Topics
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%?
