Search This Blog

Sunday, April 17, 2011

The Ultimate Bigger Picture

Most of us understand the concept of “the bigger picture”. Everything in life is part of something bigger. It is sometimes easy to understand the “smaller picture”, or the circumstances that affect us directly, but not always how this fits in with the reality of the world around us.

This is of greater importance than most of us realise. Unless we know exactly how the entire system operates, we are in danger of being instrumental in our own hardship and pain.

For exsmple, most of us have financial difficulties. We may have tried to solve the problem by working harder. We may have taken on a second, and sometimes a third job, but to no avail. Understanding the bigger picture is the secret. Once we know how our activities fit into the larger world around us, we can figure out what must change for our lives to become better. We must always keep at the back of our mind that God says he guides us so that we may be free.

Lack of freedom is the root of all our problems, but most of us are unable to identify any “enslavement” or how it comes about.This has been discussed elsewhere on taxes and freedom. The quest for more taxes serves to make us more enslaved. 

There is another aspect of “the bigger picture” that most of us seem not to have thought of.

By way of introduction, let us begin with an analogy.

Consider a factory assembly line. Each worker is familiar with his role, whether it is cutting a fabric, or attaching a label etc. Each person knows his specific task. The owner of the factory has a different perspective. He sees himself producing bags, or garments. The employee does not have to know why he is attaching the label, for example, but knowing helps him understand his role better and helps give meaning to his labour. He realises the greater purpose to his efforts which could spur him to being better at his job.

Most of us have asked ourselves at some point or other why we are on Earth? What is our objective here? In previous discussions I arrived at the conclusion that it is to prove our worthiness of our place in Paradise. This is the equivalence of “the bigger picture”. It helps give perspective and meaning to our life.

But there is another question, why did God make us, and why has He sent us to Earth? God does not need us in any way nor does He require our worship. God did not HAVE to make this universe or this Earth. He did not HAVE to make man. God is under no such compulsion from any source whatsoever. Why then did He make us and why send us here?

What we do know is that God loves us. How do we put all that we know into perspective so that we can arrive at a possible explanation, reminding ourselves that this is speculation and cannot be verified, but an explanation nonetheless which is consistent with everything we do know.

What follows is a possible explanation, and must be read with that understanding.

God exists. He is the epitome of peace, tranquility, love and contentment. There is no possibility that He was “lonely” or sad or in need of anything whatsoever. He is overflowing with love and peace, and we presume He wanted others also to experience this, but there was no one else. God is uniquely unique, all encompassing, ever-existing. He is neither born nor does He give birth. Alow my digression here, as this is something we need to try and understand.

God is. This all-encompassing nature precludes the possibility of “giving birth”. A new-born is a separate entity from the parent. If God where to give birth, it would require a “space” for this “new born” to occupy, and no such space exists because God encompasses everything. Hence birth is something we can conclude does not happen, and God does not tell us anything to suggest otherwise. On the contrary, God specifically tells us in the Quraan that it does not.

God was not created or born because for this to happen would require a space into which God is to be born, and God being all encompassing, no such space can possibly exist. God has always existed and will always exist and encompasses everything.

This is the reason why some have concluded that we are all a part of God. God encompasses everything and it is not possible for anything to “exist” other than God. For us to “exist” it can only happen as a “part” of God (but this does not make us God in much the same way that a cell of our body is not a human and cannot experience being “human”. A cell is nonetheless a unit of existence).

God is at a level of existence far removed from man. We can compare man with other men, but there is no comparison between man and God. That is why those Christians and Muslims who seem to equate Jesus and Mohammed (PBUT) with God are in grave error. In the realm of men they are far removed, but they are men, and only worthy of comparison with other men. No man comes even close to comparison with God.

God willed that this “peace, beauty, serenity” may be experienced by "others"and decided to create entities for this purpose. How great Gods desire is to “share” this experience can be seen by the numbers in which He created His creations (truly boundless).

By His command, God brought the “physical” world into being. God is the epitome of order, and everything about Him reflects this. In an instant, what scholars call “the big bang” came to pass. Initially, the dominant form of energy was electromagnetic waves, light, gravity etc. God gave the ultimate expression of “order” or “ordiliness” to light by harnessing it into a form to which He gave “life”; the ability to understand, carry out instructions and function as “a separate entity”. This entity he called angels. Angels are light organized into a life form, and incapable of acting other than as willed by God.

As “matter” coalesced into spheres, it formed balls of fire, and God gave the ultimate level of order to fire by organizing it into a “separate” entity, and these He called ginn. Ginn is the highest manifestation of “order” or “ordiliness” of fire. It was created with free will. Free will gives a life form the ability to desire a particular action. All actions are carried out by God, He either gives effect to the desired action or does not. God is in total control at all times.

As the fire cooled, earth was formed, and He gave the ultimate expression of order to “earth” or “clay”, by organizing it into a life form, which He called man. Earth being the most stable, or least excitable of the three is the reason why the creation of clay is superior to that of fire or light. It is in the nature of things.

We may presume that just as humans have DNA, which is a store of information and the manifestation of the “intelligence” that created us and which makes each of us unique, so too there must be an equivalent system applicable with ginn and angels.

If Gods intention is to “create” an entity that is capable of undergoing something which we can call “an experience” and He desires this to be a pleasant one, why did He create Earth, Heaven and Hell. We know that Heaven was created as our final abode, and is the place where this experience will reach its ultimate expression. Why were we not simply sent there?

By our very nature, we are incapable of understanding anything or give meaning to any experience without having something with which to compare it with. God alone is absolute. In the world which we can comprehend, nothing is “absolute”, whether it is wealth, beauty, age, knowledge etc. Everything is compared with something else. Said differently, everything is relative.

For man to truly appreciate the experience in Heaven, he needs something to compare it with. That is why we have Earth. It is the experience here that allows us to truly appreciate Heaven, our intended final abode.

Earth is not a place for punishment. That is what hell was created for. Having free will gives man and ginn the ability to intend things “good” and “bad”. God guides us so that we may avoid “bad” and pursue “good”, (with "good" and "bad" indicating that which is ultimately advantageous or disadvantageous to us). Those who do not maintain a reasonable level of purity leave Earth in a state unworthy of Paradise, making a period in hell necessary in order to achieve the "purity" that qualifies us for admission to Paradise. Everyone enters Earth in a state of total purity. To arrive otherwise would be a grave injustice (being held responsible on the Day of Judgment for something that was not of our doing).

Many activities on Earth result in an experience of “pleasure” and many of these “pleasurable” experiences result in more “bad” than “good”. God guides us away from these. We may choose whether to accept the advice or not.

Man is the highest manifestation of “order” of “ordiliness” of clay, but the clay houses a second part, which we call the soul. We understand that this may be a form of light. It is understood we will reside in Paradise in our clay form housing the soul, in the same way as the first man that was created.

God willed many other forms of life (plants, insects, animals) as a means of bringing “knowledge” to the realm of man; information which he can acquire and use to make his stay on earth a more pleasant one.

Acquisition of wealth, power etc is meaningless. It is not why we are here. Armed with this knowledge, we should be able to apply ourselves in ways that facilitate our passage to Paradise. This is our understanding of the bigger picture.

Before we are judged by God, everything will be “destroyed” and all of us will be recreated. This is necessary for true justice and equality. This is the only way that ensures that everything experiences “death”. (those that exist before the day of Judgement also get to experience death) and this is a pre-requisite for us to understand and appreciate the experience of “end-less life” that awaits us in Paradise. Without experiencing death, we will not understand or appreciate our “death-less life” in Paradise.

God does not need to experience any of this, but knows that his creations do.

Our stay on Earth is a short, but necessary, interlude on our way to our final abode, which may or may not require a diversion through hell. What we intend here determines whether hell is required or not (we are judged by God in terms of our intentions).

From our perspective, our objective should be to prove our worthiness of our place in Paradise. This is most easily achieved by voluntary submission to the guidance of God alone; to worship God alone.

To do that, we can have no other master; we can be the “slave” of no one else. A person cannot voluntarily submit to God alone if he is already a slave to someone else.

Overt slavery was abolished, only to be replaced by a covert form, and the chains that bind us are taxes. It is the ultimate crime against humanity. It is only made possible through laws. God informs us that He alone is competent to make laws. When we disobey His guidance (for example by allowing man to make laws which he then uses to bind other men in paying taxes), the ramifications are so great that we are eventually incapable of seeing the association between the guidance that is not followed and the myriad negative consequences.

If we cannot understand the need to eliminate taxes because it is not needed for a society to function efficiently (a tax free nation has wealthy people and a poor government, a taxed people are poor with a government that is rich and which succumbs to abuse), then we must eliminate it as a requirement for us to be able to worship God exclusively.

If there is one measure alone that we must take, this is it. By this means we restore mans freedom, eliminate abuse and wastage by government, allow man to worship God exclusively, restore the association between wealth and hard work, break down the huge conglomerates that acquire their size and power through state sponsorhip (fascism), and make it possible for us to explore life from a position of "independence" and "freedom". Only as free people can we make the best of our experience on Earth. Remaining slaves destroys what is supposed to be an important aspect of our experience here.

Furthermore, each person will be accountable for how he used the gifts that God entrusted him with, in practical terms, on what we spent our money. Taxes are an abuse and are used to create more abuse. We become indirectly responsibile for these. We cannot claim immunity on the ground that we are forced to pay the tax since we have the power to elect people who will abolish taxes. We are responsible and cannot escape our liabilty.

We do not need to experience slavery on Earth, because we are already Gods slaves and can be nothing else. On the contrary, on Earth God has given us the opportunity to experience the "illusion" of freedom, the true nature of which is God alone. That is why He has sent many messengers whose objective it was to set us free. It helps us in some small way to get a better understanding of God.

Whether we fulfill our purpose here is left to us. This is the essential counterpart to having free will. If God were to eliminate the possibility of us being enslaved, it would mean revoking our free will, and that would mean no longer being human.

Choosing to be a slave is also a manifestation of "freedom", ie the freedom to choose, so either way Gods purpose for us being here is fulfilled, but our experience here is a much more easier and pleasant one as a non-slave.

Unless we understand this “even bigger” picture, we are doomed to passively accepting our slavery, treasuring it, and in some instances fighting to preserve it because of the short term benefits it seems to provide.

God informs us that the time of our birth and of our death is “written” before we are born. Nothing we do will change that. All we can influence is the state of our being when the time comes for us to leave, whether worthy or unworthy of Paradise.

The need to free ourselves of involuntary taxes is inseparably tied to our most important objective while on Earth (qualifying for Paradise). Failure is not an option.

No comments:

Post a Comment