Topics
Friends! Who am I?
Brothers! Who are
you?
Companions! What is
this world?
Dears! What kind of
an existence is this—forever dancing along the path of death!
What happened was
that at night when the sky was glittering, in the serene atmosphere made
delicate by lights, a bright star WAS travelling towards an unknown
destination. After traveling through the entire night, the star had left the
east and had made the west its abode.
I could not tell if
the earth was moving or if it was the star that was, in motion. Lying down on
the wooden daybed in the courtyard the entire night’s account is that the star
had gone from the east to the west and had been taken over by the cover of light.
Obviously, travelling all day, the star would again each the same point where
it had commenced in the east- and this process is continuous.
Just as the stars
and the earth are revolving and rotating, each and every particle of the
universe is in motion in its own way. Man, for whom this entire universe has
been created, is also interchanging within the world of feelings and emotions
each and every moment. Each moment that is to arrive is the past ['mazi’] and
the past is death or non-existence [‘fanaa’] reality, it is the presence of
death [fana'] which forms life or existence [‘baqaa’]. In the absence of death
[or non-existence] it would be futile to mention life [or existence]. When the
childhood of a thumb-sucking youth goes through the stages of death ['fanaa'],
adolescence comes into existence. That is, the death of childhood is
adolescence and then adulthood, and the death of the early part of adulthood is
old age. When old age goes into non-existence, we are born into another world.
It is a process that goes on without end.
Just as adulthood is
born at the death of childhood and old age arrives after the early years of
adulthood succumb to death, in the same way the days and nights of the world
are dying and being born at the same time. Just as man can make his life short
if he desires, or spread it over a hundred years if he so wishes, the same is
true of the life of the world.
Today, when the
spell of progress is all pervasive, it is extremely painful to see that the age
of the world, caught in the attractive and deceptive trap of progress, is
diminishing. The earth, in agony like a sick and feeble limb, is crying,
"For God's sake, have mercy on me and on yourselves." But there is no
one to lend an ear to her sobbing and sorrowful voice.
In order to gain
superiority, nations have built such weapons upon which are hovering looming
clouds of death. These weapons threaten the lives of the four billion people
who live on this planet. Once something comes into existence, it becomes
necessary to utilize it. In today's age it has become so easy to make an atomic
bomb, that a team of over a hundred people can make an atom bomb in a small
factory.
The great danger
that is apparent to the open eye, in connection with the production and
propagation of atomic weapons, is that very soon the time will come when a
great many countries will have atomic weapons and that, eventually, in times of
war, their use will become inevitable.
Friends! What kind
of a progress is it that the world is standing at the brink of atomic war and
we have made our abode a volcano about to erupt?
Eventually, this
magical spell of progress will break one day. This been going on all along:
nations that were not aware of the formulas of life ['baqaa] and death
['fanaa'] have been wiped off the face of earth, and today neither their names
nor their remains exist. For God's sake, please reflect on where we are headed.
Death is on our chase, while we are deceiving ourselves by giving it the name
of progress. This is the result of that conduct and character that has taken a
hold of us like a monster. Allah the Exalted states:
Then
whoso does an atom's weight of good will see it,
And
who so does an atom's weight of evil will also see it,
AI-Zilzal:
part 30 [Holy Quran ch99: v7-8]
KHWAJA SHAMS-UD-DEEN AZEEMI
Science has made immense progress, yet many believe that, even with all of the modern tools at our disposal, human beings function at no more than 10% of their mental capacity. This leads to the question of what exactly it is that comprises the remaining 90%. Yet another question that arises is this: If it has taken man four and a half billion years to be able to apply only 10% of his ability, how long will it take for him to make use of the remaining 90%?
