The Inner Source Digest – Unit: 6

EMRE’s Conversations: 6
October 1957

(Continued from the previous issue)

Q.- I’m in love with God, but I don’t know the degree of it.

Emre – Because love has not progressed yet.

Q.- What can I do in order to progress love?

Emre – Think, contemplate.

Q. – What do I suppose to think?

Emre – Think about those conversations of us. Those words now entered through your ear. They’ll take roots slowly in your heart.  

Q. – I find each kind of goodness in my beloved.

Emre – Do you find goodness or something you seeked?

Q. – How can you describe the goodness?

Emre – It is a thing which provides your salvation, an immortal salvation. Neither a remark nor a pen is not enough to tell this.

Sufism carries you to those understandings.

Q. – Have you ever loved a woman?

Emre – I love all of them.

Q. – I mean have you ever loved a woman?

Emre – I have a wife and children!

Q. – Before marriage?

Emre – No. I didn’t think about it. Even I didn’t want to marry; they’ve forced me to marry.

Q. – Since you love people, what was the obstacle to love a woman?

Emre – In those times I even didn’t know human. I’ve learned human and humanity later on.  I’ve learned and then loved.

Q. – Why are those words in poetry?

Emre – Love remarks emerges in poetry. You call them poet. Although I don’t undestand poet. Those revelations emerges when I touch (Love ).

Q.- Do you love Mevlid?

Emre – (Muhammediye), is more important than (Mevlid).

Q. – We like Mevlid more.

Emre – Both of them are fine but with respect to truth, “Muhammediye” is better. Let’s assume both of the work of arts glorify a (Beloved). In such a comparison Mevlîd praised the part of Beloved from the foot to the breast or painted. From this praise or paint, the personality of Beloved can’t be understood. But Yazıcıoğlu has eulogized even the eye, eyebrow of Beloved as if he painted. He had informed us the personality of The Beloved.

Q. – In Mevlid also the teeth of him are eulogized.

Emre – (by Laughing) He is eulogizing his teeth but the outside of it, not inside.

Q. – Is there anyone against to you after having a conversation with you?

Emre – I don’t know. But there are someone talking at our back, without listening and understanding.

Q. – Have you ever insulted by the people of Adana?

Emre – Yes.

Q.- Only verbally?

Emre – Yes.

Q. – In old times the sufies were used to be stoned.

Emre – They are also satirizing us.  (We offer some revelations related.)

Doğuş

Revelation

Q.- Really, how can people of Adana doesn’t like a man like you? I’ve seen someone saying your poems like chant. Maybe they wouldn’t if they met you.

Emre – Exactly. They don’t esteem if we don’t leave this realm (life). They don’t esteem remark when they saw the source of those remarks is someone weak and worthless like us(me).

Q.- My mother is reading your book. When she read some revelations she said “I’ve heard this poet, they were chanting it in a community” .

Emre – Some people see the mortal body instead of seeing The Might saying or making say, for this reason they abhor us. What is the relation of tap and pipe with water? The role of tap is a function, it’s just a tool.

Q.- Do you like your poets are being read with music?

Emre – I do like even everywhere…

Q.- I mean, you will let if they’re composed. But I am not the one who will do it, I can’t.

Q. – A critic of music in Paris said “While we were listening the Yunus Emre Oratorio we felt just like the ceiling was slit, and God entered inside of us.”

Emre – Yunus Emre, was not an educated poet; he was untaught. People like him, start to shout, grouch when they have bonded with God. Since they’re bonded to God, their remarks are lively, immortal, really, listening ones are also immortal.

Q.- There is such a rumor: They say Yunus was untaught to exaggerate him. If he would be unthaught, who collected the pamphlets of him? How did he said?

Emre – Those pamphlets or something are mythical. The living one is his collected poems. (Yunus is not completely unthaugt. He could write a bit. At the beginning, poets were belong to him. But then he forgot himself when he united with God.)

Q. – Did you forget?

Emre – A lot .

Q. – What did you forget?

Emre – I can’t say, because I forgot what I’ve forgotten. It no longer exists in my mind.

Q. – Did Yunus write his work of arts?

Emre – His writing was not good, at a very low degree.

Q. – In your poets there are some verses and events that you are supposed to know them?

Emre – It’s true but there are some also which I didn’t hear. We are not the knower. The one who knows and says is the Knower. If we say “we know”, then it means we dignify us. However this is a state where the degree comes to end.

Q.- Which one is more beautiful woman or man?

Emre – Man.

Q. – Which one must be cultured more, man or woman?

Emre – Man.

Q. – Why?

Emre – Because…

Q. – Dou you have a revelation on women?

Emre – I couldn’t disunite man and woman in (Truth).

Q.- What if I see the beauty of God in woman?

Emre – This is a temporary state. You can go further than this. I didn’t stay there. The family, father-mother have much effect in this.

Q. – We are connected to a mortal being. We have to change our path. Show us the way. How can we proceed in this way?

Emre – So, you began to proceed. These conversations are all seeded into your mind and conscious. After some time, you’ll begin to digest them, then your path will be changed.

Q. –Whereas you know me better than me, it’s ok …

EMRE’s Conversations: 5

(Notes captured in a conversation in 7.2.1957):

Q. – I wish all of the people can understand this sufistic truth.

Emre – Look, our girl wants all of the people are recreated. Her wish will be realized. The vision ability of someone can’t go further than himself/helself who wants only himself/herself are recreated.

Q. – Someone doesn’t believe in saints, saying (does it necessary to have mediator between human and God?).

Emre – Isn’t there exists a verse saying “there is no fear for the Friends of God” ? How Saint can’t exist? How can we go to an unknown realm without their aid?

(Saint), means the holy friends of God. There are many holy friends of God. We have to turn them; our minds must also turn. They mention about some (Veer Namaz). (He said laughing and meaning the children’s tumbling and chubby turning ) (What if veer namaz is this?) . I mean chubby to sacrifice our pride, honour and everything we have, for the sake of God.

Q.- Isn’t “veer namaz”, changing the direction of Mecca? Because while performing the  (veer namaz) body is turning slowly and swinging.

Emre – The direction of Mecca doesn’t change but instead it’s needed to veer, to change the mind.

Uncle Duran – There is such stanza in a revelation:

Emre – Namaz is not accepted if some didn’t turn his mind to the direction of Mecca.

Doesn’t The Prophet Muhammed say (If peace doesn’t exist, then namaz is not accepted)?

(During the conversation, it’s mentioned about Kaaba. Emre said those remarks on this subject):

Emre – The teacher’s mother had been in Mekka some time ago, she was telling: (During hadj time hadjis circumambulate Kâbe. There occurs a lot of murmur. But no one dares to enter the inside of Kâbe). The one who enters Kabe and hears his voice, can’t have a pleasure of any other remark. The real Kabe( the house of God) , is the heart of a believer. If we speak in there, hear his voice, see his face, then we fall in an eccentric realm. From now on, we can’t have any pleasure from the outside. This state can’t be defined by any remark. This is a state which can’t be explained by the natural science.

But we must not give up hope by saying this. God had given human such ability to understand and know all of them. But he/she can only know when his/her knowledge is ceased, when he/she awared his /her disability… That’s called  (love).

Q. – If sufism isn’t known, the meaning of verses, Koran can’t be comprehended in deep level.

Emre – Everybody can understand Koran according to their mind. But the meaning of Koran begins to emerge when the mind is ceased. For this reason Koran isn’t arabic, it’s in the instructor (Lord-Rab) language. If one doesn’t throw his/her particular mind to the Lord’s ocean of unity, can’t comprehend Koran. Only The Prophet Mohammed and the ones who vanished in him can understand.

Who described God to us? The prophets. Isn’t it? So if we don’t vanish in those prophets, we can’t know and understand God. Being vanished in someone who is vanished, means also to be vanished in God.

God is an (ocean of oneness) ,having neither a beginning nor an end. He doesn’t accept a being other than himself. He is attached with us but we are detached from him. In order to attach him, we have to be vanished in him. Only love can achieve this. There was a revelation; Past is love, last is love and that’s that…

Emre – I swear these remarks aren’t mine. My being isn’t even a particule near The Might. When this Ocean absorbed a weak drop like me, makes me say; actually he is the one who says.

If someone forces me to reveal I even can’t say despite of torture. Even they force me “say it then the whole treasure of the world will be yours” , I can’t say either. Because this state isn’t mine, and I am not capable of saying. When my mind attaches there, some things emerge.

A lot of people say: “this man is ignorant, how can he say those things?” They have right. But the ones who have a strong belief on the might of God, I mean the ones who believe in God’s capability of doing everything, know that if God demands, it’s also possible for him to make even the stone talk, beside human…

The important subject is to listen. In order to listen, we have to hand in our ear to him. The ear must belong to him in order to understand his remarks. Our ear can’t understand his remarks.

Seeing eye also belongs to him. Hodjas say: “mortals can’t see God”; they are exactly right. Because he sees himself by himself. Just himself can find pleasure of himself. For example, you are listening because you find pleasure from those remarks. However many people abhor to listen. Therefore just as said in an old proverb: “the way belongs to the voyager, the sword belongs to the one girding on, the horse belongs to the rider.”

Q. – Some people say everything comes from God.

Emre – May God make us safe against their evil. Because the people speaking this way, bases their bad, selfish actions on God. The Prophet Muhammed also said “Everything is because of God” . But he said because all of his actions, attitudes are accomodated to the sayings of God. He didn’t say “I’m not responsible because God made me do the bad actions” upon bad actions. He didn’t base them on God’s will.

These remarks belong either a Saint or a profane. The ones whose actions are relevant to the Koran are Saint, the others are profane. The Koran restrains a lot of actions saying “those actions come from your self”.

Q. – You mean, the human must choose, differentiate and meditate, isn’t it?

Emre – After falling in love, there remains neither choise nor meditation.

Duran Emmi –

Q. – When it is said (falling in love is needed), some people think, Rumi (Mevlânâ), had been falled in love with (Şems) as it is seen in that movie.

Emre – (Şems) loves God. Rumi loves Şems; so it means Rumi also loves God. Didn’t say The Prophet Mohammed “Without my tutor, I wouldn’t know my God” ? That means there needs a mediator.

There is a distance between God and us and he says : “If one closes me a step I close him/her an ell”.

Q.- Yes… Now I understood the meaning of this remark.

Emre –We need to know where is God in order to walk towards to him one step and then he comes to us an ell.

Now the way to arrive God passes through the tutor; because of that The Prophet Mohammed said “Without my instructor, I wouldn’t know my God”.  

Q. – If we didn’t understand this truth, could we fall in love with you? Why aren’t we stand before some other?

Emre – Why will you fall in love with this body which will be decayed? Tomarrow, the day after, when The Might will left this body, (İsmail) will turn to a carrion with bad smell…

Q. – So what’s the wisdom of seeing (İsmail)?

Emre – You are not seeing İsmail, that (Might) sees himself.

Q. – Isn’t it necessary to see İsmail?

Emre – It’s absolutely necessary if you intend to see the tender Might.

(With this respect, we offer a revelation which is revealed in 1944)

Q. – Rumi says: “If you cultivate wheat seed into my cemetery and eat a bread made of it, you would fall in love”.

Emre – It’s a wonderful saying.

Q. – He says for Kabe also; “Is there any need to go Kabe? It’s enough to step up the housetop of your house”.

Emre – Remember the saying of Rumi. You were reading a poet in Persian.

Ş.K.

Emre – These remarks were secret during the Rumi’s period. When time is come, it’s being opening by the opener.

Q. – Rumi says: “Jug always acts out its water”.

Emre – If jug is made of tin, can it act out its water?

Q. – He means jug which is made of soil.

Emre – No, he doesn’t mean soil jug, he means himself. Doesn’t body of human made of soil? Don’t arms of human seem like jug’s handle if he/she put his/her hands on his/her hip? The water of jug is cold if it is acted out. The ones with burning heart go there and drink through ear and eye.

Q. – God has 99 heavenly names. What are they? Is it necessary to tell them to our beads?

Emre – These are divine characters. If human having these characters have been vanished in God, are heavenly names and telling the beads needed?

(Once, it is mentioned about dream. Upon this Emre said those remarks: ):

Emre – Originally the word dream, comes from seeing in arabic language. That means the things temporarily seen and experienced. Alas the people are having temporary things. But they can’t have the real master… This world is hunting the people…

Once upon a time a hunter had set a huge trap, mantrap. He also put a slice of cheese in front of the trap. A fox came when it smelled the cheese. Beside, it understood that this was a trap. While it was saying: “Oh my God what can I do?” and moving around, a bear comes. Fox becomes glad. It says to the bear : “come brother bear, let me show you a fine food”. Hungry and silly bear follows the fox to the near of the trap. Now there is a fine cheese. But it doubts. Asks the fox : “Why didn’t you eat ?” The fox answers immediately: “I fast”. Bear says: “If it is so, I don’t fast” . It reaches out its hand, then the trap catches his arm, and the cheese jumps before the fox. When the bear struggles for survival, fox starts to eat the cheese. Bear says the fox , “so where’s you were fasted?”. “I was, but now I counted and cognized that Ramadan is finished, it seems that this is holy day?!”

So the mortal issues are hunting us this way. If we are hunted, it will be the holiday for the fox. Everybody perceives holiday according to his/her ability. Even animals have a holiday. Their holiday is the time when the desires of them are fulfilled. People’s holiday is seasonal, holyday of wise man is everyday, eternal. Because they’ve completed the knowledge with their reason, feasted their eyes and holy minds on this knowledge. Look, how changed the meaning of holy day. The idea of (wine ) is similar also. The meaning of wine is something to drink. The fuddling drink which is produced by the grape juice is called as (hamr) instead of wine in Koran.

The people who couldn’t find the moral wine are drinking the other. I am not saying this by lashing. The actual wine is tingling of the heart as cız! cız!. This makes the human revive, but the other kills.

Mısrî Niyâzi is describing this wine in this way:

Şems is also telling this:

Love which is irrational is better. Love must finish accounting and cease mind. I wish God gives us this type of love.

Captured by: Şevket Kutkan

The sufist explanation of Nasreddin Hodja Anectodes

The Story of Cucurbit

Nasreddin hodja, during the days in which he vanished himself in God had stayed at home for a long time, he withdrew into seclusion. His wife had been sick and tired of his state. She said:“You are not going out for a long time. No salt remained in house. Go to the grocery shop and buy some salt.” Hodja anwers: “Woman, I losed myself in deep meditation. If I go, I can’t buy the salt, even I can’t find the way of my house.” His wife insists on and teaches him a care “don’t worry, you will not lose because I’ll mount a cucurbit on your waist. In order not to lose yourself, to awake you may knock with a stone to this cucurbit. If you hear a voice like (tık! tık!) then you’ll awake.” Hodja doesn’t reject this offer. His wife mounts the cucurbit with a rope to his waist. Hodja goes outside. He is still in clouds on the way. When he could differentiate the world, he was starting to knock the cucurbit in front of him; then he was aware of himself.

The children who couldn’t see Nasreddin Hodja for a long time, follow their dear teacher. But they cognize there is a difference in Hoca’s attributes. Hoca is knocking on the cucurbit in front of him. They decide to play a game with Hodja. When Hodja found hardly the grocery store, and lost himself there, one of the children releases the cucurbit from his waist and mounts it in his waist. Hodja awaked into the differences in world because of the voices around. Then in order to cognize his self, he knocks the stone in his hand to the cucurbit at his waist. He wonders why there is no voice on cucurbit. Then he realizes that the cucurbit is on a child‘s waist. So he goes near the child and knocks. When he hears the sound, he calms down. But there is still an unsolved case. This child is himself but who is he? Then to understand this case, he asks the child;”My son! I know you are me… But who is I ?”

Emre’s Explanation

Nasreddin Hodja became a sun of love and grace in that period, he has a such degree. He sees himself in everybody. Beside he doesn’t aware of himself.

Isn’t sun like this? Altough it is the only source giving light to all stars, it watches and loves them saying “how beautiful they are “.