Maulid an Nabi

Mohammed's Message to the World [Excerpts of Ida Ansell's first transcript of Swami Vivekananda's San Francisco lecture delivered Sunday, March 25, 1900] Mohammed [After stating that he would "take Mohammed and bring out the particular work of the great Arabian prophet", Swami Vivekananda continued his lecture.]

Each great messenger not only creates a new order of things, but is himself the creation of a certain order of things. There is no such thing as an independent, active cause. All causes are cause and effect in turn. Father is father and son in turn. Mother is mother and daughter in turn. It is necessary to understand the surroundings and circumstances into which they [the great messengers] come. . . . This is the peculiarity of civilization. One wave of a race will go from its birthplace to a distant land and make a wonderful civilization. The rest will be left in barbarism. The Hindus came into India and the tribes of Central Asia were left in barbarism. Others came to Asia Minor and Europe. Then, you remember the coming out of Egypt of the Israelites. Their home was the Arabian desert. Out of that springs a new work. . . . All civilizations grow that way. A certain race becomes civilized. Then comes a nomad race. Nomads are always ready to fight. They come and conquer a race. They bring better blood, stronger physiques. They take up the mind of the conquered race and add that to their body and push civilization still further. One race becomes cultured and civilized until the body is worn out. Then like a whirlwind comes a race strong in the physical, and they take up the arts and the sciences and the mind, and push civilization further. This must be. Otherwise the world would not be. * * * * The moment a great man rises, they build a beautiful [mythology] around him. Science and truth is all the religion that exists. Truth is more beautiful than any mythology in the world. . . . The old Greeks had disappeared already, the whole nation [lay] under the feet of the Romans who were learning their science and art. The Roman was a barbarian, a conquering man. He had no eye for poetry or art. He knew how to rule and how to get everything centralized into that system of Rome and to enjoy that. That was sweet. And that Roman Empire is gone, destroyed by all sorts of difficulties, luxury, a new foreign religion, and all that. Christianity had been already six hundred years in the Roman Empire. . . . Whenever a new religion tries to force itself upon another race, it succeeds if the race is uncultured. If it [the race] is cultured, it will destroy the [religion]. . . . The Roman Empire was a case in point, and the Persian people saw that. Christianity was another thing with the barbarians in the north. [But] the Christianity of the Roman Empire was a mixture of everything, something from Persia, from the Jews, from India, from Greece, everything. * * * * The race is always killed by [war]. War takes away the best men, gets them killed, and the cowards are left at home. Thus comes the degeneration of the race. . . . Men became small. Why? All the great men became [warriors]. That is how war kills races, takes their best into the battlefields. Then the monasteries. They all went to the desert, to the caves for meditation. The monasteries gradually became the centres of wealth and luxury. . . . The Anglo-Saxon race would not be Anglo-Saxon but for these monasteries. Every weak man was worse than a slave.. . . In that state of chaos these monasteries were centres of light and protection. Where [cultures] differ very much they do not quarrel. All these warring, jarring elements [were originally] all one. In the midst of all this chaos was born the prophet. . .

In January 1925, Swami Shivananda visited Cuddapah, a small town in the state Andhra Pradesh in India, where Hindu and Muslim devotees had together established ‘Ramakrishna Samaj’. Later the swami recalled his meeting with a highly esteemed muslim who had received the title of Khan Bahadur from the British Government. Khan Bahadur belonged to the Sufi sect of Islam but was very devoted to Sri Ramakrishna. Almost every morning and evening during the period of his stay, the swami found Khan Bahadur seated in a corner of the shrine room of the Samaj in deep humility, intently looking at the portrait of Sri Ramakrishna on the altar. He was convinced that the Prophet Muhammad was born as Sri Ramakrishna for the good of the world...
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Prophet Mohammed

By Sri Swami Sivananda

• While Mohammed was serving a sick slave, the latter asked, "Has my master sent you to look after me ?"
  "Yes," said Mohammed, "the master of masters has sent me to serve you."

• One day, a dying dog approached a follower of Mohammed. The man had no means with which to procure water for the dog, for wells in the desert dry up quickly. He noticed a small pool of muddy water in the vicinity. He tore his shirt, soaked it in the water, placed the dog in his lap and moistened its mouth with the wet cloth. Another Arab who saw this went to the Prophet and said, "One of your followers has touched a filthy animal, a dog, and should therefore not be allowed back here again."
  Mohammed questioned, "What was he doing to the dog ?"
  "I do not know, but I saw him moistening its mouth with a torn piece of cloth dipped in muddy water," replied the man.
  "He is a better Muslim than you are, because he is kind to animals," said the Prophet.
• When Mohammed was in Mecca once, a poor shepherd from the hills came to worship in the mosque. He worshipped in his own simple way, performing the necessary ablution, kissing the stone and bowing before the sacred spot. Tears flowed from his eyes as he prayed: "O adorable Lord of love, show me Thy face. Let me be thy servant. Let me mend Thy shoes, apply oil to Thy hair, wash Thy soiled clothes and bring Thee daily the milk of my goat. Let me kiss Thy hand and shampoo Thy sacred Feet. Let me sweep Thy room."
  Such simple words of the honest and straightforward shepherd offended the priests who stood near him. They said to him, "What blasphemy is this ? There is no need of such gifts for the omnipotent Lord."
  They were ready to drive him out of the temple, when the Prophet called them to him and asked, "When you are in distant lands, in which direction do you turn your faces ?"
  "We turn our faces to Mecca," they answered in reply.
  He further asked, "When you are within this sacred walls, in which direction do you turn your faces ?"
  "All is holy here," they replied. "It does not matter which way we turn."
  The Prophet then said, "Your answer is beautiful indeed. Within the mosque it does not matter how you pray, as long as you have love and reverence. This poor shepherd's simple prayer entered directly into the ears of Allah more clearly than yours, as it was uttered from his heart with intense love, faith, sincerity and reverence. Make room for God's poor lover near me. Let no one be ashamed to have his company. He is humble, pure and exalted soul."..READ MORE HERE

Soul Surrender

[Yusufali 11:101] "O my Lord! Thou hast indeed bestowed on me some power, and taught me something of the interpretation of dreams and events,- O Thou Creator of the heavens and the earth! Thou art my Protector in this world and in the Hereafter. Take Thou my soul (at death) as one submitting to Thy will (as a Muslim), and unite me with the righteous."
(FROM AL QURAN)


Nati

Nati is the submission of the soul to the will of God; its ac- ceptance of all touches as His touches, of all experience as His play with the soul of man. Nati may be with titiksha, feeling the sorrow but accepting it as God’s will, or with udasinat´

a, rising superior to it and regarding joy and sorrow equally as God’s working in these lower instruments, or with ananda, receiving everything as the play of Krishna and therefore in itself delightful. The last is the state of the complete Yogin, for by this continual joyous or anandamaya namaskara to God constantly practised we arrive eventually at the entire elimination of grief, pain etc, the entire freedom from the dwandwas, and find the Brahmananda in every smallest, most trivial, most apparently discordant detail of life & experience in this human body. We get rid entirely of fear and suffering; Anan- dam Brahmano vidv´

an na bibheti kutaschana. We may have to begin with titiksha and udasinata but it is in this ananda that we must consummate the siddhi of samata. The Yogin receives victory and defeat, success and ill-success, pleasure and pain, honour and disgrace with an equal, a sama ananda,first by buddhi-yoga, sep- arating himself from his habitual mental & nervous reactions & insisting by vichara on the true nature of the experience itself and of his own soul which is secretly anandamaya,full of the sama ananda in all things. He comes to change all the ordinary values of experience; amangala reveals itself to him as mangala, defeat & ill-success as the fulfilment of God’s immediate purpose and a step towards ultimate victory, grief and pain as concealed and perverse forms of pleasure. A stage arrives even, when physical pain itself, the hardest thing for material man to bear, changes its nature in experience and becomes physical ananda; but this is only at the end when this human being, imprisoned in matter, subjected to mind, emerges fromhis subjection, conquers his mind and delivers himself utterly in his body, realising his true anandamaya self in every part of the adhara´
(EXCERPT FROM SRI AUROBINDO'S RECORD OF YOGA)

Splitting Of The Moon

The splitting of the moon (Arabic: انشقاق القمر‎) is a claimed miracle done by the prophet Muhammad in Islamic tradition.[2] The incident is mentioned in many early Muslim traditions as the context of revelation (asbāb an-nuzūl) for the Qur'anic verse 54:1-2 and virtually all Muslim commentators accept the historicity of the miracle...source

Islamic Yoga

[Yusufali 77:30] "Depart ye to a Shadow (of smoke ascending) in three columns,

The Divine has three aspects for us:
1. It is the Cosmic Self and Spirit that is in and behind all things and beings, from which and in which all is manifested in
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the universe—although it is now a manifestation in the Ignorance.
2. It is the Spirit and Master of our own being within us whom we have to serve and learn to express his will in all our movements so that we may grow out of the Ignorance into the Light.
3. The Divine is transcendent Being and Spirit, all bliss and light and divine knowledge and power, and towards that highest divine existence and its Light we have to rise and bring down the reality of it more and more into our consciousness and life.
In the ordinary Nature we live in the Ignorance and do not know the Divine. The forces of the ordinary Nature are undivine forces because they weave a veil of ego and desire and unconsciousness which conceals the Divine from us. To get into the higher and deeper consciousness which knows and lives luminously in the Divine, we have to get rid of the forces of the lower nature and open to the action of the Divine Shakti which will transform our consciousness into that of the Divine Nature.
This is the conception of the Divine from which we have to start – the realisation of its truth can only come with the opening of the consciousness and its change.

The distinction between the Transcendental, the Cosmic, the Individual Divine is not my invention, nor is it native to India or to Asia – It is, on the contrary, a recognised European teaching current in the esoteric tradition of the Catholic Church where it is the authorised explanation of the Trinity, – Father, Son and Holy Ghost – and it is very well-known to European mystic experience. In essence it exists in all spiritual disciplines that recognise the omnipresence of the Divine – In Indian Vedantic experience and in Mahomedan yoga (not only the Sufi, but other schools also) – the Mahomedans even speak of not two or three but many levels of the Divine until one reaches the Supreme. As for the idea in itself, surely there is a difference between the individual, the cosmos in space and time, and something that exceeds this cosmic formula or any cosmic formula. There is a cosmic
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consciousness experienced by many which is quite different in its scope and action from the individual consciousness, and if there is a consciousness beyond the cosmic, infinite and essentially eternal, not merely extended in Time, that also must be different from these two. And if the Divine is or manifests Himself in these three, is it not conceivable that in aspect, in His working, He may differentiate Himself so much that we are driven, if we are not to confound all truth of experience, if we are not to limit ourselves to a mere static experience of something indefinable, to speak of a triple aspect of the Divine?..read more

Prophet Muhammad(PBUH) And Gabriel

Gabriel
According to 'A'ishah and others, the Prophet saw him in his true form only twice, as is indicated by the Quran: "this is naught but a revelation revealed, taught him by one terrible in power, very strong [i.e., Gabriel]; he stood poised, being on the higher horizon ... He saw him another time by the Lote Tree of the Far Boundary" (LIII, 4-14). The first vision took place at the cave of Hira', during the revelation of the first verses of the Quran, the second during the mi'raj.
According to another account, having seen Gabriel in his true form, the Prophet fainted. Regaining consciousness, he said, "Glory be to God! I did not know that any of the creatures were like this!" Gabriel replied, "What if you had seen Israfil? He has twelve wings, one of which is in the east and the other in the west. The Throne rests upon his shoulders, yet he shrinks because of God's tremendousness until he becomes like a suckling child."

FROM SACHIKO MURATA'S THE ANGELS

Out Of Sheer Love For Humanity

"It became . . . an established rule for the learner to observe strict reserve as to the inner experiences of Yoga and for the developed Yogin as far as possible to conceal himself. This has not prevented treatises and manuals from being published dealing with thephysical or with the moral and intellectual sides of Yoga. Nor has it prevented great spirits who have gained their Yoga not by the ordinary careful and scientific methods but by their own strength and the special grace of God, from revealing themselves and their spiritual knowledge to mankind and in their intense love for humanity imparting something of their power to the world. Such were Buddha, Christ, Mahomed, Chaitanya, such have been Ramakrishna and Vivekananda"-SRI AUROBINDO
(Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, p.13-14)

Prophet Muhamad And The Monk

A single occupation,a single aim,a single joy—the Divine.
- The Mother

The Early Years




It was time for the annual trip to Syria. Even though Hashim had secured pacts with tribes along the caravan route many years before, the journey was arduous and not without danger. With this in mind Abu Talib decided to leave his nephew behind thinking it was better for him to remain at home with Fatima and his other children. When the time came for the caravan to depart, Muhammad, who was now twelve years old, rushed up to him and threw his arms around him. Abu Talib never had the heart to refuse his nephew anything at all and so it was agreed that he would join him on the long trip north to Syria. Buhairah, the Monk
After many weeks of arduous travel the caravan reached a place called Tayma, a village on the outskirts of Basra. It was there that a monk by the name of Buhairah lived alone in a hermitage that had been inherited by a succession of hermit monks. Over the centuries, important religious documents had been brought to the hermitage and left by his predecessors so Buhairah had made it his life's work to study them well and had become very knowledgeable.
In the documents were prophecies that told of another prophet to come after Jesus, peace be upon him. The prophecies described in detail the time in which he would be born, his appearance, character and background and it was Buhairah's dearest wish to be blessed to live long enough to see him. One day as Buhairah was meditating outside his hermitage he noticed a caravan in the distance making its way towards the city. It was a common sight to see caravans making their way there, but as he gazed towards it he noticed there was something very different about this one. In the blue sky was a lone white cloud that floated just above the caravaners heads, when the caravan changed direction the cloud would follow. He watched the caravan more intently and when it started to descend the neighboring hills he witnessed the palm tress bow their branches as the caravan passed by. He noticed something else even more strange, when the caravan came to rest under the trees the cloud disappeared and the palm branches bowed down still further to provide a dense and cooling shade. Just before the caravan reached the market place it halted again under the shade of the trees and Muhammad, being the youngest, was asked to tend to the camels whilst the others went to the marketplace.
Buhairah made haste to greet the caravaners and invited them to eat with him; caravans had stopped there many times before, but Buhairah had never invited them nor yet any other caravaners to join him. As they sat down to eat Buhairah looked at each one in turn, then asked if there was anyone missing from the party. They informed him that there was another, a boy, whom they had asked to tend the camels. Buhairah insisted that the boy should join them, and the caravaners felt embarrassed at their unintentional forgetfulness and so Muhammad was invited to join them.
When he arrived, Buhairah observed his appearance and manners closely. After a while he questioned him and then asked him to swear by the idols of Mecca -- which was common practice amongst the Arabs. Muhammad refused saying, "There is nothing more hateful to me than to do that." The answers Muhammad gave Buhairah convinced him ninety-nine percent that the young boy, in whose company he was, was none other than the one prophesied in the scriptures to become the last Prophet of Allah. However, one thing bothered him, Abu Talib had referred to Muhammad as being his son, and the scriptures stated quite clearly that the last prophet would be an orphan, so he inquired about Muhammad's parents and was told that indeed Muhammad was an orphan, and that Abu Talib was not his real father, rather, he was his paternal uncle.
Now, Buhairah knew for certain that his dearest wish had been fulfilled and that he had been blessed to live long enough to meet the boy destined to be the last Prophet of Allah. He was overcome with joy but at the same time a great sense of fear struck deep within his heart. He told Abu Talib that he must take great care of Muhammad and advised him not to continue onto Basra as he feared the descendants of the Jews that had migrated to Arabia many years before to await the arrival of the last prophet would also notice his signs and try to harm him as he was not of their race. Abu Talib took Buhairah's advice and they returned to Mecca.
Early Character
Muhammad had grown into a quiet, thoughtful youth preferring to look after his uncle's sheep rather than playing with the other children of Mecca. He loved the peace and tranquility of the valleys and mountainside and whilst tending his uncle’s flock would pass his time observing and marveling at the wonders of the creation of Allah. Like all boys of the Koraysh tribe he was taught the art of manhood and how best to defend himself. Muhammad had very keen eyesight and so it wasn't surprising that he became an excellent archer like his ancestor Prophet Ishmael. His reputation for being honest, trustworthy and among other fine qualities, intelligent, was recognized by all who knew him, however, it wasn't until after his prophethood that he learned to read or write.

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