Re: Book Club: "Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah"
Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2020 9:54 pm
Assalam alykum wrwb everyone,
I'm grateful for this forum and I'm grateful to have found this book along this journey, or I should rather say, it has found us.
My heart melts every time I hear about it. I have come to realize that it is not just a book, it is a message that is beyond the ink on its pages, a message that leaps out at you, wanting to reach you.
I can imagine that many people around the world have probably read this book, but knowing what we know from Imam Ahmed Al-Hassan and Aba Al -Sadiq pbut and experiencing what we experienced on this journey and this Dawa, we are perhaps able to relate to it on a much much deeper level.
Notice how at the very beginning in the introduction the author says the following:
"Perhaps it is no coincidence that you're holding this book; perhaps there's something about these adventures that you came here to remember."
Notice how he used the word "remember" instead of "know" or any other word he could have used.
He also says: "what if Siddhartha or Jesus came into our time, with power over the illusions of the world because he knew the reality behind them?" --- Doesn't this fit the description of Imam Ahmed Al-Hassan a.s today?
Note also that the author was contemplating the question of what to write next, he answered that he had said everything he could say and wasn't planning on writing anything else, yet he still felt this "tension", as he calls it, to still convery something, he says: "there was something left to say, and hadn't said it."
Something was urging him to tell this story. Then came this masterpiece...
Having said this, I would like to share with you some thoughts on the first chapter:
In the parable that the Master mentioned at the beginning, he tells of a "a village of creatures" whose way of life was clinging and resisting the current was what they learned from birth. Doesn't this remind you of how we all were and partly still are due to social conditioning, clinging to our old beliefs and ideas and thoughts, brought up in fear to question and go against the current. Until Imam Ahmed Al-Hassan a.s taught us to let go and free our minds, let go like this one creature who was tired of clinging and trusted the current and was lifted, while all the other creatures around him mocked him and called him a fool, but he trusted, and "as he believed, so it was". So much to learn and ponder over in this part alone.
This parable also reminds me also a bit of Socrates's allegory of the cave.
I look forward to reading your thoughts and your experiences with this book while you truly read and live every single word of it.
I'm grateful for this forum and I'm grateful to have found this book along this journey, or I should rather say, it has found us.
My heart melts every time I hear about it. I have come to realize that it is not just a book, it is a message that is beyond the ink on its pages, a message that leaps out at you, wanting to reach you.
I can imagine that many people around the world have probably read this book, but knowing what we know from Imam Ahmed Al-Hassan and Aba Al -Sadiq pbut and experiencing what we experienced on this journey and this Dawa, we are perhaps able to relate to it on a much much deeper level.
Notice how at the very beginning in the introduction the author says the following:
"Perhaps it is no coincidence that you're holding this book; perhaps there's something about these adventures that you came here to remember."
Notice how he used the word "remember" instead of "know" or any other word he could have used.
He also says: "what if Siddhartha or Jesus came into our time, with power over the illusions of the world because he knew the reality behind them?" --- Doesn't this fit the description of Imam Ahmed Al-Hassan a.s today?
Note also that the author was contemplating the question of what to write next, he answered that he had said everything he could say and wasn't planning on writing anything else, yet he still felt this "tension", as he calls it, to still convery something, he says: "there was something left to say, and hadn't said it."
Something was urging him to tell this story. Then came this masterpiece...
Having said this, I would like to share with you some thoughts on the first chapter:
In the parable that the Master mentioned at the beginning, he tells of a "a village of creatures" whose way of life was clinging and resisting the current was what they learned from birth. Doesn't this remind you of how we all were and partly still are due to social conditioning, clinging to our old beliefs and ideas and thoughts, brought up in fear to question and go against the current. Until Imam Ahmed Al-Hassan a.s taught us to let go and free our minds, let go like this one creature who was tired of clinging and trusted the current and was lifted, while all the other creatures around him mocked him and called him a fool, but he trusted, and "as he believed, so it was". So much to learn and ponder over in this part alone.
This parable also reminds me also a bit of Socrates's allegory of the cave.
I look forward to reading your thoughts and your experiences with this book while you truly read and live every single word of it.