MOHAMMED
Despite the fact that the followers of Mohammed, the prophet, are among the
most fanatical and prejudiced of all religious sects, Mohammed himself was
unquestionably among the Illumined Ones of earth, and had attained and
retained a high degree of cosmic consciousness.
The wars; the persecutions; the horrors that have been committed in the
name of Islam, are perhaps a little more atrocious than any in history
although the unspeakable cruelties of the Inquisition would seem to have no
parallel.
The religion of Persia, wrongly alluded to as "fire-worship," marks
Zoroaster as among the Illuminati, but as the present volume is concerned,
in the religious aspect of it, only with those cases of Illumination which
we are classifying among the present great religious systems, we cite the
case of Mohammed, the Arab, as one clearly establishing the characteristic
points of Illumination.
When Mohammed was born, in the early part of the fifth century, the
condition of his countrymen was primitive in the extreme.
The most powerful force among them was tribal or clan loyalty, and a
corresponding hatred of, and readiness to make war with, opposing clans.
Although at the time of Mohammed's birth, Christianity had made great
headway in different parts of the old world, it had made very little
impress upon the Arabs. They worshipped their tribal gods, and there are
traces of a belief in a supreme God (Allah ta-ala), but they were not as a
race inclined to a deeply religious sentiment.
One and all, whether given to superstitions or denying a belief in Allah,
they dreaded the dark after-life and although the different tribes made
their yearly pilgrimages to Mecca, and faithfully kissed the stone that
had fallen from heaven in the days of Adam, the inspiration of their
ancient prophets had long since died, and a new prophet was expected and
looked for.
The yearly pilgrimage to Mecca, which was at once the center of trade and
the goal of the religious enthusiast, was observed by all the tribes of
Arabia, but it is a question whether the pilgrimage was not more often made
in a holiday spirit than in that of the devotee to the _Kaabeh,_ the most
sacred temple in all Arabia.
Indeed, it is agreed by all commentators, that the ancient Arab, "In the
Time of Ignorance," before the coming of Mohammed, knew little and cared
less about those spiritual qualities that look beyond the physical; not
questioning, as did Mohammed, what lies beyond this vale of strife, whose
only exit is the dark and inscrutable face of death.
Besides the tribal gods, individual households had their special Penates,
to whom was due the first and the last salam of the returning or out-going
host. But in spite of all this superstitious apparatus, the Arabs were
never a religious people. In the old days, as now, they were reckless,
skeptical, materialistic. They had their gods and their divining arrows,
but they were ready to demolish both if the responses proved contrary to
their wishes. A great majority believed in no future life, nor in a
reckoning day of good and evil.
Such, then, was the condition of thought among the various tribes when
Mohammed was born.
It was not, however, until he was past forty years of age, that the
revelations came to him, and although it was some time later that these
were set down, together with his admonitions and counsel to his followers,
it is believed that they are for the most part well authenticated, as the
Koran was compiled during Mohammed's lifetime, and thus, in the original,
doubtless represents an authentic account of Mohammed's experiences.
It is related that Mohammed's father died before his son's birth and his
mother six years later. Thus Mohammed was left to the care of his
grandfather, the virtual chief of Mecca. The venerable chief lived but two
years and Mohammed, who was a great favorite with his grandfather, became
the special charge of his uncle, Aboo-Talib, whose devotion never wavered,
even during the trying later years, when Mohammed's persecutions caused the
uncle untold hardships and trials.
At an early age Mohammed took up the life of a sheep herder, caring for the
herds of his kinsmen. This step became necessary because the once princely
fortune of his noble ancestors had dwindled to almost the extreme of
poverty, but although the occupation of sheep herder was despised by the
tribes, it is said that Mohammed himself in later life often alluded to his
early calling as the time when "God called him."
At the age of twenty-five he took up the more desirable post of camel
driver, and was taken into the employ of a wealthy kinswoman, Khadeejeh,
whom he afterwards married, although she was fifteen years his senior--a
disparity in age which means far more in the East, where physical charm
and beauty are the only requisites for a wife, than it does in the West
where men look more to the mental endowments of a wife than to the fleeting
charm of youth.
It is also to Mohammed's credit that his devotion to his first wife never
wavered to the day of her death and, indeed, as long as he himself lived
he spoke with reverence and deep affection of Khadeejeh.
We learn that the next fifteen years were lived in the usual manner of a
man of his station. Khadeejeh brought him wealth and this gave him the
necessary time and ease in which to meditate, and the never-varying
devotion and trust of his faithful wife brought him repose and the power to
aid his impoverished uncle, and to be regarded among the tribes as a man
of influence.
His simple, unostentatious, and even ascetic life during these years was
noted. He was known as a man of extremely refined tastes and sensitive
though not querulous nature. A commentator says of him:
"His constitution was extremely delicate. He was nervously afraid of bodily
pain; he would sob and roar under it. Eminently unpractical in the common
things of life, he was gifted with mighty powers of imagination, elevation
of mind, delicacy and refinement of feeling.
"He is more modest than a virgin behind her curtain," it has been said of
him.
"He was most indulgent to his inferiors and would not allow his awkward
little page to be scolded, whatever he did. He was most affectionate toward
his family. He was very fond of children, and would stop them in the
streets and pat their little cheeks. He never struck anyone in his life.
The worst expression he ever made use of in conversation was: 'What has
come to him--may his forehead be darkened with mud.'
"When asked to curse some one he replied: 'I have not been sent to curse,
but to be a mercy to mankind.' He visited the sick, followed any bier he
met, accepted the invitation of a slave to dinner, mended his own clothes,
milked his goats and waited upon himself.
"He never withdrew his hand out of another's palm, and turned not before
the other had turned.
"He was the most faithful protector of those he protected, the sweetest and
most agreeable in conversation; those who saw him were suddenly filled with
reverence; those who came to him, loved him. They who described him would
say: 'I have never seen his like, either before or after.'
"He was, however, very nervous and restless withal, often low-spirited,
downcast as to heart and eyes. Yet he would at times suddenly break through
these broodings, become gay, talkative, jocular, chiefly among his own."
This picture corresponds with the temperament which is alluded to as the
"artistic," or "psychic" temperament, and allowing that in these days there
is much posing and pretense, we still must admit that the quality known as
"temperament" is a psychological study suggesting a stage of development
hitherto unclassified. It is said also, that in his youth Mohammed was
subject to attacks of catalepsy, evidencing an organism peculiarly
"psychic."
It is evident that Mohammed regarded himself as one having a mission upon
earth, even before he had received the revelations which announced him as a
prophet chosen of Allah, for he long brooded over the things of the spirit,
and although he had not, up to his fortieth year, openly protested against
the fetish worship of the Kureysh, yet he was regarded as one who had a
different idea of worship from that of the men with whom he came in
contact.
Gradually, he became more and more inclined to solitude, and made frequent
excursions into the hills, and in his solitary wanderings, he suffered
agonies of doubt and self distrust, fearing lest he be self-deceived, and
again, lest he be indeed called to become a prophet of God and fail in his
mission.
Here in a cave, the revelation came. Mohammed had spent nights and days in
fasting and prayer beseeching God for some sign, some word that would
settle his doubts and agonies of distrust and longing for an answer to
life's riddle.
It is related that suddenly during the watches of the night, Mohammed awoke
to find his solitary cave filled with a great and wondrous light out of
which issued a voice saying: "Cry, cry aloud." "What shall I cry?" he
answers, and the voice answered:
"Cry in the name of thy Lord who hath created; He hath created man from a
clot of blood. Cry--and thy Lord is the most bountiful, who hath taught by
the pen; He hath taught man that which he knew not."
It is reported that almost immediately, Mohammed felt his intelligence
illuminated with the light of spiritual understanding, and all that had
previously vexed his spirit with doubt and non-comprehension, was clear
as crystal to his understanding. Nevertheless, this feeling of assurance
did not remain with him at that time, definitely, for we are told that
"Mohammed arose trembling and went to Khadeejeh and told her what he had
seen and heard; and she did her woman's part and believed in him and
soothed his terror and bade him hope for the future. Yet he could not
believe in himself. Was he not perhaps, mad? or possessed by a devil?
Were these voices of a truth from God? And so he went again on the
solitary wanderings, hearing strange sounds, and thinking them at one
time the testimony of heaven and at another the temptings of Satan, or
the ravings of madness. Doubting, wondering, hoping, he had fain put an
end to a life which had become intolerable in its changings from the
hope of heaven to the hell of despair, when he again heard the voice:
'Thou art the messenger of God and I am Gabriel.' Conviction at length
seized hold upon him; he was indeed to bring a message of good tidings
to the Arabs, the message of God through His angel Gabriel. He went back
to his faithful wife exhausted in mind and body, but with his doubts
laid at rest."
With the history of the spread of Mohammed's message we are not concerned
in this volume. The fact that his own nearest of kin, those of his own
household, believed in his divine mission, and held to him with unwavering
faith during the many years of persecution that followed, is proof that
Mohammed was indeed a man who had attained Illumination. If the condition
of woman did not rise to the heights which we have a right to expect of the
cosmic conscious man of the future, we must remember that eastern
traditions have ever given woman an inferior place, and for the matter of
that, St. Paul himself seems to have shared the then general belief in the
inferiority of the female.
It is undeniable that Mohammed's domestic relations were of the most
agreeable character; his kindness and consideration were without parallel;
his harem was made up for the most part of women who were refused and
scorned by other men; widows of his friends. And the fact that the prophet
was a man of the most abstemious habits argues the claim that compassion
and kindness was the motive in most instances where he took to himself
another and yet another wife.
However, the points which we are here dealing with, are those which
directly relate to Mohammed's unquestioned illumination and the spirit of
his utterances as contained in the Ku-ran, corroborate the experience of
Buddha, of Jesus, and of all whose illumination has resulted in the
establishment of a religious system.
Mohammed taught, first of all, the fact of the one God. "There is no God
but Allah," was his cry, and, following the example, or at least
paralleling the example of Jesus, he "destroyed their idols" and
substituted the worship of one God, in place of the tribal deities, which
were a constant source of disputation among the clans.
Compare the following, which is one of the five daily prayers of the
faithful Muslim, with the Lord's prayer as used in Christian theology.
"In the name of God, the compassionate--the merciful.
Praise be to God, the Lord of the worlds,
The compassionate, the merciful.
The king of the day of judgment.
Thee do we worship and of Thee do we beg assistance.
Guide us in the right way,
The way of those to whom Thou hast been gracious,
Not of those with whom Thou art wroth, nor of the erring."
Mohammed never tired of telling his disciples and followers that God was
"The Very-Forgiving." Among the many and sometimes strangely varied
attributes of God (The Absolute), we find this characteristic most strongly
and persistently dwelt upon--the ever ready forgiveness and mercifulness of
God.
Every _soorah_ of the _Kur-an_ begins with the words: "In the name of God,
the compassionate, the merciful," but, even as Jesus laid persistent
emphasis upon the _love_ of God, and yet up to very recent times,
Christianity taught the _fear and wrath_ of God, losing sight of the one
great and important fact that _God is love_, and that _love is God_, so the
Muslims overlooked the _real_ message, and the greatness and the power and
the fearfulness of God, is the incentive of the followers of the Illumined
Mohammed.
The following extracts from the Kur-an are almost identical with many
passages in the Holy Scriptures of the Christian, and are comparable with
the sayings of the Lord Buddha.
"God. There is no God but He, the ever-living, the ever-subsisting. Slumber
seizeth Him not nor sleep. To Him belongeth whatsoever is in the heavens
and whatsoever is in the earth. Who is he that shall intercede with Him,
save by His permission?"
The Muslim is a fatalist, but this may be due less to the teachings of the
prophet than to the peculiar quality of the Arab nature, which makes him
stake everything, even his own liberty upon the cast of a die.
The leading doctrine of the all-powerfulness of God seems to warrant the
belief in fatalism--belief which offers a stumbling block to all
theologians, all philosophers, all thinkers. If God is omnipotent,
omnipresent, omniscient, how and where and in what manner can be explained
the necessity of individual effort?
This problem is not at all clear to the western mind, and it is equally
obscure to that of the East.
It is said of Mohammed that when asked concerning the doctrine of
"fatalism" he would show more anger than at any other question that could
be put to him. He found it impossible to explain that while all knowledge
was God's, yet the individual was responsible for his own salvation, by
virtue of his good deeds and words. Nevertheless, it is not unlikely that
Mohammed possessed the key to this seeming riddle; but how could it be
possible to speak in a language which was totally incomprehensible to them
of this knowledge--the language of cosmic consciousness?
Like Jesus, who said: "Many things I have to tell you, but you can not bear
(understand) them now," so, we may well believe that Mohammed was
hard-pressed to find language comprehensible to his followers, in which to
explain the all-knowingness and all-powerfulness of God, and at the same
time, not have them fall into the error of the _fatal_ doctrine of
fatalism.
But throughout all his teachings Mohammed's chief concern seemed to be to
draw his people away from their worship of idols, and to this end he laid
constant and repeated emphasis upon the one-ness of God; the all-ness, the
completeness of the one God; always adding "_the Compassionate_, the
Loving."
This constant allusion to the all-ness of God is in line with
all who have attained to cosmic consciousness. Nothing more
impresses the illumined mind, than the fact that the universe is
One--uni--(one)--verse--(song)--one glorious harmony when taken in its
entirety, but when broken up and segregated, and set at variance, we
find discord, even as the score of a grand operatic composition when
played in unison makes perfect harmony but when incomplete, is
nerve-racking.
Like all inspired teachers, Mohammed taught the end of the world of sense,
and the coming of the day of judgment, and the final reign of peace and
love. This may, of course, be interpreted literally, and applied to a life
other than that which is to be lived on this planet, but it may also with
equal logic be assumed that Mohammed foresaw the dawn of cosmic
consciousness as a race-endowment, belonging to the inheritors of this
sphere called earth. In either event the ultimate is the same, whether the
one who suffers and attains, comes into his own in some plane or place in
the heavens, or whether he becomes at-one with God, The Absolute Love and
Power of the spheres, and "inherits the earth," in the days of the
on-coming higher degree of consciousness, which we are here considering.
That Mohammed realized the nothingness of form and ritual, except it be
accompanied by sincerity and understanding, is evident in the following:
"Your turning your faces _in prayer_, towards the East and the West, is not
piety; but the pious is he who believeth in God, and the last day, and in
the angels and in the Scripture; and the prophets, and who giveth money
notwithstanding his love of it to relations and orphans, and to the needy
and the son of the road, and to the askers for the _freeing of slaves_; and
who performeth prayer and giveth the alms, and those who perform their
covenant when they covenant; and the patient in adversity and affliction
and the time of violence. These are they who have been true; and these are
they who fear God."
Parallel with the doctrine taught by Buddha, and Jesus, is the advice to
overcome evil with good. In our modern metaphysical language, we must
dissolve the vibrations of hate, by the power of love, instead of opposing
hate with hate, war with war, revenge with revenge.
Mohammed expressed this doctrine of non-resistance thus:
"Turn away evil by that which is better; and lo, he, between whom and
thyself was enmity, shall become as though he were a warm friend."
"But none is endowed with this, except those who have been patient and none
is endowed with it, except he who is greatly favored."
Mohammed meant by these words "he who is greatly favored," to explain that
in order to see the wisdom and the glory of such conduct, one must have
attained to spiritual consciousness. This was especially a new doctrine to
the people to whom he was preaching, because it was considered cowardice to
fail to resent a blow. Pride of family and birth was the strongest trait in
the Arab nature.
In furtherance of this doing good to others, we find these words: "If ye
are greeted with a greeting, then greet ye with a better greeting, or at
least return it; verily. God taketh count of these things. If there be any
under a difficulty wait until it be easy; but if ye remit it as alms, it
will be better for you."
Mohammed here referred to debtors and creditors; as he was talking to
traders, merchants, men who were constantly buying and selling, this
admonition was in line with his teaching, which was to "do unto others
that which you would that they do unto you."
In further compliance with his doctrine of doing good for good's sake
Mohammed said: "If ye manifest alms, good will it be; but if ye conceal
them and give them to the poor, it will be better for you; and it will
expiate some of your sins."
Alms-giving, as an ostentatious display among church members, was here
given its rightful place. It is well and good to give openly to
organizations, but it is better to give to individuals who need it,
secretly and quietly to give, without hope, or expectation, or desire for
thanks, or for reward, to give for the love of giving, for the sole wish to
make others happy. This desire to bestow upon others the happiness which
has come to them, is a characteristic of the cosmic conscious man or woman.
It is comforting to know that Mohammed, like Buddha and The Man of Sorrows;
and like Sri Ramakrishna, the saint of India, at length attained unto that
peaceful calm that comes to one who has found the way of Illumination. It
is doubtless impossible for the merely sense-conscious person to form any
adequate idea of the inward urge; the agony of doubts and questionings; the
imperative necessity such a one feels, to _KNOW_.
The sense-conscious person reads of the lives of these men and wonders why
they could not be happy with the things of the world. The temptation that
we are told came to Jesus in the garden, is typical of the state of
transition from sense-consciousness to cosmic consciousness. The
sense-conscious person regards the _things of the senses_ as important. He
is actuated by ambition or self-seeking or by love of physical comfort or
by physical activity, to _obtain_ the possessions of sense. To such as
these, the agonies of mind; the physical hardships; the ever-ready
forgiveness and the desire for peace and love of the Illuminate seem almost
weaknesses. Therefore, they can not fully comprehend the satisfaction which
comes to the one who has come into a realization of illumination, through
the years of mental tribulation such as that endured by Mohammed and Jesus
and Buddha.
We are told that the prophet repeatedly refuted the suggestion of his
adoring followers that he was God himself come to earth.
"It is wonderful," says one of his commentators, "with his temptations,
how great a humility was ever is, how little he assumed of all the godlike
attributes men forced upon him. His whole life is one long argument for his
loyalty to truth. He had but one answer for his worshippers, 'I am no more
than a man; I am only human.' * * * He was sublimely confident of this
single attribute that he was the messenger of the Lord of the daybreak, and
that the words he spake came verily from him. He was fully persuaded that
God had sent him to do a great work among his people in Arabia. Nervous to
the verge of madness, subject to hysteria, given to wild dreaming in
solitary places, his was a temperament that easily lends itself to
religious enthusiasm."
While it may be argued that Mohammed did not possess cosmic consciousness
in the degree of fullness which we find in the life of St. Paul, for
example, we must take into consideration the temperament of the Arab, and
the conditions under which he labored. But that he had attained a high
degree of Illumination is beyond dispute. This fact is evidenced by the
following salient points characteristic of cosmic consciousness: A fine
sensitive, highly-strung organization; a deep and serious thoughtfulness,
especially regarding the realities of life; an indifference to the call of
personal ambition; love of solitude and the mental urge that demands to
know the answer to life's riddle.
Following the time of illumination on Mount Hara we find Mohammed
possessing a conviction of the truth of immortality and the goodness of
God; we find him also with a wonderful power to draw people to him in
loving service; and the irresistible desire to bring to his people the
message of immortal life, and the necessity to look more to spiritual
things than to the things of the flesh. Added to this, we find Mohammed
changed from a shrinking, sensitive youth, given to much reflection and
silent meditation, into a man with perfect confidence in his own mission
and in his ultimate victory.