4-12-98 Oakland, CA

CELEBRATING LIFE

Imam W. Deen Mohammed


As Salaam Alaikum again peace be unto you or peace be upon you really for the Muslims its peace be upon you, this religion obligates us to be responsible for keeping the peace, for keeping the peace we want the good life and Allah wants all of us who are sane members of the Muslim society to accept responsibility for keeping the peace, keeping the peace.

Luke 24:36; Peace unto you
Matt. 5:9; Peacemakers blessed be they

We are the people of the Book, Scripture people of the promise pardon me in the Scripture that they would be peace lovers and peace makers, peace loving people and peace makers so we're the people of peace Muslim means peace; Islam means peace our greetings means peace and it obligates us to keep the peace and be responsible for the peace.


Eid Adhaa Hajj 

Life, celebrating life so happened that this is the time of the year that three great Religions are really in a sense celebrating Eid Al Adhaa for us is a celebration of life, the life that Allah want for us our Lord, The Creator, G'd want for us the celebration of life and a victory for life celebrates the victory for life. The Hajj is contention. Hajj which means contention, forces are meeting, forces are coming against each other for Hajj. forces are coming against each other: and that's life, life is contention.


Life death many forms

The forces of life are in contention with the forces of death and you know death comes in many forms like life comes in many forms. Life comes in the human form, the human form comes in many forms, the emotional form, spiritual form, rational form we have all these forms of life. Death comes in many forms just like life comes in many forms, death comes in emotional form, sometimes our emotions kill us, our emotions destroy us and also our reasoning kills us our reasoning kills us.


Adam Satan death by reason 

The Satan suggested a kind of reason, kind of reasoning to our father Adam and he was deceived by the kind of reasoning that the Satan suggested to him so he accepted that kind of reasoning and death took out, took away his life a form of death took away his life. He had the life before and he lost it, he lost it to the death of a kind of reasoning that the Satan sold him.


Death in sins 

And we know that Scripture says sin is death sin is death, bad morals take away the good morals and the good morals are life, bad morals is the death so death and life are in contention is that correct? They're in contention and G'd put us here to be victorious, Allah put us here to be victorious not to be losers, not to be defeated, he put us here to be victorious, then He trusted us in the arena of the universe, isn't that something?

G'd created a little creature like me and trusted me to be in the arena of the universe and really equipped me to survive and victorious but I just need a lot of help, that's all, I need a lot of help to survive the many forms of death that come at me, but thank

G'd with the help of His Revelation we can always be victorious.

Cause the help that we need in. Revelation to even survive Satan's suggestion is right in the Book right in the Revelation itself the help we need to survive the suggestion of Satan himself, that our father fell victim too, Adam our father fell victim to the suggestions of the Satan but with the Qur'an we don't have to fall victim to the suggestion of the Satan.


Salvation

Created form then guide 

So really G'd created us for life to have the life to have the life, the good life and the life is, once we know it, the life is our salvation, the life itself is our salvation. Our salvation is the life that G'd chose for us. that G'd created us for is the salvation, the life itself is the salvation, I repeat the life itself is the salvation.


Save yourselves from fire 

So we don't expect salvation to come to us from persons salvation comes to us in the life, comes to us in the life if we accept the life that is the salvation, yes, this is the old testament, this is the new testament this is Islam, yes. If we accept the life that G'd created us for that is our salvation.


Adhan call to life

And the call of Islam isn't it the call to life? Its the call to life [hayya ialas salat] that's the first thing we call we get in the morning, suppose to get it 5 times a day, [hayya ialas salat] and they translate it come to prayer but Hayy means life, Hayy the word hayy means life and here Hayy is used as an imperative, a command, a command and an imperative, an order telling us come to life. [Hayy ialas salat] so actually its an order to accept the life, come to the life.


Guidance. Revelation is the life 

Where is life firstly? The life is in G'd's Guidance the life is in G'd's Guidance and we receive the life from G'd's Guidance and that life comes into us from G'd's Guidance. And once it comes into us it becomes our


First life

So actually to start with we are asking for life, the little baby, new born baby that comes here that open his mouth and it gasps and it breathes is asking for life and then we give it support its needs and it begins to come into the life of a person, human being a person in the human environment or the social environment with the children, it comes into the human life that G'd wants for it, but that life only keep us for so long without the Guidance of G'd. 


When I breath My spirit 

The Satan is too much of a challenge for us having only that life that the social environment enables us to come into because the Satan he has a bigger influence to attract us than the social life influence so he will come in later and take us away from that good innocent baby life and we'll find ourselves in hell if we're not careful he will invite us to a life that will be hell for us if we're not careful.


Consciousness

So G'd has to reveal His Way and reveal the life so the call to the Muslim everyday is
hayy come alive, that's what it means [hayy ialas salat] come alive to prayer come alive to pray. Now it means wake up be conscious become conscious and consciousness is the life.


Consciousness

When the human being loses his consciousness the medical profession will say that person is dead if they can't be brought back to consciousness, they say they are medically or clinically dead, right? They'll be clinically dead just like a vegetable no human life exercised there in the body, so this is the call to life is the call to become conscious, conscious of yourself and of your obligation to G'd Who created you to become conscious.


Prayer is the Our'an

Bu. 4-443; 4-754; Prophet recite Our'an in Ramadan

Now when we come to the prayer what are we going be given, we think of prayer as prayer and very few of us will have it dawn on nor minds that really our prayer is the Qur'an, our prayer is the whole Qur'an and in the month of Ramadan we follow the prayers and when the month of Ramadan is finished we have recited and followed the whole Qur'an in prayers, the whole Qur'an in prayers.

This is what is so special for Islamic prayer the Muslim prayer and by the way the Hon. E. Muhammad said in about 1959 I think it was he published in an article of his, he said there is no greater prayer form than the Muslim prayer form, that's what the Hon E. Muhammad said now you know we only remember what the Hon. E. Muhammad said about the white man, but I remember what he said about G'd, about prayer, about Islam, about Muslims; I remember a lot of things he said and to me its much more important than just remembering what he said about white folks.

So the Hon. E. Muhammad said in this article that was published in the paper New Amsterdam I think, it was the Amsterdam News, a black publication, he said that there's no greater prayer form or service than the Muslim prayer form or service. He also put it out in a little prayer book, he put out a little prayer book at the time to help us learn how Muslims pray. That didn't last very long but he did do it which tells us that that was one of his concerns was to have us learn the real Muslim way.

Life is G'd's Word Our'an 

Animals know mode prayer 

Yes so getting back to the life now, celebrating the life; the life then is G'd's Word isn't it? The real life that we're called to is the Qur'an and the Qur'an is G'd's Word so the real life is G'd's Word. We're asked to come to G'd's Word for the life G'd wants in us come to prayer Hayy living, living alive, come living, come alive to prayer; and what is the prayer, what's gonna support that life? The salat, salat and what is the salat? The Word of G'd [Hayya ialas salat] come living, come alive upon what? The salat and G'd says every creature that He has made, birds and all, they know their mode of salat.

Pray 5 times Life is five

Forty Hadith P. 34 # 3 Islam built on five 

Use five before five leave 

So this salat is a big, see it takes the Islamic philosophers to really discuss this things to
us and bring out the great messages for us for our life that are hidden the core of these terms, hidden in the composition of these terms. Great message come to life, come alive and come to the life, the life is our prayer, pray 5 times a day, why five because life is five, life is five; life in community is five it can't be ordered by six or seven it must be ordered by five.


Five senses

Because the common person must be able to understand the order of his society and be able to share responsibility for the order of his society so the real order for ordering society is the order that respects the common five senses of man. We can't have a society based upon intuition or ordered by intuitiveness we can't have a society based spiritual based solely upon moral life or moral taste it must be a society that respects the common rational senses of every person male and female, young and old.


6. 8 Point stars = social order 

And this is the way civilization have moved, civilization have move to respect the five senses of man you know some people have 6 pint stars some people have 8 point stars representing their order, their social order. we have five point star and most of the nations have five point star representing the social order that the people, citizens must uphold and live under you see, its the order of the common man and there was a great American during the revolution who said give me liberty or give me death.

And liberty for even the intellectual is the liberation of his common sense, I heard watching t.v. and they were giving this lawyer a lot of attention on t.v. and I forget
his name now I got it in my notes_______ and I refer to this to get us to appreciate common sense, healthy common sense, natural life common sense. He was asked to explain what accounted for all his wins in court, he said well most of my opponents they come to court with the law books, he say I come to court with the law books and common sense.

And again one of the great American who helped us get slavery off our backs and come to a liberating idea of what life is or what democracy is, he said pardon me he didn't say he wrote ,a book putting importance on common sense.   Payne what is he full name? Thomas Payne common sense that is what he brought to the people common sense and he appealed to the citizens to respect what is common sense; so they could break the grip of old ideas on them and come to a more liberal society or more liberal perception of, better perception or clearer perception of what a liberal society should look like, you know common sense .


Common senses flesh body 

So G'd created us with common sense and if we going be alive we have to be alive as common sense people we see the five senses first in their role in the biological body, in the flesh body you know we see with our eyes, we see visually concrete objects or objects that we can perceive with the physical sight of our eyes. That's the sense of sight, one of the great senses and we smell objects that are in the air or give off aroma or some kind of scent with our nose, the sense of smell.

And we hear the sounds of objects with our ears the sense of hearing and we taste things
put in our mouths to see if its salty or sweet or sour or bitter or whatever with our tongue and that's the sense of taste its the four and we feel things with our skin the sense of touch, so we have these five senses in the physical body. But these five senses also have counter parts in the abstract body so perception with the eye should be associated with a higher evolution of perception that's perception in the intellect so we see also with the intellect, that's a higher perception, that's a higher sense


Abstract body senses 

And all of these are common senses that we have by our natural creation, our natural creation have provided us with these common senses and their counterparts in the rise or evolution of the senses. Perception in the body, physical is evolved to perception in the intellect.

Smell = Intuitiveness 
smell in the physical body evolves to intuitiveness, intuitive power in the soul.

Hearing = intuitive   Touch 
Hearing in the ear evolves to an intuitive hearing that's above just hearing with just the ear in the intellect, so all of these senses even the touch we our touch, sense of touch in the physical body evolves to moral touch or I would say emotional touch in the abstract body, emotional touch, we know what feels good emotionally, what feels bad emotionally; how we should respond to that feeling emotionally a higher evolution this is in the abstract body so all of these senses are firstly in the biological body the flesh and blood body but they evolve the human being is an evolving life rising life rising to higher
planes of reality, higher planes of perception consciousness they say, higher planes of consciousness.


Prayers 50 down to 5 

So this is the human being this is our common inheritance this is our common properties, our five senses are our common properties and you know there's a story about the number of prayers that we say have we came to have these five prayers ordered:- The story says that the Moses saw Muhammad going to G'd for guidance and he told Muhammad he said, I'm going give it to you short in my own version he said my experience tells me that you need to ask G'd to shorten the prayers cause we were praying fifty and a little bit too much; so he suggested to the prophet that he ask G'd to shorten the prayers, G'd did, G'd shortened the prayers to five instead of fifty five prayers.

Now I don't know if that Hadith is really a sound Hadith or not you know, I don't know how much to trust in Hadith but I know I do trust the wisdom of that Hadith but to say I really believe that the Prophet said that I can't be sure that he really said that, but I do trust the wisdom of that Hadith.

What it is saying that the leader must lead the people through and respect for their common senses, he must lead them through their common sense, communicate to them through their common sense and lead them through their common sense and with respect for their common sense, five. Fifty to me implies a educated perception of your common senses that's what fifty to me implies, an educated perception of your common sense.

In other words you are intellectually conscious of your five senses in your body you see? What I been sharing with you how the higher senses graduate and how the five move up into higher planes of perception and reality, you see. That's ok for this discussion, but we want to help everybody out there in the streets, we better not try to have all this discussion with them, just order the society so the society respects the healthy life of the five senses and support and feed the healthy life of the five senses, that's what we should do you know and then we take care of the business.

The Our'an is the Word of G'd and the Our'an feeds life on all levels, feeds life on all levels so the most educated one of us is fed amply, sufficiently by the Qur'an when we hear it and the most avid one of us for learning for knowledge is also fed amply, sufficiently when they hear the Qur'an. Its actually always ahead of us bigger than us and ahead of us the Word of G'd is always bigger than our minds and ahead of our minds.


Kauthar Fountain

John 10:10: life have it more abundantly

Those faithful students and scholars of Qur'an they accept what G'd has revealed and they believe that the Book is enough for us til the day of Judgement and no matter how long we human beings live on this earth it will be supplying them with Guidance with the Light the Guidance and the Way to have life and the have as the Bible says more abundantly it calls us to Kauthar surely we have given you abundance [fasully le rabbeka wan har] therefore pray to your G'd make prayers to G'd and strive hard. Pray and effort life and effort, isn't that what life is? Life is life and effort, no effort you lose the life, life and the effort make the firm effort for the good life.


First second life 

Now to have the life, G'd want us to know that He is the Giver of life, G'd is the giver of life. The same One that gave us this biological life that we must have in order to have a presence in the world to have the life, have consciousness and to be living in a real world we have to have this biological flesh and blood body. The same One Who provided for you a home for your first life will give you the second life. He's going give you the second life. What is the second life? Clear vision how to reach the destiny He created you for, He created you not just to be here but He created you to make progress here until you get all of the good excellence mind and spirit and beauty.


Beauty

Beauty, some of us ignore beauty as a motive in our life, G'd want us to get all the good life that He has created for us and to get that we must not just be here we must make effort and progress on the road and we must increase day by day our worth to ' ourselves and to human society.


Growth man This is growth, that is the real growth to increase the worth to our self to human society, G'd tells us and He created us like a plant and when you study plants you can get so many messages, so many eye opening messages from the life of plants. We think of a tree oh that's nothing but a simple tree but look that tree does not live, not created I don't know what it lives for I can't talk to it, but when I study it I know it is not existing, put it that way for itself alone; when G'd created the tree He created a home for the bird, yes. He created a home for the bird and not only that, He also created the timber so that man would have a better home. And I still love wood homes, spring houses they call them. I still love them I think they got a warmth that a brick house just aint got; nice beautiful spring house.

So G'd created that you know and you they give flowers they contribute to the beauty of the environment, they beautify the area that you live in with not only their leaves but also the flowers and they will also help your smell, orange blossoms oh boy its terrific.

If you've never smelled them go to Jordan, Georgia one night go to___what I'm
talking about they got them here, I'm forgetting where I am, I live in Chicago so much I think I'm there I forget I'm here in California, just go and smell the orange blossoms its terrific, all those beautiful smells. The tree just serving life, right? Its a life serving life with beauty. with food and everything, its serving life.

Then some trees like many plants they give you seeds that you can hold until spring returns and get a bigger harvest than you got last year because of more seed, more seed. And if you're a good farmer or a good study of the person who studies this, you will learn how to select seeds and the light that you're using will give you the knowledge of how to even get better life than they gave you last year or ten years ago, by selection. And it
ain't no complicated thing, I can give you one lesson in agriculture that you go to school 8 yrs or 10 yrs for it and that is selection.


Botany

If you want string beans that look like the chain store the super market string beans when you plant your seed and you get string beans take the straight string bean, the one that look perfect like you want them, save the seed take the ones that's curved and not like you want them and save them separately, the next time you plant, plant them separately and you'll get all straight ones from the straight string beans and you'll get all bent ones , fickle shaped one from the fickled shape ones that you got, seeds that you collected.

That's by selection and if you get so many after a while you'll say I don't care for these fickles shaped string beans, you can boil them in the pot and they make nice bean soup and you'll have nothing but straight ones in your yard. I know cause I done it, my wife and children will tell you. My string beans look better than the string beans that had in Jewels food store, mine was the best the prettiest.   Cause I selected myself, I attended to them and I think G'd put a little green on my thumb or something I believe I had a little help from the unseen forces too, yes I do.


Read signs of G'd

Q.2:164; Signs in heavens, earth
Q. 41:53; SJ2ns in soul

So life, G'd wants us to look at the whole life that He created plants, animals yourself,
G'd says there signs in the heavens and there signs in the earth and also signs in you.

Q. 88:21; Thinking is beneficial

So look at everything for the signs of G'd. so that you read the messages of G'd in the natural created world and benefit from it. G'd doesn't tell us He made our life like a plant just for us to hear it and stop G'd want us to think, that's why He said Think for surely thinking profits you, thinking, by thinking you will profit, p.r.o.f.i.t., profit, gain, have gain, increase, more of what you want.

by the way I would like to throw a little humor, a Jew by the way was sitting in the conference we had, high level conference of religious people working for peace in the world and they kept on talking about the prophets Christians and few Muslims too; they kept on talking about the prophets of scripture, so I want to just get a reaction from the Jew, Jewish Rabbi so I told him I said, aren't those your prophets they're talking about? And he know the look on my face I was making humor.

I said aren't those your prophets they're talking about? He said Muhammad, Imam Muhammad among the Rabbis we say, we often say we have given them profits and losses. So they see Prophets as profits and losses, or gains and losses and that's right it depends upon your attitude if you go in the Book you'll get nothing but losses if you got the wrong attitude. Imam was right you have to have the right attitude the right disposition on the path of G'd, if you don't have the right disposition you'll get nothing but losses but if you have the right disposition you get profits.

And that's what CPC wants, profits for us, that's our business venture. Life it all about life shouldn't we celebrate life? Are Muslims to celebrate life? I believe so, we have two main Eids that the Prophet left for us Muhammad, G'd left them in Qur'an he left them with us and they are the Eids of Fitr and the Eid of Abraham's sacrifice, now you think about this.

Eid Fitr = original nature 

One is called Eid Al Fitr and when you look at the wmd Fitr, Fitr means original life or original nature, celebrating original life or original nature, that what Eid al Fitr is.

Eid Adhaa= brighter enlightenment 

Eid Al A.dhaa is the celebration of the brighter life, (light), Adhaa means more brighter this is, you just left one Eid is only three months behind you now here comes another Eid that follows it and it is called Eid Al Adhaa, Adhaa means more brighter, brighter, brighter in what respect? In every respect not just brighter in the sense of more enlightened and it is it represents more enlightenment or the enlightenment it really represents the enlightenment. The first is the life the second is the enlightenment: the correct life and then enlightenment. So Eid Al Adhaa is the life of enlightenment and it is also the life of more joy and pleasure, brightness means happiness too. Say my life is bright that suggest that I'm pleased, I'm happy, I'm not sad; say my life is dark or dull it suggest that my life is not happy, not pleased, I'm sad down hearted so to speak.

So it is, Adhaa means the first one was right, here comes the second one that Adhaa it implies that the first one was bright, this was brighter, so the Eid of Al Fitr is bright but the Eid of Al Adhaa is brighter, why because

 (first) one is the natural light in its excellence the second one is the intellect in its excellence, do I need to make some more connections?


Eid Fitr Ramadan

Thank you praise be to Allah so this is the truth so the first celebrates life our first Eid is a celebration of life, the life of restraint the life of discipline of the appetite we discipline the appetite, we restrain the appetite for G'd's pleasure so no thing that G'd forbids to come into this body comes in there.


Body rights 

This body does not live for itself it lives for G'd so darling you feel sexy, no the sun is still up, you have to wait, now usually its the other way around, the darling is a man, a male; darling you sexy, no sweety you have to wait the sun is up. So when we finish the 30 days of the fast month and the new moon appears telling us the fast is up there's a celebration and we're celebrating the victory of the life of discipline, that disciplined itself for G'd's pleasure, isn't that wonderful?

And there here comes the Eid Al Adhaa and we do the 10 days of Hajj in contention, life in contention, life struggling against the forces that bring death moral death, spiritual death, mental death, ignorance etc., not just physical death and we're victorious we have completed the Hajj we're victorious come down from the mount of Al Arafat celebrating the praise of G'd lifting our voices glorifying Him with our tongues and our spirit and our expression; going down from the mount to the sacrifice of Abraham the next day, isn't that beautiful?

Use five before five leave Yes and we go down from the mountain to the sacrifice of Abraham on the tenth and the Prophet said be aware of five before five be your failure be aware of five take charge of five before five undo you, be your undoing, five what? Five senses again returning to the common man's protection, common person's protection; our five senses.

Be aware of five before five is your undoing mean be aware of what your eves look at and what your ears open up to, what your nose sniff, what your tongue___for , what your
hands want to touch be aware, be aware of five on a high plane that G'd guide you to before these five in the gross body be your undoing, praise be to Allah. The prophet put it in other words plan for sickness while you're healthy an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, so the prophet gave it to us in a lesson like that, what I said says the same thing.


No Extreme emotion 

Islam is not only spirit but also knowledge for guidance, the light on the path of G'd, so Islam wants us to be conscious followers of the way we must follow the way the path consciously we can't accept to be following the way under the spirit there is no Holy Ghost arousing sermon in Islam to get you to be unconscious to get you in the grip of the spirit so that the spirit can hold you from the world.

No that's not Islam that's not the path of Islam, the path of Islam is to awaken your mental awareness to awaken your mind and then guide your mind with the knowledge that your body is asking for. Your body G'd created it and its asking for protection, asking for guidance, asking for the light and Islam want's your mind to wake up to the need to be fed by the food that G'd gives in the Word. The Word of G'd feed us and gives us the life that we need.


Abraham

This is the beauty we celebrate the life so the Revelation that G'd gave Abraham our second father was the revelation to bring us education enlightenment so that we would be an educated society an enlightened society and get all the benefits of G'ds creation, science technology and everything. That's what G'd created us for, so this progress that we have seen on this earth for enlightenment and industrial society is what G'd created us for.

Q. 50:8;   Earth educate observe
Q. 67:15; Earth manage pliable, tractable

So don't just think of prayer as something from G'd and think of fasting in the month of Ramadan that's from G'd, eating after the fast is also from G'd. Riding on more than just the spirit, riding on the boat or airplane 747 that's also from G'd yes all of its from G'd. He created the earth and you to have this great meeting, the intellect and the life in us embraces the creation and the creation opens up to us then He created all of this to be our tilth for us to engage it plow it Sampson say you wouldn't got this from me if you hadn't plowed my helper, He want us to engage it plow it its our tilth the whole physical environment that He created and just like we engage a female in lawful marriage a lawful bonding G'd has approved of this we are husband and wife.

If we would have the same sacred respect for the relationship Allah want us to have with this external world we call the material existence we can have good products from this external world and many of them that will give us pleasure just like the good obedient children get those pleasures at home when we look at them. Look at the wife sometimes you want to kiss her again we just got through kissing her we thought we had kissed her enough, we thought we were satisfied but we look at the children, girl come her and let me kiss you again, beautiful children healthy minded children, obedient children we can have the same relationship with the material world, celebrate life peace, As Salaam Alaikum.
