes disturbed and unhappy. This discomfort manifests as disease in our body. All other spiritual diseases should also be considered from this framework. It was mentioned very often in our previous conversations. Everything that nourishes our body, which comes from the earth and goes to the earth, has nothing to do with our soul. Things that make our body happy, on the contrary, disturb our soul. Because the happiness of the body means the happiness of the soul. Ibrahim Hakki Hazretesi: "When sleep overtakes this body, the soul ascends to its own reign and finds two kinds of benefits" He said. We tried to present the first one.

As for the second one: "Even though that divine soul ascended to its homeland and was imprisoned in the world of limbo, having learned some secrets from the first mind, it captured many meanings through it. In the realm of Shahadat, he attained clarification with similar ones. The full expression of the event is this: The warning of past deeds and the glad tidings of future states have become known in the form of a true dream. If the soul of the sleeper has passed through the limbo and met with the mind-all, he has attained many inspirations through unmediated observation, and his sleep has become a daytime wakefulness and he has dived into the depths where secrets are discovered through observance."

This is again the goodness and wisdom of the sleep of the awakened and how some sleep is the awakening itself. "The truth is this: Sleep is laziness and heedlessness. Spiritual sleep, on the other hand, is ascending to the presence of Mawlana. The sleep of the ignorant is a kind of death. The sleep of the ascetic opens the mind. The sleep of the common people is misery and trouble. The sleep of the havas is complete love. The sleep of crude men is to spend time in heedlessness. The sleep of the mature is obedience to the Self."

They say, "A man of the heart was a guest in a lodge for a few days. Every day he ate what ten men ate, slept all night and talked all day.

The dervishes there were disturbed by the fact that he ate too much, slept too much, talked too much and complained to the sheikh.

The sheikh called the person who complained to him and said: The essence of the path of the masters is to eat little, sleep little and talk little. You were doing the opposite and burdening the tekke with this state.

After listening to the guest sheikh: If the dervishes who complained to you about me had wisdom, they would have thanked me instead of complaining. Because what we eat is not food but only light. We do not sleep at night, we only ascend to peace. We also do not speak idle talk, only wisdom.

The bottom line is that for those who have not reached this perfection, eating too much, sleeping too much, talking too much is a great loss."

In this legend, he says, "The sleep of a sage is worship. That of the ignorant is a misdemeanor. The place of the ârif becomes light. The place of the ignorant is zûlmet."