What It All Means: Recognizing the Divine Self Within

Contents

Acknowledgments

Endorsements

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Poems

Bibliography

Endnotes:

To my latefather—the most intelligent man I ever met—your love, support, and counsel have been invaluable throughout my life.

Acknowledgments

This book would not have been completed without the support and encouragement of the following people:

My wife and sons—whose love is the nectar of my life—and who demonstrated infinite patience and understanding while I was writing this book.

Swami Abhayananda, to whom I am eternally grateful for his insightful and inspiring comments and suggestions.

My editor, Jim Powell, who polished the manuscript superbly.

Kimberly Martin, who graciously and adeptly formatted the manuscript.

My friends and relatives, who are too many to name: your support, praise, and encouragement are much appreciated.

Thank you all. Your presence in my life is truly a gift from God.

Endorsements

"It is my great pleasure to introduce Salah, a rare genius of the spirit, whose lifetime of acquaintance with God has allowed him to speak from the clearest vision of the enlightened soul to share the joy of that vision with all God’s children. What a feeling of joyous celebration arises in reading the words that fountain forth from his share of God’s Consciousness! What a pleasure it is to follow his thoughts! They are pure reflections of divine wisdom, pure nectar to the hungry soul. What in the words of others might appear vague, hazy concepts become sharply defined and artfully crafted paragons of clarity when seen through his insightful understanding; and what we might have only imperfectly intuited becomes crystalline through his simple but light-reflecting words. Even if you’ve heard it all before, treat yourself to reading What It All Means. It is the best of the best; it is that rarest jewel of comprehension that scatters light and joy into the hearts of all who feast their minds upon it."

— Swami Abhayananda, author of The Supreme Self, History of Mysticism, and Body And Soul.

"What It All Means was a joy to read, and started me thinking like a renunciate! The philosophy the author expounds is quite eclectic, drawing from several traditions, which is something much needed in today’s world of fundamentalism. An added pleasure is that the book contains some passages that are quite lyrical, as if they could have been penned by Gibran."

— James N Powell, author of Derrida for Beginners, Slow Love: A Polynesian Pillow Book, and The Tao of Symbols.

"What It All Means is not a book to be read quickly but once digested leaves the reader much the richer for the experience, for sure. The author’s integration of the parts into the whole would make Plato proud. One of the paradoxes the author proposes, e.g., man cannot know himself without knowing God and cannot know God without knowing himself, is well stated. This work will appeal to philosophers but also to those simply in search of themselves and truth, and to those who seek greater meaning in life. This book is filled with profound thoughts, any one of which will make all the difference for so many readers. Finally, the tale of the farmer in China assessing what’s good luck or bad luck in the chapter, ‘You Are What You Think’, alone would be worth the price of this book."

— William D Brown, Ph.D., founder of TRT, Inc., a family-owned national firm that teaches CLE to attorneys, and author of The Right Thing: ethics inaction/ethics in action.

"What It All Means is beautiful and moving. It provides answers to the questions we all face every day as we strive to find meaning in our lives. Despite all of our differences, those things we hold in common remain far greater than the ways in which we differ…. A strong, peaceful, and insightful book."

— John H Rees MD Neuroradiologist Sunshine Radiology Georgetown University School of Medicine.

Introduction

Within each one of us is the same consciousness, power, energy, and intelligence that is responsible for the universe and all things in it. I call this consciousness by many names in this book, including the Source, the One, the Absolute, the Self, the One Mind, the Tao, God, Allah, and Brahman. It doesn’t really matter what you call it. All these and similar names refer to the same reality, an invisible formless spiritual presence that is the source, sustainer, and sovereign of all things visible and invisible. This reality is the great ineffable Mystery of existence—a mystery that cannot be rationally understood or communicated, but only realized.

The astonishing fact—and it is a fact—that the Absolute resides within each one of us making us divine beings with divine powers, is the fundamental principle of existence. Discovering this principle, this hidden treasure, is the supreme purpose and end of life and the only means to gaining freedom from fear, insecurity, anxiety, want, suffering, and all the other problems of living in the world.

The central theme of this book is that not only can you discover this power, but you can also unite with it. More precisely, you have the ability to realize, or make real and come to know, that you are in truth identical with this power, and that you have always been. When this epiphany washes over you, it will radically transform your life.

When you recognize that the source of all life dwells within you as your authentic Self (and as the authentic Self of all others), you will cease to perceive yourself as a separate human being isolated from the rest of humanity and living in a hostile world. You will instead begin to feel that you are one with all people—indeed with all things—living in an essentially friendly universe. Being one with all things, you will appreciate that there is nothing to fear or doubt, for all things are reflections of you and working for your long-term benefit.

Knowing you’re connected to the source and sovereign of life, you awaken to the prospect that you can learn to use this power’s inexhaustible reservoir of wisdom and creativity to transform yourself from a fearful, self-centered, ego-based individual into a trusting, selfless, and compassionate being, thus putting yourself squarely on the path to God-realization. To be God-realized is to be conscious of God at all times and in all places, or, in the words of the Apostle Paul, to Pray without ceasing. God-realization is the summum bonum, or highest good, of life.

As your thoughts, words, and conduct conform more and more to the principles and dictates of this higher power, you gradually become a more authentic person because you begin to live from the core of your being, from your heart, as it were. Your outward life will gradually evolve into a near-perfect expression of your inner character. And, as your inner character takes on or reflects more of this infinite power’s attributes—attributes such as love, compassion, justice, beauty, and creativity—to that same extent will you come to resemble this power. That is, the more God-like you become, the more enhanced your creative powers to do good will be.

Your new state of being and consciousness will enable you to manifest more easily in your life everything that you genuinely need or sincerely desire, be it health, wealth, or contentment. You will be able to manifest these things because this power, which is responsible for producing all things in the material world, and your own individual highest consciousness, are the same universal One Mind. The only thing that seems to separate you from the One Mind, from God, is your lack of awareness that you are already one with it.

This book is an attempt to rectify this misapprehension.

I wrote this book because I had to.

Religion and philosophy have attracted me as far back as I can remember. One of my earliest childhood memories is of me standing in my crib looking out an adjacent window with rapt awe at the falling snow. I don’t know why, but I always considered the feeling I had then as a religious one. To this day, I love being outside when snow is falling. The whole atmosphere—the exquisite softness with which the snow falls, the uniformity with which it blankets everything in sight, the seamless whiteness of the cloudy sky, the incredibly serene silence—mesmerizes me and gives me the feeling of being in God’s presence.

Other childhood memories evoke similar feelings. For instance, I attended elementary school in Jerusalem, a city where religion is not some abstraction but a living, vibrant reality. Reminders of God are everywhere you walk, especially in the narrow streets of the Old City. On one street, the Via Dolorosa, you may see Christian pilgrims retracing the route Jesus took on his way to his crucifixion and burial. On another street, you may see hundreds of Muslim worshipers on their way to perform Friday prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam. On a third street, you may see Hasidic Jews dressed in their black suits and hats on their way to worship at the Wailing Wall. Even my elementary school was religious. The Anglican Church founded St. George’s in 1899, and my teachers were nuns. In short, religion saturated my childhood. Not only did I not mind that, I positively thrived in that environment.

During those years, one of my favorite places to go whenever I had the chance was the Dome of the Rock, the site where the prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven to meet with God. The building itself dominates Jerusalem’s skyline and is one of the most stunning structures in the world, both inside and out. I did not go there as a child, however, to admire its architectural design, impressive as it is. I went because being there always gave me a sense of awe, wonder, peace, and wholeness. I continue to go there every couple of years or so when I return to Palestine to visit family. It seems to me in retrospect that I frequented this sacred site because even at the tender age of eight or nine I had already started looking for God and thought I would find him there.

In any event, at around the age of sixteen (I had moved to America when I was ten), I developed a keen interest in philosophy. Perhaps this was because at that age very few things, especially parents and girls, made any sense at all. After a bout of unrequited love, I, like many teenagers similarly situated, started a journal, and began to write poetry. Then, one summer during that period, I read Will Durant’s The Story of Philosophy. I was instantly captivated. I knew right away that I would become a student of philosophy for the rest of my life.

Also during my teen years, I would often listen to record albums (some older readers may remember those 33 rpm LPs) of recitations of the Qur’an, Islam’s holy book. As any Arabic-speaking Muslim will tell you, there is nothing in the world that compares with the cadence, beauty, and transporting effect such auditions have on the believing listener. I myself came close to near ecstasy many times during these sessions. Listening to the Qur’an showed me the power scripture can exercise on the imagination of man and instilled in me a profound reverence for the teachings of Islam. This in turn awakened in me a strong desire to learn all I could about other faiths.

It was sometime during that early period of my life that I began to actually voice my wish to become a philosopher, a poet, or a novelist. Of course, almost everyone around me discouraged the idea. All authority figures in my life—parents, teachers, guidance counselors—tried to dissuade me. Impractical, they all said. You can’t earn a living that way. I particularly remember a college recruiter sarcastically telling me once that a philosophy degree and ten cents would buy me a cup of coffee. (That was 1974, long before Starbucks, when a cup of coffee was considerably less dear).

Despite all admonitions to the contrary, I went on to attend the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and earned a degree in Religious Studies. To hedge my bets, though, I double majored in International Relations. Sometime during those undergraduate years, however, something changed in my estimation of myself. I decided that I was neither creative enough to be a poet or novelist, nor intelligent enough to be a philosopher. I therefore became a lawyer.

I have been practicing law now for over twenty-five years. My real interest, however, has always remained with philosophy. The word philosophy comes from the Greek word philosophia and means the love of wisdom or, as I once heard it poetically defined, the wisdom of love. And, as Plato put it, what is love but the desire and pursuit of the Whole.

Although I’ve been in love with philosophy my entire life, I have on occasion strayed. The demands of earning a living often aborted any efforts at philosophizing. For example, I flirted with writing a few times during those twenty-five years, but without much success. I suppose these efforts failed because practicing law and pursuing money and status were not conducive to finding answers to life’s most important and basic questions; questions such as the following: Who am I? Where did we come from and why are we here? Does life have meaning, and if so, what is that meaning? Is there a God? How can we know anything for certain? What is the nature of reality? What is the nature of mind or consciousness? What happens to us after we die? Without answers to these and similar questions, I felt as if I had nothing of value to say to humankind.

My creative drought continued until a few years ago, when I underwent an extraordinary experience that changed my life. I don’t know whether to describe it as a dream, a vision, or a revelation. Let me just say that I felt that I had come in contact with the deepest or highest part of myself, and discovered it to be the deepest or highest Self of the universe.

Late one night, after my wife and two boys were asleep, I was sitting alone in my basement enjoying a scotch, as I was wont to do, and listening to Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life. Suddenly and without any effort on my part, I experienced what I can only call an expansion of my consciousness. More precisely, it was an expansion of my entire being. I could no longer detect any boundaries—physical or mental—between my surroundings and myself. I sensed emphatically that an infinitely greater intelligence or awareness had, so to speak, seized and replaced my own consciousness. This larger awareness communicated to me initially through the music, but later through all things in the room: the lights, the pictures on the wall, the shapes of the pieces of furniture, and even the noise the ice cubes in my drink made as they melted and settled. This awareness let me know that it is the sole awareness in the universe and that my own awareness is but a fragment or shadow of it. It lifted me, as it were, out of my self so that I was no longer cognizant of any personal issues or concerns. I felt as if my mind was unfolding in all directions throughout space, like the ripples caused by a pebble dropped in a pond. I felt myself becoming one with Being, with the One Mind that is the mind of the universe, and with the power that is the Life of all life.

It is impossible for me to put into words all that transpired that night. All I can say is that for the first time in my life I knew with certainty that the universe is permeated and animated by a consciousness that is infinite in intelligence, in knowledge, in love, in power, and in every other respect. I knew, in a word, that I had encountered what many religions call God. I became aware, furthermore, that my consciousness is identical with this consciousness. This realization gave me an exhilarating and transcendent feeling of joy, bliss, and love. My ecstasy was so overwhelming, so breathtaking, so splendid, that I remember thinking at the time that the feeling I was then experiencing more than compensated for all the pain and suffering I had endured in my entire life. I felt that if I were to die that instant, or were to never again experience any of life’s normal joys, or if I were to even live in pain for the rest of my life, it would not matter one bit because all other experiences put together were nothing compared with the bliss and penetrating pure awareness of that moment.

Although God showed me many things that night and subsequently, I have neither the words nor the talent to describe most of them. What I can say, however, is that I fell in love with God. Love gave me answers to many of those basic questions that have fascinated (and troubled) me most of my life. I am so grateful for the experience and the knowledge imparted to me that I now feel there’s nothing more important for me to do than to share that knowledge with others. I am in love with the Beloved and I must sing His praises.

This book is my song.

As with all songs, there is a chorus. The chorus in this book is 1) that the everyday world of people, objects and events is a dependent manifestation of a mysterious Divine Reality;