Leo Tolstoy on God

LEO TOLSTOY ON GOD: "When you look inside yourself, you see what is called 'your own self' or your soul. You cannot touch it or see it or understand it, but you know it is there. And this part of yourself--that which you cannot understand--is what is called God. God is both around us and inside of us--in our souls.

The more you understand that you are at one with God, the more you will understand that you are at one with all His worldly manifestations."

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Book Review: "Muhammad: A Story of The Last Prophet" by Deepak Chopra


"Wisdom is like hot coals," Waraqah, the Believer, said. "People enjoy the glow, but they're not stupid enough to step in."


Waraqah, the Believer, is one of several characters Deepak Chopra uses to narrate his tale of "the last prophet."

I don't know if this strategy were the best, as it made the story of "Muhammad," very complicated and hard to follow. [Even Chopra admitted that his dropping in and out of characters could be "confusing."] Obviously, it was the only way Chopra could "lessen the impact of our modern-day judgments," and accurately tell the tale of this "last prophet," who left a legacy of both tremendous strife and tremendous compassion.

Orphaned at age six, Muhammad did not in any way seem destined for greatness in seventh-century Arabia. He grew up in a large extended family of uncles, cousins and other males who belonged to the Hashim clan. The society he grew up in was that of fierce tribal rivalries. Muhammad's struggles started when he tried to educate the various clans that there is only ONE God, and that is God, Allah, not the many "gods," they paid homage to in their daily lives with sacrifices.


Muhammad's awakening and teachings led to bloodshed. Although he came out of the Middle Eastern desert, like Jesus and Moses, his struggle for recognition as a great prophet is even more pronounced today when members of the Muslim-based Jihad commit atrocities in his name.

Despite the circuitous way of telling it, the story of "Muhammad" is a fascinating look at a man who was way ahead of his time by marrying a widowed woman, Khadijah, 15 years his senior. The fact that Khadijah was a rich widow and liberated, yet made Muhammad a keeper of all her goods as a merchant, made her stand out in stark contrast to the other women in the Arabian society who were much more submissive to their husbands.


The liberal stance Muhammad maintained towards women certainly could have been nurtured at the breasts of his fiesty "wet nurse," Halimah. Despite her poverty, Halimah was a woman of great integrity, wisdom and insights.

Muhammad's awakening came through the archangel, Gabriel, who also had appeared to Mary, and who urged him to "recite," even though Muhammad could not read or write, a level of illiteracy not uncommon even for "well to do" at that time.

Gabriel's persistence for Muhammad to "recite," even embracing him three times to give him confidence, is ultimately the reason Muhammad and the rest of his community knew that he was being called to serve from a higher place.

With this sudden ability to "recite," we then become witnesses to the transformation in this man, Muhammad, who would be ordinary, had it not been for the "extraordinary" occurrences he encountered throughout his journey.


Chopra grew up in India, so was a first-hand witness to the riots and mass murders that resulted from the partition in Pakistan in 1947. The thing that intrigued him about Muhammad, though, was:

"my fascination with the way in which consciousness rises to the level of the divine. This phenonmenon links Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad. Higher consciousness is universal. It is held out as the ultimate goal of life on earth.

"Without guides who reached higher consciousness, the world would be bereft of its greatest visionaries--fatally bereft, in fact."




I was drawn to this book, too, because Deepak Chopra has been a great guide for me throughout my spiritual journey. I saw him first in the late 1980s, when he was just emerging publicly as a spiritual teacher. Since then, I've been witness to his evolution, as I've also been witness to my own.


What is especially fascinating to me about this book, "Muhammad: The Story of the Last Prophet," is its TRUTH of the journey of Spirit.

Indeed, if God were looking for a last messenger to deliver to us a message of Hope, he chose the right personality.

Muhammad himself felt that he was an ordinary man who had an "extraordinary experience."

Aren't so many of us experiencing this very thing, today, when we receive that first stirring of Spirit?

We begin very tentatively, doubting that we are hearing anything but our own imagination going wild.

Eventually, we settle into following the path we're being directed, despite our humanity and personality protesting all the way.



Then, we reach a certain plateau in our journey, where we must choose sides: the ways of the world or God.

It becomes that simple:

"No man shalt thou serve two masters, for either he will love the one and hate the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Matthew 6: 24


That's what happens to us along the journey.

This plateau.

Decisions.

Decisions between our spirituality and our humanity (personality).



Decisions between the Good within us and the Evil that also lurks within.


Those are the battles we fight, until the end: battles of the Soul!

These are the battles Deepak Chopra so clearly demonstrated through the complicated figure of "Muhammad, A Story of the Last Prophet."



So, if Jesus were the first "messenger of Truth," as many of us believe, and came to reveal to us the Spirit within us, we clearly can appreciate God's need to send other messengers along the way, then a last "messenger of Truth" about the "Human" within us as well.

That's why the wisdom of Waraqah, the Believer resonates with many who would be oh...so Human:
"Wisdom is like hot coals. People enjoy the glow, but they're not stupid enough to step in."



May God Bless you on your journey of Truth!

Namaste',

Che'

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Personal Authenticity: "To Thine Own Self Be True"...

"To Thine Own Self Be True and it must follow as the night, the day, Thou canst not then be false to ANY man."
William Shakespeare.