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If a sound, say, thunder, for example, reaches the ears of one who is asleep, he may incorporate this into a dream and make sense of it. He may understand the noise as a felled tree crashing to the ground, for example. The person who is awake, however, hears the thunder, and understands what it really is. To both people, the sound makes sense (69:2) The believer is like the person who is awake - he is conscious. He has been "awakened" through his belief in Christ, and therefore is able to understand things as they really are. He has attained a new spiritual condition - a condition we call "faith". Those who have not been "awakened" by faith are as one who sleeps. They may sense things, and make sense of them, and think they understand them, but because of their condition, they are unable to truly do so. They are spiritually "asleep" (69:3) The conscious person can comprehend the condition of the one who sleeps. Moreover, he is aware of the fact that he has the power to comprehend that condition. But the one who sleeps is in no way capable of understanding the condition of the one who is conscious. And, of course, he is unaware of his own lack of ability to understand. In the same way, the Christian person at the time of Christ could understand the condition of the Jewish person, but the Jew could not understand the condition of the Christian. Just as the conscious person has knowledge that the sleeping person does not, the person who has attained faith, has knowledge, of which a person without faith is deprived (69:4) This is not to say that the person with faith is inherently superior to the person without faith, or that any group of people are inherently superior to any others because of their faith. Here our analogy provides further help in our understanding of this. However much their conditions might differ, the one who is awake is not inherently superior to the one who sleeps. Absolutely not. Sleep is not a permanent condition of the body, and the conscious person realizes this. In the same way, lack of faith is not a permanent condition of the soul. One with faith should not feel in the least superior to those who have not yet attained it; neither can one with Faith look down on others because of their lack of it. In the true spirit of Christ's teachings, the Christian is concerned for the spiritual welfare of all people, and does not judge them because of their condition at the time (69:5) Viewed in this way, it is seen that the world of faith is available to all, at any time. All people possess the capacity for faith. To attain faith, one merely needs to "wake up" spiritually. As we awake from physical sleep, we go from mere illusion to reality. How many times have we dreamed of things, which seemed perfectly normal in the dream state, but which upon waking, we find them to be totally senseless? The same occurs when one attains faith. A Jew, for example, brought up believing the interpretations of his contemporaries regarding the Coming of Christ - interpretations that seemed founded upon reality - would have, after accepting Christ, regarded those same interpretations as mere fantasy. To illustrate, consider that the thinking that the Christ was to be an earthly king, would seem meaningless, compared to the reality of His heavenly, His eternal and everlasting sovereignty. As we awake, we become aware of reality
(69:6)
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