Page 57 - Timelessness and the Reality of Fate

The Secret Beyond Matter 55

pedal suddenly. While going on the road, trees and road lines seem solid
because of the speed. In addition, he breathes clean Bosphorus air. But sup-
pose he is woken up by his ringing alarm clock just when he's getting ready
to tell his friend that what he's seeing is the original matter. Wouldn't he
object in the same manner regardless of whether he was asleep or awake?
When people wake up they understand that what they've seen until
that moment is a dream. But for some reason they are not suspicious about
the real nature of the life that starts with a "waking" image (what they call
"real life") can also be a dream. However, the way we perceive images in
"real life" is exactly the same as the way we perceive our dreams. We see
both of them in the mind. We cannot understand they are images until we
are woken up. Only then do we say "what I have just seen was a dream". So,
how can we prove that what we see at any given moment is not a dream?
We could be assuming that the moment in which we are living is real just
because we haven't yet woken up. It is possible that we will discover this
fact when we are woken up from this "waking dream" which takes longer
than dreams we see everyday. We do not have any evidence that proves oth-
erwise.
Many Islamic scholars have also proclaimed that the life around us is
only a dream, and that only when we are awakened from that dream with "a
big awakening", will people be able to understand that they live in a dream-
like world. A great Islamic scholar, Muhyiddin Ibn al-'Arabi, referred to as
Sheikh Akbar (The greatest Sheikh) due to his superior knowledge, likens
the world to our dreams by quoting a saying of the Prophet Muhammad
(may Allah bless him and grant him peace):
The Prophet Muhammad [may Allah bless him and grant him peace] said
that "people are asleep and wake up when they die." This is to say that the
objects seen in the world when alive are similar to those seen when asleep
while dreaming... 49
In a verse of the Qur'an, people are told to say on doomsday when they
are resurrected from the dead:

They will say, "Alas for us! Who has raised us from our sleeping-place?
This is what the All-Merciful promised us. The Messengers were telling
the truth." (Surah Ya Sin: 52)
As the verse demonstrates, people wake up on doomsday as if waking
from a dream. Like someone woken from the middle of a dream in deep