1992-August-7

Muslim Journal

"Dealing With Money Problems" For The Common Person": Part 2
• Liberated Heart
• Liberated Vision

Imam W. Deen Mohammed


(This article has been prepared for Muslim Journal's readers by Imam W. Deen Mohammed. It is prepared from his public address given in Dallas, Texas on Saturday, May 23, 1992 at the Dallas Convention Center.) 

Say you had a child and something separated you from that child. The child had no way of making a connection with you, but you had a way of making a connection with the child. Still you could not get that child to be aware of you as its parent. We know God can do anything, but God also has some laws He established in His relationship with His creatures.

Even if that child heard your name, it may say, "I don't care anything about that person." But will that change your feelings for that child? No. Even if the child said you did not exist or cursed the name. The child has been separated and has no direct way of communicating back. Also the child is not believing the communicating that is coming from others. But that is your child and you love him still.

If you had the power, you would help that child and would be with that child. Whenever you saw that child doing something that merited a better condition in its life, whether the child knew you or not or perceived you correctly or not, you would give it credit for what it merited. If the child did kindness by another human being or by another child you would give it credit for that. If the child woke up and brushed its teeth and kept itself clean, you would give it credit for that. That is the God I know.

You don't have to know God by His Name. You don't have to love the God others communicate to you. But if you be good, God knows the relationship is broken. If you try to be good you are going to get help from God just as though you know (accept) God. That is God. How can God be any other? If God is any other, he is not a good god.

We know there are times when people will give good advice over and over again. But sometimes the circumstances will not permit anybody to help you. You loose faith in everything and will say, "I can't trust anything but myself." And really you cannot even thrust yourself. When we get in that condition we are not really trusting ourselves, we are just putting up with ourselves. It's as if saying, "Hell, I can't escape myself. So I will put up with myself." I have experiences with people like that. They don't trust themselves and don't trust anything else neither, but they have to live with themselves. So it appears that they are trusting themselves when they are not.

An article was in the Chicago Tribune of May 14th on unemployment. It didn't just present the bad picture or the bad state; it also tried to give some answers. That is the kind of treatment of problems that we can appreciate. We should not appreciate people just giving us a problem or telling us about a problem and not trying to help us with that problem.

You don't need a doctor who will tell you that you are sick and then do no more. You have an appointment and ask the doctor, "Can you do me some good?" That doctor then answers, "Yes I can. You are sick. In fact, you are all messed up and I don't know how long you are going to live like that. You know a lot of people are out there sick like you. Would you like to hear some statistics? That will be $50, and I'll see you next week." You don't want a . doctor like that.

Let me say something else now in another direction. The human heart, our heart, is very special. It is especially when we understand or perceive the human heart as a free heart. The expression "free heart" means giving freely. To say "he is a free hearted person" means that he is a giving or caring person. I don't mean it in that sense.

I mean free as a once slave is free or as a free thinker is free. I mean free liberated heart. We are given a free heart because we are individuals with freedom of thought. The Bible does not only mention thinking, it mentions also thinking in connection with the heart: "As a man thinketh in his heart". (The Bible.)

This is a poetic picture. You are thinking in your mind but your heart is governing that activity. So you are thinking in your heart or with your heart dictating. I find that most people think in their hearts. I find when people think well of me, it is because their hearts favor me, and when people think ill of me, it is because their hearts do not favor me.

The human being is a creature created by God to have free vision, liberated vision, liberated perception that goes outside of his small confines like the sun appearing to rise up out of the earth to rise above ever-thing below and around. The human heart with its sensitivities is like that. It can rise from its small confines and perceive by some light what is beneath it and all around. It gains a broad vision and its sensitivities begin to reach not only that little small body it rose from but also reaches the whole world.

Now, if that heart loses the original nature given to it, but still has that freedom, that is going to open a way to the most tormented existing heart conceivable on this earth or in creation. In time it is going to become the most miserable heart of all the creatures. Freedom is too big a responsibility for any creature without support from something bigger than creation itself. So you say, "Oh, here he comes with God!" You can call It what you want. I said "Something."

We know we don't see anything out there in the physical world that has the freedom we have. The sun is definitely more important to the world for keeping us alive, et cetera. We know that. The sun is much more important in the long run or for any part of time. But we know the sun is not free. The sun is locked in "a cell". All it can do is rotate and make its designated circular runs. In the space that the sun is given by God, it is only circling in obedience to that plan.

Then look at us. We can turn around, walk up and down. We can change our movements. We can stop our movements. If the sun stops its movement, it would be all over for the planets in the sun's system. We are free and have advantage over everything created.

The animals are not "free". Although animals are free to move, animals are locked in. Their behavior is limited to and already defined by instinct. They cannot go out of the limits of their animal instincts, unless we train them to do so. Even so, animals cannot be trained to do anything that would make us believe that they have evolved above the level of being instinct-controlled creatures.

The human being is not governed entirely by instinct. We have come out of that mold and are free to change reality. The animals have never changed reality. They go crazy but they leave reality the way it is. Now, don't think they don't go crazy. We will go crazy in the house and then make the house crazy. The teacher will go crazy and make the students crazy. The preacher will go crazy and will make the congregation crazy. When we go crazy, we change reality.

As it is with the human freedom of mind, freedom of thought, the heart is so powerful as an influence, it governs our mind, whether we know it or not. You don't devote your mind to something until your heart is drawn to it. This free, thick, powerful heart of ours is too much for us to manage without the help of something bigger than this material reality. If you can accept that, then a new door has opened for you that was not there before. It is a door of hope. It is a door of new perception and new opportunities.

Just that should change your perception of yourself and the perception of the reality for you in any given situation. It is the same whether you are alone with yourself or at home with your relatives or out on the job with somebody or in the public streets. It will be the same wherever you are, whether it is in good circumstances or bad circumstances. Thinking now in that way should change the way you look at yourself and the external world.

Note:
Whatever state the "free heart" is in, the heart is dictating. Whether from love molds, fear molds, greed molds, envy molds, hate molds, or others the "free heart" is dictating to human minds.

To be continued__(Next week: "Motivation")
