A student spoke with a Master Teacher and said,
"I can understand almost anything, but the idea that God had no beginning.
How can something have no beginning?"
The master peeled a banana and said, "All
things have a beginning."
The student scorned, "you just said God had no
beginning, now you say everything has a beginning. That’s a paradox of words.
You can't have both at the same time!"
The master looked calm as he grinned and ate a
mango. "Examine your assumptions and listen to the bias that limits you."
The student shook his head. The master waited. The
student started several times to say something. The master ate some dates. The
student pondered until finally he brightened. "I assumed God is a thing!"
The Master leaned forward and whispered, "the wisdom
of balance tells us that to understand the opposites is to resolve the paradox.
What is the opposite of thing?"
The student slowly responded, "no-thing."
The Master sat up and casually said, "So
obviously Allah is no thing and is that which preceeds all things."
The student complained, "eternity isn't
logical."
The master finished his fruit and smiled.
"Perhaps there is another way for you to understand eternity. Instead of
trying to comprehend it logically, experience it instead."
The student laughed. "You can't experience
eternity! That’s impossible.
The master laughed back. "You are experiencing
eternity now. Right now
you are experiencing -now. Can you ever remember a time when it wasn't now? All
you have is right now. All there is, all there ever has been, all there ever
will be, is now."
The student frowned as he tried to comprehend it.
"How is right now eternity?"
"Eternity and now are the same thing."
They are the same; two sides of the same coin. For example, creation is not separate from
God. Creation and the creator are the same thing. The difference between you
and Jesus the Messiah is that although Jesus was born he never forgot he was God. You
have forgotten; I had once forgotten I was God.
The Master repeated, "Eternity creates the
now. There always has been and always will be now. There has never not been
now."
"Now and eternity are the same thing?"
The student began to think the master was losing it.
"Try it this way. There is only an ever changing
now. What we call the past is the memory of now as it has been and the future
is the now we look forward to."
The student said, “I need to think about this.”
The Master said, "Meditate on now."
