Some people are completely alien to spirituality but from time to time, they feel something in their life which indicates the fact that they have spiritual potential in them. If they start working on spiritual consciousness, awareness and enlightenment, they can become highly spiritual people. They can reach God.
One of the spiritual phenomena many people experience in their lifetime is having the intuitional awareness of an incident which takes place in front of their eyes. Something inside them tells them, ‘You have seen this before. You have heard this before.’ In French, they call it deja vu. Maybe those who use this term are not completely aware of what is happening to them and what this situation actually is.
Deja vu is not something which can be highly rated in terms of spiritual consciousness and awareness. It is not something which is out of normal practice to a spiritualist.
As you progress in spirituality, the frequency of these things increases rapidly - to a point where you become aware of things which might take place after a day, week, month or even years. This is how different prophets, messengers and saints of God were able to predict the future - because they were able to foresee it.
Is it a personal ability to be able to predict the future? Is this something that depends on how spiritual you are? The answer is no.
Anything that happens in this world takes place in the esoteric realm. There is a realm called the Realm of Example. The true dreams that you see during your sleep come from the Realm of Example. Phenomena like deja vu also come from the Realm of Example.
The Opening of the Inner Eye
There are a hundred stages in Spiritual Poverty (Faqr). When the Spiritual Heart is awakened - and the name of God is implanted, well articulated and synchronised within the throbs of the heart - that is the first chapter of Spiritual Poverty. When you enter into the first stage of spirituality, your inner eye is completely unconscious.
With the passage of progression, as soon as you enter the 17th stage in spirituality, your inner eye is opened. You begin to see angels and different species of creation not visible to the naked eye, like angels and Jinns. When you are sitting in a holy form of worship - for example, circles of Dhikr where you call upon God [in a congregation], you begin to see God’s light pouring down upon your hearts. You also see things when you close your eyes.
This period in which your inner eye is open and you can see everything is a very brief sojourn.
When I entered that stage, I was able to see everything. Then, suddenly, one day I was trying very hard but I found out that [I could not see anything with my inner eye]. So I asked His Divine Eminence Gohar Shahi, ‘For the past months, I was able to see things, but now I can’t see anything. What is wrong with me?’
His Divine Eminence replied, ‘When you are in the 17th stage of spirituality, your inner eye is temporarily opened. A temporary Kashf (spiritual insight) is self-activated.’
This stage has been designed for the seeker of the path to find his content of heart as an evidence that he is on the right track and the graph of spirituality is constantly moving upwards.
[Seeing is believing. Your spiritual guide may tell you that you are doing well, but if you have not seen the progress for yourself, maybe one day the Satan will come and sow doubt in your mind.]
His Divine Eminence was very explicit and gave a simple formula on how to judge [whether you a progressing in spirituality].
His Divine Eminence said, ‘If you want to know whether you are going upwards or downwards in spirituality, you don’t have to learn rocket science. It is very simple. Just reflect on your past and see how a dedicated sinner you were. Compare your past with your present. If there is any difference in a good way, then, obviously, you are going upwards.’
For example, in the past, you were only concerned about making money. You were worried about your bank balance and you were in a race to buy properties. Now, if you are increasingly concerned about how to reach God and love God with much and more strength, sincerity, fervour and zeal - this tells you that your spiritual graph is going upwards, not downwards.
The good news is, if you have crossed over the 17th stage in spirituality, you do not go backwards. You only go upwards.
The Realm of Example
Every single human being on Earth has the spiritual potential in his soul, so sometimes, the soul receives signals from the Realm of Example.
It is God who created both good deeds and bad deeds. If you turn around and strike someone’s face, this is a bad deed. God did not create this bad deed just now for you; it has been created before. Good deeds and bad deeds are received by the spirits inside your body.
For example, God said, ‘When you do something good, then say, “I have done this good deed because this is from the bounty of my Lord.”’ You are the one to have done it, so why are you giving credit to God? I used to ponder on this point. I was the one to give all my money to a needy person, but I had to say that it was God’s bounty.
When I was stuck somewhere and found myself completely naive to spirituality, His Divine Eminence Gohar Shahi helped me out from any untoward situation. His Divine Eminence said, ‘You have to say it is with the blessings of God because this good deed comes from God. If this good deed did not come from God, then you would have never done it.’
We must thank God that he sent a good deed to our soul and our soul was able to receive it. What the soul received was then transformed into a real, physical deed.
When you are spiritually enlightened and your soul is able to receive good deeds from God, then a lot of good deeds are coming. If your soul is dormant and not able to receive anything, then the bad deeds are received by the Carnal Self.
This is why God said in the Koran, ‘When you do something wrong, say that it is due to your Carnal Self.’ [4:78]
When you souls are enlightened and able to receive signals from God, you become a doer of good deeds. If the souls are unconscious and dormant, but your Carnal Self is wide awake, it receives any bad thing. It loves ugliness.
When we pray, ‘God please give us the Toufeeq (divine grant) to do good deeds,’ this is what it refers to. Good deeds are not something that we can do with our efforts. That is why we ask God to give us the ability to do good deeds. This will happen when the soul is capable of receiving good deeds.
God created both good and bad deeds. He says that good deeds are his bounty but God should be responsible for the bad deeds too. He says, ‘The bad deeds are from your Carnal Self.’ However, the Carnal Self gets the bad deeds from God. For this, God has a reply. He says, ‘If you purify your Carnal Self, then no bad deed will be received by it.’
In the Koran, God said, ‘Successful is one who purified his Carnal Self.’ [91: 9-10]
The good and bad deeds are stored in the Realm of Example and God showers them daily upon humanity. One whose soul is enlightened is receiving the good deeds and those with strong Carnal Selves are receiving the bad deeds. So God is not at fault for this - all the responsibility lies with us. If you don’t want to be influenced by the bad deeds, then purify your Carnal Self.
For example, people will be sitting peacefully - and then, suddenly, they decide to go out and harm someone. This happens because any impure Carnal Self can come under the effects of the bad deeds showering down from the higher realms. God protects people with awakened hearts from the mischief of bad deeds.
You might say, ‘My children were fine but - I don’t know how it happened - they have become rude and disobedient.’ You might also say, ‘My child acts up seemingly without any provocation.’
This is all happening because the good and bad deeds are coming down from above. Since you do not help your children towards Opening of the Spiritual Heart, they come under the mischief of bad deeds. You dressed your children in the best clothes and sent them to the most exclusive schools, but you did not direct them towards God. You can make your child memorise the entire Koran, but he will still be dark inside because the divine energy did not enter his heart.
In Conclusion
So these good and bad deeds come from the Realm of Example. Those who have some light in their soul receive the signals from the Realm of Example. They are prone to experiencing deja vu - when they see the same thing taking place in front of them in this phenomenal world, they feel like they have seen it before. It was not here that they saw it; they saw the deeds from the Realm of Example.
