View allAll Photos Tagged Discernment
In profile, anterior and posterior straight.
Key id. features BELOW
SPECIES DESCRIPTION part A 2Pu flic.kr/p/BG8mKq
SPECIES DESCRIPTION part B 3Pu flic.kr/p/BRHsiR
OTHER SPECIES ALBUMS
www.flickr.com/photos/56388191@N08/collections/
Key identification features of typical British specimens.
Patella ulyssiponensis
1) Basal half of pallial tentacles has opaque pigment which can be white, off-white, cream or, on large specimens, yellowish or orange. The distal half fades to a translucent tip. Opaque basal half is often distinct from translucent mantle-skirt that they arise from, so it is possible to confuse with P. depressa. It is important to use pallial tentacles in combination with foot-colour/shell-length for identification. Examples at 26Pu flic.kr/p/BGqszN .
2) Foot is NOT pitch-brown/black or dark khaki. It can be whitish when young 30Pu flic.kr/p/BGqk4q becoming yellowish 31Pu flic.kr/p/BGrKw1 and, sometimes, orange with age 21Pu flic.kr/p/AUuNww . Juveniles under 12mm length may show a blackish internal shadow through the thin pale translucent foot 30Pu flic.kr/p/BGqk4q as they lack gonads above the foot that mask the dark viscera of adults.
Similar species
Patella vulgata
Extremely variable species; foot colours and nearly all shell-features have overlaps with P. depressa and P. ulyssiponensis.
1. Pigment-less pallial tentacles are slender, translucent and same colour as mantle-skirt they arise from. 40Pu flic.kr/p/BPJ1vQ .
Cautions:
Pallial tentacles of P. vulgata may look white when arise from colourless mantle-skirt in some lighting, but no pigment 41Pu flic.kr/p/AUxuXs .
Translucency and fineness of pallial tentacles of P. vulgata often make discernment difficult, especially when mantle skirt retracted from shell-rim and pallial tentacles viewed against shell 42Pu flic.kr/p/BGtg3y ; often virtually invisible when out of water as may be retracted as well as highly translucent 43Pu flic.kr/p/AUDqUz .
Foot colour of P. vulgata varies greatly, sometimes orange resembling P. ulyssiponensis 53PualbumPvhigh.
Shell interior can be white or tinted orange in P. vulgata 53PualbumPvhigh and 44Pu flic.kr/p/BPKJ6G .
Patella depressa
[1 & 2 in combination, not singly, are diagnostic of typical specimens but exclude intermediates.]
1. Pigmented pallial tentacles are opaque chalky-white for more than half of extended-length; may have translucent tip; distinctly whiter than buff mantle-skirt from which they arise 45Pu flic.kr/p/BJLMBx . Even when mantle-skirt retracted, pallial tentacles often clearly visible contrasting with the darker mantle 46Pu flic.kr/p/AUxm6u .
2. Sole of foot pitch-brown 47Pu flic.kr/p/AUDiJH to black 46Pu flic.kr/p/AUxm6u .
3. On shell-interior, whitish projecting points of ribs have short, unglazed, chalky, pure-white central line, but reduced or lacking where projecting points of ribs eroded 48Pu flic.kr/p/BS4e7v . [This feature recently recognised by S. Payne, and applies to all in large sample examined by IFS. Unsure yet if universal on P. depressa and exclusive of P. vulgata and P. ulyssiponensis.]
Caution:
Shell interior can be orange-cream in P. depressa 49Pu flic.kr/p/BixiVz
Patella caerulea Linnaeus, 1758.
Does not occur in Britain. In Iberia and Mediterranean, separation from it of some specimens of P. ulyssiponensis could not be achieved with foot colour and shell morphology by Sanna et al. (2011) who relied on the use of DNA sequencing. They did not mention attempting the use of pallial tentacle colour on live specimens; it may be worth investigation. See Sanna et al. for images of P. caerulea.
On several occasions during 2005, a luminous cross with an outline of a shield appeared on our backyard fence. Again in 2006, the same miraculous cross was visible on Palm Sunday. (Update: On September 3, 2007, and September 6, 2008, the bright cross again appeared on our property). Through discernment, it's a miraculous sign of God's angelic shield of protection through the intercession of Saint Michael the Archangel. I attribute the sign sent from heaven as a result of my Prayer to Saint Michael for assistance during times of spiritual discord.
My wife Teresa and daughter Lauren checked windows and rooms and could not find any source of reflections. The interesting point is that the sun was rising behind the fence in the east, while the image appears on the front, as if the sun is shining onto the fence from the west! However, the luminous cross appeared brighter than the sun. When the image first manifested, our family had been encountering adversity and some difficulty with our son. However, the issues have since mitigated through God's spiritual presence. When encountering obstacles, prayer can have amazing and powerful results! Indeed, nothing is impossible through Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior.
In a problematic world of derision, our faith in prayer is necessary for God's divine intervention and protection. God's plan is designed to help validate His existence to humanity, especially at times when circumstances appear to be hopeless. The Bible conveys the following in John, Chapter 4, Verse 48: Jesus said, “Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders, you will never believe.”
News Item: Please visit my new website at the following link: www.Christian-Miracles.com
Update: Shortly after the appearance of the luminous cross of September 3, 2007, the Lord conveyed through a spiritual locution/impartation, His Will of 'restoring stability' in our millennium and affirmed Revelation, Chapter 20, Verse 1-3: "Then I saw an angel come down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the abyss and a heavy chain. He seized the dragon, the ancient serpent ... and tied it up for a thousand years and threw it into the abyss, which he locked over it and sealed, so that it could no longer lead the nations astray until the thousand years are completed ..." Through discernment, the miraculous cross is a sign to humanity of God's Will to usher in an era of peace by fulfilling Biblical prophecy with the power of Jesus Christ and shield of Saint Michael the Archangel. However, we must prepare by joining together in prayer for God's peace and divine protection and remain patient, in order for Jesus to set the stage and timing for signs and miracles to unfold in the world. For updates on signs and wonders, please visit my blog at the following link: lenarpoetry.blogspot.com/
The circumstances behind the event is a result of God imparting me with a vision of our world Blessed in Peace during a spiritual visitation on September 8, 1991. Please visit the following link to read my inspirational story: lenarpoetry.com/MiracleoftheSun.html
Update: On Wednesday, March 19, 2008, I visited my spiritual advisor, Father Richard Tartaglia of Saint Mary's Church, Denville, NJ. I communicated to Father Richard a message imparted to me by Jesus regarding a sign that the Lord would send elsewhere with a cross similar to what appeared on my property in 2005, 2006, and 2007 in order to affirm my story and validate it as truth.
The Gloucester County Times of Woodbury, New Jersey, reported that on March 23, Easter Sunday, 9 year old Gwynna photographed a cross reflecting on a neighbor's house. Her mother and a neighbor were unable to find the source of the reflection. "I thought it was a reflection from the sun, I don't know. It came on Easter and thought that was pretty cool," Gwynna said. The story appears in the March 25, 2008 issue of the Gloucester County Times with a color photograph of the cross printed on the front page of the newspaper.
For more details on Gwynna's photograph and story, please order a copy of the March 25 issue from the Gloucester County Times at 309 S. Broad Street, Woodbury, NJ 08096. A brief version of the story with a photo appears on NJ.com at the following link:
www.nj.com/south/index.ssf/2008/03/9yearold_captures_cros...
I supplied several prints of the image that appeared on my fence to Father Richard Tartaglia of Saint Mary's Church, Denville, New Jersey (USA) for his prudent and faith related assessment. He has Blessed the photograph at my request. I've known Pastor Richard for over a decade as my spiritual advisor. Pastor Richard is a source for imparting testimonial on behalf of the Lenar Family in connection to the spiritual events occurring in my life (Loci B. Lenar).
I give praise and glory to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as well as thanks to the Blessed Mother (Our Lady of Fatima) for all the gifts and spiritual wonders unfolding.
The photo is included on the website of Catholic Apparitions and Miracles at the following link: www.squidoo.com/apparitions
The photo and story is also posted on the following blogs/websites:
www.zimbio.com/Miracles+of+Faith
www.zimbio.com/Inspirational+Stories
www.zimbio.com/Messiah+and+the+Christian+Faith
www.zimbio.com/Catholic+Blogosphere
For background information about Loci Lenar, please visit the following links:
flickr.com/people/lenarpoetry/
The phenomenon was photographed with my HP PhotoSmart 945 digital camera in Mine Hill, NJ, USA.
Photo © 2005 Loci B. Lenar - Registration Number: VAU687-513
The Quran (English pronunciation: /kɔrˈɑːn/ kor-AHN , Arabic: القرآن al-qur'ān, IPA: [qurˈʔaːn], literally meaning "the recitation", also romanised Qur'an or Koran) is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims believe to be a revelation from God (Arabic: الله, Allah). Its scriptural status among a world-spanning religious community, and its major place within world literature generally, has led to a great deal of secondary literature on the Quran. Quranic chapters are called suras and verses are called ayahs.
Muslims believe that the Quran was verbally revealed by God to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel (Jibril), gradually over a period of approximately 23 years, beginning on 22 December 609 CE, when Muhammad was 40, and concluding in 632 CE, the year of his death. Muslims regard the Quran as the most important miracle of Muhammad, a proof of his prophethood, and the culmination of a series of divine messages that started with the messages revealed to Adam and ended with Muhammad. They consider the Quran to be the only revealed book that has been protected by God from distortion or corruption.
According to the traditional narrative, several companions of Muhammad served as scribes and were responsible for writing down the revelations. Shortly after Muhammad's death, the Quran was compiled by his companions who wrote down and memorized parts of it. These codices had differences that motivated the Caliph Uthman to establish a standard version now known as Uthman's codex, which is generally considered the archetype of the Quran we have today. However, the existence of variant readings, with mostly minor and some significant variations, and the early unvocalized Arabic script mean the relationship between Uthman's codex to both the text of today's Quran and to the revelations of Muhammad's time is still unclear.
The Quran assumes familiarity with major narratives recounted in the Jewish and Christian scriptures. It summarizes some, dwells at length on others and, in some cases, presents alternative accounts and interpretations of events. The Quran describes itself as a book of guidance. It sometimes offers detailed accounts of specific historical events, and it often emphasizes the moral significance of an event over its narrative sequence. The Quran is used along with the hadith to interpret sharia law. During prayers, the Quran is recited only in Arabic.
Someone who has memorized the entire Quran is called a hafiz. Some Muslims read Quranic ayahs (verses) with elocution, which is often called tajwīd. During the month of Ramadan, Muslims typically complete the recitation of the whole Quran during tarawih prayers. In order to extrapolate the meaning of a particular Quranic verse, most Muslims rely on the tafsir.
ETYMOLOGY & MEANING
The word qurʼān appears about 70 times in the Quran itself, assuming various meanings. It is a verbal noun (maṣdar) of the Arabic verb qaraʼa (قرأ), meaning "he read" or "he recited". The Syriac equivalent is (ܩܪܝܢܐ) qeryānā, which refers to "scripture reading" or "lesson". While some Western scholars consider the word to be derived from the Syriac, the majority of Muslim authorities hold the origin of the word is qaraʼa itself. Regardless, it had become an Arabic term by Muhammad's lifetime. An important meaning of the word is the "act of reciting", as reflected in an early Quranic passage: "It is for Us to collect it and to recite it (qurʼānahu)."
In other verses, the word refers to "an individual passage recited [by Muhammad]". Its liturgical context is seen in a number of passages, for example: "So when al-qurʼān is recited, listen to it and keep silent." The word may also assume the meaning of a codified scripture when mentioned with other scriptures such as the Torah and Gospel.
The term also has closely related synonyms that are employed throughout the Quran. Each synonym possesses its own distinct meaning, but its use may converge with that of qurʼān in certain contexts. Such terms include kitāb (book); āyah (sign); and sūrah (scripture). The latter two terms also denote units of revelation. In the large majority of contexts, usually with a definite article (al-), the word is referred to as the "revelation" (waḥy), that which has been "sent down" (tanzīl) at intervals. Other related words are: dhikr (remembrance), used to refer to the Quran in the sense of a reminder and warning, and ḥikmah (wisdom), sometimes referring to the revelation or part of it.
The Quran describes itself as "the discernment or the criterion between truth and falsehood" (al-furqān), "the mother book" (umm al-kitāb), "the guide" (huda), "the wisdom" (hikmah), "the remembrance" (dhikr) and "the revelation" (tanzīl; something sent down, signifying the descent of an object from a higher place to lower place). Another term is al-kitāb (the book), though it is also used in the Arabic language for other scriptures, such as the Torah and the Gospels. The adjective of "Quran" has multiple transliterations including "quranic," "koranic" and "qur'anic," or capitalised as "Qur'anic," "Koranic" and "Quranic." The term muṣḥaf ('written work') is often used to refer to particular Quranic manuscripts but is also used in the Quran to identify earlier revealed books. Other transliterations of "Quran" include "al-Coran", "Coran", "Kuran" and "al-Qurʼan".
HISTORY
PROPHETIC ERA
Islamic tradition relates that Muhammad received his first revelation in the Cave of Hira during one of his isolated retreats to the mountains. Thereafter, he received revelations over a period of 23 years. According to hadith and Muslim history, after Muhammad emigrated to Medina and formed an independent Muslim community, he ordered many of his companions to recite the Quran and to learn and teach the laws, which were revealed daily. It is related that some of the Quraish who were taken prisoners at the battle of Badr regained their freedom after they had taught some of the Muslims the simple writing of the time. Thus a group of Muslims gradually became literate. As it was initially spoken, the Quran was recorded on tablets, bones, and the wide, flat ends of date palm fronds. Most suras were in use amongst early Muslims since they are mentioned in numerous sayings by both Sunni and Shia sources, relating Muhammad's use of the Quran as a call to Islam, the making of prayer and the manner of recitation. However, the Quran did not exist in book form at the time of Muhammad's death in 632 CE. There is agreement among scholars that Muhammad himself did not write down the revelation.
Sahih al-Bukhari narrates Muhammad describing the revelations as, "Sometimes it is (revealed) like the ringing of a bell" and Aisha reported, "I saw the Prophet being inspired Divinely on a very cold day and noticed the sweat dropping from his forehead (as the Inspiration was over)." Muhammad's first revelation, according to the Quran, was accompanied with a vision. The agent of revelation is mentioned as the "one mighty in power", the one who "grew clear to view when he was on the uppermost horizon. Then he drew nigh and came down till he was (distant) two bows' length or even nearer." The Islamic studies scholar Welch states in the Encyclopaedia of Islam that he believes the graphic descriptions of Muhammad's condition at these moments may be regarded as genuine, because he was severely disturbed after these revelations. According to Welch, these seizures would have been seen by those around him as convincing evidence for the superhuman origin of Muhammad's inspirations. However, Muhammad's critics accused him of being a possessed man, a soothsayer or a magician since his experiences were similar to those claimed by such figures well known in ancient Arabia. Welch additionally states that it remains uncertain whether these experiences occurred before or after Muhammad's initial claim of prophethood. The Quran describes Muhammad as "ummi", which is traditionally interpreted as "illiterate," but the meaning is rather more complex. The medieval commentators such as Al-Tabari maintained that the term induced two meanings: first, the inability to read or write in general; second, the inexperience or ignorance of the previous books or scriptures (but they gave priority to the first meaning). Besides, Muhammad's illiteracy was taken as a sign of the genuineness of his prophethood. For example, according to Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, if Muhammad had mastered writing and reading he possibly would have been suspected of having studied the books of the ancestors. Some scholars such as Watt prefer the second meaning.
COMPILATION
Based on earlier transmitted reports, in the year 632 CE, after Muhammad died and a number of his companions who knew the Quran by heart were killed in a battle by Musaylimah, the first caliph Abu Bakr (d. 634CE) decided to collect the book in one volume so that it could be preserved. Zayd ibn Thabit (d. 655CE) was the person to collect the Quran since "he used to write the Divine Inspiration for Allah's Apostle". Thus, a group of scribes, most importantly Zayd, collected the verses and produced a hand-written manuscript of the complete book. The manuscript according to Zayd remained with Abu Bakr until he died. Zayd's reaction to the task and the difficulties in collecting the Quranic material from parchments, palm-leaf stalks, thin stones and from men who knew it by heart is recorded in earlier narratives. After Abu Bakr, Hafsa bint Umar, Muhammad's widow, was entrusted with the manuscript. In about 650 CE, the third Caliph Uthman ibn Affan (d. 656CE) began noticing slight differences in pronunciation of the Quran as Islam expanded beyond the Arabian peninsula into Persia, the Levant, and North Africa. In order to preserve the sanctity of the text, he ordered a committee headed by Zayd to use Abu Bakr's copy and prepare a standard copy of the Quran. Thus, within 20 years of Muhammad's death, the Quran was committed to written form. That text became the model from which copies were made and promulgated throughout the urban centers of the Muslim world, and other versions are believed to have been destroyed. The present form of the Quran text is accepted by Muslim scholars to be the original version compiled by Abu Bakr.
According to Shia and some Sunni scholars, Ali ibn Abi Talib (d. 661CE) compiled a complete version of the Quran shortly after Muhammad's death. The order of this text differed from that gathered later during Uthman's era in that this version had been collected in chronological order. Despite this, he made no objection against the standardized Quran and accepted the Quran in circulation. Other personal copies of the Quran might have existed including Ibn Mas'ud's and Ubayy ibn Kab's codex, none of which exist today.
The Quran most likely existed in scattered written form during Muhammad's lifetime. Several sources indicate that during Muhammad's lifetime a large number of his companions had memorized the revelations. Early commentaries and Islamic historical sources support the above-mentioned understanding of the Quran's early development. The Quran in its present form is generally considered by academic scholars to record the words spoken by Muhammad because the search for variants has not yielded any differences of great significance. Although most variant readings of the text of the Quran have ceased to be transmitted, some still are. There has been no critical text produced on which a scholarly reconstruction of the Quranic text could be based. Historically, controversy over the Quran's content has rarely become an issue, although debates continue on the subject.
In 1972, in a mosque in the city of Sana'a, Yemen, manuscripts were discovered that were later proved to be the most ancient Quranic text known to exist. The Sana'a manuscripts contain palimpsests, a manuscript page from which the text has been washed off to make the parchment reusable again - a practice which was common in ancient times due to scarcity of writing material. However, the faint washed-off underlying text (scriptio inferior) is still barely visible and believed to be "pre-Uthmanic" Quranic content, while the text written on top (scriptio superior) is believed to belong to Uthmanic time. Studies using radiocarbon dating indicate that the parchments are dated to the period before 671 AD with a 99 percent probability.
SIGNIFICANCE IN ISLAM
WORSHIP
Muslims believe the Quran to be the book of divine guidance revealed from God to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel over a period of 23 years and view the Quran as God's final revelation to humanity. They also believe that the Quran has solutions to all the problems of humanity irrespective of how complex they may be and in what age they occur.
Revelation in Islamic and Quranic concept means the act of God addressing an individual, conveying a message for a greater number of recipients. The process by which the divine message comes to the heart of a messenger of God is tanzil (to send down) or nuzūl (to come down). As the Quran says, "With the truth we (God) have sent it down and with the truth it has come down."
The Quran frequently asserts in its text that it is divinely ordained. Some verses in the Quran seem to imply that even those who do not speak Arabic would understand the Quran if it were recited to them. The Quran refers to a written pre-text, "the preserved tablet", that records God's speech even before it was sent down.
The issue of whether the Quran is eternal or created became a theological debate (Quran's createdness) in the ninth century. Mu'tazilas, an Islamic school of theology based on reason and rational thought, held that the Quran was created while the most widespread varieties of Muslim theologians considered the Quran to be co-eternal with God and therefore uncreated. Sufi philosophers view the question as artificial or wrongly framed.
Muslims believe that the present wording of the Quran corresponds to that revealed to Muhammad, and according to their interpretation of Quran 15:9, it is protected from corruption ("Indeed, it is We who sent down the Quran and indeed, We will be its guardian."). Muslims consider the Quran to be a guide, a sign of the prophethood of Muhammad and the truth of the religion. They argue it is not possible for a human to produce a book like the Quran, as the Quran itself maintains.
Muslims commemorate annually the beginning of Quran's revelation on the Night of Destiny (Laylat al-Qadr), during the last 10 days of Ramadan, the month during which they fast from sunrise until sunset.
The first sura of the Quran is repeated in daily prayers and in other occasions. This sura, which consists of seven verses, is the most often recited sura of the Quran:
"All praise belongs to God, Lord of the Universe, the Beneficent, the Merciful and Master of the Day of Judgment, You alone We do worship and from You alone we do seek assistance, guide us to the right path, the path of those to whom You have granted blessings, those who are neither subject to Your anger nor have gone astray."
Respect for the written text of the Quran is an important element of religious faith by many Muslims, and the Quran is treated with reverence. Based on tradition and a literal interpretation of Quran 56:79 ("none shall touch but those who are clean"), some Muslims believe that they must perform a ritual cleansing with water before touching a copy of the Quran, although this view is not universal. Worn-out copies of the Quran are wrapped in a cloth and stored indefinitely in a safe place, buried in a mosque or a Muslim cemetery, or burned and the ashes buried or scattered over water.
In Islam, most intellectual disciplines, including Islamic theology, philosophy, mysticism and Jurisprudence, have been concerned with the Quran or have their foundation in its teachings. Muslims believe that the preaching or reading of the Quran is rewarded with divine rewards variously called ajr, thawab or hasanat.
IN ISLAMIC ART
The Quran also inspired Islamic arts and specifically the so-called Quranic arts of calligraphy and illumination.[1] The Quran is never decorated with figurative images, but many Qurans have been highly decorated with decorative patterns in the margins of the page, or between the lines or at the start of suras. Islamic verses appear in many other media, on buildings and on objects of all sizes, such as mosque lamps, metal work, pottery and single pages of calligraphy for muraqqas or albums.
INIMITABILITY
Inimitability of the Quran (or "I'jaz") is the belief that no human speech can match the Quran in its content and form. The Quran is considered an inimitable miracle by Muslims, effective until the Day of Resurrection - and, thereby, the central proof granted to Muhammad in authentication of his prophetic status. The concept of inimitability originates in the Quran where in five different verses opponents are challenged to produce something like the Quran: "If men and sprites banded together to produce the like of this Quran they would never produce its like not though they backed one another."[61] So the suggestion is that if there are doubts concerning the divine authorship of the Quran, come forward and create something like it. From the ninth century, numerous works appeared which studied the Quran and examined its style and content. Medieval Muslim scholars including al-Jurjani (d. 1078CE) and al-Baqillani (d. 1013CE) have written treatises on the subject, discussed its various aspects, and used linguistic approaches to study the Quran. Others argue that the Quran contains noble ideas, has inner meanings, maintained its freshness through the ages and has caused great transformations in individual level and in the history. Some scholars state that the Quran contains scientific information that agrees with modern science. The doctrine of miraculousness of the Quran is further emphasized by Muhammad's illiteracy since the unlettered prophet could not have been suspected of composing the Quran.
TEXT & ARRANGEMENT
The Quran consists of 114 chapters of varying lengths, each known as a sura. Suras are classified as Meccan or Medinan, depending on whether the verses were revealed before or after the migration of Muhammad to the city of Medina. However, a sura classified as Medinan may contain Meccan verses in it and vice versa. Sura titles are derived from a name or quality discussed in the text, or from the first letters or words of the surah. Suras are arranged roughly in order of decreasing size. The sura arrangement is thus not connected to the sequence of revelation. Each sura except the ninth starts with the Bismillah (بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم) an Arabic phrase meaning 'In the name of God.' There are, however, still 114 occurrences of the Bismillah in the Quran, due to its presence in Quran 27:30 as the opening of Solomon's letter to the Queen of Sheba.
Each sura consists of several verses, known as ayat, which originally means a 'sign' or 'evidence' sent by God. The number of verses differs from sura to sura. An individual verse may be just a few letters or several lines. The total number of verses in the Quran is 6236, however, the number varies if the bismillahs are counted separately.
In addition to and independent of the division into suras, there are various ways of dividing the Quran into parts of approximately equal length for convenience in reading. The 30 juz' (plural ajzāʼ) can be used to read through the entire Quran in a month. Some of these parts are known by names - which are the first few words by which the juzʼ starts. A juz' is sometimes further divided into two ḥizb (plural aḥzāb), and each hizb subdivided into four rubʻ al-ahzab. The Quran is also divided into seven approximately equal parts, manzil (plural manāzil), for it to be recited in a week.
Muqatta'at, or the Quranic initials, are 14 different letter combinations of 14 Arabic letters that appear in the beginning of 29 suras of the Quran. The meanings of these initials remain unclear.
According to one estimate the Quran consists of 77,430 words, 18,994 unique words, 12,183 stems, 3,382 lemmas and 1,685 roots.
CONTENTS
The Quranic content is concerned with the basic beliefs of Islam which include the existence of God and the resurrection. Narratives of the early prophets, ethical and legal subjects, historical events of Muhammad's time, charity and prayer also appear in the Quran. The Quranic verses contain general exhortations regarding right and wrong and the historical events are related to outline general moral lessons. Verses pertaining to natural phenomena have been interpreted by Muslims as an indication of the authenticity of the Quranic message.
MONOTHEISM
The central theme of the Quran is monotheism. God is depicted as living, eternal, omniscient and omnipotent (see, e.g., Quran 2:20, 2:29, 2:255). God's omnipotence appears above all in his power to create. He is the creator of everything, of the heavens and the earth and what is between them (see, e.g., Quran 13:16, 50:38, etc.). All human beings are equal in their utter dependence upon God, and their well-being depends upon their acknowledging that fact and living accordingly.
The Quran uses cosmological and contingency arguments in various verses without referring to the terms to prove the existence of God. Therefore, the universe is originated and needs an originator, and whatever exists must have a sufficient cause for its existence. Besides, the design of the universe, is frequently referred to as a point of contemplation: "It is He who has created seven heavens in harmony. You cannot see any fault in God's creation; then look again: Can you see any flaw?"
ESCHATOLOGY
The doctrine of the last day and eschatology (the final fate of the universe) may be reckoned as the second great doctrine of the Quran. It is estimated that around a full one-third of the Quran is eschatological, dealing with the afterlife in the next world and with the day of judgment at the end of time. There is a reference of the afterlife on most pages of the Quran and the belief in the afterlife is often referred to in conjunction with belief in God as in the common expression: "Believe in God and the last day". A number of suras such as 44, 56, 75, 78, 81 and 101 are directly related to the afterlife and its preparations. Some of the suras indicate the closeness of the event and warn people to be prepared for the imminent day. For instance, the first verses of Sura 22, which deal with the mighty earthquake and the situations of people on that day, represent this style of divine address: "O People! Be respectful to your Lord. The earthquake of the Hour is a mighty thing."
The Quran is often vivid in its depiction of what will happen at the end time. Watt describes the Quranic view of End Time:
"The climax of history, when the present world comes to an end, is referred to in various ways. It is 'the Day of Judgment,' 'the Last Day,' 'the Day of Resurrection,' or simply 'the Hour.' Less frequently it is 'the Day of Distinction' (when the good are separated from the evil), 'the Day of the Gathering' (of men to the presence of God) or 'the Day of the Meeting' (of men with God). The Hour comes suddenly. It is heralded by a shout, by a thunderclap, or by the blast of a trumpet. A cosmic upheaval then takes place. The mountains dissolve into dust, the seas boil up, the sun is darkened, the stars fall and the sky is rolled up. God appears as Judge, but his presence is hinted at rather than described. [...] The central interest, of course, is in the gathering of all mankind before the Judge. Human beings of all ages, restored to life, join the throng. To the scoffing objection of the unbelievers that former generations had been dead a long time and were now dust and mouldering bones, the reply is that God is nevertheless able to restore them to life."
The Quran does not assert a natural immortality of the human soul, since man's existence is dependent on the will of God: when he wills, he causes man to die; and when he wills, he raises him to life again in a bodily resurrection.[68]
PROPHETS
According to the Quran, God communicated with man and made his will known through signs and revelations. Prophets, or 'Messengers of God', received revelations and delivered them to humanity. The message has been identical and for all humankind. "Nothing is said to you that was not said to the messengers before you, that your lord has at his Command forgiveness as well as a most Grievous Penalty." The revelation does not come directly from God to the prophets. Angels acting as God's messengers deliver the divine revelation to them. This comes out in Quran 42:51, in which it is stated: "It is not for any mortal that God should speak to them, except by revelation, or from behind a veil, or by sending a messenger to reveal by his permission whatsoever He will."
ETHICO-RELIGIOUS CONCEPTS
Belief is the center of the sphere of positive moral properties in the Quran. A number of scholars have tried to determine the semantic contents of the words meaning 'belief' and 'believer' in the Quran [70] The Ethico-legal concepts and exhortations dealing with righteous conduct are linked to a profound awareness of God, thereby emphasizing the importance of faith, accountability and the belief in each human's ultimate encounter with God. People are invited to perform acts of charity, especially for the needy. Believers who "spend of their wealth by night and by day, in secret and in public" are promised that they "shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve" It also affirms family life by legislating on matters of marriage, divorce and inheritance. A number of practices such as usury and gambling are prohibited. The Quran is one of the fundamental sources of the Islamic law, or sharia. Some formal religious practices receive significant attention in the Quran including the formal prayers and fasting in the month of Ramadan. As for the manner in which the prayer is to be conducted, the Quran refers to prostration. The term used for charity, Zakat, actually means purification. Charity, according to the Quran, is a means of self-purification.
LITERARY STYLE
The Quran's message is conveyed with various literary structures and devices. In the original Arabic, the suras and verses employ phonetic and thematic structures that assist the audience's efforts to recall the message of the text. Muslims[who?] assert (according to the Quran itself) that the Quranic content and style is inimitable.
The language of the Quran has been described as "rhymed prose" as it partakes of both poetry and prose, however, this description runs the risk of compromising the rhythmic quality of Quranic language, which is certainly more poetic in some parts and more prose-like in others. Rhyme, while found throughout the Quran, is conspicuous in many of the earlier Meccan suras, in which relatively short verses throw the rhyming words into prominence. The effectiveness of such a form is evident for instance in Sura 81, and there can be no doubt that these passages impressed the conscience of the hearers. Frequently a change of rhyme from one set of verses to another signals a change in the subject of discussion. Later sections also preserve this form but the style is more expository.
The Quranic text seems to have no beginning, middle, or end, its nonlinear structure being akin to a web or net. The textual arrangement is sometimes considered to have lack of continuity, absence of any chronological or thematic order and presence of repetition. Michael Sells, citing the work of the critic Norman O. Brown, acknowledges Brown's observation that the seeming disorganization of Quranic literary expression – its scattered or fragmented mode of composition in Sells's phrase – is in fact a literary device capable of delivering profound effects as if the intensity of the prophetic message were shattering the vehicle of human language in which it was being communicated. Sells also addresses the much-discussed repetitiveness of the Quran, seeing this, too, as a literary device.
A text is self-referential when it speaks about itself and makes reference to itself. According to Stefan Wild the Quran demonstrates this meta-textuality by explaining, classifying, interpreting and justifying the words to be transmitted. Self-referentiality is evident in those passages when the Quran refers to itself as revelation (tanzil), remembrance (dhikr), news (naba'), criterion (furqan) in a self-designating manner (explicitly asserting its Divinity, "And this is a blessed Remembrance that We have sent down; so are you now denying it?"), or in the frequent appearance of the 'Say' tags, when Muhammad is commanded to speak (e.g. "Say: 'God's guidance is the true guidance' ", "Say: 'Would you then dispute with us concerning God?' "). According to Wild the Quran is highly self-referential. The feature is more evident in early Meccan suras.
INTERPRETATION
The Quran has sparked a huge body of commentary and explication (tafsīr), aimed at explaining the "meanings of the Quranic verses, clarifying their import and finding out their significance".
Tafsir is one of the earliest academic activities of Muslims. According to the Quran, Muhammad was the first person who described the meanings of verses for early Muslims. Other early exegetes included a few Companions of Muhammad, like ʻAli ibn Abi Talib, ʻAbdullah ibn Abbas, ʻAbdullah ibn Umar and Ubayy ibn Kaʻb. Exegesis in those days was confined to the explanation of literary aspects of the verse, the background of its revelation and, occasionally, interpretation of one verse with the help of the other. If the verse was about a historical event, then sometimes a few traditions (hadith) of Muhammad were narrated to make its meaning clear.
Because the Quran is spoken in classical Arabic, many of the later converts to Islam (mostly non-Arabs) did not always understand the Quranic Arabic, they did not catch allusions that were clear to early Muslims fluent in Arabic and they were concerned with reconciling apparent conflict of themes in the Quran. Commentators erudite in Arabic explained the allusions, and perhaps most importantly, explained which Quranic verses had been revealed early in Muhammad's prophetic career, as being appropriate to the very earliest Muslim community, and which had been revealed later, canceling out or "abrogating" (nāsikh) the earlier text (mansūkh). Other scholars, however, maintain that no abrogation has taken place in the Quran. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community has published a 10-volume Urdu commentary on the Quran, with the name Tafseer e Kabir.
ESOTERIC INTERPRETATION
Esoteric or Sufi interpretation attempts to unveil the inner meanings of the Quran. Sufism moves beyond the apparent (zahir) point of the verses and instead relates Quranic verses to the inner or esoteric (batin) and metaphysical dimensions of consciousness and existence. According to Sands, esoteric interpretations are more suggestive than declarative, they are 'allusions' (isharat) rather than explanations (tafsir). They indicate possibilities as much as they demonstrate the insights of each writer.
Sufi interpretation, according to Annabel Keeler, also exemplifies the use of the theme of love, as for instance can seen in Qushayri's interpretation of the Quran. Quran 7:143 says:
"when Moses came at the time we appointed, and his Lord spoke to him, he said, 'My Lord, show yourself to me! Let me see you!' He said, 'you shall not see me but look at that mountain, if it remains standing firm you will see me.' When his Lord revealed Himself to the mountain, He made it crumble. Moses fell down unconscious. When he recovered, he said, 'Glory be to you! I repent to you! I am the first to believe!'"
Moses, in 7:143, comes the way of those who are in love, he asks for a vision but his desire is denied, he is made to suffer by being commanded to look at other than the Beloved while the mountain is able to see God. The mountain crumbles and Moses faints at the sight of God's manifestation upon the mountain. In Qushayri's words, Moses came like thousands of men who traveled great distances, and there was nothing left to Moses of Moses. In that state of annihilation from himself, Moses was granted the unveiling of the realities. From the Sufi point of view, God is the always the beloved and the wayfarer's longing and suffering lead to realization of the truths.[90]
Muhammad Husayn Tabatabaei says that according to the popular explanation among the later exegetes, ta'wil indicates the particular meaning a verse is directed towards. The meaning of revelation (tanzil), as opposed to ta'wil, is clear in its accordance to the obvious meaning of the words as they were revealed. But this explanation has become so widespread that, at present, it has become the primary meaning of ta'wil, which originally meant "to return" or "the returning place". In Tabatabaei's view, what has been rightly called ta'wil, or hermeneutic interpretation of the Quran, is not concerned simply with the denotation of words. Rather, it is concerned with certain truths and realities that transcend the comprehension of the common run of men; yet it is from these truths and realities that the principles of doctrine and the practical injunctions of the Quran issue forth. Interpretation is not the meaning of the verse - rather it transpires through that meaning, in a special sort of transpiration. There is a spiritual reality - which is the main objective of ordaining a law, or the basic aim in describing a divine attribute - and then there is an actual significance that a Quranic story refers to.
According to Shia beliefs, those who are firmly rooted in knowledge like Muhammad and the imams know the secrets of the Quran. According to Tabatabaei, the statement "none knows its interpretation except God" remains valid, without any opposing or qualifying clause. Therefore, so far as this verse is concerned, the knowledge of the Quran's interpretation is reserved for God. But Tabatabaei uses other verses and concludes that those who are purified by God know the interpretation of the Quran to a certain extent.
According to Tabatabaei, there are acceptable and unacceptable esoteric interpretations. Acceptable ta'wil refers to the meaning of a verse beyond its literal meaning; rather the implicit meaning, which ultimately is known only to God and can't be comprehended directly through human thought alone. The verses in question here refer to the human qualities of coming, going, sitting, satisfaction, anger and sorrow, which are apparently attributed to God. Unacceptable ta'wil is where one "transfers" the apparent meaning of a verse to a different meaning by means of a proof; this method is not without obvious inconsistencies. Although this unacceptable ta'wil has gained considerable acceptance, it is incorrect and cannot be applied to the Quranic verses. The correct interpretation is that reality a verse refers to. It is found in all verses, the decisive and the ambiguous alike; it is not a sort of a meaning of the word; it is a fact that is too sublime for words. God has dressed them with words to bring them a bit nearer to our minds; in this respect they are like proverbs that are used to create a picture in the mind, and thus help the hearer to clearly grasp the intended idea.
HISTORY OF SUFI COMMENTARIES
One of the notable authors of esoteric interpretation prior to the 12th century is Sulami (d. 1021 CE) without whose work the majority of very early Sufi commentaries would not have been preserved. Sulami's major commentary is a book named haqaiq al-tafsir ("Truths of Exegesis") which is a compilation of commentaries of earlier Sufis. From the 11th century onwards several other works appear, including commentaries by Qushayri (d. 1074), Daylami (d. 1193), Shirazi (d. 1209) and Suhrawardi (d. 1234). These works include material from Sulami's books plus the author's contributions. Many works are written in Persian such as the works of Maybudi (d. 1135) kash al-asrar ("the unveiling of the secrets"). Rumi (d. 1273) wrote a vast amount of mystical poetry in his book Mathnawi. Rumi makes heavy use of the Quran in his poetry, a feature that is sometimes omitted in translations of Rumi's work. A large number of Quranic passages can be found in Mathnawi, which some consider a kind of Sufi interpretation of the Quran. Rumi's book is not exceptional for containing citations from and elaboration on the Quran, however, Rumi does mention Quran more frequently. Simnani (d. 1336) wrote two influential works of esoteric exegesis on the Quran. He reconciled notions of God's manifestation through and in the physical world with the sentiments of Sunni Islam. Comprehensive Sufi commentaries appears in the 18th century such as the work of Ismail Hakki Bursevi (d. 1725). His work ruh al-Bayan (the Spirit of Elucidation) is a voluminous exegesis. Written in Arabic, it combines the author's own ideas with those of his predecessors (notably Ibn Arabi and Ghazali), all woven together in Hafiz, a Persian poetry form.
LEVELS OF MEANING
Unlike the Salafis and Zahiri, Shias and Sufis as well as some other Muslim philosophers believe the meaning of the Quran is not restricted to the literal aspect. For them, it is an essential idea that the Quran also has inward aspects. Henry Corbin narrates a hadith that goes back to Muhammad:
"The Quran possesses an external appearance and a hidden depth, an exoteric meaning and an esoteric meaning. This esoteric meaning in turn conceals an esoteric meaning (this depth possesses a depth, after the image of the celestial Spheres, which are enclosed within each other). So it goes on for seven esoteric meanings (seven depths of hidden depth)."
According to this view, it has also become evident that the inner meaning of the Quran does not eradicate or invalidate its outward meaning. Rather, it is like the soul, which gives life to the body. Corbin considers the Quran to play a part in Islamic philosophy, because gnosiology itself goes hand in hand with prophetology.
Commentaries dealing with the zahir (outward aspects) of the text are called tafsir, and hermeneutic and esoteric commentaries dealing with the batin are called ta'wil ("interpretation" or "explanation"), which involves taking the text back to its beginning. Commentators with an esoteric slant believe that the ultimate meaning of the Quran is known only to God. In contrast, Quranic literalism, followed by Salafis and Zahiris, is the belief that the Quran should only be taken at its apparent meaning.
TRANSLATIONS
Translation of the Quran has always been a problematic and difficult issue. Many argue that the Quranic text cannot be reproduced in another language or form. Furthermore, an Arabic word may have a range of meanings depending on the context, making an accurate translation even more difficult.
Nevertheless, the Quran has been translated into most African, Asian and European languages. The first translator of the Quran was Salman the Persian, who translated surat al-Fatiha into Persian during the seventh century. Another translation of the Quran was completed in 884 CE in Alwar (Sindh, India now Pakistan) by the orders of Abdullah bin Umar bin Abdul Aziz on the request of the Hindu Raja Mehruk.
The first fully attested complete translations of the Quran were done between the 10th and 12th centuries in Persian language. The Samanid king, Mansur I (961-976), ordered a group of scholars from Khorasan to translate the Tafsir al-Tabari, originally in Arabic, into Persian. Later in the 11th century, one of the students of Abu Mansur Abdullah al-Ansari wrote a complete tafsir of the Quran in Persian. In the 12th century, Najm al-Din Abu Hafs al-Nasafi translated the Quran into Persian. The manuscripts of all three books have survived and have been published several times.
Islamic tradition also holds that translations were made for Emperor Negus of Abyssinia and Byzantine Emperor Heraclius, as both received letters by Muhammad containing verses from the Quran. In early centuries, the permissibility of translations was not an issue, but whether one could use translations in prayer.
In 1936, translations in 102 languages were known. In 2010, the Hürriyet Daily News and Economic Review reported that the Quran was presented in 112 languages at the 18th International Quran Exhibition in Tehran.
Amanda Smith's Own Story
Page v-x
Page v
"INTRODUCTION.
During the summer of 1876, while attending a camp meeting Epworth Heights, near Cincinnati, my attention was drawn to a colored lady dressed in a very plain garb, which reminded me somewhat of that worn by the Friends in former days, who was engaged in expounding a Bible lesson to a small audience.
I was told that the speaker was Mrs. Amanda Smith, and that she was a woman of remarkable gifts, who had been greatly blessed in various parts of the country.
Having spent nearly all my adult years on the other side of the globe, my acquaintance in America was by no means an extensive one, and this will explain the fact that I had never heard of this devout lady until I met her at this camp meeting.
Her remarks on the Bible lesson did not particularly impress me, and it was not until the evening of the same day, when I chanced to be kneeling near her at a prayer meeting, that I became impressed that she was a person of more than ordinary power.
The meetings of the day had not been very successful, and a spirit of depression rested upon many of the leaders. A heavy rain had fallen, and we were kneeling somewhat uncomfortably in the straw which surrounded the preacher's stand.
A number had prayed, and I was myself sharing the general feeling of depression, when I was suddenly startled by the voice of song. I lifted my head, and at a short distance, probably not more than two yards from me, I saw the colored sister of the morning kneeling in an upright position, with her hands spread out and her face all aglow.
She had suddenly broken out with a triumphant song, and while I was startled by the change in the order of the meeting, I was at once absorbed with interest in the song and the singer.
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Something like a hallowed glow seemed to rest upon the dark face before me, and I felt in a second that she was possessed of a rare degree of spiritual power.
That invisible something which we are accustomed to call power, and which is never possessed by any Christian believer except as one of the fruits of the indwelling Spirit of God, was hers in a marked degree.
From that time onward I regarded her as a gifted worker in the Lord's vineyard, but I had still to learn that the enduement of the Spirit had given her more than the one gift of spiritual power.
A week later I met her at Lakeside, Ohio, and was again impressed in the same way, but I then began to discover that she was not only a woman of faith, but that she possessed a clearness of vision which I have seldom found equaled.
Her homely illustrations, her quaint expressions, her warmhearted appeals, all possess the supreme merit of being so many vehicles for conveying the living truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the hearts of those who are fortunate enough to hear her.
A few years after my return to India, in 1876, I was delighted to hear that this chosen and approved worker of the Master had decided to visit this country. She arrived in 1879, and after a short stay in Bombay, came over to the eastern side of the empire, and assisted us for some time in Calcutta. She also returned two years later, and again rendered us valuable assistance.
The novelty of a colored woman from America, who had in her childhood been a slave, appearing before an audience in Calcutta, was sufficient to attract attention, but this alone would not account for the popularity which she enjoyed throughout her whole stay in our city.
She was fiercely attacked by narrow minded persons in the daily papers, and elsewhere, but opposition only seemed to add to her power.
During the seventeen years that I have lived in Calcutta, I have known many famous strangers to visit the city, some of whom attracted large audiences, but I have never known anyone who could draw and hold so large an audience as Mrs. Smith.
She assisted me both in the church and in open-air meetings, and never failed to display the peculiar tact for which she is remarkable.
I shall never forget one meeting which we were holding in an
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open square, in the very heart of the city. It was at a time of no little excitement, and some Christian preachers had been roughly handled in the same square a few evenings before. I had just spoken myself, when I noticed a great crowd of men and boys, who had succeeded in breaking up a missionary's audience on the other side of the square, rushing towards us with loud cries and threatening gestures.
If left to myself I should have tried to gain the box on which the speakers stood, in order to command the crowd, but at the critical moment, our good Sister Smith knelt on the grass and began to pray. As the crowd rushed up to the spot, and saw her with her beaming face upturned to the evening sky, pouring out her soul in prayer, they became perfectly still, and stood as if transfixed to the spot! Not even a whisper disturbed the solemn silence, and when she had finished we had as orderly a meeting as if we had been within the four walls of a church!
In those days a well known theatrical manager, much given to popular buffoonery, wrote to me inviting me to arrange to have Mrs. Smith preach in his theatre on a certain Sunday evening. I was much surprised on receiving the letter, and taking it to her told her I did not know what it meant. Several friends, who chanced to be present, at once began to dissuade her:
"Do not go, Sister Amanda," said several, speaking at once, "the man merely wishes to have a good opportunity of seeing you, so that he can take you off in his theatre. He has no good purpose in view. Do not trust yourself to him under any circumstances."
After a moment's hesitation Mrs. Smith replied in language which I shall never forget:
"I am forbidden," she said, "to judge any man. You would not wish me to judge you, and would think it wrong if any of us should judge a brother or sister in the church. What right have I to judge this man? I have no more right to judge him than if he were a Christian."
She said she would pray over it and give her decision. She did so, and decided to accept the invitation.
When Sunday evening came the theatre was packed like a herring box, while hundreds were unable to gain admission. I took charge of the meeting, and after singing and prayer introduced our strange friend from America.
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She spoke simply and pointedly, alluding to the kindness of the manager who had opened the doors of his theatre to her, in very courteous terms, and evidently made a deep and favorable impression upon the audience. There was no laughing, and no attempt was ever made subsequently to ridicule her. As she was walking off the stage the manager said to me;
"If you want the theatre for her again do not fail to let me know. I would do anything for that inspired woman."
During Mrs. Smith's stay in Calcutta she had opportunities for seeing a good deal of the native community. Here, again, I was struck with her extraordinary power of discernment. We have in Calcutta a class of reformed Hindus called Brahmos. They are, as a class, a very worthy body of men, and at that time were led by the distinguished Keshub Chunder Sen.
Every distinguished visitor who comes to Calcutta is sure to seek the acquaintance of some of these Brahmos, and to study, more or less, the reformed system which they profess and teach. I have often wondered that so few, even of our ablest visitors, seem able to comprehend the real character either of the men or of their new system. Mrs. Smith very quickly found access to some of them, and beyond any other stranger whom I have ever known to visit Calcutta, she formed a wonderfully accurate estimate of the character, both of the men and of their religious teaching.
She saw almost at a glance all that was strange and all that was weak in the men and in their system.
This penetrating power of discernment which she possesses in so large a degree impressed me more and more the longer I knew her. Profound scholars and religious teachers of philosophical bent seemed positively inferior to her in the task of discovering the practical value of men and systems which had attracted the attention of the world!
I have already spoken of her clearness of perception and power of stating the undimmed truth of the Gospel of Christ. Through association with her, I learned many valuable lessons from her lips, and once before an American audience, when Dr. W. F. Warren was exhorting young preachers to be willing to learn from their own hearers, even though many of the hearers might be comparatively illiterate, I ventured to second his exhortation by telling the audience that I had learned more that had been of
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actual value to me as a preacher of Christian truth from Amanda Smith than from any other one person I had ever met.
Throughout Mrs. Smith's stay in India she was always cheerful and hopeful. In this respect, too, she differed from most visitors to our great empire. Some adopt gloomy views as they look at the weakness of Christianity, and observe the stupendous fortifications which have been reared by the followers of the various false religions of the people.
Some even yield to despair, and refuse to believe that India ever can be saved or even benefited, while only a very few are able to believe not only that India will yet become a Christian empire, but that Christ will yet lift up the people of this land, and so revolutionize or transform society as it exists to-day, as to make the people practically a new people.
Our good Sister Amanda Smith never belonged to any of these despondent classes.
She sometimes was touched by the pictures of misery which she saw around her, but never became hopeless. She was of cheerful temperament, it is true, but aside from personal feeling, she always possessed a buoyant hope and an overcoming faith, which made it easy for her to believe. that the Saviour, whom she loved and served, really intended to save and transform India.
Soon after Mrs. Smith's visit to India, another Virginian visited Calcutta on his way around the globe. This was Mr. Moncure D. Conway.
These two persons, Mrs. Smith and Mr. Conway, were representative Virginians. They had been born in the same section of the country, brought up as Methodists, and were thoroughly acquainted, one by observation and the other by experience, with the terrible character of the American slave system.
Mr. Conway in early life was for several years a Methodist preacher, but by his own published confession he never comprehended what the true spirit of Methodism was. He was at one time a well known and somewhat popular Unitarian minister, but finding the Unitarians too narrow and orthodox for a man of his liberal mind, he set up an independent church or organization of some kind, in London, and preached to an obscure little congregation for a number of years, until his last experiment ended in confessed failure.
His recorded impressions received in India were of the most
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gloomy kind. He saw nothing to hope for in the condition of the people, and looked at them in their helpless state with blank bewilderment, if not despair. He passed through the empire without leaving a single trace of light behind him, without making an impression for good upon any heart or life, without finding an open door by which to make any man orwoman happier or better, without, in short, seeing even a single ray of hope shining upon what he regarded as a dark and benighted land.
Mrs. Smith, the other Virginian, without a tittle of Mr. Conway's learning, and deprived of nearly every advantage which he had enjoyed, not only retained the faith of her childhood, but matured and developed it until it attained a standard of purity and strength rarely witnessed in our world.
She also came to India, but unlike the other Virginian, she cherished hope where he felt only despair, she saw light where he perceived only darkness, she found opportunities everywhere for doing good which wholly escaped his observation, and during her two years' stay in the country where she went, she traced out a pathway of light in the midst of the darkness!
As she left the country she could look back upon a hundred homes which were brighter and better because of her coming, upon hundreds of hearts whose burdens had been lightened and whose sorrows had been sweetened by reason of her public and private ministry.
She is gratefully remembered to this day by thousands in the land.
Her life affords a striking comment at once upon the value of the New Testament to those who receive it, both in letter and in spirit, and upon the hopelessness of the Gospel of unbelief which obtains so wide a hearing at the present day.
A thousand Virginians of the Conway stripe might come and go for a thousand years without making India any better, but a thousand Amanda Smiths would suffice to revolutionize an empire!
I am very glad to learn that Mrs. Smith has at last been induced to yield to the importunities of friends and prepare a sketch of her eventful life. I trust that the story will be told without reserve in all its simplicity, as well as in all its strength, and I doubt not that God will crown this last of her many labors with abundant blessings.
J. M. THOBURN.
CALCUTTA, October 22, 1891"
Text scanned (OCR) by Sarah Reuning
Images scanned by Sarah Reuning
Text encoded by Carlene Hempel and Natalia Smith
First edition, 1999
ca. 1.5MB
Academic Affairs Library, UNC-CH
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
1999.
© This work is the property of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text.
Source Description:
(title page) An Autobiography The Story of the Lord's Dealings with Mrs. Amanda Smith the Colored Evangelist; Containing an Account of Her Life Work of Faith, and Her Travels in America, England, Ireland, Scotland, India, and Africa, as an Independent Missionary
Smith, Amanda
iii-xvi, 17-506
Chicago:
Meyer & Brother, Publishers,
108 Washington Street,
1893
An abandoned church, which was built in 1960 has been closed since 2018. There was some talk that after almost three year there might be a new owner.
From the churches Facebook page:
Evergreen Park Presbyterian Church
8859 South Francisco Avenue
Evergreen Park, Illinois.
CLOSED!
December 13, 2018
Dear Friends,
After a great deal of discernment and work over the past year, our Session has decided the most faithful route for us to take is closure. We will continue to hold Sunday evening services at 5:00pm through the end of the year, with our last regular evening service on December 30th.
Due to our dwindling numbers, Session decided not to hold a Christmas Eve service this year. I would encourage you all to seek out a service close to you, or at a congregation you or your loved ones have been or are a part of.
That being said, I am looking forward with anticipation to celebrating our 72 years of faithful service on this corner of Evergreen Park with you this spring. We will hold a concluding service around the end of February / beginning of March, and you are invited! We will invite all of our members, friends, previous members, and pastors as well. Stay tuned for more information. I will update our Facebook page as soon as we have a date established.
It has been my privilege and blessing to serve you as pastor these past four and a half years. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns, or if there is a way I can be a better pastor for you during this time. The Session and I will continue to communicate any new information we have for you as we get it. Thank you for being part of this wonderful community.
Blessings to you,
Jon
A new kid on the block: Quadralectics in Northampton, Massachusetts. (Facebook) It might not be the same as the quadralectics philosophy, but the intentions are good.
I visited Northampton in 1998, as part of a fact-finding trip to T.S. Eliot's ''Dry Salvages''.
www.flickr.com/photos/quadralectics/albums/72157628538542485
The city of Northampton is the county seat of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of Northampton was 29,571. Northampton is known as an academic, artistic, musical, and countercultural hub.
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SEPT 6 - 28 FINAL WEEK!
QUADRALECTIC: A SOLO GROUP SHOW
“Quadralectic: A Solo Group Show,” is a unique exhibition curated by Malinda Labriola featuring the work of four artistic personas, each representing a different facet of Malinda’s artistic practice. Meet the Artists:
Siggie Zampa, the cartoonist, shares humor through playful cartoons created using just two vibrant colors.
R.L. Stilzkin, the illustrator, opens up detailed worlds with intricate line drawings of whimsical characters that spark the imagination.
GASEO, the abstractionist, captures the essence of motion and energy by using the movement of cars to create dynamic line drawings, often transformed with watercolor
Mal Labriola, the printmaker, merges nature and art by crafting unique prints and compositions with ink pads and local flora.
“Quadralectic” celebrates the idea that creativity is defined but not limited by the media we use, and that art can flourish when made with discernment rather than judgment. As the title would suggest, “Quadralectic” places bodies of work in dialog to create a synergistic blend of artistic voices, underscoring that our diverse expressions can work together, enrich the whole, and encourage the exploration of what art can be. Each piece in this show invites people of all ages to explore their creativity and find artistic personalities of their own that might be waiting to emerge. We hope to see you there!
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About A.P.E.@Hawley
A.P.E.@Hawley provides, to artists and researchers, affordable access to The Workroom, Carole's Dance Studio, and Mezzanine at 33 Hawley. Our programming and rental structure strives to create the conditions for rich exploration and a maximizing of creative potential. We encourage inquiry-based processes and the open exchange of ideas towards the development of new, experimental, and challenging projects and works. A.P.E. welcomes inquiries and requests and reviews proposals on a first come/first serve basis. A.P.E. founded the Workroom Cooperative and, in the past, has partnered with The School for Contemporary Dance & Thought (SCDT )and Historic Northampton to create dynamic programming at 33 Hawley.
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The Dry Salvages is the third poem of T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets, marking the beginning of the point when the series was consciously being shaped as a set of four poems. It was written and published in 1941 during the air-raids on Great Britain, an event that threatened him while giving lectures in the area.
I love the word "vision" because it has meaning on different levels. The obvious one for me (having just gone through two eye surgeries for cataracts with a hugely remarkable outcome) is the blessing of sight, of being able to see color, form, detail, depth, light... Perception of color saturation and detail were gradually lost to me as the cataracts grew and thickened. I am so very blessed to have good vision again.
But vision also refers to:
1. Unusual competence in discernment or perception; intelligent foresight: a leader of vision.
2. The manner in which one sees or conceives of something.
3. A mental image produced by the imagination.
4. The mystical experience of seeing.
All of these are blessings too!
Size: 2.5 x 3.5 inches
Month: June
Method: improvistional bead embroidery on batik fabric stabilized with paper
Backed with: 200 lb. card stock and Ultrasuede Light
Beads: mostly size 15, some 11s and 8s; glass accent beads
On 11th October , 2014, around 2.30 pm we reached our hotel at Leh. After a hurried lunch we proceeded to famous Hemis Monastery. In the late afternoon we reached at Hemis. It was behind a small hill, difficult to figure out such a huge structure from a distant point. We climbed few staircases, crossed a door and finally reached the main courtyard. What a wonderful ambiance it had been, so peaceful and serene. It was getting dark soon, and couldn’t see much of it. The next day we came again and had a vivid look. I was amazed by its richness and traditions of tantric practice of Tibetan Buddhism in such a remote place of the world.
Hemis Monastery is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery (gompa) of the Drukpa Lineage, located in Hemis, Ladakh, India. Situated 45 km from Leh, in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Hemis Monastery existed before the 11th century and was re-established in 1672 by the Ladakhi king Sengge Namgyal. The annual Hemis festival honoring Padmasambhava is held here in early June.
Terma and tertöns : The essence of Tebetan Buddhism.
Padmasambhava (lit. "Lotus-Born"), also known as Guru Rinpoche, is a literary character of terma (Terma or "hidden treasure"- are key Tibetan Buddhist teaching, which the tradition holds were originally esoterically hidden by various adepts such as Padmasambhava and his consorts, in the 8th century for future discovery at auspicious times by other adepts, known as tertöns. As such, they represent a tradition of continuous revelation in Tibetan Buddhism. Termas are a part of Tantric Literature. Tradition holds that terma may be a physical object such as a text or ritual implement that is buried in the ground (or earth), hidden in a rock or crystal, secreted in a herb, or a tree, hidden in a lake (or water), or hidden in the sky (space). Though a literal understanding of terma is "hidden treasure", and sometimes objects are hidden away, the teachings associated should be understood as being “concealed within the mind of the guru”, that is, the true place of concealment is in the tertön's mindstream. If the concealed or encoded teaching or object is a text, it is often written in dakini script: a non-human type of code or writing).
Terma is an emanation of Amitabha (Amitābha or Amideva, is a celestial buddha described in the scriptures of the Mahāyāna school of Buddhism. Amitābha is the principal buddha in the Pure Land sect, a branch of Buddhism practiced mainly in East Asia, while in Vajrayana Amitābha is known for his longevity attribute, magnetising red fire element, the aggregate of discernment, pure perception and the deep awareness of emptiness of phenomena. According to these scriptures, Amitābha possesses infinite merits resulting from good deeds over countless past lives as a bodhisattva named Dharmakāra. "Amitābha" is translatable as "Infinite Light," hence Amitābha is also called "The Buddha of Immeasurable Life and Light" ).
Terma that is said to appear to tertons (A tertön is a discoverer of ancient texts or terma in Tibetan Buddhism) in visionary encounters and a focus of Tibetan Buddhist practice (Tibetan Buddhism is the body of Buddhist religious doctrine and institutions characteristic of Tibet, Mongolia, Tuva, Bhutan, Kalmykia and certain regions of the Himalayas, including northern Nepal, and India (particularly in Arunachal Pradesh, Ladakh, Dharamsala, Lahaul and Spiti district in Himachal Pradesh and Sikkim. It is also practiced in Northeast China. Religious texts and commentaries are contained in the Tibetan Buddhist canon such that Tibetan is a spiritual language of these areas. The Tibetan diaspora has spread Tibetan Buddhism to many Western countries, where the tradition has gained popularity. Among its prominent exponents is the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet. The number of its adherents is estimated to be between ten and twenty million).
Interested Viewers can see the following documentary on Padmasambhava:
Padmasambhava
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQBbfLtxj8A&spfreload=10
History
Hemis Monastery existed before the 11th century. Naropa, the pupil of the yogi Tilopa, and teacher of the translator Marpa is connected with this monastery. A translation was made by A. Grünwedel (Nӑro und Tilo,: Festschrift Ernst Kuhn, München 1916) of Naropa's biography that was found in Hemis monastery.
In this manuscript Naropa (or Naro) meets the "dark blue" (Skr.: nila: dark blue or black) Tilopa (or Tillo), a tantric master, who gives Naropa 12 "great" and 12 "small" tasks to do in order to enlighten him to the inherent emptiness/illusoriness of all things. Naropa is depicted as the "abbott of Nalanda" (F. Wilhelm, Prüfung und Initiation im Buche Pausya und in der Biographie des Naropa, Wiesbaden 1965, p. 70), the university-monastery in today's Bihar, India, that flourished until the sacking by Turkish and Afghan Muslim forces. This sacking must have been the driving force behind Naropa's peregrination in the direction of Hemis. After Naropa and Tilopa met in Hemis they travelled back in the direction of a certain monastery in the now no longer existing kingdom of Maghada, called Otantra which has been identified as today's Otantapuri. Naropa is consered the founding father of the Kagyu-lineage of the Himalayan esoteric Buddhism. Hence Hemis is the main seat of the Kagyu lineage of Buddhism.
In 1894 Russian journalist Nicolas Notovitch claimed Hemis as the origin of an otherwise unknown gospel, the Life of Saint Issa, Best of the Sons of Men, in which Jesus is said to have traveled to India during his "lost years." According to Notovitch, the work had been preserved in the Hemis library, and was shown to him by the monks there while he was recuperating from a broken leg. But once his story had been re-examined by historians, Notovitch confessed to having fabricated the evidence. Bart D. Ehrman states that "Today there is not a single recognized scholar on the planet who has any doubts about the matter. The entire story was invented by Notovitch, who earned a good deal of money and a substantial amount of notoriety for his hoax". However, the Indian Pandit Swami Abhedananda also claims to have read the same manuscript, and published his account of viewing it after his visit to Hemis in 1921. Abhedananda claims on the book jacket that it was translated for him with the help of a "local Lama interpreter." In the same vein, Notovich did not initially translate the manuscript, but reported his Sherpa guide did so as Notovitch could not read the original text. Notovich's version of the manuscript was translated from Tibetan to Russian to French to English. According to Swami Abhedananda's account, his Lama's translation was equivalent to the one published by Notovich. The Gutenberg Project has published the entire manuscript as a free ebook.
Hemis Festival
The Hemis Festival is dedicated to Lord Padmasambhava (Guru Rimpoche) venerated as the Dance Performance at Hemis Monastery representative reincarnate of Buddha. He is believed to have been born on the 10th day of the fifth month of the Monkey year as predicted by the Buddha Shakyamuni. It is also believed that his life mission was, and remains, to improve the spiritual condition of all living beings. And so on this day, which comes once in a cycle of 12 years, Hemis observes a major extravaganza in his memory. The observance of these sacred rituals is believed to give spiritual strength and good health. The Hemis festival takes place in the rectangular courtyard in front of the main door of the monastery. The space is wide and open save two raised square platforms, three feet high with a sacred pole in the center. A raised dias with a richly cushioned seat with a finely painted small Tibetan table is placed with the ceremonial items - cups full of holy water, uncooked rice, tormas made of dough and butter and incense sticks. A number of musicians play the traditional music with four pairs of cymbals, large-pan drums, small trumpets and large size wind instruments. Next to them, a small space is assigned for the lamas to sit.
The ceremonies begin with an early morning ritual atop the Gompa where, to the beat of drums and the resounding clash of cymbals and the spiritual wail of pipes, the portrait of "Dadmokarpo" or "Rygyalsras Rimpoche" is then ceremoniously put on display for all to admire and worship.
The most esoteric of festivities are the mystic mask dances. The Mask Dances of Ladakh are referred collectively as chams Performance. Chams performance is essentially a part of Tantric tradition, performed only in those gompas which follow the Tantric Vajrayana teachings and the monks perform tantric worship.
Source: Wikipedia and others.
2019 Gospel Song Video With Lyrics "What the Young Must Pursue" | Christian Music Video | www.holyspiritspeaks.org/videos/what-the-young-must-pursue/
I
Prejudiced eyes and deceit are not what the youth should have.
Awful and destructive ways are not how the youth should act.
They should have aspirations, ardently strive to advance,
not lose heart over their prospects,
keep faith in life, the future.
Youth should have resolve in discernment, seeking justice and the truth.
Pursue all things beautiful,
gain reality of positive things.
Be responsible towards life.
You must not take this lightly. You must not take this lightly.
II
Youth should persist in the path of truth,
thus expend their lives for God.
They should not lack the truth,
nor harbor falseness, unrighteousness.
They should take the proper stance.
They shouldn’t just drift along.
They should dare to sacrifice, fight for justice and the truth.
Youth should have resolve in discernment, seeking justice and the truth.
Pursue all things beautiful,
gain reality of positive things.
Be responsible towards life.
You must not take this lightly. You must not take this lightly.
III
Young people should not give in to oppression of dark force.
They must have the courage to change the meaning of their lives.
Young people shouldn’t resign themselves to adversity,
they should be open and frank, forgive fellow believers.
Youth should have resolve in discernment, seeking justice and the truth.
Pursue all things beautiful,
gain reality of positive things.
Be responsible towards life.
You must not take this lightly. You must not take this lightly.
from Follow the Lamb and Sing New Songs
You may also like : praise and worship music
Image Source: The Church of Almighty God
“My dear Lord Campion, do you fully appreciate the sheer pleasure that a woman takes from being seen in public - out on a date - with such a refined, handsome and distinguished gentleman as yourself?
“I am already highly aroused by the sensual pleasure of this pleated silk dress caressing my body; the delicate but slightly tingly touch my sheer, lacy bra against my aureola and my nipples; the soft kiss of my lace panties, the tug of my taut garter straps against my smooth thighs and backside; the divinely erotic feel of my fully-fashioned designer stockings; the thrill of my empowering strut on five-inch skyscraper heels; the sweet inhalation of my Nina Ricci
'L' Air du Temps' fragrance; the sheer beauty and glamour of my elaborate coiffure and makeover.
“All these sensual pleasures are multiplied when I am in the company of a true Alpha Male: a truly masculine man, with the discernment to appreciate all that can transpire between a passionate woman and a strong, forceful gentleman!"
Toodle Pip!
Love and Kisses to All!
xxxxxxx
Lady Rebecca Georgina Arabella Lyndon
Duchess of Basingstoke
Marchioness of Hounslow
Duchesse de la Baleine D'or
Grande-Duchesse de Bourgogne
Princesse Héritier de Provence et de Langue D'oc
Grevinnen hvis Finmark
Prinzessin Schopenhauer-Glockstein Hohenstal-Schwangau of Bavaria
I don't know my birds, but I know that this one was quite green. He or she was looking over the other birds with a penetrating gaze. This was at Bloedel Conservatory in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Buzzard or Vulture teaches the power of purification of the mind, body and spirit. Vulture aids accomplishing tasks through great patience and vision, using your sense of smell and discernment, and how to glide and soar with your own energy. He teaches efficiency in actions and promises that changes are imminent. He shows how to restore harmony of thoughts and feelings so one can reach new heights with little effort. Buzzards will aid in uncovering truths, clarifying previous conceptions, and allow to see and hear subtle hidden qualities using intuition and awareness. Buzzard can teach confidence and the ability to stand with dignity and soar with clarity and purpose. He shows how to seek a new and heightened vision while increasing sensitivity. It is time to soar above your perceived limitations. Are you currently undergoing an internal death and rebirth cycle? Are you ready to assert your actions from your ideas? Buzzard will aid in transforming knowledge to bring the unconscious to conscious and teach how to soar above it and bring the transformation you are needing at this time. Are you ready for these lessons of awakening?
Hemis Monastery is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery (gompa) of the Drukpa Lineage, located in Hemis, Ladakh, India. Situated 45 km from Leh, in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Hemis Monastery existed before the 11th century and was re-established in 1672 by the Ladakhi king Sengge Namgyal. The annual Hemis festival honoring Padmasambhava is held here in early June.
Terma and tertöns : The essence of Tebetan Buddhism.
Padmasambhava (lit. "Lotus-Born"), also known as Guru Rinpoche, is a literary character of terma (Terma or "hidden treasure"- are key Tibetan Buddhist teaching, which the tradition holds were originally esoterically hidden by various adepts such as Padmasambhava and his consorts, in the 8th century for future discovery at auspicious times by other adepts, known as tertöns. As such, they represent a tradition of continuous revelation in Tibetan Buddhism. Termas are a part of Tantric Literature. Tradition holds that terma may be a physical object such as a text or ritual implement that is buried in the ground (or earth), hidden in a rock or crystal, secreted in a herb, or a tree, hidden in a lake (or water), or hidden in the sky (space). Though a literal understanding of terma is "hidden treasure", and sometimes objects are hidden away, the teachings associated should be understood as being “concealed within the mind of the guru”, that is, the true place of concealment is in the tertön's mindstream. If the concealed or encoded teaching or object is a text, it is often written in dakini script: a non-human type of code or writing).
Terma is an emanation of Amitabha (Amitābha or Amideva, is a celestial buddha described in the scriptures of the Mahāyāna school of Buddhism. Amitābha is the principal buddha in the Pure Land sect, a branch of Buddhism practiced mainly in East Asia, while in Vajrayana Amitābha is known for his longevity attribute, magnetising red fire element, the aggregate of discernment, pure perception and the deep awareness of emptiness of phenomena. According to these scriptures, Amitābha possesses infinite merits resulting from good deeds over countless past lives as a bodhisattva named Dharmakāra. "Amitābha" is translatable as "Infinite Light," hence Amitābha is also called "The Buddha of Immeasurable Life and Light" ).
Terma that is said to appear to tertons (A tertön is a discoverer of ancient texts or terma in Tibetan Buddhism) in visionary encounters and a focus of Tibetan Buddhist practice (Tibetan Buddhism is the body of Buddhist religious doctrine and institutions characteristic of Tibet, Mongolia, Tuva, Bhutan, Kalmykia and certain regions of the Himalayas, including northern Nepal, and India (particularly in Arunachal Pradesh, Ladakh, Dharamsala, Lahaul and Spiti district in Himachal Pradesh and Sikkim. It is also practiced in Northeast China. Religious texts and commentaries are contained in the Tibetan Buddhist canon such that Tibetan is a spiritual language of these areas. The Tibetan diaspora has spread Tibetan Buddhism to many Western countries, where the tradition has gained popularity. Among its prominent exponents is the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet. The number of its adherents is estimated to be between ten and twenty million).
History
Hemis Monastery existed before the 11th century. Naropa, the pupil of the yogi Tilopa, and teacher of the translator Marpa is connected with this monastery. A translation was made by A. Grünwedel (Nӑro und Tilo,: Festschrift Ernst Kuhn, München 1916) of Naropa's biography that was found in Hemis monastery.
In this manuscript Naropa (or Naro) meets the "dark blue" (Skr.: nila: dark blue or black) Tilopa (or Tillo), a tantric master, who gives Naropa 12 "great" and 12 "small" tasks to do in order to enlighten him to the inherent emptiness/illusoriness of all things. Naropa is depicted as the "abbott of Nalanda" (F. Wilhelm, Prüfung und Initiation im Buche Pausya und in der Biographie des Naropa, Wiesbaden 1965, p. 70), the university-monastery in today's Bihar, India, that flourished until the sacking by Turkish and Afghan Muslim forces. This sacking must have been the driving force behind Naropa's peregrination in the direction of Hemis. After Naropa and Tilopa met in Hemis they travelled back in the direction of a certain monastery in the now no longer existing kingdom of Maghada, called Otantra which has been identified as today's Otantapuri. Naropa is consered the founding father of the Kagyu-lineage of the Himalayan esoteric Buddhism. Hence Hemis is the main seat of the Kagyu lineage of Buddhism.
In 1894 Russian journalist Nicolas Notovitch claimed Hemis as the origin of an otherwise unknown gospel, the Life of Saint Issa, Best of the Sons of Men, in which Jesus is said to have traveled to India during his "lost years." According to Notovitch, the work had been preserved in the Hemis library, and was shown to him by the monks there while he was recuperating from a broken leg. But once his story had been re-examined by historians, Notovitch confessed to having fabricated the evidence. Bart D. Ehrman states that "Today there is not a single recognized scholar on the planet who has any doubts about the matter. The entire story was invented by Notovitch, who earned a good deal of money and a substantial amount of notoriety for his hoax". However, the Indian Pandit Swami Abhedananda also claims to have read the same manuscript, and published his account of viewing it after his visit to Hemis in 1921. Abhedananda claims on the book jacket that it was translated for him with the help of a "local Lama interpreter." In the same vein, Notovich did not initially translate the manuscript, but reported his Sherpa guide did so as Notovitch could not read the original text. Notovich's version of the manuscript was translated from Tibetan to Russian to French to English. According to Swami Abhedananda's account, his Lama's translation was equivalent to the one published by Notovich. The Gutenberg Project has published the entire manuscript as a free ebook.
Hemis Festival
The Hemis Festival is dedicated to Lord Padmasambhava (Guru Rimpoche) venerated as the Dance Performance at Hemis Monastery representative reincarnate of Buddha. He is believed to have been born on the 10th day of the fifth month of the Monkey year as predicted by the Buddha Shakyamuni. It is also believed that his life mission was, and remains, to improve the spiritual condition of all living beings. And so on this day, which comes once in a cycle of 12 years, Hemis observes a major extravaganza in his memory. The observance of these sacred rituals is believed to give spiritual strength and good health. The Hemis festival takes place in the rectangular courtyard in front of the main door of the monastery. The space is wide and open save two raised square platforms, three feet high with a sacred pole in the center. A raised dias with a richly cushioned seat with a finely painted small Tibetan table is placed with the ceremonial items - cups full of holy water, uncooked rice, tormas made of dough and butter and incense sticks. A number of musicians play the traditional music with four pairs of cymbals, large-pan drums, small trumpets and large size wind instruments. Next to them, a small space is assigned for the lamas to sit.
The ceremonies begin with an early morning ritual atop the Gompa where, to the beat of drums and the resounding clash of cymbals and the spiritual wail of pipes, the portrait of "Dadmokarpo" or "Rygyalsras Rimpoche" is then ceremoniously put on display for all to admire and worship.
The most esoteric of festivities are the mystic mask dances. The Mask Dances of Ladakh are referred collectively as chams Performance. Chams performance is essentially a part of Tantric tradition, performed only in those gompas which follow the Tantric Vajrayana teachings and the monks perform tantric worship.
Source: Wikipedia and others.
"I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”"
- from "When I am Among Trees", Mary Oliver
Lu Xiu’en was a preacher of a house church in China. Believing the rumors and notions spread by the pastor, she insisted that man’s sins had been forgiven by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus, that man was saved by faith and didn’t need to receive any other salvation. As a result, she resisted and rejected Almighty God’s gospel in the last days many times…. However, an unexpected experience made her see the true face of the pastor, and thus she had some discernment of him and her heart began to awaken. Just at that time, Almighty God’s gospel in the last days came upon her. This broke her imaginations and notions about God’s work and gave her a brand new knowledge of salvation and full salvation. And then she accepted Almighty God’s gospel in the last days without hesitation. However, the pastor didn’t stop disturbing her, and this caused her great distress. Under the watering of Almighty God’s word, she saw clearly the ugly face of the pastor and his deceptive tricks. She awakened resolutely….
Pigment-less translucency and fineness of pallial tentacles often make discernment difficult (1), especially when mantle skirt retracted from shell-rim and pallial tentacles viewed against shell; translucent tentacle then takes on colour of shell behind it (2).
Foot colour varies greatly on P. vulgata, sometimes, like this one, as dark as on some P. depressa.
SPECIES DESCRIPTION part A 1Pd flic.kr/p/BaSA3C
SPECIES DESCRIPTION part B 2Pd flic.kr/p/AfbFkR
Key id. features 3Pd flic.kr/p/Ay7bhf
OTHER SPECIES ALBUMS
Thought I'd play around with my fish-eye filter on my camera. Here is one result of a park on the river. Fish Eye Park isn't its real name. No you say? :)
I don't have enough discernment yet to know what this looks like. Perhaps you'll tell me?
Thanks for stopping by. I appreciate your feedback.
MG_0001
Many Paths to God?
‘There are many paths to God‘- has become a politically, correct catchphrase, used by the liberal establishment to imply that all religions and beliefs are equally worthy.
Of course, you don’t need a degree in common sense to work out that this is illogical nonsense.
Everybody is aware that even the major religions disagree on many important issues. Therefore, simple logic dictates that they cannot all be right. Where they all disagree on a particular belief (if any are right) it can only be ONE that is right.
It is obvious then that all those religions that are wrong in any belief cannot be equal in merit, or equal as a path to God, as the one that is wholly right. So, to insist they are all equally worthy is to be unjustly biased against the one that is true.
Error should never be given equality with truth.
Therefore, it is inexcusable that our society should not to make every effort to discern, and then to officially recognise the truth in this matter.
For anyone to contend that ERROR should ever be entitled to equal endorsement and support by the state as TRUTH is unjust, prejudiced, morally reprehensible and downright stupid.
Western civilisation was founded and built on the commendable notion that truth really matters and should be encouraged and supported.
For centuries, it was accepted and agreed by the most learned persons and rulers, that the beliefs of Christianity best represent spiritual truth. Whilst also providing superlative spiritual and social benefits for citizens and society. And therefore, it was agreed that Christianity should be entitled to official recognition and special support by society and the state. The traditions, heritage, laws and culture of Christendom were founded on this generally, accepted precept.
It is not hard to understand why?
Christianity really is special.
Jesus Christ taught love, peace and forgiveness, even forgiveness of one’s enemies. He was not a warlord or military leader, like some others, but the true Prince of Peace.
Jesus is the perfect, role model for Christians. Although they are not always completely successful, the teaching and example of Jesus Christ are what every genuine Christian aspires to. Those things are eminently conducive to the moral, spiritual and material good of society. They are the fundamentals of Christianity and a Christian society..
We hear a lot today about religious fundamentalism being something bad, but in the case of Christianity the opposite must be true. The more fundamental a Christian seeks to be, the more like (the Christian role model) Jesus they hope to become.
In a nutshell, Jesus taught - love God above all and love your neighbour as yourself. and seek to advance the welfare of all, materially and spiritually - be humble, not proud or envious, be prepared to serve others, not lord it over them - love and forgive even your enemies and do not seek revenge or bear grudges.
A major problem today is that the term 'religion' is cynically used by secularists rather than 'religions'. The effect is to lump all religions together and stereotype them as though they are a single entity. Which means if one religion is perceived in some way as not conducive to the public good, people are led to believe that all religions are a problem - that 'religion' is a problem per se. This sort of stereotyping would be unlikely to be tolerated in any other field. But it suits the aims of militant atheists and the liberal, secular, politically correct agenda.
There is no question that the twentieth century was the bloodiest century in the history of the world. It was in this century that the major nations of Christendom began to abandon Christian beliefs, principles and heritage. And, in the misguided name of progress, began to embrace a variety of pagan, atheistic, materialist, Darwinian, Marxist and socialist ideologies. As a result, we were subjected to 2 world wars, numerous other wars, including the Spanish civil war, and an horrendous, mass murder as a result of the German nation adopting the national, socialist policies of a crazed, Darwinian inspired, anti-Christian, pagan occultist named Hitler. An even greater, mass slaughter was carried out by atheistic, socialist revolutionaries in pursuit of their proposed ‘paradise on Earth‘. The historical record of the twentieth century is absolutely horrendous, the atheistic, Marxist, socialist regimes of; Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were together responsible for the brutal slaughter of an estimated thirty-six million people. In addition, we have seen millions of war deaths, countless murders carried out by other, atheistic, socialist regimes and various other tyrannies, and millions of unborn babies callously slaughtered in state approved and funded, abortion mills.
We hear a lot today about equality, which sounds admirable. And true equality certainly is admirable and a God-given right. However, false equality is not admirable, it can be discriminatory against truth, goodness and, if enforced by the state, can result in an evil tyranny. Error should never be equated with truth and evil should never be equated with good.
So what is true equality?
Every human person is of equal value and should be equally respected and cared for, regardless of gender, colour, race, disability, wealth, influence, intelligence or power. That is true equality.
What is false equality?
False equality is the idea that everything any human person does or believes, is equally valid. The idea that all lifestyles, beliefs, traditions or cultures (that are not against whatever the state decides should be legal) are equally valid and worthy of equal respect.
In post Christian, secular society, while it is demanded by supporters of the liberal establishment that all religions, beliefs and lifestyles should be treated by the state as equally worthy, with no preference or special status given to any. In practice, we can see this is completely ignored in one respect, because there is an exception, inasmuch as it is now the beliefs of 'atheism' that actually receive special recognition and status in most, Western nations. This is evident in the state approved and funded, promotion and teaching of the (unscientific) naturalistic beliefs of Darwinian evolution and spontaneous generation of life, as though they are ‘scientific truths’ (they are treated as sacrosanct - with no alternative, scientific views or contrary evidence, permitted in any state funded or approved, educational curriculum).
The modern, secular state's 'enforced' equality demands that all beliefs etc. are treated as equally worthy, regardless of truth or merit. But, in practice, the liberal mind-set is that all beliefs/religions are inferior to the atheist/secularist ideology, which is perceived as the pinnacle of rationality and arbiter of 'scientific truth' which benevolently deigns to grant (a false) equality to every inferior, belief system. And religions should all be grateful that the secular state grants them equality with each other.
All religions and religious beliefs are thus lumped together as being equal (the crazy with the not so crazy - the logical with the illogical - the true with the patently false) with no intelligent, or logical discernment permitted.
And so we are led to believe by a secular state (which doesn't recognise God) that there are:
‘Many paths to God’ -That all religions and beliefs are equally valid.
But are they?
Anyone who agrees with this automatically rejects the claims of Jesus Christ, who stated; “I am the way, the truth and the life” and “no one can come to the Father except through Me.”
Uniquely, Jesus backed up his claim by suffering an agonising death on the cross as a sacrifice for the salvation of all humanity. The words of Jesus means you cannot be a Christian if you claim or believe there are many paths to God, or that there is any path to God other than through Jesus Christ.
The fact is that Jesus (although completely innocent of all sin himself) suffered for the sins of all humankind, He was crucified for the redemption of His enemies as well as His friends. We are all sinners and have all offended the infinite goodness of God, no one (not even a saint) deserves heaven entirely on their own merit. Everyone is defiled by sin, and nothing defiled can enter heaven. An offence against the infinite goodness of an infinitely loving, but also an infinitely, just God can only be redeemed by an infinitely, good sacrifice. So only a divine sacrifice can pay the price justice demands for our sins.
Only the sacrifice of the true, spiritual messiah, Jesus Christ, the son of the living God, incarnated as man, is sufficient to save us all from the consequences of sin, open the gates of heaven and restore eternal life to the whole human race.
Only those whose garments have been ‘washed white by the blood of the lamb’ are fit to enter heaven.
The debt for our sin has been paid by Jesus and His saving sacrifice is offered as an unsurpassed, loving and free gift to us all. We simply have to gratefully acknowledge and accept that gift in a spirit of humility and repentance.
Jesus requested that a remembrance of his sacrifice should be celebrated (the Eucharist). This unites us with Him and His sacrifice and is the only sacrificial ceremony for sin which is truly acceptable to God. All other sacrifices devised and offered by humans are as ‘dirty rags’ before the divine majesty of the almighty creator.
Only the sacrifice of the true messiah, God made man
(as prophesied by Isaiah in the old testament), is acceptable to God.
By his supreme sacrifice Jesus paid the price for every sin ever committed, and thereby opened the gates of heaven to the whole human race.
Without His sacrifice, no one of any religion could ever enter heaven.
It matters not whether you are the most devout Muslim, Hindu, Jew, Buddhist or person of any other faith, ultimately you will rely, not on any rituals and customs of these various religions, but on the sacrifice of Jesus to enter heaven.
All who enter heaven and eternal life do so only with a passport provided by Jesus, without His sacrifice you would never get there.
This is the truth whether you like it or not.
Of course, we all have free choice. Quite rightly, we are all entitled to follow any religion we wish. But once we know that it is only the sacrifice of Jesus that can make us fit to enter heaven and entitled to eternal life, we will surely wish to follow Him. It would be foolishness indeed for us to choose to follow any other religion which refuses to acknowledge this and pretends that we can redeem ourselves just by following its manmade doctrines and rituals.
Does atheist/secularist ideology, deserve to be regarded by the state and society as the pinnacle of rationality and arbiter of 'scientific truth'?
Atheism revealed as false ... Why God MUST exist.
There are only 2 basic options for the origin of the universe .... an uncaused, supernatural first cause of the universe OR an uncaused, natural first cause of the universe. If you categorically reject the former (as atheists do), you have no option but to accept the latter by default. It is an intellectually dishonest cop-out to say atheism is merely a lack of belief. A genuine lack of belief would be classed as agnosticism, which is a neutral position. It is a 'don't know' or 'fence sitting' position. A 'don't know' position is not one which would specifically single out to reject, attack and ridicule just one side of the argument, i.e. the concept of a supernatural, first cause, as atheism does.
Atheists cannot simply deny, attack and vociferously ridicule the concept of - a supernatural, first cause, without being expected to justify the only alternative - a natural, first cause. That cannot be regarded as intellectually credible or rational.
We see that atheists dogmatically reject supernaturalism and are zealously on the side of naturalism (a naturalistic origin and explanation for everything). That is not a neutral, 'don't know' or objective position. It is not merely a lack of belief. It is a positive and subjective belief in naturalism. And hence a belief in a natural cause of the universe, and everything that exists or has ever existed.
So how do we know that atheism false and that God MUST exist?
Firstly ...
We know that the universe has not always existed, we know it had a beginning and it is 'running down' from an original peak of energy potential at its beginning. The Second Law of Thermodynamics (law of entropy) confirms that. So, we know the universe had an origin.
Secondly .....
What about matter itself?
Can matter have always existed? The simple answer is no.
Matter/energy and all, natural entities and events are contingent, they rely on causes for everything. Because they are contingent they cannot be eternally self-existent or necessary entities. They do not contain within themselves the reason or cause of their own existence. As contingent entities, they are entirely reliant on that which causes and maintains them. They cannot exist or operate in any way without causes, Thus, they must have had an original cause at some stage, even if the chain of causes and effects is very long, it had to have a beginning at some point.
A basic principle of the scientific method is that we can expect to find an adequate cause for every natural occurrence. All scientific research is based on that premise.
To propose a non-contingent, natural occurrence or entity as the originator of the universe (as atheists are forced to do), is unscientific fantasy.
Thirdly ....
A supernatural first cause (God) is not a contingent entity. It is not natural, and is not bound by natural laws which govern matter and all natural events. In fact, as the first cause of matter/energy, it is also the author of the laws that govern matter/energy. It cannot be subject to laws it has created. Those laws are inherent properties of the material realm and an integral part of all material entities.
As the very first cause, it also cannot have had any preceding cause, so we know it cannot be a contingent entity.
Why? Because ...first means first, not second or third. If something is first, nothing preceded it. It must have always existed and must have had within itself the means of its own existence. It could not have relied on anything else for its existence. So the supernatural, first cause (a creator God) has to be eternally, self-existent and necessary.
It also has to have the powers and ability to create everything else that exists in the universe. As the original cause, it has to be an adequate cause of everything ...of all causes and effects that follow it, forever. That means - it has to have the powers, properties and qualities sufficient to create: time, matter/energy, natural laws, information, life, intelligence, consciousness and every characteristic that humans have. Because we, as a mere effect of the first cause, cannot be greater than that which ultimately caused us.
So, God is the non-contingent, self-existent, necessary, supernatural, first cause of everything in the universe.
That is the logical conclusion of the understanding and application of natural laws.
ATHEIST BELIEF IN A NATURAL FIRST CAUSE VIOLATES NATURAL LAW.
THUS, ATHEISM IS ILLOGICAL, AND ANTI-SCIENCE.
Essential characteristics of the first cause.
Consider this short chain of causes and effects:
A causes B, - B causes C, - C causes D, - D causes E.
'A, B, C & D' are all causes and may all look similar, but they are not, there is an enormous and crucial difference between them.
Causes B, C & D are fundamentally different from cause A.
Why?
Because A is the very first cause and thus had no previous cause. It exists without a cause. It doesn’t rely on anything else for its existence, it is completely independent of causes - while B, C & D would not exist without A. They are entirely dependent on A.
Causes; B, C & D are also effects, whereas A is not an effect, only a cause.
So we can say that the first cause ‘A’ is both self-existent and necessary. It is necessary because the rest of the chain of causes and effects could not exist without it. We also have to say that the subsequent causes and effects B, C, D and E are all contingent. That is; they are not self-existent they all depend entirely on other causes to exist.
We can also say that A is eternally self-existent, i.e. it has always existed, it had no beginning. Why? Because if A came into being at some point, there must have been something other than itself that brought it into being … which would mean A was not the first cause (A could not create A) … the something that brought A into being would be the first cause. In which case, A would be contingent and no different from B, C, D & E.
We can also say that A is adequate to produce all the properties of B, C, D & E.
Why?
Well in the case of E we can see that it relies entirely on D for its existence, E can in no way be superior to D because D had to contain within it everything necessary to produce E. The same applies to D it cannot be superior to C, but furthermore neither E or D can be superior to C, because both rely on C for their existence, and C had to contain everything necessary to produce D & E.
Likewise, with B, which is responsible for the existence of C, D & E.
As they all depend on A for their existence and all their properties, abilities and potentials, none can be superior to A whether singly or combined. A had to contain everything necessary to produce B, C, D & E including all their properties, abilities and potentials.
Thus, we deduce that; nothing in the universe can be superior in any way to the very first cause of the universe, because the whole universe, and all material things that exist, depend entirely on the abilities and properties of the first cause to produce them.
So, to sum up … a first cause must be uncaused, must have always existed and cannot be in any way inferior to all subsequent causes and effects. In other words, the first cause of the universe must be eternally, self-existent and omnipotent (greater than everything that exists). No natural entity can have those attributes, that is why a Supernatural, Creator God MUST exist.
What about polytheism, can there be more than one God or Creator.
It is patently obvious there can only be one supernatural first cause.
The first cause is infinite - and logically, there cannot be more than one infinite entity.
If there were two infinite entities, for example, A and B. The qualities and perfections that are the property of B would be a limitation on the qualities and perfections of A. and vice versa, so neither would be infinite.
If A & B had identical qualities and perfections they would not be two different entities, they would be identical and therefore the same entity, i.e. a single, infinite, first cause. So there can be only one infinite being or entity, only one supernatural, first cause and creator of the universe.
So, when atheists keep repeating the claim - that there is no reason to believe the monotheistic, Christian God is any different from the multiple, gods of pagan religions, it simply displays their ignorance and lack of reasoning.
Does the first cause have to be a supernatural one, or is it (as atheists claim) just a desperate attempt by ignorant people to fill a gap in scientific knowledge, by saying - God did it?
What does 'supernatural' mean? It means something which cannot be explained by science, natural laws or by natural processes.
The origin of the universe cannot be explained by genuine science, natural laws or by natural processes. And that is an undeniable FACT.
Why?
Because EVERY possible explanation by natural processes violates both the fundamental principle of the scientific method - the Law of Cause and Effect - and other natural laws.
Hence, the first cause, by virtue of the fact that it cannot be explained by science or natural processes, automatically qualifies as a supernatural entity.
To insist that the first cause must be a natural entity or event is to invoke a magical explanation, not a scientific one. The only choice, therefore is between a supernatural first cause or a magical first cause? A natural event that is purported to defy natural laws and scientific principles can only be described as MAGIC. And that is exactly what atheists propose. They cynically dress up their belief - that nature can evade natural laws - as science, but science certainly cannot envisage a causeless, natural event or entity, science cannot look for non-causes.
No one has ever proposed a natural explanation for the origin of the universe that does not violate the law of cause and effect and other natural laws. But, whenever they are challenged about this fact, they always make the excuse that the laws of nature/physics somehow DID NOT APPLY to their proposed, natural origin scenario.
The most, well known case of this excuse is the alleged 'Singularity' which, it was claimed, preceded the Big Bang. Remember it was claimed to be a "one-off event where the laws of physics did not apply." A natural event that defied natural laws! - That used to be called 'magic', before atheist 'scientists' hi-jacked science with their religion of naturalism - the All Powerful, autonomous, Mother Nature.
Excuses aren't science. A natural event that violates natural laws is by definition, not possible. There are no ifs, buts or perhaps, natural things are bound by natural laws, without question. Natural laws describe the inherent properties of natural entities. And the whole essence of science is the fact that every natural entity/event is contingent - has to have an ADEQUATE CAUSE.
The idea of 'laws not applying' to a natural event, is not science. It is just fantasy.
If the origin of the universe is inexplicable to science, within the accepted framework of normal, natural processes and natural laws, then it is a supernatural event.
You cannot claim something as a natural event that violates natural laws. For that reason it is inexplicable to science.
In fact. to claim that something natural can defy natural laws is anti-science.
Those who believe such nonsense are enemies of science.
ALL NATURAL explanations for the origin of the universe violate the Law of Cause and Effect and other natural laws.
Conclusion: the atheist belief in a natural explanation for the origin of the universe (that Mother Nature did it) is impossible - according to science.
Atheist myths debunked - abiogenesis - the inherent predisposition of matter to create life.
www.flickr.com/photos/truth-in-science/22250603246
The world's first ever photograph.
The new astonishing phenomenon detected on the Shroud of Turin
youtu.be/B6iQGomNqTw
Continued from:
www.flickr.com/photos/42093313@N00/52651478772/in/datepos...
The First Jolt
أَنِّي مَسَّنِيَ الضُّرُّ وَأَنتَ أَرْحَمُ الرَّاحِمِينَ
Prayed the Prophet Ayub (as),
"Indeed, adversity has touched me, and you are the Most Merciful of the merciful”.
Surah Al Anbiya, Verse 83
Tafseer e Jilani
Anni massani ad durru: Indeed adversity has touched me, O Lord, far away have gone those close to me and my relatives and all the ones who were affectionate with me…
Wa anta: and You are The One remaining who is still for me Merciful and Affectionate for indeed You are…
Arham ar Rahimeen: the Most Merciful of the merciful so come to me suddenly with Your Lutf, Kindness because I have no strength and no patience after this and surely his suffering had reached its heights.
When I came back to Lahore, I had a recurring interaction with a new friend in my life who I was finding was inconsistent by nature. It was making me react in extremes. I was either over-indulgent or wishing to exit in a way that would only appear as abandonment. At first I thought I didn’t care but all too quickly acknowledged that I did. That’s because it created confusion for me and if you have two and a half relationships in total in life, you need clarity. At all times!
The Quran had ordered moderation in interactions. Pretty much quite literally in the tafseer of a single word: Qayyiman.
قَیِّمࣰا لِّیُنذِرَ بَأۡسࣰا شَدِیدࣰا مِّن لَّدُنۡهُ وَیُبَشِّرَ ٱلۡمُؤۡمِنِینَ ٱلَّذِینَ یَعۡمَلُونَ ٱلصَّـٰلِحَـٰتِ أَنَّ لَهُمۡ أَجۡرًا حَسَنࣰا
Straight, to warn of a punishment severe, from near Him
and give glad tidings to the believers,
those who do righteous deeds, that for them is a reward good.
Surah Al Kahf, Verse 2
Tafseer e Jilani
And overall:
Qayyiman: (The Book) is straight, unfaltering and moderate between the ways of over-indulgence and abandonment, both of which are reprehensible in terms of reason and religion. And Allah has made it descend upon His Servant and Beloved (salutations and greetings upon the one who is unparalleled before his Lord)…
I wanted to follow the Command but I didn’t how to do it without putting myself in harm’s way.
Just then Qari Sahib had a death in the family. My cousin called me to take our weekly class. I had totally given up speaking publicly about anything related to the faith. I think it was because it would be under some guise of sharing knowledge but really I was just breaking rules. If one doesn’t manifest the knowledge in deed, talking about it, even in theory, is strictly forbidden.
Still, I asked Qari Sahib what he thought and we agreed that I would just read a page of Al Fath Ar Rabbani. Literally just read it!
I was midway in the book. I couldn’t figure out how to pick one sermon of my blessed Master, the King of all Spiritual Masters. I decided to go to page one. It had been almost two years that I had started the book and this is what I read:
Al Fath Ar Rabbani:
“Ae’taraz, finding fault with, objecting to, raising doubt about Al Haqq Azzo Jal on the descent of fate decreed is the death of religion.”
The next few lines repeated the word that put fear in my heart, an emotion uncommon in my spiritual journey:
“It is the death of Tauheed, His One-ness.
It is the death of Tawakkul, relying upon Him and Ikhlas, sincerity.
The heart with imaan, faith, doesn’t know the words ‘Why’ and ‘How.’ It does not know the words ‘But instead.’
Its only response is ‘Yes.’
It is the habit of the nafs to be contrary, confrontational and quarreling. The nafs (Ammara) is only sharr, wrongdoing.
So one should wish for its correction and its striving until it finds refuge from its evil. For it is sharr fi sharr, evil upon evil, in totality. Hence, if it labours in great effort and becomes calm, it grows into and comes to be in totality, khair fi khair, goodness in goodness, assuming the form of the gathering of obedience and in the leaving all sin, so then is said to it…”
I had only just begun the read when I stopped.
Four deaths in one go! Of everything that I was striving for and clearly falsely declaring. All attributed to one reason; ae’taraz!
First I looked up the word even though I knew its meaning.
Ae’taraz: an objection, a criticism, an offering of a protest, the raising of doubt, a complaint, disapproval, disagreement.
The kicker, which I realized immediately because of the severity of the consequence; the losing of deen (religion), Tauheed (Allah’s One-ness), tawwakul (reliance), and ikhlas (sincerity) was because I was finding fault, having the ae’taraz, with not even what had been decreed for me.
I was depriving myself of everything that mattered in my life because of useless disappointment with what was the fate of others!
13 years on a spiritual path and I was throwing it all away again and again because of why someone else did something. All of whom either pretended unawareness of their actions or prided themselves on the indifference they felt about the impact of their actions on another. Who didn’t care about anyone at all.
That is how I realized the truth of the reality behind the push and pull. That it was in fact the manifestation of that ae’taraz.
“Why wasn’t this happening and why did that happen? Why couldn’t it have gone like that and why didn’t I say this, do that? Why didn’t they say this, do that?” It was endless. It was always pointless. One even recognized that. Never in a million years though could I have imagined that it was spiritual suicide.
Thus the word imkaan, possibility, made its grand entrance. Ae’taraz was the poison and fire of possibilities. It was a disease of the heart.
The Diseases of the Heart
رَبَّنَا لَا تُزِغْ قُلُوبَنَا بَعْدَ إِذْ هَدَيْتَنَا وَهَبْ لَنَا مِن لَّدُنكَ رَحْمَةً ۚ
إِنَّكَ أَنتَ ٱلْوَهَّابُ
They say,˺ “Our Lord! Do not let our hearts deviate after you have guided us.
Grant us Your mercy.
You are indeed the Giver of all bounties.
Surah Aal e Imran, Verse 8
Tafseer e Jilani
Rabbana: O You who is our Lord, The One who brought about our upbringing by Your Lutf, Mercies, upon the foundation of Your One-ness…
La tuzigh: do not deviate and do not make inclined…
Qulubuna: our hearts away from Your Path…
Ba’ada id hadaytana: after You guided us towards Your Way by revealing Your Books and sending Your Messengers.
Wahaba lana: And grant us and bestow upon us…
Mil ladunka rahma-tan: from Yourself, Mercy and the Knowledge of Divine Certainty, the Witnessing of Divine Certainty and the Truth of Divine Certainty.
Innaka anta al Wahaab: Verily, You are Al Wahaab, The Bestower, without any exchange and without any motive.
I searched the word “disease” first in my tafaseer. It had appeared twice.
The first was in the breaking of the pact between Man and God. Between the nafs and the ruh and the qalb - the egoistic self, the soul and the heart within the heart. The Surah was At Tauba, The Repentance. It had always played a transformational role in my life.
It was its first verse:
بَرَآءَةٌۭ مِّنَ ٱللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِۦٓ إِلَى ٱلَّذِينَ عَهَدتُّم مِّنَ ٱلْمُشْرِكِينَ
The disavowal from obligations by Allah and His Messenger (peace be upon him and his family) from the covenant with the idolators.
Surah Tauba, Verse 1
Commentary by Hazrat Najmuddin Kubra (ra):
“The symbolic meaning of the verse is this: The mushrikeen, the idolator, is the wayward and polytheist nafs, the base self, who made desires its lord and master and began to worship the idols of the world.”
When a person is in their early years, the ruh and qalb, the soul and the heart within the heart which is the Station of Recognition of Allah, made a pact with the ego.
The terms of it being that the ruh and the qalb will not fight and kill the nafs until the person reaches maturity. Similarly, the nafs also makes a pact not to instigate problems with the ruh and the qalb, which carry the burden of Allah’s Trust and become watchful of Islamic Jurisprudence, the Shari’a, so that the bodily skeleton reaches complete maturity and the physical strength is attained at its peak,
In this time, the aql, the intellect, the power to reason and reflect, becomes strong which can then accept the invitation of Truth and have the ability to answer it. It is this aql that allows the recognition of the Prophets and their miracles. And it is through this aql that the proof of the Presence of Allah is established and it understands the compulsion of His Worship in order to express gratitude towards Him for His Blessings.
Indeed, Allah and His Messenger (peace be upon him) withdraw from the pact after maturity is gained.
Because Man broke the pact which was between the nafs and the ruh and the qalb. Before maturity was gained, the nafs was only focused on eating, drinking and clothing itself so that the body can develop and all its needs are met. To this extent, there was no problem for the ruh and the qalb from the nafs.
But once maturity was gained, lust and desires became added to these needs.
When the lust appeared along with the need for food and drink, its destruction created physical desires for a mate. When that lust was aroused and started tempting the body, the qalb and the ruh began to become weak. This was the fatal disease for which the Prophets were sent so as to dispel it.
انما بعثت لرفع العادات و ترک الشھوات
Just like Nabi Kareem (salutations and greetings upon him and his family by The One who named him with Himself),
“I have been sent to end the ways of ignorance and to prevail over the desires of lust.”
I noticed how at least two ahadith had appeared in this piece starting with the same words: innama bu’istu – I was sent - first to manifest the excellence and perfection of akhlaq, manners, behaviour, morality, character, as taught by Al Khaliq, Al Bar’i, Al Mussawir, The Only One who creates, gives form and shape.
And second to end ignorance and prevail over the desires of the forbidden. Of the mushrik, wayward and polytheist nafs which made desires its lord and master and which it wants to worship as idols of the world.
As I read those words again and again, I was reminded of how it directly referenced a verse in the Quran:
أَفَرَءَیۡتَ مَنِ ٱتَّخَذَ إِلَـٰهَهُۥ هَوَىٰهُ وَأَضَلَّهُ ٱللَّهُ عَلَىٰ عِلۡمࣲ وَخَتَمَ عَلَىٰ سَمۡعِهِۦ وَقَلۡبِهِۦ
وَجَعَلَ عَلَىٰ بَصَرِهِۦ
غِشَـٰوَةࣰ فَمَن یَهۡدِیهِ مِنۢ بَعۡدِ ٱللَّهِۚ أَفَلَا تَذَكَّرُونَ
Have you seen (he) who takes (as) his god his desire and Allah lets him go astray knowingly, and He sets a seal upon his hearing and his heart and puts over his vision a veil?
Then who will guide him from after Allah?
Then will not you receive admonition?
Surah Al Jathiya, Verse 23
Tafseer e Jilani
Afara’eyta: Have you seen, O One who takes warning by seeing everything, at…
Man ittakhada: the one who takes i.e. the Al Jahid, the one not expressing and feeling gratitude, Al Jahil, the ignorant one, Al Mu’anid, stubbornly pursuing one’s own wishes, who makes…
Ilaaha-hu hawa-hu: his desire as his god i.e. what he desires and how he obeyed what he hopes for and becomes a servant to what he loves and what pleases him and he did not want to entrust his matters to his Lord and Master.
Wa: And this is only because that…
Addallahu Allahu: Allah lets him go astray, Al Aleem, The All Knowing, Al Hakeem, The Only Wise One, by the manifestation of His Name, Al Muzzil, The Only One who humiliates the one who deserves to be humiliated, Al Mudill, The Only One who misleads the one who deserves to be mislead, even though, He, Subhanahu, makes him exist…
Ala: upon the appearance of the person…
Ilm-in: who has knowledge and sets his origin upon the nature of the ones who have Ma’rifa, Recognition of the Divine, and Tauheed, One-ness…
Wa khatama ala sami’hi: and sets a seal upon his hearing so that he cannot hear the Words of Al Haqq from the people of Allah…
Wa khatama: and He also sealed…
Qalbi-hi: his heart so he cannot ponder over the Signs of Allah and the proofs of His Tauheed, One-ness…
Wa ja’ala ala basrihi ghishawa: And He puts a veil upon his eyes, thick, and a curtain, heavy so he cannot gain admonition from His Wondrous Creations of Subhanahu and the fantastic inventions along with that He, Subhanahu, created them even though He created him so that he could see them.
Fa may yahdihi: Now who will guide him and instruct him i.e. deliver him from being astray…
Min ba’di: after the misguidance…
Allah: from Allah to him and his humiliation.
Afala tadakkaroon: Will you then not receive warning and wisdom and discernment from the changing of his states, O Uqala, O you who use their ability to consider, Al Majboleen, set up in their origin upon the nature of receiving warning and advice from the height of their temptations and waywardness (the ones whose hearing and sight and hearts have been sealed) by the demands of the Perfection of His Authority and the absence of their being awakened and clearheadedness in the One-ness of His Essence and the Perfection of His Names and Attributes and steadfastness in His Plans and His Control.
The entire verse would instill fear in any heart. Was there even one amongst the ordinary that wasn’t worshipping those idols of desires?
The second time “disease” appeared in the context of the heart, it was revealed that the Quran was the healing for it.
What was the disease? Possibilities!
وَنُنَزِّلُ مِنَ ٱلۡقُرۡءَانِ مَا هُوَ شِفَاۤءࣱ وَرَحۡمَةࣱ لِّلۡمُؤۡمِنِینَ وَلَا یَزِیدُ ٱلظَّـٰلِمِینَ إِلَّا خَسَارࣰا
And We reveal from the Quran that it is a healing and a mercy for the believers, but it increases the wrongdoers in nothing except loss.
Surah Al Isra’, Verse 82
Tafseer e Jilani
And when you, O Beloved (salutations and greetings upon you and your blessed family by Your Lord who created you for Appearance of His Essence), have become steadfast and have complete command on the Maqam e Mahmood, the Station of Praise and the glorious station of intercession - and when you are triumphant with the Hauz ul Maurood, the spring to which all will come…
Wa nunazzilu: and We descend upon you, exalting your honour and aiding your matters (of spreading the Messenge)…
Min al Quran: through the Quran (which you convey), clear, clarifying your elevated ranks from Tauheed, Allah’s One-ness…
Ma huwa shifa’un: which is a healing for
1.the disease of the hearts poisoned with possibilities in the narrowness of existence (worldly)
2.and (it is a healing) for those who are faced with the limitations of colours (Judaism, Christianity, etc) for the ones granted the ability of the honour of your following…
Wa rahmatun: and (it is) a mercy descending…
Lil Momi’neen: for the believers who bear witness to your religion and your Book so that they seek instruction and unveil what is in it of symbols and signs according to their capability and capacity, so that they can reflect or be alerted by what is in it of secrets that relate to the walking upon the Path of Tauheed, One-ness.
Temptation and seductions of the nafs made the qalb and ruh weak. Those temptations arose from the base self caving to and obsessing over imkaan, possibilities. The nafs thought it could rule both of them. No wonder when they called, it turned away in stubborn arrogance, persistent, insistent upon having its own way. It felt it was in no need of them. In any situation and any circumstance, easy or difficult.
The Nature of Blessings and Trials
Said Nabi Kareem (endless salutations and greetings of Allah upon him and his family who mirror him in perfection):
“Fixed will be the scales on the Day of Judgement for the people of Sala’t, those who established their prayers and Sadaqa, those who gave charity beyond what is obligated and Hajj, the ones who performed the pilgrimage and they will be given their reward for it.
But there will be no scales for the Ahl al Bala, the people who faced afflictions.
Instead poured upon them will be rewards.
Until they will intensely desire, the Ahl al Afiyat, the people who lived life without suffering in this world, wishing that their bodies had been cut with scissors in the world, after they see what the people who faced afflictions will be taking as their rewards.”
I had been translating a series of verses about blessings and trials with Qari Sahib to understand them. They appeared again and again in various forms in the Quran. I wanted to know what reaction was expected to them. What both were in their nature. What was the reaction of the nafs to them?
One of the verses that became unforgettable was about the fact that blessings were in fact also a trial. I couldn’t get over it. How could the good stuff that brought happiness also be an ibtila – something that causes distress?
فَإِذَا مَسَّ ٱلۡإِنسَـٰنَ ضُرࣱّ دَعَانَا ثُمَّ إِذَا خَوَّلۡنَـٰهُ نِعۡمَةࣰ مِّنَّا قَالَ إِنَّمَاۤ أُوتِیتُهُۥ عَلَىٰ عِلۡمِۭۚ
بَلۡ هِیَ فِتۡنَةࣱ وَلَـٰكِنَّ أَكۡثَرَهُمۡ لَا یَعۡلَمُونَ
So when touches man adversity, he calls upon Us, then when We bestow on him a favor from Us, he says, “I have been given it, this boon, because of my own knowledge.”
Nay, it is a trial, but most of them do not know.
Surah Zumar, Verse 49
Tafseer e Jilani
Then pointed Subhanahu towards the instability of Man and the absence of steadfastness upon the intention (being) sincere towards his Lord so He said:
Fa ida massa al insaana durrun: so when touches Man harm from Us, painful, unpleasant, then focusing and expressing attachment towards Us…
Da’aana: he invokes Us and wants Us to remove from him the harm, upon the way of pleading and suggesting…
Summa: then after We lifted from Him his harm…
Ida khawwalnahu: when We bestowed him i.e. We granted him and alleviated it…
Ni’ma-tan: with a blessing bountiful…
Minna: from Us in honour, to test how he is grateful upon the pushing back of the harm and the receiving of the blessing after the removal of the harm…
Qala: he said in that moment, upon the way of kufran, ingratitude…
Innama uteetahu: I have only been given it (the blessing) from the blessings…
Ala ilm-in: due to certain knowledge which I have so I am able to earn the blessing (from other blessings) and collect it and gain from it and take it.
Or the other meaning: Whatever I was given and whatever I was bestowed, it is because of my knowledge which I gathered and sought. The knowledge has not come from where I might think it has come (i.e. Allah).
This is what he says from what takes him to his delusions upon ingratitude and transgression, although it is proved that his blessings are not in itself blessings…
Bal hiya fitna: instead this is a suffering, a trial from Us for him, a test to find out, is he grateful or ungrateful?
Wa lakinna aksarahum la ya’maloon: But most of them do not know and do not understand the nature of the trial from Us and it is Our test so that is why they drown in the sea of ungratefulness and transgression.
The punishment of that ingratitude was that the blessing became seized.
Al Fath Ar Rabbani
إذا كتمتم نعم الله عز وجل و لم تشكروه عليها سلبها منكم
عن النبي صلى الله تعالى عليه وسلم أنه قال :
إذا أنعم الله عز وجل على عبده نعمة أحب أن يرى عليه
If you hide the blessings from Allah Azzo Jal and did not express gratitude for it, He will seize it from you.
As the Prophet of Allah (salutations and greetings upon him and his family reverberate in the Universe in permanence) said certainly: “When Allah Azzo Jal bestows a blessing upon a servant, He loves that He sees its effect of it upon the person.
The seizing did not mean it was literally taken away. That too happened sometimes. What was certain was that the joy, which should have been its natural consequence, one became robbed of it. The rich became misers. That was what was in public display the most. Then eventually the riches also began to decline. Not enough to matter to the 30 next generations but by then the miserliness had also entered the nature of the offspring waiting to be compounded. The curse was inherited.
Even worse, another verse revealed why in Lahore every single person of any means, even if it wasn’t much, would incessantly talk about money. If the recipient of the blessing was not acknowledging of The Bestower of it, then the earning of that livelihood would become miserable. All they would do is talk about one thing; that miserable livelihood!
وَمَنۡ أَعۡرَضَ عَن ذِكۡرِی فَإِنَّ لَهُۥ مَعِیشَةࣰ ضَنكࣰا وَنَحۡشُرُهُۥ یَوۡمَ ٱلۡقِیَـٰمَةِ أَعۡمَىٰ
And whoever turns away from My remembrance, then indeed, for him (is) a life miserable and We will gather him (on the) Day (of) the Resurrection blind."
Surah Taha, Verse 124
Tafseer e Jilani
Wa man a’rada an dikri: And the one who turns away from My Remembrance i.e. My Book which continues to be recited by the tongues of Our Messengers, the Guides (who prevent) from being astray…
Fa inna lahu: so indeed it is ordained for him and it is true (for him) as long as he in the abode of this world…
Ma’eesha-tan danka: a livelihood miserable, narrow, making his qalb, heart, tight to the extent that there will no longer be in it anything, except the pondering of the matter of livelihood.
Wa: And when he dies…
Nahshuru yauma al Qiyama: and We shall raise him on the Day of Judgement, the Great Day…
A’maa: blind as well i.e. his turning away from Allah Al Haqq in the world will be in the form of being blind in the Hereafter.
I had seen how when life was spinning out of control, especially when disease descended, people whose necks didn’t bend because of their assuredness that they were right in thinking what they thought, were crouching in prostrations, begging for relief.
When the affliction was lifted because of their utterances of words from the Quran and sudden bouts of charity, they acted like they had saved themselves. Hearts were hard again, stubborn, arrogant, proud. Everything was forgotten as if it never was.
وَإِذَا مَسَّ ٱلۡإِنسَـٰنَ ٱلضُّرُّ دَعَانَا لِجَنۢبِهِۦۤ أَوۡ قَاعِدًا أَوۡ قَاۤىِٕمࣰا فَلَمَّا كَشَفۡنَا عَنۡهُ ضُرَّهُۥ مَرَّ كَأَن لَّمۡ یَدۡعُنَاۤ إِلَىٰ ضُرࣲّ مَّسَّهُۥۚ كَذَٰلِكَ زُیِّنَ لِلۡمُسۡرِفِینَ مَا كَانُوا۟ یَعۡمَلُونَ
And when touches the man the affliction he calls Us, (lying) on his side or sitting or standing.
But when We remove from him his affliction, he passes on as if he (had) not called Us for (the) affliction (that) touched him.
Thus (it) is made fair seeming to the transgressors what they used (to) do.
Surah Yunus, Verse 12
Tafseer e Jilani
Wa: And from the intensity of their wandering in blindness and oppression…
Ida massa: when touches him and comes his way…
Al insaana ad-durru: harm towards the human being i.e. what harms him from painful disease and matters creating heartbreak and shock…
Da’ana: he invokes Us complaining to Us, suffering about his complaint before Us, pleading…
Lijanbihi: on his side, if he does not have the energy to do anything else…
Au qaidan au qayiman: or sitting or standing, beseeching, crying, asking for relief…
Falamma kashafna anhu durra-hu: so when We removed from him his affliction and made his wish come true, he began to abstain from Us and from Our Commands and he never inclined towards Us at all and he walked from the intensity of his blindness and his ghaflat, forgetfulness..
Marra ka-allam ya’d-u’na ila: passing like he never prayed before Us for relief…
Durrim massa-hu kadalika: from harm that touched him. This is how i.e. like you heard…
Zuyyina: it is beautified i.e. it is made beloved to them and pleasing…
Lil Musrifeena: for the transgressors, Al Munhamakeena, the ones drowning in temptation and refusal to be guided…
Ma kanu ya’maloon: (it is beautified for them) what they did in wrong deeds in opposition to the Command of Allah and arguing with His Rasool (salutations and greetings upon him and his family) and the Mo’mineen, the believers who obedient to his blessed person and insistence upon that which comes from them from arrogance and stubborn-ness.
But afflictions return again and again. That is the nature of life itself. It was all a test:
Az Zumar, Verse 49:
Minna: from Us in honour, to test how he is grateful upon the pushing back of the harm and the receiving of the blessing after the removal of the harm…
…
Wa lakinna aksarahum la ya’maloon: But most of them do not know and do not understand the nature of the trial from Us and it is Our test so that is why they drown in the sea of ungratefulness and transgression.
There was one category of people that I had always seen pass those tests with flying colours. The poor! It was they who had taught me that every gesture, be it of worship or charity had to be accepted. On every pilgrimage, while doing any act of benefit to another, I heard only from them the words; “May Allah accept your visit, your deed, your intention.” You!
I took those words for granted my whole life. I assumed everything good I did, all my acts were accepted. It didn’t occur to me that their acceptance was entirely out of my control. In the world, it was always the poor who always taught me the secrets of humility because they practiced it without striving. Their nafs was in alignment with their qalb and batin. As always their prayer for me was better than any other prayer of the ordinary. It could make me of the Maqboleen, the exalted category of “the accepted!”
And it was the poor who were the ones with little to nothing when it came to amwaal, possessions. They were the only ones who placed their trust in Allah Al Muttawakkal, The Only One to entrust matters, all of them, all of the time. They didn’t waiver between states. Grateful one moment, ungrateful the other. Reliant one moment, independent the next.
Remembering Him one second, forgetting He existed the next.
One person who played that out in front of me in particular was Shaan.
Shaan
إِنَّهُۥ لَيْسَ لَهُۥ سُلْطَـٰنٌ عَلَى ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَعَلَىٰ رَبِّهِمْ يَتَوَكَّلُونَ
Indeed, there is for him (Iblis) no authority over those who have believed and rely upon their Lord.
Surah An-Nahl, Verse 99
Tafseer e Jilani:
Inna hu laysa hu sultan an: Indeed he, Iblis, has no ability to capture and overcome…
A’la lladina a’mino: the ones who believe in the One-ness of Allah and have certainty in the truthfulness of Allah’s Books and His Messengers and the Day promised and that which will be given in reward that Day.
Wa; And along with this
Al’a Rabbi-him: they rely on their Lord and no one else from the sources and means of day to day life and…
Yatawakkaluna: they surrender and they entrust all their matters to Him for sure.
Shan was the woman I had found in the park in the spring of 2021. The one who identified as male and who I thought was one until the one of the guards told me he was not. In a span reaching two years, I had moved him around 6 residences, including my own. None of them had worked in terms of settling him down.
The one that had been the most calming for him was Pathani’s. She was someone from my village who had worked for me for two decades plus and then retired. But she couldn’t keep him forever. He required supervision. Not 24/7 but enough that it would impede her lifestyle.
Pathani was the one who had been at my place visiting when Shaan was kicked out of home number 5. Which, incidentally, was also home number 1 and 3. It had been a God-send. I had gotten a call from the person whose house it was and she told me Shaan had to leave within the hour. That I was taken aback was putting it mildly.
“I can’t move him in an hour,” I said in shock. “Give me a few days and I will do it.”
I didn’t ask any questions as to why or what brought on the sudden decision. I did know that about two weeks earlier, Shaan had kicked a door down. When I had asked him the reason he said that one of the carpenters on the premises had called him Janoo. A term of endearment certainly inappropriate. It had triggered him and he had demolished the door.
I had reprimanded him saying that was still no justification to damage the property of someone who had extended the courtesy of allowing him to live there. I think the Autism prevented pretty much all my words from sinking in. I had called the owner then, while he sat in front of me, so he could apologize but she hadn’t picked up. Now she was calling to say he was out.
A few minutes later she called back. Her tone had become aggressive.
“I cannot wait a few days. I need him out now. It’s your problem, figure it out.”
I tried to plead my case gently. That within the hour was not a realistic possibility but when she didn’t listen I lost my temper and ended the conversation with one line.
“I will have him out by tomorrow morning. Do not call me back again to say it has to be today.”
Pathani came to my room a few minutes later and saw me in a state of distress. She looked at me with concern. She was the only one in the world who took on my problems as hers in the moment they appeared. There’s something to be said about the staff from the village. Their loyalty is deeper than I have experienced in any worldly relationship otherwise; blood, romance, friendship, you name it.
When people would say to me why I helped her build a house not once, but twice because she remarried and left the first house to her daughter, I would reply, “If I could I would make her 8 houses.” She was the only one who, when she worked in my house and my brother and I were in our 20s with parties happening every other weekend because we lived alone, I would not let her come up while my friends smoked and drank and danced.
I didn’t want her to see them like that, much less me. It was nice, that feeling of haya, modesty, that appeared in the absence of parents who had been the others who invoked it. For my generation at least. The famed X-ers!
I told her what had happened. Just then an idea came to my head.
“Pathani,” I said hopefully, “Can’t you take Shaan with you to Radhan?”
She didn’t answer me for a moment clearly surprised by my request.
When she didn’t respond, I moved on to asking why. “Is it because of the boy-girl thing? You’re worried what people will say?”
She made me laugh with her answer which is best translated without cursing as, “I could give two hoots about what people think.”
“Then…” I said, letting my words linger. “Can’t you take him while I figure out what to do? Just for a couple of weeks?”
She told me she would discuss it with her husband and went downstairs. A few minutes later, she agreed. It was supposed to have been three weeks tops. It ended up being three months as I got the run around from others who were offering me rooms for Shaan and then not coming through.
I started wondering if it could be a permanent thing. Shaan loved the village. He loved staying with her at her house. And why not? She was gentle, kind, generous and sensitive. But no one keeps anyone forever. People are unable to do it for their own children.
Shaan had no one. Except God! That was my sole consolation throughout the months he was in my charge. If there was a matter in which I had relinquished complete control to my Lord, it was this.
While living in her house Shaan listened to her and did as he was told. For the most part. Once or twice he apparently flipped his charpoy over. When Pathani would help him remake the bed and ask him why, he would say it was an accident. The only thing that was an issue was when he wanted to stand at the gate. He loved people watching. He would have loved New York!
He used to do it at my house twice a day, morning and afternoon. He would walk to the end of the street which was busier. Then he would move his hands around in the air in waves like he was talking to the breeze. All the different kinds as mentioned in the Quran that seemed to come his way. He was the reason I looked up this verse:
وَهُوَ ٱلَّذِیۤ أَرۡسَلَ ٱلرِّیَـٰحَ بُشۡرَۢا بَیۡنَ یَدَیۡ رَحۡمَتِهِۦۚ
وَأَنزَلۡنَا مِنَ ٱلسَّمَاۤءِ مَاۤءࣰ طَهُورࣰا
And He is the One Who sends the winds (as) glad tidings (from) between the Hands of His Mercy and We send down from the sky water pure.
Surah Al Furqan, Verse 48
Tafseer e Jilani
Wa huwa alladi ar reeyaha bushran: And He is The One who sends the breezes as good news, giving glad tidings…
Bayna yadae Rahmatihi: before (the rains that come from) His Mercy, He gives the happy news by His descending…
Wa: and after Our Glad Tidings to you in the shape of breezes bringing good news…
Anzalna: We sent down from the Station of Our Generosity…
Mina: from…
As Sama’i ma’an tahooran: the skies, rain pure, utmost in purity, highest, extreme in its purpose (of purification).
In November Shaan finally and reluctantly returned with her to Lahore to move in the last place I would rent, furnish and set up for him. Pathani and I had gone to drop him off there and show him where everything was. I had made sure the kitchen was stocked so that he didn’t have to step out of the house at least till the next afternoon in order to buy anything. I had it organized like I would have for myself.
When we were leaving he suddenly said, “Won’t one person spend the night here with me?”
I looked at him in surprise. He was so independent, the ask floored me.
Seeing my surprise he explained, “Because it’s the first night.”
“But there’s only a single bed Shaan,” I said pointing at it. The apartment was like a studio but the kitchen was separate through a door. It was a small place, brand new. “Where would the other person sleep?”
I looked over at Pathani and could see the angst in her face. She understood everyone’s pain in the moment they felt it. Shaan slowly nodded then looked at me.
“So I might call you all night then. Will you pick up?”
“Of course,” I replied truthfully. “I will keep my phone on and right next to me. You can call me all night, whenever you like.”
Normally I would turn my phone to Silent around 9ish at home but those first few days I didn’t do that. When 12 days later the landlord called me to say Shaan would have to leave the house, it was Pathani I discussed the next options with. The expulsion was for the usual reasons but they seemed to be getting worse; rude behaviour, threatening manner. He was glaring at neighbors, even pulling out a knife and scaring them.
The first option that appeared was a privately run shelter for homeless women and children. The second was a center for the abandoned run by the local government. I was being told that the conditions in the latter were abominable. 200 plus people to dorm-like rooms that were likely filthy. If someone was not compliant with the orders of the staff, they could be beaten. At worst, they would be drugged and left in a state of heavy sedation. Nobody cared if they lived or died.
That was where Pathani drew the line.
“You can’t send her there,” she said with this equally intense mix of what sounded like a plea and an order. “You can’t send her somewhere people will beat her. You know she doesn’t do things like other people. They will hit her for sure. She won’t listen to them.” She didn’t even get to the other thing about the drugs and sedation. “Better than that, you should set her free.”
Azaad kar dein – were the words.
“But its cold Pathani,” I replied. “And even if I drop Shaan off on this corner or that neighborhood like he says, the situation in the city is not what it was when I found him. Someone will snatch his phone and anything of value within the hour and then what?”
“Still,” she would say insistent, “you can’t send her to the government facility.”
In truth, that was just a back-up if Shaan couldn’t settle in the private shelter but the possibility was looming before all of us.
The day before he was supposed to go there he started acting aggressively again. That was the signal, just in time that he would not be able to live there either. For the first time in two years I scrambled to find the contacts of different therapists and psychiatrists. I described the situation and whatever I could summarize about his behaviour.
I spoke to three renowned doctors, one of whom was my therapist. All of them said the same thing. He needed medicine and he needed to be in an institution for patients with mental health issues because the ones he was exhibiting were serious.
At first my heart sank at the idea of institutionalizing Shaan because such centers didn’t have the best record in terms of patient treatment. But I learnt that one such institute had recently come under the control of private donors and was excellent. When I called them I was told that the requisite for admission was an ID card and a relative. I offered both. They seemed hesitant to accept that in lieu of documentation from the patient but they made an exception. If it was ever warranted Shaan was certainly first in line in terms of deserving it.
I was told to send him and they would decide then what they would do. Take him or not!
That last night Pathani called him to see how he was feeling. I had been playing bad cop since the landlord called to say he was chucking him out. Pulling a knife on someone was a arrest-able offence. The routine had become necessary to make Shaan understand that he had to control himself. Also he needed to be told what was coming. It had killed me to be curt in my tone with him but there was no option.
I had even yelled at him once. That was not pretense. I had actually lost it. That was when the last landlord had called me to say he pulled a knife on the woman who lived above him. Truth be told, she had enraged him first by barging into his house, claiming that he had deliberately locked the gate while her son was out.
“Get it together Shaan,” I had screamed when he kept going on and on about he would take care of her. “She’s crazy I know but calm down. She made a mistake. Let it go.”
He had only replied in his usual child-like manner. “I’m boycotting you for two weeks also.”
I had just sighed.
After a sleepless night I went to his place the next morning to apologize. I had a spare set of keys so when he didn’t answer the phone, I decided to take my chances and drop by. The gate was open so I pushed it to enter. He must have heard me because just then I heard his front door open. As I popped my head through the gate, he popped his out the door. We both beamed at each other.
“Kya haal hai Shaan?” I had said. How are you?
“Fine Ma’am,” he had replied warmly. “Come!” He had always loved visitors.
I walked towards him holding my hand out as a gesture of contrition. “I came to say sorry to you. I never spoke to you like that before and I’m really sorry I did yesterday.”
He tried to cut me off. “No, no,” he said. “Please. I’m sorry Ma’am. I don’t know what happened to me.”
Shaan had checked boxes of all kinds of mental illnesses and psychosis. He was autistic. He saw people who weren’t there. He gave gibberish answers to every question that was serious. He clearly had intense trauma from assault, whether it was sexual or violent, I don’t know. His anger was out of his control entirely. He certainly couldn’t hold a job.
Yet he never harmed me. Ever. Emotionally or otherwise.
Precisely for that reason I had never been able to see the acuteness of his mental health problems and likely become an enabler. He had always been polite to me and even though he might have been manipulative at times, seeing that I would do anything for him, he didn’t really try to take advantage of me. He was never cruel. He was never greedy. He had zero attachment to money.
Meanwhile all the other people in my life in all kinds of roles, even though they likely had mental health issues as well and possibly faced extraordinary trauma, none of them had been homeless for a single day, much less three years. I’ve barely seen women as homeless people in the West much less Pakistan. Almost every other person I knew had taken my role in their lives, even when it was the most sincere, for granted and most of them had returned the feeling with viciousness in one form or another. Indifference being the worst!
It used to make me feel bad. I used to feel surprised by its recurrence knowing there was a lesson somewhere that was eluding me. I was about to learn that lesson which was going to the most essential in my spiritual journey. A journey that had in fact become stunted and I didn’t even know it. Writing pages upon pages and translating verse after verse. I wasn’t even aware that all that gathering of knowledge had yielded nothing.
“I will go to the hospital tomorrow,” Shaan said to Pathani when she called to ask him how he was feeling. “If they don’t take me, then I will go the neighborhood where I grew up and try to find a place there. Whatever is in my taqdeer,” he had said the word to her, Fate decreed! “I don’t know what is written but whatever it is, I will accept it.”
In that state of undeniable anxiousness of the entirely unknown, he was in a state of absolute surrender. There was not even a hint of any ae’taraz.
Shaan was the Mo’min I wanted to be!
قُل لَّن یُصِیبَنَاۤ إِلَّا مَا كَتَبَ ٱللَّهُ لَنَا هُوَ مَوۡلَىٰنَاۚ وَعَلَى ٱللَّهِ فَلۡیَتَوَكَّلِ ٱلۡمُؤۡمِنُونَ
Say, "Never will befall us except what has decreed Allah for us, He (is) our Protector."
And on Allah the believers put (their) trust.
Surah At Taubah, Verse 51
Tafseer e Jilani
Qul: Say, O Akmal ar Rusul, O Messenger who perfects the Messenger-hood (Allah sends greetings and salutations upon you and your exalted family), (say) to those who find their pleasure in, God forbid, mocking you, who are hypocrites, (say to them) according to your unveiling and your witnessing…
Layyuseebana: no adversity will ever come to us from traumas…
Illa ma kataballah: except that which Allah has written, Al Muqaddir, The One who has the power to destine death and sustenance and all other deeds and states and all the continuous occurring in the Realm of the Unseen as well as the Realm of the Witnessing, i.e. the world…
Lana: for us and Allah chose for us from His Ever Present Knowledge because…
Huwa: He Himself is…
Maulana: alone our Protector and Controller of all our matters that He does to us, according to what He has confirmed in His Ever present Knowledge, without exchange and without amendment.
Wa: And there is no option for us except Raza, being pleased with that which happened to us and that which is happening and will happen from what He has fated for us so that’s…
Alallahi: in Allah Subhanahu and no one else except Him in all causes and means because everything is returning towards Him, just as their origin initially itself is also from Him…
Falyatawakkalil Mo’minoon: so the believers should place their trust in Allah’s One-ness and the extension of the Secrets of His One-ness upon the sheets of all His Creation.
Shaan played it out perfectly: “There is no option for the believer except to be pleased with that which happened, is happening, will happen.”
I had never seen Shaan pray. I had never seen him do any tasbeeh. But his consciousness of Subhanahu was acute because he was in a state of eternal gratitude. I saw that gratitude in reference to my own person to such an extent, I could only imagine what it was for The Divine. It was why he was never forgotten by Him.
فَٱذْكُرُونِىٓ أَذْكُرْكُمْ وَٱشْكُرُوا۟ لِى وَلَا تَكْفُرُونِ
So remember Me, I will remember you
and be grateful to Me and do not be ungrateful to Me.
Surah Al Baqarah, Verse 152
Tafseer e Jilani
And when We have bestowed upon you the greatest blessings, (كَمَاۤ أَرۡسَلۡنَا فِیكُمۡ رَسُولࣰا مِّنكُمۡ یَتۡلُوا۟ عَلَیۡكُمۡ ءَایَـٰتِنَا وَیُزَكِّیكُمۡ وَیُعَلِّمُكُمُ ٱلۡكِتَـٰبَ وَٱلۡحِكۡمَةَ وَیُعَلِّمُكُم مَّا لَمۡ تَكُونُوا۟ تَعۡلَمُونَ , as We sent among you a Messenger from you (who) recites to you Our verses and purifies you and teaches you the Book and the wisdom and teaches you what not you were knowing - Al Baqarah, Verse 151, through the person of Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him and his family)) and perfected them for you…
Fadkuruni: so Remember Me, O Mo’mineen, Believers, with an
everlasting inclination and a truthful turning towards Me…
Adkurkum: I will remember you by giving you a life full of mercy and the breezes of spirituality (nourshing the soul)…
Washkuru li: and be grateful to Me referring all your blessings towards Me…
Wa la takfiroon: and don’t be ungrateful to Me by referring these blessings to (other) causes and means.
My friend Saneeah, who was my go-to person for advice when it came to him, had remarked once. “I am amazed that every single time you call me with some incident of how things have completely blown up with Shaan, within hours another avenue appears for him.”
The next day he went to the facility. They admitted him. Pathani and I finally slept. Allah Subhanahu was kind to him just like He had always been especially kind to me. Despite that I had been the worst of transgressors, the Musrifeen, for I was certainly of those who, for the life of me, with all that intense reflection, did not know when someone in the world was good for me and when they were not.
وَهُوَ كُرۡهࣱ لَّكُمۡۖ
وَعَسَىٰۤ أَن تَكۡرَهُوا۟ شَیۡءࣰا وَهُوَ خَیۡرࣱ لَّكُمۡۖ
وَعَسَىٰۤ أَن تُحِبُّوا۟ شَیۡءࣰا وَهُوَ شَرࣱّ لَّكُمۡۗ
وَٱللَّهُ یَعۡلَمُ وَأَنتُمۡ لَا تَعۡلَمُونَ
But perhaps that you dislike a thing and it is good for you
and perhaps that you love a thing and it is bad for you.
And Allah knows while you (do) not know.
Surah Al Baqarah, Verse 216
Tafseer e Jilani
Wa huwa kurhun: And it is hateful to you, disliked, abrasive…
Lakum: for you as long as this is in your selfishness and your identity and as long as you are in it with the increase and compulsions of possibilities…
Wa asa an takrahu shayan: perhaps that you dislike a thing in this world…
Wa huwa khairullakum: and it is good for you in the Hereafter…
Wa asa an tuhibbu shayan: and perhaps that you like something in this world…
Wa huwa sharralakum: and it is bad for you in the Hereafter.
Wallahu: And Allah is Al Hadi, The Only Guide, for you towards the same way…
Ya’lamu: He knows your goodness and your badness in it and the association of others with Him and He takes care of you from it…
Wa antum: and you all by your personality…
La talamoon: do not know a thing from goodness and badness but instead for you is obedience and following according to what is commanded and what is forbidden and all knowledge is with Allah Al Aziz, The Dominant, Al Aleem, The All Knowing.
Again imkaan: “The increase and compulsion of possibilities…”
Continued on: www.flickr.com/photos/42093313@N00/52652408863/in/datepos...
www.holyspiritspeaks.org/videos/road-to-the-heavenly-king...
Introduction
Gospel Movie Trailer | God Is My Rock and Salvation | "Perilous Is the Road to the Heavenly Kingdom"
Christian Zhong Xin is a preacher in a house church in mainland China. He leads his brothers and sisters to investigate the true way and determines that Almighty God is the return of the Lord Jesus. However, some are perplexed by the CCP government's and religious circle's mad resistance to and condemnation ofThe Church of Almighty God. By reading the words of Almighty God, and by listening to the fellowship of witnesses from The Church of Almighty God, they understand the root cause of mankind's defiance of God, they see clearly why the road to the kingdom of heaven is full of hardships, and they come to have discernment about the truth-hating, God-opposing essence of the CCP's satanic regime and the leaders of the religious world. At last, people such as Zhong Xin have resolutely accepted Almighty God's kingdom gospel.
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not worth your time unless youView On Black
This is what I do with my free time. I read, edit pictures. Listen to itunes. and daydream. About the perfect memories in my head, that are permanent photographs embalmed in my vision.
Sometimes I feel like people see me as whats on the outside. When I really am, who I am through what I am on the inside. And for the most part, what I see is what I am. But what I see, goes deep.
There are a lot of hidden meaningful aspects to this photograph.
1.To the left you see a picture fram, of my cousins and I with my uncle Ben. Who passed a little over a year ago. I’ve been thinking a lot about him. He’s in my heart. I miss him. More than I think I can even understand.
2. There’s obviously a lot to do with photography in this picture. The two cameras in the picture, my website it on the computer screen and I’m actually reading a photography book.
3. The picture on the monitor is one I edited inspired by a certain someone.
4. The lighthouse. When I think of my heart, for some reason I think of a lighthouse. I’m not exactly sure why. I just love them. I love the idea that when your lost at sea, and need direction there’s this light. And I think that this light, is a little thing I like to call discernment I’m ever so blessed with.
5. The birds. Well birds represent my escape. Pointblank.
Anyways.
This is me lately. Thought you might enjoy something a little new.
xoxo
Lease
Words For The Wind
"Do you think that you can reprove words, when the speech of a despairing man is wind?"
Job 6:26
In grief and pain and despair, people often say things they otherwise would not say. They paint reality with darker strokes than they will paint it tomorrow when the sun comes up. They sing in minor keys and talk as though that is the only music. They see clouds only and speak as if there were no sky. They say, “Where is God?” Or: “There is no use to go on.” Or: “Nothing makes any sense.” Or: “There’s no hope for me.” Or: “If God were good, this couldn’t have happened.” What shall we do with these words? Job says that we do not need to reprove them. These words are wind, or literally “for the wind.” They will be quickly blown away. There will come a turn in circumstances, and the despairing person will waken from the dark night and regret hasty words. Therefore, the point is, let us not spend our time and energy reproving such words. They will be blown away of themselves on the wind. One need not clip the leaves in autumn. It is a wasted effort. They will soon blow off of themselves. O how quickly we are given to defending God, or sometimes the truth, from words that are only for the wind. If we had discernment, we could tell the difference between the words with roots and the words blowing in the wind. There are words with roots in deep error and deep evil. But not all grey words get their color from a black heart. Some are colored mainly by the pain, the despair. What you hear is not the deepest thing within. There is something real within where they come from. But it is temporary — like a passing infection — real, painful, but not the true person. Let us learn to discern whether the words spoken against us or against God or against the truth are merely for the wind — spoken not from the soul, but from the sore. If they are for the wind, let us wait in silence and not reprove. Restoring the soul, not reproving the sore, is the aim of our love.
_____
John Piper, excerpted from “When Words Are Wind”
How many Christians are doers of the faith or living a Godly life as required by God ?
How many fall into apostasy or fallen from faith , they fail to even realized it .
I had a chat with someone who goes regularly or piously to an Anglican church
every Sunday. Then our conversation went into issues of legalize abortion,
gay marriage, which then about the infallibility of the Bible as the word
of God. What shocked me most ,to discover was this person's mindset
is aligned with those who have doubts about the Bible, those who believe
the Bible isn't true quite contrary to his routine being a regular /active
church goer. He believes the Bible is
flawed as it is written by men. He doesn't believe of Adam and Eve of
Genesis backed on his string belief of science has proved it wrong through
Evolution . Even theory of evolution still has loopholes. They still haven't
found yet what they call the missing link which weakens its theoretical
grounds . I cant believe a confessing Christian who goes to church every Sunday would
believe all those without searching for the truth. What's the point of believing God when
you can't even believe in his WORD. If his church shared the
anointed truth of the word of God, and has the Holy Spirit guiding him
to all the truth , there's no way this person would ever accept and
internalize all those deceptions feed on him.
It made me wonder then why this person kept going to a church every
Sunday, so active in the church and continued his Christianity, when he
has doubts even to his faith . If I were on that platform of uncertainty,
I must already have left and into different faith . If his God can not be
trusted in his word, if his God can not be reliable, then he must be standing
on weaker grounds of faith. If we believe the word of God is flawed , then
its logical to understand in the end it diminishes our own belief and faith
of power of the Word of God and the faith of God. But how can you say you
have strong faith, but you still have doubts about the purity of God's words.
God has proven His word in the Bible to be true through many
fulfilled prophecies , that a number of them now are happening
before our very
eyes , finding them in the pages of today's news papers. Other
religions don't have prophecies
which had been fulfilled to the dot. Israel being made as a nation in
1948 through Balfour Declaration , alone will attest 100% reliability
of the Bible , the Word of God spoken thousands of years before it
happened . So true of today to its nature,
Israel as a " burdensome stone" as being spoken by the Word of God.
Through our conversation, I felt sorry for this man, as he
sounds truly deceived , he didn't even realize it.
I even wonder how many billions of confessing Christians fall into the same trap.
When going to church is simply like going to a social club .....
This isn't criticism or judgement of the person's character and leave him lost, but as discernment. As a believer we should all seek the gifts of the spirit and one of them is discernment. We should know the spirits by testing them. From this man's confessions I know he isn't born-again with the spirit of God. He is attending church as by tradition or by expectation that he should do so. I was burdened of this person and he is
in my intercessions of deliverance , breaking the spiritual chains of bondage and blindness that he will find true salvation in Christ, and would truly know Christ .
We aren't fighting against flesh and blood but by principalities , powers of darkness in heavenly places ...(Ephesians 6:12 ).
For Christians pray for your love ones , friends and people....
James 1 :22 states :
"But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. "
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SIGNS OF THE TIMES :
*Breaking News Syria Targets Israel By Steven De Noon
*Japan Drones "NSA"? / Venezuela
Believes Obama Plots Bringing Down Government ! By Paul Begley (YT)
*BREAKING: USA Will Strike Expanded Target List Syria!!
*The Feast of Trumpets & The RAPTURE!! - A Perspective from 2013
The Prosperity Gospel Ruined My Life
*John MacArthur on the charismatic movement
*Why Does God Allow Evil - John MacArthur
*Are Catholics Saved? By John MacArthur
*Is Speaking in Tongues Demonic? By John MacArthur
*John MacArthur - The Pre-Tribulation Rapture Of The Church
*How to Recognize a Real Church, Part 1
*UFO's And The End Times by Stan Deyo
Egyptian Media Claims Obama Is A Member Of The Muslim Brotherhood. Surprised?! NO!
September 5 2013 The Final Hour Last Days End Times Middle East Ground Zero 9-5-13
Putin Prepares To Arm Texas Separatists As Iran Orders 50,000 Troops To Syria
Snowden Revelations Strike Fear Into Putin
Report: US Training Syrian Rebels From the WND .
What's Coming In the Middleast and the Psalm 83 War
Biblical doom of Damascus 'right before our eyes'
Why I abominate the prosperity gospelBy John Piper
Ezekiel Prophecy : Iran v Israel, Fallen Angels & Nazi Ocultism
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Location : Balanan Lake, Siaton , Negros Oriental
Philippines
Swimming in Balanan Lake isn't allowed. They have swimming pools
specially made for visitors who like to dip in water, but not into the lake.
There are boats for rental people can paddle around the lake
Father Poemen said that Father Ammonas said, “A person can spend his whole time carrying an axe without succeeding in cutting down the tree. Another person, who has experience in chopping down trees, brings the tree down with a few blows. He said that the axe is discernment.”
-POEMEN (CALLED THE SHEPHERD)
“Remember meditation is an active, deep remembrance, and that is discernment. Wherever you go, wherever you are, whatever you're doing, remember to utilize discernment so that you can hear and sense and feel the vibration of love rather than the vibration of illusion.”
‘There are many paths to God‘ has become a politically, correct catchphrase, used by the liberal establishment to imply that all religions and beliefs are equally worthy.
Of course, you don’t need a degree in common sense to work out that this is illogical nonsense.
Everybody is aware that even the major religions disagree on many important issues. Therefore, simple logic dictates that they cannot all be right. Where they all disagree on a particular belief (if any are right) it can only be ONE that is right.
It is obvious then that all those religions that are wrong in any belief cannot be equal in merit, or equal as a path to God, as the one that is wholly right. So to insist they are all equally worthy is to be unjustly biased against the one that is true.
Error should never be given equality with truth.
Therefore it is inexcusable that our society should not to make every effort to discern, and then to officially recognise the truth in this matter.
For anyone to contend that ERROR should ever be entitled to equal endorsement and support by the state as TRUTH is unjust, prejudiced, morally reprehensible and downright stupid.
Western civilisation was founded and built on the commendable notion that truth really matters and should be encouraged and supported.
For centuries, it was accepted and agreed by the most learned persons and rulers, that the beliefs of Christianity best represent spiritual truth. Whilst also providing superlative spiritual and social benefits for citizens and society. And therefore it was agreed that Christianity should be entitled to official recognition and special support by society and the state. The traditions, heritage, laws and culture of Christendom were founded on this generally, accepted precept.
It is not hard to understand why?
Christianity really is special.
Jesus Christ taught love, peace and forgiveness.
Jesus is the role model for Christians. Although they are not always completely successful, the teaching and example of Jesus Christ are what every genuine Christian aspires to. Those things are eminently conducive to the moral, spiritual and material good of society. They are the fundamentals of Christianity and a Christian society. We hear a lot today about religious fundamentalism being something bad, but in the case of Christianity the opposite has to be true. The more fundamental a Christian seeks to be, the more like (the Christian role model) Jesus they hope to become.
In a nutshell Jesus taught - love God above all and love your neighbour as yourself. and seek to advance the welfare of all, materially and spiritually - be humble, not proud or envious, be prepared to serve others, not lord it over them - love and forgive even your enemies and do not seek revenge or bear grudges.
Saint Augustine.
“Let those who say that the teachings of Christ are harmful to the State find armies with soldiers who live up to the standards of the teachings of Jesus. Let them provide governors, husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants, kings, judges, taxpayers and tax collectors who can compare to those who take Christian teachings to heart. Then let them dare to say that such teaching is contrary to the welfare of the State! Indeed, under no circumstances can they fail to realize that this teaching is the greatest safeguard of the State when faithfully observed.” (“Epis. 138 ad Marcellinum,” in Opera Omnia, vol. 2, in J.P. Migne, Patrologia Latina, col. 532.)
A major problem today is that the term 'religion' is cynically used by secularists rather than 'religions'. The effect is to lump all religions together and stereotype them as though they are a single entity. Which means if one religion is perceived in some way as not conducive to the public good, people are led to believe that all religions are a problem - that 'religion' is a problem per se. This sort of stereotyping would be unlikely to be tolerated in any other field. But it suits the aims of militant atheists and the liberal, secular, politically correct agenda.
There is no question that the twentieth century was the bloodiest century in the history of the world. It was in this century that the major nations of Christendom began to abandon Christian beliefs, principles and heritage. And, in the misguided name of progress, began to embrace a variety of pagan, atheistic, materialist, Darwinian, Marxist and socialist ideologies. As a result we were subjected to 2 world wars, numerous other wars, including the Spanish civil war, and an horrendous, mass murder as a result of the German nation adopting the national, socialist policies of a crazed, Darwinian inspired, anti-Christian, pagan occultist named Hitler. An even greater, mass slaughter was carried out by atheistic, socialist revolutionaries in pursuit of their proposed ‘paradise on earth‘. The historical record of the twentieth century is absolutely horrendous, the atheistic, Marxist, socialist regimes of; Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were together responsible for the brutal slaughter of an estimated thirty six million people. In addition, we have seen millions of war deaths, countless murders carried out by other, atheistic, socialist regimes and various other tyrannies, and millions of unborn babies callously slaughtered in state approved and funded, abortion mills.
We hear a lot today about equality, which sounds admirable. And true equality certainly is admirable and a God-given right. However, false equality is not admirable, it can be discriminatory against truth, goodness and, if enforced by the state, can result in an evil tyranny. Error should never be equated with truth and evil should never be equated with good.
So what is true equality?
Every human person is of equal value and should be equally respected and cared for, regardless of gender, colour, race, disability, wealth, influence, intelligence or power. That is true equality.
What is false equality?
False equality is the idea that everything any human person does or believes, is equally valid. The idea that all lifestyles, beliefs, traditions or cultures (that are not against whatever the state decides should be legal) are equally valid and worthy of equal respect.
In post Christian, secular society, while it is demanded by supporters of the liberal establishment that all religions, beliefs and lifestyles should be treated by the state as equally worthy, with no preference or special status given to any. In practice, we can see this is completely ignored in one respect, because there is an exception, inasmuch as it is now the beliefs of 'atheism' that actually receive special recognition and status in most, Western nations. This is evident in the state approved and funded, promotion and teaching of the (unscientific) naturalistic beliefs of Darwinian evolution and spontaneous generation of life, as though they are ‘scientific truths’ (they are treated as sacrosanct - with no alternative, scientific views or contrary evidence, permitted in any state funded or approved, educational curriculum).
The modern, secular state's 'enforced' equality demands that all beliefs etc. are treated as equally worthy, regardless of truth or merit. But, in practice, the liberal mind-set is that all beliefs/religions are inferior to the atheist/secularist ideology, which is perceived as the pinnacle of rationality and arbiter of 'scientific truth' which benevolently deigns to grant (a false) equality to every inferior, belief system. And religions should all be grateful that the secular state grants them equality with each other.
All religions and religious beliefs are thus lumped together as
being equal (the crazy with the not so crazy - the logical with the illogical - the true with the patently false) with no intelligent, or logical discernment permitted.
And so we are led to believe by a secular state (which doesn't recognise God) that there are:
‘Many paths to God’ -That all religions and beliefs are equally valid.
But are they?
Anyone who agrees with this automatically rejects the claims of Jesus Christ, who stated; “I am the way, the truth and the life” and “no one can come to the Father except through Me.”
Uniquely, Jesus backed up his claim by suffering an agonising death on the cross as a sacrifice for the salvation of all humanity. The words of Jesus means you cannot be a Christian if you claim or believe there are many paths to God, or that there is any path to God other than through Jesus Christ.
The fact is that Jesus (although completely innocent of all sin himself) suffered for the sins of all humankind, He was crucified for the redemption of His enemies as well as His friends. We are all sinners and have all offended the infinite goodness of God, no one (not even a saint) deserves heaven entirely on their own merit. Everyone is defiled by sin, and nothing defiled can enter heaven. An offence against the infinite goodness of an infinitely loving, but also an infinitely, just God can only be redeemed by an infinitely, good sacrifice. So only a divine sacrifice can pay the price justice demands for our sins.
Only the sacrifice of the true, spiritual messiah, Jesus Christ, the son of the living God, incarnated as man, is sufficient to save us all from the consequences of sin, open the gates of heaven and restore eternal life to the whole human race.
Only those whose garments have been ‘washed white by the blood of the lamb’ are fit to enter heaven.
The debt for our sin has been paid by Jesus and His saving sacrifice is offered as an unsurpassed, loving and free gift to us all. We simply have to gratefully acknowledge and accept that gift in a spirit of humility and repentance.
Jesus requested that a remembrance of his sacrifice should be celebrated (the Eucharist). This unites us with Him and His sacrifice, and is the only sacrificial ceremony for sin which is truly acceptable to God. All other sacrifices devised and offered by humans are as ‘dirty rags’ before the divine majesty of the almighty creator.
Only the sacrifice of the true messiah, God made man
(as prophesied by Isaiah in the old testament), is acceptable to God.
By his supreme sacrifice Jesus paid the price for every sin ever committed, and thereby opened the gates of heaven to the whole human race.
Without His sacrifice, no one of any religion could ever enter heaven.
It matters not whether you are the most devout Muslim, Hindu, Jew, Buddhist or person of any other faith, ultimately you will rely, not on any rituals and customs of these various religions, but on the sacrifice of Jesus to enter heaven.
All who enter heaven and eternal life do so only with a passport provided by Jesus, without His sacrifice you would never get there.
This is the truth whether you like it or not.
Of course, we all have free choice. Quite rightly, we are all entitled to follow any religion we wish. But once we know that it is only the sacrifice of Jesus that can make us fit to enter heaven and entitled to eternal life, we will surely wish to follow Him. It would be foolishness indeed for us to choose to follow any other religion which refuses to acknowledge this, and pretends that we can redeem ourselves just by following its manmade doctrines and rituals.
Does atheist/secularist ideology, deserve to be regarded by the state and society as the pinnacle of rationality and arbiter of 'scientific truth'?
Atheism revealed as false ... Why God MUST exist.
There are only 2 basic options for the origin of the universe .... an uncaused, supernatural first cause of the universe OR an uncaused, natural first cause of the universe. If you categorically reject the former (as atheists do), you have no option but to accept the latter by default. It is an intellectually dishonest cop-out to say atheism is merely a lack of belief. A genuine lack of belief would be classed as agnosticism, which is a neutral position. It is a 'don't know' or 'fence sitting' position. A 'don't know' position is not one which would specifically single out to reject, attack and ridicule just one side of the argument, i.e. the concept of a supernatural, first cause, as atheism does.
Atheists cannot simply deny, attack and vociferously ridicule the concept of - a supernatural, first cause, without being expected to justify the only alternative - a natural, first cause. That cannot be regarded as intellectually credible or rational.
We see that atheists dogmatically reject supernaturalism and are zealously on the side of naturalism (a naturalistic origin and explanation for everything). That is not a neutral, 'don't know' or objective position. It is not merely a lack of belief. It is a positive and subjective belief in naturalism. And hence a belief in a natural cause of the universe, and everything that exists or has ever existed.
So how do we know that atheism false and that God MUST exist?
Firstly ...
We know that the universe has not always existed, we know it had a beginning and it is 'running down' from an original peak of energy potential at its beginning. The Second Law of Thermodynamics (law of entropy) confirms that. So we know the universe had an origin.
Secondly .....
What about matter itself?
Can matter have always existed? The simple answer is no.
Matter/energy and all natural entities and events are contingent, they rely on causes for everything. Because they are contingent they cannot be eternally self-existent or necessary entities. They do not contain within themselves the reason or cause of their own existence. As contingent entities, they are entirely reliant on that which causes and maintains them. They cannot exist or operate in any way without causes, Thus they must have had an original cause at some stage, even if the chain of causes and effects is very long, it had to have a beginning at some point.
A basic principle of the scientific method is that we can expect to find an adequate cause for every natural occurrence. All scientific research is based on that premise.
To propose a non-contingent, natural occurrence or entity as the originator of the universe (as atheists are forced to do), is unscientific fantasy.
Thirdly ....
A supernatural first cause (God) is not a contingent entity. It is not natural, and is not bound by natural laws which govern matter and all natural events. In fact, as the first cause of matter/energy, it is also the author of the laws that govern matter/energy. It cannot be subject to laws it has created.
As the very first cause, it also cannot have had any preceding cause, so we know it cannot be a contingent entity.
Why? Because ...first means first, not second or third. If something is first, nothing preceded it. It must have always existed and must have had within itself the means of its own existence. It could not have relied on anything else for its existence. So the supernatural, first cause (a creator God) has to be eternally, self-existent and necessary.
It also has to have the powers and ability to create everything else that exists in the universe. As the original cause, it has to be an adequate cause of everything ...of all causes and effects that follow it, forever. That means - it has to have the powers, properties and qualities sufficient to create: time, matter/energy, natural laws, information, life, intelligence, consciousness and every characteristic that humans have. Because we, as a mere effect of the first cause, cannot be greater than that which ultimately caused us.
So God is the non-contingent, self-existent, necessary, supernatural, first cause of everything in the universe.
That is the logical conclusion of the understanding and application of natural laws.
ATHEIST BELIEF IN A NATURAL FIRST CAUSE VIOLATES NATURAL LAW.
THUS ATHEISM IS ILLOGICAL, AND ANTI-SCIENCE.
Essential characteristics of the first cause.
Consider this short chain of causes and effects:
A causes B, - B causes C, - C causes D, - D causes E.
'A, B, C & D' are all causes and may all look similar, but they are not, there is an enormous and crucial difference between them.
Causes B, C & D are fundamentally different from cause A.
Why?
Because A is the very first cause and thus had no previous cause. It exists without a cause. It doesn’t rely on anything else for its existence, it is completely independent of causes - while B, C & D would not exist without A. They are entirely dependent on A.
Causes; B, C & D are also effects, whereas A is not an effect, only a cause.
So we can say that the first cause ‘A’ is both self-existent and necessary. It is necessary because the rest of the chain of causes and effects could not exist without it. We also have to say that the subsequent causes and effects B, C, D and E are all contingent. That is; they are not self-existent they all depend entirely on other causes to exist.
We can also say that A is eternally self-existent, i.e. it has always existed, it had no beginning. Why? Because if A came into being at some point, there must have been something other than itself that brought it into being … which would mean A was not the first cause (A could not create A) … the something that brought A into being would be the first cause. In which case, A would be contingent and no different from B, C, D & E.
We can also say that A is adequate to produce all the properties of B, C, D & E.
Why?
Well in the case of E we can see that it relies entirely on D for its existence, E can in no way be superior to D because D had to contain within it everything necessary to produce E. The same applies to D it cannot be superior to C, but furthermore neither E or D can be superior to C, because both rely on C for their existence, and C had to contain everything necessary to produce D & E.
Likewise with B, which is responsible for the existence of C, D & E.
As they all depend on A for their existence and all their properties, abilities and potentials, none can be superior to A whether singly or combined. A had to contain everything necessary to produce B, C, D & E including all their properties, abilities and potentials.
Thus we deduce that; nothing in the universe can be superior in any way to the very first cause of the universe, because the whole universe, and all material things that exist, depend entirely on the abilities and properties of the first cause to produce them.
So to sum up … a first cause must be uncaused, must have always existed and cannot be in any way inferior to all subsequent causes and effects. In other words, the first cause of the universe must be eternally, self-existent and omnipotent (greater than everything that exists). No natural entity can have those attributes, that is why a Supernatural, Creator God MUST exist.
What about polytheism, can there be more than one God or Creator.
It is patently obvious there can only be one supernatural first cause.
The first cause is infinite - and logically, there cannot be more than one infinite entity.
If there were two infinite entities, for example, A and B. The qualities and perfections that are the property of B would be a limitation on the qualities and perfections of A. and vice versa, so neither would be infinite.
If A & B had identical qualities and perfections they would not be two different entities, they would be identical and therefore the same entity, i.e. a single, infinite, first cause. So there can be only one infinite being or entity, only one supernatural, first cause and creator of the universe.
So when atheists keep repeating the claim - that there is no reason to believe the monotheistic, Christian God is any different from the multiple, gods of pagan religions, it simply displays their ignorance and lack of reasoning.
Does the first cause have to be a supernatural one, or is it (as atheists claim) just a desperate attempt by ignorant people to fill a gap in scientific knowledge, by saying - God did it?
What does 'supernatural' mean? It means something which cannot be explained by science, natural laws or by natural processes.
The origin of the universe cannot be explained by genuine science, natural laws or by natural processes. And that is an undeniable FACT.
Why?
Because EVERY possible explanation by natural processes violates both the fundamental principle of the scientific method - the Law of Cause and Effect - and other natural laws.
Hence, the first cause, by virtue of the fact that it cannot be explained by science or natural processes, automatically qualifies as a supernatural entity.
To insist that the first cause must be a natural entity or event is to invoke a magical explanation, not a scientific one. The only choice, therefore is between a supernatural first cause or a magical first cause? A natural event that is purported to defy natural laws and scientific principles can only be described as MAGIC. And that is exactly what atheists propose. They cynically dress up their belief - that nature can evade natural laws - as science, but science certainly cannot envisage a causeless, natural event or entity, science cannot look for non-causes.
No one has ever proposed a natural explanation for the origin of the universe that does not violate the law of cause and effect and other natural laws. But, whenever they are challenged about this fact, they always make the excuse that the laws of nature/physics somehow DID NOT APPLY to their proposed, natural origin scenario.
The most, well known case of this excuse is the alleged 'Singularity' which, it was claimed, preceded the Big Bang. Remember it was claimed to be a "one-off event where the laws of physics did not apply." A natural event that defied natural laws! - That used to be called 'magic', before atheist 'scientists' hi-jacked science with their religion of naturalism - the All Powerful, autonomous, Mother Nature.
Excuses aren't science. A natural event that violates natural laws is by definition, not possible. There are no ifs, buts or perhaps, natural things are bound by natural laws, without question. Natural laws describe the inherent properties of natural entities. And the whole essence of science is the fact that every natural entity/event is contingent - has to have an ADEQUATE CAUSE.
The idea of 'laws not applying' to a natural event, is not science. It is just fantasy.
If the origin of the universe is inexplicable to science, within the accepted framework of normal, natural processes and natural laws, then it is a supernatural event.
You cannot claim something as a natural event that violates natural laws. For that reason it is inexplicable to science.
In fact. to claim that something natural can defy natural laws is anti-science.
Those who believe such nonsense are enemies of science.
ALL NATURAL explanations for the origin of the universe violate the Law of Cause and Effect and other natural laws.
Conclusion: the atheist belief in a natural explanation for the origin of the universe (that Mother Nature did it) is impossible - according to science.
Atheist myths debunked - abiogenesis - the inherent predisposition of matter to create life.
www.flickr.com/photos/truth-in-science/22250603246
The world's fist ever photograph.
The new astonishing phenomenon detected on the Shroud of Turin
EUbabel. The shocking occult symbolism of the European Union.
peuplesobservateursblog.wordpress.com/2017/09/23/togo-all...
le peuple se répandit dans le temple pour satisfaire sa curiosité
mocked the old man, and were more unquiet than ever.....Madame D'Aulnoy's Green Snake
at one time on the gunwale and the seats, at another on the bottom of the boat.: Beauty, Ugliness, and Curiosity.The Green Serpent known as Serpentin Vert(French version from Goethe wich wrotten the German from Chinese or Arabic?).The serpent is representative of a European dragon.
Green Snake (or "Green Serpent") by Madame D'Aulnoy is a fascinating tale. It reminds me a lot of C.S. Lewis' "Till We Have Faces" (a lesser known but my favorite of all his books) because they are both retellings of the Cupid and Psyche myth, but starring a rarity: an ugly female. There are some versions of Animal Bridegroom tales which are little known today, but Green Serpent features a human female who is cursed with ugliness (note that this is not an authentic folktale, but a fairy tale from the French salon period-I can't think of any actual folktales that have an ugly human female as the protagonist).This story has dual Beast characters-more like "Beast and the Beast" than "Beauty and the Beast," if you will, because the Prince is also in disguise as the title character. D'Aulnoy explores the themes of beauty vs. ugliness in her tale, just as Lewis did in "Till We Have Faces"-especially the cruel reaction of culture to a person's ugliness, especially a woman's. (This is kind of a soap box of mine-read more here.) First of all, the heroine, Laidronette (it's been translated as Dorugly, which contrasts her sister Dorabelle) is cursed by an offended evil fairy, not unlike Sleeping Beauty. However, Laidronette's fairy claims that she was not invited to the party because "you only want beauties with fine figures and fine dresses like my sisters here. As for me, I'm too ugly and old. Yet despite it all, I have just as much power as they." Earlier this fairy is defined as malicious, but we already see the theme of someone being judged, possibly, by their appearance. So poor Laidronette is given "perfect ugliness," but the other fairies prophesy that she will one day be very happy. The Queen is still concerned that her daughter become beautiful again, which the fairies can't promise. When the princess was twelve, she begged her parents to be allowed to be shut up in a castle so that she "will no longer torment them with her ugliness." This was difficult for the Royal couple, because "despite her hideous appearance, they could not help being fond of her," but they allowed her to leave. This language implies an assumption that people's worth is found mainly in their appearance. Later, Laidronette returns to see her sister marry, but was received coldly by the Court and her family. She was glad to return to her forest home "where the trees, flowers, and springs she wandered among did not reproach her for her ugliness." One day while the Princess was out, she came across a green snake who spoke to her, saying, "Look at my horrible form. And yet at birth I was even handsomer than you." This terrified Laidronette, who ran away. Later she explored a boat which took her out to sea and threatened to capsize. In her hour of terror she mused, "Alas, have I ever enjoyed any of life's pleasures so much that I should now feel regret at dying? My ugliness disgusts even my family...wouldn't it be better for me to perish than to drag out such a miserable existence?" Hopefully, this whole "ugly people have no point in being alive" message is making you angry. Yet at the same time, it's the other people in Laidronette's life that are making her life so miserable. I think it's safe to assume that any woman today who is considered extremely ugly would also find life to be very difficult because of how she is treated. Laidronette is offered help from the green snake, but she is still so horrified she would rather die than owe her life to him. Here, sadly, the one person who should have learned not to judge by appearances seems to be just as shallow as anyone else. The boat wrecks on a rock, but Laidronette wakes up to find herself in an enchanted land where she is waited on hand and foot by a hundred strange little creatures called pagods. Laidronette enjoys the luxuries provided for her, and is shocked to find herself treated honorably with "no longer talk of her ugliness." (In the picture above, she wears a veil, just like Orual in Till We Have Faces...) This is the part that begins to parallel Cupid and Psyche-very intentionally, too, for as her invisible lover begins to win her over, she realizes she's following in Psyche's footsteps. Laidronette can't believe anyone could love someone so ugly, and here we have a refreshing change in attitude, for the invidible prince says that she "has sufficient qualities to merit my affection," for the first time alluding to the fact that people can have positive qualities other than their appearance. Yet Laidronette hasn't quite learned her lesson-she still wants to know from the pagods if their prince is handsome, and can't return the love of someone she cannot see. Eventually, though, she is won over and agrees to be the bride of the invisible voice. She is told that he has been cursed by the same evil fairy that cursed her, and that two years of his curse remain, and should she succomb to curiosity like Psyche, his sentence will begin all over again. Yet, even having read the story of Psyche over and over again to avoid making her mistakes, Laidronette once again listens to her mother and sister and decides to look on her husband, only to find he is the Green Snake and she must complete impossible tasks (with the help of a beneficient fairy) before she can earn her happy ending. D'Aulnoy repeats over and over again that Laidronette deserved what she got for her curiosity, it's all her fault, etc., etc., even with a poetic moral at the end about the evils of the womanly sin of curiosity. Keep in mind that D'Aulnoy was a feminist in her day, who, according to Jack Zipes, "did not like the manner in which women were treated and compelled to follow patriarchal codes, and...did not even stop short of aabetting execution or murder of men she considered unworthy or tyrannical." So I don't know if D'Aulnoy was just trying to parallel Cupid and Psyche, or if she really thought curiosity a terrible sin limited to the female race, but Laidronette is continually reprimanded for her act of curiosity.owever, she apparantly eventually learns her lesson. Sent on an errand by the evil fairy to fetch water from the bottomless spring using a pitcher with a hole in the bottom and with a millstone tied around her neck, Laidronette decides to drink the water to make her wise before washing her face in it to make her beautiful. The good fairy likes this. Later we are introduced to a character who fell in love with a cruel woman only because she was beautiful who suffered for it. So, despite the appearance of the beginning of the tale, women are found to have worth aside from their looks. Of course, Laidronette still becomes beautiful in the end, and the Serpent becomes a handsome prince. Then there's the moral, which informs us that "too oft is curiosity the cause of fatal woe...it is a weakness of womankind." It don't get it, Feminism has come a long way since the late 1600s. BY KRISTIN AT 6:43 PM LABELS: ANIMAL BRIDEGROOM TALES, CUPID AND PSYCHE
1 COMMENT: Mrs BertinDecember 14, 2011 at 11:19 AM You've mentioned that you couldn't find a folk tale with an ugly female, which made me think of the Russian fairy tale Princess Frog. In the story, young prince Ivan is made to marry a frog, who in the end turns out to be a beautiful princess. Ivan exhibits curiosity and impatience, which is often attributed to female heroines in fairy tales, and suffers as a result of that. The story is more of an Animal Bride narrative. There are several stories where the princess is either a snake or more commonly a swan or some other bird. Your fairy is called Hex Reedglow She is a panpipe player and enchantment singer. She lives in places hexed and tainted by black magic. She is only seen in the light of a full moon. She wears black feathers and rose petals. She has gentle green butterfly wings. Get your free fairy name here! The Green Serpent (a green dragon, known as Serpentin Vert in French), is a French fairy tale written by Marie Catherine d'Aulnoy, popular in its day and representative of European folklore, that was published in her book New Tales, or Fairies in Fashion (Contes Nouveaux ou Les Fées à la Mode), in 1698. The serpent is representative of a European dragon. His description is: "he has green wings, a many-coloured body, ivory jaws, fiery eyes, and long, bristling hair." The Green Dragon is really a handsome king placed under a spell for seven years by Magotine a wicked fairy. In many ways the tale is based on the story of Eros and Psyche, to which the narration pays conscious homage when referring to the "discovery" of the Green Dragon.Plot: Feast scene This story begins with a celebration feast for two twin princesses, who would later be named Laidronette and Bellotte. The King and Queen invite many fairies but forgot to invite Magotine, the older sister of Carabosse. Magotine was the oldest and most wicked fairy that existed. When she found out about the party, she was so furious for not being invited that she placed a spell on Laidronette that turns her into the ugliest woman in the world. The other fairies intercede and persuade Magotine to stop before she has cast a similar spell on Bellotte. Tower scene: Years pass by. Laidronette grows up intelligent but lonely. She asks to live in a tower so that she does not have to see anyone. However one day she roams outside, and the Green Serpent sees her and begins to take an interest in her. She is terrified of the Green Serpent at first sight and flees from him, and accidentally gets swept out to sea. The Green Serpent appears swimming alongside her boat, but she refuses his help. She nearly dies in the ocean. Faraway kingdom scene When Laidronette gains consciousness she finds she has been saved and taken to be the guest of an unknown king in a far away kingdom. The Green Serpent's identity as the spell-bound king is revealed to the readers. However, Laidronnette is not taken to see the king and does not learn this secret. All she knows is that an unseen king is taking very good care of her. Then the serpent starts talking to her at night, and is such a good companion over the years she falls in love with his conversation, sight unseen, and they get married. The Green Serpent king convinces his wife to wait until the end of the seven-year period, to see what he looks like, or else his wicked enchantment in the form of a dragon will start all over again. Laidronette compares her own marriage with that of Eros and Psyche in Greek Mythology, and tries to resist being "like Psyche" by waiting patiently for seven years. However, like Psyche, she is convinced by her family to take one look at her husband. When Laidronette discovers he is the same Green Serpent she once was so afraid of, war breaks out in the kingdom, and Magotine ruins the kingdom. The Green Serpent is sent into Hades while Laidronette is taken to become Magotine's prisoner and servant. Tribulations and tests :The serpent sends a good fairy to assist Laidronette in very difficult trials that Magotine thinks up. In one of Laidronette's errands as a servant, she finds the "waters of discernment" and when she drinks it, she becomes wiser, when she splashes it on her face, her ugliness vanishes and she regains her natural beauty. Enchanted forest :The good fairy then sends Laidronette into an enchanted forest to hide for several years. Finally however when a period of time or imprisonment for the Green Serpent has come to an end, Laidronette returns to Magotine and Magotine tells her to go into Hades and get her the "water of life." Laidronette goes. Descent into Hades :The personification of "Love" comes to assist Laidronette in going down into Hades and speaking to Prosperina, reminding her that is where her husband is held captive. Once she goes into Hades, "Love" restores the dragon back to his original human form. After Laidronette and her husband are united in Hades, "Love" brings the couple back to Magotine, and forces Magotine to break her spells, and then sends the couple back to Laidronette's homeland. In the end, a moral is given: Love is said to be stronger than Magotine.
Taken on 11th October, 2014.
Hemis Monastery is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery (gompa) of the Drukpa Lineage, located in Hemis, Ladakh, India. Situated 45 km from Leh, in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Hemis Monastery existed before the 11th century and was re-established in 1672 by the Ladakhi king Sengge Namgyal. The annual Hemis festival honoring Padmasambhava is held here in early June.
Terma and tertöns : The essence of Tebetan Buddhism.
Padmasambhava (lit. "Lotus-Born"), also known as Guru Rinpoche, is a literary character of terma (Terma or "hidden treasure"- are key Tibetan Buddhist teaching, which the tradition holds were originally esoterically hidden by various adepts such as Padmasambhava and his consorts, in the 8th century for future discovery at auspicious times by other adepts, known as tertöns. As such, they represent a tradition of continuous revelation in Tibetan Buddhism. Termas are a part of Tantric Literature. Tradition holds that terma may be a physical object such as a text or ritual implement that is buried in the ground (or earth), hidden in a rock or crystal, secreted in a herb, or a tree, hidden in a lake (or water), or hidden in the sky (space). Though a literal understanding of terma is "hidden treasure", and sometimes objects are hidden away, the teachings associated should be understood as being “concealed within the mind of the guru”, that is, the true place of concealment is in the tertön's mindstream. If the concealed or encoded teaching or object is a text, it is often written in dakini script: a non-human type of code or writing).
Terma is an emanation of Amitabha (Amitābha or Amideva, is a celestial buddha described in the scriptures of the Mahāyāna school of Buddhism. Amitābha is the principal buddha in the Pure Land sect, a branch of Buddhism practiced mainly in East Asia, while in Vajrayana Amitābha is known for his longevity attribute, magnetising red fire element, the aggregate of discernment, pure perception and the deep awareness of emptiness of phenomena. According to these scriptures, Amitābha possesses infinite merits resulting from good deeds over countless past lives as a bodhisattva named Dharmakāra. "Amitābha" is translatable as "Infinite Light," hence Amitābha is also called "The Buddha of Immeasurable Life and Light" ).
Terma that is said to appear to tertons (A tertön is a discoverer of ancient texts or terma in Tibetan Buddhism) in visionary encounters and a focus of Tibetan Buddhist practice (Tibetan Buddhism is the body of Buddhist religious doctrine and institutions characteristic of Tibet, Mongolia, Tuva, Bhutan, Kalmykia and certain regions of the Himalayas, including northern Nepal, and India (particularly in Arunachal Pradesh, Ladakh, Dharamsala, Lahaul and Spiti district in Himachal Pradesh and Sikkim. It is also practiced in Northeast China. Religious texts and commentaries are contained in the Tibetan Buddhist canon such that Tibetan is a spiritual language of these areas. The Tibetan diaspora has spread Tibetan Buddhism to many Western countries, where the tradition has gained popularity. Among its prominent exponents is the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet. The number of its adherents is estimated to be between ten and twenty million).
History
Hemis Monastery existed before the 11th century. Naropa, the pupil of the yogi Tilopa, and teacher of the translator Marpa is connected with this monastery. A translation was made by A. Grünwedel (Nӑro und Tilo,: Festschrift Ernst Kuhn, München 1916) of Naropa's biography that was found in Hemis monastery.
In this manuscript Naropa (or Naro) meets the "dark blue" (Skr.: nila: dark blue or black) Tilopa (or Tillo), a tantric master, who gives Naropa 12 "great" and 12 "small" tasks to do in order to enlighten him to the inherent emptiness/illusoriness of all things. Naropa is depicted as the "abbott of Nalanda" (F. Wilhelm, Prüfung und Initiation im Buche Pausya und in der Biographie des Naropa, Wiesbaden 1965, p. 70), the university-monastery in today's Bihar, India, that flourished until the sacking by Turkish and Afghan Muslim forces. This sacking must have been the driving force behind Naropa's peregrination in the direction of Hemis. After Naropa and Tilopa met in Hemis they travelled back in the direction of a certain monastery in the now no longer existing kingdom of Maghada, called Otantra which has been identified as today's Otantapuri. Naropa is consered the founding father of the Kagyu-lineage of the Himalayan esoteric Buddhism. Hence Hemis is the main seat of the Kagyu lineage of Buddhism.
In 1894 Russian journalist Nicolas Notovitch claimed Hemis as the origin of an otherwise unknown gospel, the Life of Saint Issa, Best of the Sons of Men, in which Jesus is said to have traveled to India during his "lost years." According to Notovitch, the work had been preserved in the Hemis library, and was shown to him by the monks there while he was recuperating from a broken leg. But once his story had been re-examined by historians, Notovitch confessed to having fabricated the evidence. Bart D. Ehrman states that "Today there is not a single recognized scholar on the planet who has any doubts about the matter. The entire story was invented by Notovitch, who earned a good deal of money and a substantial amount of notoriety for his hoax". However, the Indian Pandit Swami Abhedananda also claims to have read the same manuscript, and published his account of viewing it after his visit to Hemis in 1921. Abhedananda claims on the book jacket that it was translated for him with the help of a "local Lama interpreter." In the same vein, Notovich did not initially translate the manuscript, but reported his Sherpa guide did so as Notovitch could not read the original text. Notovich's version of the manuscript was translated from Tibetan to Russian to French to English. According to Swami Abhedananda's account, his Lama's translation was equivalent to the one published by Notovich. The Gutenberg Project has published the entire manuscript as a free ebook.
Hemis Festival
The Hemis Festival is dedicated to Lord Padmasambhava (Guru Rimpoche) venerated as the Dance Performance at Hemis Monastery representative reincarnate of Buddha. He is believed to have been born on the 10th day of the fifth month of the Monkey year as predicted by the Buddha Shakyamuni. It is also believed that his life mission was, and remains, to improve the spiritual condition of all living beings. And so on this day, which comes once in a cycle of 12 years, Hemis observes a major extravaganza in his memory. The observance of these sacred rituals is believed to give spiritual strength and good health. The Hemis festival takes place in the rectangular courtyard in front of the main door of the monastery. The space is wide and open save two raised square platforms, three feet high with a sacred pole in the center. A raised dias with a richly cushioned seat with a finely painted small Tibetan table is placed with the ceremonial items - cups full of holy water, uncooked rice, tormas made of dough and butter and incense sticks. A number of musicians play the traditional music with four pairs of cymbals, large-pan drums, small trumpets and large size wind instruments. Next to them, a small space is assigned for the lamas to sit.
The ceremonies begin with an early morning ritual atop the Gompa where, to the beat of drums and the resounding clash of cymbals and the spiritual wail of pipes, the portrait of "Dadmokarpo" or "Rygyalsras Rimpoche" is then ceremoniously put on display for all to admire and worship.
The most esoteric of festivities are the mystic mask dances. The Mask Dances of Ladakh are referred collectively as chams Performance. Chams performance is essentially a part of Tantric tradition, performed only in those gompas which follow the Tantric Vajrayana teachings and the monks perform tantric worship.
Source: Wikipedia and others.
On 11th October , 2014, around 2.30 pm we reached our hotel at Leh. After a hurried lunch we proceeded to famous Hemis Monastery. In the late afternoon we reached at Hemis. It was behind a small hill, difficult to figure out such a huge structure from a distant point. We climbed few staircases, crossed a door and finally reached the main courtyard. What a wonderful ambiance it had been, so peaceful and serene. It was getting dark soon, and couldn’t see much of it. The next day we came again and had a vivid look. I was amazed by its richness and traditions of tantric practice of Tibetan Buddhism in such a remote place of the world.
Hemis Monastery is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery (gompa) of the Drukpa Lineage, located in Hemis, Ladakh, India. Situated 45 km from Leh, in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Hemis Monastery existed before the 11th century and was re-established in 1672 by the Ladakhi king Sengge Namgyal. The annual Hemis festival honoring Padmasambhava is held here in early June.
Terma and tertöns : The essence of Tebetan Buddhism.
Padmasambhava (lit. "Lotus-Born"), also known as Guru Rinpoche, is a literary character of terma (Terma or "hidden treasure"- are key Tibetan Buddhist teaching, which the tradition holds were originally esoterically hidden by various adepts such as Padmasambhava and his consorts, in the 8th century for future discovery at auspicious times by other adepts, known as tertöns. As such, they represent a tradition of continuous revelation in Tibetan Buddhism. Termas are a part of Tantric Literature. Tradition holds that terma may be a physical object such as a text or ritual implement that is buried in the ground (or earth), hidden in a rock or crystal, secreted in a herb, or a tree, hidden in a lake (or water), or hidden in the sky (space). Though a literal understanding of terma is "hidden treasure", and sometimes objects are hidden away, the teachings associated should be understood as being “concealed within the mind of the guru”, that is, the true place of concealment is in the tertön's mindstream. If the concealed or encoded teaching or object is a text, it is often written in dakini script: a non-human type of code or writing).
Terma is an emanation of Amitabha (Amitābha or Amideva, is a celestial buddha described in the scriptures of the Mahāyāna school of Buddhism. Amitābha is the principal buddha in the Pure Land sect, a branch of Buddhism practiced mainly in East Asia, while in Vajrayana Amitābha is known for his longevity attribute, magnetising red fire element, the aggregate of discernment, pure perception and the deep awareness of emptiness of phenomena. According to these scriptures, Amitābha possesses infinite merits resulting from good deeds over countless past lives as a bodhisattva named Dharmakāra. "Amitābha" is translatable as "Infinite Light," hence Amitābha is also called "The Buddha of Immeasurable Life and Light" ).
Terma that is said to appear to tertons (A tertön is a discoverer of ancient texts or terma in Tibetan Buddhism) in visionary encounters and a focus of Tibetan Buddhist practice (Tibetan Buddhism is the body of Buddhist religious doctrine and institutions characteristic of Tibet, Mongolia, Tuva, Bhutan, Kalmykia and certain regions of the Himalayas, including northern Nepal, and India (particularly in Arunachal Pradesh, Ladakh, Dharamsala, Lahaul and Spiti district in Himachal Pradesh and Sikkim. It is also practiced in Northeast China. Religious texts and commentaries are contained in the Tibetan Buddhist canon such that Tibetan is a spiritual language of these areas. The Tibetan diaspora has spread Tibetan Buddhism to many Western countries, where the tradition has gained popularity. Among its prominent exponents is the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet. The number of its adherents is estimated to be between ten and twenty million).
Interested Viewers can see the following documentary on Padmasambhava:
Padmasambhava
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQBbfLtxj8A&spfreload=10
History
Hemis Monastery existed before the 11th century. Naropa, the pupil of the yogi Tilopa, and teacher of the translator Marpa is connected with this monastery. A translation was made by A. Grünwedel (Nӑro und Tilo,: Festschrift Ernst Kuhn, München 1916) of Naropa's biography that was found in Hemis monastery.
In this manuscript Naropa (or Naro) meets the "dark blue" (Skr.: nila: dark blue or black) Tilopa (or Tillo), a tantric master, who gives Naropa 12 "great" and 12 "small" tasks to do in order to enlighten him to the inherent emptiness/illusoriness of all things. Naropa is depicted as the "abbott of Nalanda" (F. Wilhelm, Prüfung und Initiation im Buche Pausya und in der Biographie des Naropa, Wiesbaden 1965, p. 70), the university-monastery in today's Bihar, India, that flourished until the sacking by Turkish and Afghan Muslim forces. This sacking must have been the driving force behind Naropa's peregrination in the direction of Hemis. After Naropa and Tilopa met in Hemis they travelled back in the direction of a certain monastery in the now no longer existing kingdom of Maghada, called Otantra which has been identified as today's Otantapuri. Naropa is consered the founding father of the Kagyu-lineage of the Himalayan esoteric Buddhism. Hence Hemis is the main seat of the Kagyu lineage of Buddhism.
In 1894 Russian journalist Nicolas Notovitch claimed Hemis as the origin of an otherwise unknown gospel, the Life of Saint Issa, Best of the Sons of Men, in which Jesus is said to have traveled to India during his "lost years." According to Notovitch, the work had been preserved in the Hemis library, and was shown to him by the monks there while he was recuperating from a broken leg. But once his story had been re-examined by historians, Notovitch confessed to having fabricated the evidence. Bart D. Ehrman states that "Today there is not a single recognized scholar on the planet who has any doubts about the matter. The entire story was invented by Notovitch, who earned a good deal of money and a substantial amount of notoriety for his hoax". However, the Indian Pandit Swami Abhedananda also claims to have read the same manuscript, and published his account of viewing it after his visit to Hemis in 1921. Abhedananda claims on the book jacket that it was translated for him with the help of a "local Lama interpreter." In the same vein, Notovich did not initially translate the manuscript, but reported his Sherpa guide did so as Notovitch could not read the original text. Notovich's version of the manuscript was translated from Tibetan to Russian to French to English. According to Swami Abhedananda's account, his Lama's translation was equivalent to the one published by Notovich. The Gutenberg Project has published the entire manuscript as a free ebook.
Hemis Festival
The Hemis Festival is dedicated to Lord Padmasambhava (Guru Rimpoche) venerated as the Dance Performance at Hemis Monastery representative reincarnate of Buddha. He is believed to have been born on the 10th day of the fifth month of the Monkey year as predicted by the Buddha Shakyamuni. It is also believed that his life mission was, and remains, to improve the spiritual condition of all living beings. And so on this day, which comes once in a cycle of 12 years, Hemis observes a major extravaganza in his memory. The observance of these sacred rituals is believed to give spiritual strength and good health. The Hemis festival takes place in the rectangular courtyard in front of the main door of the monastery. The space is wide and open save two raised square platforms, three feet high with a sacred pole in the center. A raised dias with a richly cushioned seat with a finely painted small Tibetan table is placed with the ceremonial items - cups full of holy water, uncooked rice, tormas made of dough and butter and incense sticks. A number of musicians play the traditional music with four pairs of cymbals, large-pan drums, small trumpets and large size wind instruments. Next to them, a small space is assigned for the lamas to sit.
The ceremonies begin with an early morning ritual atop the Gompa where, to the beat of drums and the resounding clash of cymbals and the spiritual wail of pipes, the portrait of "Dadmokarpo" or "Rygyalsras Rimpoche" is then ceremoniously put on display for all to admire and worship.
The most esoteric of festivities are the mystic mask dances. The Mask Dances of Ladakh are referred collectively as chams Performance. Chams performance is essentially a part of Tantric tradition, performed only in those gompas which follow the Tantric Vajrayana teachings and the monks perform tantric worship.
Source: Wikipedia and others.