| So sayeth the Phrophets and the seers and the wise and the Saviours So say they all So what is wrong? Why are there shrines and temples and magnificence displays and rites and rituals and sacraments and Bibles and Books and edicts of all manner? What blinds us? |
| Ramakrishna: He who is attributeless also has attributes. He who is Brahman is also Shakti. When thought of as inactive, He is called Brahman, and when thought of as the Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer, He is called the Primorial Energy, Kali. Brahman and Sahkti are identical, like fire and its power to burn. When we talk of fire we automatically mean also its power to burn. Again, the fire's power to burn implies the fire itself. If you accept the one you must accept the other. (p. 161) | Typically an individual will affirm the God who is revealed within his religion, but will reject God as He appears in other religions. According to Ibn `Arabi, this denial of the God found in external religions reflects a less advanced level of spiritual development. Ibn `Arabi maintains that after fana an individual becomes capable of recognizing God's self-revelation in all religions. Furthermore the devotee who practices manajat comes to realize that the God who reveals Himself in response to the devotee's own faith has purposely assumed limits in order to establish a relationship with the devotee as his personal_Lord. hadith: A saying of the Prophet transmitted outside the Qur'an through a chain of known intermediaries. There are two kinds of hadith: hadith qudsi (sacred sentence), a direct revelation, in which God speaks in the first person by the mouth of the Prophet, and hadith nabawi (prophetic sentence), an indirect revelation in which the Prophet speaks as himself. | (Those who follow the path of spiritual wisdom) see that where there is One, that One is me (God); where there are many, all are me; they see my face everywhere. (BG 9:15, p. 133) |
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