Covenant
Many people believe our covenant with God is forged
exclusively in this world. From the Sufi perspective, this
belief is not completely accurate.
According to practitioners of the Sufi path, our covenant with
God first took place prior to our coming into the present
physical/material realm of being. What transpires in this
world is about whether or not we will honor our original,
pre-creational covenant.
Undergoing initiation into a given Sufi Order or taking
exoteric religious vows is not a first-time contract between us
and God. In a sense, these processes are re-creations of
events which, as suggested above, already have occurred.
Initiation is an example of just one of the many things we
must do in order to abide by, or to honor, the conditions of
the pre-creational undertaking. Such activities both serve to
confirm the original covenant as well as help us to work our
way toward remembering what we have forgotten.
Sufi masters indicate the original agreement was somewhat
like a challenge to our spirits. More specifically, prior to
coming into this world, our spirits were asked, in effect,
whether we always would recognize God.
Our spirits were asked whether we always would submit to
God. Our spirits were asked whether we always would love
and cherish God. Our spirits were asked whether we always
would obey God.
Our spirits were asked whether we always would remember
God. Our spirits were asked whether we always would
worship and praise God. Our spirits were asked whether we
always would be thankful to God.
According to Sufi masters, everyone who was brought into
existence in this world answered: "Yes!", to all of the above.
In fact, God only gave physical/material existence to those
spirits who answered the challenge in an affirmative fashion.
However, when our spirits were brought into association
with our bodies and placed in this world through birth, we
became mesmerized by the intense effects of worldly
existence on sensation, emotions, and thinking. As a result
we quickly forgot: who we are; or, from where we had come;
or, to what we had agreed in our original covenant.
As outlined previously, when we become initiated or we take
religious vows, supposedly, this constitutes a first step along
the path to regaining our spiritual identities and memories.
The deep and tragic irony of this step, however, is that no
sooner do many of us confirm our original covenant through
the process of initiation or the taking of vows, then we start
to forget again as we continue to be dominated and
preoccupied by the addictive impact of the world on our
systems.
Many of us may be skeptical of the idea we have made a
covenant with God prior to created existence which we,
subsequently, have forgotten. Nevertheless, we should reflect
on the fact that the very same thing happens all over again,
before our very eyes, in the present world.
In each case, the story is the same. Our addictions to
sensations, worldly gratification and the false self have led us
to forget our true selves and our covenant with God.
One of the most fundamental struggles confronting our life in
this world is to remember not only what we promised to God
but to remember the act of promising itself. One of the most
basic tasks we must fulfil in the life of this world is to honor
our pre-creational covenant.
Like someone who has suffered a massive cerebral stroke,
we must undergo a program of rehabilitation in order to
regain our spiritual memories and faculties. We must seek
out those, such as the Sufi masters, who specialize in the
requisite therapeutic procedures.
Slowly, we must be brought to the point where we can
recognize God in all things. We must be trained to overcome
our spiritual aphasia, as well as to regain the use of our
tongues so that, once again, we may praise God
continuously.
We must be helped to reactivate our atrophied capacity to
love and cherish God. We must be shown how to exercise our
muscles so that we may have control over our locomotor
system in order to be able to obey God in all things.
We must be given treatment which induces our amnesia to
lift so that our remembrance of God may be clear and steady
under all circumstances. Our faculties for eternal gratitude
and submission to God must be re-educated. We must be
given remedial programs which will help bring us up to speed
with respect to how we ought to worship God in an
unceasing fashion.
We are not doing God any favors by seeking out, and
entering into, these kinds of rehabilitation program. God, in
fact, is doing us the favor by subsidizing such free clinics and
staffing them with individuals who are not only skilled,
knowledgeable experts, but who are individuals possessing,
by the grace of God, tremendous compassion, patience and
love. They have unbelievable bedside manners.
In any event, entering into spiritual rehabilitation programs
of the foregoing sort is a matter of personal integrity. We
made a covenant with God. We made promises to God. The
issue is straightforward: will we honor our word?
God challenged us prior to our coming into material
existence. We accepted that challenge. We were given
physical existence.
Now, we are being asked by God to put our money, so to
speak, where our mouth is. Were we bluffing or were we
sincere when we made the original covenant with God? Time
will tell.
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