Divine Determining, part 14, 10-29-14
Through the hailsman of a large ship abandoning his duties, the ship may sink and the labor of all those employed may go for nothing. All those instances of destruction will result from a single instance of non-existence. Similarly, since disbelief and rebellion are non-existence and destructive, the power of choice may provoke them through a theoretical matter and may cause awesome consequences.
What does non-existence signify in this example? Not doing what you are expected to do.
The hailsman was supposed to steer the ship but he did not do his duty.
Why is disbelief described as non-existence and destructive? If I do not attribute my existence to the Source of Existence, then I let my existence sink into meaninglessness.
As far as I am concerned, when I do not act according to the purpose of my creation, the universe sinks and becomes meaningless to me because I have not used the universe as evidence pointing to its Creator. Belief and unbelief is not a simple matter to understand. If I do not confirm the purpose of the creation of this universe, as a consequence, I throw the universe in the ocean of meaninglessness. This simple action of doing nothing causes great destruction. But why am I going to be punished eternally for doing nothing? Because you are responsible for using your freewill, and accordingly, you face the consequences.
“Although disbelief is only one evil, it insults the whole universe, accusing it of being worthless and futile, and denies all beings, which display proofs of Divine Unity, and is contemptuous towards all the manifestations of Divine Names. It is therefore pure wisdom that Almighty God utters severe complaints about the unbelievers, threatening them awesomely in the name of the universe and all beings and the Divine Names.”
When I do not confirm what the universe displays to me, I commit a huge crime. Every individual is responsible for the existence of the whole universe. I am responsible to respond to the message I receive from the universe altogether. If I do not acknowledge it, then I destroy the whole universe in my world. The universe is the ocean of the manifestations of the Divine Names. Everything is transferring to me that “it is my Maker that has the qualities that you observe and interact with”. The universe is here to demonstrate these qualities to me. If I am busy just living day in and day out, I miss all the voices that are sending messages to me by my Creator. If I choose to live unconsciously of the acknowledgment of my Creator, then it is as if I am sending the universe to trash. That is why it is important for us to establish a relationship with the universe in a way that we listen to its messages seriously and respond back to the Sender and Creator of the messages. Otherwise, I deprive myself from having communication with my Creator. Even if I memorize the Quran by heart, there may be no communication with the Creator, because my reciting the Quran may not necessarily be a conversation with the Creator. For example, the Quran says “I am the Compassionate One”, and without experiencing the universe, simply uttering “I am the Compassionate One” means nothing to me. Whereas, if I experience, for example, the gardener watering the plants on a hot day, then I realize that the Creator of the universe is Compassionate towards His creation, and now I can confirm, “You are indeed a Compassionate One”.
Without interacting with the universe and reflecting on creation, our experiences would mean nothing because we are just rejecting the endless messages from God. Let’s take another example, if the mailman brings you mail from John, and you just throw it without opening it, who are you insulting? The sender of the mail, John, along with the mailman. The sender of the mail, John will say that I have sent to you endless messengers (mailmen) and you have turned them all down. Now, the messengers have the right to complain about you i.e. you will be deprived of the messages in the letter. Similarly, if you ignore the qualities of the Creator manifested in creation as sent by messengers of God, then you will not have all the Divine Names in eternal form. If the letter says, that “I am the One who is the all Compassionate One”, then by ignoring the letter, there will be no Compassion for me.
Our freewill is given to us to steer the steering wheel of the ship of the universe to the destination that it wants to go to i.e. witnessing and confirming the qualities of God. If your universe collapses, you deprive yourself of the bounty of the Creator. In other words, it is a situation where you deprive yourself of the benefits that God gives to you. Why are there so many threatening languages in the Quran? Because, our freewill is everything. If you do not believe in God and reject His messengers, then you will receive an eternal punishment. The punishment in the Quran is related to the usage of our freewill, therefore, we must question, what am I doing? The punishment is not extra, it is in the action of my freewill. I have to pay for the consequences of my own choice.
The Quran empathetically mentions that those people who are blind in this world, will be blind in the hereafter. This clearly means that if we do not educate ourselves here, then our soul will not know who its Creator is, and it will remain ignorant of its reality. That is, if I never educate myself to recognize the qualities of my Creator, then living in this world would be meaningless. We may have some appreciation of the Creator of the universe, but that is not sufficient, because our responsibility is to keep confirming and be in communication with our Creator continuously through the qualities manifested in creation.
“Divine knowledge is connected with our will and choice. That means, Divine Determining corroborates the power of choice, it does not nullify it.”
By Divine knowledge, the decision of any action is taken place at the exercise of my freewill i.e. what am I doing. We mostly confuse this matter by saying, since God decided already, what should I do? God’s decision is directly related to my practice of freewill. I cannot independently analyze my freewill from God’s Determining. Divine Determining includes in it my freewill, which encompasses everything, without the limit of time and space. I cannot say that since God already decided tomorrow, what is the point of doing anything today? My responsibility is to take care of my freewill, because He already knows what I am going to choose. The Creator of the universe exactly knows what I am going to do and accordingly determines. The Creator allows us to choose between options, and it is my responsibility to take care of my choice, because the result is created by God.
“DOES GOD KNOW BEFORE I USE MY FREEWILL?” Do we realize that this question is an oxymoron?
By definition, God means the Creator of the universe, regardless of whether you believe in God or not. The Creator of the universe cannot be squeezed within the limits of creation. Therefore, you cannot think about God within the conditions of this universe, hence the above question then becomes an oxymoron. If we do not have a proper understanding of God, including when people may disqualify themselves from using their freewill, endless nonsense questions can emerge from it. Such questions may include, why doesn’t God give me a million dollars? Why doesn’t God stop injustice? Why is God letting evil happen? Why is not God listening to me and giving me what I want? When I say “God” it means an Absolute Being who puts this universe within a certain order, and I use my freewill according to the order of the universe. Again, I have to take care of my responsibility by obeying the order in creation, and when I use my freewill, the result is created by God according to my choice. Is the result guaranteed? We do not know, but our duty is to only ask by obeying the order in the universe properly and using our freewill. If we do not get the desired results, then we have to ensure that we follow the order of creation properly. Let’s say John was born handicapped, does he have any right to accuse his Creator? No. Similarly, no one has the right to expect anything from the Creator because He gives existence to His creation freely, and provides us with not only our physical tools but also our human qualities and feelings to be used in the direction of acknowledging Him as the Owner of us and to be grateful to Him. In the example above, John is chosen as a witness by His Creator and he will definitely be rewarded if he chooses the believer’s attitude and stays consistent with it, because justice should prevail.
Our responsibility is to follow the order and hope for the results. The expectation of the results part is wrong but seeking the best order ceaselessly is right. If I do not get the desired results according to my expectations, I should not be disappointed, rather I should say that I have tried my best as far as following the order is concerned. The result is created by God. For example, one of the wires of the projector was broken and the technician started fixing it without knowing which wire was broken. His fixing the wire is following the order in creation expecting for the projector to get fixed and knowing that he will try his best but the result is not guaranteed. Similarly, it is not guaranteed that whatever I choose, I will get it, but definitely God keeps His promise i.e. if not here, then in an eternal realm for sure. Also, I may not know the whole order, and I have to be aware of it. That is why, I have to find the best order and follow it, because it is something within my capacity to discover. If it is not within my capacity to discover, I will put my trust in the Order-er of the universe. Finally, the Creator of the universe must have Absolute knowledge and my duty is to obey His order by following the steps that I need to take to expect results, which is my responsibility given to me with my freewill.
When we use our freewill, what are we exactly pursuing? We are given the freewill to interact with creation to know the qualities manifested in them and get acquainted with the Creator of those qualities. Alas, we lose ourselves with acquiring the transient universe, rather than using the transient objects in the universe to communicate with our Creator. For example, you do not need to get 10 oranges, rather 1 orange would suffice to get in contact with the Creator of the universe.
Why don’t we get satisfaction from this world? We can not, and since we are trained to use our freewill only to obtain the results, we get disappointed from getting transient results. For example, we cultivate the land to get harvest. When we get the harvest, we love it, but when we do not get the harvest, we are disappointed. Why do we get disappointed? Because, we miss the point of the usage of how to use our freewill. Our freewill is given to us to exercise it from among the options presented to us in order to discover what our reality is i.e. we are not the creators of any of our actions, we are just asking from the One who creates it. If we miss the point that we are asking from the One that creates the result, then we know that getting the result or harvest is not the purpose of our existence, rather my position in this universe is to discover what I am doing with my freewill and what is the result of it. The result is that I am not the One that creates, the One that creates is the Owner of the universe, so I will get to know Him, introduce myself to Him and connect myself to Him. I am the One who begs, and asks, He is the One who creates. If I do not acknowledge the Eternal Source of creation, I deprive myself of training my spirit in the proper way. The ultimate usage of freewill is to practice and acknowledge that I am asking the Creator, the Absolute Owner of the universe. When I acknowledge Him, my mission is accomplished. If I get what I expected, the result is transient and does not satisfy my human expectations. Human expectations are endless and there is no limit, hence you can never satisfy yourself anyways.
Through the action of asking, you acknowledge your position in this world, regardless of getting it or not. Who are you? You are the One who asks, and the Creator is the Creator of the whole universe. By getting one orange, you know that He is the One who creates the orange tree. In order to create an orange tree, One has to be an Absolute Being. He is the One who knows you, your need for an orange and everything else about you. When you find the Eternal Source, you find everything. That is what we are here for. We are not here to get an orange tree, but we get deluded that we are here to entertain our lives. Living to accumulate wealth and upgrading our lives until we die is not our ultimate aim, our ultimate aim is to find the real Owner of the universe. Because creation is continuous, my response to creation must also be continuous for I acknowledge that every moment is brought into existence by an Absolute Creator. Every day I experience a new day, every orange is a new creation and a new experience for me. The more we acknowledge, the more we experience our connection with the Creator through the orange, because we are here to acknowledge the Absolute Source of Existence, and there is no end to this mission. Every need is an invitation from the Creator that reads as, “come and acknowledge Me, do not forget Me”. As much as we can, we have to try our best to acknowledge the Absolute Source, so we will train our spirit that our Lord is a Compassionate One.
The purpose of existence is simple, it is to get to know who my Creator is. If our understanding of religion is reduced to rituals only, we do not experience this eternal pleasure. The performance of rituals is the responding back of this understanding of acknowledging my Creator. If the acknowledgment is not there, then you do not respond back, rather you perform your religious duty only. Rituals must be the outcome of a living spirit, which needs awareness. This is not a one time event, rather, we must realize our reality and confirm it again and again consistently until death. Freewill is what we are responsible for. Only through the proper usage of my freewill do I get to know who my Lord is and communicate with Him. If you are aware of it, then your life becomes satisfactory.
When I look at my own creation, I see that I have free will. What am I going to do with it? Either I use it to accumulate the property and never get satisfied with it, because I am a human being who is getting old, but I want to remain young and that is not possible. Or, I see the wisdom in my creation, i.e. I understand that the way that I am made to fulfill the purpose of my existence is to get to know the Source of Existence of everything that I am connecting with. That is, I exist to realize why I exist. Question yourself, what is going on in my existence? You will come to a conclusion that there is a purpose which is to get to know the source of existence of yourself and the things that you are getting in touch with. When you acknowledge it, your human capacities become meaningful. Otherwise, you never get satisfaction from this world, and it is a sign that it is a contradiction in its own existence. Ask yourself, why am I created in this contradictory position?
Finally, you cannot start your reasoning with the conclusion, “why did God create me?”, rather, you start reasoning from what you observe i.e. I am created in a way that I need eternal satisfaction. The One that made me must tell me why I am created in a position where everything is transient here, I am getting old but my human feelings want eternal happiness.