Messages

Hi Jarrod,

concerning this strange noise in my ear, I am also not sure  what it is. I have been "suffering" from it for ages. When I was a child, before I felt asleep, I had an impression that the walls in my room were emitting this sound:) But now I know that it is in my ear. In my case it is in fact something like a sound of the tv if you can imagine what I mean. (When you turn off the sound the tv gives off this special noise... ).

In my case it also happens randomly, a few times per week. I tend to think that it is connected with tiredness and stress but then why did I have it also when I was a child? Maybe it is energy imbalance, but I think it is also physical. I am sure that some spiritual exercises like the one I made can have physical effects, that is why for example pranayama (yogic breathing) shouldn' t be done without a teacher. But it is true that it disappeared after the qi-gong session, which is a very relaxing exercise full of deep breathing and stretching.

What is strange is that it is difficult to locate this sound - it's as if it is everywhere - in my head and around me... I'm not sure whether it is the same thing that you have, because you're writing that in your case it lasts for a few seconds, in my case it can stay for days. It also gets very strong when I wake up after loosing consciousness (it happened to me twice), so it can be connected with low blood pressure...

Hi everyone,

I would like to share with you my experience with what maybe can be called raising of kundalini.
First time it happened to me when I was about 15 years old - I went with my mum for a session of "sahaja yoga", which is basically about raising kundalini.
We tried a simple meditation there, with eyes closed, it was something like, now put your right hand on your stomach and think of (I don' t remember what), now put your hand on your heart and try to forgive everyone (in general, not thinking about a special person)...this kind of meditation. I was doing all of this; i was concentrated but not 'pushing' too much as I was at the same time trying not to laugh because my mum found all of this funny. In the end we were asked to put our hand 10 cm above our heads, and we were told that we should feel something, a kind of cold or warm energy, something like that. I remember that when I  put my hand above my head, I felt a force similar to the force between two magnets of the same pole, it was so strong that I had to completely raise my arm and this "force" was still continuing above my raised arm. I think it was kundalini that I managed to rise as this was the purpose of this meditation.  However, when I tried this meditation some 5 years later, it did not work.

Many years later (a few months ago) I managed to raise kundalini energy again without even planning to. I was at work and I had nothing to do, so I decided to write a letter to God:) So I was sitting at my desk and typing text, in which I was asking God al the existential questions for which I don' t have an answer. After some time I started just to talk aboud God how I would like to love him and I got quite emotional when writing it (I am sorrry I know it sounds very stupid when I write it on a forum as it is something very personal). After some time I realised that I was sitting with a spine very straight and my face was very relaxed and I felt the same kind of energy as I experienced during my sahaja yoga meditation. I was very surprised as this was not at all my intention, I was thinking what I should do know, shoud I use this energy to heal my thyroid gland?
All this experience lasted about half an hour, after my colleagues started talking to me and it disappeared. But since then I felt a weird sound in my ears that I hear sometimes but this times it was quite loud and it disappeare only after a qi-gong class that I had a few days later.

So what I think had happened is that I have, without wanting to, activated during my "prayer" this special energy, but obviosly it wasn' t the best and safest way, because of the sound I heard in my ears. And it went away only after a qi gong class where probably my energies were put into balance again. So I decided that if one day I want to try raising of kundalini, I will try it with some yoga techniques.

So I think, there are many techniques for rising kundalini, but not all of them are safe. I also think that this energy can be raised without doing any special effort, just by living your life...

I think you can start without teacher. In any case, you are going to start with the easy asanas, won' t you?
If you practice regularly, after some time maybe you will feel the need to find the teacher,
but I think for the moment the most important thing is to start;
As regards other techniques, there are many different powerful ones, but it is better to stick
to the one that appeal to us the most and persevere:)

There is a nice saying (but I don´t know how to translate it into English so that it makes sense), it is something like:
"In order for the evil to win, it is sufficient if good people do absolutely nothing".

Hi Alan,

thanks

If we come to a conclusion that there is a God = Creator of the universe, it gives us (or at least it gave to me) certain humility. No, we are not gods, not even gods in making, we are not powerful, we are just human beings, walking on the Gods' s path...

On the other hand, believing that we are omnipotent, capable (at least in theory) of everything can lead to feeling superior to others. I can see it even on this forum. It is not at all pleasant to read comments where one person is trying to show others that he/she has more knowledge that the other.

Stookie: you talk about experience. But if someone wants to get experience, he must start from somewhere, and even the old traditional religious method can work. He must base his future experience on something, otherwise he will not know in which direction to go, where to start. Through prayers you can experience God' s presence. It happened to me only a few times, but I have a friend, who, when praying, has tears in her eyes. Is this experience? This method is considered outdated today, but it can work.

Alan McDougall: I hope you are not going to leave this forum. Some of us are still waiting to the continuation of your Judgment Day story...

Someone in the forum said "I am God... although I am not yet fully aware of that".

Personally, I don't feel like being a god, yes, I am capable of doing many things but there are much more things that I am not capable of. In fact, I am very fragile. A natural disaster migh come tomorrow
and end my life so fast that I wouldn't even have time to realize what's going on...

I am so dependent on what's going on around me... I could so easily become jobless, or ill for example
that no positive imagination would get me out of this...

How can I declare I am a God?

Yes I am able to create unconsciously a new life in my womb, for example, but I cannot decide where it will be a boy or a girl, will it be healthy? good at sports? with a good ear for music? A  God cannot make things unconsciously, I am sure he is conscious of everything he does.

I would like to know what is it like to feel the presence of God, of his infinite love. Sometimes when I pray I feel something very nice and sweet but it is not strong enough...


A murderous God, well, can we really understand why God is doing this? Maybe we surestimate the value of ourselves, or of this life, maybe God, if he deprives someone of his life in the earth does it for the benefit of this person. If we don't understand the laws and rules in the "hereafter", it is difficult to judge the actions of a murderous God while we are living on this planet...

So it was only a dream...

thank you,

When I wrote that maybe it would be better to put it in the religion forum,
it was only because it is the famous jewish/christian/moslim topic, nothing more nothing less.

I am looking forward to it!

or maybe it would be better to post it in the World religions forum...
personally I am very interested, the Judgment is a big mystery for me, that I am trying to resolve, in vain.
In fact, both topics are very interesting...

zareste: take a bodu of a person in coma, i think that this is not possible, if you take into consideration that  a person in coma is not dead, and still connected to its higher bodies with "silver cord". And who does not have the silver cord for this body, cannot enter...

graveyard: how to stop reincarnation? Well, I am not much sure whether reincarnaiton exist, but I would say, develop our human qualities to such an extent, that the life on earth becomes unbearable, and make "vibrations" of our soul so high that it would be impossible for it to stay is the present physical body... and thus ready to leave to higher realms with no need for physical body...

i.e. to develop to such an extent feeling of compassion, that you will consider others more important that you... when I think about it, it corresponds to the idea that someone said in another topic, to find out the truth that we are all one... to find it out and feel it...  I think that all religions can lead you to this stage, no matter which "religious or nor-religious method" you choose, but in any case, it won't be easy, it requires lots of painful experience, and I think that every soul desires reincarnation until it reaches that point...

please continue the story, I am interested, thanks

Thank you very much for posting it. You have experienced something great and inimaginable.
I feel reassured now and now I understand why you ask
who God is, if I had experienced something similar I would meditate on that as well.

God Bless You

Alan: I don´t even know if I believe in NDE or nor. I am lost in this subject:)
I have just read your NDE experience in one of your posts, wow, it is very powerful.

God created us in his image, it is strange how translations differ,
in my language it means something like, God created what he had in his mind,
according to its imagination. i.e., if he has in his mind a horse, and wants to create
a horse, he wouldn´t create a mouse.

So maybe he created us according to his intentions, he created exactly what he wanted to...

I think we cannot really understand who God really is. As we are only a part of His creation (or of Him? I don´t really know).
I´ve spend so many times trying to find out who God is, with no result.
We are a part of something bigger and we are doing here what we were assigned to do.
It is like, can a blood cell understand that it is a part of something bigger? No, it is only
doing its task it was assigned to do. And I think it is the same thing with us.
I think we can meditate on God´s creation, which can put us in a state of awe, humility,
etc, etc, but we will not be successfull if we meditate on God  himself. We may think we understand
something, but understanding will never be complete. Also how to explain to our limited minds
what God is? With what language? I think here no intuition, third eyes, open chakras, etc cannot help.

As regards NDE, Alan, are sure there was no blood in your brain for 20 minutes? I think that is not possible,
maybe  there was no new blood, but there was still at least something. I know that there are theories
that in case of dying there are certain hormones or sth that our brain starts to produce that make these vision of light etc...

I had a few out of body experiences, so I was looking forward to an operation in a full anaesthesy, but nothing happened,
no visions, nothing, I just woke up an hour later... Also, when we faint, because of low pressure, when there is not enough
blood in our brains, why simply lose our conscience...

A near death experience is not a death experience, and not everyone who experienced an NDE had this kind of visions...
Maybe it just means that after we die our conscieousness dies as well...

roquepablo: I like your explanations of hell:) I am trying to find out what exactly hell and heaven are... but I am not very successful for the moment. But maybe it is just like with God, it is something we cannot understand for the moment.

ambientsound: I am not sure that it is so easy with realising that all people are free. Sometimes the reality is just too real:)
I am not much in favour of the 2012, but who knows, maybe there will be some kind  of a war... what else it should be? War can lead even to a good thing, if it weren´t for the Second world war, there would be  no European Union today, who was created in order to prevent another big european conflict. And it worked pretty well. But I like your description of the today´s world: a rose in the banana mold:)

Mustardseed: your did not replied to most of the points I raised in my previous message. You only talk about the disrecpet of women´s rights in Japan, but I do not think that that was the main issue in my message. But I agree with you, every eastern society, including Japan is much more traditionalist than us, and that is reflected in their behaviour to women.
You wrote that "I still think that Islam represses women, free thought and free speech and all the very things a free world is made up of."

You will find the answer in the article of the European Parliament Deputy, who spent a half of her life in the Middle East:
it isnot a perfect translation, so it does not sound like a real English, but I hope that my translation is understandable.
And by the way, as regards a part about anaphabetism, and the effort of the government to deprive the poor people of their rights and income, my husband, who is from Maroc, told me about it already many times, so it is not only one person´s point of view.

Here is the article:


Islam

The problem is not in Islam, but in the oil. Thanks to the oil incomes the regimes of the Middle East are free to ignore the requirements of the policical and economic modernization.
The scandal about the caricatures of the prophet Mohammed has worsen the relationship between the arab Middle East and Europe.  The closer look att he situation shows that islam serves only as a pretext. In fact the ruling security and military structures of the arab countries are in favour of such conflict. If we don´t exert enough pressure on them we might face in future not only  instability, but also a large military conflict.

Muslims don´t think much about their abstract God, they have a clear idea about him. Allah is unique and decides about everything. To Him belong all the will and responsibility. Islam means submission. To be a muslim  is a way of life, it is a complex of daily customs, life in a community. Common prayers, common purification, common pilgrimage to Mecca, common friday prayer, common fasting, following of the same law, family life, celebration of festive days. To be a muslim means to live a fully valued life of an islamic community.  There is no need to be afraid of islam as an ideologic phenomenon. In its essence it is not a violent, untolerant and expansive phenomenon, but on the contrary, it is an instrument of consolidation and stabilisation.  In the chaos of the collapse of the ancient empires Islam become an instrument of a calm cohabitation and flowering of many doctrines, philosophies and cultures. As a reflection of christianity and judaism that were shown as an error in communication of the real God Revelation, Islam tried to consolidate, simplify and precise the monoteistic vision of the world.  God according to the Coran is unique, has no partner, is allmighty, He has all the will and He decides everything. Islam removed the complexity of Father, Son and the Holy Ghost, just as it simplified the old-testament Prophets.

More than by the fire and the sword, Islam expanded by demographic explosion of the descendants of arab warriors (fighters?). During centuries Islam created a unique place for tolerant cohabitation of independently organised communities, that were allowed to keep their own system of law, religion, social and tax system and sanctuaries.

In the course of the centuries Islam found big inner balance. Even the slowly degrading Osman´s Empire did not evoke a need of an inner reform, analogy of protestantism. Only the fast and violent invasion of Napoleon and colonialism from the West forced the islamic masses to quickly search the answers for the questions of the modern world – victory of the foreign armies, decline of its own economy, the end of the middle-age erudition.  Muslim masses searched the defence in turning to the fundamentals, roots of their faith. When the British and the French, almost from day to day, without a calm handover of power, quitted after the second world war their dominions, it was, almost without an exeption, security and military apparatus that got the power in the concerned countries, instead of natural elites.  This security and military apparatus became a direct part of the Cold war conflict. Instead of urban, cultural and commercial elites the Middle East is until now dominated by security apparatuses and armies.

Community character, simplicity of its teachings and no separation of the religion and the State make out of Islam a very effective totalitary idelology of the early industrialization.  Allah´s teachings serve very well to the ,,consolidation and stabilisation" of uneducated, unemployed, unproductive and in poverty living masses. Islam was misused as a totalitarian, mass and bolshevik ideology.

This means that contemporary Islam is not a cause, but a consequence, not a source, but a side-effect of a big  danger.  Bolshevization, radicalization and extremism of the political and social systems of the Middle East may be theoretically compared to the situation in pre-industrial Russia or to Germany humiliated by the defeat in the First World War.  It is a phenomenon that might lead to a profound and long-lasting instability of that area. That might end in a long lasting world conflict, unleashed by terrorist groups and fed by security and military systems, self-assigned  interpretors of the God´s truth, decadent feudal families and demographic pression from bedouine cultures. Since Islam is not the source of the conflict, it is neither a starting point to its solution. The only solution is a change of political systems in the Middle east.

Oil as a problem

The main source of problems is the oil. Thanks to the easy incomes from its exploitation, the developement in the Middle East stopped at the pre-industrial stage. Growing consumption of the oil caused increasing of the oil income without any requirements for modernisation and lead to the fact that the arab world stayed at the stage  of the desintegration of feudal structures. Where there is no tax, there is no need for reprezentation. In the Middle East there is even no need for the population, because the population only lowers the oil incomes of those who dominate them.  Why share it with the population they don´t need?  Why to invest in its development? Why care about its education and social, cultural, political, social security development? Why to increase its employment rate? It is only necessary to consolidate and stabilize the arab masses, to domitate them and keep them on the income of 1 to 2 euros per day.

Dependant on oil are also the  Middle East countries that do not exploite it, every year, they get, through a redistribution of the oil ressources, 22 milliards of euros.  The less dependent country is Morocco – one third of its labour force works in Europe. Stable third class, whose existence is enabled by the cultural capital and free work in the services, does not exist anywhere. Tunis lives out of the oil investment in the tourism. Security apparatus, conjunctural profiteers and  feudal families control the population with the help of  the consolidating, stabilizing, tradicionalistic, mass, even totalitarian instrument. Islam helps to dominating elites to keep the control of the oil incomes.  And that is where lies its danger.

A big number of the analphabets

The second source of the problems is the demographic explosion caused by a higher hygienic standard and development of the  health care, especially thanks to the use af the antibiotics.  Oil income ensure a very good level of the basic health care for the whole population.  Islamic prohibition of the contraception caused in the last few centuries the fact that the Middle East reaches the highest portion of the young generation in the population structure in the world.  The growth of the oil prices maybe enables the growth of the GDP, but it does not mean any growth of the expenses for education.  Arab population grows asymetrically, most people are born at the social bottom, at the income level of 1-2 euros per day.

The oil mana does not need any more investment.  The Middle East is the most retarded area in the world as regards the creation of new jobs (working posts?)  growth of the work productivity, technology modernization, and development of services, science and the system of education.  Therefore we are facing millions of analphabets, who cannot find any place for them on the job market, have no social security, no information and no influence on the politics. These social strata with the lowes social mobility in the world are kept only on the level of a life  minimum. Masses in Algeria, Lebanon, Iran, Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, as well as Palestine only confirmed that they don´t need to consolidate with the help of security systems, there is no need to  fight for  democratic right to vote. They themselves vote for the stabilisation and consolidation, that means Islam. 

The third problem lies in a fact that  in order to fulfill the role of the consolidating and stabilizing function, Islam needs an inner, as well as external conflict.  The external conflict is obvious.  The statements of the iranian president Ahmadi about the holocaust and destroying of Izrael, the case of the iranian nuclear program, misuse of the danish caricatures by the syrian secret services to start political convulsions are the clear manifestations of the support of the consolidation of the totalitarian power  of the security apparatus.  The reason is clear, to name a common external ennemy, meaning the western democratic civilizations and their representant in the Middle East -  Izrael.

The biggest inner conflict of the contemporary Middle East takes place between the controllers of the oil income and those who assume that their ,,natural" right to these incomes is being taken from them.  An example par excellence is a deprivated member of a commercial Ladin family,  many leading salafists represented in the kuwait parliament or the growing number of wahhabist leaders, not to speak of Muslim brothers of a jordanian prisoner Zarqawi. In the Middle East it is the question of ensuring one´s portion on the oil income.
In order to get such power it is necessary to use all the possible means, including killing of the people whose faith is not strong enough. This model of behaviour is the same as that of the totalitarian regimes.

European responsibility

But do we realize our european responsibility for the development in the Middle East? The only solution is a prompt, clear, unconditional and hard pression on the change of the political conditions. We should focus on the observance of law, end of the economic discrimination, respect of human rights, including democracy, freedom of speach and of religion. As regards Iran, it is necessary to introduce intelligent measures: stop movement of its diplomats, to limit travelling of its prezident, unable the Iran Air to fly abroad, exclude the country from the football world championship: These are sanctions that do not destroy economy of the country and will not harm the income of the poorest. The same as regards Syria: if we put a pressure on an immediate and complete withdrawal of the syrian security from Libanon, marking the syrian-libanese border as a legal international border, the unconditional realization of the announced economic liberalization, setting free  the political prisoners, recognition of the kurdish minority, complete end of censure. With Egypt we have to negotiate the end of the numerous civil and military aids, if the prezident Mubarak does not admit false elections, if he does not permit due registration of the political parties and if he does not set free domocratic dissidents.

As regards other countries of the Middle East... (repeating the same things...) plus there should be more internships and more programs for the development of education.  Pressure should be also put on the growth of the employment rate through reinvestment of the oil incomes, supporting the internal arab commerce, construction of energetic and traffic network.

However, the real solution is only one: to limit the consumption of energy = oil. Because the level of unstability is directly proportional to the growth of unstability and big problems of the Middle East. Let´s hope that Europe will deal with climate changes. But it is the USA, who, if they want to stay the leaders of the world development, have to accept the leading role in the modern synergy politics. Fight against terrorism and with climate changes are the two sides of the same coin.

mustardseed: i will get back to you later. I will not have access to internet for a few days and i don' t have time now to write long answers.

Ambientsound: I agree with everything you have written. Yes, I felt this emptiness but I never knew what makes people so empty. You gave me an answer.

ambientsound: yes, our society is individual centered, something that did not exist before.
we have our freedom, which brought many good things to us, and we cannot accept things of the past anymore. I have nothing against that, only, i think we have become too selfish, which is bad for us.
Also our society is too much based on materialistic values which even the most spiritual person cannot escape. Personally, I 'feel" a strong spiritual emptiness in western society. 

mustardseed: I thank you as well.

I have just found an interesting article about how the period of enlightement changed
profoundly our society.

http://histclo.com/act/rel/hist/rh-enl.html

Mustardseed: what you have sent me, it is not acting of muslims.
THERE ARE NO REAL MUSLIMS IN THIS WORLD anymore,
the true muslims are very rare.


In order to improve the situation in these countries, you
will not achieve anything by atacking islam. You have to put
a political pression on the governments of the countries concerned.
As well as an embargo, etc. As the USA have done with Cuba.
The problem is that Cuba has nothing important to offer,
but many islamic countries have oil that the developed world need.

Our western world is  not the way it is thanks to christian religion, on the
contrary, the  more it distanced itself from christianity,
the more developed it got. Or, what about japan, it is not based
on christian values at all:)

Maybe you dont see it in the USA, people are
quite religious there, in Europe churches are empty. The reason for it is,
as I read, that in USA, the (sorry I dont know what it is called like exactly)
social security system is not very well developed (money that you get from the state
when you lose your job, when you are seriously ill, etc) In Europe it is very well
developed, governments take a very good care of their citizens.
Sometimes it is even better for people not to work, they get from the government
enough money to live well.

In USA, I read, it is different and it is churches who assume this role, take care
of people in need etc. In Europe, churches are subsidised by governments,
so priests do not care much, they get their salaries anyway, whether people
go to church or not. In the USA, churches must do their best to attract their clients.

But, what I wanted to say, is that our society is based on ATHEIST values.
All european philosophy is based on it, humanism, nihilism, existencionalism, etc.

As regards christian values how can we be sure that we understand them well.
The idea of loving my enemy has always perplexed me. How to understand the word
love? Today, the world love got different connotations than in the times of jesus.
What happened to the real "agape"?
Do you remember that jesus even told that slaves shouldnt try to liberate themselves, but should
be satisfied with their status? So why did we abolish slavery? because it is an atheist idea,
freedom, not christian.

You see, our society is too different from the real christian society as well, todays times are
far away from it, because, as I have already written, it has became very individualized.
Thats why we cannot properly apply nor christian, nor islamic teachings. It does not
conform with our societies.

I do not contact clairvoyants, but some people feel a strong need to
inform me bout my future, although I never ask them:)))

I am sorry that I changed a little bit  subject, it is not about women and islam anymore.

mustardseed: I read your message once again, you told me, compare women and islam with women and christianity; the problem is, most christian countries are rich, developed countries.  But what about christianism in africa? I would say, women there are forced to be married as well, etc. etc. Mum of a friend of mine (he is from nigeria) got married when she was 12 with a man 15 years older that her. Or I remember, that in Africa people think that if they have sex with a baby it will protect them from getting aids. etc, etc, etc. Or women from christian part of india, south america... I hope you see my point.

I know that I talk about my ideal islam, but it is the right islam. maybe I will show it to this world one day. One clairvoyant told me a few days ago that I am full of evil and agressivity and that my destiny is politics, hahaha, but who knows...

Peace, I think this discussion leads nowhere, I understand very well your point,
but i simply do not think that it is the true islam what you describe. Although it is a reality.

mustardseed: I am sorry I have not replied to you yet, but I don' t have enough time for the moment.
I watched the video (not the funny one, but the cruel one) with my husband and he was shocked, more than me. He told me, he knew that things like that happen, but he never saw anything like that. he could not understand the women' s circonscision (or whatevers the word), lapidation, letting girls burn because they did not have their heads covered, etc. I was surprised how sensible he is, much more than me, and I am a woman.
Of course, that video is horrible, but you see, he is a muslim, from a muslim country, not "europeanized" and he does not agree with that and is shocked by that. there is another problem, extreme poverty and analphabetism, both of them supported by the governments of muslim countries...

As regards me adjusting to culture of his family and not vice versa, it is not true. If I pay attention to what I wear, it is out of my respect for them. They did not treat me as if I were from morocco, but always asked me if i prefer to do things in a european way (eat from my own plate, etc...), and they even let me sleep alone in a room with my husband to be, although it is something against their moral rules... and I could continue. But, they are not analphabets, and they are understanding...

As regards sharia, I cannot accept it, as I promised to honour laws of my country.
But i did not want to say that sharia is barbaric. How can you be so sure that it is a good
think that our society has become so individual centered? That was my point. Only the way sharia is
executed in some countries is barbaric.

As regards st Paul: become jew to jews, muslim to muslims, etc. I call that hypocrisy.

As regards jihad, if you spent years in arab countries, you probably speak arab, then you probably know that this word means effort, and not only saint war. The best jihad for woman is to be a good wife to her husband, and i am trying be a good wife...well... unfortunately I have a pretty difficult character:)
Not every muslim killede during jihad will go to paradise, even prophet said that about one man
who died in a jihad war. In order to do this kind of jihad, you must be spiritually developed to a certain level, it is not that everyone can do it (thats what my husband told me)

It is simply not true that as a muslim I dont have right to an opinion, how come that I say often my opinion to muslims, face to face? And they don't insult me. Why they did not kill me yet. I say many things against their beliefs. They, muslim men, tell me: it is not a the fact that a women covers her head, that makes a muslim out of her. It is in your heart... If you feel it, you do it, if not, do not do it, and you are still a muslim. Really, I have more and more impression that many bad things connected with islam come from the culture and many muslim men from muslim countries tell me the same thing.

It is not up to us, human beings, to decide, whether a christian can go to heaven. It is up to God, whatever people say.

My husband always says... there are no true muslims in this world anymore...

I hope this weekend I will be able to translate you the article

Mustardseed: I just read some of your posts and I found out they you as well spent a half of your life in an Arab country. Well, this is not the point, but it is an interesting article anyway, although, it probably won' t tell you anything new. We'll see. When I have time I will translate a bit of it.

Mustardseed:

You wrote that when muslims try to defend the atrocities commited in the name of islam, they inevitably talk about crusades etc, which happened in the past. There is no excuse for it, of course, and it is a bad argument, "christians did it as well". etc.

Why are you sending us, western muslims, to islamic countries? I am very much aware that in the western world there is much more freedom. I have responsibility only for myself, I cannot be held liable for all the bad things commited by others. However, I have spend quite a lot of time in Morocco so I know what life is like there and it is possible that I will stay there for a few years, as my husband comes from there and all his family lives there. You know what, his family is just normal, nice, kind people, of course it is a different culture so I had to adjust, but they respect me as a European and I respect them as they are. But I pay more attention to what kind of clothes I wear,  I always make sure that no man in the family can see a part of my belly, legs, etc. My husband' s sisters still live with them (they are not married), but they have their own car and work. Most of the limitating rules, for ex. woman cannot work, cannot walk alone in the street are part of a culture, not islam. In Morocco it depends on a family, whether you come from a countryside or a city, etc. But it is men who have the authority most of the times. Law is inspired by sharia but is constantly changing and coming closer to our western laws.

Yes, I have read the Quran, all of it, I have acquainted myself with hadiths, sharia, etc. As regards sharia, of course it is difficult for us to accept it, and for me as well, I have studied law (that belong to european continental system). So I cannot change my views so easily just because I become muslim. The problem is, as you probably know, we live in a world in which an accent is put on an individual. Of course the protection of the society is important, but no by any means. We care about rights of individuals. But in the past the society was much different, and it was an interest of society that was more important than that of an individual. That' s why it was considered appropriate to cut off someone"s hand for theft, etc; There was a big harm inflicted on a victim, like this he wouldn't steal any more, and it would protect the society. It is a very strict rule, of course. Today, for a theft you will get a fine, or maybe a few months of prison.

I believe that there is one Creator of the Universe. He has created us, put us in our physical bodies and gave us one opportunity to live on the earth; I do not know why, according to the Quran it is to test us both by good and bad things happening to us. In order to succeed, one must prove his perfect character, and show his best qualities, recognize, honour and be thankful to his Creator. Ther will be some people who will be successful who will go to Paradise, whatever it is, as it cannot be described by our "worldly" worlds. The rest will go to hell, I understand that they will be annihilated. It is extremely difficult to go to Paradise, I would say most people will not deserve it, I think, people who will go there will be those who are like some saints in christianity, Francois d' Assisi, etc. It is my opinion. Now I am thinking about Saint Mary, jesus' s mother. Do you think, if she lived in our times, that she would be fighting for a right not to cover her head? ))))))))

I pray and I am thankful to the One who created me; I try to purify my character (it is VERY difficult), be tolerant, open minded, humble, etc. etc, when something bad happens to me, I try to understand that it was a will of God instead of getting angry, I try to understand that all good that happens to me is a blessing from God, for which I should be thankful and not take it for granted, I try to live according to basic good principles, without exception, I am trying to have the best posible relationship with my husband, yes, I am a muslim, I try to obey the will of God, can you tell me, Mustardseed, what's wrong with that?

I feel fulfilled, I did not find this kind of satisfaction in Christianism, nor in astral travel (I have some experience in astral travelling, meditation, even a little bit of clairvoyance) or some new age practices.
Am I doing something wrong? WHy should I stop with it only because there are people out there doing bad thing in the name of islam? I am not responsible for them.

I will translate for you an interesting article about islam written by a member of the European parliament, who spent a half of her life in the Middle East. But it will take me some time, I do not want to waste my Sunday on it:)

Kind regards,

Anelie