A Reflection on Humility as the Key in the Quran, Beatitudes, and Socrates' Apology.

 حادثه
The Event
                                           

گفتم تو چرا دور تر از خواب و سرابی                                                                                               I asked, “Why are you farther than dream and mirage?”
گفتی که منم با تو ولیکن تو نقابی                                                                                                    You said, “I am with you but you are the mask.”
فریاد کشیدم تو کجایی تو کجایی                                                                                                         I cried, “Where are you?  Where are you?”
گفتی که طلب کن تو مرا تا که بیابی                                                                                              You said, “Yearn and call me to find me.”
چون همسفر عشق شدی مرد سفر باش                                                                                              When you are the sojourner of love, be the man of journey.
هم منتظر حادثه هم فکر خطر باش                                                                                                   Be prepared for both the event and danger.
هر منزل این راه بیابان هلاک است                                                                                            Every station of this path is a fatal desert.
هر چشمه سرابیست که بر سینه خاک است                                                                                          Every spring is a mirage in the chest of soil.
در سایه هر سنگ اگر گل به زمین است                                                                                             If there is a flower in the shade of a rock,
نقش تن ماریست که در خواب کمین است                                                                                           It is the pattern of a snake coiled up to bite.
در هر قدمت خار هر شاخه سر دار                                                                                                  In each step there is thorn and every branch is a hanging noose.
در هر نفس آزار هر ثانیه صد بار                                                                                                      Agony in each breath, hundreds in each second.
گفتم که عطش می کشدم در تب صحرا                                                                                                I said, “thirst is killing me in the fever of desert.”
گفتی که مجوی آب و عطش باش سراپا                                                                                              You said, “Don’t seek water and be all thirst.”
گفتم که نشانم بده گر چمشه ای انجا ست                                                                                              I said, “Show me, if there is a spring over there.”
گفتی چو شدی تشنه ترین قلب تو دریاست                                                                                     You said, “When you become the thirstiest, your heart is the ocean.”
گفتم که در این راه کو نقطه ی آغاز                                                                                                    I asked, “Where is the starting point in this path?”
گفتی که تویی تو خود پاسخ این راز                                                                                               You said, “You yourself are the answer to this mystery.”

(The Event, by Ardalan Sarfaraz)

Everything Will Perish But the Face of God

When I was blind to God, when I was an atheist—my attention was directed at the void as I assumed there was nothing permanent within me and without me but atoms and the law of conservation of energy.   I was in agony, I was in darkness, because this picture didn’t and doesn’t quell anyone’s existential angst—why am I here and why do I die?  I compensated for this loss with the principle of pleasure.  Thus, I fell and hurt myself and my family.  Years of studying philosophy couldn’t satisfy me either, as I got lost into the nihilism of atheism, moral relativism, and contingency of existence.  So, I turned to God and asked for help and received help and guidance.  I can’t be more grateful to God for coming to guide a broken nothing.  This is pure divine Mercy and nothing else. We can’t fathom it but its seed is already within us.  

“Do not call out to any other god beside God, for there is no god but Him.  Everything will perish except His Face. His is the Judgement and to Him you shall all be brought back.” (28:88) The most real and permanent is God.  When I was blind to God, this notion was alien to me.  I couldn’t connect with or understand those who believed in God, to me an illusory and human made notion.  The illusory turned into the most real for me, in my pleadings and receiving—when I turned my face to God.   When I turned to God, everything around me turned and the only real things—atoms, conservation of energy, electromagnetic fields, quantum vibrations, and dark energy -  became a shadow, signs of the most Real and Lasting.  After years of inquiry and being careful not to deceive myself, I found my way.  The void within me was not fully removed but shattered.  Now it was time to step on the path.  The seed of faith grows and the shattered void will gradually be removed.  God entered my heart, whose longing was set by God, and God will occupy the whole space of my being—this is my wish.  And if God so wills, my wish will come true.  Am I ready now to enter the Room of Wishes?

The Room of Wishes is here and now and always inside my heart.  I ought to be able to see, endure, and integrate all my pain and weaknesses within my strength and faith.  Seeing myself as is, rather than fashioning myself to my delusion and vanity, will teach me love.  When I become capable to meet myself and see the depth of my depravity and flaws and introduce them to my strength and faith, then the satanic ghost of Dionysian despair and pride will depart in the name of God.   

This humbles me.  The key seems so clear and accessible to me now.  I woke up from my narcissistic slumber and the delusion of absolute autonomy, which oxymoronically drowns itself in the wine and weed of contingency of existence.  I woke up from sleeping all my life with the snake of pride and sad pleasure.  And the light is too strong to let me fall back asleep into the darkness of ego. 

The key seems so clear and accessible to me now: it is to exorcise the evil spirit of will-to-power, the venom of separation and desperate pride in my vices and devices, in my sciences and technology or my self-made spirituality.  This pride is desperate as this all-knowing groundlessness is a manifestation of despair and will end in the same.  The venom is not only a mode of understanding but also a state of being, a ghostly presence with the glassy eyes of vanity.  When I come down from the delusional dizzy heights of ‘as if I am somebody’, the evil spirit departs.  When I prostate myself with understanding, the door will open.  Then I will understand what God means by “Do you not realize [Prophet] that everything in the heavens and earth submits [literally prostate] to God: the sun, the moon, the stars, the mountains, the trees, and the animals?” (22:18) and the fact that "[t]he seven heavens and the earth and everyone in them glorify God. There is not a single thing that does not celebrate His praise, though you do not understand their praise: God is most forbearing, most forgiving." (17:44).  Then I am attuned to understand the simplicity and clarity of God’s words that: “[Prophet], give good news to the humble whose hearts fill with awe whenever God is mentioned, who endure whatever happens to them with patience, who keep up the prayer, who give to others out of Our provision to them.” (22:34-35)

Socrates' Apology

It is an absolute awareness of the poverty of my existence that opens my eyes to God.  However, this understanding is also a venue to understanding my essential connection to God.  So, this “poverty” does not imply “contingency and nihilism”.  I won’t be lost and blind in seeing my life as an accidental conglomeration of atoms and particles.  In this state of humility in front of God, my philosophy, sciences, and technology can find their footings on firm ground and will reveal the divine ground more clearly.  Spiritual striving and pleading to God, with knowledge and understanding, bring me back to what Socrates said in his Apology (defense in the court before taking the hemlock in 399BC):

“[T]he truth is, O men of Athens, that God only is wise; and in this oracle [God inspired the Delphi Temple oracle to say, “Socrates is the wisest man in Athens.”] he means to say that the wisdom of men is little or nothing; he is not speaking of Socrates, he is only using my name as an illustration, as if he said, He, O men, is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing. And so I go my way, obedient to the God, and make inquisition into the wisdom of anyone, whether citizen or stranger, who appears to be wise; and if he is not wise, then in vindication of the oracle I show him that he is not wise; and this occupation quite absorbs me, and I have no time to give either to any public matter of interest or to any concern of my own, but I am in utter poverty by reason of my devotion to the God.”

And again these words of Socrates, after his death verdict was issued, are consistent with that knowledge of poverty of our existence:

“Men of Athens, I honor and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy, exhorting anyone whom I meet after my manner, and convincing him, saying: O my friend, why do you who are a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens, care so much about laying up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all? Are you not ashamed of this?  And if the person with whom I am arguing says: Yes, but I do care; I do not depart or let him go at once; I interrogate and examine and cross-examine him, and if I think that he has no virtue, but only says that he has, I reproach him with undervaluing the greater, and overvaluing the less.  And this I should say to everyone whom I meet, young and old, citizen and alien, but especially to the citizens, inasmuch as they are my brethren. For this is the command of God, as I would have you know; and I believe that to this day no greater good has ever happened in the state than my service to the God. For I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons and your properties, but first and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul. I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue come money and every other good of man, public as well as private.”

And Socrates ends his defense this way:

"Wherefore, O judges, be of good cheer about death, and know this of a truth - that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death. He and his are not neglected by the gods; nor has my own approaching end happened by mere chance. But I see clearly that to die and be released was better for me; and therefore the oracle gave no sign [Socrates’ daemon (spirit) used to give him signs of what not to do]. For which reason also, I am not angry with my accusers, or my condemners; they have done me no harm, although neither of them meant to do me any good; and for this I may gently blame them.

Still I have a favor to ask of them. When my sons are grown up, I would ask you, O my friends, to punish them; and I would have you trouble them, as I have troubled you, if they seem to care about riches, or anything, more than about virtue; or if they pretend to be something when they are really nothing, - then reprove them, as I have reproved you, for not caring about that for which they ought to care, and thinking that they are something when they are really nothing. And if you do this, I and my sons will have received justice at your hands. 

The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways - I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows.”

Beatitudes

And now the eight Beatitudes of Jesus in the Sermon of the Mount make sense to me:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they who mourn,
for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek,
for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they shall be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful,
for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure of heart,
for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they shall be called children of God.

Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

(Gospel of St. Matthew 5:3-10)

********************

    

“There are also some who serve God with unsteady faith: if something good comes their way, they are satisfied, but if they are tested, they revert to their old ways, losing both this world and the next– that is the clearest loss.  Instead of God, they call upon what can neither harm nor help them– that is straying far away– or invoke one whose harm is closer than his help: an evil master and an evil companion.  But God will admit those who believe and do good deeds to Gardens graced with flowing streams. God does whatever He wishes.  Anyone who thinks that God will not support him in this world and the next should stretch a rope up to the sky, climb all the way up it, and see whether this strategy removes the cause of his anger.  In this way, We send the Quran down as clear messages, and God guides whoever He will.” (22:11-15)

“As for the believers, those who follow the Jewish faith, the Sabians, the Christians, the Magians [Zoroastrians], and the idolaters, God will judge between them on the Day of Resurrection; God witnesses all things.  Do you not realize [Prophet] that everything in the heavens and earth submits [prostate] to God: the sun, the moon, the stars, the mountains, the trees, and the animals? So do many human beings, though for many others punishment is well deserved. Anyone disgraced by God will have no one to honor him: God does whatever He will.” (22:17-18)

“We showed Abraham the site of the House, saying, ‘Do not assign partners to Me. Purify My House for those who circle around it, those who stand to pray, and those who bow and prostrate themselves.  Proclaim the Pilgrimage to all people. They will come to you on foot and on every kind of swift mount, emerging from every deep mountain pass to attain benefits and celebrate God’s name, on specified days, over the livestock He has provided for them– feed yourselves and the poor and unfortunate– so let the pilgrims perform their acts of cleansing, fulfill their vows, and circle around the Ancient House.’  All this [is ordained by God]: anyone who honors the sacred ordinances of God will have good rewards from his Lord.” (22:26-30)

*********************************

گفتم تو چرا دور تر از خواب و سرابی                                                                                               I asked, “Why are you farther than dream and mirage?”
گفتی که منم با تو ولیکن تو نقابی اما تو نقابی                                                                                   You said, “I am with you but you are the mask.”
فریاد کشیدم تو کجایی تو کجایی                                                                                                         I cried, “Where are you?  Where are you?”
گفتی که طلب کن تو مرا تا که بیابی                                                                                              You said, “Yearn and call me to find me.”
چون همسفر عشق شدی مرد سفر باش                                                                                              When you are the sojourner of love be the man of journey.
هم منتظر حادثه هم فکر خطر باش                                                                                                   Be prepared for both the event and danger.
هر منزل این راه بیابان هلاک است                                                                                            Every station of this path is a fatal desert.
هر چشمه سرابیست که بر سینه خاک است                                                                                          Every spring is a mirage in the chest of soil.
در سایه هر سنگ اگر گل به زمین است                                                                                             If there is a flower in the shade of a rock,
نقش تن ماریست که در خواب کمین است                                                                                           It is the pattern of a snake coiled up to bite.
در هر قدمت خار هر شاخه سر دار                                                                                                  In each step there is thorn and every branch is a hanging noose.
در هر نفس آزار هر ثانیه صد بار                                                                                                      Agony in each breath, hundreds in each second.
گفتم که عطش می کشدم در تب صحرا                                                                                                I said, “thirst is killing me in the fever of desert.”
گفتی که مجوی آب و عطش باش سراپا                                                                                              You said, “Don’t seek water and be all thirst.”
گفتم که نشانم بده گر چمشه ای انجا ست                                                                                              I said, “Show me, if there is a spring over there.”
گفتی چو شدی تشنه ترین قلب تو دریاست                                                                                      You said, “When you become the thirstiest, your heart is the ocean.”
گفتم که در این راه کو نقطه ی آغاز                                                                                                    I said, “Where is the starting point in this path?”
گفتی که تویی تو خود پاسخ این راز                                                                                               You said, “You yourself are the answer to this mystery.”

(The Event, by Ardalan Sarfaraz. Singer: Dariush)

A Brief Reflection on Humility and Arrogance in Surah Night Journey (17)

"Do not strut arrogantly about the earth: you cannot break it open, nor match the mountains in height.  The evil of all these actions is hateful to your Lord.” (17:38)

I realized that I won’t serve myself, my children, or anyone else if I wear the mask of piety and perfection.  While I had good intentions, half of my life I have been lost, searching for the meaning of my life and existence, and finally, even if too late, I found God, with the grace of God.  Now, I understand what it means that without the grace of God nothing happens.  And in this light, the Quran makes so much sense to me, as it consistently reminds us of a strange notion: everything happens, good or bad, with God’s permission and grace:

“[Prophet], when you recite the Quran, We put an invisible barrier between you and those who do not believe in the life to come.  We have put covers on their hearts that prevent them from understanding it, and heaviness in their ears. When you mention your Lord in the Quran, and Him alone, they turn their backs and run away.  We know best the way they listen, when they listen to you and when they confer in secret, and these wrongdoers say, ‘You are only following a man who is bewitched.’  See what they think you are like! But they are lost and cannot find the right way.  They also say, ‘What? When we are turned to bones and dust, shall we really be raised up in a new act of creation?’  Say, ‘[Yes] even if you were [as hard as] stone, or iron, or any other substance you think hard to bring to life.’ Then they will say, ‘Who will bring us back?’ Say, ‘The One who created you the first time.’ Then they will shake their heads at you and say, ‘When will that be?’ Say, ‘It may well be very soon: it will be the Day when He calls you, and you answer by praising Him, and you think you have stayed [on earth] only a little while.’” (17:45-52)

Well, I was one of them whom God had covered my heart and set heaviness in my ear, not to understand the Quran.  This “being-covered” was rooted in my deep disbelief in revelations and my faith in sciences and human understanding to stand on its own: a fallacious belief and an idolatry that God repeatedly asks us to refrain from: not having faith in any god but God.  And the cover started to be removed when I begged God to show me the way, if there is any God.  This had been my supplication for a few years, and in this yearning, I was declaring a dead-end in the dominant philosophy and sciences and implicitly acknowledging that there ought to be a God, not out of wishful thinking, but existentially experiencing it in every fiber of my body, an experience that declared practically and implicitly God has been speaking to us in showing how our lives have become meaningless and in the whirlwind of principles of pleasure, power, and survival, and how all these philosophies are houses of sands. 

Then, and only then, God graciously removed the cover from my heart, even though still my ears were heavy.  It took ten years until I finally opened up fully to religions and to the Quran.  With God’s grace, I went through so many calamities to show me how and where I was lost and how to find my way out.  As the cure for vertigo is sometimes to induce harsher vertigos, as well for my deficient understanding and tainted heart for years of disbelief and worshipping this world of pleasure, humanism, and Marxism, God took me to the limit of my falling state to see clearly the precipice upon which I was standing.  Now, I understand that if we are prone to change, God’s grace might go through sufferings at points, without which the heaviness of our heart and ears will not be lifted.

“[Prophet], tell My servants to say what is best. [In arguing about religion and proving it as God has shown here. See 16: 125; 29: 46.] Satan sows discord among them: Satan is a sworn enemy of man.  Your Lord has the most knowledge about all of you: if God pleases He will have mercy on you, and if God pleases He will punish you. [Prophet], We did not send you to take charge of them.  Your Lord knows best about everyone in the heavens and the earth. We gave some prophets more than others: We gave David a book [of Psalms, See also 4: 163–6.] Say, ‘Call upon those you claim to be deities beside God: they have no power to remove or avert any harm from you.’ Those [angels] they pray to are themselves seeking a way to their Lord, even those who are closest to God. They hope for His mercy and fear His punishment.  The punishment of your Lord is much to be feared: there is no community [Of evildoers. See 18: 16; 7: 101.] We shall not destroy, or punish severely, before the Day of Resurrection– this is written in the Book. [God’s divine Record.]” (17:53-58)

I am so gracious for the warning signs that God sent me and the bitter medicine that I had to take for the remedy: the sufferings that God inflicted on me, which partly were nothing but the consequences of my own erroneous beliefs and actions, and partly God’s miraculous encountering me with the potential evils and devils of my thoughts and actions.  None of our sciences and philosophies, and none of our New Age stories, gods and goddesses, can guide us; none ever sent or can send us a scripture to respond to our inquires, and all herds us to following our whims and desires of power and pleasures.  I am grateful to God for awakening me to the Quran, not claiming I understand everything about it, but now that the veil upon my heart and ears are lifted, it is the great mercy and guidance from God to me and it opens my perception and vision to God and to the world.  I am so grateful for this seeing the dark side of my soul through God’s miraculous grace, for complete destruction and endless suffering in the world to come is worse.

“Nothing prevents Us from sending miraculous signs, except the fact that previous peoples denied them. We gave the people of Thamud the she-camel as a clear sign, yet they maltreated it. We send signs only to give warning. [Prophet], We have told you that your Lord knows all about human beings. The vision We showed you [The vision he was shown on the Night Journey.] was only a test for people, as was the cursed tree [mentioned] in the Quran. [ Said to refer to the tree of Zaqqum in Hell (see 56: 52; 44: 43–6). The eater will curse its fruits (Razi). Both the vision and the tree in Hell were objects of derision for the disbelievers.] We warn them, but this only increases their insolence.” (17:59-60)

I can see now with eyes wide open.  The way I look at my hands, face, body has changed. Before this, I looked at myself as a desperate cycle of birth and death and all meanings and spiritual growth were self-creation and self-interpretation of a hedonistic-nihilistic self.  The way I look at other humans and species has changed.  It is not anymore a groundless humanism, a covert or overt nihilism.  Our self-understanding based on self-sufficiency of reason can’t ground our humanism, at most it can be grounded in our biology, which indeed it means if my instincts tell me to be cruel and selfish, when the going gets tough, it is as well okay that my altruism and humanism shatter into nepotism and selfishness.  We can’t see that the manifestation of a deep divine empathy and mercy is our ethical-spiritual quest and direction.  If we deny its divine ground, we won’t find the courage and motivation to take the steep path of kindness, self-rectification and purification, because the monkey of survival or power is standing now at the end line of evolution.   I know now for sure that my ethical-spiritual direction is worthwhile the devotion.  That I ought to resist the temptation of transgression for my pleasures or survival alone.  I am well aware that it is easy to think that we are caring or altruistic, but if I see that I live only this one life and this is the only world (a contingent one too) that exists, following my exclusive pleasure and survival, when the going gets tough, even with transgressing and hurting others, is the most possible course of action that may follow. Not strange that so many atheist humanists, liberals, socialists, and Marxists and hypocrite theists who didn’t have a firm God-consciousness were seemingly ready to die but at the same time couldn’t resist pleasures of bodies and violated each other when the need called, and there was no other way to calm the cravings and the desire for satisfaction. 

I know now that in the steep path of my ethical-spiritual endeavor, I ought to seek to make myself better, realistically beneficent in oneness in thoughts, words, deeds, body and soul, and my endeavors and strife worthwhile it, because this is not the only life that I will live and I am not left on my own, abandoned and forsaken.  This world is not contingent.  God is the source of Being, and God’s mercy and guidance have come to me through scriptures.  And one lesson they emphasize is this: you ought not to see yourself better than those whose heart is concealed to you and is beyond your judgment and to be careful, very careful with your comportment in the world.  Even if now and then you make false evaluations and mistakes, you have no choice but to judge and evaluate, because you ought to ethically-spiritually improve yourself to a sense of betterment, paradoxically enough, so that you don’t see yourself as better than anyone, but awakened to the poverty of your existence as a privilege not a right, and to see clearly that the gift of life is granted to you by God and is not your entitlement.  So, in complete existential awareness of one’s dependent origination, one learns in absolute nothingness of contentment how to surrender to God, and in the humility and faith in this absolute trust in God, Scriptures promise us the gift of eternal subsistence. 

God woke me from my slumber to the inconvenience and subsequently ecstasy of truth and love; however, I could see that imprint of my past beliefs and actions on my body and the scars in my soul take time to heal, but I shouldn’t lose hope and I shouldn’t compete and ask for what I do not deserve, or I do not deserve yet.  If we listen to the story of Satan in the Quran, the most striking thing is the fact that God sees greatness and growth— in terms of virtues— in places that might seem low to us, but it is not low to God—the Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent.  It keeps and kept me wondering for a long time— and I haven’t yet fathomed it—that God speaks to weak creatures like us and holds us warmer and greater than so many others, and among us to those whom we might consider low: an illiterate person such as the Prophet, the poor and destitute.  Or for example, “[w]hile the Prophet was speaking to some disbelieving notables, hoping to convert them, a blind Muslim man came up to learn from him, but in his eagerness to attract the disbelievers to Islam, the Prophet frowned at him. And God sent these verses: ‘He frowned and turned away, when the blind man came to him––for all you know, he might have grown in spirit, or taken note of something useful to him.  For the self-satisfied one you go out of your way––though you are not to be blamed for his lack of spiritual growth––but from the one who has come to you full of eagerness and awe you allow yourself to be distracted.  No indeed! This [Quran] is a lesson from which those who wish to be taught should learn, [written] on honored, exalted, pure pages, by the hands of noble and virtuous scribes.” (80:1-13) 

As well, Iblis (Satan) fell exactly at the point where it found itself greater than human beings, mortals made of clay.  Arrogance, to see oneself better, to strive to become better, to hope to be accepted by God or ranked higher by God, and to be jealous and feel and show malice to others, even to have faith in God or zealously being harsh on those who are not and need help, unless spiritual cancer takes over in them, all of these opposite characteristics are superimposed upon each other: our weakness is posited in our strength.  While I ought to see that whatever I think, say, and do register in my body/soul, and the more I violate my conscience and commit shameful and blameworthy thoughts/words/deeds the more I create a chasm in my body/soul, so I ought to seek God’s approval by doing good, simultaneously I will fall if I become jealous to others and capriciously see myself better than others.  These two are conditioned by each other, and I can’t erase the former in the fear of being afflicted by the latter.  This is the quest of good and evil, set in our own very soul, the point of transformation for which I strive is where I do my best without seeing myself the best, having hope and surrender completely to God’s judgement.  Thus, given this heaviness of self-complacency and arrogance in our soul, the constant warnings of the Quran, to keep us on our toes and alert, makes sense.

“When We said to the angels, ‘Bow down before Adam,’ they all bowed down, but not Iblis. He retorted, ‘Why should I bow down to someone You have created out of clay?’ and [then] said, ‘You see this being You have honored above me? If You reprieve me until the Day of Resurrection, I will lead all but a few of his descendants by the nose.’ God said, ‘Go away! Hell will be your reward, and the reward of any of them who follow you– an ample reward.  Rouse whichever of them you can with your voice, muster your cavalry and infantry against them, share their wealth and their children with them, and make promises to them– Satan promises them nothing but delusion– but you will have no authority over My [true] servants: Your Lord can take care of them well enough.’” (17:61-65)

“[People], it is your Lord who makes ships go smoothly for you on the sea so that you can seek His bounty: He is most merciful towards you. When you get into distress at sea, those you pray to besides Him desert you, but when He brings you back safe to land you turn away: man is ever ungrateful. Can you be sure that God will not have you swallowed up into the earth when you are back on land, or that He will not send a sandstorm against you? Then you will find no one to protect you. Or can you be sure that He will not send you back out to sea, and send a violent storm against you to drown you for being so ungrateful? You will find no helper against Us there. We have honored the children of Adam and carried them by land and sea; We have provided good sustenance for them and favored them specially above many of those We have created.”

“On the Day when We summon each community, along with its leader [See 16: 89.] those who are given their record in their right hand will read it [with pleasure]. But no one will be wronged in the least: those who were blind in this life will be blind [spiritual blindness] in the Hereafter, and even further off the path. [Prophet], the disbelievers tried to tempt you away from what We revealed to you, so that you would invent some other revelation and attribute it to Us and then they would have taken you as a friend. If We had not made you stand firm, you would almost have inclined a little towards them. In that case, We would have made you taste a double punishment in this life, and a double punishment after death and then you would have found no one to help you against Us. They planned to scare you off the land, but they would not have lasted for more than a little while after you. Such was Our way with the messengers We sent before you, and you will find no change in Our ways.”

“So, perform the regular prayers in the period from the time the sun is past its zenith till the darkness of the night, and [recite] the Quran at dawn– dawn recitation is always witnessed ––and during the night wake up and pray, as an extra offering of your own, so that your Lord may raise you to a [highly] praised status. Say, ‘My Lord, make me go in truthfully, and come out truthfully, and grant me supporting authority from You.’ And say, ‘The truth has come, and falsehood has passed away: falsehood is bound to pass away.’”

“We send down the Quran as healing and mercy to those who believe; as for those who disbelieve, it only increases their loss. When We favor man he turns arrogantly to one side, but when harm touches him, he falls into despair. Say, ‘Everyone does things their own way, but your Lord is fully aware of who follows the best-guided path.’” (17:66-84)

A Brief Reflection on Trust in the Awesome Presence of God in the Surah The Bee

 “[Prophet], call [people] to the way of your Lord with wisdom and good teaching. Argue with them in the most courteous way, for your Lord knows best who has strayed from His way and who is rightly guided.  If you [believers] have to respond to an attack, make your response proportionate, but it is best to stand fast.  So [Prophet] be steadfast: your steadfastness comes only from God. Do not grieve over them; do not be distressed by their scheming, for God is with those who are mindful of God and who do good.” (16:125-128)

It took a long time, unfortunately, that I digested and understood this point and it is such a simple fact: I am very very very limited, not being able to see far enough, without God’s guidance, I would be lost.  In terms of limitation, I am much higher than animals as the guardian of life on the earth, but not far from beings such as worms and ants, limited, very very very limited.  It is this exuberant energy and passion for life, this excess in me that can guide me to hell or heaven, in this world and in the world to come.  If I were told to fear God and to love God, it perplexes me, as I want just the rosy picture of sleeping in the bosom of security of love without committing myself in body and soul to the source of my existence, who has sown in me what purification of soul and body means, and I would reap the fruit of my actions according to the freedom of my will:

“God commands justice, doing good, and generosity towards relatives and God forbids what is shameful, blameworthy, and oppressive. God teaches you, so that you may take heed.  Fulfil any pledge you make in God’s name and do not break oaths after you have sworn them, for you have made God your surety: God knows everything you do.  Do not use your oaths to deceive each other– like a woman who unravels the thread she has firmly spun– just because one party may be more numerous than another. God tests you with this, and on the Day of the Resurrection He will make clear to you those things you differed about.” (16:90-92)

Nonetheless, it felt inconvenient to me and I followed my whims and the delusion of pleasure and pride and instead of listening to the voice within me, to do good and being grateful for the overflowing ebullience of my life to my Source, I forgot how limited I am and the fact that I need God’s guidance and need to trust God, as a blind must trust a person who sees.  I know this after studying sciences and philosophy most of my life, and see how those who seek power and understanding only through human reason and vision are using an immense energy in a canceric and destructive way.  How desperate and ignorant is their arrogance!  However, when I awakened… No, it didn’t happen like this… as based on my eagerness, God awakened me to the startling awesome presence of God and awakened me to my limitedness, and taught me to ponder it, by recognition of God, the forgotten God, I reconnected my reason and heart back to God and I could adjust my reason to the Truth:

“If God so willed, God would have made you all one people, but God leaves to stray whoever God will and guides whoever God will. You will be questioned about your deeds. Do not use your oaths to deceive each other lest any foot should slip after being firmly placed and lest you should taste the penalty for having hindered others from the path of God, and suffer terrible torment.  Do not sell for a small price any pledge made in God’s name: what God has [to give] is better for you, if you only knew.  What you have runs out but what God has endures, and We shall certainly reward those who remain steadfast according to the best of their actions.  To whoever, male or female, does good deeds and has faith, We shall give a good life and reward them according to the best of their actions.” (16:93-97)

This is very simple, but there was a sickness in my soul, and the germ of this sickness is usually at the very seed of exuberance and energy of life, and it is at the very point of despair, insecurity and fear of my deep deep deep limitedness.  It is an energetic canceric rebellious cell that constantly demands power and absolute autonomy to its detriment.  When I could see the truth of my deep deep deep limitedness and dependent origination, I learned to separate the wheat from the chaff and let go of false images, gods, and goddesses of pleasure and orgies, of power and seduction, of delusion of scientism.  Science is a venue of knowledge and life, when disconnected from God, it becomes our soulless calamitous abuse of technology to our self-destruction-grandiosity.

There is no other way, we can’t invent a way or fabricate our God out of pure delusion, fairy tales, reason, or the arts.  The only way is to be completely receptive to the God of revelation, who has been constantly and repeatedly saying exactly the same thing in the course of thousands of years of history: abide in your trust in God, see your limitedness, be grateful for the energy of your life that will not last long, you are nested with death and are nothing, unless God gives you power and sustenance.  Use your reason to walk in the pathos of God.  Surrender to the will of God, the imageless, the nameless, the One who calls you to do good, whose seed has already been posited in you to be able to draw a line between the good and the evil, to be able to feel proper shame and guilt, to be able to hear, reason, and be responsive to Truth, surrender to the One who makes you reflect and doubt, who grants meaning and direction to your life, who connects you to your Source, without which you would perish in agony, who has promised you to be immortal according to your deeds, repeatedly in the course of history, for thousands years, it says you will return to God and this life is just a short dream, if you fear loss and being lost, it is because of forgetfulness and oblivion of the source of Being. 

I am amazed that how easily I fell asleep again and again despite this simple fact, that I am nobody, nothing, a limited limited being, all my wealth and fame, all my beauty of body and mind, all my glory and legacy, are fictitious delusions, a cover up on my deep deep deep limitedness and the fact that the only healing and content I can experience comes from the realization that I need to know my God and to connect to my Source; hence, in dying to my little self, to be granted the Self of immortality, but only for those who have attained that death, to open up to the Other: the experience of humility and nothingness, in doing good: 

 “[Prophet], call [people] to the way of your Lord with wisdom and good teaching. Argue with them in the most courteous way, for your Lord knows best who has strayed from His way and who is rightly guided.  If you [believers] have to respond to an attack, make your response proportionate, but it is best to stand fast.  So [Prophet] be steadfast: your steadfastness comes only from God. Do not grieve over them; do not be distressed by their scheming, for God is with those who are mindful of God and who do good.” (16:125-128)