Arguments for Messengership – Part 44

The Reasonings (page 140)

“So, O brothers and sisters! Consult these principles, and then lay aside your soul which cannot submit to the truth easily. Take off the garb of whims, suppositions, false assertions, and groundless objections that the present time and conditions have caused your mind to don. Enter the apparently limitless ocean of time from the coast of the present, and land on the island of the Age of Happiness. The thing that will first attract your sight and attention is as follows: A single person devoid of any help and formal authority confronts and addresses the whole world. He carries on his shoulders a truth heavier than the earth and preaches an assembly of laws which guarantees the happiness of humanity in both worlds. That assembly of laws, which contains the essentials of all branches of both Divine and human knowledge, has the capacity to develop in parallel with the development of human capacity over the course of time, yielding fruit in both the world and the Hereafter. It establishes such a system of justice that it contains all the principles of setting up and preserving the balance in both personal characteristics and in human individual and collective life. If you ask the principles of that assembly of law (the Shari‘a) where they come from and where they are heading for, they will answer, “We come from the Divine Eternal Speech, and accompany humanity on its way towards eternity in order to secure its happiness. Even when humanity’s connection with this world will be cut off, we continue to accompany it. We will continue to guide and satisfy it in the realm of the other world.”

Present time and conditions have imposed on our mind meaningless, dead-end values that we may have adapted unknowingly.  Not questioning the values that we are getting from the influence of the society is the problem.  If the culture has mixed ingredients with whims/suppositions and it may include in it religious elements, then that becomes confusing and you may say, what should I do with these religious elements that do not make sense to me? 

Most people follow culture as a result of inheritance from the society rather than through investigation.  These ideas of the society maybe mixed up with everything.  Every society has some sort of religious ingredients in it.  Example, if the society consists of majority of Christians, then it may have some Christians cultural values.  How can I be aware of this difference between culture and the religious values mixed within it?

If we do not really question the truth with an open mind and take it as it is found within the value of the society, then we take on the suppositions and whims.  Unless someone is open-minded and question the values itself, how legitimate they are, if we do not question the values of the passd-on generation, then we may not notice what is right in it and what is wrong in it.  Our ancestors followed this culture and they might have been fine with it. But for me, I need to question their legitimacy within my own capacity and time.

Secularized understanding of religion may be mixed with it.  We have to question the legitimacy of the culture we are living in, what is right and what is wrong.  We have to look at the essentials of both Divine and human knowledge.

Famous in most culture is to be respectful to visitors.  If I question why I must be respectful to the visitors according to the values I have inherited, then the essentials of this actions may not be related to Divine Guidance.  Human feelings also support that we have to serve others.  And so, the reason why I am respectful to others may turn into a humanitarian value.

The value of revelation serves us to teach why and how we should worship our Creator and acknowledge the Creator’s authority.  The action must be a means of acknowledging the Owner of our life, not necessarily that it should be the value of the society.

Purpose of human beings is nothing but acknowledging the Creator that created you here in order to make progress to recognize Him better and attaching your existence to Him alone.  How?  By acting with that consciousness and awareness that I am the worshipper of the Owner of the universe.

Look for the essentials in it.  We must develop ourselves in understanding of purpose of life.  Rather than respecting the visitors as a societal norm or that is how I am made, we must do it with the consciousness of acknowledging the Creator of that visitor.  Serving the visitor or helping the needy should be performed with the consciousness that they are the creatures of our common Creator. They are presented to us for me to put into practice my understanding of creation that nothing happens accidentally, and nothing belongs to me. Everything is His property and I must respect the Owner of the property.

I am helping the needy.

Why are you doing it?  In order to satisfy what?  If it is to satisfy your worship to God, then you are ok.  It needs training.  Belief system needs personal consciousness, not common consciousness.  Values of society need common consciousness to transfer from generation to generation.  Consciousness is personal that is why we must work on it personally.

• Acknowledging the Creator means that I am just appreciating Its gift to me.
• Consciousness can only be developed through personal development i.e. personal attempt.

Receiving certain values from society is not your choice.  You found yourself in it.  Human consciousness requires investigation and finding the answer reasonable to confirm.  If you catch yourself doing something because the Muslims do it this way, then you need to investigate the principles behind it.  “Why do I do this?”

If you say that “I am happy because I am following my religion”, then that does not satisfy your personal conviction.  What is needed is individual satisfaction.  Doing something does not legitimize that you are doing it for the right reason.  What does this activity represent for you so you will get human value not an element from the society?

What is prayer?  If I have not investigated, then why should I pray?  That is why belief needs personal education, not communal training.  It is not your choice to be born in a certain society.

Can you be proud that you speak English?  It is not your choice, you learned it while you are a baby without any effort.  Similarly, if you follow the culture just because you found yourself in it, then, it is not your choice; it may be right, it may be wrong.  Even if it is right in itself, then you are not choosing the right consciously.  Only your conscious choice is called belief. That must be the reason the Qur’an keeps asking everyone to belief in God etc. calling everyone to acknowledge the reality of the world and not to follow the culture blindly.

• Principles in any religious activity is related to consciousness in God and do any activity in relation to the Creator.

Belief is personal.  You cannot inherit belief from society.  You can inherit information about religion from your society, but you cannot inherit belief from your society.  You must train yourself personally.  The value of the society is not your choice.  A person who was born in a Muslim family and in an Atheist family, there is no difference as far as their responsibility to question the legitimacy of their conclusions about their personal decisions is concerned.

If you have gone through a progressive education, then you must act in His name with anything that you do in this world, that is a Muslim.  Culture is information, it is not the result of your choice and freewill.  This distinction should be made otherwise we do not feel the need to investigate.

What does the Prophet mean?  Does information learned from the society have any value as far as functioning of your human value is concerned?  Then you can make the distinction between the values of the society which may be whims and suppositions and the values that you deduce from the creation for yourself.

One side of humanity likes to be proud of his own being and his qualities.  We are proud of our own qualities.  Example: I have a very sharp memory, I am proud of it.  What is wrong with it?  Memory is not your property.  It occurs to you, it is given to you.

All the qualities are given to me by my Creator in order to get to know the Creator.  He creates the intellect in me, what should I do with it? Either use it to develop a profession or the ultimate aim i.e. to get to know the Creator.

Everything is created in this world in order to teach us who we are and who our Owner is.  The main purpose of creation is to acknowledge your Absolute Creator, so that you submit yourself to Him fully secured in your existence by attributing it to Him.  The purpose of creation is to demonstrate His qualities and present it to conscious beings, so that human beings get to know Him.  If you do not use this world to get to know Him and be aware of It, rather to be an honorable man in the society, then you are losing your real value which is worth to entertain eternal happiness.

While doing an action side of something that deems fit, the purpose is to acknowledge the Creator of this sense.  Change the direction of our relationship with the world and make it a means of becoming aware of our Creator.  If I do not educate myself to improve my connection with my Creator, then I find myself engaging with something else, rather than the questions below.

1. I am created.
2. I have a Creator.
3. Why am I created? (if I ask this question, then I start investigating).

If I do not investigate the purpose in the existence of this universe which is just to get to know its Creator, then I am cheating myself.  The One who made this universe is disclosing His abilities to me so that I get to know Him.  All our feelings and emotions are given to us in order to know the Source of the existence of the qualities of the things in the universe.

Why is this sense given to me that I want to be appreciated?  So that I will feel the need to appreciate the Creator of this talent and thus appreciate its Creator.  First, we exercise it in our own name, I like to be appreciated.  Why is this feeling given to me?  Is it just to be appreciated or to apply this feeling in order to appreciate the One who has created this feeling?  We must jump from self-oriented to Creator-oriented perspective.

• What is the purpose in the existence of this feeling? This teaching is the main purpose of the Creator speaking to me.  You do not have to have God speak to you in order to develop your senses.  Your senses function automatic.

Example: You should not steal. In Atheistic society, people do not keep stealing.  Even thieves know that stealing is not right.  I do not need my Creator to teach me that stealing is wrong.

If I know what is good and bad, why do I need Divine guidance then? To figure out a way to secure my existence and needs and desires for existential security, things that do not satisfy my transient needs or bodily needs but needs that cannot be fulfilled within the conditions of this world, something that transcends.

Even if we know that stealing is wrong, we still need to acknowledge that this knowledge is given to us by our Creator. When the Scriptures tell us that we should not steal, that means that we should prefer not to steal in the Name of the Creator of this knowledge, not in the name of my own human values as if I am the source of existence of these values. When Scriptures mention something, which is apparent to us, they mean not to teach what is apparent. Rather, they draw our attention to utilize them with the awareness of their Creator. Ultimate purpose of existence in this world is to acknowledge the reality of the message we get through creation.

To be kind to the visitors, do I need any teachings from the Creator of the universe?

• To respect visitors is within human nature. Divine Speech comes and says to respect your visitors so that you to ask the question, why do I need that?
• I am not contradicting myself by following my human nature, does it have any value by itself?

Divine Speech is needed in order to get guidance and teaching for something that I cannot find out within this universe and myself.

Divine Speech must also be a confirmation within my experience.  It says to be respectful to my feelings, I ask, what is the Source of Existence of this feeling?  It is as if the Divine Speech is nudging me towards this feeling so I can get better acquainted with its Source.

• Divine Speech (DS) says that I am reminding you that this quality is given to you by Me in order to get to know who I am. DS introduces aspect of creation which looks to its Creator.
• If we did not have DS, we would still be good human beings, but this being good would not satisfy my human eternal expectations.

Use the opportunities in this world to get to know who the Source is and attribute your existence to It so you will feel happy.

I am a guest of the Creator of the universe, I did not choose to come here, someone brought me here and presented the world to me.  I need a certain amount of air, and I am given plenty of air present wherever I am.  Example: What is the purpose of being generous to my visitor?  So, you get to know how your Creator is generous to you, so that you will experience this reality while serving the visitor generously.  That is belief and what is required from the Creator to teach me.  If there was no DS, we would just die as good human being with no purpose and human satisfaction in life. 

• We need DS in order to look at events which teach me about getting to know how my Creator is.

Similarly, if you have a sense that I should not steal, then the Creator of this feeling would not steal anything from you. Do not worry that your Creator will take some of your own property away from you when you get older or die. He is the Giver and He does not take it back what He has given you. Do not worry when you die that “your life” is taken back from you. He is the One Who taught you that you should not steal. Do you think He Himself will steal? We need Divine interference to teach us the aspect of creation which we could not know by ourselves.

• If there were no Prophets, then we would not know that this sense of being kind to my visitors is to know my Creator and feel secure in my existence.

Should I kill innocent people?  The answer is so obvious that human beings even do not ask this question.

What we question is as follows: “yes, I have this sense of not killing, why is it there, where did I get it and how did it evolve through material means, what is the purpose in its existence, does it help me have a peaceful life?   Really, what is the purpose?  So, I lived in a society where there was only peace, and I died in a peaceful society, what is the purpose in living, if the end was falling into the grave and disappearing from existence forever?  Human expectations seek eternal happiness.  How can I use my human expectations in their rightful manner?  We need guidance from the Creator about Eternal aspect of the event that I cannot find out on my own within this universe.

• That is why scripture is needed and the messenger is needed to teach me about its practice because the need for eternal expectations is not met within this universe. I listen to Divine guidance which fits my human expectations, and this guidance is from my Creator.