Labels: 0th UU principle, 5th UU principle, 6th UU principle, angry at organized religions, Christianity, Community, favorite scriptural passages, Islam, our mission, paradigm shift, pax hominibus, war and peace

Labels: 1st UU principle, angry at organized religions, anti-oppression, Islam, sexuality, women, Women's Rights

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About a month ago, I went shopping at the local Grocery Outlet, and saw some sugar frosted flakes in a box on one of the aisles. It caught my attention because it had an interesting looking guy (a la Buzz Lightyear) on the front of the box. I turned the box around, and on the other side, it had the same picture, but with all Arabic writing on it, probably saying something like "Sugar Frosted Flakes."



So I bought it, and I just finished eating it (Yes, I still sometimes indulge in sugar cereal), and I took pictures of it, and then I went to visit their website, nmc.ae (beware the loud cheesy music that accompanies the intro video).

Labels: art, Capitalism, indifferent corporations, inter-faith, Islam, paradigm shift, theological sources, UAE

Multithetical Manifesto: Hardcore Angel Power

There is a practice in Unitarian Universalism where the youths spend a year studying a wide variety of religious beliefs. Then they get an opportunity to get up in front of the congregation and make their individual statements of belief. Not having grown up in the tradition, I'd like to now share my faith statement, after a fashion. And yes, I do still plan for it to fit within the parameters of the actual assignment of preaching prophetically.

Here, now, please let’s take a quick journey out into the solar system. It takes about 8 minutes for light to travel from the Sun to the Earth. And it actually takes over 100,000 years for the photons produced in the sun's core to travel the 700,000 kilometers John 3:17, metaphor, Multitheticalism, personal religion, renewable energy, salvation, theology, sefrom the core to its surface, and then for those final eight minutes, it travels to Earth at the speed of light. This parallels how our ideas and communication work. Our collective ideas gestate for a long time before they're ready. Then we communicate them orally and they are delivered at the speed of sound, or we can type them and they end up halfway across the world in seconds.

Growing up, math, along with spelling, was always my favorite subject. Now, it informs my theology in fundamental ways. One primary way is through set theory. For example, imagine the set of whole numbers between 1 and 5, inclusive. The subset of all odd numbers is 1, 3, and 5. The subset of all even numbers is 2 and 4. 1 by itself is a subset. So is 2 by itself, and on and on. The largest “subset” is all five numbers, and then there is the empty set, which includes nothing at all, but still qualifies as a set.

I wonder: Do you see where I'm going with this, theologically? To put a word to it, I'm a multitheticalist. That means I'm an atheist, including Buddhism and Humanism – either a system of religious belief that doesn't consider any god, or a religious belief that specifically denies that a god exists. And I'm a theist. And a monotheist at that – including each of the various descriptions of “the one God” written by leaders such as Moses, Zoroaster, Jesus, Paul of Tarsus, and Mohammad. And I’m a polytheist, to the degree that I can learn about the many Hindu gods, and the pantheons of Greek and Roman deities. And I'm a pantheist, a panentheist, and even an animist.

“But which of those do you believe,” I hear my 20 year old fundamentalist self demand of me. “You have to believe something!” And I do. I believe that it's impossible to know anything about the divine, so that might lead one to label me as an agnostic. But agnostic is too simple a term, without sufficient examination of the complexity of meaning at play here.

In a fluid bedrock kind of way, I've come to appreciate that anything carried with words is metaphor – it's meaning attributed to physical happenings and existences. But in telling stories about the world, by necessity, we are mapping from the ultimate reality into stories that we believe, to help us make sense of the world. That mapping simplifies complex things however. It distorts events to fit into recognizable frameworks. This mapping deletes things because telling the whole truth in all its complexity would mean recreating the whole universe. And the mapping that accompanies systems of belief also generalizes things, turning them into archetypes, stereotypes, and symbols within our stories.

Knowing all that, choosing just one belief is like being stranded on an island and choosing only one book, or one album, or one type of food. Or one thing for my mind and spirit to ingest. Therefore, I'm a multitheticalist (from “multi-thesis”) – or holding several theses in balance all at once, and keeping them open for critical evaluation. My free and responsible search for truth and meaning demands this of me.

But it's not just about belief. It's about the heart. When I first got into this, God told me that it was going to be my heart on the line. But like Jonah, I escaped for a while. I escaped into concepts and theories, and reveled in wonderment at the opportunity to examine the “Big Picture,” (whatever size that actually is). But going beyond means coming back. That's the responsible part of the search. Even with all the angels and demons I’ve collected along my journey, I still feel inadequate to tell my prophetic story. All I know is that for everyone out there with messages (either to deliver from your mind through your voice, or to your mind from your senses), we're cut from the same cloth as those other prophets, especially when we can see beyond the boundaries of our cultural contexts. With all my agnosticism, that is a story I do know.

But what's a prophet to tell? Ideally, I'd light up a cigarette, strap on a guitar, and sing for you, about you, and with you. Why use this gracious gift of breath just to expound on so much theology, or to craft something that compels people to action, but what action? There are SO MANY of them!

There's the age-old practice of taking moral stances on issues:

• The ERA still hasn't passed. What gives?
• The construction of race, and how racism undergirds so many other justice issues
• LGBTIQ – an alphabet soup that simply says “equal rights to all regardless of gender or sexual expression”
• The creation and continuance of class structures, and ownership, and workers' rights.
• Earth justice and animal rights
• Abortion issues
• Drug policies

Or budgetary concerns like:

• Putting money toward wars and failed prison systems and
• Laws to ensure certain economic controls and property rights are secured,
• Instead of putting resources to Education, Energy policies, Scientific research, and Health care

I feel like I could (and very well might) speak to these things from the pulpit every week. It just goes round and round, like wheels in icy slush in March in Minnesota. I want to put sand down under the tires. I want to dig out to the concrete below the ice and get some traction! I want to be primal, to recognize it's not just about squeezing out words as breath flows out past my vocal cords. Text and speech is necessary, but so insufficient. I want to put out that all-too-necessary barbaric “yop” -- I'm ALIVE!!!!! And I hope you do too.

I have to do that. When my God speaks (all of them, and none of them, and one of them), it's through me. See, I'm one of those Multithetical Universalists who believes in radical uncertainty. Our salvation is all tied up together in this boat named Earth, and there is no fate but that which we make. This world is so beautiful, and yet so fragile. One of my versions of God is where I am the creator born into creation to walk upon this beautiful blue-green planet I have made, and I weep and marvel all at once at the horror and the beauty of the upside-downness side by side with the right-side-upness. Because like it or not, humanity has declared dominion here. Now, they/we will get credit or blame for whatever is to come. The blame or credit goes not to God, or ancient prophecies – only to humanity's insistence in those gods and prophecies. Demanding that theirs be the true version, and arguing over details in their stories of divinity and prophecy.

Because we have a preponderance of new prophets, telling the story clearly and honestly, from really recent and accurate knowledge about this world and our relationship within it. Yet there is almost no need for prophets now. The story of the condition of our cultures and our planet now comes to us ever more clearly. Humans have to close their ears, eyes, and minds to avoid the trumpets call. In Zoroastrianism, the job of the Saoshyant, or final judge at the end of the age or world, is simply to point that out. In essence saying “Open your eyes. Look around you! There is your prophecy, and my work is done here.” But its not as easy as that, since peoples' frames mask the full truth, until truth's complexities start to pull open the frames. But the process is soooo slow. After all, wasn't it 2000 years ago that Jesus said, “Those who have ears, let them hear...”? It's slow, but it's coming.

There's more to the story. In my rear-view mirror, I have all these memories of the heavens and hells my mind has visited, to bring me here. In my dreams, I've seen chariots and thrones, and so many apocalyptic futures, like the beatific utopian heaven-on-earth that my inner voice compels me to co-create. I do hope one day to write a utopian sci-fi drama. On the other hand, some of those memories of potential futures are outright hellish. I won't go into detail, but those dreams had people in the grayest darkest cavernous pits, stepping on those below them to try to climb out, but always being stepped on from above by someone else. Even those highest up were still in the pit. With nobody ever reaching down to lend a hand. And then there's the bittersweet end, somewhere in between. Where the world plods through, suffering for centuries or millennia because of the damage we've done to our planet and each other.

So, what saves us? Our actions do. Which are influenced by the thoughts and words that compose our world-views. Our actions influenced by our beliefs, with all their tendencies to distort, delete, and generalize. That is why I'm preaching multitheticalism today. It seeks to open wide to any possibility, evaluating it while finding ways to enrich worldviews. But it has one big drawback. It takes a lot of time. It's heavy, and it's slow to come into the light.

It's slow, like the photons inside the sun.

chant/prayer/mantra: For energy to deliver this well.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: Atheism, Christianity, drug war, environment, guitar, inter-faith, Islam, John 3:17, metaphor, Multitheticalism, personal religion, renewable energy, salvation, sermons, theology

Hi Friends-

Yesterday in Sufi Storytelling, the instructor surprised us by telling us we were each to deliver an impromptu 3-5 minute story, off the cuff. Here is a version of what I came up with.

How many of you have heard the story of the Robot at the Spelling Bee? [Of course, some wiseacre answered "I have"...] Well, this story might be a little different than the version you've heard. Here it is.

There was once this society of people who lived underground, because they didn't fit in with human culture. They were freaks (a term I generally use endearingly) in a way -- see, they were part eagle, part ox, part lion, and part orangutan. I'll leave you to try and picture which part is which, and you'll probably be able to come up with a visualization sufficiently freaky to get the picture.

Anyway, they lived underground, and ostracized, because the human people didn't know how to appreciate or understand them. But they wanted to get the chance to be outside in the sunshine, so they built a robot with the fanciest, shiniest, newest artificial intelligence (not just with solid logic and heuristics, but also with dynamically-reproducing seeded algorithms) they could come up with and sent it to the humans. The robot happened to arrive on the day of the spelling bee, and decided to join up.

When it was its turn, they gave it a pretty easy word. Can somebody give me a somewhat easy spelling word? [from audience: kumquat] Kumquat, well,... the robot heard the word and had not a clue, having not ever really learned anything about the human culture and its language or spelling, so it just sat there until the people said "Stupid robot, go away." And it was kicked out of the spelling bee in the first round.

It went back to the eagle-ox-lion-orangutan people and told them about the language of the humans and how they had this spelling bee ritual, so they found out a bit about it, and the robot processed what had happened, until it felt ready to go the next year. The next year, it went back and signed up again for the spelling bee. Can somebody give me a more difficult spelling word? [from audience: chartreuse] Hmm, chartreuse. Well, the robot had deciphered a little bit about the ways of the spelling bee during the last year, and learned the language, but only had a vocabulary of about 5000 words, so it didn't know "chartreuse." It asked the judges for the etymology and for it to be used in a sentence, and then said, "Well, I don't know how to spell that word, but I do know a word from our culture that apparently is quite similar." And it proceeded to tell them all about the eagle-ox-lion-orangutan word for chartreuse. Upon finishing, the judges thanked it and rang the bell to indicate that the robot was again kicked out of the spelling bee.

And every year, the robot came back for the spelling bee, knowing more and more about human culture. Each time it got to a word it didn't know (from the third year on, it was able to even advance a few rounds), instead of guessing at words it didn't know, it would teach the judges and the audience words from the eagle-ox-lion-orangutan culture. After many iterations of this process, the humans finally knew enough about the eagle-ox-lion-orangutan culture that they began to appreciate it. And when the robot reported back, the eagle-ox-lion-orangutan people were able to come above ground into the light of the sun, and live together with the humans in harmony.

\The End.

lyrics: "Here we are in the parking lot, getting ready inside our heads." -The Helvey Brothers, from Heavy Metal Parking Lot

colors: Not brown. I just (finally) found my summer chaplaincy internship at a state health facility just north of here.

mood: pretty good, tired.

chant/prayer/mantra: bless the freaks


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: coursework, Islam, paradigm shift, parousia, pax hominibus/bright shiny future, theology

If u lived here, u'd b home by now! (IOW, earth is yr heavn. EOM)

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addendum from home: i had this revelation today after leaving the library, when my coworker who lives only a few blocks away was almost home already and i had to spend another 30 minutes to get home. i think the quote above does a fairly concise job of explaining the basics of my understanding of what jesus was trying to say about "the kingdom of heaven" being right here. and its why i get so upset with christians (and Muslims and people in other religions i suppose) who focus on and anticipate the afterlife to enough of a degree that they disregard their lives, and the condition of this world.

Labels: Christianity, heaven on earth, Islam, theology

Hi Everyone-

I mentioned the opening of the Center for Islamic Studies several weeks back, and want to take just a moment to post a few pics that I took of the opening exhibit at the library with my sweetie's camera (Ibrahim, I know I originally said I'd upload some pics from my camera, but those had horrible quality).

Here they are (click to embiggen).





When I took the pictures, I found it frustrating that the skylight was reflecting so brightly off of the glass of the display case, but now that I see the pictures, I kind of like it. The book that is covered up in the last photo is called "Islam: Art and Architecture."

lyrics: "I've got an angel. His name is Steve. He's kind and gentle, and he's watching over me. Thanks Steve!" One Beautiful Day, by Marcus Bovre and the Evil Twins

colors: the color of the wooden display cases above

mood: harried. gotta drop off the cats at the sitter, and then hop an airplane today.

chant/prayer/mantra: communication is key.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: inter-faith, Islam

Islam and World Peace - Explanations of a Sufi - Appendix: Glossary | God, Wisdom, Peace, Prayer, Love, Unity, Sufi, Islam, Sufism, Inner Heart, Sufi Path

OK, I'm just testing out and setting up the latest version of Google Toolbar, which *finally* includes the ability to share bookmarks across computers in a way in which I can agree. Though I will add that the flat structure of the bookmarks (i.e.-only one level down of folders) leaves a little to be desired. Then again, perhaps that will make it difficult for me to get my bookmarks all messy like I usually seem to do.

lyrics: Sinead O'Connor, Troy.

colors: same as before. still with the burgundy and burnt sienna, etc.

mood: tired.

chant/prayer/mantra: asleep in heavenly peace? sometimes i wonder, by continuing to envision a heavenly state of existence here and now, does it keep me/us from being fully awake to the hellish war slogging on around us?


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: computers, Islam, peace

For my class on Bawa, I came across the word "furud" and went to Google for its definition and came instead to this page on inflation and fiscal policy within an Islamic framework. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, or any of the other articles by this author (linked above), but for some reason I find the idea of an Islamic economic framework fascinating.

lyrics: Lullaby Baxter Trio, Little Song

colors: three shades of brown

mood: I had a dream last night that I was at a convenience store talking to a youth about a poster on the wall regarding the side effects of prescription medicines on the body. In the dream, I had also gone out to a local bar earlier with my sweetie for a drink.

chant/prayer/mantra: remember our power.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: dream recollection, economics, Islam

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In this and every aspect of your life, you are invited to freely seek (and find) some true and just actions to perform which match yr spirit; and then follow that path.
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After studying a little in the fool-footsteps of bawa muhaiyaddeen, i realized that the above words, sent to Michael Baisden through the colorofchange.org website's comment field (a very democratic way of communicating on issues)....I realized that those words (actually the ones i sent were slightly less tweaked), those words speak as if directly an expression of the will of God. And multithetically speaking, an expression of the will of Allah, of the Divine, th Creator, the Great Spirit, the Greet Spirit, or the Universe itself, or from some post Big-Collapse (temporally polar opposite bookend to the Big-Bang of "Big-Bang Theory" fame) void. From Brahma emerging from the belly button of Vishnu....

Next, shall I ramble about which things that I believe to be true and just? I probably have already done that a heckuvalot already on this blog, but here's my short-list.

For those interested in concretes:

1. In this world of abundant resources, every human being shall be provided with:
a. an abundance of nutritious food,
b. an abundance of clean fashionable clothing,
c. an adequately-sized piece of space they can call home for as long as they like,
d. love, compassion, care, and concern between neighbors,
e. the opportunity to voice and hear ideas freely through just forms of information exchange,*
f. anything by maslow i may have missed.

2. In this world of necessary labor, every human being shall be responsible for:
a. creating or assisting on projects of positive social and environmental value,
b. producing a "fair share" of goods or services for the benefit of the commonwealth,
c. maintaining an adequate balance between caring for their bodies and enjoying them,
d. developing skills and intelligences through education befitting one's nature.
e. being a full-time respectful steward of the Earth and wherever else humanity gets to.

*specifically i'm speaking here to the Internet, and cable and commercial UHF/VHF airwaves, and to our instructional systems.

Here is the method:
Love and care for self and neighbor.
Trust in self and neighbor.
Apply.
Assiduously maintain patience.
Repeat.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel


WHY DO WE DIVIDE THE RAINBOW INTO ONLY "7" COLORS??

Labels: Islam, Multitheticalism, pax hominibus/bright shiny future, personal religion, religious community

I'm so excited. I didn't get to go to the opening of the Center for Islamic Studies, but am very much looking forward to its presence at the GTU, and hope to take at least one class there, if possible. Read the article at the link above to find out more about why this is so important (hint, hint: pax hominibus).

Also, I'm excited because I may get to take a class at my own school on the Art of Sufi Storytelling. It would complement my Intro to Preaching course quite well I hope.


pax hominibus,
joel

PS - in entirely unrelated news, this opinion piece about the "outsourced brain" rings strangely true.

Labels: Islam, pax hominibus/bright shiny future, technology

today while walking the dog, and walking my sweetie to the BART stop, we came across a homeless woman. marie (not her real name) is no ordinary homeless woman. then again, is there really such a thing as an ordinary homeless person?

she went to our church for the first time last week with a friend of hers. so today on the way to BART, we stopped and talked with her for a while, before maggie got uppity to continue her walk and started barking. on the way back, we saw her again, and talked for about 15-20 minutes. she was spare-changing, and as i approached, she was miffed about some people who had just walked by and entirely ignored her as if she wasn't there.

today, marie was begging for money so that she could get a pregnancy test for her homeless friend. and she's hoping that soon she can get back into a low-rent housing somewhere. she has a bachelor's degree, and has things surprisingly well together (how together would you have your life if you had no home???). anyway, from the topics of our conversation, including her experiences, her interpersonal care for friends and the homeless community, and her sharp and honest wit, i suggested that perhaps she should look into seminary and ministry for two reasons: first, her ministry could draw upon the wealth of experience and character built up from the adversity she's lived through. and second, she could get student loans and get a leg up off the street.

when you have a project and you want it to get done, to whom is it best to apply the commission of that project? how much better would the disaster relief in new orleans been if the person in charge of FEMA been a new orleans resident, rather than somebody entirely uninterested? would one have a white person as the primary advocate for the rights of blacks, or a straight person for gay rights? true, sometimes people can go against the grain and do great work for communities that they are not "a part of" but that's the exception and hardly the rule. but the person who is going to make the most efficient use of resources and have the most drive is the one who has embodied experience within that oppressed position. those from outside the community, the best thing they can do is offer support -- financial, physical (actually show up and serve at the soup line, or build the low-rent house, for example), spiritual (prayers and positive intention), and mental (teach necessary skills) -- but for an outsider to take on the role of the primary agent for a project is something that will mitigate the strength of the effort, and i'd question why somebody would do that if there is a more embodied person available?

with a little practical experience working with institutions, she would be an ideal leader and advocate for the large-scale homeless project i'd like to see happen. all that would be left would be to get the resources together (monetary, raw physical goods, and human expertise). where would all that money come from?

well let's say there are 100k homeless people in each state. that means 5 million in the United States. my numbers could be off by a little, but certainly not by an order of magnitude, so this would suffice for a mock-up plan.

from the previous post, linked above:

What I really want is to establish a system of dormitory/ashram/hostel - style housing units (30-100 people/unit) where we can have ~four people to a room with:

• clean cots/beds/bunks
• decent inexpensive meals (accepting donations from restaurants and grocery stores)
• clean clothes (accepting donations from anyone)
• laundry
• career counseling*
• mental health counseling*
• a health-care ombudsman*
• multi-faith-skilled chaplaincy*
• a computer room with Internet access (for email and education)
• massage therapy*
• vegetable gardens

*weekly, bi-weekly, or semi-weekly visits.

Depending on location (urban/suburban/rural), the housing could be between 2500 and 10000 dollars per person per year. Let's say a round figure of $6000/person/year for housing. Food, done efficiently and spartanly, and with donations, could be $1000/person/year, especially if supplemented by gardening. Clothes, this planet is bursting with clothes -- most can be acquired through donation, and clean socks and underwear can be had for $100/year.

I'd like to take a moment to note that EVERYTHING in this plan will technically happen through "donations" in one sense or another, even the money, EVEN if it comes from tax dollars, or from volunteered labor. After all, aren't our tax dollars supposed to be (consensual - to the degree that we elect our decision-makers) donations toward the commonwealth and the good of the community, for things that we as individuals wouldn't/couldn't purchase on our own?

What about my assumption that career counselors, mental health counselors, and massage therapists would donate their time? Why would they do that? Because they fucking care about other people! (It grieves me deeply that so many people think of genuine caring as the exception, rather than the rule.) They recognize that there are other people who need what they've got, and that they are blessed with the good fortune to have the skills/resources they do. If you think of yourself as a caring Christian or caring person of any religion, and think twice about giving favors for free, you might want to recheck that definition. Sharing is going to be how we survive. And I recognize that sharing runs counter to our individualized "pull resources toward oneself" economic system. I think the sharing should stay, and the greed should go.

In some of my reading for the Bawa Muhaiyaddeen online course, he talks about zakah, or charity, one of the five pillars of Islam. Christians, make no mistake, I think you should hold your own feet to the fire on this one. If I could, I'd set up a charity competition between Christians and Muslims. And I daresay that at present, with respect to many sects of Christianity (the Amish excluded), the Muslims would be winning. Whether the United States of America is a Christian nation or a Muslim nation, it is indeed blessed with riches beyond the dreams of Jesus or Mohammad. The zakah essentially says to tithe according to your assets/wealth (2.5%), and not according to your income (though I think a combination of the two would likely be the most just, so people don't try to get around the rules by not earning, or by spending on perishable goods).

So, what Bawa says (from a very theo-centric viewpoint) is that according to God/Allah, "what people do not realize is that it is I who created the nourishment that is permissible for them. Anyone who claims [the stuff of] this world as his own, anyone who grabs the world and says it belongs to him, has changed into satan and is surely going to hell." Those are pretty strong words and I don't see it exactly that way. I would say instead that to the degree that a person claims property for him/herself they are Satan, and they are in hell. I've seen it happen to me and I've seen it happen to the people who walked by Marie. When they/I walk by, it is with a feeling of "this spare-changing person is asking for my money, for my time," but Bawa essentially says that property is theft from the world's sharable resources, and claiming something as yours puts one in enmity with the world, which will ultimately reclaim any resources we temporarily usurp. Does a tree own anything? I guess technically trees compete for resources (sunlight, air, soil nutrients) with other trees, undergrowth and the like, but if they were able to, I fear they'd do a better job sharing than humans....

I'd imagine that not all Muslims follow the tithing rule, in much the same way that most Christians don't give 10 percent. The real problem is taxes -- they are supposed to be donations toward the commonwealth and the good of the community. Instead, I just read on a USA Today front page as I walked by the newsstand, that the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is presently at $2.4 TRILLION dollars!! By my estimates, for that kind of money, we could easily have already equipped the entirety of the United States with solar energy.... (I think I might be getting myself mad here (or perhaps its the USA Today article, or perhaps its the Bush Admin's expensive (in oh so many ways) cowboy-style foreign policy)).....

Back to the topic at hand... If it costs us in the range of $10k/year to support the homeless and help them get back into the economy, that would be 10,000 x 5,000,000 people ONLY 50 billion dollars per year. In other words, for the price of these two wars, we could've eliminated homelessness for 50 years (and on reflection, all of our lives would be better for it). Think about that.

lyrics:
you can laugh at my behavior
that'll never bother me
say the devil is my savior
but i don't pay no heed

and i will go on shining
shining like brand new
i'll never look behind me
my troubles will be few
-Supertramp, Goodbye Stranger

colors: red, white, yellow

mood: ready to go to work.

chant/prayer/mantra: help your friends, and that's everybody.

pax hominibus,
joel

Labels: Christianity, economics, homelessness, Islam, oppression, politics, religious community, Satan/devil, theology, USA

In my class on the life and teachings of Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, many of the readings have a header of "786" which corresponds to one of the names of Allah.

I wanted to do a little research on it to get a bit more info and came across this scathing opinion piece by somebody who believes that assigning a number to represent God is an arrogant mistake since that diminishes the label to a number. The part that I find humorous then is that the author then goes on to say that the numerologists have their arithmetic wrong, and that the number should really be 787!

Me, I think that Allah's love is going to shine on anybody who cares enough to try and find out the number, and will even shine on those who don't believe there's a number. And I'm sure that part of the love experienced is what the individual practitioner gets back from the efforts of their own devotion. Those who disregard the presence of Allah/God (and I write this from a somewhat multithetically panentheistic place, so the names "God", Nature, Creation, or "their Divinity" would fit for me here as well) are more susceptible of falling into a state of "taking all this for granted" and not having gratitude. By one definition (that of being ungrateful), they are infidels. Then again, even if one does try to be a devoted follower and praise the Divinity, if they are taken to quarreling about the nature of said Divinity, they are in danger of pride and are already falling away from that state of gratitude and calm reception of God's grace.

For those who may be feeling a bit bent out of shape with the God/Divine/Etc language, that's OK too. Visit this nice little video, because the sun does indeed shine on all whether they want it or not, unless they go indoors, or in the basement, or a cave.

For those who have opinions or more knowledge on the nature of this 786 usage, please comment here.

lyrics:
"I am a vampire lamp when I'm stoned, it happens all the time.
I tap prismatic light just like wine from the Divine..."
-from Vamp Lamp

colors: prismatic

mood: limboized

chant/prayer/mantra: not much more to say, just looking for new ways to say it.


pax hominibus,
joel

Labels: Islam

I've been watching and rewatching this video of Bawa Muhaiyaddeen speaking regarding the qualities of God and the qualities of Satan, and in it he mentions "gnanam" several times. I looked up the definition on the web, and realized that in order to intellectually understand it, I need to study up on several other terms.

Jnana, in my understanding, means body-spirit-connected wisdom, but those words don't quite suffice.

From the link just above, "Jnana is the awakened, superconscious state (karana chitta) working within the ordinary experience of the world, flowing into daily life situations. It is the fruition of the progressive stages of charya, kriya and yoga in the Saiva Siddhanta system of spiritual unfoldment."

Does that mean that if I'm touching a non-alcoholic beer bottle to my teeth, and introducing a feeling that I'd long forgotten (eew, bottle against teeth), I'm experiencing Jnana? Heh. I still need to look up "charya, kriya, and yoga in the Saiva Siddhanta system" before I can be sure whether we're talking about the same type of experiencing.

lyrics: I'm the train they call the City of New Orleans. - Willie Nelson

colors: brown, white, yellow

mood: surrounded by a mess of books

chant/prayer/mantra: may wisdom reside here.


pax hominibus,
joel

Labels: Islam