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Man desires a life that is not familiar with
death. He wants health that is not affected by illness. He wants an adulthood
that does not turn into old age. But this has never happened. Adulthood changes
into old age; illness, time and again, subdues health and wellness. Man may
wish all he wants to escape the ups and downs of life; he does not succeed at
it. This is because nothing in this world is free of instability. The process
of death and destruction continues unabated.
When man is dominated by instability, he
becomes more sensitive to pain. In the state of pain and grief, such feelings
and emotions arise that make the person sad and apprehensive. Life loses all
its brilliance, and all grandeur and glory shrink into sadness.
Man, from birth till death, stays engaged in
a continuous fight. He wants to win and succeed at all cost, but finally it is
old age that wins, and a time comes when death overtakes old age. Life may have
the most glorious beginning, it undoubtedly ends upon death. At each instant
and at every moment, death maintains its fixed stare upon humankind.
According to one school of thought, man's
happiness resides in his living a free life, but when proponents of this idea
began to ponder the mortality of life, they came to the conclusion that in .in
is never free. This philosophy also brings forth the point that after each
occasion of joy, a calamity is sure to follow. After each period of peace and
tranquility, disorder is soon to arise. Each moment of happiness, in reality,
is predicative of the onset of grief, and each period of peacefulness ends in
anxiety and restlessness.
Each moment of
happiness is only an intermission,
wherein brew
ingredients of future's sorrow
Each moment of
peace, a mere respite, from the
trials and
tribulations of morrow
The general observation is that, whether it
is peace and happiness, worries and trials, youth, or adulthood —death
dominates all. If one reflects upon the issue, it appears that, of all the
creatures living on earth, man suffers the most at the hands of hardships and
calamities. When he comes face to face with death, his entire life's struggle
appears to have been in vain. Man lives and suffers so much pain and misery
that when his joys and sorrows are added up, his entire life seems like an
unending series of misfortunes. Man is born into this world naked, and he departs
from it naked. And it remains unknown where he came from, why he came, and
where he has gone. The prevalent perception is that man came out of nothingness
and returned to nothingness. That is, all of man's strivings, all of his
efforts, and all his struggles to survive, have all come to naught. According
to a plan, through resources and provisions of food and drink, life keeps man
in motion. Man feeds animals to fatten them. He then slaughters them and eats
them. Just as man eats animals, so does death consume man.
There is only one way to fight life bravely
and to succeed, and it is that man should become aware of the reality of
struggle and effort. Awareness means that life should he spent as a routine. An
example of a routine is that of the process of breathing or blinking our eyes:
We breathe, but always without thinking that we are breathing; we blink our
eve„ but always without thinking that our eyes are blinking.
The true way of thinking is that one should
not have expectations of others because the person who does not have any
expectations is not disappointed. Expectations should be measured and few. And
they should be such that they can continue to be met easily.
According to heavenly books, the effective
way to attain peace is for man not to get angry and not become aggravated by
things. He should not show slackness in his actions and strivings, yet he
should also not stake all of his hopes upon a particular result. He should
study the principles observed by the other species inhabiting the earth.
When the units of this temporal life are
brought together, they bear witness to the following:
There are no loopholes in the laws of
nature. Everything is a toy or a puppet in the hands of time. However time
wishes, it winds the key, and the thing comes into motion. When time severs its
relationship, the key cannot be wound anymore. All the mechanical parts remain
the same, but the strength or energy is no more. Time is an expression of
quwwat ['strength/ power'], this strength or power is a type of energy —a
centre—and it is this centre which the heavenly books introduce as qudrat
['nature/the power of nature']. Qudrat or the 'power of nature' exists
independently, of its own accord. It is this central point ['markazi nuqtal, to
which all individuals of the universe are tied. Existence ['vujood'] and
non-existence [‘a'dam], both are immersed within it.
When man is able to find his relationship
with this central point, all his expectations in this world of fiction come to
an end. And when this happens, joy and happiness orbit around him and death
looks upon him with eyes filled with maternal love. Death, before approaching
such a person, first knocks at his door and requests permission to enter.
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%?
