HISTORY OF WITHOUTS
Barriers to Spirituality
THE proponents of the theory of evolution believe that the
history of life on earth goes back millions of years. But historical
records however indicate that the age of man on earth dates
back hardly to 25,000 years. Looked at from the historical point of
view, we find a great difference between the material and intellectual
aspects of human life. That is, man has made tremendous progress in
the material aspect of his life. However, even after tens of thousands
of years man’s knowledge has failed to match the material progress.
Man’s dream of material progress has largely been realized, but no
worthwhile advances have been made in his intellectual and spiritual
life. This issue has been dealt with by Dr. Alexis Carrel, in his book, Man,
the Unknown, published in 1935.
The truth is that a guideline is essential for progress.
So far as the material or physical world is concerned, it contains
a guideline within itself. This guideline, or the law of nature, can be
discovered by experiment and the desired
journey of progress can be continued.
Man is constantly
conditioned from
birth by society.
This conditioning
becomes an obstacle
to forming objective
opinions
For instance, in the field of transport, in
ancient times man use to travel on horses and
camels. Then he made wheel carts; and later,
he built ships, bicycles, motorcars, aircraft and
rockets. For the making of all these vehicles,
the guideline or laws of nature which were
required, existed in the very materials used
for this manufacture.
But man, still remains an unknown entity. For instance, man is constantly
conditioned from birth, by society. This conditioning becomes an
obstacle to man's forming objective opinions. But this truth that man’s
mind becomes conditioned was ascertained as late as the first quarter
of the 20th century and that too only to a limited extent. Much on this
subject still remained undiscovered. For instance, the fact that the
conditioned mind could be ‘deconditioned’ and brought back to its
natural state was unknown.
The Quran being a book of God, its actual role is to provide trustworthy
guidelines for man. This human need is alluded to in the Quran in the
following verse:
There are some who dispute about God without having any
knowledge or guidance, or any enlightening Book. ( 22: 8 )
This verse tells us that the reason for the failure in human science is
people's failure to understand human life. They have tried to build
the whole framework of existence without guidelines. This is the sole
reason for human science not being developed. For, in the absence of
guidelines, man will fail to find the starting point for his actions. And
such a journey, can never reach its destination.
Unawareness of the Creation Plan of God
Only the engineer of a complex machine can provide a manual for its
proper functioning. The same is true of our world. The present world
has been built by God in accordance with a creation plan. Man needs
to understand this creation plan for the proper construction of his life.
Any concept developed without understanding the creation plan of the
Creator will go awry and will not be in accordance with the actual state
of affairs. And any plan which goes against reality is destined to fail.
We learn from the Book of God, that God has built this world for the
purpose of putting man to the test. Here, man’s relationship with
this world is akin to that of a student in an
examination hall. A student comes to the
examination hall so that he may take the
requisite test and prove his ability to deserve
a place in the world outside the examination
hall.
The Quran being
a book of God, its
actual role is to
provide trustworthy
guidelines for man.
Similarly, this world is a place to take the
divine test. Man has to qualify in this test to
deserve God’s eternal rewards in the world
after death.
Man must learn the creation plan of God from His Divine Book—the
Quran—and build his life by following the guidelines set forth therein.
Those who do so will be successful and those who fail to do so will be
adjudged as failures.
The Building of an Ideal Life
The famous Greek Philosopher, Plato, was born about 2500 years ago
in Greece. His goal was to form an ‘ideal state’ in Greece. He presented
a model of this state in his book, The Republic. He thought that the
building of an ideal state was fully possible. Plato, being a teacher of the royal family, found an opportunity to train and educate the princes
to play the desired political role in this Ideal State. He called them
‘philosopher kings’. But this supposed ideal state, conceived by Plato,
could never come into existence.
This was not because his pupil, Alexander the Great, did not follow him
in the latter stage of his life, but was rather due to his ignorance of the
creation plan in which God had not envisaged an ideal state. The plan,
therefore, which Plato wanted to implement was impracticable. That
was why he failed utterly and miserably. If he had fully understood
God’s creation plan, and had tried to carry into effect some practicable
plan, he would certainly have succeeded.
Intellectual Activity without Deconditioning
The Prophet of Islam once observed: ‘Every child is born in its real nature
then his parents make him into a Jew or a Christian or a Zoroastrian.’
The above words of the Hadith are symbolic words for explaining
that, each individual is a product of his own environment. This fact
has now been proved by scientific research. It has been academically,
established that the environment in which human beings find
themselves, conditions their minds. No one is an exception to this
principle. Unconscious of what is happening,
people are involuntarily subjected to a
process of incessant conditioning.
Any concept
developed without
understanding the
creation plan of the
Creator will go awry
and will not be in
accordance with
the actual state of
affairs.
This matter of conditioning came into
prominence in the first quarter of the 20th
century. The American psychologist, Prof.
J.D. Watson, after in-depth research on this
subject, published his widely acclaimed book,
Behaviorism. His thesis was that everyone
necessarily undergoes conditioning. No
one can escape it. This theory of Watson
became so popular that for a long period of
time, this formed a part of the psychology
syllabus in many universities. But, in Watson’s concept, there was a
grave shortcoming. According to his theory, the formation of the
human personality is not carved out by nature, but can be nurtured,
and one who is conditioned in a particular way retains that personality
permanently. He cannot revert to his original nature.
Although the above theory was propounded only at the beginning of
the 20th century, it has dominated the thoughts of people throughout human history. Human beings remained oblivious to the fact that
the beginning of the intellectual process is the ‘deconditioning of
conditioned minds’. They failed to realize that they can remove their
artificial veils and return to their original, pristine nature. The Creator
has provided a material example of this matter in the form of an onion.
The onion, in the symbolic language of nature, counsels man to remove
the external layers from his mind, and only then can he understand
things in their original form.
But man neither learnt the lesson from the onion, nor could Professor
Watson and his supporters discover this reality. As a result, human
beings throughout their entire history have remained ignorant of this
reality.
History shows that all political and non-political movements have
been the result of some reaction or another; For instance Rousseau
reacted against monarchy, Marx against the
capitalist system. Jamaluddin Afghani rose
against western colonialism and Gandhi
against British rule. Ayatullah Khomeini led a
movement against the Shah of Iran, and Syed
Qutub against Zionism, etc.
Man must learn the
creation plan of
God from His Divine
Book—the Quran—
and build his life in
accordance with the
guidelines set forth
therein.
It is a fact that a reactionary movement is
always the result of a negative mentality.
Man develops a hatred for someone and then
launches a movement against him. This is
the entire story of human history. All human
beings have lived in one way or the other in a state of hatred; they have
failed to live in a positive state. The reason is that they have remained
unaware of conditioning. They have failed to understand that without
deconditioning their minds, they cannot see the facts in an ‘as it is’
form, which is the first condition of positive thinking.
Spirituality without Intellectual Revolution
Spirituality has always been a subject of interest for man. It is known by
different names in different circles, for instance, mysticism, meditation,
Sufism, etc. For the last several thousand years great activities have
been continuing on the spiritual front. But so far, these activities have
not yielded any real benefit, in spite of every effort. What man has
achieved is only ecstasy at the unconscious level, instead of spiritual
development, which was the actual goal of these activities.
For ages people have believed that the human mind is the centre of thinking, while the human heart is the centre of feelings and emotions.
That is why man has always believed in heart-based spirituality. Hence,
a spiritual philosophy has been formed on the basis of this supposition.
The belief has developed that the human heart is a source of spirituality
and, by awakening this latent source in the heart, spirituality can be
attained.
Scientific research has proven this supposition to be baseless. The
only centre of both thoughts and feelings is the human mind. So far
as the heart is concerned, it is merely a means of the circulation of
the blood and nothing more. This is the reason why, despite spiritual
exercises for the last several thousand years
man has gained nothing but ecstasy—far
from intellectual development—on the basis
of what he conceives to be spirituality.
This kind of spirituality, in fact, is limited in its
form, and is not spiritual development in the
real sense of the word.
The beginning of the
intellectual process is
the ‘deconditioning of
conditioned minds’.
As we know, ecstasy is only a pleasant but
indefinable feeling, while the greatest quality of man is the capacity
to think. All developments in human history have been achieved by
employing this thinking faculty. This being so, if spirituality has an
existence, it should also be attained at the level of the mind. The source
of all human progress lies in the intellectual faculty of the human mind.
Similarly, the ways and means of spiritual development should also lie
in intellectual activity.
Spirituality is in fact, a high level of the realization of truth. It has nothing
to do with any vague type of ecstasy. That is why real spirituality can
only be one which is achieved at the level of the mind, and not at the
level of the heart.
Due to the ignorance of this reality, man has failed to achieve real
spirituality throughout human history. What he took for spirituality
was something else. And because of the ignorance of true spirituality,
he could not begin his journey towards it. Perhaps there is no tragedy
greater than this in the entire gamut of human history.
