The Reality of the Deja Vu Phenomenon - #AskYounusAlGohar

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.

The Ratio of Negativity in the Spiritual Atmosphere

The following is an excerpt from His Holiness Younus AlGohar's speech. 

The ratio of negativity in the spiritual atmosphere differs from time to time. The ratio of negativity was different at the time of Abraham from the time of Adam. And it differed in the era of Moses from the era of Abraham.

Let’s have a look at how this works out and what is meant by the ratio of negativity in the spiritual atmosphere. 

According to a Prophetic Tradition, ‘There are two angels appointed on every human being. One of the angels is appointed to keep a record of everything good a man does and the other keeps the record of everything bad a man does.’

So these two angels keep a record of your good and bad deeds. When you commit a sin, they write it in your book and it will be presented to God on the Day of Judgement. But at the same time, when you commit a sin, they write it in that book and they place a black spot on your heart as well. Now why is the record being kept in two different places in two different forms? Because when you reach the age of 40, your book [of deeds] is sent to God.

Whether you follow a religion or you don’t, whether you are good or bad, at the age of 40 your book is taken to God. According to God’s understanding, ‘Now he is 40. He must have done something good and he deserves to be rewarded.’ This is the time when God thinks you should be given rewards for your efforts that you may have made to seek God’s love. The efforts that you may have made to bring spirituality and spiritual awareness in your life [will be rewarded].

Maturity in men comes at the age of 40. You cannot be the President of the USA if you are not 40 years of age. All Prophets declared Prophet-hood after 40 because that is when they are sober.

Spiritual Atmosphere

Carbon monoxide causes pollution. You may have heard people saying that carbon emission should be reduced - because the atmosphere is really polluted. There are so many car factories, and industries, so gases [are produced which] affect the air quality. Air quality directly affects our health. When we go towards hilly areas and mountains, the air quality is better.

Air quality is determined by the amount of oxygen in it. 

Because of the emission of carbon monoxide in cities, the air quality is not good; you will notice that you are standing outside and are still uneasy sometimes. We need to understand there is pollution in the air and because of the pollution the air quality is affected.

Why is there pollution in the air? If there are 25 individuals sitting together and everybody starts to pass gas, the pollution will be unbearable; the air quality will be greatly affected. There is so much human waste in this world and the deposit of this adds to the poor quality of air. Then, we have carbon monoxide. When we pass gas, we pass carbon monoxide.

When you pass gas, the air quality is polluted but when you commit a sin, the spiritual atmosphere is polluted.

Why? There is a bad smell when you pass gas and when you sin there is negative energy that you produce because of that sin. If two individuals pass gas in the room and then 200 individuals pass gas in the room, which is better?

At the time of Adam there were only a few people. They committed sins so the spiritual atmosphere was more bearable. But the progeny of Adam spread about the world and by the time Abraham came, the spiritual atmosphere was more polluted than it was at the time of Adam. Because there were less people in Adam’s era, fewer sins [were committed] and there was less spiritual pollution as compared to the era of Abraham, when there were many more people, [who committed] more sins and polluted the spiritual atmosphere more.

When we pass gas, we open the window; fresh air comes in and we feel better.

A Prophetic Tradition says, ‘When you do something bad, quickly do something good as well.’ Why? To keep the balance. 

Now there are so many people who committed sins. But were there the same amount of people doing good things at the same time?

There are more bad people than there are good.

1 million people are saying, ‘God, I am here!’ And 30 million are saying, ‘I want to sleep with someone tonight.’ So what about the spiritual atmosphere? It is completely imbalanced.

The willingness to do good is directly proportional to the spiritual atmosphere. 

If the spiritual atmosphere is full of positive energy, than even bad people want to do good.

When the ratio of negativity was significantly low at the time of Adam, it was easy for them to do good deeds; comparatively, the same good act that people of Adam did became harder for the people of Abraham. Why? The spiritual atmosphere provided more resistance against them because of the [higher ratio of] negativity. Negativity at the time of Adam was lowest.

So the spiritual atmosphere is getting worse every day.

Presence of Negative Creatures

The second factor affecting the spiritual atmosphere is the presence of evil creatures in this world: the presence of Jinn. At the time of Adam, the numbers of Jinn were fewer. Not so many people lived at the time of Adam. Similarly, with time, Jinn multiplied in big numbers. At the time of Adam there was less resistance in the spiritual atmosphere and less negativity, so people who lived in that era had to struggle less than those who came in the time of Abraham. In the time of Moses, they had to suffer more. By the time Jesus came the spiritual atmosphere was made worse than at the time of Moses. Prophet Mohammad came 600 years after Jesus and the spiritual atmosphere was worse still. Now, after 1434 years, you can understand how bad the spiritual atmosphere would have become, given the number of Jinn and the number of sins.

Maybe the people of Adam and Abraham did not know of the sins we do today. We do the same sins but in a different style. The nature of sins is not different at all but there is a big difference. At the time of Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Mohammad, people would commit sins and they would understand that they are sinners.

But today we do sins and we think we deserve to do sins. We do sins under the banner of spirituality and under religion.

Today, we are sinners but we don’t regard ourselves as sinners; we think we are saints and we are holy. At the time of Prophet Mohammad, people had different understanding of being a holy person.

You are holy when you abstain from everything else and negate yourself.

If you are committing a sin and you understand that it is a sin, you are a blessed one. But if you are committing a sin and according to your understanding, you are not committing a sin and you are doing it because you are holy, then your mind is messed up. Because when you have become holy you do holy things. Everybody in all religions is doing this: Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims - everybody. Like, there was a man in New Mexico who claimed he was Jesus; there were 175 women with him and according to his understanding, when he would have sex with those women they would see God. One man in Israel was arrested because he did the same.

Now, propagation of the Awaited One is harder than propagation of Islam. 1434 years ago, spreading the word of God was not as difficult as it is today. Today, people swear at the Lord wherever you go. This is because of the ratio of negativity in the spiritual atmosphere. What you did 6000 years ago cannot be compared with the same act you do today.

The spiritual atmosphere is polluted with the amount of sins committed in an era and the number of Jinn present in the era. The ratio of negativity determines the steadfastness of individuals on the Truth and excellence of faith.

The followers of Prophet Adam had to cope with relatively less resistance in purifying their Selves [ego] and their hearts than those in the era of Prophet Abraham, who had to struggle a lot more in performance of the same good deed and mortification of the Self.

The ratio of negativity presently is over 100%.

The more the spiritual atmosphere is polluted, the less you feel inclined to do good deeds or to mortify your Self. It is due to the highest ratio of negativity today that people don’t want to purify their Selves.

The desire of God's love is overshadowed by the desire of material gains thanks to the fullest ratio of negativity.

You enjoy more when you do bad than when you do good and it is because bad deeds are well supported by the negativity in the atmosphere. Most people are married yet they enjoy sex with those not married to them; it is because of the negativity in the atmosphere.

A holy man has God's presence in him and he is like a powerhouse of light and positivity; people feel inclined to do good when they are around him.

A holy man recycles the atmosphere and renders good spiritual oxygen to the suffocating hearts.

No act of worship can provide you with the amount of light and positivity as much as a holy man does. No wonder Rumi said, ‘A moment spent in company of a holy man is far greater and better than worship of a thousand years.’

The spiritual atmosphere continues to deteriorate. Human beings now want money, women and luxury only.

The ratio of negativity has always gone up with the passage of time. It is directly proportional to the nature of the amount of sins which people commit; and at the same time it is also directly proportional to the number of Jinn who dwell in this phenomenal world.

These are Spiritual Sciences. What I am speaking about is not any knowledge that you can find in any celestial book. You will not find this knowledge in books of Prophetic Traditions and you will not find this knowledge in books of Saints. This knowledge comes from His Divine Eminece Lord Ra Riaz Gohar Shahi.

According to a Prophetic Tradition, ‘The world will be covered with darkness in the era that the Awaited One will appear in this world. There will be a few lamps lit up in this world and those few lamps will be at a considerable distance.’

People who interpret the Holy Scripture think that this darkness is referred to physical, phenomenal darkness of this world and that these lamps are referred to physical lamps. This is wrong. Physical lamps and physical darkness has nothing to do with the advent of the Awaited One; there has been such darkness in this world before the Awaited One’s arrival and there can be darkness after the Awaited One has arrived. It doesn’t help us understand the Personality of the Awaited One. If we interpret this Prophetic Tradition under the guidance of His Divine Eminence and dig out the esoteric meaning of it, darkness is referred to darkness of the heart and lamps are referred to enlightened hearts. There will be a few enlightened hearts.

The more enlightened hearts are there in the world the better the spiritual atmosphere is and the less enlightened hearts are there in the world the worse the spiritual atmosphere becomes.

How does the spiritual pollution affect our spiritual journey, our faith and our struggle to purify our hearts and mortify our Selves (Ego)?

We have seven subtleties in our skeleton. Six of them are dormant but the seventh, the Self (Ego) is very much alive and its origin is the devil. When the body of Adam was created, the devil spat at his navel point; there was a germ in his saliva which turned into the Self. So, the Self is a germ that has come from the devil.

This diet can be obtained from any food you consume. Negative energy has heating effects. When you inhale oxygen, a considerable amount of negativity enters your body and it strengthens your Self.

The diet of the Self is negative energy.

Every time you breathe you're giving diet to your Self.

All vegetables and fruits need some light before they are worthy of consumption. If there is no sunlight available there is no fragrance in flowers. If there is no sunlight, there is no taste in any fruit. Sunlight is important and sunlight has heating effects; so negative energy is rendered. All kinds of meat, including fish have negative energy in them.

You cannot live without food. When you eat it, it is not only strengthening your body but it is strengthening your Self; it’s becoming stronger every day.

One thing is very important: when there is too much negative energy in this world and our Self is absorbing so much negative energy, we want to do bad things.

If our Self is strong, our Self makes us do bad things.

His Divine Eminence Lord Ra Riaz Gohar Shahi once said, ‘The knowledge of spirituality is not suitable for common people. Initially it was aimed at those who were very clever by mind.’ 

His Divine Eminence says, ‘If you want to keep your heart alive and happy with God, and God happy with your heart, then keep your Self unhappy.’

You cannot keep both the Self and heart happy at the same time. You could like it or dislike it, but this is what spirituality is all about.

The ratio of negativity and positivity in the spiritual atmosphere is a very sensitive issue. How sensitive? Your progress [in spirituality] is directly dependent upon the effects of this ratio.

Combating the Spiritual Pollution

In order to cut down on atmospheric pollution, you plant trees. The more trees you have in the area, the lesser pollution. A tree gives you an external aid to cut down on the pollution. In the daytime, trees release oxygen which helps overcome the bad elements in the air. When it goes in the air, it adds to the amount of the oxygen already present in the air and the pollution decreases. If there are no trees, the air quality will be so bad that you will not be able to breathe.

In a similar fashion, if you want beat the spiritual pollution you need to have Saints of God.

Why? The trees release oxygen and the Saints are connected to God; God looks at them and God sends upon them 360 Theophanies of God every day. Remember: one Merciful Glance of God burns away seven great sins.

Right now, spiritually, this world is like a toilet. Dirt is falling from the sky. You go out and you become dirty. If dirt starts to fall from the sky and it doesn’t stop, you will become accustomed to it.

For the first few days, you will feel stinky and terrible, but you have no cure, no remedy and no solution so you will convince yourself to become accustomed.

But then, somebody will come to you and say, ‘Come. There is a very safe place for you. Come to the Awaited One. In the time you spend in the Awaited One’s company, you are away from the falling dirt.’

You become pure again but the trouble is, you go and come back again and become pure. But now there is one difference between you and others. They do not know about the cleanliness, they will develop an urge to come back here. What will happen to you? When there is enough purity in your heart, you will be given the armour of purity. Your heart will be connected to the Awaited One Lord Ra Riaz Gohar Shahi’s heart. When you go out with the umbrella of Lord Ra Riaz Gohar Shahi’s Merciful Sight, you are safe. It is like dirt is falling on people but you are holding an umbrella, so you are protected.

Without the Merciful Glance it is difficult to remain a good person and remain a pure heart.