What Do You Know? Sohbet February 2, 2026

Discussion about what it means to actually KNOW something - that which cannot be taken away. Also, learning about who you are.

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Transcript

Shaykh ibrahim 0:38

So knowing knowledge comes from the Greek gnosis. That's why there's a K in ours and a G in theirs. Gnosis is different than knowing, as I understand it. Gnosis means that which cannot be taken away or removed. So things like, oh, I know there's nine planets. Well, no, there's not, not anymore. Therefore, that was not a fact. That was a theory. And a lot of things that we think we know change or mutate or are proven to be untrue. So the question I I often ask people is, so what do you know? If those are the if that's the definition of gnosis, what do you know?

Speaker 2 1:51

Are you asking that right now?

Shaykh ibrahim 1:53

I am.

Speaker 2 1:55

Okay. The first thing that pops into my mind being is I know I'm here right now, but I'm not only here. It's not just this level, this plane of existence. I'm also in other places. So there's a kind of hearity. There's a hearing. But it's it's more than this physical right here, right now thing.

Shaykh ibrahim 2:35

Okay, all right. So you know that you are uh experiencing displacement in a gravitational and atmospheric manner. Okay. At another level, you are uh experiencing sensory input. All right, senses, pressure, and placement. Because if we were to go up or down, say uh a hundred meters, pressure would change and we would feel that. And we would feel for us, that would feel uncomfortable, especially the higher up you go. If you go up to about like five, six thousand feet, you start to experience loss of oxygen. Whereas if you go down in water or even in land, you feel more pressure on you, and this is there's there's that. And we're also feeling feeling a gravitation then as well, one gravity. And depending on how fast or slow we're going, we could experience plus or minus gravitational experiences. Huh. Okay. Anything else about hereness'?

Speaker 2 4:02

'Hereness'. The practice of moshahida came into mind where we work to act. Well, okay, first of all, the brain typically focuses on one sense at a time. And which is why when we're looking at one thing and we hear a sound somewhere off behind us, everything goes there. What was that sound? Is it danger? Is it um you know does somebody want me? What whatever? So the brain, the brain doesn't typically use all of our senses at the same time, you know. True, taste and smell are related. You know, you you inhale and you get an aroma of something, and that and can enhance the flavor of whatever you're putting into your mouth as you're taking that food in or something. But what Shayk Taner showed us years ago was the practice of mushahida, meaning that one at a time we focus our senses, and it's best done outdoors. Begin with sight, looking at something, focusing on it, taking it all in, and then add in our hearing while still focusing on our sight, and gradually begin to okay. I'm seeing this and I'm hearing this, and what's are there sounds that are related to what I'm looking at? And working with that, and then what do you smell? You know, is there is there an odor in the air? Is there a fragrance of something? Does that relate to what I'm hearing or seeing, or is it something else that's coming in? What do I taste? Do I taste something different from what I'm smelling? The air tastes kind of salty. I'm at the beach. Yeah. And then there's skin sensory. Maybe the breeze is blowing and it's moving our hair, and you know. And to try to hold on to all of those at first is just impossible. What what did you call it? What's the name of this? Mushahadah. M-U-S-H-A H-A-D-A. Mushahada. Well, it comes from Shahid to witness, to bear witness. And so Mushahada would be one who bears witness. And um Mushahada. So it's it's a form of bearing witness that has this esoteric connotation to it. And it's a really interesting practice. And I realized when Sheikh Tandar was telling us about it and explaining it and having us practice it out on a beach that uh I had experienced this before.

Shaykh ibrahim 7:31

So multi-sensory input is a way of opening up the senses and doing the opposite. I've done workshops where I've had people blindfold and walk, and it amplifies the other senses. So because we we get so um uh stuck on being a seeing, which kind of stops you tuning into the other senses. The other thing that I I hear you mention is going beyond the physical senses to spiritual senses or heart sensations, things that are that we are capable of sensing if we open up to them. And this has been proven, you know, in hypnosis and people who experienced anesthesia of cross-sensing senses. so that's an interesting. I don't remember Sheikh explaining that about Mush shadah, except talking about observation and pointing things out and going, Well, are you experiencing this? Are you noticing this? Are you noticing that?

Shaykh ibrahim 8:57

Again, this these are good practices to do as in sense of observation. In Sufism, there's a whole kind of study about observation, uh, of which Sherlock Holmes is kind of like the pinnacle of what that's about. And the idea of what are you can what can you deduce from your observations about this person? And there's so many other um observations you can make, and we we filter out, they say, about eight to ten gigabytes of information, so it gets just down to little bits of stuff that we think we can handle, but I think we can handle a lot more if we wished. I remember sitting with Sheikh at the airport one time and he says, Tell me about that person walking by. Oh boy, and it's kind of like what? And he go, go ahead, making connection, doing a rabbita, say what's going on with this person, and having to do that, you have to drop your sensations, your your own personal ones, and extend them out to this other and allow the other your other perceptions to open up to see what comes in, because everybody perceives in their own way. We don't realize that. We talk, you know, sometimes talk about in terms of intelligences. The basic four are aur, that's listening. We understand through listening. There's um visual understanding through what we see, analytical understanding through taking things apart like puzzles, and kinesthetically through movement. Whether it's valid or not, it seems to work, uh, especially if you're interested in teaching, because as a piano teacher, over decades of working with students, what I've noticed is there's usually two strong and too weak uh senses going on. Some kids, or adults even, uh don't have a visual ability, but their oral ability is way up there. And they're kinesthetic, so they can hear something and play it back right away. I don't have quite that ability. I have it through I have it through practicing listening, which is uh a whole other practicum, but uh these people who can do this through the RL are not able to read music.

Speaker 2 12:00

It's really not my mother's younger brother.

Shaykh ibrahim 12:04

Ah, yeah. So what I try and do in the first couple lessons is figure out so where what are the strong, what are the weak points, and what do what can I do to help them strengthen the weak points through using the strong ones? This is also part of our learning to know ourselves. You know, what what's strong and weak in me, and what can I do to help strengthen my weaky points? What about the things we ignore? That's an ongoing education, isn't it?

Speaker 2 12:46

And maybe we don't even realize we're choosing to ignore them, or we're just maybe it's something in the moment that that's irrelevant. You know, of course, we're always being told something's irrelevant that we think is important.

Shaykh ibrahim 13:01

Well, I I think in defining what nafs are, I think part of that is ignoring certain parts of ourselves that we would rather not look at. That's kind of like that's almost a given that everybody has that. I think what we're trying to do in Sufism is go, yeah, no.

Speaker 1 13:22

I have a question about that just popped in my head. I'm wondering about the way you worded it, you know, some things that about our nafs we'd rather not look at. Um there might be, I might have uh a bad habit or um you know something that I um uh maybe don't like about myself. Um, but I've been told and taught that um you know that's not okay, that's not um you know, good to express that sense of blah blah blah, whatever it is, right? Let's say um uh uh you know, I get angry about some little trifle or something like that. So the I I guess my first impulse is to just sort of bury it as though, well, okay, well then I I I guess I'm just not gonna feel that way. Um and I my question is, are are are there ever scenarios where that's what we should be doing? Like it would seem as though there's some some things that are unimportant that maybe I shouldn't be focusing on, but at the same time, um if I'm burying and ignoring it, then there's there's something else that I'm potentially not facing up to or working on.

Shaykh ibrahim 14:42

Okay. If we stay present enough and we make the intention to Allah and our heart that we want to know ourselves, that we want to know Allah, and that we want to move everything out of the way so that we can be with Allah, then I think that intention begins the opening process or the filtering process to begin our education process about our own shadow side, if you will, things that we do ignore. To me, by saying yes, I want to know who I am, the process begins specifically for you. And that when it's time for that nafs to be presented, if you will, things will occur that allow that to happen in the right time in the right process. You can't jump and you can't pick just because you want to. That's not the one I want to work on. I have I have a preference here. I I know what I need to work on. Could you make me wealthy, please? I need to work on what that would feel like. Uh and Allah goes, Oh, I'm sorry, who's in charge here? You you want to do what? No, no, you go ahead. Go right ahead. Let's see how that works out for you. And you go, okay. After a couple years on that one, you go, yeah, I can see I need to back up a little bit and get a running start on some other ones, so I have a foundation to work from. The process is perfect. We just tend to mess it up because we think we know what we need. Allah's going, surrender is the name of the game here. I will help you if you can stay grounded, connect with your sheikh as you need to, and we'll work through this one at a time. What uh many people say, they'll say, I want to work on the hardest one first. I've had that many times. And I go, yeah, no, that's that's not gonna work. Because what we want to do is we first we want to build up success. We want to know what it feels like to overcome a simple mess, to see what that process is like. Not only do you see how it works for you, you also learn the time it takes, the concentration it takes, the willingness and intention it takes, and the time it takes, the kind of time it takes. It's a discipline and it's a practice. And as you do that, you also gain when you succeed in regaining that energy that had been put into maintaining that specificness. So by accepting, look, I'm not complete, I don't have this together, I need help. That's how we start. Then from there, you go through each one as it presents itself to you. And you can't jump ahead, you have to go through it one layer at a time. And what you find as you go through it that what you thought was like one layer is actually multiple layers, but you can't go to the deeper layer until you pull these weeds out here because this root's connected to this plant over there, and that's going to require a whole other tool set, which you can't get until you know what it's like to get through this one. All makes sense. So trust in the process. Your heart knows what you need, your brain thinks it knows what it needs, and you have to learn how to divine which is which and what way you need to go. And sometimes, and that's why this is not a perfect, it's a process, it's a practice, it's something that you learn more and more as you go through. It never ends, you never get there, you get to the next layer, and you go, oh geez, I never thought I'd have to deal with this. Okay, all right, all right, let's go.

Speaker 2 19:53

I'm laughing because oh gosh, this is maybe a dozen years ago. We pick up Sheikh and Ane at Sacramento Airport, and we're coming back up to Chico. That's at night, and Sheikh is sitting in the passenger seat, David's driving, and Ame and I are in the back seat. She and I are talking, and we hear the tone of things in the front seat change, and we stop talking. And Shaykh is saying to David, I was contemplating one day, and I suddenly felt, I got it, I got it. Oh okay, I got it. Oh and then a couple days later, I realized I don't got it. So I I went back in, went back in. Oh now I got it. I I got it, I got it, yeah, yeah. By the next day, I knew I don't got it, and I realized it's just going to be that way. You get it, and then there's more, like he began saying after that. There's always more. Yeah. Yeah. And I just remember that. I got it. No, I don't got it. That's that's good.

Shaykh ibrahim 21:22

Yeah. To me, when you say I got it, you know you just walked into a trap. That's the trap. And that's actually one of the Maqam levels. That's the fourth level. You think I got it, and and you think, oh, I'm gonna make a business out of this. This is my shtick. I'm good at this, and that's the trap.

Speaker 2 21:53

It is. I I have found that whenever I it comes to me that, oh, okay. I know how to do this. That is a trap. That sets something in my mind that closes down. And I learned this years ago. I was sewing, I was making two of something. And very careful with the first one, very careful. Okay, here, here. Turned out just just right, just right. So I go to start the second one, and my brain says, I know what I'm doing now. And I made mistake after mistake, stupid little mistakes that had to be taken apart and redone.

Shaykh ibrahim 22:47

Oh boy. You know it. You know it and it shows it, and there's, and it's kind of like, you see, rather than, you know, because in our mind we've kind of erased it. That did not happen. I am fine, everything is perfect. And it's kind of like, no, it's not. It is not, it's not what it should be. You know, but again, with the pianos, you know, if I'm recording the lesson and the and we get into an argument, say, I did not play that wrong. I said, I will play this back. What do you hear? I played it wrong. No subtracting reality here.

Speaker 2 23:39

Do you by any chance this digresses? Do you know uh Latif Balat? Yes. Yes, yes. Okay. I know him for many, many years. That's a long time ago. Wow. He's he's a wonderful musician, wonderful singer, wonderful singer and musician. So um we were someplace and he had played this one, it was an old Persian classical piece. And somewhere in there he hit a wrong note and corrected himself, right? Stopped, did the little phrase over again, went on. The next night he played the same thing and he hit the same wrong note. And later someone was saying, Oh, Latif, he's such a perfectionist that he always makes the same mistake.

Shaykh ibrahim 24:34

That's pretty good. Oh I want to go back to what we started on, which is what you know and what you don't know, and what the difference is. So my question going back was so what do you know? That is, what cannot be taken away from you that remains as a kind of visceral and entire whole the whole mind that's everything knows and cannot be removed. Alone. Good.

Speaker 2 25:19

Yay. What came to me visually and mentally as well was the prophet Yusuf. Joseph, the knowing he had when he was in the well, left in the well, and then later when he was in prison for years, and that knowing was always there with him. You know, that was always there in him, from what we know of his situation and his behavior during that time.

Shaykh ibrahim 25:55

Yeah, and that that to me, what that's one of the guiding prophets for me regarding does Allah know I'm here? Does Allah know what's going on here? If that's the case, I have nothing to worry about. Right. If I imagine that Allah has left the room, if you will, and I am on my own and I don't know what's going on, I will certainly freak out. Absolutely. Because what am I doing here? What's the point? And I think this is where disconnect and depression kick in when you don't think anybody cares about you and you don't know the reason why you're in this situation. And but then I go back to this idea about Joseph in prison for 12 years. And he knows why he's there. He knows I I have I have a job to do here. And Sheikh kind of talked about Alibaba going through the same thing. Did he ever tell you that one about his sheikh tells him, I want you to go to this little town and uh you know, give the message about Sufism? And he goes, he doesn't have a ticket, he doesn't have any money. He's waiting at the train station, somebody gives him money for the ticket, he gets on and he gets there, and he's he's arrested for vagrancy, and he's put into the prison, and they're they're asking him, so what are you doing here? He says, I'm supposed to be teaching Sufism. I said, Well, what's what's that? And then he's doing the teaching.

Speaker 1 27:40

He had him go back again, and he got arrested again. Then they kicked him out of prison because they don't want him teaching Sufism there.

Shaykh ibrahim 27:47

Oh, I didn't think about that.

Speaker 1 27:49

It's in what "what about my wood"? Oh, okay, all right.

Shaykh ibrahim 27:54

That's cool. So where we are is where Allah wants us to be. It's our job to accept it. That's surrender. So there's Allah. How about you? Anything you know?

Speaker 1 28:14

You know, that's that's uh interesting because I like I was going through what do I know? And then I was like, okay, well, you know, it's sort of like a variation on what Rosie was saying while I'm here. But then I was like, well, what if that's like not true in the truest sense? And then I was like, well, what if Allah takes that away? And the whole time I'm like, I mean, I guess it in the background it it's a law, like, but Allah has control over everything. But I was I was like coming up with all these other sort of um uh I don't know how to put it. So, anyways, I I would I would tend to agree with what Rosie said. It's a law.

Shaykh ibrahim 28:54

Okay. I also know, I know, besides that Allah is taking care of me and that love is what holds everything together, is I love my son and my granddaughter. That cannot be taken away, that's unconditional. There's no stuff that it's dependent on. That's part of me, and I'm and I feel so happy when I'm with that, with my family, and feel everything's okay. Uh it's good. So I think who and what we love is part of that knowing, that kind of knowing, the one that cannot be removed or taken away. It can be uh expand and contract, of course, but that's that's not, you know, it is anything but that's love. So what else? Uh that's about it for me. I know I'm stupid, I know uh I make lots of mistakes, and I know that I'm here to learn, slow as I am, and to grow.

Speaker 2 30:22

I know I'm stupid because my sheikh always told me so.

Shaykh ibrahim 30:26

Duh, that does not go away. What are you stupid? Yes, Sheikh. A ywala. Have pity on me. See, that's good. We went through uh different kind of sensing of being here, and being here is a kind of knowing when when we are here. I think though that with our nefs, we do tend to um let's call it migrate to the past and future, which are not here. They're they're their skull stuff, the black box. We don't know what's going on, we're not here then. Uh I know when I'm breathing and I'm when I'm aware of my breath, I am more here than when I'm not. You probably feel a kind of hearingess when you're doing your sewing and calligraphy.

Speaker 2 31:36

Oh sewing is really something that is ingrained in me, I will say, in this life, in this body. Uh it's a skill I learned at a very, very early age. Um and um I was standing next to my mother when she was making matching skirts for us, and the phone rang, and the phone was in another room. She got up and went to answer the phone, and I just moved over. I was three years old, and so she stopped right in the middle of a long side scene on the skirt, and I just put my foot on the pedal and kept going. She walked back in the room and went, thinking I was gonna run over my fingers with the needle, and then she just stopped and let me finish the scene, and came straight down, and that was when I started sewing. That's so cool, and having it be something I know when I was first living in Turkey, and I needed to um I needed to make some curtains for my apartment, big, big windows, and I needed curtains, and I bought a very simple sewing machine and fabric, and I was making curtains, and after being there for several months, finally, after being in this environment where you know, language and customs and how things were done, and what you could buy in the grocery stores and how you find things, finally I knew there was something I knew how to do. I could sew a straight seam, I could do that. So um, yeah, yeah. And then I worked as a commercial seamstress for almost 20 years. A what seamstress? Commercial. Oh, okay. Repaired sewing machines and wow, you were sewing big factors.

Speaker 1 34:18

Wow. Those are complicated. I mean, those are there's a lot of like parts that are involved moving.

Speaker 2 34:29

Yeah, I I have a really aversion to electronics, but when I can see something, then I'm good.

Shaykh ibrahim 34:40

I think that's I in talking about the going back to the intelligences, I've had a I have a few that I like to add. Um one is geometric, spatial. Uh you know, I think you know those kind of people who come into a room going, that couch is in the wrong place. It's in the right what do you mean it's couching, it's doing its thing. No, it needs to be over here, then you put the lamp over here, and you put this here, and then it'll be nice. Some people know how to get that right feeling, uh, shaping things. Uh, maybe on a planar, that's planar P A P-L-A-N-A-R planar uh field. Um, you have billiards and snooker, who can see three-dimensionally and a little bit on the uh physics part of energy. That's very cool. So I think that's uh another one. Uh, another another one is it to people talk about emotional intelligence. I have no clue what that is, but I understand.

Speaker 2 35:59

Yeah, it comes up in news feeds a lot, emotional intelligence, and people who have emotional intelligence, and kind of like I think that goes back to observation. And yeah, yeah.

Shaykh ibrahim 36:20

And I think there's a kind of machine intelligence where you're kind of like a machine whisperer. You know, like like like what you're doing with the the sewing machines or a car mechanic, you know, who's who can hear that it needs tuning, and there's the third valve needs replacing.

Speaker 2 36:45

Yep. That's why we had the idiot's guide to Volkswagens.

Shaykh ibrahim 36:52

Yep. Yep. And uh, and I think there's also textural intelligence that some people have to wear a certain kind of fabric that feels right for them. And then they may uh they go into wardrobe, uh costuming and things. I don't know. So this is knowing is in this case is also knowing about yourself and what your strong and weak points are. Uh, those aren't going to go away, those can change. Uh, some the strong ones are probably going to stay the same, but the weak ones are one that you can improve, and it's a good way to know yourself is to know well, what am I good at and what am I really weak at. Those are my thoughts on knowing and gnosis. Anything you want to add?

Speaker 1 37:52

Um, well, I mean, it seems seems obvious now, but maybe it's sort of a follow-up question. You you said what one definition of gnosis is something that can't be taken away, and then my sort of follow-up question would be well, how do I know when something can't be taken away? So I mean, at least to me, what what comes up is well I know that in my heart, and so then there's this like aspect to knowledge where um it's complete, like from the heart, like every every way that I could know it is is complete, sort of that does that make sense?

Shaykh ibrahim 38:37

Pretty much, yes, it's it's all about the heart. That that the and this is something that actually that's been coming out for me lately is how we have to change what the bottom line is in the next run-out of culture and and social democracy. The idea of it's not the bottom line of money that's important, it's the feeling of contentment and happiness or equity as an important part of knowing. It's a little trickier. So, yeah, does that make sense?

Speaker 1 39:29

Um, I'm I'm thinking about that. Equity is part of knowing.

Shaykh ibrahim 39:34

Actually, this kind of goes back to your big one about fairness. And the idea of like uh this is a really the cultures that we live in are very unfair, they're based on unfairness because we come from feudal uh monarchies, which are caste systems, and I think we find it really difficult to let go of those ideas. That and and capital Darwinism.

Speaker 3 40:13

I like that capital Darwinism, yeah.

Speaker 2 40:18

The word hierarchy popped in that there's wherever you are, whatever's going on, there's almost always uh a sense of hierarchy, even if it isn't expressed. And um, you know, kind of like those unwritten rules about how to behave here, how to behave and and show deference. I mean, even our two cats. Now the younger one who's still full of vim and vigor and vigor, you know, and energy and wanting to play, and the elder one who's like, leave me alone, and the younger one skirts around him, you know, don't want to upset the elder. And so, but I was also thinking of how people, when you talk about equity, it's social equity. Um, there are those who forward knowledge, you know, like, well, I'll teach you this, but I don't want to teach you something else because then you might take my job. And uh, or I'm, you know, I've got this um position of importance, and so if I divulge everything I've learned, then I won't be important anymore.

Shaykh ibrahim 41:44

So, yeah, that's still our uh our feudal system. Uh that's kind of to me, I'm hearing the guilds. And uh working your way up from journeyman to apprentice.

Speaker 2 42:02

But it had to do with withholding a more complete understanding of something, like teaching three-quarters of something and then withholding the rest of it so that other person can't grab the whole thing. And somebody was saying, I know they're not explaining everything to me, and it's frustrating because I know there's more to it and they know it, and I can't. So, anyway, when we talk about equality, equanimity, equity, there are again so many levels, so many dimensions of that.

Shaykh ibrahim 42:45

All right, I just want to go back to what you were saying about that withholding. I there's a teaching technique that brings the student to a certain level so that the student can take the next step themselves. If they don't, they won't own it and they won't value it, they won't see it. So that's it, that's actually an important technique. If it's being used in a power play, then no, that's not right.

Speaker 2 43:18

And I think a lot of people do experience this in a power play. But it is a really great teaching technique because then the student has to think and ferret things out a bit and feel it and get into it for themselves.

Shaykh ibrahim 43:38

That's what tests are for. As a matter of fact, just going on the guilds, you become master when you complete the uh apprentices. Final, which is to do uh whatever you're supposed to be uh constructing or making is your master's degree. To me, all that's important, but uh anything anything can be a weapon. Oh yeah, that's true. That's true. So depending on the intention of how you're using it and why you're using it is all part of that. That's also kind of knowing what is the purpose of what's going on in this relationship or this discussion or any of these things. Are we this is am I being manipulated? Am I being used, or am I having a free and open conversation here? Am I learning, yeah, part of our assessment of being here and seeing. Okay. Rahman Y Rahim, Maliki Yomalen, Yakana Padu Yakana Staien, Idina Sarata Bustaqim, Saratalat Zinan Amta Alechim, Hairam Mahdubi Alechim Wala Day.