The Facets of Familiarity
Insha Allah as you are here with me today I am asking from Almighty Allah to give some power into your hearts so that you may be pushed towards His Divine Presence and also to make love to flow through your hearts for Allah Almighty, for His beloved Prophet, for His Awliyas, for the believers, for the whole of humanity and for all the creatures that have been created by Almighty Allah
The day before yesterday, we were on our way to Kataragama, when a big cobra (in length about one and a half or two meters long) crossed our path as we were traveling in our car. The others who were traveling with me in the car pointed it out to me saying “Look, that is a cobra”. Then this cobra addressed me saying “you do not like my shape and you are fearful of me and therefore you don’t like meeting me. But I am one of my Lord’s creatures. He created me with this appearance and in the way that he created me I am appearing to you. I do not like to have the appearance of any other creature. I am pleased with the way that my Lord has created me. If you fear to look at me because of my appearance you must look at me with a different outlook. As you are believers you are not like the others, and that may be a reason for you to be familiar with me. As for anyone who is familiar with me I must also be familiar with him. I can’t harm them and I can’t touch them, because Allah Almighty ordered me not to harm familiar servants when he created me. As for the unfamiliar servants of Almighty Allah we attack them because we fear them.”
Therefore we are trying to be familiar with all creatures but firstly we are trying to be familiar with each other amongst ourselves. First we must be familiar with mankind. There are so many levels of people in Sri Lanka and so many types of them. I asked a person in Sri Lanka as to how many categories of people there are in Sri Lanka. He said to me that there were about five levels- low, lower, lowest, high and highest. It is only people who are putting them on to these levels, but in the Divine presence all of them are of the same level. There is only one level. The levels in the Divine Presence is in accordance with their beliefs, the love in their hearts, their respect and their familiarities with people. In this world all mankind are equal and are not different to each other in their levels.
Therefore we must try to establish familiarity among ourselves. When we look at people with familiarity their attitude towards us also changes into familiarity. That is the highest station (Makam ul Izz), and the opposite of this station is waksha (wildness or hatred for people), that is the opposite of familiarity.
When Allah Almighty created Adam, all the Angels displayed familiarity to him except Shaitan who became his enemy. Enmity is the source of all troubles everywhere. Familiarity has been killed today, and there is no improvement in beliefs and neither are there people who can give strong beliefs to mankind.
Today there are people who only read books, and they are not able to take something from or to give something to the people. As they cannot take anything from these books they are also not able to give anything to others, so that you are closed from both sides, In these present days mostly the scholars and the religious people are very official. They can’t learn nor can they teach. When you look through the whole Islamic world you can only find a handful of people who are able to receive something and to give knowledge out of it. They are all plastic people and they can only give plastic bananas, plastic grapes, or plastic flowers to you. What is the benefit even if there is a houseful of plastic grapes. It is better to have a few real or natural grapes than to have a houseful of plastic ones. That is the reason that beliefs are coming down and not growing.
Beliefs grow only with a Nasiat (advice). When they are not even able to advise themselves, how can they give something to you, for your beliefs to grow? When beliefs come down familiarity is going to end and when familiarity finishes they claim that they have reached to the height of civilizations. They are liars. What is the level of familiarity through mankind now? Yesterday it was good, today less and tomorrow even lesser. At the beginning of this century there was much more familiarity among people than today. We have now come to the end of the 20th century and people have lost familiarity for each other.
Even in your home and with you family, familiarity has finished. Children are not familiar with their parents nor are the parents familiar with their children. Children amongst each other have no familiarity. The big ones with the little ones and the little ones with the big ones, the neighbours with each other and the people with their rulers or their governments, all of them have lost this familiarity. Now nations are fighting within themselves. The Prophet (Sal) who is the most true one predicted that towards the end of the world nations should fight within themselves. This means that people would lose familiarity among them and look at each other as if they were looking at wild animals. They will be trying to kill each other. In Sri Lanka the Sinhalese and the Tamils are fighting each other. Why is this? Allah Almighty has made both of you neighbours to each other. What is the matter with you that you have become enemies to each other? People are inheriting from Shaitan, because Shaitan was not familiar with Adam and became his enemy. When familiarity is lost it leads to enmity. That is the reason for today’s state of affairs.
There is no way to establish familiarity except through tariqats. There are foolish people today who are denying tariqats and they can’t do anything except make people hate each other. So many of these foolish groups are now growing up throughout the Islamic world. All of them are workers for Shaitan because of the fact that they are denying tariqats, but it is tariqats that are asking to establish familiarity among people.
If there is no familiarity between us you would not be present here so very early in the morning, and there is now also a curfew, in force, in this country. Even so you are coming here. If there is no familiarity amongst us you would not have wanted to come here to be with me. You would have slept safely in your homes, and if you wanted to pray you could have prayed at your homes. You could have said that these are terrible days, dangerous days and stayed at home instead of coming here. On this point there is a teaching that Almighty Allah informed through His Prophet (Sal) to the Sahabas. The Prophet taught this to his Sahabas and particularly to Seyyadina Ali (Ral). This teaching is that if a person has fear for Almighty Allah he may walk safely everywhere and no harm shall befall him. Yes you are not going to the Cinema so early in the morning for you to fear. You are coming here for the sake of Allah and therefore he protects you.
We are trying to establish familiarity with people. This is being destroyed and the people have lost it. I wish to bring about once again that familiarity among people. If this familiarity is not brought about again there will be endless troubles, sufferings, miseries, battles, wars, fighting and all sorts of problems coming on us.
Yes what I have said now is enough for you up to Qiyamat. To you means to the whole of mankind. You are only a handful of people, but this address to you that is coming through my heart from the spiritual centres is an address that is made to the whole of mankind from East to West. Everyone may take their shares as much as they can. I was not going to speak, but they made me to speak to you and to address you on this important point.