Essays and Reflections
In this, my older prose, you will see the passion with which I write and the articles that formed the basis of Imagine and my Poetry7 Islam
Short essay on Islam (not Atheism) as inspired by my own teacher.
Rhyme Scheme: EssayIslam Not Atheism, Shasa, Oct 19, 2013
Islam is made of these 4 letters. I is actually A qualified by the e accent (similar to Hindi etc).
A - Alif - Peace
S - Seen - Security
LA - Laam Alif - Education
M - Mohammed - Love
How long before a religion founded on these principles that has fallen to this pitiable state starts to produce atheists like Christianity has? Do we subtract the time difference between Christ and Mohammed and come up with a figure of 600 years? Or, now that atheism is in vogue in Vedic and Buddhist circles too, can we expect utter chaos within 50 years ^1?
What of the Love Krishna, Buddha, Christ and Mohammed bore us?
Why is everyone convinced we are circling the drain ^2? As in the microcosm, so in the macrocosm. There is no full and final descent into chaos, no Armageddon or Kali Yuga or Shunya or Qayamat, only an endlessly repeating cycle of change. The battle within - the Kurukshetra ^3 inside - the Angel and Devil sitting on our shoulders and the devil only needs to remind you of a moment of weakness on your's or some co-existant human being's part to cause the whole deck of cards to collapse.
Crap! Reject the bullshit and the wave of information thats designed to overpower you and instead, tune yourself to the albeit few instances that should reinstil hope. Take words like those sung to that Lady in Black ^4, for in them is the key to release from our mutual conflict.
Take flight from those few words from Aurobindo - what sense of fairplay would it be if the good side was always winning ^5, and remember the notion that sometimes it is only when pushed to the brink that man is forced to evolve ^6.
Don't let that happen to us ^7, heed not the negative impressions in the world around us, only the struggle within ^8 and the individual personal decision to change, for once again, as in the microcosm, so in the macrocosm.
Peace, Security, Education, Love - Om, Shanti, Shanti, Shanti ^9 - peace in self, surrounding and creation.
Science, Science, Science! Would ye measure the distance between the stars and forget He that holds them in the palm of His hands ^10?
In following the scientific discipline, have we forgotten the simplicity of faith, the certainty of a God above? Sure we've all all come to dislike the authoritative stereotyped God of the monotheistic religions and make fun of the many faces in Vedic (Hindu) culture and of the more simplistic forms of primitive peoples, but can there not be some acceptance of a Brahman, a Holy Father or an Allah?
Science is still groping to understand the workings of our universe. The many enlightened ones have kept saying both that God is illimitable and beyond description, and on the other hand more simple in idea and closer than we think ^11. And yet, we try and explain God either by science or by morality, and neither approach is capable of even fathoming that substrate on which all of creation is projected.
Yes, a few scientists and mathematician are beginning to accept consciousness as one of the fundamental building blocks of the universe ^12, but how much of this has reached popular culture? And unless its fully embraced instead of being treated with skepticism, how can we hope to expand on the idea and begin to accept the universal message of all religions?
How about an introspection into the fundamental reason for a lack of faith - thats all it amounts to - no faith in a creator, no faith unless the supreme secret ^13 can be exposed clinically by reason.
Where's the simple line - I've got peace like a river in my soul ^14 gone?
People say they dont believe in God, but yes in some cosmic power or a universal conscience. Thats what God was SUPPOSED to mean until they dirtied the word. How many more words shall we go though while the priest class reigns, muddying everything. Haven't enough people been killed inthe name of religion? Are we REALLY out of the dark ages?
The answer is yes, but in this information age with the world getting a lot smaller, it's easier for the negative forces to stage a coup. What with the fast-pacedness and our inability to have wholistic, meaningful lives, we've allowed ourselves to be influenced by forces we should have heeded not.
Let's unblock ourselves, focus on connecting with the primal forces, the healing energies, the cosmic love, and stand to center, to be honoured as that Son of the Great Gull ^15 did not so long ago. If there ^16 isn't a Christian who believes, then where is?
Let's all agree to leave the bodies of our Churches, Temples + Mosques, when necessary, but to cling more tightly to the spirit of that universal message.
Amen
Footnotes:
^1 - Time period according to Jaggi Vasudev for the Dwapara Yuga to end, Ilya Prigogine who put forward the order-out-of-chaos theory
^2 - George Carlin
^3 - Kurukshetra - the war described in the Mahabharata, which is the vehicle for the most venerated Bhagavad Gita
^4 - Uriah Heep ...but she would not think of battle that reduces men to animals, so easy to begin and then impossible to end
^5 - Gods Omnipotence - Talks with Sri Aurobindo, page 51
^6 - The Day the Earth stood still
^7 - George Carlin on Aliens reconstructing our genetic makeup to make us better human beings
^8 - Metallica ...closing in the pressure upon you is so unreal
^9 - Sanskrit word for peace, normally repeated thrice at the end of prayers
^10 - Scripture, popuplarised by Inherit the Wind (1961)
^11 - Allah is closer than your jugular vein and
^12 - From Science to God and Code Name God
^13 - Uttamam Rahasyam of the Bhagawad Gita
^14 - Christian Hymn
^15 - Jonathan Livingston Seagull who is likened to Christ for his miracles
^16 - Richard Bach (author of Seagull) whose always been a believer
