Human beings has sought immortality perhaps as the final goal throughout human history. Just as the alchemist sought to turn lead into gold, mankind's quest for the eternal life has been a quest for many who has walked the spiritual as well as the scientific life.although it is like trying to walk a camel through the eye of a needle, human history has revealed to us that this quest for immortality is far from a fiction for great minds of old and modern alike has embark upon this futile journey towards attaining what is the impossible and perhaps there are those who have attained it however have not revealed themselves to the public for one reason or another. " Legen of the wandering Jew," was a short novel that I have read when I was a teenager in high school and this short story stuck in my mind ever since for some odd reason.(Wandering Jew, in Christian legend, character doomed to live until the end of the world because he taunted Jesus on the way to the Crucifixion.) Another character whose story attracted my attention is the Muslim Prophet, Kihdr(as). In various Islamic and non-Islamic traditions, Khidr is described as a messenger, prophet, wali, slave or angel, who guards the sea, teaches secret knowledge and aids those in distress. As guardian angel, he prominently figures as patron of the Islamic saint Ibn Arabi and was also encountered by the Sufi saint Sheikh Kadir Al Jilani and according to the Quran taught Moses of the virtues of being patient when they met. In the Taoist legend of China, there are the Eight Immortals, these were Wise men and saints who had evolved into immortals and worshiped as Gods.
In the Hindu Vedic tradition, man has an immortal soul called Atman, a soul that survives after the demise of the physical human form. The atman transmigrate from one form into another evolving as it goes along towards becoming one with Brahman or God according to its spiritual performances while in each form.off course I am over simplifying the whole process, however in essence man is immortal in his own being and will attain to this nature through a gradual increment through positive action. It is said in the Quran that the sole purpose, God created man and jinn is that they worship Him. I would replace worship with servitude, that they serve God by caring for His creation including man himself. Having created man in His image he has also imbued him with His attributes and it is for man impart these attributes as he lives his life. More and more today man has drifted far from his divine attribute of Love,Patience, Compassion, Giving, Forgiving etc. and become self centered and self servicing. These are the moral virtues that decides a man his 'karmic' fate in his spiritual evolutionary ladder. Almost all religions practices this in one form or another; it is what places man above all other creatures.
For a clearer and more detailed discourses on this subject of immortality, the You Tube and the Internet as a whole has much to offer for our benefit. Today we are given less and less lee way for excuses to being ignorant when it comes to spiritual matters pertaining to our well being. The COVID -19 pandemic has also given us an opportunity to stay home and do our spiritual homework, to discover our true nature as best we can and to stand with our fellow man as one collective spiritually immortal entity like God.
#god,#quran,#khidr,#sheikhkadiraljilani
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