Life Increasing Light
Sir, in our Masnavi conversation today, we will focus on the three basic conditions of walking on the path of Truth.
Our spiritual elders have listed these very important qualities as follows: KILLETU TAAM, KILLETU MENAM AND KILLETU KALAM...
I mean, eat little, sleep little and talk little.
Inshallah, we will try to understand and enjoy these three principles, which are the basic principles of being human and living humanely, together with the verses of the Qur'an, Hadiths and various Masnavi couplets.
It is quite natural that there are various differences in religions, sects, denominations, and meşrep. But there is a common point that they all unite on: Eat little, sleep little and talk little. All Prophets have warned their ummahs by emphasizing on these three magic words.
Our Prophet said: Treat your material and spiritual diseases by eating less. Eat little and find health,
Jesus said to his ummah: "Be hungry so that you may see your Lord in your hearts.
He said that he found his beautiful voice in hunger. Because a person who is not empty inside does not produce pleasant sounds.
Moses: He found being Kelimullah in hunger. Because one whose belly is full of earth cannot be close to the Truth.
Our spiritual elders say: Three things darken the heart and block the path of wisdom. They are eating too much, sleeping too much and talking too much. A person who is worried about being hungry for three days is not a saintly person.
He is an ignorant and presumptuous man. If Allah Almighty helps and honors a servant, He will grant him to eat little, talk little and sleep little.
Indeed, these three words are the unchangeable rule of being human, of walking on the path of Sufism. A human being is a being created from the earth, composed of spirit, soul and intellect. We have to keep our soul and spirit in balance through the intellect.
Since the body is created from the earth, its inclination is always towards the earth. But without the soul, the body is useless. They say, "You came from the earth, let's go to the earth," and they dig a pit and throw it into it. It is the soul that makes the body lovely and sacred.
Hz. Mevlana said that the body belongs to this world and the soul is a stranger in this world who has come from the other world, and it is a Qur'anic command to protect the strangers, so protect your soul.
The first condition for protecting our soul is to eat little. Eating little leads to sleeping little. Sleeping little leads to talking little, and talking little leads to listening. Another condition for nourishing our soul is listening. These are dependent on each other. Eating little is also an unchangeable rule to have a strong spirit against the desires of the soul.
Hz. Mevlana: "As long as you nourish your body with greasy and honeyed food, you will never find your soul, which is your real being and keeps you alive, strong" in another Masnavi couplet: "You ask Allah Almighty for divine love, ask for food to nourish your soul. Do not ask for bread. Bread is the food of this body of ours. It feeds our animal soul, our nafs. Divine love is the sustenance of life that nourishes our soul. It is of course much better to ask Allah for the sustenance of life that will nourish our soul than to ask Allah for the sustenance of the flesh."
Hz. Mevlana has expressed many couplets about eating less in his Masnavi, Divan-ı Kebir and Ruba'i. Before presenting them to you, I would first like to present seven hadiths of our Prophet related to our subject.
In a hadith, our Prophet said in the language of Allah Almighty: O son of Adam, I have given honor and height to obedience.
People are looking for it at the door of the sultans, how will they find it?
I have appreciated knowledge in hunger, whereas people seek it in much food, how will they find knowledge?
I have given the brightness of the heart to sleeplessness at night. People are looking for it in deep sleep. How can they find the brightness of the heart when they are sleeping in heedlessness?
O son of Adam, how can you ask for knowledge and wisdom with a full stomach, for the brightness of the heart with deep sleep, for wisdom and refinement with much talking, for friendship and familiarity with people, and finally for my love with the love of the world? How can you find all these beautiful qualities?
So: you can find knowledge and wisdom in hunger, the brightness of the heart in sleeplessness at night, wisdom and refinement in silence, and friendship and reunion with me in seclusion.
Man has never filled a vessel worse than his own belly. However, it is enough to eat only three or five mouthfuls to strengthen and mature one's body.
If one is tempted by the lust of food and wants to fill his belly, let him fill at least one third with food, one third with drink and leave one third empty.
4. Satan travels through the veins of man like blood. It is only for the friends of Allah to block those paths with hunger and thirst.
If Allah loves a servant, He will leave him hungry and thirsty even in places where there is plenty and cheap food.
It is very clear that the one whose stomach is hungry, whose heart is content, whose heart is in dhikr, is a friend of Allah.
Starve your nafs so that the light of wisdom may dawn in your heart.
It is noteworthy that Hazrat Jesus said in the same meaning as this last hadith, "Eat little so that you may see your Lord in your heart".
But we also need to understand this starvation or eating less properly. If one could have knowledge, wisdom, love and affection by eating less or starving, all those who go to dieticians and go on a diet would be Awliya.
The purpose is not to starve or to diet! It's to do RIYAZET
It is important to distinguish between the prescriptions of any dietician and these blessed words of the Prophet.
The dieter drinks only one bowl of soup a day in order to lose weight and look beautiful.
The one who is doing Riyâz has one bowl of soup a day. On the surface they are the same. But there is a difference. One drinks a bowl of soup a day to beautify the outside and the other to beautify the inside. Actions are according to intentions. That's why that bowl of soup beautifies the outside of one and the inside and outside of the other.
As you know, the main thing in Islam is intention. The value of our work in the eyes of Allah Almighty is our purpose and goal in that work.
Hz. Mevlana says, "Any work that you do not do for the sake of Allah is nothing but nothing."
When we combine fasting or eating little with gratitude, thought and dhikr, we achieve our spiritual goal. One cannot have knowledge, wisdom, love and affection just by starving and thirsting.
Zikr: The remembrance of God. At least starting by saying Bismillahirrahmanirrahim when we take the food to our mouths.
Idea: A few seconds of contemplation while we eat.
See what the Prophet Mevlana says in the Masnavi: clt.2. 3078. If I were to eat bread without seeing and contemplating the attributes of Allah in the things He has created, if I were to eat bread, the morsels would remain in my throat and I would not be able to swallow that morsel of bread.
How can the food we eat without seeing the beauty of his creation, without seeing his rose and rose garden?
Who but they, like the ox and the ass, will eat this bread and drink this water, even for a moment, without the hope of meeting Allah?
They are like animals, even lower than animals. They are filthy stinking people. Their thinking is blinded. Their minds are senile. Their life span is exhausted. They have nothing left as human beings.
As we can see, Mevlana says that without dhikr, thought and gratitude, only animals eat. The ancients considered it a shame to talk at meals. Most people did not talk at meals, but they did not know why they did so. The reason is to eat the food in contemplation instead of talking idle talk.
Anyway, a person who eats with contemplation cannot eat and drink more than necessary, even if he wants to. In our time, all meetings are accompanied by a meal. You don't even realize what you are eating and how much you are eating in an intense conversation.
As for the Gratitude in food, it depends on the person's knowledge, wisdom, love and affection. Some are grateful for finding and eating; some are grateful for being hungry.
It is said that one day Shakiki Belhi Hazretleri asked Ibrahim Ethem Hazretleri what do you say about gratitude?
Hazrat Ibrahim Ethem said, "When we find it, we thank Allah. When we cannot find it, we are patient.
Hazrat Shakiki Belhi says that what you are doing is also done by the dogs of Khorasan. They eat when they find it and wait patiently when they don't.
Surprised by this answer, Ibrahim Ethem asked, "What do you do?" Hazrat said, "When we find it, we distribute what we have, and when we do not find it, we give thanks.
This is two different understandings of gratitude. Mevlana also said that gratitude does not arise from existence, but from non-existence.
The best example of the difference between fasting for diet and fasting for Riyazat is Bayezid-i Bestami.
Mas. clt.3.1694 Bayezid-i Bestami hz. When he felt reluctant to pray, he refrained from eating and drinking more than he should because of his throat.
That very wise, very learned saint thought about the reason for his reluctance to pray and found the reason for it in drinking too much water.
Since drinking a lot of water prevents me from praying and makes me reluctant to pray, he resolved that he would not drink water for a year, and he did so. In return for his good intentions, Allah granted him patience and endurance.
His effort, which was insignificant, was only for the sake of Allah, for his spirituality. That is why he became a spiritual sultan. He became a pole for the arifs.
As can be seen in the last couplet, "His effort, which was insignificant, was only for his spirituality for the sake of Allah. That is why he became a spiritual sultan. He became a pole for the arifs." It is said. If what we do has a spiritual dimension in us and we are really sincere about it, we benefit from it spiritually. Otherwise, whatever our intentions are, we will be rewarded accordingly.
Again, I would like to present the Masnavi couplets that are relevant to our subject.
Mes.clt.4.3608 You did not come to this world just to feed your body which will be eaten by the wolves in the grave.
Mes.clt. 3.2260 In order to be a real human being, do not fall too much on things like wealth, position, food and drink, so that you will not be their slave.
Mes.clt.2.2592 You have learned an art to feed your body, to fulfill its needs, you have a job. But what have you done to nourish your soul? Learn the art of religion to nourish it.
Mes.Clt.1.2871-You do not know that your wing has become heavy with mud. Because you eat mud, mud has become your bread.
Because the original leaven of the bread and meat you eat is earth and mud. Eat them sparingly, so that you do not stick to the earth like mud, and you may perform mirâj like your prophet.
Mes.clt.3.43 Know well that the condition for walking on the path of Truth and living humanely is that your temperament should not change. If a person's temperament becomes accustomed to eating earth, his face turns yellow, his color becomes bad, he gets sick and becomes fond.
If the bad temperament of a person who eats what grows from that soil changes, his ugliness will disappear and his face will shine like a candle.
If a nursing mother weans her child who is used to breastfeeding from the breast, she opens the way for him to the food of hundreds of vineyards and gardens in order to feed him properly.
Because the mother's breast nourished the weak child so that it could develop, but it also prevented it from getting food from thousands of blessings, thousands of meals and bread.
This means that our life, our attainment of real life, depends on being cut off from the breast, that is, giving up nafsani food.
Only through this cutting will we reach spiritual food. O traveler of the path of Hakk, try to withdraw your hand from the foods that nourish your nafs little by little. Make it a habit to eat less, that is the essence of all our words.
Sir, in my opinion, in order to understand the matter better, it is necessary to combine the last couplet with the first couplet:
First couplet: Know well that the condition for walking on the path of Truth, for living humanely, is that your temperament should not change.
Last couplet: Make a habit of eating less, that is the essence of all we have said.
To paraphrase the last couplet; Life is a lesson of habit. If we get used to eating little, we eat little. If we get used to eating a lot, we eat a lot. There is no other explanation for this. Masnavi clt.2 3458. it is only from custom and habit that these excessive desires settle and remain in the heart.
Every country and every region has a food culture. In Urfa, babies eat pepper, while in the west, grown-up people cannot eat chili.
In the world, some are meat eaters, others are grass eaters. Some have a sweet tooth, some a salty one. All of these are habits and customs resulting from various reasons.
In the first couplet: Know well that the condition for walking on the path of Truth, for living humanely, is to change your temperament. In other words, it means changing habits. Since some things are habits. Then, if our habits, whether it is eating and drinking or other things, are harmful to ourselves and our environment, we absolutely need to change these habits.
When our various habits are not tolerated, we say, I am like this, what can I do, it is a matter of character, I have been used to it for years. No sir, that is totally wrong. It is a matter of character, there is no such thing. We have to abandon or change our habits. Because we are capable of it by creation.
Prophet Mevlana: Every human being has the ability to change his character, but he cannot change because he follows his ego.
There are various characters, but we have the keys in our hands, we can open what we want and close what we want.
It is known that man is a creature between an angel and an animal. In a Hadith:
"Allah created the angels and gave them intelligence.
He created animals and gave them lust.
He created human beings and gave them both reason and lust.
He whose intellect is superior to his lust is higher than the angels.
Whoever's lust exceeds his intellect is lower than animals"
We humans are neither animals nor angels. We are a creature in between. If our intellect prevails over our lust, we are higher than the angels, and if our lust prevails over our intellect, we are lower than animals.
As it is understood from the hadith, animals do not have intellect. But humans have intellect, so they are responsible for going beyond the purpose for which they were created, i.e. forgetting that they are equal creatures and living like animals.
One might say, how can animals not have reason? Do they not live in this world because of their reason?
Yes, it is true that animals also have intelligence, but only "animal intelligence." Birds also build a house by collecting garbage with their beaks, but they cannot prepare a project and build a five-story building. They gather their food and drink in one place, but they cannot build a refrigerator. The fox, which is considered the smartest of animals, catches chickens very well. It cannot solve the secret wisdom in the egg.
There is a saying that wisdom is above reason. It is extremely appropriate and true.
"Kill all animals for a human being and all human beings for a mind." So don't all human beings have a mind?
There are people who have intellect, and there are people who have intellect. That is to say, destroy your limited intellect in front of the one who has an intellect-all. Otherwise, it does not mean kill all people with a bullet. The intellect is a rotten tooth that is said to be removed. The limited intellect remains like a rotten tooth in the face of the universal intellect, and in order to be comfortable, it is necessary to remove it and throw it away.
Our subject is not the mind, let's not prolong the word, eating too much or our different behaviors are a habit, and it is possible to change it with our mind or with the help of a wise person. There is nothing that cannot be done.
What is the measure of eating and drinking?
(Allah Almighty, in His mercy, taught His servants the etiquette of eating and said, "Eat and drink, but do not waste. Because Allah does not love those who waste." One of our Sufi greats, Najmedin-i Kübra Hz. explained this verse as follows: The traveler of this path eats once a day. Normal people, on the other hand: They have their sustenance in the morning and evening, and they eat twice a day in accordance with the verse "Maryam sur. 62" Eating three times a day is within the limits of waste, says Najmeddin-i Kübra Hazretleri (Sufi life page 51)
Why is it a waste to eat three meals a day?
Let us answer this with the couplets of the Prophet Mevlana:
O wretch who has dropped the divine pearl into dung, do not leave this soul lifeless, do not ignore the soul in your body and live lifeless like animals! Do not turn this light bread given by Allah into dung in your body!
Divan-i Kebir clt.1.320. Sweet food, fatty food, they are pleasing, they appear pleasant on the table. But when they stay in you for a night, they turn into disgusting filth.
Sir, of course, if our body needs one hundred grams of bread a day, if we get up and eat five hundred grams of bread, it would be a waste. As our Prophet said, we have turned the divine blessing into fertilizer. Of course it would be a waste. Waste is not necessarily throwing it away. Isn't the food we eat beyond our body's needs wasted in some way through the toilet?
Mes.clt.5.2475 Half of your being is musk and half is disgusting filth. Come to your senses and do not increase your filth in the body.
When I said these words earlier, a gentleman said, "In the Qur'an it says to eat abundantly of the blessings We have given you. But you say not to eat. Isn't this contrary to the Qur'an?
I would like to answer this question again from the Masnavi:
In Mesnevi clt.3.3744: O heedless one! You do not consider the sustenance, which Allah Almighty says in the Holy Qur'an: "Eat abundantly of the sustenance that Allah Almighty has given," you have mistaken the sustenance He has recommended to us for bread, not wisdom. That is why you ate a lot of bread.
If you close the mouth of this body, only then a spiritual and spiritual mouth will open in you, and with that mouth you will eat the morsels of divine secrets and wisdoms. If you can cut off your body from the milk of the devil, that is, if you cut off from the nafsani food, then you will sit at the spiritual table of Allah Almighty and you will eat many inconceivable spiritual morsels and hear many secrets.
The verse that was just mentioned, "Eat abundantly of the sustenance We have provided" is verse 58 of the Qur'an, Surah Al-Baqarah. As you know, Allah Almighty is addressing the people of Moses saying, "Eat abundantly of the good sustenance We have given you." But they were not satisfied with the spiritual sustenance sent down from the sky. But they were not satisfied with the spiritual sustenance sent down from the sky. They say to Moses, "Tell your Lord to give us onions and garlic and lentils. You all know the subject.
The Qur'anic command to eat abundantly from the sustenance We have provided is spiritual sustenance, as understood from the verse. It is not meat and bread, so in the Masnavi: clt.5.2706. "Allah Almighty commanded those who eat bread not to waste. But He did not limit those who eat nûr, saying, "Do not eat too much, this is enough.
Sir, I would like to present here again a story that you may know that is relevant to our subject:
"One day Harun Rashid gave some advice to Behlul Dâna: 'Why don't you ever go out in public? You always live alone in seclusion, mix with people a little bit.
After listening patiently to Harun Rashid, Behlul said, "Let me go and ask his advice, ask him about this matter and come back," and immediately went to the restroom.
After coming out of the toilet, he says no, no, I don't mix with people, I want to live alone, away from people again.
When Harun Rashid said, "You should have gone and asked for advice, you should have gone and asked before making a decision, Behlül said, "I already went to the restroom and asked. Don't ever go out in public. Look, not many nights ago, we were at the sultan's dinner table as delicious food, and we looked so beautiful on the table. One night we stayed in public and see what we have become. You be you, don't go out in public."
Yes sir, this is the moral of the story; what we eat outside the needs of our body is somehow wasted in the toilet as a result. I would like to state once again that waste is not necessarily throwing it away. Unfortunately, we also misunderstand waste. For this reason, Hz. Mevlana: Don't eat too much bread like the light given by Allah and turn it into fertilizer.
What are the material and spiritual benefits of eating less?
The Prophet said: It is haram to eat and drink when one is full and not hungry. It also causes various diseases in people. The one who is greedy in food, who eats too much, becomes a person who is hard-hearted, who lacks wisdom, and who forgets Allah Almighty; Hz. Mevlana said in the couplets of Mes. vol.1 305 Clt.1.2910. clt.4.3011. clt.5.2829 Rubailer clt.4.1142:
The health of the worldly emotions depends on repairing the building of the flesh with food and drink. However, the health and well-being of our spiritual feelings depends on eating little, drinking little and sleeping little.
Mes.clt.4.3011 Both sickness and health and strength come from the food we eat.
Mes. Clt.1.2910 Fasting is the chief of medicines. Scratching increases scabies. Fasting is really the beginning of medicines. Fast and watch the strength, power, health and well-being in your soul, in your body.
Rubais clt.4.1142. If you eat little, you will be a wise and alert person. If you eat too much, you will become stupid, sluggish and unable to work. It is because of your gluttony that you are fond of your stomach. If you eat less, you will be less fond of your stomach.
Divān-i Kebir clt.3. 1124 Do not eat much of the food that is veiled over your eyes, or you will not be able to go anywhere, you will lose your home.
You think that life depends on the food you eat. But when you eat a lot of food, it becomes a hair for the eye of the soul and a veil for the eye of the head.
Mes.clt.5.2829 If it were not for hunger, you would have hundreds of diseases from stuffing the stomach and heartburn.
The hardship of hunger is certainly better than various diseases in terms of beauty, lightness, worship and deeds.
The hardship of hunger is much purer than other hardships, especially hunger has hundreds of benefits, hundreds of skills, hundreds of cures hidden in it.
Know well that hunger is the king of medicines. Embrace hunger with all your heart and do not despise it as useless. All diseases are cured by hunger. But we must also accept that the divine mercy called hunger is not granted to everyone. Not everyone can obtain it. This hunger is such a divine grace that not everyone can obtain it. Only Allah's special servants can benefit from it. Not every foolish beggar is worthy of hunger. The grass is not lacking anyway, put it in front of those fools and let them eat it.
I would like to present a very beautiful story in Masnavi that is also relevant to our subject:
clt.5.2841: "A sheikh set out with his disciples, and they reached a city, exhausted, without rest. In that city there was a shortage of bread.
The fear and anxiety of hunger came into the heart of the disciple every moment because of his negligence and lack of trust and devotion to Allah Almighty.
The shaykh understood the situation and sensed what was in the heart of the disciple. He said to him: How long will you struggle in the agony of fear of starvation?
You are burning inwardly with the worry of bread; you have closed your eyes to patience and trust.
Don't worry! You are not one of those great, coy beauties, one of Allah's special servants, that they should leave you without bread, without walnuts, without raisins.
Because hunger is the food and sustenance of Allah's beloved and special servants. Would such a sustenance ever be granted to a nafs-loving fool like you that you are afraid of starvation?
Do not grieve in vain; you are not one of those superior beings, so you will not go hungry, thirsty and without bread in this world."
Don't worry, gluttons will be offered bowl after bowl, bread after bread in this world."
Yes, sir; as a result, it is clear that the root of all troubles is eating too much, and the cure is eating too little. And we all understand the moral of the story.
Sufism has also been accepted as the science of eating less, which is accepted as the head of material and spiritual health. In fact, the science of matter and the science of meaning are a whole, and if there is a side that does not overlap, it means that there is an absolute misunderstanding.
In 1940, Dr. Alexis Carrel, who received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work entitled Man: "During fasting, the nutrients stored in the organisms are spent, and then new ones are replaced, so that there is a renewal in the whole body and fasting is very beneficial for health."
The great Islamic scholar Erzurumlu İbrahim Hakkı Hazretleri, who is one of the people who knows the human anatomy the best in material and spiritual terms, has also touched upon this issue in his famous work Mârifetnâme and explained at length the benefits of eating less and the harms of eating too much.
I would like to conclude by presenting a very short chapter from the Marifetnâme.
Eating too much makes the understanding of stomach fondness sterile. Stomach fullness erases divine wisdom from the heart.
Hunger is the cure for all troubles. It is satiety that brings all aches and pains.
Eating little reduces diseases in the body. Eating too much causes diseases.
Disrupts sleep and dream patterns at night.
Being full all the time provokes many diseases.
If Allah Almighty bestows a favor on a servant, He grants him to eat little, sleep little, talk little.
A person who does not eat little cannot find the clarity of thought and the pleasure of contemplation. Eating too much harms one's body, and too much sleep causes grief and restlessness.
He who eats little has little grief and long health. Little food and illness do not go together. Whoever feeds his nafs with various kinds of food is inviting diseases to spoil his health.
Eating little is the food of prophets and the station of friends of Allah. Hunger gives knowledge and sharpness of mind.
Satiety is the cause of ignorance and darkness. Hunger is a very powerful weapon that repels all kinds of diseases. He who stuffs his belly is no different from an animal.
The health of the body is in eating little. The health of the soul is in little sleep. When a person overeats, something is erased from his mind that cannot be recaptured. Satiety invites various illnesses, and illness invites grief and sorrow.
At the root of all illnesses, there is definitely overeating.
Only hunger extinguishes the burning fire of various delusions, delusions and misgivings, and even of the raging souls of creatures. The desires of the one whose nafs is hungry go away. Even a madman becomes wise if he starves.
Hunger is the field of signs and the source of wisdom. Hunger is the spirit of high understanding and deep intuition, the key to the gate of love, the beacon of the light of wisdom and the guide of the path of truth. 11. The nafs is a poor patient. Its immediate cure is hunger.
There is no knowledge that hunger and eating little will not bring to the heart. Hunger and eating little has been the guide of the friends of Allah. Whoever succeeds in eating less and is hungry, his heart crosses both worlds and reaches Mevlana.
How do we succeed in eating less?
1- While eating, think about the harm that eating too much food does to our body and soul.
2- Eating our favorite prepared food first
3 - A one-course, low-fat meal
4- Not eating with people who eat a lot and are fond of food. Eating alone
5- Reducing the amount of food eaten each day by eating less
In the next Masnavi chat, we will focus on getting less sleep, insha'Allah.
May we meet in good health and well-being and be against good, sir.
