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No part of this work may be copied,
reproduced or
transmitted in any form
without the
prior written approval
of the author
© Shabbir Banoobhai
Author’s Website: www.veilsoflight.com
Email Address: shabbir@iafrica.com
Cover and book design by
Sumayya Essack,
Dizzy Blue Dezign
Edited by
Printed and bound by
Formeset Printers,
ISBN 0-620-36723-7
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For the last six years I have been very fortunate, managing to write a great deal during the month of fasting, Ramadan.
Some of the writing of the earlier years later found its way into two books: Wisdom in a Jug – Reflections of Love published in 1999 and Inward Moon Outward Sun published in 2002. The writing of Ramadan 2001 comprised both poetry and philosophical reflections. I shared these daily with my friends via email. This writing, including my friends’ responses and my replies, became the basis of a book called Lightmail, also published in 2002.
The output of Ramadan 2002 was totally unexpected: 33 poems arrived – at least one a day, sometimes more than one – over a period of 27 days. The entire process was both exciting and exhausting. When the first poem arrived on the first day of Ramadan I received it warmly, grateful for its presence. Then another arrived, and another. I shared them daily with my friends, moments after I had written them down.
This placed a huge burden on me after a while. As the days passed I could not be sure if what I was sending to my friends each day was as worthwhile as the writing of the preceding day. I had to rely on the feedback of my more critical friends that the writing was still worth reading. I had to hold myself throughout the month in a state of ‘balance’ – not being too expectant of receiving a new poem, yet not ‘refusing’ a poem if it chose to arrive!
I allowed the process to continue until late into Ramadan, by which time I was exhausted: often writing very early in the morning or late at night – getting up without any preset alarm – simply getting up, going to my desk, switching on my computer and starting to write – again and again, until finally I decided to stop the flow in case I was by then writing only for the sake of writing. Also, I was exhausted from the tension of meeting the daily expectations I had created amongst my friends!
Amongst those to whom I sent this writing
on a daily basis via email was a publisher-friend at the University of the
The story of how John Cleare came to
contribute his photographs to the book also needs to be told.
One evening, in a bookshop near my home, I came across an exquisite version of the Tao Te Ching – translated by Ralph Alan Dale; with photographs contributed by John Cleare. I had not seen John’s photographs previously and could not get over them. The photographs were stunning. But I already had another copy (an expensive, illustrated copy) of the Tao at home. And the book I was holding in my hands was even more expensive.
I wanted to buy the book but after considering the cost, and having a copy of the Tao already, I decided against purchasing it and replaced the book on the bookshelf. I walked around the store. Came back to the book. Picked it up again. Looked through it again. Contemplated purchasing it again. Decided, again, that it was far too expensive. Put the book back on the shelf. Walked around the store. Came back to the book. This time convinced myself I was buying a work of art. And bought the book.
I went home and studied the book yet
again, overwhelmed by its beauty. I got up early the next morning and went back
to the book. And then I felt compelled to call John Cleare to let him know how
much the photographs in the book had moved me. I went into the search engine Google,
typed in ‘John Cleare’ and learnt that he was one of
It was Saturday morning. I waited an hour
or so, making allowance for the time difference between
In the course of our conversation I asked him if he would consider contributing photographs to the book I was having published. I suggested he should read my work before deciding, and gave him the name of my website: www.veilsoflight.com – where I had already placed the poems in Book of Songs so that others could access them.
Two weeks later John emailed me to say he would be very happy to contribute his photographs to my book, now our book. And in November 2004 Book of Songs became a reality.
So much for the writing of Ramadan 2002. Ramadan 2003 saw me adopting a somewhat less strenuous approach. Again I let the poems arrive. But I deliberately did not try to write every day. Still, at the end of the month, there were enough poems for another book. When Ramadan 2004 came along I was determined from the outset that I would not write any poems during the month. There was simply no way of being sure I could maintain the ‘purity’ of the process. And yet I wanted to write.
I have spent a great deal of time – as have so many parents – trying to inculcate the values of truth, beauty, love, and justice in my children – my daughters, Tazkiyah and Ilhaam. Aware that much of what I had said to them over the years would be lost in time, I decided to leave them a lasting reminder of these values in the form of letters – writing not only to my children but also through my children, and on behalf of my friends to their children. As well as to my friends. And indeed to everyone else who cared to read what I was saying.
Each letter took several days to write. In the letters I tried to address both lasting and topical concerns. Above all I tried to address the problem of living with integrity and in peace in a world lacking both. And I particularly tried to help my children understand the Divine and why I consider that we ourselves are essentially Divine. I was aware of course that they would only appreciate some of the letters when they were much older!
Some of the letters were very long; some not so long. I wrote a total of seven letters during the month. After Ramadan I assessed what I had on hand. I felt that I should rearrange some of the subject matter in the letters, which I did. As I was effectively producing a book of letters, when Ramadan ended I continued writing. Looking at the work I realised that there was much that I had written over the years that was on my website and decided to include the core of this writing, especially the philosophical reflections, in the book.
I also incorporated some material published earlier in Lightmail which clarified or supported what I was saying in the letters, both into the original letters where the context required it and in the new letters written after Ramadan. I continued writing throughout the year and completed the book with letters written in the following Ramadan, a whole year later!
The final problem that had to be resolved
was what to call the book. Originally I called it: Ramadan Letters with
a sub-title: that can be read at Christmas or on any other day. But as I had not written all the letters
during Ramadan, I decided to change the title.
At about this time I happened to be reading a book that overwhelmed me with its simplicity and beauty. I thought to myself how wonderful it would be if I could write like that, almost without words. This thought gave birth to a phrase in my mind: if i could write…and led to a letter with this title that concluded the first series of my Ramadan letters; and also gave me the title of the book. But when the book grew I added a new concluding letter, before deciding to fuse these two letters that would otherwise have concluded two different halves of the book, into one!
So though not all the writing was done during Ramadan, and not every letter began as a ‘proper’ Ramadan letter, I think you will agree, given the context I have explained, that all the letters in the book are in essence ‘Ramadan letters’. Then where does the ‘story’ (in two parts, before and after the letters) come from? From one of the letters a friend suggested I should treat differently!
And yes: If I could write, I might well have written all these letters differently. But at least they constitute a sign of the love I feel for whoever reads them. And for now, that will have to suffice.
Shabbir Banoobhai
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Contents
Eighteen letters
and a story told in two parts
The story
begins
Letter 1: Living in peace, with
integrity
Letter 2: Knowing pain
Letter 3: Love
Letter 4: Love and justice
Letter 5: Good and bad
Letter 6: Injustice, redemption, mercy
and humility
Letter 7: Oppression, war and resistance
Letter 8: Some guidelines for living
Letter 9: More guidelines for living
Letter 10: The Divine
Letter 11: Consciousness
Letter 12: ‘Muhammad’, the consciousness
of God
Letter 13: God, the Qur’an and
consciousness
Letter 14: Doors to the Divine
Letter 15: Forgiveness
Letter 16: Love and fear
Letter 17: Adab, or knowing the proper
place of things
Letter 18: If I could write
The story concludes
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The story begins
The story begins with a dream of pieces of
paper flying across the sky. The observer wonders: where will all these pieces
of paper eventually land? What will become of them? Are they aware of who or what
they are? Are they concerned about their fate? Is a piece that eventually
carries a profound message of love written by a great poet, admired centuries
later in some library, more fortunate than one that fell into a fire not far
from where they began their journey together? Who decided the destiny of each
of these pieces? Can they change their destiny? Would they want to, if they
could?
Then the story goes back forever in time.
God has a dream. He dreams that He is (within Him is) a hidden Treasure – and
He desires to be known – desires the Treasure to be known. But nothing exists
besides Him. What is He to create in order to be known? And does He want to
know the Treasure, or does He want to be known as the owner of the Treasure?
Surely He already knows the Treasure or else He would not want to be known as
its owner!
But the Treasure does not know itself! How
can it appreciate its owner unless it knows its own value? For only if it knows
its own value will it appreciate its owner! And only then will its recognition
of its owner be of any value to the owner! But the Treasure (like water) has no
means of knowing itself. Water cannot drink itself and say: ‘Wow, this tastes
great! This drink just saved my life’.
God considers giving the Treasure names so
its value can become evident to it. Yet the Treasure is priceless, its value
unknowable. It is impossible to give it names that can do justice to it. In
fact names would limit it and diminish its value. But names are needed.
So God decides to give names not to the
Treasure but to ‘non-Treasure’, a ‘mirror of nothingness’! However,
‘nothingness’ does not exist – cannot exist for God is present everywhere! But
God is God and when He wants to do the impossible He simply makes it possible.
So He creates ‘nothingness’ from the Treasure itself!
He created a ‘mirror’ of ‘nothingness’, by
‘emptying’ the Treasure of its ‘self’ while it simultaneously remained
conscious of itself. Then, giving ‘non-Treasure’ (its) infinite names, He imbued
‘non-Treasure’ with a consciousness of the infinite potential of the Treasure
that was to be reflected on it, and created out of its consciousness of these
names, their reality. He gave ‘emptiness’ reality by giving its reality,
‘emptiness’, names! All that was now needed was to reflect the Treasure onto
the mirror of ‘non-Treasure’ so that it (He) could see itself (Himself) in
itself (His reflection, ‘us’)!
Then He opened His heart. And shone His
light upon the Treasure within so that the Treasure could see where it was. And
then He brought the mirror of ‘non-Treasure’ near. And in a moment of amazement
the Treasure saw every colour, hue and dimension of itself reflected in the
‘mirror of emptiness’. And the mirror was no more. In the place of emptiness
there was Treasure! Knowing and known.
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Living in peace, with integrity
How we see others reveals our own inner nature. What
we see outside us reveals what exists within us, defines us or limits us. What
we find out about the limitations of others is often also precisely how we are
found out by our own limitations. It is our inner deficiencies that invariably
attract our attention to aspects of the nature of others that irk us.
Dear Tazkiyah and Ilhaam
I am blessed. To have you in my life. To watch you grow. To be able to welcome another Ramadan in my life! A Ramadan when I want to create some clear space within me so that the ‘burning away’ (which is what ‘Ramadan’ means) can begin in earnest. And I want to start early. Before you wake up for Sehri. Wondering when you can begin to have your own space. Free to become more of you and less of me. Free to make Ramadan more (or less!) welcome in your lives than you are now. You might of course not fully realise what a challenging freedom that is.
But what does it mean to be blessed at a time when the whole world seems to be ‘unblessed’? What does it mean to be at peace at a time when everyone seems to be at war? How can one be at peace without confusing submission with resignation? Or giving up struggle, not wanting to be caught in strife? Or losing the courage to speak out against injustice? How, ultimately, can we live in peace, with integrity?
Living with integrity, for me, means living a life of indivisible wholeness. So much so that we become the pulse of all existence. So that our living mirrors all living. Our loving all loving. Our hopes all hopes. Our dreams all dreams. You would be entitled to ask: how is it possible to live a life of such oneness when we are all so different? One way of knowing whether we are succeeding or failing is by understanding that when we are driven by selfishness or greed or anger or prejudice or are fearful or arrogant or remain ignorant of what constitutes a healthy life, our behaviour cannot be the highest we are capable of!
Remember, in our relationships, as long as we fail to accord to others respect for their innate capacity for goodness, we will find it difficult to lift our own behaviour towards them above that which we believe they are capable of displaying towards us. It is therefore critical, if we are to uplift our own behaviour towards others, that we believe that the highest capacity for goodness exists within all of us.
How we see others reveals our own inner nature. What we see outside us reveals what exists within us, defines us or limits us. What we find out about the limitations of others is often also precisely how we are found out by our own limitations. It is our inner deficiencies that invariably attract our attention to aspects of the nature of others that irk us.
By examining our fears and prejudices, what causes us pain or what disturbs us in the behaviour of others, we can discover what deficiencies exist within us!
If, for example, two people walk out together into a dark night, what they make of their encounter with the darkness outside reveals what is within their hearts or minds. The one who is fearful will be apprehensive of every shadowy figure, real or imaginary. The one who is not, will be oblivious to all that the other fears. So often what drives us to notice flaws in others are deficiencies within ourselves.
If we are aware of this, every experience, encounter or thought can lead to the birth of a new self within us: a Christ born from what is revealed to us by our deepest selves in a form of Divine self-revelation. If we were all to be continually renewed through such self-revelation and self-renewal, which of our flaws would remain? And how different the world would be!
If we consider others to be intolerant or fundamentalist, that might not only mean, as we might be predisposed to thinking, that we are tolerant or liberal. It could also reveal our own intolerance or arrogance or lack of knowledge or understanding of the values of others. If we are intolerant towards people we consider intolerant, does that make us tolerant?
We cannot become what we are not by calling ourselves what we would like to be called! That requires much harder work. It requires us to overcome our own prejudices and weaknesses. It requires us to gain a deeper knowledge of others and their values, as our preconceptions may be wrong. We need to reflect on the values of others so that we can appreciate them and even change our own if necessary.
Our ability to see goodness in others is limited by the limits of our own goodness!
Remember: we find beauty by seeing beauty, we find love by being loving, we find grace by being gracious, we find joy by being happy, and we find life by keeping the spirit within us alive. Being alive to beauty we die to ugliness, being alive to love we die to hate, being alive to grace we die to cruelty, being alive to joy we die to sorrow, and keeping the spirit alive we die to death.
Therefore say to yourselves whenever you feel the need to reaffirm this: in everything I see, and feel, and hear, and touch, what I am experiencing is simply one form or another of love. So all is beauty whether it appears as beauty or ugliness, all is light regardless of the colour it is packaged in, all is music whether it is audible or inaudible, all is Divine speech whether spoken in words that are comprehensible or incomprehensible, all is movement whether it is visible or invisible, and all is grace whether it caresses the face of the world or leaves a scar on the earth.
The challenge of living a life of integrity is two-fold: understanding our essential selves so that we can live in harmony with the highest in our nature; and knowing how to relate to others who we consider are failing the highest that is within their nature.
The first of the two challenges is the more difficult. We tend to discount the first and see the second as the only challenge. Yet we can only meet the second successfully if we accept, meet and savour the first.
Oneness, the essence of integrity, begins with knowing oneself. But becoming whole and complete requires more. Hafiz, the Persian poet who wrote that God says: ‘I am made whole by your life. Each soul, each soul completes me’ provides a hint of what more is required in this profound insight into our, and God’s, ultimate integrity.
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Knowing pain
God
is above light and darkness, above beauty and ugliness. Yet we know Him as
light, see Him as beauty. This is the price we pay for being human. But both
beauty and ugliness reveal the Divine as the one cannot exist without the
other. Like an artist who elevates life by making the tangible intangible or
the intangible tangible, we rise above ourselves when the tangible around us
evokes the Divine within us. For as long as we differentiate between light and
darkness, pain exists. When darkness is understood as a form of light, pain
vanishes.
Dear Tazkiyah and Ilhaam
In my first letter I asked a number of difficult questions dealing with the challenges of living a life of peace, with integrity, in what seems to be an ‘unblessed’ world. I am glad I used the word ‘seems’, for the world, in reality, is always full of blessings. If you reflect on this enigmatic observation you may also feel the same one day. And though I may not have answered all the questions I raised, and you, graciously, have not asked me why, I need to ask myself: can we find comprehensible answers to these questions without stripping the problems of their complexity? To solve a difficult problem we might need to simplify the problem. But if we oversimplify the problem the answers might not provide real relief for our pain!
Before we proceed we need to know what causes pain, for only by understanding what causes pain can we overcome it. This understanding begins with a statement that might seem disconcerting initially: a self in pain is in need of pain!
But first I would like to share with you some earlier writing titled ‘Knowing Pain’. Keep in mind the ‘disconcerting’ final statement in the paragraph above. I will elaborate on this later. This is what I said in ‘Knowing Pain’.
‘God is above light and darkness, above beauty and ugliness. Yet we know Him as light, see Him as beauty. This is the price we pay for being human. But both beauty and ugliness reveal the Divine as the one cannot exist without the other. Like an artist who elevates life by making the tangible intangible or the intangible tangible, we rise above ourselves when the tangible around us evokes the Divine within us. For as long as we differentiate between light and darkness, pain exists. When darkness is understood as a form of light, pain vanishes.
‘Pain arises when the self separates from its essence. A self in pain is in need of pain. For pain is the wood that needs to be burnt for the self to be freed of its vision of duality. Once we see the Divine everywhere, pain is replaced by peace.
‘Separation arises from placing a price tag on our love – which is priceless but has no value until it is given away, for no consideration, to everyone, whether they deserve our love or not. If we consider someone as not being deserving of our love, our love is not worthy of being given!
‘We have no way of knowing who deserves our love. By differentiating we introduce pain into our lives. Pain is the outcome of seeing good and evil, beauty and ugliness, light and darkness; preferring the beauty of God to His majesty, or His majesty to His beauty. It is the result of remaining earthed to the self even as we struggle to be free of the self. When we love unconditionally, pain ceases, its job done. Pain is necessary as it is required to burn the “self”, the veil that separates the essence of the self from its source.
‘When the intellect, the spirit of God within us, ignites love, it burns up the pain and creates enlightenment. In one sense love is darkness, but the darkness is another form of light. In another sense love is the carrier of light or self-burning light. If pain is wood, then love is fire. If love is the outcome of pain, that is good pain. If pain is the outcome of love that is bad love.’
Now let me continue and try and explain in more detail the statement: a self in pain is in need of pain. Assume you are thirsty. Call the thirst pain. You require water to quench your thirst. When someone places a glass of water on a table in front of you, you reach out for it and drink it as quickly as possible; and probably ask for more and drink that. You needed thirst (pain) to remind you that something was lacking in your body. It was effectively dying without water. That is why we sometimes say ‘I am dying of thirst’ when we are very thirsty. Clichés can be more powerful than we give them credit for!
But now assume that instead of being thirsty, you are angry (dying from anger); or assume you are feeling lonely and dejected (dying from alienation); or you lack the knowledge to assess the true value of something – life or death or war or peace – what will this lack of understanding result in, but pain? The pain is no different to the pain caused by a lack of water; it acts as a reminder that something critical is lacking in our understanding and forces us to do something about it.
Consider what happens when someone helps you calm down, or befriends you, or helps you understand why what is happening may be good for you. As your understanding grows, your pain diminishes, and hopefully disappears. When you are no longer in pain there is no longer any need for pain – for there is no longer any problem to cure. You can now spend your time doing something else; learning something new. So too, once your thirst has been quenched, if another glass of water is placed in front of you, you do not even notice it. Imagine if you were still thirsty and the glass of water was placed outside your reach!
Once we understand why we are in pain, the understanding grows into a healing insight that diminishes the pain. This does not necessarily mean the problem disappears, but the pain diminishes. The problem no longer hurts as much as before because the knowledge we have acquired places the problem in perspective. When there is less pain the problem can be tackled with less anger and hence with greater wisdom, for anger is the enemy of wisdom. As anger diminishes, the inherent friendship of the world, which previously seemed inaccessible, suddenly becomes evident even if the physical presence of friends is not evident at first. Later friends become visible everywhere and we may even conclude, as our understanding of good evolves and becomes all-encompassing, that someone we previously considered an enemy is the friend we have been seeking all our lives!
A self in pain, I said, is in need of pain. But we can also translate this as: a self in pain is in need of love. If we are loved, our (psychological) pain will nearly always diminish. Why does this happen? We concluded earlier that a person in pain lacks some knowledge that can help him or her overcome some problem and this lack gives rise to pain. Love heals pain because love is the highest form of knowing there is – so someone who is loved (knows love) is healed by this essential inner knowledge.
What if we are not loved or do not feel loved even if we are? Do not wait to be loved to find love. Love others before they love you. Our loving others means we are loved. For God loves us before we love Him and we can only love others because we are loved ourselves. We cannot know if we are loved unless we love. If we believe we are loved (by God) then its proof must be found in our loving (others).
Our understanding of love and loving should always be the highest understanding possible. If we misunderstand love or loving we will remain in pain. If love causes us pain it means we love someone or something we should not be loving, or we do not love someone or something we should be loving, or do not love them in the way we should.
The more exclusive our loving, the more likely we are to remain in pain outside that area of exclusive loving – so although love relieves pain, partial loving relieves pain partially. It is only in loving all of creation with a deep, wholesome love that we can eliminate pain altogether. Pain, then, is the barometer of our love and of our understanding of love.
A critical question remains: what if we feel no pain, not because we are full of compassionate love but, on the contrary, because we are so focused on our own needs that we have cut off everyone else from our lives and feel nothing towards others – neither love, nor pain; or we have no desire to know anything of anyone except, perhaps, our immediate family, friends or a specific community or nation?
In such instances, where our humanity has already been diminished, how will we know that the absence of pain indicates a diminished humanity? For if our humanity has already been diminished it may no longer be possible for us to understand that it has diminished!
I stated earlier that when we love others our pain diminishes. And now I find myself saying that a lack of pain can also reflect that we do not love at all! How can we know whether a lack of pain is the result of our having succeeded in loving as we should, or stems from selfishness and not loving others at all? The answer lies not in our awareness of the absence of pain but in our awareness of the presence of joy in our lives. When we truly love others a deep joy springs from within us as a result of an inner well-being. If our loving leads to such inner well-being, without any inner conflict, then invariably, it is good or healthy loving – but not if it does not. Otherwise we may mistake, as joy, fleeting pleasure from participating in something that is destructive to our body or soul.
Where there is presence of joy intermingled with pain it means our love or loving is still flawed. Pain reflects the extent of our knowledge and our ignorance. Joy is a reflection of deep inner good, an internal awakening of a light that lights up our love and makes us rejoice in the presence of grace.
The narrower we make the field of our love the more likely we are to feel pain if someone stops loving us. If we love just one person and that person for some reason stops loving us, we will feel we have lost everything; but if we love the whole world, any single loss, even if it means a great deal to us, will still be bearable. This means that we should continually broaden our love and finally make it all-inclusive!
I have spent a great deal of time reflecting on the nature and causes of pain and what pain reveals, as it is essential for you to have this understanding if you are to live a life of peace and integrity. If you fail to understand pain and what causes loss of peace, you will never know, even if you think you are at peace, whether it is a peace based on integrity.
In the book Islam and Secularism, the author (Syed Naquib al-Attas) states that we can be said to have acquired knowledge of something only when its meaning has been understood within our hearts – and has transformed us. Until then we cannot truly say that we have understood anything.
Effectively our actions reveal whether we have understood something, for they will be transformed by our understanding. So remember this, for it can reveal whether you have learnt from your pain!
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The sky, the sea, the earth, the mountains, the
rivers, the trees, are all manifestations of Divine love. They are not just formed
by love, not just created because God loves or because of His love, but are
themselves revelations of love – in fact we can say they are love. Everything we see, feel,
touch, hear, is (His) love. We see His love, we feel His love, we touch His
love, and we hear His love. That is all we ever do – from morning until
evening, waking or sleeping, from birth until we die.
Dear Tazkiyah and Ilhaam
In the heartland of light the entire landscape – mountains, rivers, trees – and all those who inhabit them – plants, animals and people – belong to a King and Queen who use their names interchangeably so that one day the King is called Queen and the next day the Queen is called King, making one wonder why one ever saw any difference between them or their subjects, who are also called by many names but are equally responsive no matter what they are called.
All around one and within one is an ongoing, unending mystery. It is the ongoing mystery within one that reveals the unending mystery outside, as much as it is the ongoing mystery outside that reveals the unending mystery within one. One step, the step away from oneself, one is told, is all that is required to emerge from loss to love, from love to light, from longing to being, from being a servant without a King, or a Queen without a servant, to being King, Queen and servant in one.
And yet that one step can seem one step too far – so far that one can fail to take it and so find oneself forever enmeshed where one began – like a footprint bound to a rock: alive but not alive, indicating a time when a living being stood in that spot and admired who knows what beauty, or stood transfixed in the face of who knows what terror, or contemplated who knows what loneliness or felt who knows what joy.
In the heart of the heartland, one step away from oneself, the spirit is light but not light only, the intellect is spirit-knowing light, or light-knowing spirit, the soul dark but the darkness another form of light, and love the soul of light. The journey of the self, from (its) self to selflessness, appears as a journey from darkness to light, but in reality all that exists is light and light alone. Darkness is the pulse of light. Once unveiled by love, darkness becomes a vessel of light. Underneath the duplicity of light and darkness, and the multiplicity of all that exists and appears different, each separate existence exists as an essential aspect of Divine grace that can be seen everywhere, arriving in every hue, colour and form – on the wings of the wind – or on the waves – or in silence – the heartbeat of sound.
The sky, the sea, the earth, the mountains, the rivers, the trees, are all manifestations of Divine love. They are not just formed by love, not just created because God loves or because of His love, but are themselves revelations of love – in fact we can say they are love. Everything we see, feel, touch, hear, is (His) love. We see His love, we feel His love, we touch His love, and we hear His love. That is all we ever do – from morning until evening, waking or sleeping, from birth until we die.
A manifestation of God’s love is also at the same time a manifestation of His light. And if His love can be seen as a mountain then strength is an aspect of love and love an aspect of strength. But strength is also an aspect of justice and justice of strength. Similarly, the sky is a manifestation of love in its purity, the earth, of love in its forgiving softness and a tree, of love in its protectiveness. So not only is everything in creation a manifestation of love but it is also simultaneously a manifestation of light, justice and every quality of the Divine, and every quality of the Divine is an aspect of every other quality of the Divine.
Only by considering ourselves love itself do we remain one with love and remain loved while loving – so that in our loving love alone triumphs and any risk of belittling that which is loved and that which loves disappears. The Divine remains Divine, love remains love and everything else fades into the realm of the non-essential.
To love someone means to see the beauty of the Divine in someone. Who
then, should we not love? Love by loving, not by thinking about love, nor by
meditating upon it. Love everyone and everything to reach the heart of love,
and the heart of the heart of love. Love naturally, not artificially. Love
creates turbulence, turbulence necessitates communication – communication
pacifies love. Love once generated is inextinguishable. It is the cause of
creation, the source of life.
The need to express itself is inherent in everything. It is only when we start to bear the fruits of the gifts we have, that we become what we should be. If a tree looked like an orange tree but bore no oranges, would we call it an orange tree? The first orange tree only became an orange tree when it bore oranges. Then other trees became orange trees by bearing oranges. So too, we become human finally when we bear the fruit of being Divine!
For the love of God to fill our hearts, our hearts must be emptied even of the consciousness of our love for God. Otherwise there is a danger that we could love the thought of loving Him, instead of loving Him. True loving signals the dying of a selfish self and the birth of a selfless self. The selfless self always exists within us. It just needs to be preferred to our selfish self. The way to make the selfless self come alive is by being selfless and loving!
Love is about giving, not receiving. Love is a creative power. It compels one to proclaim its existence. Love heals, makes complete. Love bears fruit. Since it is a Divine gift, the fruit it bears is Divine. Human consciousness is transcended, and Divine consciousness revealed.
Decreasing our love of the lower increases our love of the
higher, which decreases our love of the lower, which increases our love of the
higher – this continues until we reach the highest realm of love. Effectively
to reach a higher love we need to forego a lower love – loving and foregoing
love again and again until we are one with the highest love.
Heal others by loving them. But do not love others because you want to heal them. If you love others because you want to heal them you will inevitably stop loving them when you start to believe, for some reason or other, that you are unable to heal them or come to the conclusion that they are ‘incapable’ of healing.
Remember also that what we see in others reflects what we are – seeing others as unworthy reflects our own unworthiness. At the highest level of being we would see a Divine consciousness everywhere. Seeing the Divine in human beings does not mean that flawed human beings become flawless. It simply means we are able to see beyond the human to the Divine, regardless of whether others are able to honour the Divine within themselves.
Our failing to see the Divine within others is as great a failing as their own in failing to honour the Divine within themselves. It is this very humanity we possess and the failings of humanity that should lead us to a vision that is overwhelmed by Divine Essence.
Those who oppress others ultimately oppress themselves and must be helped through our love. But our love will only flow if we believe there is more to the oppressor than we see on the surface. If we see only an oppressive action, the only remedy we will find is a reaction that counters the oppressor using the only ‘language’ we believe he or she ‘speaks’ or understands.
Yet the desire for justice must always be combined with the need for mercy. Only justice and mercy combined result in the attainment of real peace. Without justice, oppression will continue, and this is untenable. But without mercy, the Divine within the oppressor would be done an injustice by the oppressed, who would now be the ‘oppressor’. The more we see the Divine in ourselves, the more we will see the Divine in others.
And finally, Tazkiyah, in practical terms, if one day the young man in your life does not receive the kind of attention he is getting at present, he should only ask you why he was no longer being loved to the same extent as before, after he was sure it was not some change in his behaviour towards you that had caused a change in your behaviour towards him; and equally if you ever felt less loved, before you question his love for you, examine your love for him, for you might have become less loving towards him and so diminished the love returning to you! In such circumstances the first to restore his or her love is the one who is the more generous. Generosity is the single most essential quality needed to ensure a healthy, lasting relationship with someone one loves. It is the hallmark of love.
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Love and justice
Our future will not be secure unless our love is
demonstrated in our actions as an essential aspect of our understanding of
justice; nor will it be secure unless we understand and demonstrate that we
consider justice as an essential aspect of our love. Then only will we be able
to live a life of peace, with integrity. When we rethink the meaning of love we
will no longer consider love a weakness that compromises the search for justice
and equality.
Dear Tazkiyah and Ilhaam
Earlier I discussed the place of pain in our lives so that you may find certainty that the peace you know has been built on integrity. If we are in pain, we cannot be at peace, and therefore cannot, in respect of what has caused that pain, be muslim, for to be muslim means to be at peace and to live in peace, with integrity.
But how is peace to be found ultimately? Peace can be found most easily by following the guidelines provided in the Qur’an, and the Sunnah, or Prophetic practice – being transformed by their message of oneness, compassion, justice, and love of the Divine – primarily through appreciating these with the intellect. The way of the heart, the way of love, is by its very nature less visible, as the home of love is silence, while justice thrives on making itself known. In reality both the way of the intellect and the way of love are one, except that love underlies the intellect in the former and the intellect underlies love in the latter.
So try to do good where and how you can. Speak out against injustice whatever the circumstances. Be prepared to sacrifice what you love for love itself. Remember that for as long as you are growing you cannot be fully at peace, so do not be too disappointed if you are not totally at peace. Accept this as a sign that you are growing. The more successful you are, the more likely it is that one day you will be completely at peace, with the most profound understanding of goodness – when you understand that Divine goodness is to be found everywhere and that ultimately everything, in its essence, is good.
Much of what we see around us is a mirrored vision of ourselves. So find out the truth about yourselves and your feelings. Your actions will inevitably reveal your true selves – as well as what kind of knowledge or lack of knowledge is shaping you.
Remember also that the truth and a way that leads to the truth are very different things. We cannot substitute the preservation of the way for the preservation of the truth that the way leads to. In any event, the truth is self-preserving and incapable of destruction. Our attempts to preserve the way are actually attempts at self-preservation. This is natural and good, so acknowledge this, and do not destroy the way, nor use the preservation of the way or the truth as a reason for destructive behaviour.
The death of any individual is holocaust enough for a loved one. In developing your understanding of love, remember that each soul deserves the ultimate caring. It is therefore easier to live in love, than to live demanding perfect justice, as perfect justice depends on having perfect knowledge, which no one has, except God. But remember too that as much as an individual survives through love, society as a whole survives through justice.
Since justice should not be separated from love, compassion should always be its companion! Otherwise we will all become thugs – and some of us may become God’s thugs even – as is happening in the world today in the conflict between the powerful and the powerless. In this there is no equality of goodness – as there is no goodness in the minds of the thugs on both sides – only greed disguised as concern, enslavement disguised as liberation, brutality disguised as resistance.
An essential oneness underlies all existence. Ultimately even the physical is spiritual, as there is nothing that does not confirm or reflect the Divine. But this is an understanding you may only appreciate as your wisdom grows through loving. Love and justice are closer to one another than we imagine, despite their difference. Think of love and justice in the context of a couple about to be married. Consider love as the bride, justice as the groom, and call the marriage of the two, Islam. The gift of the groom to the bride is the gift of doing justice to love. The gift of the bride to the groom is the gift of loving justice. When the two become one, the true nature of each is revealed.
Justice is reminded that an essential constituent of its nature is love, and love is reminded that an essential constituent of its nature is justice. Only when love and justice, our hearts and minds, fuse in this way and become one, can we live in peace, with integrity. On their own, both love and justice may think themselves superior when in reality they (like light and darkness) are one. Love is God’s light that has been made dark so that it can become visible to man, and justice is God’s light that shines in the darkness so that it can be made brighter! Together they validate the integrity of Islam and its message of oneness.
We call this meeting-ground
where love and justice meet, mercy. Remarkably there is a mountain called the ‘
Islam, thus understood, is also a meeting place of heaven and earth, of paradise and hell, of illusion and reality, as opposed to a place of separation and disintegration; it is a meeting place of two streams of consciousness, of the physical and the spiritual, or the human and the Divine. When these two streams successfully merge into a single stream of consciousness (of oneness), where the physical is one with the spiritual, and where this world is as good as the next, then only will we be able to live a life of peace, with integrity.
Light separates. Love integrates. But God, being integrity personified, is light that is love and love that is light. Only when we similarly integrate light and love will we too know peace, with integrity.
Our future will not be secure unless our love is demonstrated in our actions as an essential aspect of our understanding of justice; nor will it be secure unless we understand and demonstrate that we consider justice as an essential aspect of our love. Then only will we be able to live a life of peace, with integrity.
When we rethink the meaning of love, we will no longer consider love a weakness that compromises the search for justice and equality. No, it is the very essence of the search for justice, as the highest justice is to recognise oneness, and only with love can we recognise oneness. When we rethink the meaning of justice, we will no longer believe that peace is possible without justice, for justice is the essence of love and not-loving is itself an injustice.
This might seem strange to you but the scope for injustice comes from God’s justice to us! God’s sense of justice in allowing us to love Him or not is the reason why injustice becomes possible. In God’s loving lies the best example of how closely love and justice are related to each other. Such is the power of love, that God displays a willingness to ‘sacrifice’ His right to exist as He is, alone, for the right to love someone He ‘creates’, who will love Him in return.
But because of the manner in which God does this, He does not compromise His oneness, as essentially – Rumi says – ‘we exist in His mind’. This is a very interesting concept I shall explain in depth later. If He had not ‘created us’ the power of His love would not have been realised, resulting in a great injustice to His love. This again confirms the power of His love. But also His love could not have materialised if His sense of justice had been deficient. Both justice and love are essential facets of Divine intellect. It is God’s sense of justice that allows His love to express itself – He does justice to His love by loving. But this same sense of justice could equally have prevented His love from bearing the fruits of its loving – for love has the capacity and the responsibility to forgive injustice – which is not the primary aim of justice!
What then prevents justice from curtailing the ability of love to love? Firstly, God’s justice is bound to do justice to love once it has allowed love to love, which implies it has to allow love to forgive injustice! But justice (if it had no appreciation of love) could not have permitted this. Therefore justice too must appreciate love (be subject to love) for love to be allowed to retain this privilege. Therefore justice, rather than being unjust to love (which needs to do justice to its own nature!), accedes to love’s need to love freely (effectively to forgive injustice). This heightens justice’s own awareness of the love that must exist within itself for it could not have been possible otherwise for love to love freely without doing an injustice to justice!
Love too gains a heightened understanding of the sense of justice that exists within itself, for were it not for its sense of justice (wanting to do justice to its own nature), it would have succumbed to being secondary to justice and limited itself to loving partially, continually having to refer to justice for guidance on what to love. Instead it provides guidance to justice without doing injustice to it. If justice did not love love, love might find it impossible to love justice, since it would perceive that justice was being unjust to it. And love itself would be compromised if there was no justice underlying it. So the presence of justice in love and love in justice is what makes harmony possible and integrity a reality. Ultimately, there is no greater injustice than not-loving and no greater justice than loving.
Love loves justice but is nevertheless able to forgive injustice – because it loves the Divine Essence that is to be found in everyone, even in the unjust. But this once again reveals the deep sense of justice that love possesses, for love loves the essence in everything and does not confuse the essence of someone (which remains flawless) with the injustice committed by his or her lower self. If we see love and justice in this light we can live a life devoted to love, almost never need to mention the word justice and yet be perfectly aware of the underlying justice that exists in all loving, even in loving that which may not perceptibly appear just. Or we could view life through the lens of justice, rarely mentioning love, knowing full well that there is no higher justice than loving!
Of course, if our understanding lacked comprehensiveness and depth and we reduced justice to a single dimension and associated it only with retribution, it would soon make us harsh and vengeful; and if we lacked comprehensiveness and depth in our understanding of love, our love would be emaciated and selective, as we would love only ourselves and deal with everyone else, especially those who hurt us, with the harshness and vengeance of those who have no understanding of love, and only a one-dimensional understanding of justice.
As justice recognises the power of love, we may conclude that justice is wise, and is a facet of Divine intellect. And as love knows its own power and yet understands justice, it too is wise, and a facet of Divine intellect. Love also displays courage in standing up for justice, and justice humility, in giving in to love. If both love and justice were not suffused with Divine intellect both would be flawed!
In concluding this letter I want to ask you to spend some time reflecting on what I have said. May it help you to understand love, why we love, who we are, our relationship with the Divine, and how all of creation is imbued with Divine intellect and an intrinsic oneness.
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Good and bad
So
‘we’ are no better than ‘they’ and ‘they’ would be no good (to Him) without ‘us’.
But ‘they’ acquire a different meaning to ‘us’ when we live apart from Him and
separate ourselves from ‘them’. When we live as ‘Him’ we know that ‘they’ too
are ‘Him’, whether ‘they’ themselves know this or not! And when we live as
ourselves, separate from Him, ‘they’ too appear as having an existence apart
from Him even though ‘they’ may be living as ‘Him’.
Dear Tazkiyah and Ilhaam
Ultimately, at a profound level, no one is better than another. This might seem to be a very problematic observation, and it is. Therefore do not accept what I am saying unless you have a very deep understanding of the subject. This letter and the next must not be taken at face value. You are unlikely to understand them immediately, but might some day. Or you may always disagree with me. I would be happier if, despite (intellectually) understanding what I say here, you felt that in the real world this understanding serves no purpose, than if you agreed with me without understanding!
Through those of us that are good God knows Himself by the attributes He possesses. Through those of us that are bad He knows Himself by attributes He does not possess. Therefore whether we are good or bad is ultimately of no consequence to Him as He alone exists; and there is no ‘us’ in the sense that we think there is an ‘us’, as far as He is concerned. And although He is good, that in itself is meaningless to Him for there are no opposites as far as He is concerned. He just is!
His awareness of what He is arises through His own thoughts. Because He alone is real (alone exists) we cannot be real in the sense that He is real, or exist in the sense that He exists. But because we are His ‘thoughts’ and He is real and really exists, we too become ‘real’ and ‘exist’. But we tend to confuse our existence (as ‘His’) with an existence that is ‘ours’. We tend to make our reality (His reality) our unreality; and our unreality (a separate existence) our reality.
Even though we may not be real when we are being ‘real’, we are free to consider ourselves real; and to separate ourselves from Him – be ‘good’, change from being ‘good’ to ‘bad’ or become better than we were. Yet all of these are good to Him; good for Him. For all our actions, indeed our very natures, reflect knowledge of Him to Him. The whole of creation reflects this knowledge to Him. In this context, nothing is more important or less important to Him. In the totality of this expression His knowledge of Himself becomes complete.
So ‘we’ are no better than ‘they’ and ‘they’ would be no good (to Him) without ‘us’. But ‘they’ acquire a different meaning to ‘us’ when we live apart from Him and separate ourselves from ‘them’. When we live as ‘Him’ we know that ‘they’ too are ‘Him’, whether ‘they’ themselves know this or not! And when we live as ourselves, separate from Him, ‘they’ too appear as having an existence apart from Him even though ‘they’ may be living as ‘Him’.
This is both bad – we are separating ourselves from Him – and good. For if we do not know ourselves in our differences, how will we know ourselves and Him in our oneness? Oneness is revealed through diversity, difference, opposites. When we see good and bad, light and darkness in this way, conflict and pain vanish. Life and death themselves acquire a new meaning. The one is not more to be valued or loved than the other. One form of dying is simply another form of living.
This may seem all very well in theory (as a theory) but we might argue that the reality is different: the world is full of tyranny, oppression, war, death, starvation, disease, and natural and unnatural disasters.
If everyone and everything is good and God is good (kind, compassionate, loving) how (and why) does such misery exist? To understand, we need to consider the following: ultimately, if God alone exists, surely there is no injustice that He can possibly commit. Who would He be unjust to? Himself? But even then – to be unjust requires that one’s knowledge (or loving) be deficient. Yet His knowledge and loving are perfect, complete. He is perfection. But what if we do not believe this? How then will we understand?
Perhaps we may consider accepting, even if we do not believe in Him, that if He did exist and was perfect, our doubting Him might not diminish us in His eyes. To Him, our doubting itself might be as good as our believing. But we also need to acknowledge that our disbelieving (does not) cannot disprove His existence as an all-knowing, just, perfect, and loving God. For nothing of what He is could be known to us if we did not know its opposite. And the opposites are not to be found in Him. There are no opposites within Him. It is in us, through us and our ‘imperfection’ that He knows His perfection. But if He is perfect and the spirit of the perfect resides within us, what causes such ‘imperfection’ to arise in us – an ‘imperfection’ (it might not be seen as such by Him!) that implies the existence of ‘perfection’ – yet simultaneously questions its existence?
The mind causes this ‘imperfection’ to arise when it tries to distinguish ‘light’ from ‘darkness’ without understanding God’s oneness. As a result it creates the existence of ‘other than God’. The mind, as an instrument of creation, is limited by the very knowledge it possesses. Therefore when the mind creates a replacement for the Divine Presence the replacement is a reflection of our own ego. But even this is not bad, as all striving to understand is good.
For this reason, striving to overcome evil is good and necessary when we live (as we do for the most part) as physical beings in a physical world – even if we do not consider such striving to be a striving towards the Divine. But if we could detach ourselves from the physical and become aware that everything that exists is Divine, all differences (as differences) would disappear – including the difference between good and bad.
One crucial question remains. If there is no ‘good’ or ‘bad’, why should anyone struggle? Why should we try to be ‘good’ rather than ‘bad’? Here lies the final test of our understanding. ‘Good’ and ‘bad’ are of no consequence to God – as He alone exists. And would be of no consequence to us if we were to exist as ‘Him’. But when we exist as ‘other than Him’, we create not only the need for but also the consequences of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in our lives. The consequences of creating ‘good’ should be good and the consequences of creating ‘bad’ should be bad.
Though in a profound sense we are all ‘good’, because we are imperfect, and rely on an imperfect understanding of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, a good person’s seeing evil as ‘good’ should not be equated with an evil person’s seeing evil as ‘good’. Unfortunately, living, as we do, lives that are both spiritual and physical, we remain mired in a world of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, with its consequences. The more we live as physical beings, the more removed we become from a divine understanding of the Divine. The more we acquiesce to the spirit of God within us, the more we will see good only as we begin to understand His and our oneness.
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Letter 6
Injustice, redemption, mercy and humility
Of course, the doing of justice to justice is what we should always be striving for. And we should not condone injustice. But what if someone has committed an injustice? Is nothing to be gained from it? How would we know the meaning of justice unless we knew the meaning of injustice? Naturally it is better to learn this from a mistake someone else has already made, a mistake we could not prevent. Therefore we must find, if we can, some redemption for those making mistakes; as their mistakes help us to avoid similar mistakes!
Dear Tazkiyah and Ilhaam
I had this staggering thought (again) today that actually made me cry, and which (again) I possibly should not be sharing with you, as it could be misunderstood and, if it is, you might accuse me of not understanding my responsibilities as a human being. I might appear not only to be condoning injustice but worse, promoting it. Therefore this letter, like the previous one, needs (this) distancing: if you start to feel that I am suggesting injustice is at all acceptable, then you have misunderstood me. And if you come to the conclusion that being good does not seem that much better than being bad, then again you have misunderstood me.
But if you arrive at the conclusion that doing good is good but could become better if we did not think so much of the good we have done, and did not as a result become bad, then that is good. If you understand that being bad is really very bad and bad people should be stopped in the best possible way from being bad, but that even the very worst of bad people do not escape the ‘grasp’ of their Creator (who is always good), then that too is good. For then you are starting to understand that there must be something in unjust people, or related to their unjust actions, that is always good, no matter how bad they are – even if they do not know or appreciate this.
Of course the good may not be sufficient in the physical world for us to overlook the bad they are doing, and may not be sufficient to save them from any punishment that should be meted out to them to safeguard society from their continuing evil.
But let us see if we can gain a higher level of understanding of justice, injustice, what constitutes the ultimate crime towards God, what is ultimately forgivable, and what is not. When we are punished, it might not be for the reason we believe we are being punished; or alternatively, we may still be capable of being forgiven when we think we have done something so wrong that it has set us outside the ambit of forgiveness.
What I understood today that staggered me is that related to every human act, even to an act that is patently an unjust one, is some element of justice! Remember I am not saying that an unjust act per se is just. I am simply saying that in every unjust act there exists a link to justice that even the perpetrator of the injustice, in all probability, is not aware of! Equally in every act that appears to be devoid of love there exists an element of love – even if it is misguided love.
What is this element of justice linked to an act of injustice? The element is the ‘doing of justice’ to the knowledge of injustice; a knowledge that might help us do justice to justice! But then, as you rightly commented when I tried to explain this to you earlier, Tazkiyah: why on earth would anyone want to do justice to injustice? Why not simply do justice to justice?
The answer to this very perceptive and wholesome reply is this: of course, the doing of justice to justice is what we should always be striving for. And we should not condone injustice. But what if someone has committed an injustice? Is nothing to be gained from it? How would we know the meaning of justice unless we knew the meaning of injustice? Naturally it is better to learn this from a mistake someone else has already made, a mistake we could not prevent.
Therefore we must find, if we can, some redemption for those making mistakes; as their mistakes help us to avoid similar mistakes! And we might find this redemption more easily if we ask whether a person who has committed an act of injustice has managed totally to escape ‘the grasp of God’.
Can we, at any moment of our lives, escape God totally? We cannot. When we commit injustice that is certainly a wrong-doing. We move outside the realm of goodness. But even in committing an injustice (lighting up darkness) we are functioning (even minimally) as lights: as lights of darkness – doing justice to the knowledge of light by lighting up the knowledge of darkness. Not that we are aware of the good in what we are doing, but because we have not escaped ‘good’ totally, we have not (ultimately) escaped the Divine. Not completely shrugged off our connection to the Divine! Not escaped being ‘just’ in some way!
Unjust people are not likely to be conscious of this justice associated with the injustice that they are committing. That is why we punish them for the injustice they are conscious of. As for God: the fact that there is some justice that can even remotely be construed as being connected to an unjust act allows God to exercise mercy towards the unjust. And so when the wrong-doer acknowledges a wrong-doing and particularly when he or she returns to goodness, the doors of forgiveness always open.
If there is Divine punishment for the wrong-doing, ultimately it is not so much for the wrong done, as for the wrong-doer’s believing that he or she can ‘escape’ the Divine, escape ‘goodness’ totally, for the arrogance of believing we can do what we like, how we like, when we like – and effectively be ‘God’. This is regarded as shirk, the single unmitigated sin in Islam. If we extend the understanding that there is an element of justice in every act of injustice, then there is some compensating good in every act of evil (not necessarily a matching compensation), but there is no compensating good for setting oneself up as ‘God’.
If this element of justice can ultimately lead the perpetrators of injustice back to God’s grace, as long as the perpetrators do not consciously believe that they have managed to turn their backs on God (by becoming another ‘God’, having the power to do as they like), then what of the doer of good? How safe is the doer of good from injustice to God in his or her doing of good? And how safe is the lover of God from doing an injustice to God in his or her loving of God?
If doing good or loving good (or God) leads the doer to a semblance of ‘spiritual pride’, then the doer of good has ultimately arrived at exactly the same door of shirk through the doing of good, as the doer of bad has arrived at by thinking he or she has ‘escaped’ God! So in every act of goodness there is as much, if not more, danger of forgetting God as there is of remembering God. For if taking credit for a good act creates as a result, a self-made ‘God’ of us, it effectively negates our goodness; and may be considered as negating God.
Where does all this lead to? Not so long ago I wrote that in our relationship with God, there are two essential qualities we should have. The one was gratitude; the other humility. It is clear from what I have just explained in this letter, that the quality that must take precedence over every other quality is humility! It is also worth dwelling on this observation: the existence of good in ourselves (even if we are not conscious of it) can ultimately lead us to God. On the other hand, a consciousness of good that leads us to become egoistical can keep us away from God.
If you now understand what I have tried to explain in this letter and the previous one (this one might be somewhat easier to understand than the previous one, since that is more conceptual and this more explanatory) then you have done well. Understanding does not imply that you believe that this knowledge will necessarily make your day-to-day living easier!
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Oppression, war and resistance
Our loving cannot depend on others. If everyone’s
loving was dependent on the peaceful or loving behaviour of others and most people
chose the path of violence, would it mean that those who love peace have no
choice but to become violent as well? Surely not!
Dear Tazkiyah and Ilhaam
There is no romance in war. Who can know how those who have been involved in war have been affected by their killings, no matter how valid the cause? Imagine someone who has been forced to kill others in some war returning home, sitting down with his family to have a meal, and then hugging his child before going to bed. Whose child is he really holding if he has knowingly or mistakenly killed someone else’s child in the conflict – is he holding his child or the child he has killed?
Imagine this happening throughout a country or region. Consider what kind of society will follow when the war is done – surely one that is destined to disintegrate in time. So war should be avoided if at all possible or should be ended at the earliest opportunity; otherwise no one will be able to live in peace, with integrity. Our loving cannot depend on others. If everyone’s loving was dependent on the peaceful or loving behaviour of others and most people chose the path of violence, would it mean that those who love peace have no choice but to become violent as well? Surely not!
And does it mean that those who love peace can only become peaceful or loving again to the extent that others become peaceful or loving? If we acted in this way, there would be endless war and all of us would sink lower and lower, drawn to the very depths of violence by the most violent amongst us. Love would become a captive of hate. If we are concerned, for example, when some people suffer but not when other people suffer, it means that we have prejudices that cause us to value some suffering more than other suffering. So when we sympathise with some suffering but not with other suffering, we need to ask ourselves why. The answer may reveal deep deficiencies in our make-up.
It could reveal that we do not particularly care about some human beings, either because they have harmed us or because we think they are likely to harm us, or because we do not understand their culture or customs, or because we do not like how they look or dress. It could also mean that we are too lazy to try to understand the complexity of the world we live in and appreciate the diversity around us, and we simply do not have the time, inclination or energy to acquire the knowledge we require to gain a deeper understanding of others; one that will allow us to differentiate justly if we have to; and in so doing, live and promote a life of peace, with integrity.
So let us always take care to examine our thoughts and feelings. If others continue to misjudge us or remain prejudiced against us no matter what we do or how well we treat them, and then oppress us or exploit us because they have the power to do so, justifying their oppression on the grounds that we are hateful because they believe we hate them, causing mayhem in our lives, we need to consider carefully how to respond, if we want to continue living in peace, with integrity.
The question we need to ask is this: if we have to fight back, how can we fight with peace, and integrity? One way is to continue to believe in the power of love, and place our reliance on a peaceful response. But sometimes we may come to the conclusion that it is impossible in certain circumstances to respond peacefully, as much as we would like to. It then becomes our responsibility to find alternative responses, but we need to be aware that these have their own dangers.
A non-peaceful response will not necessarily solve the problem. We may believe at times, for example, that there is greater integrity in an armed resistance to oppression, since it will at least assure us of the peace that comes from having ‘uncompromising’ integrity; but even then we may have neither peace nor integrity for long. For any choice, but especially a militant one, though it may seem to be the most effective choice when we choose it, may create new problems that are even more difficult to solve than those we are attempting to solve through such means in the first place.
When we create militant communities to oppose or overturn injustice, and resort to methods that lack integrity (as in a particularly cruel resistance), even if we achieve our goal, new problems will inevitably arise – because if we fight without integrity, we will probably remain lacking in integrity, and will not easily be able to return to a life of peace, with integrity.
This means we now need new enemies and new wars, for fighting is all that we have become capable of doing – and we will create new enemies and new wars if necessary, regardless of the divisions and destruction we cause – for our own existence can now only be vindicated by having wars to fight. So we have to be careful how we fight, if we fight. A peaceful option from the beginning, or anywhere in between, is nearly always the better option. In all of these decisions, we will have to deal with all shades of uncertainty as to what is the right thing to do and what is the right way to do it.
It is so easy to be drawn by the most militant amongst us to a response that is more and more violent until we become like them. When one low act is met with a matching low act on the part of the opposing force, both will respond with more and more violence, even greater than they imagined they were capable of. And both constituencies will be coerced by fear into supporting an ever more violent response and counter-response until all caring about what is right or wrong disappears and no one bothers any more about living in peace or with integrity, having become consumed by fear and hate. This is the risk of all violence. Ultimately everyone loses: the high ideals that the war or the resistance was fought for are totally forgotten.
So whatever we decide in such perilous times, we need to be aware of the consequences of our actions. And be aware that in all probability any war will have the same disastrous consequences for everyone engaged in it – including for military superpowers that become arrogant and, believing they are invincible, use shocking violence against others to demonstrate their power – their primary means of achieving their goal of global domination.
So even when we are oppressed, we will benefit from seeing all existence, and ourselves and our place in the world, outside a fixed time-frame. When we think of the problems that face us in the context of our individual lives, we are pressured into thinking we must act immediately and forcefully, if necessary, to resolve a problem.
Often problems also carry within them opportunities for transforming the future, but when our focus becomes too narrow we see only the problems, and not their potential or hidden long-term redemptive features.
We know from our knowledge of history that over time everything changes. Nature itself is self-correcting and itself ultimately ends all oppression – we think we do. So a response based on love, peace and oneness, that seeks to resolve differences through dialogue and interaction, one that honours other human beings as we would like to be honoured by them, is nearly always preferable to a violent response, and is nearly always the better way to live in peace, with integrity.
I hope I have provided you with some answers to the questions I raised earlier, done justice to the love that I feel towards you, and revealed to you not only how profoundly difficult the challenges are, but also how it is possible, with wisdom, to live in peace, with integrity.
Yet there are nightmares in reality: I cannot hide
from them and nor should you.
Sometimes we see in such a nightmare a hurricane
flooding a city, an earthquake destroying a town, a war ravaging a land, or
oppression finding its feet, exposing its fist. In addition, we may see men,
women, and children, young and old, injured and dying.
But then we may see the world and its beauty and
consider ourselves in it as painters: some given more paint than others, but
lacking the vision of others, splash the paint in bright colours wherever they
can so that it shouts out to us in defiance ‘See! See me!’
And then our gaze changes and we turn to someone who
had just enough paint to make a single brush-stroke and created a lasting,
indelible mark on the world, made it everlastingly more beautiful A beauty that
haunts us as we see the spirit in it shine and shine.
Or in search of a power beyond our own ability to
manage, we create innumerable disasters without creating a compensating beauty
– without returning in forgiveness to recreate what we have destroyed.
Or even as we try to recreate what we have destroyed,
we destroy more and more of nature, take away its protective barriers, and lean
on it to produce more than it can bear.
Or, seeking new and greater sources of energy, invade
other lands – knowingly, callously, selfishly, plotting, preparing the ground
with lies – doing so while we look solemnly at TV cameras, appearing mortified
by the disaster our inhumanity has created.
Are we not divine enough to accept and fulfil our own
responsibilities? Not man enough or woman enough, if we have done wrong, to say
‘I am sorry, what I did was wrong’? Not wise enough to know when to stop? Not
strong enough to put an end to the murders we commit every day? Not good enough
to know the extent of our lies and their consequences?
Bent on ensuring that every human being on this earth
contributes to our dreams of happiness for ourselves, some make this world a
nightmare for those who refuse, who say: ‘Let us have dreams too, let us hold
our children in our arms for one day longer, just one day!’
And do we listen? Do we care? In search of unlimited
power, wanting to leave our mark on the world, we leave instead as a legacy of
our existence, a criminality lacking shame – perverting truth, spinning and
spinning and spinning the world out of existence!
Unlike natural disasters, where nature’s repentance is
often instant, our destruction leaves little room for future healing. Nature,
once healed, returns to healing, once calmed often gives back a more beautiful
world than the one lost; a new creation, a complete offering of itself, its
everything: its soil, its valleys, mountains, rivers and streams, the breeze,
the trees under the wide skies – all of its possessions, if we can use them!
Is there any hope for us, then? Only if we understand
what it means to be truly human, and are filled with a longing that, more than
all the longing for anything else, reflects our desire to become the purest
reflections we can be of Beauty, Truth, Love, and Divine Light.
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Some guidelines for living
In your relationships with others, magnify your
faults. See the faults of others in perspective. Minimize your goodness.
Deflect praise. Magnify the goodness of others and in others and learn from
their goodness. Have good and pure intentions, but wherever possible, go beyond
an intention and convert it into a good act. Be grateful for every gift you
have, no matter how small it may seem, and for every good done to you, no
matter how small it may be.
Dear Tazkiyah and Ilhaam
It is now another morning of a Ramadan whose greatest blessing for me has been to become aware of some of my shortcomings, appreciate many of your strengths, and confirm what I know, and what you have yet to appreciate fully, your mother’s subdued yet deep love and caring for you.
When I think of my own parents, I realise that they left behind a living legacy of love for me. And I would like to do the same for you. I now also recognise the sacrifice that must have been made by my brothers and sisters when I was young. Being the youngest in my family, I remained carefree over many years, while they sacrificed part of their precious childhood and youth to take up their growing family responsibilities to ensure everyone’s well-being, including mine.
So I am indebted to you, your mother, my family, my friends, and to those who through their living or their writings have helped me arrive at the understanding I have today of love, myself, and the Divine, made possible through a seen or unseen love for me expressed in many forms: in some sharing of knowledge, some act of kindness or generosity or assistance, or offering of wise counsel.
Remember: God can best be known within you. But beware: the more there is of you in ‘you’ the less there will be of the Divine in you. If you empty your heart of yourself, it will be filled by the Divine. The problem of the self is that it is ‘nothing’, but cannot think of itself as ‘nothing’. If the self were to think of itself as ‘nothing’ it would be safe from evil, as evil cannot influence ‘nothing’. It can only affect ‘something’. In reality evil has no control over us. Its chains are as powerless as chains around a cloud. Therefore we should not believe it has control over us. It has absolutely none except what we consciously give it. Evil has no power whatsoever over the true self, the spirit of the Divine within ourselves.
Here then are some guidelines for living: love God, love all the Prophets, and follow their guidance. Always incline towards the truth and act with integrity. Strive with enthusiasm to fulfil your potential. Bear difficulty with fortitude. Be courteous at all times. Avoid anger as far as possible. When someone hurts you be quick to forgive. When you do something wrong, acknowledge your mistake; be quick to show remorse, ask for forgiveness and try not to make the same mistake again. Listen to what you are saying, for your language reflects the state of your soul. Be conscious of your motives, your actions and their consequences.
Evaluate your inner self honestly. And have the courage to change if you need to. Do not be arrogant, for arrogance can destroy you. If you have to criticise others, criticise gently. Be like a rain that is soft and strengthening and not like one that is heavy and destructive.
Plan and act upon your plans, but always leave room for God’s plan to supersede your own. Think opportunities, not problems. If you are asked any questions about your values, even if the questions appear aggressive or unfair, respond intelligently, calmly, compassionately, fully and truthfully. Do not waver from the spiritually correct path. Critically appraise other values, but do not criticise others or their faith. Be guided by the search for truth, always.
In your relationships with others, magnify your faults. See the faults of others in perspective. Minimize your goodness. Deflect praise. Magnify the goodness of others and in others and learn from their goodness. Have good and pure intentions, but wherever possible, go beyond an intention and convert it into a good act. Be grateful for every gift you have, no matter how small it may seem, and for every good done to you, no matter how small it may be.
Always dress modestly, behave with decorum, and avoid all kinds of impropriety. True modesty lies deep within us, in the spirit we develop. But this does not diminish the need for good external behaviour. I once read that not only should we not do wrong, but we should not do anything which might cause someone to think we are doing wrong. For example: if you are with a group of people who are drinking wine, and you have to choose between drinking water or some fruit juice that looks like wine, choose the water so that no one assumes that you are drinking wine.
Like Joseph who felt responsible for every grain he was tasked to preserve at a time of drought, be responsible for even a grain of truth in a time when truth is scarce. Purify your heart through repentance and your body through hard work. And help others as much as you can. But do not spend time on that over which you have no control. Time is precious. So be careful how you utilise your time.
Learn to identify the following spiritual illnesses: arrogance, jealousy, anger, impatience, greed, laziness, ingratitude, hypocrisy, and selfishness. Spiritual cleansing requires as much discipline and knowledge as physical cleansing. So examine the state of your spiritual health by asking appropriate questions.
And to overcome these illnesses: remember the Divine, ask for help, give charity, exercise self-restraint and, if necessary, fast – for fasting conditions the outer as well as the inner self. Think well and speak well of others at all times. Rumi once said: not only can we improve the output of the tongue if we have good hearts, but we can improve the input into our hearts if we have good tongues!
Avoid debt for it can affect your tranquillity, your grace, and your dignity. It can make you impatient, restless, harsh, or angry. Professionally it can make you careless and affect your competence, as you become more concerned about yourself and your personal difficulties and how to resolve them, and less concerned about what you owe to others. Remember this saying of the Prophet: ‘Debt is a humiliation by day and a worry by night’.
When praying, and in all that you do, you need to slow down, breathe deeply and not be agitated. Let the heart be in prayer, not just the body. Slow down; slow everything down to stop the agitation in the heart, body, mind and soul. Remember: that which is fastest appears slowest, to the extent that it does not appear to be moving at all!
When speaking about the spiritual, remember that the ability of the listener to understand a spiritual truth depends on his or her own spiritual understanding or maturity. He or she may understand more than we do of what we have just spoken or less! If less, do not be frustrated or annoyed. We would not be annoyed if a child or a frail person could not carry a physical load that was too heavy for them. So why expect others to carry a spiritual load that may be too heavy for them? They may only be able to carry a partial load!
If so, let this be. Do not be anguished by what you perceive they are losing as a result of their lack of understanding. In time they will understand, if that is meant to be. Therefore let things be – speak the truth and move on. If you do not move on, you will limit your own growth.
If you have wronged someone and have been forgiven – or if you have expressed remorse for some hurt you have caused yourself and have asked the Divine in you for forgiveness – do not continue to feel guilty. We need to forgive ourselves too. How else would we know that God has forgiven us? But do not make the same mistake again. Cleanse your mind of worrying, for without innocence even your creativity will be affected.
The Qur’an states very caringly that God does not place a burden on any soul greater than it can bear. So do not usurp the responsibility of God. That would be arrogance. At the same time, do not abandon your responsibility for speaking the truth (as you know it). That would be lacking in grace and generosity.
Remember this beautiful saying of Hazrat Inayat Khan: ‘Subtlety of nature is the sign of intelligence; wisdom is distinguished by flexibility, foolishness by rigidity. Depression, despair and all manner of sorrow come from a lack of generosity. And gentleness is the core of a good personality.’
And take note of Rumi’s will, in which he said: ‘I will for you to have a consciousness of God secretly and openly; to eat less; to sleep less; to speak less; to stay away from sins; to fast and to pray; to abstain from lust; to endure people’s torment and ill-treatment; to avoid being with dissolute people; to be with kind and wise people; for the most beneficial person is one who assists others and the most beneficial word is one which is short and sincere.’
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More guidelines for living
And know too that God is always just. No act of God
causes us to lose the light He has given us! We lose it through our own actions
when we give in to fear, greed, or envy, or fall victim to other spiritual
maladies. Returning to God, we will find the light still there, its brightness
reflecting the quality of our return.
Dear Tazkiyah and Ilhaam
When God taught us the names of things, He created barriers to our knowing Him as much as He gave us assistance in knowing Him! The barriers or veils are themselves the reason why we strive to remove them. The intellect creates the barriers. Love removes them. But the intellect is wise in creating them! For if there were no hurdles, how would we learn to jump? Just as, if there were no sea, how would we learn to swim?
So let your life be one of loving whatever crosses your path. Encompass it as the sea encompasses everything that falls into it. Love without motive, without seeking or needing recompense. And look for beauty everywhere.
Sometimes we are invited into the hearts of others – into their deepest selves by virtue of their allowing us to interact with them. While there, we may wander into a sacred inner space, and see something we perceive as a weakness or flaw in their nature. When this happens, we should consider ourselves trespassers and feel ashamed of ourselves – as we would feel if we were guests in someone’s home and had walked into a bedroom and seen the vulnerability of the host. We should not reveal what we have learnt even to our own deeper selves, let alone reveal what we have learnt to anyone else – considering the shame of having come by this knowledge as a result of violating someone’s sacred inner space.
Know that each
person and each thing teaches us in its own language. We have to learn the language
of the teacher. Even that of a plant or a stone! If we listen only to that
which speaks our language, we will have only ourselves to learn from. Do not be critical of anyone to please someone who is
critical of that person. If you do, you will be the weakest of the three
parties concerned. Even if the criticism is justified, the lack of charity
cannot be.
And as both of you are very creative, remember: in
attempting to perfect form of any kind (art, poetry, music), we are really
trying to get beyond the form. As long as the form exists, imperfection exists.
The higher the perfection of the form, the less we are aware of the form
itself, and the more we are drawn to the spirit that gave the form life.
Remember: an artist does not only capture the spirit of the landscape in his or her art but his or her spirit in the landscape – a moment of his or her own existence when he or she (himself or herself) is the mountain, the tree, the earth, the sea, the cloud, or the sky.
In my first letter to you I recognised how you were yearning for more freedom and said that with greater freedom comes a much greater challenge. Freedom is indivisible. You cannot compartmentalise and marginalize human beings. There is no freedom for the artist, for example, that is superior to the freedom of the person cleaning the pavement where the artist paints.
Freedom of one kind invariably means lack of freedom of another kind. Freedom to sing one song means loss of freedom to sing or hear another. Freedom goes hand in hand with sacrifice of freedom. In certain circumstances, life may matter more to someone than dignity. In other circumstances, dignity may matter more to someone than life. Freedom is not only about what you can see or hear, but also about a world beyond the senses.
Seeking to perfect any art form is essentially a seeking of spiritual perfection that can ultimately only exist in another (intangible) form. Good art therefore transports one beyond the artistic medium to something that is essentially spiritual, that is essentially spirit. Beauty is a reflection of the Divine. Knowing beauty we know the Divine. Art ‘crystallises’ beauty and therefore, is indispensable for life.
A profound image often loses many facets of its light in an explanation. The image ceases to function as a mirror in the process. The explanation may be compared to the make-up used by someone who is naturally beautiful seeking to be beautiful through the use of make-up. Or it may be compared to being asked by a beautiful person: tell me I am beautiful. And you reply: look at the mirror – it reveals how beautiful you are. And the person persists: tell me why I am beautiful. And you answer: look at the mirror – it reveals why you are beautiful. And the person remonstrates: but you are not answering my question! And you respond: but I created the mirror for you to show you how beautiful you are – and to reveal different facets of your beauty whenever you look into it!
Never be
offended by someone’s failure to love you. None of us can ever love God as He
loves us. Yet He is not offended by our failure to love Him. The very reason
for our creation is His desire to love and to be known through our love.
Ultimately, through each of us, He knows Himself; through both our expression
of love as well as our withholding of love, through both our positive behaviour
(reflecting what He is) and our negative behaviour (reflecting what He is not).
The more complete our understanding, the less likely it is that we will live a
life of anger and conflict. And know
too that God is always just. No act of God causes us to lose the light He has
given us! We lose it through our own actions when we give in to fear, greed, or
envy, or fall victim to other spiritual maladies. Returning to God, we will
find the light still there, its brightness reflecting the quality of our
return.
So live the attributes of God in their totality in every aspect of your physical lives so that the soul knows the spirit, and the soul and the spirit are in harmony with each other and filled with love.
For this to happen it is essential to approach God with total humility. To live as Divine, we have to acknowledge the impossibility of living as Divine – so that the doors of God’s grace may be opened to us, not as a result of what we are, but because of what we seek – as a result of the abjectness of our means. But the humility has to be sincere.
Living these attributes in their totality implies living a life of service to those around us. So fill your lives with love and add some measure of light to the lives of those around you with your loving. Yet never be presumptuous about grace.
I often wonder why we behave so poorly, and in trying to find a way of encouraging better behaviour, I once wrote: if we could trace our lineage back to a spiritual personality we love and respect, would that change how we feel about ourselves or the way we see the world and see others? If we were indeed descendants of a Prophet, would we remain as we are? Or would we try to be better?
And if we know God to be the source of love, mercy and grace, should not this cause us to become better human beings? We lose so much by seeing ourselves as less than we are, and our behaviour follows suit – the easiest and most natural downward spiral there is. Yet the upward spiral is equally easy and more natural!
If you want to teach someone, then say the right amount, to
the right person, at the right time, in the right way. Sometimes asking someone
to look into his or her heart is like asking a person afraid of heights to
stand at the edge of a cliff and look down. And consider this: you may not
always be able to teach but you can always learn. If you cannot be the teacher,
be the student. And if you cannot be the student, perhaps you can be the
lesson!
Nothing remains static. Even spiritually, if we are not improving we are degenerating. We cannot leave our spiritual selves unattended while we prop up our material selves. In the process, our spirit will have been ruined and even when we have acquired ‘enough’ of the material (we never will; nothing is enough), it will take enormous strength (which we are now even more unlikely to have) to regain our spiritual balance.
So make Zikr (remember God) constantly. And call out His beautiful names unceasingly, especially the name Allah! There are infinite layers of depth in each of our names (His names) that we can acquire knowledge of. Talking of continuous remembrance: I once saw a spoon balanced on a plate, moving up and down, almost in perpetual motion, illustrating something I read – that when the heart is in a state of equilibrium, it will take over the remembrance that the mind and the tongue have initiated and will continue to remember God of its own accord, in perpetual motion!
We have to let go who we are to return to being
who we were before we became who we are. The reason why we do not let go is
that we fear (actually, we are terrified) that we will never return (to living)
once we let go! We know who or what or where we already are and that we are
alive, and that living is important, but unless our consciousness is a Divine
consciousness, we cannot be certain that there is a higher form of spiritual living that is possible, or that we
can attain it – so of course we are afraid to let go this
limited physical existence until we are forced to by death.
Each exhalation (though we do not know it) is essentially a moment for letting go! A moment of death, potentially a moment for the expression of our ultimate love for God by letting go our grip on the physical. But because our love is imperfect or 'incomplete' we hold back from letting go, and when God's love returns us to this world, or returns the world to us, we inhale back into existence exactly the same self that had 'died' before, the quality of our 'rebirth' echoing the quality of our dying!
This is why creation is born and dies over
and over again! It is God's letting go of Himself (God's love) that creates the
world. And it is His justice that ensures the world returns to Him, to
complete the circle of Unity from which, effectively, it has never
departed. As He exists outside time, all this happens instantly and
simultaneously for Him, but to us, existence appears prolonged over a period of
knowable time.
If we want to return to the world we
have come from as the Treasure that we reflect or are (or as an aspect of this
Treasure), then we must leave this ‘created’ world through the door of love,
since we arrived in it through the door of love! This is the only way
to leave the ‘created’ world if we want to return to being Divine in the next
world. This very same door of love (that is the name we see reflected on it on
our leaving), on our arrival in the spiritual world becomes (known as) the door
of justice!
We enter the next world through the door of
justice. This world (the created world) is where God does His loving. It is no
mean existence, this existence! The next world is where His justice becomes
pre-eminent. For it is His justice that rewards our embracing His love in
this world by returning us to Him (returning this world to His Unity) in the
next.
In this world, the highest form of justice
is love! For it is safer, when wanting justice done, since perfect justice
always depends on our having perfect knowledge, which we seldom if ever have,
that we should first do justice to others before seeking or ensuring justice
for ourselves. This way we are less likely to commit injustice. And justice
towards others before justice to ourselves is also an act of love.
In the next world, the highest form of love is justice, as once we have embraced God's love in this world fully, and fulfilled in our living God's desire to be known (to know, to love!), when we re-enter the world of spirit only, we are instantly embraced by God's justice. God’s justice, feeling vindicated in allowing God's love to express itself through our existence, rewards us by returning us to the realm of His Divine Treasure, as His Treasure. In this way God achieves all that He set out to do!
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The Divine
Each
of us, through our experience of the Divine within us, becomes the fruit of God
(say, an apple, a pear, an orange) as He will be different to each of us. We
offer this fruit (of ourselves) to Him to taste, for it is in His tasting of
this fruit (through His tasting of ‘us’ as Him) that ‘we’ come to know Him (He
comes to know Himself). He understands all that we choose to be of Him (and our
experience of Him) more than we do, as only He ultimately understands the
experience of love. This is natural as only He loves! And only He is loved!
Dear Tazkiyah and Ilhaam
The Prophet’s statement that God said: ‘I was a hidden Treasure and I desired to be known; therefore I created the world, in order to be known’ can help us understand the power of love and why we were created. So let me share with you some earlier (edited) writing:
Wanting to know Himself, God imagined ‘other than Himself’. But being God this act of ‘creation’ did not result in the creation of a one-dimensional ‘other’. He created an ‘other’ that is real because He is real and His thoughts are real, but at the same time an ‘other’ that is only real to the extent that it reflects Him – and unreal to the extent that it does not.
Being God – I am Time – He saw every kind of ‘other than Himself’ in an instant. But in creating a ‘real-unreal other’, time (spiritual essence) acquired a physical dimension, befitting the unreal part of the ‘other’, while (in reality) remaining spiritual essence. Thus we are still existing – living in drawn-out time – lives that are either real or unreal. To the extent that our living is spiritual or real we live as spirit in spiritual time; to the extent that it is unreal, as physical beings in physical time.
Creation reflects the spiritual experience of a Divine Being who wanted to know everything about Himself, learnt what He wanted to know, and remained as He was: all-powerful, timeless, spiritual essence. We are living proof of His knowing. In living true to Him, we live in Him and He lives in us.
The highest form of knowing is loving, and the highest form of loving, dying. Wanting to know Himself, God loved ‘other than Himself’; ‘died’ in His imagination, to live in ‘man’. But ‘living’ in us, He ‘killed’ the object of His imagination; His love became Him (again). He became (remained) as He was before He was ‘other than He was’. In the instant of living ‘other than He was’ He knew Himself as He was; and ‘man’ died as himself and became ‘other than himself’ forever.
We know that we can only know something by knowing its opposite. Light has no meaning without darkness, good is irrelevant without bad. How was God to know Himself if there was nothing other than Himself? How could He know He was light, love, grace – when all that existed was Him and nothing but Him?
God therefore ‘created’ man as His ‘shadow’ with His qualities and their ‘opposites’. But in reality, since there can be no opposites, we are in essence essentially Divine, and the opposites nothing but (God’s) imagination – Rumi says that ‘the universe is a strand of thought in the mind of God’.
We became human (were created) when God loved us (conceived us in His mind). And we become Divine when, in loving Him, we give up seeing our existence as separate from His, preferring to see ourselves as existing ‘within’ Him; effectively preferring Him to ourselves. In order to be known, to love and to be loved, God had to imagine the existence of something ‘other than Himself’. He had to ‘give up’ something precious (at least in His imagination), that He alone exists. But as we only exist in His mind, no one really ‘exists’ besides Him.
Rumi also says: ‘The Beloved is all in all; the lover only veils Him. Love is all that lives; the lover is a dead thing’. This means that the heart of a believing servant is not his own, it is God’s! It encompasses the universe as much as God encompasses the universe. Therefore we cannot claim that we love God. When we love God, a veil between God and ourselves remains. When ‘the lover is a dead thing’, then the Divine knows the Divine!
Despite these attempts to help you understand our relationship with God, I want you to know that the Essence of God is ultimately unknowable and will always remain a mystery. And that is how it should be. The Prophet himself once exclaimed: ‘My Lord, increase my bewilderment in Thee!’
It is fitting that the Essence of God should remain a mystery; for when we know something we acquire mastery over it and then often manipulate or abuse that which we have mastery over. This does not mean we cannot understand anything of God. It simply means we cannot fully know His or Her Essence. And now to continue:
God created darkness ‘outside Him’ from the light ‘within Him’. And He created light ‘within us’ from the darkness ‘outside us’. His light can only be known through love (a darkening of His light) and we, in loving Him, help love become light again. But since only God truly exists (and as only He creates anything), only God knows God.
To
understand this better let us examine more closely a verse of the Qur’an, Sura
Nur Verse 35, also known as The Verse of Light.
God is the Light
of the heavens and the earth.
The similitude of His Light is that
of a niche in which there is a lamp.
The lamp is inside a glass.
The glass is, as it were, a shining star.
(This lamp is) kindled from a blessed tree,
an olive, neither of the east nor of the west,
whose oil would almost glow forth (of itself)
though no fire touched it.
Light upon Light!
God guides unto His Light whom He will.
And God speaks to mankind in allegories
for God is knower of all things.
This can lead us to ask: what if we live in a universe that lives within us – so that there is an ‘external universe’ that we can see physically, but this external universe only mirrors an inner, ‘spiritual’ universe that we cannot physically recognize; and the changes we can recognize in the external universe are therefore limited to the knowledge (knowing) that becomes alive in our spiritual universe (our ‘knowing’ universe) where things must first be known before they can be seen rather than where things must first be seen before they can be known!
What gives rise to the ‘presence of creation’ is a ‘halo’ (the ‘glass shell’) emanating from the reflection of the light of God onto a ‘mirror of nothingness’. If we think of this ‘shell’ as being transparent, as a ‘glass’ container – then what is seen outside the glass (assuming the glass container was placed on a mirror) is the reflection of Divine light (or consciousness) within the glass.
The ‘shell’ does not have to ‘break’ for creation to come into ‘existence’. It merely needs to be transparent for the consciousness of ‘something’ to be reflected as the consciousness of ‘something else’. In this way the light within the glass (a Divine light) remains clear, creation remains completely ‘within the grasp of God’ and yet outside the glass we have ‘complete control’ over the image we can see.
The clearer the mirror of the observer (the more we are ‘nothing’ or empty of our ‘selves’; or empty of confusing images of ‘other than the Divine’), the clearer the reflection of Divine light in our individual consciousness (in our inner world).
For as long as we understand the ‘external image’ to be an external image, the external image remains a shadow, even though we sometimes call this shadow ‘light’. For the image on the outside, at best, is still only an image of the light within the ‘glass’, and although it may appear to be clear (light), it is still essentially a ‘shadow’ (darkness).
Only if our
consciousness of the external were to die would the external image ‘die’ –
leaving the original light within the ‘glass’ as the only remaining light. But
how can that which we believe is ‘not real’ in the first place (an image of
reality) return to being the reality that exists within the ‘glass’? Logically,
this is only possible if that which we call the ‘glass shell’ is not ‘glass’ –
not a ‘shell’ – not an impervious object – but a ‘spiritual quality’ that is at
once both there and not there! A barrier
that actually does not exist! Cannot exist!
God, who creates the halo of self-consciousness, the ‘glass shell’, from Divine light, simultaneously, instantly (and continuously), as an act of Divine grace, removes the ‘glass shell’, allowing the ‘world’ to find its way back to Him again and again – allowing the fortunate, Divinely-inspired consciousness to find its way back to its source, overcoming the illusion of ‘separateness’.
As for the names we give to things that mean everything to us, they are meaningless to Him. He is all-knowing. He was ever all-knowing. He did not really have to learn anything or become anything. He did not need anything or lack anything. He did not become more because He was never less. He did not become what He is because of what He ‘created’, as we and the world have always existed (in His mind), for He is timeless. He is beyond anything we know or can know and yet He is within us. He is closer to us, He says, than our jugular veins. Yet He is outside us as much as He is within us. He is outside us in the sense that we are ‘outside Him’. Yet He is within us in the sense that there is nothing outside Him.
In the physical world of separateness He is in every rock, tree, plant, animal, man, woman and child. He is in everything we see, and yet nothing we see is Him. As only He knows Himself, if we were Him we would not know we were Him because we would (then) not be us (to know Him). If we were not Him we would not know Him, and not know that we were not Him. So He ever remains who He is. And we ever remain knowing and unknowing; known and unknown.
Trying to know God under these circumstances can be explained as follows: each of us, through our experience of the Divine within us, becomes the fruit of God (say, an apple, a pear, an orange) as He will be different to each of us. We offer this fruit (of ourselves) to Him to taste, for it is in His tasting of this fruit (through His tasting of ‘us’ as Him) that ‘we’ come to know Him (He comes to know Himself). He understands all that we choose to be of Him (and our experience of Him) more than we do, as only He ultimately understands the experience of love. This is natural as only He loves! And only He is loved!
The way of duality differentiates between the seen and the unseen, the known and the unknown. But the way of oneness sees the Divine in the physical as well as in the spiritual. So it does not matter any more whether we call a fruit a fruit, or a tree a tree, or see them as reflections of the Divine.
Even love, justice and their unity (as represented by the Prophets Jesus, Moses, and Muhammad) can now be understood in a new light. Jesus lives within each of us, as does Moses, and Muhammad. Jesus represents love, the subject of our existence. Moses represents justice, the object of our existence; and Muhammad, their integration, indivisibility, oneness.
So we cannot be muslim unless we perfect our loving of Jesus. And we cannot be muslim unless we perfect our loving of Moses. And indeed we cannot be muslim unless we love all the Prophets who have ever existed.
Ultimately every attribute of the Divine is a reflection of every other attribute of the Divine. In the heart of Jesus (within us) love is made visible by God darkening His light. In the mind of Moses (within us) justice is made visible by God kindling His love. In (the) Muhammad within us, love and justice both become a burning and a quenching, lose their separate identities, light and darkness disappear, and God alone exists – without a name reflecting separateness; unlimited and illimitable.
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Letter 11
Consciousness
This ‘lower’ consciousness can never become ‘Divine
consciousness’ – for it does not really exist (other than as an ‘echo’) in the first
place – and a lower form of consciousness cannot become or know a higher form
of consciousness. The focus of the higher (or Divine) consciousness is always
(on the) Divine. If somehow our lower consciousness (our lower self) were to
know its true nature and be humbled by the knowledge of what it truly is, the
light of Divine consciousness would be able to overwhelm our inner being and
(true) enlightenment would be born.
Dear Tazkiyah and Ilhaam
I want to share with you some thoughts on consciousness, the nature of reality and why we are essentially Divine. Do not worry if initially you cannot understand everything I am saying. In time I hope you will understand – fully and clearly. But do bear in mind that this is more likely to happen if you truly love the Divine and truly desire to understand the nature of your own existence.
Our consciousness is simply an ‘echo’ of God’s consciousness that reaches outwards and brings ‘shadows’ (creation, us) into existence – an existence that appears to be permanently earthed but is only an existence in the ‘mind’ of God; and yet capable of believing that its existence is the only real existence, forgetting the higher existence of which it is a shadow, the light of which it is the darkness, the ‘silence’ of which it is the ‘sound’.
This ‘lower’ consciousness can never become ‘Divine consciousness’ – for it does not really exist (other than as an ‘echo’) in the first place – and a lower form of consciousness cannot become or know a higher form of consciousness. The focus of the higher (or Divine) consciousness is always (on the) Divine. If somehow our lower consciousness (our lower self) were to know its true nature and be humbled by the knowledge of what it truly is, the light of Divine consciousness would be able to overwhelm our inner being and (true) enlightenment would be born.
Human consciousness makes us inhabit (wear the habit of) a physical presence and Divine consciousness gives us our spiritual mantle (a mantle of light). For the most time we are – because we think we are – physical beings, unaware of our spiritual nature. If our physical habit is heavy (or dark) we are less conscious of our spiritual nature than when it is less heavy or less dark. The more enlightened we are (the more we focus on our Divine habitation or the more we forget our human habitation), the more we live as spirit (as spiritual beings, or spirit-beings).
What is it that gives human consciousness this ‘dual-focusing’ ability? Consciousness by its very nature creates awareness – effectively creates ‘another-consciousness’ – so the consciousness of say, light, also gives rise to the consciousness of ‘other than light’, so that light may be known as light. For Divine consciousness to reflect the Divine, it has to give rise to human consciousness (another awareness or ‘creation’), with its potential for adding light as well as darkness to our understanding of the Divine.
Creation (as we know it) ceases to exist when Divine consciousness supersedes human consciousness. For with the loss of ‘other-awareness’, ‘otherness’ disappears. As it is not possible for human consciousness to consciously switch itself off – since its awareness of itself can never die at its ‘own hands’ – we cannot consciously ‘not be’. Only that which is Divine can overwhelm us with love, help us to love others, and in so doing cause us to lose our self-consciousness, without our being conscious of our loss.
Therefore everything in creation is in a state of continuous flux, between ‘being’ and ‘not being’ – of being either ‘human’ or ‘Divine’. Yet ‘being’ is essential for ‘not being’ and ‘not being’ for ‘being’ when ‘being’ and ‘not being’ are understood as one.
Once Divine consciousness exists, the consciousness of another existence is created – a consciousness that gives rise to our sense of ‘eternity’ and ‘infinity’ – as space and time both arise from and exist within us as the inner dimensions of our consciousness of the Divine.
Divine consciousness is not a higher aspect
of our lower consciousness. The lower consciousness always remains a shadow of
Divine consciousness and can never become Divine consciousness. Therefore the
‘highest’ of our lower consciousness is still not higher consciousness itself –
although within the Prophet Muhammad, the physical messenger of God, on whom be
peace, the disparity between them is the least – the shadow is at its absolute
minimal.
In us, God is reflected in the ‘emptiness’
(emptying) of our lower consciousness, in the empty space or ‘silence’ within
us. To become more, we have to become less. But how? If our lower consciousness
is a shadow, it must be created by the falling of light on some form of
existence or ‘body’.
The existence of darkness (shadows) is the
outcome of the existence of a light that ‘born of itself’ falling on the ‘names
of God’ creates shadows of itself. It is, paradoxically, the possibility of and
quest for enlightenment that creates light and darkness and with it, the
possibility of the search for enlightenment being subverted!
Darkness only arises to us (in us); never to
God (in Him). His seeking to know Himself takes place not in Him (as Him) but
in Him, as ‘us’. Therefore for us (for the shadow in us) enlightenment is not
essential (neither possible nor required), as a shadow can never become light.
While for Him, a shadow can never arise (through us) as His light can never be
or become a shadow.
As strange as it may seem, if we could stop
our lower consciousness from believing it is ‘enlightened’ or capable of being
enlightened – for it is actually arrogance, based on ignorance of its true
nature that makes the lower consciousness believe it can become light – we
could become truly enlightened. The more our lower consciousness seeks
‘enlightenment’ (really self-gratification), the more it creates shadows that
hinder our ultimate enlightenment, for the more our lower consciousness
struggles to become ‘enlightened’ the more it acquires a capacity for knowledge
confirming its ‘falsehood’, darkening our existence further.
But what can help us stop this natural
desire for ‘enlightenment’, we may ask?
The answer is what else but (true) enlightenment – the removal of the
shadow (of our lower consciousness) that veils our access to a higher consciousness.
This shadow cannot be removed by the ‘acquisition’ of more of the same light
that created the shadow in the first place, as this light (even if it is
brighter) will only accentuate the shadow further. Yet the lower self is
incapable of knowing any other light. Effectively it is only capable of knowing
light through darkness.
Within any field of consciousness (within even the smallest field of consciousness) is contained the consciousness of that which is beyond itself. So not only is the infinite contained in the finite (and eternity in that which appears to be time-bound), but that which is ‘beyond existence’ (Divine) is contained within that which ‘exists’ (creation) – as much as that which ‘exists’ is contained in that which is ‘beyond existence’.
In ‘something that is actually nothing’ lives ‘something that is actually everything’. If there was no ‘human consciousness’ there would only be Divine existence. But as there is only Divine existence we can conclude that ‘human consciousness’ (in reality) does not really exist at all – that which we call ‘human consciousness’ only ‘exists’ to reveal Divine consciousness, and its own existence is ultimately an existence of absence rather than of presence. This explains the ‘being’ and ‘non-being’ nature of (our) existence, a perception created by the existence of ‘human consciousness’.
When consciousness is understood in this way, all differences disintegrate. As ‘our’ sight becomes Divine sight, the unreal (as it appears to human consciousness) can be seen (known) as Divine (real), seen through Divine insight or consciousness; and the ‘real’ perceived as real through ‘human consciousness’ simply ceases to exist! But ‘human consciousness’ is needed – to help Divine consciousness know what it means ‘to swim in the sea’ – as the sea itself cannot know what it means to swim in the sea!
Then why, we may ask, is it necessary to forego human consciousness when it gives Divine consciousness its ‘life’, as much as Divine consciousness gives human consciousness its life. As much as human consciousness is necessary (it would not ‘exist’ otherwise), it is only Divine consciousness that ultimately knows the Divine – human consciousness providing Divine consciousness with the necessary ‘mirror’ to accomplish this knowing.
The consciousness of each human being is a unique ‘mirror’ that helps to provide clarity to the vision of itself that Divine consciousness presents to the Divine.
But it is not so much the presence of human consciousness that is ultimately so valuable as the quality of the absence it is ultimately capable of – its presence is only required for the value its capacity for absence provides! The greater the capacity for, and the purer the quality of, the ‘absence of itself’ inherent within any strand of human consciousness when overwhelmed by its knowledge of the ‘reality’ of itself (in the light of Divine consciousness), the greater the clarity of the vision of the Divine it is able to reflect.
So dear Tazkiyah and Ilhaam – take some time to reflect on what I have just written. If you find something I have written confusing, try for now to acquire a deeper understanding of something that you found easier to understand or less confusing.
I do not have a full understanding of all aspects of this complex subject. But I hope that what I have written makes you want to find out more about who you really are and helps you to discover your true selves – full of more potential than you can imagine.
At least for now, if you find this letter too complex, remember this: seek enlightenment by firmly but gently humbling your lower consciousness, the unreal yet invaluable partner of Divine consciousness. Love the Divine always. And let the Divine express itself in all aspects of your living.
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Letter 12
‘Muhammad’, the consciousness of God
Each person’s understanding (and faith) is unique. If what
I am saying adds to your faith and understanding, then I have been of some
service to you. If what I am saying diminishes or detracts from your faith or
understanding, distance yourself from my understanding!
However, if my understanding has some merit (and even
if it does not), I hope it will stimulate you (and whoever reads these letters)
to strive to gain a deeper understanding of your own – an understanding that
will draw you closer to God, fill you with light, and seal within you His
all-pervasive love.
Dear Tazkiyah and Ilhaam
I have been reading an English translation, by Rabia Terri Harris, of a very interesting book (Ilhaam, one of those books) called Journey to the Lord of Power written by a renowned mystic who lived in the 12th century – Ibn Arabi. In it I read the following line: Moses is an aspect of Muhammad. This led to several hours of contemplative writing I would like to share with you on who or what is the ‘Muhammad’ referred to in this context.
I came to the conclusion that ‘Muhammad’ in this context can only refer to ‘the consciousness of God’; and therefore what Ibn Arabi meant when he spoke of Moses being an aspect of Muhammad is that ‘Muhammad’ is not just the name of the (physical) messenger of God, on whom be peace, but the name of His (very) consciousness. Ultimately, as no one knows God but God, ‘Muhammad’ (His consciousness) is the ‘messenger’ conveying this knowledge of Him to Him!
If ‘Muhammad’ is the name of ‘the consciousness of God’, then (the consciousness or name of) everyone else is a quality of ‘Muhammad’ that helps ‘Muhammad’ reveal the qualities of God to God. So Moses is (the name of) the highest (aspect) of ‘Muhammad’ (the consciousness of God) that reveals God’s inherent justice and Jesus is (the name of) the highest (aspect) of ‘Muhammad’ that reveals God’s love. And all of us, depending on how close we are to, or far removed from, reflecting ‘Muhammad’ (the consciousness of God) in our lives, can either be ‘Muhammad’, or a quality or aspect of ‘Muhammad’ resulting from the existence of ‘Muhammad’.
‘Muhammad’ exists because God exists; we exist because ‘Muhammad’ exists! We can exist either as ‘Muhammad’ or as ourselves, as other than ‘Muhammad’. But it is only in being ‘Muhammad’, that ‘we’ can know God. We cannot know God other than as ‘Muhammad’ (other than through His own consciousness). ‘Muhammad’ is in essence the highest or only consciousness capable of knowing the ultimate spiritual reality. Therefore we need (our consciousness needs) to become ‘Muhammad’ (the consciousness of God) before ‘we’ can (‘Muhammad’ can) know Him.
By virtue of the mercy that emanates from Him, including His love of justice (since He has created us), we are not only able to see Him in ourselves but to ‘be’ Him (in our loving). The uniqueness of His love is that not only does He love us but He allows us to love Him as if we were able (independently of Him) to love Him as He would like to be loved if anything other than He could exist!
When ‘Muhammad’ lives (within us) the world ceases to exist (to us). When ‘Muhammad’ dies in any individual consciousness, the created world is born to that consciousness. With its birth is simultaneously born a fear of losing what it has created, a world in the image of ‘itself’ – a world of ‘nothingness’ that becomes its (only) reality.
It is this fear that the Qur’an admonishes us to fight with the ‘fear of God’, and with the light of ‘Muhammad’. When the light of ‘Muhammad’ triumphs within us, the created world, the world of fear, delusion, and oppression, the world of Pharaoh, is drowned in the sea of (self) annihilation. Between ‘Muhammad’ (the consciousness of God) and the consciousness of Muhammad, the messenger of God, on whom be peace (who possessed the highest form of the consciousness of God capable of existing within a physical being), is a meeting-place, in the terminology of the Qur’an, of ‘two seas that meet without touching’; for the consciousness of Muhammad, the messenger of God, on whom be peace, reflects the minimal ‘earthiness’ required for Divine light to exist in a ‘physically’ knowable form.
And although every verse of the Qur’an is ultimately a verse of light, if we are able to or allowed to see only light, or see beyond light and darkness, the struggle of light and darkness in the physical world is mirrored in the struggle its own verses face as they strive to be light while existing in a form that appears other than light.
For (God’s) light to become visible to us and to exist as light (for us), it has to reveal a characteristic of ‘other than light’. So the focus of our consciousness can alternate (as circumstances demand) between needing to see in the Qur’an (the voice of Divine consciousness) the ‘qualities of God’s presence’ (such as love, mercy, compassion) and when necessary (such as when needing to overcome oppression) the ‘qualities of His absence’ (such as anger) – qualities that are absent in Him.
Such a shift in our focus – from being aware only of the qualities of (and references to) ‘God’s presence’ in the Qur’an to becoming aware of the qualities of (and references to) ‘God’s absence’, the qualities absent in Him – occurs when we focus, for whatever reason, on our created existence. As we are drawn to and so give life to otherness, we simultaneously encounter (give prominence or life to) references of severity in the Qur’an that match the severity of the darkness of the physical world that demands our attention.
Regarding the qualities of God’s presence,
or the qualities present in Him and the qualities of His absence, or the
qualities absent in Him, our knowledge of these qualities arises from our
knowledge of the names of God. These include the names of His severity –
effectively absent in Him.
Though the names of His presence are also
only reflections of Him, they are still reflections of His light, whereas the
names of His absence are names of the shadows that arise from the reflection of
His light. But to us they too appear as light (because they are His
names), and because we (His
‘shadows’), see mostly with the eyes of our own consciousness rather than with
the eyes of ‘Muhammad’ (Divine consciousness).
Seeing ‘darkly’ and yet seeing light, we see
Him in the light of His names – see Him as His names with the (limited)
meanings these names have (for us). But He is ultimately nameless, and
unknowable to human consciousness. Whatever we see of Him (whether it is His
Beauty or Majesty or Severity) is seeing darkly, but for us still sufficient to
help us recognize His existence and understand something of Him; even if that
understanding is only the limited understanding a shadow might have of the
light that has given rise to it!
The physical being in whose consciousness
the shadow is at its least (practically non-existent, as previously explained)
is Muhammad, the physical messenger of God, on whom be peace. The names of God
do not exist in the consciousness of God Himself with the limited meanings we
attach to them, because He is beyond light and darkness – beyond the light and
darkness that we know.
These meanings of His names only arise in
our minds – and acquire a clarity or lack of clarity that is uniquely different for
all of us depending on our own nature, depending on how His light falls on us,
and which areas of our own (human) consciousness Divine consciousness
overwhelms with its light. This is what provides each of us ultimately with our
own unique knowledge of Him.
The final consideration that remains
concerns what kind of knowledge goes ‘back’ to Him (of Himself) – for that is
the reason He says we were created! Since He is real and not a shadow, the
knowledge that goes back to Him via ‘Muhammad’ (His own consciousness) is not
the knowledge of shadows (not even of our shadows), for shadows themselves do
not exist to Him. It is therefore not the knowledge of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ as we
know these terms because (they are relative and multi-faceted and) He is
absolute, alone.
But in us (as ‘us’, because we are from Him,
but not necessarily what we think we are), He (as ‘us’) knows His oneness,
despite the existence of ‘multiplicity’. His love manifests itself in visible
form, His justice demands to be recognized, His names come alive in our living,
the Qur’an becomes visible guidance, and darkness (as well as light) are born
so that His light can be known (to Him).
However, the knowledge that reaches Him via ‘Muhammad’, His own consciousness, is not the knowledge that means so much to us as we struggle to be good or to be light. He is beyond all this! For we cannot know His Essence, although we can know Him enough to consider that we know Him. As only ‘Muhammad’ can really know Him (as only He can know Himself), what He ultimately knows is that He is ‘knowing’ and ‘known’ – and since the highest form of knowing is loving, that He is loving and loved! Such knowledge when it reflects in ‘our’ hearts (His heart) gives rise to ‘our’ (His) contentedness!
Finally: when Muhammad, the physical messenger of God, on whom be peace, did ‘human things’ – interacting with others, engaging in trade, or conducting a physical struggle against oppression when he needed to, he remained at the same time (as far as humanly possible, more than anyone else) ‘Muhammad’ (the consciousness of God).
Incidentally, although Muhammad, the physical messenger of God, was the last Prophet to appear physically on earth, he was the first to be created spiritually. As a physical messenger, he carried the burden of providing spiritual guidance to those living in a more physical world than he himself lived in or would have liked to have lived in.
All his acts of living and struggling – helping light to triumph over darkness by providing spiritual guidance to the rest of creation – are acts of fulfilment of his responsibility to those who were created because he was created. His living (so that we can benefit from it) is God’s greatest mercy to us.
His spiritual guidance provides us with the highest spiritual understanding that is possible in a physical world. His spiritual essence is the ultimate that we can to aspire to. His earthly existence and struggles do not diminish him but elevate him as they reveal his generosity, in his countenancing and accepting to be less than he could have chosen to be, so that we might become more than we could otherwise have been.
In these letters on consciousness and the Divine, dear Tazkiyah and Ilhaam, it is not essential that I be completely right in all aspects of my understanding, but it is essential that I continue striving to understand and help you understand the more profound dimensions of your faith.
Each person’s understanding (and faith) is unique. If what I am saying adds to your faith and understanding, then I have been of some service to you. If what I am saying diminishes or detracts from your faith or understanding, distance yourself from my understanding!
However, if my understanding has some merit (and even if it does not), I hope it will stimulate you (and whoever reads these letters) to strive to gain a deeper understanding of your own – an understanding that will draw you closer to God, fill you with light, and seal within you His all-pervasive love.
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Letter 13
God, the Qur’an and consciousness
Human consciousness first formed like dew from the
‘earth’ of Divine consciousness in the pre-physical mind of the Prophet. ‘Dew’
and ‘earth’ are symbols, just that and no more. For the ‘earth’ of Divine
consciousness could be the ‘cloud’ of Divine consciousness. And then we would
understand how consciousness of rain formed in the mind of the Prophet. Or the
‘cloud’ of Divine consciousness could be the ‘sea’ of Divine consciousness and
then we would understand how consciousness of waves formed in the mind of the
Prophet from the ‘sea’ of Divine consciousness.
Dear Tazkiyah and Ilhaam
If the Qur’an itself represents the voice of the consciousness of God within the Prophet’s mind, then what should we be seeking to understand of this ‘voice’ of ‘Muhammad’, within the mind of Muhammad, the physical messenger of God, on whom be peace?
In the mind of the physical Prophet, this voice (of the wordless) was transformed into, or received as, words representing symbols, for the human mind cannot understand something unless that thing is first expressed as a symbol. But since the words that are needed to describe God cannot really exist (as their existence would imply that symbols capable of truly reflecting His Divine Essence can exist), we make a grave mistake when we confine our understanding of God only to understanding the symbols that reflect Him.
For the symbols represent ‘aspects of existence’ that are both integrated in some way with one another, yet isolated in some way from one another, and depending on our capacity either to integrate or isolate, we unravel diverse worlds of meaning, create our own world of ‘reality’, sometimes being drawn to some aspect of an understanding that we prefer to another, and sometimes rejecting an aspect we like less than another.
But what are we to make of God in all this? If God has qualities that we vaguely understand as qualities of power, or beauty – reflected primarily in the physical existence of the earth, or the universe – and yet He is beyond symbols, as He must be or else He would have the limitations of the symbols that circumscribe Him, then the symbols themselves are only useful if we are able to find a way to integrate them beyond their inherent or evident capacity for being integrated, if they are to help us understand God. But then immediately we still need to discard even this ‘integrated’ understanding – for ultimately the essence of God is beyond our knowing!
Human consciousness
first formed like dew from the ‘earth’ of Divine consciousness in the
pre-physical mind of the Prophet. ‘Dew’ and ‘earth’ are symbols, just that and
no more. For the ‘earth’ of Divine consciousness could be the ‘cloud’ of Divine
consciousness. And then we would understand how consciousness of rain formed in
the mind of the Prophet. Or the ‘cloud’ of Divine consciousness could be the
‘sea’ of Divine consciousness and then we would understand how consciousness of
waves formed in the mind of the Prophet from the ‘sea’ of Divine consciousness.
Or the
Let us now move onto more difficult terrain. The Qur’an often refers to struggle of one kind or another, even permitting fighting within (prescribed) limits – within the context of its overwhelming message of doing (and being) good, avoiding evil, promoting justice and creating a healthy society where the spirit can flourish and fulfil its purpose of knowing God and His qualities, particularly His love – described as mercy, compassion, and forgiveness. But if we read even the ‘struggle verses’ with spiritual insight, we can find new worlds of meaning opening up to us. Ultimately, it is only the believer in us that can kill the unbeliever in us. It is only ‘Muhammad’ within us that can overwhelm (‘slay’) the lower (unbelieving) self within us, our ‘straying’ consciousness.
Remember, who we are (and what kind of consciousness we possess) is what makes us see what we see. If our consciousness focuses on the higher, we will see the higher nature (the good) in everything (and everyone), even in that which is (or appears to be) bad.
So trying to know God only through a limited understanding of words and symbols would be like standing on the shore of a great ocean and thinking one can know the ocean from the shore. For not only is God more than any symbol, He is beyond symbols.
Yet the Qur’an becomes more than words, as the voice of Divine consciousness within us. Listening to the Qur’an, we should find our own consciousness surrendering to its inner music, to the rising and falling of the waves of Divine consciousness racing towards the shores of timelessness, coming alive to us as they crash onto the rocks of time, in a night that is otherwise so silent that the silence rises like a radiant moon within us, in an awakening consciousness of a world of rhythms and cycles and streams of light merging, a world that is beyond separation and disintegration.
We cannot become part of the consciousness of the Divine by remaining apart from it. For even if we are able to describe love well, with the aid of a good imagination, unless we know what it means to love, we are not in love! And how can we lose consciousness of our consciousness while being conscious? It cannot be done. Just as we cannot drown by thinking of drowning. And of course if we have really drowned we will not know we have, for there will no longer be a consciousness that can know this!
Moreover, once we have lost our consciousness of ourselves, why would we want to know this, if the very reason for our wanting to lose our self-consciousness is to become what we cannot consciously become? For once we start to remember the need to remember, we have already started returning to the ‘earth’ of self-consciousness!
So read the Qur’an for guidance. Understand as well as you can (you must!) the deepest of the meanings of its words and symbols, its profound guidance for living in this world in a way that will help you attain closeness to God, serve others, and live a full and wholesome life. But to know God beyond words and symbols, the Qur’an needs to be ‘heard’ in the inmost heart – as well as understood intellectually.
The light that lives within us as ‘Divine
consciousness’ has no attachment to darkness. Veiled from us (to varying
degrees) by the strength of the shadow of our lower consciousness, we can
regain access to it because our lower consciousness (a shadow created by light)
carries within it the seeds of its own destruction. It cannot be otherwise, for
then ‘creation’ would be fatally flawed.
This (lower) consciousness ultimately cannot
be undone from outside (through an ‘external’ light shining on it) but it can
be undone from within, as its light has ultimately come into being from sound –
from the cry of God’s love – needing to be known. Light, as light, creates a
shadow and with it the pre-eminent difficulty of eliminating the ‘created’
presence of ‘another’, its shadow. But sound (as light) does not create another
‘presence’ but an echo of the original sound – which is nothing more than (or
less than) the original light in audible (call it visible) form.
So (Divine) light is not only capable of
being seen, it is also capable of being heard. In fact the light of the Divine
is more capable of being heard without distortion than seen without distortion.
So when light as sound is reminded
(when our lower consciousness as an echo of Divine consciousness is reminded)
of the original sound of which it is an echo, it is able to recognize that
original light (in Divine sound); its memory of the Divine is revived and this
so unnerves it that it loses (its) consciousness of itself and is drowned in
the music of the Divine, losing all knowledge of its own light, effectively
losing its shadow.
This music of the Divine is everywhere and
in everything, but is often lost in the ‘noise’ of existence. The most potent
form of this Divine music is contained in the Qur’an. That is why listening to
the recitation of the Qur’an is such an uplifting experience, for it reveals
the Spirit of the Divine itself to us as a personal revelation.
The light of the Qur’an destroys the lower
consciousness’ awareness of itself – as the most dominant sound (the most
dominant form of sound as light) more completely blots out other sounds than
the most dominant form of otherwise visible light blots out other light. Light
as sound, in inducing within the lower self a ‘loss of self-consciousness’ allows
the light of Divine consciousness to shine – allows Divine consciousness (the
inner light of God) to shine within us as pure light reflecting our essential
oneness with the Divine.
When light (as light) becomes visible, so
does darkness. Therefore to return to light via light is fraught with
difficulty as we have to negotiate the terrain of light and darkness, and we
can fail to differentiate between the two – as ultimately it is in the lower
self’s self-interest to see itself as light and consider as a journey of
‘enlightenment’ a journey of essentially ‘selfish’ discovery.
The light created by Divine sound can never be corrupted, despite the inevitable veiling of visible light by the existence of the darkness that arises with its (light’s) creation. For in the heart of everything that exists (and of course more so in our own hearts) is the purest light imaginable. When Divine sound is re-introduced into the arena of our consciousness, the lower self feels the ‘tremor’ of a higher existence which it would not otherwise notice or see, because of the shadows that veil it (us) from seeing a higher light. It is this tremor that ultimately dislodges the lower self from its ‘self’ so that it loses its self-consciousness and is effectively ‘drowned’ or ‘submerged’ – and we are restored as original light.
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Letter 14
Doors to the Divine
There is no door to God unless we become the key to
that door first – unless we first become what we hope to find when we enter
through that particular door! And unless we know before we enter a door, the
extent of the beauty that lies beyond it, and how it came into being, or the
depth of love that door conceals, and
where it reaches and what it means, or the breadth of compassion, the span of
justice, or the flow of generosity just out of our reach, how can we ever
become fit enough to open a door leading to a treasure we first need to become
before we can open it?
Dear Tazkiyah and Ilhaam
Today is the first day of another Ramadan. A whole year has passed since I wrote my first letter to you last Ramadan. So much has happened in that time: when we had Sehri this morning it seemed so quiet without you, Tazkiyah, being with us to share the pre-dawn meal. Your absence this very special Ramadan morning was plainly noticeable. I think I must have commented on how quiet it was without you at least four times in ten minutes. Your mother, mindful of the need to make sure you were up, responded by interrupting her meal to do what mothers do – call her daughter to check. Knowing you, you were. But I can still see these calls becoming a regular feature of our lives for this month.
You know that in writing these letters I am not only writing to you, but also through you and while writing to you, I am at the same time writing to my friends and to their children, and for them and their children. And in fact for anyone who happens to read these letters. Do remember too that in these letters to you, I am not only writing to you in a way that you may understand today everything I am trying to say, but that you may find something to turn to later, something that might help you understand some aspect of life and its beauty or mystery when you are older.
To my friends: I
owe you a great debt. Not only in appreciation of an ongoing friendship but for
asking from time to time for something to read. Two years ago, Na’eem’s ‘where are the poems’ email resulted in
an outflow of new writing, now a collection of poetry waiting to be published.
This Ramadan a new friend who had been receiving my writings from her friend
wrote asking to be included in my mailing list, innocently adding she was keen
to share in any new Ramadan insights.
So it is to Khadija that I owe this letter – many key aspects of which have
been inspired by my reading of Ibn Arabi’s Journey
to the Lord of Power.
I pray that each of you finds the month (and months) ahead uplifting. And whether it is Ramadan that adds that extra dimension of light to your life, makes you more aware of beauty, and causes you to reflect on, and embrace the divine truth within you – or Rosh Hashanah, or Christmas, or Diwali or another day that stands out as a reminder of your link with the Divine – may you be blessed, and secured, and protected; surrounded and captured by love and surrendered to an essential oneness.
Although we may consider this life in some sense as an ‘illusion’, depending on the vantage point from which we are making this observation, it is nevertheless no ordinary life (no ordinary illusion), as it is essentially a gift of love. And it comes with the potential for enabling us to find beyond it a higher reality than our own. It is therefore a privilege to be alive, for it is in our living (in transforming our living consciousness) that we gain knowledge of the Divine; a knowledge that cannot be acquired once we are (physically) dead – for when we are dead we can only gain clarity of what we knew when we were alive.
So do not be too keen for some other life
before you have done justice to this life! For you cannot afford to ‘let go’
this life too soon, before you have realized its full potential for leading you
to the Divine everywhere and in everything. For the world that we see, and the
one that we do not, co-exist. And at each moment, we and the world are being
renewed. Therefore, do not fear difficulty, and do not despair, for we are
effectively given a new life many times over, even though we think we live one
continuous life. We have an opportunity many times over to grow into light.
There is no door
to God unless we become the key to that door first – unless we first become
what we hope to find when we enter through that particular door! And unless we
know before we enter a door, the extent of the beauty that lies beyond it, and
how it came into being, or the depth of love that door conceals, and where it
reaches and what it means, or the breadth of compassion, the span of justice,
or the flow of generosity just out of our reach, how can we ever become fit
enough to open a door leading to a treasure we first need to become before we
can open it? So remember: although the doors to God are many, all of them aspects
of love, every door ultimately opens only through His grace.
If love were a tree, hope would be its height, contentment its depth, generosity its width, fortitude its trunk, patience its bark, sincerity the sap, faith its roots, humility its earth, knowledge the sun, compassion its leaves, justice its branches, forgiveness the wind, mercy clouds, altruism rain, graciousness sky, modesty its leaning, resolution its bearing, gratitude its shimmering, trust shade, truth its fruit, and beauty its name.
Although we are being continually renewed,
each moment that we live is also eternal. Not only do we become beautiful for
the duration of our physical existence by being beautiful or in making the
world more beautiful, but we become beauty itself, forever imprinted on the
consciousness of the world. When this happens we become lover and beloved,
seeker and sought, ‘the door to the treasure and the treasure’.
I read a saying recently that ‘anything taken to its extreme reverts to its opposite’. So read the rest of this letter carefully. It is meant to help you avoid extremes in a world of relative understanding. These observations would not be material to someone whose consciousness was completely Divine. As we live for the most part very human lives, sometimes ‘too human’, we can, either through forgetfulness, or negligence, or if lost in the pursuit of self-gratification, make that which is good, bad or that which is bad, good – through taking things to their extreme!
Do not be deceived by what appears beautiful but contains some hidden ugliness, or succumb to a love that is selfish and leads eventually to hate, or seek and pursue a justice that carries within it the seeds of vengeance.
If you are reading this with a sincere desire to learn and grow, and are keen to know how you can protect yourselves from making such mistakes, the following observations may help you determine whether you are going astray.
Invariably that which is truly (physically) beautiful is only beautiful because it is covered by a modesty that simultaneously conceals and reveals its beauty. So if you consider something that has no such modesty beautiful, it may not be as beautiful as you consider it to be. Only when our sight becomes truly spiritual can Divine beauty be seen as beauty without a filter of modesty. Only then can human love be known as Divine love without the filter of self-restraint, and only then can human justice be known as Divine justice without the filter of (self-) doubt! And only in God can anything exist as an absolute. In us, everything (unless our consciousness is a truly Divine consciousness) will always be relative.
Unless all our values are held together as one, as we continue to be human, seek sustenance, cry out for justice, fall in and out of love, face difficulties of every kind as we grow from infanthood to childhood to adulthood, fall ill, fall down, rise again and again, these values will ultimately collapse and we will almost certainly disintegrate, more than likely never knowing or admitting we have come apart! And if our own behaviour is far from Divine, it is likely to provoke a less than Divine response in other equally human beings.
When we are inexorably unjust towards others, they will eventually respond angrily and irrationally, and that is not good for them or us; when we display perpetual hostility towards others, it will more likely than not start a cycle of hatred; when we take away the freedom of others, however we try to disguise what we are doing, they will revolt sooner than we think rather than later, whether we like it or not; when we do not respect others, if the disrespect becomes so persistent that they eventually lose the need to feel respected, then we had better beware of the consequences; and when we do not trust the goodness of others, we can be sure they will not trust our own!
Even freedom needs to be restrained by self-discipline. Our knowledge of the external world needs to be balanced by an inner self-awareness, our strength needs mercy, and our mercy needs to be expanded by hope, surrounded by forgiveness, challenged by justice, brought to its knees by compassion, raised up by our resolution, returned as love, and lost in the ocean of grace.
Become aware of the hidden in the visible;
and ultimately lose sight of what you can see physically to find the hidden
jewel within. And yet do not prematurely discard the physical, or you will be
discarding the rock containing the jewel before you have actually found the
jewel.
And know that there are many such ‘earths’
you will have to traverse before you find the ultimate ‘jewel’. So if through
some grace you acquire either a beautiful understanding, or character, or some
other spiritual gain, do not succumb to the temptation to consider prematurely
that you have achieved all that you have been created for.
Every time you encounter a new ‘earth’,
neither stay too long once you have found what you are looking for, nor leave
too soon. If you persevere and are sincere, you will find what was meant for
you.
And never consider anything that is given to you as a gift during this search as the outcome of your own efforts. It is not. For though God cannot be found by seeking, as much as He cannot be found without seeking, ultimately it is not you who find Him. He finds you.
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Letter 15
Forgiveness
Once
what can be reversed of a wrongdoing has been reversed, forgiveness should be swift
to follow. If forgiveness does not follow, the corrosive effect of the failure
to forgive on the psyche of the person who has been wronged, will be akin to a
silent, ongoing punishment, possibly even greater than that already meted out
to, or deserved by, the wrongdoer! This would be a tragedy, for the person who
has been punished for a wrongdoing is already as a result (to some extent at
least) released from the pain of that wrongdoing. Justice can be a two-edged
sword; hence the need for forgiveness!
Dear
Tazkiyah and Ilhaam
I would like to share with you some thoughts on
forgiveness. If forgiveness was not intrinsic to God’s nature He would not have
created us – for He knew even before He created us that we would have many
weaknesses and that eventually He would need to forgive us our shortcomings.
Therefore we too need to forgive others from time to time for appearing to be,
or acting in a way that might be construed as, ‘other than Divine’. Without
such acts of mercy, it would be impossible for us to be fully at peace or to
know deep happiness.
We can choose to forgive act by act, whenever an act rightly or wrongly hurts us – and spend our entire lives being sporadically loving or happy or at peace – or we can forgive, in a single overarching act, all those who have hurt us, or who might hurt us in future, or who might hurt us again even though we have previously forgiven them.
Our forgiving those who have hurt us cannot only depend on their displaying remorse for having hurt us, as that remorse may never be forthcoming. Our forgiving can also arise from our own response to being hurt when we realise that our hurt may have been caused by our (own) separation from our Divine Essence. In this instance our need to forgive those who have hurt us may be greater than their need to be forgiven! But what if the injustice is so great (or felt so deeply) that we cannot forgive immediately – where someone has taken another’s life, or reduced an entire community or nation to poverty, violating every right to which others are entitled?
Is forgiveness in these circumstances more Divine than first seeking to redress the injustice? Does premature forgiveness not simply add to the injustice?
Righting a wrong, where righting the wrong is the only way of reversing the consequences of the wrong, is essential for safeguarding the well-being both of individuals and of society at large. So there are times when we need to right a wrong before we are able to forgive the wrongdoer in a meaningful way. The justice itself should be a disciplined, compassionate, and healing justice; healing both the wrong-doer and the wronged.
Where righting a wrong done to us may cause hurt to the wrongdoer that is disproportionately greater than the hurt the wrongdoer has caused us, forgiveness should, wherever possible, take precedence over righting the wrong. Again, no injustice should be done to the wrong-doer as this would devalue justice itself and effectively render it meaningless.
Once what can be reversed of a wrongdoing has been reversed, forgiveness should be swift to follow. If forgiveness does not follow, the corrosive effect of the failure to forgive on the psyche of the person who has been wronged, will be akin to a silent, ongoing punishment, possibly even greater than that already meted out to, or deserved by, the wrongdoer!
This would be a tragedy, for the person
who has been punished for a wrongdoing is already as a result (to some extent
at least) released from the pain of that wrongdoing. Justice can be a two-edged
sword; hence the need for forgiveness!
It may be useful, for a moment, to return to our understanding of love to appreciate the role and place of forgiveness. To love someone means ‘to prefer someone’ to oneself! If I say ‘I love you’ it means that I consider you so precious that I prefer you to me! Ultimately it means that I prefer you to such a degree that I am willing to die if necessary so that you may live. When we love selfishly, we desire someone for ourselves without any real interest in the welfare of the other person. In this instance, although we might say ‘I love you’ what we are really saying is not ‘I prefer you to me’ but ‘I prefer you for me’. When we say ‘I love you’ unselfishly, it becomes the ultimate act of humility, as ‘I love you’ now means ‘I see the beauty of the Divine in you and prefer it to the beauty I see in myself’!
We also need to differentiate between a human (and yet Divine) love, as in loving others and wanting to be loved, and a Divine (and yet human) love, as in loving others without caring whether one is loved in return because one knows that one’s very loving of others means that one is (already) loved (by the Divine).
Unrequited love for another generally causes the one doing the loving great pain. Differentiate this from a spiritual love for another where the one who loves and the one who is loved are indistinguishable, for the source and the goal of the love are the same. Loving means loved. Lover is beloved. Where the self is lost in such love for another there is no self that exists and therefore none that can be hurt.
But what should we do if we are hurt when our love for someone is not returned? We might do well to do what nature does. Nature invariably aborts a foetus to prevent a child from being born with some serious defect. We have no option but to bury the aborted foetus as tenderly as we can. In the same way, we need to bury any pain from a human love that has had to be aborted before it could be fully realised.
But where are we to bury the pain, the hurt, or the anger we feel? To bury the pain, we first need to find a spiritual earth within ourselves. And that spiritual earth is forgiveness! When we bury pain properly in this way, forgiving the person who has hurt us, our love itself is purified and transforms from a human love to a spiritual love, from one that causes us pain to one that brings us joy.
But it is not just in the context of forgiving those who have hurt us that forgiveness is essential. We need to examine the question of forgiveness more deeply. Forgiveness is a natural daily occurrence! Consider the following: the earth forgives the sun for making the land arid, it forgives the clouds for withholding rain, it forgives the sea for causing floods, and it forgives the plants for depleting many of its precious resources.
Why does it do this? The sun also provides it with warmth that is essential for its well-being, the clouds often bring it life-giving rain, the sea cools it when it is overheating, and plants beautify it! We often encounter, in the same experience, something that may be considered Divine but which at the same time for some reason may also be construed as ‘other than Divine’. Naturally we should be grateful for that which we see as Divine. But the price we have to pay for the presence of the Divine is forgiving the ‘less than Divine’ that exists in the very things that bring us such great Divine grace.
Ultimately, in forgiving the ‘other than Divine’ that exists in everything around us, we are actually accepting that the Divine is present everywhere, even in that which appears to be ‘less than Divine’. And in forgiving the ‘other than Divine’ (as we must, for we ourselves remain ‘less than Divine’ unless we do so) we become Divine ourselves and reveal the Divine’s all-pervasive presence.
We can either veil the Divine by focusing on the ‘otherness’ of the ‘other than Divine’ or we can reveal the Divine within the ‘other than Divine’ – as the Divine can only become (physically) visible as ‘companion’ of the ‘other than Divine’. But why should this be so? Why cannot the Divine appear as good, be good alone, and uphold good, at every moment of the day and night? What makes the Divine appear subservient to the ‘less than Divine’?
In order to understand the existence of the Divine vis-à-vis the existence of the ‘other than Divine’, we need to consider (and understand) how God (could have) translated the spiritual into the physical. If we can understand this, we might be able to translate the physical (back) into the spiritual, overcoming the vision of duality we have constructed of the physical and the spiritual – and the pain that is associated with this vision.
One way of understanding the physical as spiritual is to understand the body as the body of the spirit, and the spirit as the spirit of the body. When we view the physical and the spiritual in this way the difference between the two fades. But once again, to overcome the pain we feel (and see others endure all around us in every broken spirit and body), we need to turn our attention to forgiveness.
If we see ourselves not as an indivisible unit but as separate (separated) body and spirit, then the body would need to forgive the spirit for the discord it causes by using the body as its ‘home’. For without its presence, the body would have no contradictions to deal with and therefore know no pain! And for the spirit to be happy it would need to forgive the body for being less than a perfect home, recognising that if it lived in any other form, it would simply not be seen or known.
But this forgiveness is only possible if we see the body and the spirit as one. If we continue to see them as separate, our pain would be endless. If we intermittently see them as one, we would occasionally be in pain. If we always see them as one, our pain would disappear. Effectively we have to forgive what appears to be ‘less than Divine’ in our own nature for us to rise above the bonds of our earthly existence and become free of pain.
When this happens, even the failure of the body (through illness or disease) and finally its death, will not affect the spirit, as body and spirit will have melted into one in the ultimate act of mercy shown to us by the Divine.
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Letter 16
Love and fear
True love cannot be affected by fear because fear is a
quality we introduce into our (physical) existence, whereas love subsists in
every breath we take and is the very essence of our spiritual existence, and as
such the very essence of our lives. We cannot be made to love God through fear,
but we can be constrained from loving other than God through fear. Fear is a
negative quality that exists only in relation to loss. Love is a positive
quality that exists only in relation to gain.
Dear Tazkiyah and Ilhaam
In the Qur’an we are often admonished to fear God. Yet (more than fear) every spiritually conscious person instinctively feels the need to love the Divine; for love of the Divine is the essence of spiritual behaviour. God Himself says we were created to know Him, and loving is the highest form of knowing. Why then, we may ask, is there a need for the constant reminder to fear Him?
In order to understand why, I want you to consider what constitutes an enlightened human being. In Islamic thought, an enlightened human being is one who knows the proper place (or value) of things. Ultimately, it means knowing the proper place (or value) of the Divine compared to the rest of existence. But it is also important for conducting our day-to-day living and involves, for example, establishing the proper place (or value) of say, a cluster of trees, compared to the proper place (or value) of the space the trees occupy when there is a need to put up a new building.
This could lead to our having to make any number of ethical decisions based on how many such trees there are, who planted the trees and why, how old the trees are, their physical condition, the shortage and value of land in the locality, whether the trees are encroaching on the property and so affecting some legitimate and over-riding interest of another, or whether the new development or building is envisaged to satisfy the whims of those who are excessively rich or the needs of the desperately poor and homeless.
Or we may need to know the proper place of the duties we owe to our parents compared to those we owe to our siblings; or the proper place of a teacher in society compared to the place of a student. The list is endless. We make such choices almost every moment of every day, without being conscious that we are making decisions on the basis of some knowledge or inclination or prejudice. Even a decision such as whether to continue reading this article now or deferring the rest of it till later (or deciding not to read further) requires the exercising of such a choice: this, not that.
There are invariably as many negatives to consider as positives in any decision-making. We can arrive at ‘this’ by focusing on ‘not that’ or arrive at ‘not that’ by focusing on ‘this’. Why then does the Qur’an often adopt the approach of ‘not that’ when it wants to lead us to ‘this’? Why does it so often say ‘fear God’ when ultimately the purpose of existence is to know (or love) God?
Since the advice to fear God is coming from God Himself, let us give deeper consideration to the place of fearing God in our lives – when love by its very nature is fearless! It is essential to pursue the quest to understand this paradox, for understanding human existence nearly always depends on understanding paradoxes.
Whenever we say we love someone or something we invariably imply ‘more than’ we love someone else. The more we love the Divine, the more we see the Divine everywhere – seeing its presence even in that which constitutes the ‘physical’. So the gaze of the lover nearly always falls on the highest nature of something or someone. The gaze of others is more prone to waver between seeing the Divine and the ‘not Divine’ in the same thing or person.
What is it that causes our gaze to waver? Besides the different natural inclinations we are born with, we sometimes choose one or the other because of some love or fear. We often choose ‘good’ because we fear ‘bad’. But why on earth should we fear the ‘good’ (or the source of goodness) to avoid the ‘bad’? Why not simply love the ‘good’? Surely that would be more than adequate to help us avoid the ‘bad’.
Love of the Divine is innate: we are born with this love. In fact we are only born because of it. More than that, we are love itself! For what else can be born of love but love? But (paradoxically) we can only know this because we exist in a world where love (or our vision of love) is fallible. So when the Qur’an admonishes us to fear God, this does not mean that love is secondary to fear (love is beyond fear), for the fear that is referred to is not being juxtaposed with love.
The choice is not between ‘love God’ or ‘fear God’. Love for God should be ever-present in our lives. We can no more help loving the Divine than we can stop breathing (without dire consequences). The kind of fear that God refers to is one that we introduce into our lives (through God’s advice) for the purpose of helping us to avoid what is bad. The more we love God, the less we need to fear Him.
True love cannot be affected by fear because fear is a quality we introduce into our (physical) existence, whereas love subsists in every breath we take and is the very essence of our spiritual existence, and as such the very essence of our lives. We cannot be made to love God through fear, but we can be constrained from loving other than God through fear. Fear is a negative quality that exists only in relation to loss. Love is a positive quality that exists only in relation to gain.
When our love for the Divine is pure, fearing the Divine has no meaning; for when we move beyond light and darkness, light and darkness are one, immaterial: they are needed only to help us grapple with the profoundly demanding task of moving from a lower level of understanding to a higher level of understanding, darkness being the fuel of light.
But when our loving becomes confused through some failing and we begin to love darkness instead of light (before we have journeyed beyond darkness and light), then the supreme quality of love (its very soul, fearlessness) can itself subvert (our) love by causing us to love that which we should not! The fear of God the Qur’an speaks of now becomes a means of redirecting our loving away from the love of ‘other than God’. But loving God is another matter entirely and arises from a source that is positive, good, pure and innate. It is God’s loving us that causes us to love God (and all of creation). It is not our fear of God that causes us to love Him!
Remember: the purity of the love we are born with (for the Divine) is continuously being subjected to dilution; and we may not always be able to restore that purity merely by being ‘loving’, for our understanding of ‘love’ or ‘loving’ could have been so altered or diluted by the harshness of our existence or as a result of some lack of knowledge or understanding that we are no longer able to love truly (or purely), or love beyond ourselves, or beyond the limitations of our understanding of love.
Our consciousness of the Divine can be revived by the fear of wronging the Divine. Fear thus becomes a filter that purifies a love that has become muddied (love itself is ever-present – whether it is clear or not, visible or invisible). The effectiveness of the purification process depends on the depth of the knowledge, the extent of the enlightenment, and the resulting perfection of our understanding of the proper place (or value) of things we subsequently acquire: whether we love ‘this’ or ‘that’!
To continue: an act of love does not become an act of love by calling an act devoid of love ‘an act of love’. And consider: if love is as important as it is (it is the most important facet of our existence), then surely it is right that the source of love should warn us to love correctly, live ethically and compassionately, and be just towards others. If we fail to live in this manner we cannot be said to be living embodiments of (Divine) love. More than this, we cannot afford to confuse what constitutes a life of love with a life devoid of (true) love, or else we could have the most outrageous acts of wrongdoing being accepted as acts of love.
Consider this: if someone loves killing others, should the fact that such a person ‘loves’ doing so mean that we should permit and encourage such killings? Surely not! What if someone was suffering and wanted to die and needed the help of a compassionate person to assist in a ‘mercy-killing’ – would it be acceptable to let the psychopath do the killing instead so his ‘love’ for killing could be satisfied without it effectively harming the person being killed? Surely not!
Would this view change if we factored in the suffering that would be prevented for the compassionate person who is considering taking a precious life because of a deep love for someone undergoing extreme suffering? Again, surely not! Therefore, to live meaningful and wholesome lives, our understanding of love, or any other value, has to be the highest understanding of that value.
There are numerous laws in every society that threaten sanctions against those involved in wrongdoing. Yet our deepest ethical behaviour comes from an innate desire to do that which is right and avoid that which is wrong. This behaviour (if it is intrinsically true) is not driven by a fear of the sanctions that will be imposed on us for doing wrong.
True love of the Divine does not arise out of fear. It is innate. If this is so, then the recommendation to ‘fear God’ can also be understood both as a recommendation to be ‘in awe of God’, and as an instruction not to fear anyone or anything else – not the darkness, nor shadows, nor poverty, nor illness, nor failure, nor an oppressor – the list is endless. In these words, therefore, is the remedy for all other fears.
The voice of Divine consciousness addresses our ‘lower nature’, the ‘lesser self’ that is chained to an illusion (of the ‘reality’ of itself) which it fears to let go. So ‘fear God’ can be understood as admonishing this self to fear the truth, in an effort to shatter it. Once it becomes ‘nothing’, it will have nothing to fear, its resistance (to the truth of itself) will cease, its love of illusions will fade, and true love will surface within us. The admonishment is not addressed to the higher self, the self imbued with love – the only self capable of knowing (loving) the Divine. The self that exists only to love the Divine has no need to fear the Divine, for it is itself Divine!
Finally, I would like you to consider these concluding thoughts on love: the nature and quality of our loving depends on our spiritual condition at any time. The love we feel for someone or something beautiful – that uplifts our own spirit and causes it to gaze more intensely on the Divine – is a love of oneness. The love we feel for those who, for some reason, have become distant from the Divine – when we ourselves are distant from the Divine – is a love of service. Inasmuch as everyone and everything is Divine, we should always try to feel towards them a love of oneness. For as long as this is not possible (for whatever reason), the least we owe to others is a love of service.
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Letter 17
Adab, or knowing the proper
place of things
The presence of beauty in the world – in the earth of
mountains, rivers, and trees, and in the sky of clouds, stars, sun and the
moon, and in the world of animals and insects, and in the hearts and minds of
men and women who care about others, and in the unflawed faces and
all-embracing smiles of the young, and in the grace-lined and ever-softening
faces of the old – is the outcome of an adab based on a deep knowing within
their innermost beings of the truth of themselves and its relationship to the
Divine, and others. Without the shade of this knowing, their beauty would be
harsh, its truth blinding.
Dear Tazkiyah and Ilhaam
Adab,
commonly understood as ‘courtesy towards and respect for others, or being
well-mannered’, is no ordinary courtesy but one that is based on having a deep
knowledge of and appreciation for the
proper place of things, and ultimately, the proper place of oneself in relation
to the Divine in each element of creation.
Each nuance of each aspect of our living
requires adab: how to talk to our
parents, or partners, or siblings or friends; what to say, how much to say and
when to say it; how to write a private letter that can be read publicly; how to
dress on different occasions; how and when to eat, or sleep or laugh or remain
silent; when to be angry and when not to be angry; when to forgive, and when to
demand justice; how to love and how not to love; how and when to wage war and
how and when not to.
Our capacity for this adab is largely inbuilt, a beautiful aspect of the Divine within
our nature. But adab can and must be
learnt too.
What is it that made me so aware of the importance of adab? Tazkiyah, you will recall our conversation last night, when your mother and I were discussing with you some challenges in your still very-new marriage, and the natural differences and difficulties you and Yunus are facing in developing a relationship that is both secure, and yet full of healthy uncertainty – difficult enough for a young couple in the midst of sustaining their day-to-day living, without having to pay unforeseen traffic fines!
What I remember most of the discussion is not your tears, nor my practical concern for your welfare (the traffic fines are now a thing of the past), but the adab with which your mother spoke to you, assuring you of our ongoing presence in your life and our support, and reminding you of both Yunus’ and your own unique and endearing qualities. What I saw in that moment was not just the adab your mother displayed, but the beauty that her adab had added to her love.
Later in bed, before I fell asleep, and early this morning lying in bed, before the morning prayer, I reflected on what I had seen and heard. And asked myself: what really is adab? How deeply is it ingrained, not just in human nature but in the entire universe? What is its true and full purpose? And can we survive without it?
Adab is not just an expression (through our actions) of our knowledge of and deep respect for others, but reflects an inner awareness and understanding of why they are so valuable. Without adab, even the most positive of our qualities appear naked. Adab clothes our good qualities with modesty; and it is the modesty (more than the qualities themselves) that gives these qualities their beauty. This is what I saw in your mother last night, a beauty that I had not fully appreciated before. And you know your mother is very beautiful – as are both you and Ilhaam!
Without adab we often embellish half-truths to make them appear more beautiful than they are; so that our knowledge and understanding may appear more worthy of acknowledgement than they deserve to be; allowing us to deceive more easily and to abuse more freely. How much better it would be if instead of embellishing ‘a truth’ to make it appear more beautiful than it is, we were made more beautiful by the truth as it is – even the truth that we do not fully understand the truth!
Adab stops us from being careless with the truth, including the truth of who we are; it prevents our being diminished by a failing to see deep, yet all-present truth and its often hidden beauty in ourselves, as well as in everyone and everything around us. So often in wanting to be beautiful (as we should), we make ourselves overly visible and our demand for recognition overly strident. Wanting to assert the truth of our existence, we demand more and more respect for ourselves, forgetting that the truth of our existence also demands respect for the truth of the existence of others; demands our adab!
The presence of beauty in the world – in the earth of mountains, rivers, and trees, and in the sky of clouds, stars, sun and the moon, and in the world of animals and insects, and in the hearts and minds of men and women who care about others, and in the unflawed faces and all-embracing smiles of the young, and in the grace-lined and ever-softening faces of the old – is the outcome of an adab based on a deep knowing within their innermost beings of the truth of themselves and its relationship to the Divine, and others. Without the shade of this knowing, their beauty would be harsh, its truth blinding.
The sun that rises early in the morning to greet us and to pave the way for us to engage in the day’s activities does so out of its adab for us and its Creator; does so to do justice to its creation. A heart that beats to keep the blood in a body flowing does so out of adab for the body that supports us and contains it, ensuring our survival even while it is in the process of sacrificing its life. A human yet Divine talent often lies dormant within us, waiting to come alive, yet often subduing its eagerness to be known, out of its adab for our minds that first need to grow strong enough to understand it and deal justly with its treasures.
The child in a mother’s womb takes time to grow strong out of its adab for the mother’s body, so as not to place too big a burden on her too quickly, to give her time to weave her love and dreams and soul into its own, ensuring that their bond strengthens and becomes everlasting; and death when it comes to us, early or late, for reasons we can understand or not, comes to us out of its adab for the task for which it has been destined, regardless of the pain (or relief) it brings.
Each of us, in every sphere of our living, has a responsibility to live a life of adab. In practical terms it means living a full and meaningful life on this earth; striving, studying, engaging with others in humility; and working and earning a living passionately (or if we prefer, dispassionately) so that we can give charity, help the oppressed, and support our families; for this is adab in action (and adab can only be known through our actions).
Adab functions through simultaneously veiling and unveiling – unveiling the good, then veiling or protecting it from the bad – revealing love, and then preventing love from lowering its gaze; or seeing a self (blinded by its own light) raising its estimation of itself unrealistically, darkening the light so that it can see again; supporting the struggling self, yet warning us against self-deception and oppression. Without adab, love itself is compromised until all that remains of it is a shadow of the truth, and justice becomes discoloured, and ultimately grows darker than any evil it tries to eradicate.
Regarding knowledge, remember: we are all knowledgeable of some things and ignorant of other things. When we are knowledgeable, but arrogant (as a result), we invariably also become oppressive. When we are knowledgeable, but our knowledge leads us to vain desires, we eventually become enslaved by these desires. When we are knowledgeable but passive, we tend to become fearful.
With knowledge must come freedom from vanity for inner liberation to prevail; and a good spirit needs to be expressed in service to others for a beatified society to result. Ignorance accompanied by selfishness invariably leads to sustained inner darkness; accompanied by disregard for wholesome values leads to a destructive society; accompanied by freedom generally leads to a liberal society but a liberality that often leads to immorality; and in a reactionary or dark society, inevitably leads to repression and injustice.
And to be Divine, instead of trying to become more than you are, become less than you are! As long as you understand that the Essence of God is ultimately unknowable, and you do not diminish God in any way, there is joy to be gained in trying to know Him. Engaging with Him is an act of loving Him, and a fulfilment of the purpose for which we were created. But remember too that no understanding of God can ever be totally right, so do not think that all that I am saying is right! It cannot be. My wanting to understand the Divine is not so that I may succeed in defining Him, but so that I may succeed (and help you succeed) in loving Him more each day!
However, do not lose God in a web of analysis. The outcome of analysis can change as we examine the nuance in each word or phrase. So go beyond words and sense some movement of the spirit in all words of love, even in the ink that is dried on the page you are reading.
If you can feel the pulse of some past love faintly starting to beat again as you read of God’s love and forgiving nature, if you can hear a stream starting to flow where you once thought there was nothing but desert, if you can hear a song trying to break through the silence, or find love slipping through your defences and infiltrating your heart, filling it with some notion of oneness, then you are being filled with a sense of the Divine.
And do not let the ‘rightness’ or ‘wrongness’ of my understanding of the Divine distract you from its underlying spirit. For me, this spirit serves the purpose of a driving rain that forces me to shed my outer knowledge (the clothes I have grown used to), compelling me to seek shelter in some strange place where I have nothing but some embers of love in my heart to ignite and light up my world. A fire does not care about the wood it burns, so create the sparks of love with all your thoughts. When the fire is finally burning brightly, the ‘wood’ has served its purpose.
So stay pure in your thoughts and your deeds; believe in yourselves; and remember that in a world where noise is often mistaken for music, do not think that if you cannot hear noise there is no music!
Often, when we get into difficulty we say: ‘There is light at the end of the tunnel.’ But there was light at the beginning of the tunnel! So try not to get into the tunnel in the first place. But if you are in it, know that the light you require to get out has existed with you from the beginning.
On a lighter note: be like your mother; develop a throwaway smile!
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Letter 18
if i could write
As I write this letter I recall a prayer of the
Prophet: ‘Lord, help me to remember you, help me to be grateful to you, and help
me to serve you well’ and find myself questioning how well I am doing on all
three fronts.
Reading the writings of those who truly love the
Divine, I see such simplicity in their lives, such deep understanding expressed
without confusion or affectation. Sometimes, a single line I read outweighs
everything I have ever written!
Dear Tazkiyah and Ilhaam and Yunus
I have come finally (thank goodness! I can hear you say) to the last of the Ramadan letters I shall write to you. Reading what I have written so far, I realise that I still need to remind you of some of the basic foundations on which you should be building your lives. If these foundations are solid, and you respect the spiritual laws developed for your guidance, your spiritual growth will benefit immeasurably.
Let us begin with the constant need for
self-examination – and repentance or remorse for wrong-doing.
Without these, it is unlikely that you will ever make any significant,
long-term improvement in your physical, emotional, intellectual or
spiritual condition.
So always be vigilant of your inner state – invariably reflected in your outer behaviour, in your physical fitness or lack of
fitness, in the preciseness or slackness of your language, in the stability or
instability of your values, in the fluctuations in your moods, in your
contentment or lack of contentment with what you have, and in whether your
focus is only on yourselves or whether you are of service to others, and
regularly make others happier.
Be careful that laziness is not construed as
contentment, that fear is not regarded as modesty, anger is not regarded
as courage, arrogance is not regarded as independence, self-centredness is
not regarded as humility, ignorance is not regarded as innocence, and foolhardiness
is not regarded as youthfulness.
Remember too that being content does not mean that you should not strive to make your lives and that of others more wholesome, appealing and pleasant. And finding the ‘middle path’ in most things, especially if you have differences in your understanding of what is right and wrong, is most likely to ensure your long-term happiness.
Believe implicitly in God. Love
‘Him’ or ‘Her’ (God has no gender). Although I have used ‘Him’ in my writings,
in your reading, you may read ‘Him’ as ‘Her’ if you want to, or as ‘The Divine
Presence’, or, as I read very recently in a book just published by a friend, as
‘The One’.
Respect and love all the Prophets,
including the Prophets Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad – peace
be upon them all. Follow their guidance; and also love (and learn from) others
who are enlightened. And love those who may not be as learned too! Learn
from them what you can and teach them what you can. This is proof of your
loving.
I mentioned earlier a number of spiritual
values. Of these, once again, especially remember: humility,
generosity, gratitude and service to others. I cannot emphasize service to
others enough. And by now you should know that in every act of loving, you
are loving none other than God.
I have said little of fasting, for its
benefits are well known to you. Reflect on how the 'finality' of the intention
to fast changes the way we respond to any temptation to break the fast.
Temptations virtually cease to exist. This demonstrates the need for sincere
intentions that must precede all our actions. For if our intentions are sincere
and clear, our actions, invariably, will befit our intentions. This applies not
only to fasting, but to all aspects of our day-to-day living.
Perform your daily ritual prayers
regularly. There is great wisdom in praying five times a day. If I have
not dwelt on this aspect of worship it is simply because, like fasting, its
benefits are already well known to you. So do not treat the ritual prayer
lightly. Many consider it the most important form of worship, for it keeps
us away from the glare of attentiveness the world constantly demands of us.
Give charity regularly even if it is only a
small amount that you can afford. Of course you should always try to afford
more, but do not withhold giving because you consider what you have to give
insignificant. Regular charity, even if the amount is small, is preferable to
irregular charity of larger amounts. Find as many reasons as possible to
be charitable. If no reason comes to mind, invent one!
Remember to perform the pilgrimage or the Hajj. It is an unforgettable encounter with reality; a tracing of the history of our spiritual heritage. But even during the Hajj, do not forget the social dimension of your existence, for as much as the Hajj is about worship, it is equally about meeting others, engaging with them and helping them.
I have not told the story that follows to
anyone before as far as I can recall, but perhaps I should tell it to you,
for it might help you one day when you perform the Hajj yourselves.
Your mother and I went on the Hajj in 1989. You were then seven years
old, Tazkiyah. And Ilhaam, you were just three. We left
One of these pilgrims was someone I was very
close to at school – a friend who, in my matric year, finished ahead of me
as the best student in my class, something not too many others had done
before. I had started writing poetry that year and I remember my farewell gift
to my friend – a poem congratulating him on his success. I still have a copy of that
poem! In
We had not seen each other for twenty-two
years. At first it felt really good to meet him again and to know we were
going to be on the Hajj together – until I
was tested! For in the course of our conversation, he mentioned that he was
going blind – was already almost completely blind!
I was in deep turmoil even before we parted.
I had wanted so much to perform the Hajj
with your mother and bond with her in this most important of places, at the
most important of times. And here, not half-way to
I knew it would be difficult, if not virtually
impossible, for my friend's wife to take care of him in the crowded streets and
places of worship in
Your mother understood my decision and supported it, and she and my friend’s wife began their own journey of togetherness. Initially, my friend had to teach me how to guide him. And I did, from morning till evening, day after day. We had an amazingly beautiful experience; a Hajj I shall never forget. Nor, I know, will he; nor your mother; nor his wife. And I learnt much from my friend too during this time, particularly the importance of remembering God through the constant recitation of His beautiful names. So make Zikr constantly! I still do.
I should move on. But before I do, I should
explain why these letters are addressed only to you, Tazkiyah and
Ilhaam, and why only this letter appears to be addressed also to Yunus. In
fact, the first letter that also addressed Yunus was the last letter in
the first series of Ramadan letters, when Yunus had formally become a member of
our family.
But as the letters continued I reverted to
addressing them only to you, Tazkiyah, and to you, Ilhaam, out of respect for
Yunus, as I did not want to be perceived to be imposing my values on him.
He is again addressed personally in this letter out of the same respect
for him that had led me earlier to reconsider addressing him personally; as I
do not want him (ultimately) to feel excluded! But as I eventually combined
these two letters, it now seems as if he is being addressed for the first
time.
And now I can continue! Sometimes we cannot help but come into contact with certain external impurities. When this happens, do not be afraid. A pure heart can convert even the impure into the pure; and the external impurity can lead to the creation of some internal purity! An impure heart is more to be feared that an external impurity, as an impure heart can take an external purity and convert it into an internal impurity.
To live a truly spiritual life, think of yourselves in these terms: everywhere is my own spirit. Everything is part of me. Everyone is within me. I do not need to become anything. I am perfect as I am. It is only my consciousness that makes me see myself as different and makes me want to become more than I am. Without such self-consciousness I would be all that I could be. All that I could be already is, without my knowing it. My desire to know me creates veils of knowledge that refract me (split or separate me) and cause me to be reflected as myriad rays of light and darkness. But my foregoing me removes the veils without creating new ones. Otherwise I will forever remain alternating between light and darkness, preferring the one or the other, depending on my state of mind or my needs as they fluctuate from time to time. Foregoing me I no longer have a name for myself or anything else. I simply am.
Dear Tazkiyah and Ilhaam: take care of each other and take care of Yunus. But take special care of your mother, and your mother’s mother. Remember and honour your grandparents who have passed away – my mother and father, from whom I learnt the meaning of love, and your mother’s father, who dedicated his life to helping others. And Yunus, take good care of your parents and take good care of Tazkiyah!
Finally, dear Tazkiyah and Ilhaam: I spent some quiet time today reflecting on how you have grown into fine young women. I recalled your wedding, Tazkiyah, and what a wonderful day it was in our lives and prayed that your love and happiness would last forever. And I recalled, Ilhaam, our weekend together, being bullied so lovingly into buying clothes that make me look younger than I am!
I spent some time also thinking of my own life, recalling my life with your mother, thinking of my family, my friends and my colleagues, and my working life that seems to be coming to an end. In many ways it is a blessed time; a time to find new ways of contributing to the well-being of others, perhaps through my writing; perhaps in other ways.
As I write this letter I recall a prayer of the Prophet: ‘Lord, help me to remember you, help me to be grateful to you, and help me to serve you well’ and find myself questioning how well I am doing on all three fronts.
Reading the writings of those who truly love the Divine, I see such simplicity in their lives, such deep understanding expressed without confusion or affectation. Sometimes a single line I read outweighs everything I have ever written!
However, it is time to bring this letter to a close. If I could write one last line it would be: do not wear your faith as armour but as a fragrance.
And now I have told you as much as I would like to say. Far more, I am aware, than you are able to bear! But you have a lifetime to read these letters and reflect on what I have written.
I pray that each day of your lives is filled with love for each other and for the Divine. If one day you find yourselves sitting quietly on your own, or with your growing families, reading these letters, imagine I am not too far away, watching over you as you read.
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The story
concludes
When God asked ‘Am I not your Lord?’ and the
Treasure replied ‘You are indeed’, does it matter if it was the Treasure itself
that replied or if it was the Treasure in the mirror that replied? For at that
moment, there was no mirror. It was both there and not there. There was only
God and the Treasure. Love saw itself in non-love and non-love became love!
Justice saw itself in non-justice and non-justice became justice! Light saw
itself in non-light and non-light became light!
When the real Treasure saw itself in the
mirror of itself, the real became ‘unreal’, but because
the 'unreal ' was (really) real, the real remained real. This
seeming duality allows God to be known in His fullness, both
from within and from without, both through His namelessness and
through His names – without His being compromised by the
naming.
We ourselves are the Treasure! And the emptiness! We become the Treasure when we are empty of ourselves and empty of the Treasure when we are full of ourselves! We are the Treasure when we are imbued with Divine consciousness, for what appears as duality is itself an illusion caused by the naming. But this illusion only exists in the mind of a reflection, in our minds, when we believe that we are real instead of the Treasure we reflect. Why do we believe this? In that moment, when the real Treasure saw itself in us and knew itself, did it leave some ‘essence’ of itself on us? Or was God’s consciousness of ‘emptiness’ enough to empty us of some of our emptiness?
But does any of this really matter to God – our becoming what we became, after we first were who He wanted us to be? When He looked at the mirror, He did not see emptiness for there is no place where His presence is not felt. The only emptiness that that exists is the emptiness of emptiness and the only non-existence, the non-existence of nothingness! Once we lose our self-consciousness, or our consciousness of the ‘created’ names of the Treasure, (effectively our names), we are restored to our original selves, as (real as) the real Treasure.
Why does God permit the possibility of an illusion materializing? He allows the possibility of an illusion because it allows the world to exist. But the illusion is only an illusion of an illusion, not an illusion of reality. God Himself is neither deluded, nor is His unity compromised by His allowing this illusion of an illusion to exist. To Him there is no illusion at all. For He is all that exists. He alone.
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