Hello,i would like to talk a bit about the islamic view od afterlife and what you think about it

We muslims believe in one thing called "Berzah" its a spiritual world where we as souls lived before we got born and where we return after we die,and stay there untill judgment when all the souls will get into their bodies again and get what they deserved(hell or heaven).We dont believe that there is a possibility to se dead people(ghosts),you can contact with them only through dreams.If you happend to see a ghost(which is more usual then we think) it is the jinns we see(they are invisable people who live on this earth just like we).There are different kind of jinns,every human has his jinn that looks exacly like he or she,when he/she dies the  jnn stayes and many times starts apearing to the ones that are left behind.Sometimes they also start to follow a newborn baby(even if the baby has its own guarding jinn)..then the child will think it remembers "past lives" cuz it cant know that its just the jinn thats "telling" the life of a dead person,the child thinks its his or her memories.By time..it dissapears and we also know that those who claim remembering a past life usually forget it as they grow.Thats why we muslims toldelly deny reincarnation,its just something that satan made up to fool people..and its just wishfull thinking.But you cant say thats its better knowing that your beloved one has been reborn into an other family having no idea about you,then knowing that your beloved one is in an other "world dimension" living with the other ones that died and waiting for his beloved ones to cross over and continue to live togheter as they did before he died

Interesting hearing about jinn.

Are jinn regarded in the same way as ghosts are regarded in western cultures? ie. a myth .

Has anyone tried to Scientifically study this paradigm?

Thank you, muslima, for sharing this information.
I also am interested in your understanding of the jinns.  Can you contact them with questions about what they know from where they are at, or are they just shells and only know what they just lived in their recent life?  Are they stuck as jinns forever?
Thank you for the information you share. It's good that you are helping us understand.  Betson

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Hello Matthew,


There is no proof in the Holy Book Qur'an for any terror actions that some terrorist do today in the name of islam.There are some hadiths but those hadiths are by 99% regarded as  Daif(false) by the learned islamic scholars.

When its about jihad,it is not at all what the media presents it as.It has nothing to do with terror..jihad is mostly an inner war in your self..between the good and the evil.There is also a big jihad and that is if you are beeing attacked you have to defend your people..but never harm the others,if you do so God will punish you and somtimes even the people.That is the true jihads,not terrorism

Your English is excellent Muslima...You carry on!!

My studies and understanding.

Love.

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Peace be upon you too and thank you for that link,May God reward you

HI Muslima - I recall Sarajevo from the Olympics - and then the more recent things, alas.

Regarding an ongoing exixtence and the existence of the djinns.  In clinical regressions I've had numerous people want information, so I would "send" them to the "Library - you know, the place where all knowledge is kept" and eventually they'd report arrival. While there I asked many people to look around and tell me who else was there. It seems that not only are there spiritual beings who look like us, there are also many who have a sort of filmy embodiment made of light others who are merely floating minds, like souls without shells, and so on. There is quite a variety. In the same way, as these beings evolved it seemed as if they could approach closer to the center, a location identified with God.

At the other end of the scale, I've found people who went back only two or three lifetimes and reported being animals, big cats, deer, etc - I recall soaring as a hawk - and long prior to that, I recall being a worm. It seems that God creates in an orderly manner using available resources in a logical manner. No need for miracles, we can be evolved in a normal manner.

A book by Samuel Sagan MD, Entity Possession,  mentions various spiritual lifeforms, and adds a couple of modes of existence that would be more appropriate to the djinns. He suggests that there are simple un-embodied "energies" (I'd prefer the term "life forces", but you et the idea) that drift around the world with too little organization to think, but with coherence and reactivity. They appear to us as nature spirits, essences of natural systems.  For example, Tibetans speak of the spirit of Mount Kailash.

Next Sagan mentions life energies that are associated with specific forms and ways of existence.  These are "thinking beings", although their "thoughts" are limited to crude emotional sequences. We find these attached to hosts from time to time, where they bring discomfort, because they act as parasites, siphoning off energy etc from the host. When we eject them we must fill the place with a divine white light, or the equivalent, or they simply return and continue making trouble. These would correspond pretty closely to the djinns, I think. These guys can also be manipulated by people, although that seems to be a bad business.

I've met both of these abstract "lifeforms" in my clinical work, although human spirits who are confused and distressed seem much more common. There seems to be good experiential support for the vast majority of the spiritual life that you describe.  Interestingly, I occasionally meet a Muslim spirit, and however hostile they are initially, they seem universally willing to calm down when reminded, "Allahu akhbar."

Salaam-
d

An African Jerusalem? I love it!

To answer what I do, my work is technically called hypno-analysis, just like psychoanalysis except that it uses hypnosis (actually guided meditation) to go very deep very quickly. It's about 300 times faster than traditional psychoanalysis, which is what I initially learned. It turns out that a large percentage of patients have spiritual issues, and a few come in with entities of some type attached to them.

Most of the entities are simply confused souls who don't know what to do now that their bodies have dropped off, but I occasionally get one that thinks its a demon or something. My job with them is to restore awareness of God as loving and compassionate and send them off into the Light - the afterlife state in which they can continue growing.  The Light is quite possible what Akhnaten encountered in meditation, that gave him the idea that the sun-disk was God.

Aside from that, I'm a social scientist with an interest in the topology of subjective states, like the spirit world. I'm not a spiritual intuitive, not a seer, nor predictor of the future, nor anything like that. I can't even walk on water - except in winter. 

In the present world,  I see the wheels turning toward a subtle but pervasive military takeover in the US and another war in the Middle East. I find it distressing that the children of Abraham have not as yet learned to play in the same sandbox without squabbling. On the other hand, the US is hardly the best example of a peace maker.

What is your background, Muslima? Are you a student or do you have a career?

dave

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I tend to disagree with you. We are all sparks of God. I don't believe that God wanted anything to be secret. If he did, then he would be a dictator and that he is not. He is a loving God and the more we know, the closer we can get to him, know him and become godly. I realize this is just a difference between your religion and my spirituality. We can agree to disagree.

With Love,
Mairlyn

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Dear friend,,an average american thinks Iraq is in Australia sorry..im just joking.its like we Europens have theese kind of prejudices about them

but seriously,most americans dont care

Muslima,

I know the European attitude toward Americans well.  I will never forget, however who it was who landed on the beach at Normandy to save France's behind.  No matter what president or administration is in office now, things/situations change.  However, the notion of freedom, and the unwavering resolve of the American people, separate from the current administration is not to be underestimated.

I do enjoy your posts.


Matthew

oi! a few hours after commenting on your postings Rob_Roy where have they gone?!

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Thanks for explainig this to me,when its about Iran...why should USA stop them from developing nuclear weapons(if they do,i personally dont think so) when they also have it? and as far as i know Israel has it too.If both USA and Israel have theese weapons,who are they to think Iran is not a country  to be truested at? i personally believe more in Iran then Israel...and although i agree with USA on some topics about Iran i mostly think they treat Iran unfairly

I have a question for you,do you remember your "past-lifes"? i have had a professor who said he had theese memories as a child,and he had a lot of problems...today he does not have theese memories,and believes its just imagionation..when you want to believe something you force your brain to believe it,and produce your own memories..or its just part of the evil spirits plans.i also wonder,since you mentioned karma,are you a buddhist?

Peace be with you

Dalila

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Your welcome Caryn,and i respect your beliefs that Jesus can not be compared to Muhammed,i personally believe both of them are great prophets and i also believe that the Messiah(Jesus) will come back and make peace on this earth...i think that muslims and christians have a lot in common and should use that for interreligious purposes.Of course there are "terrorists"(fundamental is not the right word,since every true muslim or christian wants to be fundamental..i believe)

I wonder,since you believe in reincarnation..but also in Jesus(although as far as i know christianity does not teach that).Dont you think his death on the cross is enough? why do you think we will reincarnate?

Peace be with you

Dalila

Hi Dalila-
I'm enjoying your posts - you bring a fresh perspective that lots of us find fascinating. I hope that you'll continue to post here and discuss these ideas.

Since you ask, No I do not regard myself "as a Buddhist", although I practice Buddhism. Because I believe in a single God and acknowledge Mohammed as a Prophet of that God, some of my friends call me a Muslim. Others point out that I acknowledge Jesus as a Prophet and believe that Prophets manifest the One God, I must be Christian. I have used Sufi meditations on the Cosmic Sound Current, what Omar called the "tinkling of the camel's bell",  but I'm more of a "cotton-polyestri" than sufi (couldn't resist the pun). My wife looks at life in the world as a pervasive manifestation of God and calls herself a "witch", although she also acknowledges the divine origin of Jesus and Mohammed and practices Catholicism.  My impression is that after a certain point we lose identification with a specific group, and instead we take on a general attitude that all is from God, that all Prophets of all faiths have a valid message and were sent to deliver it through Divine means, and that we no longer have to "belong" to a group with a title in order to practice  good life.  For example, Mohammed was a "son of Abraham", yet we usually don't regard him as a Jew. In the same way, Jesus was an Essene Jew, but we rarely view him as Jewish, and Buddha is rarely thought of as a Hindu.

Buddhism is simply a philosophy that denies the existence of  material gods or unchanging  material souls. It tells us to make sense of the world, believe nothing until you've tried it yourself and have made certain, to avoid attachments to stuff that doesn't work (like greed, lust, pride etc) and to use a simple "house cleaning" technique (8-fold path, quite similar to Patanjali's ashtanga yoga) to get rid of asttachments in order to feel better. I was initiated into Bardo Thodol (a Tibetan Buddhist spiritual discipline aimed at study of change (and especially passage through life and death) by Gyatrul Rinpoche about 1974. This was a lot of formal mumbo jumbo (based on Bon Lamaist traditions) that made a sufficient impression that I started studying the ideas. Siddhartha (the Buddha) was a Brahman caste Hindu. He effectively was trying to remove the idea of many gods and useless practices from spiritual inquiry - essentially the message of both Jesus and Mohammed - leaving the idea of only a single Supreme Truth called Mind or Consciousness, an intellectual view of God. It's the philosophical side of the same mountain, as opposed to the touchy-feely-emotional side, but equally valid.

My personal experiences include direct recall of being a worm, squirming about in icky-yucky-gooey stuff with a bunch of other worms, and really enjoying it. Like the early Egyptians believed, I believe that God starts us out as an abstract potentiality for there to be awareness, and then develops us, much as I water my plants, and the ones of us who choose correctly seem to make it through to this world today. I say this from experiences. I  have had a long series of memories in which I evolved, lots and lots of nameless apelike lifetimes, a few lifetimes as a modern person. My last life was involved with an artillery crew in the Crimea. I used poison gas when I was shooting the field piece, and I received lung damage in this life as karma, which, thanks to God, has made me aware of the folly of doing that so I never have to do it again. My last death was a massive explosion, probaby due to a shell hitting the ammunition of my gun,  and it blew me into all kiinds of little pieces. I remember how it ripped off my clothes, throwing me backwards and then ... nothing. My mental image is like a cartoon character, Wiley Coyote, when the Roadrunner hangs him a firecracker and then runs off.  In this life I did not enjoy the military, it seemed far too damaging to everybody.

The politics of the Middle East could definitely have been handled better, but the problem remains, we have to have something to do with young souls who want to make war to "fix things".  The Middle East is where God has decided to teach us a lesson about human kndness. Terrorist activities, like blowing up a wing of the King David Hotel, have never made sense to me, but there are people who need to do those things, and others for whom they must be done. For example, when I was operating cannon, II needed to be blown up. In this life I needed to get lung damage because of my background in a prior war.  Jesus put it nicely, "Such things must happen., but woe to them who are the cause." (Misquoted, but close.) And I think that in the last analysis we might as well side with the Prophet, "Allahu akhbar", whether we understand or not, and our job is to learn. There is an excellent argument, based both on topology and also reports from regression sessions, to support our continued life in the spirit world following this one.

Salaam-
dave

Or maybe I'm just confused, Rob.

It seems to be human nature to attempt to be "different", to "stand out as the one and only" and so on. And when we establish human religious organizations, each of them has to be the "one and only way to salvation".

It could be that I'm simply being antisocial, but it makes more sense to me to look at what all the spiritually developed people have said over the ages, and to first examine what they all say. If we go back to Zoroaster and the Zend Avesta we read that "Truth is always on the scaffold, Evil always on the throne." However, at the end of our days, Zoroaster pointed out that we meet all that we have done.

All major religious systems tend to agree, but they add their own little bit about, "You have to belong to Our Holy Group or you'll be eternally damned".  I seem to have missed that part in my readings of the Bible, Koran, Vedas, 'Gita and Upanishads or other writings. The part that makes sense is that God is Merciful and Compassionate, the Infinite Friend who brings Unconditional Love and rejoices in recovery of the Prodigal Son. The other part I missed is the part that says that if "Our Holy Group" happens not to like somone because they disagree, we have to set up an Inquisition or have a holy war.  It seems that those being served and honored by these human traditions are not necessarily those who established the various faiths.

My reading of the Koran, for example, includes a remark by Mohammed that Jews and Christians are also monotheists, believing in the same one God, and thus should be tolerated and respected.  So we have one set of mullahs telling the people to be peaceful and accept their neighbors, and another group that tells their followers to go out and kill.  But it's unfair to blame this on Islam, because, as Ahmadinejad
pointed out, we have "borne again Christians" still waving a battle axe.  Interestingly, nobody seems to understand what's happening.

I recall the story of Mullah Nasrudin, who had lost his door key. A friend came by and saw the mullah scratching around under a lamp post and asked, "What's up?" The mulla said, "I lost my key." The friend asked, Where did you lose it?" Nasrudin answered, "By the front door."   "Well, then, how come you're looking for it way over here? Shouldn't you go back  to the place you lost it?" The mullah responded, "Oh yes, but there's so much more light over here." In the same way, those autocrats who have lost their way seem to be noisily looking in places that they find a lot of light. But that's not where they went astray. 

Or, as I said, maybe I'm just confused.

PUL-
d

Hello Caryn,Dave... everyone

Dave,i understand what you say and  i agree..all religion come from the truth.BUT,during the history a lot of changes have been made...so when buddhism teaches about people beeing good..its a part of the truth but when they teach about reincarnation,no-god..they speak about a lie that was made up later.Then i dont agree that all religion teach same...hindus are not monotheists,buddhist dont believe in God at all.The only strict and true monotheists are muslims and jews,and the ancient followers of Zarathustra(according to many muslims a prophet,since we believe that all peoples had thier own prophets that teached them monotheism).Then you can ignore the fact the most important part of religion:AFTERLIFE is so different in theese religions.More then half of the population believe in the Abrahim faith(its even spreading..islam in Africa,christianity in Asia,like China,Korea,India)..that does not include this theory.When you talk that every religion belongs to a group you are right,but not for muslims .M means one who obeys God(i hope i translated it correct)..he can be who ever he wants too.All the religions and the people have the names of the founder..hindus of Hinduism(which means the people of India),buddhist from Buddha,christians from Christ and so on..only muslims have a name that has nothing to do with any of the prophet or book or teritory...and in the holy Quran God does not say Abraham was a muslim but Abraham was a "true monotheist"..and a muslim can call him self a monotheist too,nothing wrong with it or you can translate the arabic word of "muslim" and say just "i obey God"


Caryn,ok well i understand that some people think just because you are muslim you are "one of those".They actaully dont even know that less then 12% of all the muslims are arabs..which means a large majority of muslims dont understand the politics in the arab countries,and as we know the arab leaders use religion for their own purposes..so islam is targeted by the dictators and terrorists.

I dont believe that the afterlife knows about modernism and such things,the afterlife is spiritual so my soul wont even care about the cars,computers and everything else that it lived through on this earth..so i dont think there will be a problem for a soul from the time of Moses to talk with lets say me .Since the afterlife is a toldelly new dimension,and as i believe that we lived before we got born this means we lived even under the middle ages,stone ages, and will live after we die.

Hi folks-

Dalila, I agree that for the religion of the people in the street, Islam is indeed the only religion in which we have  specific effort to follow the will of a single God. This is actually a significant improvement over the more common street-level understanding of most peoples.

The streets in Buddhist nations are filled with common people who worship the Buddha,  yet the term "buddha" simply means "a person who is awake", and Siddhartha himself  was nothing but a regular person. In fact he told people not to make statues of him or to venerate them. The thrust of Buddhism was especially against religious asceticism, starvation, standing on one leg for years, and similar things, when the problems were essentially unawareness of how and why the world operates.  To get rid of the stone idols and the thousands of gods of the common interpretation of Hinduism, Siddhartha denied the existence of a pre-existing material God, as Richard Burton put it, no "bigger, stronger, crueller man". Also the idea of a permanent unchanging soul that was made of some kind of permanent "soul stuff" with eternal existence was denied. Instead, if we look into the core of both Hindu and Buddhist beliefs we find the notion of either a Universal Consciousness, which is one way to view God as the All-Knowing and All-Understanding , or the idea of Brahman, the name Hindus give to God in the sense of being the Ultimate Creator, much as St Thomas Aquinas called God the Uncaused Cause.

In the Upanishads, we read that Natchekitas' father made insincere offerings to God. Natchekitas criticized his father's offerings. His father did not like it.  Because it was customary for a father to give the son to apprenticeship, he asked his father, "To whom will you give me?" His father snapped,  "I'll give you to death." So Natchekitas went to Death's house and knocked, but Death was out being busy. (It is said that Death's proper name is Yama, because that was the first man, and when he died, nobody was runnning the Underworld, so Yama inherited it.)  After three days Death returned and was horrified that he had a left a prestigious visitor unattended. He said, "Ask of me three boons, and I will grant them, no matter what they are." Finally Natchekitas asked, "How many gods are there, Yama?" Death replied, "Where there is water, there is a god." Natchekitas asked "Oh yes, but in truth, how many?" Death said, "Nine thousand nine hundred ninety and nine." "Yes, said Natchekitas, "but really how many are there?" Death said, "Nine hundred ninety and nine." "Oh yes, but in truth how many gods are there?" This went on for a while, and finally Death replied, "There is but one god." Natchekitas then asked, "And tell me then, what of the other Nine thousand nine hundred and eight?" Death replied, "They are but God's other manifestations and appearances."

I'm also reminded of the Hoopoe in the Conference of the Birds (Farid un-Din Attar), explaining that most of our impressions, or goals and values, and desires in the world are imperfect until we settle on taking personal responsibility for  everyday life and spiritual development.  As we ascend the tree of wisdom, we begin to acquire a new awareness. At the common levels of people in the street, there are many who confuse names with the underlying reality. 

One step in solving this was the Prophet's simple statement that God has many names, all of them most excellent.  It makes no difference whether we use the term Jaweh, Ram, Brahm, The Creator,  or simply God - literally Allah.

I get the impressions that many non-philosophical people still
argue that each religion has a separate God, even though they are monotheistic.  From a philosophical viewpoint, it seems far more likely that we have numerous manifestations of a single God, in each case presented to the people in accordance with their needs. 

Each of us seems to have been guided into the appropriate religion for our own needs, so that we can develop our strengths and work through our frailties. Unfortunately, many fail to use the opportunity to develop the Doctrine of the Heart, and are content with the Doctrine of the Eye - that after prayers today we can go out and lie, cheat and steal from our neighbors. This shallowness, coupled with failure to exercise the abilities given us, is where we develop the Nasrudins of every faith, such as Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor in Spain.

The ideas that most of us who bring our different faiths to examine the world of spirit are an effort to find a common path, a single door through which we can enter.  Thus far, because religion is always a human interpretation of the divine, it seems that we remain at odds. Much of this is that we refuse to accept that others, acting in good faith in the religious traditions of birth, can have beliefs and experiences that differ from our own Yet that is certainly true.  Example - I can recall what must have been 60 million years of evolution, yet I am not a psychic intuitive in any way.  Bruce Moen is a psychic intuitive with motivation to rescue those who get stuck while transitioning into the afterlife. I've worked with people who have been killed in Nazi death camps, who once were US GIs in Viet Nam where villages were being destroyed and now are having nightmares and feelings of guilt to be unable to stop the killing. I recall a young woman, previously a guard at Auschwitz, who was so sorry for the Jews that he killed hmself, and then felt guilty in this life. Not long ago I worked with a young woman who was a Nagasaki bomb survivor in her last life. 

Many of us who meditate have intense personal experiences that seem to be remarkably constant, whether one's background is Falun Gong, Hindu, Sufi, or New Age. There is a common factor, and it seems to be transcendental.  I think you're quite right, Dalila, that the spiritual world is totally different from this one and that nobody will care about their origins when they get there.  (This is also true of the world discovered by meditators - not much like the material world except at the earthbound levels.) But in the present moment, there seems to be a great unwillingness to accept anything that cannot be valued in gold, or proven by quantum mechanics, or supported by traditions that must be accepted on faith because nobody remembers how or why they began.

I would like to see a world in which the involvement of the common people in the street would increase, not in practices, but in awareness, and that all people would begin to find their way back to their Creator. Sufsm, the core of Islamic mysticism, offers this, but as yet has not become widely known in the West.  Perhaps the reason for the present mess in the world is to set the stage for precisely that emergence. If so, it will also bring new experiences and new understandings.

Hmm - lotsa words - apologies for running on and on.

peace-
dave

"But in the present moment, there seems to be a great unwillingness to accept anything that cannot be valued in gold, or proven by quantum mechanics, or supported by traditions that must be accepted on faith because nobody remembers how or why they began."

I think Quantum Mechanics is actually helping some people by getting them to see beyond duality, think about the future in terms of probability, and otherwise get past the classical mindset imbedded in us since early childhood.

Rob

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And, thats why religon is dangerous... programmed beliefs... beliefs which are not your own, but forced upon you by your  ancestors... You should really break your bonds, but im guessing if you do, your family would dis-own you. Control... and fear, is the way of islam, and many other religons, but islam is by far the worst off. Science throw's things in your face, which you know are true.. yet, you ar'nt willing to accept them, because someone who died hundreds of years ago said it's not true.If we though that way today, people would be still burned as witches and the earth would still be flat, im just glad some couragous people, broke there shakes, for all our sakes.

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The truth corrects itself, indeed it does. For in this mortal coil there is but 1 truth, and all you can do is chip away, until you get close to it.

Islam was right for you... and what exactly, could possibly make you want to become a muslim?... free apple at every mosque service?.

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Nothing much really, i just dont like be classed as a heathen, and seeing people stuck in other people's beliefs. I was'nt making a direct attack on muslim's, but religon as a whole, but i do believe islam is one of the more aggrovating religions.

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The fact that i,unlike you,found out what islam was about.

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Please, tell me, what islam could possibly offer you... can you honestly believe... the universe was created in 6 days...

islam is just another form of control, i dont need to read up on legal legislation to know, if your sent to jail you loose your freedom. It's exactly the same, except people choose religion, either threw fear, or through lessons which were passed down.

Muslims.. are the instruments of the quran.. just like christians are of the bible, if you subscribe to the rule's.. then you are a representative of them. They are merely ambassodor's of there religion, like people's are of there country. If an american tourist, went to iraq.. i dont think saying 'it was george bushes idea not mine' would cut much slack.

Hello

Dave,can you explain a bit better what you want me to tell..i dont have anything against telling it,i just didnt understand what you asked.Sorry

SpitfireV2,no of course i dont believe the earth was created in 6 days...nor does any muslim.6 days according to God,for us that is,only God knows how many millions of years.

Hi Dalila-
OK - that was what I was curious about. Some event that precipitated your interest in this direction.

When I advise people in my clinic, I generally tell then that their religion is their for them because that's how it's supposed to be to meet their individual needs. Thus, I advise them to neither become a total slave to the external aspects and rituals, nor to overlook the depth of core beliefs, but to continue in their faith with a good will, performing the appropriate metaphysical exercises that saints and advanced souls of that faith advocate, and with certainty that that will produce the fastest growth possible. (This presumes that we are here to grow.) The experiences that arise then remain within the same framework, rather than acting as violations, and carry their faith forward.

Often a faith has ideas about states that are difficult to explain, and thus gives teachings that relate to specific levels of understanding, a very simply set of rules for common folks, and then progressively more explanation as one develops. The basic rules sometimes get bent, but generally are not violated outright, merely reinterpreted slightly.  This is why it is necessary to keep the faith, so things don't fade away into chaos.

In your dreams, or in deep relaxation as you talk to your Grandmother, I wonder if your Grandmother has a message? Often we sense the dead in some manner in the everyday world as well as deams.  Do you also notice other occurrences. the smell of her perfume, notes or photos or other personal things that somehow seem to be appearing, etc? Often, the things otherwise known only to God are revealed to us because we have somehow reached a point at which we need to have these additional insights.

I noticed that the actual teachings of Sufism are shrouded in metaphorical language, and that it is quite difficult to locate a source of instruction for meditation. Aside from Sufis, and of course the Dervi whose dance is a little too esoteric for me, I'm not aware of any commonly available information on metaphysical practices from the Islamic world. Omar and Rumi and so on, tell a beautiful story, but not how to hear it for one's own self.

This has been carried over into Baha'ai (I also have trouble with where to put the apostrophes) faith where their "new order of prophets" seems to be more interested in globalization and economics than metaphysics. That part is clear, but Baha'ulla's  "Seven Mountains and Seven Valleys", for example, is descriptive and poetic, but not a meditative tool.

I'd be grateful to learn of other resources for Islamic meditative practice, if you know of any.

The school term is coming to an end here.  I hope that you too are experiencing a period of relaxation.

Augoideian - there are three general paths for metaphysical development,  in ancient Hindu writings there were called yogas, meaning pathways to yoke oneself to God. They are simply approaches to meditation etc. One path is love and unity through which all merges into a single Oneness of PUL. Another is through wisdom, study, understanding and having directly informtive metaphysical experiences. The discussions on this forum move in that direction, as do personal meditative experiences. The third path is action, meaning a joyful creativity in which we do that which is appropriate because it is of value in its own right, and not be cause we will be given hopes of a distant reward. (The origin of these is a matter of the way that the universe has evolved and can be traced by doing a little math - which I'll spare you.)

While we walk one path, the others often look pretty peculiar, as in your question about freedom when there is a dictated system of actions and beliefs. For those whose ideas are "this I believe but nothing else" the door tocreative freedom is pretty tighly shut. But for those whose beliefs are "this I believe, and God is free to add to it and amplify it" there seems to come a time at which God sends a message - "Hey, there. Look at this!"  It's not in opposition, but in elaboration of the earlier beliefs. This kind of thinking comes from the same place as the basic rule that religions were made for men by men, and the guidance that allowed God to communicate with a prophet or saint is generally available to others who are wiling to rise to a high enough spiritual level.  How far that can take us depends on how faithful we are, and whether we get in our own way and trip over our own feet.

I like your interest in group related beliefs. My initial degrees were in sociology and social psych, where these group tendencies are the topic of study. I used to try to communicate with the "group mind" that governs cities, but have had no luck thus far. The best I ever did was to tune into a perpetual telepathic babble of voices, but I can't do anything with them as yet. It's actually mildly annoying.

PUL to both of you
dave

Hello

Dave,well i dont know because i dont know so much about sufism and tassawuf.I only know what the orthodox ulema says about them,and its mailny negative things.As you may know many orthodox muslims conisder them to be heretics..althouh the early sufis were among the best muslims that existed.

DoCM,in islam debate is allowed..its not that you can say anything,and you cant claim something that the main scholars denied but you can discuss.I dont know if thats what you wanted to know?

Hi friends-

I personally have found this thread to be exceptionally interesting. Dalila, your remarks and  viewpoint  are new to me, and I very much appreciate the opportunity to learn. I'm surprised that Sufis are viewed as heretics, but I can understand why - they are looking for "more", which threatens the initial assumption of a perfect closed system of ideas.  My casual notion that all religions follow similar paths would make this roughly similar to the Dark Ages in which Christianity held Inquisitions. I'm glad that you are spared that aspect.  However, in that era, all Christians who held deviant views were also viewed as heretical. Even Spinoza, who saw God in everything, was excommunicated for his irregular beliefs. I'm glad that you've found this site, and I hope that you'll continue to develop your innate spiritual talents.

Doc - I've also wondered about development of Judaic mysticism.  I never got deeply into that area. The Zohar and Sephir Yetzirah were somewhat interesting for me, but I didn't notice any major collection of works dealing with techniques for meditation etc. Nor have I found anything major on past lives etc. One exception, a book on yoga called "The Jew In The Lotus". 

Augoeideian -  The three aspects of experience hat I use have been around for thousands of years, so I'm not unique in using them You can find them in pre-dynastic Egyptian  metaphysics from over 5000 years ago. However, I'm glad that I was able to communicate them.  These ideas make an excellent framework on which to hang analytical thoughts, as well as guidance for our own activities

I'd be glad to share the math that I'm working with. It's mostly point set topology elaborated into a combinatoric Riemannin space, but if it interests you, I'll see if I can somehow put it in a PDF or the equivalent. It's not possible to do with HTML - no Greek letters, no operator symbols, no powers or roots.  In essence, what I have is a model of an evolving state space in which there is an initial Creative Energy, like Bergson's elan vital,  that is transformed (eventually) into everyday experiences. Because I come from the science end of the world, I view everything as logical and rational, and thus far it seems that even God is willing to do this in a logical and rational manner when possible, so we don't see many miracles.

Love to you all -I'm off to sdinner-
d

HI Augoeideian-

I do analytic hypnotherapy (psychoanalysis with hypnosis), regression for various purposes, and past life work.  My doctorates are in sociology and psychology. In my own research etc I  use math as my primary analytic tool.  I have a couple books available at Amazon.com or BookSurge.com "Introduction to Hypnotic Regression" and "Developmental Psychopathology".  (To find them you need booth my name and the titles - there's more than one David P Armentrout in the universe.)  I can give you a simple verbal description of my ideas, but to get the depth of their meaning you'd either have to be familiar with advanced math that's implied, or better, you might have a mathematician friend who can develop the concepts.

I'm sorry to be cryptic, but I've been doing this same study for about 50 years, and although the answers are easy, expressing them isn't.

d

Hello Dave,Caryn,Tamay

Merhaba Tamay(a turkish word used in Bosnia too )
Tamay you said you are a muslim? im glad to hear that,even though you are not very religious you do believe in islam fundamantal teachings i hope? because that is the most important,praying fime times a day,fasting,reading the Quran is not as important as the belief you have inside your own heart!