Iconoclastic Imagination Versus the Rendezvous with Reality

In the Name of Allah Almighty, the Most Merciful, Most Beneficent and Most Munificent. There is Reality and there is Imagination. Imagination can never be Reality and we find that man lives mostly in imagination, for it is so easy, so beautiful and so peaceful for a person to live his life though his imagination. However, our lives are important and they cannot be built on imagination. Yes, you can’t base your life on imagination. Therefore it is necessary for Mankind to look for Reality.

A Lecture On the Reality Of Buddhism

Perhaps, at the beginning of our lives, we let our egos lead us through imagination. Later on, as we progress through our life, we begin to understand that we cannot build our life on this foundation of imagination. Therefore, at the beginning of one’s life, one may be excused, but it is not for ever that we can follow our imagination. Sometimes, we can say that women are excused. So many people are following imagination. Buddhists, Christians, Jews all of them, they have now left Reality and are following a way to do as they like. Is this not true? The Lord says, “As you like”, but we must say, “O People, believe in Reality, even if you live in imagination, for that is best for you”. You are insisting to keep to your imagination, yes, even if you keep to your imagination, one day, when your eyes open you will find that Reality is the opposite of your imagination and you will find a way and path that you can never imagine. Therefore our brothers and sisters are all asking for Reality. Yes, we may ask for Reality because everything must carry Reality in the end. Even, for Buddhism there must be a Reality, because there are so many millions of people who are inquiring and going about and following it. But they are not asking as to what is the Reality in Religion, because there are so many imaginations, for example, like beating a drum which makes that Reality disappear. However, through Buddhism there must be a Reality. Imagination is only a cover, it is like a person who comes to search for a treasure and some people in the locality divert the treasure hunter with his map, to various other points, so that he does not find the treasure. The people of the locality cover this place and show the wrong place and as a result, that treasure hunter never finds it. However the people of the locality know that the treasure is somewhere and are waiting for this person to go away so that they may look for it later on. This is what has happened for over three thousand years because Shaithan was misleading millions and billions of people about Lord Buddha, by never letting people find out the Reality in Buddhism and the Reality of its teachings. These teachings are there, but they are covered with imagination. If the lock is shown to you, the key is not given. If the key is given, the lock is not shown. Such things are done to misguide people who look for the Reality of Buddhism.

Yes, as I said earlier, there is a Reality in Buddhism. There is Reality in all ancient beliefs, because man was created and beliefs were planted in their hearts. They must believe in something because without beliefs, no one can live. There are so many people who believe in non-belief. They are unbelievers and they believe in non-belief. This is also a kind of belief. They say, “We do not believe in anything, our belief is not to believe in anything.” Yes, atheism is their type of belief, for they do believe in that. So I say that everyone has to have a belief in something or another. It may be right belief or wrong belief. The personality of the Buddha has disappeared through perplexity and mystification. Shaitan is mystifying his personality and after three thousand years, you can’t make out a clear personality as to when and where it ends. This is because it is Shaitan’s target to make confusion by way of mystification and for its true teachings to lose its Reality. Therefore Buddha was a real personality. He gave his teachings to people but he never told people to worship him. He was not a foolish one to say that, “I am the one who created the Worlds”, or “I am that Supreme Power, who is governing Universes”, and he was not such a one to claim his power from super galaxies upto the creation of atoms. He never claimed to command or look after anything. No person, unless he has a small mentality, will agree with such wisdoms. It is impossible for Buddha, being a man of food and drink, of breath and sleep, of growth and death, to claim to be such a Supreme, Great Power. How can he claim such a thing? How is it possible for such an ordinary person to have such Supreme Power? In the first instance, such Supreme Power will destroy his own body, as the body cannot take such a Supreme Power in itself. If that power comes externally, the body will vanish and be destroyed. It must mean that the body is under the control of a Supreme Power and that Supreme Power is covering him from every direction both outside and inside. It should command him, control him and cover him from every side and every direction. What is that power? If that power is controlling him, only then can he be a representative of that Supreme Power. Today, they will not accept that Buddha was a representative of that Supreme Power. Buddhiest people do not accept the fact that Buddha was a representative of that Supreme Power. They are only claiming that Buddha was the Supreme Power in himself. If he was a source of all Supreme Power, then that is imagination. It is against the Spirit of Reality and when we speak of Reality, some Buddhist brothers may or may not accept this Reality. Everyone has freedom in accepting Reality. Their acceptance or refusal is never going to change this Reality. They can never be able to make the Buddha the main source of Supreme Power. If he was the source of Supreme Power, he should be able to make the many status of his image to move, to look and to see. If he was the source of Supreme Power he should be able to put power through his statues and there will be no need to put a lamp or light in front of these images. It should be, by itself at least, able to give a glow of light to all his statues. However, this is imagination. There is a Supreme Power commanding and controlling everything and that Supreme Power must be above our imagination. Even Christians are falling into Iconoclastic Imagination. They imagine so many images of Jesus Christ and of his Mother. Today, in the West, you do not have the image of the unclothed, crucified Christ on a cross, outside their churches. Their statues have changed to more attractive personality symbols for Christianity. They feel ashamed to make people to believe in a person who has been crucified on a cross. Therefore even in Sri Lanka, in the new churches, we may never find images of Christ on a cross. They are changing their imagination to portray the image of Christ to be a representative of Supreme Power. They now want to show Christ in perhaps more magnificent forms. They put a crown on his head and put the world or a globe in his hands to make it more attractive to people. In Sri Lanka, perhaps they may try to attract Buddhist people by saying that all the images of the Buddha are always sleeping, but look at our King, he is King of the world. Look at his new image! Therefore Christians have also been living in imagination for over two thousand years. They are not able to separate Reality from Christianity. Real Christians know that they are following imagination today and this imagination is creating the rituals that they follow. They seem to be happy for the present, but as Seyyedina Ali (may Allah bless him) once said, “Mostly people are sleeping throughout their lives in this world, and they only wake up when they are dying”. What he means to say is that most people are sleeping in this life with their imagination and are not searching for Truth or Reality. They like to live with their imagination and try to be happy in this life, but this situation cannot go on for ever. When death comes, they must open their eyes and when they open their eyes, they will see something else. Then they should see Reality, and only at that time will they be surprised to look at the truth of Reality. Therefore, temporarily, people seem to be happy today, practicing their imagination, making statues, icons, and statuettes and performing rituals in front of them. Islam is a ‘Reality Seller.’ We Muslims are not imagination Salesmen. We say, “La ilaha Illallah: There is no God but Allah, the Only Supreme Power”. We say that all people were created from one source, from One Supreme Power. Science, Knowledge and Astronomy are committed to reveal this Reality. Knowledge has come to us that the whole structure of this Universe is of the same structure that you find in every atom. The first creation of the Universe is the same structure that you find through the atom. It is the main source for the structure of this huge Universe and other Universes. It is the same for the gigantic Galaxies, upto the smallest thing in creation, the main building source is the minute atom. Who is commanding the atom or commanding the gigantic Galaxies? By the way of knowledge and Science, you can see that ultimately all of them are controlled by just One Supreme Power. It is impossible to have two Supreme Powers. When you say Supreme Power, it cannot share that power with any other power. If any other power is sharing that power, it cannot and will not be a Supreme Power. It is our belief that the Supreme Power is controlling everything, but it is never controlled. We say that Allah Almighty is that Supreme Power and that there is no one else controlling Him. This is Reality and we are asking people through their positive Science and Knowledge to believe in this important point, that everything is controlled by a Supreme Power. Even when you look at the more than ten billion huge galaxies moving in one direction, you cannot find any galaxies moving against each other and all of them are moving in the same direction and not one is moving against another so as to collide with each other. You can find an excellent, most perfect traffic throughout the galaxies. When the Seal of Prophets (Sal) was on his night journey of Mihraj and watching the parade of the angels in the Heavens, he asked Archangel Jibreel (alai) “From where they are coming and to where they are going.” Archangel Jibreel (alai) replied that from the time he was created, he has seen this huge row of Angels passing like lightning and that he does not know when they began or when they will end or finish. Allah Almighty says, “They are My soldiers and no one knows the number of my servants or Angels and no one knows the limits of My territory. I am that One who has Supreme Power and I am that One who creates and governs the movements of all Galaxies, to follow a direction, and in My Hands is that Real Supreme Power”. Nothing can be against that direction and here, even on Earth, there is a direction to follow. No one can go against the Supreme Power that controls the Earth and everything that is out of Earth and throughout Space. This is Reality. We in Islam are not calling people to believe in imagination. Whoever, who wants to be happy with Reality may come to us and understand. If not, they may play like small children with their imaginations and wait until death opens their eyes to Reality. We cannot accept that Buddha claimed that Supreme Power was in his hands. He could not have said this. If he had said this, we must ask the Buddha as to whom he was concentrating on, meditating and worshipping. Where was he really running to and how was he reaching to that Supreme Power’s Divine Presence? He was asking for this Supreme Power’s Divine Presence, but people of wrong understanding make the Buddha their target. People became narrow in understanding through this very short area of the understanding and they should come out and see what is the Reality in the Buddha. Buddha was only a servant of his Lord, Allah Almighty. Buddha was always meditating and asking to guide people towards this Divine Presence of Allah Almighty – the controller of Supreme Power. However, today we only see followers making it a business of making statues in this short life and wasting their precious lives on the rituals of imagination. We are sorry that even today people are still insisting on their wrong imagination. If they ask for Reality, they must leave all their images and must ask to find through their hearts, the representatives of the Supreme Power. If they can really find in their hearts that representative they can reach out of time and space.

The reality of Buddha was to teach people to get out of this time and space and when he was meditating, closing his eyes he was teaching people by saying, “O people, you must try to get out from the prison of this life, from the prison of your physical bodies and you must try to reach the Supreme Power’s Divine Presence”. If you can do that, you should be happy and when you are in real happiness, you are going to be free. Free from all the heavy burdens of this life and only then will you reach out of time and space. You must follow the way of Reality because you cannot be free from time and space when you follow the way of imagination. You will carry the heavy burdens of life as long as you are not out of time and space.

The Lord, Allah Almighty wants to make your burdens of life lighter for He never likes to place heavy burdens on His servants. He wants to make His servants’ burdens more and more light, like the soul, without weight. When you are going to be as light as your soul, He will carry you from your physical bodies to Divine Territories. He may take you to the real target of the purpose of this life and that is to be taken to the presence of the Supreme Power and Divinity and from Divinity to his Endless Kingdom and to find yourself in His Divine – His Supreme Presence. That was and that is the real target of the Buddha. He was asking people not to make themselves imprisoned with the status of imagination.

Masha Allah, I am asking forgiveness for me and for you from all types of wrong-thinking people and asking for Divine Lights to make it easy for His servants to find Reality and to leave imagination.

Bi Hurmatil Habeeb, Bi Hurmatil Fathiha.