Why were all the worlds and the creation (that which we see and that which
is hidden from us) created?
In
the Holy Quran, Allah has said "(Oh Muhammad), Say: "If ye
do love God, Follow me:God will love you and forgive you your sins:
For God is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful." (Holy Quran 3:31 Aly
Imran).
In a Holy Saying (Hadith Qudsi),
the Beloved Allah gives us the answer. Allah says "I was a Hidden
Treasure and I loved to be known so I created the creations and through
Me they knew Me" (Faby 'arafouni).
The cause of our existence and
the existence of all creations is Pure, Divine Love. To rediscover this
Love we have to look closely and investigate deeply. If we contribute
towards bringing this Divine Love to realisation, no matter how insignificant
our effort may seem, it could be the one that tips the scale - for it
is not quantity but rather the quality of the action which counts. We
truly believe that if we start on a sound foundation, based on Divine
Guidance and teaching, our chances of success will increase a million
fold.
The Holy Prophet of Allah has said
to his companions, "How I long for my brothers who have not come
yet. They said: Are we not your Brothers, O Messenger of Allah? He replied:
No, you are my Companions . . . how I long for my brothers who have
not come yet. They said: Are we not your Brothers, O Messenger of Allah?
He replied: No, you are my companions. How I long for my brothers who
have not come yet! They asked: Who are your brothers? He replied: A
people who come at the end of the cycle, of whom the spiritually active
one shall have seventy times as much (spiritual awareness, knowledge
and ma'arifa) as you have. They asked: Seventy times as much as we have
or they have? He replied: As you have. They asked: Why? He replied:
Because you find assisstance in doing good, and they find no assistance."
(The Grace that the Beloved Allah will shower upon those who consciously
and spiritually struggle).
And we are living in this cycle.
There is no compulsion in religion;
guidance and error have been clearly distinguished; he who rejects false
deities and believes in Allah has a hold on a secure handle which shall
never break, and Allah is All-Hearing, All Knowing Holy Qur'an [2:256]
And he who submits himself to
Allah, intelligently and knowingly, has grasped the secure handle and
to Allah everything shall return Holy Qur'an [31:22]
Say: We believe in Allah, and
that which has been bestowed from on High upon us, and that which has
been bestowed upon Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob and their
descendants, and that which has been vouchsafed unto Moses and Jesus
(Isa), and that which has been vouchsafed to all the other Prophets
by their Sustainer: we make no distinction between any of them. And
it is unto Him that we surrender ourselves. Holy Qur'an [2:136]
"Take off then thy shoes."
Holy Qur'an [20:12] (Discard your misconceived ideas and pre-conceived
ideas)
And the Supreme Being, the Beloved
Allah told His Beloved in the Last Revelation to the creations, the
Holy Qur'an: "Say O' Muhammad, 'O' Mankind, verily I am Messenger
of Allah to all of you, sent by Him unto Whom the dominions over the
heavens and the earth belongs.
There is no deity save Him. He alone grants life and death. Believe,
then, in Allah and His Messenger, the Unlettered Prophet who believes
in Allah and His Words, and follow him, so that you may find Guidance."
Holy Qur'an [7:158]
Our visiting friend, greetings
of peace to you and to us.
You have come upon the Almiraj
Sufi and Islamic Study Centre, which is by sheer Divine Luck, or by
destiny. If you wish to continue, read on.
We are giving the glad tidings
to humanity by saying that the pinnacle of Divine Teaching and Message
to all creations is complete. The cycle has reached its end and the
experience and the transformation which humanity in particular has experienced
through the duration of 124,000 Prophets and Messengers of the Beloved
Allah, from Adam, the first Prototype, Human Being, and Prophet of Allah,
to the Illustrious and Luminous and the Last Prophet and Messenger of
the Supreme Being, the Universal Man, the Chosen One, the Merciful,
the Kind, the Lover and the Beloved of Allah, Ahmad Muhammad al- Mustafa,
may the Salutations and Peace be upon him every time he is mentioned
by those who love him consciously, and every time he is not mentioned
by those who do not mention him deliberately.
The Supreme Being said in regard
to this luminous gift: "I have not sent thee except as a mercy to all the worlds."
Holy Qur'an [21:107]
And the Holy Prophet said: "I
am a gift of Mercy."
If you explore this gift of mercy
and look to the beautiful heart teaching with open eyes, you will find
this wonderful love and fresh teaching has barely opened itself and
the Beloved Allah is still continuous in showering and manifesting His
Divine Love and Illuminations on all creations. The Final Message of
Allah, the Holy Qur'an, in its descent is complete and final, but infinite
in the unfolding. This is because the essence of this Message is within
the Essence Itself, and its beauty is never-ending. The Beloved Allah
has told us, "Allah is Beautiful and He loves Beauty."
What we are saying is this,
It is the responsibility of every
one of us, man and woman to take stock of ourselves, not to counterfeit
ourselves and sell ourselves short in this age of technology and accessibility
to Pure Divine Love and Knowledge.
Do not blame your parents, or your
personality, or society, or your geographical location in the world
or your so-called karma, or anybody else for what you are.
The Beloved and Merciful Allah
gave every man and woman the opportunity to undo what has been done
and unshackle the chains through genuine exercise of determination.
Through this teaching, you will be able to have access to and unveil
the realities of all and to know your purpose in life.
So, determined will is what the
Beloved and Merciful Allah has placed within you. When you tune your
will to the Will of the Beloved Allah, you will experience the wonderful
illuminations of Unity of Time, Unity of Place, and Unity of Essence.
In a nutshell, you learn the art
of surrendering your will to the Beloved Allah.
In a Holy saying Allah says, "Heaven
and earth contain Me not, but the heart of my faithful slave contains
Me." To be a slave to the Supreme Being and to work towards this
aim is much better than to be slave to everything else; that is our
self-love, material enslavement, and all other forms, psychological
or physical enslavement that we are directly or indirectly conscious
of. To be a slave of One is better than to be a slave of many and this
is where our Freedom lies. Then we will understand when Allah said,
" I am with the person who remembers Me."
We are in the end of the Cycle,
but not the end of time! Now is the time for every human to make the
effort towards becoming a fully conscious Human Being. Our time has
arrived and the New Dawn has arisen. Decision making is a duty and the
responsibility of your own self, before your Creator and before the
creations, large and small, is to think, and what you think you should
say, and what you say you should do and what you do should bring success,
love, harmony, knowledge, illuminations, gentleness, kindness, humbleness,
generosity and a well-adjusted self and a balance to yourself and to
all creations. This is called the Real Islam, or you could say the Total
Surrender, Tasawwuf, the complete art of purification and transformation.
So now it is time to decide, my
dear brothers and sisters in humanity, about your purpose in this life.
Are you going to be the problem or the solution to the modernisation
and heedlessness that has lead to this world crisis? Are you going to
strive towards the success of civilised, not just modernised, humanity?
One should investigate, without
prejudice or preconceived ideas and with the greatest respect to the
methodology and teaching and the Complete Message of the Way of the
Greatest Master of all ages and of all times, the Holy Prophet Muhammad
Rasulullah, the Luminous One, the Universal Man and the Beloved of the
Beloved, may the endless Salutations and Blessings be upon him as long
as there is a grain of sand on earth and orbiting stars in the heaven.
Ahmad, he is the Key to the Mystery of all, in its inwardness, and in
the inward of the inwardness.
The Beloved Allah has told us in
His Holy Words in the Blessed Qur'an: "And always does He give you all of what you ask of Him and
should you try to count Allah's blessings, you could never compute them."
[14:34]
And the Beloved of Allah, the Holy
Prophet Muhammad has said:
"The best which I have brought and all the Prophets before me is
"La ilaha il Allah." (There is no god but Allah and Muhammad
is the Seal of the Prophets and the Messengers of Allah).
La ilaha IL Allah
Muhammad ar-Rasulullah
This is the Key to reach the
Ultimate Aim.
With Unity of Self
Unity of Time, Unity of Place
And Unity of Essence.
To understand this Unity, we have
to dive into the Core of the Heart teaching of Islam, which is known
throughout the globe from the earlier times of Islam, as Tasawwuf, or
Sufism.
It wasn't always the case that
the exoteric and the esoteric were taught separately; both were taught
by the Holy Prophet to his companions.
Tasawwuf is an integral part of
the Holy Prophet's teachings to all creations and this Method has the
capability and the means to transform the twenty-first century of humanity
to luminous Human Beings full of love and care for one another and for
this wonderful planet that we live on. The Method is not difficult or
complicated. It is finding the elusive self.
The Merciful Allah has told us
that this transforming self has seven stages of consciousness and they
are all mentioned in the Blessed Qur'an. Their precise names are detailed
as well, but all we need is the knowledge because whoever is revived
by knowledge will never die, that is, the Real Knowledge of Divine Love.
We are detailing the seven states
to give an idea of what we are talking about and how one could find
the source of the Sufi Teaching in the Holy Qur'an.
THE FIRST
State of Belief: Islam (Outward
Submission)
"The desert
Arabs say "We believe" ['amana'] say: Ye believe not, but
rather say, we submit [aslama] for the faith hath not yet entered your
hearts." Holy Qur'an [49:14]
State of the Self:
Nafs al-Ammara (The Animal Self/The Ego Self)
"The (human)
soul is certainly prone to evil" Holy Qur'an [12:53]
THE SECOND
State of Belief: Iman (Belief)
"Each one
(of the men of faith) believeth in Allah and His angels, His books,
and His Messengers." Holy Qur'an [2:285]
State of Self: Nafs al-Lawwama
(The Complaining Self)
"And I do
call to witness the self reproaching spirit: (eschew evil)"
Holy Qur'an [75:2]
THE THIRD
State of Belief: Ihsan (Perfection)
"Verily
in the Messenger of Allah ye have a beautiful example…"
Holy Qur'an [33:21]
State of Self: Nafs al-Mulhamma
(The Inspired Self)
"By
the soul and the proportion and order given to it;
and its enlightenment as to its wrong and its right."
Holy Qur'an [91:7-8]
THE FOURTH
State of Belief: 'Ilm al-Yaqin
(Knowledge of Certainty)
"Nay, if
you could understand with an understanding of certainty" Holy Qur'an [102:5]
This knowledge comes from hearing about the Divine Love.
State of the Self: Nafs al-Mutma'inna
(The Self at Peace)
"(To the
righteous soul will be said): O' (thou) soul in (complete) rest and
satisfaction." Holy Qur'an [89:27]
THE FIFTH
State of Belief: 'Ayn al-Yaqin
(The Eye of Certainty)
This knowledge comes
from seeing the Light of Love with the Inner Eye (Basirah). "Moses said to his household, verily, beyond all doubt, I have
seen a fire. I will bring you
tidings of it (i.e.: 'ilm al-yaqin) or I will bring you a flaming brand
that ye may warm yourselves (i.e.: 'ayn al-yaqin)" Holy Qur'an
[27:7]
State of Self: Nafs al-Radhiyya
(The Well-Pleased Self)
"Come
back thou to thy Lord - well pleased (thyself)"
Holy Qur'an [89:28]
THE SIXTH
State of Belief: Haqq
al-Yaqin (The Truth of Certainty)
To be consumed
by the Divine Love. To become one with Reality. "When Moses came to the Fire, a Voice was heard, 'O' Moses,
verily, I am thy Lord. Therefore put off they shoes, thou art in the
Sacred Valley Tuwa." Holy Qur'an [20:11-12]
State of Self: Nafs al-Mardhiyya
(The Well-Pleasing Self)
"And
well-pleasing unto Him." Holy Qur'an
[89:28]
THE SEVENTH
State of Belief: The Pinnacle of
Islam - Total Submission to Allah
Islam - the very
essence of Islam is istislam which is going
to meet the Divine Will in utter compliance. "Behold, his Lord said to him (Ibrahim), "Surrender,"
he said,
'I have surrendered to the Lord of all Worlds." Holy Qur'an
[2:30]
State of Self: Nafs
al-Kamila (The Perfect Self)
The Life of the
Senses (Hayat ash-Sha'ur) "Enter thou then, among My slaves." Holy Qur'an [89:29]
The Seven stages of journeying
to Allah come under slightly different names, such as:
1. Journeying to Allah
2. Journeying for Allah
3. Journeying under the care of Allah
4. Journeying with Allah
5. Journeying within Allah
6. Journeying from Allah
7. Journeying by Allah
Islam and the Psychological/Spiritual Teaching of Islam has a beginning,
but has no end to its unfolding. The Holy Prophet has demonstrated,
by the Grace of the One Who is All-Seeing and All-Hearing, the spiritualization
of all his self on the Night of Ascension (Isra wa-l Mi'raj). He traveled
through time and space physically to show that the Human Being has the
potential to do the same. It could be achieved if we are all for Allah,
then Allah will be for us.
That is to die before you die,
or as the Saints of Allah say, "O' friends, if you seek life, then
die before you die."
The transformation of the ego is
what it means, because the Beloved Allah wants us to live for His sake,
not to die for His sake.
The Gift of Life is very precious
and the chance we have through being alive in this moment in time is
a great opportunity to say 'Bismillah' and take the first conscious
step by helping to remove the unpleasantness which surrounds humanity
and could trigger a chain reaction of annihilation. So say 'Bismillah'
and let the Love of Allah penetrate all aspects of our life, so that
we may be counted amongst those who made a difference.
May the Merciful Allah illuminate
your hearts and ours and make us a source of bringing this Glad Tiding
to reality.
And Allah speaks the Truth and
He guides all to the Abode of Peace.
AMEEN
Wa ma taufiiq illa billah
Murshid F.A Ali ElSenossi
Shawwal 1424 H /December 2003
Almiraj Sufi & Islamic Study Centre, Inc.
