Divinity on display

     

All that we behold and perceive 

by our senses bears undeniable witness 

to the existence of God - 

the stone and the clod, the plants 

and the trees, the living creatures, 

the heavens and the earth 

and the stars, the dry land 

and the ocean, the fire and the air, 

substance and accident.  

Indeed, we ourselves are the chief 

witnesses to Him. 

But, just as the bat sees only at night 

and cannot see in the daytime 

due to the weakness of its sight, 

which is dazzled by the full light of the sun, 
so also the human mind is too weak 
to behold the full glory 
of the Divine Majesty.

             -  al-Ghazzali

... just a comment on al-Ghazzali's eloquent thought....

We would agree that the human mind (i.e. our rational left-brain thinking machine) is too weak to behold God in the beautiful world in which we live.  In fact, it cannot behold God at all.  BUT, the human heart is not too weak.  The heart radiates an electrical power pulse that is many, many times stronger than that emitted by the brain.  All knowledge is NOT contained in the brain.  There is much memory in the heart - perhaps more than in the brain.  

The human heart CAN behold the full glory of the Divine Majesty spread out before us on this beautiful planet we share together.

The sad reality that so much of the environment has been exploited, abused, destroyed and violated by human beings, suggests that we have not been seeing the Divine Majesty perhaps because we have not been seeing with our hearts, but rather with our minds.

When we look through the lens of our hearts, we will see the soul of an animal, the light vibration emitted from a tree in the forest.  When we see the life in every living thing and being in our world, we will feel a love for it and in that love, we will feel God's presence, God's spirit, which spirals our hearts even closer to His Great Heart.

Photo of the bluffs overlooking the Columbia River Gorge, from Oregon facing Washington State.


Abu Hāmed Mohammad ibn Mohammad al-Ghazzālī (1058–1111), Persian (modern Iran) was  a Muslim theologian and mystic (Sufi).