Wisdom Traditions

What does God mean to you? What does religion mean to you? Wisdom traditions encompass what the prophets – from Buddha to Adam, from Jesus to Muhammad, from Confucius to Zarathushtra – have, through their actions, articulated. A tradition or traditions that allow us to connect with our higher selves and our aspirational selves. I do not have a soul. The soul has me. The mental image I have is that the soul is much larger than me – just as I don't have a planet; I reside on a planet.

I was born in the Muslim tradition. The way I practice my faith has evolved over time. This tradition (Ismailism), which is a narrow sect in the broader Muslim Ummah, speaks about our faith through an Imam who lays out the ethics of the broader Muslim Ummah.

There are numerous ethics that are contained in Islam. The three that I choose to focus on are the spiritual ethic, the intellectual ethic, and the service ethic.

The spiritual ethic is my connectivity as a physical being to my spiritual being. It is an ethic that helps me to know myself better during my physical journey. It is an ethic that allows me to have a deeper understanding of why I was born and why the soul chose this particular life. All my moments of meditation and spirituality give me comfort, insight, peace and awareness. When I want something for others, I pray. Otherwise I meditate. And this spiritual ethic and connectivity allow me closeness to the One that we all are.

The intellectual ethic forms the foundation of my natural curiosity. This ethic is the outcome of a core part of myself which I would describe as extreme curiosity. This ethic then forms the foundation of how I make decisions and what I choose to communicate, and governs numerous aspects of my personal conduct. This ethic is, I believe, the foundational reason for the very rich life I am fortunate to lead. I love the richness and quality of my life. I love how engaging my life is. I treasure all the relationships that I have. I love the abundance of loving relationships, ample time and resources that I enjoy. I believe a lot of this abundance comes through the intellectual ethic. The service ethic is the one that transcends both realms. In my physical being, the service ethic provides a tremendous level of joy and a significant level of comfort. A major personal challenge that I've faced through my life is ego containment. When I'm serving – truly serving – there is no ego. Service doesn't mean giving back. Giving back is a journey of my ego given the hierarchy between the Benefactor and the beneficiary. Serving in its purest sense allows me time in a place when ego doesn't speak and I am simply doing what I'm doing in order to serve as much as I can – and therefore connect to the One who we all are.

The journey of the soul is eternal. The soul creates the body to enhance its own journey in order for it to get closer and closer to the Creator or the One. The service performed during the journey of the physical entity polishes the contours of the soul in order to bring less turbulence in the ultimate journey.We as a species are aware that there are over 100 billion stars in a galaxy and more than 100 billion galaxies out there. The universe is too vast to even comprehend. In spite of its gargantuan size, we're able to observe and measure only 30% of the mass of the universe. Therefore, we have stated that the other 70% is dark matter or dark energy. Now, dark matter might simply be particles that we have yet to identify. I believe what we call dark energy is souls and the One or God. The presence of this dark energy is something that we are unable to measure and observe. Therefore, that unknown has to be souls and God. If and when our species evolves to reach that level of recognition, then and only then will our other religion – namely science – be able to comprehend the spirituality which is something we can't measure now.