[Editor’s Note: This article was previously published online on August 22, 2003.]
This column continues the answer that the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan gave me, on January 10, 1996, in response to my question. My question included his view of the relationship between the mission of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and his mission, and with his mission coming out of his teacher’s mission, and that both missions were “mutually compatible and complimentary.” I asked him to “please, elaborate.”
Minister Farrakhan: If we look at those words, “Expand for me my breast,” that could mean when your breast is expanded you can take in more oxygen. The more oxygen you take in, the more power you have taken in, to give your body more power, for the energy of life is in the oxygen that we breathe into ourselves.
This also goes for the spiritual world and these words mean “expand my breast for more inspiration, more understanding that would give me more power to do a greater work.” Since in the chest cavity or in the breast cavity, there are the lungs and the heart, then he’s asking God to grant him broader compassion; broader sensitivity; a greater love coming from his expanded breast for an expanded mission.
As you may recall, the mission of Moses was, one, in the West, then in the East. So his breast had to be expanded; for, first, he had to deal with a savage people in the hills and cave-sides of Europe, and later, according to the scriptures, deal with another type of sickness in Egypt. So, he has two assignments: one, West; one East.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad has an expanded assignment. He has an assignment in America; he has an assignment in the Caribbean; and he has an assignment that covers the whole of the children of both the first and the second Adam. So, his breast has to be expanded to fit that requirement. Well, it takes time to expand your breast. It takes time to open you up to the depth of understanding of your mission. He said that he had come to fully understand the last aspects of his mission at the time that he was to leave.
He was only given 40 nights. Thirty, and then he was given 10 more. After that 40 nights, he then calls his helper and said to his helper, “Take my place among the people and follow not the way of the mischief maker.”
So the helper is not to look exactly like the person he is helping, but the helper helps in the expanded version of the mission of the master who preceded him and laid the foundation for him. So the master, when he leaves with his fully developed understanding of the depth and the breadth of his mission, he can now guide the servant who works in the expanded aspects of the mission, to help him in an expanded way. Thus, his work compliments the initial work that was done by the master.
In the scriptures, Jesus’ focus at one point was exceedingly narrow. So he told his disciples, “Go ye not in the way of the Gentiles. Go ye not in the way of the Samaritans. But go ye to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But then at another point he said, “Go ye into all the world and preach this gospel to every nation, kindred and tongue.”
Well, those disciples who preached the gospel only to the lost sheep–how would they be prepared to preach the gospel to the ends of the earth except their breast expanded, except their understanding was expanded?
Now, let’s look at the quality of the persons with whom the master first dealt. What was their condition? They were totally in the dark. They were a very ignorant people. So Master Fard Muhammad, to Whom praises are due forever, taught them in a language that was the way you teach babies. You teach babies using words that conjure pictures. The picture is not the truth, but the truth is contained in the picture. But as long as the picture remains in the brain, as you mature in understanding, then you can reach into the picture and extract the principle of truth that lies therein.
So the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was teaching me this lesson, one day, as he was spanking me for reciting the history of Jesus as he taught it 40 years earlier. He said, “I don’t want you to teach it like I said it 40 years ago. I want you to give the meaning of the history.”
Thus, when he said, “Loosen the knot in my tongue,” “tongue” here represents the language of revelation. God’s grace to him came in the words that He gave him, which was a compliment to the Qur’an. It was an opening or a key to unravel the depth of the Qur’an, but the lessons themselves had to be unraveled over time.
We must remember that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said that baby language should not be used by us. Now, we thought at one time that baby language meant profanity, and certainly that is baby language. But baby language means an immature understanding of the word that Master Fard Muhammad brought. We must remember that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad gave the answers to the Lessons when he was three-and-a-half years old. That is a baby. Therefore, he said, “Oh, if I could answer those questions now, I would answer them so much deeper, with so much breadth and depth.”
So when he said, “Loosen the knot in my tongue,” it meant unravel the wisdom that is contained in the message that Master Fard Muhammad brought, that the expanded helper working in the expanded dispensation, or aspect, of the mission of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad would be a more mature representation of the message of Master Fard Muhammad, and that more mature message would allow him to speak to all humanity.
And so the work of his helper is an outgrowth of his–the Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s–work and it compliments his work and his work lays the foundation for the work of his helper.
I would conclude by saying this–that I heard the Honorable Elijah Muhammad say once, that two-thirds of the Qur’an were for him and one third was for some other man, and I would let that other man worry about his part. He said the book that the Saviour gave him was the Qur’an, but two-thirds of it, which deals with faith, would be established before he departed. But the other third would be established under his guidance from another place in which he would be.
He said that he was like a guided missile that God was off in a secret place guiding him. He’s a guided man. Well now, he has grown up into that kind of power where he can be where he is and guide his man in the fulfillment of his third. So this helper doesn’t really have to worry about his part. All he needs to do is to reach up into his brain for the guidance that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad will continue to give him.
More next issue, Allah willing.
