I am infinite

God had sent prophets all over the world. God says in Qur'an that there had not been any community without a prophet chosen from them. The most important message and lesson of prophets was not to worship anything other than God, the one who is not imaginable, who is above any other thing, who is infinite. Consider the names of God in different religions, they didn’t have any meaning. God even didn’t want to let people worship those names.

Were the prophets successful?

When we look at the history around the Earth, we see that most people have worshiped and still worship something imaginable. Some of them worship man-made or legendary gods, some other worship their heroes or holy characters or leaders, some other worship money or job or esteem, etc. They even worship God’s names instead of infinity. History is full of wars between followers of one name and followers of another name.

God had sent prophets one after another to remind people that they should not worship those imaginable and bounded things. But people either didn’t accept or accepted jut for a short period; and now, having access to all those messages and histories, still few people on the Earth worship infinity. Why?

Well, a very quick answer is that because always there are ones who profit from this deviation. However, I think this is not the only answer. Worshiping the infinity has too many effects on our lives. It means that anything non-infinite cannot be our goal. It cannot panic us. It cannot be too much important for us. We cannot believe in something because some holy one has done that or said that. We have to prove everything and believe by our minds. We have to obtain wisdom. We have to look inside ourselves, find the truth by ourselves, know ourselves, and flourish.

As we are infinite, as we are gods on the Earth, we can obtain whatever we want. The more we know our capabilities and the more we want, the more we obtain. We’ll be responsible for our condition and what we are. We cannot soothe ourselves by things like destiny. If we had some bounded and imaginable god in front of us, we could not expect ourselves more than that; so, we would be satisfied by our condition. By having the infinity in front of us, we always expect more from ourselves. Our condition would be the result of our thoughts and doings. We’ll be free and freemen.

Being free and unbounded is not easy. Human beings tend to search for bounded support.  It gives them sense of safety. They like to think there are some imaginable thinks above them and consider them responsible for what happens and what they want.

Ali ibn Abi Talib says the real believes are the most active people. They are those who have known themselves and their capabilities.

Finding the goal of my life

After months thinking about my life and my goal in life, finally I could convince myself to take my phd degree. Actually I found a place for it in my life plan. After seeing those treatments and immoralities from my supervisor and some other professors, I asked myself “Do I really want to take my degree in this university? Where am I going? Do I want to work in such a dirty environment?”

It was not just that. I saw my best friends changed. I was changing, too. I was passing the way the others had passed. I could recognize ugly behaviors in my friends’. I could see some ugly thoughts in my heart. It was shocking. I didn’t want a success in my job with any price. I had to fight with myself. It took a while to create another atmosphere around myself with new people and see beauties of the life again.

I learned a lot during this time. Yesterday while looking to the flowers, suddenly I felt that feeling of loving the life and appreciation for being alive, for a few seconds. I hadn’t experienced that for 9 months. I found that I’m on the true path.

I don’t think about their behavior and what they told me anymore. Thinking about those small creatures makes my thought small.

Sound of death

Years run after each other and I’m following them as fast as I can. Not much is remained. Death is just a few steps over there. And it’s a while that some thoughts don’t leave me: what have I done? What am I going to do? What’s the goal of my life? How should I spend my time? Am I going to have any children? Why?

I won’t be surprised if something happens for my country. Actually I’m counting the moments for that. It’s the rule of the world. When people are so bad, we should expect the punishment in this world. But we are already in the hell. The country and the people are destroying gradually. The government ruins the resources of the country. The air becomes polluted more and more. The prices increase rapidly. There is no freedom. Nothing is remained from morality other than a thin shell.

All of us, people of this country are drowning in the swamp of immorality. I do not talk about other countries, because it’s irrelevant to me. Just I know that many of them have the same situation. This is the nature of human. A creature who can decide, who can select; and this selection could be a bad one. The natural result is that some of them decide to traverse the wrong ways. Some choose to put power and money in priority. Some choose to be selfish. Some choose to squash others rights without any discomfort. Some choose to lie just considering their own temporary benefits.

It does not surprise me when I watch the history. There you can see people who killed each other, kings and leaders who were drown in their power, poor people who bowed these kings, people who ruined the earth and the nature for their benefits, etc.

I can still see them, here, around me. And I’m asking this question all the time: have I become one of them? I can see that stealing others’ achievements has become routine in the university, which is expected to be one of the most moral communities. I see professors who abuse their colleges, I see professors who do not do anything for their students and expect their scientific results.

Now, I’m sure that morality is independent of education. We are like hungry wild animals tearing each other; and I’m trying to withdraw myself from this battlefield.

Thanks God, I’m not a man. It’s not my responsibility to earn money. I do not have to go outside all the week. I chose to stay at home most of my time.

Internet

Thanks God for this Green Movement Toolbar. After 2 days, finally I could install that on Firefox browser and now I have access to some free VPN, anti-filters, and all I need. Before that I spent several hours to access my weblog but I couldn’t. Now we have ADSL which is faster than Dial-up connection we had before. I read something about internet through satellite. It’s not free but I’m going to find some way to buy that. There is a poem which says : “If God closed some doors, he would open some others”.  Thanks for people who spent time and money for providing us with these applications. I pray God helps them in their lives.

Goodbye Amsterdam

Few days before leaving Iran, after finishing most of the official works, I was somehow worried. Although I used to do whatever I wanted during my study in the university, although I had experiences that usually women don't have in Iran, although I had the experience of living far from my family from the age 18, I was afraid of leaving my husband. I was not sure about my decision; I was afraid that maybe this decision has some bad effects on our life.

I was sure that this would be a very nice experience. I was sure that lots of learning both related to my research and to my life is waiting for me. It was an opportunity to be alone and think about my life.

After the events related to the election of 2009 in Iran, I think that most of Iranian people experienced cataclysms in their minds and souls. This could be seen on Persian weblogs. There is a long gap (in some cases around 1 year) between posts before election and the ones after election. For me, being in the center of war, all of my thoughts started to change. There were lots of big question marks in front of lots of my beliefs. For a long time I was involved in answering those questions. There was lots of pressure on my mind. Like other Iranian people, I had kind of depression.

The night of departure, I cried a lot. The whole way from Iran to Amsterdam I was sad. My husband was different from my family. Before my marriage I was independent from every one; but I was dependent to my husband. He is one of the best husbands in the world.

I knew that as a human being I would adjust myself to the situation. I knew that this is a natural emotional reaction. My decision was to benefit this opportunity as much as possible. 

My life in Amsterdam started. I loved that. Something was happening in my soul. If I plot a curve to show the path I traversed, it would have a few (maybe two or three) critical points. Most of the path would be smooth. Being apart from the stressful society of Iran, I could treat my ill soul. I could relax although the revolutions and movements of the Middle East brought new pressures with themselves; New questions, new revolution of my soul. It took again few months to relax myself. 

All of this period, when I look at the way, I see the trace of my friends for feeling happy and enjoying my life. I want to say thanks to my Iranian and non-Iranian friends in Amsterdam. 

The friends in the group in UvA, I appreciate them for accepting me as a member of group, being patient against my bad English and bad behaviors, helping me and replying my questions from time to time.

Iranian friends, I appreciate them for accepting me in their friends' circles and inviting me to their homes, picnics, jogging and biking programs, and afternoon coffee gatherings in UvA. I'm sure that without some friends who speak with my mother tongue, it wouldn't be easy to be happy apart from Iran. 
I should say my special thanks to my supervisor, Shimon. There is a saying that "whoever learned me some word, has made me her/his servant". I learned research steps from Shimon. Although I was supposed to work much better than this, he was patient against me. One thing that gives me hope for the future is that I can continue my work with him through email.

If I love Amsterdam, obviously it's not just because of the nature, calm atmosphere, and hi-speed internet without any filter. Without you my friends, certainly I couldn't make this nice beautiful experience.

Return to Iran

I'm trying to make my brain ready for coming back to Iran. Again, there would be lots of official problems, traffic, pollution, depressed and poor people, security checks, lots of problems with internet, ...

But there are lots of other things that I can be happy with them. Although I do not have much dependency to my home, but my husband and I made it together, we painted it as we liked. Each room has a color and the ceilings have different colors. We bought everything based on the colors: green, orange, yellow, blue, pink, ...

I can climb the mountains with my husband or my friends. I can invite my friends who are like my sisters. I can see the babies of my husband's sister who were born when I was in Amsterdam. I can cook delicious foods with lots of facilities I have in the home. My husband and I can walk to the cookie store every night and can eat delicious cookies with lots of cream. Then we can go to the park near our home and watch children playing.

My friends and I can start the discussion sessions we had before. We can read books and talk about them. 

I have downloaded lots of lectures related to morality and religions and Quran which was not easy in Iran because of filtering and low speed internet. I can share them with my friends and we would have enough cultural food for at least 2 years. I became aware of some Quran sessions in Sharif University and I'm going to participate them. This is exactly what I was looking for during these years and I couldn't find any.

I want to go to English classes. I would like to improve my English so I can talk with my children in the future. It would be hard to find some nanny for the children who knows foreign languages. There are just few immigrants in Iran. 
I hope I can continue my work with my supervisor here through email. I hope I can find more motivation for my work. Maybe I start some common work and discussions with my friends who do research in different areas of Mathematics.
I found the group who I was a member of that 8 years ago. The group has been expanded during these years and now they have also a branch for helping poor people near our home. I left the group 7 years ago because after a year of cooperation, I reached to the point that I felt the real one who needs help is me. There were some of those children  in those poor situations who were happier than us. Now, I think that the reality is that both sides need each other. We can help them and they can help us. 
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Still they are sending people to prisons, still they are ruining the country, still they are stealing the resources of country, still they claim that they are God's agent on the earth, still pressures on the people are becoming more and more. They said that the national internet is going to start its work soon. This means that the few gates to the world even would be fewer than this. Still there is lots of Oppression on the earth. Still there are lots of people on this earth who die from starvation. 
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But I'm trying to give hope and energy to myself with some small reasons. It's not easy to sit and watch your country destroying. But, this is just very small part of thousands of years of humans lives on the earth. I know that there is some position for the human that if somebody reaches that point, then God would be seen every where and patience and peace would be the results of that position.

As a person in this sick society, I should look at my capabilities. First of all, I should work on myself. Living in the system and not becoming like that needs lots of energy. I should think about my daily life every night to find the mistakes and try to correct them. I should improve my relationship with God so I can be patient against everyday problems and difficulties.

I hope God helps me.

I love Amsterdam-3

7. There are lots of Muslims in Amsterdam. As the first result for me, it was easier for me to have hijab. One of my friends went to Switzerland for 6 months of research a few weeks before my travel to Amsterdam. She had kind of shock. She was under pressure because of her Hijab, and her belief to God. She said that there are lots of people even in the university who do not believe God. Even her supervisor asked her “Why do you have hijab?” Fortunately I didn’t encounter such problems. Well, it was not that much easy for me to stay on my beliefs. It was too hard the first time I decided not to shake hands with men. I know that my other friends (with hijab) do that and many of them are not happy with that. But they wanted to reduce the differences. I’m not in a place to judge who did the true work. Each person has his/her own life and I should decide for myself. I had some bounds for myself, and I know that if I pass one of them today, I would pass the others later and nothing would be remained. These bounds may be different for other persons. They even may change for me in the future, but now at this moment I should act based on my current thoughts and believes. Anyway, it was too hard for me not to shake hands with my supervisor in my first appointment. I became so sad. I even couldn’t explain about that. I didn’t want to be impolite. Here, in university of Amsterdam, they easily accepted me with my differences. I know that part of this is because of dealing with people from all over the world, but maybe this is not the only reason.

One of the other important results of the large population of Muslims in Amsterdam is that you can easily find halal meat. I know that Quran has just prevented from eating pork, blood, and meat of dead animals (not be hunted or killed). Quran even has insisted on that all other things are allowed to be eaten. But I eat Halal meat because of caution. It would be a detailed discussion. Anyway, easily finding halal meat makes the life easy.

8. I was talking about my colleges in University of Amsterdam. They were from different countries. Although I was less open-minded than them, they were patient against me. Or at least, they didn’t argue with me. They accepted me in the group so I didn’t feel alone. I appreciate them.

9. There are lots of Iranian people in Amsterdam and especially in the University. At first, this is the sign of the bad situation of my country. Ignoring that, this was like a treasure for me. Sometimes you need someone to talk by your mother tongue. They accepted me as their friend and I didn’t miss my country.

10. Amsterdam is not crowded, you can go to work, to your friend’s house, go shopping, etc by your bike. The shops are on my way from home to university; it’s just about 25 minutes by bike from my home to the university or to my friends’ houses. It’s also just 5 minutes biking from university to the very beautiful place my friend and I go jogging every two days. In Tehran, you can not visit your friends easily. The city is crowded, houses and work places are far from each other, and people are busy and tired. Here, in Amsterdam you can save the time.

 

Many of people here asked me if I had a cultural shock. To be honest, I should say no. Although there were too many new things I encountered, what happened in Middle East was the real thing that my brain and heart was involved in. Those happenings along with some new thoughts caused one of my revolutions after 6 months. I had the experience of thought revolution in Iran. Some of them were much more important than this one. Absolutely, living in a city with more freedom and more time for thinking, and having access to different resources made this revolution possible. Thanks to Amsterdam for providing the necessary conditions for my evolution.

I love Amsterdam-2

4. Here in Amsterdam, the speed of internet is high and you can access to different websites without any extra effort. I know that this is the fact in many countries, but I’m talking about Amsterdam and what makes me happy here. In Iran, the speed of internet in homes is so slow. You should wait a lot to check your email (The situation is not too bad in universities or work places). With that speed, you can not use Google map (Although, the maps of the roads in Iran are not that much clear, and even with high-speed internet you can not use it like here in Amsterdam). In addition to the speed of the internet, which is part of government policy against freedom, most of the websites are filtered and it’s going to be worse and worse. Youtube, facebook, twitter, etc. I remember that I searched an expression containing the word “women” for my master thesis in university and it was filtered. You should waste lots of time to find an anti-filter and accept even slower speed with that. Most people can’t undertake these efforts and ignore checking the website they wanted to check.

5. Dutch people are much happier and also kinder than Iranian people. These days, there are lots of pressures on Iranian families. In big cities, you even do not have clean air to breath. The waters are becoming worse and worse. The nature is ruined because of their false plans and they do not let any one to protest. The noises they send against satellites, is at least some kind of pressure on your thought. There are lots of young people without any job, so they do not have money to get married. Thanks God, I have home, I have food, I can study, my husband has job and I can be sure that at least I can have a job in the university of my hometown. Our house is located in a nice area of Tehran; the weather is better than the other parts, it’s less crowded, the streets are wide, there are much more parks and green areas compared to other parts. But still, there is too much pressure on me. It’s about 1:30 hours to the university. I should change taxis and buses one by one, lose my value as a human being in the crowded buses, see poor people on my way, see people who I can not understand how they continue living, see children on traffic lights selling flowers, and in the university they tell you as a phd student, you should wash your dishes in the toilet. Then again, in the afternoon, I should come back to home with a bad memory of that day. How can I smile to other people? Everyone is anxious and depressed and they can not treat each other in a true way. This is like “if and only if” , when one side of that becomes worse, this happens for the other side and this circle continues.

6.  Here in Amsterdam, you can experience a much more moral life. In your workplace because of the organization and the rules, you can be moral. On the streets, on the buses, you can be moral. This is too hard in Iran. Gradually you become like other parts of system. You try not to act the rules. If you try to be moral in your work place, you would bear lots of pressure and even you may loose your job. I have thought a lot about the reason. Why our official systems have this much problem? I believe that both government and people should alter themselves. For people, there should be some cultural work. But, I think the first step should be traversed by the government. In Iran, if you care about being moral, this is an extra pressure on you. Every night, at home, I had to think about my false behaviors during the day. Most of the time I was sad because of this. Why did I talk on behalf of that person? Why didn’t I treat properly with that student who wanted help? Why didn’t I smile to people in my way to the university? Why did my husband pass the red light? Why didn’t I help that poor man? Why didn’t I let other people to sit on the seat because of my poor reason of being tired? Why did I complain my mother about the bad treatment in minister of science? Why did I transfer my problems to the other?

Here, in Amsterdam at least in your daily life, you can be moral without any pressure.

I love Amsterdam-1

It’s about six months that I’m living in Amsterdam. Maybe it’s too soon to judge about the city and the people, but I love this city. Some aspects of the city are really attractive for me.

1. You live in the capital of the country and it’s not populated. Dividing the facilities all around the country could be one reason. So, you have the facilities without missing the nature. In Iran, you can not have both of these together. You have to choose between progress in work and nature.

2. This culture of using bicycles instead of cars, is something which I haven’t seen in Iran else than a small town “Bonab”. I know that one of the reasons that they were successful is the special nature of the country. It’s completely flat and there are no mountains. The temperature also is moderate. The maximum degree is around 25 degree of centigrade and the minimum is -1, or -2. Although it’s about two years that Dutch people experienced very cold days like -7 which because of the wind, felt like -12, but it’s quite rare. We may not be able to imitate this culture of biking in a city like Tehran; because it’s too crowded and in some parts the streets are too steep. We also may not be able to imitate it in southern part of Iran in some spring and summer when you encounter high temperatures like 50 or even more. But it’s completely possible to use bicycles for transportation in many small towns and cities like Semnan.

One of the reasons that prevents from this idea is the problem of riding bicycles for women. There is some non-written rule which doesn’t allow women to ride bicycles after teenagery???.  It’s kind of taboo. Although I used to ride bicycle in Tehran, I never would ride bicycle in my hometown Semnan. What people would say on behind of me is not important for me, but my parents live there and for me the bounds have always been stricter in Semnan. This is the property of small cities of Iran that all people know each other and so, if you live there, you should always be careful about your treatment. In Islam, you are not permitted to talk on back of other people; you are not permitted to judge about others. Not considering Islam, I think this is what all of us would know because of the morality. I’m ashamed that we just talk about Islam, about morality, about God, and in practice our souls are like evil.

Let’s come back to the discussion. Although I rode bicycle in Tehran, it was completely unusual. People looked at me. Some of them said some sentences to me. I just put my headphone in my ears not to hear anything and tried to just look at the road and not the people. This is the taboo I’m talking about, the most important obstacle against trying to encourage people to use bicycles.

To break this taboo, we should do some cultural work. It’s not easy. Imagine the condition that you go to a park special for bike riding, you rent a bicycle, and while riding you encounter a big board of a saying from the leader of Iran “It’s haram (not permitted ) for women to ride bicycle in front of men”. Here, you see that they have invented another Islam. They think that they are God and do whatever they like. Some people like many in my hometown, think this is Islam. Te other problem is that they combine the rules with their invented Islam. There is no freedom. These days the condition is becoming even worse. Hijab is not optional, and if they think that your hijab is not complete, even if you are in your car, they will stop you. These days I do not risk to ride my bicycle, the Police is everywhere. I’m not as courage as the time I was single. I’m responsible for the life of my family.

I was going to write about the beauties of Amsterdam and it changed to the problems in Iran. Let’s come back to Amsterdam.

3. Dutch people are open-minded compared to Iranian people. This is the result of    freedom and immigrants from all over the world. Many people in Iran, especially in small towns and cities, just receive the news from the government. It’s obvious that when you have some friend from some other countries in your workplace, or when you see lots of foreign people on the street, you become curious about them, so study and think more about other thoughts, religions, beliefs, ways of lives, wars, policies of different governments, etc.

The new question

I feel that I’m in one of my revolutions. My soul is full of questions and I would not be calm till I receive an answer from God. This answer should be kind of believe, faith; something which surrounds my soul such that I cannot find the question any more.  But I know that this takes some time. Passing this period is not easy. 
I remember the first time I encountered the most important question of my life. My heart was beating all the moments. Even the time I was standing in a very crowded bus, I couldn’t feel anything from around. My brain and maybe my heart were busy by the question. Yes, it was the most difficult problem, not comparable with mathematical problems or problems usually occur in the life. After those days, when some daily problem occurs for me, I know that I should not take it serious.

Those days, I didn’t believe God. I didn’t pray. And I felt that the life doesn’t worth to live. I tried a lot. I asked my question from professors of the department. None of them could help me. I asked it from the morality teacher. He couldn’t help me. I tried to find the answer in books. I didn’t succeed. None of them convinced me. One of my friends told me that try to continue your life till you find the answer; otherwise you reach to the point that you even do not have any reason to stand. She introduced me a professor in Physics department. She said that she knows that this person has experienced the same situation.

He  was the only one who helped me. He described that he had experienced this doubt when he was studying phd in another country and he had a family. He described that he had left his family for few days but finally had found that this is not the way to solve the question. He wanted me to be patient. He wanted me to stop reading books and trying to find the answer inside them. He said that each person should write his/her own book. I was impatient and was worried not to find the answer. He just promised me that I would find the answer in a few months.

Yes, he was the only one who understood me and gave me enough energy to be patient against that hard situation.

During these eight years, I encountered some other questions. But they were not as important as the first one; and the solutions were not as strong as that first one. That one is kind of faith, a special present God gave to me. Few months after receiving that answer, I experienced a completely different life. The world was like the heaven for me. I loved all humans. I enjoyed from being alive moment by moment. I felt God everywhere, with my breaths coming out and going inside. I felt God with the trees, with the wind, with the sun, with the birds, with the humans. Sometimes I felt that my heart can not stand in my body anymore. I was thinking that what is the heaven? Is there any life better than this?

Unfortunately, those feelings were not permanent. For a long time, I was asking and complaining God for regaining that. I traveled a lot, I went to nature, mountain, desert; I participated in the activities of different groups. I went to war lands, the place of death of some martyrs. I even went to Mecca, to “Kaaba”; Although I saw God in all of those places, that life experience didn’t return. I was complaining God “If you wanted to regain that, why did you let me to experience that life. Now I know that there is a completely different life that is the real life and my life is not that one. Why did you inform me about that?”

Finally I resulted that “God wanted to show you the real life, the heaven. But, you should reach to it by your efforts. You should continue and do not give up trying. You should try to improve yourself, your thoughts, your morality, your humanity.”

When new serious questions occur for me, I become happy. It’s kind of pressure on me, but I consider them as steps which I should pass maybe one day I evolve so that I reach the life God showed me.

Again, I’m in one of those revolutions and I should ask God to help me. I should fix my relationship with God.