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Our Deductions set Our Limits
Most people believe that the Flow of Divine Guidance and the path of happiness should be the way they imagine; or the divine guidance should comply with their expectations... They have their own ideas and deductions about the path and the pattern of guidance and the person who guides and the methods of teachings.
If their imagination and anticipation remain unsatisfied, they shall criticize and even calumniate the path of guidance and the course of instruction. They think the Lord should do whatever they want or the divine guidance should be the way they expect it to be...
They also have various images of the leader and the guide. To their opinion, a leader should have predetermined personal, moral, social, familial, racial features; he should be the reflection of their conceptions and the images they have in their mind... They believe Gods path is the same as they have conceived. Yet the Lord Most High says, ''My way is not your way.''
The Lord usually grants material or immaterial things to man the way he does not expect. He teaches man and draws him close to Himself in ways he does not even guess and is not at all prepared for them...
All the prophets, saviors and divine masters had confronted these problems.
Ignorant people have had many expectations from and prejudgments about these persons, the content and the methods of their guidance. Most prophets and divine patrons have been faced with such absurd and delusive imaginations of people around them, their friends and relatives as well. Jesus Christ said, ''Gods elected person is cherished everywhere except in his homeland and among his close ones and his own kinsmen.'' This proved to be true in his case and was one of the reasons why the Jewish leaders recognized him as guilty and condemned him. According to them, Jesus should show up with heavenly glory and splendor; he should be surrounded by angels while sitting on their wings. Yet how did Christ appear? He rose from a tribe that was suspected and from a land that attracted much pessimism; he rose from Galilee that was notorious for corruption and sin. An ordinary carpenter, did he enter Jerusalem in the company of angels? No. He was riding a donkey; just the contrary of what people had imagined. Christ was severely exposed to ignorant deductions of people around him. Many of so-called wise men of his time looked him with contempt and hostility. Even his brothers, entourage and old friends denied him and faced him with doubt and pessimism. Some people thought he was mad and some others believed he was an exorcist or he was carrying the satanic spirit or still worse, he was the personification of Satan himself. They labeled him as a polytheist, a pagan, a person who is against the Divinity, an accomplice of Satan and a troublemaker. His holy being weighed so heavily on them that they could not tolerate his presence and intended to kill him. However, God addressed him as ''Ruh-o-llah'' or the Spirit of God, and as ''Kalemat-o-llah'' or the Word of God. It was the same with Mohammad - Gods peace be upon him. In a time when poem and eloquence were much thriving in the society and the passion for words had begun, he was chosen from illiterate people - or those who lacked the so-called literacy. He too was labeled as a wizard, mad and a poet... And of course, the Lord Most High addressed him as ''Habib-o-llah'' or the beloved of Allah.
The last savior on earth shall also face the same obstacles. Many of the so-called spiritual leaders, caught in delusion of knowledge rather than being rooted in its origin, shall deny the savior and the establishers of the divine rule. Of course, many of these alleged spiritual leaders shall perish in the first stage...
God does not necessarily think in the same way we do. His thoughts are sublime, flawless, limitless and identical to His science. As a matter of fact, why should He guide us to Himself the way we believe He would?
Can we ever impose our opinions to God the Almighty and the All-Knowing? This ignorant approach is as if you would leave the rehabilitation and supervision of an addict and corrupt person to himself. He shall undoubtedly choose subterfuges to evade pressure and shall opt for the least rigorous teaching so he could go on with his addiction and corruption.
Many people desire such methods of guidance and teaching. Yet we intend to control the evil self; that very self which subsists on our desires, deductions, expectations, delusions and wishes.
Moreover, since this dark self has control over many of us and since most of our thoughts and opinions seek to satisfy it, we also seek a guidance that is not only soft with our ego but it satisfies our craving for excitement and pleasure as well. We want a guidance that provides us pleasure. But who is really enjoying himself? We prefer the same guidance and teaching our ego prefers. Now, who is our ego looking for? What kind of teaching does it prefer? What way does it like?
It prefers a kind of teaching and a way that do not suppress or control it but help it growth and add to its domination.
This is not guidance but it is deviation, even though it has an attractive and divine appearance...
Many people perform their daily prayers just to find peace of mind and to reassure themselves they are Gods servants; they do not pray for expressing their love or gratitude to the Lord. They want to keep themselves busy, especially if this occupation has a holy name...
A doctors therapy may not necessarily favor our preferences; it may, sometimes, be very painful. If a doctor cures us the way we desire and approve, we would possibly risk our lives.
We are the patients of the Lord; He is our curer and healer. He Himself chooses the way, means and methods of therapy. It is clear that a doctor treats each disease in a special manner, even if all these methods and means appear to be identical.
He who knows all the secrets cures each person in His own particular way. However, what we presume about the methods of teaching and guidance is what our ego uses to protect its sovereignty over our being.
''Beware and do not be fooled...''
Prophets and elders were mostly contradicted by their acquaintances and the inhabitants of their own town and village who refused the guidance of a person they knew about himself and his past, a person who lived like them and among them. They did not expect that a guide or a prophet be someone like them; and this was a major obstacle to their guidance...
Human being is, indeed, ignorant of the divine soul - the unique divine teacher dwelling within his very being. He does not easily admit that the Great Savior and the Supreme Teacher is in himself. Now if this Spirit manifests Himself in the appearance of an unknown stranger, he shall be readily accepted by people. Yet they do not know they have accepted and are attracted to a person who is in principle within themselves; for, every outer personification is the manifestation of the inner providential spirit in man...
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