CHAPTER XVIII
Part 2 of
The Mysteries of Islam
The following is redeveloped from letters sent to a Mr. Jalil, in response to his pamphlet entitled Islam Explained, and the other to a Professor of Religious Studies after a visit and lecture by another Professor, a certain Islamic scholar who we shall respectfully call Dr. B:
Dear Mr. Jalil,
While reading your pamphlet, Islam Explained, I came upon your address, Elberton, Georgia. Are you near the Guidestones? Has the idea reached you yet which also places the lower Garden of Eden in that region on earth where you live?
The garden had to be located somewhere--where both the beginning and the end of the great Adamic cycle joined and came together. Otherwise the Scriptures could not have been fulfilled. All who have completed the Westward journey in these fulness of times (on behalf of all the rest of humanity) have come bearing the words:
And obey God and the Apostle that ye may obtain mercy. Be quick in the race for forgiveness, and for a Garden whose width is that of (the whole of) the heavens and the earth prepared for the righteous...(Sura 3.32,33).
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When the scrolls are laid open...When the world on high is revealed. When the blazing Fire is kindled to fierce heat (see Ezekiel 20:45-49)...And when the Garden is brought near.Then each soul shall know what it has put forth...(Sura 81.10-22).
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The disciples said to Isa, Tell us how our end will be? Isa said, Have you then discovered the beginning, that you look for the end? For where the beginning is, there will the end be. Blessed is he who will take his place in the beginning; he will know the end and will not experience death...(Gospel of Thomas 18).
We have been attempting in these letters and commentaries, to fill in the critical historical gaps in the story that is common to all of us in the West, by re-weaving the fabric of legend, myth and reality to each other again. In the attempt, while searching through the historical records, and principally the oral traditions of the ancient world, we have discovered not only the great means by which God has kept these things hidden but the reason why. This so the mind of Darkness (the descendents of the spirit of Cain) could not take hold of the oracles (the structure and the meanings, not only of the Tree of Life but of their own sacred texts) and learn their mysteries. Had they learned them--and they are wonderful to behold--they would have been able to refrain from the great works of Darkness that are being committed in the earth in our time, and the age would not have been able to come to its meaningful and rightful conclusion. The New could not have been born.
And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the Tree of Life, and eat, and live forever:
Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
So He drove out the man; and He placed at the East of the garden of Eden Cherubims (these Cherubims represent all of the balanced, as well as opposite principles of nature, the very same principles that also govern our understanding of the Beginning and the End of all things), and a Flaming Sword, which turned every way, to keep the way of the Tree of Life...(Genesis 3:22-24).
The Flaming Sword is the Word of God, as it is written: The Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God (Ephesians 6:17), and, Is not my Word like Fire? (Jeremiah 5:14; Deuteronomy 4:24). It keeps the spirit of Darkness away from the meanings of the Tree of Life, while it burns the dross from the eyes of the children of Light. It consumes the mind of Darkness, while it purifies the mind of Light.
A Cloud (the ways of Peace) before thee, and a Flame of Fire (the terrors of War) behind thee to show thee the Way that ye shall go...(Deuteronomy 1:33; Hebrews, chapter 12).
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If they reject thee, so were rejected before thee , Who came with Clear Signs, Books of Dark Prophecies, and the Book of Enlightenment...
Every soul shall have a taste of Death, and only on the Day of Judgment shall ye be paid your full recompense. Only he who is saved from the Fire, and admitted to the Garden will have obtained the object of Life...
To God belongeth the dominion of the heaven (the East) and the earth (the West), and hath Power over all things...(Sura 3.184-89).
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As to the righteous they will be in the midst of gardens and rivers, in an assembly of Truth in the presence of a Sovereign Omnipotent (see Psalm 48:1,2)...(Sura 54.54,55).
The story begins near where you reside (approximately 120 Jubilees, or 120 X 49 = 5,880 years ago), at the dawn of the historical period. It was a time just prior to the Ad and Thamud peoples, when their predecessors (the childen of Cain), were first overspreading the earth with themselves, and with their refusal (their inability) to pay deep attention to the voice of God's messengers, or to pay heed to God's signs. The adepts in the spiritual sciences (the sons and daughters of Light) were also emerging out of the ancient human order, filling the earth with their insights and teachings as well. But so the children of Darkness could not take hold of these teachings, and continue to pervert them as they had already begun to do (From Cain to Nimrod to Pharaoh was the progression), the adepts began to conceal the central-most precepts and tenets of the Holy Science in those peculiar stories, literary forms, and sacred symbols that have come in time to comprise the substance of our sacred Scriptures. They knew that it would require the same measure of Divine inspiration to discover and reinterpret such writings, as it did to formulate them, as it was also written: Let the spirit of the prophets be subject to the prophets.
It was a time when the Invisible Presence of God was being caught sight of, in the conceptual dimensions of reality, in the astrological designs, and, of course, in the unfolding drama of human events. Out of the seeming chaos, and sheer diversity of the natural order, a much higher notion appeared--of the Unity and Oneness of All things. There is only ONE God, and that One God orders all things--the Night and the Day, and therefore the evil as well as the good. How simple it was. All things flow from the ONE (Consider, for instance, the entire 20th century. It was all the terrible work of of God). Thus from those ancient times to the very present time, They (the Heavenly Father and the Divine Mother) have been bringing all things to pass according to the pattern, and in the image of their own thoughts. These ideas lent themselves in time to the formation of symbols, the earliest mathematical principles, but principally geometric symbols and mandalas. The ideas first embodied themselves in the shape of the Circle and Square, the Cross, the Pyramid, and eventually, after concept was added to concept, the entire structure of the Oracle, the Tree of Life, took shape. It comprehends the whole of creation, the birth of the universe, heaven and earth, the physical, emotional, psycho-intellectual and spiritual dimensions of the human life-force, and the history of man. All of these things are encoded and embodied in its design. (They also lent themselves to the words: God is known by the judgments He executes. What ever Nature is doing, what ever humanity is doing, God is doing).
THE TREE OF LIFE
It is not a thing so much as a living archive, a memory bank--containing the shape of all the ideas that have passed out of the Mind of God into the mind of man, from the time of Adam to our own time.
From the time of Adam until right after the "flood" (the judgment wars of Noah's time...Revelation 17:15; Daniel 9:26), as the adepts of this developing science began to move Eastward as a result of those wars, the entire East became the repository of the Atlantean and Western mysteries, from the Chaldees and Assyria in Mesopotamia, to India, and through Syria to Egypt and Ethiopia, and Arabia. These mysteries reached Arabia after they moved from India, and out of their Vedic form into their emerging in Hebrew forms. And just as the hidden center of this great Mystery was being purposfully kept from the eyes of the world, but whose conceptual whereabouts, nevertheless, were being recorded everywhere throughout the earth in oral traditions, but also in stone and brick, spirals and ziggurats, shapes and forms, so we are told in legend how Abraham and Ishmael came down to Arabia and built the Ka'aba, which has been the sacred focus of every pilgrimage to Mecca ever since. What is this Ka'aba, however? It is a marvellous geometric record, an image in stone as it is (built every so slightly out of perfection), of those things that were not only concealed above, in the center of the World Mystery, but which are now descending again (out of the East, where they have also been hidden), into the field of human consciousness...
And I John saw the Holy City, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband....
And the City lieth Foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth: and he measured the City with a reed, Twelve thousand furlongs. THE LENGTH AND THE BREADTH AND THE HEIGHT OF IT ARE EQUAL. (In other words, a Cube inside of a square)...(Revelation 21:2, 16).
That city of Jerusalem in the Middle East is not the City of David. It is rather (in the very same tradition as the Ka'aba), the city of Stone that Moses built over three millennia ago, as a replica (also) of that Great City that would be established in time in the regions above. (Please see the previous chapters).
Those among the people will say: What hath turned them from the Qibla to which they were used (away from that city in Palestine toward Mecca)? Say: To God belongeth both East and West: He guideth whom He will to a Way that is Straight...(Sura 2.142).
When those in New York City (the lower, Farthest precincts of the Greater Holy City) pray, with their faces (and the orientation of the Mosque itself) directed toward Mecca, their prayers (unknown to them), pass right through the center of Europe and the true focus of the Mystery of Jerusalem itself:
I KINGS, CHAPTER 8.
Just as Melchizedek is the spiritual embodiment of the ancient Priestly Order, which manifests itself in epic, historical dimensions of the Mystery of Christ, so Solomon is the spiritual embodiment of the Divine King. (Israel is a nation of Priests and Kings...Revelation 1:6). The two can be superimposed, or superimagined, upon each other in the figure of the Universal Christ on the World Tree...
SOLOMON...Psalm 48; and MELCHIZEDEK, Hebrews, chapters 5 to 7.
The name Solomon is actually ShLoMoH, (Shin-Lamed-Mem-He), a name derived from other elements of the Divine Name--among them Shalom, (Shin-Lamed-Mem), hence a name closer to the English variant, Solomon. ShaLoM includes both the word, as well as the idea of Peace and Perfection, thus the greeting: al-Salam, as well as the name of the Holy City itself. The letter Shin is the numerical equivalent (300) of the words Ruach Elohim. This name is a manifestation of the Divine Presence as it reveals itself in both the Masculine and Feminine principles of the Creation. (Please see the chapter on the Holy Name). The letter "Lamed" is equivalent to 30, and therefore also equivalent to the Five sefirot on the Tree of Life named Love-Power-Beauty-Endurance-Majesty, (4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8), which together also equal 30. These Five make up the composite figure of the Mystery of the Body of Christ on the limbs of the Sacred Oracle. They represent the whole Western state of mind. The letter "Mem" is equal to 40, and to the number of years the children of Israel were made to wander in the wilderness before they could go in and receive the Promise. (It is also equal to the number of days that the spirit of Christ was tempted in the wilderness). And the letter "He" is equal to the number FIVE and the Power of the Strong Right Hand and the Stretched Out Arm of the Lord (Din), under whose guidance, as well as severe correction, the children of Israel have been making their way through the Nations all these centuries:
"The Fiveness of the Divine Presence does not contradict its Oneness, that is, the Oneness of Being, for it is always the same Presence. The 'Shahada' (There is none but Allah) expresses both points of view, the relative and the absolute, in its very substance. Its letters are crystallized into words which correspond to the degree of hierarchy. But if the words be melted down into the letters they consist of, we find there is nothing among them but Alif, Lam, and Ha, and these are the letters of the Supreme Name." What is Sufism, Martin Lings.
The point we must return to, however, is that the City of David is not in the Middle East, but rather, it was established one thousand years before the time of Christ in the center of Europe, and is the very same place Solomon referred to when he prayed:
Therefore now, Lord God of Israel, keep with Thy servant D.V.D. my father(mother) that Thou hast promised him, saying, There shall not fail thee a "man" to sit on the throne of Israel: so that thy children take heed to their way, that they walk before Me as thou hast walked before Me.
And now, O God of Israel, let Thy word I pray Thee be verified, which Thou spakest unto Thy servant D.V.D. my father(mother)...
That Thine eyes may be opened toward this House night and day, (please see Isaiah 66:1), even toward the place of which Thou hast said, My Name shall be there, (the number six, or the letter V in the Name, YHVH): that Thou mayest hearken unto the prayer which Thy servant shall make toward this place.
And hearken Thou to the supplication of Thy servant, and of Thy people Israel, WHEN THEY SHALL PRAY TOWARD THIS PLACE: and hear Thou in heaven Thy dwelling place: and when Thou hearest (please) forgive...
Then hear Thou in heaven, and forgive the sins of Thy people Israel, and bring them again unto the land (into the state of mind) which Thou gavest unto their fathers (and mothers).
When heaven is shut up, and there is no rain, because they have sined against Thee; IF THEY PRAY TOWARD THIS PLACE, and confess Thy Name (YHVH, YHShWH, AllaH), and turn from sin, when Thou afflictest them...
What prayer and supplication soever be made by any man, or by all the people Israel, which shall know every one the plague of their own heart, AND SPREAD FORTH THEIR HANDS TOWARD THIS PLACE:
Then hear Thou in heaven Thy dwelling place, and forgive, and do, and give to every man according to his ways, whose heart Thou knowest; for Thou, even Thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men...(1 Kings, chapter 8).
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Guard strictly your (habit of) prayers, ESPECIALLY THE MIDDLE PRAYER; and Stand before God in a devout (frame of mind)...(Sura 2.238).
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And he (Solomon) enjoyed, indeed, a near approach to Us, and a Beautiful Place of (Final) Return...(Sura 38.40).
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"God will say to the people of Paradise: 'Are ye well pleased?' And they will say: How should we be not well pleased? , O Lord, inasmuch as Thou hast given us that which Thou hast not given unto any other of Thy creatures. Then He will say 'Shall not I give you better than that?' And they will say: What thing, O Lord is better? And he will say: 'I will let down upon you My RIDWAN,' (The Highest Paradise). (Sura 9.72)." Islamic Spirituality, by Sayyed Hossein Nasr, pp.225,226.
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"The term 'Ma'ad' (Return, or Place of Return) used generically for discussions of eschatological realities and events, is derived from such Quranic verses as 'They say, What! when we are bones and broken bits...Who will cause us to return? Say, He who created you the first time.' (Sura 17.49-51). (Please see Ezekiel 37).
Systematic discussions of Ma'ad are often paired with studies of a second concept, 'al-mabda' (origins or place of origin), for as the Quran affirms, 'As He originated you, so will you return.' (S.7.29).
On that day when We roll up heaven like the rolling up of a scroll for writings; As we originated the first creation, (so) We shall reproduce it: a promise (binding on us); surely We will bring it about...(Sura 21.104).
Works on the origin and return deal with such questions as the nature of the human being and his relationship with God...and the manner in which he can achieve it...The various types of individuals that make up the human race and their respective lodging places in the next world...The ontological distinctions between 'this world' and the next...In a wider context, the topic of 'the origin and return' coverse everything that touches upon the manner in which man can achieve his proper place in creation or attain to 'human perfection' whether moral, spiritual, or intellectual." Islamic Spirituality, p.378.
There is no God save he. Everything will perish but His Face. (See 2 Corinthians 4:5-7). His is the command, and unto Him will ye be brought back...(Sura 28.88).
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Having made known unto us the mystery of His Will, according to His good pleasure which he hath purposed in Himself:
That in the dispensation of the fulness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in Him...(Ephesians 1:9,10).
The Qur'an clearly implies that a Muslim being led along the Straight Path, and from station to station on the way to spiritual perfection, cannot begin to fathom the meaning of such an experience, or to even interpret the Qur'an itself, without also, or first, being inspired by the inner meanings of the Law and the Prophets, and the Gospels. The Ummah, or the collective consciousness of Islam flows directly from thesel:
He has revealed to you the Book with truth, verifying that which is before it, and He revealed the Torah and the Gospel aforetime, a guidance for the people, and He sent the Furqan (the Critereon--the Interpretation)...(Sura 3.3).
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We have not revealed the Qur'an to you that ye may be unsuccessful...
To Him belongs what is in the heavens and on earth, and what is between them, and what is beneath the ground.
If you utter (or pronounce anything about it, or any word) aloud (it is no matter), For verily He knows what is secret, and what is yet more hidden.
God! there is no god but He! To Him belong the Most Beautiful Names...(Sura 20.2-8).
Among the things that have been yet more hidden is the direct reflection and connection that exists between the beliefs and rituals of Islam and the actual realities of those things that have been coming to pass in the worlds above. For though the Qur'an was first revealed in the East, it was instituted from heaven to be opened along with all of the other prophetic books here in the West. We have seen it in the opening Seven verses of the first Sura...
RAMADAN...FROM SUNRISE TO SUNSET
We can also understand it in the ordinances of Ramadan, which are fulfilled in fugurative images between the hours of sunrise to sunset (and from the period of one New Moon to the next). It is during this period that the Qur'an was revealed (and, in these last times, in which it is also fulfilled):
O you who believe! fasting is prescribed for you, as it was prescribed for those before you, so that you may guard against evil (please see Matthew 4:1-11)...
The Month Ramadan is that in which the Quran was revealed, a guidance to men and clear proofs of the guidance and distinction (between right and wrong). Therefore whoever of you is present in the month, he shall fast therein...(Sura 2.183-187).
WORLD'S MOSLEMS BEGIN HOLY MONTH OF ABSTINANCE...A fasting Moslem in this country will find his path cluttered with temptation, especially in light of abundant food and drink coupled with American lifestyles that sometimes clash with Islamic ones.
The holy month, which will begin tomorrow and end in 29 or 30 days, will be marked the world over by Moslem abstention during daylight hours from food, drink, sexual intercourse (please recall the interpretation of Revelation 14:4, and the meaning of the term "women"), or anything that may lead to a change in the body's composition.
This is the month of Allah, explained A. Sherif, a member of Huntington's Moslem community. The beginning of Ramadan is announced from the holy city of Mecca as soon as it is believed the moon has reached a thin crescent shape. It ends nearly a month later under the same circumstances...
Observation of the holy month takes place during daylight hours, which Sherif said is particularly difficult on Moslems in the United States because of different beliefs of most Americans in a society where food and refreshments are plentiful...Yet, if a Moslem can dodge those temptations, his or her faith can become stronger, he said...
You develop a feeling about the poor when you hold yourself for a full day, Sherif said. It creates a feeling that you're supposed to help. Too many people talk about helping the less fortunate without actually doing it, he said. (Please compare Isaiah 58:3-8).
Ramadan does more than help Moslems develop empathy for others, he said. It is a time when Moslems are closest to God. The Koran is being fulfilled this month. It celebrates the delivery of the Koran to Muhammad, a prophet of Allah. He got the message from God that month.
Ramadan is also significant because it demonstrates the unity and similar attitudes of all Moslems. The holy month parallels the Jewish Yom Kippur in function and is also similar to the Christian lent...
In addition, during Ramadan, Moslems around the world are supposed to lay down their weapons if they are taking part in any war...There shouldn't be war, really, Sherif said, noting that terrorists who use the name of Islam for their ventures are not representative of the majority of Moslems...Islam is a religion of peace." The Huntington (West Virginia) Dispatch.
The observer is permitted to eat and drink (at Night), and to enjoy sexual relations between loved ones (at Night), and is directed to proceed until the Light of Day is clearly discernible from the Darkness of Night. (Please see 1 Thessalonians 5:1-9). All these things, because the whole passage of Islam from East to West has been a Night Journey:
"The Sun is the Spirit, Light is Gnosis, Day is beyond the transcendent world of direct spiritual perception; and the Night is this world, the world of ignorance, or the world of indirect reflected knowledge symbolized by the moon." What is Sufism, Martin Lings.
Like Judaism and Christianity, Islam's has been a journey to the meaning of all things, especially in our times, to the point of seeing how each other's festivals are reflected in the other, such as Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur being a sign of the end of Ramadan, as it is also written: Blow the trumpet in the New Moon, in the Days appointed. (Psalm 81:3; Lev.23:24-36; Isaiah 30: 25,26; Joel, chapter 2). And during the Hajj, one cannot fail to see in the Seven circumambulations of the Ka'aba a figure of the circular passage of time that has comprised the "Seven Times" of the Mysteries Above. (Joshua 6:4; Daniel 4:16,25). The whole of it carries the mind of Light to the Foot of the Mystery, here in the West, at the original land of the Garden of Eden, at the place of the Seventh Sefira on the Tree of Life named Endurance:
Seven circles of time stretched out
Thus We have made you (a Middle People) justly balanced, that ye might be witness over the nations...(Sura 2.143).
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It is He who hath created for you all things that are on earth; Moreover His design comprehends the heavens, For he gave order and perfection to the Seven Firmaments (Heavens); And of all things He hath perfect knowledge...(Sura 2.29).
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An apostle who rehearses to you the Signs of God containing clear explanations, That He may lead forth those who believe and do righteous deeds, from the depths of Darkness into Light. And those who believe in God and work righteousness, He will admit to Gardens beneath which rivers flow, to dwell therein for ever; God has indeed granted for them a most excellent provision.
God is He who created the Seven Firmaments, and of the earth a similar number. Through the midst of them all descends His command: That ye may know that God has Power over all things, and that God comprehends all things in (His) knowledge...(Sura 65.11,12).
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See ye not how God has created the Seven Heavens one above the other, and made the Moon a light in their midst?
And made the Sun a Glorious Lamp?
And God has produced the earth, growing (gradually),
And in the end He will return you into the (earth), and raise you forth (at the Resurrection)?
And God has made the earth for you as a carpet (spread out)...(Sura 71.15-19).
We have struck an arc across history Seven Days wide, or Seven Years wide, as it is written: A year for a day (Ezekiel 4:5). It is an arc 7 X 365 years wide, as it is also written: Let Seven Times pass over him. (Daniel 4:23, 32). From Israel's first captivity in Babylon in the 6th century B.C. (which was an image in type of the nation's earlier enslavement in Egypt), we have followed the path of the Great Solar Epic of the Mystery of Christ until we arrive here at last at this Western end of the earth, and to the nation's present entanglement in the affairs of the United States of America--modern Babylon (indeed, modern Egypt). (In the very same way as the Bohr atom can be energized Seven levels away from its own rest state before it returns to its own quantum center, giving off a single photon of light, so too, the World Mystery suddenly returns to its own quantum center and gives off a measure of Light--great waves of Light).
And as we learn how to read and interpret the oracles of History we shall discover how God placed the time of Muhammad and the rise of Islam in the middle of this epic--in the very same way as God hid the Center of the World Mystery from the eyes of the world itself. In this way all of the children of Abraham have been called to stand at the Middle, at the Center of things, even those who have never actually left their homes in the East. But the reflection between Islam in the East and Christianity in the West is even more intriguing (and ominous--given the things that are unfolding in the world at this present time). When religious scholars read of Abraham's son Ishmael, and of Ishmael's sons, at Genesis 25:12-18, they assume they are reading of the progenitor of those Arab and Bedowin tribes who sprang from each of them...
Now these are the generations of Ishmael, Abraham's son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah's handmaid, bare unto Abraham:
And these are the names of the sons of Ishmael, by their names, according to their generations: the firstborn of Ishmael, Nebajoth; and Kedar, and Adbeel, and Mibsam,
And Mishma, and Dumah, and Massa,
Hadar, and Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah:
These are the sons of Ishmael, and these are their names, by their towns, and by their castles; TWELVE PRINCES according to their nations.
And these are the years of the life of Ishmael, an Hundred and Thirty and Seven years: and he gave up the ghost and died; and was gathered unto his people.
And they dwelt from Havilah unto Shur, that is before Egypt, as thou goest toward ASSYRIA: and he died in the presence of all his brethren...(Genesis 25:12-18).
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And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of his brethren...(Genesis 16:12).
But looking further, or farther as it is, we notice that these verses also carry our thoughts back to those regions surrounding the Garden of Eden and its description at Genesis 2:8-14. And they bring us back to the calculation that we made in the 11th chapter concerning the Number and the Mark of the Beast--a number we began to calculate with Thomas Woodrow Wilson, and concluded with James Earl Carter, the Twelfth of Twelve princes, who dwelt from Havilah (northern Georgia) unto Shur (southern Georgia)...as thou goest toward Assyria. (Please see chapter 2 in this work, and understand Ezekiel, chapter 31 in the King James Version of the Bible):
Twelve Princes, as they dwelt from Havilah unto Shur, that is before Egypt, as thou goest toward Assyria.
Ishmael, as all the other patriarchal and matriarchal figures in Genesis, is not a literal person but a literary archetype; and the story surrounding his birth is not a record of a literal, historical event (in the literally historical sense of the term), but a living allegory, an unfolding reality, as it is also written: The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened. (Matthew 13:33; Genesis 18:1-10). The whole of it carries our minds out of the East to those things that are unfolding here in the West:
For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one (Ishmael) by the bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.
But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh: but he of the freewoman was by promise (see 1 Corinth.15:45-50, KJV).
Which things are an allegory: for these are Two covenants; the one from mount Sinai (the one imagined to be there in the East), which gendereth to bondage, which is Hagar.
For this Hagar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is (which is not the true city of Jerusalem either), and is in bondage with her children.
But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the Mother of Us All.
For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not (before due time): break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath a husband. (See Isaiah 54:1)...
But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.
Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.
So then, we are not childen of the bondwoman, but of the free...(Galatians 4:21-31).
Those whose gaze is fixed on the city of Jerusalem in the East, believing that it is the City of David, and who continue to believe that that land in the Middle East is the land promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, shall perish in the continued judgments of this age. Those who can percieve the reality of the Great Dragon, and the hidden whereabouts of the City Above, shall inherit both the worlds to come and the age to come.
"The Metatron (Israfil) says: 'Fear not man, the Lord, blessed be He, brings the kingdom of Ishmael upon you to deliver you from the wicked one.' Rabbi Simeon demands proof. The angel adduces Scripture to substantiaite his prophecy: 'Go set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth, and when he seeth a rider, horsemen by pairs, a rider upon an ass, and a rider upon a camel, he shall hearken diligently with much heed.' (see Isaiah 21). The rider(s) upon the ass is Messiah, and the rider upon the camel (the Arabs) are coupled together. The one will follow the other." From a Discussion Between Simeon ben Yochi and the Metatron, In a work entitled Messianic Speculations.
THE BURDEN OF THE DESERT OF THE SEA...
The Burden of Dumah (Harry S. Truman's decision to unloose the Forces of Heaven upon the earth, please understand Revelation 18:4-8 in this regard)...
The Burden upon Arabia (where the Sun goes down at the end of the age). In the forest in Arabia shall ye lodge, O ye travelling companies of DeDanim.
The inhabitants of the land of Tema (the South) brought water to him that was thirsty, they prevented with their bread him that fled,
For they fled from the swords, from the drawn sword, and from the bent bow, and from the grevousness of war.
For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Within a year, according to the years of a hireling, and all the glory of Kedar shall fail;
And the residue of the number of archers, the mighty men of the children of Kedar, shall be diminished: for the Lord God of Israel hath spoken it...(Isaiah, chapter 21).
The Valley of Kedar is in America.
Nor can we fail to see in the plight that carried Hagar back and forth--thus each pilgrim at Mecca "to and fro" between Safa and Marwa--an exercise in patience and endurance to be sure, but the fact that the entire Hebrew state of mind has been divided from itself, between one side of the world and the other, without a true, or agreed upon Center of its own. The waters that lead to life flow from the Naval of Reality which is situated in the Center, in the North, at the place named Beauty on the World Tree. (John 4:10-14; 7:38).
Those who controlled the Ka'aba before the rise of Islam used to observe these rituals at a fixed time in the Fall of the year. This was in accordance with the ancient tradition that these things would have their fulfillment where the Sun sets in the West in the last days. The Muslims, overturning almost all the ways of the Unbelievers, reestablished the Lunar calendar as the means of calculating the new rites of Islam. This had an additional cosmic effect. It allowed the months of Pilgrimage, which reach their climax at the Seventh to the Tenth days of the month Zul-Hajj, to travel around the circle of the year, from East to West. Thus the pilgrimage also arrives, and has its ultimate fulfillment at the end of the age in the Harvest season, but now the mind of Islam would arrive with it.
"The first of the principal ceremonies of the Pilgrimage is the putting off of conventional garments (the ways of the world), to don those of 'Ihram,' the habit which distinguishes pilgrims from all others but permits no distinction one from another. All, high-born and humble, wear identical robes and are reminded that in the eyes of God all men are created equal--and that on the Day of Judgment all will be accountable.
'Ihram' is a state of many prohibitions. On taking this garb the pilgrim enters into a period of peace and self-denial. Violence in any form is banned. The pilgrim must abstain from luxuries and ratification of the senses, however legitimate, until the rites of Pilgrimage have been observed and 'Ihram' put aside...It is forbidden for a pilgrim to uproot any growing thing or to cut down a Tree within the Sanctuary of Mecca. Sexual intercourse must cease temporarily and the sexual impulse is to be sublimated.
During the days of 'Ihram' there may be no wrangling or argument, no rudeness, no discussion of the opposite sex, and no hunting. Bodily, the pilgrim is to be devoted to the act of Pilgrimage; intellectually, he or she is to be concerned with prayer, aspirations, praise of God, and self-examination."
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Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul...(1 Peter 3:11).
The things that are required of the pilgrim in Mecca during the Hajj are required--in a higher, spirtual way--of the true religious pilgrim all the days of their lives. But how, we might ask, can the true pilgrim observe the ordinances of sexual abstinance and still observe the precept to be fruitful and multiply? Paul knew, as the Holy Qur'an itself, what we knew not. His entire point of view concerning sexual abstinence (1 Corinthians 7:24-38), was based on an epic understanding of the metaphors and allegories contained in sacred writ (in the higher meaning of the terms, woman and wife), which the Qur'an purposefully employs, and of those things that would come to pass at the end of this age. Being a Doctor of the Law (see Sura 5.44-50), he knows that a Male and Female joined together in the highest state of marriage, constitute in their union "one complete being" (one new man); and that in their state of mutual love they reflect the Divine Love that God--Heaven above and Earth below--have for Each Other, for the whole of Their creation and for all of Their children. The epic precepts of the Hajj, therefore, do not refer to relationships between one soul and another (the complete man) when they are consummated and performed in the image of God--in the interest of true Love, and in the interest of engendering Life, but to all other relationships that fall outside of this union..
Paul's preference in his own lifetime for celibacy (the self-imposed conditions of his own private pilgrimage) must be understood in the context of these higher mysteries--in the idea of the Church Militant and its spiritual struggle (Jihad) against the Darkness of this entire age (which would surely at times require the life of the warrior, and the disruption of normal family life). But particularly in light of his sense of the reality of metempsychosis, or the appearance again of his own spirit, as well as thousands of other in the fulness of these times. Without an understanding of the early Christian sense of reincarnation, neither Paul's writings nor the Gospel texts hold together. They are rooted in this mystery, which in turn is tied directly to the idea of the Second Coming of Christ, as Paul himself says: A crown shall he give me in that day.
Looking into the Oracle, and into the days when the battles would be accomplished, and when the Male and Female principles would be restored to one another again in the Mysteries of Tree of Life (please understand Isaiah 30:26 in this light), Paul could see what was in store for those who would come to spiritual perfection in the last days: the time of True Love. (Please understand 1 Corinthians 2:9-16). It would be a time when every spiritual Soul would begin to be united at last with his or her own true soulmate. They would be united either here in this world, or when each reached the other side. Thus Paul was counseling all who could understand to keep themselves for that day, and to pay attention instead to the holy business at hand, the spread of the Word of God, and of the kingdom of God's Righteousness as it took its rise from one side of the earth to the other. Paul was not against the married state (nor was he caught in the trap of mysogeny as it was later imagined of him, as his personal struggles with sexuality were misinterpreted, and twisted by Romish churchmen such as Augustine in the centuries that followed). He was completely and longingly in favor of it and kept himself for it. He himself was the subject of the words which say: The Kingdom of heaven is like a marriage which a great king made for His son. (Please see the chapter on Elisha ben Abuyah--the Apostle Paul). (In the generations to come the Saffron, or the celibate life, will be for those whose own soulmates have gone on already to the other side. The love between them, one here and the other there, will increase the field of gravity, and the light-spectrum that binds the two worlds one to the other--until both are restored to one another again on the same side).
Thus Paul, in keeping with the context of the Word, was not averse to employing analogies and metaphors himself, leaving some things to be understood later. Likewise, the state of marriage that the authors of the New Testament are referring to, or rather cautioning against (Revelation 14:4 for instance), has not to do with the conjugal state between a male and female but with the relationship that exists between the spirit of Christ in the world and the religious institutions to which it is attached, or to which it is endeared. The woman in question is Religion itself--the Church herself--as she plays the role of the Great Harlot among the nations of the earth. (Revelation 17:1-6; Ezekiel, chapter 16):
His disciples said unto him, If the case of man be so with his wife, it is good not to marry.
But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save to whom it is given...(Matthew 19:10,11; Ephesians 5:25-33. KJV).
Thus every true pilgrim in the earth must strive from (sexual) relations (in the purely metaphorical sense) with those Institutions--whether they be Christian, Jewish, or Muslim--that are entangled in those illicit affairs that exist everywhere in the world between Church and State. Such relationships keep the Soul in danger of its own eternal life, thus from understanding the means and the path it must follow if it is to inherit both the World to come, and the Age to come.
And these are they which are not defiled with Women (not females, but with the doctrines of the apostate churches and synagogues and mosques of this world); for they are virgins (see 2 Corinthians 11:1-4). These are they which follow the lamb (the continuous Burnt Offering and Self Sacrifice) withersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb...(Revelation 14:4).
It must be continuously understood: the Scripture's use of the term woman is not to be mistaken for, or equated with our common sense of the term female, or in any way at all with the Female gender. Those who cannot understand prove themselves to be "women" in every spiritual sense of the word. And every injunction and prohibition that is applied against "women" in every sacred Hebrew text applies directly to them:
But I suffer not a Woman to teach, or to usurp authority over the Man. But to be in silence.
For Adam (the male and female joined together) was first formed, then Eve (Adam's church, or their congregation).
And Adam was not deceived, but the Woman (the institutions of the church) being deceived was in the transgression...(1 Timothy 2:11-14).
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If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things I write unto you are a commandment from the Lord...(1 Corinthians 14:37).
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"Women do not wear the Ihram garments which are worn by men...Though female pilgrims are not to veil their faces during the pilgrimage, their hair is to be covered. Women's garments should reach to the ankles and sleeves to the wrist; the neck-line should be high, revealing none of the breast (and these things because of the lusts and passions of the male, and of the universal failure of authoritive Muslim males everywhere to truly complete the Hajj).
No woman is to make pilgrimage unless she is accompanied by her husband, or if she is unwed, by two male members of her immediate family, both of whom must be of such close relationship as to preclude sexual interest or eventual marriage...
During periods of prayer only male pilgrims may worship aloud or recite audibly. Female pilgrims may not lift up their voices or conduct themselves in such a manner as to attract attention, scrupulously they must avoid distracting males from their devotions." The Sacred Journey.
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Simon Peter said to them, "Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life."
Jesus said, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven...(The Gospel of Thomas 114).
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Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break Every yoke...(Isaiah 58:5, 6).
Everyone may see that the Ihram garments worn by "men" are in two parts, a higher and a lower. This symbolizes that those (especially males) who maintain a literal, or lower sense of the precepts of the Qur'an, and in this case the precepts concerning females--considering the female in all cases to be subject to the rules pertaining to "women"--prove themselves to be cut off from the higher meanings of things. The higher meanings of things are symbolized in the sacred Scriptures in the idea of the "seamless garment," the kind in fact that all female pilgrims wear on their entry to Mecca. There is no just or sound spiritual reasons to impose such restrictions on females, but every reason to impose them on "women." It is those mullahs, literalists and Talibani, and all who have placed themselves in authority over others, especially over their own wives and other females, that should be covered from head to toe, and who should remain quiet and indoors.
Surely Allah is not ashamed to set forth any parables (from the smallest lesson to the greatest), Then as for those who disbelieve, they know it is the truth from their Lord. And as far as those who disbelieve, they say: What is it that Allah means by this parable: He causes many to err by it and many He leads aright by it; but He does not cause to err by it (any) except transgressors...(Sura 2.26-36).
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And they shall say, O Lord, surely we obeyed our leaders and our great men, so they led us astray from the path...(Sura 33.67).
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O people! be careful of (your duty to) your Lord, Who created you from a Single being, (Genesis 1:26,27; Gen.5:1,2), and created its mate (Eve) of the same (kind) and spread from these two, many men and women; and be careful of (your duty to) Allah, by whom ye demand of one another (your rights), and to the ties of relationship; surely Allah ever watches over you...(Sura 4.1).
And neither is menstruation (God forbid) a sign of impurity in the physical sense, or of some inherent inferiority of the female gender. Such ideas have been sown into the furrows of Hebrew thought by a tortured succession of clerics and ecclesiastical mysogynists who have stumbled in all of their own personal imperfections over all the literal, and literary elements of the story of Adam and Eve, and thus who have never been able to reconcile themselves with the fullest joys and pleasures of a holy life, or with fully half of God's Presence in the world. But just as the Apostle has born around in his own person the marks of Christ (not to mentions the indignation of thinking females everywhere), so every female bears about in her physical body the sign, or the metaphor if you will, of another reality. According to the higher Law of Correspondances menstruation is a symbol of a barren womb, and applies in the Scriptures to all the factions of the church, almost exclusively ruled over by males, Christian, Jew and Muslim alike, who are barren of an understanding of these times, and who are not laboring with the Divine Mother to bring forth the coming Child of Revelation into the world. (Revelation 12:1.2; Isaiah 66:6-14; 1 Thessalonians 5). She (they) has stained the earth with the blood of the saints, with the blood of her own sons and daughters who she has given over to the nations, and which she is preparing at this very hour to sacrifice in the Consummation of this age.
When the Earth is shaken with Her (violent) shaking.
And the Earth brings forth Her burdens,
And men say: What has befallen Her?
On that day She shall tell Her news,
Because your Lord has inspired Her.
On that day men shall come forth in sundry bodies that they may be shown their works.
So he who has done an atom's weight of good shall see it.
And he who has done an atom's weight of evil shall see it...(Sura 99.1-8).
Thus the very idea that "men" are the protectors (guardians and correctors) of "women" as stated in Sura 4.34, when taken literally, is one that is clearly subject to Abrogation. It will not stand the test of time, nor the further impulses of Divine Will. It is not that the Prophet misquoted the words that came to him from above (or, from below), he recited them just as he received and perceived them. And the Companions received them just as they perceived them, as they were filtered through their own thoughts--which were still very much subject to the literal misconceptions of those times. And the Muslim world has received these interpretations (in their present literary form), through the many other expositors of the Qur'an since that time, who have placed their own orthodox stamp on the texts, enforcing upon them the extreme masculine tenor that presently defines Islam, which is not easily dissolved. (But this too was the work of Divine Wisdom. How else could Islam serve the purposes of God as it has? The mind of Islam was only just beginning to be drawn up out of the foreboding and barren mental landscape of that place on earth, but by measure and degree, for even after all these centuries it is clear that it will still require the impending world crisis [the apocalypse] to finally draw the mind of greater Islam into the Higher Light. Islam is recognized for its assertions of the truth, and God has made full use of them...but not for self analysis and criticism, for questioning its own relationship to the greater Mystery, and this is what God would have of it now. It is what the Creators would have of all of us)...
AN UNLIKELY PROMOTER OF ISLAMIC REFORMATION
By Clifford Kraus
As a Canadian Muslim, Irshad Manji never eats pork, never drinks alcohol and regularly reads the Koran. Otherwise she is Osama bin Laden's worse nightmare. At 35, Ms. Manji, a lesbian intellectual with spikey hair and sharp tongue, is an outspoken television journalist who admires Israel and applauds the American overthrow of Saddam Hussein. (Ms Manji clearly does not see the whole picture yet herself. God is performing a four-way judgment: against Christianity, against Judaism, against Islam, and against the nations of the earth, nevertheless). More than that, she has issued a searing critique of her religion in a new book, "The Trouble With Islam," calling for radical change.
While every religion has its fundamentalists, she notes, "only in Islam is literalism in the mainstream," a recipe for generating hatreds that can spawn suicide bombers.
There are other Islamic liberals who say the September 11 attackers did more than hijack four planes: they hijacked an entire religion. Ms Manji goes much further, saying that Islam has deep-rooted problems with Jews, women, slavery and authoritarianism that go back centuries. Her goal is a thorough liberal reform, started by Muslims living in the West.
"If ever there was a moment for an Islamic reformation, it is now," she argues in her book. "If we are sincere about fighting the asphyxiating despotism," that Al Qaeda seeks to spread, she adds (without seeing the greater picture, we might add), we can't be afraid to ask: "What if the Koran isn't perfect? What if it's not a completely God-authored book? What if its riddled with human biases?"...
HER CENTRAL CALL IS FOR MUSLIMS TO JOIN HER IN CRITICAL THINKING. "If Mohamad Atta, who was well educated in Germany, had grown up with questions rather than just glib answers," she said, "maybe then he would have stepped back before immolating himself and committing mass murder" on September 11, 2001, in the attacks that he helped organize.
As much as anything, she emphasizes, her thirst is for inquiry, something she says she admires in Israeli society. THE GOAL IS TO "CREATE CONVERSATIONS WHERE THEY HAVE NEVER OCCURRED BEFORE."..
The national president of the Canadian Islamic Congress dismissed Ms. Manji as a "media darling.".."She calls herself a good muslim, even though she is a lesbian and a feminist," he added, "She will have a shadow over her interpretation."
Living in a free society like Canada's has allowed Ms. Manji to raise questions and form a freer trade in ideas..."When I see women in Nigeria getting sentenced to 180 lashes for premarital sex, despite the fact that she produced several witnesses confirming that she was raped, it is my responsibility as a Muslim to speak out," she said.
While her critics take special offenses at her suggestion that the Koran itself may be flawed, she does not exclude herself from the possibility as well. Only God knows the truth, she said. "If I am wrong," she smiled, "I will pay a price on the day of judgment."
Einstein reasoned the existence of the hidden Fourth dimension by accepting reality as was appearing, regardless of how strange, or how much it seemed to defy human logic. Let Islam accept the decree against itself in the same manner. What the Prophet received in a state of trance (from the very same hidden Fouth dimension), was diminished as it mixed with the cold logic of those who put the words to paper, and who, later, with the thought of exacting their own authority over the lives of others, took control of the meanings of the Sacred text as well. But the inner meanings of the texts were never lost, as Allah has guarded things unseen. They remained hidden in the texts themselves, in the spiritual air, and in the hearts and minds of every true son and daughter of God who is coming to perfection in our time.
In keeping with God's whole plot against literalism, outer, literal commandments were given to men, so that the outer man (the mind of the natural man), could finally be instructed by them in the end. For what female (for every female represents all that is Feminine in the Nature of God), can feel heartwarmingly and inwardly obliged to look after her husband's reputation, or his wealth, as the commandment says that she shoul, if that same husband is given to treating her like a child (one that may be abused or corrected at will), or like one that needs to be trained? And why would God--All-Wise and All-Knowing, who is both Father and Mother to us all--subject their own daughters to such persons (any longer)? Such literal commandments were given to drive the spiritually discerning mind away from them, Is not My Word like Fire? and to cause the higher mind in us to search for higher meanings. Such a one comes to the conclusion, for instance, that the only "woman" one is allowed to beat, and order around, is "one'self."
And (as for) the believeing men and believing women, they are guardians of each other; they enjoin good and forbid evil and keep up prayer and pay the poor rate, and obey God AND HIS APOSTLE; (As for) these, Allah will show mercy to them; surely Allah is Mighty, Wise. (Father-Mother).
Allah has promised to the believing men and the believing women gardens, beneath which rivers (meanings) flow, to abide in them, and goodly dwellings in gardens of perpetiual abode; and the best of all is God's goodly pleasure, that is a Grand Achievement...(Sura 9.71,72).
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I swear by the Sun (the Male Principle) and its brilliance.
And by the Moon (the Female Principle) when it follows the Sun.
And the Day when it shows it.
And the Night when it draws a veil over it,
And the Heaven and Him who made it perfect.
Then He (and She) inspired it to Understand what is right and wrong for it;
They will indeed be successful who purifies it (completes it to perfection),
And He will indeed fail who corrupts it...(Sura 91.1-10).
The following is a letter sent to the then-chairman of the Religious Department of Marshall University
Dear Dr. Mabee,
I know you are familiar with the story of the academic who went to visit the sage, who, when invited to tea, found his cup being overfilled by the sage who kept on pouring and pouring, until the academic finally cried: "Why are you pouring tea all over the floor?" The sage replied, "This cup is like your own mind which is so full of its own notions and imperfect perceptions of the world that, until emptied of them, it can receive nothing of value into it." Until one empties themselves of these imperfections, which are stored primarily in the structure of the ego, they can receive nothing from God, thus nothing of the truly hidden things of reality. In many ways the other night's speaker (we shall call him Dr.B.), as brilliant as he is in the outer course of Islam, is such a one as this. There is a hidden structure to the Cosmos, and to history, which not only reconciles science and religion but all the world's religions to each other as well, and most of all, the sublime things of God to the mind of humanity. But Dr, B's mind is presently closed to it. It is shut up, as are the minds of most academics I have met, behind an aura of polite ethic, and an inert sense of self-importance. (It seems to have something to do with popularity--who would want to lose it?--and with all the tenured comforts and accolades one has accumulated in their career). The good professor was respectfully trying to prosyltize the meeting the other night--not into the sublime inner structure of Islam, which he does not understand, but into its orthodox and purely intellectual and literal imperfections...
He mentioned that he was a friend of the ex folk singer, Cat Stevans, the present Yusuf Ali, who (of all people), assented to the death sentence of author Salman Rushdie, saying, "If someone defames the prophet, then he must die." (And he meant it literally at the time). This is a serious imperfection, and it reaches like a cancer into the collective psyche of the fundamentalist religious mind. It cannot discern between the Judicial Nature of God, which flows directly from Karmic Law, and the soft, psychologically and spiritually mature spirit that rises up among the sons and daughters of Light like the gentle waters of Shiloh. These practitioners of the Highest Dharma know that Vengeance belongs to God alone. And neither are the children of Light so obsessed with their religion, or so insecure in their faith, that they fear it cannot stand up to criticism, or that Allah is not capable of defending Their own Name if They so choose, and that they need men to do it for them. And though the vengeance of God is enacted through the agency of natural and human events, it is never physically enacted by the children of Light (these are the teachings of Christ); and it is never enacted, even by God Himself, because of trivial criticisms, or personal moral failings, but in the interest of the greater plan of Creation. And God would have us realize that whenever "punishment" is enacted by religious authorities in God's Name it is always in an atmosphere of self-righteousness, and in the absence of true Mercy and true Love. Heaven (the Highest Ridwan) is forever closed to the mind that has not attained to it--to the mind that still has its hand in the business of punishment, killing and warfare. This is the work of the children of Darkness. (And, of course, none of them have ever been able to really kill another human soul, only their own. Even the spirit of the Prophet himself must return to our time, and reincarnate, to become wholly consistent with the higher mysteries of Islam as they are coming to pass in the world [to see, as it is, what he has wrought]. This is the mystery of The Farthest Lote Tree).
The professor is not versed in the deeper or higher meanings of Islam, which are wholly consistent with the highest principles of Taoism, Vedaism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Christianity, all of which--in their esoteric dimensions--are wholly consistent with each other. Nor is he versed in the full relationship of the Holy Qur'an to the Mystery of Christ, and therefore he is not versed, or even interested, in the epic dimensions of history, and the way history is unfolding in our time (of course this is in keeping with the mystique of Islam itself)...
"The Sacred Book of Islam is replete with episodes of sacred history. It speaks of people and prophets of old, of battles, rebellions, love and death, of God's forgiveness and punishment. But the Quran, and with it Islam, is singularly indifferent to the merely historical significance of this sacred history. The Quran is not a book of history and is even less concerned with history than the Bible. The sacred history recounted in the Quran is in reality the epic of the life of the soul. The forces of good and evil mentioned in its pages are to be found within ourselves, and even the prophets are the objective and external complements of the inner Intellect, which illuminates the heart and mind of man. To recite the pages of the Quran is to become aware of the history of one's own being, the forces of one's own soul, and the conditions of the journey of life at the end of which stand death and Divine Judgment. It is to see the Will of God in shaping man's destiny and man's own role in weaving the substance that constitutes our being once the journey of life terminates and suddenly we find ourselves before the blinding reality of God's Presence." Islamic Spirituality, by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, p.7.
...thus, the way in which Light (Gnosis) is playing upon Darkness (Unknowingness). Or how the Prophet was a perfect receptacle of both. It is reflected in the life of the Ummah--the collective consciousness of Islam. It is reflected in the great difference that exists between the "letter" of the Quran which kills, and the Spirit of the Quran which leads to life. (The same criterion exists for the Qur'an as exists for the Torah. It must be read with a wholly spiritual eye). Dr. B. cannot understand how God could have employed Islam in this way: for both good and evil.
THE TREE OF LIFE....Its roots are in the garden at the earth's end. And Paradise is between corruptibility and incorruptibility.
And Two springs come out which send forth honey and milk, and their Two springs send forth oil and wine, and they separate into Four parts, and go round with quiet course, and go down into Paradise of Eden between corruptibility and incorruptibility...(Secrets of Enoch 8:3-6).
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For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
So when this corruptibility shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory
O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law (the literal application of the law)...(1 Corinthians 15:53-56).
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He granteth wisdom to whom He pleaseth; and to whom wisdom is granted receiveth indeed a benefit overflowing. But none will grasp it but men (both males and females) of understanding...(Sura 2.269).
Upon asking Dr.B. and another professor if they would briefly consider a means of reconciling Judaism, Christianity and Islam, which Dr. B. had said was not entirely possible, the other said: "Excuse me, will you." and Dr. B., after listening politely for a moment or two, said "We have no need of any further revelation, or prophets. Muhammad sealed up the list of the prophets;" and he said that "Islam as it is already revealed superceded all that went before it...final!" He does not only cut off the Head of Revelation but the Hands and Feet as well.
Because he is not conversed, or even interested in the disciplines of the Kabbalah, the key to the entire mystery (thus in the universal dimensions of the Cosmic World Tree, whose branches reach into both the East and the West, and whose roots are also set in the Garden at the western end of the earth), it was impossible for him to see, that though Muhammad may have been the last prophet of the ancient world to be carried into the Seven heavens and into the future, he could hardly have been the last word on the whole matter, given the present state of the world. But rather, the Rasul (the Sent One), like John the Baptist before him, was a type and a figure of the Word that would descend again in the last days...(Romans 10:14,15; Isaiah 52:7-10). It is understood, not only in the account of the Night Journey but in the mystic interpretation of Suras 73 and 74 entitled "Folded in Garments" and "One Wrapped Up."
O you who are clothed (wrapped up) in a cloak of secrecy, (in the mantle of history, in the garments of Time and Space), Arise and deliver thy warning.
And your Lord do magnify,
And your garments do purify...
Finally, when the Trumpet is sounded,
That will be--that Day--a Day of Distress...(Sura 74.1-9).
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I swear by the Star when it goes down (in the West)...
It is naught but revelation that is revealed.
The Lord Mighty in Power has taught him.
The Lord of Strength; so he attained perfection...
And certainly he saw Him in another descent,
At the Farthest Lote-Tree;
Near which is the Garden, the place to be resorted to...
Certainly he saw of the greatest Sign of his Lord...(Sura 53.1-18).
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"And although they (Adam and Eve) were exiled, as are all who live upon the earth, yet they were promised by the All-Forgiving...that their posterity would never be left without guidance through the dark alleyways of the lower world. This guidance according to Islam, culminated and was completed in the coming of Muhammad, who, as it were, closes the circle." Islamic Spirituality, p.361.
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And certainly We sent apostles (messengers) before you. There are some of them that We mentioned to you, and there are others whom We have not mentioned to you; and it was not meet for an apostle that he should bring a Sign except with Allah's permission...(Sura 40.78; 2 Corinthians 12:12; 13:3).
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And when it is said to them, Believe in what Allah has revealed, they say: We believe in that which was revealed to us; and they deny what is besides that, while it is the truth verifying that which they have. Say: Why then did you kill Allah's prophets before if you were indeed believers?...(Sura 2.91).
(This is true of Jews, Christians, and Muslims--as true today as it ever was in the past).
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Those who reject Faith say: Why is not the Qur'an revealed to him all at once? Thus (is it revealed) that We may strengthen thy heart thereby, and We have rehearsed it to thee in slow, well-arranged stages, gradually...(Sura 25.32).
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"The Islamic view of man may best be defined and exemplified in relation to these two poles, Adam and Muhammad, the first prophet and the last, the beginning of the story and the end of it. To lay stress on the 'closing of the circle' represented by Muhammad's mission is to stress also the primordial nature of this mission. HISTORY HAS UNFOLDED AND HUMANITY HAS PURSUED ITS PREDESTINED COURSE. THERE HAD TO BE--AND THERE WAS--A RETURN TO THE ORIGIN, insofar as such a return might be possible, at so late a stage in the cycle. Islam identifies itself as the 'Din-Al-Fitrah,' which might be translated as the 'Religion of Primordiality,' or even as the 'Original religion.'" Islamic Spirituality, p.366.
If the prophet Muhammad is indeed these things, but it is evident by looking into the world that neither he nor Islam were these things in the prophet's time; then we also reason that in order for these things to be true in the end, either the prophet himself, or the spirit of the prophet must appear again where the circle literally closes in our time. Islam can understand it when it speaks of Muhammad being immersed, or caught up into "the Prophetic Substance" (an extra-dimensional phenomenon within the structure of time and space that some later Islamic doctrinaires attributed to Muhammad alone...see Daniel 12:13).
Again, it can be seen in the dimensions of the Oracle. When we interweave the Egyptian epic--which, for our own prophetic purposes, begins in the time of Aaron and Moses and culminates with the Nation's deliverance from the judgments of America (Genesis 15:13)--with the Babylonian epic, which also culminates in this same deliverance (for America is both modern-day Egypt and modern-day Babylon), then we can also see the intricate connection that exists between the spirits of John the Baptist and Muhammad. (A sense of it emerged during the Middle Ages in the Knights Templar's attachment to a shadowy figure known as Baphomet). Comparing the diagram concerning the "Seven Times" of Daniel 3:19 and 4:16, 23 with the two diagrams that follow it....
Seven Times, or 7 X 365 years, from the first captivity in Babylon to the last. (Daniel 4:13-17). Open the Book of Daniel in America.
THE EPIC OF BABYLON ABOVE, THE EPIC OF EGYPT BELOW
...we see that Muhammad, and the rise of Islam, appeared in the Middle East at the same time relative to the mysteries of Babylon as John the Baptist appears in the Oracle relative to the mysteries of Egypt--both of which culminate in the same events that will unfold in America as this age comes to its conclusion, and the new is born. And then--just as it is written that the spirit of Elijah (which was inhabiting the soul of John the Baptist in those times...Matthew 11:9-15) ascended into heaven in a Fiery (Solar) Chariot (becoming itself immersed in the "Prophetic Substance"), to return again just before the end of the age (Malachi, chapter 4; Luke 1:62-80; Matthew 17:1-7; 2 Peter 1:16-21)--we can see how both John and Muhammad are joined together in this heaven of spiritual reality, and how both will appear as one where the Sun is setting at the Western ends of the earth. Every aspect of God's great Mystery converges in our time upon the Seventh sefirah on the tree of Life named Endurance. And then it rises again in glory at the Eighth place on the Tree of Life named Majesty.
And remember, Isa (Jesus), the son of Mary, said:
O children of Israel! I am the Apostle of God (sent) to you,
Confirming the Law (which came) before me,
And giving glad tidings of an Apostle to come after me,
Whose name shall be AHMAD...(Sura 61.6).
_____
And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever;
Even the Spirit of Truth: whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you...(John 14:16,17).
_____
I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come to you; but if I depart I will send him unto you.
And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:
Of sin, because they believe not on me;
Of righteousness, because I go to the Father, and ye see me no more;
Of judgment, because the Prince of This World is judged...(John 16:7-10).
Besides those in Christianity who associate this Comforter directly with the Holy Spirit Herself (the One who inspires the Comforter), Islamic scholarship explicitly associates the name Muhammad, and therefore the Prophet himself, with the person of this Comforter. It does so, however, without mention of the fact that this name is derived from the words that John the Baptist delivered out of the 40th chapter of Isaiah--also called The Comforter--which words can have no historic effect at all until the end of the age. And so we see there is more to the relationship and the connections between these names:
"In the Old Testament as it now exists, Muhammad is foretold in Deut.18:18; and the rise of the Arab nation in Isaiah 42:11, (Behold my servant...), for Kedar was a son of Ishmael...In the New Testament as it now exists, Muhammad is foretold in the Gospel of John...The future Comforter cannot be the Holy Spirit as understood by the Christians, because the Holy Spirit was already present, helping and guiding Jesus. The Greek word translated Comforter is 'Paracletos,' which is an easy corruption of 'Periclytos,' which is ALMOST a literal translation of 'Muhammad,' of 'Ahmad.' (Note 416 to Sura 3.81 in Yusuf Ali's The Meaning of the Glorious Qur'an).
'Ahmad,' or 'Muhammad,' is ALMOST a translation of the Greek word Periclytos... In the Gospel of John...the word 'Comforter' in the English version is for the Greek word 'Paracletos,' which means 'Advocate,' one called to help another, a kind of friend...Our doctors contend that Paracletos is a corrupt reading for Periclytos, and that in the original sayings of Jesus there was a prophecy of our holy prophet Ahmad by name." (Note 5438 to Sura 61.6).
Contentions and divisions among religious groups almost always lead to charges of corrupt, or altered texts, in order to satisfy the (imperfect) reasonings of one group against another. All of our sacred texts have come down to us just as the Spirit intended. As such, these words concerning the Comforter can only have their fullest meaning in the context of all the words of all the prophets that have come down to us--all of which shall merge together to form a single testimony. They shall not only shed a light upon the affairs of the entire age but giving meaning to the final events of our very own time, as it is written: Now is the effect of every vision. (Ezekiel 12:22-25):
PROCLAIM! (or Read)
In the Name of thy Lord and Cherisher,
Who created--Created man out of a (mere) clot of congealed blood.
Proclaim! And the Lord is Most Bountiful,
Who taught (the use of) the Pen.
(Who) taught men which he knew not...(Sura 96).
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I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what He will will say to me, and what I will answer when I am reproved.
And the Lord answered me, and said, WRITE the vision, and make it Plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.
For the vision is for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie; though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come, it will not tarry...(Habakkuk 2:1-3).
To both of these texts (not failing to see how the tenor of one is reflected in the tenor of the other), we will add the words of the Book of Ezekiel. These also belong to the realm of the Prophetic Substance, and one cannot begin to understand the Gospels without seeing how the authors of those texts added their own far-reaching understanding of the Book of Ezekiel into them:
Then I came to them of the captivity at Tel-a'bib (the mound of the Flood, in Eden), and dwelt by the river Che'bar (the river of time and great distance), and I sat where they sat, and remained there astonished SEVEN DAYS.
AND IT CAME TO PASS AS THE END OF SEVEN DAYS, that the word of the Lord came unto me, saying...
I have made thee A WATCHMAN unto the House of Israel, therefore hear the word at my mouth AND GIVE THEM WARNING FROM ME.
When I say to the wicked, Thou shalt surely die, and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at your hand.
Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul.
Again, when a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die: because thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness that he hath done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at your hand.
Nevertheless, if thou warn the righteous man, that the righteous sin not, and he doth not sin, he shall surely live, because he is warned; also thou hast ddelivered thy soul...(Ezekiel 3:15-27).
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The Hour of Judgment is nigh, and the Moon (Judaism and Islam) is cleft asunder.
But if they see a Sign, they turn away, and say, This is (but) transient magic.
They reject (the Warning) and follow after their own lusts,
But every matter has its appointed time.
There has already come unto them Recitals wherein there is (enough) to check (them).
Mature Wisdom--but (the preaching) of Warners profits them not.
Therefore...The Day that the Caller will call them to a terrible affair,
They will come forth--their eyes humbled--from their graves,
Like locusts scattered abroad, hastening with eyes transfixed, toward the Caller (the Warner).
Hard is this Day! the unbelievers will say...(Sura 54.1-8).
Neither has Dr. B. grasped the crux of this sublime mystery (nor has the greater part of Judeao-Christianity grasped it yet either): that the Jesus Christ of the Gospels was not one single individual person who ever walked about the earth at one single period in time (unless, of course, if by that "single period in time" we mean the entire time that has elapsed between "that time" and our own; and if by "single individual" we mean the entire Body of believers who have lived in the earth from that time to our own). But rather, the Jesus (or Hesus) of the Gospels is but one of God's many revelations of Him and Herself to the world (as is Allah another)--but in this wholly transformative form not simply to humanity but IN humanity. The Mystery of Jesus (Isa) overshadows the entire history of the Western World, and is in itself the means God has provided to awaken the world from the darkness of this age...
I AM THE DOOR
But more: It is the Angel's revelation of itself in the form of the Perfect Sacrifice. This is the sacrifice each of us are called to make, some in the interest of revelation (if that is our calling), but everyone in the interest of personal transformation, and in the interest of attaining to true righteousness and justice, and most of all, in the interest of true Love. I am crucified unto the world the apostle Paul says, and the world is crucified unto me. As children of Light we must make this sacrifice of ourselves, and particularly must we behave as children of perfect Peace in a time of perfect War. (Hebrews 12:13,14...1 Corinthians 1:18-24; 2:5-8; Ephesians 1:17-23...KJV).
The name, Jesus, is another of the glorious names of God--as the name Allah itself--one that embodies all the hidden, old Indo-European aspects of the Hebrew Mystery as they were revealed in the ancient roots and branches of the World Tree. (Please see the chapter on the Name of Jesus). Those who perceived the totality of it in their individual times became as Jesus to their generation, many even giving their lives in conformity with the structure of the Mystery itself (realizing that Life indeed begins at the point of Death). For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one. (Hebrews 2;11). Thus it is in this sense that the Qur'an is correct when it says that Allah (God) has not taken "a son"--one alone. Allah has in fact taken "many sons," and "many daughters."
And Allah's is East and West, therfore whither you turn, thither is Allah's purpose; surely Allah is Ample-giving, Knowing.
And they say: Allah has taken to Himself a Son, glory be to Him; rather, what ever is in the heavens and the earth is His; all are obedient to Him...(Sura 2.115,116).
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And warn those who say: Allah has taken a son. They have no knowledge of it, nor had their fathers; a grevious word it is that comes out of their mouths; they speak nothing but a lie...(Sura 18.4).
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And their saying: Surely we have killed the Messiah, Isa, son of Miriam, the Apostle of Allah; and they did not kill him, nor did they (literally) crucify him, but it appeared to them so...And most surely those who differ therein are only in a doubt about it; they have no knowledge respecting it, but only follow a conjecture, and they killed him not for sure.
Nay, Allah took him up to Himself; and Allah is Mighty, Wise...(Sura 4.157, 58).
But it is in this same sense that Muslims in general (or at least the literalists and other dogmatists in Islam), are wrong when they profess no fellowship with the idea of "the Son" at all, when they fail to consider the more epic, macrocosmic meaning of the term, with all of its theological and eschatological implications...
And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord, (the whole House of ) Israel is my son, even my firstborn...(Exodus 4:22)...
The whole House of Israel. Dar al Islam.
and: I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, THOU ART MY SON; THIS DAY HAVE I BEGOTTEN THEE...
Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth.
Serve The Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are they who put their trust in him...(Psalm 2:7, 10-12).
Islam is incomplete (wrong) when it refuses to yield to the fact that Paul understood these higher meanings (as did all the authors of the New Testament texts), when he wrote of these same kings and judges of the earth--among whom are the caliphs and the political and religious heads of the Islamic world):
For had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory...(1 Corinthians 2:6-8).
We will not agree with every interpretaion of Abdulah Yusuf Ali, the author of The Meaning of the Glorious Qur'ani, but we stand with him here where he says: "The end of the life of Jesus on earth is as much involved in mystery as his birth." Ali, in turn, is derided by the authors of a pamphlet entitled The Errors of Yusuf Ali, who, in their own orthodox, literal, and self-certain (spiritually arrogant) claim to authoritive interpretation, write:
"Commenting on the Quranic verses which clearly state that Nabi Isaa (alayhis salaam) (Jesus) was raised unto Allah Ta'la, Yusuf Ali states:
'The end of the life of Jesus on earth is as much involved in mystery as his birth...There is a difference of opinion as to the exact interpretation of this verse (i.e. the verse in which Allah Te'ala says that Isaa alayhis salaam was not killed, but raised up)...One school holds that Jesus did not die the usual human death, but still lives in the body in heaven; another holds that he did die but not when he was supposed to be crucified, and that his being "raised up" to God means that instead of being disgraced as a malefactor, as the Jews intended, he was on the contrary honoured by God as His Apostle.'
The two schools of thought that Yusuf Ali speaks of...are in fact nonexistent in Islam. Regarding the physical ascension and present life of Isaa...there is no difference whatsoever in Islam. The teachings of Islam are catagoric and unambiguous in this regard. The Holy Quran is explicit in the fact that Isaa...was not crucified nor was he killed, but was raised up unto Allah Ta'ala. The Holy Quran and the statements and explanations of Rasulullah Sallallahu Wasallam (Muhammad) leave no doubt whatsoever that Isaa...is living in a body in heaven. (Heaven being that region in the Mind of the Universe that is inaccessible to the lower, literal understandings of men...please see 1 Corinthians 12, and Hebrews 5:10-14)...
Yusuf Ali thus confuses the unwary in introducing (outside) beliefs into his 'commentary' of the Holy Quran. The Islamic beliefs regarding Isaa...as preached by the Quran and Muhammad are:
(1). Isaa...was born without the agency of a human father. (So what does this immediately tell us about the nature and the "person" of Isaa)?
(2). Isaa...was not crucified nor did he die later.
(3). Isaa...was raised up Bodily to heaven by Allah Ta'ala.
(4). Isaa...lives to this day in the Fourth heaven.
(5). Isaa...will appear on earth later, but during the time of Imam Mahdi. His task will be to slay Dajjaal (Antichrist).
(6). Isaa...will die a physical death and be buried alongside (Muhammad).
Copious evidence in the form of Quranic verses, Ahadith of (Muhammad)...and opinions of the great learned men of Islam, established beyond the slightest shred of doubt that Isaa...is alive and will make a second appearance on earth to die a physical death.
Yusuf Ali's statement...is highly inconsistent with the unambiguity of the teachings of (Muhammad). According to Islam there is NO mystery woven around Isaa's birth or departure from the earth. Islam has clearly explained that Isaa's birth was without the agency of a human father (which, of course, would make him beyond doubt a divine figure, a God). Similarly, Isaa's departure from earth has been clearly explained by Islam, hence there is no mystery.
Islam has clarified all doubts and 'mysteries' which the Christians had woven around Isaa...Therefore it does not behove Muslims to accept 'commentaries' like that of Yusuf Ali and lapse into confusion and doubt as was the case with the Christians."
Even though the things that orthodox Muslims proclaim about the Mystery of Christ are true, at a certain level of comprehension, to simply rehearse or proclaim the tenets of the faith does not make them "perfectly clear" (not to the human mind coming to perfection), nor does it negate Yusuf Ali's statement that it is, nevertheless, all steeped in mystery. Ali, in this instance, is like the "learned man" who, when asked to read (interpret) the book, replied: I cannot, for it is sealed. (Isaiah 29:11). The members of this Young Men's Muslim Association are like zealous, spiritually youthful men everywhere who imagine that what little they do know is all that there is to know, or that needs to be known. But without controversy, the other Apostle said, great is the Mystery of Godliness. (1 Timothy 3:16; 2 Tim.2:22-26). And, of course, the Sacred Book says it as well: Be not in haste with the Quran until its revelation to thee is complete.
It is obvious from the Qur'an itself, when it speaks of Isa (Jesus) holding forth from the cradle as an infant (Sura 19.27-38), that this Isa is an apocryphal, half-mythical, semi-divine, archetypal figure (and in some descriptions of him, not human at all but fully Divine). And it is obvious for the plain and simple reason that human infants do not only not deliver righteous discourses from the cradle, but flesh and blood human children are NOT born without the agency of a human father. (The magic in the universe, rather, lies in the very wonder of human conception itself). The narrations concerning the life of Isa, whether they be in the Gospels or the Holy Qur'an, are intended to be believed at a very sublime level of human comprehension. They are not, however, intended to be taken literally (in the literal-historical sense of things), but rather to be understood in light of the very complex dimensions of the Mystery itself, and in the context of the very real relationship that exists between the Creator of the Universe, The Divine Word, and the human mind. It is in the life of those who understand this relationship that the perfect human sacrifice is made. Brahman is atman. Einstein's equation says it as simply as it can be said: All matter is energy, invisible Energy, Divine Energy. All is Light. All is God. It is, as Yusuf Ali has stated, a sublime mystery. The mystery of Isa as it reveals itself on the limbs of the Cosmic World Tree reflects this sublimity. It is a reflection of the Divine Nature within every single living being--and, to a perfect degree, within that portion of the collective Human Mind (those individuals) that understand it. Know ye not that Christ is in you?
Till we come in the Unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a Perfect Man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ;
That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lay in wait to deceive;
But speaking the truth in Love, may grow up in him in all things, which is the Head, even Christ (Isa).
From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, making increase of the Body unto the edifying of itself in Love...(Ephesians 4:13-16).
Those who have come to this Knowledge can see that the Person of Isa (Jesus) is not only both an invisible as well as visible manifestation of Divine Reality, one that reflects itself in the life of every single human soul, but it is an archetypal, collective, and universal figure in which all the ancient gods, myths, legends and stories, and principles of the ancient world are embodied. Thus Isa is the "Son" of God in the very same sense as Humanity itself is the Child of the Universe--removed by steps from the Creator(s) Themselves, and yet still One with Them. Thus Christ is real in every cosmic sense. Christ was present in the soul of Adam, thus present as a man in the earth throughout all the periods of history, from the time of Adam to our own. Thus he was present in the lives of every soul who was also capable of perceiving his presence in the myth of Horus, the son of Osiris and Isis. Christ is definetly real in the figures of Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva and their consorts Sarasvati, Lakshmi and Shakti-Kali (Krishna and Rhada). Thus Christ is exquisitely real in the figures of Abrahma-Isaac-and Jacob and their feminine counterparts. Christ was also real in the Presence of the children of Israel when they came up out of Egypt, and just as real in the figure of the Warring Angel who went before them, and who met them on the way. Christ is real in the lives of every individual who has ever offered their own life in the interest of Truth, or in the cause of true Love. And Christ is just as real in the lives of every other soul, whether they knew it or not, whose lives were required of them in the interest of history and the unfolding of Divine Reality. (He was alive in those who perished, as well as terribly alive in those who flew into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001...Isaiah 30:25; Psalm 18:7-10; Isaiah 66:15,16). Christ is intimately alive in the life of His saints and apostles, as Paul himself said: Who removed me from my mother's womb to reveal His Son in me. (Galatians 1:11-16). Christ Jesus is supremely alive in all the events that are unfolding and coming to pass in our very own time (in the Darkness as well as the Light), and is majestically alive in the Messiahs whom God will raise up to us in our time, as it is written: Until you come to the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a Perfect Man. (Ephesians 4:13; Genesis 5:1,2).
Thus it is only in the context of the Mystery of the presence of God in Christ as it is revealed in the dimensions of the Tree of Life (the Highest Ridwan), that we can understand the Scriptures when they attribute to Jesus in some instances what in other places are attributed directly to God:
GOD IS.......................................................................ISA (JESUS) IS
CREATOR
Genesis 1:1; Job 33:4; Isaiah 40:28................................John 1:1-3; Col.1:12-17; Heb.1:8-12.
FIRST & LAST
Isaiah 41:4; Isa.44:6; Isa.48:12......................................Revelation 1:17; Rev.2:8; Rev.22:13.
I AM
Exodus 3:13-14; Deut.32:39; Isaiah 43:10.....................John 8:24,58; John 13:9; John 18:5.
JUDGE
Genesis 18:25; Psalm 96:13; Joel 3:12................2 Timothy 4:1; 2 Cor.5:10; Rom.14:10-12.
KING
Psalm 47:1-3; 48:1-3; Isa.44:6-8; Jer.10:10............Matt. 2:1-6; John 19:21; 1 Tim.6:13-19.
LIGHT
Psalm 27:1; Isaiah 60:20...................................................................John 1:9; John 8:12.
SAVIOUR
Ps.106:21; Isaiah 43:3,11; Isa.45:21.............................John 4:42; Acts 4:12; 1 John 4:14.
Isaiah 66:15-17..........................................................................2 Thessalonians 1:6-10.
SHEPHERD
Psalm 23; Psalm 100:3; Isaiah 40:11............................John 10:11; Heb.13:20; 1 Pet.5:4.
For God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself...(2 Cor.5:18-21).
And it is only in the context of those things that the authors of the Gospels believed about Christ Jesus (Isa) that we can understand those words of the Qur'an that have divided Christians and Muslims all these centuries:
Certainly they disbelieve who say: Surely Allah--He is the Messiah, son of Miriam. Say: Who then could control anything...when Allah wished to destroy the Messiah son of Miriam and his mother and all those on earth? And Allah is the kingdom of the heavens and the earth and what is in between them; He creates what He pleases; and Allah has Power over all things.
And the Jews and the Christians say, We are the sons of God and His beloved ones. Say: Why then does He chastise you for your faults? (Please see Hebrews 12:5-14). Nay, you are mortals from among those whom He has created; He forgives whom He pleases; and Allah's is the kingdom of the heavens and the earth and what is in between them, and to Him is the eventual coming (return)...(Sura 5:17-18).
We have employed several different editions of the Holy Qur'an in English to suit our own purposes--thus the edition which best expressed in each instance our own sense of the sacred Text and its import for our times. In closing we will resort again to the commentary of Yusuf Ali because of his close-keeping with the organic, growing, and unfolding spirit of the Sacred Word--the way he accomodates the spirit and the tenor of our own emerging understanding of the Mystery of God:
Who can describe the Nature of God? The Living, the Eternal:
His Throne extends over worlds and worlds that no imagination can encompass.
His Truth is as clear as Daylight: how can compulsion advance religion?
The keys of Life and Death, and the mysteries of everything around us, are in His Hands.
Our duty then is to seek the path of goodness, kindness, upright conduct and charity--to grasp at no advantage from a brother's need,
To stand by the word that is pledged, to bear true witness,
And remove all cause of misunderstandings in our dealings between man and man... Commentary 52 to Sura 2.254-283.
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How can unbelievers realise the Mystery of Revelation?
They do not even see the marvel and mystery of Time, and God's Creation,
And how they themselves were created!
If they could but see the end, and how it will shape itself--
How the Good will be sorted out from the Evil! The two are not equal in goal.
Clear are the Signs and the revelation of God--in Nature, History, and the Message of His living prophets.
If they learn not now, alas! It will be too late when Time's wings are unfurled...Commentary 185 to Sura 32.
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When the Day comes, men will be taken aback...The trumpet will be sounded, when behold, from the sepulchres (men) will rush forth to the Lord. They will say, Ah! Woe unto us. Who hath raised us from our beds of repose? A voice will say, This is what the Lord Most Gracious has promised...(Sura 36.51-52).
THE RESURRECTION
I am the Resurrection, and the Life: He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live...(John 11:25).
THE THIRD DAY
For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also Received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.
And that he was buried, and that he rose again the Third Day according to the scriptures...
Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no Resurection of the Dead?
But if there be no Resurrection of the Dead then Christ is not risen.
And if Christ be not risen (already, in the hearts and minds of those who understand this mystery) then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also in vain...
Else what shall they do which are baptised for the Dead, if the Dead rise not at all? Why then are we baptised for the Dead?
And why stand we in jeapordy every hour?....(1 Corinthians 15:1-14).
THE EAST
THE WEST
And Joseph said unto him, This is the interpretation of it: The Three branches are Three days...(Genesis 40:12).
Come and let us Return unto the Lord, for He hath torn and He will heal us, He hath smitten us, and He will bind us up. (Please see Isaiah 30:25,36).
After Two days He will revive us, in the Third Day He will raise us up and we will live in His sight...(Hosea 6:1,2).
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Jesus answered them and said, Ye do err (in your faulty ideas about the Resurrection), not knowing the scriptures or the Power of God.
For in the (First) Resurrection they (the Remnant in our time, the true Jihadis on the Left side of the Oracle) neither marry, nor are given in marriage (understand Isaiah 4:1,2; 2 Corinth.11:2), but are as the angels of God in heaven.
But as touching the Resurrection of the Dead (on the Right Hand side of the Tree), have ye not read that which was spoken to you by God (in Egypt), saying,
I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? (Exodus 3:6; 6:1-8), God is not the God of the dead but of the Living...(Matthew 22:23-32).
In other words there will be no dead bodies coming up out of graves in the literal, physical sense, but out of the graves of our own individual, and darkened souls, as it is written: For ye are as graves that appear not. (Luke 11:44):
But some will say, how are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?...(1 Corinth.15:35).
"The Master explains that not the Flesh of their (physical) bodies is meant, but the Flesh of Unrighteousness and Ignorance"...G.R.S. Mead's Fragments of a Faith Forgotten.
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Then said He unto me, Son of man, these bones are THE WHOLE HOUSE OF ISRAEL: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost, we are cut off from our parts.
Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the Land (into the Higher State of Mind) of Israel.
And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves...(Ezekiel 37:11-13).
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Verily...the Hour is coming, and Now is, when the Dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live...
Marvel not at this; for the Hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice,
And they shall come forth; they that have done good unto the Resurrection of Life; and they that have done evil unto the Resurrection of damnation...(John 5:25-29).
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Labour not for the meat (the interpretation of the Word) that perisheth, but for that which Endureth unto Life everlasting, which the son of man shall give unto you; for him hath God the Father sealed...
And this is the will of Him that sent me, that everyone that seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up on the last day...(John 6:27, 40).
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And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt...(Daniel 12).
So also is the resurrection of the Dead. It is sown in corruption (from the Left side of the Tree...Zechariah, chapter 3...KJV), it is raised in incorruption (on the Right side of the Tree). It is sown in dishonour (from the Left); it is raised in glory (on the Right): it is sown in weakness, it is raised in Power.
It is sown a natural body; it is raised a Spiritual Body. There is a natural body, there is a Spiritual Body.
And so it was written, the first Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a Quickening Spirit...
Behold, I shew you a mystery; we shall not ALL sleep, but we shall be changed.
In a moment, in the twinkling of an Eye, at the Last Trump; for the trumpet shall sound (please see Isaiah 66:6-10: Joel, chapters 2 and 3), and the Dead shall be raised incorruptible, and WE shall be changed.
For this corruptibility must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on Immortality...
Then shall be brought to pass the saying, Death is swallowed up in Victory, O Death where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory? (see Ezekiel 2:6; Isa.25:8)...(1 Corinthians 15:42-55).
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"Rabbi Eleazar declares: 'The various sections of the Torah were not given in their correct order. For if they had, anyone who read them would be able to wake the dead and perform miracles. For this reason the correct order and arrangement of the Torah were hidden and are known only to the Holy One, of whom it is said (Isaiah 44:7) And who, as I, shall call, and shall declare it, and set it in order for me.' " Kabbalah and its Symbolism, by Gershom Scholem, p.37.
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Thy dead men shall live, together with My Dead Body shall they arise...Come my people, (all the other peoples of the earth), enter thou into thy chambers, and shut the doors about thee, hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast...For the Lord cometh out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth...(Isaiah 26:19).
