Hukam (Will) and Sikh Values

I thought this part should be "into temptation"
For that matter you have taken upon yourself to redefine or update the understanding amongst common Christian beliefs. Good job, Vouthon.

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God closes doors no man can open & God opens doors no man can close.

My dear brother Astroboy peacesignkaur

In the earliest Greek manuscripts it reads: To the time of trial. The cheesy Cliff Richard song has this line - and so gets it right It is translated thus in practically all modern bibles.

Into temptation is the traditional rendering from the KJV and has as such becomes famous, even though its technically inaccurate.

It doesn't make all that much difference though

My dear brother Astro

Well you can thank Saint Isaac the Syrian (7th century AD), Saint Mechthild of Magdeburg (1200s), Saint Thomas Aquinas (1200s), Meister Eckhart (1200s), Sister Catherine Treatise (1300s), the Theologia Germanica (1300s) Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman (1845), Pope Saint Pius X (1910) and Pope John Paul II (died 2005) for that since all of these great Catholic thinkers all regarded Hell and Heaven as states of being and not places. There are many others.

There is more to Christianity than the "boob-tube" version as my dear brother Ambarsaria excellently put it.

The Sister Catherine Treatise is a work of Catholic mysticism from the 1300s, composed by a disciple of Meister Eckhart and the view espoused here - 800 years ago - is that heaven and hell are states of being, and this is the official view still in modern Catholicism with some development in understanding and tweaking:


"...We speak of hell, of purgatory, and of heaven...God is in all things and all things are in God...Hell is nothing but a state. Whatever is anyone's state of being [here on earth] remains their being [after death], if they are found in this state [when they die]...The people who adhere to their creatureliness must remain in that mode of being which is called hell. In the same manner the ones who do not let anything else but God reside in their being retain their being as it is. God becomes their being...One says of Judgement Day that God will preside over it. One also says that he will give judgement...But it is not the way people envision it. Every human being judges himself; as he appears there in his being, so will he remain..."


- The Sister Catherine Treatise (written 1300s AD), Catholic mystic [of Eckhart School]



In Catholic Christianity:


"...Incorporeal things [ie spirits] are not in place after a manner known and familiar to us, in which way we say that bodies are properly in place; but they are in place after a manner befitting spiritual substances, a manner that cannot be fully manifest to us..."

- Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274), Summa Theologiae, Supplement, Q69, a1, reply 1, Doctor of the Catholic Church


As an EWTN article explains:


"...Pope John Paul II pointed out that the essential characteristic of heaven, hell or purgatory is that they are states of being of a spirit or human soul, rather than places, as commonly perceived and represented in human language. This language of place is, according to the Pope, inadequate to describe the realities involved, since it is tied to the temporal order in which this world and we exist. In this he is applying the philosophical categories used by the Church in her theology and saying what St. Thomas Aquinas said long before him..."


As quoted earlier in this thread:


"...The images of hell that Sacred Scripture presents to us must be correctly interpreted. They show the complete frustration and emptiness of life without God. Rather than a place, hell indicates the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy...[It is] a condition resulting from attitudes and actions which people adopt in this life...The thought of hell — and even less the improper use of biblical images — must not create anxiety or despair..."

- Blessed Pope John Paul II (General Audience, July 28, 1999)



That is OFFICIAL Catholic teaching since the 1200s, first in theologians and thinkers and now in the Magisterium itself, it is even in our Catechism. Heaven and Hell are not places, that is metaphorical language, rather they are states of being. Catholics are bound to believe this.

That is Catholic doctrine but the popular imagination and Evangelical Protestant Christianity teach literal heaven and hell I am saddened to admit.

I asure you it is not I who is so intelligent

Brother Vouthon,

Do the Muslims update themselves with the newer Catholic version of Heaven and Hell because I found a mention of a mention in the Koran, that in heaven they get to enjoy the company of beautiful women....
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/interfaith-dialogues/38146-hukam-will-and-sikh-values.html
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=38146

Why I say this is because, Islam can be considered an offshoot of Christianity. Would you agree?

My dear brother Astroboy ji peacesign

No, our Muslim brothers do indeed believe that hell is a place and indeed have gone further than even other forms of Christianity and Zoroastrianism, in that Islam regards heaven as a paradise of carnal pleasures; with beautiful houris (virgin women), boys like pearls (waiters - I hope ), gardens, rivers of wine etc. And Hell is a place of real fire and torment with different layers for hypocrites, blasphemers etc. and were people are scolded, have their skin ripped off and are made to drink burning liquid and many other horrors.

These elaborate descriptions come from the Holy Qur'an itself, and Muslims have always interpreted it literally. You see, the ahadith and Sunnah take it as literal as well, and Islam has no room for development of doctrine.

The origins of Islam are somewhat obscure. There is another thread on this by Seeker. Its a complex and largely unstudied issue. There is some evidence that the roots of Islam emerged from Arian Christianity (those who rejected the belief in Christ's divinity), mixed with native Arabian beliefs and customs and that it then was codified into a coherent system of belief under the Abbasid Caliphate. The Qur'an might have been in origin a Syriac, Arian Christian lectionary, which was then expanded, interpolated, changed, revised etc.

Islam did embrace Jesus as a prophet and as Muhammad's forerunner however the Muslim Jesus was not crucified, did not teach one to love one's enemies, did not speak parables etc. etc. The Jesus of the Qur'an is merely a miracle-worker not the profound Teacher of the Gospels. Muslims do not have any of Jesus' teachings, apart from one's unique to the Qur'an that bear no relation to the historical Jesus' message. So there is actually very little, if anything, of Jesus in Islam in a substantial sense other than accepting Him as a prophet. They also have a high regard for his Mother Mary but draw many episodes of her life in the Qur'an from apochryphal material written hundreds of years after Mary's life which is nothing to do with the historical Mother Mary.

Islam is very much a melange of various religious beliefs - some Christian, some Jewish, some Zoroastrian. Visually speaking it has more in common with Judaism than Christianity, given its heavy emphasis on ritual, purity laws, dietary rules - all of which Christianity lacks and is indeed against. It shares with Zoroastrianism a belief in literal hell and heave, Judgement Day, resurrection from the dead etc. I would say the latter is like Christianity as well except, as you can see, we understand these things very differently.

Morally speaking, Islamic and Christian ethics are quite distinct. I will not go into those details, for fear of upsetting or offending our beloved Muslim brothers, but Jesus' teachings and Muhammad's as we have them in the Qur'an and Hadith are quite different.

Sufism, the mystical dimension of Islam that arose in opposition to the worldliness of the early Islamic caliphates and which takes inspiration from many different religions, has much in common with Christianity and there is evidence that the first Sufis may have been converts from Arabian, monastic Christianity - bringing with them mysticism into the Muslim world which became blended with Neoplatonism, Hindu concepts etc. to form that sublime movement of Sufism which is often characterized by very liberal, highly figurative interpretations of the Qur'an.

However Orthodox Islam proper is quite a different matter.

We both believe in One God, that God is Sovereign, existence of angels and the importance of submitting to Will of God but that is really where the similarities end, and even in these similarities we have very different understandings of these concepts but that would take me a while too explain and is a different topic.

So its a difficult one for me to explain, personally

"...Heaven is untouched by time and place. Corporeal things have no place there, and whoever is able to read the scriptures aright is well aware that heaven contains no place. Nor is it in time...Nothing hinders the soul from knowing God as time and place. Time and place are fractions, and God is one...Whatever I know to be God's will - the longer, the better, and the greater the pain, the greater the joy. For to do God's will is heaven, so the longer the will lasts, the longer the heaven, and the greater the pain from God's will, the greater the blessedness..."


- Meister Eckhart (1260-1328), Catholic mystic and Dominican priest

Vouthon ji thanks for your well researched and written wisdom. Just one observation.How could anyone survive the above and I think they then they transfer straight out to heaven . There being only two places.



Sat Sri Akal.

A very funny John cleese sketch brother Ambarsaria ji, thank you very much peacesignkaur

I agree it is difficult to comprehend any logic in these literal, Qur'anic depictions of hell, but you would have to ask a Muslim about it. I know not!