Let God BE GOD!

Badaliyya Lesson 01: Let God be God…

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth… “Let there be light and there was light” (Genesis 1: 1 - 31).  God saw everything that he had made and behold it was very GOOD! He is the beginning… to him belongs the initiative and the “desire” begins in him.

Ruth Burrows, in a recent book, points this out by presenting us with the following image:  “A baby in its mother's womb is in a relationship with her but is unaware of it and does not respond to the mother's intense love and desire to give herself to the child. The relationship with God on the human side can remain as minimal as that of the baby.”

The reality of God and the GOODNESS of his work do not depend upon us or on our conscious/ awareness of it.

The narrative of God’s creating everything including us is NOT past tense and that we now somehow have life and existence independent of God. In God, everything is PRESENT TENSE!

God is actively creating us right now and is sustaining us in being right now. There is no past tense as regards creation. If God, even for a second, would cease creating and sustaining us, we would cease to be. We have no reality independent of God, no more than a baby in the womb is independent of its mother. The baby may not be aware of the mother but the mother's reality is what is massive, life giving, and life sustaining. That is also true in our relationship to God.

In entering into the context of Badaliyya, we need to experience the Divine ACTION and God’s REALITY that is LIFE in the here and now and in the beyond.  Often we have a false estimation of God and his work… echoing Sura 6: 91:  “Wa ma qadaru-l-llahi hatta drihi” (They did not have the true estimation of God.

Who God is to me…?

·       Joy:  God is a King and Miracle worker with all his splendor and majesty.

·       Sad:  God is a friend and consoler.

·       Confused:  God is a Guide and the Truth.

·       Tempted:  God is a hound.  I cannot hide from him.

·       Wronged:  God is a judge – just and forgiving.

·       Usual:  God is the creator and Father.

·       Poor:  God is a Provider and Generous Giver.

·       Reader:  God is the Lord of the universe.

God is everything.

God is a loving and living one – Father and Friend.

He is my Guide.

Without him, I’m nothing…

He is my protection and comfort.

The Bounty…

My sunrise and sunset…

In the Islamic Sufi Tradition…

God is Supreme and unseen…

He is One and only one God… No partners…

All praise due to him…

Humble myself before him

Bow to him in adoration…

He is Most Merciful (Rahman) and Beneficent (Rahim)…

We forget him when we have all… and we remember him when we have none.

Author and Inventor of creation…

Tolerant God …

Lord of all…

Master… I’m his servant.

Beyond … yet closer to me than the jugular vein…

My seeing, walking, my everything…

His absence will reduce me to nothing…

From him I came to him I shall return…

One in his essence and attribute…

He begets not nor begotten…

None like unto him…

(Bapa Jun)