Remembering God – Part 1

Quran addresses our rationality i.e. our human side. When Quran says something, it is not God’s opinion; it is just a suggestion for us to reflect on. Example, the Creator says: “I have created you”. We ask: Is it really God who creates me? We have to think about our existence. The following verse emphasizes on man’s own experience.

“What! Did you then think that We had created you in vain and that you shall not be returned to Us?” Mu’minun (23):115

• Have we ever reflected on our being: Is my existence in vain or not?
• Our being cannot be divided into physical, emotional and spiritual side; altogether it makes us a whole being.
• Step 1: Think about your existence. Can you explain your existence?
• The most important value we have is “consciousness of our existence”. Also, the “consciousness” of the “existence of our consciousness” is also in existence.
• Step 2: Think about the agent which gives you existence. Does your existence make sense to you?
• There is a Conscious Will behind your existence.
• We need evidence to confirm the source of our existence.
• Not denying the existence of something cannot be the evidence for our confirmation of the existence of that thing.
• Negating is the lack of investigating; Confirming is the result of investigating which leads to “belief”.
• We have to think about our existence, that ability is innate to us.
• We need to get rid of our biased ideas about what religion is. Religion has nothing to do with anyone’s culture and tradition. Similarly, we need to not believe in the Prophet (pbuh) just because he was a good man who did not tell a lie.
• Religion starts with reflecting on: Am I created?
• Where did I come from? Where am I going?
• Quran says wherever you came from, you will be taken there.
• We will return to Him i.e. the Source where we came from.
• If you think about your existence, you will come to the conclusion that you cannot explain your existence without attributing it to the Source.
• Your existence has been provided to you.

“And we did not create that heaven and earth and that between them in idle play”. Anbiya (21):16

• Religious realities do not drive from the culture of a mass population.
• Quran teaches consciousness of oneself i.e. the foundation of belief.
• Quran teaches the Oneness of the Creator.
• When you take the Quran as a guide (a teacher) for you, only then do you benefit from it. When you imitate the Quran, it does not teach you anything, that is, you learn nothing from it.
• THINK: What does enjoyment mean to you?
• Your being is the most important thing for you.
• What does it mean to value your own existence? What does it mean to protect your own existence?
• How should we read the Quran?
• Quran is the instruction book, without the instruction book, you do not know how to use the universe.
• The One who establishes the universe wants you to use it to confirm your existence.

“Is not He who created the heavens and the earth able to create the likes of them? Yes, and He is the Knowing Creator.” Yasin (36):81

• Is this creation deliberately been created?
• We can never ignore the universe.
• We need to study the universe together with creation.
• Whoever ignores creation ignores religion which belongs to the Creator.
• We need to confirm what we think of the Creator from studying the universe.
• Are we not observing resurrection in our existence now?
• Seasonal change, day/night, baby to adulthood…
• He is the One giving us existence at every moment.
• When I apply this verse to my existence here, yes I observe that every year spring comes again, the display of the flowers may look the same to me but it is all newly created. I myself am a new creation; I look different with the passing of each year. When I observe my own transformation I understand that the Cause of this transformation is Eternal.
• As a result, I conclude that the Eternal One can create me again in a form appropriate to yet another new form that He has given me to desire for.
• This is the resurrection of which all the scriptures inform us.