Unfortunately, the whole Islamic tradition, the whole philosophy throughout history has put teachings on the table on this subject. In fact, the self consists of a number of layers and is based on one’s assumptions or, to put it in a more understandable way, one’s experiences.
For example, the answer to why I am honorable is attributed to religion, laws, family and morality. All the information that comes after ‘because’ does not belong to the person. All the information we fill in there consists of religious, ethical, legal or familial knowledge taught without realization or belief. Even this question is unknown to us. Self-knowledge is the place that the prophet emphasized a lot and those who reach it are classified as sages or saints, and it can be gained through a long and arduous story.
The knowledge of the Creator belongs to several levels within itself. The first level is the knowledge of the creator we believe in and the realization of this knowledge beyond knowing. Again, the transformation of the knowledge of the creator that we believe in into a state, that is, the becoming of the human being, is a higher level. Therefore, when we believe in the knowledge that Allah sees me, we first know it as knowledge, but at the point of realizing or not realizing this knowledge, a person can easily commit every flaw in a place far away from the eyes or cameras that can see him. Because he is not yet aware of the subject, and if he is aware, it means that he has drawn himself to the center of himself in every stage of his life, as in the story of Yunus Emre.
So what do we mean by “becoming”? Our judgments about this suggestion are as follows: He sees me in the room, he sees me from everywhere to my right, to my left. This is not about life. For example, do you think about it? Are we getting oxygen? However, for us, breathing, I breathe like this, I breathe like this, we breathe without thinking that the breath is there for this, without saying that the breath is indispensable, this is the level of becoming.
Becoming: to be able to experience any information without thinking about the why and how of it. The man who says “Allah sees me” no longer needs a reminder or information on that subject. But the realization of knowledge does not stop there, it continues according to the people of wisdom. At that level, the knowledge of ‘God sees me’ of someone who does not have self-knowledge is unnecessary and redundant. It is even a burden to him. This is a great social wound. What does the fact that God sees me do for my self-knowledge? How does my essence benefit from this knowledge?
The elements that brought me into existence, geography, family, existed before my arrival and continue independently of me after my arrival. At school we were taught by rote that we should be happy as Turks. Stealing, lying is bad, I gathered all this moral information but I did not experience it. We cannot have a truth about anything in life that we have not experienced in terms of evil, sin, good deeds, mistakes. You can only memorize the truth that somebody else has experienced. Eventually you become a parrot. Parrots memorize the word, but they do not understand its meaning, and in their world there is no equivalent of the meaning of that word.
In high school, laws, ethics, morals, sexual, religious, political prohibitions are added and we become a constructed, constructed individual. One day, when we ask, “Who am I?” what do I get? For example, when I say I am moral, morality is just information that has been taught and attached to me. I was told that you are this, you should be this, I was taught law, ethics. And this does not belong to me, it happened outside of me.
However, we are talking about an I created by the world I live in. So this is not my essence. Years later I realized that being a Turk does not mean being happy. In fact, I am not hardworking or why should I be hardworking? Someone else said; “Say I am right” I have no experience that I am right. Maybe when I discover my own essence I will realize that I am not right. What is the difference if I am Turkish or English? If I have a value in my essence about being Turkish, I have not experienced this value, my richness, I have existed in virtual realities. Self-knowledge is therefore very valuable, if one spends one’s whole life trying to attain this knowledge, it is a work that would literally deify one, and again, without missing the point, the person who attains self-knowledge through experience actually discovers the Almighty.
In all my relationships, the narration I spoke about today and another narration that says ‘in every relationship, man is either a receiver, a giver or a mediator. Every relationship outside of this is destruction’. Whenever I have taken a step outside of this, I have had to pay a great price and have withdrawn.
In the age of aphorisms, saying or writing attention-grabbing memorized sentences is unfortunately the weakest formal journey a person can make to his own essence. Centuries ago, when people said, “He who knows his soul knows his Lord,” it was the experience of knowing one’s own being, knowing that one is a part of nature, that one occupies a spatial place in nature, and that nature and oneself, including oneself, are from Him.
