Daheshist Ideology: Spiritual Causality and Divine Justice Part 2
Spiritual Causality and Divine Justice according to Daheshist concepts
As portrayed through “Strange Stories and Wonderful Tales,” by Dr. Dahesh
Excerpts taken from an article published in Dahesh Voice magazine, Vol. 1, No. 4, 1996.
By: Dr. Ghazi Brax
Divine Justice and Reincarnation
In the previous issue I dealt with certain aspects of Spiritual Causality and Divine Justice and deferred dealing with the principle of reincarnation until this issue—as depicted by these unique stories in their enjoyment and benefit.
Life is full of events that are difficult to understand and that baffle our intelligence. Many human beings are born blind, disabled, or inflicted with an incurable disease! Such individuals come to this world in bodies that carry the burden of their unlucky fate and before even experiencing good or evil! Many righteous human beings face many difficulties and die young! Many immoral individuals face little difficulties and live long! Many tyrant rulers or oppressive criminals are fortunate! Many individuals with a good heart are unfortunate! What are the faults of newborn babies to live a life of pain and misery? What are the faults of orphans that lose their lives by the evil instruments of war? What are the faults of the innocent people—in every era and location—that lose their lives in fires, floods, and earthquakes? All of these calamities take on an appearance that seems to contradict Divine Justice. This drove many individuals—even the righteous and pious of every era—to take on a stance of bewilderment and when they are unable to come up with an answer, they would succumb to the Will of God and declare their inability to unlock the secrets of His Wisdom—which is not subject to any science; or they would have doubts in Divine Justice and get sucked into the current of atheism.
However, is it reasonable for God—Who is Just and Merciful—to withhold from people the answers to these critical questions? No! For He gave the correct answer in all religions either in a clear and detailed form or in an alluded to and brief form—for reasons known only to Him—as well as inspired many philosophers, writers, and thinkers about it throughout the ages. This answer is: the principle of reincarnation. The main three religions of India, namely, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism are all with teachings based on reincarnation. The followers of these religions are over one billion, which is about one-fifth of Earth’s human population. Likewise, Jews at the time of Lord Christ used to believe in reincarnation and traces of their beliefs appeared in the Talmud and also became an essential component of the Cabala—the ancient Jewish tradition of mystical interpretation of the Bible—that the Pharisees believed in and was taught by the Jewish philosopher Philo Judaeus (20 BC - AD 50), who was born in Alexandria, Egypt, and his influence was significant in its famous philosophical school. Likewise, the New Testament affirms that the Disciples of Christ used to believe in reincarnation and many of the sayings of Christ reflect the reality of reincarnation (See John 9: 1-3; Matthew 5: 48, 11: 13-15, 12: 32, 17: 10-13: Revelation 17: 10-13). Even though the principle of reincarnation is not as detailed in the New Testament as with the ancient religions of India, nonetheless, it left a significant trace in the teachings of the fathers of the early church like Origen and in many old and new Christian beliefs. In the Qur’an there are many verses that affirm reincarnation and led to the establishment of many Islamic sects with reincarnation as one of their core principles, such as the Druze sect and some mystical Shia sects.
However, the purpose of this article is not to be taken as an exposé on the theory of reincarnation as explained in religions or as presented in the writings of tens of the great thinkers, ancient or contemporary, but rather to present the aspects of reincarnation and the reasons behind it as depicted in the inspired book “Strange Stories and Wonderful Tales,” in four volumes, by the founder of Daheshism. The stories that I will present their facts to the reader may seem as far fetched fiction and unrealistic, however, the founder of Daheshism—whose truth and supernatural Spiritual knowledge is attested by thousands of miracles that he had performed—says:
The incidents of reincarnation in the stories that I have mentioned are not fictional, for I believe in reincarnation as much as I believe in my own existence. This means that any human being continues to come back to life on Earth in order to be purified from his vices and to rid himself from his sins.”
In what follows, we shall see how reincarnation takes place in real life according to Daheshist concepts:
Human Being Reincarnates into Another Human Being
In the story “Close Friendship Turns Deadly,” Jody receives an invitation from his friend, James, to visit him in London accompanied by anyone he desires to bring along. Jody accepts the invitation and selects his close friend, Alfred, to accompany him. The visit would be a good opportunity to test their friendship, because both Jody and Alfred compete in winning the heart of Suzie, the daughter of James. However, young Suzie seems to be attracted to Jody and not Alfred—something that bruises Alfred’s ego and makes him vindictive. After they have returned to their home in Mexico, Alfred takes advantage of Jody’s visit to his home by mixing a sedative in his glass of water, tying him, and then blinding him by goring his eyes with a hot skewer. This tragedy ends with Jody’s death and the killing of Alfred.
Many who have read about this story think that justice has been served by the killing of Alfred by Jody’s brother, however, Spiritual Justice is far from being served and insists on having the punishment be of the same kind of the deed itself. Alfred, in committing this crime had planted a specific evil seed that he must harvest its fruit, so he reincarnates into a blind child. After Qatam had grown to be a young man, fate brought him in contact with another young man named Gerard, whom he considered to be a good friend. One day, a friend of Qatam’s mother visits her accompanied by her only daughter, Butterfly. Gerard falls in love with Butterfly and causes Qatam’s hatred and vindictiveness to be ignited, so he decides to poison his friend. However, before he had a chance to act on his thought, he had a dream set off by the Spirit whereby he was able to realize the reason behind his blindness, which is due to his goring of Jody’s eyes in a previous life and that Butterfly is Suzie. The shock on Qatam due to this realization is great—especially, when he used to complain a lot about God’s cruelty and injustice for being born blind—and he drinks the poison that he had prepared for his friend and dies.
In the story “He Loved Two Women,” Leith el-Ghab admits to Shams el-Duhha and Wardat el-Rabee‘—two young women who are friends with each other—that he loves them both. However, Shams el-Duhha determines not to share him with her friend, so she pretends to be friendly to her competitor and accompany her on a leisurely walk in the mountain. While they are walking through one of its narrow passes, Shams el-Duhha pushes her friend over the edge, however the free fall is interrupted by her crashing on a huge rock that busts open her head and dies. After that day, Shams el-Duhha begins to see nightmares on a regular basis, suffers a stroke, and dies without marrying the one she loves.
Is Divine Justice satisfied by the death of the criminal? No! For what you plant in this life must grow in another. So, Shams el-Duhha reincarnates into a beautiful Egyptian princess and marries a young man that she loves and he loves her back. However, their Happy days do not last long, for while waiting in the garden for her beloved Ra‘mon to arrive, a huge obelisk that was erected in her honor on her eighteenth birthday falls on her, and crushes her. However, why would the princess get killed in this strange fashion? Dr. Dahesh reveals that the obelisk is carved out of the same rock that killed her competitor, Wardat el-Rabee‘, in a past reincarnation and that the Sayyal of the rock itself is the one that will exact revenge from the criminal in accordance with a very precise Spiritual Order. She kills the competitor by pushing her over the edge to crash into a rock therefore the same rock would fall on her to end her life.
Human Being Reincarnates into an Animal
It is not necessary for a human being to reincarnate after death into another human being. It is possible for a human being to reincarnate into an animal for several reasons: an evil tendency or an intense desire that brings his Sayyals (Spiritual Fluids)—the psychological energies—to a Spiritual level that is specific to that of certain animals. Such transformation from human to animal is controlled by Spiritual Justice and in accordance with a precise Divine Order.
In the story of “The Stray Dog,” Dr. Dahesh describes a skinny and hungry dog that is led to a butcher shop through his sharp sense of smell. The dog stands in front of the shop in humility, however, instead of having the butcher take pity on him by throwing him a bone, he beats him up with extreme cruelty that busts the dogs’ skull and causes his death. The founder of Daheshism confirms that animals possess a psychological life, just as human beings do and are able to understand and feel pain, sadness, and happiness. They are also responsible for their deeds and desires in accordance with the Spiritual Order that governs their world. For this reason, torturing animals and attacking them is just like torturing and attacking human beings and the perpetrator will be held Spiritually responsible.
Divine justice had it that the dog killed by the butcher reincarnates into a prince, while the Main Sayyal (Main Spiritual Fluid) of the butcher to reincarnate into a dog. This pitiful dog has many deformities and ailments, such as: chopped tail and ears, frail body, bleary-eyes, and scabby skin. One day, the prince sees some kids beating up this dog with sticks and stones, so he rescues him and orders to have his wounds dressed up and to have him fed. However, the dog refuses to eat, becomes very sad, and tears fall from his eyes. The prince realizes in a dream the secret behind this dog’s behavior and tells his relatives about it. They all run to the dog to see him still weeping and this makes them believe in the authenticity of the dream. They are all puzzled to see the dog lick the hands of the prince, lay down in front of his feet, and then run up the stairs to the roof of the high palace and commit suicide. Why did the dog behave this way? The reason is known through Daheshism that animals are endowed by the Creating Force with a perception that makes them realize who they were in a previous life and the reason for them to be born as animals. However, as a merciful act of God Almighty, the knowledge of previous lives is kept hidden from human beings.
The turn of events in the previous story are opposite to the turn of events in the story of “The King That Would Be Dog,” where an oppressive king sexually assaults an extremely beautiful married woman and orders her young husband to be thrown to the wolves. After he dies, the king reincarnates into a dog that faces all kinds of anguish and on a snowy night, he is viciously attacked and eaten by the wolves. In this fashion, he harvests what he had planted. The fate of this king is similar to the fate of an oppressive president who is punished by reincarnating into a mule that suffered extensively from the donkeys, as well as from his owner. The mule finally throws himself into a sewage reservoir after his owner had lit him on fire.
In the story of “Reincarnation and Transmigration or His Guilt is so Great That He Lost His Tail,” Dr. Dahesh relays the story of twin brothers, Shebl and Ghadoub, who compete in gaining the love of a young woman, Dajya, a mulatto who is their neighbor. Her feelings were stronger towards Ghadoub, who makes love to her secretly; however, Ghadoub’s mother becomes aware of it and becomes very upset at him and defamatory insults pours on the girl and her mother. This causes Ghadoub to become emotional, so he pushes his mother violently—an act that makes her fall, hit her head on the edge of a step, and die. Her son, Shebl, sees this tragic scene and pulls his sword and gores the buttock of his brother, amputate his leg, and cause his death. When the police arrive, Shebl kills two policemen and then kills himself. However, the events of this tragedy transfer to another stage so that Divine Justice can be exacted, so the twin brothers’ mother reincarnates into a cat that soon delivers two male kittens, Shebl and Ghadoub, and a female kitten, the mulatto girl. A car runs over Shaboul (Shebl), the cat, and causes his tail to be amputated and to break his leg. The founder of Daheshism explains the events of this story as follows:
“The mother of Shebl and Ghadoub, reincarnates into a cat as punishment for her hatred to Dajya and for her attack on Dajya’s mother with extreme cruelty and violence, for she told her son Ghadoub: “Dajya is nothing but a wild cat.” Ghadoub answered: “If fate has it that Dajya reincarnates into a cat then I too would like to be a cat so that I would be with her.” Shebl did not pull his sword to kill his brother if it wasn’t for the jealousy and envy because Dajya preferred his brother over him, so he is punished by returning to life on Earth as a cat that soon is run over by a car and cause his tail to be amputated and to break his leg, because Divine Justice requires that the same action he used on his brother to be used on him. For the same measure you use on others, it is used on you and more is added to it. In this fashion, they all returned to Earth as cats and they were all together so that their experience is repeated. If Ghadoub can refrain from Dajya, who is now his sister, he would elevate his Spiritual level. Likewise, Shebl must refrain from Dajya, who he loved from the bottom of his heart in a previous reincarnation and is now his sister. Dajya would not have met them and been a part of them except to act as a powerful trap waiting to catch them. If they are able to refrain from her, they elevate their Spiritual level otherwise their reincarnation continues and with it comes a renewal of all the difficult obstacles they had faced on Earth—a place full of evils and horrible calamities.
The lesson to be learned from this story is that man must fight any evil or bad inclination within him (such as: hatred, envy, oppression, harmfulness, and adultery), because he doesn’t know how he will be punished for them. Likewise, man should never justify such inclinations, because failure to overcome them, no matter how difficult it is, will subject himself to repeated difficult reincarnations on Earth and possibly his descent to the infernal worlds. But if he is able to control them, he will elevate his Sayyals and merit a better reincarnation. However, the reincarnation of man into an animal is not always a punishment, for it may be a fulfillment of a strong desire within the individual, such as: a young woman who loves being in water to wish at the moment of her death that she reincarnates into a frog; or a bride and bridegroom who are about to die to wish that they reincarnate into two birds and the Creating Power fulfills their sincere request stemming from their strong desire—of course, provided that the individuals merit such a reincarnation.
Also, one of the reasons for man to reincarnate into an animal is to create the necessary circumstances to exact punishment from an evil perpetrator by countering his/her oppression, as the case with the story “A Mother of Criminality and Harshness Unprecedented in History,” where the author relays the story of Petrovska, a Russian woman, who is heading to a remote village on her cart during a snowy night along with her two children, a boy and a girl. The wolves attack the cart and in order to keep the wolves away from her, Petrovska throws them her son first, then her daughter. This evil woman dies after two years from her imprisonment. However, is this double punishment sufficient in the eyes of Divine Justice? No! For Petrovska reincarnates again as Valentina, a Russian young woman, and after she is engaged to a Russian young man, circumstances had it that she reads to him the horrible story of Petrovska, that took place 60 years ago. Valentina takes the position in defense of Petrovska—a position that horrifies her fiancée, so he calls off the engagement and leaves her. However, she was determined to punish him, so she chases after him and in the process, she is attacked by wolves and get mauled by two of them—who are her son and daughter in a previous reincarnation and merited to be born as wolves to punish her.
A similar reincarnation takes place in the story “The Deadly Fires of Love,” where Makaroff betrays his friend and kills him and then sexually assaults Miradoff’s bride and kills her in order to cover the traces of his double crime assisted by his sister. “However, the Seeing Eye of God was watching these criminals and the grave they dug up to bury the victim turned out to be a nest for scorpions who stung them fatally many times…” But this Divine retribution is not sufficient, so Divine Justice decreed that the two criminals reincarnate again in Russia under the names of Pushkin and Gracia. On the eve of their marriage, they head toward the village of the bridegroom riding a sled and on the way they are attacked by two wolves—they are their victims reincarnated as wolves. The wolves maul them leaving nothing but skeletons. Man harvests what he had sown.
In the introduction to volume two of “Strange Stories and Wonderful Tales,”the founder of Daheshism says:
“It is certain that [man’s] behavior in life is not ideal, for our world is full of temptations that seek to lure and entrap him with traps that no one can escape. He is lured by women and thrusts himself into a sea of great desires; the love of money restrains him with invincible shackles and enslaves him; love of greatness, prestige, pride…etc. all that I mentioned lead him to an abyss of certain destruction.”
According to the founder of Daheshism, if the average age of a human being is 80 years and if we then subtract from it: the years of blameless childhood, which is around 15 years; a third of his age is spent in sleeping; another third of his age is spent in sickness or busy making a living; it will leave him approximately 20 years [80-15=65; 65 x 2/3=43.3; 65-43.3= 21.7] to be used in combating his evil inclinations and material propensities so that he can elevate himself and merit the paradise and escape from hell. This period is insufficient at all for man to subjugate his human nature possessing propensities toward material desires and seeking evil.
According to the founders or commentators of religions, “All human beings will go to an infernal fire and remain there forever –something not possible and constitutes a great oppression, for the mercy of God is great and universal. For this reason God gave us the opportunity to improve ourselves and to elevate Spiritually through the mercy of reincarnation. He gave us this mercy by allowing us to return to Earth for up to 6000 times so that we can overcome our human weakness and to elevate Spiritually in order to reach the paradise. Through out these 6000 reincarnations, it is possible for any human being to improve his behavior in these repetitive life cycles. However, if 6000 life cycles are used up and his behavior remains evil, then he would merit to live perpetually [a very long time] in the infernal fires and that would be fair and just.” The reader should understand here that what is meant by “perpetually” in Arabic is a very long period of time, but not eternal, for every time has bounds and there is nothing eternal except God.
From the four volumes of “Strange Stories and Wonderful Tales,” we arrive to the following summaries:
1-Every human being should understand that his health conditions (mental and physical) as well as his social and economic conditions are at their optimum relative to the individual’s activities and propensities in previous life cycles and in accordance to a comprehensive order of Divine Justice. For this reason, the individual should be thanking God’s Mercy for the circumstances he is born under and to accept them without complaining and feeling victimized and strive to improve his activities, thoughts, and desires and consequently to improve his physical and social conditions and to elevate Spiritually, if not in this current life, then in the one to follow—regardless of this life being extensions of himself through his children or as independent reincarnations. The current condition for any individual being an optimum condition applies also to animals, vegetation, and matter. The story of “A Dog Turned Human and is Inflicted With Misfortunes” is a clarification and confirmation of what I am saying.
2-It is impossible for a human being to consciously remember his previous reincarnation in contradiction to all that is written and said about being able to. The impossibility stems from the composition of the Soul being from many Sayyals and not just one and that they all share in the psychological energy—regardless of being activities, thoughts, or desires—and that the Spiritual responsibility falls on the Sayyal in control at the moment of decision—regardless of being a good Sayyal or a bad one, with Spiritual or materialistic propensities. When a person dies, the Sayyals are liberated, each possessing a different Spiritual level from the rest that consequently enables each Sayyal to take on a body that corresponds to its Spiritual level and merit for its previous activities. In this fashion, the Sayyals are dispersed on Earth, or if merited, on a lofty or degraded world. The founder of Daheshism clarifies this by giving an example of a story written on a piece of paper that gets shredded to many pieces and then dispersed by the wind and our finding of a small piece does not convey to us the entire story. Anyone who is worried about losing his human identity through the psychological dispersion should know that the individual human existence, as any other individual material existence, has a duplicate preserved in a special world. As to the true Spiritual unity, it only exists in the pure Spirit that resides in the Spiritual Worlds and connects to all the Sayyals that descended from it by choice through a hidden radiation. This is a very complex issue and will not discussed here.
3-A Sayyal may depart from an individual throughout his life or after his death and transfer to another individual that is associated with him in accordance to Spiritual arrangement. An example would be the transfer of a Sayyal from a hunter, who kills a snake in 1916, to Dr. Fareed Abu-Suleiman, who is eight years of age at the time. The snake was about to bite a child seven years of age at the time who grows up to be the founder of Daheshism. However, it is impossible for this transferred Sayyal to be the Main Sayyal, because the Main Sayyal is the one that extends life to the individual and provides him with distinct qualities.
4-Just as a human being could reincarnate into another human being, animal, vegetation, or an inanimate object, so is any Sayyal from the non-human worlds just mentioned could reincarnate in its world or in any other Earthly world according to its merit.
5-Just as any Sayyal could elevate itself to go beyond the Spiritual level of Earth and into a World of Paradise, so could a Sayyal from the World of Paradise could degrade and descend to Earth, as well as an infernal Sayyal could elevate itself to the level of Earth through its merit.
6-The emotion is retained in the Sayyal after reincarnating into another life, be it an emotion of love, hatred, fear, or any other and regardless of the reincarnation. In “Strange Stories and Wonderful Tales” are many examples on this subject.
7-The sexual relation between two individuals entangles their Sayyals for tens of reincarnations and extending for thousands of years and subjects each one of them to many misfortunes resulting from the actions of the other. An example would be what happens to children from unpleasantness and misfortunes as a result of the behavior of the parents, because the Sayyals of the children are linked to the parents. This is what is meant by the verse in the Bible that says: “The parents ate the sour grapes, but the children got the sour taste.” Jeremiah (31:29) Likewise, things may happen to the parents due to the behavior of their children.
8-The disease or deformity will remain with the Sayyal from one reincarnation to another until the Sayyal receives its full retribution.
This is a summary of the theory of reincarnation as conveyed in “Strange Stories and Wonderful Tales.” According to what the founder of Daheshism affirms, reincarnation is a form of the many forms of the boundless Divine Mercy and by denying reincarnation, we deny Him. Rather, reincarnation is a result of Divine Justice and in denying reincarnation we are denying the existence of Divine Justice. So, instead of attributing cruelty to God by saying that He forces a single short life on man with little possibility for man to purify himself from the filths and to conquer his materialistic temptations and consequently placing man in an eternal hell, we should believe that God is merciful and brings man to life on Earth many times in order to give him a chance to fight his materialistic desires and evil propensities and to conquer them, and consequently to merit the happiness of the Lofty Worlds.