Spiritual Letter 01 - Outline & Summary Version        About Spiritual Letter 01
Title: "Who Are We, Who Is God, And What Is The Relationship Between Us."
Wisdom Point: His Holiness, "In Truth There Is Only One God, One Prayer, One Family, And There Is Really Only One Life, Only One Soul, Which Is The Life of God Within Each of Us, Within All of Creation."
Date Written: April, 1989, Date Last Updated: July, 2004
Date Published: July, 2004
Written by: Shaikh Muhaiyaddeen (Louie Beutler)
Written to: Rev. George. A. Johnson, Nigeria, Africa

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Page 4 of 18
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Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Rahim. In the name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate. Al-salam 'alaykum wa-rahmat Allah wa barakatuhu kulluhu. Wa 'alaykum al-salam wa-rahmat Allah wa-barakatuhu kulluhu.  May all the peace, the beneficence, and the blessing of God be upon us all.  May God help us all.

My love you (anbu), my dearest loving brothers and sisters - Shaikh Muhaiyaddeen (Louie Beutler).

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Outline of Spiritual Letter - for Page 04

5.  The Great Dilemma - the difference between the path of ignorance and the
         path of wisdom
7.  All That Is Lacking In Our Life - is wisdom, is a direct connection with God 
8.  Changing The Circle of Life - into the spiral of life

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Text of Spiritual Letter - for Page 04
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5. The Great Dilemma - Difference Between Path of Ignorance & Path of Wisdom

My loving brother, in this example lies the difference between the path of ignorance and the path of wisdom. For a man of ignorance, he is the life that he is experiencing, he is the sourness that he is tasting within his own life, he is the darkness within his own life.

Also, he is the sweetness that he is tasting, he is the light within his own life. But in truth he is neither of these, in truth he does not exist, it is God who exists, and what he is really experiencing is the dream of self existence, that dream that "I exist separate from", separate from other lives, and separate from God.

For as Bawa teaches us, It isn't God, you, and satan or darkness, it is just God and satan, it is just the light and the darkness, and the "idea or thought of you" is satan or darkness. The truth of God, the truth that "only God exists", is God, is the light, and the falsehood of satan, the falsehood that "you exist separate from God", is satan, is the darkness.

A man of ignorance claims the life that he is experiencing as his own life, a life separate from other lives, a life separate from God. And once he has claimed it as his own he must then protect it, provide for it, decorate it, place value on it, justify it, and eventually worships it as god.

In this way a man of ignorance breaks the first commandment of God given to Moses (A.S.), " I am the Lord thy God and you shalt not place any other gods before Me". And when we believe in ourselves, when we believe that "we exist separate from God", we have done just that, we have placed "us" before God. Please think about this my dearest brother. It could save your immortal soul, and save you from the suffering of the grave.

Amen, Amen, Ya Rabil Alameen. Amen, Amen, Ya Rahman Alameen. Amen, Amen, Ya Rahim Alameen. Al-hamdu lillah. Allahu Akbar.  So be it, So be it, Oh Ruler of all the Universes.

So be it, So be it, O Ruler of all the Universes.  So be it, So be it, O Mercy of all the Universes. So be it, So be it, O Compassion of all the Universes. All praise and praising belongs to God, and to God alone, the One of undiminishing grace and incomparable love.  Only God is Great, only God cn do anything of true value with what God places before us. Amen.
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6.  The Gift of Understanding

My dear brother, for a man of wisdom, he is not the life that he is experiencing any more than he is the fruit that he tastes. For a man of wisdom, the life that he is experiencing and the fruit that he tastes are the same, they are both creations of God that hold a secret of understanding about God, they are both traceable back to God, they are both a gift of understanding from God that help explain the secret of who man is, who God is, and the relationship between them.

In this way a man of wisdom properly follows the first commandment of God and places nothing between himself and God, especially not the dream of himself as existing separate from God. That dream of self existence is the darkness of satan, that dream of arrogance, karma, and illusion is the very darkness which caused satan to be thrown out of heaven.

Like this, my loving brother, Bawa teaches us that everything in our life is fine, it is all as it should be. Nothing in wrong in our life, even if we are tasking sourness within us. We are but presently experiencing within us the life of the fruit that has not yet ripened, the life of the fruit within us that is in the state of sourness.

But that sourness that we are tasting within us is but a harbinger of the sweetness that can occur within us, for as a sour fruit will become sweet when it ripens, so if we truly become a slave of God (abdulla) we will experience within us the life of true sweetness, the life of the qualities and duties of God when we properly mature in wisdom.
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7.  All That Is Lacking In Our Life Is Wisdom - is a direct connection with God

Like this, the only thing that is lacking in our life is wisdom. For it is only wisdom that can awaken the wisdom that surrounds our soul, the wisdom that can liberate our soul from the elemental lives that we are experiencing within us, can liberate Jesus (A.S.) from the cross of this elemental body.

We can't do that work because our desires for this world, and our connection to this world are what is keeping our soul, keeping Jesus (A.S.) crucified on that cross. Only the wisdom within us can do this work, and it can only do that work if it awakens to the enlightening words of the Qutbiyyat of God for this age, to the life and teachings of our Father, Shaikh Muhammad Rahim Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (may God be pleased with Him).

Bawa tells us that if we truly find the wisdom that is appropriate for our life, and if we truly accept it as the gift of enlightenment for our life, the gift of maturity for our life, if we find, accept, understand, and take into our heart, a true human being, a wise man with a pure heart, then the wisdom that surrounds our soul will awaken and liberate the soul within us, will awaken and liberate the point of God within us. Such is the path of wisdom that we must follow my loving brother.
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8.  Changing The Circle of Life Into The Spiral of Life

My dearest loving brother, once we start to walk this path of wisdom then this life that we are experiencing starts to have many different meanings.

For example, first we hold the life that we are experiencing as our own life and we embrace it with tender loving care. Next, when wisdom starts to awaken within us, the life that we are experiencing starts to become our enemy that we start to do battle with.

Next, as wisdom continues to grow within us, this life within us starts to become a beautiful school of contrasts that we lovingly and patiently study. In each case, we start to realize, that the only thing that has changed is who we are, not the life that we are experiencing.

Like this, my dearest loving brother, Bawa teaches us that our life can be either a circle or a spiral, either a circle that never changes or a circle that changes by moving upward. In life there are but a limited set of different things that we can experience and if we lack wisdom we keep encountering them in the same way, over and over again, because nothing has changed within us. Such is the circle of our life, because nothing really changes, the same person keeps having basically the same experiences.

But if within the experiences of our life we gain wisdom, if we find and join with a wise Father with a pure heart, our life becomes a spiral and moves forward on the path of God, if we meet a true man of wisdom, and become one with the true man of wisdom, then the one within us who experiences the things in life changes, and since we have changed what we experience changes, and what we take from each experience also changes, and our life becomes the spiral of life, the circle that moves upward, the life that moves toward God, the life that is continually drawn deeper and deeper into God.

But we cannot experience this spiral of life, we will never see God again, without the help of a True Human Being.

For as Bawa teaches us in the "Introduction" to the book, "Shaikh and Disciple",

          "At this point I realized that the most difficult task in life is to find a True Human
          Being among the created beings. To find and understand a True Human Being is
          very difficult indeed."

          "Only after realizing the True Man and God within myself could I perform true
          meditation. I had to understand the cage of this body. Outer acts are not real.
          I had to find the place within to perform true meditation."

Please click on the following to read the full content of this "Introduction" to this book:
Shaikh and Disciple
(www.ShaikhAndDisciple.homestead.com).  Once there go to the "Table of Contents" and then click on "Introduction".
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9. The Path of Wisdom

My loving brother, like this, let us briefly look at this path of wisdom that has come for us and see how, through our faith and trust in God, and through the wisdom of God that has come at this time, through the life and teaching of our Father, Shaikh Muhammad Rahim Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (may God be pleased with Him), we can be gradually carried back to God with an understanding of who we are, who God is, and the relationship between us.

First, Bawa teaches us that we initially believe that we are the life that we are experiencing.

We feel that in some way we are separate from God and separate from all other life. We feel that in some way we exist separate from God and separate from other life and that our existence is dependent upon the world that we see, the body that we have, and the sense of self that we experience. Such is our first way of dealing with the life that we are experiencing.

Second, Bawa tells us that when true wisdom first comes into our life we begin to realize that the very same life that we earlier embraced as our own life, is now in some way separating us from the ideals of God given to us by the wise man, by wisdom, and we try to change it. We feel that God is still in some way separate from us and that other life is still in some way separate from us but that our life can be improved to be more acceptable to God, so we set about correcting ourselves and trying to remove the things within us that are displeasing to God, the things within us that appear to be in contrast with the ideals of God given to us by the wise man.

Third, Bawa teaches us that when wisdom starts to mature within us we start to realize that nothing within us will ever really leave us until it is understood, and that our understanding of the lives within us is truly the purpose for their existence. We begin to realize, that in some way our entire life and all of the lives within us are really a gift of understanding from God.

Fourth, Bawa teaches us that as wisdom matures further we begin to realize that only God can understand the lives within us. We begin to intend the presence of God within us. We begin to realize that our life contains an exaltedness that transcends what we have experienced as our life. We begin to realize that our life is not separate from God and that the exaltedness of our life will only occur if we hand our life back to God. We begin to realize that the only point of having a life is to hand it back to God.

We begin to realize that it isn't a life that we want, it is God that we want, and that our own life is but the vehicle for obtaining God. We begin to realize that to obtain God is to understand God and to understand God is to obtain God, and that it is only in understanding who we are that we will understand or obtain God, such is the relationship that we truly have with God.

Fifth, Bawa tells us that as wisdom matures further we begin to experience God within our own life. We begin to loose our own life. We begin to find that God is truly our life, the life within our life, the life within all life, the one life of life.

Sixth, Bawa teaches us that as wisdom matures further we begin to experience God's life within us. We begin to loose any reference to the world, any reference to our body, any reference to the self, and any reference to a life separate from God or a life separate from all other life. We begin to see God within all life as we see light, not a light bulb, when a light bulb is lit.

Seventh, Bawa tells us that as wisdom matures even further we start to be one with all life, we start to be one with the life of God, the true life within all life.

Eight, Bawa teaches us that as the wisdom within us becomes fully matured we become one with all life, one with God, we begin to understand all life and as we begin to understand all life we begin to understand who we are, who God is, and the relationship between us.

Ninth, Bawa tells us that as True Man, as the life of fully matured wisdom, as the liberated soul, as one who is one with all life, as one who understands all life, as one who is one with God, the true life within all life, as one who understand Man, God, and the relationship between them, we have ended a life of separation from other life, a life of separation from God, and become one, become merged in the one true life, as True Man within God and God within True Man, as God within God.

My dearest loving brother, such is the path of wisdom, the path to God that has come from God to the children of God at the time of Shaikh Muhammad Rahim Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (Rad.), which is now.

So, my loving brother, what separates us from God is our lack of wisdom, our ignorance, our belief that we are separate from God, our belief that we are separate from each other, and our lack of understanding of who we are, who God is, and the relationship between us. And the True Man that we find and experience as the reality of us, will separates us from all that is separating us from God, if we but accept, and understand Him as that, as that which does this work, and join with Him in this glorious endeavor.

My dearest loving brother, God will do all of this, if we but turn away from ourselves, and face Him, if we but join in partnership with God to complete His intention for having created us, if we but join with Him to reveal God to God within God, for the benefit of all of the creations of God, within God and within man and within man and within God.

Amen, Amen, Ya Rabil Alameen. Amen, Amen, Ya Rahman Alameen. Amen, Amen, Ya Rahim Alameen. Al-hamdu lillah.

For as Bawa teaches us,

          "Man is God in the forgetting of himself."


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