Each image painted on the canvas of existence
is the form of the Artist himself
Eternal Ocean spews forth-new waves.
Waves we call them; but there is only the sea.

Every time you hear in a Sufi poetry something that talks about God being every where or one seeing God in everything or being inside oneself or being hidden and visible at the same time, be afraid, be very very afraid. For you are being fed something that seems so beautiful and so pure and so innocent, yet is something that can tear the very fabric of Iman that Quran worked very hard to teach. I am hardly the person with any knowledge or position to name names but as a conscientious Muslim I must oppose this idea and anyone who spreads it. This disease has spread through majority, and when I say that I mean Majority, of the Sufi sects and followers out there. Its enchantment deceived a few and their unquestionable following preserved it for eternity. 

If there has been one crime that humanity has committed since its beginning, its Shirk, it is mixing God with the things that aren't worthy of being God and worship.

LA ILLAHA ILLALLAH (Nothing worthy of worship except God)

This is the creed that makes you a Muslim. Notice the wording, Ilah in Arabic means something that is worthy of worship, not just a god, but that which should be worshiped. God is careful to tell you that he wants undivided and exclusive rights on being worshiped. This must not be shared with anyone or anything. Full Stop. If you do that you will incur the worst wrath of God.

If anything Satan has always been mindful of this fact and has understood it well. He knows that to keep human beings in God's perpetual wrath, he must deviate them from this fundamental principle. He must make every effort to confuse and convolute this idea and cause them to deviate from the unity and exclusiveness of worship to God. He has succeeded many many times and continues to do so.

Wahdat ul Wajood means that there is 'nothing except God', not that there is nothing worthy of worship except God, but 'nothing except God'. Mushrikeen in the time of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) were not Christians or Jews, but pagans, those who worshiped nature and believed that everything was God and God was in everything. Hence everything became worthy of worship and everything gained some place in the hierarchy of worship. If the ultimate was God, that needed to be worshiped, then He was manifest in everything and part of everything and hence could be worshiped through things or idols or people for that matter. God was everywhere, not metaphorically but literally.

Unfortunately this idea suffers from the same malaise. I have read many arguments regarding how these things are not the same, but they are, when you boil them down to their essence. There will be a lot of confusing philosophizing and layers and layers of reasoning to justify that it is different but the more complex it gets, the simpler the answer becomes, they are the same.

The beauty of truth is in its simplicity. When people go to lengths to prove that something as simple as Tawheed is not that simple, beware that something is wrong. Allah said that he has made the Quran simple and He gives examples so that people may understand. But people are hell bent on making it complex and beyond understanding just so that they can push their faulty ideas and not to have to change.

If you'll bear with me, I will state the explanation given by people (mostly Sufis) on how these things are different. It is a 'causal' relationship. God being the first cause. The idea is that God has existed forever and everything else exists because God exists. Hence everything's existence is causally dependent on God. So, to the keen eye (replace Sufi who has reached Irfaan) everything becomes transparent and even non-existent because it is hardly there on its own. Hence the only thing there is God. My only objection is, why doesn't God say so in the first place? Because he does not. This is a very tricky escape from the pantheistic (pagans) unity. It takes you to the level of mental unity from physical one of the pagan's. But if you ask the simple question, Is there 'anything' beside God? (notice it is anything and not something God like or worship worthy) The answer comes No from them! Why then should I buy the imaginative causal unity?

People (Sufi followers) object that this is a misunderstanding and it arises because one has tried to understand this concept without a Murshid or teacher. Well the Truth (Haq) should sustain, like God, on its own accord without someone making it the truth! The fundamental problem with saying that someone will establish that truth is that someone will establish THEIR truth. Once you make the assumption that you need someone for it, it stops being objective. You find yourself trapped in the vicious circle, that to find the truth you must accept someone but to accept someone you must know if they are true! Hence you already sacrificed all objectivity and sealed your fate that if wrong you will stay wrong forever and that's how all bad ideas ensure their survival. If they open themselves to question and objective reasoning they don't stand a chance. God Himself did not ask you to just believe in Him, but to be reasonable and look around and decide if it this is mere Coincidence!

2:164 (Asad) Verily, in the creation of the heavens and of the earth, and the succession of night and day: and in the ships that speed through the sea with what is useful to man: and in the waters which God sends down from the sky, giving life thereby to the earth after it had, been lifeless, and causing all manner of living creatures to multiply thereon: and in the change of the winds, and the clouds that run their appointed courses between sky and earth: [in all this] there are messages indeed for people who use their reason.

52:35 (Y. Ali) Were they created of nothing, or were they themselves the creators?

Secondly, it is said that it is a matter of experiencing rather than knowing by learning. Well then my question would be, what established guarantees do you have from God regarding your experiences and their interpretation? None, zero, zilch! Experiencing God may definitely bring its own enlightenment and amplification of Iman but as far as knowing the Truth is concerned, it ends where God tells you what it is! And if you say that God told you the truth, then unfortunately I don't have the permission to take this truth from anyone except the Prophets that God chose for the purpose. Especially when I was told that today the religion has been made complete and chosen for me!

It is such a sad fact that the mesmerizing and enchanting beauty of the idea of being one with God has blinded people form He actually asked. He never said we could have the knowledge to know who God really is. If we could ever do that then we would need at least as much knowledge as He Himself, which unfortunately is not possible. Then why run after things that he has not made for us? Why burden yourself with this? He asked Iblis to do something and Iblis declined based on his own knowledge and reasoning, rather than obeying God as He ASKED. With things that God would like to burden us he has left for us to find. But with things he does not need our efforts He has explained on His own and asked us to stick to it! Angels made the same mistake of splitting hairs on what God had specified but apologized immediately:

2:30 (Asad) AND LO! Thy Sustainer said unto the angels: "Behold, I am about to establish upon earth one who shall inherit it." They said: "Wilt Thou place on it such as will spread corruption thereon and shed blood -whereas it is we who extol Thy limitless glory, and praise Thee, and hallow Thy name?" [God] answered: "Verily, I know that which you do not know."

I would like to leave you with words of God, where He clearly says that there is He the creator and others the created. It is only He that deserves worship, but as far as existence goes, there are many. So please stick to that and be as spiritual as you like.

10:3 (Asad) VERILY, your Sustainer is God, who has created the heavens and the earth in six aeons, and is established on the throne of His almightiness, ^[6] governing all that exists. There is none that could intercede with Him unless He grants leave therefor. ^[7] Thus is God, your Sustainer: worship, therefore, Him [alone]: will you not, then, keep this in mind?

For God knows best.

 

Further study:

Sufi Metaphysics

What is unity of being

Ibn e Arabi

Ibn e Taymiyya

Wahdat al-Wujud: a fundamental doctrine in Sufism

Grim days in the history of the Pakistani nation. We have seen both Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif alone, now its time to see them together. But unfortunately the nation deserves such treatment. It is a self-loathing and self-flagellating nation, sorry to say, suffering from the malign of indifference and zeal of moral cowardice.

The proof of our criminal indifference is in our inability to remember what has happened to us before. We repress our bad memories like some patient in Freudian psychology, let them ferment inside us till the time someone comes along who is willing to give us a chance. Then we shower them with all the pent up bitterness and hatred in us. That is why the discerning leader knows that this nation cannot be given the chance to express itself. It must be kept in drowning in the vortices of its troubles that look like that they have come about of unavoidable circumstances. A self-loathing nation needs a reason to loath itself.

The naive idealist came around with his unpolished skill of nation handling, his black and white thinking and his belief that the nation's future must only be determined by moving in the right direction, he never knew the beauty of status quo. He projected his self-respect on the nation and expected it to understand, how silly of him. A nation that despises itself does not understand the ideal of dignity. A nation that lives for approval does not understand the meaning of right. A nation that thinks with its heart does not understand the meaning of future.

The poet Pirzada Qasim came to our university once and after the public lecture he said in a private gathering of teachers that, "this is a nation of enemies of knowledge", this nation does not just ignore knowledge but actively seeks to defeat it. Knowledge was the only thing that could elevate it and save it from itself.

We as a nation seek catharsis. We need something to burn, something to break and someone to bruise. We will break every idol, we will kill every savior and we will defeat every attempt to enlighten us. We have chosen the life we want to live and no can take that away from us. Grim days are about to come. We are about to enter another era of self-punishment, we are about to enter another dark night.

There is far too much history behind this to recount. But I am not talking about what revolutions are and they do, I am talking about the love affair that ensues in their pursuit. Revolution is an exhilarating concept, it gives you dreams and hopes of a new and different world. Revolutions are like love affairs, stories in romance and our love for them is as unending and sincere, at least for the moment. The revolution may of any kind at all, for your country, for your kind, for your ideals and beliefs, anything at all. It is not the revolution itself that is so exciting, its you, you the person who is so excited about a prospect, of which you have no guarantees but lots of hope and admiration. Revolution is the game of the young. In this boring and perpetually purposeless world, revolutions give us the meaning we are looking for. They give us something to look forward to, they give us something to hold on to and some to associate ourselves with, thereby finding meaning in association. Throughout history young people have been the fuel of revolutions because they have unspent energy available, they are looking for some meaning and purpose, they get emotionally attached quickly and they are always looking for the new world rather than sticking with the current one. Older people have lost the charm and been disillusioned by it all. They have lost hope for the new world. That is why they only provide the leadership.

Like any love affair, in revolutions there are idols and images that are worshipped. These are charming yet imposing, grand in the mind of their fans. Following them, or even just wearing their T-Shirts gives people a vicarious sense of greatness, or glory by proxy. We do crave some glory, even if it is borrowed.

The thing about these images is that they are not perfect by any standards. Its like a picture with blots and blemishes which looks even more sublime in its imperfection. But beware, the idea is not to pronounce these imperfections but to subdue them with the greatness. Hence, a lot more talk of why they don't matter in the face of what is the ideal and ultimate objective. This unfortunately is only a defense mechanism for us. As people, we are not unbiased and objective. Bad aspects just make things bad, so we don't say them and concentrate on the bright side. This is like a self-perpetuating and self fulfilling prophecy and it ultimately makes our revolutionary images and notions more "romance worthy".

My personal belief on this romantic affair is that for the people it is nothing more than a means of self discovery. It is not the revolution or the reason for revolution, but, they, themselves that needs meaning and attention and it is this needs that drives them behind the scenes. People who follow every other revolution, from fashion to fanaticism are hardly the owners of the revolution and many a times don't have that big a stake in it. Yet, it is they who are its day to day purveyors, which just goes to show that they have "some" axe to grind, not necessarily the revolutionary one. It has like become a fact of life, like growing old, to be revolutionaries at young age and un-revolutionaries at old. The same people, the same world, the same facts, the same old blood but only different age group. Have your romance and then grow up seems to be the rule.

Haziness means vagueness or cloudiness. When something is hazy, its not clear, you cannot properly see it or define it. As long as something is hazy it escapes characterization and labeling, we cannot do it because we cannot be sure what we are looking at, it may be one thing it may be another, it may have some qualities it may not have them, this is a great comfort if you know what I mean.

"Hell is other people", the famous phrase by the philosopher Sartre, describes the fact that when we are living among other people we are constantly being watched and judged by them. They look at us, sometimes just the face, sometimes words and often actions, mostly in fragments. They create opinions and judgements about us and label as being one thing or another, consequently making us become something or stop being what we are. Judging by itself is not a bad thing and in life people have to judge one another as a lot of things depend on it, for example when being judged in a interview for a job or in the court of law for innocence. Also, the same ability of people produces empathy which is quite desirable. But judgements that Sartre is talking about is made on the whims and feelings of people, driven more by who they are themselves then what it is, not always noble and not always their own. People do it for convenience and they don't burden themselves with "objectivity". In science an effort is made to teach the scientists how to look at things objectively, yet objectivity as a general trait in life is often not shown by scientists and non-scientists alike. When you are living under people's judgements, you are living in Sartre's hell.

People judge when they "feel" confident that they can make a judgement about you and they don't see anything surprising and out of phase with their assessments. There are two ways to subvert people's judgements, one is to actually be different from who they think you are and do something that surprises them and undermines all their assumptions, another is to haze it out. Even if they don't call it the same, people feel Sartre's hell and instinctively try to avoid it. It takes a good degree of deception and sometimes outright lying to convince people that they are mistaken in their assessment. Since this ability evolves out of an instinctive need and takes a long time to develop, it does not feel that bad inside and people can often live with it easily. Whether other people can prove it or not, they can often arrive at correct assessments about us as many of our motives and actions arise from similar needs and experiences as theirs. People just want to protect themselves from the judgements that make them look bad or less than others. Haziness strategy works quite well here, especially for the people who are either unable to change that particular thing about themselves or simply unwilling.

Sartre's hell, compels people to change themselves either to conform to the opinions of other people or to resist it. In both cases, they stop being who they were or whatever they were doing with their life and start being or doing things they had no need for. Sartre was a strong believer in people's freedom to do what they wanted and be what they wanted, hence this is the worst thing people can do to each other. Yet the fact remains that we cannot be everything we want, it may be an ideal to cherish but it wont be the code life runs by. A lot of things are predetermined by first our environment, both the physical and the social created by people, second by who we really are as an individual and that is something we may need to make peace with.

You cannot fly because you are not a bird, but you can always invent a plane. Similarly we cannot be everything we want and do everything we want, though we can reconcile with our limitations and overcome them. It does not sound as exhilarating as 'go and be everything you want' but it does give you a pragmatic route to realizing your full potential. This brings us back to haziness. Now haziness is from Sartre's hell. The haziness strategy is taken by people to protect themselves from the evil judgements but in fact they are going deeper in to Sartre's hell. Not every judgement people pass about you is wrong, though it does tell you something about yourself that you don't see which could lead you to understand yourself better. Also, not every judgement people pass is correct as people are biased and drunk on their own selves, yet that is not enough reason to become defensive and lose yourself. Be whoever you are, learn from whatever comes, do what needs to be done and become what you want.

What is a fact? According to the dictionary it is a noun and it means "A statement or assertion of verified information about something that is the case or has happened." From the point of view of 'Relativism', there are no truths or facts. There are your facts and my facts. Your facts are supposed to be true for you and mine for myself. This gets even difficult when relativism treads into the realm of morality, then, there is no right and wrong actions.

Coming back to the idea of a fact, which, is supposed to be universal because it is a verifiable piece of information, do people respect facts? Unfortunately they don't. This is where our prejudice comes in. Despite what facts may be, from the colored glasses of prejudice on our eyes we see a different world with different facts. Your facts and my facts.

This was a real mess so science decided to take a diffrerent route. Science says, "I don't want to get into your viewpoints, no matter what you think, give me an experiment based on your interpretation of facts, and lets see if the results match observation." Thats it. Science lives a clean life where people throw in all kinds of crazy ideas but what lives on is only what can be tested and proved. This is limiting, sure. Truth could have been out of reach of expriment, or the experiment itself could not be known, why not. But what it gives you, is confusion free, consensus based interpretation and observation of facts and not a muddle of yours and mine. Science has a history of continous improvement and in the long term whatever is true, ultimately establishes itself.

Philosophy, religious views, political views and our day to day observations are ridden with conflict and disagreements. Instead of basing points of view on facts, facts are shaped to fit the framkework of our prejudice. People do it often, out of habit and out of need. When they do it out of habit, they look at the world in a certain way without realizing it. Its not their fault then. On the other hand, when they do it out of need, it is a matter of self-preservation and survival, which according to the theory of evolution is a fundamental part of every living beings instinct. Again, people cannot be made accountable for nature.

Acceptance is a fundamental part of our nature. We want to be called good people. Our beliefs and actions must be right. Our lives must be purposeful. Why else would I say, what I say and do what I do? To achieve that satisfaction, facts should match our actions (instead of the oppsite) and they are made to match them. Why not realize our mistakes, if any, and change ourself. Intertia. The pricipal of intertia states that: "Every body perseveres in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight ahead, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by forces impressed." You can't blame people for this, it is a fundametal law of nature. You will stay on course until forced by circumstances to change direction.

But I believe in another idea. Keep concious of your self. When the time and realization comes, change, or time will change you anyway and it won't be nice.