From: silatman@hls.com
Newsgroups: soc.culture.pakistan
Subject: Soul is the House of Knowledge
Date: 8 Oct 92 02:05:55 GMT


                    SOUL IS THE HOUSE OF KNOWLEDGE

                         by Khalid Habib Khan


    The soul is the house of Knowledge. All the other components
of a human 'body' are instruments thru which information is
brought into this house. Knowledge can be obtained in two ways:

  1. Knowledge obtained thru personal efforts. This knowledge
     may be based on the few logics that are available to
     human experience. If the researcher of the knowledge denies
     God or any notion of Spirituality, then this knowledge
     is further diluted and one-dimensional, ultimately misleading.
     Thus, you must ascertain the belief values of any from
     whom you are obtaining any knowledge. Those who do not believe
     in God, or any responsibility towards God, and believe in
     individual willpower to create destiny and to make up 
     personalized doctrines for life, in place of any shariat
     given by God, are in the habit of breaking up Truth into
     pieces and then specializing in individual pieces.
     If you take Truth as a whole, then you cannot make sense
     of it unless you submit yourself to God. Those who deny
     God believe in their own power, or in some cases, they
     say that God is very far off and does not care what
     the humans do.

  2. Knowledge obtained thru the Grace of God by Ilham.
     This type of knowledge is bestowed to the soul of
     a friend of God [wali Allah]. This is the same method
     of transfer of knowledge that brings the Divine Truth
     to the Prophets, although a Prophet or a Saint may
     be a total illiterate. The soul must be cleansed of
     any blemishes before it can receive knowledge thru
     this method. 

   In order to cleanse the soul, the following method is
followed:

   1. Fear God. Acknowlege the authority of Allah swt.
      Submit completely, without fear from the world.
      Then God will become your friend and guide you
      thru the process of cleansing.

   2. Abandon bad manners. Anything prohibited in Shariah
      must be abandoned. 

   3. Simplify your life. Pursuit of worldly illusions
      will take up a lot of time that can be utilized
      in prayer, Dhikr, Quran recitation, and helping
      other humans. Simplify your wardrobe, simplify
      your diet. Make the daily schedule so that you
      organize everything around the timetable of
      the 5 prayers. 

   The soul is a mirror. If the mirror is turned towards
an object, that object is reflected in the mirror. If the soul
is turned towards Duniya [world], worldly schemes are
reflected in that soul. But in order to cleanse the mirror
of the soul, the soul must be wiped clean of worldly schemes.
The mirror of the soul must turn 180 degrees away from
the world and toward God. That is when God's Grace will
be reflected in the mirror of the soul. In order for 
the gifts of God to reflect as well as possible there
is a cleansing process of that mirror as well. Thus,
after it has turned towards God, the person must spend
a lot of time in prayer and remembrance of God. When
the mirror is becoming clean, the person is on
the doorstep of Ilm-ul-Batin, and is welcomed into
the world of the friends of God, as God permits. He becomes
aware of some extra logics and sceinces on which 
the universe operates, and sees thru the soul the majesty
of Allah swt.

   The hidden world is not seen thru the naked eye.
It is seen thru the vision developed by a clean soul.
It is a spiritual vision. 

   There are three levels of progressing thru Islam:

   1. Blind belief: this is usually the first stage.
      Saying the Kalima, and believing all without
      spiritual experience.

   2. Knowledge of Laws of Outward Conduct [Shariah]:
      This is the doorstep. You cannot violate Shariah
      and declare to be a practicing muslim. Yet, knowledge
      of this kind is just the intermediary stage. People
      nowadays confuse an expert of this kind of knowledge
      with one who is truly near God. An expert in Shariah
      may not be near God. It is just a knowledge of
      rules and regulations. But it is the doorstep. 
      A man of this kind of knowledge must be able to see
      first, to have 'vision', before you can rely on
      his decision in any matter. Nowadays, the process
      for obtaining the necessary 'vision' is abandoned
      and so we have scholars who are contradicting each
      other, and leading people into different kinds of 
      problems instead of guiding correctly. In order to
      develop 'vision' you have to purify the essence
      of your soul. That is a great challenge, and no
      university can teach you, except a Wali Allah.

   3. Knowledge of the Batin: this is the stage where
      one who has cleansed him/herself has entered
      into the fold of the friends of God [Awliya].
      One may be illiterate, even without any detailed
      scholarly knowledge of the regulations of Shariah.
      But one is blessed, so now if you ask any complicated
      question about life, or any rule of Shariah,
      the Wali Allah will give the right answer, as
      he/she has a spiritual connection to the other side.
      When one becomes a scholar after this stage,
      the scholarship is of the highest level. Unfortunately,
      those who deny the Awliya, like the Wahabis,
      will always try to defame a wali by calling
      him/her a kafir and his/her students as kafir, also.
      Usually, people of just outward knowledge of Shariah
      and a blemished soul will do such things, unaware
      that the soul must be polished before you can
      understand Islam.


                        was salam, 

                                 Khalid Habib Khan
                                 [Silatman@hls.com]
Newsgroups: soc.culture.pakistan