Have you ever wondered about the reason of our existence? Have you ever wondered why we die, and where we go after death? What will happen to us in the end? Have you ever asked yourself why God made the earth and all that is in it under man’s dominion? Why were the night and the day, and the sun and the moon created? What are we supposed to do during our lifetime? Were we created just to eat, drink, and enjoy ourselves before we die? As one poet put it:
“I do not know whence I have come.
I saw my feet walking on the road.
As they please I go and stop.
What am I doing here?
How did the road find me?
I do not know! I do not know! I do not know! ”
God has emphasized in many verses of the Qur’an that He did not create us without purpose. He said: “What! Do you think that I created you simply in jest? And that you would not be returned to Me?” (23:115) He also said: “What! Does man think that he will be left to roam at his will?” (75:36) In addition, He said: “Do people think that they will be left to say: “We believe,” and they will not be held accountable?” (29:2)
Indeed, God Has created human beings for a purpose and with a purpose: TO WORSHIP HIM ALONE (Monotheism). He said: “I have not created the Jinn and humankind except only to worship Me. I don't require provision or feeding from them. Surely Allah is the All-provider, the Possessor of all strength, the Firm.” (51:56-58) In fact, all prophets told their people to worship God alone (Monotheism) and shun worshipping His creation (Paganism). God said: “I assuredly sent among every people a messenger with the command: Worship Allah and avoid worshipping false gods.” (16:36)
Prophet Abraham, for example, believed in One God, who had no partner. Anyone who holds a different understanding of God than this has contradicted the religion of Abraham and follows falsehood. God says in the Qur’an: “Those who reject the religion of Abraham make fools of themselves.” (2:130)
Prophet Jesus was reported in the Gospels to have said: “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only’.” (Luke 4:8)
Prophet Jacob also said (in the Qur'an) to his people: “Indeed, those which you worship besides Allah are only names that you and your forefathers have established, for which Allah has sent down no authority. The command belongs only to Allah. He has commanded that you worship none but Him. That is the right religion, but most people do not understand.” (12:40)
Read more about the TRUE BELIEVE which supported by the Miracle Holy Quran :
http://www.islam-guide.com/islam-guide.pdf
http://www.harunyahya.com
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Real happiness and peace can be ONLY found in submitting to the commands of the Creator and the Sustainer of this world. God has said in the Qur’an: (Truly, in remembering God do hearts find rest.)
(Qur’an, 13:28)
On the other hand, the one who turns away from the Qur’an will have a life of hardship in this world. God has said:
(But whoever turns away from the Qur’an, he will have a hard life, and We will raise him up blind on the Day of Judgment.) (Qur’an, 20:124)
This may explain why some people commit suicide while they enjoy the material comfort money can buy. For example, look at Cat Stevens (now Yusuf Islam), formerly a famous pop singer who used to earn sometimes more than $150,000 a night. After he converted to Islam, he found true happiness and peace, which he had not found in material success.
To read the stories of people who have converted to Islam, please visit
http://www.islam-guide.com/stories
At this web page, you can read the thoughts and feelings of these people, who are from different countries and have different backgrounds and levels of education.
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Who am I? Why am I?
Who am I? Why was I born? Why do I exist? Why does the universe exist? What am I supposed to do with my life? What is the meaning of life? Why do we die? Why is life not a paradise of ultimate happiness and satisfaction?
I’m sure you’re wondering right now, what this is about. Well... it’s about a number of radical questions that shape the face of humanity. Those questions are what philosophers call “first order questions”. They are those questions that pop into your mind as soon as you find a chance in your fast paced life to sit alone, thinking, contemplating yourself, your life, and the whole of existence. Those are the questions that you find right before you whenever you manage to break off the machine of your programmed daily life. It is the ultimate Why. You’ll find that you have indeed asked yourself such questions repeatedly. What’s the point in living? What’s the meaning of life? Why work? Why do we have to die? Why is the world not a Utopia? Why is it so full of agony, pain, suffering and need? Why earn so much and do so much when I’ll eventually leave it all behind?
Let’s see in what way such questions do manifest in your life………
Haven’t you ever wondered; why do I wake up in the morning with an obligation to move out and work? Why is it that no pleasure is pure in this life, and that it always ends up with a deep sense of guilt somewhere underneath my conscience? Why is it that pleasure is always linked with obligatory needs and with different degrees of responsibility, agony and pain? Why does there have to be pain? Why am I limited in such a way? Why does everything in this life have to eventually come to an end? Why am I not immortal? And then, if one day I did manage to become immortal in this life, would I really want to? Why is there a phenomenon that we commonly know as boredom? This fast inversion in my feelings and my appetite for pleasures just as soon as I’m done enjoying them, what does it mean? Why is it in such a way?
When you are hungry (in need) you dream of eating a horse, and once you sit to a table, and start eating, your appetite for food starts dropping gradually until at a certain point, you no longer even bear to sit before that table, despite the huge variety of pleasures that may still be laid out before you. Your emotional capacity for taking in more pleasure is lost very soon, sooner than you thought possible, maybe even sooner than your physical capacity. That is, you may decide to leave the table before you’re even close to getting full. Why is that? Did you not dream of eating an entire horse just a couple of minutes ago? Where did that go now?
You are prosperous with your work, and you are a fairly wealthy man; a powerful crowned emperor in the market. Can you honestly claim that you are happy or that you are satisfied? You thought that money could bring you happiness and that in order to be happy you must have the power to obtain everything you want to obtain. Now that you do have that power, how do you really feel? If your wealth is around 30 million dollars, why does it have to grow to become a 40? When it is 40, whey does it still have to grow into 50, 60, 100 .. etc? What difference will it make if you had twelve cars or two hundred? Can you not see that you are enslaved? Can you not see that you are slave to a desire to obtain all obtainable? Can you not see that you are a victim of your insatiable self? Do you not know that one day you will leave all this behind? Are you taking anything down with you to the grave? How high do you think you can go in life, and for how long do you think you could keep going?
Is it not a fact that the more money you possess the more enemies you will make? Is it not a fact that the more money you make the less trust you will feel towards everyone around you? Did money buy you security? How much security did it buy you? Is it enough? Are you not always worried about loosing your fortune? Are you not always worried about the heavy competition with other opponents? Is it not a fact that every one of them is out to get everything he can get just as you are? Do you think he will agree to share the treasures of the world with you? Do you not want to have it all just for yourself? So does he! Do you not want to become the strongest, and the most powerful? So does he. What will secure you from that? Can that security stop those sharks around you from conspiring to suck your blood and knock you down? Can that security stop you from eventually dying? You don’t want to leave your empire in such a way, do you? But what can you do? And if one day you did stop death from taking you (just for assumption), how much longer do you think you will have before you start feeling bored to death with everything you have?
Do you think you are the first man in history to collect so much wealth and power? Do you think you’re going to be the last? All those great people of old, with glories unparalleled, and dominance unequalled… where are they now? Those mighty conquerors who invaded the world just to prove to themselves that they can and to enjoy making people yearn to their will and desires, where are they all gone now? Once upon a time there was a man who ruled the whole world; so what? Once upon a time a man ruled half of the world … so what? Once upon a time there was a man who did so and so and so .. so what? Where is that man or the other now? What good is any of this doing him now?
You dye your hair, put a wig on, and stretch your face in plastic surgery… who are you lying to? Really? Who do you think you’re fooling? Other people? Do they not all know you’re nothing but an old pathetic human being who is hanging on to something he knows very well he is leaving anyway? You’re fooling yourself? Do you not know as much as everyone else does, that this is nothing but a fake mask?
You work so that people will remember you? Your goal and purpose of living is to carve your name in their memories? You choose this for a meaning? But then again what good will that do you when you are dead? You envy those people who are remembered in history for the credit they have made for themselves. But what do you know about the place where they are staying right now? Are they enjoying any of this? Is the memory they left among other people, helping him or doing him any good right now? What’s there for you? You’ll go down in history as the one who did so and so, that’s great… but you will be dead, so what good will your name written in a history book, do you there? And what if you were not talented enough for your name to go down in history, to rise high and stay resonant for a longer span of time? What if you were just an average Joe? How many are those? Why were they not all given what it takes to make millions of people remember them just as well? Is this what it all goes down to?
And then, how long do you really think your memory is going to last? There is a great number of great people, most of which were much greater, much more powerful, and much more effective than you ever dreamt of being, who had come to this planet once, and are all gone now, with no trace whatsoever to tell about them, not in an artifact, a monument, a document, or even myth or legend. They had their share of people remembering them and honoring their memory for many generations, and now what do they have, when it is all gone? People will remember you for a number of decades… a number of years… a number of centuries? Perhaps even millennia… but even this memory and the material trace it is linked to are, themselves mortal and are, themselves limited, aren’t they?
How many great kings have galloped millions of miles of land, millions of tons of treasures, and feasted their unparalleled glory before your time? How many men have obtained treasures of the earth and kept them in their possession along their limited lifetimes, and where did all that go now? How high did kingdoms rise before you, and fell like they never existed in the first place? How high do you think you can go, and for how long do you think you’ll keep going? Forever? That’s exactly what they all thought before you, but where are they now? What’s left of them, or of their “eternal” memories?
What is the value of a great reputation you made in your life so far, a few decades, or years, or months or maybe even minutes from this very moment, when you are dead? Do you know when you will die? How long do you know for certain that you still have left before you’re out of here, and on to somewhere else? Everyone leaves traces when he dies, your mere belongings, your fortune, the things you now cherish, the very piece of cloth that covers you right now, everything you have will suddenly be left for remains that people will divide among them. Will they remember you by those remains? Well, maybe, and maybe not. However, I believe the question that should concern you much more is; where does all that leave you?
Einstein was a great scientist in his time, and today the majority of educated people still remembers him and his name has turned into a pure legend. All this is great, but where is he now? What is the act of people remembering him or honoring his memory, doing for him right now? What difference did all that work he did do to him in the current stage of his existence? None at all? Of course not. The meaning and value of life is justified only by the meaning of death. Everything that starts, will eventually end, but only when its purpose is done. So start, do your purpose, and end, that’s ultimately the definition of everything that exists in the mortal universe that we know. If life is a place of work, then it must be that every single deed you do in it has an impact on whatever comes afterwards (i.e. after death).. Otherwise, the fact that life is the way it is, oriented around motion, work and causality will make no sense whatsoever as we shall discuss later on.
Life is a workshop and that man (in our example; Einstein) did get himself busy. So how did he prepare for this current stage he is going through right now and what is yet to come afterwards? What answer do you think he had to this question: why do I exist and why am I going to die? Life is a workshop, we have all tolls, all machines and all options, but do we really know what we are supposed to be doing with them? Do we really know why we are given choice? What decision are we supposed to come to? When the moment comes for us to leave the workshop, what product are we supposed to have accomplished? This is the question. This is why deep inside of you, you are never satisfied with your work, and in the greatest moments of your earthly glory, and once you give yourself enough time to contemplate your life, you find yourself wondering, what is this all about? You’ll find that in fact, despite everything you have done for yourself, the truth is that you feel empty.
Many people who searched for an answer to this question, decided to jump off their balconies or shoot themselves in the head for not being capable of coming up with a satisfactory answer. Just check out suicide reports and see how many cases take place in your society on a daily basis. I do not think this will shock you because I suppose you already know that. But what I’m sure you do not know or understand is the motive beyond so many such cases of suicide. What on earth would drive an ultimately successful businessman to end his own life in such a manner? What is he afraid of? What is it that could drive a fairly “happy” woman that people would envy for her apparent happiness, off the ledge of a balcony by her own free will?
Serial killers, assassins, and war criminals of history are much more famous and much more memorable, and may sustain a much bigger trace in the memory of humanity than most of you good guys out there … What justice is that? Regardless of the way the majority of people feel about those felons, if this is what life is all about, then how is it fair for such monsters to get the “honor” of fame, popularity, and “eternity” in such a way?
So to claim that carving your name on a stone for people to read after you and to leave a mark that says “I was here”, is all that you are about… this is as false as it is pathetic, and holds no satisfactory meaning for existence, life, and above all, death. If making one’s name, proving one’s self and getting people’s consideration are all that life is about then life would be unfair, wouldn’t it?
When you read a story and come to its happy ending, do you believe it when the writer says they lived happily ever after? How long is that “ever after”? And when did any human being manage to live a life of ultimate and pure happiness for the rest of his life, without a single moment of sadness, doubt, or fear of tomorrow?
Do you think the good should live longer than the bad? Or perhaps the bad should not be allowed to come to existence itself… you think it is an error in the program of existence that such scum does come to life? Why is that? Because life is supposed to be a paradise? Because death is a sickness that should be cured? You think it’s unfair that the good may die young? Or perhaps you think it’s unfair that anyone should die at all!!
If life is all about the material building and achievement, and I keep working all my life to build and to share in building, and so does everyone else, who gets to enjoy all that in the end? If I’m not staying here forever, and yet it is a place of work and building, then how is it fair that I leave all that behind, and the fruits of my material work without enjoying them or living to see the good they do to others or how others would build upon them? Why are those who came to life hundreds of years before me less “fortunate” to enjoy the civilization I’m enjoying now? And why am I less “fortunate” than those who will come after me? If there was a time when a certain illness was deadly and killed many people, when today it is not anymore, why am I now more fortunate than those people? If I was killed today by a disease the cure for which will be discovered just a few months after my death,
Is it really a question of fortune? Is it all about civilization and rising up the ladder of construction and knowledge? If that was true, then life would be unfair.
If a few decades ago, a man was “lucky” enough to find the woman of his dreams, and to give birth to a beautiful child that became you… have you never asked yourself, what if your father was not that “lucky” the day he met your mother and decided to marry her… would you have ever come to this life? What does it mean or what would it be like if I never came to life?
How then do you define “luck”? A random act of chance? A resultant of an unbalanced nonlinear equation? You think tomorrow is a resultant of random interaction of collective actions and events? Who then should you be thankful to for your existence or your good “luck”? Who then should you run to when in the midst of heavy winds and storms in a boat in the middle of the sea, you are about to drown and there’s no way out for you? And who should you be grateful to when you are delivered safe out of it? Can you deny the fact that you do indeed feel grateful to something you may not know what it is? Can you deny that when in the midst of the storm you will blurt the word “Oh, God” or “Oh my God” and face your head up to heaven in so doing? Or that when the storm is over, you may find yourself saying “thank god” even if you do not believe in any form of deity? Why do we do that? Why is it so instinctual inside of every one of us regardless of his beliefs? Why is it part of our design or “brightright” in such a way? Didn’t ever occur to you that the reason you do that could be the very same reason you are searching for answers to those deep questions, and are not satisfied with any of the answers you ever came across to this day? Didn’t it ever occur to you at the depth of your soul that perhaps there really is something you are supposed to know, and that you have not known yet? Do you really think that such questions are unanswerable and that life is whatever you think it is? Why then are you not satisfied with that notion? What seems to be missing?
Do you think that maybe one day this “luck” thing the meaning and origin of which you do not know, will be manageable and one could control his own “luck” all the way? Perhaps you think that a totem or a symbol could help bring you good luck!! Does it really? This totem must be a powerful being of godly dimensions indeed so that it could run that “random” equation of events all for your favor!! It must be a god!!
And then, there would be hundreds of such gods in the universe, every one of them is powerful enough to reshape and redirect the equation of life for the favor of his “owner” – it is still just a piece of wood or stone isn’t it? Well, every totem god will desire to run the machine of life at its will… giving good luck to the ones it chooses... favoring those it likes... But then, such is what they all desire to do... and life is singular, the equation is only one big equation... every machine could only have one control panel, for one operator to run it… so how could this be? How could there be more than one entity running the same process of life, fate, fortune and luck as it chooses? Not to mention that entity being a piece of wood or stone!! Humiliating and so degrading a belief, isn’t it? Well, believe it or not, the majority of humans do believe that crap. Some of them were genii, great noble men all credited for their great intelligence. Ask Pythagoras or Alexander the great about their beliefs, and see what they would say. You may wonder how could such gigantic mentalities fail to see how naive and unreasonable such a belief in the multiplicity of lords and gods really is? Well, it’s simple … they took it for granted. If you were brought up as a child on a lie, this lie would be the truth for you … you would even fight for it if you had to … it is also part of your human instinct to feel the urge to fight for what you believe whatever it may be. So yes they were genii, but they never really felt an urge to question their beliefs or search for answers to such questions. But does this mean they never asked themselves those questions you are asking yourself right now? Of course not, they must have, to some extent, at some point, and one way or another, they must have. But still, life took them away, and they told themselves, if such is what my parents and their parents before them used to believe, then it must be the truth …
But is that true? Is it a fact that since this is what the majority of people around me, my society and my parents believe, then it must be the truth? How many “truths” would there be then? An annoying notion isn’t it? First you have to acknowledge the meaning of the truth before you search for it. If I believe something and you believe another about the same topic, then at least one of us must be false, right? How then can two unequal beliefs about the same thing, both be the truth? Could a car be both white and blue at the same time? Could a pen be both here and there at the same time?
What is the truth then? Where can I find the answers to those questions?
So let’s find out where this goes … shall we ???
To be or not to be
First of all, let’s be honest with ourselves about one thing … Don’t claim you’re not afraid of dying, when everything you do proves that you are. Man is generally afraid of the unknown, and that’s the least cause for people to be afraid of death. To you, death is really the unknown. You do not know when you will die or where you will go when you die. This is natural because you do not know why you have to die.
We come to this life, not by our choice. Before we were born we did not exist, and nobody asked us if we wish to be born. Before we came to be, we were not. Can you imagine what it’s like for you not to be? Not to have ever existed? It’s a great blessing; your very mere existence itself is a blessing, isn’t it? Try to imagine yourself nonexistent and you will understand what I mean. You did not come to life by your own choice; neither will you leave it by your choice. Your birth and your death are not optional to you. So if it wasn’t me who decided my birth and my death, then how can I claim that it is I who should make up a definition for the purpose of both such events in whatever way I like? It doesn’t make sense, does it?
To claim that human existence has no absolute meaning or purpose is to claim that it is the same for you to exist and not to exist, and that it is the same for all humanity if it never even existed. It is to claim that whoever made the decision of bringing you and the rest of the universe to existence, had no purpose for such a decision whatsoever.
But do you accept such a claim? If you do, then why do you think it is that you are still searching for the meaning of life, why are you not really satisfied with anything you have read on the topic so far?
Do philosophers know the answer?
You probably wonder right now, what about everything that philosophers taught us? Whenever you look in books of philosophy or works of thinkers and prosperous writers you will find a number of definitions none of which would satisfy you. Some writers will be intelligent enough to go around the question of the meaning of life by detailing certain deeds that you do in your daily life, and giving them value the way they are. It’s as if he’s saying, your life is cool just the way it is, it is justified by whatever you do with it, so don’t bother with questions no philosopher has ever managed to answer, or even wishes to answer anymore. If there is a single definition that any of those thinkers believes to be the truth, then what is the point in there being so many other definitions? Why didn’t they all agree to that single definition celebrating it as the truth? Do they not believe that everything must have only one value that is true, while all other values are false? In what way will the unseen and unperceived be different from the seen and perceived in terms of absolution of the value of truth? In other words, who gives you – the philosopher - the right to claim that just because you cannot see something, you are free to assume any value or theory for it and claim it to be the truth? Are they not even worried that perhaps life does have only one meaning that is true and absolute, and so does death?
Didn’t it ever occur to you that perhaps even those mighty and noble thinkers you take for granted do not know the meaning of life?
The “wisest” of those thinkers have decided to neglect metaphysics altogether, restricting their knowledge to that which they can see and sense, and making you believe that your life is a resultant of a set of accumulative effects of chance that delivered you the way you are. They believe that whatever you choose to believe is irrelevant, because nothing is absolute, and the meaning of life is only a mental construct or an individual conviction that everyone constructs the way he sees fit for himself. Well... let’s not talk philosophy much longer. Those guys (the philosophers) really have nothing to offer in this area. They no longer believe in the absolute. They no longer believe in the unity and singularity of the truth, and that those questions must indeed have a single particular consistent answer that is the truth, while everything else is false. We need to understand what the word “truth” means before we start looking for its value.
Yes we may construct false notions about anything that exists or that does not exist, but this is the relative nature of man. Existence is absolute, but human notion is relative.
If I related to a piece of information that holds that X = a, then that to me would be the truth value for X, in reference to me and to my source. It is what I know, and what I know is the truth for me. But is it by necessity the absolute truth? Is it not possible that what I think is the truth, is actually not the truth? If as a human, I think or “know” that X = a, is it really a necessity that this is the true value for X? Absolutely not; I simply might be wrong, just as wrong as the source to which I refer and relate.
Many philosophers build on a view that life is chaos and that no order whatsoever lies underneath the process of existence. Others would admit order and procession but would concern themselves with the way such order relates to man; their theories come in that area. Hence, they all give themselves the freedom to destroy the absolution of the truth and turn it into an imaginary value that exists only in the human minds. My question to you, the non-philosopher, is do you really find such an idea reasonable or acceptable? Can you really not see order in everything around you? Can you not see perfect order in the animal kingdom? Can you not see perfect order in the water cycle or in food chains? Can you not see perfect order in day and night? Can you not see perfect order and ultimate purposefulness in the “design” of the atmosphere? Can you not see perfect order in your own body, and in your own two hands? Are you not amazed by the way your own body works?
It is amazing that the more knowledge most scientists would acquire about nature and the way it works, the more rudely and arrogantly they would insist on denying the undeniable. If it wasn’t for the supreme order in nature, none of those scientists would have even acquired any material to turn into written laws and theorems, just making them scientists… you know what you know, you have what you have, and you are what you are because nature is a perfect design, not because it is chaos. Chaos can never be put in standard laws and rules that cannot be breached. Chaos is purposeless and unrestrictive; absolutely contrary to what we see in nature.
I dare any philosopher to give us a clear, reasonable, and acceptable definition for death and its purpose.
However, I’m not talking to the philosopher, or to the scientist here. I’m talking to you. What do you think? How do you feel? Do you really think existence is chaos or disorder? If you do, then I’d have to ask you not to carry on with this article.
Cause and purpose
Order is purpose. System is purpose. If there is any lesson we have learnt from our study of nature and of the way life works, it is causality. Nothing takes place for no reason or cause. Every action is an effect that results from a cause. Everything exists the way it exists in nature because if it didn’t, the entire process will fail. This is what we call purpose. The purpose of the sun is to give us warmth and daylight. The purpose of the atmosphere is to give us the air we breathe, and to protect us from harmful cosmic hazards and sun rays. This is how it goes. Everything is there for a reason. The proof for that simple fact is just in imagining what things would be like if that thing did not exist, or if it did not exist in this exact same way. This is purpose; cause for creation and infliction of order.
So, what is our purpose then? Can we presume that all systems in existence are obviously designed in such a perfect flawless way to serve very specific purposes, all except for us, the humans? Can we claim that humanity is the only system in existence that does not have an absolute purpose of existence in the midst of all such absolute perfection? What then will be the meaning or the point in everything that exists around us?
This is why we so strongly need to feel valuable, effective, and justifiable. It is a human instinct in man to need to establish a feeling that his life has a meaning and an impact. You are here to do something. You may not know it yet, and you may not know it at all, but you do acknowledge that you’re here to do something. However, what you may not know is that regardless of what you will choose to do, and take for a meaning for your life, and all human life, there is something you are required to do, the same thing all humans were created to do. That thing is what justifies life being the way it is, and that gives meaning to both life and death.
You will die after you have done a certain set of deeds that define what we call your destiny, this is another issue. The question here is about what it is that you are supposed to do, not what you will eventually end up doing. Your notion of that thing you’re supposed to do in your life is by necessity a relative notion because such is the case with all human knowledge. Philosophers would urge you to hang on to whatever you see fit for you, as long as you’d stop bothering them with inquiring for absolutes. You’re a good doctor, then good for you; this must be the purpose and meaning of your life.
Well, actually it is not. It is your destiny. It is how circumstances of your life (that philosophers would call chaos) were planned to drive you through. But is being a doctor or a lawyer or a teacher, all that humans were created to do? Are those purposes or causes? Is this the only choice we were made on this earth to take? The choice of a career; a way to make a living? Why does there have to be a career and a troublesome process of work and effort in the first place? Why is all order and system designed in such a way that renders us in constant need for motion and work? Why do I have to work, is a question that is more important to you than what will I choose to work. Why am I here? And if I’m here to pick a career and do the best I can with it, isn’t this what everyone would naturally do as naturally as they would east, sleep and drink? If I’m here to find myself a way to make a living, isn’t this what every sane human being would instinctually do by necessity? What’s the point in dying then? And what’s the point in having to do and having to work in general?
What benefit will I make out of that, when one day I will have to leave it all behind after all? What’s the point? What’s the purpose of deed and doing?
You believe, when on your deathbed, that what you did with your life is all you were supposed to do. But what makes you so sure? What makes you think that you have fulfilled the purpose of your being in this world, and that you have fully understood the meaning of life, and what everything is all about? What makes you so sure about what will happen to you next? How, in the light of such supreme order and mastery in creation, consistency of purposefulness, causality, functionality and meaningfulness, do you suppose a question as fundamental as this question would be left curiously unanswered in such a way? Do you find this very fact itself to make any sense?
I think not …
Freedom
The man who is set free is nothing but a freed man - a dog dragging a piece of chain with him. [Max Sterner, "The Ego and Its Own."]
If ultimate freedom is really the truth about what you are supposed to do with your life, then why is there such an annoying thing inside of us that we call guilt? Why is there responsibility? Why is there obligation? Why is there need? Why is there weakness deep in every one of us as much as there is strength? Why do we need to learn? Why do we need to be brought up as little children? Why do we need to love and be loved? Why do we have to move and do work? Why do we have to change from one status to another all the time? Why do we always have to submit to rules? Why does there have to be rules, in concept? Why does there have to be justice? Why does there have to be a reaction equal to the action in all cases?
Why does there have to be care, worry, fear, trouble, agony, pain? Is it not a fact that the need to defend oneself against all those things, and the need to keep oneself safe all the time, is itself an obligatory cause that denies the root concept of freedom? Is it not a fact that life is all responsibility? Who said you are free? Are you not obliged to get out of bed in the morning? Are you not obliged to go to work and make a living? Are you not obliged to learn and obtain knowledge in order to do anything whatsoever? Are you not obliged to believe in what you have learnt? Can you claim you do not believe in anything at all or that you are belief-free? Is it not an obligation that you have to take care of your kids and your family? You love to do it that’s another issue, but can you deny its being an obligation?
Yes you are free to choose. But in fact you are free to choose only the kind of bondage and slavery you will stick to. You are free to choose the type of cage you will spend your life in bondage to. In all cases you are a prisoner in this life, in this limited plane of mortality, whether you like it or not, whether you admit it or not. Do you not see in a lustful man who runs after his desires, a pure slave to those desires? Do you not see a gluttonous man as a slave to his stomach, and a womanizer as a slave to his genitals? He loves that slavery, and he refuses to admit it for slavery. But does this change the fact that he is a slave? And does this change the fact that whatever kind of slavery he chose for himself, he will love it and will find it satisfactory?
This is the broader concept of freedom and the broader concept of slavery. You may say right now, I hate to be a prisoner and I hate to be a slave. If I felt I’m a slave I’d reject that slavery. Did we not just say that you may not even feel it is slavery? Yes you hate to be confined in four physical walls that you can see, hear, smell and touch … but what if you cannot? What if a human enslaved you, threw you in a golden cage, and bestowed various kinds of pleasures, food, drinks, women, joys of all sorts and kinds, would you really hate that slavery? On the contrary, you will love that master, you will even worship him if he told you to. So man does not refuse the concept of slavery in its absolute meaning. Man refuses only the forms of slavery that he believes would captivate his needs and basic desires. And he has all the right in the world to refuse such kinds of slavery.
Freedom is not an illusion. This is not what I’m getting at. It is just not the way most people view it to be. All you have to do is look deep within yourself and your own life to see this meaning.
Every man who is happy with his life is happy with those slaveries he chose for himself, and is satisfied with those he did not have a choice with. He is not happy for his freedom, because he understands the nature of responsibility and bondage that it means to be in life and the nature of work and effort he has to do to earn this happiness; he is happy with the bondages he has chosen for himself. So who are we fooling? How do we neglect the need to understand why we were given the freedom to choose a kind of slavery? If all life is slavery then there must be a right kind of slavery among all those slaveries regardless of how “fun” they may seem to be. To choose the right kind of bondage is the reason why we were given a choice in this life. The question of choice in life is basically: who or what will you choose to become a slave to?
Will you be slave to your genitals? Will you be a slave to what pleases them? Will you be slave to any other part of your body and the desire to accommodate it? Will you be slave to your children and their desires? Will you be slave to your boss at work? Will you be slave to your dreams in a prosperous career? Will you be slave to money? Will you be slave to the desire to dominate others? Will you be slave to the desire to be famous? Will you be slave to another human tyrant who is himself a slave to his fleshly greed? Who will you bow in respect and glorification to? Who will you beg for mercy, help and support? Who will you refer to as the source of all wisdom, perfect knowledge and complete guidance? Who will you turn to? Whose advice will you listen to? Who will be first in your life? Who will come second, third and fourth?
Who will you take for a god? Which god will you enslave yourself willingly to? What is the meaning of god? When I enslave myself to a man, fear him ultimately, respect him ultimately, and love him ultimately, doesn’t this make him my god? When this is how I feel towards my genitals, do they not become my uncrowned god? Is it not a fact that you may actually have more than one god in your life? Which god deserves this ultimate level of obedience, love, respect, and glorification for which all life is created? Is it not a fact that the natural instinctual desire to take a god is itself a feat destruction for the concept of freedom as philosophers sought it? You need to take yourself a god, whether you know that or not, and whether you admit that need or not. You do have a god that you honor ultimately, and serve with absolute faith, whether you recognize that fact or not, and whether or not you do view it as a god. Who will you honor, respect, glorify and ultimately fight for when it goes down to this? You have been made to see and admit your humbleness in the face of all such a majestic existence… and that instinct my reader, is not free of purpose; nothing is free of purpose.
This is the only meaning of our primary freedom of choice as humans in this big prison of life. What god will we submit to? Whose laws do we agree to empower upon ourselves? What knowledge will we rely on, refer to and take for granted as the absolute truth? This is why there is this apparent freedom… this must be what justifies choice in this format of life that we live in. There must be one answer that is right and that is the truth for each and every one of these questions, otherwise, life would have absolutely no meaning.
OK … let’s take it further….
Okay … first of all, let me say, I’m really glad that you found the patience and tolerance to make it to this page. This means you really want to see better, and that right now you have a lot of fundamental questions that demand a reasonable acceptable answer, especially if you are a Christian. First I have to apologize to the reader for the heavily sarcastic attitude that I took towards the bible and its theology. It’s just that at some points I couldn’t hold back the comment, because this kind of commentaries, with almost this very same language is what pagans and atheists would use against the bible, and unfortunately, the arguments they hold are as we have seen, justifiable and extremely reasonable.
So, if philosophers don’t know the truth and the church does not hold the answers, and none would hold any clear, consistent or satisfactory answer to life the way it is, and to history the way it is, where then are we supposed to look?
Okay, before we discover the answer to this question... let us first agree on a few things that come by necessity from the nature of existence, the nature of our humanity and its mental instinctual standards, and the least other general standards that we should expect to see in the answer that qualifies as the truth for all those questions.
1.Existence is not chaos… it is ultimate order and perfect system. Chaos is only a construct that limited human minds build to attempt to explain extreme complexities that are indeed far beyond human power. You cannot follow the infinite system running the universe; does this mean it is chaos? How could it be chaos at one end, and perfect order at the other? If you see perfect system and order, and even know how to turn it into mathematical laws, how can you claim that at the other end, there is nothing but chaos? How then were you capable of counting one natural law after the other in such a way if at the very bottom of all this there is nothing but chaos? Can you see now how unfair this word is?
2.There must be a single superior entity that created all that exists, and that did all that for a reason and a definite purpose. You came to this life for a reason and you will leave it for a reason, whether you knew that reason or not. Nothing can make itself, and nothing could ever come to existence without a maker, a cause and a purpose. Such a perfection of order in nature cannot allow for meaninglessness and purposelessness.
3.Purpose is the justification for existence … without purpose, existence is meaningless. The fact that we the humans are made to know purpose, to know meaning, to understand justification, in all we see in existence, is itself a concrete evidence for this fact.
4.The laws you program in a computer software application cannot apply to you, the programmer. They apply only to objects of the software. The maker of a system must be above it, external to it, not restricted in any way by laws that he designed. He may however choose to get inspiration in certain aspects in his design from his own properties, or to design some elements of the system in a limited accordance with his own properties… but this does not restrict him to the boundaries of that design by any means. Such is the way with the lord, maker of all existence. A creator that is high above all creations, not bound or restricted to any laws he created, and only by his will and power do limits and boundaries of the system come to be. There is not a chance that one day a man will know as much as the creator knows
5.The creator must know it all, see it all, hear it all, for all levels of complexity in the system he made. You cannot see what is beyond the wall that is next to you right now unless you took the causes for that: stood up, went there and looked. This is a bondage that is forced upon al creatures by the maker of their system. You can’t hear and you do not know what two guys are saying to each other a few meters away right before your eyes unless somebody heard and told you. You have been given the power to focus on only one thing at a time; everything else running in existence in this very moment is absent to you. Your knowledge is limited to your direct experience with which your limited conscience is engaged, and the news you are told by others. No matter how powerful man will one day come to be, there is no escaping this property for him.
The creator on the other hand must possess comprehensive, conclusive, universal and complete knowledge, unbound by causes or limits of any kind. The system cannot be run in such perfection any otherwise. He sees you, me, him, them, and everybody all the time, on all scales and levels, all at the same time. It is a necessity for an entity that runs infinite numbers of systems at infinite levels of complexity simultaneously that this entity’s knowledge would be in such a way. So we can see that this is not conscience in the common meaning that we know, it is far beyond that. You simply have to be aware of absolutely everything, from cosmic scale to quantum scale and whatever scales in between, above or below, in order to run it all.
This is the creator of all things we are talking about here. Infinity is a limit he created for our knowledge; it limits us, not him. He, on the other hand must have access to levels of complexity we are not and will never be allowed to access; otherwise we will corrupt his system and his order, corrupt ourselves and destroy it all. Only he knows the way all those systems at all levels, link with one another and affect one another, and the way every infinitely small component affects all levels of composition it is involved with, and those it is not involved with. He wouldn’t let us have access to the key of his creation and the key of life, because we will destroy it, and it will destroy the meaning of human existence to suppose that one day we will do that. We will never become gods, no matter how much we think that one day we will come to know. This system is not without an owner. Boundaries and limits are barriers set by the creator for his creatures for many lessons they should learn, and for certain wisdom that serves their purpose of creation. Limitedness, error, mistake, inconsistency, uncertainty, relativity, and all such human properties cannot and should not be attributed to the maker of man.
6.There can only be one creator, above all, and superior to all, and he should not share power by any means. We the humans have to share, because we are all limited, and we are all weak by nature. You have to get partners in order to move a stone or to build a wall. Those partners will share the outcome and the interest in the job with you by necessity; otherwise they will not find a proper motive to pay the effort. This is part of the way the system of mortality is designed. However, for any nation, there can only be one king. For every boat there can only be one captain, and for every machine there can only be one control panel. The machine of existence has one control panel and its owner does not need assistance with it. It was not a corporation in its creation; he did not need to get assistance on building it, so that he would have to share power running it. Need is a restriction that He must be high above; a restriction he made for his creatures, and that does not apply to him. It is part of the system he created and to which he restricted us. If there was more than one creator in the universe, it would corrupt. If he had equals to him up in heaven, they would quarrel for power. Everyone would demand to run the system in a way that he sees fit, and everyone will demand that only he is praised in his universe. We cannot suppose that a singular system of existence with equal creatures will be given a multiplicity of laws, justices, and that humans therein will be given a choice to worship and submit to whatever god they choose, it is all okay, and it makes no difference which god they please as long as the god is happy! It can’t be. It is a single system. A single consistent system with every element affecting all other elements either directly or indirectly.
The superior entity that chooses to test, to bless or to destroy a certain nation of people will have to go in a conflict of interest with all other gods in order to get the entire system worked under that will. In order for the rain to fall in nation X, heavy clouds will have to pass over nation Y before they reach nation X. the lord of nation Y has decided to keep it a sunny day on Y. thus, you get a conflict of wills and interests. This is a very simple and naive example, I have to admit that, but after all, I’m only a human. The point is; there will have to be a conflict, because all causes of existence must submit to the will of one ruler. All systems are bound at their very bottom to a single order that drives its path. There can’t be a multiplicity of such orders. Otherwise, those gods will have to split their creation, and everyone will take his own part of the universe and run it as he pleases. We can see from the very nature of existence that for one system to have two equal rulers and masters is not possible.
The creator of life must be above all life. He must be superior to all.
The creator of infinity must be above infinity. His powers must have no end. Our reason should accept no less than that.
7.The creator should not have a son, because having a son is part of the system that he created, as one of many laws of necessity and obligation he posed on his creatures and restricted them to.
8.The creator cannot regret a decision he made, he does not change his mind due to a new conviction or realization he did not see or predict, this destroys the completeness of his knowledge which is essential for the completeness of his power. You can easily see this completeness everywhere around you; it is the only thing in existence that is supposed to be too obvious to demand a proof.
9.Death is not an accidental ending, it is a purposeful and meaningful change in the path of humans, and it justifies all that life is about. There must be a complete image of ultimate justice that justifies both death and life.
10.The lord is not a racist that loves a nation no matter what it does. There are other colors, ethnicities and races in the world that should be included in the godly wisdom of creation, otherwise, why were they created so diverse and so different? The lord makes no errors and misses nothing, should you worship or even any less than that?
11.Evil, venom, pain, agony, plague, war, all forms of evil in the world are here for a reason, they are inseparable elements of mortal existence, they are not errors, mistakes, or defects in creation… nothing is an error or a mistake in the program of mortal existence. There is wisdom beyond them that we are supposed to know.
Where will I go when I die?
Okay … I hope we have come to agree to the previous points. So now, let us start by the question of death… where will I go?
The human mind may allow for only three possibilities to answer to this question:
a-I will perish
b-I will move to another similar world or back to this world itself once again.
c-I will move to another world and stay there for eternity.
Okay, so let’s discuss the three possibilities. The first assumption is unacceptable as we discussed earlier, because it rips the world from the meaning of justice, and death from any potential meaning whatsoever. The second possibility is also unacceptable. You cannot understand an existence that is in the form of buss stations, all are the very same station, where a man terminates his existence in a place of work, effort, and struggle, after having accumulated a lot of deeds in his lifetime, and just leaves it all behind for the sake of going to the very same place once again, to work and struggle all over again and of course die again. We cannot accept or even imagine an immortal existence in this mortal world, the world of work and effort. So it will be in the form of an infinite sequence of lives and deaths to no end!!
This is even more pointless than the first assumption. What did they die for, if they will be moving to pretty much the same kind of existence? What was the meaning of the first one, and what is the meaning of the second, third or forth? Why leave it when they will be reinserted into it once again?
So we’re left with none but the last possibility. After death, we must be moving to a totally different place. We can see that it will be meaningless if we will have to die again there. So it must be a place that is void of death. We will be immortal. We leave mortality in death, to move to immortality where no death will come by ever again. This is the only possibility that has any meaning, according to pure human logic.
Now regarding the issue of justice, let’s imagine what an immortal life could be like. Here, on earth, if one day I decided I will not move ever again… what will be of me? I will die. I need to move... I have to move, because this is how mortal existence is designed. Everything that no longer moves is dead or is on its way to die. You can’t quit moving, it will be suicide; you really do not have this option here. You have to eat or else you’ll starve and die. You have to pee or else you will get sick. You have to reproduce or else your desires will drive you nuts. You have to avoid dangers and hazards to secure your life. You have to respond to the physical alarm of pain when it hits you, otherwise your system will get damaged. All these are aspects of need and obligation that are foundational to a mortal mode of existence.
On the other hand, in an immortal existence, nothing whatsoever will endanger your life. You will never die again, no matter what you did. No matter what happened to you, nothing will endanger your safety. Thus, there shall be no physical obligation of any kind… you will not grow old because growing, aging and dying are all essential components of being in a mortal existence. Old age is, biological systems perishing, terminating their standard life expectancies. There shall be no such a thing as a standard life expectancy there. There shall be no perishing. If you are to live forever, none of your systems should be allowed to perish. Hence, you will be living an eternal youth; the dream of all poets. You will not need to be alarmed by pain, or tested by anything. It is here in this world, in a place where our systems are so vulnerable and so limited, that we need such alarms and obligations. This is not the case in immortality.
So we can see that laws of nature in an immortal existence have to be profoundly different from those of the mortal existence that we know. Any place we will go to, where we will no longer die no matter what we do, will have to be void of need, danger, dependency, and hence, sickness, disease, pain and trouble ..etc. So we can see, an immortal existence as such is indeed the long forsaken utopia that Charles Moore dreamt of founding on earth. No obligations, no needs. Thus we could say that such an existence is a reward. It has to be so. Indeed, you will find that this makes perfect sense. We come to a mortal life, we work, gain, loose, struggle, anticipating our moment of truth; death, and afterwards, we move to an immortal life where there is no death, no pain, and hence no need to work or exert any effort of any kind. This makes more sense now.
Ultimate justice
However, the next question will be … if the lord has created us in this mortal life in order to work and keep working in a certain way, what does it mean that we all die and move to the same immortal place? Those who worked, and did good in their mortal lives, is it fair that they go to the same place after death as all those who did bad with their lives? Of course not. The creator of justice, who made it an instinct in human notion that cannot be compromised, should be expected to do no less than exemplify it in the purpose and meaning of life and death, the purpose of our entire creation. Death comes to take us, but not all to the same place. Otherwise, why would mortal life be a place of obligation and work? There must be something we are supposed to do with our lives, for which we will be judged in afterlife, and rewarded by the immortal world. What exactly that thing is is not our issue right now. The point is: life must be a test, a big test, one that will be followed with a judgment, and a reward.
There is, as you can see my reader, no escaping this understanding for a picture of justice in the meaning and purpose of death. Life is a test, and death is a transition to the event of judgment, and afterwards to an eternal reward. But then, what about bad people? What about all those who missed out on the purpose of their existence and the meaning of their lives, and never did what they were made in this life to do? What about those who will fail the exam? What happens to them? Of course they should not be expected to go to the immortal existence we are talking about. Will they perish then? Of course not. Perishing in the sense of having one’s existence just end, is as we have seen meaningless, and more important; unjust. It is unfair that a man would make a choice in this life for which he will not be judged after death. It is unfair that man would keep working for sixty or seventy years, without getting a fair trial for every minute that he spent in that long lifetime. We were made to live for all those years before we are taken by death, only because the nature of the assignment demands that.
The question we are supposed to answer in this exam is one that needs to be given an exam time of 40, 50, 60 or seventy years. It is a single question that should take us a lifetime to answer. It is what we were made to do. Those who answered correctly shall be rewarded fairly, and those who couldn’t answer will fail. Those who knew the answer but wasted most of the exam time not doing what they are supposed to do, the exam query, should not be rewarded as those who did the best in their answer all along the exam time. It is unfair that one who answered half of the question would be rewarded as one who answered it all.
We are made to see those basic aspects of justice because that’s what life is really about. Ultimate justice. There must be gradation in reward as much as there is gradation in answers and responses. And more important is, there must be punishment. After life must have a place of punishment, just as there is a place of reward. Those who failed and refused to accept the purpose of their making and the truth about their existence in this world, will have a fair trial, and will not deserve the immortal pleasure. Thus they will have to spend eternity in torment, in a place of punishment.
Justice in its ultimate sense demands that every single deed, thought, word, or action of any kind in this life, be involved in the trial of death. Justice demands that there be not a single second in our lifetimes that is not part of the exam of life. It demands that nothing be excluded from the exam, because whatever exclusions the examiner would make, will be a waste of existence. We cannot claim that the assignment of life is one that should only span a few years, and afterwards, we will be free to do whatever we want to do. This will be unfair, because the restriction to obligation, work, deed, pain and all other elements of the exam in such a way will be meaningless, and even unfair. If the test is over, then why stay in this place any longer?
All deeds that count in favor of the purpose of our making, will raise our points and thus, raise our reward in afterlife, while on the other hand, every deed that does not count in favor, should be a waste, and every deed that contradicts the purpose of our making, drop our reward. Thus there will have to be a sensitive balance for those who believed in it, and who worked accordingly. Those who never knew it, and never accepted it, none of their works or efforts will be of any value, no matter how right or correct they may seem to be to other people. A man may do good on a belief that matches what he is supposed to believe, and another would do good on a totally opposite belief, could they be judged equally? Of course not. The latter just failed the exam. They simply did not do what they did for the right cause. They did not do it with the right understanding of life, and they did not accept the thing they are supposed to accept.
Okay … so what shall we do?
What is this assignment, and what is this exam? Okay. We are talking about knowledge here. We can easily see that man is made to submit to a system of obligatory work and motion, all according to what he knows he should do. We are forced to make choices of what to do, choices that are justified by what we know, and that should serve the meaning of our human being. If what you know is false, then what you believe is false, and naturally, all you will do will either be wrong (in the absolute sense of the word) or serving a wrong cause and purpose; you will fail the test of life. This is how fundamental knowledge is to belief, and belief is to deeds and work, and this is how all elements fit in the image of the purpose of our being here. You need to make sure that what you know about your creator and the reason why he created you in this life is the truth, if you want to grasp the true meaning and purpose of life, and to guarantee a true belief that helps you exert true work that delivers you out of this mortal plane of existence safe and happy.
If anyone should tell you the truth about creation and what you were made to do in this world, for which you will be judged in ultimate justice after death, it has to be the creator himself. There is a certain content of knowledge that we need to obtain in order to pass this test of mortality, and leave this world with a list of deeds that we will be proud to present to our creator, because we will be sure then that this is what he wanted us to do. This is the justifying purpose for man being a creature that needs knowledge, and that cannot do anything without it. If we have to make a choice of what responsibility to take and what job to accomplish, then we must have the knowledge of the truth, the one that is given to us only by our maker. Philosophers cannot obtain that knowledge on their own as we have seen; they do not even recognize the absolution of the truth anymore. The mind may realize what it needs to know, but would still need to get that knowledge delivered to it.
Life is all about a mission, one that we need to know and learn, accept and believe, in order to pass the test. It is a mission that we should assign ourselves to, a mission for which the purpose of every form of activity in our lives should be directed, and by which every challenge we see in life could be justified. Every action should count, and every breath should count, and such is how it has to be.
What should that knowledge be like?
We should expect that content of heavenly knowledge we need to learn to fulfill our mission to be perfectly reasonable, with a full explanation to everything, and the absolute wisdom in purpose of creation of everything, good and bad, big and small, all to the wisdom of our own creation, and the purpose of our own existence and the purpose of death, the end of the mission. That knowledge should be expected to be conclusive and fairly detailed, with absolute justice in the value and weight of every form of human activity that we do in life, and its particular price in the afterlife. The creator who installed the love of justice in our human conscience did not do that by chance, and he did not do that so that we would see life and death as “unfair” or unjust. He did that because He wants us to see the truth, to submit to his system of perfect and absolute heavenly justice, and to take in everything he gives us willingly and lovingly.
We must expect that heavenly knowledge to include perfect wisdom and absolute justice by all means and in all fields of human life, we should not accept any less than that. We should not accept a deceiving god, or a coward god, or one that is badmouthed and ill tempered, we should not accept a god who forgets, or a god who makes mistakes. We should take no less than an absolution of perfection by all means.
The mission of life must not be only about the heart and mind, because work is foundational to mortal existence, and it must not be only about work either, because work without a proper purpose and intention is meaningless and a waste of human power. It must be about both at the same time. And it must include a detailed understanding and explanation for how both aspects of human thought, feeling and deed are intertwined, and how heavenly justice will be done for each one of them. A heavenly legislation is supposed to address all aspects of a human individual’s life, as well as those of a human society, and a human nation. It should include all the absolutes that one should learn to do in order to pass the test of life on all scales.
We do not live alone. So the purpose of our being in this world should not be that of an individual living alone. All elements of this existence, positive be they or negative, must have their purpose of existence as part of the purpose of our existence. Every form of pain, agony, and fear are there for a justifiable purpose that fits the purpose of the test of life to humanity. If the mission of man for which he is to be judged after death, was only restricted to his house or the place of his worship for example, then what about the rest of his mortal lifetime, and everything else that he sees in it? Nothing that man sees in this world could be excluded from the purpose of his being, because that would leave it purposeless. Any religious doctrine that renders religion as a mere ritualistic practice behind the doors of temples is indeed not the heavenly knowledge of the creator of life and death. Why did mortal life have to include so much worry, agony, trouble and pain, when it is not part of the test for which you will be judged, and for which it was all created? So the test must include an assignment that is detailed for each and every aspect of the human life.
It is not acceptable in any way to suppose that the creator would make man feel the need for a certain aspect of being like justice, equity, or security, and then deliver a heavenly word that would deny him such an aspect in any way. He would not make us see certain things as obscene and disdainful, and then teach us in his book features of His own being and stories of his prophets that may reflect any of those meanings about his almighty self. He will not test us by denying us physical needs that he made so urgent in our bodies; this can’t be fair. He will not reward us by a state of being we do not know how to appreciate or desire, this can’t be fair either. If he made us in such a way that human deeds in life would vary greatly in quantity and quality, and degrees of belief also would vary considerably, then the reward and outcome should vary greatly as well, otherwise death will be unfair.
Yes truthfulness and strength of belief varies, and grades in people’s hearts. The truest measure for belief is human deeds. A man, who is keen on working for what he believes, is one who has a much stronger belief than one who is less willing to exert any effort for it. The more you find yourself willing to serve that belief and work for it, the more loyal to it this proves you are, and the higher reward you should deserve. Loyalty to a belief is a grade of truthfulness and strength of that belief. On the top of that grade is of course a man who is truly willing to give up his own life in war for the sake of what he believes. This is part of the wisdom in the existence of the concept of war as we discussed in a previous article. There is a gradation in human deeds on all levels, and it should correspond to a gradation in reward and merit in the afterlife. This is a condition for the ultimate justice.
You may wonder now, why wouldn’t our creator come down to show himself to mankind and end this debate and get it done with? Let me ask you then, if He did that, what would be the point in our continuing to live in this miserable limited place? What would be the point in death and judgment? If He wished, the maker of all existence, He could easily strike us a universal event that would show us all a proof, beyond any reasonable doubt, that he exists and that it is He who runs it all, rules it all, and it is He who deserves our submission and worship. We cannot expect that the maker of all this infinite majesty would find it difficult to do that. However, if He did, what then would be the meaning of existence in this life? Why suffer mortality with all its tests and challenges, all its evils and dangers, all its pains and agonies and worries? There will be nothing for us to wait for, no death, no judgment, nothing, because we will all drop to our knees in ultimate obedience and submission right then, and life would no longer be the test that is judged after death.
So you will wonder; how then did he deliver His words to us? If it is a fact that this heavenly knowledge is indeed indispensable for humanity, and that without it, mankind would be lost in theory, doubt and uncertainty, how then did He deliver it to us without showing us His almighty self? Well, this mustindeed be a part of the challenge and the test of life in its perfect plan. Suppose he sent us a supreme being like an angel or so, to deliver this message tohumans, how would that be any different from the outcome of his own descent and incarnation to mankind? Any major supernatural event of planetary or universal dimensions in the act of delivery of this knowledge to humanity will naturally result in terminating the test itself, and leaving no room for those how doubt to doubt, and those who disbelieve to disbelieve. And if that happened, and all humans where made into believers, then it will be unfair as we said earlier for a totally obedient race of absolute believers to continue to suffer this world any longer.
So He must have done it in a way that would add to the challenges of life and the test that humanity is subject to. He must have delivered His word upon selected humans, normal humans like you and me, telling them to teach it to their people. The limitedness of the scale of the heavenly assignment to those selected humans in both space and time can only be understood as a heavenly measure of control that secures the continuity of the challenge of life, and the test it poses on all humans, even those who accepted the message and believed. Any excessively large universal event in connection with the delivery of the word of the creator would destroy the sensitive balance in mortality, and render its purpose obsolete.
The test is not over once you chose to believe. The belief itself has to be tested for fidelity, purity and truthfulness. Life is not a quest of a single act or a single word; it is a quest of a lifetime. You have to prove worthy of an eternity of pleasure, and you got a lifetime of deeds, thoughts, words, and attitudes to do that. The book tells you all you have to do, and you have to be strong and unbreakable in your submission to it, all along your lifetime.
Anyway, those messengers are what we generally know as prophets. They carry the teachings of the creator delivered to them to their people. As we can see, being in such a way, it is obviously a process that is calibrated by the ultimate wisdom of the creator of the test and the judgment. If this is what life is really about, then there can be no other way for mankind to deliver the teachings of its creator but through human prophets.
However, it may be essential for the human group for which the prophet is sent to have him show them a proof to the fact that he is indeed a prophet of thealmighty creator. Thus, there is what we know as the miracle. All prophets had to be given miracles. Those miracles had to be limited in heavenly perfection to the role they have to play for the prophet, without destroying the equilibrium that keeps the test of mortal life in effect.
We should not accept any less wisdom and perfection of knowledge and justice in the plan of mortal life than this.
So the question now will go down to … Who is that creator, and which of the monotheistic books that we know today is that heavenly knowledge that we should embrace?
Okay, let’s find that out …
Okay, before we proceed, I must say that I’m really glad that you are here. I hope you’ve read all the previous pages carefully, and have given them the sufficient amount of thought before you came to this point. I hope you have managed to break your mind free from the bonds of any form of belief you might have had, and that you have not come to any form of biased judgment for what you have read so far. If you have not, then I strongly urge you to go back and read the previous pages one more time.
My dear respectable reader... I know you have the feeling that wisdom does exist... that it is there somewhere, very close, and that all you have to do is just reach out and grab it.. It is indeed… it is actually closer than you think… It is time for your soul search to come to rest, and for you to start finding and learning, You are not one of those who enjoy the searching jut for its sake, and the asking just for the fun of asking!!.. Because if you are, then you shall never find anything… the truth may pass right before your eyes, and yet you would flip it over the way you do with every other manmade proposition of the truth… and then you will never know
You need to establish a deep conviction that there is only one single truth that was not made by man, and that surpasses in terms of knowledge and value, all that man is capable of theorizing. You need to know with certainty that there exists a single system of knowledge that holds true and meaningful answers to all those questions we have gone through in previous sections, and anything else your heart inquires. You need to understand that knowledge was created for a purpose and that purpose is not for man to decide… and that it is not for men to stack tons of books of a miserable quarrel to seek bits and pieces of it and drown in a see of doubt and pain.
You’re not one of those who deny the pain and deep inner grief of emptiness, and pretend with boldface lies that they know who they are or what their lives are about, and keep wandering on every table of human theory taking up whatever suits them, spending their entire lives till death comes to take them, suffering, struggling, sharing their pains, never knowing if what they had was really the truth they were made for, and what they so surely know they will be asked about!...
It is time for you to take absolution instead of relativity of human making, to refer and to return to certainty instead of doubt and theory… It is time for you to feel the pleasure and true sense of security in referring to the knowledge you so surely know is the truth, and nothing ever comes to prove otherwise… Why? Because quite simply it is the truth as you shall see… because if you were true to your self, your heart will hang on to it like it never did with any other form of knowledge… because you will grow wiser than ever, and you will see what you are about. Because you will come to learn a system of knowledge that holds literally all answers… removes all doubts, and connects to your inner self like nothing else you have ever heard or read or felt before… Not a single question of the likes of what we went through in the previous pages or any such questions will be left without a reasonable, totally meaningful and justifiable answer… You will see true and total justice, true and total mercy, true and total grace in the mission you were made for, and in everything else that comes with the test of life…
It is time for you to put every meaning in your life in its right place… the place where it was made to be put… not where another man like yourself hypothesizes and proposes it to be put... this is what death and life were made to test..
Do you want to meet someone who possesses a knowledge that totally fills that void? Do you want to meet someone who knows the meaning of certainty and absolution, and who knows who and what to turn to, and what exactly life is about? Do you want to meet someone who know what feelings were created for, what love was made for, what pain was made for, what hate, war, agony, natural catastrophe, and all else was made for? Do you want to meet someone who has no room in his heart for darkness and doubt?
Yes… Yes my kind reader… I’m sorry I had to write such a long intro to the next part of this article, but you will see in the end that I had to… The knowledge I’m talking about, is not yet another theory or myth... it is a knowledge that not only changes your life, but changes all that comes after your death as well… That void of eternity that is blurred for a majority of the human population makes no sense anywhere else…
It is time for you to marvel the pleasure of knowing the truth, and realizing that to each and every single question your mind can afford to ask about your existence and your mission in life, there is only one singular answer that your heart is created to accept and to so comfortably believe in; that is: the true answer. That answer is sure to rebuild your entire life on the true understanding of what man and existence is all about. It is the one for which all existence was made.. it is what all humanity is tested to testify and adhere to.
Adherence is a test… is you with the only one true system of faith? It is one and the same for all humans that ever came to this planet. They all leave earth to go to the exact same event, and they all have to answer to the exact same test, and the exact, sole and singular maker. No matter how different their ethnicities are, no matter how different their languages are, it is one and the same. It has been thus since the first man to walk this earth, and thus it will be till the last sunset this planet is meant to see. Multiplicity of religion and faith is wrong... Polytheism is fallacy... it has to be... no single question can have a multitude of diverse answers!! There has to be only one absolute and true, final answer to the question of life and death… one that comes from its only true maker, and satisfies the wise and the sane… The challenge and the test of life that justifies death is then in the test to see the truth as it is; the only single truth, to take it in, to embrace it, and to keep working for it and with it for as long as you live…
I’m sure my reader is wondering right now, which of the thousands of Gods he has read about I will be preaching in the next part of this literature, and how I will attempt to prove it to be The One and only true God. As a matter of fact, I will not attempt to prove anything… I will only make a statement of as many parts of the truth as I can in this place… urging you, my kind reader to continue reading, and to follow up on your own... Do your own research on that knowledge... And then decide for yourself if this is the answer for you.
I truly hope that this simple and should I say, truncated presentation of the foundations of the truth that is yet to come in the next part, will have an echo inside of you, and that you already agree to the standards we set in the previous section out of free reasoning and rationalization. The message we will discuss here, is a heavenly message… it is a message of monotheism. It is the Final Testament, believed to be sent to the final messenger of the almighty creator of all existence.
Please allow me and without further ado, to introduce to you, the Almighty Lord of all Existence, Allah… Please let me take the pleasure – for I cannot hide it and need not to - in showing you the way He teaches us about Himself, and reveals His almighty names, properties and powers in the teachings of His Final Testament to mankind.. Let me take pleasure in showing you how everything you expect of the Lord of all existence – praised be His name – is here… right here… Let me take pleasure in showing you how all is answered and accounted for and makes perfect sense in what He teaches and demands of man to do. Let me show you the ultimate fairness and justice and the mercy in the mission of man on earth, the one you have so eagerly desired to learn…
The deity
“Tell them, It is Allah, the singular, the one, he is the omnipotent master above all masters, He never gave birth nor was he ever born, and he is of no equal or parallel.” (Koran, meanings of chapter 112)
As we can see, the creator in this scripture informs us of his oneness, his endless and supreme mastery upon all masters, and that He is of no like, no equal, and that He is high above organic features of his making like getting born or giving birth.
“He is Allah, other than whom no god is the true god, he is the “living who shall never be dead”, the “raiser (holder, supporter, keeper) of all, and is raised or held by none”. No browsing or sleep could ever take him. All that is in heavens and in earth is of His own. No body excuses or pleas for anybody in his dominion but after his approval. He knows all that is before them (his creatures), and all that is on their behind (all that they know, and all that they do not know). They do not get to obtain any part of his knowledge (all knowledge is only his) but after his own will. His “Korsi” (the largest envelope or container that contains all heavens) encompasses all heavens and earth. He is never wearied by preserving them, and he is the highest of all and the greatest of all.” (Koran, meanings of the Korsi verse in the Bakara chapter; 2, 255)
This is the kursi verse, or “ayat al kursi”, it is considered as the most honorable verse in the whole of Koran. As we can see, it describes many features of the might of the lord Allah, and his infinite control over his creations. It mentions the Korsi, which is known by Moslem scholars according to narrations of the prophet Muhammad to be the largest envelope of all universes, those we see, and those which are beyond. Heavens according to Hadith are seven layers or seven envelopes, each one contained inside the next. Our universe is only the first heaven, the lowest heaven, (al samaa uddonia); the one only an extremely small part of which is seen to us. It is but a ring in a wide desert relative to the next heaven. And that in turn is but a ring in a wide desert relative to the next, and so on, until you reach the Korsi, the container of all seven heavens. One cannot even begin to imagine the borders or the size of this universe because the value of infinity has been blocked off our human reason… this is not a problem with our minds.. this is a purposeful act of creation by a Lord who demands man to feel inferior to Him, to feel humble, and to realize how small, how limited, and how needy he is to rely completely on that which is given to him only by His creator, and cannot be obtained any other way. Infinity is a meaningless mental obstacle of mathematics to those who do not know the truth… but to those who do, it makes perfect sense.
The ultimate names of Allah
The prophet Muhammad was narrated to say in Hadith that Allah has ninety nine names, a hundred but one, whoever manages to learn them all, understands them all, and work in accordance to their meanings, will deserve the reward of heaven. Of course he is talking about those who have already chosen to join Islam. Another Hadith shows that those the ultimate names of Allah are infinite, and that those ninety nine names are all that we could obtain from the holly scripture, Koran and Hadith. Moslem scholars worked on obtaining those names, and they worked on rules by which an ultimate name could be defined.
Ultimate names are generally those meanings that are attributed to the almighty self of Allah, every one is a name by which He likes to be called, and each one includes an ultimate meaning of perfection in a certain aspect or property of His almighty self. He teaches that He likes to be called in prayer by those names. Examples of those ninety nine names are:
Arrahman: the source of all mercy and grace
Arrahim: the doer of the greatest acts of mercifulness (the merciful)
Al malek: the king of kings
Al samee’: the one who hears all, in ultimate perfection
Al baseer: the one who sees all in ultimate perfection
Al Kabir: the largest of all
Al hakim: the one with absolute, infinite and ultimate wisdom
Al kareem: the generous in ultimate perfection
Al awal: the first who is preceded by none, and who had no start (unlike any of his mortal makings)
Al akher: the last who is followed by none, and who has no end (infinite in both directions of the scale we call time)
AL Zaher: the one who is not included by his creation or surrounded by his creation.
Al alii: the highest that is above all creation
Al mohaymen: the one who rules it all, controls it all in ultimate completeness and perfection
Al kadeer: the capable in complete and ultimate capability.
Al aleem: the knowing, holder of all knowledge.
Al razek: the one who causes all causes for his creatures to be fed, nourished and secured.
Al khalek: the one who creates all creation (even that which is man made is made by him because he made man and he enabled man to create)
Al shafi: the one who blesses with recovery from sickness and gives the cure
Al sayed: the master, in complete and total mastery
Al rabb: the lord of all creation, whose lordship upon existence is of no limits.
Al elah: the God, the only entity worth being taken for a god.
Al rakeeb: the watcher who observes and misses nothing.
Al mosawer: the creator in perfection, the unmade maker of all that is made, whose creation is still ongoing. Every act of birth is an act of his creation.
Well, those are but some of the meanings that are included as attributes (ultimate names) to Allah in his book, and in Hadith.
I feel it is important to clarify the difference between the book (Koran) and Hadith before we proceed. Koran is the book of Allah delivered to Muhammad as the intact spoken word of Allah that is referred to His almighty self, directly. While Hadith on the other hand, is all words and deeds recorded for Prophet Muhammad by his companions. They are teachings of Islam that are delivered to Muhammad from Allah but not in the form of direct heavenly spoken scripture. Both Koran and Hadith complete one another, and constitute the main and root sources of Islam.
As we have seen, all ultimate names are defined by describing certain aspects, properties or attributes of the almighty self giving them the perfection they reflect, in comparison with limitations inherent in other creatures who may possess a certain degree of any of those attributes. That is to say, we humans have capability and power, but it is limited, and it grades differently among people. The attributes of Allah on the other hand and in comparison, though are similar in their general meaning; they are ultimately different in their ways, scale and value. They are beyond infinite, complete, and ultimate by all means, and there is no room for a comparison or analogy in physical terms of ways and means between for example human power and ability, and the ability and power of Allah.
This law is stated in Koran “there is no like to him and he is the hearer of all, the watcher of all” (Koran, chapter al shoora, verse 11). He sees, but not like we see, he hears but not like we hear, he talks but not like we talk, … etc.
We know that the lord of all existence must not be a lord that perceives singularly on a single focus like we the humans do. He must be capable of seeing you, me, him, them, and everybody all the time simultaneously. So it is not only an infinite vision or eyesight in power, it is also and infinite vision in collectivity and containment of all that happens and runs in the universe at all scales, simultaneously. This infinity is the reason why the human mind is incapable of imagining the physical features of Allah, and it is therefore that Allah forbids humans to attempt to imagine His almighty image or analogize it to any of His creations. His superiority is simply beyond infinity, and that is a place we have not been enabled to go.
Moslem scholars would say that the image of Allah is like no image that has ever popped in anybody’s mind. And we say that it has to be so, otherwise no logic could accept its being endless in all its attributes in such a way. You would see in Koran and Sunna (Hadith) that Allah tells us that He has a face, and that He has a hand, a leg, fingers, eyes, and other such “physical” features. However, the ultimate law is that He is of no like that we have ever seen. Although He has those physical features, we should not view His physical image as made up of parts or members like ours is. He is not “made up” to begin with, and He contains no organs or members like any of His creatures. If the hand of an elephant and that of a man are obviously so different, then what about the hand of the maker of both and everything else?
When He tells us He has a hand and fingers, we should never let ourselves picture that hand, because we will fall in an unacceptable analogy no matter what image we managed to picture in our minds, and no matter how majestic it may be. He tells us that He is of no like, and He made our minds in a format that only operates by means of analogy and comparative reference, so there has to be a restriction upon attempting to imagine his form or physical image, because no matter how hard you try, you will end up with a false image. That false image, as viewed by Moslem scholars will end up spoiling your belief in the endless might of the names of Allah. You obtain images in your mind from things you saw in your life, thus you will never reach anything close to His image. The category of objects in your mind that is referred to as “hand” for example will always give you image feed from all hands you have ever saw… and none of that is anything like the hand of the Lord.
This is how Islam deals with the issue of the physical appearance of the creator of all existence. It is all according to teachings of Allah Himself. In Hadith, it is forbidden that a man would hit another man in the face, because Allah created the human face similar to His own. This Hadith tells us that man has a face, and so does Allah, that man has eyes and so does Allah, but it does not tell us that the image of the human face is analogous to that of Allah, it only tells us that Allah honors the human face because it is similar in meanings, purpose and value not in physical features or image to that of Allah. The image of Allah is far more superior and elite than could be imagined by the limited minds of men.
This is how honorable and perpetually superior the lord is seen in Islamic belief. It is how he honors his almighty self in his own words.
Man, the limited, the unfair, the corruptible
Man is born as a white empty page. He then gets to learn and receive. Knowledge poured in his little head from his parents and the elders around him. He needs to be taught and tutored. He needs knowledge and he depends on it in order to know what to do with his life (purpose of living, ambitions and hopes), what to do on dealing with others around him (moralities and behavior) and to know the right from the wrong and the true from the false. These aspects in a certain human society are generally aspects of general choice and general agreement. If all people in your society believe hat X is right, then to you X will probably be right, unless you managed to prove otherwise.
So to man it is always a question of reference. Referring to what is common among a majority of people to which you belong, in your knowledge and your beliefs, does not mean it has to be the truth. If I told you than an entire town somewhere in the world believes that you are dead, does this mean by necessity that you are dead? This is how limited and dependant man is. He needs to make sure that what he knows is the truth. So it is really amazing that he would claim that truthfulness in all fields of his knowledge but the one that matters the most, the one the defines his life and his death; religion.
Those who claim that all religions are “okay” and that they are all equal in moral regards so it makes no difference which one you choose, are absolutely false. They are destroying the very meaning of the truth itself. There has to be one mission, one assignment, and a single detailed content of knowledge that details it to humanity, and all shall be judged by either submitting or refusing to submit to it. For every exam, there can only be one model answer. Those who match the model answer will pass, and those who don’t will fail. This is the only way ultimate justice could take effect in the story of life and death.
If I went to a court, and in that court there were three or four judged, each one with a book of laws that contradicts with that of the one next to him, and I was judged for an act X by one of the judges as a sinner who should go to hell, and another man was judged by another judge in the same courtyard for the very same act X as a believer who was forgiven before he was born, or as a good believer or whatever else, how would the one lord that we are all supposed to answer to in the day of judgment be a lord of ultimate justice if I went to hell and he went to heaven? How can a single lord, judge us according to different books of laws? And if in one of these books, the lord is viewed as an entity X, and in another he is viewed as an entity Y, which one will be telling the truth? Which one is the book of the lord and heavenly justice to which we all shall be referred in the Day of Judgment? Well it certainly can’t be both. As singular as the lord must be, and as singular as the truth can only be, such is how the book of the lord and of all religion must also be. And this is the meaning that is expressed in Koran that Allah would take no other religion from men but the one he chose for them; that of the final prophet Muhammad. Allah cannot be the lord of complete justice any otherwise.
This feature of human dependence on the knowledge man receives as a child and is brought up upon, is expressed in Koran in many verses. For example, Allah says:
“And if they were told to follow what Allah has delivered to them (the knowledge of the truth), they would say “we follow only that which we have learnt from our parents”. Would they do that even if their parents were incapable of seeing, reasoning or accepting the truth?” (Meanings of a verse in albakara)
The lord proves to mankind how limited and dependant it really is in many verses in Koran similar to the previous one. Who said that your parents must have taught you all that is true and nothing but the truth? What source did they refer to? Isn’t it possible that it might have been a false source of human making? Would you still choose that knowledge they gave you and neglect the truth that is given to you from the source of all truth and absolution? What a pity!
This is how much we the humans need an absolute source of the truth that is not based on theory or speculation but on the truth, period. This is how we were made to be, part of the huge test of life.
This limitedness of humans versus the almightiness of the lord Allah is indeed expressed in many ways in Koran.
“Allah (speaking of himself) is not shamed by giving an example for His mastery in creation in the making of something as small as a mosquito… those who believe do know it’s the truth from their lord, while those who disbelieve will miss the meaning, and would say what kind of an example is this?... Many are driven astray by such simple examples, while others are guided to the truth, and only the corrupt would go astray” (Meanings of verse 26 chapter albakara; 1, 26)
In this statement, we can see how the lord challenges humanity and all its false gods to create something as small as a mosquito. The ultimate wisdom of the creator is expressed in His comment on this challenge that only those who believe or who are willing to believe would take such an example seriously, and would study the lesson that is delivered through it, while others who have already chosen the path of disbelief, will ridicule the example and say to themselves, “what kind of a god would give such an example?”
Well this is the power of such a challenge. He is the maker of all forms of creation, at all scales and levels. When He chooses to challenge you in creating a mosquito, or a fly (as seen in another verse in Koran), He is not making fun of you, or of Himself in any way. He is making a point that should indeed be too clear to mention. He states in Koran that none of the gods that people take for themselves will ever be capable of creating a fly even if they all united on so doing. And it is true. Just look at the compound eye of the fly, can you even begin to imagine what kind of an image the fly sees through it?
He also states that whenever a fly takes something away from you, you cannot take it back; both the quest and the claimer of that quest are too weak. This challenge in Koran about the fly states that once a fly takes something away from you, there’s no getting it back. Once it sets feet on your skin or on your table, you cannot tell what exactly it took away with it as it went off, either in its mouth or on those hairy sticky pads it has for feet. And even if you managed to know what exactly it took away with it, you cannot take it back and put it in its exact previous place; this is the challenge, and it proves that both, you, and the quest of retrieving what a fly took away, are too weak. To Allah, this is of the simplest forms of His creation, but to you, it is an eternal challenge.
The challenge draws the attention of mankind to the truth of the scale of their power and ability relative to the scale of infinite creation and complexity of creation that is mastered only by the almighty creator of all that exists. Man should leave his inherent unknowing arrogance behind and clear his mind to see the truth, reflected in all features of creation that are everywhere around him. The truth is in the horizons and in oneself, but few are those who can see it. This is why we find that in Koran, those who chose disbelief, are usually described as deaf, blind and feeble minded.
“Whether you warn them or not, those who have chosen disbelief will never come to believe. Allah has sealed their hearts, minds, their hearing and veiled their eyesight so they no longer see (those who refuse all simple proofs for the truth are rejected from the lord’s mercy and shall never be blessed the light of belief). Deaf, mute, and blind are they, and they shall never return.” (Albakara, meanings of verses 6 -8). And in another verse you find “Deaf, mute, blind are they, so they never reason” in their description.
They have no reason because they have decided to “relativize” the meaning of the truth and destroy its absolution. They have been searching for centuries for what is really too obvious to be deemed inexistent and unreachable in such a way. When you claim you cannot see something as obvious as your own hand, then you are either crazy or blind. Thus is how philosophers and the “sages” of disbelief are with the truth. Disbelievers are deaf because they would rather listen to all forms of fallacy, manmade theory and limited hypothesis than listen to one word of the ultimate truth, or even accept to recognize it for what it is, and they are blind because they look around them and they don’t even see a single proof to the endless mastery of a supreme creator that should be praised and submitted to. And they never reason because if only once they reasoned, they will see the truth and will accept nothing in its stead. You may be amazed by all those scientists who praise and may actually worship a god that they call “mother nature”, for whom (or for which?) all forms of intelligent and perfect creation and order in existence they would attribute. Well, don’t be. they are blind enough to not see the disastrous nature of that claim they hold, and they are absentminded to the extent of claiming a perfect system to have made itself through chaos and random. When they see a supreme feature of perfection in nature they feel humble to nature itself not to the maker of nature, as though it had no maker, and as though it came to exist by chance, according to the teachings of evolution.
All these meanings and properties of those who disbelieve are expressed thoroughly in Koran. They are the true losers in this world, because they have chosen to take all they can take in a limited, unworthy plane of existence, in a limited lifetime no matter how long it lasts, and wasted an eternity of pleasure that is prepared for the winners who have seen the truth, and have realized the meaning of life and death, and the true purpose of their creation. No matter how much they earn in life, they will leave it whether they like it or not. It will be scattered upon other people after they are gone, whether they like it or not. It is a pity that this is what life is all about for them, but they do not know. They are enslaved by their greed and lust, and they do not know.
When in the midst of the sea or the ocean, and a heavy storm strikes your ship, can you not see then, right then, how limited and dependant you are on the powers of the lord of all being? In the middle of the storm you acknowledge your need for the aid of “god”, pray to him truly, and once delivered to the shore safe and sound, you go like nothing happened. Is this fair? This is an example in Koran that shows how unfair man is to himself. Allah is not in need for any of us, or for the worship and praise we may give Him. He says that if all humanity was united on the most faithful belief ever, that wouldn’t add to his kingdom anything, and if all humans where united on the most impudent disbelief ever, that wouldn’t drop His kingdom in anyway. So when you turn your back away to him and face whatever else you praise or worship in your life, as soon as He delivers you safe from a near death experience, you are not doing injustice to Him, but to yourself. Because His laws of justice would demand that you be punished for that stupidity and unfaithfulness, and He wouldn’t loose a single thing if all humanity ended up eternalized in hell. It is a test, and those who will pass will pass, and those who will fail will fail, no matter how many they will be.
In fact it is a universal law in the creation of Allah, that those who truly believe would always be the minority on earth, not the majority. “Only the minority of people will believe no matter how hard you tried (talking to Muhammad)”
Allah sends the rain, He raises the dead, He flourishes plant form a dead soil (all we actually do there is through the seeds, irrigate the land, and wait), He holds the earth and the sun in place, keeps them running timely and perfectly, keeps all order and system for our favor, all for what? For humans to give their back to Him and worship creatures of His making?
Allah says that “we (speaking of Himself) have honored man, and carried him on earth and in water (lifted him on horses and camels, and enabled him to invent ships and vehicles)” In this verse and in many others we can see that Allah tells us that every creature and every feature of creation on earth has been enabled to serve our purpose, and that this is the way He honored us. Those who disbelieve however would insist that man is the descendant of apes and that he came to this life by chance, not knowing why or where to.
Human nature and the nature of Heavenly knowledge
The story of mankind is a story of a race that was given knowledge from its maker… then they forgot… they were tempted into altering their given knowledge, and into making up stories and legends of false deities to fill the voids they lost, wasted or altered. (Either deliberately or unintentionally), they followed their fleshly desires, and hence needed to be reminded over and over again by messengers and prophets… Nations rose and fell and messengers and prophets walked this earth to warn, remind and to promise... Men had to get their wisdom refreshed repeatedly and their faith in the Single Lord restored. Thus, there was a number of prophets and messengers from the single Lord… every one of them, either came to remind people of the message that was delivered to the latest messenger, or to deliver them a new message, a new law and a new book all together. All messages were but the same religion… the exact same message, only with different details of assignment to their subjects. That message is the sound belief in the unity and singularity of the Lord, His ultimate power, the total surrender to His rule and His worship, and the refrain from falling in false beliefs and false worships to false gods.
So there came more than one heavenly book of knowledge and wisdom… the last and most famous three of which were the Torah or the Old Testament, which was corrupted, and thus came the Bible or the New Testament, which was also corrupted, and finally came the Koran, the Final Testament from the Lord of all Lords to all mankind, and that was it. There is no other messenger that is yet to come, no other message that is yet to be delivered from heaven above.
Thus, the Final Testament had to be honored by a miracle of preservation… because no other messenger or prophet will ever come before the End Time to fix all the wrongs and errors that will surely come to fall in the heavenly book and the way people understand it and work with it. It is a human nature to alter, err, spoil and forget… thus, there had to be new unprecedented means of preservation (with miraculous dimensions) to emerge with the Final Testament, or else, people late near the End Time will find themselves holding to yet another false corrupted book with no more prophets to readjust the path. Only a little part of this miracle is the fact that the book itself, Koran, has been kept untouched for over fourteen centuries. Koran today is exactly the same way it was in the hands of Messenger Mohammad (Prayer and blessing be Upon Him), and exactly the same it is everywhere in the world. As you read further on in your own research you will see how other foundations of this religion, like Sunna and Hadith have been so miraculously preserved to this day, and to the end of time, by means no other nation in the history of man has ever seen.
The quest of life
The quest of life is simply put as: believe in Allah, and no other god, praise Him solely, love him above all love, submit to Him and to Him only, fear none but His might, dream of none but what He has promised you, take His codes and commands, brought to you by His prophet Muhammad, unto your life in each and every little detail, and keep yourself committed to Him for as long as the exam duration, your lifetime lasts. This is indeed the meaning of Islam, the Arabic word. It means to give oneself up completely to the will of Allah, and to His command.
“I created Jinn and man for no purpose other than worshipping me” This is how the clearly and simply the purpose of our creation is stated in Koran. Every single deed you do in life is worship to Allah if it goes in accordance, and not in contrast with His laws and commands, and as long as it is done on a purpose and intention that aims at His content, and only His content.
Humans who do not know the truth are categorized in Islam as “mushriks”. A mushrik is someone who does not worship Allah, or who praises, loves, respects, and submits to someone or to something more than he does to Allah, or as much as he does to Allah. They do acknowledge the power of a divine entity, and they do admit the way it controls their lives, but they would refuse to know the truth about that entity, and would pay full loyalty, homage, and utter respect (elements of worship) to a god of their making. That god may be their career, their boss, an idol image of a singer or a movie star (being a fan), their fortune, business and money, or their sexual desire and their women… etc. There is indeed an endless number of false gods to which man would let himself fall as a slave if he chose not to accept the bare truth.
Slavery as we discussed in an earlier section is a natural inherent property in man. It ws made in man for the sake of the challenge. Who will it be directed to, and where will it drive him? Will it drive him to the worship of the only true god, or will it drive him to worship something else, whatever that may be?
This wisdom is seen clearly in Hadith in the famous statement that Muhammad used to say to people he invited to Islam as He presented it to them: “We came to turn you from slavery to slaves and creatures, to slavery to the lord of all slaves and creatures.”
As simple and clear as this statement appears to be, it summarizes the meaning of everything that Islam stands for. Destruction of all forms of slavery to everything in life, and turning worship and praise to none but to Allah, the lord of all lords, is indeed the most honorable form of slavery man may choose for himself, and it is, in the correct sense of the meaning, the only honorable form of freedom that man deserves, to free himself from bonds of the low and the unworthy.
The lord, the maker of man, should not ask as to do what we cannot bear to do, it will be unfair. “Does he not know what and who he created” (meanings of a verse in chapter almolk)
He knows it all. He made us and he knows what’s best for us. The ultimate wisdom in what is right and what is wrong comes only from Him for that very simple reason. We must understand that the laws he delivered to us, are the ultimate and the best on all scales and accounts, because He knows better. The only way to pass the test of life, and which goes in perfect accordance with the purpose of our making, and all the needs, natural desires, instincts and necessities we have been made to seek in life, that he made inherent in our nature, is the way He draw in perfect detail in Islam. He wouldn’t ask us to abandon sexual desires for example, because it will be unfair, and in the mean time he does not allow us to turn it into a zoo; he tells us the best ways to control and put everything in its right place.
He says “Allah does not ask a man to do more than he bears to do”, and it is true. Studying the nature of the legislation of Islam, one could easily see how a community that is bond to true worship to Allah would actually enjoy the ease of His legislations and the ways they take to secure perfect protection of Moslems against everything that displeases their lord, or that may corrupt the purity of their belief and their submission to it.
Be truthful, and submit truly. That’s the only way for salvation in mortal life.
All humans are equal to Allah, He does not favor one race over others, and He does not raise a group of people upon others. He only raises those who submit to Him truly, regardless of the color, tongue, ethnicity, nationality, origin, etc.
In Islam, you are supposed to believe in a few basic pillars before you move on to details:
Allah, his almightiness, His wisdom, and His purpose in all creation.
The messenger Muhammad, and the truthfulness of His message, and his being the last of all messengers and prophets.
All other messengers and prophets prior to Muhammad, starting from our father Adam.
All previous books to Koran and messages from Allah to all previous messengers (the stories of which is told in Koran)
Angels (superior beings of light who are ultimately obedient to Allah and who do only as they are told)
The Day of Judgment, when the time will come, all life on earth will be seized and all the dead will be resurrected to stand to the lord in judgment, and their eternal fates will then be decided.
Okay, you must be wondering right now, how am I supposed to believe in earlier books then Koran, like the bible and the Torah, when it is clear to me now how false and corrupt they are? Fact of the matter is, Moslems are not supposed to take the bible of today for the true bible that was sent to the messenger E’eesa (Jesus), neither are they supposed to take the old testament for the true book of messenger Moses. They should believe that those books are currently corrupted, and that though they may contain scripture that was indeed delivered by Allah; the majority of the books are otherwise corrupted.
Every prophet was sent at a certain time to a certain people, and with the pass of time, the message he carried to them was spoilt and corrupted. Part of the corruption may take place unintentionally as humans would forget and waste knowledge with the pass of ages. Another part would take place intentionally, as it is known about the people of Israel to have corrupted a lot of messages, tampering and manipulating at will. Allah has cursed them and punished them many times for so doing.
Anyway, the point is. If scriptures of Moses were meant by Allah to be kept preserved and unchanged, why would Allah choose to send other prophets to the people of Israel? What does this prove? Koran tells us that all prophets come to their people with a single and clear message: “worship Allah and no other”. This means that in fact, regardless of the nature of detailed legislations, every messenger and prophet that Allah sent to mankind was by necessity a messenger of Islam (perfect and total submission). Ultimate justice holds that the meaning and purpose of life that was chosen for humans before us, should be the same as that chosen for us today. Ever since the making of Adam, man was always supposed to do one thing, and one thing only, to submit to the will of Allah, and to nothing else besides it.
But for how long did old nations of Allah keep themselves committed to that heavenly objective? They wouldn’t need so many prophets to remind them of that heavenly law, the first law of all laws, if they had remained utterly true to it. A prophet would revive the legislation that was delivered to the last messenger before him. Every messenger was given a legislation that suits the purpose of its time, place and conditions. Moses had his legislations, and so did Jesus. However, those of Muhammad, are the last of all heavenly legislations to the whole of mankind.
Every book of legislation is supposed to terminate the one that is prior to it. It wouldn’t make sense or the least meaning of justice as we pointed out earlier that mankind would be judged by two different books of laws at the same time. If the Jews were true to their covenant with Allah, they would have all accepted the new legislation that came to them with Jesus the messiah, but they did not. Such is the case with both Jews and Christians regarding the legislation of Muhammad. He came to correct those corruptions that took place to the pillars of belief of the Christian and Jewish doctrines, and to guide the whole of humanity to the new universal religion that is the final of all testaments and religions to mankind. No further messengers or prophets will ever come till the day of doom. This is the religion that all mankind is supposed to hold, with no exception, all the way till the end of days, and it is the one they will be judged by.
Since the message of Muhammad is the final message and no other prophet or messenger is to come after him, there had to be certain measures that Allah would take to keep it preserved, unaltered or changed, unlike previous messages. There may not be room in this article to detail such measures as observed by Moslem scholars. However, we will say that Koran was the greatest miracle of Muhammad, just like every other prophet had a miracle for his people in his time. Allah said “we have sent this book (meaning Koran and Sunna) and we will keep them preserved”
And indeed they are preserved. The book you see today, the holly Koran, is the exact same book that was delivered to Muhammad over fourteen centuries ago. It is preserved not only in scripture, but in form, sound and meaning. Even the rules of its reading and chanting (tajweed) have never changed since the first day the prophet Muhammad himself read the very first verse of Koran to his companions.
Work and effort
It was narrated that Anas ibn Maalik (may Allah be pleased with him) said: The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “There is no Muslim who plants something and birds or people or animals eat from it, but he will have the reward of charity for it.” Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 2195; Muslim, 1553
Everything that man does, has its particular and clear reward in Koran and Sunna. The mercy of Allah is seen in the great law that He taught us; every hasana (good deed according to the measures of legislation) is to be rewarded ten times as much as its direct value, while every (saye’a) (bad deed) is to be punished in accordance with its value.
Even when you grow and intention or plan to do a good deed and you don’t do it, Allah is generous enough to reward you for it as though you did it, while a bad deed is not punished and recorded as a (saye’a) unless it was executed.
It is in terms of good deeds and bad deeds, good intentions and bad intents that ever single event and moment that passes in your life is analyzed and is judged under the complete justice and overwhelming mercy of the almighty lord.
Evil, pain, and suffering, and the test of life
The exam of life is indeed not an easy exam. You have to have a lot of patience and a lot of endurance, in order to treat your heart with continuous submission to Allah. Life includes a lot of agony, pain, evil and bad in all forms. And true believers are a minority in the face of indeed a wild majority of disbelievers that would rather have them all eliminated. This is how life was designed. A great test not only for submission, but for patience.
“And certainly, We shall test you with something of fear, hunger, loss of wealth, lives and fruits, but give glad tidings to As Saabiroon (the patient).
Who, when afflicted with calamity, say: ‘Truly, to Allah we belong and truly, to Him we shall return.’
They are those on whom are the Salawaat (i.e. who are blessed and will be forgiven) from their Lord, and (they are those who) receive His Mercy, and it is they who are the guided ones”
[al-Baqarah 2:155-157]
“Do people think that they will be left alone because they say: ‘We believe,’ and will not be tested.
And We indeed tested those who were before them. And Allah will certainly make (it) known (the truth of) those who are true, and will certainly make (it) known (the falsehood of) those who are liars, (although Allah knows all that before putting them to test)”
[al-‘Ankaboot 29:2-3]
“Do you think that you will enter Paradise before Allah tests those of you who fought (in His Cause) and (also) tests those who are As Saabiroon (the patient)?”
[Aal ‘Imraan 3:142]
“And know that your possessions and your children are but a trial and that surely, with Allah is a mighty reward”
[al-Anfaal 8:28 – interpretation of the meaning]
“and We shall make a trial of you with evil and with good. And to Us you will be returned”
[al-Anbiya’ 21:35 – interpretation of the meaning]
“See they not that they are put in trial once or twice every year (with different kinds of calamities, disease, famine)? Yet, they turn not in repentance, nor do they learn a lesson (from it)”
[al-Tawbah 9:126]
“And verily, We will make them taste of the near torment (i.e. the torment in the life of this world, i.e. disasters, calamities) prior to the supreme torment (in the Hereafter), in order that they may (repent and) return (i.e. accept Islam)”
[al-Sajdah 32:21 – interpretation of the meaning]
The Prophet Muhammad said: “No misfortune or disease befalls a Muslim, no worry or grief or harm or distress – not even a thorn that pricks him – but Allah will expiate for some of his sins because of that.”
He also said that “paradise is surrounded by displeasures on earth, and hell is surrounded by pleasures”. This means that you will have to endure a lot of tests indeed if you will prove worthy of an eternity of endless pleasures in heaven. Nothing is for free and you can see how life is programmed so that it would teach us all this meaning.
So in the plan of life, we can easily see how everything has a meaning, purpose and makes indeed perfect sense. It is ultimate justice by all means.
Heaven
Heaven or paradise is a place that is as wide as all heavens and earths, where good believers would spend an eternity in all forms of joys and pleasures, both physical and psychological. We are told in Koran and Sunna that man will be resurrected in a new creation, in a new body, that is superior to the one he had in mortal life. Of course it is only natural that a mortal body that is made up of mortal matter will be different from that which would stand immortality. Believers will enjoy all pleasures they sought in life and much more. They will be blessed a feature of physical pleasure that cannot be part of a mortal system of existence; that is purity. Pleasure will be pure in the sense that you never get bored, and you are not in need. You do not attend to food because you got hungry and you had to eat, but because you enjoy eating immensely, and that is all there is to it. There is no obligation, only joy and pleasure. All physical pleasures are to be experienced in a totally different way, one that would give them a totally different taste.
Allah says “all those pleasures are going to be given to the believers all pure in the afterlife”. Purity of pleasure is something that we the humans actually cannot imagine no matter how hard we tried, because it is something the like of which we have never seen, and we cannot imagine something we have never seen.
In Koran and Sunna, Allah would tell his believers of the maidens of heaven that are far more beautiful than any female that have seen, and equally is the pleasure that female believers are to be given, men will be given a power of manhood that is out of all scales any female could dream of in this world. All is to be rewarded in extreme generosity.
He would tell about rivers of honey, rivers of milk, and the rivers running in the gardens of heaven, he would tell about palaces of gold and almond, and of green velvety fabrics, soft and smooth like nothing man has ever seen. This is the creator of all pleasure, and it is the place where He rewards those who believed in him truly, and took all there is to take for the sake of that belief, what less shall you expect there?
He also says that heaven is in levels, it is not all the same level. The distance between every level in heaven and the next is as wide as the walk of fifty thousand years. The lowest level of all, according to Hadith, is a place where a man could have the treasures of all kings of the earth, up to ten times as much as that. Every merit of deeds and beliefs is to be rewarded in correspondence in the right level where the mercy of Allah, and His ultimate justice would decide.
In heaven, you can ask for whatever you dream to have, and you will have it right then. It is a place where man is also given, according to Hadith, what no eye has ever seen, and no ear has ever heard, and what has never even come into the imagination of any human being. Go for as far as you can go with your imagination, much more and better is what one will find there.
Is a place as such, not worth dying for?
Okay … let me say no more …
I Hope my kind reader you can see now that the meaning of life and death, and everything else in this life is perfect and complete in a consistent frame of ultimate justice, and that all criteria we discussed for a true religion of the lord of all existence, are met in no system of knowledge other than Islam. Everything has an absolute purpose, meaning and wisdom of creation nowhere but in the book of Islam. Koran must be the word of the almighty, and Muhammad, must be His prophet to the torn mankind. Search no more gentlemen… Have a pause right here, and start reading about Islam. Forget about everything you have ever heard or read about it so far, and keep in mind that enemies of the truth, slaves of money, blind power and lust, will fight hard as hell to keep the light of the truth from dominating, simply because every human being is made to fight for his master and for what he believes. This is all part of the test, shall the holders of the truth, give up on it, because they are met by so much hate everywhere in the world? They loose it all, if they ended up doing so.
You do not need to know who I am, all I will say is that I am a Moslem, and my deepest desire to save you my reader, is the reason why I felt the urge to give you this rather long advice. I have followed this approach with you, on the hope that you would look deep within your soul, underneath all beliefs you have been taught as a child, and grasp the brightright that Allah has installed within you, the one that has been buried under so much fallacy, loss, and waste of human heart.
You are still alive… death has not yet come to take you. Perhaps the lord has finally chosen to salvage you, in the true meaning of the word, and save you from yourself, and the effect of all those who don’t know, and who don’t want to know, everywhere around you. I urge you to read about Islam, but not in the books of Jews or Christians. Not in the books of politicians, business lords or sociologists. Read about Islam in the works of its scholars that carry the detailed wisdom and meanings of Koran and Sunna and everything that Islam is about. Read, think deep, and make your choice … the choice of a lifetime… may Allah guide you to the right path after all…
You may refer to the following links to get to know more about Islam:
I advise you dear to read this small book on-line
http://www.islam-guide.com/islam-guide.pdf
and
http://www.harunyahya.com
and
http://63.175.194.25/index.php?ln=eng
(This is a very good website about Islam in the form of questions and answers in all fields of life. I do urge you to roam around in there.)
and
http://english.islamway.com/
If you wish to contact me, please mail me on:
almondlastson@hotmail.com
or
smiling4ever222@yahoo.com