Chapter Abasa – Part 8

Recap: When man hears the piercing resurrection call, the day/moment that everyone worries about his/her own destiny without considering any of their friends, families, and foes.  In part 7 of this series, we covered how to understand the description of doomsday here and now.  In other words, what am I going to do now, what is my situation?  What will happen to my life which ends here with death and how will I be taken in the presence of God and know what my real account is, and God will disclose everything on that day.  

The Quran says: “Read your record. Today your own soul is enough to calculate your account.’ (17: 14.)”.  We emphasized on the importance of understanding the Quran while we are living here. Although such verses seem to give the description of what will happen in the hereafter, we must confirm that news here and now.   The general description or claim “I am a believer”, cannot make me a believer in the news that I receive from the Quran.  If these kinds of descriptions only pertain to what will happen after I die, I will say, what shall I do, when I go there, I will see the situation.  Obviously, there is some lesson in the verses that yes, you will be taken into another creation, get ready for it because you will be considered for yourself only.  Ok, but how can I make sure that it is the case?  While the Quran is mentioning about anything, such as the descriptions of the hereafter, stories of the previous Prophets or past generations, the descriptions of their attitude towards the messengers, and the results of their actions where either they will be rewarded or destroyed, all these news must be applicable to our lives right now so that we will be able to confirm the news of the Quran.  For example, when the Quran mentions prophet Abraham, rather than investigating into what happened to Abraham, I have to see the Speech of my Creator addressing me right now.  That is what we need to consider.  

I am faced with two positions:

 

• Is this description plausible for me to accept and confirm?

 

After confirming that such types of things are happening in this world, I can extend that the experiences from this world must be realized in the next creation because I am sure that this life will end and my desires and human soul reminds me that creation CANNOT consist of this world only.  The reason being that this world contradicts the expectations of my soul or the capacity of my spirit.  I will say that the One who creates me with these feelings, I will think about it and see the conditions of this world as being a fleeting world constantly pressing my being that I need my existence to continue, and I need to be happy after this existence as well.

An important factor to remember is that we have freewill. Everyone wants to be happy in this world and  no one wants to be tortured or confined to a small prison cell.  For that, I make sure to follow the conditions of the environment that I am living in i.e. if I choose anything against the regulations of this society, I understand that I will lose my happiness in this world and I will be put in prison which will suffocate my feelings.  No one wants to be there, rather we all look for pleasure.  Hence, I better watch out how I use my freewill, that is my position in this world.   

 

• How am I utilizing my freewill within my given existential living conditions?

 

How about the constitutional order of the universe?  Which kind of attitude do I take towards the universe?  Even if one is in a prison cell temporarily, food and medical care is available.  Although I may not feel free to be in a prison cell which is horrible for my spirit because my spirit wants to be free, prison life may not be that horrible after all.  It is a temporary thing, a limited time space.  But, if I use my freewill in the wrong way as in opposing the order/constitution of the universe (i.e. I should look into which kind of requirements does the order of the universe have), then I understand that the universe continuously disperses signs attracting my attention: “Look, there is meaning there and you will see that lots of things are going on behind the physical appearance of these objects in the universe” and I have the capacity to analyze them and think about them.  But I have freewill and may just ignore it and do something for a temporary pleasure, rather than a constant pleasure OR a pleasure that will remain in my heart and feelings.  They all will construct my real self, who I am.  Example: If I harm people on various occasions, then I feel bad about it and it is an unjust act, the feeling of which remains with me.  On the other hand, if I am useful to the people, then happiness remains with me until I remain here.  

How about my connection with the universe?  

With the news that I receive from the universe, do I take a positive attitude (not rejecting the news and ignoring them), trying to analyze them, understand what they mean and how they correspond to my feelings, where they fit and where they do not fit?  Do I notice of the kind of attitude I take?  Accordingly, I will describe myself and I will constitute myself!?  That is how I am and what I am.  When I depart from here (given death), the soul is free from the cage of the body.  The body is needed here and works along with the spirit to operate within the conditions of this universe.  My feelings are attached to my soul and my soul, which is me, will take my feelings with me when I leave my body.  That is how I am going to be in the presence of my Creator.  I will be there alone in His presence and presenting my account.  I cannot cheat my Creator and hide anything.  Everything in detail is created while I am in the world and in the hereafter, I will face them, everything recorded in detail.  Why? Because my Creator has given me the ability to understand that His knowledge penetrates everything, and He is the One who creates with knowledge.  He must know what He is doing.  We do not see any sign in the world that the Creator of the universe is someone who does not know what He is doing.  Everything is perfectly arranged, deliberately put in order and presented to me.  Additionally, I was deliberately left free in my existence with the choices I make.  From this I understand that I am free to choose, and I have been given the guidance in my soul which option I should take so that my soul will feel pleased and experience pleasure.  Example: if someone is speaking to me and I turn my back deliberately, then I understand that I am not being kind to this person.  Let’s say that someone speaks to me and I do not listen to him/her. The person is trying to educate me in order to understand what is the reality of this world and I just choose to lose myself in whatever I want to do here and forget about the message about my existence that I receive here. Although I am trying to entertain myself here and whatever the taste of pleasure I experience, if I do not listen to the message my soul will always be suffering from regret and pain i.e. annihilation.  In other words, whatever taste I experience will go away and it will not remain with me.  That is what human consciousness keeps reminding us that you entertained yourself, but it went i.e. you cannot catch it.  But you want eternal entertainment, can you get it?  

If you pay attention to the matter only and do not pay attention to the angelic side of the matter i.e. the meaning in the matter (how matter is created), then you will be left with matter only and matter constantly leaves you behind and you are alone always.  You cannot taste the pleasure of the future because future means getting closer to annihilation i.e. I am getting closer to becoming nothing.

That is why if someone does not pay attention to the meaning in the existence of the universe, this person has to end up with the idea that the universe consists of matter only i.e. there is no meaning for me to take as a message from and analyze it within my own soul.  This is a choice but a costly one.  In the world, I will always feel unhappy because I am losing whatever I have now.  Immediately I lose whatever I get.  The transient nature of my life and matter always includes in it a pain, a poison. 

• Running after meaningless temporary pleasures as sweet as it may be is like eating “poisonous honey”.

80:38 “Some faces on that day are bright with happiness,”

If I try to see what it means that I am existing here along with the universe and it does not seem to be frivolous because everything is well arranged, under control. Everything continuously reveals the message they carry.  (We mostly take revelation in terms of the Speech of God, but we may not see it in terms of meaning that the universe and creation reveals to us.)  Everything reveals a message to me.  Now, I must communicate with the message because I find myself with the ability to communicate with the message.  That is, I want a deliberate creation in the universe.  It is there.  I want a conscious choice in the universe.  It is there.  I want a knowledgeable agent giving existence to the universe, it is there.  I want to see beauty, it is there.  I want to avoid ugly things that are disapproved of by my feelings, it is there.  My feelings to run away from harm are also within me.  There is a complete and direct connection with me and the message that the universe reveals to me.  If I choose to try to understand the message (rather than ignore), then I will see that the message in the universe never contradicts my expectations but with one condition i.e. I want all these qualities interacting with me eternally, but this world does not interact with me eternally.  It gives the news that the Creator and Originator of this universe is a One which is All-Powerful, All-Knowledgeable, All-Just, All-Merciful with an Absolute freewill.  That is, whatever He wants, He does it with perfect wisdom purposefully and everything is presented to me as such with the meaning revealed to me and I am put in connection with this.  In other words, I am endowed with the qualities which decipher these meanings that I receive.  That is perfect but I desire these qualities eternally existing so that I will feel secure in my happiness because I am interacting with this fleeting universe.  I understand that the Source has these qualities and these qualities must be Absolute but as far as my experience of this universe tells me, this universe is transient, although the Creator is Absolute i.e. the Creator’s qualities are Absolute.  Because knowledge is everywhere at every time.  Power is everywhere at every time.  The Creator is constantly revealing itself that “I am the powerful One who is Originating this universe, I am the wise One originating this universe.”  But I want my existence to remain with me constantly eternally.  

If I conclude that the One who creates me with this condition, is telling that if I put my trust in Him as the Creator who must be eternal, who creates me with the desire for these qualities to be eternal, this desire must be fulfilled not by this world but Him, the Originator of this creation who holds the eternal qualities and reveals them to me in a temporary basis.  

If the qualities were revealed to me on a permanent basis, I would say that matter is the source of these qualities. Matter as we observe is transient, but the qualities they show are permanent.  And then I would further say that I must put my trust not in matter/the universe but in the Eternal Creator of this world.  As soon as I realize this (without turning blind to it or denying this reality) and if I live with this reality, I will always remain with the happy news that this world is transient but the Creator is Permanent, and I belong to the Permanent Creator.  My body is of the nature of this transient world, but my heart, soul, spirit and intelligence & consciousness, all these sides of human beings do not belong to this world.  As soon as I realize this in this world, what happens?  

• My face becomes bright with happiness and I am not in despair anymore because I did not lose my hope.  I understand that my expectations are secured with my Creator, not with this world.   As a result, I direct my expectations to my Creator rather than to the things/objects of this world themselves.

Through my communication with the universe, I understand that if I interpret the revelation I receive through the universe in a way which will correspond to my feelings, my reality and spirit, then I will be released from any ambiguity and worries (as in I do not know what I am doing here, what is the meaning of existence here).  Rather, I will start interpreting everything with this relationship between me and the Originator of the universe.  Example: if I love something that is created out there because of the qualities reflected in the loveable things, then I understand that the Creator of this loveable thing must have Absolute power, Absolute beauty and any other qualities I see in it such as beauty, taste and every enjoyment…  I say that all these qualities are with me now, I understand them.  If I see something that I dislike, I say that my Creator tells me not to like this.  Although in the creation of the thing that I see as harmful, I experience that the Creator of that harmful thing must be the Absolute Creator, possessing Absolute Wisdom, Absolute freewill…and wants me to run away from it, dislike it, and not get close to it.  It means that I got the news now that I should shun away from it.  It also means that I have the freewill where some things are attracting me while other things are distracting me.

Comment: It seems that the verse is taking us to something not of this world.

That is what we need to do- How can I confirm that the news in these verses or other verses are correct?  

Although the literal reading of these verses takes us to the hereafter (i.e. after resurrection), the method we follow is to confirm this news while I am living in this world.  Since my Creator is speaking to me right now, He asks me to confirm this news while I am living in this world. What will I be able to confirm after death? Is it wrong to read these verses just for news “situation after death”?  No, but we must confirm that this news must be approvable now and I have to approve it.  How?  I must experience the “situation after death” in this world.  Mostly, we are not accustomed to reading the Quran in the present time.  

Generally speaking, we are used to hearing these verses as the life of the people in the hereafter.  But the Quran says that you have to confirm me as a true revelation/Speech of your Creator.  In order to confirm this, if I wait until the resurrection day, it will be too late because I will not have any free choice to confirm or to deny (or ignore).  When my spirit leaves this world, I will be in the presence of my Creator and whatever my Creator presents to me, it will be obvious for me (not a dream).  Therefore, freewill is only practiced here.  In the other world, we cannot talk about confirm or deny, but experience its reality. 

When I die, my spirit is taken away from this kind of creation, and placed in a kind of creation where God’s qualities reflect themselves with no covering like this universe’s transient nature. Perfect Absolute qualities will be manifested there as in we will be swimming (analogy) in the ocean of Absolute qualities of the Creator (no way to deny).  Everywhere will be the same qualities, but all the degrees of the Absolute qualities are manifested there as much as I prepared myself while living here, that much I will experience them.  That is exactly what I experience in this world.  As much as I know something, I learn something, I will experience it that much.  If I learn the qualities of my Creator at the highest level in every occasion that I am encountering with in this world, then that much I will experience after death.

For example, whatever happens to me, if I see daylight and conclude that it cannot happen by itself, it is a well arranged order, the sun is employed out there, nothing can act on its own, if I act this way, then I confirm the qualities of the Creator which are manifested in the daylight.  When I am at night or experiencing different conditions such as winter, the same conclusion is drawn; what is presenting me all this?  In my experience along with the rest of creation, I need one object and sometimes desire another.  With all the intertwined relationships in the universe, wherever I find myself, I will experience the qualities of the Creator revealing themselves to me or manifesting themselves to my consciousness.  

When I experience all this here and if I confirm that these qualities are from the eternal Creator of the universe because they cannot belong to anything of this universe.  Matter is not conscious, it has no will,has no quality to itself.  Matter just acts as it is created and it obeys the order, it has no choice.  Nothing in the universe can act independently.  

Here is a CHALLENGE: If someone proves or demonstrates that matter itself is acting independently from the order of the universe, then one can deny belief in God.  

 

• Whatever acts independently must be God!

 

“Divine being” means a Being who is transcending every matter and existing independently and sustaining Its existence by Itself, It is not dependent on anything else.  This experience shows me that I have to affiliate my existence to the Source of Existence of this universe.  In this relationship, I will have no fear of transience, no fear of feeling insecure in my existence.  

However, what worries me, if I keep ignoring the reality of the message that I receive and if I disassociate myself from this reality from time to time, I say that I wasted the creation.  Not only my creation but the creation of the whole universe which is a demonstration for me.  Everyone is responsible for their own affairs.  As far as I am concerned in this universe, your existence is just a part of my universe.  I can claim that the universe is only for me.  Equally, you can claim that the universe is for you because my existence is a part of your universe and your existence is a part of my universe.  

If I take a wrongful attitude i.e. ignore the reality of this universe and do not take any message from it, then I am not only insulting my qualities but also the whole universe as if saying that our existence is meaningless (the universe has no significance for me and I am not going to pay attention to it).  This should not put us in despair. In our lives, we live our lives in such a way that most of the time, we ignore the message that we receive from the universe.  You can THINK about it yourself: “How much do I connect myself to this message?”  Do I keep myself considerate with this message?  How much do I keep myself busy with deciphering the message that I receive from the universe?  

When I do not take notice of the universe and if I ignore it, then it means that I diminish the value of my existence to almost nothing.  In my life, I see lots of wasting of the universe, such a precious creation. When I realize that I made a mistake, I should ask the Creator: “Please forgive me and delete my mistakes.”  These ups and downs in consistency with our relationship with the Creator (black and white conscious relationship with creation- analogy as per previous session), ignoring the universe, positive and negative experiences make what my reality is.  

The Creator is not expecting us to be perfect, although our qualities in our creation are perfect. As a human being, no one can use his freewill positively, i.e. consciously utilize the universe continuously.  It is humanly impossible!  But we should strive to opt out from the negative option.  

• When I choose the negative option, I shall feel sorry for it and apologize from my Creator to forgive me for I have wasted His creation as far as I am concerned.  
• I may have benefited from the creation, but it does not add any value to my existence.

• However, at the end if I am aware of it, I can ask for forgives and put my trust in the forgiveness of my Absolute Creator and hope from His Mercy that He will be treating me with His Mercy and Compassion, will take pity on me: “I know, I created you with two options.  It means that you will sometimes choose one option and another time another option.  I know that you are aware of your mistake and admit it. That is all that matters.”  

This news also makes my face bright with happiness i.e. “my Creator is the Forgiving Creator.”  For me, this is the only refuge that I put my pleasure in: “Yes, my Creator is the Absolutely powerful One and all other qualities”, but the most important of all these qualities is that my Creator is a Forgiving One.

As the Prophet (PBUH) informs us that if I want to receive forgiveness from my Creator, I have to practice forgiveness in my practical life as a reflection and recognition of the All-Forgiving Creator in my practical life as a created being.  I can only forgive on my behalf.  If someone harms the society, then that is not my right to forgive.  Everyone will take his/her own stands.  (the rights of the society are another subject. Example: if A destroys B’s property, then I cannot say that I forgive A because that is not my concern or property.  Only A is subject to B’s forgiving.)

Again, we need to study the verses under the lens of how we experience this news while living in this world.  According to our experience of the news through the Speech of the creation, the universe is the revelation of its Creator through action, manifesting in the form of action.  I hear the same news from the Speech of the Creator, which helps me explain the meaning ingrained in the action.  We can see a compatibility between the revealed action (universe) and the revelation (Speech of the Creator).  That is, I can utilize the universe in order to understand the Speech of the Creator and at the same time, I can utilize the Speech of the Creator in order to apply it to the universe and understand what the universe is telling me.

 

• We can utilize both, the universe revealing its message to me and the Speech of the Creator revealing its message to me in verbal form and applying it to my feelings i.e. myself: Do I agree with this?  Can I confirm this, i.e. can my consciousness confirm this?  Do I feel any contradictions within myself?

 

We see the universe revealing the Speech of the Creator in various ways (religious text such as Torah, Psalms, Bible, and Quran).  You may  study them and find out which one sits well with you i.e. find a confirmation within your own soul or consciousness.  By definition, our consciousness is free.  I may use my freewill in such a way that my consciousness always reminds me of something, but I may decide the opposite. We all can do this and reject our consciousness.  Example: We all know that telling a lie is not a correct attitude, but we tell lots of lies.  We all know that harming creatures or disrespecting them is wrong.  However, sometimes we do harm, hurt other people’s feelings, and harm the animals and plants.  We may even insult the universe with thinking: “you are just meaningless, happened to be in existence by yourself.”  We can all claim these lies!

We must try to see the consistency of the message that I receive from the universe and Speech of God and see how confirmable they are to my feelings and apply it to myself as much as I can.  Again, we keep repeating that we have freewill and we may go against or ignore our reality.  Most people do contradict their consciousness a lot.  Example: one’s consciousness may say not to waste time and energy on unworthy things, do not wander around aimlessly and be serious with your humanity and the relationship with creation.  Therefore, we must put our trust in the forgiveness of our Creator in order to have a face which is bright with happiness.  As a result, I will be taken in the presence of God with His Forgiveness and Mercy.  All of this we have to confirm by practicing i.e. treating people and creation with mercy and benefit from them as far as the purpose of their creation is concerned.  Benefitting from creation does not mean exploiting it aimlessly, rather as far as the purpose of creation is concerned, I have to benefit from it to fulfill the purpose of my existence.  

Example: What is the purpose in the creation of the rain?  Gently coming down, flooding sometimes when heavy but without any harsh chemicals or heavy bullets; water is the source of all activities going on here and it is sent deliberately.  Water is given some qualities such as makes me wet and so I have to take precautions and make sure that my roof is firmly established, if I don’t then it will harm me and that is my mistake. If I pollute the atmosphere with chemicals then acid rains come down, telling me that you are doing something wrong. The rain is clean but my caprices are returned back to me.  Sometimes, things go beyond our capacity to take precautions, however, I always have to see what is the purpose of the creation here?  Bottom line, we always have to question and try to see what the message in it is.  We mostly say what is the wisdom in the creation of anything.  

• Wisdom is the message for us.

If I have the right attitude and I put myself in alliance with:

 

• the message of the universe and 

• the Speech of God and

 

1. adjust my feelings accordingly by using my freewill in the right way, the three channels will be cooperating within each other and confirm each other.  As a result, I will not have a contradictory life, rather I will have a comfortable life.  

As far as my realization of my agreement or my covenant with my Creator and my soul is concerned, I am not contradicting this covenant with my Creator.  This means that the Creator has given me the soul with certain qualities, and I am not destroying them and wasting them i.e. I am keeping the covenant with my Creator.  That is the covenant that the scripture tells about (7: 172.)  As long as I maintain the covenant, I will not experience any contradiction, but I will keep asking for forgiveness for the time that I did not keep the relationship with (1,2,3 as mentioned above) in a constant agreement.  

 

• This is the most important thing to do after realizing the purpose of my existence, we must be aware that when I fail in accomplishing this mission or responsibility which is given to me (which is within my capacity), I have to always ask for forgiveness. 

 

Never be tired of asking for forgiveness and saying: “But I have asked for forgiveness 1000 times and I keep doing the same thing (i.e. whatever shortcomings we have in our lives).” Remember, your Creator’s forgiveness is Absolute so be serious in asking for forgiveness.  That is to say, if you believe that God’s forgiveness is like any other of His attributes, then 1000 times asking for forgiveness is nothing next to the Absolute.  THIS DOES NOT MEAN that you will Deliberately do the SAME Mistake constantly to ask for forgiveness (of course if you do not train your freewill, then it will be difficult not to repeat the mistakes).  ARE YOU PLAYING WITH GOD?  You got to be sincere in your asking for forgiveness!

Comment: The covenant is when I utilize the universe and use my human qualities to acknowledge my Creator.

The belief side of the teachings of the Quran is always with allegories, metaphors, similes, metonymies, parables and figurative speech (scenarios) because the meaning cannot be restricted.  Rather, the meaning must be open to everyone’s capacity i.e. everyone will approach the verse from different perspectives.  But if someone arbitrarily interprets the Quran with no reasoning and according to his/her egoistic satisfaction (to satisfy his egoistic choices) then that is up to him/her (because we are free in our choices).  As a consequence, s/he will definitely know that s/he is distorting the meaning and trying to adapt the teachings to his/her egoistic satisfactions.  

The scenarios are presented to us in order for us to understand what the reality of life in this universe is.  Example from the Quran: “God created the human soul and asks it, am I not your Lord/Owner taking care of you?  And every one’s soul says yes You are.”  Now, that is the covenant God took from us i.e. “you acknowledge Me”.  It means that as soon as God breathes into my being a spirit from His Spirit(15: 29,) all the qualities of the Creator is manifested in my being in the form of “creation, a created form” and this “created form”, my being right now acknowledges and recognizes where it came from.  This acknowledgment is “yes you are my Lord”.  It means that human capacity is fully equipped with the tools and potentiality to confirm the Creator’s qualities and acknowledges It.  That is the covenant.  How can I practice this covenant?

If I utilize the covenant and direct it to creation, get the message from creation and see that my Creator is also speaking, then I am in alliance with the covenant.  Within this process, I also need to check if the Speech is really from my Creator because anyone can claim anything.  How can I know that when the Quran gives news of something, then it is really from my Creator?  The speech of my Creator must fit to my capacity so that I will listen, confirm and utilize it.  Example: I see that I have the quality to acknowledge “knowledge”, to know that something is a sign to the existence of knowledge.  I see the universe by using this quality of “acknowledging knowledge”: “This knowledge in the universe demonstrates to me that it belongs to the Creator of the universe and this knowledge must be infinite”.  The knowledge must be infinite because it continuously manifests with no obstacles and limitations time space wise.  Everything is created according to “knowledge”, rather than “ignorance (i.e. not knowing what He is doing)”.  Here, I return the quality in my spirit which acknowledges knowledge to its Origin.  That is keeping the covenant between me and my Creator.  

As soon as I keep my covenant and attach my existence to the Absolute Being, my face brightens with happiness.

80:39 “Laughing, rejoicing at good news”

Laughing is an expression expressed by the body, an action that is expressed by the body but not the meat.  That is, the human spirit feels happy so that it is reflected on my physical being and my face changes and demonstrates/shows that my spirit is happy here.  That is happiness which the spirit expresses: “this is the news I want to receive”, which means trusting in the Creator and attaching my being to the Creator consciously through my choice (not in an imitative way) then the happiness of my soul will be seen in my physical body and face as well.

That is the relationship between the soul and the body while the soul resides in my body.  Example: if you listen to an audio, you do not see the hand gestures and facial expressions of a person.  However, what the person is saying or what you are hearing is an expression of the state of being of the person’s spirit i.e. what the spirit is feeling.  Although we do not choose it, our spirit reflects itself on our physical body.  Just as when someone does something shameful, usually their face blushes (disregarding trained people) because there is a connection there.

The happiness of my spirit will be physically experienced in my life.  And I am also physically feeling happy in my existence, in my being.  If I am miserable in my being, then my face reflects the unhappiness and I understand that something is wrong with my spirit.

Example: John enters a gathering where people are talking about how wonderful their lives are and are thankful to their Creator for that.  John has somewhat of a black face (distressed) and does not speak to the people in the gathering or tells them something nasty.  What happens?  All the happiness of the people in the wonderful gathering disappears. Why?  Quranic verse along the lines- “When an unbeliever dies, the sky does not cry over them.”  Because he was not happy with his existence and as a result, the universe is unhappy with his presence.  

If someone stands in front of you and you always speak to him nicely but he always insults you then what do you feel?  You say: “if only this man goes away, let me be free from his presence.”  Similarly, the universe is also happy with the rejoicing/laughing face of the believer.  The universe is unhappy with a person who does not have a bright face i.e. a person who is not enjoying their life pertaining to their purpose of existence.  Universe says this man should go away (See Qur’an, 44: 29.)  As soon as this man dies, everyone is free from his insulting attitude toward the reality of creation.

80:40 “On that day there are faces covered with dust,”

Why?  Because they do not have the good news.  Example: If the news of someone’s death arrives, people freeze and the bright face with happiness is gone.  As a result, everyone joins in on the grievance of that person.  Let’s talk about our beloved in the universe, who is your beloved in the universe? Do you love the transient things?  Do you love to go to non-existence and disappear from existence and lose all your expectations of eternal happiness?  If a person does not see meaning in the existence of this universe, this person wants to be happy but there is no permanent happiness to be found in this world and thus the spirit of this person loses happiness. 

• Temporary happiness always comes with the pain of losing it.  

As far as the expectation of our soul is concerned, in the situation of denying the Creator, we always lose our beloved desire i.e. Eternal Happiness of everything we love.  In the mind of the disbeliever, everything will go away. This mind is always in the loss of His beloved. Although his spirit is starving for eternal happiness and he says that there is no eternal happiness because this universe is meaningless, has no purpose and has no conscious Agent behind it, the universe cannot listen to me and take notice of my expectations (a misinterpretation).  Have you developed these kinds of feelings by yourself?

• No. We are all created with the need for eternal happiness.  

People are free to choose the option of seeing the universe without any meaning pertaining to one’s existence.  Now, you are in a constant loss of your Beloved (Eternal Happiness) by choosing such an option.  This superficial love for people makes them laugh because of experiencing temporary pleasure only and not seeing the poison in it.  The poison is temporariness i.e. as soon as you get it it’s gone, just like poisonous honey.  

The universe in the eye of the disbeliever (who does not acknowledge that the universe is the act of a Conscious Absolute Being) is like poisonous honey i.e. while tasting the honey he feels the poison of losing it.  How can this man’s face reflect happiness which expects eternal happiness?  What we see in the face of disbelievers is an artificial, superficial, forced and transient happiness. The spirit always feels that this also will go and disappear, I will lose this one as well. At the end, I will be left with nothing. This consciousness or human expectations never leave me!  The temporary laughing of the face demonstrates that in reality, it is completely covered with dust, not bright with human happiness, it is nothing more than an animal swinging its tail when it is fed.

80:41 “The darkness covering them”

The dust made the face dark i.e. the inside covered with dust shows the real status of the spirit of the denier of the truth, who reduces the universe to nothing, meaningless, just body/matter, and reduces himself to a living animate being.  That is how the secular civilization describes us, with just matter with life but without human spirit.  Yes, we do need a body and take care of it, just like we take care of our home and keep it tidy.  We also need to take care of the needs of the house, that is our responsibility.  Example: When I am ill, I take medicine.  I am not the body, but I am the soul needing the body to operate.

The body is the temporary residence of the soul according to the conditions of the universe (which is transient). The permanent resident of the soul is actualized when it is returned to its Creator, Absolute and Permanent.  My permanent residence remains with my Creator and my transient residence is here within my body and I communicate with the universe with all my elements not limited to the limbs or my body.  

The spirit always feels the pain of transience and meaninglessness.  If a person does not believe that he/she has an honorable soul, then this person cannot have respect towards his/her existence.  How can I respect something which is perishable (even if it is worshipping myself)?  Self-dignity is practiced in the secular sense as “self-pride”.  No one wants to be insulted and if someone insults me then he is insulting my Creator.  I reject this insult because I want to protect the human dignity that says that everything in creation is perfect.  No one should insult or say anything wrong about creation.  However, if I make a wrong choice, I deserve to be insulted and I am dishonoring myself i.e. contradicting my reality.  If I do not want anyone to insult me, then I should not insult anyone, either creature or animal.  We cannot say that a frog is ugly. I may dislike its company but, in its creation, it is perfect.

80:42 “Those are the deniers, the wicked ones.”

“Kafara” means denying and “fajara” is twisting the truth.  Some faces are covered with dust because of their wicked attitudes towards creation and thus the Creator.  Here, the relationship between me and my Creator is covered up and ignored.  Watch out- Don’t turn the reality upside down.

Tags: Abasa Series, Al-Abasa, Blind Man, Despair, Frowning, Help, Mistakes, Purification, Speech of God