Gratitude to God Who Took Me Out of Darkness into Light

“It is God who sends out the winds; they stir up the clouds; He spreads them over the skies as He pleases; He makes them break up and you see the rain falling from them. See how they rejoice when He makes it fall upon whichever of His servants He wishes, though before it is sent they may have lost all hope. Look, then, at the imprints of God’s mercy, how He restores the earth to life after death: this same God is the one who will return people to life after death– He has power over all things. Yet they will continue in their disbelief, even if We send a [scorching] wind and they see their crops turn yellow.” (30:47-51)

In the Quran, God repeatedly says: God did create the heavens and earth (and human beings and life in general) for a serious purpose.   What is this?  Let’s reflect.  It is a movement from death to life and from life to death.  But it is not an absurd Sisyphean cycle.  It has a purpose.  It cultivates us and all living beings in the universe.  It teaches us—life as such.  It helps us to grow amid suffering and agony of life and death.  The movement of life and death ends in life and not death.  It has a purpose.  We will become who we are seeded to become—by our choice.  We ought to make a choice between life and death.  Life is love and taqwa (God-consciousness) and death is being corrupted in a sheer desire for survival, power, and pleasure.  

“He brings the living out of the dead and the dead out of the living. He gives life to the earth after death, and you will be brought out in the same way.” (30:19)

“Have they not thought about their own selves?”  I wish to meditate on this for a while.  I want to think about my own self in God’s plan.  I am a sign, as well as you and everything else created by God.  And then we have these series of signs: bringing the living out of the dead and the dead out of the living.  Let’s mediate. We think “death” is end.  God says the cycle of life and death is a sign of God.  There is no death as ending, there is only movement from life to death and from death to life.  I and you will be brought back to life after death again in the Day of Resurrection.  From dust to human (from death to life).  From being alone to having company and spouse—we need love and kindness.  Our fragility and incompleteness are a sign.  From dust to life: “One of His signs is that He created you from dust and you became human and scattered far and wide.” (30:20)

From being alone or self-sufficient to the need for spouse:  we need love as the condition of our existence: “Another of His signs is that He created spouses from among yourselves for you to live with in tranquility: He ordained love and kindness between you. There truly are signs in this for those who reflect.” (30:21)

 Love is engrained in our life and death.  The movement of life and death necessitates love. And earthly love necessitates multiplicity. So, another sign is the creation of heaven and earth and the diversity of languages and colors: “Another of His signs is the creation of the heavens and earth, and the diversity of your languages and colors. There truly are signs in this for those who know.” (30:22) What sign do we have in this multiplicity?  God has scattered us to examine how we develop love or hate among ourselves, from racing for survival and power to racing for love and taqwa (the God consciousness virtue).

The other sign is sleep and awakening and asking for bounty from God: “Among His signs are your sleep, by night and by day, and your seeking His bounty. There truly are signs in this for those who can hear.” (30:23)  The cycle of life and death, sleep and awakening, asking bounty from God for survival, because our fragility and death is a sign, our sleep is a sign, but then our awakening and life here and afterlife is a sign.  God refers to an embedded movement as a sign of God.

Lightening and rain are other signs of God: “Among His signs, too, are that He shows you the lightning that terrifies and inspires hope; that He sends water down from the sky to restore the earth to life after death. There truly are signs in this for those who use their reason.” (30:24) Why lightening?  It terrifies (our death) and inspires hope (our life) and again rain brings dead into life.

Another sign is that the heavens and earth stand firm through the movement or becoming of life and death: “Among His signs, too, is the fact that the heavens and the earth stand firm by His command. In the end, you will all emerge when He calls you from the earth. Everyone in the heavens and earth belongs to Him, and all are obedient to Him.” (30:25-26)

And then after our death, we will be called from the earth.  This constant change is held firm in the hands of God: “He is the One who originates creation and will do it again– this is even easier for Him. He is above all comparison in the heavens and earth; He is the Almighty, the All Wise.” (30:27)

And the last sign mentioned in this surah is wind.  But it has a special and strange description: “Another of His signs is that He sends out the winds bearing good news, giving you a taste of His grace, making the ships sail at His command, enabling you to [journey in] search of His bounty so that you may be grateful.” (30:46)

“It is God who sends out the winds; they stir up the clouds; He spreads them over the skies as He pleases; He makes them break up and you see the rain falling from them. See how they rejoice when He makes it fall upon whichever of His servants He wishes, though before it is sent they may have lost all hope. Look, then, at the imprints of God’s mercy, how He restores the earth to life after death: this same God is the one who will return people to life after death– He has power over all things. Yet they will continue in their disbelief, even if We send a [scorching] wind and they see their crops turn yellow.” (30:47-51)

This wind has a characteristic—it seems—of spirit.  It creates cohesiveness and dispersion.  Wind is the sign of God’s grace and punishment.  It brings life and death.  Again, we find ourselves within a cycle.  And the wind circulates the cycle.  It brings hope and chastisement.  The same God who makes all these happen, will return people to life after death.  These are all signs of a returning. 

Now, we live in a secularized and disenchanted world.  We exorcized God from nature.  As Nietzsche said: “We killed God” in our chest and de-deified nature.  But we didn’t take heed to ramification of our action: that along secularizing universe, we also killed our ethical comportment and spirit and plunged into nihilism and hedonism. We did these all in reaction to the excessive disregard for the universe itself in its inner working in the religious discourse at the end the Middle Age, modernism as always in excess swung to the other extreme and turned nature and life into a subclass of dead, causal interaction of indifferent and dead particles.  Now it is time to rest the pendulum.  Oscillation is enough.  We can investigate the wind to its uttermost causal condition but never, absolutely never, explain away the mysterious abyss of the wind into phenomenal explanation.  God is the first and the last, God pulls all the strings.  And signs of God in nature points at the purposeful cycle of life and death, which will culminate in the Day of Resurrection and Judgement.