Flee The Tech Prison, Spiritual Meditations, NewAgeIslam.com

Spiritual Meditations

Flee The Tech Prison

There was a time i could multiply 196 by 832, call my friends, family, lovers without referring to a phone book, remember the birthdays of those who mattered most to me, spell every word i knew without the slightest hesitation. I never owned a dictionary nor a phone book. Yes, i had a calculator on my desk but that was not to add, subtract, divide or multiply. It was for multiple calculations, finding square roots of impossibly large figures, which i needed while solving mathematical puzzles, my favourite source of shortterm amusement. Today i use my cellphone to add and subtract, recall phone numbers and faces, remind me about birthdays. My laptop tries to correct my spellings, language, grammar and often makes mistakes itself. No, i don’t need to remember anything at all. Google helps me find it in an instant. What was the song Bade Ghulam Ali sang in Khudita Pashan, Tagore’s unforgettable ghost story that Tapan Sinha directed, for which Ali Akbar Khan wrote the music? Who directed Edward Scissorhands? Who was India’s first education minister? Was Jailhouse Rock the King’s first big hit? How does one become a citizen of Melchizedek? Google has an answer for most things, from curing your cat’s diarrhoea to which old bookshop in London may have the 1921 edition of Lorca’s Libro de Poemas. When Google fails, there’s Twitter. Somebody, somewhere, will always have an answer to the question bothering you. The answer need not always be right. None of us look for right answers in life. We look for answers that comfort us. It’s a bit like finding God. If he doesn’t exist, we’ll have to manufacture him.

http://newageislam.com/flee-the-tech-prison/spiritual-meditations/d/2268

American politics: The God question, Islamic Ideology, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic Ideology

American politics: The God question

Aug 15th 2008 | NEW YORK

In 2000 and again in 2004 the choice was easy: George Bush wore his religion on his sleeve, declared that Jesus was his favourite philosopher and staunchly promoted religious-conservative positions. This year things are rather different. Mr McCain is an infrequent churchgoer and he hardly mentions his faith. When asked about it, he often speaks not of himself but of one of his North Vietnamese captors, a Christian who treated him kindly. He made enemies on the religious right in 2000 by saying that Jerry Falwell, a televangelist, was among harmful “agents of intolerance”.

He has since been trying to make up ground. He boasts a strong anti-abortion voting record in the Senate and this year he backed a gay-marriage ban in his home state (although he opposed a federal constitutional amendment on it). He has even spoken at Rev Falwell’s university. Still, Karl Rove, who successfully made religious conservatives into effective shock-troops for Mr Bush in the past two presidential elections, thinks that Mr McCain needs to talk more about his personal faith. Mr Warren’s church may give him the opportunity.

http://newageislam.com/american-politics--the-god-question/islamic-ideology/d/564

Lecture 5: The Spirit of Muslim Culture, Books and Documents, NewAgeIslam.com

Books and Documents

Lecture 5: The Spirit of Muslim Culture

‘Muhammad of Arabia ascended the highest Heaven and returned. I swear by God that if I had reached that point, I should never have returned.’1 These are the words of a great Muslim saint, ‘AbdulQuddës of Gangoh. In the whole range of Sufi literature it will be probably difficult to find words which, in a single sentence, disclose such an acute perception of the psychological difference between the prophetic and the mystic types of consciousness. The mystic does not wish to return from the repose of ‘unitary experience’; and even when he does return, as he must, his return does not mean much for mankind at large. The prophet’s return is creative. He returns to insert himself into the sweep of time with a view to control the forces of history, and thereby to create a fresh world of ideals. For the mystic the repose of ‘unitary experience’ is something final; for the prophet it is the awakening, within him, of world-shaking psychological forces, calculated to completely transform the human world. The desire to see his religious experience transformed into a living world-force is supreme in the prophet. Thus his return amounts to a kind of pragmatic test of the value of his religious experience.

http://newageislam.com/lecture-5--the-spirit-of-muslim-culture/books-and-documents/d/216

God is the source of all power, Islamic Ideology, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic Ideology

God is the source of all power

By Sayyid Qutb

The Quraysh sought to enjoy might and glory among the Arabs through idolatrous beliefs that lacked real substance. They feared to follow divine guidance, even though they acknowledged that it was guidance, because they feared for their own status. Yet those people, the Arabian tribes and clans, were not a source of might and glory. They could not give or deny these to anyone: “All might and glory belong to God alone.” If they enjoyed any measure of power and might, it was only because God gave them this. Therefore, anyone who wishes to have these should go to the original source, not to a recipient of that source. Recipients can only give what they have in excess. Besides, recipients are also weak and in need.

This is an essential truth of Islamic faith, which establishes values, standards, judgment, behaviour and ways and means. When this truth is firmly rooted in one’s heart, one does not hesitate to stand up in dignity and glory to the rest of the world, knowing from whom one derives might and glory. Such a person does not bow before any despot, storm, calamity, state, or worldly force whatsoever. Why would they when all might and glory belong to God alone, and when no one receives any portion of it without His leave?

http://newageislam.com/god-is-the-source-of-all-power/islamic-ideology/d/120