Daheshism in a Bird’s Eye View

Adapted and reviewed from the French original version

DAHESHISM was born in Lebanon, the very land that gave the world Gibran Khalil Gebrane, the author of “The Prophet,” who had to flee his country to be recognized for the lofty poet that he was, and thereon be vested with the fame he rightly deserved.

Daheshism was predestined to take wings from the biblical majesty of Lebanon’s staunch cedars:

The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the excellence of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the excellency of our God. [Isaiah 35:2]

Yet Lebanon failed to recognize Dahesh to his truth! That, too, shouldn’t surprise the world, for a prophet is not without honor except in his own country and his own home.

In a bird’s eye view, the Daheshist teaching is simple; it is even at the core of all the monotheist religions.

Nothing new!

Nothing of today—absolutely nothing!

And yet … everything seems new!

The Daheshist message upholds and reinforces all the divine messages relayed to Man since Genesis. One wonders then, and rightly so, wherefore the virulent animosity against Dahesh in the ’40s in Lebanon, which was spearheaded by the Clergy, the Catholic one in particular?!

What laws—human or divine—has Dahesh broken to deserve such an outright condemnation and ruthless cruelty?

Is calling for the unity of religions a crime?

Is calling Man back to his Lord and Creator a crime?

Is reminding Man of his sacred duties toward self, his family, his neighbor, and his society a crime?

Dahesh’s only “crime” was to have been truthful to his call!

All he did—be it in his life or his writs—was to render unto the so far neglected verities, the disregarded ones as well as the discarded, an unprecedented strength of present-day vision nonpareil of nature. He did it following a divine revelation backed up by a spiritual power. Most of all, he did it as no one else has done before him since Jesus Christ.

… For Dahesh is—first and most—a prophet!

And like all the prophets before him, Dahesh had to confront the bigotry plaguing our society and denounce the transgressions against the divine messages, especially the transgressions of the men of religion (the Christian faith in particular), those supposed to guide humanity spiritually. And when it came to giving them a piece of his mind, Dahesh didn’t mince his words. What’s more, whenever those men of the cloth killed the very principal of the Christian faith with their scandalous mode de vie (An “Ex cathedra infallibility” masking an insatiable thirst of will to power, the very source of religious intolerance, fanaticism, and what have you of harmful tendencies)Dahesh brought it back to life, by breathing in it a new messianic breath, but to restore it to its original purport.

Such an ebullient free spirit stirring inside such a phenomenal personality was bound to draw the attention of the people at large, if not pique their interest; and it did, to a great extent.

People in Lebanon started to lend Dahesh an ear. His far-reaching vision, perspicuous thoughts, forthright arguments, high-mindedness, natural charisma, and, most of all, his miracles, which he started to perform while still young (in Beirut and other Arab capitals, namely: Cairo and Baghdad) had struck a receptive chord in their minds and hearts. That’s why the High Clergy of the Mountain was leery of him, if not afraid: he was encroaching on a taboo territory they considered duly theirs by “divine” right! And contrary to what they had hoped, he was making headway, and fast, in uniting the people around one common belief. He was even becoming a role model figure, something the Clergy—and by extension the Government—could neither stand nor tolerate. This is the crux of Dahesh’s Sensational Affair, the history—or rather, the drama of Daheshism in Lebanon, this country so often mentioned by the Hebrew Prophets.

What Dahesh did in reality was to awaken Lazarus anew—to use a biblical metaphor, by retrieving him from our anxiety, fear, and doubt, if not oblivion.

The great druids of the Land of the Cedars were not about to let Dahesh—that heaven’s gate crasher in excelsis!—spoil things for them, so they raised Cain. Not only were they mad at him for raising this “condemned to the tomb” from the dead, but they were also determined to put him to death—him and his Lazarus.

First, they tried to squelch his voice, but to no avail: somehow he always found ways to exercise his God-given-right of freedom of speech. Next they unleashed at him a campaign of slander and calumny; but he countered it with a relentless campaign of verity by exposing their every ignominy. And when everything within their conniving means failed, as a last resort, they imprisoned him iniquitously, persecuted him horribly, and then banished him from the country. Little did they know that his fate was not in their hands but in the hands of God!

Yes indeed, Dahesh wasn’t about to turn the other cheek; but while his persecutors used all kinds of treacherous weapons within their means, he used just one: the Word! I must admit, though: they were fighting a lost battle, for as he said it himself:

A Man of right never runs out of protectors;

If he is destitute, God will make him victorious.

And oh how his destiny will be glorious!

For the nation of iniquity and viciousness,

Perpetrates naught but matters most villainous!

And God made him victorious. One man against a whole country, with its President, its Parliament, its Clergy, and its people! Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? His victory was so potent as to shake the cornerstone of the twice millenary authoritative power of the clerics in the region, the birthplace of the three major monotheist religions.

Yet, to those who put to him the question:

“But what new religion do you bring forth?”

Dahesh surprised them with his straightforward answer:

“None that you haven’t already received yet failed to heed: for in verity, religion is not what you lack most but faith in God and His Prophets, source of every conceivable progress [ 1 ].”

And Dahesh to expound:

“The role of the spiritual manifestations is to draw attention to the question of all times: the absolute existence of the soul and her immortality. Those signs, which go beyond the immovable laws of Nature, are the indubitable proof of Divine Existence; they are meant to bring faith back to this century, because this century is so inebriated with technology that it believes no more. The witness who touches with his finger one of those miracles: if he is Christian, he will be more attached to the spirit of the Gospels; Muslim, to the spirit of the Koran. The same goes for the Jew, the Buddhist, and so on!”

The spiritual goal of every divine message is to instill in Man the love for Truth, Beauty, and Justice; its virtue lies in its well-defined and unflinching will to fulfill that sacred goal. These words never stopped reverberating in my mind ever since I heard them for the first time, more than twenty years ago. I was still in my tender age, a candid phase wherein poetry sufficed my heart, to the point that it became my whole concern and joy.

Along the road, I came to realize that one does not live of poetry alone. Time and the vicissitudes of life showed me how much I was in need of a spiritual certainty that I be able to walk the valley of this life with firm steps—if only I could find it.

And I found it in Dahesh.

Does this mean I am better prepared and equipped today to delineate the broad outline of the Daheshist message and discuss my faith with total objectivity? Probably not! For how can I speak impartially of my religion without being affected and influenced by my great veneration for the man—my Son of Man—outside whom every religion would have been a hell of boredom to me? Love explains but cannot be explained. The same is true of faith, since it emanates from the simple and tender joy of loving.

I believe and love Dahesh because he gives me a thousand and one reasons to believe and love him. It is as simple as that, and as complex too! Dahesh is all love, but his love is of another dimension, and it goes beyond the love of a father, a brother, or a friend. Most of all, it is timeless! To be capable of such love is a miracle in itself; and to be the recipient of such love is a blessing of no equal.

Dahesh’s persona, love, and miracles engendered in me an inexhaustible source of sublime admiration and veneration I keep immersing myself into, so as to fathom what really had drawn me to him the moment I laid eyes on him. No man has impressed and captivated me the way Dahesh did! If Jesus opened my heart to the supernal world, Dahesh proved its existence; and if Jesus made me dream about divine love, Dahesh made it come true!

We all have—or create—our own ideal which we follow like a guiding star all our life through. Dahesh is mine! But what is this ideal per se? Well, even after twenty years, and counting, I still have difficulty defining it accurately, let alone conducting a synthesis or a metaphysical treatise in due and proper form. That’s why I avoid—as much as I can get away with it—venturing along that road: for in truth it wasn’t the form that brought me to Dahesh—nor him to me—but the spirit. Indeed, it was more the spirit of longing than the need to find an ideal that drew me to him, a spirit so hard to define albeit I am forever beholden to it. How strange of a feeling: to be attracted to an entity we care not to dissect! We are just glad to have known it … embraced it! But allow me to reiterate that, since the nisus of every religion is to restore man to an ethical awareness of the moral and social values that define him, suffice it for me to have had Dahesh as my inspiration and revelation! For he who sows in us the love of the divine beautiful is himself divine and beautiful!

Dahesh was an autodidact, and contrary to what people may think, he taught little in public, if any at all. He left that task to his disciples, for “a worker must be worthy of his spiritual food,” to paraphrase Jesus words when He sent His “few laborers into the plentiful harvest of the Lord.” He was by choice and nature not prolific in theoretical or theological teachings. To my knowledge, he never embarked on any study, synthesis, or critical analysis concerning spiritual questions. Which brings me to wonder: How come those (and by “those” I mean the prophets who really have the answers to the mysteries that enfold us) are not so … talkative? Is it because we are not ready to receive their plenty (which should explain the call to reason of Jesus to the “Teacher of Israel,” Nicodemus, His secret admirer, who came to see Him by night to avoid being seen by his Jewish congregation: If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? [John 3: 12])Or is it simply because we are not worthy of their heavenly bounty?

Another salient trait in Dahesh: he was a man of few words and, if anything, he wasn’t in the habit of telling people what to do. He left it to every individual—separately—to figure out what was best for him or her. I never heard him preach or moralize, neither to his guests nor to us, his disciples, when we were in his company. Yet his whole life was an epitome of what man should seek through knowledge. That’s why he was—and shall always remain—my everyday school. I say this because every instant I spent by his side was not only a joy, but a source of invaluable learning to me (I who came to consider school—any school!—an imposed hell).

Still, what is in my opinion the core, the heart, the sum and substance of his thought? And what is it that distinguishes him—at least in my eyes—from the rest of the prophets? That’s what I would like to talk about, hoping not to confuse myself in the process, or my reader for that matter. To start with, allow me to draw attention to the following words of Jesus (words that have enchanted my youth!)concerning the Paraclete:

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak, and He will tell you things to come. [John 16: 7-13]

Daheshism is a philosophical thought that has yet to grow and reach the four corners of the world. It is a religion—in the broad sense of the term—still in the cradle. Her voice reaches out to the finest confine of our hearts to confront our most obdurate doubts. Her cardinal goals are: bring back people to faith, in God and all His Prophets; prove the existence of the soul and her immortality—meaning “our own immortality.” And most of all: show us a way to reform which is conform to the present-time spirit, a reform upon which our salvation depends!

The Daheshist message is based on the divine messages that preceded her. She reaffirms, confirms, and extends the unity of those messages—in their original form—through her own message.

It is a religion of good sense and reason, of fraternal love and universal tolerance, of equality of races and cults, of the absolute liberty of opinion within the respect of others’… the very traits we ought to find in a genuine religion meant to encompass Humanity in its entirety.

It is a religion most humane, built on the respect of the social laws, the intellectual and artistic values (“Art, in its multiform, is God’s breath in Man’s alluvium,” used to say Dahesh, when in front of a painting he liked in particular), and the espousal of a social life invested with equitable laws applied to all without distinction. In other words: it upholds and reinforces the very principles of democracy and virtue in their purest form.

Daheshism personifies and edifies in all its coherence and probity the fundamental unity of Man and what is most sacred in him. Daheshism is a religion in the full sense of the word—whatever this term has come to symbolize in our world. It is a state of mind and heart based on spiritual revelations! For while the spiritual revelations are divine, being that they emanate from one source—God, Creator and Master of the Universe—religions are manmade. Indeed, once a divine message is put in the hands of the people it gives inevitably birth to a religion daubed with all their characteristics, traditions, fears, and needs [ 2 ]. Since each era has its own characteristics and idiosyncrasies, differences in beliefs are bound to arise between one era and another, but they are purely circumstantial. That is, there might be differences in the historical and materialistic context—or rites and rituals, but never in the essence—or fundamental values. Daheshismtells us that, if there seems to be patent differences between one religion and another, it is only due to the fact that each religion took into consideration, and responded to, the ethos of the era in which it was revealed, meaning that, if on the surface there are differences or contradictions between one religion and another, it is because each religion is the carbon copy, or social mirror of the morals of its time.

The goal of a divine message is to bring about the moral welfare of the people it came to enlighten. Its role is to cure the ills of a definite era, for prophets are also the “doctors of the soul” of that era! Therefore, it is necessary to look at the message in light of the pertinent ills of a given era, since each era resorted to its own remedies. It is also important to see how each message went about to cure the ills of its time and the intellectual level of the people it was addressing. When it’s the heart that suffered, the message takes a cordial approach. When it’s the lungs, the sight, the hearing … the remedy always answers the need at hand. But the object is always one: bring man back to God.

Religion is not, and should not be considered, a shield. Yes, it shows us the right path to a better world, but it won’t protect us should we deviate from that path … That’s why Dahesh reaffirms, in the very manner of Jesus, that it is not the Jew, nor the Christian, nor the Muslim, nor the Buddhist—nor the Daheshist for that matter—who will be saved … but those who would have fulfilled the Will of God as it is clearly highlighted in the Holy Scriptures (the Pentateuch, the Gospels, the Koran, etc). A pagan or an atheist who does good deeds and comports himself decently is more likely to evolve toward a better world than a believer who confines his religious fervency to saying: “Lord, I believe in You,” but does not fulfill His will.

The moral welfare of mankind rests upon a spiritual science, rich and diversified, shaped by its own laws, ramifications, and divisions.

Its field of interest is man and society; its essence, the divine revelations received across the ages.

Truth being one and absolute, all religions should be one and unique. And if, to our eyes, the precepts and teachings of the prophets seem to contradict one another in certain points, it is because each prophet taught at a level which was at par with the intellectual level of the people he was addressing. Meaning: each prophet spoke the language of the people he came to enlighten, and help them improve themselves in all fields. Moses spoke to his people in the desert with plain, explicit words. Jesus spoke to his people in parables and proverbs … Same God, same Truth, same idealism, same love for peace and perfection, but different approach. Dahesh did the same: he spoke to the world with the urgency and frankness it was so much in need. Indeed, we live in modern times where Science, Spatial discoveries and Social Life have reached a level of knowledge never reached before; but so did hatred, disorder, fanaticism and distrustreach a level and power of destruction never equaled before! We might have improved socially, but morally … we are at cross purposes like never before, though we don’t want to admit it. Time is running out: we must unite our beliefs and values, at the scale of individual States or internationally, otherwise, we are doomed to annihilate ourselves through a social cataclysm at a global scale!

The message of the prophets moves around two interrelated entities, or poles of reform: the individual and society—the two “souls’ of man, if you will: the soul of each man within a Collective Soul. Individuals, being the “bricks” of society, when they are shaky, there can be no durable social stability. And inversely, the best elements are stripped of their virtuous qualities when present in a perverse body. This is a fact of life—our life. The direct relation between the individual and society cannot be circumvented: they are the two states of man. The whole depends on the elements, the elements rest on the harmony of the whole. If they are strong, they strengthen each other; if they are weak, they weaken each other. That’s why every prophet incarnates, each in his own time, way and place, the role model of a given society.

Accordingly, the great social question becomes, first of all, a question of morals—bearing in mind, of course, that our moral values are derived from the spiritual revelations we’ve been entrusted with.

“The big social question,” reminds us Daheshism, “is first of all a moral question.”

All the spiritual revelations, Daheshism in particular, have drawn attention to the question of the Soul as the only meaningful element at the base of faith. This belief in the existence of a responsible and immortal Soul has shaped and guided all our dogmas: it is the ethical salt at the core of each doctrine. It is upon this verity—or more exactly, upon our awareness of this verity—that the perpetual evolution of Man rests. For should the Soul really exist and be immortal, then death would be death no more and life would cease to be an ephemeral transition between two nonentities! Our corporeal journey would then be but a wing stroke away from two no less conscious and vital shores, connected in a cause-to-effect affinity within the ambit of the divine laws that regulates their spiritual causality.

Like a ship sailing between two continents!

We [as a soul] are on that ship [our body] sailing the sea [lapse of a lifetime] from one continent [one form of existence] to another continent [another form of existence]. And I believe it is safe to say that not all the established philosophies dealt on life and death in light of this verity, with some of them refuting it categorically!

And here comes the importance of the Daheshist message in respect to those questions that seem to have become more than ever a prey to doubt and the contemporary denials, which we are already aware of. Daheshism re-establishes, as a certainty and as never before, faith in the beyond: a faith that science has dismissed as a romantic absurdity because it can’t explain it and assimilate it scientifically. And this is precisely where the miracles of Doctor Dahesh come into the picture.

Like the miracles of Jesus Christ, the miracles of Doctor Daheshare the palpable proof of the existence of God, the Soul, the Spirit, the plurality of the inhabited Worlds, life before birth, life after death¾in a word: Immortality!

By immortality I mean an actual and perpetual existence—whether in this world or in another—according to the immutable omnipotent laws and the just system of retribution that God has established for every form of existence.

This verity is not far-fetched to a modern man, be he a Jew, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, or a Hindu … a believer or an atheist. However rigid he might be in his beliefs, a jot of good sense and judgment would as soon convince him in a positive way, even if he were the most confirmed nihilist. This belief in the immortality of the soul (our immortality), together with the innumerable consequences it implicates, is primordial to his discernment, in the very manner his senses are crucial to his living body. Seal this window opened to the immaterial world, and everything becomes darkness! Remove from the heart of Man the idea and the certainty of his immortality, and all the logic behind the need of a moral and social duty would crumble: he would be lost in his reasoning like a blind man in his movements, who is compelled to grope his way out in broad daylight.

This is, in my view, the most important window opened to the Beyond by Daheshism. True, it is not a novelty: all religions have mentioned it in one way or another. The real novelty is in the advent of the certainty, a certainty meant for our times. The miracles of Doctor Dahesh are that certainty in our modern times! Take them away, and the message would be the same, not to mention that the uncertainty would remain, for then we would be only repeating the same old things but in different turns of phrase adapted astutely to our modern-time fancies.

With the advent of Dahesh, the existence and immortality of the soul ceases to be a hypothesis but to become a certainty, a rule of life and the foundation of a philosophical school, so vast and cosmic in concept. You cannot separate Dahesh from his miracles: they are our certainty! It is a new dimension which extends the metaphysical reflection of man beyond death, a reflection intrinsic to him before birth!

… For man is a spiritual entity at first and last!

Another fundamental question to take into consideration: the individual and collective accountability of the Spiritual entity as a Human entity during her passage on Earth.

A recondite subject!

Would it surprise us to know, for example, that in the Universe everything relies on and is responsible for everything? The ship makes the waves that keel her over. She’s the one to chart her route through the stars that guide her to safety … or her doom. She is in the lighthouse as well as in the storm. That there exist in the Universe an infinite number of living Worlds, superior or inferior to ours, to which we are linked directly through the beings living there, who have reached those Worlds in consequence of our own deeds and thoughts in the past. And vice-versa, we are in this World as a punishment¾or reward, depending on the World in question¾for their deeds and thoughts.

A reciprocal universal responsibility ties all beings: the responsibility of the human being, first, vis-à-vis self—meaning, his individual soul; second, vis-à-vis the collective soul from which he emanates. And so on, to the infinite: from world to world, existence to existence, my responsibility vis-à-vis self and the society to which I belong, then to humanity, then the planet Earth, finally the Galaxy. And vice-versa: every being in relation to self, at a scale always growing larger, more divine and absolute. “That they all may be one, as You, Father, are in me, and I in You”: the very words of Jesus Christ, as they came in the following verses (The Gospel of John 17: 20-23), words that ought to make us ponder:

“I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they All may be ONE, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be ONE in Us, that the world may believe that You sent me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that THEY MAY BE ONE JUST AS WE ARE ONE: I in Them and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in One, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved Them as You have loved Me.”

All the souls of a definite World form a homogenous whole. As such, the Universe contains at its core material and immaterial worlds that fuse into one another in a space-time relation. These material and immaterial worlds, with their present, their past and their future, form an inseparable and magnificent entity which is universal, cosmic, and absolute. It is as though they are One Cosmic Being that has the planets for atoms, the galaxies for cells, and is vibrant with unknown— unknown to us—civilizations that exist in a space-time relation, forming an Infinite Body!

To this subject in particular, the fantastic work of Doctor Dahesh on the extraterrestrial inhabited worlds is a pleasure to read for those who are fond of science fiction; for this (life on millions and millions of other planets,) is not only scientifically possible but also divinely true!

Here come to mind the words Jesus Christ have said to his disciples about the inhabited worlds:

“Let not your hearts be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house there are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you close to Me; so that were I am, there you may also be.” [John14: 1-3]

“That were I am,” meaning a definite form of existence proper to the world wherein He is and wherein his disciples will be after leaving this Earth!

Furthermore, Daheshism highlights the often forgotten laws of Spiritual Causality, those wise and complex laws that regulate our destinies in accordance with our deeds and thoughts:

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” [Matthew 5: 27-28]

Whether they are laudable or blamable before God and our own conscience (“itself our judge,” tells us Doctor Dahesh in that regard), these deeds and thoughts keep us in a perpetual motion within the life-and-death wheel, with a set time allocated to each lapse, giving thus rise to an effervescence of destinies born one from the other ad infinitum. In a word: Reincarnation!

Reincarnation is one of the pillars of the Daheshist belief. Actually, every concept of existence that deals on the immortality of the soul entails this dogma. Reincarnation is the premise of Creation, though most of us don’t recognize it as such.

All religions have acknowledged Reincarnation in one way or another, whether implicitly or explicitly. We need only to refer to the many verses in the Holy Scriptures to prove the veracity of this dogma. Even Islam, at the onset, taught it; so did Christianity, although the Church today refuses to acknowledge it as such. As to Buddhism: the whole concept of its religion is based on reincarnation.

To cite some examples from the Koran—which, by the way Doctor Dahesh himself has brought to our attention, when he explained his point of view concerning Reincarnation:

“How do you deny God, and you were dead and He brought you back to life; then He wil cause you to die and again will bring you back to life; and in the end shall gather you unto Himself.” [Surah TheCow: 28]

“O man! What has beguiled you from your Lord, the Gracious one, who created you, then made you complete, then made you symmetrical? Into whatever form He pleased He constituted you.” [Surah TheCleaving Asunder: 6-8]

“Say: shall I inform you of (him who is) worse than this in retribution from God? (Worse is he) whom God has cursed and brought His wrath upon, and of whom He made apes and swine, and he who served Satan; these are worse in place and more erring from the straight path.” [Surah The Food: 60]

“They shall say: Our Lord, twice didst Thou make us subject to death, and twice hast Thou given us life, so we do confess our faults; is there then a way to get out?” [Surah The Believer: 11]

Or these two separate instances in the New Testament where Jesus tells clearly His disciples that John the Baptist is none other than Elijah the Prophet:

“For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John.

“And if you are willing to accept it, he (John the Baptist) is Elijah who is to come.

“He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” [Matthew 11: 3-14]

And His disciples asked Him, saying, “Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?”

Then Jesus answered and said to them, “Elijah truly is coming first and will restore all things.

“But I say to you that Elijah has come already, and they did not know him but did to him whatever they wished. Likewise the Son of Man is also about to suffer at their hands.”

Then the disciples understood that He spoke to them of John the Baptist.” [Matthew 17: 10-13] (This last remark must have been jotted down to leave no equivoque as to what Jesus really meant to say.)

Or the following verse where it is clear that the reincarnation of beings can have every form of existence possible:

“In truth I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.” [Matthew 3: 9]

Accordingly, all human beings, plants, and inanimate bodies evolve from state to state, kingdom to kingdom, sphere to sphere, galaxy to galaxy … until they reach the absolute ideal in the bosom of felicity and wholesomeness: God!

How else can we explain, if not by the spiritual Causality, the differences in the qualities and defects we inherit by birth, whereby our reincarnations are the reflection of the condign verdict pronounced in our favor or against it? If we don’t believe in Reincarnation, how can we reconcile the fact that all men are not allotted the same share at “birth” when they are expected to be “judged equally” by the Divine Tribunal at “death”? Why this favoritism—at best, and injustice—at worst? There is nothing ambiguous or abstract about this subject. At the time of Moses—or Jesus, for that matter—the idea of Reincarnation was common belief and deeply rooted in the Hebraic credence; otherwise, Jesus’ disciples would not have asked Him, saying: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” It concerned a man who was blind from birth. But let us meditate this instance, as it came in Gospel of John (9: 1-3):

Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth.

And His disciples asked Him, saying, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.”

How could a blind man be responsible for the state he was born into if he did not exist before coming to Earth? The disciples’ question to Jesus would have been totally absurd if the incarnation of a pre-existing spirit (from a previous life) in a new body wasn’t common knowledge at the time. Both the Old and New Testaments are rife with examples [ 3 ] of the kind, so explicit is the message they meant to convey. To find them, all we need is to keep an open mind … and we’ll be royally served!

In itself, the chapter of Reincarnation constitutes a fascinating world of infinite adventures. Reincarnation gives sense and reason to this life; and hope, too! Life would surely have a different meaning if we look at it through the binoculars of reincarnation. It is a wonderful world, and, most of all, “it is a world of love and clemency” tells us Doctor Dahesh. To hear his praises about reincarnation and life beyond life, one starts to long for death in that to reach the afterlife. It is like being living a thrilling novel! Barely had we read the first pages than we are in a hurry to reach the all-explaining end, that part where the intrigue finally unravels and the mystery is solved. But no sooner had we put that novel down, than we reach for another, so eager we are at the prospect of “living” yet another mystery through a new sequel! It is the same with our perpetual existence through time—this ever-renewed adventure, with one difference, though: we are the ones to write and edit each novel, and in one exemplary. And regardless of it being a wonderful or miserable adventure, we are the ones to influence the Destiny of its “hero” in the many sequels we put him through. It is the novel of the “anima,” if you will, unique to our characteristics and merits, and present in our genes: one that contains a fascinating encyclopedia of our lives and deaths through the many reincarnations we have gone by.

In light of Reincarnation many things cease to be obscure. To Doctor Dahesh Reincarnation is a certainty, and it is at the base of Creation.

In the foreword of his book, “Strange Stories and Incredible Legends” (Tom II), he explains, in very simple terms, the reasoning behind this certainty:

“If we deduct from man’s life (a span of 70, 80, or 90 years) his years of childhood and adolescence wherein he is unaccountable for his deeds (about 15 years), the time he spends in unconscious sleep (about 35 years), and in sickness (about 4 years)… what is there left but a few conscious years whereby we expect God to pass judgment upon him for eternity?! We all know how difficult it is for man to live a model life, in view of the enticements that ensnare him everywhere he goes. As such, were we to be judged according to our deeds and thoughts, hardly any one of us would be saved. If, as our religions want us to believe, the verdict of hell or heaven must be rendered at the end of so short a period, wouldn’t this only indicate how little we know about Divine Love? For, it is illogical—if not preposterous—to think that God would punish human beings to an Eternal State century after century, eternity after eternity, without granting them first at least one chance to atone for their sins, and more likely, more than one chance if not thousands of chances, because in His Love God wants the good of Man, and not his punishment! Even in His punishment, God remains Love.

“That’s why He granted us the celestial gift of reincarnation, to enable us to correct and purify our soul gradually, stage after stage, life after life. During these reincarnations, each person is capable of purifying his soul, that he may enjoy His celestial Paradises. But if after exhausting all his chances he still has not improved himself, then he deserves to remain eternally in the flames of Gehenna, so eternal with its fire. And this would be just and equitable!

“Otherwise, Man, a poor creature, born weak and frail, subjected to the temptations of the flesh and enticements of the pleasures that seep inside his molecules through a giddiness of misdeeds, held hostage by an infinite number of passions and seductions, would be, before those temptations, like a feeble bird whose wings have been weighed down with lead and left to face predatory birds. It is like impeding his soul, then telling him: free yourself from the servitude you have been burdened with, or else crawl forever! This is impossible!”

This is impossible indeed, as Doctor Dahesh perorates, for if we deem it otherwise, we would only be making of our Creator a merciless Monster … in our very image!

Apart from reincarnation Doctor Dahesh dealt on many other subjects. He spoke, for example, of the social questions and put on trial their truthfulness:

“You excel in the art of setting constitutions of equality, liberty, and fraternity, but in verity I say to you, your legislations are but a comedy and a shameful masquerade. (To be continued soon …)

READ MORE from JOSEPH H. CHAKKOUR

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Daheshism in a Bird’s Eye view

Letter from Dahesh to his Attorney Noon
Open letter to Jesus
Sections >> 1 2 3 4 5

[ 1 ] “It is faith that we are mostly in need of and not religions …” This answer of Dahesh brings to mind Rabelais’ famous adage, which became quite popular in time: “Science sans conscience n’est que pertede temps et ruine de l’âme [Science sans conscience is naught but loss of time and ruin of the soul].” This is, in succinct, Daheshism and its precepts: re-instill in each one faith in God and His Prophets. How so? by his words of crystal clear reasoning, his deeds and miracles, and the testimony of a whole life.

[ 2 ] Divine revelation is pure only at the source, that’s why it is essential that we retrace each religion back to its origin. The further we go in time, the more likely we are to see it muddled. Christianity (just to take an example I am familiar with) is the very proof of that degradation; for after the advent of Christ every century produced its own share of beguilement, laissez-faire, and concessions, adding them to the original spirit of the revealed truth, in that to serve our whims and wants. Such a par for the course tendency not only weakened our belief in the “spiritual,” but it also had a nefarious effect on our morals and ethics. And this adverse effect gave rise to a certain doubt in the existence of the soul and her immortality through the years, a legitimate doubt, nonetheless, which ended up being the Achilles’ heel of modern-day thinking. Our religion is what we have become, not what we ought to be!

[ 3 ] Metempsychosis was such a current fundamental dogma at the time that, to discuss it today is akin to talking about the “roundness” of the Earth in a contemporary novel.