3. The Light of GOD in Life, Love, Power, Truth, and Peace (3)

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DIVINELY MOVING

Just as the Light of AL-LAH may be said to be life-giving in its activity, and benevolent in its intent, so can we identify the Might of AL-LAH as Light that empowers. Modern Western readers have no problem with AL-LAH as Light, for we are used to the transmissible qualities of luminescence, which can be borrowed, reflected, and reproduced, as when we light one candle from another. GOD as Life or as Love has the same positive connotation, for both attributes are gifts, and can even grow by being shared. But when we come to power and its particularly Western, individualistic manifestation as ‘willpower’, our minds turn not to multiplication but to division. Power seems for us to be a finite amount which, if taken by one, is lost by another. We speak of a balance of power, of power vacuums, and of struggles for power. All of these concepts tend to place Divinity in opposition to man, and GOD’s Power over us begins to feel like a loss of independence. How different this Light appears, then, when expressed as Power rather than Life or Love!

If we have developed a suspicion of or resentment towards people or institutions that have power over us or seek to control us, we need to remind ourselves that such entities may be striving to limit or diminish our power, whereas AL-LAH is the original and ultimate Empowerer. Without Him, we would not exist, let alone have power of our own. He has created this world to facilitate our empowerment, and every use of our power manifests His prior Power, just as our knowledge expresses His Foreknowledge and our mercy both reiterates and foreshadows His greater Mercy.

We need to remember that the Power of AL-LAH is much greater and more intricate than mere brute force or total control. We rightly speak of the power of love, of beauty, and of truth. Power, in other words, is just another way of speaking of the Light of GOD in ways that we might not normally associate with light, such as volition, competence, strength, intellectual coherence, artistic passion, and emotional ties.

Understood in this light, human will does not negate GOD’s omnipotence, nor does His Will preclude the individual’s power of choice. ‘Free will’ is actually a misnomer, for no one but GOD can be said to have a will that is unconstrained by its environment, conditioning, and learned behaviours and desires. But insofar as we observe and feel ourselves guiding the process of decision-making in our conscious self, our feeling of freedom to choose is one of the clearest examples of how GOD’s Will works through us and our faculties. We can intimately experience the Power of GOD as it flows through all the factors that lead to our decision, including our sense of independence, and issues in an act that is more ‘ours’ than practically anything else we own in this world. This unity of ownership is what athletes and artists call ‘being in the zone’ or the ‘flow state’ – a self-transcendence that feels like a foretaste of Divinity.

This meshing of human will and Divine Will can be likened to the freedom of a fish to swim how and where it wants. What it wants is largely determined by its being a fish and having learned the limits imposed on it by its nature and the environment in which it acquired that nature. To that extent, it is not free. But the water enveloping it does not just physically confine it to a particular space; rather the water supports it, facilitates its movement, and responds to that movement. Going further, the water is what makes all this possible, and yet remains virtually invisible and unnoticed. Minus the water, there is no fish and no freedom to swim. So it is with human freedom – the more we feel we have it, the more dependent we are on the One Who freely sustains that beautiful illusion. (See Chapter 14 for a deeper look at this “illusion”.)

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