Zander (former Muslim)
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Letter to Ali Sina
Dear Ali Sina,
One of my favorite quotes ever is: “truth shall set you free” and you are the one that awakened me a while ago although I never sent you a thank you letter. So I guess I owe a HUGE thank you because you are one of the rare people that helped me confirm that the world I lived in was a big fat lie and nobody even dared to wonder “what if all this is wrong”.
I’m young, a 16 year old boy and for 15 years I’ve been raised as a Muslim. I followed my religions beliefs as if I had no other choice. If I was born a Muslim that was the way I ought to spend my life never asking too many questions because questions would lead me astray. I prayed a lot and was a really devoted Muslim. I even read the Qur’an as the word of God. Everyone in my country was doing so, why wouldn’t I? On my 15th birthday I wanted to pray 5 times a day and devote my self to Allah. This may sound irrelevant but my birthday wish was “to make all the right decisions”. It really came true. I never thought my life would change in this way. Exactly one week later I had a beautiful day , and for some reason I started collecting small rocks from my favorite places , listening to music and on the eve of the same day I for some unknown reason I googled “spells” , that’s probably because I got bored and after such a beautiful day , the evening seemed dull.
That word changed my life forever, but it wasn’t just the word, but Life had prepared me to react differently to the information I had just found. As a child, I always used to watch Charmed, a TV-show about magic, spells, potions and demons. Long story short, it was a fairy-tale, but I always used to see myself as a warlock or a witch having wonderful powers and stuff, but even as a child I knew that it was just my over active imagination after all Allah is One and Our life purpose was to pray and bla bla bla. You get the point.
The search in Google about the word “spells” had a lot of results. Because I had nothing to do I decided to click over them and see what I can find. What I found was more incredible than I ever imagined. It wasn’t the fairytale world of Charmed, that’s for sure. It was a whole different world. In this website it was written that witchcraft was not the work of Devil: because devil never existed anyway, but rather was a chant to a Loving God to grant a desire. It spoke about Astral world as a chance to do the things we always dreamed, because it was actually the place we went when we slept. It spoke about love, a topic Islam never touched, as the source of all, it spoke about Karma which at the time was an unfamiliar concept to me, it spoke about humanity’s evolution, a topic I had always fought against, it spoke that the reason why spells come true is because there is a field, universe itself that grants our grandest desire.
This introduced a WHOLE NEW WORLD for me. I didn’t immediately accept it. It was all Satan’s work and this was the way for him to lead me astray from my Islamic Path. It was just too good to be true and it was the opposite of everything my family , my mosque , my friends and teachers had taught me. But I couldn’t help thinking What if? What if everything I took for granted was wrong? What if I’ve been lied to all my life? Slowly so I started doubting my religion, Allah and the Quran. I started asking questions, something Allah didn’t want me to do, because I had to believe the Unknown, and that the Qur’an had all the answers. But something inside of me was restless .I was introduced to a world of choice where I could research about all the religions and the one that was the rightest to me was the one I’d choose. For the first time in my life I had the option of having a choice, not a religion which was forced from family and country.
I didn’t leave Islam immediately because it would have destroyed my comfort zone. After all I had been a devout Muslim for a long time and fear of hell always wins. Fear! That’s how Islam and other organized religion have survived. So I decided to do research about Islam and many of the results were “Allah is one - fear him and he will grant you hereafter (Heaven)”.After all what I always wanted to do after I reached adulthood was to become a shield - to die in the name of Allah, probably taking many innocent people with me. That’s what the Mullah told us during Friday mosque speech. It was a foolproof plan. We would die in the name of God and we could choose 70 people to take with us in heaven. I even was making the list in my mind. Who should I pick?
Thinking about it now, I was so naive, incredibly naive, and that was so because I had a lack of information. I saw the world as a testing ground where I had to deny myself pleasure, give money to the mosque , pray 5 times a day in Arabic (thing we had memorized and we didn’t even know their meaning). If it is written in the Quran, it had to be true. Also I had to read the Quran.I also had to fast Ramadan and so on so I could have a chance to be on Allah’s good list. So I researched more and more and what I found was shocking. They were totally blasphemy, or so I thought and among those results were information about the Quran contradictions and error. I WAS SHOCKED. How could a religion with so many believers have errors and contradictions? Something was wrong. I had my doubts but never thought that the truth was so hurtful. It wasn’t the truth that hurt, it was seeing all that I believed was a lie that hurt the most.
That’s where you come in. I found your website, not easily I might add. It was so shocking. You totally opened my eyes about the reality. You actually had the courage to give answers that everybody avoided. You helped me more than you could ever imagine. You gave me the truth. A truth I did not want to accept, but it was so undeniable. Truth set me free. So now I was free, but so confused. Everything I’d ever know was crushed. I didn’t know what to do. Everyone around me was Muslim. No one would understand and even though I was so incredibly lost I felt happy because I knew I had broken away from a life full of hate and lies.
The fact that I had become familiar with witchcraft helped me a lot because it was a religion which said “we are not the only way, we are merely one”. That saying just warmed my heart because my life wasn’t filled with fear anymore. I had love in my heart, something I hadn’t learned through Islam. I was introduced to a life where love dominated, peace was the primal goal, and the only rule/law was DO NO HARM. What more could I want. I had spells which would help my life improve .I had it all but still I had many questions. Why did my spells came true, what is the field, what is God, why is the world as it is, what is life’s purpose, who we are, where do we come from? These were questions failed to answer.
I decided to leave Witchcraft for a while so I could seek the truth without any influence. For some reason I became interested in Hinduism. It was really interesting and the concept of karma and reincarnation got my attention. I got into it and read a lot of its literature. As interesting as it was I had to move on and learn about other religions also. I became acquainted with Christianity. It was a joke. It was full of fear. I couldn’t be a Christian for more than a week. Then I became interested in Buddhism. I loved it, the meditation, Buddha, Enlightenment .I loved the idea of not wanting anything, because I already had it all. For many reasons that didn’t fulfill me. So I found Theosophy and till now, it’s the only rational religion, if there has ever been one. It gave me so many answer. But the reason I got apart from it was its over abstractionism. It did not quite explain Life.
So I decided to follow a life living the combo of all religions. Well at least till I found something else. The combo was a pile of ideas that made all religions great. I was happy but I really wanted to find the truth, the ultimate one. That wasn’t hard. All I had to do was look for it, something other people don’t do. I read the book “The Celestine Prophecy”. A beautiful book. The first one I read where the concept of God was as a source of energy , not a white bearded man standing in the sky judging people and acting through miracles - an image I’d left behind when I left Islam. This book was about awakening of humanity, seeing the world through different eyes, talked about the connectedness with everyone.
It was just the first book with many to follow. I read probably all Deepak Chopra’s books, where he explains life, the universe, good as a single principle, life after death, answering millions of my questions. Then I read Echart Tolle who explained Ego and consciousness .Then came Wayne Dyer, teaching me to be a Non Limit Person. I Also read “Peaceful Warrior” by Dan Millman a book that changes lives.
The biggest shock of all was the Law of Attraction. The secret of Life was revealed and all I ever wanted I could have. It may have seemed suspicious but every time I’d try it, it would work. Somehow the universe was taking care of me. I read “the teachings of Abraham”, not the prophet but an extraterrestrial being What?? Another Shock. So there is life on other planets. I searched for Extraterrestrials, not the UFO attack nonsense, but other beings in other dimensions, spiritual beings, beings of love, beings that have already evolved in the stages we are. Wow! Shocking! “The pleadings, the ashtar command”. I wasn’t sure I could take it. This just raised more questions. Why wasn’t I aware that there was life on other planet? Who were they? What did they want? Where did they come from? And so on.
I managed to answer all those questions by time. They were usually being who have lived on earth and have evolved going on higher realities, and they wanted to help us because the time we are living is a time of shift, change. Not the Armageddon, not Apocalypse, not the end of the world, but a new beginning, a new start, the Age of Aquarius. Wasn’t that something? The Mayan prophecy of 2012.I guess I was just amazed. I began watching incredible documentaries such as “What the bleep do we know “Spiritual Reality” “Earthlings” “The 11th Hour” all a great work of people who wanted to evolve the world.
The greatest shock of all was “Conversations with God” by Donald Neal Walsch a man who really talked with God , a unconditionally loving God , A God you can fall in love with, a God who gave all the answers , a God that we can contact every second , we could talk to God on our own. We didn’t need a middle man. God was always there. And now he wanted to tell us the secrets of life. A God you can laugh with, a God that Is Everything. No wonder his name is I Am That, I Am because she is every that there is. He is all there is .Now I have such a beautiful relationship with God. I was living peacefully but everywhere I looked I saw violence, people that had stopped the connection to God and were hanging on to some Allah, Jesus or whatever. People were suffering and I couldn’t stop wondering why? Why was Life so Hard for others? Why didn’t people seek the truth as I did to find out the joy of life? What was stopping people? Who was the person behind the curtain that was letting this happen? It certainly could not be God. God has granted us free will and would never take that away. It was we, humans that had created this reality.
I realize that I’m 16, but was does that mean. That just shows that if a person is devoted to find answers, no matter what his or her age, one can find them. The truth Is right in front of our eyes. We just need to look closely. I know now that I have a Grand part in the changes to come and I intent to read books, help people, and reach the Utopia we always wanted. I am forever grateful for helping me realize how shallow Islam was, without you I wouldn’t have gone through this journey of finding the truth. You were the one that helped me realize I have a bigger life purpose or even that I have one. I haven-t reached The Ultimate Truth but I am quite close.
I’d like to end this letter with my favorite quote:
I hope I haven’t bored you. I hope you publish this story of mine in your website so it can inspire others to go and seek their part of the truth. We all have a purpose. It’s like Gandhi said: “Be the change you want to see in the world”.
Gratefully yours,
Zander
Reply from Ali Sina
Hello Zander,
I am glad you found the truth about Islam and left it.That is the main thing. It is like you have broken your shackles and now you are free. You have made good use of your freedom investigating the truth. However, truth is not something we can reach. It is an eternal path of learning. It is not a destination but an unending journey.
When I was your age I was also fascinated by new ideas and each book I read seemed as if it unsealed a new secret of the universe. This is normal. You are just beginning to explore the intellectual realm. Eventually you will come to a state that you will take every new “truth” with a grain of salt. No one has the truth. There is no path to the truth. The New Age religion is really a load of nonsense. I read the Celestine Prophesies. The few first chapters sounded fascinating until I reached to the end of the book and I wondered how I had let myself to be fooled to read the entire book. The guy is nuts and I did not realize it until the end when he started saying people disappear in thin air and enter in a different world.
All these New Age gurus are a bunch of fools who try to sell their ignorance to the gullible folk. They mix some truth with a load of nonsense and use scientific jargon to the extent that it becomes difficult to separate the chaff from the wheat. I cannot tell you what to believe and what not to believe. But what makes you feel good is not always the truth. All beliefs make you feel good when you believe in them. Ask the converts to Islam and they think they have found the greatest bliss when in reality Islam is the ugliest and the most stupidest belief.
You can find the truth through rational thinking. I do not say everything must fall within the parameter of logic and science to be true. But until things are not proven rationally and scientifically it is prudent not to believe in them totally. Is there life beyond the Earth? It would be foolish to deny it. There are billions of galaxies each containing billions of stars, each with a dozen or so planets. Even if one in a million of planets has life, there must be billions of planets with life and millions of them with intelligent life. This universe could be populating with life.
Can extraterrestrials travel such long distances? Not if you think of the world in three dimensions and listen to Einstein. But the universe could have many other dimensions. Some scientists believe there are at least 11 dimensions to the world of which we can perceive only three. Could creatures, millions of years more advanced than us have developed means to travel through these dimensions? Millions of people claim to have seen extraterrestrials and I am one of them. But to claim these creatures have teachings for us and are sending messengers to us is baloney. The UFO cults can be dangerous. If these freaking aliens wanted to tell us something they did not need to send messengers. They could descend in front of a TV station and make themselves heard and seen all over the world.
Since I have led you out of Islam I feel responsible also to warn you about the perils out there. Do not follow any of these New Age charlatans. They can mislead you more than the old religions, None of these conman has the truth. They are all after your money and power. Most of these gurus are just mentally sick people. I will give you one quote that I am sure if you take to heart will be the best guidance. It is from Krishnamurthi.
Don’t be a follower, but a prophet unto your self. This is my quote and my maxim.
Wish you the best
Ali Sina
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