We often use the words spirit and matter in our everyday speech, but their meaning is not understood by everyone in the same way. There is the man who says, “Spirit is one thing and matter is another thing; matter is not spirit, neither is spirit matter.” This is a religiously inclined person. There is another, a materialist, who says, “There is no such thing as spirit; all that is there is matter.” And then a third person comes along who says, “Do not mention the word matter to me; there is no matter. It is only an illusion; only spirit exists.”
One is free to believe what one wishes to believe, but when it comes to reasoning and looking deeply into life one sees it in quite a different way. Just as ice and water are two things and yet in their real nature they are one, so it is with spirit and matter. Water turns into ice for a certain time, and when this ice is melted it will again turn into water. Thus matter is a passing state of the spirit; only, it does not melt immediately as ice melts into water, and therefore man doubts if matter, which takes a thousand forms, ever really turns into spirit. In reality, matter comes from spirit; matter in its true nature is spirit; matter is an action of spirit which has materialized and has become intelligible to our senses of perception, and has thus become a reality to our senses, hiding spirit under it. It has covered the existence of the spirit from the eyes of those who look at life from the outside.
We read in the Qur’an that all comes from God and all returns to Him. In philosophical terms one can simply say that all comes from spirit and will return to it. No substance can exist without spirit. Although there is a war between spirit and substance, although they are opposed to each other, at the same time no substance can ever exist without spirit. Throughout this battle between substance and spirit the substance will resist spirit and outwardly drive it away, resisting surrender or diminution by the power of the spirit. But there will come a day when it will be diminished; in other words there is no mountain which will not one day crumble.
What is death to the spirit? As spirit is nothing to matter, so is matter nothing to the spirit; it does not miss it because it is self-sufficient. Spirit misses matter only in its limited, active condition. When the spirit is acting in a process towards manifestation, then it needs a capacity. Through that capacity it experiences life in a limited way, but in its true nature it is self-sufficient. It stands in no need of any experience. It is itself all experience, all knowledge; nothing is wanting in it.
(Continues July 27)
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