The Inner Source Digest – Unit: 11

January 1954
EMRE’s Conversations: 11

 (The conversation which is saved at 01.25.1954)

Emre – In this path there comes a time in which there remains no such thing as (self) of human.  But not every mind can walk in this path. The mind which is connected to the world, only thinks of its living. Isn’t the final goal of the worldly sciences to provide our living conditions?  Isn’t it same for the whole alives. Do we have any difference from them if we don’t think and seek our primordial sources?

At the last breath, we can’t carry even a letter of our knowledge,  despite of the level of it. Even some people become senile. Even when the senile is your mother or father, this situation bothers you.   Our prophet says in a hadith  ; “the one without reason, also doesn’t have a religion”. The reason of human is similar to the magnet and the desires of body and self is similar to the junk iron. Regardless of the power of magnet, magnetism would be lost if it stays among the junk irons.  For this reason, old people have moved away from the people and preferred to live in caves. Whereas it’s necessary to hold back of the selfish people and their actions which will separate us from God. We have to do our job and at the same time save our mind from being lost among the junk irons of the harmful desires and characters.

Q. – That means we need to think both our profit for living and our beloved at the same time, isn’t it sir?

Emre – Yes, sir.

It’s necessary to save the mind from those junks and make it free. The mind can’t be free unless loving the people. If you bear someone a grudge, in such a state how can a mind be free? Sure, it can’t be. Our mind is being spended for this grudge. Lets liken the mind to pectin and our bad characters to the clay. We poured the pectin of our mind into the clay of grudge. After a while, when we tried to pour our mind again to the clay of our head,  part of our mind will be smeared on to this clay of grudge. While we pour our mind into the jars of lie, envy, lust someday we aware that our clay of head underflowed.  

We don’t have enough power to struggle with self. Only the “Spiritual Might”which we bonded heartily can kill it. When the moral state manifested, self runs away naturally.  In order to struggle with self, the most powerful gun is reflection. That means being together with our tutor while eating, drinking, working and being not separate from him/her.  

This worm of reflection is a little thing but it knocks down the big self. The worms which had eaten The Prophet Job are those worm of reflection. The Prophet Job, had been taken the worms which had fallen to the ground and put them on his body. That means he liked this reflection very much.

We need to do our job and don’t give up reflection. The year in which we left railway, motors were not coming from Europe. When the engine bearing burned, machines had become out of order. If we could able to find, we had replaced the old Europen bearings. If we couldn’t find, it had stayed as it is. At the end of my trials, I found the composition of mine in bearings. My friend was saying “no way!”. Eventually, one of the farmers said:  “put the bearing which is made of this composition to my machine.” We put; it resisted much more than the old bearings. But it was hard to plaster this composition to iron, steel. There was some other materials in it and when they burned, the bearing had been strewn with potholes. The most strong and longest revelations had been revealed while we were soldering those bearings in stone or with the aid of oxygen. Neither revelations impeded our job, nor our job impeded the revelations.

Love is a strange thing and that’s that. Our physical body grows with food, our spiritual being grows with love. Especially little children need love much more.

Love and heartly bonding; I mean spiritual connection accomplish everything. It was during the Greek war. My friend blacksmith Hüseyin have told about my hard condition to Develioğlu. During this time someone said that “ there is a job opportunity in railway. “ And it is asked: “which job” ? He answered “boilermaking” . Develioğlu said to me: “go, appply to the railway”. I said “but sir, I don’t understand boilermaking. I just know blacksmith job.” He said “ don’t deal with this. Go and attend the exam.” I said ok and then I attended to the exam. There was a depot manager named Bertrand. He and the other machinists were in there.  They were examining the volunteers. There was a railway machine boiler at the middle of this place. The one who takes the hammer comes near to the boiler and knocks Tak! tuk! The chief of the depot continuously says in French “Ne pa bon!”. At the end my turn came. But Develioğlu is in my mind continuously. I also knocked one or two hammer then Mösyö Bertrand said for me  “Bon travayye!” . I started my job at the railway in this way.

You will work, eat and have fun but none of the worldly desires will be higher than the love of God. That’s the main subject. 

Q. – How can all of those desires be ceased in such a short life?

 Emre – In this short life, there exists such times in which an hour corresponds to thousand years… When our mind is turned its face to this “Might”, it’s ok… But it’s not possible to understand with your own mind.

Q. – The beginning of circle at the same time is the end, isn’t it?

Emre – There was wheel horses at old times. They closed their eyes with a mat and made those poor animals carry the stones which grains the wheat, bulghur. They called the mat which closed the eyes as eyeclass. Does this animal turns if it knows that he is turning in a small circle? Wordly desires also are just like the eyeclass which is closing our spiritual eye. At sometime, we throw that eyeclass with the aid of our tutor. Then we wear this eyeclass of unwariness and work hard when we need to earn our livehood.  It’s certainly necessary to work. A bird can’t fly with just one wing. Why muslims couldn’t fly in the sky of science, technology and civilization?  Because one of their wings is teared by the conservative hodjas and sheiks. What if we could able to design this refrigirator?

I was working in the railway when the war began. (1939). I took a vacation and went to Edirne with my family as a second class voyager. There was a smith together with us. However people were running away from Edirne because of war fear. Even carter asked “will you stay here?”

I adore ancient monuments since my childhood. Therefore we went to the Selîmiye Mosque. Imam met us very well. We were 4 people in our tour. During our visit, a foreigner came and imam left us and ran to him. I sat and watched them. When he finished his conversation, came near to us again. I asked:”Hodja, do those foreigners appreciate this monument ?”  He said “yes they do but two of them said something to hurt me. Someday a German came together with his translator. He weared his regimentals. He had fighted together with us during First World War. Now he is an architect.  He checked everywhere even how the stones are conjoined each other. Then he came to the middle of the mosque and lie down while looking to the dome. When he stood up, I said him “Isn’t this master a perfect architect? “  , He said “No, I beg your pardon I think that he was a donkey “ . I was dissapointed and asked  “Why?”, “isn’t this structure good enough?” He said “No, on the contrary it is one of the best structures of the World. I would prefer Sinan trained a man like him in order to replace him, instead of building this structure.  “The second one was an Englishman. He entered the mosque by taking off his shoes. He had a translator with him. While going out he had asked to the Armenian translator: “Does this hodja know the verse on the door?” . I said  “I know”  and began to read the verse by looking at it. He said: “How such a knowledge is this? If he knew, he would read it from the memory “  then he turned back in order not to see and began to read the verse by heart. But, doesn’t this German have right? “  I said “no, he has right for sure”.

Q. – Did Atatürk left behind a second Atatürk?  But he could have not left a genius.

Emre – All of you are Atatürk. Genius can’t be left but art can be thought. Despite the learner isn’t a genius, his/her student can be. Just in the same way, does even God create a creature just like the one before?  But its beauty becomes much more. None of the signatures of a man who has a developed writing doesn’t look like.   There will be a difference in each of them but he /she signs… No one could able to replace Sinan because they didn’t work hard.  

Profesör Yörükân said :  “When Amerika was discovered we were able to conquer İstanbul“ Look how they have progressed… But we have stayed in our level…

Q. – Our progression is very slow…

Emre – Certainly: Each maturity has an ending and each ending has a maturity. The old one dies, small one grows. We have newly borned, we will grow but only if we work.

Q. – Which might takes off that eyeglass of delusion?

Emre – Now our hands are tied with the bond of self. If we could able to make open our hands then we can wear this eyeglass by ourselves.

Q. – It’s difficult, sir…

Emre – It’s not difficult.

Q. – It’s difficult for us but we have full intention. Now we say  “Bismillâh, my mother grew me an send to this place. “*

*Note: This is a sentence said by the soldiers.

Emre – Now the one who will save us is this love out of profit. Human will be recreated by this love. But if it mixes with profit,  it turns to a poison.

Do we want someone is being hurted if we love him/ her?  The one who doesn’t know love is like a stone. He /she is the killer of the heart, villain of the loving heart (gönül) .

Founder of our religion The Prophet Mohammed have also been tested for the case of this love.  Four wise people at that time were having a full conversation with him in order to test a few days long. One of them is wiser than the others. He tries to test The Prophet Mohammed using the measure of love. He tries to see if there is anything that he doesn’t love. Can there be anything which The Prophet Mohammed doesn’t love? Can there be darkness for sun? Those wise men make him pass near the dead dog which smells very bad. They ask his opinion by saying “how such a bad smell, isnt it ?” Our prophet says smiling  “ how such beautiful teeth it had when it was alive” . Upon this,  one of them decides to be muslim.

We also need to be like this Spiritual Sun. We will not insult the bad ones, instead we need to avoid them. 

Spirituality is another type of education which can be obtained by forgetting the old things which is memorized.

The strongest education is the one which is given by family. If the other educations doesn’t depend on the family education,  it damages. All of the sciences which is learned by a heartless one, becomes poison for the manhood.

When a sperm is transferred to the mother from father, all of the characters and illnesses of it are also transferred to the child. The character of a mother can only be transferred to the child through milk. There is a saying about dirty milk. Can there be a dirty milk? It comes through a lot of filters. The meaning of this saying is about the bad character.

Because The Prophet Mohammed Mohammed, have seen with his spiritual eye and have known with his spiritual conscious the transfer of a lot of character from father, mother and the food,  have assigned and offered us the types of meet which we can eat. The meet offered by him belongs to the animals which have tripes. They don’t have the front tooth. Because those type of animals eat grass instead of meet. Their nails are tined.  So they are not predator. Because of their tripes,  those animals do not transfer the food to their body directly. Despite the strongest milk belongs to the donkey, he didn’t recommend neither milk nor meet of it. If we eat the meet, drink the milk of it then we will have its character.

Q. – But pig has double nail.

Emre – Yes but it has no tripe. And pig has no jealousy for its mate. At the same time it has a strong digestion bag. It eats all types of shit including its own. Because of it can’t ruminate those shits enters the body directly. For this reason, its shit smells very bad. Although the shit of the animals which is offered to us, doesn’t smell. The birds which can be eaten must have nails and beaks which is not curved. Those with curved nails and beaks are the predator ones which eat meet. 

The aim of all the advices of The Prophet Mohammed is morality.

Just like the fire cooks all of the food, the fire of spirituality cooks all of the morals. Just so we accept the cooking of our crude character in the spiritual fire.

We have saved our visions and hearings to our heart since we came to this world and began to see, to hear. We need them to be erased otherwise it can’t be written the new one I mean the spiritual one.

Upon the erasure of the old writing there emanates such a “Might”  without border neither in littleness nor in greatness.

 (We offer a revelation to our venerable readers related with this conversation):

Q. – It’s not possible to handle this.

Emre – As a contrary… It’s asked to the camel “ which one do you like descent or ascent ?” It replied “none of them, just tell me about flatness”. There is a smooth path. Let’s look at the direct way.  

Q. – We again don’t see.

Emre – When he/she says “I can’t see”, it points that he/she will see.  Not everyone can say this, can’t confess his/her deficiency. The greatest power for human is to know his/her weakness.

(The notes captured from conversation at 02.12.1956):

Emre – Each being is a combination of separate single cells. Those cells die upon giving birth to the beings just like them. When they become absent? Just after their life period is terminated.

Lets talk about moral and mind: Everybody prefer his/her own mind. He/she gathers and then wants to distribute them. Besides, The Being which we called “Allah” , surrounds everybody. Lets give an example. Don’t we feel if any part of our body pricked?  Surrounding of God is just like this. Just like we don’t want any part of our body to be pricked, God also doesn’t want any of his subjects being hurt. We don’t cut and throw our arm which is in pain, so God doesn’t reject his subjects who committed a crime.  Because of our aim is to have the moral of God, we have not to condescent someone, we have not to hurt them. For this reason, we don’t interfere the belief and the faith of no one. If someone asks, we tell out of self for the sake of God’s blessing; if someone tell, we listen.  We want nobody is hurt, but if one’s self is hurt it’s different. Even so we want to please him/her. But it can’t be forced. If he/she couldn’t understand, don’t interfere. Being in silence is so valuable. The one who wants to be mature, must not try to make the other mature. It’s needed not to interfere, not to see his/her blame.  God is the One who is hiding the blames.

Is it possible to compare the states of others with ours… When I was a little child, in my mother’s lap, there was a wedding across Kolordu.  Aunt Hatice also have attended to this wedding.  A young women said to her from a distance  “ Aunt Hatice give me your hand to kiss. “ And she said “long live “ . I’ve loughed this young women a lot when this young women said “give me your hand to kiss” because of my age… Some dogs barks the others which is in the other side of the river. Our self based indignation and criticizm against others is similar to this.

Toleration is maturity but there comes a time in which this also becomes a deficiency. If someone trust your maturity you will say to him/her that his/her attribute for example drinking is wrong. But if he/she doesn’t listen, this is possible for sure, you will not get angry and interfere to him/her. If we say “it’s good, it’s good” to a friend who doesn’t aware of his/her attributes,  in order not to hurt him/her so called, this is similar instead of saving, to watch a drowning person who falled in soil. But it we blame and despice, that means we are worse than him/her. The language of conscience is being good. Talking with despice is the act of devilry.  

For the sake of truth, being drunk is forbidden by all the prophets. Doesn’t The Prophet Mohammed say for wine “mother of all sinfulness? “Even The Prophet Mohammed, as a source of knowledge of God said so, don’t believe that if someone says that the one who is drinking rakı is mature.  The one who loose his/her balance or mind can’t be mature because he/she is inadequate. There is a verse also saying for the (hamr) drink as work of devil. But  (hamr) isn’t only wine or rakı. Kalam (logos), state, morality also is being fermented.  

Humankind is sentenced to a lot of things… Sentenced to those which has similar spirit with him/her. If we can, we will recover. Even, if necessary we must use strong hand in order to save our dear brother/sister. In the verse it is said “Everything is being destined to the mortality except the face of God who has wrath and honouring.“  . Why it is said wrath (Jallal)  instead of beauty (Jamal) . Because Jamal is below than Jallal. If our child tends to gamble, shall we leave him/her by himself/herself? No, if it is needed, we will beat him/her. If our friends choose the wrong path, we need to give advise to them out of self (nafs). Not everything can be tolerated. Toleration is for the outsiders. We can’t tolerate the calamity of our affined ones. If the thief is far from us, that’s ok, we don’t blame him/her. We love him/her because maybe someday he/she gives up this bad habbit. Anyhow we don’t try to save him/her from this bad character. But if the thief comes here to steal something, then it changes the situation.

Beforetime there was a man who was saying “hello!” to everything and everyone. “Hello dog!”, “hello cat!” etc… Someday he went to a mill, and said “hello mill” . Then his cloth tail had been jammed between the stones of the mill. If they didn’t save him he almost would die. Then he came to the city saying again everything “hello” . Someday he again went to a mill. He said “hello” to the mill but turning back.  He is asked “why do you turn back ?“  He says “ hello from a distance for the rotating ones”. Hello from a distance for the ones who turn back from the state of The Prophet Mohammed.

Q. – In a revelation there are two lines which I couldn’t understand exactly. I wonder if I could able to understand the real meaning of them. But in order to understand these two lines in absolute meaning, let us read the whole revelation:

Q. – In the second stanza from the last one, doesn’t it mean even (Muhiddinî Ârabbî, Nesimî and Develioğlu Halîl) still points from the sideline of this ocean of unity?  

Emre – Yes. The Might who is saying that, says it from the middle of the ocean of unity. The one who is saying that,  is never İsmâil, God forbid. There is an hadith saying that “if there exists an illustration/picture in a house, (even if it belongs to me), the prayer performed in this house is not accepted. “The real namaz is to loose picture, I mean wish, everything even himself/herself then to find himself/herself in the middle of the Ocean. There comes a time in which human can’t see any figure when some state occurs. He/she only sees a single eye. Beyond there can’t be described. This is the only gate/door which must be entered. The one who tend to enter must avoid of being dirty because of wishes of self. Then he/she starts to deliver dirts. Mr. Muzaffer wrote in one of his letters: “ Jesus said: no one can enter from this door who is dirty” That’s the third degree. Pattens also must be taken off.  There must remain no existence in mind/reason.

Q. – Being clean is necessary, isn’t it? 

Emre – Yes… Absolutely.

Q. – Why there is this struggle called Sunnism and Shi’a since many centuries? Isn’t it too bad? Why we couldn’t dwell in unity like brothers?

Emre – Those who struggle are the ones who don’t understand the truth. Let me tell you a story:

Someday devil knocks the door of Pharaoh. Tak! Tak!

—Who is this?

Devil is in silence. The Pharaoh asks again:

—Who is this?

Again there is no answer. At the end the Pharaoh gets angry and opens the door and sees someone unfamiliar. He chides him:

—I asked “who is this” a lot of times. Why don’t you say your name?

Devil makes a point instantly:

—Everywhere you declare that you are God. If you are God, you would know that who I am.  Look, even a door has been an obstacle to your knowledge. What about your being of God?

The Pharaoh asks:

—Who are you?

—I am devil.

—Ok, why did you cast away from heaven despite of your such knowledge?

Devil awares that he also knows his fault, in order to make it up says:

—Lets not talk we both have blame.

If we able to have a state of critisizing ourselves, then we will give up to blame the others. But this takes time.

Captured by: Şevket Kutkan

EMRE’s aphorisms,  esprits, instantaneous answers:

*When the winds of knowldge is blown in the sea of brain there occurs waves I mean the brain folds which results in the improvement of brain.

*Deviousness and being malevolent is like fire which burns its own place.

*Karagöz shadow play curtain refers to the curtain of black eye of a perfect human. Pupil also is called as “king”.

*Human is so great but if he/she know his/her littleness…

*The hardest thing is to be able to stand without spinning on the rotating world.  

*The words of Nasreddin Hodja are similar to the seed. He had hidden the Great Tree of Truth, to the seed of the funny words. Depending on the strength of the cover of seed, life of the tree which belongs to it, becomes long. This is the reason of Nasreddin Hodja is beyond the times. 

*We will never interlope to the others’ believes. Not everyone can think like us. There are a lot of people passing through this way. Can you say “lets pass together “ to all of them?

*The one who doesn’t lie heavy on his/her conscience is death. Can a death person feel if you prick?

*Those who feel the others’ pain are together with them. They are great people.

The Explanations of Nasreddin Hodja Narratives
There needs a cock for those chickens.

The children of Akşehir, each one having an egg in their pocket, catch Nasreddin Hodja and lead on him by force to the public bath. They wash themselves. While Hodjca was sprawling on the navel stone, someone says according to their agreement before:

—Hey kids! Come here lets play. The one who loose, will pay for the bath. Ok?

—What type of play is this?

—Everyone needs to lay an egg. The one who can’t lay will pay for the bath. Is it ok?   

Children shout together:

—Ok.

They also ask Nasreddin Hodja because he came with them.

—What is your opinion Hodja?

Hodja stayed in silence who listened carefully the conversation from the beginning. Children thought his silence is an approval. Each of them starts to tickle and shows the egg to Hodja which they hide among their loincloth.

Upon this, Hodja stands up, crow by shaking his hands, arms like a cock:

—Ö’örü’öööööö!

Children is surprised accoss this action which they wouldn’t wait.  They ask:

—What are you doing uncle?

—So what son, for this amount of chicken, it’s needed a cock.  

EMRE’s Explanation:

Despite of their age of an old person, people are children with respect to the Truth and Wisdom. Their mind is mind of a child. Therefore their mind always loves play and tolls.  

Children practice a deceit. The deceitful, is under control of nafs (self).  Such people are called as female here. Nasreddin Hodja acts like this in order to teach laying children the truth.  

He means “I am not under control of nafs like you” . You too need to be like this.