Lives of Human Beings

The topic this morning is "The lives of man" and it's actually the title of a book by a very famous Yemeni scholar named Shaykh Abdullah Haddad.  It's available through Killingham Press and a lot of what I'm going to cover is actually derived from that book directly.  but I'm going to do some other things as well, but the actual topic is this man.  He was a brilliant scholar from the Yemen who lived almost about 200 years ago

The topic is a is a very old topic in the Islamic tradition there and there are several books in the history of Islam that deal with this tradition of the lives of man and the book is is published by Abdul Hakim winter in England who does not like the politically correct American English and so uses man and I know some people in America now don't like having man inclusive of women but it's interesting that the word the original word which is a Germanic word Minch means the male and the female it's the idea of a human being and the woman is a man with a womb right so the the woman is a man who happens to have something that the man doesn't have which is a womb and so having said that the lives of a human being have been defined  as five according to a core onyx presentation

His name is Shaykh Abdullah al Haddad.   A Mujaddid who revives or renews this Deen this tradition and he's considered one of them he had an extraordinary impact on on Yemen as well as all over the Muslim world his books have spread all over so the five periods the first period is a pre worldly period and the phenomenal existence and Numan all existence in Islam are there's a dyad here called mulk and malakut the mulk is what we can see anything that you can see feel touch the sensory world and most of our scholars would include in

this what we now know of the unseen

phenomenal world which would be the

world of x-rays light waves sound waves

gamma rays this world that we can't see

but it's palpable we can we can measure

it we have access to it the Mallicoat is

a realm that we cannot see we do not

have access to it there's some inner

penetration because the angelic world

can move into the angelic world is in

the matter coot and yet they can move

into the MOOC so the MOOC is impact

the malakut is impacting the milk and

the milk impacts the Mallicoat in that

things that are done in the milk are

either pleasing or disturbing to the

Mallicoat and that has to do with things

that are done with the the moral

component so when people are doing

righteous things the matter coot

actually is is happy and rejoices about

it when they do foul things then the

opposite occurs and I'm going to go into

that now the the importance of knowing

about these according to the Islamic

tradition is that unlike 20th century

man who in a lot of ways has removed him

or herself completely from the unseen

experience if you go into traditional

cultures you know vibra would call this

the the magical realm the the realm of

enchantment the pre-industrial realm

that people existed with a sense of

magic and they looked at the world

because it was not understood they

looked at it in a way that caused them

to experience an unseen explanation for

so much of what was happening around

them so whether illness all of these

things that happened right now if you

look just to take for the example of

illness in most cultures illness was

often attributed to evil spirits

attributed to the evil eye

obviously as medicine became more

advanced and you can see the Greek

attack on this centuries ago I mean you

know the Greeks moved into a rationalist

mode

many of the Greek philosophers did not

like those explanations and and they're

there conspicuously absent from a lot of

their texts which is interesting given

that that was a popular belief in their

culture but if you look at modern man

we have unseen explanations but they're

no longer magical so bacteria is not

something that we see it's it's an

unseen realm I mean you can see it on

the microscope but most people the

doctor says you've got a virus it's not

something you saw right he doesn't bring

out a slide and you know show you a

microscope and there it is but it is

something we understand and people have

had biology classes so they do have an

idea so we we have identified many of

the things that are impacting our world

and given them material explanations and

those material explanations caused a

disenchantment with the world so we no

longer are enchanted by what is around

us when we look at natural phenomena

many of us have some basic explanations

for it

so when weather strikes us we have

scientists that tell us this is El Nino

phenomenon and when drought comes they

explain the reasons for that and yet in

the in the ancient world and still in a

lot of places on the earth these things

are seen as coming from the unseen world

in other words drought is still

understood in most parts of the world to

be from displeasure so for instance the

Muslims still believe that drought is a

sign that blessings have been removed

and it's seen as a reminder and that's

why the Muslims will go out and do a

rain prayer and they bring their animals

out they bring their children out and

the Prophet Muhammad sallallaahu celeb

said

that if a people begin to cheat in their

buying and selling and have unjust

weights and balances the rain is

withheld from them and then he said had

it not been for dumb animals they would

have gotten no rain at all in other

words it's not the humans that are

worthy of the rain but it's the animals

that aren't doing anything wrong

so this is still part of the Muslim

world and you will find this also within

the indicator within the scenic culture

you're going to find this in many many

cultures and certainly amongst

traditional Christians in in American

culture you will still find that many of

them when they read the newspaper you

know they will see these as signs right

what's happens from God so introducing

at an early age the unseen world is

introduced to Muslim children and they

are made aware of the unseen world and

so of the five lives of man only one of

them is what we're going to experience

in this realm the other four are in

another realm and this is an indication

that the majority of creation is

actually hidden from us the Prophet

Muhammad sallallaahu said I'm said that

the likeness of this dunya and the other

world is like somebody who puts their

finger into an ocean and pulls it out

what is on his finger in relation to the

ocean is like the unseen world in

relation to this world and he also

reported that he saw the angel Gabriel

in his original form and he fill

the entire horizon of a desert landscape

so if you could imagine looking out

towards Santa Fe and seeing an angelic

being fill the entire horizon right

having an experience that was a

spiritual experience that took place for

that human being and giving him an

insight into the relationships

quantitative relationships of this world

to the other world and there are many

examples of that in the tradition

so the second realm and I'm going to go

into each one more is the period of life

from birth to death so the first one is

the pre worldly realm and this is called

the period I had to me that which I'll

get into in a second the meth up the

second is dunya now in Arabic the word

dunya comes from a root word dunya and

it has a few meanings one of them is

reaching out for graves that will they

every time you you get near them they

move a little further away from you so

it's the the idea there is that the

phenomenal world is that we as we

attempt to grasp it we're moving away

right Paul Simon has a song called slip

slidin away right the near you are to

your destination the more your slip

sliding away right and it's about death

is that you know you

and and and that that idea is captured

in a wonderful hadith of the Prophet

Muhammad's Eliza time in which he drew

in the sand a box and then he drew a

line and he drew a line up here he

didn't write it but he drew a line here

at the top of this line and then he drew

a line out here and he said that this

was a man's journey in life and these

lines were the our table

they were the vicissitudes of his

journey at each stage things will happen

to him if they don't do him in he moves

to the next one until he reaches at this

the agile is your appointed term and it

could be at any point because people are

different it could be at any point along

the way but there for people who go all

the way through they reach old age and

what gets them is known as Haram and

there's a tradition in which the Prophet

said peace be upon that the children of

Adam God has given them the ability to

do all things except conquer harem they

can't conquer old age and he also said

that anxiety was half of harem right

that having a lot of anxiety will will

actually cut your life in half so as

you're moving up through life you reach

this edge um but then he had a line

outside of the box

and he said this was a man's Emin which

is his hope so a man's hope is always

beyond his time and it's this is a

really important motif there's a verse

in the Quran that says that home yet

could away a tomato well you will hear

him am elohim leave them these people

that reject what you're telling them

about the inevitability of the next life

leave them to eat and enjoy themselves

and to be entertained and Iulia means to

preoccupy themselves with their hope and

indeed they will come to know in other

words their edges will come and then

they're going to realize that the edge'

preceded the hope and he also said that

people two things never grow old in

people desire for life and desire for

more write in and it means here it

doesn't mean all people it means people

that are deluded so the this this desire

for extended life and and the

interesting thing is the longer a person

is here the more accustomed they get you

know you get up every morning you've had

your rituals your coffee your breakfast

you go to work you see the same people

you get accustomed to being here and we

we get we were in this very interesting

experience of the permanence and every

once in a while there are things that

happen that kind of shake us a little

bit like one day you come to work and

so-and-so was in an accident or so or

you get a phone call and your mother

just died or a good friend or something

there are these reminders and they kind

of shake people a little bit but most

people brush themselves often and just

go along get on with it right so we we

have this really and this is all about

this lower world the dunya because it's

like the grapes we're always reaching

for it and it's always moving away

because the moment we came into life

into this dunya realm our death we're

moving inevitably towards our death one

of my teachers in the desert when I was

leaving and it was a camel journey of

about a day the last thing he said to me

he said this journey that you're taking

this morning is like your life you're

moving towards a destination and every

step that your camel makes takes you a

step closer to that destination and he

said every breath you take is a step

closer to the termination of your

breaths so keep that in mind along the

way and I was with a West African we

arrived at a airport and he'd never been

on one of these moving not the the

escalators but the actual sidewalks yeah

and we got on it and we were standing

there moving along and he said this is

amazing this is just like our lives we

think we're standing still but we're

moving towards our deaths and then it

was really interesting because at the

end of the of the sidewalk there there

was a sign that said caution the end

comes abruptly

so there's that is the metaphor right

and this is the point that unlike that

escalator where you know where it's

going to end the the you know this this

walkway of life that we're on the end

can come at any point and so keeping

this in mind is something that's really

important I'm going to go a little bit

into that and then the third stage is

known as the buzzer and a buzzer is a

space between two places like in the

Quran it says about the two oceans that

between them is a butter sock

the the sweet water and the salt water

between them is a interspace and if you

if you've ever seen where big rivers

meet the ocean there's an admixture of

the sweet and the salty that has a

completely different ecology it has a

different the water is not the same that

is that's what a butter sock is it's an

interspace that's not this or that it's

neither this nor that and so when we die

there is a place that is neither this

world nor is it the next world you're in

this interspace and and this is where

people are in their graves and and we'll

get to that also chalma and then the

fourth place is the gathering place

where the hash out and the nut shot

takes place and this is going to be

final judgment takes place in this realm

what's called the day of judgment and

then the fifth is the final

abode either divine presence or

alienation from divine presence it's one

or the other now to look at the word in

Arabic for a life is called an AMA and a

Kuwaiti term of endearment a wife will

call her husband or the husband will

call the wife only my life and if

they're just getting to know each other

they'll say Bardo Omri part of my life

so Omar is a it's not an entire life it

is a part of life

so for instance in the Quran it says

that the prophets is the Quran says to

the place that the Prophet says to them

I dwelt among you a lifetime before this

revelation in other words the first 40

years so this is an omen right the first

40 years is a lifetime and some say

there's a version the Quran that

mentions that God gave people a full

life and it said that it's 40 years that

if you've had 40 years on the earth then

you've had a full life right and

whatever comes after is just bounty

right that you should be grateful you

made it to 40 so human beings within

this dunya realm have stages also and

and we'll get into that so that's what a

neuroma is it's a it's a life now the

first life was the life before

conception and there's a verse in 7 172

in your translations in the chapter 7

172 when it says

is that when your Lord brought forth

from the children of Adam from their

loins their seed and made them testify

of themselves the Veria that all of

adam's progeny every human being that

would ever exist was brought forth on a

plane in this pre worldly stage and they

were told by the in the divine presence

i'll estuviera become am I not your Lord

all every soul that has ever existed is

existent now and will ever exist was

brought into this divine presence and

said am I not your Lord and those souls

replied in the affirmative bed a Shahid

'no we indeed you are our Lord

and we testify to that truth now this

truth is buried in the soul and there's

not a lot in the Quran or in the Hadees

about this pre worldly there's only one

other event that we know of which is

another contract was made with the

prophets that they would all tell their

peoples of the last prophet that's the

only other indication that we have about

this pre worldly realm now from this pre

worldly realm there is a downward

descent from this divine presence

the human being descends into the womb

after a hundred and twenty days at a

hundred and twenty days the this soul

that was in the Divine Presence enters

into the womb of its mother so for the

first hundred and twenty we're dealing

with a biological phenomenon that does

not have spiritual life right it has

biological life that is actually the

mother right the biological life is the

mother the individuation of that soul

does not come until 120 days at a

hundred and twenty days it enters into

the womb and begins to experience and

it's interesting because this is about

the tonton well there were some scholars

who felt that before 120 days abortion

was permitted but the dominant opinion

is it's not there are there there is an

opinion of scholars that abortion before

120 days was not and it's not considered

murder before 120 days but it's

considered prohibited by the vast

majority of the Muslim scholars for a

number of reasons one because it's an

interruption of a divine process two

because there's a serious danger to the

the woman which it's not permissible to

put yourself into a type of danger for

something because the Quran says you

know that's up to a radical hush-hush it

said in Locke don't kill your children

out of fear of provision because it says

that chill

are provided for they come with their

own provision that's a belief in Islam

that your children bring their own

provision right there food everything

they're going to get was already decreed

for them so you're not you know you're

not it's they're not taking from you

they're actually bringing their own and

for most people you know that they

actually see an increase with children

you know their lives actually there's an

increase that comes with children now

during this time and it's interesting

it's about 120 days the heartbeat right

is audible you'll start hearing the

heartbeat and during this time the the

soul is in this this is like a bottle

sock every death out of these five

stages there is a death and a birth so

as you leave one realm and die from that

realm you're born into another realm so

we are we are dying and being born into

these realms and during this time it's

believed to be important for the woman

to be in a good spiritual state - and

that these will affect the child what

she eats making sure that her food is

how now also her thoughts her state and

that's why in traditional cultures it

was very important that a woman was felt

very secure that there was an anxiety

that there wasn't and this is why even

it with divorce the divorce period is

the entire pregnancy so that she doesn't

have anxieties about provision and

things like that and it's not encouraged

to divorce during pregnancy now at the

point that the child moves into the next

stage from this Barza into the dunya

and that's why dunya means the lowest

world it is the lowest we are in the

lowest world in this hierarchy of world

when the child comes into the dunya the

first thing that is done is the Adan is

recited into the right ear and the

formula which is known as the otama

which is done before the prayer is

recited into the left ear and then you

put something sweet on the tongue dates

like choose some dates and put it on the

tongue and the reason for this is that

there are two important things that

every human being should know about the

duniya the first is the wide and the

second is the ye the wide is the promise

that you will go back to the Divine

Presence from whence you came this is a

promise you will go back to the Divine

Presence because the child is moving

into the realm of separation they are

still in divine unity and this is why

children are not in a differential state

they can't differentiate at this point

what what will happen is the promise is

the garden but the garden has a key in

other words you the garden is not earned

but it's also not given without struggle

or effort I mean the Muslims confer with

the Christians in that it is through

grace that people are that people are

are given that the divine presence but

that grace is given through a fir

in other words there's nothing that you

could do to make yourself worthy of that

grace so it's not something that can be

achieved or earned but at the same time

there has to be the move towards that

that it's not given without that effort

and that's why in the Quran you will see

verses that indicate that this is a

reward for what you were doing it's it's

a reward that is is is is way beyond

whatever the people were doing but they

don't get that without the effort so the

Yee is this when the child is born it is

the wide and not the way eat because

they're not in the realm of the the

punishment they're in the realm of the

promise and this is why children that

die before puberty have no accounting

according to the dominant opinion and in

fact one of well I'll get to that when

we I might forget so I'll mention this

now one of the things that people whose

children die before they reach puberty

on the day of judgment they will bring

water to their parents on the plane when

everybody else is suffering and and then

they'll actually be happy that that

happened like the pain they had in this

world is transformed into a joy in the

next world and other people envy them

they're envious that they have those

children that come with this relief on

that day and they seek out their parents

they go and find them so the promise is

what is what is told to the child is a

shadow and let you know a lot where

shadow on a mohammed rasoolallah this is

a reminder to the soul that's embedded

in this infant it's a reminder you see

you have this in many traditions you

know the Platonic tradition talks about

this Plato believed that with what this

world was was an arena to remember what

we already knew in the world of

archetypes before we came into this

world we knew truths and this world we

enter into forgetfulness and what we

have to do in this world is wake up to

what we already knew and this is the

allegory of the cave of realizing that

there's a journey to be made we have to

get out of the shadow show of the

illusion right which is really

interesting because in a way human

beings now if you look at film and

television which are the dominant

preoccupations of many many human beings

now it's very similar to the cave

because people are watching these images

projected from lights flickering on

their TV screens and in their movie

theaters and their illusions and there's

this whole other real world out there

and there are people now that are

preferring this world of illusion this

vicarious world this virtual reality to

a whole other world which the world that

they're dismissing is still considered

to be another television it's just a

better program so that is the reminder

to the soul and there's a belief that

the soul hears that and it resonates and

there's a there's a deep belief in the

Islamic tradition that when people hear

la la la la that it resin

with them that they recognize the truth

of it right I mean everybody knows does

anybody not know that I hate la la means

every maid knows that right la ilaha

illa Allah there is no god but Allah

yeah that's that is that is the the I

mean from the Muslim perspective that is

the reason we were created to testify to

that truth that there is no other

purpose and muhammad rasool allah which

i mentioned you know earlier is only the

latest formula there were Esau das what

Jesus is the Messenger of Allah Abraham

is the Messenger of Allah

possibly Buddha was the messenger of the

truth Krishna I don't know about because

they're not mentioned by name but there

are many traditional Muslim scholars

that said that there are high

probabilities that those traditions were

prophetic traditions that came to their

people with their language and their

understanding which is where you'll get

these differences but the the truth of

Leila hey Lala is something that Souls

recognize and Kufa is covering up that

truth that's that's what a person who is

not in a state of submission is called a

calf fill which is often translated as

infidel which is not a correct

translation infidel is actually a Latin

Christian term for people that didn't

accept Christianity in Fidelis without

faith the the belief the kaffir is

somebody who's covering up this truth

that its own soul knows because these

lower passions have overwhelmed the

higher essence of that human being and

they don't like what the implications of

that are so they choose not to look at

it this is how the Muslims view it now

once the child enters into this realm it

will go through five stages mm-hmm the

light is the warning that if you do not

maintain your pre worldly contract which

is that you testified to the truth of

the lordship of your Creator that you

you you're in trouble you're in trouble

now there is a belief in the Muslim

tradition that if you have not been

reminded you're not taken to account for

your forgetfulness right because the

overriding mode of the Creator is mercy

it's not wrath the Quran says the mercy

has preceded the wrath right and there's

a tradition in which the Prophet Salla

lot is that I'm said that God has a

hundred parts of mercy 99 he has

retained in his presence and one part he

has allowed to descend to the dunya and

it is that one part that a mother nurses

her child with that the foot the the

mayor raises her hoof from stepping on

her fall so every act of mercy in this

world is only from that one part and the

99 have been remain in the divine

presence for the day of judgment

now the second stage is the stage of the

lower world so you have the womb and

then you have the childhood now there's

some interesting things before that just

about the womb

there's many verses in the Quran like 23

12 and 4 for 22 verse 5 which deal with

the phenomenon of the womb and one of

the there's a embryologist by the name

of Keith Moore who wrote one of the

dominant textbooks for embryology it's

used I don't know if it is now but it

was a few years ago at UCLA's Medical

School and he wrote in the introduction

that there was no embryo logical

knowledge before I think it was maybe

the 17th or 18th century whatsoever and

there was no detailed knowledge until

the 20th century with the advent of a

lot of the technology that's enabled us

to look I mean now we've seen the

miracle of life right you can watch the

whole thing happen and there's a Yemeni

scholar of the majeeda Zindani who read

this and and wrote him a letter saying

here you're wrong that in the 7th

century there's very detailed

embryological information and Keith

Moore actually ended up going to Yemen

and meeting with this man and being

shown all of these verses and rewrote

his introduction to his textbook and

there are some videos of his

presentations about that in which he

admitted that the detailed information

in the Quran is the earliest example of

accurate scientific information about

the embryo logical stages and somebody

asked him if it was possible for the

Prophet to have known that and he said

that unless he had microscopic

information and and was able to go in

and actually see these because it says

in the 20250 humanity if you're in doubt

concerning this resurrection then know

that we created you from dust and then

from the drop of a seed nota now note

files are really interesting because

these are not good translations nutfah

there is a version of quran which says

that that the man had added insanity no

military dimension with kora in her

clearance and minute patent am schedge

we created the human being from a nutfah

and then it says am schedge

this in classical arabic exegesis was

always problematic because nothi is a

singular feminine form and the adjective

that's used to describe it is a plural

and you can't do that in arabic grammar

so it was always considered problematic

but the word I'm Chad means the the

message is this intermingling of lots of

things so the idea is that we created

you from this seed that has an

intermingling of many things I'm judge

and from that note feh we made you an

Allah this is the next stage the word in

Arabic Allah means a leech like now what

happens with the zai God when it's

inseminated right it gets inseminated

the sperm goes up and there's a very

twisting hadith of the Prophet and they

asked him how are males and females

determined because the the the Arabs had

a lot of superstitions about how you

know theirs they still do this

Arab women will say you know lie on your

left side or you know they've got all

these funny things that they're supposed

to do if they want a boy or a girl and

right and and they actually believe

positions influence that sexual

positions there so he was asked how what

determines the male or the female and he

said yet the sad buckle mat with Decker

Lama antha the female and the male water

race this is in sahih muslim he said the

female and the male water race and the

one that gets there first will determine

whether the child is a male or a female

which is important for a number of

reasons because women were often blamed

in classical Arabic tradition for having

not producing males it was considered

something was wrong with the woman right

and so that indicates you know the X and

the y chromosome that you have the male

and the female water and water is also

used in the Quran in many verses that

are now interpreted to be the genetic

material we feed them all from the same

water but we vary them with that water

and that means sperm as well in arabic

mountain in san man's water is his sperm

so the the Iloka means a clinging thing

so when the zygote comes down it

literally clings to the side of the womb

and it will embed itself in the womb and

actually will will break down to to

cling into the womb so and then it

begins the

to derive its nourishment from the

embryonic sac and then it talks about

being in the three veils of darkness in

the Quran which Keith Moore identified

as these the three layers within the

womb and then it says and then from a

lump of flesh

it says mullah and mullah is a chewed

lump of flesh and when the Wendy if you

see it on the that that first period it

looks like a chewed morsel it looks if

if an Arab was told to describe what

that was you would say moo baa baa even

though it's still microscopic it's a

chewed lump of flesh it looks like

somebody literally it looks like teeth

marks where the where the spinal cord is

forming in that initial period

it looks like teeth marks somebody

literally bit into it and then it says

shapely and shapeless because part of it

has started to shape and other parts are

still left unformed so you can see this

in at the embryonic level you can see

that some of it is shaping and others

still have no shape and then it says

that we may make it clear to you that's

why this is being told in other words

it's saying if you're in doubt about

what we're doing look at this in order

for it to be made clear to you and and

we will and then we cause what we will

to remain in the wombs for an appointed

time so inside the womb this there is an

edge in the womb as well so this is a

life there's an evolution that happens

in the womb and some of it will not

reach its agile in the same way as this

there could be a spontaneous abortion

there could be an abortion

that's wilt or an accident

so once the the child comes out it comes

into the next stage of dunya so Junior

has five stages

the first stage is one through he says

five and there's another one that goes

with seven which is consistent with the

Western tradition you could either go 1

to 7 or 1 to 15 if you go 1 to 7 which

is also considered a classical Islamic

category during these first seven years

it's the responsibility of the parents

to nurture the child this is a time that

there is absolutely no responsibility

none it's prohibited to to have any

physical discipline during this time

even up till 10 physical discipline is

is not permitted in in Sharia other than

the scholars say like twisting the ear

right grabbing the stomach you know

pinching the stomach giving them pinches

any type of physical violent force is

prohibited in any situation whether it's

male adult female adult or child is

prohibited for any violent physical

abuse that is Haram and Sharia

absolutely and there's no proof or

justification for it and we're going to

look at the verse that a lot of people

misunderstand including unfortunately

some Muslims about that but it's it's

well-known in the Islamic sharia that it

is prohibited to physically strike

anyone with violence hmm

no that's poor on ya it's a there are

several verses that deal with that

actually but the one I gave you was

twenty two five

now in twenty two five it continues and

it says afterward we bring you forth as

infants the word in Arabic this stage is

called the foot now Tuffle means in

arabic poof a li is a parasite the

puffle is somebody that cannot live on

its own it needs a host so the child

needs the parents and this is the

responsibility of the parents to nurture

the child now the Prophet Mohammed salat

is that I'm said that every child is

born on fitrah and this is an important

concept in Islam filtra is the inherent

nature of the human being

it's his aboriginal nature it is

believed in Islam that human beings are

good in their nature and it is it is

diseased societies that will affect the

the nature in a diseased way now this

obviously doesn't is not congruence with

the traditional Christian belief of the

corrupt nature but there is a similarity

between the Islamic and the Christian

belief in that there is a hadith that

says that every child is born with a

black seed in the heart and this is

similar but not the same as the

understanding of original sin

it's going kinda yeah this is going to

be the shield the actions of the parents

affect their children and there are like

in the Bible the idea of visiting on

seven generations which is you know it's

a lot you're dealing with sixty four

parents there is that concept in Islam

that your actions do affect your

offspring but there is no accountability

of the offspring in other words nobody

bears the burden of you do not like in

some of the Chinese traditions you have

the idea of inherited curses you know

that a family gets cursed for doing

wrong in one generation and their

offspring will suffer the fate of that

curse but there is a belief in Islam

that that righteousness will affect your

offspring and also wrongs will affect

your offspring you don't think as it is

available the concert hall

of inhibited agent but was a clang baby

in the census starts all over and

addiction an addiction right and the

mother is responsible for that not the

baby so the mother has has affected the

and that's we have that ability to

completely destroy the fitrah the

parents can do that to the child they

can ruin it and that's what happens

filter is not you know children will not

be if they're nurtured properly now

there is a bad seed there is a concept

of bad seed in Islam there's definitely

a concept in other words there is a

belief that there are Shelton and intz

which are demonic humans and this

results one that demons will actually

partake in the insemination that there's

Hadees that indicate that people that

are like in fornication in and it's

interesting because Islam accepts

marriage in every tradition you know

even though it doesn't accept the the

Buddhists as a people of the book that

you know they're accepted as a as a

tradition in that they can pay the jizya

tax according to imam malik but they're

there their books are not accepted as

revealed books they're not rejected but

they're not accepted it's not in the

articles of faith like the Bible and the

gospel but Buddhist marriage is accepted

if if two buddhists become muslim their

marriage is violent they don't have to

renew that marriage because marriage is

believed to be a divine institution that

it was through revelation that marriage

came about so marriage in any tradition

is accepted and therefore children that

are born of legitimate marriage in any

tradition those children have the

protection of the

sanctity of the men of the union

children born out of wedlock do not have

that protection and there can be effects

on the children because of that and one

of the things that the Prophet salat is

that I'm said is beware the wrath of

bastard children beware the wrath of

bastard children that if you do that to

children they will be angry and their

wrath will come back to you and he said

if he legitimacy spreads amongst the

people then they are spreading the wrath

of God amongst themselves and the wrath

is in the children because that was a

right that you have deprived them up

they have a right to legitimacy and if

you do not give them that you have

oppressed them and oppression engenders

anger and they are often they don't know

why they're angry right they don't know

why they're angry but they're angry and

and for our country when you're looking

at 70 percent the legitimacy rates

amongst certain communities right and

the dominant community it's it's it's in

the 40 percentile range right that which

a lot of you grew up in an age where you

know girls disappeared in high school

right I mean it's really amazing how

much has changed in our generation right

I mean in 1968 a woman was kicked out of

Vassar for living with a man in an

apartment 68 and it's really interesting

how how that's happened in this culture

so this fifth row nature is this

inherent nature and it is that the

potential for good and evil exist but

the inclination is too good if it's

nurtured but the seed of evil can be

nurtured also and if that's done then

you get people that that will they're

inclined to doing bad stuff not good

stuff absolutely and there is no

responsibility until puberty of the

child it all falls on the parents after

puberty according to the hadith the

parents are taken to account in the next

life but not in this life once the chap

you know like if you've got children

that were raised brutalized right by

their father you know or a crack-cocaine

mother who doesn't do anything for a

child these type things the

responsibility this is why you can't

judge people in this world in any

absolute sense the prophets that I was

commanded to judge outwardly but not

inwardly we we do not have the authority

to make inward judgments against people

we can only judge outwardly and those

outward judgments in Sharia are related

to transgressions but you cannot condemn

people to hell you can't none of that

that's all inward judgment and we have

no authority in that realm the variables

that are involved in any human action

are so vast that no individual can grasp

them we can but responsibility is lies

on the adult once you reach adulthood

you are responsible and in Sharia it's

not

hold up in court to have a psychologist

in there explaining what happened when

they were children and why they're doing

that that does not hold up in in Sharia

Court although Sharia laws are often

contextualized in that upon decide to

implement a HUD punishment one of the

the penal punishments because of

contextual circumstances that that does

exist so there is that realm it's it's

very organic the Islamic legal system is

it's not black and white at all between

7 and 15 Buddhism huge difference to

some communities or traditions through

the 1 to 7 and the other one to 15 I'm

looking at all you know a lot of the

crimes being committed by 315 yeah

that's that in in Sharia if they're

adult they're responsible although this

culture by Islam you cannot apply

Islamic law in the United States you

can't it would be completely

unacceptable because Islamic law is

organic it's it's a it's a holistic

system you cannot have so like let's

chop off the hands of thieves and you

have a consumer culture where the whole

society is is is is is locked in to the

the system of creating consumption as an

addiction right I mean you have to

change it's it's you know the Islamic

legal system the first chapter of

Islamic law books is called the chapter

of purity I mean it's a spiritual

tradition before it's a legal tradition

and so you can't cannot impose

the legal laws on a materialistic

society you have to introduce and this

is why the Meccan stage precedes the

medinan stage the Meccan state had no

legal rulings it was a stage of changing

the perceptions of the people and once

that ship took place this radical

paradigm shift once that took place then

the rules begin to make sense but to

apply the rules without that would be

injustice which is what you know this is

the kind of conservative approach let's

just make harsher laws right see the

problem is the laws aren't harsh enough

well you know why are people doing what

they're doing and why is it that our our

prisons you know are over 60% in fact in

most places it's more like seventy five

eighty percent minority why is that well

that's more evidence you know that these

are inferior type people I mean there's

a lot of that's an unspoken belief

amongst a lot of people in this country

you know I mean there's a lot of people

that are politically correct in their

public discourse not in their private

discourse there's a lot of people that

say well you know these people you know

they're different from us they have

different values whatever or no values

so whereas the Islamic situation is

saying look what's going on right that

these situations are being produced

what's in generating this because this

is alien you see if if you go to a black

African if you go to a Gambian village

where there's no crime right I mean it's

true or not true and isn't it a large

percentage of the african-americans in

this country are from Senegambia right

this

their genetic inheritance so why is it

that a Gambian African in his village is

not stealing raping and pillaging right

and their 12 year olds aren't going

around doing gangbang and yet the same

genetic bank in in the inner cities of

New York or right or Chicago are doing

that you see what's going on well from

the Islamic perspective you have a

diseased Society and therefore you have

symptomatic pathology and the pathology

is manifesting in children that are

being raised in a diseased engendering

culture so during these seven years it's

not encouraged to teach children either

because they're learning they have their

own learning schedule and in traditional

cultures you did not begin to train

children until they reach seven which is

consistent also with the the Waldorf

right Rudolf Steiner fell back in the

20s that if we begin to educate children

at the age of five we are going to see

precocious sexual development occurring

and the reason he said that is is

because you're dealing with a divine

programming that's designed at that if

you if you bring programming that's not

meant to be introduced earlier then

you're going to pull the whole process

down so instead of the sexual maturation

occurring like in this culture when

people who here might have grown up in

the 50s at the age of fourteen most boys

and girls we're not thinking about

sexual experimentation right really they

weren't and you can talk to your parents

if you're not that old right I mean this

is not I'm not making this up this is

even the menage has you know the period

now

we have early onset periods we've got

girls now at 7 & 8 that are beginning to

menstruate ins in certain areas right so

something's going on right now if you

introduce it's actually considered

damaging now this is not true of all

children there will be because there

you're going to have children that want

to read at the age of 3 or 4 but the

vast majority of children are not going

to be like that and so they're doing

their work between 1 & 7 they know

exactly what they're supposed to be

doing and you let them do that

they're developing their their minds and

and they're actually they are according

to Islam and according to a lot of our

neurological research it's confirming

these ancient beliefs because this is

not just Islam this this this is

congruence with many traditions 7 was an

age of initiation in many many

traditions and in the classical European

oral culture before Christianity litter

eyes that area 7 was actually you are an

adult at 7 you went from childhood to

adulthood at the age of 7 because in

oral cultures 7 year olds speak like

adults and you'll notice a radical

change in the the ability of a child to

articulate at about the age of 7 and 8

there's a real change in their ability

to express themselves and this is why

even in England you know in the 8th 9th

century at 7 year olds and 8 year olds

were being hung for a horse theft right

which I mean obviously that's horrific

but it's indicative of an oral culture

and how they view and this is why you

will find marriage occurred in oral

cultures at early ages also it was not

uncommon in Europe Asia the Middle East

Africa for an eight or a nine year-old

girl to be married not uncommon at all

because they were considered to have

already reached

the age of maturation in the oral

understanding so at the age of seven

they enter into what's called sinew

Tamizh which is the age of

discrimination they can't now they're

beginning to understand certain certain

things Imam al-ghazali said you can

introduce to them now the concept of

time in a real way so they can

understand things like that they're in

time creatures and also the

responsibilities of actions although

they're not fully responsible yet

because they don't have all of the

hardwiring yet

so this fitrah and it's in the chapter

called the chapter of the Byzantines or

the Europeans or Rome means Europe it

also means the Byzantines it says that

you set your face to the religion which

is the religion of nature the fifth are

given by God and then it says and do not

change that nature which is an

indication that we can alter the fifth

era of people and we have thousands of

years of anthropological evidence that

most cultures were benign cultures I

mean we have a great deal of evidence

you know we would like those people who

make weapons would like us to believe

that we are aggressive by Nature

in other words that by nature we like to

inflict violence and aggression there

are many people that there's there's a

vested interest in having that the truth

is that most of the evidence that we

have from Aboriginal cultures is

contrary to that the Shoshone Indians

you know this is a good example of a

culture that really rejected violence as

a as an option right and there are many

many other many African cultures where

this is very clearly the case that that

violence was seen as surgery you know

that you did not use that route unless

there was no other alternative whereas

in our culture it's its primary care

right its lines in the sand and anybody

who knows Arab psychology knows that you

don't draw lines in the sand if you want

to stay at the the table of dialogue

right if you want to reach some end and

you know it's it's really fun I want to

get into politics but that what happened

in 1991 was an act of madness complete

act of madness and we were as a culture

collectively drawn into something that

had nothing to do with our vested

interests right and and unfortunately

still going on but Arab posturing is

anybody who knows the Arabs is that

they're people that posture this is part

of their nature and Saddam Hussein you

know was was literally doing a classic

Arab posturing because the OPEC

countries reneged on a promise that they

made that they would help him with his

war debts that were incurred during the

Iranian Iraqi war and they reneged on

and he put his troops there at the

border as a to force their hand and they

were told by our foreign policy here you

know we're going to stand behind you

don't you can stand up to him right and

that was a very easily you know not an

intractable problem at all but

unfortunately there are people that have

vested interests in using the violent

option before the diplomatic options

right there's a lot of money to be made

in war Bechtel was already was already

before that war began had contracts with

the Kuwaiti government to rebuild their

infrastructure right so I mean Thoreau

said an educated soldier is usually

called a deserter right if you really

know what what the fight is about you

know sorry

count me out on this one right what a

wonderful world it would be they say if

somebody called a war and nobody showed

up and you know the ancient peoples when

they used to fight they had these war

bonnets if it rained they'd call off the

battle and and they used to do you know

the Prophet Mohammed is seen as this but

in the West is this violent person over

over 23 years less than 1,200 people

were killed in all of the engagements

that took place less than 1,000 - we had

it's recorded every battle how many

people died and they actually prefer to

have you know the heroes would go out

and they Duke it out and then they you

win and they'd all go home right and

that's I mean would that be a great way

right let let it's like you know

Lindbergh said the America first during

World War two he said it's not their

sons that are going to die in this war

right the war mongers they never send

their sons right and that's why the

Iroquois nation in the Iroquois nation

it was the women that were the war

council the women decided whether the

nation would go to war with another

tribe with the belief that it was the

women who sent their sons to die right

and there's the great Greek play yeah

thank you about the women all going on

strike okay

 

all right is minaton online

the the next

these are the two classical divisions

some will put it into five and other

seven seven is you know Shakespeare has

the Verona tapestry that has the seven

stages of man and so it's consistent

some of the Western tradition but here

one through 1515 was traditionally more

commonly the onset of puberty was around

that age where I was in West Africa

that's that's pretty much when when

puberty happens for most of the people

there but you're obviously going to get

some are delayed and some are earlier

but it's around that and this is also

consistent with neurological research

that indicates that the brain is pretty

much by 15 its fully formulated and at

puberty there's actually a hormone

that's released that that will remove if

networking was not done it removes all

the potential so which is really

important why children need so much

stimulation in those early periods and

we've shown now there's a Israeli study

that indicated that for the first at

least 10 months there was strong

corollary study that showed that

children that were breastfed that their

IQs increased about a point for every

month that they had mother's milk and

it's interesting also that it's actually

a right of a child to be nursed with

breast milk it's it's a right and if a

woman is not able to do it then it's a

responsibility of the man to find what

we used to call wet nurses which

obviously we don't have this anymore but

mother's milk is seen as really

important and in fact the Arabic word

for the the actual tit of a woman's

breast is is Halima which mean it's the

same root word for compassion and

forbearance and there is a belief you

know it's what we used to call in this

tradition the milk of human kindness

that there's actually that that is

transmitted to the children through the

breasts that there is a transmission of

him and it's interesting that

historically the wet-nurse of the

prophet's name was Halima that was the

name of his wet nurse was Halima Satya

and so it's also believed in the Islamic

tradition that this hill which is

forbearance proceeds in which is

knowledge and so the woman for the first

seven years is inculcating forbearance

in the child that that is what the child

needs to learn in those first seven

years is how to be a human being how to

actually have the ability to be empathic

compassionate forbearing kind generous

the these this is what the mother is

imparting to the child and and this is

why she's been given and there's a very

interesting correlation between the

breast and the womb that many women know

the womb in Arabic is ryeom which which

the root word is compassion and there is

a hadith in which the the prophet

sallallaahu sanam said that God says I

have derived the womb from my name the

merciful so ever severs the womb has

been severed from my mercy so the womb

is the source of human Rama and this is

why kinship ties are so important

because if a child does not learn to

have mercy at the at the at the the unit

of the family it will never be able to

extend mercy to the greater human family

so in the Islamic tradition is it's

essential that a child learns to be

compassionate within

family unit and this is why rama is is

believed to be the dominant Sakina and

this why the quran says that the male

and the female come together with two

qualities moet de and rama moet de is a

love that is not less full its

transcending the the erotic love and

moving into the the the the divine love

and this is why one of the names of god

is edwin it's from the same root the one

who loves divinely so milada and also

the prophet peace be upon him said the

best woman was the wudood this woman

that has this divine love because she

will transmit it to her children and

then the second quality of marriage is

Rama which is compassion and mercy the

two of these result in Sakina which is

tranquility and Shekinah in the Hebrew

tradition right Shekinah which descends

the the Trank the word in Arabic for

that marital house is called muskan

which in arabic means the place of

tranquility so this is what the the

marital house is a place where this

divine Sakina is allowed to descend

because of divine love and compassion

and children that grow up in that

environment our children that are fit

for our children that will have

compassion love and tranquility so that

when they move out into the dominant

culture and society they're not a threat

to people they're actually a

contribution and this is why the the

prophet sallallaahu said i'm said one of

the three things that a human being

leaves behind that will benefit him in

the next life is righteous children

righteous children so

this stage cannot be underestimated this

stage will actually affect the parents

afterlife if they do it properly and he

also said that people that don't do it

properly they will accrue the wrong

actions of their children throughout

their lives so it will have the opposite

effect so at the age of fifteen to

thirty five you enter into the new stage

which is you it's called Shabab which

comes from a root word Shepperton all

the fire became inflamed so youth is

when you have this energy and this is

considered the age of plowing the field

there's a tradition of imam ali but of

the Ilan who said he's the nephew of the

Prophet and one of the greatest scholars

of Islam he said play with your children

for seven years

educate them for seven years befriend

them for seven years and then release

their reins right let their reins go

play with them for seven educate them

for seven and then befriend them for

seven though that age of fourteen to

twenty-one it's the identity they need

that mentorship you know they're they're

moving into the world and then at

twenty-one your job is done and now if

you do that then there'll be a

contribution to yourself and to society

so from that period is seen as the

period of struggle this is where you're

really meant to do your serious work one

of the scholars said if you if a man has

nothing to boast of by the age of

twenty-one he'll never have anything to

boast right that this is the real time

of effort and struggle at the age of 35

a new phase is coming in and some take

it to 40 40 is productivity versus

stagnation right in Erickson's model 40

is the age now where the other world

is really moving in to picture now one

of the things that happens at 40 is gray

hairs begin to emerge and there's a

wisdom in that because gray hairs what

what the scholars say is that gray hair

is a sign that harvest time is soon

right the chafe is yellowing the Grim

Reaper's on his way and so 40 is seen as

a time of getting serious if you haven't

been yet it's no longer you don't have

the youth to waste anymore it's it's

time to really start thinking about and

this is what Erickson says what you're

leaving behind what your contribution is

right what what are you going to leave

behind and that will determine his later

stage of integrity versus despair did

you do something worthwhile that you can

say my life has had meaning or was it an

egocentric life and this is why in our

culture 40 can be so frightening for

people right men will often leave their

wives and go find a woman and now women

are starting to compete with men in that

realm as well right and with enhanced

cosmetic surgery and things like that

people are doing you know really bizarre

things because and this is our death

denial culture we're not dealing with

this this is a turning point right it's

it's literally the focus on this world

is really meant to

forty is is the transition where you're

turning your back on this world and

you're really starting to face your

mortality at in a deep existential way

and so this is called now the age of

maturity you Jula it's the age the

module which it can apply to the male

and the female it generally means man

but it's the idea of somebody now who

who has reached this age of dignity they

are no longer going to do anything that

is indicative of the folly of youth that

they have wisdom now there's no longer

an excuse for the stupidities of lack of

experience you should know better right

shame on you and this this period then

will be the most productive period from

40 to 50 in terms of contribution

because now you really have you still

have remnants of the strength of youth

but you also have the maturation of

intellect and spirituality according to

this tradition at 50 you move into

what's known as chez hoo-ha cher or Shia

this is now where you become an elder

your your your wisdom now has has

matured in a way that you are now

guiding peoples that went before you

you're you're giving them insights into

their own journey because you've gone

down the path you've been through these

stages and now you can actually guide

them and there's a hadith in which the

prophet sallallaahu sanam said he is not

from us the one who does not respect our

aged nor has compassion on our youth so

there is an interesting dyadic

relationship between the aged and the

youth the aging have to have compassion

because the youth don't have the

experience so they make these mistakes

but the youth have to have the respect

of the aged in that they can derive from

them

the wisdom of those who have already

traveled the path so this is a really

important period and this will go on for

about 20 years at about 70 you're moving

into the ages now obviously the baby

boomers are going to alter this because

of you know people now they're like 75

and they're they have the strength of

people traditionally that were you know

in their 50s we're seeing this now and

it's interesting but traditionally 70

was really where you're settling down

into you're slowing down physiologically

and in every other way and so you're

really now you walk slowly right there's

a type of dignity that goes with this

age and it's it's an age where the

Prophet Muhammad said that that God is

shy of punishing somebody who reaches

the age of 70 in a state of submission

in the next world

and then he wept and they asked him why

are you weeping and he said I'm weeping

for those of my community who are not

shy about disobeying Allah at that age

right so this is really a time where

people should be really directed

the other world this is a time when you

really leave behind this world you begin

to go into spiritual in in many you know

physiologically this is a time of

insomnia for a lot of people and

traditionally the that was because the

body is designed at this age to go into

deep meditative states in the night

which replaces sleep and and in the

traditional Muslim culture that's what

people did at this time it was going

inwardly in a very deep way and spending

the nights in meditation getting ready

for the afterlife and then we have death

now death is an amazing thing if you're

familiar with Heidegger's philosophy he

built an entire philosophy around the

phenomenon of death and death is

ultimately you know if you don't want to

think about where your you came from

everybody at some point has to think

about where they're going and I had a

professor once in fact in in Western

schools he was really the only really great teacher that I had, was a very brilliant Catholic scholar, Ken Kramer.  Who in a class I had with him which summons materials taken from "Death and Dying in religious traditions" and he said one day, in class, there is a point in your life where you will become absolutely certain of your mortality and he said it comes to people at different stages in their life.  Some people, it happens really early and other people it happens really late.  When he said that to me, it struck a chord with me because I know that point with absolute certainty. 

When it happened to me, I was 17 and I was in a really intense car accident.  I realized during the accident that I might be going into the next world.  I realized it, I mean completely, a total realization of mortality.  And that completely altered my experience of life after that.  I was disconnected for about a year after that accident.  Completely disconnected.  Conversations:  I couldn't hear people talking.  I mean it was very very profound experience for me and that was my experience

For him, he said it happened when he was 25.  He was in Theological Seminary sitting on a windowpane looking out and he realized he was going to die.  That realization of death and mortality I think for most people and there's also

I believe in my own experience there is, a because this happened several times.  Since then there's an experience that that you can you know there's a belief

that you cannot experience get death in

this life there is a belief amongst a

lot of the Freudians and and and other

psychologists in this culture that you

know human beings cannot really

understand death as long as they're

alive

in all the traditional cultures death

spiritual death is real that you can die

to the sensory in this world before you

leave this world and in fact that is the

goal of most religious traditions that

the spiritual death and the spiritual

death is where one enters into meaning

you die to the sensory and this is an

inward experience and once that death

occurs you can never look at the sensory

world in the same light you're freed

from it the chains of it in a deep way

one of them said

furro furro Calissa and the decay

Niharika one Anna Magnani lay ahead Luke

Arakawa poet said he freed himself from

sensory sensoria that was his obstacle

and he embraced meaning and embrace that

he's not permitted to ever leave so the

ideas once you make this you embrace

this meeting which is your mortality and

that you will be brought back into the

divine present that will completely

alter your life you will never be able

to look at the world in the same way and

this is the spiritual goal of the

spiritual path now there's a lot of

reasons that why we fear why we fear

dying right and these these five are

going to be the majority of people are

going to fall into this people have a

fear of pain there is a hadith on which

the Prophet said whoever loves to meet

God God loves to meet them and his wife

said what about fearing death and he

said we all fear death

in other words it's very human to fear

the pain right that comes with death

what's called in the Quran Sakura to

melt at the Quran says a Jessica rattle

molt Bill Hawk the pangs of death have

come in truth and then it says this is

that which you were putting off right we

don't like to think about this the fear

of loss separation leaving this world

loved ones the fear of meaninglessness

right despair that comes with feeling

that your life really didn't turn out

the way you wanted that it wasn't really

you

didn't get what you wanted to get done

right I can't die now I've still got

things to do fear of the unknown right

of what's going to happen in the next

room many people will say well there's

nothing but it's Pascal's wager which is

in the Muslim tradition called Satan

Ali's wager because he preceded Pascal

by centuries with that somebody was

debating with him about you know believe

in the afterlife he said well if if I'm

right you're in big trouble but if

you're right I don't have a problem

right in other words in the next world

if the materials who says it all ends

with death if it indeed does then the

religious man has has or woman has led

an ethical life I think it was Whitehead

who said even if there isn't a day of

judgment we should all live our lives as

if there was which is the secular

humanist perspective right it's we've

still done the right thing

whereas the the the aesthetic or the

garment or the the person who wants to

live the sensual life

and not think about what's coming after

or say nothing's coming after if indeed

there is something after then he's he or

she is in in trouble and then fear of

non being right it's hard to imagine

ourselves in fact it's really at one

level impossible to imagine ourselves

just not here at all now

if you look at death there's different

types of death we have physical death

but we also have psychological death

what one is in Georgia with all cos a

homeopath said was in America we die at

25 but live to 75 right that that at a

certain point a lot of people literally

stop experiencing life and go into this

just numb to state where they've had a

psychological death a physical death is

determined by Harvard's right I used to

always be amazed in the hospital in it

because I saw a lot of people die nurses

can't say they're dead

you need the doctor to come in and

declare them dead I mean if that's not

religion I don't know what is the priest

has to come in right yeah he's dead okay

thank you

brainwaves that that determines death

right that is one type of death brain

death so if they're not seeing brain

activity they're determined to be dead

heart and blood if the heart stops and

blood start circulate stop circulating

death occurs very quickly all right

there can be resuscitation if somebody

is for instance defibrillated or

something brought back into you know a

beating heart but that happens pretty

quick the nervous system is one way of

determining so you poke you don't get

any reactions and then breath and lungs

you really have to have all four in

order for them to you know this is a

dead there there's no longer life now at

one point people started weighing

cadavers because there was a belief you

know that the soul leaves and obviously

it's going to be lighter which again is

such a stupid concept because

the soul is immaterial right so

obviously it's not going to have any

weight I mean that's the point of the

soul it's it's not material substance

it's not part of this this realm it's

from another realm the body is material

now the soul you know there's a lot of

people that don't believe in this all in

fact there's a lot of scientists with

that would really like to prove that we

are nothing other than anabolic and

catabolic processes just biochemistry

that's what we're dealing with now at

the psychological level you have types

of death so at the brain level you get

cognitive impotence where the brain is

not functioning anymore so

psychologically you know people

literally stop thinking and they become

automatics that that literally kind of

go through life without really ever

thinking about anything other than the

most functional things you know so

people go into these trance-like states

and and they go into this this

perfunctory life that is nothing other

than routines right and this is why like

Ezra Pound here all teachers Ezra Pound

said the day that a teacher is not

excited about teaching a class is the

day they should retire right so this

isn't really a type of of death of brain

death when you're no longer excited

about the material I was telling a Hakim

I rented a car and this man said to me I

said he was from another state and I

said how long you've been here he said

thirty years but I'm moving on I said oh

really what you don't like here anymore

he said well seen every mountain been on

every trail hunted every hunting area

fished every stream I'm bored right and

I was just I mean that always amazes me

because I've never looked out here and

seeing the

same place every single time looked here

I've been coming here all these years

I've never it's like where did that

mountain come from you know it's and

it's all lights you know it's always

changing here the lights are incredible

and so this idea of like boredom that's

something I you know I've that's another

thing I really always amazed me about

people who say I'm bored

right how people get into that state

what happens where something say I'm

bored and children are not like that

we teach them boredom right children are

not bored I mean they're just you know

they're you know in everything right

which is people that take hypertrophic

drugs or like that right they'd start

looking at leaves like you know amazed

at and that's why children are they're

in a whole other realm right and that

type of excitement about life is not

something that has to stop discovery in

in Arabic the word to find something or

discover something means to be ecstatic

and the word for existence is the same

root word existence is the arena of

ecstasy and but you have to be alive to

be in that to be in that state where it

is you are in an ecstatic state because

there's constant discovery this is a

theater of enlightenment there's all

these revelations happening in every

moment you know the divine attributes

are manifesting all over the place and

and then the next is emotive dissonance

people who die emotionally and this is

the ruin of myriad marriages emotional

death that occurs in marriages where

there's no nothing's happening people

are dead and numb inside to each other

which one of the things about death and

really keeping death in perspective is

unlike having the morbid experience it

actually invigorates your experience of

life because

it's like this might be the last time

I'm ever with you right this might I

might never see you again we leave we go

to work or and come home and think that

it's always going to be like this

but there's people all over this country

right now that are getting phone calls I

hate to tell you this but your husband

was in a car accident today

you know your wife or I hate to tell you

this but you know the tests came back

positive

you've got terminal cancer I mean this

is going on all over right now

everywhere right and we forget that you

know we go into this thing that's always

going to be like she'll always be around

he'll always be around volitional

routinization of life right just sit

down at the terminal turn on plug in

check my email coffee you know phone

rings yes okay it's people all over the

world like that literally just right

driving cars same radio station right

it's amazing so that's a type of death

and then intuitive paralysis losing that

expansion contraction the breath you

know losing that that experience of

right that that breath can be cut off

and that when you're connected to your

breath you're connected to yourself in a

really powerful way which is why breath

is a primary meditation now you have

these are not universal and there's

actually knew death work that's that's

beginning to go beyond kubler-ross is I

mean she was important at one point

singh's book the art of dying which is

published by Harper has taken a whole

other and that's probably going to

become an important book it's going

really beyond that because there are

many people that do not go through these

ages there are many people that you know

but but this is a common death denial

people in a death denial culture this is

very common these stages and they do

work denial is the first stage right

he's relating them to these but I'm not

going to go into that but denial is the

first stage you know people hear it

there's a film called the doctor I don't

know if people saw that but that's very

much in that genre of somebody who's

told they're going to die and they

thought it's not going to happen to me

it happens to everybody else and this is

one of you know our joonas asked krishna

with what is the the greatest wonder of

the world and he replies that the

greatest wonder is that you see people

dying all around you and you don't think

it's going to happen to you right so we

you know we go into this denial of death

and and once people overcome that it's

it's anger will often emerge getting

angry why is this happening to me

especially you know you're 3540 and

you've got terminal cancer there's a

wonderful piece that was written by Lee

was it Lee Atwater who was the campaign

manager for Bush huh

Lee Atwater really bad guy this guy was

bet and he admits it in it was a piece

that was published in an Inc New Age

magazine several years back when he

first do you remember he had the brain

tumor he said that he based his life on

Machiavelli's The Prince you know he

said that that was my life Machiavelli

this guy on top of the world could do no

wrong the Republican golden boy but his

you know screw unto others before they

screw unto you that was the motto of

that man's life right really and he

admits that in there if he could you

know dam

bitch attack people's reputations do the

worst things that that was his realm and

that's why they loved him so much

right because he got people elected when

he suddenly came to terms with you know

this guy's early 40s wealthy politically

powerful one of the major players in

Washington at that time and suddenly

incurable brain tumor right that his

back piece you know that should be

memorized by every politician before

they're allowed to run for office

because he just talks about wanting to

make amends with all the people he ever

heard right and this is something

amazing is that even the the worst

people can have radical transformations

when confronted with their mortality why

does it have to take that right why does

it have to take that and the you know

one of the things about our age is work

we're confronting species death right

we're looking at you know our entire

world is being threatened with death

right our biosphere is is is showing

signs that it can no longer sustain us

because of what we're doing to it and

what if if that really enters in to the

collective consciousness of human

societies now what type of

transformation is that but as long as

we're in denial about this right or in

the anger stages like the echo warriors

right because they're furious right

earth first people they're not in denial

they see it happening but they're angry

you know the Unabomber let's blow these

people up that are ruining our world

right this is all anger what but if we

as

as species could really see that we are

threatened with our own extinction that

there is not going to be a sustainable

world for our children for our

grandchildren what type of

transformation is going to occur

bargaining give me another chance

god I know I mucked up give me another

chance right

and then acceptance this is submission

and I mentioned that you know the denial

is Kufa that's what Kufa means rejection

right anger is fighting it

fighting the truth bargaining is trying

to deal with the truth on your own terms

right trying to deal with it on your own

terms I know it's true okay but can't we

leave you know let's let's bargain here

a little bit you know give me a break

this is hard I can't deal with this and

submission is I submit I'm accepting

this thing completely and from that

experience is an incredible liberation

you transcend yourself you are a free

human being before that you're a slave

you're a slave to your fear you're a

slave to your desires once you accept

your own mortality

right what higher calls up being unto

death you can nurture you can enter into

your humanity as long as you're in

denial with that most fundamental fact

and Heidegger goes to the radical

proposition that that you that your

death Act will be the only real thing

that you will ever do that was not

determined by anybody else

that every act that you do in your life

is because you've been influenced by

your parents by

appears by your education by your

society it is death alone that will be

uniquely yours

no one will teach you how to do that no

one will show you that path you take it

on your own and so that is your one true

act that can be absolutely volitional

you can die and and that is really a in

harmony with the Islamic understanding

this is kind of interesting just in our

culture all these these are like

euphemisms because people don't like to

say he died I passed on croaked kicked

the bucket gone to heaven gone home

expired breathed his last to come left

us went to his return reward loss met

his maker wasted checked out eternal

rest laid to rest pushing up daisies

called home was a goner came to an end

bit the dust annihilated liquidated

terminated gave up the ghost left this

world rubbed out snuff six feet under

consumed found everlasting peace wishful

thinking went to a new life in the great

beyond no longer with us made the change

got Myrtle eyes on the other side God

took him asleep in Christ a part of

transcended bought the farm with the

Angels feeling no pain lost the race

time was up cashed in crossed over

Jordan Paris lost it was done in

translated into glory returned to dust

withered away in the arms gave it up it

was curtains a long sleep on the

heavenly Shores out of his or her misery

ended it all angels carried him away

resting in peace changed form dropped

the body rode into the sunset that was

all she wrote

so a lot of ways to say the same thing

one of the Arabs said

in them to mood to be be safe and mid to

be ready to know why this babble and

motor what I do if you don't die by the

sword

you'll die by something else there's a

lot of ways to die but death is one

right now

what happens then from the Islamic

perspective of when we die obviously in

in pre-islamic cultures the Arabians

most fascinating aspect of arabian

culture the arabs did not believe in an

afterlife really interesting because

most cultures have a concept of the

afterlife the arabs did not believe in

an afterlife they said now move to an

idea will not you live the lacunae

alleged we live and we die and nothing

kills us but time there have said and

and will we be decayed bones dust in the

earth and brought back to life they say

who's going to revive these dead and

decayed bones the quran says paul Yoji

Haneda and shia

/ Amara the one who brought them to life

the first time he'll do it the second

time the Quran says we created you the

first time the commentators say second

time around is always easier right if it

was done once it can be done again now

how did the Quran deal with this

disbelief because it's very interesting

that the the Arabs didn't believe this

how did it deal with it the way that it

dealt with it was it told the Arabs to

look at the dead earth and instead we

take a dead earth send down rain from

the heavens it mixes with the seed

and we bring forth we bring the earth

back to life again and like that you

will be brought back now this analogy

there is a hadith that says that the

Prophet Muhammad said every human being

has what's called as Ashbaugh venom the

wondrous tale and it's it's at the tip

of the coccyx and it's the seed of the

human being so the Muslims believe that

there is a seed that every human being

has and like seeds seeds are very

interesting because they're very hard to

destroy right you swallow seeds they

come out the other end hydrochloric acid

doesn't break them down in fires seeds

stay right forests that are burned down

come back to life because of seeds that

are there that aren't destroyed drought

comes kills everything but the seeds

when the rain comes back it comes back

to life now the belief of the Muslims is

that every human being has a seed and

that seed will not be destroyed we don't

know where it is or what it is the

hadith indicates that it's in the coccyx

but we don't know what size it is what

it looks like nothing like that but from

that seed every human being will be

recreated from a divine reign and it's

interesting that we deny resurrection

and yet our own culture is talking about

recreating human beings from one cell

bringing back the entire human being by

cloning one cell because all

of the information about you is

contained in one of your cells and this

one of the verses in the Quran is it

says we will continue to show them our

signs in their selves and on the horizon

until it becomes clear to them that what

we're saying is true so the belief in

the resurrection is absolutely

fundamental to the Islamic tradition and

there is a belief that every soul will

be completely renewed the body but the

body that's recreated is not the same as

this physical body

yeah no it's not reincarnation now

here's a little schematic the this was

what we called the world of spirits and

from that we move into now one of the

things about the world of spirits

according to the prophet muhammad's

Eliza time if you met people in the

spiritual realm because we actually

intermingle if you met people in the

spiritual realm you will have a natural

affinity for them in this realm so there

will be people that you meet in your

life that you immediately connect with

and this is believed to be a pre worldly

meeting that is replicated in this realm

and there's a recognition of that and

likewise the people most distant from

you on that primordial plane will be

people that you have natural you you're

not attracted to them and this can also

be within within families and within

religious tradition in other words it

could be a Muslim for a Muslim you know

there could be Muslims you just don't

feel comfortable with and that is not

seen you know you're not you're not

supposed to be mean or cruel to them you

know or take them as enemies or

something but it's recognized that there

are natural affinities and these

affinities are from a pre worldly

recognition and there is a hadith in

which the Prophet said souls are like

regimented ranks those who knew each

other before feel affinity in this realm

and those who did not fit if there's

differences you know and it's like if

you look at it for a metaphor here you

know you have the the Armed Forces and

they're all on the same side but when

Marines are at a bar drinking and then

some Navy boys come in right there's all

this kind of aggression that that will

often happen you know because they're

from different regiments you know that

that these guys are another group even

though it's the same army there are

another group and there's that kind of

animosity that's a result of not being

from that same

Regt now this area is the world of life

choice and effort this is called anima

dunya so you enter into this and from

here you move into the butter sock

now according to the hadith when your

soul dies it hovers above your body and

it's a very discomforting experience and

this is why a sleep is considered to be

the little brother of death in Islam and

the Quran talks about we cause them to

die and there are those we return to

their bodies and others that we keep

them in other words that sleep is a

death it is a type of debt one of the

things sleep is the indication of the

afterlife because what happens when you

go to sleep is like you live your life

you go to sleep and you enter into this

this bottle Zac and then waking up is

like the resurrection you come back into

the body or and you wake up you your

resurrected during sleep you can live

lives you can have extraordinary dreams

you can feel like you were dreaming for

just all these things happen and those

are indications of another world and

this is why the Muslims believe that the

dream realm is a very important realm

and they differentiate between dreams

the quran differentiates between dreams

that are at what we would call in this

culture like food dreams you eat a lot

of food before you go to sleep and then

you have all these funny garbled dreams

so there's but you're still in that

what's called the animal haya the

imaginal world it is part of the unseen

realm but there is also true dreams and

the more ones spirituality soul

work becomes Lucent the more access they

have to that realm and the more opaque

and materialistic they are the more cut

off they are from that realm so there

are people who literally their dream

world is incredibly rich there are

people in our tradition there are many

people who saw The Messenger of Allah

every night in their dreams like Imam

matica van Deniz he said he never woke

up without having seen the Prophet in

his dreams there are others that have

what are called true dreams in which

there's information given to them and

much of the dream realm is symbolic and

there is an extensive science of dream

interpretation in Islam several books

written on it where you will see very

specific things and they have very

specific meanings and this is a first

century work by eben Sedin which is

about dream work just very extensive if

you see this it means this if you see

this and there are there multiple

interpretations that it doesn't always

mean one but that work is deals with

these other realms there are also

spiritual journeys that are taken in the

unseen world so people will have very

profound spiritual experiences in in

their souls

now that the mirage of the messenger is

believed to have been was not a dream it

was a of the soul and the body although

time expanded because he returned to his

bed and it was still warm so he went

through this entire experience he saw

many things on that journey he described

them he went in fact if you are seen

palacios work indicates that much of the

Divine Comedy is actually taken from a

very famous exposition of the messengers

journey through the

the hell's and through the heavens the

seven heavens right

until you have the beatific vision which

is was the result of that now Dearing at

the point of death it's encouraged you

wash the body you do a ritual you pray

for the body and then you put them into

the grave the grave

this is shoulder link and then there's

what's called a nod where you put the

body there's not supposed to be any

coffin it's wrapped in a white gown

white seamless garment like the one that

men wear on the Hajj both women and

females males and females are placed

into this you're placed into your grave

facing Mecca and then three when they

place them in the grave you everybody

throws dust the whole community who goes

to the funeral partake cygnus they all

throw dust and they recite a verse of

the quran from dust we created you from

dust we return you and from dust we will

bring you forth again and then it is

believed that the beginning of the next

stage this is the barzakh stage right

we've got these five stages the next

stage begins in the Barza there are

angels that come to angels munkar and

nakir these angels are very frightening

they're very powerful

they have voices like thunder and they

ask a person who is your Lord

what is your Deen your your religion

your way and who is your prophet the

Prophet Muhammad said the only thing a

man takes or a woman takes into their

grave will be their actions according to

the tradition because now you're moving

into the realm of meaning you're no

longer in the

of sensory although the realm of sensory

is a symbolic realm according to the

Quran these are signs in the next world

the signs right it's not sensoria that

you're in you are in meaning so all of

the things that you did in this in this

life are translated into meanings in the

next life so there are these foul

creatures that people will find in their

grave that smell and they have a strong

stench and the soul is distressed by it

and the soul says leave me alone who are

you and they say don't you know us we're

your actions and this is people who did

evil things in their lives and then

there's others where it's very pleasant

and there's a perfume that diffuses and

the soul finds itself in this and and

and he asks who are you and they say

we're your good actions so these angels

ask and this begins the testing phase

and according to the Quran it says we

will make firm those who believed and

did good works in this life and in the

next with the true word which is lela

lela but we will make them firm so they

won't have these tribulations and the

prophets on the lot is that I've said

that according to the person's

experience in the grade that will

determine whether what comes after it is

easy or difficult so it's the first

stage of the next journey at this point

the grave either becomes a very wide and

expansive or it becomes dark and

constricted based on what people did in

this life and there's a verse there's a

hadith also that indicates every human

being will have an initial constriction

the grave will literally constrict them

to where they think they're going to

burst their soul and then it will become

either easy or difficult and there's a

prophetic tradition of Jesus son of Mary

who they were looking at a man who was

being buried

and all the companions said it sews

constricted and narrow and Jesus says to

them you don't remember the wombs of

your mothers that expanded for you in

other words that the tomb can also

expand for you if the soul grew in this

life whereas if it was stunted it won't

so this is the sole work that's done in

this dunya realm that's going to

determine whether you're constricted or

expanded in this next stage here in this

stage now everybody who has died before

us is in this realm with the exception

of the martyrs the martyrs do not go

into this realm they go directly to to

the divine presence they're not they

don't go through this stage so they're

there they are the exception and Islam

does not restrict martyrdom to those who

died witnessing their their belief which

is the traditional meaning including in

Greek a martyr was anybody who died

witnessing their belief a person who

dies in a fire is considered a martyr a

person who dies of a sudden disease like

cholera a person like dies in a plague

that's a martyr death a person whose

roof falls on them like in an earthquake

and the Scott modern scholars have said

that includes by analogy airplane

crashes and car accidents that these are

martyr deaths as recompense for the

trauma of that experience and not having

been able to deal with your difficult

you know people I mean it's people who

know they're going to die it really

helps them to resolve a lot of things

where if you die suddenly there's a lot

of untaken care of business and so this

is a recompense for that drowning is a

martyr death those who drown so these

are all deaths of Martin

so in other words if you've been a real

rascal all your life when you died in a

car wreck because you were DWI or

Sackett how you be drunk yes yeah see I

mean it's it's it's based on acceptance

yeah like it just depends on what state

you were in because people who can die

you know that's the the assumption of

the community is it's a martyr's death

but but that is not an absolute

including people who died on the

battlefield we assume that they're

martyrs but there's a hadith that said

one of the first people to go to the

Hellfire is a soldier who fought to be

called brave and he tells God I know I

fought for your sake and God says you

lied you fought to be called a brave

person and you got your reward they said

you were brave and the same with a

scholar who learns that God says why did

you say he said I studied for your sake

to teach your religion and he said you

lied you studied to be called a learned

man and you got your reward and the same

with a wealthy person mm-hmm on the

other hand you have a prostitute

according to the hadith who once came to

a well and and and put her shoe down and

brought water up and drank it and there

was a dog who was who was dying of

thirst and she looked at the dog and

thought that dog is like me thirsty and

so she put her shoe down and gave the

water to this dog and got and the

Prophet Muhammad said she was forgiven

all her wrong actions for that one act

right and there's another man who said

who comes on the day of judgment the

only good action that he had was used to

loan money to people and when he sent

his bill collector out he said if they

don't have it just leave them and the

hadith says that God said I am more

generous in absolving my debts than this

man so he forgives him mm-hmm

case of soldiers fighting both sides of

the name of Allah safest iran-iraq war

yeah give the souls of both sides that

can happen and be back in happen yeah it

depends on it whether it was a valid is

she hard or not if there's a hadith

which says the one killing and the one

killed are in the fire right so

generally it's it's not the case and

they said we understand the one killed

what about the one killing or we

understand the one killing what about

the one killed and he said well he would

have wanted to kill him had he been able

so they both have that whereas if there

was a valid ich T had which is where you

know both sides like in Maui and Ali

this and the initial Great Tribulation

between the two companions who fought

the there is a hadith that said the one

killing and the one killed are both in

paradise except the one who killed Ahmad

and that is considered a motivator

hadith which has the highest level of

veracity it's it's a hadith that so many

people narrated it it's impossible for

it to have been considered a lie and and

that that's in the tradition so and

that's part of you know human beings do

crazy things and and this is part of the

human condition you know that there's

fits not what's called sedition and

troubles right and and and these are

often seen also as purification because

a lot of the tribulations people go

through are actually purification and

raising them to higher levels so at a

certain point there are two trumpets

which obviously this is not like you

know these are things that we don't

really understand but these are

approximations and and we have this in

the judeo-christian tradition also the

the first blast

is what's called the our the Sam and I'm

going to talk about this on the last

lecture I have which is about the end of

time at the moment it literally means

the moment the great moment when the

world comes to an end and it says in the

Quran that like the the the cosmos was

expanded at the end it will be

contracted and rolled up like a scroll

right which you know the modern

physicists talk about the Big Crunch

which is you know when it all goes back

to this initial and that's consistent

with with the Quranic view that there is

a rolling up of the cosmos and it's also

the heat death because everything heat

like the it says that the oceans boil

over everything ends in it in a massive

heat death so when this moment comes

every person that's on the earth is

going to be killed at that point it's

all over and and then the second is that

what's called the bath which is the

resurrection and then what happens then

is a very mapped out scenario in the

Islamic tradition at this point all of

the souls have left the dunya and the

next stage they go to which is the

bottle

and then you have the bath you have the

the what's called the neva

which causes the resurrection now at the

point of resurrection all of the souls

are bought brought to a plane and that's

what Auto phat is a preparation for that

they're all brought to the plane and

then according to the tradition

everybody is naked and they stand this

is this is where they wait for what's

called the that he said the reckoning

and according to the tradition it says

the waiting is 500 years and and people

are in it five I'm in the pod on talks

about you know a year with God is like

fifty thousand of years a thousand in

different verses so the idea of time is

very different in this realm it's not

like it isn't where we are here and

according to the Quran when they're

asked how long did they tear in the

earth they'll say a day or part of a day

that's what our lives on earth will seem

like in relation to the next world now

at this point according to the Islamic

tradition all of the souls some are

shaded by their actions and others are

literally up in sweat drowning in their

own sweat because it's so intense and at

this point after waiting an incredible

amount of time and it literally says

that people are going in and out like

waves in and out it's a very there's a

lot of confusion there's a lot of it's

it's actually the descriptions are

terrifying with the exception of people

that were the good people in this world

and then what happens is people say

let's go ask the prophets to get us out

of this and the tradition says they go

to Adam the first man and they say help

us intercede for us and he says nefzi

NFC my own soul my own soul

so he refuses he said I can't do

anything for you people go to their

mother they go to their father they say

nefzi NFC this is the day where nobody's

thinking about anybody else because the

soul is looking at infinity and in the

Quran it says when when we enter into

this realm the first thing the soul says

is Yahweh Lana member tottenham in

Medina oh woe to us who has woken us

from our sleep this is what the

messengers promised this is what they

told us they were truthful in telling us

this and this is the promise of the

merciful and they use that attribute

because that's what they want now in the

world people like Thomas Jefferson said

I used to beg for divine justice and

still when I looked at others and then I

start examining my own soul and started

asking for mercy right so this is the

day where people aren't thinking about

justice they're thinking about divine

mercy and what happens is they go to

each of the prophets they go to Noah

they go to Abraham they go to Moses each

one of them says nefzi NFC and they give

a reason that relates to stories that

are mentioned in the poem and finally

all of humanity according to the Islamic

tradition goes to the Prophet Muhammad

all of you met the Muslims the Buddhists

the Hindus everyone goes to the Prophet

Muhammad and that's why in the Quran he

is called a mercy to all the worlds

because on this day when they go to him

he according to our tradition is

uniquely the one who says Allah this is

my place and he takes the intercession

and it said that he enters into the

divine presence prostrates praises and

then it says

to him raise your head ask and you will

be given intercede and you will have

intercession and he asks for the

judgment because people are so terrified

in this waiting period they just want

the judgment to happen you know it's

like people that would rather just I

just tell me what's going to have I

can't wait anymore and so they that they

move to the next stage which is that he

sab because of this shafa'a

so so the intercession occurs here now

it's interesting the the Muslims

identify in the in the New Testament and

one of the names of the Prophet in the

Islamic tradition is parallels which is

the Muslims identify the Paraclete that

is mentioned in John 16 in the gospel

when he says I'm leaving but another

comforter is coming after me the word in

Greek Paraclete means comforter but

actually the first meaning of it is

intercessor it's the one who intercedes

who gives comfort and the Muslim

traditionally have believed that that is

the Prophet Mohammed the Christian

belief is that it's the Holy Spirit and

at this point they go now to the

reckoning that he Sam now there are

people that will not get up and remember

from the Muslim perspective the all the

traditions the righteous of every

tradition is going to be in a good

situation on this day this is not you

know I mean the prophets community is

only one community there are many

previous communities of prophets and

those people that were following their

prophets living according with their

prophet each one has their place and

that's why according to the hadith they

line up behind the people that they were

behind including the bad ones like false

prophets and say everybody's going to be

with the people they followed and those

people

the burden of leading people astray so

you know the Marxists are going to be

behind Karl Marx the whole it's it's the

Nazis are going to be behind Adolf

Hitler everybody's going to be with

what's that a big sign right

materialists over here well yeah I mean

there's a history of materialism so

there's there's definitely the first

philosophers of materialism the Greeks

have you know there in fact if you read

I really like Prometheus press I don't

know if anybody knows about them do you

know about Prometheus press it's a New

York public they publish everything

against religion right there they're

like total materialists and they can't

stand with it they publish books called

like the problem of God right why I am

NOT a Muslim and they're actually really

interesting because it's it's always

important to get reality checks right

from really radically different

perspectives you know I like to do that

for my own you know just okay I see how

you're seeing it's helpful to clarify

your own understandings to listen to

something that's so different from what

you know it's a really good thing to do

so at this point then at the hey sab

which is the reckoning and this is why

there's a hadith that says reckon

yourselves before you're taken to

account in other words if you do your

work in this world you don't have to

deal with it in the next world so

there's a tradition in Islam of what's

called Mahasabha and it's also a

Christian tradition they're they're

they're orders that do this as a

practice in Christianity of at the end

of the day taking oneself to account and

really looking at one's actions during

the day if they were good you praise and

if they're bad you ask forgiveness right

and this is also penitence and you know

confession in the Catholic tradition is

going and getting this stuff off your

chest admitting

you know I did these things and then

having some way of atoning those wrongs

and then what happens is there is a

record on this day of everything your

entire life and according to the Imam at

Ozaki people will watch their lives in

front of them like a film they'll

literally watch their entire life and

there's a hadith that God will veil

people who for his veiling because

having to see your life you know all the

things that you did so in other words

there are edited versions right there's

a divine editing that can take place

where things are removed from your life

if if you ask them to be removed with

sincerity and at each stage there will

be testimony against you the hands

according to the Quran testify the feet

testament they ask them how will they

speak and he said the one who gave them

who made your tongue speak will make

your hand speak and the genitals

testified the tongue test because all of

them are afraid well the body is that we

don't want they know what's coming and

they're they're afraid and so they're

all owning up and they're saying he made

us do this in other words they don't

want to be taken to account which is

also there's an indication of this in

the Gospels when Jesus said if your

right hand offends thee then cut it off

for it's better to enter the kingdom of

heaven Maine right then than to go into

the fire with that you know it and and

that is obviously a spiritual severing

it's the it's not you know it's not

literal right I mean they're probably

some people out there they take that

stuff out and

oddly center yeah those are values that

when you enter into Islam everything is

erased with the exception of debt so so

in that case we may believe that all the

seems to happen for anything that you

have not taken on a literally removed

from your slate completely and then what

happens is there's what's called a

sahifa which is your the book of your

life right the book of your life and

your actions are weighed in in scales

and you'll find this in Egyptian

mythology and tradition in the Egyptian

Book of the Dead the way and there are

many glyphs about this right the

weighing of the basket and the soul

being in the basket and the actions

weighed and you know I had a in the same

teacher professor Kramer you know

mention the you know that isn't that

from that Egyptian mythology and there's

absolutely no indication that that

information was available in the 7th

century in Arabia and the way the

Muslims would look at that

is that much of Mythology is in fact

remnants of prophetic traditions and in

fact much of mythology you know some

religious scholars differentiate between

mythos and myth you know mythos is is

truth related in symbolic tradition and

myth is like fables and fairy tales and

stories whereas mythos is is something

that's true

and so people then are given their their

books and the book of their life will

either be given in the right hand or in

the left hand if it's given in the right

hand then it's an indication that they

they were successful in this reckoning

now there's also at this point there's

intercession so there are people that

intercede for other people in all the

traditions the righteous people of the

traditions can intercede for other

people and the first to intercede are

the prophets they will intercede for

their communities so Jesus will

intercede for the Christians Moses will

intercede for the Jews and and then

there are people from the community that

reached very high spiritual stations

that will be given permission to

intercede also and then after this the

Me's on the wing the next stage is so

you have the weighing here and you have

the people of the right and the people

of the left the people of the left

go to the place of ultimate divine

alienation which is the fire and the

people of the right go to the place of

ultimate divine intimacy which is the

garden now the Quran says that the

people that go to the garden inherit

they inherit places in the garden

because every human being according to

the Islamic tradition has a place

allotted to them in the fire and a place

allotted to them in the garden every

human being has property in both places

and they will sell their property from

one or the other

those whose free their souls in this

world and sell their place in the fire

then their places are taken up by others

those who free themselves in this world

and purchase according to Quran it says

we have purchased the souls of the

believers and their wealth and against

it is paradise that's the that's the

bargain that's the that's the

transaction that you give your soul to

God and God gives you the garden and so

now there's also a point here which is

known as the the hole and this is a

massive according to the Prophet

Muhammad it extends more than the

distance of between Yemen and Syria and

it is a watering place in which those

who drink from it will never have thirst

after that and he will those who were

the most righteous from his community he

will actually give them drink from his

own hand and this is followed by

what's known as the the qantarah which

is a bridge and people see the hellfire

and go over this bridge to paradise now

according to the hadith the Prophet

Muhammad said that the most punished

person who had the worst life in in this

world in the next world he will be asked

did you ever know grief sorrow or pain

and he'll say I never knew grief sorrow

or pain in other words just entering

into this divine presence all

remembrance of the suffering of the

world is removed and also the person the

wretched one who had the most pleasure

in this world is asked the same question

in the fire did you ever know pleasure

and he can't remember any pleasure in

the world

so these these are the final the these

are the according to the Islamic

tradition the final oppose then and that

day which is the day of judgement is

known as the last day there's there's no

day after it is there any questions

twelve O'Clock that's pretty good I

didn't even look at my watch everything

comes to an end

see this is the realm now the soul

according to the Muslim belief knows all

of these things what's happened in this

realm is were in the realm of

forgetfulness and this is why in the

quran in surah turn off the the QAF

chapter it says a young chef Narang

kelapa vibhava

waka chef Nawab autocad Yamaha D we have

removed the veils from your inner sight

and now your understanding is

penetrating see people will know all of

these things right people are going to

know these things

is there God is a fire in the city well

this possibility right now there people

do according to some tuition there were

people that will taste the fire and then

come out of it and there's two views and

these are not dominant views but there

and it's interesting because there are

two extremes who meet at this place

there's the view of eben tamiya who's a

very famous scholar from the 9th century

Syria Damascus who actually believed

that the fire went out he believed that

ultimately the mercy overrides and that

was his bleep the other extreme was

somebody who he didn't even consider a

Muslim at one point in his life is the

position of even our abhi the Andrew

Seon philosopher Sufi philosopher who

said that the fire also eventually

became it went from a DAB to a dub ad

that means punishment ad that means

pleasure so in other words that

ultimately there was the soul was

purified that is not the dominant belief

the majority belief of the Muslim

theologians is that that there is

infinite residing in these in these

abodes so thank you very much