Peace

In february to april this year, i had a great sense of peace in my life. I was at a point where i had had enough of life, i wanted nothng from this world apart from peace. I had left london and moved to sweden. Those who have ever lived in london will know of the great sense of unhappiness that clouds the city (due to chemtrails). Settling in sweden, I was as always on a spiritual journey, and was ready for a spiritual teacher. I did not find it in stockholms only sufi center. Instead, i found it in eckhart tolle.

His teachings deeply touched me, and i would obsessisvely read, watch, listen to everything i could find by him. As a result, I would allow my ego to be weakened, i would use every minor or major challenge in life to be used for practising his teachings, i would often stop my thought processes to just be present in the moment. My life became so blissful, alhough outwardly i had nothing.

I have recently started looking back at that time often with a sence of having lost a great wealth.  A funny memory i have of that time is of my mum constantly asking me to go buy a pair of shoes. I didnt really understand why she wanted me to buy shoes since i wasnt barefoot. She would remind me so often that it came into a dream. In the dream i had all kinds of shoes in many colours and styles, and i thought my mum must be nuts to image i need shoes. The reality was that i only had one pair of shoes, which were torn at the sole, thus letting in the cold swedish snow. But i really did not feel the need for another pair. I was at peace! I didnt really need anything att all since i obtained the peace i had desired.

Through my peace, i found that my living conditons improved greatly. I even had profound spiritual experiences, which i wrote about here in the blog. All the things i had wished for came to me. I found amazing, genuine friends, and many of them, i moved to a wonderful place. I got the kinds of jobs i had wanted for years. My relationship with my husband completely transformed. I found so much joy in life. So much so, that i got caught up in it. I found other so called spiritual teachers who inspired joy in me. I started to want to enjoy life again. Recently i found myself, despite all these blessings, becoming unhappy. I did not realise for a while what had happened. And then, i had some disappointments affect me. I became even more unhappy. Yet this was what alerted me. I realised my unhapiness came from my desires. When i did not want, i was at peace. Not happy or unhappy, just at peace. When i started deriving my pleasure from external things, my desire for external things grew, and that caused me unhappiness. It is so ironic how obtaining something only makes you want more. There is no problem with having things, as such, the problem is when you rely on external things to make you complete, at peace or happy.

One day, i started to watch The Arrivals series with my husband (available online). It is a wonderful series of documentary short films about the illuminati, or the prophesized one-eyed false messiah. The makers of the documentary are muslims, and it created a sense of shock in me to discover that not only was what i had known about islam  (through english translations of the Quran) was false, but that there are undeniable evidence of truth in the holy book. I was a point were i was doubting all i knew. I was struck with how widespread this false image of islam is (through sectarian spread of  misleading translations of the quran). I asked my husband to translate the original quran for me and we read some parts together, and it did indeed correspond to what i believe to be true (albeit in different wording than how i have heard it elsewhere), and it became apparent how profound the spiritual message is. It did not deny many of the more controversial notions i carry, such as reincarnation and spirituality beyond religion etc. i was confused and felt lost, but found comfort in a buddhist saying: do not seek the truth, just stop having opinions. It seems to me that the Quran is indeed true and sacred. Yet i cannot deny that i find truth in other spiritual scriptures, even if they have varying levels of  corruption in them. I had had a resistance to the religion of islam, because of my upbringing in an atheist household from a muslim background, not to mention my having lived in europe all my life, where the battle is on to vilify muslims by discrediting their faith.

So I went to examine the definition of islam. It says expressly in the Quran that the Deen is Islam. Some falsely translate that as the religion being islam (or that the true and only religion is islam). But that is not what it says. Deen can be roughly translated as The Way (some also translate the Tao as the Way), and islam means (roughly translated) submission/surrender/peace. Surrender to what? It doesnt say, so the implied meaning as i understand it is submission (or inner non-resistance) to What it/Reality/God/Anything. So, according to my prsonal interpretation, the bottomline of the message in the Quran is that submission/surrender/peace is The Way.  Sounds pretty universal to me. That it was made into a religion is not interesting to me, that is man-made, but the message is universal.

The Quran says that (my own rough translation) ”there has not been a nation/people to whom a warner was not sent. Meaning to me that God’s message is sent to many people in many ways. The message of submission/inner non-resistance/inner acceptance (also present in buddhist teaching and other places) is universal, there is also never a mention of quran as the book of a religion, it  was not intended for religious purposes, it was a message, a spiritual one. There are also verses about the Unity of all things and unity of you and God. There is also so much room for interpretation, that it seems the Quran is not the rigidly narrow religious book i had thought it was, or that is was made into in translations. From all i am learning, i see it as another important spiritual book to assist in spiritual growth.  But it has been hard, and still is at times, to overlook my very old prejudice about it.

As a little sidenote, I have to stress that even though there may be preconceived notions about what the word God entails, to me, there can be no definition of it. I can only say that by the word God, i do not mean a patriarc in the sky, i do not mean a limited being, i do not mean a being that can be defined or explained by words. Although it may or may not be appropriate to even refer to it as God, i use that word simply because it is easier and in order to bridge the illusiory gap between religious spirituality and ”unscritured” spirituality .

So continuing along the lines of submission and the notion of ”warners” being sent to all societies:

When I was led back to eckhart tolle in my state of confusion, it struck me how, even though i believe the Quran is true (and also the originals of other ancient scripture around the world), i simply feel eckhart tolle appeals to me more. The guy ”speaks my language” (even literally), and his teachings are easier for me to apply. Yet, in essence, his teachings are at the core also about submission, albeit in different wording, like acceptance and surrender (to the present moment, to What Is). He is also saying that the freedom from suffering comes from submission/acceptance and surrender, and that endless suffering is the result of a state of inner non acceptance/non-surrender/non-submission. The message is the same , but the channel of the message is different. Let us not be dogmatic and narrowminded, like i have been, and not exclude things because of the labels that are put on them. As Eckhart Tolle reminds us (from a buddhist saying): The finger that points to the moon is not the moon. Different messengers and their followers all point to the metaphorical moon, but from different viewpoints, and it is not the pointing that is the truth, it is only an indication of that which cannot truly be expressed in words.

I am not trying to say that Eckhart Tolle is your saviour. I am just saying he is the channel for spiritual truth who appeals most to me, and whose style of teaching i find most applicable in my own life. 

In case you wondered, I am now trying to apply the teachings in my own life again, and I am already feeling at peace.

The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named is not the eternal name
The nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth
The named is the mother of myriad things
Thus, constantly without desire, one observes its essence
Constantly with desire, one observes its manifestations
These two emerge together but differ in name
The unity is said to be the mystery
Mystery of mysteries, the door to all wonders

From www.taoism.net.


Peace.












You can find the Arrivals series on YouTube, http://www.arrivals.technocrazed.com/, and  http://thearrivals.blogspot.com/, among other places.  They have other films as well, such as Phase 3, and I find them truly inspiring, upfting, and powerful. They are addictive i believe because they awaken the light in you. The creators are preparing the (re?)launch of their main website at the moment.


Bless!