09/15/1975
IWDM Study Library
Ministers Meeting
Pt. 7

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
[background noise]
Imam Mohammed.: Put words to self, it doesn't give the meaning that you think it was going to give. It means something altogether different, but self-struggle-- No, I think self-struggle means a struggle for self. I don't know. I'm not sure of this word. Self-struggle might mean a struggle to benefit self. That's not the meaning we want. Self-struggle, who knows what meaning it will give? Anybody want to give--?
[crowd talking]
Imam Mohammed.: A struggle within self? I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Self-struggle. Where's a dictionary? Who has a dictionary? Well, then, go get it. We're going to find out today. Self-struggle. Temporarily, I'll just remove it. There's no problem to put it back. Inner conflict. It's inner conflict, but inner conflict doesn't say it either because inner conflict just means that there's a conflict. There might not be no intention, no direction, no purpose.
Audience: Self-conflict.
Imam Mohammed.: Might be right. That sounds good. What word did you find there?
Audience: [unintelligible 00:01:39].
Imam Mohammed.: Let's see what it says. See if you can find self-struggle there. See what it says. It might have it there. That's what the hajj is. It's a contest with self. You are struggling with self. Not so much for self, with self. With self, directly. For self, as a result of what you see. Your achievement benefits you, but not you as an individual. It benefits you as a broader self that you were struggling for. You were struggling with your small self, your one self, [inaudible 00:02:16] the bigger self. That's what we mean when we say hajj.
[background noise]
Imam Mohammed.: Self-will. Self-struggle. Self-will. I think we'd better leave that where those words go. I think it's best to get the idea and hold the idea. I think self-struggle implies selfishness. The contest with self implies just the opposite. Of one who's looking for self-will, he has a selfishness. Aim. A selfish outlook. Yes, sir? Brother minister, behind you. Yes, sir?
Audience: [inaudible 00:03:31].
Imam Mohammed.: Battle with self. That's right. That's what it is. It's a battle with self. Battle with self. That's what it is. It's funny that fire is very strong in these words. The later meanings have gotten away from it, but my study of these words show me that fire as a concept was very strong as early concepts in the religious teachings. Religious teachings. To speak, you need symbols. You can't speak without symbols. Where do we get our symbols from? Our environment. People who study the history, or evolution of what they call religion in society, they identify symbols as meaning instead of as symbols.
They will say that early religious people worshiped the sun. They worshiped fire, but it's not necessarily so. They had to have symbols to convey the meaning that they wanted to communicate. The sun is a symbol of G-d, of His purity, His righteousness, His wisdom, and many other attributes are symbolized by the sun. We have in prayer, in salat, in the word salat, fire also. It means a burning, a heating, a burning. We know that heating or burning changes the form. It purifies it.
Men discovered fire, and they used fire to cook their meat. It makes their meat more tasty. Meats are more agreeable with their appetite. The meats are safer for their health. You see how they use the fire because fire meant that this thing was being made more agreeable with my appetite. The prayer enabled us to get a spiritual relationship with Allah that is near to our appetite for this kind of relationship. It also purified us. It's purifies this appetite. It gets out those things that are hurting our relationship with G-d. Prayer is called a means of purification. Let's take these off now (erasing chalk board).
[background noise]
Imam Mohammed.: Christ was crucified on the cross, correct? If Christ is crucified on the cross, what does it mean? We should grow horizontally. We should grow vertically. Who is Christ? Christ means the anointed or the son of man. What does this man mean in this particular phraseology? Son of man. It means son of divine mind. A product of divine mind. The world has a mind that it has come upon by its selfish vision, with a selfish vision. It has found a mind. A world to live within.
Then, there's a divine vision that enables us to find the true reality. This brings us to another world, we call the divine world. That mind that produced narrowness, racism, selfishness, greed, slavery, and all of these things, that's the grafted mind. The vision that is narrow, it has not found divine truth or reality. The divine mind, this man in the book is not talking about that mind. He's talking about divine mind. Divine mind is the mind that has found truth, universal truth. In finding universal truth, it has become adult, or become man, become grown as the creator intended it to become.
It's really G-d's man. This is what He intended to be. He put in him here to grow and become this. This is His man. Divine mind. Now, this divine mind will give birth to a son. When the divine mind is lost, how is it restored? It is restored by revelation. The scriptures come, the revelation comes with the essence, the elements of divine mind. It gives it to a sincere person, and that person become a product, a fruit as Jesus calls it. This mean a convert or a product of the divine body of truth that represents the divine mind. The Holy Quran is the divine mind. Before the Holy Quran, the Holy scripture before that was the divine mind. If it was in its pure form before it was corrupted. The Holy Quran now represents divine mind in its completion. This divine mind gave birth to people or to prophets or adherents, converts. Okay.
This word son of man in the scripture means son of the divine truth. That divine truth is the manifestation of divine mind. You understand? In the book, when you the read the son of man, the son Jesus said when they would question him, he never said that he was G-d. He didn't even want to say that he was Christ. When they would question him, the best, the clearest thing he said was that he was the son of man. He called himself the son of man, meaning that the scripture, that divine mind containing the body we call scripture has given birth to me.
All right. Well, you know you run into all kind of argument, but they can stop right here if they want to come up. That's right, we can stop them all right here, brothers, believe me. Divine mind gave birth to the prophet and he is called the son of man or the fruits of the divine mind or convert of divine mind. So Christ means the convert or the product of the fruit of divine mind. Also, the word Messiah, Christ means to wipe clean or to anoint. The ancient people used oil to clean just as right today.
They recommend cleaning the babies. Some doctors now saying that it's not too good because you can over saturate the skin with oil and it's harmful, but they used to clean the baby's skin with oil, right? They take the cloth and they dip in oil and they clean the baby with that oil. I believe Eskimos do it now. In the cold climate of the Eskimos they use the fat do clean their babies with. Now we have two words, two meanings now that will help us see what son of man means better. It means one who had been wiped clean. Now, what has cleaned him? Oil.
What does oil mean in scripture? Divine wisdom. Divine truth, the divine wisdom has cleaned this particular person and in cleaning him, he has been made fit to be a leader for others. He is the leader. If he is fit, if he is clean and if he is wise, then he is also the savior. The things that others are suffering, he can save them from those things now. You see why the book say Christ is savior. I'm showing you that the Bible language is not wrong. It's the way that language has been put together that's wrong. It's just put together wrong. It's put together to say the wrong thing, but the ideas are right, they came from a divine source.
The Arabs won't like this if they hear me say this. Those Arabs who want to keep control or monopoly on Islam, they don't want me to say these things. I don't care what they want. I would like to see them happy. I would like to see them wanting what you want. They are not all cleaned up like you're cleaned up. [laughs]
They want a little corruption that will enable them to have a monopoly on religion. They are not going to have a monopoly on this religion. I have some talk for you ministers before I leave here. Don't think we're getting ready to close out. I'm going to leave you maybe around 6:00, 6:30.
[applause]
Christ, the man who's called Christ, he should be one who has been cleaned and purified and not with just soap and water, but with wisdom. For what is man but a mental body. To clean man, you can't just use soap and water, you're just cleaning the body. It's like having a problem with the petroleum in the automobile and you're trying to eliminate it by putting wax or cleaning wax on a car, on the outside. You clean it up and you get in and you still can't go nowhere because there are impurities in the petroleum.
Okay, well, the man is the person within, and to clean him up with soap and water just won't do the job. You have to clean him up with knowledge. Knowledge is the nature of his inner being. He didn't come to birth until some knowledge reached his vital seed. That seed, that potent seed, pardon me. Knowledge had to reach that potent seed or that life germ before it began to grow. Some knowledge. Okay, this all represents knowledge now. Oil, a drop of oil. Read the Holy Quran the chapter on the light and it talks about the oil.
So divinely giving message of divinely expanding message. Message that expands, unfolds and every word just shows you nothing but divine superiority. The oil, when you look at that pure oil, it looks like lights in it. Before even you light it up. Have you ever looked at a drop of pure oil? When you look at it, even if you do in the dark, you can take a place that's badly lit and take a drop of oil in hand, pure oil and that drop of pure oil looks like lights inside of it, and when you burn it, it bursts into flame and its light is pure light.
Well, with this knowledge now, this Messiah is one who has been cleaned with the knowledge, divine knowledge. No corruption, no impurities in it. He's called son of man because the oil he was cleaned with is not his own, the oil was from the originator. The oil was Allah's oil. He revealed it to him. The oil now has given birth to him and the same oil that gives him birth has also purified him. You know Allah puts a sign that stands as a witness for his truth way ahead of time. The baby that's born is born sterile. It has a natural immunity to disease. I think it's about six months immunity.
All right, born sterile. The baby's life is- man is born in sin, but that's not what scientists reveal. That baby comes out more pure as far as physical filth than anything else in life. Having its own immunity, sterile. This son of man, this new born man, he's born clean, born pure so as a ritual symbolizing his birth in his womb, he's born not to be just a child, another child, he's born to rule. So in Judaism, they would anoint his head and pronounce him king. [laughs] Because he is the authority now because he has become grown in the knowledge. He is the son of man. They have interpreted son of G-d. See where the problem comes in? This is why we can't teach this kind of terminology out openly. We can't teach it as a doctrine that we plan to establish. We teach this as a clearing up teaching. You understand? We're not giving this to you as a doctrine, we're giving this to you as an eye opener.
To clear up the dark atmosphere that we were born in. You understand, okay. You see how they got mixed up now with the idea that Jesus is the son of G-d? They lost the supreme wisdom and that wisdom is this. That the idea that is expressed from the mind contains the mind. Maybe not the whole mind, but it contains the mind. If you want to see my mind, look at my message. How can you ever see my mind if I don't speak to you? The mind of the man exists in his message. The mind of G-d exists in his revelation.
That revelation is the divine mind. The prophet is not a son of G-d, he is a son of divine revelation. Divine revelation produces him. The book says iqraa which means read. Why didn't it say speak? For the other prophets, they were told to say. Say that the last revelation the Holy Quran wants to connect the man with something that he's been missing. You don't say until you read. You have to first read something before you can say it. So they came up with the wrong, - they left something out. Say to Israel, but the man couldn't say anything to Israel before he read something from the divine.
The Holy Quran don't say "say". The first revelation says "read" in the name of your Lord who created. [foreign language] read in the name of your Lord who created. [foreign language] created the man from a small clot.
[applause]
All praise is due to Allah. It goes on to say iqra read again. Don't think that's all he can do. He has created you now. You were not a man before, you were nothing but a clot of blood formed from a semen drop and from a germ in the womb and now a clot has taken place showing a form is being born. G-d created you mister from that. But now don't think that that's the limit of his ability to create Iqra biismi rabbika allathee khalaqa read in the name of your Lord, and Lord here means we that made you, formed you and then developed you and until you got strong enough for him to walk off and leave you and you were able to manage by yourself a while.
That's what it means Iqra biismi rabbika allathee khalaqa who created you. Khalaqa alinsana min Aalaqin created the man from a small clot. Iqra says read again. That's not the limit of His ability to create. He creates on a higher level than that Iqra warabbuka alakramu read and your Lord is full of bounty. Unlimited bounty. Man, you want to grow economically, you want to grow intellectually, you want to grow morally, spiritually, socially and all that iqra - read again, mister, in the name of your Lord who is boundless and filled with bounty, unlimited bounty.
[applause]
Now you can get it if you just won't be proud and stubborn. It says Allathee Aallama alinsana the one who taught the man, ma lam yaAlam well before he knew not. He didn't know it before. Now if you want to get it, you can get it. All right now. Son of man now means product or fruit of the divine mind that we see in our lives as the body we call revelation, divine revelation. The Holy Quran is the divine mind, it is completion, as it exists available to all of us. Anyone who can read, that divine body is available to him, but if you can't read, anyone who can recite what is this, can bring it to him. It's still within his reach.
Divine mind which is in the reach of all of us is the Holy Quran. The divine mind that produced Jesus was that pure scripture that G-d revealed to Jesus in the body of corrupt scripture that was existing in his time with the Jews and with other people, not just the Jews. Jesus said it outside of the Jewish family. That divine truth that was revealed to Jesus and the knowledge that was available in the world on the time of Jesus, was the divine mind that gave birth to Jesus. He studied it, he grew in it and the book said that he was sanctified, and that he grew in knowledge.
That's what the new testament says. He grew in knowledge. Means that he didn't come in the world complete, Jesus came in the world and grew like everybody else. The book is telling us in plain simple language that this man is no freak of nature. Jesus said it, he loved G-d. He loved the truth, the divine truth. He studied it and he grew in that knowledge. All right, okay. He is the son of divine mind, the son of man. So since divine mind is an expression of the reality that is G-d himself. I'm using expression so you'll get away from manifestation.
The word manifestation has been corrupt in theology. It has been used to mean incarnation. When we use it there is a problem for Muslims who read it as saying G-d manifests. They think we mean G-d incarnated, or G-d in the flesh body and that the G-d that we're talking about walks about in the flesh body and is limited- his presence is limited to the flesh body. His world is that particular flesh body. They get the wrong idea. We don't mean that. We mean that the body of knowledge that enables us to see G-d, the body of knowledge that is an expression of his very presence, his very reality, his being.
That body of knowledge is the divine truth and if that divine truth is received into the person, and that person has conformed his own mind in perfect accord with that divine truth. Then what is living in that person if it's not that divine truth? That person lives on divine truth and that person is dominated and ruled by divine truth and if that person has no conflict between his own mind, and that body of divine truth, then he can be called a person who is an expression or a manifestation of the presence of divine body in himself. Is that plain and simple? We don't mean that G-d, the creator, the very being that started the universe into existence is inside that man, no. We mean that his mind as it is contained in the divine body we call divine revelation is in that man, it has dominated that man, it has ruled out everything else in that man. Therefore that man is walking truth, walking divine revelation, do you understand? In him being the walking divine revolution, he is truly the child of divine. He is the son of man.
They say the son of man was crucified on the cross. Meaning that divine mind was killed on the cross. That particular being, the object of G-d creating the universe the object of him creating the physical being was to create the son of man. Do you understand? He didn't do this just to do something, He did it to manifest Himself supreme and He manifest himself supreme when He manifest the presence of His mind in a human being. Do you understand? I hope you do, I know many of you do, but I mean all of you. I don't want to leave a single one not understanding.
Now, it says the son of man was crucified on the cross, what does this language mean? It means that this divine development was stopped on the cross. They nailed it with this concept of the cross. What is the message of the cross? Trinitarianism is the message of the cross. The crucifix message is told in one word crucifix. If somebody says, "Explain to me crucifix," you have to teach them the trinitarian doctrine. One word conveying trinitarianism is crucifix and son of man being crucified on the cross means the divine growth.
G-d is one and He wants to manifest His oneness and the pureness of His oneness with what they call monotheistic purity. He wants to manifest that in a righteous receptor. That righteous receptor is called prophet could be saint. See, every man who is a good receptor is not a prophet. One man will be a prophet because a message is needed, another man will be a saint because interpretation, adjustments, corrections are needed not so much a new message but just an extension, a new light on the subject is needed. So they call those men saints, mujeddids, mahdi, even messiah.
Messiah doesn't necessarily mean a man is a prophet. Man doesn't have to be a prophet to be called messiah. Any man who is clean, divinely clean, has received the word of G-d, and is a perfect receptor of that word and a perfect representative of that truth. By that, I mean he don't introduce foreign ideas when he talks. He's not attached partly to the divine message and partly to , communism, socialism doctrines or something else, but when he gives it out, he gives it out as it is with no corruption or impurities mixed in.
Any man who's a receptor like that can be called messiah, it simply means one who has been wiped clean with the divine truth, he has been made clean and pure and upright, and he is knowledgeable because that work has been done on him with divine knowledge. That's all it means. All right, so Jesus, he didn't make no big thing of calling himself messiah or Christ because Jesus knew that Christ was no big thing to brag about. It's a big thing for ordinary people certainly, but for a prophet, it's no big thing. Jesus was not only messiah, but Jesus was the son of man. Do you understand now?
In other words, He is the one to inherit the rule and work of the man. He was the one to inherit his father's work so the child inherits his father and in inheriting his father, he becomes boss in the absence of the boss. Jesus said more than he was David, he didn't play up David, David is a Messiah. David was anointed by Samuel. That's right he was anointed by Samuel. Jesus didn't need no Samuel to anoint Him. He was trying to tell them that I am greater than David.
David was a king, David was a man who respected wisdom of divine. He was one who had been worked on with the oil of divine wisdom, so since his head had been worked on with the oil of divine wisdom he was worthy of the title Messiah and those who were to follow after him and keep his throne going are called, the sons of David, are the Messiah, so they expected a son of David who would be a Messiah. Those views who were naturalistic were looking for a Messiah, one to sit on the throne and just govern the world of the Jews.
Jesus was something more than that, He was one who had inherited the work of his Father, not the work of his physical father, the work of his Creator. Why in Islam today we don't use this word father? F-A-T-H-E-R. We don't use it because it is not a good enough, an adequate, a sufficient term. It's limited, the term is limited. Father means that one who generates the light. He generates,- he throws off the seed. He gives the seed to something else separated from himself, and that something else separated from himself is a womb, or a fertile field, or receptor for his seed.
He gives the germ then the germ depends upon the womb for its growth, it has to feed upon the life in the womb. All right, but father concept is the concept that's good when we talking about what happens in the physical world that's separated from the divine world. Almighty Allah puts life, creates life, creates mind then the mind comes into the world and it feeds on the physical world. It's a good picture of that, but what about the mind that Allah creates and it comes into the world and finds nothing to feed on.
As Jesus said, he came and there was no food. They had nothing to offer him to eat. All right now, what about that mind now that comes into the world and finds nothing to feed on and turns away and says, "World, I don't need you for food, I'm going to cry to the originator of the heavens and earth." In turn, for his sincerity, Allah begins to feed him. Well, that's something little more than father, he is the one who is able to produce life without the aid of a womb. All praise is due to Allah.
Jesus was trying to tell his people that, but in telling them that, most of them were too ignorant to understand him, and those that thought they understood him, they let their teachings become corrupted and then lost the true meaning. When he referred to himself as one not born of the world. Not born of a woman. He meant exactly that. That this world that's the natural womb for ordinary mind is not the womb that produced my mind. Do you understand? "I am one who is born immaculately. I didn't have no father. I didn't have no mother as you understand mother." Do you understand? The Christian concept is so impossible to convey without corrupting it with symbols, that they fail to even project it as it should have been projected. So what did they do?
They had to use the woman, in order to get some idea over, they had to use the woman. So here's the woman, but she wasn't touched by a man. Do you understand? Meaning that there was a womb, but there was nothing of the mind of your world in it. Do you understand? She wasn't touched by man, meaning that there was nothing of the mind of your world in that womb that birthed me. In other words, he didn't need the womb of your world. He was independent of the womb that you depend on. The seed, the germ that germinates your life in this world was not the seed that germinated me. No father gave me birth. Do you understand? The seed that germinated life in your world is the knowledge of your philosopher, the knowledge of your educator, your rabbis and your priests, but the knowledge that has given birth to me is knowledge from all high, divine truth. Do you understand?
[applause]
All praise is due to Allah. So he had a problem, didn't he? Trying to give the message that had been given, with the language or the symbols that they had, he was limited. Jesus had to depend upon a lot of symbolic language, he say, "I talk to you now in parable, but one day I'm going to come and talk to you in plain language." Well, here we are, but they don't know what that meant.
[applause]
Thank you, that's all right, thank you. So three elders from the old School came to visit me yesterday, and they say, "Why do you keep referring to the Nation of Islam in the paper, as the body Christ?" Right away, I got disgusted. I didn't feel like explaining a thing. Hear this man question me about a terminology like this, when he should be first telling me, "Thank you, for acknowledging the truth of the Holy Quran.
Thank you for clearing up the confusion that separated you from us. Thank you for making so many fast steps in so short a time to Mecca." No, but he couldn't see that, seeing a hindrance, an obstacle in his way. "I can't deal with this body Christ concept that Wallace is talking about. I don't know what he's talking about. Let him speak nothing but my language, so I can judge, and qualify and approve what he said. I have to stay in the position as ruler, I'm the elder brother." What is little brother talking about down here?
[00:44:38] [END OF AUDIO]

