Title of the article: Mahdism and Messianism utopia: believers attributes at “The Time of Appearance”.
“Do not make haste for a matter which is to happen and is awaited, and do not wish for delay in what tomorrow is to bring for you.” (1)
There is an increasing interest in our society today concerning the appearance of the Messiah for Christians and the Mahdi (a.s. ) for Muslims that will bring God kingdom to earth. Many religions and schools of thoughts have prophesized and predicted it.
The Mahdi (a.s.) is the main eschatological messianic figure in Islam that will bring peace and reconciliation to our suffering world before the “End of Time”. His appearance will bring spiritual harmony and order and He will encourage people to live for the needs of “others”.
The strong believe of the Shi´a religious community in the appearance of the Mahdi (a.s.) has propitiated hope and inspiration to them to accept the responsibility of taking the necessary steps to accomplish all changes
needed before his appearance.
“So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops.” (2)
The appearance of the Mahdi (a.s.) or Messiah is inevitable and sure, but those that believe in His appearance will have to be aware of the transcendental changes that will occur in their life at a personal and professional level. Is no doubt that this is the greatest task that a human being could ever had in his/her life, but, still is a long journey to go and a lot of work to do before His appearance, but a bright future is awaiting us at the end of the “Journey”.
Time is now for actions and courage!
Peace be upon al-Mahdi through whom Allah has promised to unite nations, put an end to disunion, and fill the earth with justice.
I.- Three key principles of religious utopia
• Our Soul is immortal.
“He first created man from clay, tem made his descendants from an extract of underrated fluid. Then he mounded him; He breathed from His Spirit into him”. (3)
There is only one true God ,powerful, eternal, immense and infinite in His understanding and will as we are taught by the Sacred Scriptures. He created all creatures, among them men and women, and He made them capable of knowing and loving their Creator. Human beings acknowledge themselves as superior to all the other creatures created by God. In the profound intimacy of his being as a man, is where he finds his Creator. And it is through this encounter with God that man knows and feels that he possesses a spiritual and immortal soul. There is no deception: by entering his deep interior world, man can attain the truth about his human reality.
Throughout the centuries, human beings have carried out great works with their ingeniousness and intelligence. They have achieved great successes in scientific research, in the empirical sciences, and above all in the domination of the material world. But the activity of human intelligence cannot be limited to phenomenological thought when it was created by God to be able to achieve, with real certainty, that other immaterial, intelligible reality.
The intellectual nature of human beings must perfect itself by means of wisdom, which acts like a gentle breeze attracting the mind of man and his thinking to the search for truth and the love of truth and goodness. Wisdom leads man to the sources of supreme knowledge; it leads him from visible and material knowledge to invisible and spiritual knowledge. However, this step requires the acknowledgement on man’s part of his own insignificance in the face of the greatness of God.
Man has access to knowledge through his natural reason and by means of divine faith, because, apart from the things that natural reason can explain, there are the mysteries hidden in God that cannot be known by mere human reason without divine revelation.
When reason searches, illuminated by faith, acknowledging God as the supreme wisdom, it finds – with the help of the gift of God – the intelligence that permits it, by analogy with what it knows through natural reason or through the connection of the self-same mysteries amongst themselves, that he is allowed to discover a part – not all – of God\'s mysteries. However, man will never understand all of God’s mysteries, because their nature as divine mysteries surpasses man’s understanding, “for we walk by faith, not by sight” (4)
Although faith is beyond reason, God Himself, who reveals the mysteries and inspires faith, put the light of reason in the human soul. In this way, righteous reason demonstrates the fundaments of faith, and, through the light of faith, cultivates the sciences of the divine, while faith, on its side, delivers and defends reason from error and provides it with a diversity of knowledge.
Less scientifically and technologically advanced human communities in the world today are able to show great examples of wisdom and teach those more sophisticated and developed communities the true value of humanity, that value that is tempered by the heart and is filtered through love.
• God has designed de soul to be happy
. God Blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” (5)
The purpose of human life is an ideal which transcends the mundane goals of human existence, for it is based upon the vision of God.
The highest and best of human values, truth, love, joy and happiness are aspirations grounded in the original human nature. The word for “humankind”, Adam, comes from the same root as does “earth” and is a generic term for the human species; humans, man and female, resemble the Creator. Humankind was created to share a unique relationship with God.
“God saw everything that He had made, and indeed, it was very good.” (6)
Adam and Eve, our first parents, were created in the state of innocence, grace and happiness. They were adorned with the grace of God, which God communicated to their souls, making them beautiful and truly holy before him.
“Put on the new man, who according to God, is created in justice and holiness of truth.” (7)
The benefit they received it sanctified them, made them truly holy before God, it subjected all their senses, appetites, and passions to reason; it rendered their reason and their whole soul subject to the will of God.This original righteousness was a free gift of God.
“For God created us for incorruption and made us in the image of his own eternity.” (8)
Being free from all state of sin, and adorned with the original justice, they were on that account free from all sufferings, and enjoyed a perfect happiness both in soul and body, suitable to their nature, and the state they were in. They were endowed with great knowledge of everything relating to their state and the reset of the creatures; they were created free from all passions and irregular desires and appetites, which so violently torment our souls. They enjoyed a perpetual peace and serenity of mind.
Their hearts were inclined to all good, and their will united to God by holy love. Their bodies were free of sickness and pain, and enjoyed a perpetual health, and they were not subject to death.
• God has appointed rewards for good and virtuous acts and punishment for vice acts.
“The believers will then pass over like the twinkling of an eye, like lightning, like wind, like a bird, like the finest horses and camels. Some will escape and be kept safe, some will be lacerated.” (9)
Man, however, persuaded by the Fiend, has abused his freedom since the dawn of the ages, rising up against God and trying to attain his own purpose without God. While knowing God, he did not glorify Him as God, but rather, his heart dimmed, and he served the creature instead of the Creator.
Refusing to acknowledge God as his beginning, he broke the rightful order with respect to his ultimate purpose, and with it the entire hierarchy in relation to himself, to other men and to all created things. Thus is man divided in his interior. Due to this division in man – whether individual or collective – a dramatic struggle between good and evil, between light and darkness, appears in the world.
“but through the devils envy death entered the world, and those who belong to his company experience it.” (10)
At the same time, man finds himself helpless and destitute in his struggle against the attacks of the Fiend; he feels chained to evil. But God, in His infinite mercy, without abandoning us, sent and continues to send, beings that come to this world with the purpose of teaching us the way to our liberation, strengthening us with His presence and imparting His teachings amongst us for our inner renovation, and helping us cast out the prince of this world who held man in the slavery of sin.
“Now is the judgement of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.” (11)
Sin diminishes man, impeding him from reaching his fullness, the divine fullness for which he was created.
Human progress, which is man’s great treasure, brings with it the temptation for individuals and human groups to look out only for their own interests and not for the interests of others, lacking a coherent hierarchy of values and mixing good with evil. This is propitiated by the disease and the consumerism that the highly-industrialized societies suffer to a greater extent, which promote values that are directly contradictory to true human fraternity.
“what does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves?” (12)
Power resides in having more, in consuming more, in an unbridled madness that will inevitably lead to the destruction of human beings themselves, if God does not put a remedy to this before. A hard battle against the powers of darkness runs throughout the entire history of man, which – already begun since the origins of the world – will continue until the last day, as the Lord says.
“But the one who endure to the end will be saved” (13)
Arrogance and an unbridled love of self endanger the activities of man. Man must – with austerity and freedom of spirit – come into possession of the things of this earth, like unto one who has nothing and who yet possesses everything.
Some conception of heaven and hell.
Among the religious of the world is found universally conceptions of heaven and hell. Are these realms objectively real? The Scriptures are unanimous in affirming they are.
Heaven and hell in the scriptures of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam can be interpreted either to describe the state of the soul upon death or what will be after the future resurrection. Some Koranic passages describe the opening of Paradise and hell, others refer to de Last Judgement. Most muslims regard the dead to be sleeping in the grave awaiting that momentous event.
Do not say, “They are dead” about anyone who is killed for God´s sake. Rather they living, even though you do not notice it” (14)
The biblical vision of heaven from the book of Revelation are visions of a future recompense after the tribulations of the Last Judgement. Those christians who hold a literal interpretation of these verses concur with their muslim brothers and sisters that the souls of the dead are asleep in the grave, awaiting the future opening of heaven and hell.
Another theory of the christian tradition, supported by biblical descriptions of the Sheol (Job 3,17-19); the heavenly Jerusalem (Hebrews 12,22-24; and the story of Lazarus and the rich man in (Luke 16,19-31), teaches us that each person immediately after death enter his appointed place in heaven or hell. The visions in Revelation are often interpreted in this way.
II.- The believers attributes at “The Time of Appearance”.
• Prudence
People! God´s promise is true, so do not let the present life deceive you. Do not let the Deceiver deceive you about God: “Satan is your enemy –treat him as an enemy-and invites his followers only to enter the blazing fire.” (15)
During the days of our youth we do not often remember God, nor do we think of the days to come when we will have to reflect upon our acts. The strength of youth makes us believe that that vitality will be with us for always, but this is not the case. Man needs to live prudently, giving priority to those higher values that bring him closer to God.
Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers? He said, “ The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.” (16)
Being prudent means walking surely on the straight path, knowing that if we take the winding one, we will get lost; it means not enjoying trickery played upon others, but living in the exercise of good there wherever we get the chance to do so.
“Honor your father and mother; also, You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” (17)
Being prudent means working honestly to gain our sustenance without exploiting anyone, without manipulating and using other people for our profit, because all that we earn at the expense of others will lead us inevitably to failure and dishonour.
In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for
this is the law and the prophets. (18)
Being prudent means not judging others. If your mind is busy seeing the faults of others, it will by itself fall into the same errors that it sees in others. We see the mote in others’ eyes and are incapable of seeing the beam in ours. Whoever listens to slander is himself a slanderer.
“No one can withhold the blessing God opens up for people, nor can anyone but Him release whatever He withholds: He is the Almighty, the All Wise.” (19)
• Renunciation and Detachment
Plenty has been written about renunciation, not so much because it is hard to understand, but because its practice is truly difficult. The most important thing about renunciation is that nothing real is lost. Every renunciation of material things, of indiscriminate consumption, is an appropriation of that which is renounced on a higher level. It is a paradox, but the more a person can do without the world, the less the world can do without that person.
When desires dominate us, we are trapped in illusion and the only way out is through discernment or reflection. Try to see ourselves as automatons controlled and manipulated within a prison of unsatisfied desires. Because in effect, these are not our own desires, but rather, we are victims of a society that knows our dissatisfactions and manipulates them, creating one desire after another in a chain of desires that will produce great economic profits for a few, while it engulfs us in our own terrible personal and spiritual dissatisfaction.
Whoever loves God does not worry about the vanities of the world, because he respects himself above all else and respect for oneself implies scorn for the vanities of the world.
“No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” (20)
The surfeit of desires and cravings is a source of spiritual disease. It overloads the soul. There are persons who renounce themselves and their uncontrolled cravings, albeit with reservations, since they do not place all their confidence in God. In the beginning they offer him everything, but afterwards, on being besieged by temptation, they return to their old ways, and this stops them from advancing on the road of virtue.
There are people who think that God should be given everything He is owed, provided that He lets them enjoy what is theirs without being bothered. Their desire is to maintain their own privileges and imagine themselves free without having to obey any kind of divine mandate, given over to their own passions and desires.
“So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” (21)
These are the lukewarm about whom the apostle John spoke in his Revelations. On one hand, they adore the world and its pleasures, and on the other they want to live in peace with themselves and with God, fulfilling one precept or another that adapts to their own needs and passions. They practice a social kind of religiosity; they do not know what charity means and they comply with the minimum religious precepts, those that are socially well-regarded. Their piety plays to an audience.
Trust in God
God is the supreme goodness. He never abandons whoever trusts Him. Although the modern world, with its almost uncontrolled hyperactivity, puts obstacles and difficulties in our way to living and orienting our lives and aspirations to confidence in God, we should know that if we trust Him, everything is possible because it is not the external conditions that impede us from finding God in our lives, but our own mental state of absence of God.
“God will find a way out for those who are mindful of Him, and will provide for them from an unexpected source; God will be enough for those who put their trust in Him. God achieves his purposes; God has set a due measure for everything.”(22)
If we do not let God into our lives, if we close our mind to the experience of God, external difficulties will grow, putting ever-increasing obstacles every day to our possible spiritual self-realization and our confidence in God, although we call ourselves believers and count ourselves among those who “officially” comply with their faith in God, but do not really trust Him.
“Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. (23)
On the other hand, a person who desires the fullness of God in his life above all will find his obstacles propitiating that divine fullness in his life, and these will be transformed into help received. God Himself sustains and comforts whoever accepts Him in his life with His infinite Love.
“Whoever relieves in his Lord need fear no loss nor injustice.” (24)
Strength in the face of suffering
Suffering is a feeling of deprivation, and, as such, may become a stimulus that helps us advance in self-knowledge. It helps us by showing our limitations, our misery and our deficiencies which, up to that time, have remained hidden amongst our illusions and pleasures.
René Guènon, associates the concept of suffering with asceticism. He speaks of the asceticism that goes by the Sanskrit name of “tapas”, meaning “heat”. This heat is an inner fire that must burn and destroy everything that constitutes an obstacle to man’s spiritual self-realization. “Asceticism” in its deepest sense is the sacrifice of the “ego” carried out for the attainment of superior consciousness.
