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#AskYounusAlGohar | Does The Spiritual Guide Change One’s Nature?
4th October 2016|ArticlesLecturesVideos

#AskYounusAlGohar | Does The Spiritual Guide Change One’s Nature?

When a spiritual guide disciplines and purifies your Carnal Self (Nafs), does he change the nature of your Carnal Self too? This is the question.

It is notorious among all Sufis that only the spiritual guide will purify your Carnal Self and you can’t do it yourself. This is true, however the spirit of the truth is lost. It is not properly understood when it is said. What people understand by such sentences is that the spiritual guide is under some kind of obligation and this is his job and he has to do it. I would like to remind all of you that spirituality is not magic. A spiritual guide is not like David Copperfield who will steal the Eiffel Tower from Paris or the Statue of Liberty from New York and give it to you.

Spirituality is an act in which you want to purify yourself. You make efforts and the spiritual guide teaches you how to make those efforts.

It is not like the spiritual guide is responsible for the purification of your Carnal Self and you are not even involved in the process. That is not how it works. You make every effort the way the spiritual guide tells you to.

Your Carnal Self has to go through different experiences, patterns of discipline, purgation and austerities in which you restrain yourself from certain deeds, food and behaviours. [After all this], in the final moment, the spiritual guide will spiritually transmit some special divine energy which will enable your Carnal Self to get purgated.

Theoretical knowledge is different from practical knowledge.

For example, it is very easy to say, ‘Refrain yourself from all sorts of comforts.’ However when you come to practise it, you’re actually in trouble. It is easier said than done.

It is easy to say, The spiritual guide should purify my Carnal Self,’ but why should he do it? Does he owe you anything? When the spiritual guide was purified, what did he do? Did he sit home and his own spiritual guide made the efforts?

In purification of the Carnal Self, the most important factor is denial and negation of yourself. Purification of the Carnal Self is all about crushing your ego.

In Western spiritual principles, they think the other way around. They think the ego is your main power. However, the ego puts you in the race with others. Ego takes away compassion from you. Ego takes away God from you; you forget God and you start worshipping yourself.

Does the spiritual guide change the nature of the Carnal Self? No. The nature cannot be changed.

If a thief by profession becomes a spiritual man, even after purification, he will still steal things but for a different reason. [He will be] like Robin Hood. Perhaps he’ll think that he already has some expertise in this field, so why not use those expertise to benefit the poor people?

There was a similar character to Robin Hood in Punjab, Pakistan by the name of Sajawal. He lived in the 1970s. He used to rob the rich and distribute the loot among poor people. He would never save a penny for himself. People asked him, ‘Why do you steal and rob people?’ He said, ‘I am divine justice; I take away from the rich and give it to the poor.’ The police was after him and were never able to catch him. There was a Martial Law and Ayoub Khan was the president. Ayoub Khan requested Sajawal to meet him, but he didn’t. The police left no stone unturned in attempting to catch him but were never successful. Then, Ayoub Khan ordered the army to go after him.

The army platoon went after him and it was like a siege. They army personnel surrounded him, and he was driving a jeep. An army personnel said on the megaphone, ‘All your ways have been blocked. Surrender yourself.’ Suddenly, they say the sand started fly and it was hazy. His jeep and himself disappeared. Then the president of Pakistan, through the media requested him to come and see him. He promised that there would be no army or police waiting to arrest him. When he met him, the president asked him, ‘How do you disappear? What is the secret? Who are you?’ Then he told him, ‘I have been appointed by God to rob the rich and give to the poor people.’

So he was a good person, but he had an expertise in robbing people. He couldn’t change his nature.

Your nature will stay with you forever, no matter how purified you are.

Rumi said, ‘You can move the mountains but you cannot change the nature.’

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The Struggle for Self-Exploration
28th September 2016|ArticlesLecturesVideos

The Struggle for Self-Exploration

Extremism and fanaticism are products of ignorance, intolerance and inferiority complexes. People tend to recognise extremism and fanaticism only on a higher level, with the affiliation of religion. However, we need to find the roots of extremism and fanaticism.

It is more of a behavioural issue than a religious issue.

If someone is an extremist, it is not just about religion. There are extremists in different fields. For example, some people are even extremists about themselves: they think they are the best and they cannot give in to their own self.

Fanaticism is not a theory or a religion. Fanaticism is an ugly behaviour. One’s behaviour changes when they don’t respect others, give them space or consider their rights. It changes when they are only concerned about their rights and themselves; when they become self-centred and impatient, and they cannot take a little pain for others at the time of adversity.

When there are good people in any religion, the religion is operated well by them.

Religion itself does not have legs. It cannot do anything; it is just a set of beliefs. The followers of that religion are the operators of it. When the religions are operated by bad people, they start malfunctioning.

Let’s talk about a household. The entire household is managed by the guardian of the house. The way it is managed depends on how bad or good that person is. The problem is not with any religion; whether it is Christianity, Judaism, Islam or Hinduism, all of them are good — but the people who operate these religions are bad.

This is because there is a prerequisite that one must do before they practise a religion: purification of the inner devil.

Without first attaining inner purification, if one follows any religion, they will [misinterpret it]. They will become intolerant.

When we say intolerance is prevailing the society, this is not due to any religion. This is an issue with the behaviour of human beings. No religion is intolerant; it is the people who are either tolerant or intolerant. It is the people who are either rational and full of sanity, or so irrational that they are almost insane.

For example, if a mad person drives a BMW and runs over a couple of men, we won’t blame BMW. It is not the car [at fault], it is the driver.

Fanaticism and extremism are not products of any religion. Extremism and fanaticism have to do with people. Some people are more patient, tolerant and forgiving than others. Some people are short-sighted and impatient. It is not about the religion that one follows. It is about their own being: how composed or disturbed they are.

If your mind is disturbed, you are disturbed everywhere.

That happens when there are some decisions in life which are difficult for you to make. Due to this indecisive nature, you don’t settle things; so there remains a kind of pressure and stress on you mind, keeping it preoccupied. It kills your sanity. Mental disturbance is something one cannot afford.

In order to please others, it is important that you should be happy. If you are unhappy, you cannot make anybody happy. If you yourself are crying and suffering, how can you please others?

In order to be able to make others happy, constitutionally you should be happy in the first place.

We need to educate people on ethical values to build their character. We need to discuss the psychological aspect of everybody’s lives and how our lives can be improved. When our lives are hell, then everything falls apart. Then, we don’t care about our bad behaviour, ethics or anything else because we are disturbed.

When you want to do weight lifting at the gym, if you cannot even move 50 KG, you won’t try to lift it; you know that you cannot put extra weight on your body. If you do, you’ll hurt yourself.

Similarly, in life, you are carrying a lot of extra luggage that you will not need while you are travelling. Life is nothing but a journey and you must travel light.

Make life easy, my friend. After all, this is only one life that you have.

I do not think fanaticism and extremism are about any religion. You don’t have to follow a religion to be a fanatic or extremist. These days, jihadists and terrorists are not devout Muslims; they don’t even know anything about Islam. They’re drinkers and party animals. More and more people, especially in the Western sphere of the world, are prone to becoming jihadists not because they are inspired by Islamic text or they find the Quran fascinating. Rather, some of these people suffer from narcissistic personality disorder.

I used to live in Manchester some 20 years ago. My neighbour was a strange person; for some reason, he didn’t like my face. There was a blind alley between the two houses; he lived on the left side of and I lived on the right. If I walked on the pavement, he would come out and say, ‘You are trespassing on my property.’ I would say, ‘What? I am walking on the pavement.’ He would reply, ‘Yeah but this pavement is in front of my house so you are trespassing. I am going to call the police.’

This is not about their religion. This is about them. They are crazy, impatient, intolerant and ignorant.

What I have just said is not a wandering thought that has crossed my mind. I am a very keen observer. I read men and their behaviour. I have read many people.

To a degree, every single human being becomes an extremist in certain situations and conditions.

The root cause of extremism is to do with behaviour.

Your behaviour is not your fault; it is carved, nurtured and shaped by good or bad experiences in your life.

When you go through denial, rejection and deprivation; when you are scolded by people for no apparent reason, that is when your behaviour [deteriorates]. Behaviour is all about our reaction to certain things.

For example, someone tried all their life to buy a car but they couldn’t. Then they came to England, struggled for a year or two and then finally bought a car. Now you have to be careful; if you damage the car, no matter how close of a friend you are to them, you will be in trouble. They value the car more than they should because of their struggle.

Suppose you did not eat food for 48 hours. Finally, you are a holding a Big Mac in your hand. Just as you are about to take a bite, someone laughingly takes it away and says, ‘I’ll eat it instead.’ You will behave differently [than you would normally].

Our behaviour is not about how bad or good we are. It is shaped and developed through good and bad experiences in life, and of course the way people behave with us.

We need to look into our lives. We need to see what is wrong and right in our life. What is causing us problems? What is the source of disturbance in our life? What is it that is distracting us from our spiritual journey?

Self-Realisation is God-Realisation

In spirituality, you struggle to become good in this lifetime.You become good not just for yourself, but as an embodiment of God on Earth.

When people come and sit in your company, they feel relaxed without establishing any meditation. They’ll just sit with you and feel peace because you have gotten rid of all your evil traits, all the negativity.

We should sort out our problems in life. If something is causing problems, we should see if we can fix that problem. If you can’t fix it, replace it.

Spirituality is something that alone can make a human out of you.

A religion is like a film in which you are a billionaire and you have a lot of money, big houses, cars and everything. When the movie is shot, you come back to reality.

In religion, you imitate being good. Spirituality will make you good.

When you go to a shopping mall in the United States of America, the salesperson will greet you with a business smile. They know it is a fake smile, but it is part of their business strategy. Similarly, a religion will tell you what you can and cannot do, whether you like it or not. A religion wants performance, like a coach of a team.

In spirituality, it is not about performance. It is about transformation.

If you want to see whether a person has made any progression in spirituality, you need to see if he is a better human being today than he was yesterday.

The first step in spirituality is to know yourself.

Self-realisation is an art that comes from spiritual practice and discipline. It is about coming to know of all your physical, spiritual and carnal aspects. A mentor who has culminated his quest in the said field can guide one towards self-exploration on a spiritual journey.

Too many people don’t know who or what they are. When they do good, they want to publicise it. When they do bad, they don’t want [others] to see it. This attitude has led them to a point where they have lost their identity. They do not know themselves.

It isn’t about your parenthood or sisters and brothers. It is about you. It is about how beneficial or harmful you are to your fellowmen.

This is why the first step towards God-realisation is self-realisation.

If you truly know yourself, don’t seek God. God said in the Koran, ‘I am in you. Why don’t you peep into yourself to know me?’

A religion is aiming at you to please God. In spirituality, you find and explore for your personal, original identity.

So spirituality is self-exploration.

Knowing yourself is not an easy job, otherwise God would not have labelled knowing yourself as knowing God.

In spirituality, you go through self-denial and this is the hardest job. You deny and negate yourself.

If negativity in you is stronger than positivity, the negativity compels you to do bad things. You have to make positivity even more powerful with the help of spirituality. Once the source of evil and negativity, the Carnal Self, gets weaker, then the compelling of Carnal Self will lessen. A time will come when you will realise that nobody is pushing you to do anything wrong.

Ego is such a problem. You’ll be defending the ego, the inner devil, but you’ll think you are defending yourself. This is why it is not easy to know yourself.

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The Person of God
20th September 2016|Articles

The Person of God

The Person of God

God is a male. God is extremely handsome. His height is between 6–7 feet. He is neither chubby nor skinny; he has a perfect structural body. There is no such thing as age or time there. He is ageless. However, he looks like a young, handsome man: like somebody of 17–20 years of age. He does not grow hair anywhere on his body. The colour of his eyes is dark red.

Sometimes, [if you are a man] you see an extraordinarily beautiful woman who you cannot keep your eyes off of. It is like you are spellbound. It is like you have been hypnotised, mesmerised; you fix your eyes on her. You feel drawn towards her. You have this physical attraction which pulls you towards her, but then you can control yourself.

However, when you see God, God’s beauty is so powerful that you will melt in one second.

You will want to just go and disappear in the presence and existence of God. You will feel that extreme pull towards God, like you’re inside the divine magnetic field.

Then, because of that spiritual divine pull, you will be given to embrace God. The spiritual, amiable, divine romanticism will then occur in you.

The divine pull towards God is called love.

No matter what happens, no matter how far you come from God, you still feel that you are with God. The divine pull is always pulling you back to God. God is really softly spoken and romantic. Whenever I see a religious person who has no romance in the way he talks to his wife and children, I instantly recognise that such a person can never love God. God is full of romance.

In order to develop a Godlike mentality, you need spiritual romance in your character.

Secondly, once God has granted to you his friendship, he doesn’t take it back no matter how good or how bad you are. It is good if you are his friend; if you are not his friend then you don’t know him and he doesn’t know you. When you have entered into God’s friendship, he is overprotective and extremely possessive.

When you love somebody, then you cannot just walk out of the attribute of being a possessive person. This possessiveness creates jealousy. That is just one dark side of love.

However, Lord Ra Riaz Gohar Shahi has made amendments to the features of love and the dark side of love has been repaired. There is no dark side to the love Lord Ra Riaz has introduced; there is no possessiveness or jealousy.

Possessiveness and jealousy burn in love due to the fact that there are four birds inside every human breast. As long as these spiritual birds are still there, jealously will stay there.

Lord Ra Riaz has the knowledge to transform those four birds, purify them and eliminate all the evil traits and negative elements from the human breast. When these vices are removed as a result of those birds becoming purified, then the dark side of love is taken care of.

Learn more about the four spiritual birds and the rest of the spiritual human anatomy in the book ‘The Religion of God (Divine Love)’ by Lord Ra Riaz Gohar Shahi.

This article was first posted on Younus AlGohar’s Medium page.

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Determining the Right Path: My Struggle
5th September 2016|Articles

Determining the Right Path: My Struggle

Determining the Right Path: My Struggle

The biggest issue for humanity is to determine who is trustworthy. I found out after many years of worship, unshakeable loyalty and sincere efforts of finding the truth that God hasn’t been fair in dealing with human beings.

God’s policies and planning have created a monstrous vacuum for the people who want to understand religions and God.

There are many questions in every religion which the religion does not answer.

Science has contributed profoundly, hugely, to healthy and positive stimulation of the human brain. Now, human beings have developed a habit of understanding things before they want to do it. Ever since human beings have become sensible, they only want to do things that make sense. If things do not make sense, they wonder, ‘Why should we follow it?’ If there is some kind of doubt, people become apprehensive.

When you are a religious person and at the same time you are rational, sometimes religions ask you to believe in things even when they do not make any sense. This is the point where people slip off the right track and happen to embrace wrong interpretation of the religion.

This is the space in which any philosophy can fit because there is ambiguity. Every other scholar would want to come up with his opinion, fit it there and declare it to be Islam.

However, according to the Traditions of Prophet Mohammad, he clearly suggested to Muslims, ‘If you find anything dubious, leave it out [of the religion].’ When you start reading the Quran, the very first words are ‘There is no doubt’. There should not be any doubt in the religion — this is the understanding is coming from God.

What if there are doubts? A doubt is a thought that disturbs you when things do not make sense.

The most important verification of things will come from your own inner voice.

There are many things that you want to verify but you do not have somebody who has been divinely delegated to give verification. However, if your conscience is pure and spiritualised, ask it and you’ll get the right answer.

God hasn’t been very careful. When I speak on such a subject, I do not aim to disturb religious emotions of people or hurt anybody’s feelings. I do not intend to demoralise people or devalue any religion. I share my feelings.

I share with you how difficult it was for me to understand what the right path was. As a young Muslim, a medical student, born and bred in Karachi, Pakistan, it was so difficult for me to determine this.

Among Muslims, it is very common to declare people of other sects as infidels and hypocrites. It is a normal pattern in Pakistan. Sunnis will call Shias infidels and Wahhabis will call everybody else infidels. The irony of it is that people do not even know the meaning of the word, ‘infidel’.

My father used to tell me, ‘When you want to pass urine, you must sit down.’ I asked him why and he couldn’t explain. He said, ‘Our religion tells us to do this.’ The problem with me was that I wanted to avoid droplets of toilet water splashing back at me, so I would make sure that I was standing. My conscience had a problem with this; I struggled and asked many people to explain why the religion dictates it.

If a religion tells me to do something, it must also tell me the reason why should I do it. If it doesn’t tell me the reason, then I don’t find it easy in my heart to accept it.

I did a BSc Honours in microbiology, physical chemistry, and organic chemistry.

People who know what I am talking about know how difficult these subjects are. Physical chemistry is all about your body: your liver, kidney, stomach, etc. It explains things like what happens when you don’t eat on time, when you do not drink water and what happens when you eat bread or rice. Somebody who has obtained a master’s degree in microbiology, his knowledge of the human anatomy is far greater than a physician because he knows the inner and outer workings of the body.

Whenever I had a problem understanding physical chemistry or organic chemistry, I would ask my teachers and they had to answer my questions. This is how the process of learning progressed. We would understand the subject and then go ahead.

I, as a student thought the same thing must be applied to the religion.

I thought that any questions I had must be answered by religious scholars and it was their job to convince me. If in reply to my question, the religious scholar said, ‘Don’t ask such questions,’ then it clearly leave a space and ambiguity. There would be a doubt in my heart, ‘Why does the lecturer on physical chemistry have all the answers regarding his subject but the religious scholar does not have all the answers for my questions?’

I am not an atheist. I believe in God, Abraham, Adam, Moses, Jesus, Mohammad and all the favourites of God (whether they were at the time of Moses, Jesus, Abraham or if they somehow adhered to the spiritual aspect of Islam); I respect them all.

However, how would you feel when you are genuinely seeking to find the right path that leads to God and there is nobody who can help you?

When you are seeking to become somebody who loves the Prophet Mohammad and who is able to see God? When you want to become somebody like Data Ali Hajweri or Khwaja Gharib un Nawaz and you do not find the right answers? Instead of getting answers, the religious scholars tell you, ‘This is not possible.’

We read stories of Sufis like Data Ali Hajweri and Abdul Qadir Jilani. When somebody endeavours to be like them, Muslims say, ‘How can you become somebody like Data?’ In my heart, I think, ‘Why not? What is wrong with me? He read the Quran. If I have the same Quran as him, what is the issue?’

Every time I stood in Salat (a form of prayer in Islam), the intention in my heart was, ‘God I want to love you like Prophet Mohammad did. Help me.’ One day, when I shared my feelings with a religious scholar in Pakistan, he said, ‘You are a blasphemer of Prophet Mohammad. How can you love God the way Prophet Mohammad did?’ My reply to that is: we are taught to offer Salat like Prophet Mohammad did. We are taught to lead our lives like he did. When it comes to loving God like he did, what is the problem?

People have included many of their own opinions in Islam and think that this is Islam.

Religious scholars say, ‘You cannot even be equal to the dust that touches the foot of Ali (A Companion of the Prophet).’ That’s good, but what is wrong with me? If they say, ‘Ali is God,’ then it makes sense that I cannot be equal to him, because I am a human being. However, if he is a human being and I am a human being, then why can’t I say that I want to love God like Ali did?

Muslims have a problem. They think that there is just one Lal Shahbaz Qalandar and nobody can be like him, or that Sai Baba is just one and no one can be like him. They think no one can be like Data Ali Hajweri. However, before Data Ali Hajweri became a saint, what did he think of Islam, himself and other spiritual dignitaries? How did he become Data Ali Hajweri? Initially, when he was born, he wasn’t a saint of God. How did Moinuddin Chisti become Khwaja Gharib un Nawaz? Was he a saint even when he was in the womb? If he became a saint from reading the same Quran as I now read, what is wrong with me and my recitation of the Quran? What is wrong with my research, probe and study of the Quran?

According to Islam, for every word of the Quran I read, I gather 70 Hasanat (good deeds). I have read the Quran thousands of times. Where are all the good deeds gone? On every auspicious night, I spent the entire night remembering God. I was told that in these special nights, angels will come and embrace you, however I never felt anything.

When I read the books of Sufis, they told stories such as, ‘On the Night of Ascension, this prophet came to see me.’ The question arises: why does nobody come to me? Should I just say that these are all bundles of lies?

These are my questions.

I have spent at least 20 years in schools and colleges. I have spent 20 years reading books. It is enough to stimulate my brain. If this is the same Quran [as the one the saints read] and I am reading it, what is wrong with me? I want to love God, become his friend and spiritualise my life, but where is the flaw — in me or in the Quran? If the Muslim scholars told me, ‘You can also become Data and Khwaja, but this is what you have to do,’ I would not ask one more question. I would do what I was supposed to do. Even then, if I did not succeed, I would try to find out whether I was doing everything correctly, where the mistake or flaw was.

However, as a Muslim, you have no help from anywhere. Muslims have loads of questions but nobody wants to answer them because nobody knows.

All religious scholars ponder upon are the issues relating to ablution and family laws. If you ask them, ‘God said in the Quran that Salat will stop you from the bad deeds. I have been regularly offering Salat for the past 10 years, but it is not stopping me from bad deeds. What is wrong with my Salat or me? How do I offer Salat so that it may stop me from committing bad deeds?’ Nobody has any answer. This is why Islam has been destroyed. There is no more Islam.

These questions go to every single religious scholar in this world who claim to hold any office in Islam. If he answers my questions, I will do as he says.

When you buy a table or chair from Ikea, they will give you a box and you have to assemble it yourself. Inside that box there will be a manual. You read the manual and assemble it. If whoever has compiled the manual made a mistake, you can never assemble it right. Therefore every manual with their product has to be perfect, otherwise their business will go down. They want to make sure that everything is very clear. If it is not, the customer will go back, return the product and never shop there again.

The Quran is a manual for Muslims. The question is: do Muslims understand the Quran? With the help of the Quran, can they find God or the Straight Path (Sirat-e-Mustiqeem)? If they can, why are Muslims divided into 73 sects today?

Nobody has answers.

The only one who has given answers is Lord Ra Riaz Gohar Shahi.

This article was originally posted on Younus AlGohar’s Medium page.

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The Purpose Of Creation
4th July 2016|ArticlesLecturesVideos

The Purpose Of Creation

God said, ‘I was in the hidden treasure, I wanted to be known so I came out from that hidden treasure.’

Human being have a problem: if they have something, they find more pleasure in showing it off to people than using it. For example, if God said to you, ‘From now on you are God, but you cannot see anybody. No one will know who is God,’ maybe you would think that it is useless.

In religion, God takes pride in being alone. However, he he created creation because he was alone and he could not be known without having somebody to witness his splendour.

When God was in the hidden treasure a thought crossed his mind, ‘I have all the might and power. I have the power of Command Be and nobody knows about it. What is the point?’ He wanted to show somebody what he has.

For example, if you do not feel any pain and you would like to feel some pain, [someone] would hit you. So God was alone and he wanted to be known but there was nobody; how was he supposed to be known when there was nothing? So he created this universe for the purpose that he may be known.

God created different types of creatures: good spirits, evil spirits, Jinns, angels, Archangels, fairies and other types of angels. He created six realms because he thought that one creature could not fully know him. He made 18 000 creatures: 6000 in the air, 6000 in the water and 6000 on land. All the different creatures were given some knowledge of God, but no creature had seen God.

Then God created man. In man God combined two different types of souls: all the souls of the 18 000 different creatures and on top of that, the souls the angels have, the souls the Archangels have and the souls which only the angels closest to God possess. He combined all these souls in the human body. He did this so that man can know God fully.

Among man, he started off the first messenger, Adam The Eminent One. He gave Adam the knowledge of the heart. [He taught him] how to spiritualise the heart. The heart in spirituality was declared to be the divine tool of communication. When the heart is awakened, enlightened and there is enough light inside, it will serve like a telephone the only means between man and God.

There are many types of communication. If angels speak to man, they will speak to him in his right ear. When God wants to communicate with man, firstly that man will hear the voice of God in his heart. Some people do not hear the voice of God; rather, God sends text messages to their heart and this is known as revelation. With our phones, either we can make a voice call or send a message. Similarly, some people have both: they can hear God’s voice in their heart and if it is a detailed conversation, God sends texts. Then they can close their eyes and read the messages on their heart. This is how he comes to know about everything.

Adam the Eminent One was the first messenger who was first granted the knowledge of the spiritual heart. He taught his people this knowledge, through which their connection with God was established. Their hearts became enlightened. The hearts would speak to God and God would speak to the hearts.

You have another soul in your body on the righthand side.  When you enlighten this, with its help, you can visit a realm where sometimes, God comes and waits; if there is someone there who is enlightened enough, then they can communicate with God. This knowledge was given to Abraham.

There is another soul: Siri (The Secretive Soul). When this soul was enlightened, secrets of God were revealed and man grew in knowledge and understanding.

Then there is another soul known as Khafi (The Arcane). This soul belongs to a realm where God’s throne sits. There is a curtain behind this realm and throne. For example, it is like you are at the US-Canadian border. From the Canadian side of the border, you can see America but you are not in America. The knowledge of this was given to Jesus. That is why he said, ‘Through me, you will reach the father.’

Then there is another soul: Akhfa (The Most Hidden). When this is enlightened, this will be connected to your physical and spiritual tongue. When it is enlightened, you speak and will be heard everywhere.

There is another soul in your head with the help of which you can see God.

So, God wanted to be known but he did not allow any one religion to know him fully. One religion was able to know him a bit. Then, the one after that was introduced and people were able to know God more. Another religion was invented; with the help of the knowledge of that religion, people were able to know him even more. Then, in the last, he rendered the knowledge which enables people to see him. Prophet Mohammad brought that knowledge and people were able to see God. However, seeing is not enough.

Lord Ra Riaz Gohar Shahi has brought a knowledge through which you see [God], you touch him, you hug him and you know him. You know his character and temperament.

If you just look at somebody, you will not know his character or temperament.

Now all these different types of knowledge have been revealed to different religions. When those religions taught this knowledge to people, people were able to obtain what was offered to them. When their messengers and saints left this world and spirituality was forgotten in these religions, now people do not know anything about God. Now, people do not anything about themselves. They are just going into the churches, mosques and synagogues. The purpose of God, that of him wanting to be known, is not to be seen here. If you practise Christianity yet you forget about knowing God and you do not even know yourself, what is the use? If you are a Muslim and you cannot see God, then you can only blame yourself.

So people are Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Jews but the purpose of God is lost in all these religions because God created creation so he could be known. With the help of these religions today people do not manage to know God.

The only knowledge that will enable you to know God is spirituality; enlightenment of the heart and soul. Now, this knowledge is available without any religion. In fact even more knowledge is available than what was available through these religions.

The knowledge that Lord Ra Riaz Gohar Shahi has brought teaches us to know God and communicate with God. Lord Ra Riaz has given us authority and power to connect people. The beauty of this is that in order to get this knowledge, you do not have to follow a religion.

Religion gives you little knowledge about God and it makes you work harder. It is like you [doing hard manual labour] and they give you $50 a day. However this knowledge is like finding a white collar job and making $500 an hour. This is the same with religions: they are fasting, going to mosque, praying five times a day and following the dos and don’ts of the religion. But what do they get out of this? Just a little light.

Now, Lord Ra Riaz Gohar Shahi has removed all conditions and limits. There is no stopping, no discrimination and no precondition.

Lord Ra Riaz said, ‘The prophets and messengers came into this world for good guys. I have come for bad guys, to make them good.’

In religion, you work hard but you do not have a good salary from God. This is because the hard work is done by the body. Anything done by the body generates kinetic energy, not divine energy. Divine energy is given to the soul. Your soul has to become active.

Today, religions do not know how to awaken the soul or enlighten the heart. This can be achieved only through spirituality.

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The War Against Yourself
2nd July 2016|Articles

The War Against Yourself

The War Against Yourself

It is said that there is a difference between wisdom and knowledge. The knowledge I am talking about is wisdom. It is esoteric knowledge; knowledge of the inner.

It is very easy to understand a human being. There are seven souls inside the body; six of them are your helpers. They are responsible for creating a connection with God, communicating with God, making spiritual journey and absorbing the attributes of God — making your compassionate, lovable and forgiving. However, these six souls are dormant.

One soul in the body is the representative of the devil, and that is pretty much awake. The souls which are responsible to bring in you the attributes of God are unconscious. They need to be awakened. If you don’t wake them up, they will continue to be unconscious even if you die.

Since the six souls responsible for introducing you to God and God to you, are in sleeping mode, you have no attribute of God in you. The representative of the devil is awake and active, so you have all the attributes of the devil in you.

Even if you go in the mosque, you will create mischief. You go in the church with this, you will create mischief. Wherever you go, you will create mischief. No woman is ever safe for you. Your lust, greed and ego are ever-rising. All the negativity is always rising.

How will you purify yourself? There is no practice. You need to awaken your souls. When the divine energy comes inside you, that divine energy will then control the representative of devil. This is called purification of the Self.

You are not a trustworthy human being in the eyes of God unless you purify this evil spirit (the Self) in you. This is not written in any book, but you see it.

For example, ISIS/ISIL/Daesh call themselves warriors of God and warriors of Islam, but look at the level of their lust! They’re raping girls from six months to seven years of age. Recently it was reported that a man was arrested in Ohio. There were eighteen girls held captive by him for twelve years. He sexually assaulted them. The youngest he tried to have sex with was six months old. It is not about religion. He was Christian and the same thing is happening in Syria with ISIS. He is reciting the Bible and they’re reciting the Quran, so why are they not holy?

It is not about the religion; it is about purification. It is about spirituality. In the absence of spirituality, religion will not help you.

If it does help people, then why are these people evil even with the Quran in their hands?

It is very strange that more corrupt people are to be found who practise religion, especially the religious leaders.

There was a yoga master in the United States of America a month ago; he raped many young girls. This alone is enough to understand he was not a spiritual master. There are many stories of this sort reported every day in the newspapers in India, America, Pakistan, etc. This is happening because the religion has a missing link.

When you go to a garage to repair your car, you will have two different types of mechanics. One will take care of the body work; he will take out the dents and beautify the body of the car. The other will have expertise in fixing the engine. If the engine is faulty and you have spent all your money on beautifying the body of the car, that is what a religion is today. The car looks beautiful, but the engine is not working. If your religion cannot purify your evil spirit inside you, then your religion is gone.

Your job is to eliminate the evil presence from within you.

Our western society has become so naive to simple understanding of spirituality, because it is a very hard job; it is a fight against yourself.

Even terrorists are afraid of this kind of Jihad. Prophet Mohammad, when the religion was established and everything was accomplished, said to his companions, ‘Lets move froward from lesser Jihad to greater Jihad.’ His companions were really puzzled and asked him, ‘What is a greater Jihad?’ In the battlefield, you fight with people and they kill you or you kill them — but Prophet Mohammad declared this kind of war to be a lesser Jihad. He said, ‘In the Jihad you have done with your sword, you were able to see your enemy. When you see your enemy, you can protect yourself against them and also assault on them. Now I am asking you to wage a war against an enemy which is invisible. It is inside you.’ This is for brave people.

It is easy to beat up others; it is not easy to negating yourself. The normal pattern of the world is that all the time, you want to tell others that you are better, greater than them. You try to show you’re good and the rest is bad.

However, when you want to wage a war against the evil inside you, the weapon of this war is humiliation. It is not easy.

People who have waged a war against their Self and then came out from the unreal world of their own are really great people.

Normally, if someone says something slightly negative to you, you get upset. This is a bad character. If somebody is swearing at you and you swear at him back, then you are pretty below average. How can you be a spiritual man?

If people do something wrong to you and in reply, you do the same — what is special about you? If you do the same, you are the same.

Purification of the Self involves lowering yourself and negating yourself. You go through this process where you tell yourself, ‘I have less importance than others.’ Then, possibly, you can become a generous man. For example there are many people in a room and only one glass of water, but everyone is thirsty. If I give the glass to Mr X first and his Self is purified, he will say to me, ‘No, give it to Mr Y, he needs it more than me.’ If this evil spirit is still evil, then he will immediately want the water for himself.

Without purification of the Self, forget about God, purity and spirituality. The first step towards spirituality is purification of the Self.

The problem is, this purification does not come by any worship, by reciting any name, by reading any book or by making any sacrifice.

This purification is not available in the mosques, churches, synagogues or anywhere else. It comes from the divinely ordained spiritual master.

With his spiritual authority and power, the spiritual master transmits divine energy into your evil spirit. Even in evil spirit located at the belly point, the spiritual guide will inculcate divine energy and teach this evil spirit to repeat the name of God. By this virtue of reciting the name of God, divine energy will start to be generated inside it. Then divine energy will start enlightening and purifying it. The bad energy will leave your body and divine energy will start to accumulate inside you. Then you will mellow down.

When divine energy is settling in your Self, and people are calling you bad, you will be less bothered. You will think, ‘Yes, I am bad. I am trying to be good.’

When you have negative energy in you and your Self is not nurtured or purified, you have unreasonable anger. If people do not listen to you, you get angry. If people do not obey you, so you get angry. You take many things for granted. Sometimes our expectations create an unreal situation and then we get angry. These are the diseases of the evil spirit we have inside us.

When people help the poor and needy ones, they want the media to come and give coverage, so people praise them.

If I praise you for false, it is like poison to your character. Never praise anybody for false.

If you are bad, you will always demand from me to call you good. I know that if I say you are bad, you’ll get angry, so just because of this reason, I will say, ‘You are good.’ This is where we go wrong. You should be brave enough to tell your friend when they are wrong.

Lord Ra Riaz never praised me. I asked the Lord one day, ‘Is there nothing in my life that I have done good?’ The Lord smiled and asked me, ‘Do you want to be known as mine, or do you want to be known as good?’

Humiliation and giving yourself less importance, this is the key to God-realisation, self-realisation.

In spirituality, purification of this evil spirit and awakening of the spiritual heart are the most important. These two things are not available without a perfect, divinely ordained spiritual guide.

This article was originally posted on Younus AlGohar’s Medium page.

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Why Have Religions Been Intolerant of Homosexuality?
29th June 2016|Articles

Why Have Religions Been Intolerant of Homosexuality?

In 1996, when I lived in Manchester, United Kingdom, I used to drive a taxi. In the middle of the city centre, there was a village called Gay Village. I was the only driver from a Muslim background who was happy with them. They would often ask for me to pick them up. I found that these gay people to be very mellow and soft-spoken. They were not violent at all. That was my experience.

I have spoken at length on how the Islamic law was formulated and the harsh punishment which we see in Islamic law was prescribed for a specific reason. The problem is: the world is not aware of the background information. When you don’t know the background information and only rely on what you see in front of your eyes, the chances are, you will be greatly mistaken. Sometimes, even what your eyes can see can be deceptive.

Before I continue on this subject, I would like to tell everybody: do not ever think that I am either in favour of homosexuality or against homosexuality. I am discussing the background information: how homosexuality has been abhorred in religious text of Christianity and Islam. What was the reason such a harsh punishment was prescribed by God for a crime which involves two individuals pleasing their bodies?

Human beings today are more aware of their rights in comparison to times in history. 1400 years ago, the human population was scattered and people lived remotely. They were not in contact with each other. There was no concept of cosmopolitan cities. Today, we are more busy with gadgets. We are spending more time at our job, and then we come back home and watch television or use our iPhones, laptops, etc. It is quite safe to say that we are now living in a virtual world. We have distanced ourselves from practical life as science advances. Interaction with people is being done more online rather than in face-to-face meetings. The entire world has become one global village.

Some years back, it was so hard to keep in contact with my family in Pakistan. Every time I  would think of calling them, I would visualise spending £2.50 per minute; I would think, ‘That’s a lot. Forget about it.’ Then, in 1996, a friend told me to open an email account. I opened an email account with Hotmail.com and was able to email a friend in Pakistan. I was so happy; he got it and replied. I was all free from Pakistan.

It was so difficult to be in contact with people who lived in other countries. Even in Pakistan, if you were calling from Karachi to Lahore, it was a lot of money. About 15 years in the United States of America, if you were calling from one state to another, it was a long-distance call. So [in the past] you were in contact with people who live nearby you. We’re living in times today where even in one home, with our family members, we do not communicate really well. Forget about people living in your neighbourhood.

1500 years ago, towns and villages were like a home. Everybody knew everybody. You couldn’t disappear. If you became a homosexual, then the problem was that this would spread like fire. The chances were that everybody would be afflicted with this type of lifestyle. The Bible is 2000 years old whereas the Quran is 530 years younger than the Bible. There is a lot of time between the Bible and the Quran. The Quran is the latest of God’s word. In the Bible, God talks about homosexuality in a disapproving manner.

When it comes to Islam, there are many things you do and you have to die, not just homosexuality. If you talk bad about the religion of Islam, Muslims say that you must die. If you do not respect the Prophet, Muslims say that you must die. Then if you want to leave Islam, they say you must die. In Islam, things are really on the edge. Being a Muslim is like you are walking on a tightrope. Islam is the most difficult religion. I am not saying it is bad.

If somebody wants to become a Muslim, tell him, ‘Bear in mind, if you having become Muslim decide to become homosexual, then you will be beheaded. If you speak ill of the Prophet or talk bad about Islam, you will be beheaded. For 90% of the wrong-doings you want to do, the punishment will be a death penalty.’

It will be like a medicine that you want to take as a cure for a disease. You want to read the information provided with the medicine. There are hundreds of side effects mentioned there [such as blood pressure and heart attacks]. By the time you finish the leaflet, you will say, ‘I don’t want this medicine.’

Homosexuality Among Muslims

People in the west who think Islam has said, ‘Homosexuals should be killed,’ are not fully aware of what Islam is and what Muslims do. I can bet my life on it: there are more homosexuals among Muslims than in any other nation.

I heard that the King of Oman is gay. He is gay for a funny reason. Somebody told him, ‘If you marry and have a son, your son will kill you and become king.’ So he never touched a woman; he decided to have sex with men because men will not produce a son.

I do not know how many Muslim priests are not homosexual. In Pakistan, over 90% of Muslim priests – who lead prayers in the mosque five times a day and who teach kids how to recite the Quran – are homosexual. There is a very thin blue line. Being homosexual is different, but there is one more aspect. Among Muslims, Muslim priests want to rape children and men. They do not want [anything done to them physically in return].

Many Saudi princes are homosexual. Sometimes, the Quran appears to be slightly funnier; there is a verse in the Quran in relation to having sex with your wife. God says, ‘You can enter into your wife from wherever you want to.’ This verse has been misinterpreted at a very high level. People thought they could have anal sex with their wife.

Among Muslims, there is a very common problem: people want to do everything, but they don’t want to talk about it.

If somebody is a homosexual in Pakistan, he doesn’t want to admit it in public because he feels ashamed, but not because he feels guilty. He thinks, ‘What will people say?’ Whereas, in the western world, they want to do it and they don’t want to hide it.

In the olden days, there were few people living together. The problem was that [they feared], ‘If one man is afflicted, others will do the same. Then what will happen?’ If there are only 50 men living in a village and all become homosexual, what will the women do and how will they have kids?

Today, the human population is in billions but there was a time in history when people would live remotely and they were not aware of others’ existence or presence. If there were 50-100 men in one village, that was the entire world for them.

The Quran was revealed for people of the Arabian peninsula, whose temperament is very hot. If you do not swear at them or beat them, they don’t listen to you. They do not understand the language of love. They have been warriors. Killing among Arabs is a pastime. They used to kill each other over tiny issues like water. They would start enmity over it and the killing would continue through generations.

Now, through evolution of intellect, civilisation, and people’s own prescribed values for their life, humanity has come to a point where they want to make a choice for themselves.

They want to lead a happy life for themselves. Sometimes you make a folly decision and only after you have come to some kind of harm, you learn a lesson and then you revert. However, we are living in a different time. It should be allowed for people to let them choose what they want for their life.

Some people do not want to see or love God. I think it is useless teaching them or even forcing them to believe in God. Let them be the way they want to be. Nothing should be done by force; nothing should be imposed. It should come from acceptance of the heart. If your heart accepts something, then you do it, believe it and act upon it.

If you force some ideology on others, and under fear, even if they do it, they won’t enjoy it.

So Islam, Christianity and Judaism do not allow homosexuality in their religions, but these religions have failed. So now, there is no point. You are doing every other thing wrong, but when it comes to homosexuality you want to follow the Bible. You’re deceiving others, depriving them of their belongings and your lifestyle is based on a lie. You’re not an honest man, you do not honour people and you do not respect humanity.

You don’t do anything that your religion teaches you to do, but only when it comes to homosexuality, you want to be a Muslim and a Christian. Then you say, ‘This is bad. I cannot see this.’

My point of view is, even according to Islam, God has been recorded to say that he will forgive all your sins for except one: if you find a partner with him (known as Shirk in Islam). God is very intolerant to this.

Messiah Foundation International’s Views on the LGBT Community

Messages Image(48420533)

The spiritual values we represent have no problems. This message of love and peace is for everybody, whether you are homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual or asexual. These things belong to your body.

The message of the Messenger of Love, Lord Ra Riaz Gohar Shahi is for the entire humanity, for all communities including the LGBT community. The LGBT community has a rainbow on their flag, seven colours. I want them to add another seven colours of the soul on their flag, so that the seven souls inside the body are also enlightened.

The message and teachings of Lord Ra Riaz Gohar Shahi are so profound and broad. Lord Ra Riaz says, ‘Even if you do not follow a religion, come and obtain divine love. You will be better than those who follow a region but they do not love God.’

If somebody does not practise any religion, do you think he will understand that homosexuality is bad? If he is a homosexual but he wants to learn to love God, will you tell him to go away? No. The message of Lord Ra Riaz is for everybody: love for everybody.. Whether you are a gay, lesbian, bisexual, asexual or transgender, we have nothing to do with your gender; our message is for the soul.

So Messiah Foundation International does not have a problem with LGBT community. We consider them as our brothers and sisters. We have love for them like we have love for anybody else, without discrimination.

If you want to become a homosexual or not, it is entirely up to you. It has nothing to do with your soul.

Featured image sourced from Wikimedia commons.

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Does God Love Everybody?
28th June 2016|ArticlesLecturesVideos

Does God Love Everybody?

I want to tell you everything in detail, with reason, rationality and understanding of the truth. It is a very sensitive matter. What I am going to tell you is going to make you worry in a sense that you might have thought of things differently, and when you come to know the background reality, it will surprise you.

The knowledge that comes from God is true knowledge, but when knowledge about God is coming through a religion, it is censored and it doesn’t tell you everything about God.

For example, what Jews know about God and how they believe in God is different from the Christian perspective, and what Muslims think about God is entirely different to what Christians and Jews think about God. We the Quran, Bible and Torah come from the same God, so then the question is why do they have different perspectives about God? For example, Christians think God is all love, while Muslims are very scared of God.

Although the Bible talks about paradise and hellfire, it is very rare that a Christian talks about hell. This means their divine perspective is painted with the colour of love. They don’t talk about paradise or hellfire, they talk about hope. They say, ‘If you believe in Lord Jesus, all your sins are gone.’ They also say, ‘Jesus Christ has given his life and as a result of this, all our sins are washed away.’ The Bible says, ‘For the wages of sins is death.’ Their belief is that Jesus died on the cross and he is the saviour.

Muslims are scared of God in a sense that if God is upset with them, he will send them to hellfire and they will stay there forever. If they worship God, go to the mosque and follow their religion dedicatedly, then they have greed of going into paradise. A Muslim doesn’t talk about God’s love. Either they talk about the torment in the grave, burning in hell or the virgins of paradise.

The knowledge about God was given to every religion. People have different perspectives of God because the knowledge of God which was given through religion was censored; they didn’t have the complete knowledge. For example, if there is a snake behind me and I am not aware of it, I’ll be okay, but the moment I find out that there is a snake, I won’t be able to sit there anymore. Similarly, when you are unaware of the truth, you are not scared; but when you come to know the truth, then you go through a shock.

True knowledge about God will come from somebody who has seen God. God speaks to him and he speaks to God – they can see each other. Then in that friendship, God will reveal the ultimate truth upon him.

In Islam, they say that God loves his creation more than 70 mothers can love a child. What I heard is, ‘God must love us, this is why he created us.’ However, then, I saw people dying. People were born on the streets and they lived all their life on the streets. Some of them do not have legs, some don’t have eyes, some others don’t have arms and their lives are a complete misery.

Many million people in Africa do not have access to clean water. In the United Kingdom, United States of America, Canada and other modern countries of the world, we waste water and food; but there are millions of human beings on this world who have no clean water to drink. We drink water but we do not say, ‘God, thank you, you gave me clean water to drink.’ If you go to Africa, and you give them a glass of clean water, they will say, ‘Thank you God!’ a thousand times. People are dying of starvation.

The question is: if God loves all his creation, then why are some human beings living a life of luxury and why are others suffering? Nobody has the answer.

When you are actually in front of God and you know how his behaviour is, what his ethical understanding is, what type of love he has for his creation, how he is pleased and how he gets angry, then you shall say, ‘I will never get to know about God if I trust this knowledge [about God that comes through religions].’

What people know about God is that he is a creator and that he has strength and power. They do not know anything else about God.

For example, if a loved one dies at a young age, we are so sad and it is not easy for us to bear the pain of the unexpected departure. Do you not want to know how God feels when somebody dies? When young babies are dying because they don’t have food or milk, how does God feel and where is his power?

The Bible and Quran say that if God wants something, he just says it and it is there. So why doesn’t he just feed all the dying children in the world?

When I see people suffering, I feel badly; then, I feel badly when people use the name of the religion and kill innocent people. I don’t know how God feels. However, I don’t think God loves everybody.

If God loves everybody, then everybody would be good. They wouldn’t be killing each other.

There would be no bloodshed or hatred. If I love you as a human being, my love can be fake; but God’s love is not fake. How can this be possible that God loves somebody and he is not a good man?

If I have God’s love, I cannot be bad; I cannot hate, kill anybody or harm anybody.

If you hate people; you kill them, shed their blood and don’t let them survive, how can we believe God loves you? If God loves you and it doesn’t change you, then I think that kind of love of God is useless!

Being loved by someone is a luxury. When you come to know, ‘Somebody loves me,’ you feel special. If God loves you, why have you never had this feeling? When a woman loves you, you are a different man. If God loves you, why don’t you feel any different about God? The answer is: you just believe that God loves you [but he does not].

When God loves somebody, that somebody is a special person. Their feelings are different, their behaviour changes. The way they look at the world is different, the way they behave with people is different. They don’t harm or hurt anybody; they help everybody. Even if they have to sell every single drop of their blood, they will sell it but they want to see people happy because this is the creation of God who loves them.

God’s love will fill their heart with love for the creation.

This is not what I have gathered from my own understanding, rather, this is what I have come to know by dealing with God; it is the result of experience.

God does not love everybody, he loves some people. Some people were not meant to be loved by God because God decides what you will do.

God created some souls for his love and some other souls who do bad things. If you are bad, it is not because you are bad; it’s because God wanted you to be bad. You cannot overcome God or overrule the purpose of God. If God wanted you to be good then the only chance you could be bad is when you would be stronger than God. God is stronger than you, so you must be good if God wants you to be good.

Christians have a sense of freedom; they think, ‘Jesus will take care of everything, let’s do whatever we want to do because all their sins are washed away.’ Muslims either have fear of hellfire or greed of paradise.

What you see today as terrorism is the result of the greed of paradise. They think, ‘It’s very easy to get into paradise, all we have to do is just kill some people. We will become martyrs and go into paradise, God will not ask us any questions.’

This terrorism is based on greed and lust, it is an unholy war. God cannot allow for one to kill another person in his name! This is the problem.

On the other hand, Jews are still waiting for their land and that is on top of their agenda because God promised the Jews, ‘I will give you the land that belongs to you.’ They are still thinking about that, their prayers are for their land.

There was a Sufi woman called Rabia Basri. One day, somebody saw her holding fire in one hand and water in the other, and she was running. They asked her, ‘Where are you going? Why do you have fire in one hand and water in the other?’ She said, ‘I am going to put out the fire of hellfire with this water, and with this fire I will burn the paradise.’ He asked her, ‘Why do you want to do this?’ She said, ‘I get really upset when I see people worshipping God out of fear for hellfire. Or, they don’t worship God for God; they worship him for the greed of paradise. When hell and paradise both are gone, then people will love God with sincerity.’

Some people developed such attitudes because they became pure. They loved God without a reason, not because of fear or greed. God said that those who become friends with God and who love God, God removes all types of fear from them. They become fearless.

When spirituality was the core of every religion, it would take care of all the issues that develop in religions. Since spirituality became absent from these religions, they became a problem.

Today if you have spirituality, you don’t need a religion. All you need is to love God. If you have God’s love, you are better than those who have a religion but still don’t love God.

How do we know if God wants to love us?

For example, if you want to court woman, you have to approach her and talk to her. You sit together and talk. If you see someone and you want her but the woman doesn’t know you or want to love you, it will never happen. Similarly, you need to approach God and send the message to God, ‘I want to love you, what should I do?’

You don’t know God’s address, you don’t know where God is. In spirituality, this is the way God sends spiritual masters with authority, power, light and positive energy.

When we initiate the hearts of people, we ask them to close their eyes and repeat the name of God three times. Then, Lord Ra Riaz Gohar Shahi takes that person’s image to God. God asks, ‘Why have you brought him here?’ The master says to God, ‘Because he wants to love you.’ If God doesn’t want to love him, very straightforwardly he says, ‘No I don’t like him.’ That is the end of the story. That person cannot become a spiritual man.

However, if God says, ‘Okay, if I grant him my love, who is going to train him?’ The master says, ‘I will train him.’ God says, ‘Okay, let my name enter the heart.’ Then, God’s name enters the [aspirant’s] heart and starts to produce divine energy. This is the initiation of spirituality. This is the point from where you begin to generate divine energy in your heart.

If God’s name has entered your heart, this is God’s permission that he wants to love you and he wants you to love him.

This is the common practice, but in some rare cases, God enters his light in your heart and you don’t even know it.

In this moment in time, God is not bothered about any religion, God just wants to love those who want to love him. We have to take this message to humanity, and this is how the process of unification will start. This is how the entire world will enter into a universal brotherhood.

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Purpose of Religion: A Message To Young Generation
26th June 2016|ArticlesLecturesVideos

Purpose of Religion: A Message To Young Generation

The following is an excerpt of Younus AlGohar’s talk aimed at young people living in the West whose parents are religious.

You should not do anything blindfoldedly. Don’t just do everything that your parents have done. You should know what you are doing and the consequences of what you are doing. Before you do it, you should satisfy yourself that what you are going to do is good; it is not going to harm or hurt anybody and your hard work is not going to go into a waste. It should mean something.

If I am going to a mosque, I better make sure that by doing so, I please the Lord. If I am doing things incorrectly and imperfectly, and this action is not going to please God, then it is a total waste. Some people go to the mosque just for the sake of going there. They think, ‘If I don’t go there, maybe my friends will say, “He is a Muslim and he doesn’t even go to the mosque!”’ Or they worry about what their fathers will say. However, you want to go there if you think, by going there you will be pleasing the Lord.

The goal of practising a religion is to please the Lord, so then when he is pleased with you, he grants you with his love and you become a holy man.

Inquisitiveness of the Young Generation

When I went to the mosque for the first time, I didn’t want to go there. My father forced me. I didn’t even know why we should go to the mosque. When I grew up and I studied, I started to understand what means what. As a child, if your father is a Hindu, he will take you to a temple. If your father is a Christian, he will take you to a church. If your father is a Jew, he will take you to a synagogue. If your father is an alcoholic, he will take you to a bar.

What I am trying to tell people is: if you practise a religion, you must know why you practise a religion.

Sometimes, our mind doesn’t tell us what to do. The necessity tells us what to do. For example, if I am thirsty, my thirst will prompt me to drink water. If you ask somebody, ‘Why do you drink water?’ They will tell you, ‘Because we are thirsty’. If somebody says, ‘I don’t know, I’m just drinking,’ it doesn’t make any sense. We go to a restaurant to eat food, but if you don’t know why you are going to a restaurant, you’ll go there, watch people eating and drinking, and come back.

This is the case today. People ritualistically follow a religion, but they do not know why they should follow a religion.

As a child, I was obsessed with cricket. I played cricket all day. My teachers didn’t like it. They used to tell me, ‘You only play cricket when there is a free period. Everybody else is in the class; you are alone playing cricket.’ One day, he asked me, ‘Why do you come to school?’ I really didn’t know why.I had thought, ‘We go to school so that we put our books in the class and then go back into the ground and play cricket.’ Then after a few years, I found out that we come to school to study and cricket is just a game.

The educational system of the young generation in the United Kingdom, Europe, Canada and America, is different from the one we have in Pakistan. In Pakistan, where I grew up, people know everything, but they don’t know anything. For example, they memorise the words of the Quran and if you ask them, ‘What does it mean?’ They say, ‘Why should I know? I just know it.’

The educational system in these countries will stimulate your brain. In Pakistan, the teacher will hold the book and read and you listen. In the West, they ask you to do it. They guide you, but they don’t do it; they make you do things. This is when you learn.

In the West, the teacher will tell you, ‘I want to know what a mango is. So go into the library and collect as much information on mangoes as possible.’ Then you go there, do some research, make notes and bring it back to the teacher. This is how you learn. Back home in Pakistan, the teacher will explain everything and he thinks you have learned everything. In the countries where the educational system is good, they stimulate your brain.

This new generation wants to know, ‘Why should I go to a synagogue, why not a church or mosque?’

We are living in western society; it is not a Christian or Jewish society. It is based on secular values made by human beings; it is not Christian or Jewish values.

For example, you’re a student in school or college, and you have a girlfriend. If you both agree to sleep together, there is no harm in this according to secular values – whereas in Christianity, Islam and Judaism, this is not allowed. There is a system. If you want to have sex with a woman, you must marry them legally first.

So when this generation goes to school, they have this system where they can do anything; when they come back home, their Christian or Muslim mother and father say, ‘This is wrong.’ So they are confused about what to do now.

They have been brought up in an educational environment where they are only taught to have protected sex with anybody. Whereas in Islam, you can’t do that. Parents from Pakistan do not educate their children, but expect it from them to know everything. Sex is a taboo subject; they don’t want to talk about it. This is where they go wrong.

Parents need to discuss everything with their children. This is where they will train and educate their children.

In a similar way, we do not teach children the necessity of practising a religion because we do not know it ourselves. It is very unfortunate: we were born in a Muslim country, in a Muslim home, so we think that we own Islam, we have all the rights and we don’t need any knowledge. We think, ‘We have knowledge in our blood! This is why we are having problems.

I want to address the young generation: before you do anything, you must know what you are doing; whether it is good for you or bad for you. Whether you are making a genuine effort. Whether you’re doing it for the sake of God or you’re just doing it to please your father. If you worship God to please your father, God will be really disappointed.

Paradise and Hell

Paradise is material. This solar system has many planets. In addition to this solar system, there is another solar system: it is called the Angelic Solar System. Each paradise is a like planet, like Earth, Jupiter, the Sun or the Moon. Paradise is not a building or a garden. There are seven planets [for each paradise].

There are seven hells [which are each different planets] in another galaxy.

When you die, your body is buried or cremated here, and comes to an end. The angels will take your soul and you will be assembled before God for accountability. God will decide who he will send to paradise or hell. When it is decided by God that, ‘This person will go into paradise,’ his soul will be placed in a new physical body. That body will have no diseases or illness; it will never die.

This concept of life in paradise is a little different as it has been told. People go there, live there forever, and whenever they wish for something, it will be there. If I were in their shoes, I would get bored. It would be the same thing over and over.

Without love and companionship of God, this idea of luxurious life in paradise seems to me a bit dull.

It doesn’t suit me or fascinate me. I want to be with God, rather than being in paradise. I want to be in the Lord’s company day and night for eternity.

The way religions are being promoted and projected these days, more and more emphasis is being laid on rewards, not love of God. They say to serve and worship God for paradise. Even while you’re worshipping, you’re thinking about paradise. God is not even a secondary object.

The Primordial Times and Choice of Souls

God created souls with a specific purpose in his mind.

He created a group of souls and the purpose was that these souls should love him. Now, when they are born into this world, they don’t need to go to any college; the natural instinct in their soul will be to look for God.

Nobody will tell them, ‘Go love God.’ They will feel the thirst of God’s love. They are special people.

Then, God created some other souls with a purpose: to guide others. So they have this natural instinct in them to guide other. They were regarded as prophets, messengers and master.

So there are many different types of souls and then God created some ordinary souls. He created them all.

They were all assembled before him and then he showed them luxuries of the paradise and luxuries of the world. Then, God said it unto them, ‘Choose what you want.’ So a multitude of souls chose the luxuries of the world. Some other souls chose luxuries of paradise.

Then, for those who chose luxuries of paradise, God said to them, ‘In order to get this, you need to follow a religion.’ For those who chose luxuries of the world, there was no condition.

All these souls came into this world and then religions were established. Now, many souls who did not choose the luxuries of the paradise, they also became Muslims, Christians and Jews. They will never get to paradise because they never chose it. As a result, they never follow the religion perfectly. They create problems.

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Freedom of Choice: God’s Decision for Humanity
22nd June 2016|Articles

Freedom of Choice: God’s Decision for Humanity

Freedom of Choice: God’s Decision for Humanity

We have been discussing homosexuality in the light of religions and also in the light of people making their own choice.

As far as my knowledge is concerned, and given my research and study, I assert that God does not force anything on people for various reasons.

Firstly, if God were to force anything on you, then your accountability would be useless. You could not be held responsible for anything wrong and right you would do in this world. There would be no concept of accountability on the Day of Judgement.

God said, ‘There is no compulsion in the religion.’ With regards to the religion, the Quran itself asserts, advises and makes it clear upon all Muslims that you cannot compel people to believe in certain things.

The ordinary translation of what Quran says is, ‘There is no compulsion in the religion.’ The word used in the Quran is ‘Akrah’ which comes from the family of the word ‘Karahiya.’ In other words, If you are worshipping because you have to, but you do not like it and you’re doing it without your heart in it, then God doesn’t like it. Therefore, he declared if anything makes you feel bad doing it, then don’t do it because this is not part of the region.

In religion, you only do things once your heart is convinced to do it.

This is why a prerequisite in Islam is declaration by the tongue and verification by the heart. If it does not come from the heart, it does not reach divine acceptance.

Those who force others to worship can make them worship, however that worship will be futile because it will never reach the divine acceptance. The reason being that God does not like anything done for him without your heart in it.

If you are in the business of pleasing the Lord, then it is very important that while you’re doing it, you yourself are pleased with it. If you are aiming to please God and are unhappy doing it, that won’t make any sense to any sound mind.

There are loads of things Muslims are doing today which are not endorsed by the Quran. For example, forcing people to observe fasting in the month of Ramadan. You cannot force anybody! You cannot force people to go to a mosque. You cannot force your wife to have sex with you, but we hear from so-called Islamic scholars that you can force her, and if she refuses, then angels curse her all night. These are stories; a woman is a human being too and you cannot do that. But this is what Muslims are doing today.

It is very unfortunate that the western world is unable to differentiate between actions and deeds of Muslims and the decree of God in the Quran.

Muslims are not doing anything that formulates the original Islam. Islam has been greatly misunderstood and misinterpreted.

I remember very vividly when I was talking to Lord Ra Riaz Gohar Shahi. Lord Ra Riaz was in New Jersey, USA. There was a discussion between me and the Lord. I suggested out of my own folly to the Lord, ‘I think you have to be a little strict on people. You are too kind.’

So in reply to my suggestion, Lord Ra Riaz said, ‘My message is the message of love. It has to come from the choice of your heart. It cannot be forced on you.’

A message of love will be given to people with love; It will be offered to them following their own choice.

The message of Lord Ra Riaz is the best message that has ever come to this world. However, this message, like any other message, cannot be forced upon on anyone. It is very nice, but it will only work for you when you accept it with your own choice. You cannot force it.

Looking at the face of the Lord was the best action or deed I could ever imagine doing. When we would be in the presence of the Lord, no matter how perplexed or worried we were, the moment we’d see the face of the Lord, we would forget all our problems. It was so relieving and relaxing to look at the Lord’s face. It was food to the eyes. You’d just look at the Lord’s face and your heart and soul would get drunk; your heartbeats would rise out of sheer happiness and excitement.

I could never believe that I was in the company of Lord Ra Riaz. I would be sitting there with certainty, but with so much uncertainty; I would think, ‘How is it possible that I am sitting here with the Lord?’

Looking at the face of the Lord live was the best possible indulgence available in the world; it was something out of this world. You would instantly feel your soul uplifted.

When we would sit in the presence of the Lord, we would feel the heart filled with divine energy. A sense of accomplishment would be felt inside the secret chambers of the heart. We would feel satisfaction, spiritual tranquility and serenity. That serenity and spiritual tranquility made us forget all worship. The eyes were in constant worship.

Having sat in the company of the Lord and having been able to be in face-to-face meetings with the Lord, so much so was the influx of the divine energy with an unmeasurable intensity of love that would emanate from the pores of the Lord’s body.

When you have been exposed to naked divinity, why would you want to worship? The souls were so saturated with the spiritual tranquility, serenity and satisfaction that there was left no desire to engage in worship.

One day, I complained to the Lord. I said, ‘What should I do? My heart does not find any spiritual solace in the practice of worship.’ The Lord smiled and asked, ‘Where will you find it then?’ Now it was my turn to be a little timid and shy, but I had to say it. So I said, ‘I find the ultimate solace of my soul when I am in your company.’ It was then said, ‘Then do not enter into worship with a disinterested heart. Whenever you worship, worship with an interested heart.’

So nothing is forced. If I force you to become good, how can you become good? Goodness cannot be practised; it has to come from the heart. You can play a game with sweet words, but then your actions will reveal that was a fake exposition of goodness; it wasn’t meant to be good.

The point I want to make here is that actions of those who force others to worship or become Good are not supported by God. It cannot be part of the religion because there is no compulsion in the religion. If somebody wants to be a homosexual, you cannot force them to be a heterosexual, because God doesn’t like it.

When God created all the souls, he then assembled them in front of him. He showed them the luxuries of the world and the luxuries paradise; he did not say, ‘You will be good and you will be bad.’ He did not say, ‘You should have luxuries of the world and you should have luxuries of the paradise.’ He gave them a choice. He showed them luxuries of the paradise and he showed them luxuries of the world. Then, it was said unto them to make a choice. Whatever choice they made in the Primordial Times was written in the book of their fate. There was a group of souls: what they did was neither did they even look at the luxuries of the world nor did they look at the luxuries of the paradise. They fixed their eyes on the splendour of God. This was their choice. God accepted it. They are those who became saints.

So when God is not forcing upon his creation anything from him, who do you think you are forcing anything on people?

As a human being, you have the right to be whoever you want to be. Now, whether God likes it or dislikes it, he will decide it later on.

For example, you don’t feel well and you see a doctor. You are diagnosed with something and then medicine is given to you. Now it is your choice whether you take the medicine or not. Have you seen any doctor beating you up, trying to convince you to take the medicine? The choice has to be yours. Now, the choice you are making: if it is a good choice, you will be rewarded. If you take the medicine, you will get rid of the disease and get well again. If you don’t take the medicine, your health will deteriorate and you will suffer. Regardless of the consequences, it is entirely left onto you to make a choice. You should be wise enough to make a good choice. If you are not wise enough and you are making a bad choice, nobody should be able to stop you. You can only be advised, ‘This is bad and this is good,’ but the choice has to be made by you.

You are completely free to make a choice, but it comes with responsibility. You are responsible for it.

In the light of the Quran and after how God conducted himself (he did not force his ideas on creation), it has become vividly clear that you cannot force any ideology or worship upon people. You can tell them what is right and wrong, and leave it to them to make a choice.

Forcing others to do good or bad things is not allowed in any religion. Extremism in religions today is completely against the conduct of God. It is completely against the spirit of the religion.

By the same token, if somebody wants to be a heterosexual, you cannot force them not to be a homosexual. Everybody is free to make a choice. I am not saying it considering this notion as a secular point of view; rather I am telling you that this is the wavelength upon which God thinks. God himself does not force anything upon anybody so how can you?

If somebody wants to be a heterosexual or a homosexual, let them make a choice. It is none of your business. This is our official statement. You cannot force your ideology on anybody. God doesn’t force people to believe in him, how can a man force others to follow a religion?

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About the Author
Younus AlGohar is the Representative of the Awaited One Lord Ra Riaz Gohar Shahi and CEO of Messiah Foundation International. He has been recognised as an Ambassador of Peace and Man of Valour. He is an advocate of divine love and interfaith harmony.
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