In this new series, Reverend Steve Bell has profound conversations with inspiring people on the spiritual path as they share their unique stories.
In this episode, ALRA TV’s very own Shaykh Amjad shares his heart-warming story! He talks about the special moments he spent with His Divine Eminence Gohar Shahi Himself. During the conversation, Shaykh Amjad recounts the life-changing incident whereby, with HDE Gohar Shahi’s utter blessings, he was given to meet the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH).
In a very special episode of How I Found My Destiny, Reverend Steve Bell gets a rare glimpse of the life of Sufi Master Younus AlGohar. During this intimate conversation, the Sufi Master recounts some of the events - some absolutely devastating and some divine - that helped shape him. A man of true courage, strength, determination, compassion and brilliance, the Sufi Master is a testament to the power of Agape Love and the presence of divinity on Earth.
Our team was inspired, shocked, amazed, reduced to tears and filled with hope during this one-of-a-kind interview. We were honoured to bear witness to it and are equally pleased to share it with you.
The very first episode of the Tuesday Spotlight with Reverend Steve Bell focuses on a crucial subject: Sufism: A Natural Antidote to Extremism. On this show, Reverend Steve Bell and his guests highlight different issues and how to tackle them in light of Sufism.
The following is a transcript of the discussion between Younus AlGohar, Steve Bell and Hugh Reilly at the ThatChannel.com HQ.
Hugh Reilly (H): Hey everybody, it is me, Hugh, with Liquid Lunch. This is actually a surprise get-together today. We have HH Younus AlGohar and Steve Bell from the Messiah Foundation UK. You guys were going to go to Edmonton - which is a real journey from Toronto, since you were going to drive there - but I heard the weather was bad and it is really no fun driving the snow.
It is great to have you here. We had the [Unitarian Spiritualism] event on October 29th at the Steelworkers Hall. Really, I guess the message that you are bringing is unitarian spirituality: we’re all human beings and we have to learn to get along with one another and
that’s what we are trying to do.
Let’s talk about what true spirituality is.
Who makes a good spiritual leader?
Steve Bell (S): True spirituality is regarding the spirits. It is to do with the spirits. His Holiness Younus AlGohar quite clearly says that we have seven souls in our body. And spirituality is all about reawakening those souls. For those souls, they can visit their respective realms once they have been regenerated with divine energy.
Not all the souls are positive; they all have different functions. We very clearly have a negative soul in us; when we are born, this negative soul is active which is why we find it so easy to hate; negatively comes very easily to human beings. The positive, loving side, takes a bit of work.
His Holiness often says, ‘It is very easy to hate and you don’t need to learn how to hate. But to learn to love, you have to make a bit of effort.’
You always have to tell a child to share a toy. It is quite in the nature to be negative.
True spirituality is reawakening those spirits and souls. [The way] is not by reading books or going to worship places. The only way you can reawaken those souls is through a true spiritual master. A true spiritual master will reawaken your souls for you. It is not just a pipe dream; you can feel the presence in your heart. After some time, you can feel yourself becoming a better, more loving, human being.
A true Spiritual Master is somebody that can unlock that door and open your heart and souls.
H: You got me curious: what are the seven souls? You mentioned they’re not all positive and there are some negative ones in there.
S: The [Spiritual Heart] is the key to connect with God. Once the heart reawakens, that is how you can communicate with God.
We’re not against any religion, as we have said many times before. But we are not in the business of worshipping God; our business is loving God.
We teach people how they can love God through the connection of their heart. So that’s the main soul [that we focus on]. The other souls have different functions in the breast; they also need divine energy to do what they’re supposed to do.
Once that first step has been taken and they’re reawakened, then they know exactly what they’re supposed to do.
The heart was given to us to love God. It doesn’t need to be taught that. Our spiritual master, His Divine Eminence Gohar Shahi, says it beautifully that once that heart awakens, it is like a chick waking up. You don’t have to teach that chick how to chirp. It already knows how to do it.
Once your heart reawakens, it already knows how to worship God because that’s what it was there for. You feel so joyful after you have that [Opening of the Spiritual Heart].
H: You’ve had that experience?
S: Yes!
As we’ve mentioned before about love, once you have God’s love inside your heart, then you start to see everybody else as having that same love of God. You cannot hate that person. You feel unification, which is what we are talking about.
S: There were other people who didn’t want to come up [to the stage] but they wanted a bit of a private session [for the Opening of the Spiritual Heart]. They took the name Allah Hu. It is about getting that name into the heart; it doesn’t matter what you use to call upon God because once [the name of your preference] enters the heart, that is what does all the work. They felt straight away their heart beating and warmth in their heart. Quite a few people took that on [the day of the Unitarian Spiritualism programme].
H: A lot of people talk about spirituality. What is the importance of spirituality in religions?
Younus AlGohar (Y): As far as my understanding is concerned, I see religion as a physical exercise of different rituals. You worship God with your body. Whereas spirituality is about enlightenment of the souls, strengthening them, making a spiritual journey, arriving at a destination in the ethereal world (which is not this phenomenal world).
It is interesting how the Gospel of Thomas talks about the Kingdom of God that Jesus promises to his disciples. I want Brother Steve to comment on what Jesus [meant] when he said, ‘I will take you to a world which eyes have ever dreamt of and no hearts have every desired.’
H: That’s interesting because the Gospel of Thomas is not part of Bible, but they call it the apocryphal text. Steve, are you familiar with this?
S: Yes, I’m very familiar with this. It talks about love and spirituality which is not always what the church wants us to learn. They’re very much into dogmas.
H: I guess Constantine wanted that book buried, right?
S: Right. Once you have that divine energy, when you read such scriptures, you have to have more of an understanding of it. Jesus did say to his followers, ‘I promise you a kingdom that no eye has seen, and no ear has heard of.’
If you really look into that and think about it, there were prophets before: Abraham and Moses came and spoke about God’s kingdom and told people how to get to God’s kingdom.
Jesus, when he came, he told them, ‘It is a place you’ve never heard of or seen.’
He was talking about his own kingdom. Another very important work we do is showing people the path to Jesus through this [Opening of the Spiritual Heart]. Jesus is actually here and he is gathering his people. He is letting their souls mingle with his. Again, it is not a worship, it is love - a connection.
H: That is an interesting distinction: you’re not worshipping, you’re loving. Arguably, I guess this is what the message of Jesus was.
S: We were in Mexico City last week. There were well over 800 people who are Catholics or were Catholics (but it never really leaves you, does it?). When we said that, there was a huge relief and cheer that we were talking about making the heart the worship place and that you don’t have to go to churches. We [told them], ‘We are not going to show you pictures of Jesus suffering on the cross. We are going to show you the true image of Jesus - the live image of Jesus.’
I think this is what people want to hear. I think they’re a bit fed up.
Terrorism
H: These days, it seems to me that people are possibly fed up with their religions - but they’re also possibly concerned about the directions things are headed in the world. We’ve got terrorism - Islamic and otherwise.
Y: But the thing is, do we not need to find out: what could be the reason why people are fed up with their religions?
H: Yeah!
Y: And then why [this is happening to] a religion like Islam, which has been around for almost 15 centuries and produced wonderful spiritual leaders like Rumi, Shirazi, Hafiz and all these great Sufis who only talked about love and brotherhood. They never promoted hatred; they mingled with followers of every religion and never talked about exclusion. Then suddenly, we have this in front of us where people are saying, ‘Allahu Akbar!’ and there is a bomb blast.
This is scary. Some people will jump to conclusions that Islam is teaching all this hatred. Some others have reservations and some others are confused. But the thing is: how, having served humanity for the past 14 centuries, has Islam been dragged to a position where people don’t want to hear the world, Islam?
To my understanding, it happens when spirituality is taken off religion - when people lose connection with God. When people do not know how to revive the human instincts and human characteristics in them that, of course, are adhered to the souls and spirits, not to the body. The body is just a container. If the soul inside the body is pure, the body will act pure.
If the soul inside the body is impure, then obviously these things will happen. This is the case with every single religion today. Since they divorced spirituality from the religions, religions have lost their systems of spiritual enlightenment.
We need to understand that spirituality is the core of every religion.
When spirituality is separated from a religion, what is happening in the name of Islam right now is what will happen.
S: We recognise that this battle that is going on is not between Christians and Muslims; it is about love and hate. There were two cases in the news just last week: Jihadi Jack and the White Widow. I mean, they’re saying that they’re being attracted to Islam, but they’re not being attracted to the loving, tolerant teachings of Sufism. They’re being attracted to the hardline, hateful Wahhabis. They’re being attracted to hate; they’re not being attracted to love.
We’re building on the love side and telling people, ‘This is a big cover-up. This is not about religion. This is about the great divide on the end of love and hate.’
H: Sometimes I think somebody has got an agenda to just divide people. I know you travel the world trying to spread the message of love and spirituality. The kind of hate you just mentioned where people do commit acts of terrorism or are about to hurt other people - how can you root that out?
Y: We can only do something partially. For example, the youth who haven’t been yet affected by radicalisation, we can give them the right interpretation of their religion. We can tell them, ‘No, [the meaning of the holy text that the extremists give you is not true]. This is not what it means.’
We need to nip the devil in the bud. When they have already been radicalised, then you can’t root that out from their lives. They’re gone, they’re history. They’ll do what they want to do. In order to be able to have a good society in the future, we need to work on the youth, not these people who have already been indoctrinated into hatred. Nothing can be done about them, honestly.
H: I agree with that. You try to reach young people, but then you may not reach everybody. Maybe some of those people [you influence] will reach such people.
Y: Of course. But we should do whatever we can do. Whatever is humanly possible.
H: Yeah. We are very fortunate, we live in prosperous, Western countries. But some people, even though they have all the luxuries of life, they are lacking inner peace. Is there anything we can do about that?
Inner Peace
S: Inner peace is all to do with the restlessness of the heart and souls. The whole purpose of coming in this world, we say, is that you should reconnect your souls with God.
You should manage to reawaken your souls. Everybody in their life gets the chance to do that. It is about grabbing that chance. Once that energy enters your heart, then the restlessness goes.
You can see so many people converting from one religion to another. We spoke about the importance of religions [during the programme]. Do we need religions? Another problem is that when people do leave religions, they can join some self-concocted following. We’ve travelled quite a lot to mind, body and soul expos. The things that you see there are just unbelievable. You know, hair reading, palm reading, etc.
H: I guess that won’t work for everybody!
S: Yeah, it won’t work for everybody. Chakras is another word [for spirits]. They talk about balancing the chakras. They do all sorts of things to balance these chakras and it can work temporarily. There is energy everywhere, so you’ll feel some temporary energy but it is not serving that purpose. That is why people are still going to be restless; they will be going for more top-ups of these sessions.
It is not just about balancing the chakras. They need to be reawakened and energised with divine energy. Then, people won’t be going back to these places and spending their hard-earned money. Spirituality is free; it is from God.
You shouldn’t have to pay money to connect yourself to God.
H: For people watching this right now, what would you advise them to do to deal with these issues? I really think that people do have a need for some kind of connection to the divine. If they don’t get that, you have got to find an outlet somehow - so what do you recommend?
S: To connect to God, you have to find a spiritual master - somebody who has got power and authority. You can’t just do it by reading books; you could watch somebody fly a plane your whole life [but] it won’t allow you to fly that plane. Similarly, you need somebody how to teach you how to reawaken your heart and souls. You need a divine, spiritual master who will connect you with God and reawaken your souls.
H: Do we know anybody who fits that description?
S: We know somebody who is very close by.
S: This is the beauty of our message. It has been made so simple. You don’t have to leave your workplace, family or opt out of society to join the spiritual path. You can quite simply go on TheAwaitedOne.com or GoharShahi.us. You can go to YouTube - we have AlRa TV.
So you can go on there. Every evening at 10 PM GMT, His Holiness does speeches. He explains further teachings of spirituality. He teaches the youth [and started an initiative known as Young Sufis of Great Britain]. He will answer any questions submitted there. The beauty of this is that you don’t have to watch it live; you can check them out anytime on YouTube.
You can go to the website and look at the true images of HDE Gohar Shahi and Jesus Christ. You can just ask for your heart to be opened.
H: You can do it on the website?
S: You can do it on the website, just looking at those images. Another option is that you can look at the Full Moon, where we say that the image of HDE Gohar Shahi and Jesus are prominent - and you can ask directly to the Moon.
H: Really? Okay. When is the next Full Moon?
Deradicalisation
Y: I want to say something.
I reflect on this point: if God really wanted us to kill people, and this is how we will make him happy, then by doing this, everybody will be dead. Who will go into the temples and mosques? This is so silly.
[Some individuals] claim to adhere to some religion and they don’t practise or understand that religion, yet somehow, they want to sacrifice their lives and claim others’ lives. What is the driving force? What is the benefit of doing this? This is crazy. It doesn’t make sense to me.
H: No, it doesn’t make sense. But it still happens. What would you do about it though?
Y: I really am dazzled and boggled. I do not know how to go about it. I can only reach out to the youth and tell them, ‘Look this is not exactly what God wants from you. You want to love everybody and respect everybody.’
If you think God wants you to kill everybody, I don’t think I should believe in such a God.
H: We’re talking about a universal spirituality, in a sense. As a counter-action to a religion or religious institution that’s gotten into a state where they’re preaching a misguiding philosophy of hate (that sometimes happen in religions where they’ve gotten that negative message). It also seems to me today that there seems to be a growing sense of atheism. Maybe more in the West than elsewhere.
Y: What do you expect from people when they practise a religion and they learn hatred - and they’re killing people in the name of God? This is what will happen: people will become atheists, obviously. People who are law-abiding citizens - who want peace in their lives and who don’t want hatred - they will think, ‘This crap is coming from God. We’re better off without not having God in our lives.’ This is why people are becoming atheists every day. I don’t blame them.
Reaching Out to Atheists
H: The message of universal spirituality - is that a message that can get through to atheists?
Y: If you are eating a rotten banana and your stomach is upset, the best possible solution that I can think of is to give you another fresh banana and tell you, ‘That one is going to make you ill. So take this banana [instead].’
If one philosophy of a religion is messed up and it has been adulterated on a larger scale where you can’t fix it, you better introduce a new philosophy: a philosophy of spirituality which can benefit you immediately.
H: Let’s imagine for a second here that we are talking to an atheist. What message would you give that person?
Y: ‘Awaken your soul.’ Because you are not your body. You are more your soul. In order to reap the benefits of having a soul in your body, you need to enlighten your soul so that you can have all the power in you which is provided by your soul.
So to all the individuals who practise atheism, who do not believe in God: forget about believing in God. I want you to believe in yourself and be at your optimum. In order to be at your optimum, you need to at least revive your spiritual characteristics. That’s all. Simple.
Spiritual Healing
H: We hear stories of people who are healed through their faith, spirituality or religion - even through divine energy. Can you talk a little bit about healing with divine energy?
S: As we said, negative energy is within us. We’re drawing in negative energies through everyday life - watching the television or even breathing the air. Once that negative energy attacks the cells, it causes whatever illness that you have. Even if it is an illness that is incurable medically, once the positive energy enters your veins, then that positive energy negates all the negative out. It will go straight into your blood system and become a healing process. Your heart will just generate divine energy continuously, even when you are sleeping. Throughout the whole day, you will be given this positive energy that just surrounds your body.
We’ve been very successful in spiritual healing.
H: Even with people that are, maybe, near the end? A fatal diagnosis?
S: Well, you’ve met Mir Ali quite a few times now. He was in quite a bad way in the UK. I think you’d be very surprised to see how he is now. We’ve had many people in these expos [who we healed].
A man, Joseph, at the New York Expo, was diagnosed with HIV. We did quite a lot of extensive healing on him. I returned to New York some months later and we did some more healing on him. The next time we saw him a year afterwards, he said he had the all-clear. That was quite remarkable.
There has been quite a lot of in Mexico queuing up to receive spiritual healing. Many hundreds of people came for healing in Mexico. People do recognise spiritual healing. Definitely for atheists, if they have tried God in other ways and it hasn’t worked for them, and they have given up on God - then why not try this? It is free! If you are taking medicine, you don’t know who made it, but you take it because you think it will work.
So we’re saying, ‘Just try it. Try another path. If you don’t believe the way to connect yourself to God was a religion, then try spirituality.’
H: People can go to the website and get the [Opening of the Spiritual Heart] through the website. How long are you in town for?
Y: We’ll be here another few days and then we will go back home to the UK.
AlRa TV
H: So you have AlRa TV, which I know that you use to reach out [to people]. One of the things that you are doing that I am aware of is helping to deradicalise Islamic youth in the UK and elsewhere. What other kind of messages are you trying to get out through AlRa TV?
Y: This is a very hot issue right now. Every night when I speak at 10 PM UK time, people from all over the world send in their questions about the right interpretation [of their religion]. It is not just Muslims. They come from different religions.
H: Because this is a universal message.
Y: Yes. I reply to them in details. Most of these people are satisfied and then they change their ways. Many people, having listened to my lectures, have sort of shunned their radicalised intentions. They were regretting and saying that only God knows how they got into this [nonsense].
They are very much part of this love and peace movement now. So it is working. People from as far as Australia, Asian countries like Sri Lanka, Indian, Bangladesh and even Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia [are watching my videos]. A lot of young people between 17-25 years of age come to listen to my lectures from Saudi Arabia. The good thing is they’re changing and they’re really happy. They say that they never heard such a wonderful interpretation of their religion before. All they heard was aggression, revenge, taking over the world and putting up the flag [of Islam] in Washington DC - and [we told them], ‘No, it is not all about that, my friends!’
H: I’ve met some great people from Saudi Arabia and a couple of them were actually working here at the station. They were awesome.
Y: Good people are everywhere.
H: Exactly! And the stereotypes we hear only cause us to really misunderstand people. People are people no matter where they come from.
Y: There are more good people.
Good people have outnumbered bad people. But the thing is, good people are quiet and the bad people are noisy.
All we hear is the noise so we think, ‘Oh, the world is corrupt; everybody is bad.’ Every bad person is making noise and every good person is sitting quietly.
H: It only takes one bad apple to spoil a whole bunch.
Y: We need to root out that bad apple out!
H: You’re doing the speech every day. So you must always be writing and getting prepared.
Y: No, I don’t do it.
H: So it’s all spontaneous?
Y: It is intuitional and inspirational.
H: So do you know what your next topic will be?
Y: I don’t know, it depends on people. Whatever people ask, I just open my mouth and I speak, honestly.
H: It is probably divinely [inspired].
Y: I don’t know how it happens and where it comes from, but it happens. I speak and speak and they hear it.
H: It was great to have you here always! It has been great to have this conversation. I hope you have a great trip back to the UK and all the best with AlRa TV!
Inner peace is all to do with the restlessness of the heart and souls. The whole purpose of coming in this world, we say, is that you should reconnect your souls with God.
You should manage to reawaken your souls. Everybody in their life gets the chance to do that. It is about grabbing that chance. Once that energy and light enter your heart, then the restlessness goes.
So many people are converting from one religion to another. This begs the question: do we need religions? Another problem is that when people do leave religions, they can join some self-concocted following. We’ve travelled quite a lot to mind, body and soul expos. The things that you see there are just unbelievable. [People offer] hair reading, palm reading, etc.
They talk about balancing the chakras [which is another word for spirits]. They do all sorts of things to balance these chakras - and it can work temporarily. There is energy everywhere, so you might feel some temporary [peace], but it is not serving that purpose. That is why people are still going to be restless and they have to keep going in for more top-ups of these sessions.
So it is not just about balancing the chakras. They need to be reawakened and energised with divine energy. Then, people won’t be going back to these places and spending their hard-earned money.
Spirituality is free; it is from God. You shouldn’t have to pay money to connect yourself to God.
To connect to God, you have to find a spiritual master - somebody who has got power and authority. You can’t just do it by reading books; you could watch somebody fly a plane your whole life [but] it won’t allow you to fly that plane. Similarly, you need somebody how to teach you how to reawaken your heart and souls. You need a divine, spiritual master who will connect you with God and reawaken your souls.
On the 28th of February, a delegation from Messiah Foundation International travelled to the north of Israel to present the message of the divine love from the Awaited Messiah, Lord Ra Riaz Gohar Shahi. Our team went to the Galilee City of Safed (Tzfat), which is considered the hub and focal point of Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism). The delegation visited the Zefat Academic College and the Ascent Institute of Safed, where they gave students the message of divine love.
Mr Steve Bell, the President of Messiah Foundation International, states, 'The rabbi [present at the Ascent Institute of Safed] was keen to find out about Messiah Foundation International and liked the message of love. He compared many of His Divine Eminence Gohar Shahi's teachings to those of Kabbalah.'
On the 1st of March, during their last day in Israel, our team also went leafleting in Tel Aviv and suburban areas. They visited Lod and Ramla as well. Over 1000 leaflets in Hebrew were distributed and the response was very good!
The following is the transcript of His Holiness Younus AlGohar's speech (video above).
There are people in every religion who strictly follow the mainstream set of beliefs, very orthodox. Their practice is not very profound; they just follow the rituals of the religion. They are not in the pursuit of obtaining God’s nearness or adopting the spiritual path of purification, mortification and purgation. They are just superficial practitioners of the religion. They are not really into what they are doing; they just go for the face-value. And then, there are always some people in all religions who want to go beyond heaven and the beautiful damsels in the heaven - who want to go for God and love. A majority of people in all religions are very strict, superficial and ritualistic, and they follow the Black Letter Law. They do not want to dig out the real meaning of the Holy Scriptures. They just want to do what is easiest for them to do. Going to the church every Sunday is not a difficult thing to do, but when you adopt spiritual path, it is more than a full-time job; it’s a target and a lifetime aim. One has to completely dedicate himself in purifying and mortifying himself.
Adopting spirituality is more difficult than becoming a hermit; when you become a hermit, you stop meeting people and you make the jungle your abode. You don’t want to see human beings; you live a very solitary, lonely life. But, when you want to adopt spirituality, then hermitage appears to be less difficult, because adopting spirituality is changing your inner and out, changing your thought-process, changing your behaviour and changing your entire system. The source of enjoyment changes and the source of peace [changes]. For example, some people become peaceful when they see money and some people are not peaceful when their pocket is empty; for them, the source of peace is money. But for some people, their pockets are full but their hearts are empty of peace. Some people have everything, every single luxury of the world under their belt, but even then they seem to be in the wilderness; they do not find peace. So, the source is different. Some peace is very superficial; that peace is money, properties and material wealth. But then, some will find peace only when their souls are awakened and they have the content of the heart; they will have the content of the heart when their heart is enlightened and their heart has found its inhabitant.
Islam itself is a beautiful religion. The principles of Islam are the principles of every messenger. When Adam came, he talked about good things; he taught people to love God and humanity. Then Abraham taught people to love God, love humanity and respect all. Moses was the liberator; he liberated people from the tyranny of Pharaoh, he asked people to recognise God in their lives and to dedicate to God in worship and love. Then we have Jesus. Jesus was the Divine Example on two legs, he was the Walking God. He talked about Divine Love. Jesus was the first of all messengers who exhibited gallantry, bravery and he was 'Dabangg' (a brave heart); he sort of taught rebellion against the ritualistic approach to God. He said, 'How can you find God in a building that you built with your own hands? Turn your heart into the temple of God.' He said, 'Love your God your Lord with all your heart, with all your soul.' In a nutshell, the teachings of Jesus circumbulated around one foremost and principle reality, and this reality was God's love.
It is so pleasant to see familiarities between the doctrine of Jesus and the doctrine of Lord Ra Riaz Gohar Shahi.
His Divine Grace Lord Ra Riaz Gohar Shahi says, 'A dog is
better than a man who doesn't have God's love in his heart.'He said, 'A Christian says that he is the best, Jews say
they are the best, Muslims say they are the best; but Gohar Shahi says, "The
best is the one who has God's love in his heart, even if he doesn’t follow any
religion."'
In simple words, Lord Ra Riaz Gohar Shahi has exhibited to the world the true significance of God's love. He has highlighted God’s love, whereas in the religions and Holy Scriptures, religions had the upper hand and God's love was not dominant. God's love was not mentioned with so much dominance, it was not highlighted; it was not the prime objective in any religion. There are so many different types of directives from God and so many different objectives in the religion; however, love is one of them! However, Jesus and Lord Ra Riaz Gohar Shahi have nullified all else and gave all significance to divine love.
His Divine Eminence Gohar Shahi said, 'If you do not love
God, then your religious practice is futile; and if you love God, then it
doesn't matter whether you follow a religion or you don't.'
Now, HDE Gohar Shahi is changing the way we think. And this message of HDE Gohar Shahi is not designed to cater the needs of one particular group of nation or religion. The message has so much absorbency in itself - it is so universal and so great that it can absorb all religions. The message is so profound. Look at the depth of this message! If you have God's love in your heart, then you are the best! You are better than those who practise a religion but even then they do not love God! It is like if somebody works eight hours a day, yet he is hand-to-mouth and then there is a guy who doesn’t work at all, but his pockets are always full. You can easily say that this unemployed man whose pockets are full all the time is better than those who work all the time yet they are crying and are always hand-to-mouth. We understand that you must work in order to support yourself financially; if that work is not earning you enough money so that you can support yourself and your family, then the one who is unemployed and whose pockets are full is better than them. Similarly, these religions were established for people so that they practise these religions and out of this practice, as a result, they manage to love God.
Now, if you practise a religion and this practice doesn’t lead you to love God, then this practice is futile and useless. Why is this practice of the religion not leading you to love God eventually? In the olden days, prophets and messengers were sent to establish these religions. The design and plan from God was to let these people exercise, practise and observe the Black Letter Law; they should practise this religion and this will lead them to love God eventually. But now, the Lord said that all religions and all Holy Scriptures have been subjected to a lot of alterations and adulterations. So many things have been modified in the Holy Scriptures. The Bible is not the same Bible anymore; the Quran is not the same Quran which was revealed onto the heart of Prophet Mohammad. When the religions and Holy Scriptures are messed with and tampered with by half-baked scholars - there are half-baked scholars in all religions- for example, we have this creed system in Christianity. The Church of England, from time to time, they sit together and say, 'From now on this practice will be irreligious and this practice will be banned.' What was not part of the religion at the time of Jesus, they sit together and under the creed system they say, 'From today, this will be considered as religious practice.' For example, the Church of England, they have done so many things which were not part of Christianity at the time.
In a similar way, Islam has gone through that phase and they also have this creed system now, which they call 'Ijtehaad'. Their statements contradict a lot. For example, their principle belief is, 'Nothing is outside Quran. All sorts of knowledge is found in the Quran,' and then they say, 'What is not in Quran, what is not said by the Prophet, then we will do Ijtehaad on this.' But you said everything is in the Quran; there is no need for Ijtehaad then! Ijtehaad in Islam is the same thing as creed in Christianity. You are sitting together to take a decision on something which doesn’t belong to you. These religions - Christianity, Islam and Judaism - belong to the messenger who established it. If you want to bring some changes, consult the messenger; but you don’t have the approach and you are not connected. When this happened, when they didn’t find proper instructions about certain things in the Bible or Quran, they did not think, 'We should have approach Jesus or Mohammad.' Rather, they thought, 'Okay, there are no clear-cut instructions on this topic in the Quran or Bible. Let's sit together and make a decision.' This is where they went wrong.
When this happened, the Bible was adulterated. The Quran were adulterated – when we talk about modification in the Quran, we do not mean the text has been changed. We do not say the text has been changed, rather, we say the meaning has been tampered with. Now, it doesn’t matter whether the text was modified or the meaning was misinterpreted, because if the meaning is misinterpreted and you fail to understand what God meant by what you are reading today, then it doesn't really matter whether the text or the meaning was changed. In a similar way, the Quran has been greatly misinterpreted. Why? Because in order to understand God's words, you need a Divine Teacher! You need somebody who is in connected with the messenger, because God directly spoke with him and told him the meaning of the Bible and the Quran. Jesus knows what the meaning of the teachings in the Bible is and only those will know about the teachings who are connected to Jesus. If somebody is not connected to Jesus, he will not come to know the real meaning of the Bible.
In a similar way, there are Sufis who were connected to God. From time to time, they gave people the true interpretation of the Quran; with that, they were able to enlighten their souls and approach God. Those who were able to do this never ever hated anybody, they never ever took it to the swords and they never cut the throats of non-Muslims. Whoever appeared to them, they blessed them. Their message was love. There were so many Muslim Sufis and they loved Christians and Jews the same way they loved Muslims. They did not have any grudge against non-Muslims. Being a non-Muslim is not a sin! Being a Christian is not a sin! Being a Jew is not a sin because Jews did not become Jews on their own. Christians in America and England say that there are three Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. All the prophets unanimously believe that Abraham is the father - and we have the same belief system. We believe Abraham is the father of all the prophets. And, to your utter surprise, the Quran says the same thing. We say, 'Abrahamic faith,' and the Quran says, 'Millat-e-Ibrahim.' Muslims now hate Jews because of misinterpretation of the Quran. If the prophet of Islam had taught Muslims to hate Jews, then they would not send salutations and benedictions on the progeny of Abraham and Abraham himself during their worship.
All Muslims go to Mecca for annual pilgrimage and they circumbulate around Kaaba, the black cubicle. In that holy place, most of the things belong to Abraham. For example, there is a passage upon which everybody has to run; it is a half-mile passage called 'Safa Marwa.' All Muslims have to run on this. Why? Because Ismail's mother, Hagar, was holding Ismail and she was running on that passage searching for water. In order to celebrate that moment, God has imposed doing that running bit on that particular spot for all Muslims. This is in the memory of Abraham’s concubine, Hagar. And then there are three different places in Mecca where there are statues of the devil; they go before these statues and stone the statue. Why? Because those three spots were the posts where Abraham was met by the devil. So, in this annual pilgrimage to Mecca, 90% of the worship is pertaining to Abraham.
Muslims have misinterpreted the Quran; then you say that Jews are your enemy? This is so wrong! And then in Quran, God said, 'I have prescribed the pilgrimage of this house, Kaaba, on all human beings.' According to the Quran, all human beings should go on pilgrimage to Kaaba, but Muslims of Saudi Arabia do not let anybody enter. There is a border, a point outside Mecca; from beyond that point, no non-Muslims can go [there]. This is because of the misinterpretation of the Quran. At the time of Prophet Mohammad, even the Kuffar (infidels) used to go to the pilgrimage of Kaaba - and now you do not allow non-Muslims. There is a difference between non-Muslim and Kuffar; if somebody is a Kafir, he/she rejects God. If he/she rejects God, he/she will not accept Christianity, Islam, Judaism or any religion. But those who consider themselves to be Jews or Christians, it simply means they believe in God - so not all non-Muslims are Kafir. Those who practise a religion and that religion was prescribed by their messengers and prophets, they are not Kafireen; they are as good as Muslims (if Muslims are good).
The Quran has been tampered with misinterpretation and the Traditions of the Prophet have been tampered with misquotation. Now, it is impossible to gain any benefits out of the practice of the religion which has been tampered with; therefore, the religions have lost their significance and credentials. Today, none of the religions have any credibility in terms of connecting people with God.
Therefore, HDE Gohar Shahi has done a
favour upon humanity, declaring,'All you want to do is to be able to love
God. Forget about the religion if you don’t want to follow it. As long as you love
God, it is enough for you.'
So, our message is love - whether it is for Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Christians or Jews. For example, people of Adam, they believe in Adam - but eventually, what is their target? To love and worship God. People of Abraham; you are a Jew, no problem; but what is the objective? The objective that that prophet came with is to enable you to love God and worship God. Same goes for the people of Moses, Jesus, and Prophet Mohammad. All these messengers and prophets came down on Earth with one objective: to help humanity love and worship God. When the objective, destination and destiny is the same, why should we fight? Why should we kill each other?
These religions are classifications. Now all the religions have been messed up. Let's cut the crap out and get to the point. 'Cut the crap out,' means that these religions have become futile, let's get to the point. The point is: the purpose of all these religions was to make you love God. Now they have become futile, they have been tampered with and adulterated and they have become like a vehicle which cannot take you anywhere. So now, get to the point and the point is that you start loving God. The tools of love are here, the methodology has been sent. It’s not like we are just saying, 'love God,' and nobody knows how to love God. We are not asking people to do things they cannot do. We are asking people to have these tools, methodology and help on top of that - and become able to love God.
It’s not about changing the religion; it’s about changing your
heart.
All the religions were worthy of respect, because whatever is in the Bible came from God. Whatever was in the book of Adam came from God and whatever is in Quran - it was brought by Prophet Mohammad - but it came from God. When all these books are the word of God, the same God, then why fight? That is the message.
Next time, I'll give you a comparative view of Muslim spirituality, Jewish spirituality and Christian spirituality. I have a Gnostic Bible. Gnostic knowledge is the knowledge which is from God and will take you to God; a knowledge that is from God for God. In Christianity, there was a group of people and they called themselves Gnostics. In those times, if somebody said, 'I am not a Christian, I am a Gnostic,' it means, if you sit with them, you are sitting with God - because they had the knowledge that came to them from God so that that knowledge could take them to God. With the help of that knowledge, people recognised God and God's presence within them. This is the knowledge of Gnosticism.
