MH Podcast #11- with Connor Murphy

Java 10 discount code for 10% discount on a wide range of products, including premium Ethiopian black seed products. So not only come on Welcome to another episode of The MH podcast, I am joined with a spiritual guide, a very important YouTuber, Connor Murphy, how you doing Connor? I'm great man, how are you? Not bad caught him off, you got in contact with me through Instagram. And he was telling me that, you know, he's been watching some of my material, and that he wants to explore some of the ideas about Islam and the concept of God, and so on and so forth. So we want to get straight into it.

You said that, in fact, in that message, you said that you find that the the idea of God is in Islam is quite coherent or quite good. And you're convinced by it. Let's start with that. What is your idea of the Islamic understanding of God? Okay, yeah, and it might not be correct today. Yeah, that's why I'm here. To understand your viewpoint, for sure. But essentially, what I'm understanding is that Islam has a very fundamental concept of God rather than some complicated version of like a holy trinity or something like that. Yeah, there is one. All Powerful being. Yeah, that's a created the entire universe, right? Yeah. And I think this is one of the reason why Islam Islam doesn't

really use like symbols like in, in Christianity, we have the symbol of Jesus, right, and the symbol of like this man in the sky, but I like Islam, because it does not portray God in any specific way. Right? Because of course, if we did portray God in any specific way, God wouldn't be infinite and amorphous. And you know what I mean? So that from that's what I understand. Yeah. And that's pretty, that's pretty good. That's that is exactly right. So, you know, in terms of God, we don't believe in a person human being as God, we don't believe that anyone with a date of birth can ever be an eternal God, by definition, and obviously, as Muslims, we do believe in Jesus Christ, we believe in

him as a prophet and a Messiah, as a human being, but not as a God who is a human being a prophet, in the long line of prophets and messengers, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, all of whom came to tell people to worship in one God ought to believe in one God and worship and do good deeds. So what is your general impression of the narrative that's being presented here of all these prophets coming up for time? And dictating as it was the same kind of message? Yeah, yeah. So I think all these profits. Yeah, I found God. They found God. Yes. Here's where I think it gets interesting. Yeah. Okay. So I think these prophets knew God beyond the conceptual mind. So essentially, the analogy that I like to

use is that these profits actually tasted the apple. Okay, so they tasted, they experienced this apple, let's say, and the issue is that they experienced this apple. But now the Apple is so great, it's the best fruit in the world. And no one else in the world knows what this apple is. And of course, they, they can't make people experience the apple, it's not like they can bring the apple within and give it to everyone else. So they start to try and explain this apple, right. And they explain it the best way that they can they say, Oh, it's red and juicy. It's the best fruit you'll ever have. It's kind of like an orange. But it's different. It tastes a little sweeter, blah, blah,

blah. And now all these people, they start believing that that's what this apple is, right? But there is a big difference. There's a big distinction, a big distinguishment, between thinking and conceptualizing the apple, and actually knowing and experiencing what that Apple is. And that's I think, where we run into issues is that all these prophets knew they experienced God, right? They really knew God on the deepest cellular, existential level. And then they go and try and explain God. And of course, people get the wrong idea because they've never experienced God. They're trying to conceptualize an infinite being with a finite human mind. And it's impossible to really do that.

Because I get I get what you're saying, you know, I'm not sure if you're aware, but in Islam, there is a concept of the fifth law. Now the fifth law is, is an innate predisposition. And so it's exactly what you're kind of describing your I believe, I think there is a great intersection, at least in what you're saying and what the fifth right so the fifth is this idea that human beings not just profits, but all human beings have in them. This innate predisposition or receptivity to to knowing there's a higher power is an innate receptivity. And it's not something which is demonstrable. It's not something which is necessary.

serological, although it can be as well, right? It's not something which you can describe through a human language necessarily is it is just an inclination, it is a feeling as a first person subjective experience. You could even call it a spiritual experience. But it's one that all human beings, actually they have that experience, whether they know it or not. And in fact, in 2011, there was a study in Oxford University by Justin Berra. And what was interesting is that he collected, you know, this kind of data from children cross culturally in different countries. And he found that one thing is the case that wherever they have been socialized, that children have this receptivity to

believing that this is exactly the apple, I think you're just trying to describe it, maybe not at the level of profits, because obviously, we do believe that potentially the the kind of interaction profits we'll have would be much more meaningful and deeper and stronger. But but but on a on an individual level, I think there is this propensity for human being to have this spiritual first person subjective experience. What do you think? Yeah, I love that you brought that up, because I was actually gonna bring that up. I was watching one of your videos, and you were talking about this innate belief in God that children would have. Yeah. Oh, that's so awesome. Because that really puts

atheism in a different perspective. Right? Yeah. He atheists believe that the burden of proof is on us. Yeah. Right. When that is completely subjective, to me, it's like walking through a chocolate factory, right? I'm seeing the chocolate being made the liquid flowing chocolate everywhere. And then you have an atheist who only knows what a chocolate bar is. So we're walking through this chocolate factory together. And I'm like, look at all the chocolate. And he's like, What do you mean? I don't see any chocolate. I'm like, Dude, it's everywhere. He's like, no, like, prove it. I'm like, it's right here. It's everywhere, right? And he's like, No, I don't see any chocolate. Do some

studies. Show me the chocolate? I'm like, No, no, you don't understand. It's everywhere. I think that they need to prove that God doesn't exist, because I am experiencing God everywhere. You know what I mean? And so I think that's, I think that's great. I think that's something that needs to be brought to light more is this innate ability in children to believe in God? It's actually a very natural thing, right? For sure. And I think that I think with these kinds of discussions, it's important to have a robust definition of God. Because for us, you know, the Arabic word Illa literally means an object of worship something which is worshipped. And and then we go to another

question, what is worship, because depending on how we define that, then we'd be able to establish whether or not people or worship objects in the first place. So our understanding of worship is entire submission, or like being fully in submission to a thing, whether that be it could be a body, it could be money, like it could be own desires. So the Quran says, for example, for item and a tequila, how have you seen the one who takes his own desires as his Lord? In other words, he sees that the apex the moral apex of submission, is to one's own pleasure and pain, for example, right? That they want to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. And that is basically the purpose of life.

And however much you do that is how much you will be coming closer to establishing your purpose. So from from those perspectives, the thing which you worship is a God, right. And the Islamic claim, at least, especially as it relates to atheists, is that they're not actually atheists in the first place, that they do have a set of beliefs or they do have something which they would submit to, or it could be a variety of different things, whether it be the law, whether it be social expectations, whether it be spousal expectation, whether it be friendship groups that they, whether it be their own desires, or a combination of all of those things, we would say that they are, in fact, fully

submissive to all of those things. And therefore their policies. They're not they're just a sophisticated form of policies. They're not actually atheist at all. But that's a really hinges on the definitions of God and the hinges on definition of worship. But But yeah, for us, that would be the case. And so the Islamic understanding is that there's only one God worthy of worship, so that you have all of these different gods, but they are not worthy of worship, because they didn't create you, they are not sustaining you. They're not maintaining you. They are not the greater power that you had an intuitive inclination towards. And therefore they're not worthy of worship, what is in

fact, worthy of worship, is the one who created you and is maintaining you and all those things I've just mentioned. I like it's like, we need to come up with a word. It's like a part theist. It's like they're worshipping like a part of God, but not God itself. Right, which is kind of silly. You know what I mean? Like, why are you going to worship? Why are you going to worship science? Because atheists do they worship science? That's like a god to them. They think it's they put that on a pedestal. Right. It's essentially worship. But yet why worship? That's when that is just a part of something much bigger. Yeah, absolutely. This is the kind of understanding so like you said,

especially new atheists, I wouldn't generalize what it is, but definitely New Age.

You'll find that they actually even claim sometimes that science is a mission.

And that it can kind of answer all things. But this is flawed on so many levels, because science just doesn't have the propensity or capacity, or facilitation to be able to deal with why questions do metaphysics develop to do with mathematics, and morality and all morality. And so therefore, science is entirely limited. And in fact, science is an enterprise, right? It's so so it's based on this principle of falsification. The whole idea of science is that we're trying to not only prove things but disprove things as well. So science in order for it to be so has to be it has to have the ability to being falsified. And so if you're, in a sense, putting all your hopes into the scientific

enterprise, you haven't understood it, which is the irony of all ironies really, I think, yeah, absolutely. Any system that is self reflective, right, that can self that can self reference, it has the ability to destroy itself. So if you can do science on science, it destroys it right? Just like if you do logic on logic, it can destroy logic, right. Goodell prove this with girdles incompleteness theorem, right, essentially, the statement, this statement is unprovable, right, essentially, you have a statement. And by definition, it isn't provable. And so therefore it's true. But you can't prove it with logic. And what that shows is that truth is beyond logic, right? And so

there are these truths that are beyond any of these systems, right? The deepest truth is this. You can call it this intuition, this intuitive truth that is really beyond like even the conceptual mind. And that's what people don't realize is that we're so trapped in this symbolic mind these, these these symbols, these concepts, right, we're mistaking the the map for the territory, right? And so yeah, I think that's something that people really need to understand is that all these systems, they're great for understanding the content of reality. Right? But not the context. That's something that science can't explain is the context, right? Because think about this, if you're in a

dream, right? You can do science in a dream, even if the dream is different from reality, right? It still has science, you know what I mean? You can do science in a dream and some dreams, it could have the same laws as reality, right? But what science will never tell you is that you're in the dream, right? science can't tell you that you can't do science in a dream to figure out that you're in the dream, you realize that you're in the dream, by just intuitively you become lucid in the dream, something just sets off this trigger, and you just realize, through the mind, through kind of a deeper mind, that you're in the dream, right? And that's something that science can't do. Yeah,

and that's because science works on a third person level and dreams and all the subjective experience that will first person and so the inability of science to interact with the first person is just as well as inbuilt within the system. If it was first person, it would be subjective, and therefore it would lose its veracity as a as a scientific method as it were. But in terms of now, this was something that you kind of hinted at in the beginning of the discussion, which is the idea of not not knowing God or not being able to know God fully. And

yeah, if you look at, for example, the Quran, there's lots of attributes of God names and attributes of God, right. But having said that, there are some principles which override our own, our understanding or interaction with those attributes. And it's actually a verse in the Quran, which is laser chemically, he shaped with or semi albasini, that chapter 42, verse 11, which says that there's nothing like him at all, and that he is all seeing or hearing. So in other words, when when we're, for example, as an example, introduced to the name of God, one of the attributes of God, that he's the most merciful, or that he's the king, for example, one of the names of God in the Islamic

corpus is that he's the king. But obviously, now, if we take this word, King Malik, in the Arabic language, or mela Han the Hebrew language, if we take this word, this word King, really, when we, when we apply it on a human level, in the world that we live in now, obviously, it denotes masculinity, for example,

because a king is not a queen, so that so you were thinking about a man. And obviously, we know that God is not a man or a woman. So that aspect of describing God is definitely not concurrent with it. So this, I think, was kind of touching, touching upon what you were saying in the beginning, that human language, human language, whatever language, it may be, is always going to be limited to being able to describe God because of the magnificence of God or the grandiosity of God. And therefore, human language is going to be limited. That's why it's important to even when we as Muslims when we're kind of reciting the Quran and going over the names and attributes of God, to realize that

these names and attributes,

despite how beautiful they are, they don't do justice. They don't do full justice to the magnanimity or the grandiosity of God Almighty. Would you say Allah subhanho wa Taala or God Almighty? So I do agree with you on that don't for us, we do have descriptions of God

But they,

they do not do justice to the entirety of God or, or the essence of God or anything like that. And this is even the case when we because in a stomach parlance, we do have like heaven and hell, for example, we believe in heaven and hell we believe in, you know, the day of judgment. We believe when human beings die, that it's not just going to be that they turn into rubble and dust and bone, that there will be kind of like another reckoning, that they'll they'll be resurrected, and that they'll be judged on the Day of Judgment,

depending on what kind of deeds they did, what kind of belief they had, you know, if they were introduced to the truth, and were they receptive to the truth,

or not, and so on and so forth. And then the we do believe in heaven, we do believe in hell. And so, for example, this afterlife space, we although there's lots as vivid and you know, description in the Quran and the Hadith about you know, God in the gardens and the Hellfire and torments and so on.

The profits has something quite interesting about this, he says, that is Mahathir Allah Calvi Bashar that we even though all of these descriptions are there, no one has actually experienced it with their heart, all of those things. So these descriptions are all there. But they will will not be sufficient and may have it may being able to make you experience those realities. And likewise, even though all the descriptions are there about God and their correct descriptions, and true, we would say that some of them are not applicable, because Lisa commissioned Miss Lee shape, there's nothing like him. So for example, God is not a man. And a king is a man in the world that we live in, and so

on.

So from those perspectives, I kind of do, I don't disagree with the point that you were making in the beginning of the podcast that although

we do have all these inscriptions, it really is an experiential thing. Right? I love it. And I love how you said how you can't really put a definition on God. I mean, you can you can try, but it will always be an abstraction. Yeah. Right. So I like to think of God as analogous to a mirror, right? On a much more grandiose scale, but we can think of a mirror, right? The essence of a mirror, is that it essentially has no properties other than being reflexive, right? So this is the issue, if the mirror had any properties whatsoever, such as being read, right? Or being, you know, only reflecting big things only reflect plucking small things, then it would be limited in that sense that you

couldn't put something in the mirror, and, you know, create that image, right? If it was red, then everything in the mirror would be red, it wouldn't serve its purpose, right. And it's perfect purpose is to simply reflect all else that there is right? So I kind of think like to think of God as this infinite mirror, right? mirrors are still limited because they're in the physical space in space. Time, right? Yeah. So God is almost like this, this infinite,

near this infinite singularity of reflectiveness. If that makes sense. It's still that's an abstraction, because anything that uses language is an abstraction. Now, God, I mean, of course, you would say that God, God's essence is essentially, you know, absolute infinity, right? And God, God is boundless, limitless, right? And just by the nature of experience itself, right? Experience must be finite, right? You can't experience everything at once, or that would take away from the essence of experience. So you can't experience this absolute infinity. That God is, but and of course, even these prophets right there, it's, there's no way they experience absolute infinity, right? But I

believe that they can experience maybe some sort of lower level infinity, right? There are different levels of infinity, right? There's a, an infinite amount of numbers between one and two, but there's a greater amount of numbers between one and 100 right, if you count all the decimal places, right, and so I think that the human mind is actually capable of having some tremendous incredible mystical experiences of certain levels of infinity but not ever the the greatest the absolute right and i think the the absolute can really only be known in the relative but I think there's still something to be found there that can be kind of known on a deeper experiential level. Yeah, I love what you

said resonates with me, I think there's there will be one thing where we obviously as Muslims, the traditional kind of normative narrative would would disagree with is the fact that Okay, so we differentiate between parts and attributes right. So, for example,

what causes limitation, that something is composed of parts and can is subject to disassembly can be broken up and can be rearranged. You know, this is an indication of finitude, right because it's something which is limited in its variables. And anything that fits that profile cannot be got by definitions or cannot be the the maximal it cannot be the infinite cannot be the limitless it has to be limited by extension therefore, but we would say that, there is a

subtle and very important difference between those parts and attributes. So for instance, when we use the word infinity, sometimes loses its meaning unless we attach to it, kind of like an adjective afterwards, so infinitely what so if we're talking about infinitely powerful, infinitely loving, we're talking about infinitely merciful. And so in, in many ways, was required in order to give value, if you want any type of value makes sense, have any kind of sense to this thing that we would like to call God for the sake of argument is that we attach adjectives now. So for example, he says, God is infinite, that's already kind of like an adjective. But when someone probes and says, Well,

what is this God infinite in, we would come back and say, Well, he's infinite in power, for example, or is infinite in mercy or is infinite in level, whatever it is, you want to put as an adjective there, some things we would be able to kind of extrapolate logically and other things would, would be textually. From sounds like love, I would argue that it's not something that's logically intuitive, or demonstrable, demonstrable, something I experienced with First Person subjective experience, or through some kind of a text. And obviously, from what from, from our perspective, obviously, Jews and Christians as well, they believe that God is love. We all believe that God is

love. That's something that's concurrent within all three, so called Abrahamic religions. So

it's important when you say that God is infinite in order to make sense of the sentence that we attach kind of like an adjective there, and that essentially becomes the attribute of God not a property in the sense that can be pulled apart and you know, dissembled, and so on, but it is something which makes sense of this concept of God otherwise, it becomes almost a meaningless concept, it becomes something which is,

you know, a figment of one's imagination, or is just become a does, unfortunately, become an abstraction of some sorts. So for us, we would, in order for to make sense of the concept, we say God is infinite, but in what so for instance, power is one thing. And knowledge is another thing, you know, omniscience, omnipotence, all the Omni qualities and so on.

I like it interesting. What about infinitely infinite? Yeah, that's just tautology. Right. So that would be Yeah, that's just a tautology. So in logic, that would just be like saying it rain is raining and it's raining. Right? And this is true. It's a true statement is always true, is always true, but it's just kind of like superfluous in terms of right. Well, and that's the issue is because we're trying to explain this is this being that's beyond logic with logic, and that's why it's so difficult, right? That's Yes, exactly. Yeah. But, yeah, interesting, man, I like it. So it's really difficult, though, because you'll kind of this is the issue when you try and explain it with

logic is that you'll kind of run into these contradictions, right? And a lot of people, you know, we live in this logical, rational world where there are these contradictions, and people think it's wrong, but contradictions are only wrong in the realm of, of logic, right? And systems. Because God, of course, must transcend that to God. And reality in general, seems to me like this giant paradox. And this, this contradiction that actually exists, right? So, for example, here's an interesting paradox, right? So if you would probably say that God is we will use the the, the attribute, you call it right infinitely, let's call God infinitely knowledgeable. Right? So is infinite knowledge,

right? So all knowing or not hint, I it's, it's whatever God is, right? infinite knowledge, right. But if God has infinite knowledge, then God has limited power. Because if God has infinite knowledge, that means that God could not learn. Right? That's interesting, right? And so what is it? Why would that limit his power? to learn? Right? Because if you Okay, I know.

This isn't a question, but I think it's an interesting question. It's actually been put forward in their theology type questions like Can God lie? Can it's not just like, Can God learn? Can God lie Can God steal can go like, there's a lot of things that can go Do you know, the Quran never says God can do everything. I mean, this is not what the the paradigm is.

The Quran actually says, and this is the Islamic understanding that Allah Allah got into his over all things powerful. And I'll tell you what, the subtle differences in logic in terms of categories, there's three major categories, right? There's the impossible existences and the contingent or possible existences and the necessary existence is. So an impossible existence is something which is a contradiction in terms like a squared circle. So we just mentioned like, you know, contradictions do exist in the real world that we're in, or at least through the systems that we're thinking through, like logic and mathematics and whatever. So a square circle is not actually a thing, right?

Right. So because this squared cell cannot instantiate itself in the real world, right, so we would say, things that are impossibilities that are not things at all, although they can be elaborate

Upon through language, they're not things at all. So for example, the idea of learning God is an impossibility. Because it's the same thing as saying, for example, that you have an all knowing, ignorant person. So if we only need to learn, or learning is only possible for the ignorant. And so if you're all knowing ignorant, then it's a contradiction. So it's just like saying, Can God create a rock so heavy that he can't lift? Well, that's a contradiction in terms. Because if we're saying God can lift all the rocks, then him creating such a rock that he can't lift would mean that he's limited and unlimited at the same time, because it's essentially asking, Can God be unlimited? Or

sorry? Can God be limited and unlimited? At the same time? We would say no, the answer is, the answer is a flat No, because that would the question itself would presuppose a contradiction in terms. Likewise, if someone said, Can God steal? Well, if we say, look, God steal? Well, that's how can God steal when he owns everything? So that would be a contradiction in sense. So you see, right. The idea of a learning God doesn't diminish from the power of God. But in fact, it actually affirms his power, if you think about it.

Right, I get what you're saying. But here's the thing is that we're saying these contradictions can't be true. But of course, we're thinking in systems and logic, right? Yeah, I believe that God is so powerful, that there's a way for both of these to be true at the same time. This is kind of the idea of non duality, right? So God can both be unlimited and limited. And in fact, God is so powerful, that it finds a way to do this. Right? So God is so powerful that it can put itself in ignorance, right. And this is kind of the idea. If you think of the difference between a subconscious mind and a conscious mind. God could be consciously ignorance, but subconsciously, all

knowing, right, so God gets to kind of experience this ignorance, but deep down never loses its knowledge, I get what you're saying. And this is kind of I mean, it's quite similar to what sometimes I don't associate with it. But a lot of trinitarians kind of use this line of reasoning when they try and, for example, in the Bible, where it says that Jesus, he kind of looked at this tree, and it was out of date and the figs on so he cut the tree. And so he did. And it says, In the Bible, also that, you know, he doesn't know no one knows who the when the hour is going to be except for the Father. And so to kind of to put themselves out of this misery that they usually have, that

there are three major economic models, there's social models and their psychological models of the so called Trinity, right? So what you're actually describing is, is is is in the literature is referred to as psychological models of the Trinity. So it's kind of like you've got one individual, and that he's got, he's got these relationships within himself like a multiple personality does. I mean, some scholars have actually said like a multiple personality disorder, right, you said so, subconscious mind in psychoanalytic is actually referred to as the unconscious mind subconscious thing is a colloquial term that some layman have just invented, actually, Freud would use the term

unconscious.

And so it's kind of similar to what the, you know, the psychological models of the of the Trinity, the truth of the matter is, once again, it is actually putting forward contradictions, in terms of the whole idea of Can God allow contradictions to exist? Which is a very interesting question. And I actually thought about this question quite a lot. We would say that God, everything that emanates in the real world is emanated from God. So what God is, from the Islamic perspective, is God is the truth. And he's also one, we believe that he's one in essence, right? He's not zero, because that would mean that there's nothing there. And he's not more than one, because then that would suggest

that this kind of polytheism so if God is one, in a sense, all systems of mathematics derived from the unity of God, and if God is the truth, all systems of logic derived from that system of reality and truth. And so God emanates those things. And so logic is, is just a derivative of the expression of God's truth. So in logic, logic, from this perspective of mathematics, so anything that we see is hard truth in the universe, is explainable through the prism or the paradigm of God, not despite it, so it doesn't exist in a in a mutually exclusive world exists as a result of

will for instance, right. Having said that, going back to the point of

limit and experiencing ignorance, like I said, there are things that if God does, he stops being God, by definition, and that's why it's important to have a robust definition of God. Now, we've talked about what an object of worship, but there's another thing that should be understood here that God is, if we're saying that he's ultimately all powerful or knowledgeable all these things, then he cessation to being any of those things at any time, and logically entails his cessation of being God, for instance.

You know, can God Be a man the question of God, Can God Be a man? Christians would answer yes. And obviously that's instantiated through Jesus Christ. We weren't

That would necessitate a contradiction in terms, which is that you have this unlimited entity that has to become limited, and therefore has to suspend his necessary attribute of being unlimited. And if you suspend it at any point, or if you suspend the ball, then it was never necessary by definition, it must have been contingent, because if it was necessary, the definition of something which is necessary is something which can never be any other way at any time is eternally necessary. And so this idea of the ignorance of God or that God can steal, because you could you could actually go to lengths with this one because it can God rape.

Can God steal? Can God now you can start bringing in lying, you know, can go deep? And the answer would be how could a old truth, true creature to entity lie? how that would that would go against his ability of being all

the truth? You see the idea there? Yeah, I think there's a difference between relative truth and absolute truth. Um, but how you said how like, say, say logic, the system of logic is a derivative of God, right. So in some way reflects God. Right. But here's the thing about like, yeah, we would say reflects his will more so. Right. Yeah, reflux does well, here's the interesting thing. We've known that through Goodell's incompleteness theorem, that logic essentially shows limitations of itself. Yeah, yeah. So it's essentially God showing that there is truth beyond logic. Right. So I just be careful not to put logic on this pedestal. Right. Yeah, I'm with you on that. Yeah. Yeah.

It's tough, because that's how modern society debates and talks about things, you know, and that's the Yeah, right. That that's Yeah, I mean, we've gotos incompleteness theorem. I mean, bear in mind, he had to, he had two models that he submitted one of them I think, in the 30s. And then he had another one. And what he was doing is, I think you kind of described it in a good way, like the the paradox of

the liars paradox, basically, the liars paradox, but really what he was doing was he's applying that to mathematics through set theory, and saying that if you've got all these things in a set, then this is the set part of the set and not part of the service anytime. So it's kind of like a paradox. Right? Right. But that doesn't mean I don't think from that people have decided that mathematics is not as untrue. It just means, I mean, what it means is that mathematics just like logic and underpinning it are these axioms which are basically they there there are no, there is no a way of proving those axioms, by definition, a theorem and an axiom, or an axiom in particular is something

which cannot be proven. So

a b equals Ba, you know, in mathematics, it's not something you can prove or I can prove it's just an axiom, it has to be the way is because it is. And on an atheistic paradigm. quite interestingly, this, there's no explanation for this actually, there's, you can't even explain why we have rational faculties or why logic exists in the first place, or how we can have an interactivity with logical mathematics. But from the theists paradigm, there is there is an explanation is that that these axioms have been put in place by an all knowing, you know, instantiates of life, if you like, or

the Terminator, whatever you want to call, so or lawmaker, and so if not from that angle, yeah, I think what Golda was instrumental in showing and his time, and he was definitely one of the biggest names in the 20th century in terms of philosophy was that there are these axioms, which you cannot prove it that, you know, the buck stops at certain axioms. And you it becomes impossible to prove further than that, but I don't think what he showed is that mathematics is, as I think it's a common misconception that mathematics is totally contradictory to itself.

Right? I mean, right? I wouldn't necessarily say it's contradicted, myself, I guess I'll just say that it's limited, for example, yes. For mathematics to even exist, you have to have this concept of an object, right? To add one in one. Well, what are those two things that you're adding? Yes, well, those are these objects. And I believe that there is a reality beyond even objects, right. And, of course, God predates all objects, God gave rise to these objects, right? So trying to describe God in like a mathematical sense. It's almost like trying to describe math with physics, right? You actually need math for physics evenings is a math with physics, right? You can't explain like a

higher level system with a lower level system. And that's why it's really impossible because God is the highest system to explain God with any any language, any system, any words, anything, everything will be limited, right? So this is why I think there's Um,

I don't think we're talking about cross purposes. I think we both understand what we're talking like what the other person is saying, but this is what I would say, right? It's possible to describe God but whatever description you have is going to be limited.

So it is possible the we can we can conceptual

realize God, but we can't, we can't fully encompass what God is. In essence, we can't say that what God is, and then any language will do justice to the attributes of God. So I totally agree with that. But having said this, what is required of human being is not to fully from the Islamic paradigm is not to fully kind of encapsulate or encompass what it is to be God, or what God is like, it's more so to conceptualize him on an abstract level, so that you can have some kind of relationship with him in your life. Right, basically the point of Islam. So going back to the metanarrative, Islam is basically saying that you have all these prophets and messengers, you know,

Abraham, Moses, Jesus that you've heard of, and you know, Sunday school, or whatever it may be, that you've done in the western experience, you know, Moses, and so on. And then we say that Prophet Mohammed came with the final message for all humankind, where it was all those kind of other prophets were kind of localized to those people. In times, we believe that Mohammed was for all peoples and all times. And that like every prophet, we believe that not only do they come with, they don't just come with

the message, which is to believe in one God and worshiping one God, this experience that you've had this innate in, you know, intuitive experience that you've had, that you reconnect with it, and know your purpose, which is to submit to this higher power. But not only this, but it's he, this messenger comes with

this set of proofs and evidences to, to make them credible in their communities. And it's usually something which the community is very aware of, and, and can be actually tested. So from the Islamic perspective, we believe that Prophet Mohammed, not only he came with the Quran, which is we obviously believe is the greatest miracle, but there was a set of miracles within the Quran, and outside of it also, that substantiated His Prophet here, or gave him credence, or gave him some kind of credibility. And so if someone comes out like yourself, or anybody else,

who who's investigating Islam as a coherent way of life, and potentially a way to, to to live your life, that wouldn't just be this narrow narrative that I'd be telling you now be, actually we've got a set of proofs, which we believe we can put forward to you, which will go further and by way of convincing you that Islam is true, right. I mean, yeah, I think the goal what Islam is attempting to do, they're doing very well, in fact, probably better than any other religion to be honest. It's, it's, it's, yeah, it's it's not very flawed at all, in terms of, you know, logic and rationality. Right. But I do believe that there is a way to know God, not completely, right. This is the idea of

absolute infinity is that it can never be fully known. Right? I think this is actually the beauty of reality is that because think about it, think if you really knew God, like completely somehow 100% Well, then what left is there? Right? That's kind of suck right? To me. Reality is, it's it's a flawed perfection. Right? Again, another paradox. But the kind of the point is that it's this journey of knowing, right? So you can know God more and more and more and more and more, but because God is absolutely infinite, it would it's takes infinite time to fully know God. And I think that's the beauty of it. Right? I would just say that.

abstractions, such as concepts, right, are limited, in the sense of knowing God. And a lot of people think that that is just the straight up limit. I believe that there are ways to go beyond that right to experience what profits have experienced, right? Because it seems like these profits have gone beyond the conceptual mind. Right? To me, I believe that these prophets were simply human beings, right? They weren't this absolute infinity, necessarily, like in human form, as we would we would think about it from a dualistic theist mind. But they were normal humans who just discovered on a deep level, what God was right. And I don't think that they needed any sort of religion to actually

do it. Because of course, God is within. And they found that within themselves. That makes sense. That's kind of Yeah, I mean, there's a lot that I agree with, like in terms of

profits having this in, they Intuit God and so on and so forth, and they experience God and that we can't, a lot of the things that we can't fully understand God, you know, I mean, I completely agree with those things. The one thing we would say is that profits, they the thing that distinguishes profits from the rest of human beings, is the fact that that God communicated with him directly.

He, he spoke to them through some kind of intermediary. So in the case of the majority of profits, it would be the angel Gabriel and the Islamic narrative. So the angel Gabriel would come as an angel,

if you take different forms that came and communicated, literally communicated through human language with prophets, and it was an experience that they went through. So for example, the prophet Mohammed there The story goes, he went to a cave pulled the hot head off, which was a cave that's still there. Now you can see in Mecca, and in Saudi Arabia, and he was he was meditating, like, you know, he was he had a meditative temperament, he used to go and basically pack some food, go up to the cave, and just basically reflect on God. I mean, there's a story when, and all of a sudden, he was seized by this angel. And he had these kind of experiences with this angel that would then say

to him, it could be some Arabic Allah de hallak. Literally, at first actually said, Epcot, which is read and the Prophet Mohammed was illiterate. So he was unlettered, he couldn't read, because that was the social media of the time was a kind of unlettered menu, for the most part in the Arab desert at that time in the seventh century. So he said, manna, behati, and I don't, I can't actually read. So he said, again, read and then he said, Man, or behala. And he said, for the third time read, and then the Prophet said, I can't read. And so then the, what we believe, is the first verses of the Quran were revealed to the Prophet, which is read in the name of your Lord who created created human

being from a clot read, human, read this crap.

The one who created human beings, McCloud, and the one who taught him by the pen. So two things that came down, and we believe the first revelation, which was that God created human beings from a clot,

Allah, Allah, and then after that, that he taught him with the pen.

So this was the first interaction the Prophet then the story goes, he went to his wife, which was Khadija she was actually his boss as well. Funny enough, she was, he used to work and trade and business. So she went to he went to his wife, and he explained to her what happened, this frightening experience that he kind of just went through. And she said, Don't worry, you know, God wouldn't, because they had the idea of God at the time, you know, because of the previous dispensations, you know, Judaism and Christianity and the Abrahamic religions. And so she said, God wouldn't punish you, because you're, you know, you do good with the orphans, your charitable person,

and you're a good person, you're known in the community for this and that, and she covered he said them bellinis, and he was shivering, and so on. And so she covered him, she covered him with with blankets. And this was the first this is the beginning of Revelation. And we believe that this took place for 23 years piecemeal. That bit by bit, the angel kept revisiting, the prophet kept revisiting the Prophet giving him more and more kind of verses to recite from the Quran, and so on, until we had the total the totality of the Quran, which is now 6236 odd verses or 600 pages, or 70,000. Words, whatever it may be. And that is the guidance for humankind in terms of how to live

and what to do in your life, and, and so on. So, basically, the idea of prophethood and slam is

the idea that an angel literally or that God communicates to you through an angel so that you can give guidance to human beings, to your community. And with the Prophet Mohammed, obviously, because we believe he was the final prophet, we believe that he was sent for all human beings, you know, I have some, like a, like a fatal illness we haven't sent you except for all of humankind, you know, and the Prophet said in his final speech, you know, there's no, there is no,

there's no virtue of a black person over a white person or a white person over a black person or an Arab over non Arab or non Arab over an Arab, except through virtue of through good deeds, and, and God consciousness, God consciousness. And so the whole idea really is a universal message, which is saying that this is a blueprint for how to live your life. And I think that's where a lot of Western people, especially because of kind of like the cultural evolution, the 60s, and after that, where it really just, it became quite widespread and liberalism became widespread. This is where a lot of people start tuning off, because they start thinking themselves, I don't want to live my life based

on organized religion, you know, but this is we believe it's actually quite liberating to do so. Because when you live your life through the guidance of God, you're submitting yourself to God in the most practical way possible. It's not it's not just a spiritual exercise, or a meditation that you do or something like that. It's actually a physical thing, how you interact, how you even clean yourself. I mean, it has such detailed kind of guidance, that we believe it's a practical way that God has given us for how to deal with life on a daily basis. I like it. Yeah.

There's a sense of submission that is very, very powerful. It's interesting, everyone kind of wants to be in control. And the Western world is plagued by this want this want for power, right? This one for control. But what people don't realize that we actually don't want control on the deepest level. Why? Because as humans, we're imperfect beings, right? And if we're all in control all the time, well, that's where chaos leads to, because we have these imperfect minds, right? But of course, submission to this higher power, and the allowance of this higher power to control us this higher power. That is perfection. Yeah, obviously, our lives are going to be much better. Right? And yeah,

I like that a lot for sure. I have an interesting question, though. So when we when we talk about angels, right? What exactly is an angel, right? Because I also think that it's, it's kind of dangerous to try and define what this angel is, because this angel is probably something that is also beyond logic and rationality as well. Right? It could be beyond all these systems of language that that we're talking about. So I think it's also people have to be wary of having this image of this angel in their mind, right? This ain't this image of this physical Angel, like, like someone in a Halloween costume that's flying down and doing some magic trick, you know what I mean? Yeah, um, I

think that this angel is a real thing. Right? But I think it's dangerous to try and understand that with a conceptual mind, just like it's dangerous to attempt to define God. Right? Would you say that I mean, it's a it's a metaphysical construct, we believe that angels were created from life, we believe that God created these angels, and that there are these creatures that that live with with us, really, they're part of the metaphysic of reality. And, and it's really interesting, because just because something is metaphysical doesn't mean that sometimes it can't be physical. So in the Islamic tradition,

there is an idea that the angel can take human form as well. So, so the angel would come in human form, sometimes to the prophet and to the companions, and speak to them, if not, it will come in a different form. So the angel can be come from the same perspective in different forms. And the purpose of the angel is that they basically have different functions. They are part of the system of the universe, they are invisible, you cannot see them. But they are part of the system, the university, they have different functionalities. For example, there's an angel that is discharged with particularly one job, which is to the installment of the embryo. For example, there's another

angel, which ironically takes away your life, you know, that will takes away your soul. And the soul is something once again, which is something we cannot put a finger on it. We don't know where it is what it is. And in fact, the Quran says this and it says yes, aluna, Canada, Rocco Rodman and Robbie, you know, they asked you about the soul say the soul is from the affairs of the Lord. And we don't know much about it, like what you're saying, We don't know. And you will not know much about it. Because once again, is its metaphysical, right? So we have we cannot put under a microscope and do experiments on it in that sense. Right? So from those angles, I totally agree. I mean, the

metaphysical world is the metaphysical world, right? Islam doesn't.

It doesn't judge people for not being able to conceptualize these things. Islam judges people for their ability to believe in those things. Like, you're rewarded for believing in the fact that there are angels and that there's a God that you can't see and that there is a soul that you can't see and that and so on. And in fact, that's one of the first things that I mentioned the Quran alladhina You mean una bella Hi, Abby, way, way up masala moroccanoil mucuna,

delicate keytab low ABV. This book has no doubt in it. You know who the LUMO Takeda is a guidance for those who are pious and Latina. You mean wanna be like the ones who are, they believe in the unseen, where you came on a Salah, and they and they do their prayers, we model the economy. And they are charitable with the monies that we provide for them. So

the the idea of you know, these things metaphysically a lot of people are kind of put off by them, because they feel like his legend or myth, or fairy tale, all these things. But the truth of the matter is, is lots of things even in this in the world of science that we live in, which can't we can't see, gravity is a force, but we don't see it. At the end of the day, gravity, we only know it through its effect. We have we have never seen gravity. But we all acknowledge it. And we all believe in it.

And if it's true that we can believe in something through just the effect of it. And there's almost consensus in the scientific community, but no one has seen this gravity no one has seen it, no one has put it under a microscope. Then the idea of believing in a God who created the universe. And having the same kind of reasoning from cause to effect is not something which is delusional as many new atheists would like to us to believe. And and we would say also, by extension,

All of those other metaphysical things, once again, if you've already shown a propensity to be able to believe something you cannot empirically See, which is for example, gravity,

then it's not really that much of a leap of faith to believe in, for example, angels and demons and heaven and hell, and God and all those things. Right? No, absolutely. Right. I guess to me, again, impossible to really conceptualize what an angel is, unless you experience it, I guess. Yeah. But I would say that, essentially, I mean, everything is God. Right. So essentially, this angel is a fragment of God, right? for a specific purpose, right.

And essentially, I guess that would would be, say, mahama would be as well. And it's so kind of all these fragments kind of coming together into one. Right? That's what you're saying. So this is this is something that obviously,

we don't believe in, okay, we don't believe that God is everywhere. In that sense, we essence, we believe that we don't believe that God is everyone is essence such that all of us have got or that we have an element of God. We believe that if this was the case, this would limit God going back to the question of limitation, because if this was the case, then our limitations would translate over to God's limitations, but in fact, God is transcendental in terms of his imposition, or his interaction with with creation, okay? So, okay, essence God is

transcendental. However, in terms of attributes, there is this idea in Islam of Maya, or being with God. So the being with God is through his attributes, and through his, through connection with him through connection with him. So even speaking to God, this is more natural, it's actually a system in Islam, of speaking to him or, or supplication, or even glorifying him or supplicating him. So these are all systems of interactivity where you can actually speak to God and haven't, we don't believe this aloof kind of God, you know, a deistic, God that just creates everything, and then just goes, you know, say goodbye, I'm not going to have any interaction with anybody. But of course, one

of my friends, he recently said something interesting, he said that, it's like this father that leaves the house or something like that, you know, I don't believe a God that, you know, create everything that says, you know, I'm just gonna leave now, because I'm not interested. We believe in a personal God, we do believe in a God that has an interaction,

meaningful interaction with human beings. But not that he, in his essence, in his, in his essence, just like you said, we can't even conceptualize God fully. So let alone to say that, you know, you know, my physical flesh is an instantiation of God, or my physical eyes and head and all that stuff, though. God is not something which you can physically touch like this. We believe that he's transcendental, that is above and beyond, in his essence, the

the kind of scientific method if you like, I see, I guess my argument would be that, yeah, if God could not be physical, if God could not not have a human existence, that would make God limited. Yeah, as I've said before, you know, with these things, like,

it depends on how we define what limitation is, right? So if we say that limitation is God is being

God is all powerful. So his, so limitation in this context would be if he cannot instantiate that power, if there's if there's a deficiency in his power, if he loses power, or becomes weak, or any of those things, God is always there. In other words, he's pre eternal is posted tunnel. So a limitation would be, for instance, that he's born, because this would mean that he is no longer eternal. He's somehow has a date of birth, any person that you can point to and say, This person has a date of birth, we will say this cannot be God, because this person has a date of birth, whereas God does not have a date of birth, and so on and so forth. And with this idea, as well. So remember,

we're dealing with necessary attributes, attributes that had they been any other way? Or would they be any other way? This would crumble the idea of God in front of our faces, that the idea of God would no longer be tenable? Because that would just be something that is changing.

immutable, corrigible creature, right?

Yeah, right. Now, of course. God is so powerful, and so indescribable. What if it was possible for God to be both physical and non physical to be born, but also eternal? Right, to be mortal, but also immortal? What if God was that powerful, where he could go beyond logic and rationality? And actually be all of those things? at once? Right, what if I could be here and not be here at the same time? What if you aren't, you know? Well, what if that's true? Yeah, you know, that kind of thing.

If I said to you, I'm not here. Oh, you're not speaking to me. Well, what was that in your mind? What would you say? would you think if I said that to you?

I'd say the most speaking to you right now, I'm not saying anything. Right? I would say that's true. I would say that you don't exist nor not exist. Right. But you the idea is that just like Google showed, right with it live paradox is like, this is even though it's not even like that, it's because in this case, if I say I'm not here, that would be a contradiction in terms, right? Yeah. within the realm of logic. Yes, of course, from an existential nature, it wouldn't be right. I mean, God, God created everything. Right. But But you could say that your existence right now, maybe isn't as real as as God, right? Because it's a creation of God, it's some sort of abstraction from God,

because you are not God, right? You're saying that, right? So in a sense, you would be living in a more illusory world than God is. Right? So in the sense that this world would be some sort of illusion, yet, of course, it's extremely real to you. So there's this duality between reality and illusion that can collapse, right? And it's neither real nor not real. I think when you go deep enough, you'll find that everything about reality, it's either that nor not that. That's what I'm talking about reality is this giant paradox. It is this giant contradiction. We're just uncomfortable with contradictions, because we're in the realm of logic, right? So reality isn't even

infinite nor not infinite, right? It's black nor white, right? It's this singularity of of grayscale. Right. And I think that's the issue that everyone is thinking in this, this black and whites. This is how we've been raised to think since we were, we were kids, and it's so difficult to snap out of the conceptual mind. But I think that it's possible to have these two sides of the dualities collapse into one. But this can't be done with the conceptual mind, because the conceptual mind can only think and dualities. So it has to be a deeper intuition. it's it's it's seeing the context, not the content. It's kind of like this reading in between the lines, that is completely

ineffable. Right. It's like trying to talk talk to a blind man about what color is, right. Of course, a blind man could never know it's telling someone who's never eaten an apple, what an apple tastes like, right? Yeah, I think that's the idea. But from my experience, reality doesn't have to be one side of the duality or the other. It can be both and neither at the same time, it's just in something impossible to conceptualize. But then again, we know that God is impossible to conceptualize. Yeah, I understand what you're saying. But the issue is that if we eliminate logic from the conversation, then everything becomes impossible to elaborate. So as I say, for example, if

I, if I say, Look,

I don't want to make a logical argument, because it's possible that we can speak.

We can speak outside of the realms of logic. In other words, we can make sense. We can we can call here if you like, right? Even even

without the rules of logic being in it, but then if we make that argument, we'll be making a logical argument. Do you see the point? So

inescapable escapable, that is, grammar and logical two best friends. grammar and logic are in fact,

the two sides of the same coin. Because if you want to speak in any language, not just English, but in any language, there is a systemized you know, set of conventions that we're speaking with, right? And if we really believe that, logic is not important, or should not feature in a conversation, or that we can live without it, whatever. growl would would crumble, civilization will crumble, communication would crumble, and almost everything else would come home. And you could not make an argument for logic without using logic. And that would be that would be the ultimate circularity. Right, exactly. That's why everything I say, is not true. That's why it's so hard, right? Because

we're used to, like have these debate debates to determine things. Yeah. And that's not the best way to know right? The best way to know is simply

silence, right. Ramana Maharshi. That's why he taught that's why he taught in silence. He was silent all the time, unless someone really, really, like begged him to speak to him. Right that sorry. Ramana Maharshi. He is a, I believe he's a great Indian sage, right, someone who has been known by that culture to have known God, directly, so much. So I mean, from from a very young age to really an incredible story, if you look up Ramana Maharshi, but he's, he's kind of this ancient guru. But the ultimate teacher is really silence. The ultimate teacher goes beyond logic, and rationality. Of course, you can't just do that to someone who has never experienced any sort of knowing beyond the

conceptual mind. You have to kind of inch them in the right direction with the right sort.

of concepts, right? But you'll find like, as you go deep enough into this logic and rationality, it just becomes circular. It becomes this giant contradiction, this giant paradox. And you either accept that and push a little deeper, or you just have to admit that you can't know. And that's what most people do is they just admit, well, that's as far as logical logic and rationality goes, so I can't know. Right? Yeah, I once again, this idea of the fitrah in Islam is something which we could even turn supranational. So something that is aside from the rational, like, there's an entire kind of story or narrative in Islam, about how this came about, which is mentioned in the seventh

chapter, I believe in the 100. And maybe 17th verse, I'm not sure where it is exactly what the Quran where it says

that God took basically, all of the souls of humankind were in front of God, and that he

had this interaction with them.

And he said, LS to be Rob become, I might not your Lord. So he had this kind of question answer interaction calu Bella shahina. And then they said, Yes, we better we better monitor. In other words, every single soul of every single human being, has the metaphorically speaking here, the signature of God in it. And this is the term of Rene Descartes, the signature, the autograph, he is of the autograph of God in it, every single soul of the human being, your soul, my soul, everyone so, so that when such soul is put back into the body, through the installment, period, say after 40 days of it being in the womb of the mother, we believe

that what happens is, human being is born into a state of consciousness, consciousness of God. And all they require is reminder. And that's why the Quran is actually referred to as the reminder, because it awakens that reset that that that, that fitrah, or that disposition that we originally had.

The idea of Islam is not necessarily just to give demonstratable proofs or cosmological argument or fine tuning arguments, and those are good as well, we can speak about them as well, but what we believe is one of the most self evident ways of proving God's existence is the experience. So the Quran when it's coming now, to remind humankind, it refers to itself as the IQ, or the reminder. So it's, it's trying to jog your memory, if you like, yeah, have it in there that you believe in a higher power and a creator and so on. The neurons job is to jog your memory and to remind you, of your initial purpose, your T loss, and your tedious or your original purpose is that you may worship

or submit to God and that is the way you will be. Some people say we want to be one with nature, you know, this is you'll find a lot in eastern tradition that the idea of being synchronized with with nature, and this is where Nirvana will be achieved, or something like this Islamic conception is that the only way to be one with nature is to do what everything in nature is doing, which is submitting to the laws of God.

And one thing that God gave us, we believe, which is different from the rest of the objects in nature, is he gave us freewill.

Whereas an angel, or let's say, even celestial objects in spheres, they have no choice but to submit to the laws of God.

God distinguished human being, by giving them this intuition of freewill, where we, we seem like we have this decision to make, and then reminds that individual with their purpose, and cause them to that purpose, such that if they, if they come to that purpose, if they come to that purpose, they will be higher than everything else in creation, even the angels or even the objects in space, and so on. Because all of those objects in space and nature, they haven't had to make a decision, or they haven't used their free will or volition, in order to come to a conclusion of God and worshiping God, and so on. Whereas human being has, and so he is elevated above and beyond the

status of all of those existences in the world. Whether it's an animal, or animal, wherever it may be, that have no choice but to submit themselves to the power of the will of God we believe. So

the the crux here is, if one,

if one remembers what their purposes and their calling is in life and responds to that calling, then they become the believers that are illuminated with the light of God. And if

If one decides to cover themselves with illusion and delusion and doubt, then they become those who are trying to ignore the calling of God.

I agree. Yeah. Um, yeah, I believe that most people are caught in this illusion. And there's something that's trying to get them to remember. I love it. I've never heard of that before. What was that called? You had like a word for it. This remembering. Yeah. So the initial state is called the fifth law. And it's an Arabic word meaning usually

the disposition the innate predisposition.

And then the the the Quran is referred to as the Vic or the the remembrance. So it's kind of like and this is beautiful in the Quran, by the way.

And there's one verse in the Quran, which is one of the most powerful verses the Quran

which is in chapter 24 of the Quran.

And, and the verse, let me just read it out for you, because I think we get it for you quickly. I don't want to I don't want to get this wrong.

All right.

It's in chapter 24.

And verse 35. Okay, so let me let me read out for you, I think you you enjoy it because, okay, cool, cool.

This is one of like, this is a verse that many commentators have spent their whole lives kind of trying to study. It says Allah Who knew somehow what you loved, Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth. The Parable of his light, is as if there were a niche. And within a lamp, the lamp is in a glass, the glass, as it were brilliant star, lit from a blessing tree and olive neither, neither of the East, nor the West, gets a sunrise only in the afternoon, while it's exposed to the sun all day long, whose oil will almost glow forth of itself, though no fire has touched it, light upon light, a light guides to his light whom He wills. And Allah sets forth parables for mankind.

And the light is all Knower of everything. The idea here, method of inquiry, he can chemists get this niche. A lot of scholars have said this, you know, it's like a niche, it's like a lamp inside it, is the human heart. So we're talking about the heart now, which is protected with the ribs, and it's illuminating with light.

And that God is also light. And that there is an interactivity between the light that we all have inside of us, and the light, who is God. And when God sends forth his, his revelation, it becomes light upon light.

So it's this combination is compounded light. Yeah, and this is the experience, we as Muslims, we should be feeling. I mean, I, you know, and it's cool. There's actually a phenomenon referred to as Hello, amen, which is the sweetness of faith. When you are in this spiritual state, where you're really connecting with God, and you are really calling for God yearning for him, or prostrating to him. Because prostration is one of the most powerful positions from a Muslim perspective,

this phenomenon of hello to the man or the sweetness of Eman, it becomes expounded. And it compounds to the point where you literally can almost you're talking about tasting the apple, you can almost taste if you want to call it the apple yourself, you can taste it, it's literally sweet. There's a sweetness to it.

And this can only be achieved through real submission, pure submission, knowing your place in the universe, and knowing what the your plays in conjunction with the creator of the universe.

And so in that sense, it's a first person subjective experience, but it's a very, very powerful experience. And one that, in many ways, although it's not demonstrable, in the same way is maybe one of the arguments of fine tuning the column or the contingency argument or, you know, arguments will Prophethood or whatever.

This is

a way where you can directly have an interactivity with God, where you know, that there is a connection, just like if you call somebody now, maybe your friend or your partner or whoever, and you speak to them, you know, they're on the other side, although, although they're not physically there. When we're in the prayer and we're prostrating and we're bowing and all of these things, are repenting, even coming back to God after we've committed sin or whatever it may be. This is that kind of connection. Actually, the word Salam comes from the Arabic word Silla, which means connection. So it's like we have a WhatsApp connection with God through prayer. Or, you know,

telegram, WhatsApp, social media.

But instead we have that connection with God. I love it. That's awesome. I think that the world would be a much better place when people focus on these direct experiences, rather than these clashing beliefs. You know? Yeah, I get your point, man. Yeah. I love it. I love it. That's awesome. So I do have an interesting question, though. So yeah, you have this right there, there still is a separation right? between you. Right? And then God. So this might be difficult question, but what are you? You know, I mean, like, how do you define yourself? Right? Like what you are, what is your sense of self? So from the Islamic perspective, we are combination of things. A lot of people just

say us duality or dualism. They say like, a lot of Islamic philosophers have said this. Mind Body dualism, but the truth is, is much more complex than that. So we believe that we are a body, yes, we believe in the body. We believe in the mind. Now, where is the mind? Is it just in the brain? We don't believe it's just in the brain, for sure. We believe that there's a first person subjective experience there, that there must be some kind of connection between the heart, the actual physical lump inside of your chest. Which by the way, quite interestingly, recently, they they've discovered in this heartmath Institute, they discovered something called the little brain in the heart or

something like this in the 80s. They were writing peer reviewed journals and stuff, talking about how the highest self has neurons and the capacity to kind of Oh, absolutely, yeah, yeah, you might have come across this yourself. Oh, yeah. Real quick. It's really interesting. So they've done studies, right? When they do like heart transplants, there's so many interesting stories, they'll do a heart transplant, and the person that got the new heart will start behaving Yes, the person that they got the transplant from, it's incredible. There's not just this massive intelligence in our brain, but our mat, this massive intelligence, especially in our heart, but really just just

everywhere and our whole body, it's the mind and body are one and it's it's very, it's very beautiful. Absolutely. And, you know, there is something called heart blindness in the Islamic understanding,

based on this understanding of the verse where it says that, you know, it's not the eyes that go blind, this the hearts within the chest, that goal so that there is a, if you want even call it cognition, but it's not just cognition is a presence is conscientiousness of the heart. So it's an interactivity of the brain, yes, but the brain and the heart, and the soul, and all of it comes together in a perfect harmony. And it's like a, it's like a show, almost like, you know, it's all coming together. And it's interacting. It's not just a dualism of mind, body, you know, this much more complex than that. When you're in a state of meditation, okay, when you're in a state of, we

believe, oneness with God, and when you call in God, and, and you're asking him for guidance, and so on, all of these things kind of come together, they congregate, they congregate in submission to the ultimate light, which is, we believe God is not as similar to love, literally, as the verse says that he is the light of the heavens and the earth. And his light is metaphoric by in this verse, but it's also something which is, in many ways, literal as well. Something which is powerful, and which goes straight to the heart.

I love it. Wow, that's beautiful. Yeah, that's, that's, that's awesome. I love it. You know, that's, it's such a, it seems like such a deeper experience than most people are used to, you know, at least most people in, in my culture, right? The the culture of the Trinity, you know, it's all in their mind. That's it, they can't get out of their mind. That's, that's, that's everything right? I mean, jeez, the hustle and bustle of society, the stress, the anxiety, everyone's caught in their mind, right. And they couldn't even fathom some sort of experience like that, where this this intelligence lines up in the whole body, not just the mind, right? That's such an interesting experience that

most people could not even fathom is some sort of cognition that's beyond the brain. Right? That's in the scientific community. It's like, that's it. The brain houses everything. Yes, it houses everything. here's the here's the interesting analogy that I like to make, right? Because there has to be some sort of intelligence beyond the body, some intelligence that actually gives rise to the body. Think about a dream, right? When you're in a dream, your mind is creating the entire dream, right? Everyone will admit that your mind is creating the dream, you don't know how it's creating the dream, right? But your subconscious mind is creating the entire dream. And you understand this

when you become lucid in the dream. Now, science, the scientific community.

You mentioned lucid dreams are something that you're into. Yeah, absolutely, man. lucid dreams are great. I mean, I think lucid dreaming is a great way to kind of get in touch with reality as well, and kind of realize the similarities between like dreaming and reality, right? That it's not just some physical process, you know. And so, when when you become lucid in the dream, you realize that the whole mind is creating the dream. And scientists will say, Oh, well, all of that is just happening within the brain, but not the dream brain. Does that make sense? So if you're sitting in a dream and you reach inside, and feel your

Brain, that brain that you're feeling in the dream is not creating the entire dream. Right? So with that same analogy, and of course you could you could argue that dreams are different from reality. But, but but it's interesting to think about, well, what if this brain right is not creating this reality? Right? God is creating this reality and the brain is just an experience of reality. It's an appearance in reality, and of course it has its place, right? Because the earth is endless. The universe is physical, but also not physical. Right. There's this interesting. Yeah, so you're kind of alluding to solipsism. I'm not sure if you've come across this idea of the brain of that. Right.

Yeah. No, yeah, I don't solve system is absolutely yeah, I guess I wouldn't say I'm alluding to that per se right. Now, of course, you can't really argue against it. It's impossible. solecism right, there is nothing you can never experience anything beyond socialism. I like to think of solipsism not as a truth or untruth. But as a description of your reality, right. And you'll find that I think the deeper you go, you realize that it can't be really solipsism, nor not solipsism, right? It's awesome on the one case, because your direct experience is all that you'll ever have. Right? And of course, that's what it is. But yet, there's this incredible complexity of other minds. And those

minds are, you can experience those minds being just as real as you, even if they're in your mind, they're still a different mind. Right? Like that other mind still exists, even if it's part of your mind, and then you'll start getting into Wow, it's kind of all one mind, right? It's the mind of God. Right. And there's, I mean, his his what we would say, like in terms of, there's actually we've got a theology of this. And in terms of sleeping, I think, and dreaming is really powerful. It's a really powerful way. I mean, Freud himself has written a book on dreams. But he obviously attributes it to that he has this thing of the ego, the super ego, and he attributes it to the unconscious

mind. And that's why it's part of his hypnosis, and free association and so on. But in the Islamic understanding, although that does have something to play, I mean, the unconscious mind is one of the reasons why we have dreams. And in fact, there's a hadith that goes to that fact, there's something else, which is the fact that when human beings lose consciousness, and they fall asleep, from the Islamic perspective, they literally, the soul leaves their body at that point, leaves their body, they're detached from the body. So the state of unconsciousness is a state which is categorized or characterized, sorry, from the Islamic perspective as

the leaving of the soul from the body. And so that is why the Prophet said that basically, sleep is the brother of death. Because when you're sleeping, and when you're dying, the same processes effectively taking place, but in two different ways. When you're sleeping, the process is that your soul comes out of your body, and then it comes back in. Effectively when you regain consciousness. Even if you sleep, Bowman's for a very short period of time. When you're when you're dying, the same exact thing happens. But the only thing is that your body decays for a long time because your soul is suspended from the body. And then from the Islamic perspective, once again, it is reunited with

the body, but in the Day of Judgment. So there's there's a longer transition period, the same state is the state is the same. So even from a scientific perspective, you say this, we can say or, especially with consideration to the first person subjective experiences that we have. When we do sleep, we lose consciousness. When we lose consciousness, we have experienced dreams. When we experience dreams, how real are these dreams? I mean, I've experienced this kind of hallucination dreams, which I feel like I'm in a place. I don't know. I don't know if you've taken this. A lot of people talk about psychedelics nowadays. I'm not sure if you've Have you tried to? Of course, I've

done my fair share. I've never I've never done it. Ask about that. Because you know, to be honest, when I just did what they just like three or four days ago, I've never had any recreational drugs in my life. Yeah, honestly. Wow. Yeah. No, I've never had drinking or any intoxication, anything like because it's not allowed in the religion. That's why I've never I've never done it in my 29 years. But the other day, honestly, like two weeks ago, I had this I was sleeping. But honestly, it felt like I was what I thought was happening. Like, the stars were falling on me. The stars were falling on me like it was I felt like it was real. I honestly thought, and then I woke up and I was like,

Whoa, man, was that real? Or not? Like, I didn't even know the difference? Where am I? What reality Am I in? Right? It was I don't know if psychedelics make you feel like that? Because Joe Rogan keeps talking about in his podcast, is it.

You can't even put it into a category like that. Right? depending on how much you do in which kinds and even what spiritual state that you're in. It can be it it's indescribable, right? It's, it's you can have experiences that are beyond the conceptual mind that are impossible to Yes, yes. Is it kind of like what I'm describing? Oh, absolutely. I mean, Oh, for sure. Right. Sure. But of course, it can go even deeper than that. Right? It can get absolutely insane, right. And so what's your number one experience with that? We're sorry, just two

It gets crazy, man, it gets so crazy. I mean,

you know, one of my first ever experiences one of my big breakthrough experiences on psychedelics was it was this substance known as I Alaska. Have you heard about Alaska? No. Okay, I lost the, the substance is called DMT dimethyltryptamine. Have you heard of that? Yeah, yeah, I've heard of it. So it's the oral version of dimethyltryptamine. You have to take it with a mono amine. oxidase, I believe, I believe mono amine oxidase inhibitor, right. So all of these regions, yeah. hallucinogenic? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Now I have an interesting concept about hallucinations, right? Because from a first person perspective, essentially, right. Everything is just like hallucinations.

Right as the point yeah. But yeah, but so the craziest experience I really had was some sort of weird, it. You can't really call it reincarnation because it was I came back in the same body. Right? But essentially an absolute complete, utter ego death, right, where I became absolute nothingness. Okay, so no thoughts. It no recollection of who I was just infinite presence. And then I was all of a sudden, this was a nowhere, right, and then all of a sudden, I come back, and I'm in my body. But I'm in my body experiencing the world as if I were a baby, right. So I actually had the experience of being a baby and looking at the world, I was looking up the stars and at this

beautiful scenery in the desert, but I had no recollection of what anything is that how did that feel? How did that feel for you? Oh, no, this is the thing. So it's realer than than real, right? This is why it's what people who have had these experiences can't call them hallucinations, because it makes this feel like a hallucination. It's essentially from it's like you're in 2d. Okay? Imagine your whole life is in 2d. And then all of a sudden, you experienced 3d. Well, how can you say that the 3d is a hallucination? No, no, it's like, Whoa, no, no, that the 2d is just a finite abstraction of this 3d. Right. That's your point. So it feels more real than what you're now? Oh, yeah,

absolutely. And it was incredible. It felt like all of a sudden, I was this just blank slate of a purely blank mind. And then all my memories started flowing in for me, I wouldn't know, I could have been born on that day. And I wouldn't have known right, that day, I could have just had all my memories and ideas of the past my sense of self come to me right, then, like, and I wouldn't know the difference, right. And that could have been the day that like the universe was created, you know, like, I wouldn't know any difference. And so that was really the most profound experience, I would say. And then I've had, you know, many, many, many, since then that are, so that is like the

deepest that I can explain with words. Okay, so that's the one that I can you can conceptualize that kind of, but there are other ones that are just so beyond concept that it wouldn't even make sense to talk about, right. But um, yeah, like, Yeah, man, I mean, of course, like idea. So like, so from an Islamic paradigm, there's a way of explaining all of this. So the soul is was going through all these experiences, right. So obviously, on a materialist or naturalistic approach, a physicalist approach that says all the brain and they'll give you MRI scans of how your brain kind of interacts. And when it's on DMT, for example, how it how it kind of activates, compared to when it's not on

DMT, for instance, and as I look, everything is fired up, and it looks like everything is fired up, and they'll explain it like that. But for us, that's a very insignificant kind of it's, it's a it's not a good explanation. But for us, we believe that there's a soul in the human being. And the way to explain these experiences, whether you're sleeping, whether you have in one of your DMT experiences, psychedelic drugs, all of it is the same thing. This is literally, it comes out of the body. And it goes through it goes to a place which we refer to as barza, which is exactly the same place where it goes when it when it dies with when you die, you're not just cease being right, the

soul will be go to another place. And it will experience a reality, just like you've just said that you've experienced reality that in your words was more real than what we're going through. Now. In many ways, it was this reality that you're going to go through is an objective reality, which will be as real as what we're talking about right now. And it will be one where literally, you're confronted with your actions, whether you have been a good person, you'll be confronted with that and the angels will come once again, interrogating you what what did you believe in and this and that and what you're good person or bad person, and there will be an entire kind of thing that will

take place before what we refer to as a day of judgment takes place. So I think when this whole thing of psychedelics has opened up to people, the possibilities of of the soul being a reality because they're not convinced a lot people are becoming less and less convinced with these physicalist interpretations as all the brain because they know that this is something which is deeper than that.

Absolutely, yeah, I think it's I think it goes even deeper than that. I don't think it's one way or the other, I think this is the brilliance of reality is that it's really impossible to understand what the conceptual mind, but it's this, it has, you know, what a strange loop is, essentially is sort of this hierarchical structure where, you know, there's this, it could be an object that's both, like, inside and outside at the same time, or it's kind of like a hierarchical structure where a is greater than b is greater than c is greater than a. And so like the Penrose triangle is an idea of a strange loop and you that can't really exist in like the 3d world. But that doesn't mean that

it doesn't exist. And essentially, reality, you'll find that reality is this type of strange loop where not only is the universe, in the brain, but the brain is also in the universe, right? It's not really like one or the other. It's this incredible singularity of presence in oneness. That's, that's really, really interesting. But the thing is, is that it helps for people to see the entire coin, they first need to see the other side of the coin, and then they can see the whole coin. So most people will just see this as this physical universe. So it helps them to talk about the perspective of this being some sort of mental creation. And then the next level is just it kind of

comes all together, and you realize it's really both. And that's the beauty behind it, right? It's actually this perfect design that is so powerful, and so infinite, that is just impossible to really comprehend with the normal human mind. Well, is there a powerful what you've said, and I think you've opened up a lot of our horizons and given us a lot of insights.

And look, it's been a pleasure having you on this podcast at any time you want to come and ask us any questions you can and I'm going to be sending you a couple of things over to if you just send me an email or something like that. I'll send you some, some materials some of the books that we've written some of the materials are like the Quran, you can read a translation that one of my friends had just completed most of our hottub and other things that hopefully will be of use to you. But have you got any like questions before we go or anything that you were wondering? No, I think that's pretty much it. Man. I really enjoyed the conversation It was a very it was just an awesome

conversation you know I you know I love love talking about this it's refreshing to see people that now that I think a lot of people now are moving away from nightmare the whole new atheist materialist kind of it's not satisfying people and absolutely not. Yeah, I think you're definitely on the right track man. This is so refreshing to have these kinds of conversations with people that go beyond the okay like standard evidences new new atheist jargon and stuff like that, man. Exactly. You realize that stuff is limited, man. So yeah, I love it. Hopefully, I you know, my I think your followers are gonna be much more open to this than mine. Mine are still I changed my content

recently. So it's tough trying to explain these concepts to such egoic materialist. I used to be a fitness dude who just like worked out and was all about like the body and stuff like that. And that's who my fans are. So it'll be awesome to have someone who has this like authority that you do in the more like spiritual realm right believe video three.

Buffalo is the video for Eli. Lilly. Oh, they should man they should.

Intellectual man, you you talk about this stuff in a in a really articulate way that I really appreciate. Yeah. Well, thank you very much, man. I think that definitely when you have a dance partner like you, it's gonna be easier, isn't it? That like, you know, obviously, you gave us like this whole psychedelic thing. I've always actually wanted to ask someone about it. I've never had an opportunity to do that before. Oh, yeah, man. Of course I I definitely recommend it. It's just you need to combine it with spirituality, people will do psychedelics, and just do it to do it. It's not like that, right? It's essentially the same thing as taking some sort of anabolic steroid, when

without working out at all. Have you done before as well? I actually haven't. That's the thing I actually like to do so far. Yeah, no one. No one believes me about that. But I'm actually haven't you know, I used to be a lot bigger. I used to be very obsessive about working out. But now I've kind of I found a balance. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. Well, it's been a pleasure. Yeah, of course, man. Anytime you know, a house is your house, man, as they say. Awesome. Sounds good, man. Hopefully, we're gonna put this up. And you could take any part of it. You want to put on your channels on there. Cool. So that's probably the best idea is just to take one segment, maybe a few minutes. Yeah. And just promote your podcast. Yeah. Fantastic. Thanks so much, man. Yeah, of course. Where can I find your podcasts to get like put on my channel? my YouTube channel. Okay, perfect. Yeah. Awesome. So this video will be on your channel. Yeah, sure. Awesome. Hell yeah. We appreciate it. Man. Thank you so much for having

appreciate you, man. See that man. Take care.