Introduction
by Kim McCaul
Like any religion and spiritual tradition, Islam can be used as a tool of personal and social oppression and become subject to social and political uses that are far removed from its actual spiritual teachings. Yet it is this dysfunctional version of Islam that so many voices in the West currently emphasize, demonizing a large number of the world’s population seemingly without awareness or recognition that there is a very different side to Islam too.
At its best, the devotion to God emphasized in Islamic teaching and practice is a devotion to humanity and life itself. When practiced like that, Islam encourages selfless service and inspires devotees to demand the best of themselves, overcoming their own shortcomings to improve their ability to serve God by serving humanity. These are universal principles of all spiritual traditions. This love and compassion for humanity is very clear in Khaled’s account of his conscious projection with his deceased father.
As a cross-cultural researcher of out-of-body experiences, I am also happy to be able to publish this account because it alerts us to the important role this particular experience of consciousness plays in the Islamic tradition. Unlike in Europe, where centuries of religious repression drove our understanding of these kinds of experiences underground only emerging again over the past hundred years or so, projections of consciousness continued to be an integral and accepted part of the Islamic religious experience.
Finally, reading accounts like this from other cultures is a good reminder of the universality of these experiences, because whatever our religious and cultural background: we can all leave our physical body and experience non-physical realities while still physically alive, we all survive “death”, love connects us all with those who have left the physical dimension before us, and we all increase our ability to be of service to humanity (both in this and in other dimensions) by confronting our fears and insecurities and moving forward to the best of our ability.
Spiritual Guidance by a Deceased Father
by Khaled Elomar
My dad walked into my room. Quietly but forcefully shook me to awaken me. I looked up at him in complete bewilderment only to see that he was gesturing me to remain quiet so that I did not wake anyone up. He was dressed in the traditional White Arabic attire. His face was shining as bright as the moon.
I walked out of the room while he was hovering. I whispered to him “I miss you Baba”…. He responded with “I know. I’ve always been here with you”….
He said “hold my hand tight. We’re going somewhere.” I grabbed his warm soft hand, raised it to my lips and kissed it. As I started asking where we are going, I found myself in a house of 5 people. A Mother, Father, Grand Mother and 2 boys lived in this barely lit house by a few candles. One of the boys was a teenager and the other was around 10 years of age. They spoke Arabic. Heavy Syrian accent.
I instantly felt ashamed for entering the house unannounced and uninvited. I looked at my dad and he knew that shameful feeling I had. He said, “Relax, they can’t see you” …. I said, “Where are we?” Dad answered, “Aleppo, Syria”
The mother was hurriedly preparing a rather small modest dinner using scraps, vegetables that had gone off and outdated ingredients. But nevertheless, the excitement on the family’s face of having “a dinner” as “a family” was immeasurable. As the dinner was placed on the copper tray and put on the floor in the middle of the living room, the family sat around the tray and the father, with a stuttering and almost crying voice, said “hurry up and eat before something happens”. The strange thing is that as they were eating and talking, their language would change to the languages of the different people being oppressed around the world, languages from Zimbabwe, West Papua, Myanmar and so on. Yet I knew exactly what they were saying, irrespective of the language they were speaking. I understood that these different languages were meant to remind me that the experience I was witnessing was not limited to this family or the people of Syria, but is shared by many who are suffering across the world.
With only a few minutes into the dinner, a whistle was strikingly increasing and getting louder and louder with each micro second. The father yelled out “DUCK YOUR HEADS”. And BANG. What seemed a modest poverty stricken yet grateful family dinner ended up a family massacre. Both the mother and grandmother were torn into pieces. The older son simply became non-existent. The father who barely had any strength could only see his youngest son. He got up and ran to the boy to pull him out from under the rubble. As soon as the father grabbed both hands and started to pull, he noticed that he was only dragging the top section of his young son. The father looked straight into my eyes and yelled out from the top of his voice “WHY?”. I stood and watched the father’s agony and trauma. Needless to say that I was, well, the feeling is indescribable.
I clinched onto my Dad’s hand tighter but felt my dad loosen his grip on me. I moved closer to my dad to seek fortification. The closer I tried to get to my dad, the further he moved away from me. I looked into his face only to see him crying. The shine on his face was dimmed by anger and sadness. My tongue was twisted. My stomach was knotted up and I felt sick to my core…
Words eventually came out of my mouth and I said to my dad “why me?”
Baba: “why not?”
Me: “why them?”
Baba: “it’s not only them. There are plenty more like them and even worse?”
Me: “did the father see me when he was looking into my eyes?”
Baba: “No. He was looking into Despair”.
Me: “Was I part of his Despair?”
Baba: “you holding tighter onto my hand and moving closer to me is part of that father’s misery. You’re not doing enough to help. I know you and I know who you are”.
Me: “what can I do?”
Baba whispered something that broke my heart and will continue to break my heart forever. He said “I raised a good decent man. You’re good enough to figure it out for yourself. Plus I have been dead for two and half years. Don’t give up for the love of Allah”.
And with the sound of the 3:30am alarm in my bedroom, he disappeared much the same way he did at 8:30am on that serene day 13th June 2013.
I opened my eyes and saw my wife gorgeously sleeping beside me. Her face is the first face I see each morning. Her odour is the first odour I smell each morning. And her skin is the first thing I touch each day. I walked into each of my boys bedrooms and saw them sleeping peacefully. I thought to myself, how blessed am I.
And there and then it hit me. My father wanted me to know that;
• I need to strive to make a good change in the world. Be a HOPE for Humanity
• Pray and supplicate for all the different people that are being oppressed and are experiencing Genocide and Oppression irrespective of colour, gender, age, faith, race culture and country
• Be thankful for what I have and remember that no matter how bad things are, there is always someone worse off than me
• Never take my family for granted. Cherish and love them forever. Even though I lost my dad and Yasmine, others have LOST EVERYTHING
• Let go of him and be the father to my boys much the same way as he was to me
Baba,
Even though your passing has created a void in my life, your presence in my heart has quadrupled. You’ve been dead for 2.5yrs and yet you are still teaching me. I will do everything in my power to prove to you that I am who you wanted me to be and that my boys will be brought up to be just like you Baba. I will do everything you expect of me. But I promise you I will NEVER let go off you as you haven’t let go of me yet.
LOVE YOU FATTI