The result of belief, like good works (amal ul salih) are the everlasting fruits of this fleeting life.
What we are studying in this particular section on the rays has to do with the insight of belief.
- Not just ‘ I believe in God’
- But focusing on what belief really brings to you and what it means to you
Belief in the eternal existence of God
- There are degrees in belief
- I believe that the universe has been created by God and there is a creator is one degree but a higher degree is about recognizing that God, the creator, is Eternal
- Although we are here in a temporary place and in a temporary existence, we must recognize that the creator of this temporary world is Eternal
- We have to be aware of this relationship with the Eternal One
I am in need of various things BUT although I receive what I need, I know that the satisfaction of my need is transient. At the very next moment my needs will change.
- But if I am aware that the provider of my needs is Eternal, I will not be worried or anxious about my needs being met
We need to develop an awareness and consciousness of the fact that the food we eat is provided by an Eternal provider
- Unfortunately, we only take belief in God very lightly
- I believe in God. I don’t deny it. I even follow His messenger and His religion
- However, belief has endless degrees and cannot be left at a superficial level
Through these conversations, we are trying to establish this consciousness in my life that not only is God taking care of me but acknowledging that my creator is Eternal and is the perpetual source of everything.
My good works must be the result of my belief.
- It is not as a simple as saying, I believe in God so I pray
- That would be akin to saying: I am an American citizen so I pay national taxes
- Your belief should compel you to perform actions
Good works must be the reflection of my belief
- My awareness of God must be present within the work I am doing
My very existence depends on His act of creation
- He is not watching over my distantly
- All that I see, hear, taste, etc are continuously being provided by Him
- To have this awareness is to have taqwa
Despite the feelings that I encounter (fear, love, happiness, anxious), I should remain conscious that the existence of everything in my being exists because of Him
- It is extremely important to be aware of this because it ties the existence of my whole being to its Eternal source
- If I were a river, the analogy would be that you see the river flowing from an inexhaustible source
Analogy: All the water molecules that we see in a running river are coming from an inexhaustible source
- All water molecules are aware of their existence and perform their ‘act’ of flowing
- Despite the fact that each molecule passes, a next water molecule follows because the source is continuous
The goodness in the work we do, does not lie in the outward appearance of the act but in our attitude while performing the action
We don’t need revelation to tell us that we should help people or we should share good food and not bad
- Even the unbelievers performed in an instinctively ‘good’ manner
- Revelation is needed to connect our actions to the real source
People may appear to be nice outwardly, but what matters is their belief internally.
- We have to be aware whether the tasks we perform are an extension of our belief in God
Example: I have the sense of helping people
- This sense does not belong to me
- It has been given to me as a trust (amanah)
- I have the choice to use it in His name or to appropriate the quality to myself and gloat in our pride
- What makes a good action salih is whether we perform it in the name of the owner or not
Many people work extremely hard in finding the cure to certain diseases
- They are not doing anything wrong
- But as far as their responsibility in this world is concerned, they should investigate whether their actions are being performed in the name of the creator or in their own name
- This account will be upon God to decide and it is not for me to judge
God is always aware of the consciousness with which we perform our actions
- He will decide whether we have used the trust we have been given correctly or not
- Whenever we perform an action we have to be conscious of the awareness within me for the qualities endowed in me
- That is my duty
If I say that the sense of help/of being nice/of being loving/etc that I have developed ARE mine, then I will naturally face the consequence of my choice in my own existence BECAUSE I am cutting myself away from the Eternal Source.
We have to first establish that we are created beings
- Once we have established that, we should ask: How am I expected to live in this world as a created being?
- It is usually easy to pass the stage of recognizing that we are created beings
- But after establishing that the universe must have a creator and I am created, the difficulty arises in determining how my actions ought to be.
Good works (amal-ul-salih) = Not just rituals. It encompasses all actions.
- When you are listening to a lecture are you aware that the need to understand has been given to you and should be used in the name of the creator?
Every action must be done in the name of the owner
- This realization is crucial
- If someone realizes that they are helping people
- Example: We appreciate the person who spends two days out of a week to help needy people
What is important is the attitude that we take when performing rituals and actions
- It would be false for us to assume people who perform rituals are better than those who don’t
- We can never know people’s awareness with respect to their performance or lack of performance
- We must always be aware of our own consciousness
- My innate qualities are not just for this world
- They are constantly looking outward, into the eternal
- If so, what is the point in having all these emotions that urge me towards good actions?
If I say that the one who gave me these inclinations (towards good and away from bad actions like war) has done so for a particular purpose, I have to actively search and think about the reason why things are as they are?
- The one who gave me these qualities, must tell me what these qualities are for
- I understand that the One who created me must interfere in my life
- I have to become aware that I need guidance from my creator, given my enormous capacity to question and think
Analogy: Someone gifts me with a laptop. In order to be able to use it effectively, I turn to the manufacturer’s handbook to get guidance from the manufacturer.
Similarly, shouldn’t I turn to the manufacturer of my being to find out how I should use the qualities I find myself equipped with?
As a human being, I must look for guidance.
- I should not simply follow tradition and my history
- Just because I was born into a Muslim/Christian/Jew family does not mean that I should follow it blindly
- I need to investigate the words I read and the stories I am told
- If someone reads the Quran without contemplating its meaning, the person is
- The companions used to warn the people who read the Quran heedlessly
- The Quran is not meant to be used superficially
- It requires us to deliberately think about the words in them
- I have to investigate whether the source of the Quran and the words mentioned are consistent with my human qualities
- If I am able to confirm what I read in the Quran, then I can confirm the words in it.
- Only then can the guidance offered in the Quran help me
If someone says: No, I don’t want to follow the teachings of the Quran. I just want to be a good man, we should not get too affected by the person. Each person makes his or her own choice. We have to only present the case.
I should not judge the person. I have to only be concerned with my life.
- Given the fact that my life is transient, I have to be very careful about how I use it
- I have to take care of my own self and make sense of my own choices so that I am conscious of what I am doing
- As I am, I see the world as XYZ
- This is my world view
- If you like it, you can take lessons from it
- If you don’t, leave it
- We just have to remind them
- We don’t have to go around issuing fatwas
- Rather, give people reasons on why they should do what they ought to
Without convincing me that I need religion, there is no point in enforcing actions. The actions will all fall flat.
- Think about why people don’t feel the need to follow the Prophetic guidance?
- Just by forcing me to follow the prophetic teachings will have no effect
- Instead, it will only cause conflict
You might be good to other people, but you are not being good to yourself because you are not attaching yourself to the eternal source.
Quran is a book of training and education. It is not a book of codes.
After the Quran explains why I should follow ‘religion’ (deen), a set of principles for my life
- The Quran teaches us that it is the belief within an action that makes an action come to life
- Your connection with your creator is what makes an action meaningful for you
- ‘Good action’
- The results of belief, like good action
- If the good action is not coming from belief, the action is not a good action although it might seem so apparently
We need to radically change our paradigm in order to understand these concepts because religion is not presented to us this way
- We have to question the concepts we have and the legitimacy of its source
Example: Someone does not engage in the 5 prayers.
You say: No, you cannot be a Muslim if you don’t pray. Just believing and doing good actions is not enough.
*But be aware that if the person does not believe that he/she needs to do something, the action has no meaning.
The religion we are used to is not wrong BUT we have to question the legitimacy of our actions so that we can present convincing reasons why actions are important
- We should steer away from competitive and argumentative claims
- Don’t just say: The Prophet said you have to pray, so pray!
- We have to address each other by connecting to our human emotions in a convincing way
- To this, we have to redefine the scriptures so that it makes sense for me and I am able to confirm what I read in a convincing manner
- When I encounter someone who seems in need of guidance, I should not preach my ‘results’ to them
- The ‘results’ (actions) should be the outcome of belief
- What we have to do is to present a convincing account of religion with the evidence to support why we perform specific actions
- All our claims ought to make sense to us on a basic human level
- It should not require the person to have any pre-requisites or to belong to any specific sect
The Quran speaks to human beings and invites them to be muttaqin
- It teaches us how to have taqwa
- After a couple of verses, Allah discusses about hypocrites in the Quran so as to describe how we may fall
- Note: All of us have hypocritical tendencies to varying degrees
- The reminder in the Quran is so that we may become aware of hypocrisy in our lives
I do not want to interfere between you and your relationship with God, neither am I here to issue fatwas
- Some people clamp up when you try and preach about pre established Islamic rules
- For example, when we say: The Prophet said that someone who does not pray is not a believer
- The person might response: Ok, so be it. I am not a believer
- You will face a dead end
- What is crucial is a need to re-establish what religion is
- People are fed up with religion as a socio-political identity
- For centuries, people have received information about religion in a ‘passed down’ fashion WITHOUT any questioning involved
- Rather, always focus on human qualities and see how people open up
If I define myself as God’s creature and if I am ready to submit myself and my ego to God, I will find ways to perform my acts of submission. Only once I submit myself can I establish my life to revolve around the prayer.
- That is what the Prophet is teaching
The Prophet is NOT teaching that since you were born a Muslim, you have to pray 5 times a day.
We have to prepare ourselves and each other in the realization of what s/he is in this world and how s/he should see this world and the value of human life on this earth
- That way, the person may realize the need for guidance by His creator
- Then, if s/he is convinced that he needs instruction from the creator, we can quote hadiths about how our daily lives ought to revolve around prayer
- This is how the hadith needs to be used
- You should not go around preaching the hadith to people who are not conscious of their belief
The commands/rituals are only 5% of the Quran. The rest of the 95% has to do with belief, which many people are not familiar with.
- We have to revive our understand and familiarity with belief which is an essential foundation of our existence
Quran is here to train us and this universe is our training ground.
- We have to be professional human beings and train our humanity
- Unfortunately, we obsess ourselves with training in our career, which is not the main aim of our life
As far as we concerned, personally, we have to make sure that
What defines whether an action is good or not, depends on our individual realization, our insight of belief while performing the action.
- we have to be aware that the senses with which we perform ‘good’ actions do not belong to us
- We should be aware that they belong to our creator and that I ought to use it in His name
I find a $1 bill and on it I see initials of the person the note belongs to. My response (how I use the $1) will depend on my state of belief.
- I can either use the $1 in any way I please, without any concern as to who the money originally belongs
- OR I can acknowledge that the $1 belongs to Mr Y but use the $1 in a way that pleases me WITHOUT following how Mr Y would like me to use it
- OR I can acknowledge that $1 belongs to Mr Y and as a result of the acknowledgement, I use the $1 in Mr Y’s name
While I am doing good actions, be aware of the connection between the good action and your creator
- What makes an action good or bad is the consciousness in our belief AND not necessarily the action itself
- Many people may be inclined to say that since ‘ubudiya is between me and my lord, I follow my heart’
- But what happens in many cases is that people follow their own desires and ego AND do not reflect on their actions with respect to their creator
When performing a good action, check whether you are following you own egoistic tendencies OR whether you are doing it in His name, as a result of your awareness of belief.
Although I may say that the $1 bill I got is from Mr Y, it does not mean that I believe in Mr Y.
- Yes, acknowledging it is crucial but we have to take it further
- Instead, ask why did Mr Y give you the $1 and how do you think he would like you to spend the $1?
- Only then are you living your life with a constant awareness of your creator
Good actions are the everlasting fruits of this fleeting life
We commonly understand that actions takes place in this realm WHILE the quality of everlasting is in the next life.
- But such a way of thinking is flawed because there is no room for confirmation
Rather, what makes the action everlasting is the awareness of its dimension.
- Example: When you pray, you get rewards in the next life
- Rather, your prayer will be everlasting ONLY if you perform the action with the awareness of your Eternal creator.
- Between you and your God, we have to be aware if we are performing actions with the awareness of this everlasting connection with the Eternal creator
- That way I connect myself in this transient world to the
I perform an action with a conscious and awareness that I am doing it in the name and presence of the everlasting and eternal source
- While performing the action, I am returning my emotions to the eternal source and when He receives it, my emotions become eternal
Don’t lose ourselves in the outward form of our actions
- Rather, through your consciousness, see how your fleeting life can be transformed to an eternal existence
Actions ought to be performed with the conscious of the eternal source of these actions
- Only then can the reward be Eternal
- This is the mercy of God
- If we perform actions in the name of the Eternal source, our action exists in the Eternal realm
- That is why we say: All our actions return to God
My sense of thankfulness is given to me by God and I use it in His name
- In doing so, I return my senses to Him and they gain an Eternal existence
Unfortunately, we have been trained in ‘fatwas’ which inadvertently leads to competition between religious sects
If I blindly narrate the Quran and the Hadiths without giving a legitimate explanation, as the Quran does, I am bound to create dissension amongst people which will lead to the rejection of religion.
Always focus on confirming one’s belief NOT on trying to enforce rules and regulations.
– Once belief is firmly set, actions will follow.