Ash-Shu'ara 136: (They) said, “whether you admonish or not, it is the same to us.”

Surah Ash-Shu'ara, noble verse 136. They said this: "It is all the same to us whether you admonish or not." Yes.

"You cannot bring us onto the right path." True. No one can bring anyone onto the right path. Because whatever covenant he gave to Allah, that is what he will live. Yes.

Let people not once have their covenant written badly with Allah Almighty. After that there is no one to bring him onto the right path. All people are of three classes. Allah Almighty, in His verse, in the seventh verse of Surah Al-Waqi'ah, says this. All (?), three classes. Fe ashâbu'l-meymeneti mâ ashâbu'l-meymeneh. O you rightists, good tidings to you. Ve ashâbu'l-meş'emeti mâ ashâbu'l-meş'emeh. O you leftists, woe to you. Ve's-sâbikûne's-sâbikûn, ulâike'l-mukarrabûn, fî cennâti'n-naîm. And a third group is the group of the sâbıkûn. Now the people He calls leftists, with their denial of Allah, cannot possibly turn back to Allah.

Where did these people part ways? When Allah Almighty created our souls, Allah Almighty's Elestü bi-rabbiküm address. When He said, "I am your Lord," there people split into three divisions. Why did they split into three divisions and not obey Allah Almighty? This point is very simple, but very thought-provoking. Allah Almighty created man resembling His essence. Because He gave him of His spirit. If Allah Almighty gave of His spirit — "When I have breathed into Adam of My spirit, prostrate," He says. To whom is prostration made? To Allah. So when He says "prostrate" once He has given Adam of His spirit, He is giving a part of His essence.

His making the angels prostrate to a part, to Adam, is actually prostration to His essence. So Satan plays a word game, does not prostrate and is cursed. He grows arrogant toward Allah Almighty. "What set you against My command?" He says. Yes. So for people, Allah is invisible. Invisible, of course, in this world; you cannot possibly see Him with these eyes. But Allah is visible. Where will you see Allah? We saw Him at the Elestü bi-rabbiküm address. So why did we split into three classes there? Why did we split? "I am the one who created you," He says. The non-Muslim looks and sees that He is a human like me.

He sees a human. With the same form of essence. He denies Him. He denies Allah. Because he knows he was created, he searches for the Lord of his imagination.

So, because Allah Almighty knew they would deny His essence, they said "yes," He says. That is, they know that they were created, but My true essence, He says. Though I created them, they boasted, they grew proud, conceited, arrogant, He says. They denied Me because they saw Me as like themselves, He says. That is why He calls them lying disbelievers. Lying disbelievers. How beautifully you say it. Yes. (?) In that case, beware of the leftists too.

The people closest to hypocrisy.

He says "Allah," but has nothing to do with Allah.

He says "I am a Muslim"; some, most, don't even say it anyway. He says "I'm a Muslim," strips stark naked, says "I'm civilized." If stripping stark naked is civilized, animals are more civilized.

Allah Almighty says: beware, lest Satan strip you stark naked, He says. Let him not ruin you. Let him not strip you stark naked. Today they undress; we see it, stark naked. Well now, in that case, whether you admonish these people or not, both are the same. They don't change. These are leftists. That's why when someone is called a leftist, I put a curtain between us. "But I have faith, I pray." If you pray, come onto the right path. Don't be beside the leftist. If a person enters a tavern, even if he doesn't drink, the smell of the tavern clings to him. If a person enters a perfume shop, even if no perfume is spilled, the scent of perfume clings to him.

Yes.

Whatever a person's mindset is, that is his world. That mindset: the covenant a person gave Allah Almighty at the Elestü bi-rabbiküm address had his destiny written for him, and it makes the characters work in him so that he plays out that destiny. So when someone says "I'm a leftist," you must take one step back from him and put a curtain between.

A leftist does not pray. Do you see a leftist praying? He doesn't. Except the cat's paws. Except the cat's paws among them. Why except the cat's paws? He believes in it and goes there. He goes there because it is "Atatürk's party." So he says "I'm a leftist." Well, you know, of people who are incapable of managing themselves, (?) the world inside.

Now we are in a civilized world. In a civilized world.

We all benefit from technology, don't we?

But look at some of them: on the phone they only know how to talk. He just talks. When someone calls him: "Who are you?" "It's Ahmet." "Oh, Ahmet, is that you?" "Isn't my phone number saved in your phone?" "No." "Well, save it." "I wouldn't know; let the kids come in the evening and tell me to save it."

Well, the cat's paws beside the leftist are like that too.

Even though they are Muslims, these have fixed their minds on one thing and go along. No thinking. And Allah Almighty says so beautifully in His verse: "Do you not reflect, do you not think?" He says. How beautifully He says it. Yes.

So the people He calls leftists, with their denial of Allah, cannot possibly turn back to Allah. Because in their mindset they have the same character and thoughts, they followed the ways of the peoples who were destroyed. As if they had lived in their time, they kept repeating the same words. And Allah Almighty says in a verse: though little time has passed over the destroyed peoples, how they have come to resemble their forefathers, He says. Yes.

They said: "It is all the same to us whether you admonish or not." That is, "However much you talk, we are not obedient to Allah and to you. Moreover, what you say is nothing but the tales of the ancients," they said. Well, these "nothing but the tales of the ancients" words — because they spoke like this, they, those peoples, were destroyed. Why don't you say, "They were destroyed because they called these tales of the ancients," but instead what pleases your nafs as "tales of the ancients," and, having taken Satan as a guide over you, to distance you from Allah, gilded words please you.

May Allah set them right.

these people with their ignorance have so blinded their eyes, and made their ears so deaf to the truth, that past peoples — though Allah Almighty warned the people who said "tales of the ancients" through His prophets — that peoples who did not obey Allah and His prophets were destroyed, the generations after them, generations, have they not heard? What does He say? Like when He destroyed Pharaoh, for example: "I leave you as a lesson for the worlds," He says. "Today your lifeless face," He says, "I leave as a lesson for the worlds," He says, and they find it. Today it is on display in England, in a place called (?).

Many peoples are destroyed as a lesson for the generations after.

So let a person not once become blind and so on to the truth. That is, Hatemallâhu alâ kulûbihim ve alâ sem'ihim ve alâ ebsârihim ğışâveh, ve lehüm azâbun azîm. They are blind in their eyes, that is, a veil; their ears they plug- plugged. They do not see the truth, do not hear the truth. In such a state they have had their hearts sealed, He says. These — for these there is a painful punishment, says Allah Almighty.

So let a person not once become blind and so on to the Truth. Since their feelings have also become dulled, these people can never be honored with the light of faith. Hence such people end up, toward their own selves, being unjust and very cruel.

What do our forefathers say about this? "What a person does to himself, the two worlds together could not do." Indeed. Say I have denied Allah.

What I did to myself, the two worlds together could not do to me. Why? Am I to be cast into eternal hell in the hereafter? Cast into eternal fire? Cast into eternal torment? "There they neither die nor live," He says. So what is living in our view? Pleasure and ease, right? You have a house, an orchard, a car, no debts, no installments — you travel, you roam about. That's what living is. You go out to (?), right? You visit your relatives and kin.

Well, since He says they don't live, does a person live in that torment, in that fire? Where is the living? "O Malik, tell your Lord to lighten the torment on us a little," they say. Well now, if I had denied Allah, this Creator, the Owner of the worlds, God forbid, if I had denied Him, none of you could do what I would have done to myself. None of you. But if I am in Islam, if I am a Muslim, if I make no concession from Islam, even if you oppress me, even if you cut me slice by slice, at worst I die here, but I go to Paradise. This is a temporary world, a temporary world. We are all in a guesthouse here.

Look, they die in accidents, they travel, on the journey they die; men drop bombs, they die. Man does not cease to exist with death; with death man returns to his true, original homeland, his true homeland.

his true homeland — his spirit, nafs and soul (?). Only by entering bodies in the earthly world did we, as Yunus Emre put it, clothe ourselves in flesh and bone. We appeared as Hacı Efendi, Ahmet Efendi, Mehmet Efendi. Then we will leave the flesh and bone here. Then, "We will return you, you, to your first form of creation," He says. What do we all normally say? This has two meanings. Allah Almighty speaks both outwardly and inwardly. The first form of creation: in the world, from the mother, weak, feeble; he grows a little, gets stronger. Then he returns again to his old feeble state. Like the first form of creation.

Actually He created us in the realm of lahut, in the realm of spirits.

With death we shed the garment of the body. The first form of creation: spirit, nafs and soul, together we went out and left. That is the meaning of the verse. For example, in a verse Allah Almighty also says, "We are the Lord of the two easts and the two wests." If you ask people — I'm not saying scholars, mind you. They wrote: in summer the sun rises here and sets there. And in winter it rises here and sets there, they say. They make it two easts, two wests. Whereas Allah Almighty says, ben hüve'l-evvelü ve'l-âhiru, "I am the First and the Last, I am both the Outward and the Inward." That is, I am the Owner of the outward worlds and the inward worlds.

If a thousand years here are like one day of the hereafter: "I am Owner of both this world and the hereafter," He says. "I am Owner of the two sun-easts, the two sun-wests," He says. "I am Owner of the outward and the inward world," He says. Come on, think! Which sun did you (?) from here and set over there? Yes.

Our first form of creation is like this too. We were created in the realm of lahut, we made a covenant with Allah's realm; "We will return you to your first form of creation," He says. So this place is a guesthouse. Beware, don't stay here. Like the beauty of the zaqqum tree, which looks attractive and blooms in the swamp of the world, do not covet its flower and plunge into that swamp. Tomorrow you will be in a frantic rush, the peaceful one drifts away from peace, you turn your back on Allah's command, the world spins you around like a propeller. With Satan's temptation, with the feelings of the nafs, this place is passed the way a reptile crawls.

However poor a person may be, if he is with his Lord, believe me, these worlds in his life are like a dot.

Because he does not look at the beauty of this world. To his future — he builds his future.

What does a wise person do? When young, he prepares a foundation for his future. If not, if a person doesn't think of this, like the cicada that chirps away and in winter needs the ant, such a situation arises. In his old age he falls into the hands of his family, of this one and that one. Yes. Just as a person thinks of his old age and prepares a foundation for his future,

when he departs this world, he must go to the hereafter with preparation, with provisions too. What is that? Obeying Allah. Submitting, carrying out His command — that's it. Apart from this all worlds are like a shadow. Just as, when you close your eyes, the whole world is erased; as evening comes

and the whole outward world, tree, earth, stone, can't be seen in the dark, so when, by Allah's command, this world leaves a person's hands, when he faces the existence of the hereafter, then he understands the truth well. He understands, but he has passed into a realm of no return, no return, no coming back. If we prepare for the hereafter with this in mind, then among the (?) of that place, that is, among the people pleasing to our Lord, we will enter. Yes.