Part 6. Man as Haikel of Tawhid. Mystical Experience. Monotheism and Paganism

In this part, we will talk about what man actually is. But first, I would like to add a few remarks to what we have said in the last part about time.

 Time is a kind of paradox that cannot be explained from a material point of view. If you talk to a materialist, simply ask him about time. After all, they usually claim that physical science explains everything; no religious principles are needed…

 But time cannot be explained from the standpoint of physical science. So far, no one has discovered quanta, atoms, or any elements of time. Time has no physical medium. It is not energy or matter. It has no substance and no objective measure. Yes, we measure time by hours, days, years, but all this is conditional. We, people, have agreed to measure it this way, based on the periodic processes of nature. We measure time by space. But time itself has no criterion. It cannot be said that time has speed, weight, strength, pressure, or anything of that nature.

 Modern physics has penetrated the depths of an atom and the most distant galaxies. But the explanation of time is at the same level as thousands of years ago. Modern science has advanced in its description no further than the ancient Greeks or Egyptians. Einstein said: “Time is what the clock measures. ˮ It is clear that an ancient Greek or an ancient Sumer could have said the same thing. That is, from Thales or Pythagoras to Einstein, there was no progress in the understanding of time. It is clear that this definition does not explain anything. It’s like saying, “Man is what the ruler measures. ˮ Well, we have measured a person’s height with a ruler, but what does this tell us about his essence and nature? This is not a claim against Einstein; he really could not say anything better because time does not lend itself to physical study. It is not at all a subject of material science. Its roots lie outside the material world.

 Time is the Achilles heel of materialism. Physics cannot do without it. But they cannot explain it in any way because time is not material. It has no material substratum, and therefore it is outside the jurisdiction of physics.

 According to materialism, “time is a characteristic of the movement of matter.ˮ But what does this actually mean? That time is a measure of movement? Then what will be the measure of time itself? After all, we measure time by movement – by the movement of the hand on the dial, the movement of the shadow along the sundial, the movement of the earth around its axis, etc. That means, time is not a characteristic of movement. 

On the contrary, movement is a characteristic of time. It is quite possible to imagine movement without time and time without movement. Time is a stream in which no segment can be next to another.

 Time is the death sentence to materialism because all matter is dominated by something immaterial that does not have any physical characteristics – some kind of inner fire that permeates the matter, burning it down.

 This means that this physical matter itself has immaterial roots. Its depth is immaterial (in the physical sense). From this depth, the flame of time invades it.

We conclude that matter itself is immaterial. This is similar to what we said about cognition: the dissimilar cannot know the dissimilar. In the same way, an immaterial thing as time naturally cannot dominate material matter. The matter must have an immaterial substrate.

 Time is one of the best proofs of the limitations of the material picture of the world.

 Now let’s turn to the main topic of this part. Our cycle is called “Man in Islam. ˮ Let’s now see what man (human) actually is and what place he occupies in the universe.

To do this, you need to start with the following. God has created creation and described Himself for His creation through the creation, and made this description light, which is Haikel of Tawhid – the form or pattern of Monotheism – also called “Muhammad’s Lightˮ or “the Light of Ahl ul-Bait.ˮ This light is described in the 35th verse of surah “The Nurˮ: “Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The example of His light is like a niche within which is a lamp, the lamp is within glass, the glass as if it were a pearly star lit from a blessed olive tree, neither of the east nor of the west, whose oil would almost glow even if untouched by fire. Light upon light.ˮ

This Haikel of Tawhid is the prototype of man, in the image and likeness of which he was created. Christians say that man was created in the image and likeness of God. But this is not true because God has no image nor likeness. Man was created in the image and likeness of the highest creation of God, from the reflection of the radiance of His light. This is true. And here is the source of Adam.

The Throne of the Merciful (Arsh) is the heart for this Haikel. As the hadith says: “The heart of the believer is the Throne of the Merciful (God).ˮ And the “believer” (momin) here is not just any person – as this hadith is often misconstrued – but the Prophet or Imam. The Throne of Allah is their heart.

 We have said that our spirit is like a ray of light extended into us from the highest universal Spirit, which is white light, a Writing Cane, and the upper right pillar of the Throne. “And breathed into him of My spiritˮ (38: 72), says Allah in the Quran. That is, He extended a ray of light from this higher Spirit to Adam. This Spirit with a capital letter is the Spirit of Ahl ul-Bait, of the Fourteen Infallibles.

 And we said that our soul is a drop in the ocean of the Universal Soul, which is the green light, the upper left pillar of the Throne, the Preserved Tablet, upon which the Writing Cane writes, the Lote Tree of the Utmost Boundary and the soul of the Imam, about which Allah said in surah “Ya. Sinˮ: “And We counted every thing in the obvious Imamˮ (36: 12), and said in surah “The Ornamentsˮ: “And he is in the Mother of the Book with Us – Ali the wiseˮ (43: 4).

 And in the physical plane, man is also an expression of the red light of the Throne, which is the lower left pillar and universal life or nature, the endlessly variable vibration of life forms…

 So, the whole universe is concentrated in man, as in one point. Contrary to paganism, Monotheism says that humans are harmonious and in accordance with the universe, which is also harmonious. All parts of the universe are the mercy of Allah and His wisdom. He created the world of trial in His wisdom, and He created the world of reward in His wisdom. All these are parts of a single harmonious plan.

 Man is like the cosmos – by structure, thinking, and even language. We have not yet touched on the topic of language, although it is quite profound. According to the Quran and Hadith, the creation is based on letters, which are the prototypes of our language, primarily the Arabic language…

 So, man (human) is Haikel of Tawhid – a form, pattern, or temple of Monotheism – in whose mirror reality sees itself, just as the human soul finds a reflection of itself in the sacredness and order of the cosmos.

 Now, what is the difference between this Abrahamic point of view on man from pagan optics and the concept of the great shirk (polytheism), which permeates all non-Islamic, non-Abrahamic religions?

 The difference is that in paganism, a human being is recognized as unfit by its very structure, a kind of fundamental mistake. That is, paganism challenges the Creator by saying: “You did everything wrong and incorrect, we do not want to be the way You created us, we will become different…” As Nietzsche said: “Man is something that shall be overcome.ˮ

 That is, Monotheism asserts: you are created in the best way as the expression of the Will of the Most High. Your body is mercy, your soul is mercy, your spirit is mercy. But you need to use it all in the right way. And here is a program for you – Revelation, Law, Sharia. As the Quran says: “And so We put you on Sharia from the command – follow it! ˮ (45: 18).

 Paganism says something else: we are a mistake; human is something wrong; he is not what he should be precisely by his nature, by his composition. Let’s transform it. All versions of paganism begin with this, although they differ on how to approach it. For example, Hinduism says that the soul must unite with the world base, with what they call “Deityˮ, while Buddhism denies this and believes that liberation consists in Nirvana, in falling into nothing. But their starting point is the same.

The overcoming of man is the most basic premise of the pagan tradition. Man by himself has no value; he should not exist at all. Something else must be in his place – a deity, world nothingness, primordial principle, superhuman, etc.

 Whereas Revelation clearly says that man will forever remain a man. He is born as a man, he dies as a man, he will be resurrected as a man. He cannot become something else, he is not able to remove himself.

 Therefore, in the pagan tradition, madness is endowed with a specific value. Because it means overcoming a man. Madness is going beyond the human state. In the pagan world, madmen were often revered as saints. Madness was becoming something sacred. We’ll talk later about this matter…

 The method of this “cancelˮ of a person and the establishment of something else in his place for paganism was the so-called “mystical experienceˮ or contemplation. Let us recall how we spoke in the previous parts about “removing filters.” So, the task of paganism is precisely this – to remove the filters of the human Haikel, the human structure, so that the “human” himself would be abolished, dissolved in some elements of Great Cosmos.

 For this, various means and techniques are used: meditations, endless repetitions of the same mantras, solitude and seclusion, starvation, drugs, special dances… By the way, all this is in the so-called “Sufismˮ, which is nothing more than the invasion of paganism into Islam, the intervention of pagan logic and methods in Monotheism… All this serves to gradually remove human filters and separate man from his nature – first from the body, then the soul… So that a person is no longer a Haikel of Tawhid (form of Monotheism), as planned by the Almighty, but some wandering impersonal cosmic elements.

 And what does the religion of the Prophets tell us? It says that these practices are not needed at all. You must keep in touch with the spirit given to you, with your soul and body. You remain in this fixed position the Creator has given you, but you need to use it correctly. You should move on the path of moral perfection.

 Paganism is constantly talking about expansion. You must expand your mind, remove filters, free yourself from fixation. The Prophets say: there is no need to expand anything. Your God created you in the best possible way and gave you all the graces. But here’s a program for how to use them. Here is the Law according to which you should approach yourself.

 We have seen that man is created according to the principle of limitation. A person has many levels. But they are all concentrated in a certain rigid way, forming a single system, which we have called Haikel of Tawhid. Prophetic metaphysics deals with this person, who is already given as the result of the perfect wisdom of the Creator. It does not want to change his design – it only wants to direct him in the right way, in line with the law of God. This is the essence of the mission of all Prophets.

 And what does paganism want, historically opposing the Prophets’ religion? On the contrary, it wants to destroy this unity, this Haikel. It doesn’t accept man as created by God. The Quran quotes the words of Iblis: “And they will distort the creation of Allah” (4: 119). It is the dream of paganism to distort the creation of Allah. It says: something is wrong in humans; they were created wrong and imperfect. So it is necessary to activate some points, some centers or chakras in them, to change something – remove their body, their soul…

 You may notice that any mystical pagan contemplation begins with some unnatural things. A person is forced to take strange poses, say crazy mantras, stay awake at night, refuse food, disfigure oneself, fall into a trance. Supposedly this is the only way you will achieve illumination. It is necessary to separate the soul from the body, the spirit from the soul, and then bring it together again in some new structure. Create a Satan’s haikel instead of the Haikel of Tawhid, “distort the creation of Allahˮ…

 Therefore, in the Abrahamic religion, everything that takes a person out of his normal state is haram (forbidden) – intoxication, trance, drugs, excessive solitude, extreme asceticism…

 So, we will end this part with the fact that we have two lines, two most fundamental paradigms: the religion of the Prophets, the religion of Revelation – and the religion of contemplation, paganism, the great shirk. They contradict each other in every aspect; their logic does not converge in anything whatsoever.

 These two paradigms are the most abstract, most general matrices of all possible meanings in world history.

The first volume of Amin Ramin’s “Man in Islam” can be purchased on Amazon at this link.

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