imagination

Isn't the imagination a fickle thing?

when one wants to churn out ideas they don't come, and when one's not concentrating on having good ideas they flow, and there's no reservoir to catch them, so they drift into that endless sea of lost opportunities..

is it a testament to one's abilities; that they oscillate over time, that they depend on other things in one's life, or that there are certain actions one can perform which increase one's imaginative powers - that one can overcome the burdens of reality and produce pearls of wisdom, or perhaps filter them into a palpable, and digestible form? perhaps that sentence was too long..

does each and every person's imagination differ, and the extent to which one's imagination flows is directly related to the free-reign you give it?, or does it depend on one's 'intelligence'? perhaps both are the same thing?

there are academics everywhere who could perhaps explain this away simply, but for amateur imagineers like your author, we attempt to probe these concepts in our own fashion, not caring too much for conformity or the perceived norm (in this topic, as in most aspects of life).

and it is this quality which leads us to uncompromisingly seek truth, where-ever it may be, and to aim to overcome our urges to pre-judge a possible truth by all the flavours surrounding it. if everyone was prepared to do the same perhaps the world would become a much nicer place to be in.

not that our world is bad, rather there are many aspects of our world which have had bad effects on humanity's imagination; influences which serve to dull the minds, and trap the mass perception under a veil of acceptance - acceptance that what is is the norm, and anything other than that is a mistake, that to think outside the box is a sign that one has stepped beyond the bounds of what is commonly perceived (and agreed) to be sanity.

where does that leave us - treading the fine line between genius and insanity? rather the lines only exist if one 'imagines' that they do, therefore any limitations are only what you've placed upon yourself (perhaps with more than a little goading-on from those who seem to have that edge in influencing mass opinion).

what is the purpose of our discussion? well, on the surface, and topically it focuses on each and every one of humanity's need to utilise their power of imagination - not to live in a dream-world, because that is the realm of fools, and it is only another side to the coin of mass-control (think about all that TV you are encouraged to watch, and the products you are expected to buy - the stupider the better), but here we are talking about awareness - to open one's mind by using the power to see what is beyond the apparent, to the real over-arching truth , by using the God-given power of imagination.

Allah has created us differently than the animal, because the animal doesn't have the power to contemplate what is beyond the senses, the unseen. it can be argued that many humans have given up that right (perhaps through compulsion, but we cannot say), and so leave themselves in a state worse than the animal, because at least the animal by its very existence is fulfilling it's purpose.

So what is the crux of our little piece of advice? the over-arching truth that we speak of... - it becomes apparent when your turn your mind to the real purpose of life - that the certainty of death is one truth that there is no escape from, that there is undoubtedly an eternity waiting after death, and that you will meet your Lord.

then life becomes a time and place for contemplating your Lord and preparing for the meeting with Him, to be in the best state of awareness that you can be in before death comes, so that there will be a glimmer of a chance that you will rest in His favour. you owe this to yourself, and more importantly, you owe it to your Lord, who has blessed you with so many things, not least that amazing power of imagination.

so use it my friends. we are all in the same boat.

as has been said, 'come on people now, smile, i'm your brother, everybody get together - try to love one another right now...'

rhyme of the ancient and misguided

if one were inclined, it would be folly, though never undermined,
to live and unwind, to forget the end of time,
and to be lost in that untold misery of the blind,
unseeing, and unhearing, and never wanting to know any more
a blot on the landscape, ever-growing, ever bored
never knowing what you're here for
knowing only that you are you, and that's all
no matter what you want, we're enthralled
all for you, and other is trampled upon
worship you, you are the one.

but only you know your weakness and low esteem
they'll never trample on your dreams
because you never acknowledge their right to be
they're nothing but followers, uneasy

so the darkness has long since taken hold
you're too old, your soul has been sold
and there's no chance to turn back anyway.
you've exceeded the bounds a hundred-fold
cant regret, abused times have flown away.

there comes a time, eternity, where always is your ever-more
death comes once, but then life only begins, and death no more
more, ever? never? what has it even meant?
our time's going by and it's almost all been spent
time to take the choice to repent-
to turn back and give away all that freedom to choose,
to submit and to live, and not to lose.


no, listen, dont fret til your final breath
but take heed of these words you've read.
you still have the chance to surrender yourself
and erase what's been done and said.

vs

spring rains tho summer's peaked out once or twice, but it hasnt settled into a pattern as of yet, and things are generally going that way in these times. it's a slight disorder perhaps harking to greater things. there's definite turbulence, everywhere, and at this poor man's door the ripples can be felt. it was a matter of time before it came to be, and didnt come unexpected.

perhaps its a case of now being ready to face those realities, having had the time required to settle into the correct mode of understanding, so now its time to stand there and not to waver, no matter how many ripples turn into waves, designed to let yourself be washed away..

its a hearkening back to those days when we were in the belly of the whale, in the darknesses of misguidance, then the only Guide is the same as how now the Guide is the One, and the path has been lighted, so you just take strength from that and carry on. being, thankful to have been shown the path in the first place, yet still calling anyone along the way to come- as Rumi said, 'ours is the caravan...' so come all wanderers, let us go along together..

the wolf only succeeds with the lone sheep, so stick close to us.

diversity leads us a long way from home, but belief is security, wherever you may be, and the final home for the secure souls is pure peace, and security from all wickedness.

so what's a little trouble faced while on the road to your home but a trifle? an obstacle that can be skipped over and left in it's own non-existence. it may seem that the power is with the wicked, and that name may be applied to the good, but these are the days when a lie becomes truth and goodness is scorned.

lets be good, and let them scorn, cos as they've always said, 'he who laughs last laughs longest'.

pray that we are the ones who laugh for eternity...

Where are we?

'Dont you ever feel lost?', an old man asked his wife, as they lay in their beds one cold dark night. 'But of course not, now I lay here with you', she replied.

How many years they'd lain together, and parented, full of pain and delight? Never thinking past the necessities until the moment one of them died.

The ancient scissors snipped the cord of life - an umbilical tube connected to the realm of life, and edge-of-the-seat pre-eternal existence.

The life squeezed out, til the body just crumbles to the floor through the hands of the wife, all panicked grief and superstitious insistance.

'It cannot be', she cries, 'why couldnt it be me?' and she screams her anger at a power she cant percieve, and no longer deny.

'That's what some had called a 'cross to bear'', she supposed she had to agree, but on what then is there left for her to rely?

She hadn't thought about herself in all that time, even in grief giving her all to the children she felt it was her reason to serve as a mother.

But little thanks they gave, being just as dazed and unseeing and focussed on self. Unquestioning, and meandering as any other.

There's nothing so terrible than when the mother who gives her all is shunned by those she loves more than she ever thought could be true.

And it drives her to ruin, and terminal unappreciation, and ill-health. And a prodigal son's unfeasible, cos he doesnt have a clue.

He drove her to her own grave, in his selfishly indulgent infatuation, and ingratitude. The terminal disease of individualisation.

No cross-bearing revolutionary slave, or simple human platitudes. Only 'Me, me, me', and a barcode of the faceless generation.

But deep down in the darkness, of a cruel heart, stirred beauty, and love and that umbilicular, natural light of the gestational bond.

It couldnt be buried along with all that influence of chemicals and material unreality, so true love isnt dead and gone.

Then the eyes and hearts are brought alive by the Light, they turn back to their source, the Almighty One at the beginning and never having an end.

Glorify to Whom it is due, and the links of love come real and back to where they should be, and God is the Only true protecting friend.

Then to Him we belong, and to Him we return, after to dust we have been interned. So the husband's question can finally be replied.

The Truth deserves more than to be just ignored, now it is the Truth we have learned. Family submit together and together we lie.

Funeral

I saw a funeral yesterday, it was my friend's great aunt - so no-one very close to me, but I went along for the experience and because I'd like to think someone would be bothered to follow my funeral.
It was the first Muslim funeral I attended were I saw the burial. Amman has a giant graveyard outside the city, where everyone who dies in this city finds their place, and we arrived in the late afternoon.

The weather was chilly, but there was an amazing yellow/orange sun, so the shadows were growing longer, as the dirt was shovelled over the body. I couldnt help pondering on whether or not the dead person is worried about the cold..

So, a man gave a speech after that to remind us of death, and that our grave awaits us. Our life is as a mere day, in terms of how we will come to see it. And we return to our mother's embrace, and an interrogation by the two angels Munkar and Nakir. They will ask us, 'Who is your Lord?', What is your religion?, and 'Who do you say this man is?'. The only important questions in life.

But then if you havent prepared for those very questions, after death it's too late...

Before we came to the graveyard, we had to drive quite a bit. My friend said it's a good sign that we were moving quickly, because when the person is good the funeral says 'hurry, hurry', but when the person's fate is damned, the cortege moves very slowly, reluctant to reach it's destination.

I thought of the non-Muslim funerals I'd witnessed, and how the car crawls to the graveyard, and the mourners walk behind, in terms of this information. Its as if subconsciously we all know our fates.

It's easy not to remember our imminent crossing over to the 'other side', but watching others who have made that transition always reminds one starkly. Oh the human condition..

earthmovers

if it never stopped, would it go on forever? we boldly ramble on like our time's eternally guaranteed, but perhaps not in the right frame of mind...

a dream after hearing about those thousands in the philippines, showed earth moving in and around, and covering from above, and gradual suffocation. and how is a grave? not lightly named - a 'grave' matter. we all return to the bosom, and the dark embrace of our 'mother earth' one day.

our minds like to deny, and our spirits soar, and reach rock bottom, but never,ever does this make the end more real in many of our escapades. ann escape from thinking about the one thing there's no escape from. how impossibly optimistic?

well, that womb of earth awaits, and then eternity begins. of course after renaissance in a life where this little time on earth will seem only as a day...

what's the purpose of this? you may ask, and i may know. there's a sense of holding onto what you know, in fear of unacceptance. how to reconcile? any prmise that 'one day' it is unveiled is a risk that it is perilous to take, because if the time came and the chance to know had not been given, then it would be unjust, huh?

well, there's another facet, that Allah (God) knows all, controls all, and all returns to Him. we owe our existence itself to Him, so how can we rest easy, and ignore our duties, in return for that. not only that, but this; our Lord is so magnificent, and tremendous and all-overpowering that, He is deserving of all worship.

now worship may be a heavy word for the masses, like a toll-bridge on a well-trodden road. you are obliged to pay, even if you dont want to.

so all roads lead to a grave destination, and soil all around, but ni that enclosure opens up all eternity.

get close to Allah in this life,and after the interrment stage, thats where we'll be.

now i just need to heed my own advice.

demons

im creeping, im crawling
im sneaking all over your private pasture
im hiding all the time from mephistopheles
and making deals with beelzebub instead
so thats how you bargain your soul
and get paid in eternal burn

oh the guilt
buried babies
blindly stumbling in his own lechery
slinks the uber-pitiful
wretched and despised

muscles squeezed to total tension
and lips burned away back
stretched in a taut, ironic smile
a face, once proud, now grimacing
and eyes glazed over, unseeing
deathless, yet lifeless and unknown...

a lingo fandango

there's a new language, its called human unity
a throwback to the beginning of humanity
today its only whom travels on the same road
who converse in tongues but all's understood
there's no confusion when we're drawn to the source
racing to reach a goal before we crumble
the resistors break and come to dust
swept over the line like scrapped waste
and life's renewed and water ressurrects
like a seed bursting into life.
the winners have no gall with this
they were always prepared
but a loser can never return to a race that's been run
as chance never remits once it's gone.
run to the light, and call everyone
you deserve to give them the chance too

we all crumble to death under the sun

the bomb, and the nursing mothers

who's got the bomb? do we forget who's holding the most dangerous cards?

What incoherant ignorance. We're expected to fear Iranians and Koreans (but only northern ones), whilst the evilest have the most dangerous weapons, and the insanity to use them, of course, in a 'pre-emptive strike', to 'defend' themselves from their own paranoia. And of couse it doesnt work, because their real fear is from Allah, but since they cant/wont admit His existence, they have to blame it on anything else whatsoever.

Then humanity spirals into retalitiatory, re-actionary tactics, propounding ,'they did it to us', as if that excuses their actions, or provides any kind of an excuse. 'unreasonable behaviour', and the big baboo screams his spewed hatred onto the streets, and the lapdogs lick it up, holding onto false promises coming from those lying mouths. Gaping and speading mistrust and paranoid vitriol. This is fodder for stupidly innocent 'ordinary folk', who only live to quench their desires and be led into the pit...

the dogs chew on the scraps from their masters' tables, not knowing that they have a right to an equal share. the master stands on the crumbs, even defacates, yet the panting worm-mongrels only bay for their special treat.

no nourishment, a babe fed fom a dried-up teat. sanctioned by war-mongers and population erasers, then medicaments sold to those starving as a substitute for nutrients. a scrawny face looks on as its moher spoons one more scoop of condensed chemical sawdust into bacteria-choked water. oh, our wonderful world.

now an occupation, racially idealistic, and fanatically exteme can get away with wiping away children, and women, and old men. who deserves? Allah knows best.

swept away

Another wrinkle, another year older,
Another line in the sand.
When are you gonna cross
to the other side?
When are you gonna be a man?

There's a grey hair, there's time flying by
There's someone left behind.
Wont you take heed from this
and change while you still can?
Are you seeing the signs?

It's clear, it's reality,
It's something you cant deny.
Why dont you pay off your dues
and clean the slate?
Do you know when you're gonna die?

Tommorrow will come, tomorrow is death,
Tomorrows you'll never have again.
What have you prepared
for endless eternity?
Permanent pleasure or everlastiing pain?

Success is a choice, success is life,
Success is the only way to choose.
Do you coose to be blinded
to the choice available to you?
Would you rather win or lose?

So come on, so admit the truth,
So many chances have passed away.
Dont you feel the need
to submit yourself to the Lord?
What more could I say?