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Lately,
while channel-flicking I came across a channel, the name of which I've
forgotten —
Morocco something? — I saw a likeable young man being interviewed who,
just when I was about to click and go through to the next channel,
said, "...spiritual, an Islam that shows real respect for others." I
strained my ears. The young man was describing his faith in very
beautiful noble words.
Suddenly, his name shone on screenSoudain, Abd Al Malik. I didn't have
the slightest idea who he was.
At one point, the intervewer told him in substance : "But
don't you earn a comfortable living? You do."
Abd Al Malik answers
(I render his thought from memory) :
"To me earning money is no end in itself. That's just a means of
existing,
because, if you don't exist, you don't have the slightest capability
of issuing a message to mankind.
In the world you are what you have. If you have nothing, you are
nothing, you are
unseen."
I don't know whether Abd Al Malik has read The Revelation of
Arès, ever,
but he's got his way of stating a global fundamental truth,
that the Creator mentions about himself in that Revelation:
 I
have, I am, says
the Creator (Revelation
of Arès ii/1).
It is because he resembles his
Creator (Genesis 1/27)
that man has physical possessions besides his mere life, because the
Creator himself, if he had no more than his Life,
would not
exist, he could not be heard by
man, who cannot consider anything as existent but perceived, felt,
valued, shared.
To have materially speaking is to lay yourself open to the other one's
senses and consciousness and the other one can perceive you and so
makes you exist.
One is, because one has, therefore,
but the Creator says even more, One has what one
is, too.
This is why leaving men in destitution is tantamount to keeping them
from
existing. This is more than a sin against the neighbor, this is a sin
against the Creator and his Creation
Consequently, every asset that a living one has is destined to be
traded — it doesn't matter if it is traded for gratitude, for objects,
for help, for wages — and anyone's due honestly paid even allows you to
value a spiritual situation (Matthew
25/14-30, Luke 19/11-27, etc.)
Even though the Creator is not intrinsically molded to
exist materialistically just as man exists by coping with his
body, putting on clothes, eating, etc., the Creator himself needs to
possess something to exist. In saying, I have, I am (Rév of
Arès ii/1)
the Creator lays stress on the fact that he exists only because he is
perceived by his Creation and, notably, heard by the human creature
and that this could not be possible without links of possession. And
even he possesses—he has—much. He possesses the
most, his sumptuous immense
Universe (Rév of
Arès 12/4) and the least, his Voice (4/8-10,
vii/4-5, xxxiii/5)by which he called Noah, Abraham,
Sarsushtratam
(Zoroaster), Moses, Isaiah, Jesus,
Muhammad and
Mikal and the world beyond the prophets.
Twice or thrice a month, a reprimanding moralist turns up and
admonishes me, "You have been given The Revelation of Arès
for free, you shall give it to the world for free. It's shameful of you
to sell this book. It proves that you are a crook (or an
impostor, or a smart aleck, etc.)." Ouch! I'm not particularly
treated leniently.
I reply, "Every thing has a price in the universe. Passing The
Revelation of Arès
on to mankind costed the Creator a lot more than some money, the pain
to love from unrequited love: I'm
squeezed, I'm squeezed like the nail (hammered in) (ii/21).
An exorbitant cost which it will take time for us sinners to meet by
being penitent,
acquiring Good,
a currency we can't afford yet. So, until that Day
rises,
divine Wisdom
sets us a special price, next to nothing for his Word
on earth, but
a price that we have to meet nevertheless, that is, the money to edit,
print, distribute The
Revelation of Arès
and the necessity of selffinancing by selling it, in order to keep on
circulating it and forever widening the field of its distribution."
I add, "Judging by what you just said, you'd be
converted by this book, if it was given for free?"
The reply to my question varies depending on the moralist, but it
always amounts to this, "This is not what I meant."
I retort then, "You have tacitly owned that there's a moral in the fact
of selling The
Revelation of Arès. Events prove it. About the
year 1980, for a few months we handed out 20,000 copies of The
Gospel Delivered in Arès
for free. How many spiritual vocations do you think were awakened by
that free distribution? None at all! On the other hand, the books paid
cash in bookstores have allowed a lot to enter into penitence
and create their souls
(Rev of Arès Vigil 17). Which just shows that even a soul
is worth a
little money for a start."
The
reprimanding moralist disappears then. He is convinced that I
told him lies. Another is to turn up within a week or two weeks.
As to me, I do nothing but proceed with the logic of the Creation, that
is, both to have and to be inseparably:
I have, I am
(ii/1),
given that one cannot have and not be, but one cannot be and not have,
either.
To pay the printer's bill, and then to have the book paid by the reader
and let the bookseller make a profit, these actions are normal—for
the laborer (even the
apostolate laborer) deserves his wages (Luke 10/7)—and do not
despiritualize the Word.
Only damned hypocrites try to make people believe that a
Word is genuine but only if its witness lives on nothing and
communicates with the world by sheer transparency like
angels (if that, for who knows what angels live on?)
A new publication of The
Revelation of Arès
is going to come out. It will be sold, just as the previous
publications were. Nothing dishonest in that. In advance I thank all
those who will buy it, whose spiritual Awakening (Rev of Arès
36/4) it will help towards, and who at the same time will
help us carry out a very hard mission.
By the way, I asked my daughter Nina if she had heard of Abd Al Malik.
She replied, "I've listened to him, indeed. He's a terrific rapper."
A rapper? A sufi, philosophic performer of
rap music?
Grieving deeply over my ignorance of things of rap I told myself, "I
gotta put on a cap screwed on my head with its peak to the side and
pouch-style pants with their seat down to the knees and undone
sneakers... I gotta lose weight until I get a bicycle chest and can
drag myself along with a joint stuck in my lips (I gotta learn to roll
joints too) up to some rap dive... and even I gotta wear a false chin
in cardboard so as to hide my beard, for I've caught sight of a few
rappers on TV screen and not seen a bearded one..." I was soliloquizing
like that, because I had only seen Abd Al Malik's face.
Yesterday, Christiane, my wife, bought a CD by Abd Al Malik, "Abd Al
Malik, Dante". I found out that he was dressed like everybody, like me,
like you, and that the poetic quality of his songs was great,
beautiful, rich in meaning and by no means forgetful of God and the
values of love,
forgiveness, peace, spiritual freedom and
intelligence.
Ouch! He probably incurs the reprimanding moralists' reproaches.
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