Discussions on TIME- 5 (Comments)

walaikum salam Brother Ali,

real quick...i know i have a new email from you with an attachment of your reflections on my reflections on TIME...but let me remind you before we get mixed up in a time delay from the days in between reading/responding/sending emails...remember i wrote my intitial comments in that attachment days ago which you are just now responding to tonight. so i was in a less enlightened state then than i am now, my eyes are opening more and more each day, so my comments in that attachment may reflect a lack of vision which has since improved, inshallah!!! either way, if any of your criticism ends up being a review for me because i've since improved on that specific thing, then the review too is a good way to help me learn!!!!

the email you sent last night, for me, holds lessons of great importance unlike any other email i've received so far. it is difficult to grasp in many ways, but i'm working so very hard on it. from this email, i understand more about the method of reasoning, it's a bit more clear to me now than it was before. you've talked about the need to confirm what we interpret mulitple times, but exactly how to do that, namely via this particular method of reasoning, is what became more clear. however, it isn't 100% clear yet is because i'm not as familiar with Said Nursi's methodology of reasoning as much as you...i'm too embarrassed to give a % of how clear it is for me, i only hope and pray you'll have patience as i open my eyes more and more to it, inshallah.

i want to say something in general, seemingly unrelated, but not unrelated at all that i think is important. in my small opinion, the highest knowledge of truth obtainable only remains as intellectual concepts in our heads to mull over until we are able to fully integrate the knowledge into the rest of our humanity and experience it in our being. then and only then when we integrate it into the rest of our being does the knowledge become wisdom. knowledge is acquired, wisdom is the application of that acquired knowledge. i dont want to just think about the things you present, i want to also be able to apply all of it....the application is where i often get stuck, i need practice.

on one hand, i feel far too ignorant to even try to comment since i am too new to the Quran and Said Nursi, so new that in my ignorance, i will inevitably fail in any attempt to speak about the Holy Wisdom contained in either miraculous holy work...as evidenced in your comments on my emails. on the other hand, i feel especially blessed because i come to the wisdom of the Quran and Said Nursi with an almost childlike wonder, innocence and open mind, precisely because i was not born muslim. therefore, i don't need to struggle to unlearn an islamic way of reasoning and relearn another. i only need to learn from my fresh start. yes, this learning is so unusually different and i too have my own indoctrinated, habitual thinking to replace with this new way of wisdom. but intuitively, i feel learning this exceptional wisdom properly i.e. through the right method of reasoning, is indeed a very rare and miraculous treasure of holiness. i thank Allah for guiding me to this particular extraordinary wisdom so early in my discovery of islam.

i find it very interesting that i grew up in a christian family, but virtually without religion. i had no book, no written Word of God for humans for me to read or learn to reason about. i completely dumped christianity anyway at age 7. i refused to participate in the hypocrisy and idolotry i witnessed in the people, at age 7 things just didn't feel right about it. i respected the pure teachings of Jesus (pbuh), but any notion about praying to a plastic figurine of Jesus (pbuh) glued to two perpendicular sticks was ludicrous and obvious absurdity to me. i wanted only to discover the real truth about God, so i headed straight outside into the woods to be with nature and animals...to be in direct contact with what God created. i saw no greater or better way to feel close to God than to experience His pure creation. from sunrise past sunset i was out in nature, i practically lived in nature. thankfully, Allah created me with a very deep love for His nature and animals...a reality of bountiful experiences of God's sacred treasures. it's an entirely different way of learning than conventional school. i didn't read books about God, i read trees, mud, rocks, streams, animals, rain, fur, bluffs, wind, grass, logs, ice, snow, flowers, tracks, storms, feathers, the connections i observed between things, the harmony, the changes, the macro and micro, the behaviors of all, the way things related to me and me to them, etc...an infinite, natural library all about about one subject...God.

if someone were to ask, "how can i learn about my Creator?" i imagine your exquisite answer may be something like, "go and read the Words of your Creator in the Quran which has been brought to you and to me and to all of us by God's Holy Messenger. always think deeply and carefully about what God and His Messenger are telling you and what the Words mean, and you will come to understand more about the truth of your Creator!" but my answer (before i had the Quran), "go and be in God's nature with God's animals, they are most pure. interact with His creation, know the animals, experience creation and you will discover more about the truth of your Creator." it's like the difference between learning from textbooks in the classroom vs learning by doing in the field. now, this is my opportunity to integrate another way of wisdom of God which is utterly foreign upon initial encounter yet also truly awesome ...i'm so fascinated as i continue to ponder how wonderfully both ways compliment each other.

i've spent night and day changing this reply, i'm working hard on the lessons i see. i see this particular method of reasoning as the starting point from which all belief, all discussions, all understanding of our Creator and creation must necessarily begin and continue to follow. anything else will cause me to fall into a false sense of faith and incorrect understanding. the more i think, the more i realize i need to have a better grasp on all of this, yet i must include some comments in hopes they expose my weaknesses...how else can i improve if i don't expose what i need to work on? allow me to also reiterate in my own words to see how much i'm understanding what you say which is so crucial and fundamental.

essentially, you have most appropriately described and set a standard of excellence in discerning what we say and believe about our Creator and creation by utilizing this particular method of reasoning. more specifically, you explain:

1. the need to understand where our reasoning is coming from at all times in our understanding of our experiences and reasoning with respect to the existence of Creator and creation. our latest discussions involving how our understanding of Creator and creation relate to "time".

you introduce two spheres and the necessity to make distinction between them. this is new!!! one sphere is the perspective of Creator - God's sphere (relative to one's understanding). a sphere of concluding that Creator must be (i.e. the right language) Absolute where Reality is One and necessarliy can only be One, indivisible, boundless of time/space or anything else...a sphere from which we have no right to speak on behalf of God as if an advocate...outside of prayer, that is. the other sphere is the perspective from creation - our sphere (relative to our understanding). where reality is subjective, relative to one's understanding and thus multiple, not one....a sphere where we apply this method of reasoning to our experiences in the present

2. you further explain why we always need to be aware of where we are in our perspective, i.e. which sphere our reasoning comes from, in talking about Creator and creation. why? simply put, to avoid imitating.

if by some small miracle i've correctly reiterated what you are saying, you think, "ok good, she understands and gets it"...think again, because i don't feel at all comfortable in my ability to recognize the full meaning, qualities and language of either yet.

"We usually confuse the spheres in our reasoning. Reason works only within the sphere of causes. Reason only concludes about the result of our experience. That is called 'Belief", "IMAN". If the conclusion is about something beyond our "experience", then, we cannot bring this conclusion into our reasoning back and base our further reasoning on it. This is a very crucial point."

i see that it is very very crucial to distinguish which sphere our reasoning is coming from, but this method of reasoning is new and foreign to me so i need much more practice and i need to learn and recognize which sphere is which so that i can differentiate between the two to ensure and improve true belief/iman and avoid imitating. please feel free anywhere at any time to ask me, "julie, which sphere is my or your reasoning from here?" as you did in your email about Faith. forcing me to think will help me learn how to recognize these spheres more clearly. please push me hard on this if you don't mind. for example: ask me things like, "where is your awareness lacking, think!...or...why is this God's sphere and not creation sphere...or...what else can you say about such and such...or...how do you confirm that...or...julie you are imitating or speculating, i want you to tell me how and where and with what language you're doing that so that you'll realize it for yourself...or...why are you saying that in this sphere and is that correct or incorrect...or....julie, your reasoning (or language) is incorrect, tell me what's wrong with it and where, how and why it's incorrect....etc." do you see what i need? i hope that gives you a better idea of where i'm weak, inshallah, because i dont understand enough to explain it further with other words. trust me, i'm not the slightest bit intimidated by your toughness because i'm more brutal on myself than you ever will be!!! this is important material!!!!!!!!

"In order to avoid imitation, we need to be aware of "TIME", i.e. continuous coming into existence, or, continuously given existence."

let me reiterate what i understand. in order to avoid imitation we need to understand time, that things are being continuously brought into existence from our perspective in this sphere of creation. applying this particular approach to reasoning is how we may conclude and confirm what we believe and this is the only way to true iman/belief. here is where there i run into some fog in my mind: "in order to avoid imitating, we need to be aware of "TIME"......because?? let me first try to answer this myself to train my thinking, i hope i don't butcher this too badly, inshallah, i want so much to understand. because........

because if i'm aware of time, i.e. my subjective perspective of my experiences and observations of creation in present in that things are continously being brought into existence "now" which prevents me from incorrectly reasoning conclusions from past beliefs or conclusions which come from anything other than (beyond) my experience. i hope i understand this correctly, it's so important, it's also something i need much practice doing to become adept at it.

what confuses me is: what about my present beliefs which 've retained...beliefs that resulted from my past experiences which are not being brought into existence because they were unique and are no longer in existence....yet at that time, i concluded through my own reasoning as a result of my experience, which you say is belief. so what do i do with those beliefs from the past? for example an experience of Allah's attribute of Beauty i remember from the past...am i to drop that belief and confirm a new belief that Beauty is an Absolute attribute of God from present experiences? or do i renew my old belief in the present. i'm a bit lost once i think of anything other than the present. and how are we to forget things when Allah created us with memory? what is the puporse of memory then?

"Only the Absolute reality exists by itself, the creatures exist because there are given existence by the Absolute Reality. Their existence points to the existence of the Absolute Reality."

it is because things cannot create themselves and cannot give themselves existence that their existence necessitates an Absolute Creator.

" "Allah would not have created it"
For the second sentence again, how we can speculate something about God? We cannot. The elephant is created, that is our reality, we are experiencing it here on earth. If there was no elephant how could i talk about it? We need to stop using this kind of language."

here's where i'm confused about the elephant. i don't see how this is "speculating something about God" perhaps because in this specific instance i do not see the distinction between the two spheres, rather i've mixed them so much that i'm not able to see the distinction. here is my reasoning as to why i don't see the elephant stuff as speculation:

we both conclude that the Creator is Absolute because nothing created creates itself nor has the ability to give itself or anything else existence, which means all things created MUST have been given their existence by something else which we call God and God MUST be Absolute because all things are continuously being brought into existence each moment. so, can we not then conclude that all attributes of God are also Absolute? and because one of God's attributes is All-Wise, can we not then conclude that there is wisdom in all created beings the All-Wise God creates? is there anything without wisdom? thus i conclude there is wisdom in the creation of the elephant otherwise "Allah would not have created it". that seems perfectly reasonable and logical to me. if we conclude All-Wise must be an absolute attribute of God, then how is it speculation to conclude God is not going to do something UNwise?

"...Do you now understand that when we say, "the future does not exist", it is a statement which is said in this sphere of creation in order to reason about the existence of the things i experience now. I do not experience the future, it does not exist FOR ME. Nothing more than this. Why do we bring into the discussion what we had concluded about before. We are reasoning now, we are expected to come to a conclusion and say that the Source of this creation MUST know what it is going to be created, because He must be Absolute..."

yes, i'm beginning to understand. i brought that future into the discussion because i had not concluded the future didn't exist, you did...and rather than follow your belief blindly like a sheep, i used my own indepent mind to "argue" (just like you, i do not mean argue for real, just discuss, albeit in a challenging way, to discover deeper understanding...not that i believed what i said) the concept of future. and at the time i'd written what you are being tough about, i had no clear understanding of these "spheres" nor the need to make a distinction between them which you've introduced in this email.

"Again, while reasoning, there is a confusion of the spheres in the last sentences of the email"

yeah, i know because clearly i need help distinguishing between them to prevent mixing them. but again, at the time i'd written "the last sentences" of my email, i'd never heard of "spheres", and at this point i'm thinking you are very frustrated with me. i'm so very sorry as well as disappointed in myself that i do not meet the expectations of correct conclusions or use the correct method of reasoning in less than 24 hours of reading your email and having this method more clearly explained for me in a way i did not see before...as well as learn about "spheres" in this email for the first time. this is why this email of yours holds vitally important lessons for me as i stated in my opening sentence. "more clearly explained" does not mean i have an expert's grasp on it..yet.

YOU are the one with eyes wide open, not me. i am not wise Brother Ali, in fact, i don't understand (though i'm greatly honored) why you would even want my thoughts regarding your article on TIME to begin with. my opinion is meaningless and nothing since i'm only a very ignorant beginner, i'm certainly not someone at your depth of understanding regarding the Quran and the Risale-i Nur. i want to be, and some day i hope to be, inshallah...but i am not there yet. what i AM is a student on a very serious quest seeking to be as close to Allah as humanly possible in my lifetime.

"We need to pray Allah to guide us to a true realization of the concept of time because it help us live in the presence of Allah always."

1. are we ever not in Allah's presence? or is it that we need to confirm we are through this method of reasoning.

2. "in Allah's presence"......so where is Allah?

"If we listen to the Hutba, (sermons) and reason accordingly, it is inevitable for us to speak from God's perspective because they usually use their previous conclusions, if not previous cultural belief, to base their reasoning. I think it is NOT reasoning it is just repetition of themselves. Mostly, claims. As "Hutba" it is fine, NOT as our reasoning while we are not in the position of Speaking to God in the form of prayer."
this describes the confusion about the spheres due to or in conjunction with an incorrect method of reasoning, i.e. this is imitating. i think the confusion comes from never having been introduced to any need to make such a distinction before, and thus the two spheres are habitually seen as one and that mixing them is all that's known, it is the "norm". this way of perceiving Creator and creation is original, unique and valuable. i need to clarify them more as i discussed already.


in a nutshell this email contains these fundamental lessons:

1. based on what i experience, using this particular and correct method of reasoning to confirm my experience to form conclusions which establishes correct iman, as opposed to imitating beliefs.

2. becoming and remaining aware of where my reasoning is coming from, which sphere am i standing in when i talk about the Creator and creation...realizing that i cannot talk on behalf of God outside of prayer.

3. regarding time, there is no boundary of time/space from the sphere of Absolute Creator, and for the sphere we're in of creation, i do not experience past or future, so they do not exist, that is my experience.

4. this in addition to recognition of which sphere my reasoning is coming from is most important: "(i realized and confirmed that)"......"That is not belief based on confirmation and certainty." i.e......learning the correct language and how to confirm with certainty via correct reasoning from my experiences of how things are existing (sphere of creation) in order to form my conclusions about the Source/Creator of those created things (God's sphere) IS fundamentally THE MOST critical thing of all. do not ease up on me until i get this THOROUGHLY, 1000%

below is an example of me testing my knowledge of the above...i'll probably ruin it as my brain is getting so fried from being too stubborn to stop until now...i think it's not specific enough or something in my reasoning is missing...anyway, below is an example self test:

example: remembering various experiences with other creatures...the Beauty and Love i've seen and felt with them...the experience itself taught me this Beauty, this Love must be the Beauty, the Love of God. well, actually, at those times i was so certain of this that i told myself, "this Beauty, this Love IS God", but now i'm learning from you in this email, i need to watch myself and be careful, i can't speak on behalf of God and say "God is ____" outside of prayer. i need to use correct language. so all i can say is "i observed/experienced this and from my experience i conclude these must be attributes of God"

i wonder how faulty my conclusions are. from the various experiences of my example, i concluded this Beauty and Love must be of God. why? because for me, the experience of something that awesome that it took my breath away in its truth, something that profoundly moving that i couldn't speak, something that miraculous, that deeply special, beautiful, precious so far above and beyond the mere physical had to mean there is a Creator of infinite and most Supreme Love, Beauty, Wisdom, Truth etc. my conclusion came from what i felt more than from me sitting there reasoning through it. that i'm even able to feel such profoundness of depth in the way that i do allows me to conclude there is a Creator of my spirit and body to be on earth, and since i'm created, so too are all things.

more test practice, although it's not that great...my brain is getting so fried from all this at this point that i'm starting to not make sense to myself, sorry, i need a break, but i can't give up when i'm almost finished and this is really so very important to me because it's the foundation upon which all else in my growth regarding this wisdom will develop so it MUST be solid yet i am weak as you'll see in this test:

Creator is the only Reality or Absolute. creation/created things reflect aspects of the Creator, just as a book is not separate from its author but the book is also not the author, only an aspect or reflection of the author. creation is never separate from its Creator. the attributes, qualities or aspects of individual creatures and all of creation necessarily reflect the Absolute Creator, how can they not since i conclude they were created by their Creator? how do i confirm this? no created thing can create itself, they can only be created by something else, their existence is dependent on something else. so even though the book is not the author and the created things are not the Creator, the attributes they reflect are Absolute and eternal because they reflect the Creator who is Absolute and eternal.

ok...i'm ending my reply now before i find something else that trips my mind up because i know i wont stop until i get it...i've worked on this email hard for 24 hours with little sleep and food because it was that important to me!!!! i still have much work to do to understand this, in time things will unfold more in my mind, inshallah...but i can say with certainty that after all my study of this email of yours, i feel MUCH BETTER now than i did when i first read it last night..yay!!! :-)

julie