Explaining God?
Dec 15, 2004 02:13 PM
by Andrew Smith
One thing has always bothered me, and that is the definitions and names and other restrictions we place upon the ultimate deity we can imagine only. HPB (of Theosophy fame) once talked about this in the Introduction to "Isis Unveiled." The Hindus talk about "God" as "Neti, neti" (nothing, nothing), and many mystics of all kinds think it is more reverent to speak little or none about the deity rather than try to hold Him in a religious "bottle" like a Genii. Zen "nothingness" (shunyata) also portrays this concept in their own version of Buddhism. I am in agreement with this movement, no matter how much I have said in the past (and no matter how bloody Islam's past, present, or future---those understand nothing of Allah's love for mankind). And now I feel that the simple "tawhid" (monotheism) of Islam is the best way to know the deity. In other words "There is no god but God" (la ilaha il'Allah) is the perfect way to attack this conundrum. Regardless of how Muslims act in view of this Great Truth, most of it due to the battlefields of the Middle-East throughout the centuries as civilization developes, Muhammad was truly given a Great Revelation when he found that "There is no god but God."
Now, from a purely human, even scientific, viewpoint, there may be aliens or "gods" out in space, may even be UFOs, or "the Borg" (ah, those jokes were atrocious! LOL), but they can never be the deity Who is "the Beneficent and the Merciful." Muhammad wrote the Qur'an in his day for his people who were completely corrupt, and even killed baby daughters because they wanted sons only, but what the message of the "Qur'an is, is that we must be in gratitude to the One from Whom we sprang, however that was. In other words, as succinctly put in the beginning and end of Ian Dallas's book, The Book of Strangers," "La ilaha il'Allah."
"Salaam Alaikum,"
(Says) Al-Hallaj Kabir Ali
"La ilaha il'Allah!"
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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