Chapter 18: Mohammed and the Mystic Poets

Gabriel and Mohammed

     The diversity of world religions is puzzling to many who believe there is just one God that created everything: one God whose instructions to humankind are contained in a particular set of scriptures that outline certain rules for everyone to live by. Many who follow one of these religions consider all the others to be false. They wonder why God allowed so many false religions to arise, not realizing that our true source: Love . . . does not enforce the rules and restrictions that create division and conflict between different factions of humanity.

     Each religion sheds light on just a speck of the whole story: a story that is so all-encompassing, without beginning or end, and many-faceted, that it is not possible for a human mind to wrap itself around more than a grain of it. The book you are reading now contains less than a grain of the whole cosmic story, and it’s only the bit that will make sense to a small segment of humanity.

     The diversity of the human population makes it all the more fascinating for Love to experience and observe; and all the more beautiful and loveable. Love explains to all the divine messengers of the world: “Each one of my children relates to me in a different way. Each culture and each personality type undertakes a unique journey in order to understand and connect with us. That is why I keep sending you to different parts of the world to shine your light on each individual path.  And one day, when all arrive at the intersection of these paths, they will remember their oneness with us, with each other . . . with Love!”

     A multiplicity of spiritual teachers was sent to earth throughout the millennia to create a rich and vibrant tapestry of symbols, rites and ceremonies; art forms, stories and poetry; offering endless ways to understand and experience the divine. But too often, the human ego held up the teachings that were brought to a particular region as The Only Way for everyone in the world, and for all time, to understand God. Those whose interpretation of spiritual writings or experiences differed from the accepted doctrine of the day were called heretics and frequently executed for their misbeliefs.

     Hoping to put an end to some of this religious exclusiveness, Love sent the Angel Gabriel with messages for the Prophet Mohammed to share with the people of the Arab world. Gabriel is the same angel who appeared to the Prophet Daniel, to interpret Daniel’s visions about the time when the material world of illusions and misunderstandings will pass away. Gabriel is also the angel who announced the coming birth of John the Baptist to his parents, Elizabeth and Zechariah; and the angel who announced the coming of Jesus to his mother, Mary. Gabriel has been the bearer of several significant messages to the part of the world known as the Middle East; his visits to Mohammed imply that the messages bestowed on this humble Arab were equal in importance to his previous announcements.

    Love wanted Gabriel’s messages to show the Arab world how the teachings of Moses and of Jesus could apply to them, and how they could worship the same god in their own way. Mohammed taught his followers to refer to the one god as Allah, which means “The God” in Arabic. This term was meant to clear up the misconception that all the gods of the world were totally separate beings with separate agendas. Allah’s agenda was to help people understand that they are all equal in the eyes of Love, that all of creation is One . . . and that the divine messenger Jesus does not require believers to worship him, but only to recognize the divine light shining within themselves. These messages were not any more welcome when Mohammed brought them than they had been six-hundred years earlier when Jesus taught the multitudes in Israel.

    The society that Mohammed lived in was divided by class distinctions which granted wealth and power to the upper rungs, and the people who dwelled on high were not about to give up their privileges for some silly notions about equality and oneness! Mohammed and his followers were persecuted mightily, but eventually their courage and tenacity turned the hearts of many who were thirsting for truth, and a new religion was founded. This is Islam, which means both “submission to God” and “the way to peace.” When people give up their free-will and submit to the will of God, which is the will of Love, they have found the way to peace.

    Well, as happens with all the religions of the earth, the original intent of Islam was quickly buried under misinterpretations, faulty translations, and sly twists in meaning. For instance, Mohammad had promoted human rights as an ideal to strive for, saying:

All people are equal, as equal as the teeth of a comb. There is no claim of merit of an Arab over a non-Arab, or of a white over a black person, or of a male over a female. He who honors women is honorable, he who insults them is lowly and mean. He who has a female child and does not insult her and does not prefer his sons over her, will be ushered by God into paradise. (One River, Many Wells, by Matthew Fox, pp. 151-152)

     Like Jesus, Mohammed did his best to overturn the oppression of women in the patriarchal society he lived in. His life and words planted the seeds of a new paradigm for women, but after his death these seeds were quickly buried beneath the cultural mindset that had oppressed women for hundreds of years and wasn’t about to quit.

    Another twist of meaning in the Koran, Islam’s holy book, regards the Arabic word, “jihad” which means “striving for God,” but has been misinterpreted to mean “holy war” or “fighting for God.” One of the passages that refers to jihad is interpreted this way by peace-loving Muslims: “O Prophet! Strive hard against the unbelievers and the hypocrites, and be firm against them. Their abode is Hell, - an evil refuge indeed.” (9:73, 66:9)

    When the Archangel Gabriel gave Mohammed these words, he was referring to the unbelievers as those who don’t want anything to do with divine love. Gabriel explained: “When an unbeliever chooses to live on a mountain island; separate and above the rest of creation, it doesn’t matter if it’s an island of Christians, Muslims, or members of some other exclusive sect. These people will dwell in a lonely Hell until they are ready to dive off the island and swim across the ocean to join the rest of the world.”

    The climate on these exclusive islands is particularly hellish when their occupants demean and kill those who refuse to climb ashore. But the believers in Love and the oneness of All-That-Is can’t conceive of killing another person since every single being is a brother or sister. Thankfully, some human hearts have always been open to the messages of Love, whether from angels, nature, music, or another medium, and these people have been the bearers of truth throughout time and space. These are the mystics: people who experience the divine first-hand, and so have no need of doctrines, laws, or specific disciplines to remind them to stay on a particular path.

Rumi by Hossein Behzad

    Among the mystics are the artists, musicians, and saints we have already met, and also the poets. One of the best-known of the mystic poets is Jalalud'din Rumi, who lived in Persia from 1207 to 1273. Rumi was a Sufi. The Islam faith gave rise to Sufism, a mystical teaching and way of life that embraces the experience of the divine while circumventing the restrictive requirements of a particular faith: a pilgrimage to a holy city, the proper method of baptism, a meditation mantra, spoken confessions, or counted prayer beads. Each religious faith requires certain actions of its followers, but how often are these actions accompanied by a deep knowing of divine love and oneness? Rumi advised that words could not adequately describe the experience of mystical union, and yet he turned to poetry to express the ecstasy of knowing divine love. As inadequate as they may be, his words still bring tears to the eyes of men and angels, who feel their power.

      Rumi’s poem, “Buoyancy,” describes how a faith born of personal experience differs from one imposed by creeds and commandments.

Love had taken away my practices

and filled me with poetry.


I tried to keep quietly repeating,

No strength but yours,

but I couldn't.



I had to clap and sing.

I used to be respectable and chaste and stable,

but who can stand in this strong wind

and remember those things?


A mountain keeps an echo deep inside itself.

That's how I hold your voice.


I am scrap wood thrown in your fire,

and quickly reduced to smoke.


I saw you and became empty.

This emptiness, more beautiful than existence,

it obliterates existence, and yet when it comes,

existence thrives and creates more existence!


The sky is blue. The world is a blind man

squatting on the road.

 

But whomever sees your emptiness

sees beyond blue and beyond the blind man.


A great soul hides, like Muhammad, or Jesus,

moving through a crowd in a city

where no one knows him.


To praise is to praise

how one surrenders

to the emptiness.


To praise the sun is to praise your own eyes.

Praise, the ocean. What we say, a little ship.


So the sea-journey goes on, and who knows where?

Just to be held by the ocean is the best luck

we could have. It's a total waking up!


Why should we grieve that we've been sleeping?

It doesn't matter how long we've been unconscious.


We're groggy, but let the guilt go.

Feel the motions of tenderness

around you, the buoyancy.

    When angels cradle a human soul, one that’s yearning to break free from the isolation of the island where it dwells, the soul feels the tender administrations of these divine ones, and the buoyancy of floating in the ocean of divine Love that connects us all.

Utopia

     Idries Shah, a Sufi author who lived in the 20^th century, tells a fable about a utopian civilization that is forced to immigrate to an island when their leader tells them that their homeland will be uninhabitable for about 20,000 years. What is going to happen to this homeland is left to our imagination. Perhaps there was going to be a cataclysmic change in the environment that would make this land too hot or too cold for survival. Or perhaps the leader of the people known as “El Ar” decided that life in paradise was getting too easy and it was time to stir up some excitement by sending the contented chicks off to a new nest. Whatever the reason, the entire population had to pack up and move to an island where life would be hard compared to what they were used to. The pain of losing their past life was softened by a procedure that helped the El Ar to forget their paradise home.  Only a vague sense of longing remained; a lasting reminder that the island was not their true home.

     The fable goes on to describe existence on the island, and how certain members of this society protected the secret instructions for shipbuilding and swimming, necessary skills for people to escape the island to another island that would serve as a stepping-stone back to the El Ar’s country of origin. The secret-keepers made it known that an individual must attain certain attributes before qualifying for swimming or shipbuilding lessons. One man who wished to learn how to escape the island, but lacked the right qualifications, decided to sabotage the whole operation by creating a new philosophy of life that would do away with the need for swimmers or shipbuilders. The new philosophy reassured people that they were already complete human beings with nothing more to learn; that the story of life beyond the island was a myth, and that  there was no reason to build ships or learn to swim, because there was nowhere else to go.  This philosophy caught on like wildfire, and before long, the secret-keepers were being hanged for heresy because they could not produce visible proof of their claims.

     The Sufi’s angels nudge them to use a clever code to disguise the true meaning of their tales. For instance, the name of the original community in this fable, El Ar, can be rearranged to spell “Real.” The island’s new philosophy, which was based on science, was known as “Please,” a word that rearranges to form the word “Asleep.”

     In our world, the mystics and poets are the swimmers and shipbuilders. Many of the mystics keep their experiences to themselves; and nobody can accuse them of heresy because their oneness with Love and All-That-Is remains a private affair. But Love’s muses delight in their ability to draw forth fiery words of divine passion from mystics such as Rumi, whose poetry invites spiritual pilgrims to venture off the island where they’re marooned, without offering the kind of “proof” that religious institutions demand.

Hafiz

     In 1341 the Archangel Gabriel again visited a Muslim poet, this time a young man who wrote under the name of Hafiz, a title given to one who has memorized the Koran by heart. Gabriel bestowed the gift of poetry on Hafiz, and he who was already a poet spent the rest of his life writing exquisite poetry, that was loved by the people of Persia and hated by the orthodox clergy of Islam.

The Stairway of Existence

We

Are not

In pursuit of formalities

Or fake religious

Laws,



For through the stairway of existence

We have come to God's

Door.



We are

People who need to love, because

Love is the soul's life,



Love is simply creation's greatest joy.



Through

The stairway of existence,

O, through the stairway of existence, Hafiz



Have

You now come,

Have we all now come to

The Beloved's

Door.

    Mohammed rejoices when he hears this poem. He calls out from his celestial abode: “Oh Islam, listen to these inspired words! Come to the Beloved’s Door, and join me in Love: creation’s greatest joy.”

    Those who have ears to hear, do. Those who don’t . . . do not.