Materialism

Materialism: The Bible & The Quran Part 2 1

 in Foundation / Materialism  tagged Bible / Creator / God / Jesus / Joseph / Materialism / Mohammed / Quran by (updated 2693 days ago)

Light pointing the way.

Our first post in this series was “Materialism: The Lower Nature and Development.” Today’s post covers what Prophets Jesus and Joseph taught us about materialism in the Bible and the Quran.1 Both the Bible and the Quran have much in common, and this shouldn’t be surprising. Take a look at this verse:

“We have revealed to you the Book in Truth as a confirmation for what came before it from the Book and as a guard for it […]” (The Quran 5:48).

Interesting! So the Quran confirms the truths in previous scriptures, and it’s also a guard that protects them from the changes material-minded men have added over time (2:79). For example, saying the prophets, our teachers, willfully or through other ills engaged in obscene crimes like Prophet David committing adultery then conspiring to have the woman’s husband killed, that Prophet Solomon became an idol-worshiper before passing, or that Prophet Lot’s daughters got him drunk then had incest with him multiple times-God forbid!2

Like all prophets, Prophet Jesus taught people not to worship the material—any created thing—but to serve God instead. He taught this beautiful, basic truth in the Bible by reinforcing the dependent and independent (material and Creator-of-material) relationship between himself and God:

“Then a certain ruler asked Him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ ‘Why do you call Me good?’ Jesus replied. ‘No one is good except God alone’ ” (Berean Study Bible, Luke 18:18-19).

Prophet Jesus beautifully declares that he is not Good. No one is Good. Good is Independent, just like Truth or Light. These are all attributes of God alone. Prophet Jesus reflects the Goodness of God like the moon reflects the sun’s light. Prophet Jesus is just dependent and all of his magnificence comes from God, the Independent. Prophet Jesus is reminding people to mature from the material mind state—our lower nature that wants to focus on something in the material world so we could label ourselves by it, objectify it, and worship it. He’s asking us to grow into higher consciousness: instead of serving the material, serve the creator of all material.

What does the Quran say about this beautiful point? Well, if you’ve guessed that it confirms it, then you’re right. Prophet Joseph says,

“I do not consider myself innocent. Indeed, the (lower) self commands towards evil—except whom my Lord has given mercy” (The Quran, 12:53).3

Prophet Joseph is saying that he, by himself, is not innocent. The Prophet’s innocence is solely dependent on God. It’s only God’s Goodness that Prophet Joseph reflects, something that God bestows by his mercy on whomever he pleases.

When we live by our higher nature, then we are “at one with God.” This is the state that all the Prophets lived in. They were in absolute harmony with the will of their Creator. They were never independent of God, but they did wholly and consciously accept their dependence on him. This is why in the Quran you read statements like “obey God and obey the messenger.” Because the Prophet Muhammad was at one with the will of God, obeying him is obeying God. This is also why Prophet Jesus said, “I and the Father are one” (Berean Study Bible, John 10:30 ) and also in this verse:

“Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you had known Me, you would know My Father as well. From now on you do know Him and have seen Him'” (Berean Study Bible, John 14:6-7 ).

First, remember that this verse is metaphorical and we must consider all the sayings of Prophet Jesus in the Bible. We “see” God after we’ve seen Prophet Jesus, because Prophet Jesus is “at one with God.” He is reflecting God’s goodness as one of the prophets God sent here to show us the way. Let’s get some more clarity from other verses of the Bible:

Jesus replied, “Is it not written in your Law: ‘I have said you are gods’ ? If he [God] called them gods to whom the word of God came —and the Scripture cannot be broken— then what about the One whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world? How then can you accuse Me of blasphemy for stating that I am the Son of God? (Berean Study Bible, John 10:34-36 )

Prophet Jesus did not mean that he was the literal son of God, like the Jews who wanted to stone him thought. In fact, he clarified what he meant by quoting Psalm 82:6 from the Old Testament. Here is the full verse he quoted:

“I said, ‘You are gods, And all of you are sons of the Most High’” (New American Standard Bible, Psalm 82:6).

In the Old Testament, being at one with God was referred to as being “God’s son” or being “gods,” but it doesn’t mean these literally. To avoid the confusion from people thinking that Prophet Jesus or others are literally god or God’s sons, the Quran says:

“Say God is one. He does not have children nor was he the child of another, and there is nothing comparable to him” (The Quran, Chapter 112).

Those looking at the Biblical phrases with their material nature will interpret them materially / literally.

Notice the pattern of similarities and remember what God said the Quran’s purpose was. This book is a confirmation of the scriptures that came before and a guard over them. The Quran clarifies what could have been misconstrued and points us away from our lower, material nature, back to our higher, spiritual nature.

The source of everything hazy and unclear is our desire for the material world. This world is alien to our true essence. Follow your God-given higher nature, as all the Prophets did, submit to the Creator alone, and be at one with God.

See you next post God willing 🙂

Footnotes:

1. Prophets Jesus and Joseph are referred to as Prophets Esa and Yusuf, respectively, in the Quran.

2. See 2 Samuel 11 and Genesis 19:32. This is what was said about Prophet Solomon:

For when Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away after other gods; and his heart was not wholly devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians and after Milcom the detestable idol of the Ammonites. Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and did not follow the LORD fully, as David his father had done (New American Standard Bible, 1 kings 11 4-6).

And here is the Quran guarding the scriptures and protecting them:

“And they follow what the devils recite against the kingdom of Solomon. Solomon did not disbelieve (by worshiping idols) […]” (The Quran 2:102).

3. This statement was made after Prophet Joseph was freed from prison and exonerated of the allegations against him, but it also applies to any time and place.

 

Please feel free to share any thoughts.

Materialism: The Lower Nature & Development Part 1 1

 in Foundation / God-conscious / Materialism  tagged highernature / lowernature / Materialism by (updated 2645 days ago)

materialism_lowernature_development

We don’t make the sun shine. We don’t make food grow from the dirt. We didn’t create ourselves, and neither do we keep our hearts beating. And one fateful day we will certainly pass away. What am I getting at? This is a reminder of how dependent we are. But the lower nature, that stagnates on the material plane, tries life and limb to convince us that we, or whatever material thing we worship, are really independent.

Why does the lower nature insist upon materialism? Well, it’s the path of least resistance. It’s like a rock rolling downhill. That’s just how it works. Whether it’s object materialism (worshiping property: seeking its possession as life’s purpose and forsaking the higher nature in its pursuit)1, communal materialism (worshiping a community or system: seeking to be part of a community so we blindly obey its dictates even when it’s against our God-given, higher nature—this communal system can be religious, tribal, political, or whatever organizing institution you think of; this type of materialism is striking because it helps religious materialists realize their sickness),2 power materialism (worshiping our lower nature: seeking to serve our lower desires for power, influence, and lust), or pain materialism (fixating upon some worldly loss that detaches us from higher awareness and keeps us from developing and maturing).3

A person can lean more towards one type of materialism or be infected by all of them.

The purpose of God’s message is to help us develop from the lower, materialistic plane so that we could mature into aware beings. Don’t get me wrong. The material world is important; it’s our foundation for thought and inference that lead directly to the Creator:

“He makes the corn, the olive, the date-palms, the grapes, and every kind of fruit grow forth for you. In that is a sign for people who reflect” (16:11)

There you have it. We become aware by using our God-given faculties of thought and understanding to reflect upon the signs in the material world. This place is our womb for development. Serving the material world, a created thing, as if it were the Creator is the sickness that we’re being called to mature from. This is how we grow, how we live in awareness and tranquil positivity.

Remember the contrast of dependent and independent. The independent is always superior to the dependent, just as light is superior to night, heat is superior to cold, and so on. Everything material is dependent, and so it can never be worthy of worship (worship also means service.) Only the Independent, the Creator, is worthy of our worship.

This is part 1 of this article on materialism. Please click here to read part 2.

See you next post, God willing 🙂

Footnotes:

1. “Worship” here means anything that we serve, applying ourselves to obtain satisfaction or fulfill a purpose.

2. One sign of a religious materialist is a person who gives their system the attributes of God. They often judge others and condemn them to hell or bless them to Heaven, although these are God’s prerogatives. They declare that no one can have knowledge unless they go through their system, although God gives knowledge to whomever he pleases. It’s not an institution that gives knowledge to whomever it pleases. Religious materialists put limits on God’s power and confer those abilities to their system.

3. These categories of materialism aren’t mutually exclusive and their boundaries can be more blurred than strictly delineated.

 

Please feel free to share any thoughts.

Hope is with Our Guardian

 in Foundation / Poetry  tagged Guardian / Hope / Materialism by (updated 2967 days ago)

Hope is with Our Guardian

Hope in God is your ultimate expression of iman, belief and trust in Him.

Positivity is hope dressed in different flair.

Have hope in the midst of the whole world crumbling around you,

and by God, you will be a source of hope for others,

All of God’s creation.

Hope was never vested in the world of material anyway.

How much you have or don’t,

How much you’ve lost or gained,

But the importance of this lowest life is that it’s a stage,

a stage in our development.

 

Do you know what’s confidence?

It is hope in God in the most improbable of impossible

(and in the most usual of regular).

Be hopeful and God’s Light will shine on you with radiance.

Only when you view the world as the end-all,

As your primary existence,

Would you lose hope

and let the primitive,

the material,

seep in:

“My kin, My religion, My skin, My nation”

 

We must look at options relatively

and choose the BEST option.

Hope is always the best option

Everything else is ingratitude, disease, deception.

 

All Truth produces “correct” results

And all falsehood produces the opposite.

There is nothing more correct than promoting life and wellness

And what reduces these is stress

Materialism does not offer hope.

It only produces

paranoia, pessimism and possessiveness.

It increases distress.

Just like an equation,

Plugging in the wrong variable gives you the wrong answer.

Search your experiences,

and uncover that worshipping material

is the wrong answer.

Hope in the Creator

Confidence in an existence beyond this

Produces hope no matter the meanest

of circumstances in this lowest world.

Hope in the Creator of the material

is the right answer.

 

Respect the material and honor it.

Know it is a test and a stage for your development.

Besides this, it is little more than whim.

Because it will not last.

How could the temporary be the end-all?

When our hearts are tied to the eternal?

Choose the BEST option:

Hope where there seems none.

All Hope is with Our Guardian.

We All Have Self-Confidence

 in Foundation  tagged Arrogance / Materialism / Self-confidence by (updated 3078 days ago)

Heart with light beaming from within

Self-confidence is worth so much, yet you can’t put a price on it. It can’t be bought. It’s the very definition of priceless 🙂

Self-confidence means not only to believe in yourself—that you can succeed in anything—but also to regard yourself. It goes deeper than that though. Self-confidence doesn’t come from just your material accomplishments, your material losses and gains. It doesn’t come from your association with a tribe, society, language, or government (see 49:13 for clarity). These are all hollow forms of self-confidence because they’re material—they’re all worldly. The material world and everything in it is ultimately an illusion. Don’t take my word for it:

[…]the life of this world is nothing but the wares of illusion. (3:185)

Your self-confidence should not be based on an illusion. That’s the definition of being delusional. Some people may give an air of self-confidence, but it’s actually a facade covering their arrogance. We’ll touch on the distinction between these below. Everything material is dependent and will all fade away:

All that is on (the earth) will pass away. Yet the face of your Lord, full of majesty and honor, will remain. (55:26-27)

Real self-confidence springs from something much greater than material. Self-confidence can’t be bought or pretended. It’s something known. It’s innate. And not just to a few of us either, but self-confidence is innate to all of us.

Here’s the proof 🙂

We are all the creations of God, al-Haqq (the Truth).1

That’s the answer. Pure and simple. That is the source of all our self-confidence, or at least it should be.

If we lack self-confidence, yet we believe in God, the Truth, then that’s a sign that something needs improvement.

We can’t have low self-esteem if we know who created our “self” the first place. Malcolm X once said, “You can’t hate your origin and not hate yourself.” He was talking specifically about how people of African origins are taught to hate Africa, but it also applies in a larger context. We can’t hate ourselves and not hate God, our Originator (even though this hate can be subtle). We can’t think of ourselves as deficient and not think of our Creator as deficient. We can’t think of ourselves as inherent failures without implicating God in the process.

Yes, reproaching yourself for a wrong that you’ve done is essential and absolutely healthy. Acknowledging your mistakes and your failures is necessary. But the sum of all your failures still doesn’t mean you should hate yourself, because your essence, your spirit, is from the Divine. Your self-esteem should always be rooted in this. You must know who you are: the creation of the Divine.

You are not perfect, but your Creator is. And his creation of you is perfect!

God did not make a failure, although you do fail at times. Acknowledge when you do and grow from it. That is how we achieve “perfection” as human beings.

And herein is the beautiful balance. Esteem yourself, because your Originator is the most high. But the moment you esteem yourself based on the material, lower desires, you will unavoidably become arrogant and detach yourself from God, the Most High.

Let’s look at how majestically God reminds the material-minded of this fact. The following verse is about as divinely ironic as I can think of! Since they worship the material, then why don’t they consider from what material thing they were created?

So let man consider from what he was created. He was created from a fluid issuing out. (86:5-6)

Arrogance is based on the material, so let them remember that they were created from an ooze of sperm. That should check anyone’s arrogance—if they are honest. (Since things are rarely black and white, there are material-minded people with self-confidence not based on the worldly—see footnote 2).2

Yet for those who worship the Independent, their self-confidence springs from the Truth, the Reality beyond all material: that they are indeed creations of the Most High.

Believe in yourself like you believe in the sun rising. Believe in your abilities like a bird believes in its ability to fly. Neither can the sun nor the birds explain how they do what they do. They are just thankful to their Creator, know that they can, and do! As human beings we have the ability to become the best of creation or the worst (98:6-7). We learn and grow, perfect and improve. Believe in yourself and strive to do all that is best (2:148)!

See you next post, God willing 🙂

 

 

Footnotes:

1. The Truth, the Independent, the Originator, the Most High: these are all some of God’s beautiful names.

2. The Truth manifests itself in our lives in many ways. A material-minded person can have sparks of true self-confidence if it is based on the truth he’s experienced. For example, everyone has the innate knowledge of God in their hearts, even if they don’t consciously express it. They will believe in themselves because of something special within. Something they know for certain within them that’s special. By it’s very nature, the “special” within cannot be material! In fact, it is the light of our Creator. This point is so ironic. Even a zealous materialist who knows there is something special within him or her must admit that it’s not material! Wow! Reminds me of the verse where God says that we submit to him willingly or unwillingly (3:83)   🙂

 

Please feel free to share your thoughts.