Forty Sessions
Missing Pearls
Discussion
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In some Dervish gatherings Sheikh Semnani lectured:
The Hereafter [1] is the spirit/life of this universe
as the Present is the
spirit/life of the Past & Future yet the people are unaware of this
fact. As it is difficult to discern the Present sandwiched between the
Past & Future and we find the Present so distant from the Past
& Future, similarly it is difficult to see the nearness of
the Hereafter to this universe. For as long as the universe exists, the
Present is concealed between the Present & Future.
The Human being finds no life in the Past nor in the Future, his actual
act
of living is encapsulated within the Present. And this selfsame Present
is too subtle to detect, discern or capture.
Therefore gaze upon the life of this world as something minute that is
difficult to detect. That is why Allah has called this
life as Matā’ and this word in Arabic means the crumbs left over after
someone who was famished ate from a dish and licked almost everything
away.
Whatever you may find in the Hereafter be it goodness or evil, you can
see
it within your own Nafs (Psyche, Self).
The goodness found in Paradise has a counterpart within the Self by the
assent and blessings of Allah. I love the Wāqi’āt Rābi’ah Qibtiah
(poetess) elucidating this matter:
Once I was allowed to roam
Around my dwellings in Paradise
And there I saw many trees
Blooming with gold and jewels
When suddenly I noticed
A tree of strung pearls
With one pearl missing
I cried: Woe unto me
Wished that one pearl was in-situ
A voice cried: It was in place
Until thoughts crossed your mind:
“I have done such and such”
Hence the missing pearl
(One can do the Dhikr (Remembrance)
for the Divine Being and trees bloom in the other universe, or Dhikr
(Remembrance) of his own Self causing blossoms fall off the trees.)
And again she said:
I saw many kegs in a valley
Some filled with blessings
Some half-filled
And some filled with
All things foul
So I cried: What are all these?
A voice replied:
These are the containers
Filled with the measure
And quality of your deeds
Your Hereafter’s provision
The Mustafā (Chosen, Mohammad) said: The earth of Paradise is flat,
with trees of Tasbih (Divine Praise) and trees of Tahlil (Divine
Exaltation).
(I could not find this Hadith (Prophetic Narration) but I found the one
below
which has a similar meaning:)
رأيت إبراهيم ليلة
أسري بي فقال: يا محمد أقرئ أمتك السلام، وأخبرهم أن الجنة طيبة التربة
عذبة الماء، وأنها قيعان، وغراسها "سبحان الله، والحمد لله، ولا إله إلا
الله، والله أكبر، ولا حول ولا قوة إلا بالله".
["قيعان": جمع قاع، وهي أرض مستوية، لا بناء ولا غراس فيها]ـ
التخريج (مفصلا): الطبراني في الكبير عن ابن مسعود
تصحيح السيوطي: صحيح
End.
[1] Wittgenstein's
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus:
6.41. The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the
world everything is as it is, and everything happens as it does happen:
in it
no value exists—and if it did exist, it would have no value.
If there is any value that does have value, it must lie
outside the whole sphere of what happens…
What makes it non-accidental cannot lie within the world,
since if it did it would itself be accidental.
It must
lie outside the world.
©
2005-2001,
Dara O. Shayda, Hind Rifai M.D.