Writer: Sophia
The author of ‘Vivre, a quoi ca sert’ (living, what is the point?), Soeur Emmanualle was elected as the most favorite woman in the hearts of the French. In this book <Vivre, a quoi ca sert>, she used ‘Meditations’ by French genius mathematician, physicist and philosopher, Blaise Pascal as the main axis to explore deeply the meaning of life. The author quoted the words of Blaise Pascal “man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed”.
This reminds me of an article written by the Chinese author, Bi Shu Min – <Five things in Life>. Following this train of thought, I played a game, <My five things> with students; the rules of this game were simple. Each person was given a piece of paper and a pen. Firstly, write down < XXX of five things> on the top middle of the paper. Then, write down in order the five most important and precious things in life. After this, delete one thing at a time, finally leaving only one thing on the paper. This game is like a small scout/spy game, helping you to examine your own values. These five things can be food, water, money, people, animal; it can also be spiritual ideal, objective and etc. The first thing that rushes into our mind may not be the thing we want to cherish and possess, but we know it is something essential to support life. Just as mentioned by the author “a choice decides a path, and the accomplishment of the path will become a type of life? Most importantly, what do you want? What kind of choice do you want?
Students wrote many things including father, mother, water, Test for English Majors- band 8, money, good career, enviable and blissful marriage and so on and so forth. Indeed, there were all kinds of extraordinary things! There were two students whose last thing remained on the paper was not something mentioned above but was ‘Allah’! I was really pleased; in this realistic materialistic world, man’s final most precious choice is still the Lord!
Why Allah created you and me? What is the intention of His creation? What is the meaning of our existence and our life? The watch tells us the time, the cup is to hold water, the table lamp is to illuminate darkness, and even a reed beside the river can be woven for use and can be set fire upon to warm us. What’s more we are a thinking reed. What is the Creator Allah’s intention in creating us so exquisitely?
<Quran> 7:29. Say: “My Lord hath commanded justice; and that ye set your whole selves (to Him) at every time and place of prayer, and call upon Him, making your devotion sincere as in His sight: such as He created you in the beginning, so shall ye return.”
This is a very exciting surah. In the beginning, when the Lord created human, man could attain such a standard: man can achieve this in every worship: set their whole selves to Allah, call upon Him, making sincere devotion.
Yet, we are always doubtful in our hearts: the Lord is like a dictator, He had created you and therefore you have to obey Him absolutely! External traditions and family upbringing have taught us not to have any doubt whatsoever towards the Lord; men have to prostrate oneself in admiration of Him and bow to Him. Whenever there is doubt in our hearts, we always suppress it and tell ourselves, “Cannot doubt, must be firm and not suspect otherwise, there will be no more faith! However, how can we deceive Allah so easily? Does He not know clearly what we think in our innermost being? Please do not be misled by our own traditions!
The above surah tells us three key points:
‘Create’: Allah first created all living things, then only created man; there was a very clear order. He completely prepared all heaven and earth, then only place man in the middle to enjoy all these things that He had created. (Please refer to <Quran> 2: 29). Allah created everything for you and me, including the air that we breathe in freely daily, rain, sunshine, animals, plants and etc. (Please refer to <Quran> 14: 32-34). All these manifest Allah‘s kindness and mercy to us. (Please refer to <Quran> 41: 10-12).
“set your whole selves to Him”: these are special words to express a very close relationship, very intimate, very willingly, so fascinated, cannot help but run towards Him. (Please refer to <Quran> 6: 162).
“call upon Him”: obviously this is a communication and not a ritual of worship (Please refer to <Quran> 2: 186). I remember a story called “The report is completed”. The story is about a military officer who had just come to know the Lord. His mentor told him to remember to say ‘Amin’ every time he ends his prayer. The officer returned home and was very excited because his commander-in-chief was really not worth mentioning when compared with the Creator Lord. Moreover, it was such a great honor to know the loving Lord. Thus, he prayed to the Lord, he spoke for a long time and finally, when he wanted to end his prayer, he could not recall the concluding word taught by his mentor. Eventually, he made such a move: straightened his feet, raised his hand to salute and said, “The report is completed!”
<Quran> 10:61. In whatever business thou mayest be, and whatever portion thou mayest be reciting from the Qur’an,- and whatever deed ye (mankind) may be doing,- We are witnesses thereof when ye are deeply engrossed therein. Nor is hidden from thy Lord (so much as) the weight of an atom on the earth or in heaven. And not the least and not the greatest of these things but are recorded in a clear record.
10:62. Behold! verily on the friends of Allah there is no fear, nor shall they grieve;
10:63. Those who believe and (constantly) guard against evil;-
The Lord is the witness for everything you do: such an intimate relationship just like inseparable good friends. The Lord did not only consider all our needs when He created us, He hopes to be our best friend! He is always at our side as our supporter and witness, He always encourages us, reminds us and this is not momentary but eternally. This is such a big sum of spiritual wealth! Being able to set our whole selves to Him, call upon Him, making our devotion sincere because we know He is our bosom friend, having such deep intrinsic relationship to go through thick and thin together!
Is the Lord whom we believe in a loving Lord just as what is revealed in the Scripture? The Lord reveals His purpose for creating us, He does not keep an eye on you fiercely every day and if you make any mistake, He will not slap you to death otherwise, we are probably dead already. In fact, the Lord does not only preserve our lives, He even allows us to be close to Him and to know Him, the opportunity to experience Him and His grace. Have you experienced it? How should be our attitude in response to Him and in revering Him?
At this moment, one student raised a question: I worship the Lord, others do not know and cannot comment. Isn’t it something between me and the Lord?
The Scripture give us a good verification, it allows us to see clearly our own condition. This is because we do not use the Lord’s words to examine other people but we must first examine ourselves. Before talking about worship, <Quran> 7: 29 also mentioned another matter: “The Lord commanded justice”. What is the connection between prayer and commanding justice? And what is the connection between these two with creation? In our concept of tradition, prayer is the most important; whereas whether or not to command justice is dependent on the development of things and the current state of the person. If this is the way you see, then you are living in self-deception. This is because the Scripture tells us that both commanding justice and prayer are equally important in Allah’s sight. Both are the Lord’s commands. Furthermore, in this surah, commanding justice is put before prayer, thus, we do not have any reason and excuse to evade and to escape from this command. In other words, a person who genuinely sets his whole self to Allah, call upon Him and make sincere devotion is definitely a person who commands justice and does righteousness! In this person’s life, he will not do unrighteousness to anyone because he is close to Allah. On the contrary, if a person does not do righteousness and does not command justice in his life, then surely he is not Allah’s worshipper. Even if he worships the Lord, it is fake/pretense because his actual action is to deny the righteous Lord whom he is worshipping!
We can see that the purpose of the Lord in creating man is plainly visible. He desires to become bosom friend with you and me and every day He constantly manifests His lovingkindness to us. Do we have eyes to see? How to make friend with Allah? There are two aspects:
Firstly, learn the Lord’s word. From His word, we receive guidance and understand His will.
Secondly, walk in righteousness. Use our lives to experience and obey the Lord’s word. Why does the Lord become our witness? Here is the meaning: in the world of darkness you become the channel to manifest the Lord’s justice, to testify to the world the truthfulness and power of the Lord’s word! To become the Lord’s glorified righteous servant!
What is our choice? Are you willing to continue to live in self-deception? Does our Lord not know about this? He longs for us to be His friends, to live a life without fear, without worry. Be the Lord’s friend; pursue a righteous, holy, truthful, peaceful and joyful life!
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Note: All Al-Quran verses are sourced from English Translation of Al-Quran by Abdullah Yusuf Ali, with thanks.