Reprinted from the Muslim Journal 4-18-06 to 5-19-06

It Is A Wonderful Creation - The Human Creation

Imam W. Deen Mohammed

(The following Public Address was given by Imam W. Deen Mohammed on the First Sunday, March 5, 2006, at the Homewood Hotel, in Homewood, IL.)

As always we are very pleased to be here for this occasion, on the radio broadcast on the First Sunday of each month. We are very happy to see the many of you who are here from the various cities and towns from around these United States. We are very pleased to see you always.

We thank G-d for our presence and ask Him to guide our minds and guide our tongues, so that we please what He has created us for, the Calling that He has extended to us, The Creator of all things.

When we look at the world with the eyes of the struggling person, struggling with life, we respond to what we are looking at. Most often, we are looking at the world all about and around us of manmade things. Many times, manmade things in the environment bring us happiness, joy and lift our spirits.

But sometimes, manmade things do just the reverse. They make us feel depressed and lonesome, especially those persons who have what I call a "free spirit." Some persons who have a free spirit - not a free spirit for disobeying intelligence or moral decency - have a free spirit for just exploring the world of wonderful things and getting soul and spirit satisfaction. That's the free spirit I am talking about.

For a person who has that free spirit, the world of man can be very depressing. It can be too cluttered. The free spirit flies high and far and needs space. Sometimes, man's world is too crowded, too cluttered, too confining for that spirit that G-d created the human being to have.

Another way of saying "life" is "existence." Existence covers not only the living things but also the non-living things. Existence for human life has what is needed in it to bring human life to move and get on the path to its success. The existence, itself, has that.

But if that life is influenced by and attracted by things small and the intelligence hasn't been turned on to things big, then the consequences are that the life will be satisfied to live on small things and to grow small.

Life is conditioning. When a fighter has to go in the ring, a boxer like Muhammad Alt -the greatest of all fighters who stepped into the ring, that fighter has to condition himself. He conditions himself to win. If he fails to condition himself, he may lose, and most likely he will lose.

Everything that exists has to be conditioned. If it is not conditioned, it will not last. And it takes effort to condition life for its success. I mentioned "existence" in itself being enough to move life forward. What is that existence?

When you look at a rock and you don't see anything happening, it just seems to be permanently fixed where it is - it shows no life, no movement. You should feel blessed that you are not a stone.

When you look at those living things that sometimes impart great knowledge to our minds - the lions, elephants and other beautiful and attractive creatures roaming the earth - when you think on the smallest and biggest and then think on yourself, you should feel blessed.

You don't have to be deprived of freedom to enlarge upon your existence and to expand upon your existence and to project your existence into bigger and better pictures of life.

Whereas, those things that are held in the mold of their behavior given to them by nature and freedom given to them by nature, they are held in that mold and you are not.

You are able to rise up from that position on the totem pole of life and come into the freedom of your human form, come into the productivity of your human form, come into the vision of your human form and outstretch everything existing on the planet earth.

This is a wonderful creation- the human creation. And that is what you need to turn life on for you. So no matter what you face or are confronted with from the natural world or man's world, it won't set you back. That is, not in your hopes, not in your dreams, not in your vision, not in your determination to achieve better.

I am not giving you anything that wasn't already given, even before man was made. Life is hunger; hunger drives life. Feeding "hungers" makes life grow bigger. The bigger the life, the bigger the invitation to life. Life invites bigger appetites. Life grows and hunger grows.

On the ground, life grows bigger and multiplies. Many varieties of life eventually are present to look at. The ground grows to be beautiful and rich.

Life on the move is working like a time piece. To know if a time piece is working, look to see if the time piece is doing what it is known to do: The hands are going from the big to the little, from the little to the big. The time piece is working.

To know if the human life is working, look to see if life is doing what life is known for doing over the long road of human history. The hands of life are going from big grown ups to little children, from those children growing up back to the old or the grown ups.

The hands are reaching out from the present for the future. The time piece is working. The grown ups are stretching their hands out to the children. Their children, in return, stretch their hands out to the grown ups. Life is working.

The ground floor spreads more to serve hungry mouths more than a meal for the flesh. It is to serve what is needed for the whole of life. Life needs food and a food source and an address to call "my spread."

Life needs a clothing source, a housing source, a promising job, a money source, such as this. Every form of life was formed to afford: Spreading sands terrain brings hard times like the deserts of Africa and other places. Deserts that once flourished but by natural causes, they became deserts.

However, were the preceding generations kind hearted or kind natured and were moved toward the future to be attentive to future needs, they would have fed the land in return. They would have fed the land that fed them; that is the ground on which they were getting their food.

They would have fed the land, giving back to the land so there would be a better future for their children. When the old has passed on their usefulness and are resting in peace, hear what the bigger world - the world bigger than man or the world that man did not make - hear what it has to say.

Natural phenomenon - picture talk, the sky view, the clouds, the night view and the returning day, the positions of moon - the moon, the positions of sun - the sun, the lower position of the moon and the higher position of the sun are "picture views" talk.

The sun rising and its position is defended on more than one account. Firstly, the sun puts light on matters not seen in the dark. Again, the sun fires up production.

When the sun is shining on a garden, and the sun light is bright and hot, the production of beans is much greater. Not only beans, but other crops as well.

The sun lifts the human spirit, and then the sun sets for a well deserved rest. And what is the picture talk? It is rest. The sun rests upon its labor.

The sun has labored from dawn to sunset, and it has fed not only the mouths but also the spirit. And it takes its rest. It has fed the body and the spirit, and it takes its well deserved rest, because of all the daylight time it was laboring.

This is speaking of the sun with the voice of the poet, with the voice of the philosopher, or with the voice of the singer who speaks of the sun rolling around in heaven all alone.

But that sun doesn't really roll around in heaven for foolishness. It comes up and makes the arch, half the circle going up and going down back to rest.

But to go uphill is not easy, and to roll down hill too fast is dangerous. The sun has a great message. It goes up and then it goes down. It seems to be rising slowly and it seems to set fast.

Once it gets close to the earth, it seems to set fast. That is the time you can speed up a little bit - when the fall is not too long.

But it begins to go down slowly, and when it gets near the earth it quickly goes to its rest. There is great guidance that the world itself, the world of natural phenomenon, imparts to the curious and thinking person -who is thinking not on himself, thinking not on the glory of man but thinking on the wonders of creation.

That kind of thinking produced what is called philosophers. It produced seers. It even produced what is called Prophets.

In Scriptures, we have Prophets saying that they studied G-d's Handiwork -and I am using the exact word they use in Scripture, Handiwork; it means the work that they thought that G-d's Controls brought about.

They said that that work, itself, brought them to believe in G-d, to believe that this couldn't have happened in such a marvelous way to speak to human minds, souls and spirits and make the human life so resourceful and so productive - it could not have happened without there being an Intelligence bigger than man bringing it about.

That is the thinking of the philosophers from whom this world got the sciences. That is the speaking of Prophets who brought the great religions to earth for us.

Now we want to have a peaceful life. We want to have happiness. We want to have comforts. But don't rest on foolishness.

When I say rest, I mean find relief. Not to just go to bed at night from a day's work or from a day's activities, I am talking about resting your energies, resting your efforts, that message that we get from the sunrise and the sun setting.

For this, you go to fun and a party - that is OK. You go to a social gathering, and that is OK. But don't go to something that is going to bring your good life down.

If the party appeals to your indecency, that will bring your good life down. If it appeals to your ignorance, that will bring life down. If it appeals to your wildness, that will bring life down.

Find relief, yes, as the sun finds relief as it worked all day in the light and all night in the darkness it finds rest to rejuvenate itself. So in the day, it comes back up strong to face the long day of work again. That is what we should do.

We should rest upon our labor. A man, and a woman too, gets more satisfaction resting upon his labor than he gets from any other kind of rest.

When he has worked and looks upon his works and knows that he has progressed, and he knows he has made an achievement and accomplished the things that he had in his heart and mind to do, when he looks at it as he finishes his labor, that is the best rest that he will ever get. That makes it possible for him to sleep through the night.

These people who think that rest is just on play, fun and having a ball, they sometimes cannot rest at night. They call New York City the city that never sleeps. You will find in New York City at any time of night people out on the streets, especially the youngsters. Why? It is because they can't rest at night.

They stay up all night and sleep in the day. And they call them "night people." They are out in the streets all night and when day comes, they go home to rest or to sleep. This is a reversal of their original nature. Every living thing, except a few "weirdoes" among the jungle creatures, rests at night.

If you become that night creature and don't know how to face that night scene, you become very weird.

But if you see the darkness and the jungle as the confusion of life, that permits no light of understanding, then you can become a night hunter through the confusion of the world - to make it through the night to see another day.

This world is too big for man. The best work that man has done is the work that he has done reading creation, reading natural phenomenon, then extracting from natural phenomenon the knowledge, the message, the science for building his world.

Never think that man has stepped ahead of matter. Matter is always ahead of man. And he will stop moving forward, if he turns himself off from matter.

Science continues to grow, because man continues to go to matter to get science. And everything else in our lives, we owe it to the earth and to the heavens that impart also picture instructions to the minds of human beings.

We are the product of our mother, and our mother is firstly Mother Earth. Then we are the product also of the heavens. And the heavens seen together with the earth represents all matter.

What is all matter? Big Momma. Man has to expand his interests and vision to include all matter in his interest. Then he can take help from the skies. The Scriptures say - not one but both - your needs are supplied from heaven and from earth. It is speaking of all people.

I am speaking of Scripture in the total picture of Scripture. After all, our Scripture, the Last Book called Qur'an, is a continuation of Scripture that was before the Qur'an. Scripture is one continuous movement, one continuous progression.

We can look at the picture of natural phenomenon or all matter and see for yourself with your own thinking and own mind its beauty, its conversation, its language that it is imparting through its pictures - the picture of sun, the picture of sunlight and where it is going.

The sun sends its light, and it sends its light to its job -the job of energizing dead things and bringing dead things to light with the help of water and air.

If you really study the physical sky, the lower sky of clouds and the higher heavens of stars, you get a great message.

The clouds form and many times they form promising good help to a dry garden, great help to the farmer. It makes the farmer so happy, when he sees the rain clouds gathering.

Now when they gather, the sun is not going to be out. The clouds are forming, and he is happy. The lower heavens are promising relief to his dry land.

Sometimes, the same picture promises bad times, storms, loss of life, etc. But if you read not just Mother Earth and read Mother Matter, you know in bad times that what I am seeing is not really an absence of the sun. The sun is still where it always was intended to be. It is there, but this disturbance is blocking my view.

The sun is rising and setting, shinning and producing energy for life and production, even while trouble is hanging overhead. If you read it that way, you will have the patience to survive the time of trouble to see another time of great hope.

This is what we need to give to our children, our young generation, so that the world doesn't crush them. So that the world doesn't kill hope in them and they can live and have confidence, even when the White House is upset, even when the government is clouding up the view. The clouds may be forming from the White House, clouding up our view.

We will be saying, "Oh, this is a bad time." And it is. But with the right view on matter, Mother Earth and Mother Matter, you can endure.

You can even be happy, when everything else is sad. Because you will know that it is just a matter of time when the clouds are going to disappear. The trouble is going to go away, and it is going to be a bright and sunny day of hope and production again.

Don't under estimate the Handiworks of the Creator. He writes a Script bigger than anybody's Holy Book. And if you can read it, you will have life eternal. You don't have to die in one generation.

Pass that hope to your children, and your life will continue in them. Not just your biological life, your spiritual life will continue in your children. Your rational life will continue in your children. Your vision for the future will be continued in your children.

That is how communities with belief in G-d thrive and survive all the troubles that man can produce. And their generations keep the Covenant. They keep the Contract with G-d, The Maker.

And they outlive the devil. The devil will have to set, go down and get out of the picture. They will live to put the devil to rest.

We should look at what man is doing, when we are miserable and question him. He is not G-d, and his works are not the bigger work. His works are the smaller work. The bigger works are that of Mother Matter, the Universe.

Some of us talk about getting our crown of stars, and we don't know what we are talking about. A crown of stars doesn't mean something physical, some trinket that you are going to wear on your head, physically like a cap or hat.

The Crown of Stars means the great wisdom on high that reveals to man by picture language how he should order his own world down here.

Don't try to have one light. The higher knowledge is the knowledge of the higher sky, the higher heavens. The sun is one light. Don't try to have one light but have many lights. See the bigger picture.

See how many big suns, like our sun, are distances away and we can't see them, except at night with the help of a telescope. Some we can see physically with our eyes, although we can't understand them all of the time.

They are big stars with their families, and they are moving in the heavens or in matter's space, just like our sun. So matter's space accommodates many great leaders with their following. So don't be selfish wanting to have one leader, and that is you. You want to be the only leader, no.

To have the bigger picture and the bigger world and the bigger rewards, we have to welcome every qualified sun, every qualified leader. Come on and let us work together. Let us be one matter system and let us serve life, here and hereafter.

I don't know what you call G-d, but whatever made Mother Matter made her to mother all of us, to nourish the mind, spirit and soul of all of us, to grow us up and prepare us to be grown ups in her system, working with the best of the people and respecting the rights of every qualified person to have their own environment, to have their own place, to have their own freedom of movement, to move their own following - as long as we conform to the overriding system created by the One bigger than it all. Allahu Akbar, G-d is Bigger, G-d is Greater.

We are looking at these little small jobs we have down here to do, and we are just bumping heads and stumbling over each other and setting each other back, sometimes accidentally and sometimes on purpose. And we think we have something going.

It is not as big as the ants. That kind of work is a small-er work than the work of ants; sometimes you can't even see them. But those little ants will have a bigger world than petty people backbiting and backstabbing and scheming to get over and ahead of somebody else.

That is too ridiculous to tolerate. We should not tolerate that from each other. We are supposed to be each other's friend. We are supposed to be each other's brother and sister.

When we see someone behaving like a night creature crawling on the earth, you should tell them, "Lift yourself up, brother. Lift yourself up, sister. That mind you have has reduced you to a little night creature, crawling around on the earth."

Another thing we should observe in the picture language of matter is that most things that live under the ground are not so attractive. When you look at them, they look dull. They don't have a bright looking life. They are also on the desert.

Some people want to be great leaders, but they don't want us to have the garden. They want to keep life a desert. They don't produce any beauty on the land. They are not interested in beautifying the land. They are like a desert.

There will be a few flowers scattered about, and you will have to go miles and miles to find that beautiful flower. When you find the flower, it is really beautiful. For I am telling you that if you can survive on this desert that they create for us, you are really beautiful. But you don't find it in abundance.

You don't find the big tree of flowers. You don't find a bushel of flowers. It will be a little dainty thing that is very small, but G-d has favored it to survive the greed, the selfishness of persons who just rather see nothing than to have people share in it.

We have people right among us who are working hard to keep our environment a desert. So how do you expect them to look when you find them? How are they going to look to a believer?

They are going to look like a creeper, a critter living under a rock and coming out sneaking because they are ashamed of how they look. When they come out, they run real fast and hurry up to get back under the rock. They are ashamed of this old dull, fleshless look that they have. They are beauty void.

Not only animal creatures or insects, but also the plants that grow up in the desert look unattractive. You don't want to embrace it. You don't want to take it in your hand and rub it. You don't want to put it in your hair, sisters, like other nice flowers. It might prick your skin and bring blood - thorns and thistles.

That is the barren land producing thorns and thistles. This is Mother Matter speaking. It is not just out there to exist. G-d made the world to speak to the mind and open the mind for bigger pictures and equip the mind for better futures.

Believe me, it is time to wake up, come out of your confusion, stop glorifying man and look at Mother Earth. And look at the Big Momma, Mother Matter.

I wish you all G-d's Blessings. I wish you all G-d's Freedom, the freedom to go where Mother Matter says to go. Not the freedom to go to that that brings life down and makes life indecent, weak and inferior and keeps the community stale, static and non productive.

We thank G-d for this day and for this freedom to reach you by way of broadcast on the radio. We appreciate all of you who have made efforts to open up more opportunities for us to speak on more stations and reach more people in these great United States. Thank you very much, and may G-d give you rewards forever for your good works.

May you work together as brothers and sisters and be in the big picture and don't let your own works reduce you to a small unattractive thing. Lastly, we know that it costs money. We appreciate your efforts to raise funds to finance the First Sunday Broadcasts.

The Mosque Cares is always here and will also dispense some funds when needed or when the business people cannot provide for this need. We are prepared to make funds available.

It is very important that life works together and that people who have life in them are told that there are efforts made, not by one individual, but by organizations that are community organizations to help brighten life up and lift life up for progress on this earth.

You have many friends and brothers and sisters working for the whole. Never feel that you are alone. Never feel that something is not being done about bad conditions on the earth.

Lastly, I know I have come to believe in the Angels. And I know that even while we are working and thinking that we have no help among human beings, Angels are always aware, and they are working with us.

So don't give up. Keep your faith. And don't let the nasty and inhuman world kill your spirit.

Peace be unto you. As-Salaam-Alaikum.