“Believers are only those whose hearts tremble with awe whenever God is mentioned, and whose faith is strengthened whenever His messages are conveyed unto them, and who in their Lord place their trust.” Anfal (8):2
What does “God is mentioned” means?
- This world is passing and we cannot catch it. Our human qualities desire:
- Perfection
- Eternity
- Full satisfaction
We have feelings which the world cannot provide us. Our human qualities encourage us to look for the “Source of satisfaction” in these feelings/expectations.
- My consciousness is essential to my being.
- My human expectations are not going to be satisfied from this world.
- Nothing in this world is going to satisfy us because everything is transient.
- The things themselves cannot satisfy their own existence. For example: No one knows whether the tree will blossom next spring or if we will be given existence the next moment.
As soon as I become aware of the Source of my feelings, it is a call which makes me realize that nothing in this universe is satisfying me but only the Source of my feelings can gives me satisfaction. Therefore I need to acknowledge Him. Through this acknowledgment, He satisfies me; that is His promise.
- Analogy: We buy a gadget which comes with a warranty. If something goes wrong with it, we take it to the manufacturer.
- Similarly, our existence comes with a covenant. Our senses or feelings are signs of the existence of a covenant (warranty).
- For by remembering the warranty in the existence of the feelings endowed on us connects us to their Source and thus we gain a sense of security that He will take care of our needs. Realization of this connection causes the excitement and trembling in our hearts which is the remembrance of God.
Unfortunately, we try to meet our expectations by solving problems on our own. Because we do not relate the “existence” of our feelings to Him, we remain numb to His presence. Therefore, there is no hope or change in our lives when God is mentioned.
Whoever gives us any kind of expectations/desires is promising us that only He can fulfill our desires. But we expect the created beings to satisfy these desires. We cannot explain the Source of the desires by attributing it to anything in this world. We cannot say that the particles of our cells are the Source of existence of our desires.
- In the Analogy above, when something goes wrong with the gadget, we realize that the gadget is temporary and it cannot sustain its own existence. When we remember the warranty paper, suddenly, our despair turns into hope that we can get another gadget.
- Similarly, when we realize that our desires are given to us by our Maker, we remember the covenant and we turn our hopes to our Maker to be fulfilled because we found the Source.
- This Maker would be contradicting Himself if He gave us hope which He would not fulfill. Although, we may not get that new gadget right at the moment, but the news guarantee us that we will get not the gadget itself but whatever satisfaction we are expecting from the gadget we will get this satisfaction.
- When we find the Source, it means that the message has arrived to us that only He can give it to us; nothing in this world can give it to us.
- As soon as we get the message, we feel satisfied in our existence.
- This sense of satisfaction is belief.
What does “belief in God” really means?
This needs a lot of reflection that needs to be internalized. No one can teach us and so we need to work on it:
- What does it mean that I exist?
- I am given existence/created, who is giving existence to me/creating me?
- Where did I get the qualities that I experience in my existence?
Religion is within us, we need to discover it. Any news from revelation is just a reminder to what we already have within our being. Even with 1% of discovering, we can see light i.e. the Source. We need to be aware of ourselves:
- I am the best witness to my Creator; this witness is my consciousness/awareness of my being.
We cannot expect any eternal satisfaction from worldly things (job, money, spouse…). We can find serenity only by recognizing the Creator within our own being. We can find satisfaction only when we recognize our Source within our consciousness. If we are worried about anything, ask: what am I?
- We can find God in our own existence: in our feelings, we will find the Creator of our feelings.
- The created world cannot give us any satisfaction. Example: when we eat food, satisfaction is not from the food itself but from the Creator of the food. When we acknowledge Him as the One who creates the food, it is a call to let us know that He is providing it for us. This acknowledgment is the covenant which we need to experience through the following stages:
- I exist.
- I am a conscious being i.e. I am aware of my existence.
- I have all sorts of desires within my existence.
- My desires are from my Creator, they do not belong to me. That is the covenant.
- When we find the Source, our hearts tremble and we realize that we were worried for nothing. Our worries are a call for us to remember the Owner of our being. This life is a temporary place to get to know the Source of the existence of our expectations, if and only if we concentrate on our consciousness. There is some advice that we hear from the narration of the Prophet (pbuh): when in trouble pray two rakah (prayers) Sunnah. Act of praying is not the purpose of acknowledging the Source, the fact that we are praying to the Source is the purpose.
- Analogy: the water in a cup is going to save us.
- Similarly, the act of praying is the cup. We get nothing from the act itself. We need to pay attention to the praying notion which is the water i.e. “the consciousness”. Remember, it is the cup that holds water!
- I am conscious that only the Creator is the One that assures the covenant. I acknowledge this, I worship Him alone and I seek help from Him alone.
- Lay your trust in Him, nothing else.
- We cannot place our trust in objects/events because they are transient. Even the Emperors could not have their authority save them and so their dynasties collapsed.
Everything in this universe is given existence. Nothing can sustain its own existence. We need to question the Source of existence of everything. We need to give account of our lives right now. If we are looking to purify ourselves, we need to do it now by acknowledging the Creator: we need to realize that we belong to Him. Only by recognizing the One who gives the desire for Eternity in ourselves can we find meaning in anything. When we acknowledge Him, in our acknowledgment, we are attaching our being to Him that is what He wants us to do: “I acknowledge that my Creator owns me”.
Our punishment lies in not acknowledging God. When we repent, we find Him and that is the covenant. When we are happy, we find Him again by thanking Him, that too is the covenant. We are here to get the message sent from the Source. This world is a place where the message is given; we can only learn the message of the Maker if we read it. We need to read the meaning in every event and not lose ourselves in the event itself. Look for the message inscribed in the event, as soon as you get the message, refer it to the Creator.
We can solve all our problems if we see the message in the existence of the problem. Our problems are a call to the Creator. The word ayat (event) is a sign, the “message carrier”. Through transience, the Creator keeps reminding us that this world is not going to satisfy our needs. Therefore, we need to attach our existence to Him alone.