Monthly Archives: February 2012

Hasan Askari, Inter Faith, Inter Faith Dialogue, Inter Religious Dialogue, Musa Askari, Plotinus, Soul

“One of a Kind Soul – Hasan Askari” by Candice Rowland

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Candice Rowland  http://fruition2012.wordpress.com/ is an aspiring author on a spiritual journey. Her passion is to HELP others someway, somehow. She cannot say she is religious but religious about all faiths. Candice BELIEVES there is a God with a mighty purpose for all of us to follow. Candice hopes all can listen within to our tiny voice, “If we silence ourselves, God is whispering to us all the time. If we listen long enough we will find our true purpose in life. Anything is possible if you are pure and true in mind, heart, body, and soul.” Candice’s faith resides in Love and Peace. “When one’s soul has found LOVE within oneself, one has found God. When one has found GOD with LOVE peace and tranquility assumes their being. When peace and tranquility begins with one soul, this will transpire to another soul and another and so on.”

“One of a Kind Soul – Hasan Askari” by Candice Rowland

“We have first to wake up from the spell which our collective identity, whether it be of race or of religion has cast upon us, and see the sun of awareness rising in the horizon of our souls, in whose light the hidden grace in each one of us would become visible to the other. As we bow to each other as soul beings, we bow before God who is both in us and above us. What can then prevent us from saying to each other that my soul and your soul is one soul, that our God and your God is one God? We shall then abolish fear, and then our greeting of peace will be a perfect greeting!” Hasan Askari http://www.interreligiousinsight.org/January2004/Jan04Askari.html

Reading Hasan’s words above gives me goose bumps within my own soul every time I read them; how divine his words resonate with souls on a spiritual journey such as mine as yours. His connection with the religious diversity is far beyond wisdom; it was part of his true being to bring all faiths to an interfaith dialogue to speak, to converse with one another of one another’s religious beliefs; to bring understanding within one’s soul to another soul.  As Hasan states, “Our coming together in dialogue becomes akin to an act of worship; our exclusive witness is transformed into co-witness; our one-way mission is replaced by mutual mission.” 

The one thing Hasan believed man had forgotten which has brought much suffering in the world, forgetting the Supreme (God), and the soul. “The loss of a sense of transcendence from our consciousness, and the accompanying loss of the gnosis of soul, have led first to the degeneration of religion and eventually to the despiritualisation of politics and science.”     

Hasan was a man with a mission to somehow, someway to spark awareness in mankind to transcend him back to God and to “our nobler and loftier companion, our Soul.” Hasan directly points out, “First soul, then God! The soul possesses the vision of the Supreme One.” He proceeds to say further in his article, “First one must “Know thyself” (written on Gate of Entrance to the ancient Temple of Delphi) and “Whoever knows his self knows his Lord” (said by the Prophet of Islam).

As Hasan expresses adamantly, “Soul is one and many, a universal being. It is in souls of each other that we encounter each other both individually and universally. We surpass the boundaries of our outer identity.”  In other words, we must as spiritual beings find within ourselves, our soul then only then can we move to find God. And when we unite with the soul we find God; then can we see our soul reflected in other souls with different religious backgrounds, race and culture because the soul is universal as so is our God, all is one; we are one.

One quote always remained in my memory from Hasan and this is why I chose this article in particular to try to bring clarity to myself and others on a spiritual journey. It is this, “A real evangelist would be one who brings the good news of universal truths as these are glimpsed through various religious symbols and philosophies.” This rang with vibration within my soul when I read this because if we all could speak of universal truth and not just what we collectively identify with in our culture, this would bring a sort of peace to mankind. Why? As Hasan says: “Our perspectives will expand: we shall not only notice religious diversity as a spatial fact but also value the coming and going through time of teachers and prophets, religions followed by religions – all calling upon us to wake up and humbly bow in self-knowledge before the almighty source of our souls. Then our conversion will be not to this or that religion but to one God (speaking theistically), All Transcendent-All near, All Freedom-Ever New!” How beautiful Hasan wrote this; brings tears to my eyes.

Not only did Hasan write scholarly, spiritual inclined papers with answers to beyond difficult questions one must answer to bring peace to Earth and unity of mankind, but he wrote poetic articles. As such, the “Seven Mirrors.”  https://spiritualhuman.wordpress.com/2012/02/19/seven-mirrors-by-hasan-askari/

Reflecting his vision during silence of one candle; reflecting in seven mirrors reflecting seven candles. He then through thought realized, “If the original candle stands for the eternal presence of the Light of God, all its reflections too were eternally present before it. For God there is neither before nor after, neither past not future, but one eternal present, not like our present but a time that includes without division all times.”

And lastly, Hasan’s heartfelt story, “The Rebirth Through My Son.” https://spiritualhuman.wordpress.com/2011/04/25/rebirth-through-my-son-by-hasan-askari/

This is about a father’s journey through his life while in search of meaning knowing the pain and misery he caused to himself and his family.

But his youngest son never gave up on his father. He visited his father because of a bond he could not help from feeling to his father and the longing to want to know more of him. Finally one day the son asked him a question that stirred him within. “It was that evening that all of a sudden he felt that he was renewed deep from within. His son’s remark had demolished his shyness before his son. He felt that they were now brothers.”

And so how Hasan ends the story with a story to his son, “Once a visitor called and said to his father, “I have come to see your son. May I know where he is?” His father replied: “Do not call him my son. I am his son!” How this says it all between Hasan and his son, Musa.

Now this brings me to the end, to Hasan’s son Musa. If was not for Musa I would not have had the beautiful experience of reading Hasan’s work. And because of Hasan’s works it has brought me to a new but reviving view of my spiritual journey.

Hasan, I can only say you are a precious soul for other souls to follow in your footsteps but that would not be right, as you would say, “This is not a journey for the feet; the feet bring us only from land to land; nor need you think of coach or ship to carry you away; all this order of things you must set aside and refuse to see: you must close the eyes and call instead upon another vision which is to be waked within you, a vision, the birthright of all, which few turn to see. (PLOTINUS – The Enneads, 1.6 “On Beauty”)

On this day February 19th, a very special day, I can only say Hasan would be so very proud of his son, Musa. To keep his work alive through his continuing relentless effort or shall I had said “effortless” for Musa. I thank you Hasan for your work; and your loyal son and your best friend, Musa. God Bless both of your souls.

I have only mentioned a couple of Hasan’s articles that resonated with me, but how all of his articles and works are a tremendous awakening for all to read. I encourage you to read them all.

Namaste, Shalom, Salam, Peace,

Candice Rowland

Hasan Askari 1932-2008

Seven Mirrors by Hasan Askari

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After hours of discussion about the question of finality claimed by each revealed religion I returned home so exhausted and perplexed that I had no other way to get to the heart of the mystery but to wait, wait in silence, all arguments set aside, all inner turmoil hushed to point of total surrender. I lighted a candle, burnt some incense, and sat down in that tender light, in that refreshing air.

I stayed for a long time with my eyes closed. I felt I was entering a state resembling sleep. All of a sudden I saw seven mirrors with seven reflected candles. The real candle was not visible. A voice said: There is only one real candle. You can never see it. You can see only its reflections.

The vision stayed before me for sometime and then it disappeared all at once. I was fully awake now. I was startled: I had been given the answer. The vision held the key to the solution of the problem of finality.

The vision was pointing to something more crucial than the familiar idea that each revealed religion held the light from the same source. It was representing something far more decisive that was not so vividly perceptible to us through our discursive approach to the problem. The vision appeared at the limit of that approach. Hence, I continued to ponder keeping the image of those seven mirrors before me, each mirror reflecting the same invisible candle.

What struck me, something which was not so obvious in the beginning, was that each light in each mirror was an immediate reflection of the original light without any interval of time. All belonged to one moment of receiving the image, no one image following the other. If the original candle stands for the eternal presence of the Light of God, all its reflections too were eternally present before it. For God there is neither before nor after, neither past not future, but one eternal present, not like our present but a time that includes without division all times. No one reflection has any priority, whether temporal or qualitative, over the other reflection, their original being one light. The reflections themselves are not many lights. They are one indivisible light even in their reflected status. Only the number and the diversity of mirrors which emerge in the temporal order divide that one reflection into many reflections. Otherwise, we have to suppose as many gods as there are revelations at different moments of history. The vision did not have seven original candles reflected in seven mirrors but only one original candle with seven reflections all at once.

The vision became so decisive for my understanding and further contemplation that I made a small representation of the seven mirrors and one hidden candle to be permanently kept in my room. Each evening I used to light the candle and watch the miracle of its seven reflections filling those mirrors. I could see the seven mirrors with their seven reflections but I could not see their unity as a physical object.

The vision perhaps represents our own reality: our seven powers of touch, smell, taste, hearing, sight, memory and imagination, each a different mirror holding a different picture, and yet all being one light which stands before them, namely the light of judgement, that invisible light without which no faculty can operate, without which there could be no unity of knowledge and consciousness. It is the unity of the act of reason that gives to the diversity of our faculties its validity and organization. Diversity of phenomena is no argument against the unity of their source. One may regard each of our faculties as a “revealed religion”.  

(This reflection from Hasan Askari’s book : Alone to Alone, From Awareness to Vision)