Why Iblis refused to bow to Adam....an insight

As Surah 2:30 says: 

When your Lord said to the angels,

‘Indeed I am going to set a Khalif on the earth,’

they said, ‘Will You set in it

someone who will cause corruption in it,

and shed blood,

while we celebrate Your praise

and proclaim Your sanctity?’

He said, ‘Indeed I know what you do not know.’

Well maybe it not only refers to the concept of Prophets, Messengers and the Imams, but also of humanity itself's purpose. 

Now Iblis refused to acknowledge the authority of Adam.

Adam however is not only the first Prophet but also the first man and the symbol of all of mankind itself.

So Iblis refused to acknowledge mankind's rightful bestowed Mercy from God to rule the universe.

In the Bible (though it's alluded to in the Qur'an) we have the idea of Zion, of Jerusalem of the Promised Land. However Jews seem to have committed the same sin that Adam did, which is a kind of exclusive segregation and a form of racism (Iblis despised Adam for being made of clay/dust) and of course Jews have gotten racially exclusive in the past.

Whereas with Christians they have become idolaters and exclusivist in the supremacy they think they have in the person of Jesus.

In the New Testament, Jesus often talks in fractal imagery such as tree imagery (which like with the Qur'an, goes back to the idea of Eden itself, which is the lost paradise to which we've fallen from), whereas Paul speaks of "The Church" in similar fractal imagery. Both indicative of a divine hierarchy in relation to God itself (keep Surah 3:59 in mind there as well), even indirectly too seeing that it all goes back to Adam in these traditions anyway. 

Jerusalem itself, referred to as the 'Whore of Babylon" in the Book of Revelation is like a Klipoth (shells, meaning degraded, shallow, pale, decaying) of the original Eden, as the concept of Zion is like an attempt to go back to the pure state of Eden - of which the Jews failed at massively multiple times, and to which Jesus calls them out about multiple times and to which the Qur'an calls them out multiple times.

Through the way these symbols relate to each other I do see the Great Work as Hermeticism terms it, or the Magnum Opus, starting to pop up. Not on a microcosmic level (to which is an initiates personal spiritual journey within themselves) but within all of creation, across all of time and space. 

This is what Freemasonry is trying to get at, and I have to mention it because I see it directly in my recent above observation. Maybe I've just realized something already obvious, I don't know, but I love the thought of it. 

Through humanity constantly failing, as indicative of the Jews in terms of their special share as prime examples of it, we therefore see how we ourselves become and embody Iblis or Shaytan/Satan, how we repeat Iblis's sin and alienate ourselves both from nature and spirit (Ruh/Ruach). 

And as a significant Hadith of Imam Ali states: 

"Surely, Allah put the 'Aql in the angels but not desire, and he put desire in the beasts but not the 'Aql, and he put both of them in the children of Adam (mankind). So whoever's 'Aql overcomes his desire, then he is better than the angels, and whoever's desire overcomes his 'Aql, then he is worse than the beasts" 

The Bible vs (the anomaly of) The Qur'an

I continually find myself amazed (after struggle and struggle with Christian polemicists) that the Qur'an is the only oral tradition of it's kind, unchanged, memorized routinely by millions of people over the past 1400 years. 

That it itself calls out Christians and Jews over the lack of preservation and corruption of their own texts and their false doctrines (like Jesus being God or Jews being the chosen ones etc). 

And I find it increasingly astounding how little academic textual integrity any of the Bible actually has in and of itself. There are billions of variants in the Bible, there is no authoritative Bible, it was a textual tradition not an oral one. Christians don't read their texts in the original language and have no authoritative version of any language of the New Testament (even though the earliest fragments are in Greek, which Jesus didn't even speak). 

Then we have Jews with their 'official' Tanakh known as the Masoretic Text, which is a 8th century thing, not a 8th century BCE thing. The earliest fragments of the Tanakh are all in Greek, which makes it mightily ironic. 

Secular scholarship has because of this (and more), major problems with the Bible. It has no credibility by itself. In fact the very concept of "The Bible" doesn't exist. There is no "The Bible", there are only thousands of manuscripts and many endless attempts at creating a critical edition, which has no authority because there are no originals to begin with  :D

It's a mess.

The Bible is a fuucking mess, and the Qur'an scolds them harshly over this multiple times. 

One such passage in the fifth Surah of the Qur'an (Surah al-Maidah) it says the following: 

Then, because of their breaking their covenant We cursed them and made their hearts hard: they pervert words from their meanings, and have forgotten a part of what they were reminded. You will not cease to learn of some of their treachery, excepting a few of them. Yet excuse them and forbear. Indeed Allah loves the virtuous. Also from those who say, ‘We are Christians,’ We took their pledge; but they forgot a part of what they were reminded. So We stirred up enmity and hatred among them until the Day of Resurrection, and soon Allah will inform them concerning what they had been doing. 

O People of the Book! Certainly Our Apostle has come to you, clarifying for you much of what you used to hide of the Book, and excusing many [an offense of yours]. Certainly, there has come to you a light from Allah, and a manifest Book................................................O Apostle! Do not grieve for those who are active in [promoting] unfaith, such as those who say, ‘We believe’ with their mouths, but whose hearts have no faith, and the Jews who eavesdrop with the aim of [telling] lies [against you] and eavesdrop for other people who do not come to you. They pervert words from their meanings, [and] say, ‘If you are given this, take it, but if you are not given this, beware!’ Yet whomever Allah wishes to mislead, you cannot avail him anything against Allah. They are the ones whose hearts Allah did not desire to purify. For them is disgrace in this world, and there is a great punishment for them in the Hereafter. Eavesdroppers with the aim of [telling] lies, eaters of the unlawful—if they come to you, judge between them, or disregard them. If you disregard them, they will not harm you in any way. But if you judge, judge between them with justice. Indeed Allah loves the just. And how should they make you a judge, while with them is the Torah, in which is Allah’s judgement? Yet in spite of that, they turn their backs [on Him] and they are not believers. We sent down the Torah containing guidance and light. The prophets, who had submitted, judged by it for the Jews, and so did the rabbis and the scribes, as they were charged to preserve the Book of Allah and were witnesses to it. So do not fear the people, but fear Me, and do not sell My signs for a paltry gain. Those who do not judge by what Allah has sent down—it is they who are the faithless.

I just continue to find it utterly baffling that such a text/scripture as the Qur'an even exists. 

Like, while we know that many religions claim their sacred texts are "divinely inspired" inspired denoting that it was guided by God but not God speaking, the only text which claims to be only God speaking is the Qur'an. 

Even the Vedas, which have quite a profound status in the early period of Sanatan Dharma ("Hinduism") does not contain anything resembling the Qur'an. 

As in the Qur'an's style, it's format, it contents is self-purported to be God speaking through an angel (Gabriel) to Muhammad, not by Muhammad, he is one of the subjects that the Qur'an addresses. 

I just find it completely incredible that such a text as the Qur'an even exists, it seems to defy logic. No other religion has anything resembling the Qur'an. 

The Qur'an itself both confirming aspects of the Bible and also vehemently opposing and refuting other aspects of the Bible (many things from 'original sin' to Solomon's betrayal to David's deceptiveness to Jesus' deity to the whole Christian salvation narrative, all refuted in the Qur'an). I find that remarkable. Even taking it from a non-Muslim, secular even atheist point of view. It boggles the mind that such a text as the Qur'an exists. 

I should re-mention again that the Qur'an as it was received by Muhammad, was not a "book" in a written form (though Imam Ali Ibn Abi Talib did write a codex of the entire Qur'an), it is what it's title says it is - a 'recitation' (literally what "Qur'an" means).

Anyway, looking through Biblical scholarship really shows that Christians and Jews, but Christians especially (as their case is much weaker than Jews, which have a feasibility, but not in their texts) have a glass house. Nothing to stand on, complete charlatanism. 

There is no fuuckng Bible, it doesn't exist. 

Any english Bible you would find, is a translation based upon a critical edition which is an assembling of different manuscripts chosen by a particular person or group of people. All the manuscripts in question all radically differing from each other from small to massive differences. 

Qur'an didn't originate as a manuscript tradition, so it has zero issues over manuscripts. Qur'an was passed down orally through a thing known as Mushaf, Qira'at to be precise, which were taught by Prophet Muhammad himself (as are well attested to). Things which were standardized early on, which according to secular scholarship have not changed, period. 

Anyway, the whole case is completely incredibly IMHO. For a wide variety of reasons (which you've heard many before), the Qur'an still remains the most important text I've ever read. And to use the very easily misinterpretable term, I have "faith" in it.

Anyway, Christians are starting to see their religion decline in popularity because of how problematic their beliefs and texts are. Within like 20 years, Islam will take over from Christianity. 

Unfortunately though, as you will remember me saying, the Islamic world has gone to sh1t over the past 300 years. It thrived the best during the middle ages though, in which Islam was the leaders of science and philosophy. 

Islam over the past 300 years has through various means (including the growth of the Salafi heresy, which is a school of revisionist literalist fundamentalist Sunnism) has fallen from grace but is deserving of a return to glory. The current way that the western world sees Muslims though, and the current way Muslims see themselves is in dire need of repair, as it has no resemblance at all to the Islam of Muhammad, nor of the first 500 years of Islam. 

As salaam alaikum

Sobering musings; mortality, empathy and The Absolute

As infinitely complex as things (as in 'all-things') are, it's ultimately down to very basic principles. 

Comparative studies of different systems of thought (whether psychological, biological, philosophical, politics or religious) show that all knowledge kind of can be condensed. 

Many mystical systems are perhaps the most experimented with in providing different patterns of the interactions of different "energies" which represent all of these things in different sequences. 

I do think, even though my own experience and study is limited, that it ultimately does come down to the emanations of the Tao from the Trigrams, or as better known as Qi's intersecting complimentary opposites of Yin and Yang. Or the Abrahamic YHWH - the interactions of the Yod with the He with the Vav (the name of God as a cosmological model), or alternatively the seferiot of the tree of life.

The Hermetic law of correspondences "As above so Below" is absolutely true.

But besides that, the nature of archetypes as expressions of the variations of these fundamental aspects of reality manifest, reflected literally and metaphorically (such as politics as a reflection of metaphysics and psychology/biology as a reflection of metaphysics etc).

But despite that, we as a human culture, or even the potential robotic future, will never know everything despite even having all of the central pieces, because we are part of that equation. Unless we were removed as an observer out of time/space, then we are part of the thing we are trying to solve. Hence also the problem of consciousness itself. The great irony of the science of today. 

Anyway, what motivates all people comes down to the same very basic principles. For us as conscious beings, it is a rat race, the desperation and hopelessness can be very real, very heavy, very harsh and unbearable. I think it is true that we are here for other people and not just ourselves. The selfish "me-only" existence I don't think is really rooted in nature, whether evolutionary or not. Both the most fundamentalist interpretation of creationism and the most vehement interpretation of evolution affirm the social needs of humans, we fall apart without other people. They are there for us and we're there for them. All of the same old maxims and proverbs apply. Money doesn't buy happiness, the pleasures of the outside world are not where happiness is, it comes from inside firstly and from the act of being there for other people, giving other people hope. 

Irreligious or not. 

The most difficult part though is that some people are so wrecked inside that they become near impossible to help, psychopaths for instance are very difficult. Such people have a lot of deep-seated trauma that it takes a very special kind of person to help them to see the light, to see hope and their purpose. Same applies to a lot of other situations. 

Here I am reminded of two things, Thelema (Will) and Wetiko. Will is obviously, in the Thelemic system, the thing that binds reality together and the reason we exist, as an expression of it and born to discover then fulfill it. 

We for Wetiko, it is the dualistic delusion of "the other", it is the virus of the mind that cases war after war, fight after fight, argument after argument, pain after pain. It is fear itself. What fear doesn't realize is that it fears itself, as all things are one thing. If I kill someone, I kill myself. If I marry someone, I marry myself. If I hate someone, I hate myself. If it rob someone, I rob myself. 

That nondualistic vision is where Thelema (Will) and Wetiko cross over very clearly, as well as many philosophies and religious views. 

Even Jesus said (quoting an obscure verse in Leviticus) "Love your neighbor as you love yourself". 

I still have my demons to overcome, I still have a world ahead of me (as you to do). I hope that things become better, life cannot stay the same for too long, it's like a law of time, nothing stays the same. The less optimistic side of that is also a cause of existential dread, which is itself a form of Wetiko. 

Some thoughts about the logical conclusions of Satan/Shaytan/Iblis

Firstly, only God is omnipresent and nothing seems to suggest otherwise for angels and Shaytan, the obvious implication therefore unless Angels and Iblis are shown to be omnipresence, would be that they are internal rather external.
Not internal as in materialistically psychologizing them but that their ontological status is implicitly psychospiritual. They are given divine status with their nearness to al-Arsh/al-Kursi ("the Throne"), but they are said to have seeming infinite inter-relations with our material and psychological world, likewise as recorders or monitors for the divine record/tablet which is outside of time, therefore progenitors of it inside of time.
They are also guardians over everything, as well as us on a psychological level.
With Iblis, my reading of him from the Holy Qur'an and Hadith of the Ahlulbayt strongly imply him as an archetypal symbol used from a real angel/djinn representing the traits (psycho-mental-spiritual) that are allowed to inhibit or test us as manifesting to the soul.
The nature of what Iblis personifies (as the actual Iblis logically cannot be omnipresent, and cannot literally tease everyone at once) self-importance, arrogance, vice, prejudice and even racism (though racism isn't entirely the accurate word, seeing that it is between an angel/djinn and a human); all of these being progenitors of ignorance (Jahl).
Now Iblis and the Shaytan are sometimes used interchangeably, but when taken outside of the story of his refusal to prostrate before Adam (A.S.), the khalafa, he should be taken as a symbol.
When phrases like "don't let the Shaytan tempt you" are used, it should be fairly obvious that the real intended meaning hermeneutical meaning of this analogy is "don't embody the traits of the Shaytan", because nothing actually tempts us, rather we ourselves embody it.

Assorted thoughts + Aspects of our Apocalyptic Age

Assorted Thoughts: 

My evolving view is currently at:

Mount Sinai was a massive event, these things were scrambled to be recorded down with the book of Genesis itself being a preservation of something much older (and with it's connections with other middle eastern legends).
The "Torah" is in two parts, there are those five books but there is also the Talmud (within it the Mishna and Midrash, among others).
Jews did a fairly good job at trying to preserve all this history and revelation, although they were not perfect.

The figure of Jesus is far more complex. The physical historical person who taught the doctrine of the Gospel of the Kingdom, was one thing. His life is another thing.
The New Testament represents a lot of the competing views of him, as well as a much less pristine attempt to preserve him.
The Ebionites were definitely the closest to the actual early Nazarene community.
The Christian 'gospels' (reinvention of the term to mean books) are one thing, Gnostic 'gospels' are another. Like prior, we are dealing with the attempts at preserving oral tradition.

As the final verse of the gospel of John says: "Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written."

This is itself a hint towards a validation of much of what is contained in 'gnostic' texts, because we are dealing with various groups spread around the middle east at the time who had different bits of this original oral tradition spanning what Jesus taught and his life.

(this is also why the Qur'an seems to reference some things about Jesus found in gnostic texts - such as making clay birds etc)

The main point is that Jesus is not limited to just those four books, just as Muhammad isn't limited to one hadith collection.

Then we have the case of Islam which is a state of finality, to however you interpret that.
Muhammad received and preserved that last revelation (Qur'an) which expounds all things.
From the very earliest period, everyone knew not to conflate the Qur'an with the sayings and life of Muhammad, that the two were connected but not the same (something that never happened with Jesus).
The oral tradition surrounding Muhammad and his life consequently amassed a very voluminous library of records. Unlike with the Christian gospels, these collections known as hadith have no explicit 'canon', there is rather methodologies of verifying authentic accounts from inauthentic accounts because of the wise practice of recording chains of transmission.
So out of Islam we get a much broader and prolific recording of the Prophet.

Unlike the previous two, the revelation itself (Qur'an) was standardized very early on and hasn't changed, it is not conflated with Hadith.


Basically we have three very different paradigms for recording history and revelations received by Prophets.
The Qur'an is expounding, refuting and unveiling light out of a very very complex situation prior. It is finding the diamond in the rough, re-establishing what was all along meant to be a universal revelation.



__________________________________________________________________________

Aspects of Our Apocalyptic Age:

I am slowly intuiting a kind of religio-phenomenological-sociological kind of map of how different religious movements/religions, esoteric movements and socio-political things all relate to each other.

History does seem to consist of a lot of really radical occultists who's revelations become split into parts of competing factions who crystallize into an embodiment of the age/era which appeals towards a wider-audience. There is a strange competing between the mainstream and the fringe/elite/initiated.
There is the visible and the shadow, in other words.

Every religious movement also has it's political parallel as there are political systems created, either directly related to it (such as the Catholic Church or the Sunni Caliphates, etc) or indirectly. Every century has it's own zeitgeists and 'currents' (to use Thelemic terminology).

The current period, seems to have this gradual shattering of a very bright and pristine esoteric light. It seems to have started at the revelation of Islam via the Ahlulbat and the Twelve Imams, passing through the Ismailis and the Sufis, then lingering in the dark for many centuries before becoming the highly occult doctrines and mysticism and magic of The Bab, who formed Babism/Bayani.
This was too arcane for the masses and would never become a world-religion.
There are other parallels with this zeitgeist, ones that would not be as influential however - things like the philosophical/political "enlightenment" era, Mormonism, Jehovahs Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, Spiritualism, Blavatsky/Theosophy, Eliphas Levi.
Most notably though preceding The Bab and the rest by about two centuries was the very infamous/controversial Heretical Jewish Messiah, Sabbatai Zevi who also cast a shadow.
All the things that culminate with The Bab cause a splinter in his own movement giving rise to the Prophet Baha'u'llah who creates the only sect of Islam that successfully branched away from Islam and became it's own separate religion - that being Baha'i.
Baha'u'llah was succeeded by his own equivalent of the Apostle Paul, being Abdul'baha and Shoghi Effendi, who both promoted/propagated/evangelized the Baha'i message and created socio-political ties around the world with related organizations and movements with similar ideals.
One in question is the evolution of Theosophy, the controversial author Alice Bailey who had her own aspirations towards world-unity.

Then we have a lot of events in the 20th century and organizations form, and political alliances such as the United Nations (who themselves have their fair share of conspiracy theories).


History itself does seem to be a constant commentary on the past, as well as the splintering and projection of shadows onto a wall. Ideas are evolved in such a manner that give rise to new forms out of old bodies of ideas.

Islam is the finality of the Abrahamic Tradition (no Prophets after Muhammad), Baha'i is the distillation of the Quranic message and a proper universalization of it's message. It is an expansion of the central Muhammadun focal point.
We have surrounded by it growing socio-political and philosophical interest in a unification of systems towards a point.
Thelema has it's aspects though it remains always fringe (no matter how much Crowley and Parsons are referenced in pop-culture), Blavatsky and Alice Bailey have their aspects too and remain hefty influence on a lot of political structures (U.N. being the most notable, E.U. being semi related).


We have further occult strands dating very far back as well, such as that of John Dee who gave rise to the English Empire, with his connections to Plato's Atlantis which from Francis Bacon was a further influence on the concept of America or the United States (of America), which is a prototype for the further expansion of the United Nations.
There is a lot of back and forth ideas played with here.

Then furthermore there is the conceptions (wrongly misinterpreted, misunderstood and demonized by the conspiracy crowd) of Freemasonry, which takes the concept of the Hermetic "Great Work" to a massive scale. Being that a man lives for 70 years (generally) and is only capable of so much through his labor in that amount of time, so an organization stretching over centuries is capable of far more with the transformation of human consciousness than a single person - therefore creating an egregoric entity that can produce so much more profound change to humanity over the span of millennia.
Freemasonry itself containing a lot of the same kinds of traits and having it's own esoteric teachings (to do with death and the soul), but most notable concepts being the equality of humanity, the One God and bridging the differences between cultures etc.


Basically though, we are living in a massive construct that has both it's divinely revelatory aspects, as well as it's secular aspects. In many ways, as others before us have already noted, there is a clear sense that all fields of human endeavor will eventually become one. It is an inevitability.
Things that couldn't happen in Islam (although the 9th-13th century were certainly flowing with scientific inspiration) were then leeched into things like Masonry which further leeched into Baha'i, Theosophy, Thelema and even the New Age movement.
These things are all nodes that are connecting towards something else.

Furthermore so much things in popular media seem to be indicating towards something of this nature (albeit conveyed fictionally). These is something going on and I don't think it's to be feared.

Also I will add that it is fascinating how all the major world religions are awaiting some kind of messianic figure yet we've already had the biggest known change in human civilization in the late 19th century, of which we're living through the results of such radical changes right now in the internet-age of the 21st century.

The chaos of the modern age however certainly hasn't dissipated and in fact continues to increase in intensity and hostility. On one side of things, the Thelemic Aeon Of Horus is more than obvious in it's manifestation. Humanity is in a 'new age' and is more childlike than ever in history, we are like the child Horus (the crowned and concurring....)
It is chaos and destruction, the war between Horus and Set?
Thelema is definitely one useful lens to view things.


Interestingly, in Baha'u'llah's text the "Kitab i-Aqdas" (one of the central texts of the Baha'i religion), it says that God will not send another Prophet in the next 1000 years.
In 1904 however we have Crowley receiving Liber AL Vel Legis from Aiwass, not God but an entity or angel nonetheless. Seems like Crowley is a shadow of the Baha'i "revelation" at least in the religious aspect of Thelema.
Both like Theosophy of course both espouse a kind of union between Science and Religion, and also Philosophy. (for Thelema it includes Magic of course)


I see patterns everywhere personally.


We have Crowley and the Golden Dawn before him leaking all of this ancient Occult knowledge to the public, we have before that the Baha'i religion externalizing Islamic (Shi'ite) Esotericism.
We have Theosophy bringing eastern religions into the limelight in a much more complex manner than the Baha'i's as well.

Then we've got movements in the mid 20th century such as Chaos Magic and our beloved Discordianism, both playing around with the nature of symbol, mind, perception, propaganda, philosophy and praxis.

Some various thoughts (from a notepad):

I still find it absolutely hilarious that YHWH itself is Fire in the Tanakh (Old Testament). Christians completely overlook this, even though Paul goes ahead and quotes Leviticus/Deuteronomy's statements about it.
God-as-fire, is in fact something that does attract me a lot and of course, Zoroastrianism means a great deal to me as well.
In Islam, it didn't take outside influence to notice what it said about Jannah and Jahannam. When you take the text as it is and meditate on it, as well as contemplate what Prophet Muhammad and the Twelve (or, eleven recorded so far) Imams have said about it, it's impossible for me to take dogma over what the tradition itself proclaims symbolically and metaphysically.
Everything has a dual nature, the outward form is necessary. The dogma attached to the more conventional Western "Heaven and Hell" is necessary for social and moral structure.
However outside that dogma it's not hard to see how glaringly obvious that these are alchemical metaphors, metaphysical realities on another and warnings/anticipations on the other.
They serve many roles.
Fire is God's role as purifier, destroyer and renewer. "Gardens beneath which rivers flow" is another symbol of purification but also peace and tranquility.
All of these are God.
Concepts such as burnt offerings in the Tanakh have a greater purpose and Orthodox Jews know this very well.
At the same time, these are also formulas for us to use ourselves. It's no wonder that Taoism, Hinduism, Islam and Christianity have all at various points been big proponents at alchemy and it's practice.
In many ways (in relation to this particular subject), Surah 56 may be the most important Surah in the entire Qur'an. At the same time it outlines what later in the west became known as Phenomenology (of which I adhere to somewhat).
What I see everywhere in different scriptures and sacred texts is that often different "realities" are overlapping at once. I don't mean realities as in realms or dimensions but rather parallel aspects of a congruent whole of which illustrate a central idea under many guises.
The reality of Duality is perhaps the most well-known example. Male/female, existence/nonexistence, sun/moon, dark/light, night/day, etc.
The point is that there are things that universally manifest themselves on so many levels through nature and unseen realms.
This relates to the Apocalypse for instance, in one sense, how it has a psychological level, it has a political level, it has a cosmic aspect (literal planet destruction or universe implosion etc) and it has a Dramaturgical level (relating to the soul itself experiencing the merging with the divine through the expression of universal symbols). Etc etc etc.

There is a lot there but essentially what I'm saying is that these things have a long shelf-life and are not merely psychological (materialistically) or mythological. I think psychology in the 20th century took a massive nosedive when it failed to recognize that psychological and cognitive states are themselves just metaphors and expressions of metaphysical realities.
The problem relates further with science too but really when it comes to things of that nature too (such as psychology, science/cosmology, etc) we should be perceiving them as not things of themselves which define other things but rather lower emanations of greater ideas. It's a shame that materialist science just inverted the tree of life, in a way.
It's fun and all to entertain a purely dogmatic materialist view, inasmuch as it is fun to entertain a purely dogmatic evangelical view but both are as shortsighted as each other

I understand the contention within Science to sever ties to religiousity but science itself is an expression of philosophy, and philosophy itself is heavily spiritual (even materialist philosophy is spiritual, only that it deals with a soul trapped from it's divine nature trying to work out why things are the way they are, being eternally trapped in a tiny paradigm that will only get smaller as science closes-off itself).
Science just becomes ideology when it throws out metaphysics but as we all know, physics itself is doomed and trapped without having metaphysics to make sense of it. etc etc etc.


How did I get to that again? lol.


So yeah, eSoteric religion is the way to go because it is authentic religion that understands what it is saying and is not closed off to rationality. The practice of mysticism however makes a good balance if one was to go down a wholly rational approach.
Rationality and mysticism both have their limits, which is why they need to balance each other.
We certainly have the ability to experience a whole large array of potential divine experiences in this life but it does ultimately come down to how salvation itself is the path out. Gnosis and the path of Law (Dharma/Tao/Sharia etc) is the two things which bring us towards the eventual unification with the Absolute. That is perhaps why both Buddhism and Islam in particular promote a middle/straight way/path, which is in the middle of both potential extremes.

In Islam, God is so personal that it is completely impersonal in every sense (and with it's antagonism towards anthropomorphism). This impersonality is so impersonal that it is total freedom in every single aspect when realized for how profound it really is.
In Christianity, God is stuck to form and appearance. The God is Christianity is too personal that it becomes an emotional belief. There are of course outliers but the problems that arise from this are the reason for Nietzsche’s statement “God is dead”.
The notion of “Everything that can be said has already been said” just resurfaced in my mind. One Biblical allusion that reminds me of this is “There is nothing new under the sun” (from Ecclesiastes).
Whilst it can seen fatalistic and Nihilistic, there is further meaning there.
Especially when we consider cyclical time and the notion of metaphysical archetypes it becomes hard to not see that history mirrors itself, everything reflects multiple other things. This is as much mystical as it is a physical phenomena.
In some way the Buddhist doctrine of Pratītyasamutpāda can be felt here too by virtue of nothing in physical existence having an identity due to itself, all things relate to what came before, what came after and what it itself exists within. One immediate metaphor that comes to mind is a web or spiderweb (intriguingly enough the Hindus thought about this in the Mandaka Upanishad).
Another thing this brings to mind is from the following ayat: “and Allah controls all things“

The Qur'an and Initiation (part 1)

I think part of the reason some things are not mentioned by God in the Qur’an is not because they aren’t true but they were originally (before the main Hadith collections) reserved for a certain elite who would be capable of directly contextually understanding them first hand from within the realm of the Prophet (saw), the Ahlulbayt and the Sahaba.


This does seem to largely be the case between Prophet Muhammad (saw) and the twelve Imams, who bare the most intimate of initiatory lineages.One of the reasons for keeping certain things secret is the inevitable obsession and destructive tendencies within the mind of man(kind) when given to the wrong people. Another reason is that some things are too “out-there” for certain types of people to contemplate (one example easily accessible to Christians is how Pharisees prepared to stone him after proclaiming the deeply eStoteric statement “I and the father are one”), and another reason is that people have the habit of developing false hopes through false (and often fanatical) interpretations.


Things such as knowledge of the Mahdi (Qa’im), Barzakh, et al are clearly esoteric or occult, and deal with concepts that are not relatable to the layman.The Qur’an gives allusions constantly to many things but at the same time God revealed the Qur’an for all of mankind. Because of this, the role of something like Sunnism becomes obvious as it caters to the average layman audience, regardless of cultural background. It’s understandings are sweet, simple and uncontroversial to itself. It’s aims have zero to do with spirituality (Ihsan) and the esoteric (batin), with exception of Sunni Sufis, and all instead to do with the overimportance of morals, discipline and ethical customs.


The role of Shi’ism prior to the modern era stands in stark contrast, having been one of central esoteric (batin) initiation, one that looks very deeply at the philosophical and esoteric truths that Sunnism only lightly touches the surface of – as to say, that Shi’ism has a much more sophisticated metaphysical understanding of the same universally-Islamic ontology (all grounded in Tawhid, which is the Unity of God).I think the Sunni/Shi’i divide (as it is commonly framed as) is more than just politics or even spiritual succession, it is the relating in an obscure way to who deserves what knowledge. Sunnism serves as a gatekeeping for the masses, a way of ensuring the layman stays focused at the most basic aspects of faith (Iman). This likewise also relates to a Sunni’s (sometimes detrimental) understanding of their own doctrines – as a result it creates a politicising reaction to Shi’ite doctrine because they lack the knowledge (‘ilm) and wisdom (hikmah) to process and evaluate that which they have no knowledge – as to say, the process of understanding a word, idea, symbol and scripture is left in it’s surface aspect for need of cohesion and social stability.


Such states of mind can be seen, for instance, between the average Protestant Christian and the monastic monks of Catholic Orders. The comparison is radical but it does a good idea at demonstrating what the divide really entails, in it’s purer form. In one hand the monk says “I only want to be with God and experience God’s presence” and on the other hand the Protestant sees any attempt at connecting with God as evil and “Unbiblical” since ‘belief alone’ in the Protestants mind is the be-all-end-all of their religion.God keeps things ambiguous often in the Qur’an because many passages, many Surah too, are referring to multiple things at the same time. It has a doctrinal axis pole (qutb) that is firm, but it’s surrounding contents are rather like a prism wherein light shines through from different angles and gives different colours, such angels are embodied in the unfoldment of the Shi’ite Imams and their relation to the Qur’an. Such initiatic figures as the Imams represent the continued divine guidance from God to mankind, not in the form of Nabi or Rasool but rather the Wali (Walaya).

The Qur'an: Created or Uncreated?

Regarding if the Holy Qur’an is ‘uncreated’ or not (which I’ve not really understood either view), I’ve recently had contemplations on the subject and how it relates to freewill/determinism. 
In this post I will be exploring it from a philosophical and theological perspective, and not from fiqh.
Whilst the Qur’an does have some very mystical-apocalyptic passages throughout, it places emphasis on these as inevitable culminations of macro-history but through the inner dramaturgical experience of the Soul itself uniting with it’s Creator.

When dealing with scripture, the Qur’an does say numerous times “and we have not destroyed a town who had not first been sent a messenger” (paraphrasing)
In contemplating determinism/freewill, we must consider that scripture serves as a warning in the most direct and immediate sense. In conjunction with this, scripture is also the forcing of realization or awareness onto people who are oblivious to such things. The Qur’an is revealed to both the most intelligent and spiritual of people, as well as the most unsophisticated and secular-minded, so we must take this into account when dealing with how the Qur’an conveys such things. As a logoic book of direct revelation it serves as a meeting point, as a mediator, between various views, philosophies and conceptions but remains heavily on the esoteric side.
From here we can look at the paradox:

If the Qur’an was ‘uncreated’, then either it would not reference ‘earthly’ events at all (which of course is paradoxical because human language is from earth), or it would indicate that human events are equally part of the same book – in that I can see an aspect of the notions of ‘book of nature’ or ‘nature as scripture’ which both Muslim and Jewish philosophers have spoken of.

On the other hand, if the Qur’an was ‘created’ then on the exoteric level it would indicate a finite or lower divine status. The question as to what exact forms this perspective however, I remain unsure for now.

I think a further aspect to this which is always overlooked, is that in Islamic metaphysics, the Qur’an is the last portion of the Umm al-Kitab (or, the mother book), a celestial or heavenly logoic essence which resides in heaven symbolically. This is the basis of the Tawrat and Injeel in their original states. This aspect of the Quran’s ontological status is always missed when discussing the topic, the relevance is a necessity. 
We also have the further implication of all things been kept in a ‘record’, as stated in various Quranic Ayah (e.g, Surah 57:22).

Now the Qur’an being ‘uncreated’ along with actual theological contemplation would suggest a monistic view of reality (an obvious layer being related to the central Islamic axiom of La ilaha illa'llah, or "There is No God But God".)
The contents of the Qur’an in such a view would emphasize how reality parallels itself, how the Qur’an itself outlines the universal archetypes for the unfolding events of history. Such understandings, while prevalent in the Qur'an and understandings of even Sunnism, is far more expressed in Shi'i views with Imamate.
This also relates to an aspect of the inner or esoteric mystery contained within the veil (al-hijab) or reality, of which could be achieved through meditation on it’s pages would show us in the ‘aql sense.

The Qur’an being ‘created’ would suggest an undetermined history that is nudged by the Divine. It’s references to events in the Prophet Muhammad’s (a.s.) life could be seen as an indication and evidence of the created aspect, however the aforementioned apocalyptic passages throughout seem to create a paradox within such a question. 
As with the other prophets outlined in the Qur’an (and also in the Bible), the life and actions of these divinely chosen leaders and reformers seem to instigate a metahistorical universality in the aforementioned actuality of history being a mirror to itself.
Shi'ism and Sufism contains the doctrine of the Muhammadun Light (Nur), which would be one good concept we would naturally expect from the Qur'anic narrative. The seal of the Prophets, Muhammad, is the encapsulation of all Prophets - the synthesis of all previous ages. The light (Nur) that emanates through him, preceded the creation of Adam.
The nature of the Qur'an itself can therefore be seen as an illuminating amplification and on some level, self-awareness, through this ongoing process that is outside of time itself.
This awareness through various layers, both affirms the Primordial Doctrine (Tawhid) and instantiates change, while providing a kind of potentiality for the history that is to unfold for us. The Prophetic aspect of all of this boarders between real historical events and allegory, even to the point of allegorizing our own existence.

As far as the nature and universality of the Qur'an itself, Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq (a.s.) himself is reported to have said:
"Because Allah (swt) did not make the Qur'an for a certain time and not another, or for certain people and not others. It is new every time and fresh for all people until the day of judgement"
(Scale of Wisdom, ch.1510, H5163)


Fundamentally the ambiguity between paradox itself (man/woman, chicken/egg, free-will/determinism etc) is an over-arching theme that should be noted and I find that breaking down the exoteric in the abrahamic religions leads to the esoteric by necessity, by it’s nature.

The Begining

The Beginning of A World Without Notice:

An introduction

I am inspired by Shi'i Islam, and Mahayana/Vajrayana Buddhism. My ventures and positions on many things are vast. This blog will be exploring many of those things, whether it be religion/spirituality/occultism, philosophy, politics or art. 

This introduction will be brief. We live in a turbulent world, in a society that is fragmented and fundamentally confused. We live in a world run through the vessel of division and we are egos inflated only to be siphoned.

The life-span of an average person is very short, every breath is sacred. Planet earth is sacred and we need to give her the reverence she deserves.

My influences go from Pythagorus and Plato, to the Upanishadic sages, to Buddha, to Jesus (pbuh), to Muhammad (pbuh) and the Twelve Imams (pbut), to Padmasambhava, to the great alchemists such as Paracelsus, to infamous spiritual leaders like Aleister Crowley, to philosophers like Artaud, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Deleuze, and to mystics such as Rene Daumal. 

My artistic influences are equally as left-field and diverse, ranging from Ockeghem to Bach to Xenakis, from Nick Drake to John Zorn, from Enya to Meshuggah. A fan of the films of artists such as David Lynch, to the early surrealists, to even more obscure filmmakers such as Sergei Parajanov.
I follow the path of inspiration and it has taken me far. Art expresses that which is hard to express in any other way, the aspect of life which remains totally allusive to the rational mind.

Today, the 31st or January 2020 I begin this blog as my way of diving into this heated and chaotic decade. 

As salaam alaikum, 

Om Shanti Shanti Shanti.