Friday, April 18, 2014

surah 24: the light



all praise is due. all praise is always due for this gift, for this opportunity to bring homeostasis to the Body we all collectively belong to, that we comprise in the Essence. the only thing between us and our Happiness, between us and levitating mountains and walking water is our nafs (ego), our indolence in lackadaisical work ethics that stifle possibility, that keep us from honey.

O you who have believed, do not follow the footsteps of Satan. And whoever follows the footsteps of Satan - indeed, he enjoins immorality and wrongdoing.  24:21

satan is a warning, a figure of distress for those who need imagery of consequence. satan is us, satan is our lack of humility, our individualism, our unaccountability to all others than our sense of self, our lower being. hence the need for surrender, the need for laws that nature makes clear, even when we are apt to disbelieve in laws. laws exist. science makes this clear. math makes this clear. the art of surrender (islam) is geometry - divine mathematics. 

O you who have believed, do not enter houses other than your own houses until you ascertain welcome and greet their inhabitants. 24:27

There is no blame upon you for entering houses not inhabited in which there is convenience for you. 24:29

surah 24 lays out the laws of behavior, of upright being in interactions between those of opposing genders, between people, in matters as seemingly trivial as dinner gatherings. 

And those who accuse chaste women and then do not produce four witnesses - lash them with eighty lashes and do not accept from them testimony ever after. 24:4

Except for those who repent thereafter and reform, for indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful. 24:5

Allah warns you against returning to the likes of this [conduct], ever, if you should be believers. 24:17

ALLAH is merciful, is just, makes the road of de-blocking Qi a reality, a possibility, if only we would listen. 

i realized recently that people need religion. they need religion because religion provides a blueprint for proper action and people don't know how to act. i realize this when i continue to provide free services to people who ask for ayurvedic evaluations and treatments and them exercising the utmost parsimony, knowing i come from a family of struggle, of economic blues, and continue to play this horn like miles and yusef lateef in the 14th street underground tunnel leading from the 1 to the f. 

i'm usually a little surprised, a little saddened, that the people i am meeting with will not even offer me a tea. i'm surprised because they have jobs and make more money than me and my family combined, but always complain of how they don't have enough. i guess i'm taken because of contrasts, because of my friends who are really scraping, because of people like my ammu who will walk a mile for a .25 cent difference in the price of broccoli and use the few dollars i give her a month to whip up miracles for me and everyone else. everyone comes to eat at my parents crib and yet my folks are a dozen times below the poverty line. deep. 

people who come need religion because they forget manners. sometimes they come like vultures, gulp down everything in sight and bounce.

when you enter houses, give greetings of peace upon each other - a greeting from Allah , blessed and good. (24:61) 

simple. right? but maybe you need to be told, maybe you just need a reminder. i do. i forget. i default on the babylon culture of self, do me. i get blinded by this, which may be why so many of the "professionals-class" i know are also like this. they've been educated to cheapen their worth. i'm worth more than that. you're worth more. you're a diamond. no shortcomings if you truly believe in Essence. you are rich. what are you afraid of. but we forget. i forget. luckily i have good examples like my folks n scraping friends. luckily i am still scraping myself. 

so people like my friends and family who talk spirituality, who namaste and talk yoruba, and the importance of prophet muhammad, they need religion, real bad. they, are what surah 24 refers to as hypocrites. 

But the hypocrites say, "We have believed in Allah and in the Messenger, and we obey"; then a party of them turns away after that. And those are not believers.24:47

they seem to believe but turn their face from compassion, sharing, duty, are quick to judge, contribute to effector and receptor neurons acting in emergency mode, setting off histamines and debilitating the Body into greater division between men, between women, between each other and Life. 

the default of health is balance, as ALLAH is just, requires harmonious relationships that are only possible from humility, from truthfulness. 









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