Mirror of my soul – Stories of you, me, the world and eternity

People often ask whether there is any mention of twin flames in the Bible or the Qur’an –however since this term is a fairly recent one associated with a “new age” concept, one simply cannot expect to find it in books written hundreds or even thousands of years ago. Yet while some try to use its absence as proof that there is no such thing as “twin flames”, these eternal lovers – also known as counterparts, or polar opposites, have actually been around since the beginning of time.

As I share some of my insights into the Quranic and Biblical scriptures surrounding the ideas of marriage, true love and the twin flame journey, I understand that this may be a controversial subject for some. My purpose is not to rewrite either one of these Holy Books or to go all gung ho with the interpretations, but – should this subject be relevant to you – ask you to examine your own heart and what resonates. As you too study these scriptures I invite you to truly allow yourself to feel the depth of love that God intended for you – and to come to your own conclusions.

Both the Bible and the Qur’an give a description of what marriage between counterparts is like. Many understand this as meaning the marriage to the husband or wife that we have ourselves chosen and see the descriptions in these Holy books as something to strive for, however I believe this is simply because so few of us have experienced or known a true marriage. You see; true marriage as the Bible and the Qur’an describe it, is made and sustained by God. As such, it could never be just the man-made, watered-down, sign-on-the-dotted-line dissolvable contract that binds people together while it lasts, but an alchemical UNION of two souls which God has created for each other; as an act of worship, as a means to get closer to God and to fulfil the divine mandate – and ultimately, as the final step before the return home.

Adam and Eve were the original counterparts. Both the Bible and Qur’an tell their story, however the accounts and the detail vary slightly. God put Adam to sleep while he took his rib and created Eve – something which, although not confirmed in the Qur’an, is in fact supported by a Hadith in Bukhari. The reason God put Adam to sleep is so that Adam, on first seeing Eve, would recognise her as being a part of him but also as a gift from God, since, being asleep, he had no role in creating her. So when he in Genesis 2:23 exlaims: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,” he does this out of recognition of himself in her, even without knowing she came from him.

According to the Qur’an, after the incident in the Garden, God tells Adam and Eve to leave Paradise and go to live on earth. On earth, they no longer remember who they are and become separated from each other for many years. Eventually, after years of searching they pray a sincere prayer of repentance and are reunited with God and each other. Sound familiar? I love Adam’s and Eve’s reunion story because it shows the importance and power of heart-felt prayer because if both counterparts sincerely call upon God to grant their Union then there is no reason why in divine timing it shouldn’t. It also teaches us about patience, sabr.

Many go through a similar journey here on earth. We suffer from spiritual amnesia when we come here, and go through decades of growth to get to a semblance of serenity and self-awareness. Yet inside we still feel something missing. Occasionally we turn to God and seek a deeper understanding, a purpose, a reason for the pain. So how does this relate to twin flames? If we have been blessed to meet ours in this lifetime, one of the significant touchstones on the path is the realization God has sent them to us to challenge us and to awaken us so that you both could be guided back to wholeness, and to God. The way the twin flame does it is by pushing us on a deep journey of self-discovery and self-realization – an essential step for every God-created union.

Both the Bible and Qur’an agree that the way for us to know God and to truly understand His word is to first come to an accurate & full knowledge of ourselves. This is relevant to the twin flame journey in so many ways because the often the connection to the twin mimics closely/reflects the connection to the Self. If a man wants to see himself, he looks in the mirror, right? – and there is no truer reflection than your counterpart twin.

The Bible tells man to “Know Thyself” (Romans 12:3-8), whereas Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) is reported to have said “Whoever knows himself knows God”. It makes perfect sense, after all “God created mankind in his own image” (Gen 1:27) and “I breathed into him of My spirit” (Qur’an 38:72). Furthermore, the Qur’an tells us that it is reflecting and examining our own self which guides us to the eternal, infinite Source that is free of need and want; unlimited in knowledge, inspiration and power – and abundant in love, mercy and acceptance. God is within us, closer than our jugular vein (Qur’an, 50:16), and when we come to know ourselves, we can align with His will already planted in our heart.

So what do the Bible and the Qur’an say about counterparts? Firstly, both books tell us that God created everything in pairs, such as “And of everything We have created pairs: That ye may receive Instruction” (Qur’an 51:49) and …“male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27). I particularly like the Quranic text which seems to indicate that us being able to receive “instruction” (i.e. guidance) is somehow linked to our pair.

The Prophet of Islam (pbuh) said, “Women are the twin halves of men”. Your pair, your counterpart, is the person with whom you share the same essence and a “single nature and one self” (Sura al-Nisa 4:1). “It is He who created you from a single person, And made its mate of like nature in order that you might dwell with her in love….” (Qur’an 7:189). In the Qur’anic philosophy each person is a zawj, a half of a whole consisting of two matching, interlocking and interworking parts. What is true throughout creation also applies to the human marriage, i.e. when something is created as one part of a pair it is clearly incomplete without the other – as the Qur’an states, “He himself created the pair, male and female” (Qur’an 53:45), and sometimes several incarnations take place with the zawjs making near misses.  However when the zawjs come together they reveal concealed potentials within each other, potentials that were impossible to realize while they were apart.

Regarding the marriage between counterparts, the Qur’an states: “And among His signs is this, that He created for you mates from among yourselves, that you may dwell in tranquillity with them, and He has put love and mercy between your hearts. Verily in that are signs for those who reflect.” [Qur’an 30:21). Notice how the Qur’an is basically saying; this is how you know, and invites you to reflect on the “signs”. One of the signs being that your mate was created from “among your Self”, i.e. they are like you. One thing is for sure: the stress and tension of an ill-fitting union are absent when one is bonded with the right person. There is no mention of mediocrity, emotional blackmail, co-dependency, being lost spiritually within the marriage and having to “work out differences” in what the Qur’an describes. Instead, God put love and mercy between the hearts of the counterparts, and they are a haven of tranquillity for each other. They are each other’s medicine. In fact, the Yasir Qahdi mentions that the successful marriage is not when you can live in peace with your wife, but when you can’t live in peace without her.

Having said this, the idea of a counterpart (twin flame) is somewhat controversial in Islam, since many associate the literal theory of the “other half” as only applying to Adam and Eve, not other souls. However as I understand there are ayahs in the Qur’an which leave this issue open to interpretation. The reason that the theory of a soul mate, or twin flame, is not widely accepted in Islam is that Islam teaches us to be realistic and truthful, and such “fantasies” may even be seen as a form of zina (fornication) with the mind. Instead, Islam teaches us that once you have selected a spouse according to the guidelines set by Islam (their religious and inner qualities), then you MAKE marriage work, and the blessings follow from thereon. Basically, a male and female can build up a good relationship but ONLY within the framework of a marriage. Anything else is haram, forbidden.

Basically, your spouse is your soulmate.

However, beyond the Islamic guidelines is the deeper truth found in the Qur’an which closely reflects that found in the Bible. It is the truth of connection, of Union: when God intends a man and woman for each other, they join together & become one. “They are no longer two but one flesh” (Matthew 19:6). That it is. They become “yoked together”, end of story. Being “one” with someone (or not) cannot be faked, denied or ignored permanently. No person, no event, no act, no decision can ever pull apart such a Union, whether these two get to live their lives as husband or wife or not; whether they are a part of each other’s lives or not. “Therefore what God has joined together, let not man put asunder.” (Matthew 19:6). True counterparts, through the merging of their energetic fields, know that they carry a part of the other so tightly entwined within their being that it would be impossible to untangle one from the other, or God from what is between them. They are bound together for eternity; their spiritual growth always a reflection of the other.

In the Islamic tradition, marriage is half of a person’s “deen” (i.e. their “duty” to God). Many people understand this as meaning that the act of marrying completes half their duty towards God – like they can finally sigh a sigh of relief, phew, that’s that done, right? No, wrong. Just the simple act of marrying, if done for the wrong reasons, is unlikely to get you any closer to God. After all, Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) made it very clear it is always the spirit behind the act which counts more than the act itself. This is how important it is to find the right marriage partner. Yet two people who have come to know God and who call on their Beloved and find their reflection and echo in the other are still a rare occurrence in this world.

According to Islam, Allah has already written the provision for every soul on this earth, including whom we marry. Yet marriage is a decision that many people take without an accurate knowledge of God or themselves. For the majority of us, our marriages are unions of convenience which stagnate and in fact hold us back, be it after 2, 7, 10 or 30 years together. Oftentimes we exercise our free will too hastily and enter into relationships to fill a lack inside; for the other person to complete us, to aid our personal growth, to make us happy, to start a family, to support us financially etc. We prioritise chemistry over compatibility and physical attraction over spiritual resonance. We choose our partners based on their looks, their financial status or family background, their ability to bear children, their intelligence and so on. You get the gist. Your true counterpart is rarely your chosen wife or husband since these arrangements are made by you and represent a physical union.

So, what if you are already married but find yourself being pulled by God’s guidance towards someone other than your spouse? This pull has nothing to do with being or planning to be unfaithful. It is not uncommon for this to happen, and when it does, many find themselves challenged to the core by the fact that God’s undeniable call to worship/service could come through loving another person, especially if one does not happen to be married to that person. Society tells us that the person we marry is the one we are supposed to love exclusively – and even if through our spiritual and emotional growth we find God and realize we are stuck in an incompatible marriage, we still persist with it because this is what our societal, religious and cultural conditioning tells us to do. It takes a lot of courage to let ourselves feel – let alone pursue – the deep love that our true counterpart awakens within us and to forsake what we have been taught to perceive as morally wrong and contrary to God’s command in favour of what our heart tells us is right, divine and true.

Let’s be honest though, how many of us have sincerely selected our partners based their ability to remind us of God and his Love? Are our husbands and wives the beacons of light God intended them to be, pointing us towards the eternal life? The thing is, real love brings us closer to God. It is an act of worship which connects us with ourselves and others. Since it comes from Spirit; it also creates a living connection to God and to a greater purpose. It is unconditional love which exists by its own right, through a flow of REAL love connecting the two lovers no matter that the circumstances or distance between them. “Beloved, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God” (1 John 4:7). Such love could never be wrong.

The Qur’an speaks about God making the hearts of believers familiar (Qur’an 8:63). It is also said that it is the light of Oneness that yields spiritual love and familiarity in the heart; for love is the shadow of Oneness, familiarity the shadow of love, and balance the shadow of familiarity. Since God is ONE, the closer the heart is to Oneness, the stronger the power of love is within it. Surely this explains why certain connections are strong, and even at times overwhelming. They help bring us back to the wholeness that we are by strengthening our love towards our self and others! Their mere presence acts as a purifying fire where everything other than love is burned away by the closeness to God.

Now I am not an advocate of anyone leaving their spouse at first sight of such phenomena, and I certainly do not condone extramarital affairs. But beyond all the questions and moral dilemmas that arise, is the truth of what Real Love is: it is a movement towards unity, towards oneness. It is a home-bound move. Therefore, we have to ask ourselves: is love putting the blinders on and persisting in an incompatible marriage; or is it trusting the small voice inside our hearts which tells us to follow the call home to God, no matter what this may look like on the outside?

There is another way to look at this dilemma. Let’s say that you are married and meet your beloved. You know it is God calling you to this person but you do not feel you should leave your marriage; after all, your partner hasn’t done anything wrong – or maybe they have – but either way you don’t want to hurt them. Perhaps you hide away from this other person, hoping she and the feelings for her will go away in time – or maybe you engage in an illicit affair with them behind your marriage partners back; somehow thinking that this is a better solution than leaving. However, what if in such a situation, you saw your first loyalty as being towards God? What if in examining your heart you recognized that you had married this person before you had come to know and trust God? Surely then, you can admit that this marriage is not by divine mandate but by human choice and could begin to take the steps necessary to realign yourself with God’s will.

Here comes the truth: You do not trust God. You are fighting him! Realize that there is no such thing as free will. Not really. God’s will for you is your will and you fight it because you want it all on your terms. You do not choose who you love. God chooses for you – and he makes no mistakes.

 

In the Islamic tradition at least, there is no higher love between humans than the love which is for the sake of God; love that exists for the simple reason that the person we love brings us closer to God and points us in His direction. The Qur’an states that on the day of judgment, it is those who love each other for the sake of God – meeting for His sake and parting for His sake – that will find shade. Our main consideration in selecting our partner therefore should always be how much love they inspire in us and how close to God they bring us – after all it is by the amount of love in our hearts that we will be judged.

God tells us to “love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12). Furthermore, both Holy books speak about the importance of loving others like we love ourselves. “None of you truly believes until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself” (Hadith 13) and “Love your neighbour as yourself” (Mark 12:31). It is worth considering that these verses cover a deeper meaning, which is that perhaps we have not known God, or true love, until we have EXPERIENCED what it is to truly love another like we love ourselves, like twin flames do; where we hurt when they hurt, where their happiness is also ours, where nothing can be hidden or denied, and where we know without a doubt that at our core we are the same. This is Love. This is Union. This is to know God.

In the gospel of Thomas, which did not make the final cut of the Bible having been judged as too “out there”, Jesus gives us a glimpse into what the “yoking together” of a man and a woman truly is, as well as what the reward for such love is. “When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same, so that the male not be male nor the female female; and when you fashion eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, and a likeness in place of a likeness; then will you enter [the Kingdom]” (Thomas 24).

That’s right. Union of “equally yoked” souls leads to God’s Kingdom.

As for marriages of convenience, where do they lead us? The Bible tells us not to be “unequally yoked together with unbelievers” (Corinthians 6:14) for “What fellowship can light have with darkness?”.  If true belief comes from learning to love the other as we love ourselves like the Prophet of Islam stated in the hadith previously quoted, then the warning the Bible gives us is not to bind ourselves to anyone who does not have such love. Are we with someone who loves us unconditionally? Someone who sees eternity in our eyes, and feels the closeness of God just at the thought of us? Furthermore, 1 Corinthians 7:16 says “How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?”. Just because someone is your husband or wife through an earthly bond of marriage does not mean that you will be “saved” together. This is why it’s important to trust God for the best possible plan for our lives, even if it means our lives will go in a new direction.

Since “God created everything in pairs”, it is God that is the point of reference for the counterparts. “He has set up the balance…” of all things, so the counterparts should only look for Him to set all things in the right equilibrium. This means, no rushed actions or jumps from one relationship to another in the hopes of catching the elusive twin flame; not without first doing the work to get to know our Self, learning surrender, becoming humble and establishing your personal relationship with God. Your priority has to be to first set things right with God, so that he can bring about the balance within your lives together if such is His will.

Surrender is so crucial because through it, we stop trying to play God. We release the illusion that we are in control here. God loves us and wants amazing things for us, but we need to know when we are standing in His way. More than anything, surrender implies the end of resistance. It requires total acceptance since we cannot surrender something that we deny, or something that we won’t face. Rather we surrender when we no longer blame, control, deny, hide, calibrate, compromise, expect, push or pull, ignore, avoid, force, wait or manipulate. Surrender asks us to die to ourselves; to release who we think we are and to become nothing once more so that God can become everything in us. God needs space in us to work through us and he can only do this once we finally just allow whatever is to be.

With God, everything plays out perfectly as He planned it.

Ultimately what I am trying to say here is that the importance of marriage as a social contract should not never override its original purpose of true partnership, a mingling of the spirit, heart and soul of a male and a female of like nature, created together; fulfilling the divine mandate for their lives. Beyond the societal rules and restrictions that govern marriage and divorce there is simple truth: what good is a marriage, no matter how long or fruitful, if we do not see eternity in the eyes of our spouse? True love lasts forever – beyond time and space; beyond this lifetime into the eternal life; into Paradise, into Jannah. True counterparts care about each other’s salvation and know that the other was sent by God to help guide them home.

For me, this whole existence – and certainly this journey – would be pointless if I did not believe with ALL MY HEART that God sent him to me – and vice versa – to bring us into closeness with Him and each other. He is the person who, by just being himself, brings me home. Just his presence – energetic, spiritual or physical, has helped make me a better person; and the love that I have come to know through him has made me a believer. I hold fast to the promise of an eternal life (”You will be with those you love”- Prophet Muhammad [pbuh]) and I know it will be worth every moment spent apart. All I know is that my beloved brings me closer to God. No one else can do it for me.  And this is how I know he is “The One.”

Does his marriage to another change this truth? No, not at all. First of all, meeting our beloved does not have to destroy any marriages. We can also act as a positive, empowering force in each other’s lives without engaging in a sexual relationship. An Islamic fatwa states that if we feel love for a member of the opposite sex, then the emotion itself is not the subject of questioning on the Day of Judgment. If you feel you love someone, if you have a special affinity towards them, then you cannot control your feeling. Such love is not bad. Love has to do with the heart, and it may appear in a person’s heart for reasons known or unknown. Feel free to embrace it. However, when we take that love and give expression to our feelings in actions permissible only within the bond of marriage then our action becomes forbidden.

To truly love someone means to have reverence and respect for that person. If the object of our love is married to someone else and chooses to stay in the marriage, then we should accept and embrace such a marriage as an extension of our love for them. This is because true counterparts know the value of the other as a spiritual person, and it is from reverence that they source the willingness to grant the beloved the spiritual space needed to freely travel his/her own path. It is for this reason that true counterparts never make any demands on each other. Their connection is unique and irreplaceable, whether they are together or not – and no amount of sex, marriage vows, babies, or years together can ever bring forth such a connection with another. It either exists organically from the offset – or it doesn’t. True counterparts are always within each other, a part of each other in a way that could never render them insecure towards each other. It just is what it is. Even if one of them is married to another, they will always be reminded of their eternal promise to each other; and their Union, whether here on earth or in the Heavens, is always only a matter of time. “Be completely humble and gentle; Be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace.” Ephesians 4:2-3

In my heart, I know that God brings counterparts together for so much more than just a life together as a couple here on earth. I know that if mine is showing up in my life – and I in his – it means that I am being invited to step deeper into God’s love and into spiritual service, to step off the wheel of incarnation and to go home. My beloved brings me close to God. Nothing or no one can ever change this truth. That’s why when he told me, “I think God sent you to me & vice versa, to challenge us, to expand us and guide us to his path, to his truth, to our eternal life & salvation, to peace and serenity”, this alone means more to me than any other promise of earthly marriage or life. It tells me that he is headed home – and I will be there to welcome him with open arms; whether it be in this realm, or the next.