To Have Life Better and Abundantly

Jan. 11, 2004 - Praise be to G-d. We thank you all and greet you with the greeting of the Muslims, the greetings of G-d's servants who came before our Prophet Muhammed of Arabia, peace be on him, G-d's Last Prophet that He sent to this world, the Seal of the Prophets, Muhammed. They are the greetings of As-Salaam-Alaikum. Peace be upon you.  The beautiful sunshine today takes your mind off the cold weather. And if I had any problems, just looking at your beautiful faces and I know so many of your facings shining before me, that is enough to make my day. We thank Allah for each other.

There is nothing better than the good family life and unity. That is for private life at home or wherever we are. And even more importantly, it is for the family of believers. Believers are a family; we are a community. When we call each other brothers and sisters, we are saying we are a family.  We thank Allah. I got several calls before getting here, telling me that if I were here I would be very pleased. They were telling me that the spirit was very high. So I came here ready to go. Last night (Jan. 10, 2004) was very beautiful, too. I enjoyed every minute of it, and my visit here has been a great treat to me. Sometimes you have one thing in mind that you want to share with the audience, but as you are in the same environment, same place with them and meeting and greeting them and seeing their spirit, you have to change your plan for your address. You change it slightly but always with the same interest.

That interest is, as the Scripture says, "To have life and to have it better and to have it abundantly." Allah revealed to us through Muhammed, the Prophet, "I have created you that you may grow." That doesn't mean to grow physically; everything grows like that. As long as you have life, you are going to be growing physically.
But G-d means grow in the life that He created us for. He has created us that we may grow in the life that He has created us for. That life, number one, is spiritual life. When you feel bad and it is not arthritis, when something is bothering you deep inside, that is spiritual life. And Allah created us to have a good feeling inside. Not that pressure. Not that bad feeling. Not that emptiness. Not that fear. Allah created us to be in Paradise, and I am in Paradise. I am truthful with no exaggerations; I am in Paradise.

The physical world all about us, whether you live in a good land or bad land, in a good neighborhood or bad neighborhood, the physical things all around us  once Allah says, "I'm going to give this servant of Mine, this worshipper of Mine Paradise," nothing negative, nothing hurtful, nothing sad, nothing ugly, nothing distasteful can penetrate your Garden of Paradise. The Scripture says that when the faithful ones pass in, they pass by those suffering and hollering and making noise, burning in the flames of hell. They will pass by them but be at a distance and will not be touched or affected by hell, although they can look at it from where they are.
That used to be just reading for me. And I accepted it, because it is revelation. But now I have experienced it. The flames can be even closer to you.... Oh, I love you people! It is not everywhere you can get an audience like this who has a taste for this heavenly food that I love.

The ancient who were trying to be upright in their human nature but were living in a human world that was animal, in terms of its behavior, there were a few thinkers among them. And the thinkers were in the time of the ancient pagan world. They put in myth a food they called "heavenly food," and they called it ambrosia. I don't know if this is the same ambrosia, but it is heavenly food. Praise be to Allah. Allah says He created us that we may grow in spiritual life. Spiritual life is the life of our soul. The soul is the big life that takes in everything. The brain feeds on certain things that it encounters or experiences. Whatever it comes in contact with, if it awakens interest in the intelligence or in the brain, the brain will engage it. But the soul can't help it. It registers everything. A little baby crying too long in the meeting here, the soul will be disturbed and say, "Why don't someone go and help that mother with that child?" We will feel about that child, just like it is our own child. That is the soul.

The soul hears something in the inner ear and it may sound good to the brain, but the soul will say, "Something is wrong with that." But something can be so attractive to the brain that it will occupy the brain so completely, that the brain can't hear what the soul has to say. That was the situation for our father in the Garden of Paradise. The deceiver talked to him and got his brain to be completely attentive to what the deceiver was saying. He got so involved, so engrossed in what the deceiver was saying to him about things that he did not have a complete knowledge of or hardly any knowledge of. He couldn't hear with the ear of his soul, so he was deceived into believing a rationale that was given to him by Satan, the Shaitan, the devil himself. But the soul never bought it. And the soul couldn't speak loud enough for the man, our father, to hear over the loud interest, the loud voice of Satan. He couldn't hear.

Satan was telling him how to come into another life, a higher life. And G-d invites us always to come into a higher life. And G-d tells us, "Never did He plan anything for His worshippers that Satan didn't scheme to produce the like of it"  to always take us away from G-d. Many people are looking for Satan in the city where the pimps and prostitutes and gamblers, the lost souls are. Satan has no interest in that. He had them thousands of years ago. They are operating on his plan without him even being bothered. He is not interested at all in what is happening in the life of pimps and prostitutes and gamblers and drug dealers. Satan says, "That is taken care of. But let me see what we can do about the Imam's life. Let's see what we can do about the Rabbi's life. Let's see what we can do about The Vatican. Let's give our attention to these boys who aren't playing our game. Let us work our way into their thinking so subtle, that they will be on our team, too, while they are thinking they are preaching the Word of G-d."

This is Scripture. I am coming from Scripture. This is what Scripture warns us of. We are invited to come to the life that G-d created us for. What is the life? It is the complete life. Satan has tricked the world of religion into running away from the whole responsibility that G-d gave to man and leaving this world that G-d put us in to the wrong doers. Allah says, "Who has said to My worshippers that this material world and the benefits of this material world are not for them?" This is the Qur'an. G-d says, "It is for them and exclusively for them in the Hereafter." Let us address for a few minutes the second part of G-d's Statement, "It is exclusively for them in the Hereafter." That statement in its second part is saying two important things to us. First it is saying to us, "Don't worry yourself to death. Stop grieving over the misery you see in the world. It is only temporary. And I am allowing it.

"It is not exclusively for you yet. It is to be shared with the wrong doers. I have given the wrong doers the freedom to get whatever they can get out of this material world. But they are shut out of the spiritual blessings. That they can't have, neither in the here or Hereafter." They will never experience the heaven that Allah put Adam in, before he fell. They will never experience the heaven that Allah put Abraham in. They will never experience the heaven that Allah put Jesus Christ in. They will never experience the heaven that Allah put Muhammed ibn Abdullah, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, in. They never will experience the heaven that Allah put the pious saints in  from different religions. They will never experience the heaven that Allah has put the son of Elijah Muhammad in.
But Allah says He hasn't barred or shut anybody out of getting beans and cornbread, having cattle and land and bank accounts. He hasn't shut anybody out of that, because He is a Wonderful G-d. He is even good to His enemies. He has given us a sign in David. David had enemies, but he also had love even for his enemies.
Likewise it is for Jesus Christ and many of the pious saints, including Muhammed the Prophet. He even cared about his enemies, because they have a human soul, too. Who knows, only G-d knows who can be saved and who can't. We are just to try our best to be like our Lord in His Attributes of Patience, Justice and, most of all, Mercy.

Praise be to Allah. There is nothing that G-d has not extended mercy to, even to Satan, if you understand it. When Satan refused to accept G-d's Plan for human beings, did G-d say, "I'm going to whip you real bad for that." G-d said, "Since you are determined to do your thing, go on. You are free." That is mercy. G-d says, "I'm not going to bring My Power down on you now. But at the end of your thing; your thing has an end. And when you reach the end of it, you are going to be in the fix that you plotted to have My human beings in. And I have created a fire that you don't know about. It consumes both men and stones." G-d is calling the devil a stone. A stone can't feel. But did G-d give up on stones? No. He said that there are some stones, that under pressure, they will break or crack and water will gush forth from them. What is this G-d is saying? He is saying, "No matter how hard hearted you have become, no matter how hard you have become as a life, I put water in you and that water will still be there. And the hell you are going to make for yourself will one day crack your stones. Water will gush forth from them, and even tears will fall from Satan's eyes.

Don't forget what Allah says in the Qur'an, "The Fire is real." I am not talking about something that doesn't exist or something spooky that you can't understand with your rational mind. The Fire of Hell is something you can understand with your rational mind. The devil's existence is something we can understand with our rational minds. And if I had permission, I could put my finger on the devil right now. You know him. I can't put my finger on every one of them. But I can put my finger on the biggest and most concentrated company of them. And you all will see it plainly. But once G-d shows us this, we are forbidden to show the world. Allah didn't take him out of his hiding place, and He didn't permit the prophets to take him out of his hiding place. Now the Bible claims that G-d permitted the successor to Jesus Christ, Peter, to have the power to bind Satan for a thousand years, to lock him up for a thousand years and then let him go after the thousand years. Now why would any righteous servant of G-d want to let him go, if he ever locked him up?

Don't believe that story, even though it is in the Holy Bible. Since the day he has been permitted to be free, he has been free ever since. And nobody has the key to lock him up. He comes out when he wants. And those who think they have the power to put him in jail and let him out are deceived. They don't have the power to do that.
All we have the power to do is respect our good nature, respect the good life that G-d created us with. And as long as we respect the good life that G-d created us with, we have a sure defense against Satan. Something that seems small with no power has the power to defeat Satan, and that is your goodness inside you. Just stay with your goodness and Satan can't touch you. If you practice staying with that goodness long enough and faithful enough  you are not letting sex tempt you away from it; you are not letting greed for money tempt you away from it; you are not letting fear of wrong doers or bullies take it away from you — if you stick with that long enough, you will win guaranteed protection from Satan.

He won't be able to come at you in any way. You will be in Paradise, and he can never come into Paradise. He hates Paradise, just like he hates the righteous servant. The wise in the language of myth and culture have told us that Satan hates this life. If you sprinkle some pure water on Dracula, what happens to him? If you bring him out into the light, what happens to him? He is OK in the dark or in the shadows. The wise in the language of myth and culture have told us that Satan hates this life. If you sprinkle some pure water on Dracula, what happens to him? If you bring him out into the light, what happens to him? He is OK in the dark or in the shadows. The water means your innocence, your innocent soul, your spiritual life. If he were ever touched by that, it is all over for him. So he makes sure he is not touched; he stays away from the righteous, and he stays out of the bright Light of Truth. He knows it will do away with him. As long as you keep to your innocence, don't worry about the devil. Over a period of generations, of thousands of years, the people exaggerated the image and power of the devil. They made him bigger and more powerful than he was. They have him contending with G-d, as though they are on some equal plane.

In Islam, the Qur'an comes to correct that. It doesn't say that G-d has any contenders, not even the devil. He is no contender for G-d. G-d lets us know, "This Satan, this devil, that you know in your life, he is not My contender. He is your contender." He is the opponent or the contender of human beings, not of G-d. G-d forbids that we even think something can challenge Him. Then He works on the problem of our thinking that the devil is so big. He says, "Fight the schemes of Satan (Shaitan), for surely his schemes are weak." It is not like the old teachings before the Qur'an came, that magnified him and saw big trouble in him. They'd say, "Don't engage him! He is too powerful!" But the Bible, too, came to deal with that. It said, "Rebuke Satan." Don't just listen to him, and you know he is talking wrong. Rebuke him means to tell him he is wrong, and he will run from you. The Bible says, "Rebuke Satan, and he will flee from you." That one statement kills all the other stuff about him being so powerful. Rebuke Satan, and he will flee from you.

I was convicted for failing to obey the Selective Service order and was spending time in Sandstone, Minnesota, federal corrections institute. The Jehovah's Witnesses were in there too for doing the same thing, failing to obey the Selective Service order. There was this big, tall copper tone skinned Saintifier in the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses. He knew who I was. But he thought I was a Muslim so far away from G-d, that he thought I was Satan. So we are having a conversation, and I have always been the same as I am now. I don't believe in forcing something on you that you don't want. So I was being very nice and respectful and was not trying to convert him. But responding to him and what he was saying to me, I had to make a little trouble for him. I was being as gentle as I possibly could. But he got so upset, he said to me, "Get behind me, Satan." That is what he said to me.
We both were in jail, and I guess he could move away from me for about 100 feet. So I said to him, "Hold up brother, the Bible says, 'Rebuke Satan, and he will run from you.' I'm not running, so what are you running for?"
This brother made parole before me, and then I got out and got back in the Temple. My father would not let me preach, and I think he didn't want me to make trouble for my parole. He was afraid that I might say something that would go against my parole. First I thought that I was still under punishment, but later on I understood it as my own protection. He was protecting his son.

But I was in the Temple one night, and who do I see? My friend, the Jehovah's Witness. When our eyes met, we were so happy to see each other. No matter what kind of situation you had with your "homie" in prison, when you see that person outside of prison you are happy. You were both confined together and both put in a bad situation, and when you are both out of that situation, you are happy. You forget every argument you had. That is the same way it will be for us, when we get out of this trap that the world has put us in. And our wayward leaders, straying from righteousness that they had in slavery and immediately afterwards, have put us in this trap. When we save ourselves from this prison of ignorance, misguidance, deviation from the Law of G-d, deviation from faith and love for G-d, when we break out of this, we are going to be just like those "homies" that see each other when they get out of prison. We are going to love each other. It will be: "As-Salaam-Alaikum, brother. As-Salaam-Alaikum, sister. Praise be to Allah." We are going to get it back.

The Jehovah's Witness said, "I just came to see you." I told him how happy I was to see him. He asked where I lived and I told him. He said, "I'm going to come by your house." And he did, but he never joined the Nation of Islam. Isn't that something? He came out of prison, found out where the Temple was and came there just to see me. He never tried to convert me to be a Jehovah's Witness again. All he wanted was to be in my company as a friend. It was wonderful. Allah invites us to life. Genesis is an invitation to life. It is talking about the life that G-d created human beings for. It is not the life of rats, cats, dogs, sheep, cows, chickens, rabbits, snakes. No, it is a special life. None of those creatures were created for the life we were created for, and none of them can benefit from what Allah created as we can. None of them. Animals have intelligence, like we do, like we do. I used to think that they couldn't reason, because science said they couldn't. But science is making a big mistake. Some animals can reason.

I believe that is what is being said, when G-d says He made some animals on the same day He made man, on the Sixth Day. He didn't just make man on the Sixth Day; He made some animals also on the Sixth Day.
This is Genesis in the Bible. And if you understand it, it is the same thing that is in the Qur'an. It is in the Sixth Chapter of the Qur'an, called An'am or the animals. But that Six represents the Day that He created man.
Allah says in the Qur'an that there is no creature that crawls upon the face of the earth that Allah has not assigned his life in a community similar to yours. There is the community of birds, the community of ants, the community of bees.Bacteria have their community. The microscopic life that you can't even see with your eyes has its community, and they are crawling, too, upon something. The life that G-d wants for us is the life that you can't have without the tool for the soul being established. What is the tool for the soul? Your intelligence. Your brain. You cannot have the life Allah created for the soul, until you establish your brain.

Your soul goes out like air in a balloon. If you can imagine the skin of the balloon being the extent of space or as far as you can go out in space, the air is the soul and the air is pushing the balloon out.  And Allah has created space, so it will extend as far as our life requires it to. There is no limit to it.  As far as your soul wants to go out, let the germ of life be alive in the soul and it will push, it will fill the balloon up with the spirit and life of the soul. That balloon is not limited like the balloons we buy for our children; they will burst, when it reaches a certain limit.
That skin that Allah has given to hold the core life of our soul will keep expanding forever. It will keep opening up forever, to give your soul more room and to want more. It opens up to unlimited expansion, unlimited extension, unlimited room. You can have as much as you want. Allah created us like that.

But something as small as the point of a needle can hit the balloon and lose all of the air. I guess that is why Allah revealed that Satan had been disappointed, and that, "This day I have perfected for you your religion and completed My Favor on you and have given you My Choice of religion, Islam."  But G-d also says, "Don't drop your guard now. Satan has given up hope of deceiving you in big things, but be aware of him coming at you in small things." Like your respect for your husband, sister. Like your respect for your wife, brother. Like your respect for your parents, children. Like your respect for your children, parents. These are the things G-d made us to naturally manage. It is the nature of the heart to take care of these things. But when Satan comes at us with his schemes, he takes everything available to him and uses it to take us out of the life that G-d created us for.
What is this life? In its best and complete picture, it is the life that has been given to us by The Life. And the highest life for us is The Word of G-d. That is Qur'an, true, pure, perfect revelation.

When it comes into our life, it gives us a chance to have a bigger and better and more beautiful life, and certainly a much more productive life, than we had before.  Is it really a new life? No, it is the same life you had before. The Sign is in Jesus Christ, and most of the students of scripture missed it. So Allah revealed it again. As Jesus Christ predicted it would happen, the Spirit of Truth would come. He revealed it again to Muhammed the Prophet.
The same Signs that Jesus came to show the world, that came in the clouds of the heavens and in parables, here G-d brings them again in plain language. This time it is not in the clouds of the heavens but in broad daylight. He is a man whom G-d chose to be His Last Messenger to fill the role of the Seal of the Prophets.  This man was not called by G-d so that he would be made clean and sanctified and holy and righteous, or made fit to be G-d's servant and messenger. He was already fit before he knew G-d. He was already the complete human being that G-d wanted before he even knew a religion.