Often when you begin to contemplate existence, people ask the question, “Who am I?” Well, depending on where you are at that moment, the answer can be very different. We understand that we have all been given the same gifts from Allah; everyone has been given a soul, and everyone has been given consciousness, but consciousness is not the same for everyone.
There’s the story of when Moses came down from the mountain with the tablets, and he began to talk to the people about what was in the tablets. And a man whose name was Kórach said, “Why are you telling us all this? We’re all the same. Why should you be the one in front? Why should you be doing the talking?” And then a bolt of lightning came and the ground opened up where he was standing, and he fell in.
So the answer to the question, we’re all the same is; yes and no. Under certain circumstances, we are the same; but under other circumstances, we’re not at all the same. And where does that sameness change? What differentiates people? It’s not the way they look, it’s not their language; it’s their level of consciousness. It’s whether you live in the nafs, or whether you’ve escaped the nafs; the lower consciousness, the animal consciousness. If you live in the animal consciousness, you have a certain kind of consciousness. But, if you’ve escaped the animal consciousness, and you live in the realms of consciousness that are closer to Allah, you are different than the ones who live in animal consciousness. You’re different in almost every way…
