I thought I’d elevate (unedited) to the front page a comment by our good friend Gariban, who contributes to the world’s spiritual understanding by translating Sufi writings into his native Turkish language.  This man knows about the names of God.

My Dear friends thanks for opening a conversation about the names of God, 99 Names of God were explained clearly in the Qur’an by God and authentical sayings of prophet Muhammad(PBUH). There are books of information about these names clearly stating the names, name-adjectives and adjectives of God and how they are manifesting in the universe and on us. One of the most beatiful and comprehensive book in this area was prepared by Shaikh Tosun Bayrak Al-Jerrahi in Newyork. The name of the book is called “The name and the named”. You can obtain one from amazon I think.

My dear friends, Let me share my opinion with you by commenting on a verse from bible in this case:

“If a man has 100 sheep, but one of the sheep becomes lost, then the man will leave the other 99 sheep on the hill. He will go to look for the lost sheep. Right? And if the man finds the lost sheep, the man is happier about that one sheep than about the 99 sheep that were never lost. I tell you the truth. In the same way, your Father in heaven does not want any of these little children to be lost.” Matthew 18:12-14 (ERV)

Who are these 99 sheeps?
I will humbly try to explain what I understand from this verse with my poor knowledge in islam. In islam 99 names of ALLAH is known. ALLAH is a unique name and it is not equivalent to the name “God”. Equivalent of God in islam is “Ilah” or with the terms of Jesus in aramaic”Alahi”. Explaining the difference between the word “GOD or ilah in arabic” and “ALLAH” is another matter, long to explain here. Debates about this difference are turned in to battle due to illiteracy in knowledge.

Those 99 names what we call “Asma ul Husna” are the sheeps which are bound to the One. They all come from the One.

These 99 names manifest within the universe. But manifests with all names as “ALLAH” on the perfect man only. The word manifestation is a dangerous word and used wrongly in Christian literature. It is perceived as entering in to something and many Christians think that God manifested in flesh as Jesus. So they come up with crazy statements saying Jesus is God and fall in blasphemy. The person who coloured with the names of God and acts with the qualities of these names are not GOD. They are the people who beat their ego and become pure servants to GOD. They are neither joined to GOD nor separate from HIM. They are prophets or Insan-Al-Kamils(perfect human being, saints etc. although there are differences between the titles on saints in Sufism). Name “ALLAH” brings all the names together and combines them in to ONE. So When a person says ALLAH, he says all 99 names without knowing. ALLAH lended a bit of his names to human being . So in the seed of every human being, there are his names and adjectives in different combinations as potential!…

” And He taught Adam all the names, then showed them to the angels, saying: Inform Me of the names of these, if ye are truthful.” Al-Bakara 2/31.

“Say: “Call upon Allah, or call upon Rahman: by whatever name ye call upon Him, (it is well): for to Him belong the Most Beautiful Names…..” Al-Isra 17/110

See a list of names in the following link”http://www.islamicedfoundation.com/99names/99names.htm”

Human does not own these names, they are his 99 sheeps given to him for a period of time. Human can not be named with all of these names either. For instance “Ar-Rahman:compassionate one” is a special name of ALLAH and can not be used by a human being. Human has to use these names by acting in accordance with the laws of God. If he behaves according to the names, then he is coloured with this name. He needs to milk these sheeps to drink from their milk. But he needs to tackle the wolf(his ego, Nafs-I amara, evil commanding self) first as he is constantly attacking to him.

These 99 names are like the elements within the periodic table. They work in mysterious combinations and make alloys and composites. Sometimes these composites define other names. That is why the complete list of names are known only by ALLAH. This prayer said by prophet Muhammad sheds light on this issue:

(O Allah, I am Your slave, son of Your slave, son of Your maidservant; my forelock is in Your hand, Your command over me is forever executed and Your decree over me is just. I ask You by every name belonging to You which You have named Yourself with, or revealed in Your Book, or You taught to any of Your creation, or You have preserved in the knowledge of the Unseen with You, that You make the Qur’an the life of my heart and the light of my breast, and a departure for my sorrow and a release for my anxiety)

To benefit from the name “Al-Wahhab: The giver who gives without expecting any benefit for it”, he spends from what he has for the others without expecting anything from them. If he does this, he activates this potential name within him. He gets the benefit of that milk. If he shows mercy to God’s creation, he gets the milk from the adjective “Ar-Raheem: the merciful”. The person gets closer to God by getting the taste of these milks and being coloured with the colours of these sheeps.

“Abu Huraira reported that the Messenger of Allah, said, “Allah has ninety-nite names. He who ‘ahsaha’ [enumerates them, believes in them, ponders their meanings, worships Allah by them and supplicates with them, and acts by them according to one's belief in them] will enter Paradise. He is God other than whom there is no god, the Compassionate, the Merciful, the King, the Holy, the Source of Peace, the Preserver of Security…” The hadith continues to list ninety-nine names of Allah. ”

Abu Huraira reported that the Messenger of Allah said, “Allah has ninety-nine names, one hundred less one. Whoever ‘ahsaha’ will enter Paradise. (Recorded by al-Bukhari and Muslim).

Who is the lost sheep that man was looking for?
Well , I guess When we first recognise that 99, we will find 100th inshaallah(with God’s willing)!…

AND ALLAH KNOWS BEST…

With peace and love
Gariban

Thanks once again, Gariban, for bringing your knowledge and wisdom to this blog.  Your friendship is more valuable than you know…..

Sweet sounds imbued with Spirit:

May your day of rest be peaceful and full of joy….

Most modern Bible translations just use Lord, God, or Lord God… but did you know that the original Hebrew has all sorts of Old Testament names for that which cannot be named?

Here’s a list:

• El Shaddai (Lord God Almighty)
• El Elyon (The Most High God)
• Adonai (Lord, Master)
• Yahweh (Lord, Jehovah)
• Jehovah Nissi (The Lord My Banner)
• Jehovah-Raah (The Lord My Shepherd)
• Jehovah Rapha (The Lord That Heals)
• Jehovah Shammah (The Lord Is There)
• Jehovah Tsidkenu (The Lord Our Righteousness)
• Jehovah Mekoddishkem (The Lord Who Sanctifies You)
• El Olam (The Everlasting God)
• Elohim (God)
• Qanna (Jealous)
• Jehovah Jireh (The Lord Will Provide)
• Jehovah Shalom (The Lord Is Peace)
• Jehovah Sabaoth (The Lord of Hosts)

I’m working with the Jehovah (should be “Yahweh”) Rapha name at the moment. Here’s more on that one.

I wish all translations would just give us the original names, but you know they’re trying to enforce the “One God in Three Beings” concept, so they whittle it down and give us the whitewash treatment.

One translation that comes through, however, is the New Jerusalem Bible, which is the official Catholic English version in Europe.

Guess which version just leaped to the top of my reading list.

UPDATE:  Here’s another list, this one including Greek names from the New Testament.

Hello all, whoever you are, wherever you are:

Just returned from helping to lead a contemplative writing retreat, where I did some astrology readings and led 8 hour-long meditation sessions over a 2 1/2 day period. I am elated but exhausted, though the tiredness feels good. A good night’s sleep and I’m ready for whatever comes next.

Good to be back here, as well.

The Proprietor

Enough to make you sweat, no?

I’ve always thought that Nietzsche has been misinterpreted by religionists who thought he was attacking them in some way.

Truth is, Nietzsche described the horror of a humanity that has lost its deep connection with God — which is to say, a humanity that thinks it has outgrown God and could therefore safely forget Him.

Madness is the only possible result, as Nietzsche himself discovered.

THE MADMAN—-Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: “I seek God! I seek God!”—As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated?—Thus they yelled and laughed.

The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. “Whither is God?” he cried; “I will tell you. We have killed him—you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.

“How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us—for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto.”

Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. “I have come too early,” he said then; “my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars—and yet they have done it themselves.

It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: “What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?”

Source: Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science (1882, 1887) para. 125; Walter Kaufmann ed. (New York: Vintage, 1974), pp.181-82.]

Madman as prophet.

And yet… we are a humanity that never quite eradicated God, and are awakening to our Divine nature just at the moment of no return.

Which is why I say, it’s good to be alive in these times.

Apologies for going the lazy route of posting videos… but I just stumbled onto this one and had to pass it on.

That we (the US) are the country of CNN/MSNBC/Fox is a sad thing to contemplate.

At least we have the internet….

This may not be to eveyone’s taste, but David Wilcock’s discussion of the pineal gland and its relationship with ongoing collective transformation strikes me as riveting.

This is mind candy of the highest order….

* [Famous quote by Thelonius Monk.]

No, I’m not talking about the profound religion of Jazz.

I’m talking about the Thai Forest Buddhist Tradition, exemplified during the past 50 years by the Venerable Ajahn Chah.

My teacher, while acknowledging the apparent attainment of meditation masters like Ajahn Chah, has a problem with their teachings, in that they do not come right out to affirm the Buddha’s actual instructions on meditative absorption. They persist in mystifying the subject, sometimes demonizing it (though Ajahn Chah has not gone that direction), almost always diluting it to conform with a made-up meditation technique called “vipassana.”

Nevertheless, Ajahn Chah is an example of how the Buddha’s monastic ideal has been preserved over the centuries, and his teachings are very much worthy of our consideration. I feel that his was a skillful and rigorous meditation practice that produced great spiritual fruit. Perhaps he taught his closest followers from that place of gnosis, thereby “protecting” the rest of us from the “dangers” of meditative absorption.

The cat, however, is out of the bag.

Jacob (or “Jerry”) Needleman provides an answer or two.

More on Needleman here, here, here and here.