hey, still gracie

[ayani]

ah, thank you, Butters. that means a lot to me...

[TashaN]

You know what, i saw some of your posts and i felt that the style of these posts are familiar to me then i started doing my investigations, going through your profile and stuff till i reached to this thread and BINGO! i was right. It's just gracie.

It was really amazing that i could feel that it was you even though you were using another name. I really find that so interesting.

I also would like to tell you that i'm impressed with your spirituality, and i guess you already found the answer through true love and pure heart which will definitely lead you to God no matter what. God will never fail you if you reached to him in humblness. I wish you all the best my good friend.

[TashaN]

Originally Posted by Hema

I saw your new name from another one of your posts (before I saw this thread) and I knew it was you.

Excatly, isn't she so unique?

[ayani]

Truth... you are a gem, that is all i can say. **squish**

[ayani]

hey... just thought i'd post something here to kind of let you know where i'm at spiritually. from a post at free-minds.org.

there's a theological idea called panentheism which i think may apply here. that God is within the universe but also transcends it.

that God is His attributes, yet is also more than them, transcends them.

i remember a kind of small experience i had a few years ago... i was wondering, in general ways, about meaning and Truth, had been reading some Ibn Al-Arabi and Kahlil Gibran. a few years ago i went on this neat trip for a class to find baby snakes. we came across this beautiful, beautiful expanse of woods with a few birch trees and between them a carpet of little white flowers. it looked flat, but as you walked through it, there were dips and rises in the earth that you couldn't see. i think that God and our spiritual lives are like this field. you can not divorce in circumstances of your own life from Al-Haqq- just as you can't just look at the filed, you have to walk through its hills and ditches yourself. He is both manifest in and transcendent of the entire expanse of field, as we walk through it.

but you have to notice, to seek, to be mindful.

6:75 And it is such that We showed Abraham the kingdom of heavens and Earth, so that he will be of those who have certainty.
6:76 When the night covered him, he saw a planet, and he said: "This is my Lord." But when it disappeared he said: "I do not like those that disappear."
6:77 So when he saw the moon rising, he said: "This is my Lord." But when it disappeared he said: "If my Lord will not guide me, then I will be amongst the wicked people!"
6:78 So when he saw the sun rising, he said: "This is my Lord, this is bigger." But when it disappeared he said: "My people, I am innocent of that which you have set up."
6:79 "I shall turn my face to the One who initiated the heavens and the Earth, in monotheism, and I am not of those who set up partners."

that is beautiful. i have always loved these verses....

i went yesterday morning to a friend's church. there was something wonderful about just being there with him, enjoying his company, and seeing the joy and spiritual freedom that his faith gave him. i can not profess to be a Christian, yet am welcomed there and am touched by the conviction and love of the people who gather.

the night before i went to a mosque with some friends, and was also moved and mystified and encouraged praying with the brothers and sisters there, and happy for them that they were united in faith before God.

i'm recalling a quote from the Christian saint Augustine : "You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You". this morning, i walked around a track and talked with a lovely Christian girl who had recently lost her boyfriend. she was trying to make sense of her loss, and weave her belief in God into this grief. i talked with her about my deceased father and sister, and we chatted, and sighed.

this is what i think: God is omnipresent. we long for His presence and to understand something of Him. i don't think that Al-Haqq is a final stop we come to. Al-Haqq is with us, as we pass through the vicissitudes of life, with one another, and by ourselves.