Chapter 4: The Human Being's AwarenessOf
Self And The World
The human being is both conscious of self and conscious of the world. He has a tendency to become more aware of himself and the world. His fortune and prosperity are, thus, in pledge of these two kinds of awareness.
It is not easy to judge which of these two is superior in significance to the other. Some people value self-consciousness over world consciousness and some othersdo
the reverse. The type of approach taken possibly reveals one aspect of the difference which exists between Eastern and Western patterns of thought.
One aspect of the difference between knowledge and faith can also be revealed by the fact that knowledge is a means towards world consciousness while faith is a background toselfconsciousness
. It is notable, however, that knowledge too aims at self-consciousness this is actually what psychology does but the consciousness which knowledge presents is lifeless and dead. It does not evoke man's emotions. It does not awaken his dormant forces.
On the contrary, the consciousness which faith and religion offer,i.e.
religious self-consciousness, inflames the whole human existence.
The self-consciousness which reminds man of his true self, which eliminates his oblivion, which inflames his soul and which makes him pain-suffering, is not the product of science and philosophy. Earthy science and philosophies create forgetfulness and cause man to lose sight of his own self. This is why there are many a callous philosopher unconscious of self and, on the contrary, many an illiterate layman, conscious of self.
The call for self-consciousness that know thy self so as tohe
able to know thy Lord and do not forget thy Lord so as not to forget thy own self, is the epigraph of all religious teachings. This isemphasised
in the Qur’an as well as in the words of the Prophet (S) and Ali (‘a). The Holy Qur’an reads:
وَلَا تَكُونُوا كَالَّذِينَ نَسُوا اللَّهَ فَأَنْسَاهُمْ أَنْفُسَهُمْۚ
أُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الْفَاسِقُونَ
And he notye
like those who forget God, and whom He hath therefore caused to forget their proper selves. Such men are the evil doers. (59:19).
It is related that the Prophet (S) once preached:
Whoever shall know himself shall know his God.
And it is said of Ali (‘a) who acknowledged that self-knowledge is the most beneficial of all kinds of knowledge.
On another occasion he said,
I'm surprised that he who loses something looks for it, but he who loses his self does not seek it!
The main criticism projected towards the Western culture by the world's intellectuals is that it is a world-conscious culture which bends towards self-oblivion.
Within this culture, man comes to merely know the world. The more he attains an awareness of the world, the more he forgets about his own being. This is the actual mystery of the fall of mankind in the West. When man loses his own self (Khusran-i
Nafs), to quote from the Qur’an, what would be the use of his mastery of the world?
The strongest criticism of the Western culture in this respect comes from the late leader of India, Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948). In his book, My Religion, Gandhi says:
A Westerner is able to achieve great feats which other people assign to the providence of God. Yet he is unable to reflect on his inner self. This suffices to reveal the absurdity of the false glare of the modern civilization.
That Western civilization has led Westerners towards alcoholic drinks and sexual affairs, is due to the fact that Westerners go more on the track of forgetfulness and the spoiling of their own 'selves' rather than on the way of self-discovery. Most of their great accomplishments, chivalries and even good deeds are based on self-oblivion and futility. Their practical supremacy in discoveries, inventions and production of implements of war initiates from their flight from and not their exceptional domination over their own 'selves'. If man loses his soul, what would be the use of his conquering the world?
Gandhi continues: “There is one reality in the whole world, and that is the 'knowledge of the self. Whoever knows his own 'self knows God and His creatures. Whoever is devoid of such knowledge is devoid of any knowledge. In the world, there is only one force, one type of freedom and one from justice, and that is the power of ruling over one’s own self. Whoever has domination over his 'self' has domination over the world. There is only one sort of goodness in the world and that is loving others as one loves himself; inther
words, regarding other people as we regard ourselves. What remains is illusion and nullity.”
On the whole, whether we value self-consciousness over world-consciousness or vice versa, or whether we weigh them equally, it is certain that the growth of awareness guarantees the development of human life in all its aspects. In other words, the human soul equals awareness, and awareness equals the human soul. The more the awareness, the loftier the soul. This is affirmed by (Jalal al-din) Rumi (the Persian poet d. 672; 1273) where he says:
With 'knowledge' alone the soul can be tried. The more informed with greater souls abide. Our souls exceed those that non-human own; For ours have more knowledge, it is well-known.
Yet theangels
greater souls do possess:
For they are all-refined and passionless.
And heart-masters have souls to exceed
Those of angels! leave out disdainful deed!
'Tis why Adam deserved the Angel’s praise;
His soul above their beings God did raise,
For how does the fair God unfairly say:
The higher homage to the lower pay?
Doesn't Divine Justice and Mercy oppose
A worthless thorn being praised by a rose?
What's the soul? 'Tisa ware
of good and bad,
Tis unhappy with harms, with favors glad.
And for insubstance
it seeks awareness,
The more aware loftier souls possess.
A lofty soul transcends every limit,
And all other souls praise and obey it
Souls of men and angels, birds and the fish;
For it's in flight and they're to perish;
And since awareness it craves to attain,
And naught but this impresses its domain,
Souls of the more aware have greater shine;
And they are closer to God, the Divine.
Thus, for soul is a knowledgeable whole
The insight-free is the devoid of soul.
Man will therefore be supplied with a more powerful soul in proportion to his greater awareness of the world and of his own self. Soul-possession is, in the words of philosophers, a progressive reality. It has various degrees. As a gradual advance appears in the degree of man's awareness the degree of his soul-possession increases.
It is obvious that the self-consciousness that we are discussing is not that which appears on one'sI.D.card
(name, father's and mother's name, birth place and place of residence). It is not a biological self-consciousness (that man ranks one degree higher than bears, monkeys, etc.). To shed light on this obscure area, different types ofselfconsciousness
are briefly pointed out.
1. ConsciousnessOf
Primordial Nature
Man is intrinsically a self-conscious creature,i.e.
man's substance is the very stuff of consciousness. It is not true that man's 'self' was created first, and then consciousness was assigned to it in later stages. The creation of man's 'self was the very formation of self-consciousness. At this elementary stage there is no difference between consciousness, theselfconscious
by nature and the constructed conscious.
In later stages of development, as man becomes more aware of objects around him, he also achieves a kind ofselfawareness
. He pictures an image of his own being in his mind. In other words, he achieves an awareness that however, man is, in a way, through his intuitive knowledge, aware of himself.
Psychologists, who are usually concerned with controversies over self-consciousness, pay more attention to the secondary stage of consciousness gained through subjectively acquired knowledge, whereas consciousness attained through intuitive knowledge is of greater concern to the philosophers. It is regarded as one of the sound reasons for the 'immateriality of soul' in philosophy.
In the latter kind of self-consciousness there is no doubt as to whether or not 'Iam
, and in case 'I am', then 'who I am'. These uncertainties are allowed to enter where knowledge and awareness are to be acquired-where the objective being of the constructed conscious is different from the objective being of consciousness. It is impossible to raise questions where knowledge is intuitive and consciousness, theselfconscious
and the constructed conscious are one.
The main error inDescarte’s
reasoning is the very point that the he had not taken care of the certainty of 'I am'. He had to remove his doubts by resorting to 'I think'.
Generally speaking, natural self-consciousness, though objective, is not attainable. It is in the very existence of man. It appears by creation and as a result of the 'substantial movement' of nature. Thus, it is not the self-consciousness recommended to attain.
The process of conversion of the unconscious matter (of human existence) into the conscious spiritual substance is referred to in the Qur’anwhe
re it mentions the stages of the creation of the fetus in the womb, and as the last stage it says:
ثُمَّ إِنَّكُمْ بَعْدَ ذَٰلِكَ لَمَيِّتُونَ
Then (God) brought forth man of yet anothermake
. (23:15).
2. Philosophical Self-Consciousness
Philosophers endeavor to discover the reality of the conscious 'ego', to see whether it is 'substance or accident', immaterial or material and to find its relation to the body. They try to examine and figure out if itsappeaance
is before, after or parallel to the creation of the body, whether it outlives the body or not and so forth.
The main point of concern in the philosophicalselfconsciousness
is the nature and the reality of the 'self'. Therefore, when philosophers claim self-consciousness, it implies that they can recognize the nature and the substance of the 'ego'.
3. World Self-Consciousness
This term denotes consciousness of one's self m its relation to the world,i.e.
where-from, where andwheret
o?
Here, man discovers that he is a small part of a big whole entitled 'World'· He discerns that he is not an independent island: that he is, on the contrary, dependent and that he does not come, live and depart on his own. He makes efforts to identify his position within such a whole.
This kind of self-consciousness is clarified by Ali's (‘a) eloquent saying:
“May God bless him who knows where he has come from, where he is and where to he goes”.
It provides man with the purest and the most sublime suffering to find thetuth
. It is this type of self-consciousness which provokes man in the way of knowledge and truth, which bewilders him with the flaming fire of doubt and uncertainty the fire which inflamed such a great man as al-Ghazzali
and made him sorestlesss
to forsake the seat of scholarship inNizamiah
, to wander in deserts and to live a pondering life in foreign lands for years, the fire which causedInvan
of Basra to leave his homeland and to spend his life in search of truth wherever it might be. It is this type of self-consciousness which causes man to be concerned abouth is
fate and destiny.
4. Class Self-Consciousness
Class self-consciousness is one of the forms of socialselfconsciousness
. It is consciousness of one's self in its relation to the social stratum to which one belongs. In class societies every individual belongs to a certain social class in so far as enjoyments and deprivations are concerned. The understanding of one's class situation and responsibility is termed class self-consciousness.
It is held in some theories that man possesses no 'self' beyond the class to which he belongs. It is further held that the individual's 'self is his very 'conscience',i.e.
the total sum of his emotions, thoughts, pains and agonies and inclinations; and all these are delineated within one's 'class'.
Advocates of these ideas believe that the human being is devoid of 'self'. He is a subjective, not an objective being. An objective creature, they say, is only recognized within its relevant class. The individual is non-existent. It is the masses and the aristocrats who exist. In a classless society alone, be it existent, man would be actualized. In a class society therefore, social self-consciousness is nothing but classselfconsciousness
.
Class self-consciousness so defined can be termed 'gainconsciousness
' or 'utilitarianism ' because it is based on the philosophy that material interests constitute the foundation of the individual's character, and stand as the main force on him. In this scheme, economics is considered to be the basic institution of the social structure, and common material interests are regarded as the origin of 'common conscience', 'common taste' and 'common judgement' which the members of a certain class share.
Class life provides man with class insight and this induces him to view and interpret the world in general and the society in particular from a special angle and with a special class viewpoint. It causes him to have class suffering and to endeavor in social affairs on the basis of his class outlook. Marxism advocates this kind ofselfconsciousness
, and it can therefore be called Marxianselfconsciousness
.
5. National Self-Consciouness
This is consciousness of one's self in its relation to the people with whom one shares ethnic bonds. People approach a kind of union as a result of living a joint life of common laws, customs and traditions, a common history of victories and defeats, common language and literature and ultimately common culture. In other words, in the same way as an individual is possessed with 'self', a group of people or a nation have a 'national self' or union which is representative of their common culture.
Common culture is more effective than common race in the creation of unity among human beings. With cultural support, nationality would unite all is to one ‘We’, would invoke people to sacrifice for ‘We’, to take pride in its success and to feel ashamed of its defeat. National self-consciousness is thus the consciousness of national culture, national character andnational,’We
’. It is directed towards nature, attributes and distinctions characteristic of a given culture.
The nationalism which originated and became widespread in the 19th centuryA.D.and
which is still more or less in vogue is laid upon this very philosophy. It certifies that the world is filled with a great variety of cultures and that there is no unique comprehensive culture.
Contrary to class self-consciousness in which all emotions, evaluations, judgements, position-takings and so forth arise from the relevant class standpoint, in nationalself
consciousness everything revolves around nationalism. It is not of the 'gain-consciousness' category, yet it is not beyond selfishness. It embodies all side-effects of selfishness such as prejudice, favoritism, egotism, self-admiration and the ignoring of one's own faults. Accordingly, it is like classselfconsciousness
, bereft of moral aspects.
6. Human Self-Consciousness
This term demonstrates consciousness of one's own self in its relation to all human beings. It is established on the principle that all people from one factual unit and all of them enjoy a common human conscience' philanthropy and humanity areindispensible
traits of all human beings.Saadi
says:
Adam's sons are body limbs to say;
Forthey're
created of the same clay.
Should one organ be troubled by pain,
Others would undergo severe strain.
Thou careless of people's suffering
Deserve not the name, ' human being'.
Philosophers like Auguste Comte, who have been and still are seeking the 'religion of humanity’, are actually engaged in contemplation of human self-consciousness. It is the same as well with the intellectuals who are in favor of 'Humanism' which is a more or less prevalent philosophy of our time. Humanism negates all types of discriminations and distinctions and views man as a single unit beyond class, nationality, culture, religion, skin, color, race and blood difference.
Declarations of human rights are also issued regarding human self-consciousness with the purpose of bringing this philosophy into existence. An individual who is possessed with human self-consciousness will suffer nothing but the agony of mankind, will hope for nothing but formans
true aspirations and will endeavor only for the benefit of human kind.
Friendships andenimities
would be of no human quality to such an individual. He would make friends with man's friends, knowledge, learning, health, welfare, freedom, justice, kindness and become hostile to man's enemies,i.e.
ignorance, poverty, tyranny, disease, bias and strangulation. Human self-consciousness, unlike the class and national types, is a moral one. It is the most logical and controversial aspect of self-consciousness; yet, it is the least materialized of all.
Why? The answer is concealed within man's very existence and reality.
Man's reality and existence differ from those of other creatures of God, either animate or inanimate, in that the latter exist as they are created to be. That is, their nature, reality and attributes remain the same as they weremoulded
by factors of creation. Whereas man enters the stage of 'what to be' and 'how to be' just after creation. He is not a predestined creature; rather he is what he intends to be. He will develop into what the total sum of training factors, including his own 'will' and 'choice', might build up.
In other words, so far as the nature and quality of created things are concerned, man is a potential and others de facto creatures. It implies that the seeds of humanity potentially exist in man and, provided that they are protected from various harmful blights, they will gradually begin to sprout up m the fertile field of his existence and from temperamental human traits and later, natural and human 'conscience'.
Unlike inanimate objects and animals whichpossessonly
a body, man possesses his own 'person' as well as a personality. Man's person consists of his defato
body systems which begin to work, like those ofammals
, just after birth. His human personality will, however, be constructed on the basis of his potential spiritual mechanisms. Man's human values are potentially available within his being. They have to be trained in order to flourish.
Man's spiritual structure develops at a later stage than his physical format. His body systems are formed by agents of creation in the mother's womb, while his spiritual mechanisms and the pillars of his personality are established and enhanced after the embryonic period. This is why man is said to be the architect and engineer of his own personality.
He is, in fact, bestowed with the drawing pen of creation regarding his personality. In creatures other than human beings it is quite impossible to imagine separation between them and their nature,i.e.
between stone and being a stone, tree or being a tree, dog and being a dog, cat and being a cat and so forth. In human beings, however, such a phenomenon exists.
There is a great gap between a human being and humanity (becoming a human being). How many are there who have stopped at the stage of brutality (wild primitive man), and how many metamorphosed men, so-called civilized people, are there who have become anti-human? How is detachment possible between an object and its nature? It is obvious that nature is an essential condition for existence a de facto being has a de facto nature.
Therefore, it must be a potential being (human being) who lacks the nature it deserves. This is the philosophical justification of what Existentialism calls the 'principality of existence' man is a devoid-of-nature type of existence, who acquires his nature according to his own choosing.
This is greatly approved by such Islamic philosophers as Sadr Al-Muti'allihin
(Mulla Sadra of Shiraz) who believes: Man is not one species. He is actually different kinds of species; rather, he is occasionally a species different from what he was the dayhefore
and what he will be the day after. Biologic man cannot therefore be considered a criterion for humanity.
He is only the background to real man and in ' philosophers' words, the bearer of faculties for humanity rather than humanity itself. It should, however, be pointed out parenthetically that it would be meaningless to speak of humanity without believing in the 'principality of the soul'. With the above introduction, we are now in a better position to appreciate the exact concept of human self-consciousness.
It is, as was previously mentioned, firmly established on the principle that all human beings are counted as one real 'unit'. They enjoy one common, human conscience which overshadows class, religious, national and racial conscience. This requires explanation as to what sort of men collectively possess a unified 'self, and are ruled by a common 'soul'.
In whom does human self-consciousness grow and incite sympathy? Does it only reside with men who are already approaching humanity, and in whom human values and actual human nature are being realized? Does it exist as well in those who are at the level of potentiality, or in those metamorphosed men whose nature has changed and become the most brutal of all animals? Is it possessed by all of these men without exception? It is apparent that mutual sympathy requires people to act as organs of one body, each feeling restlessness at the event of the other's suffering.
The answer to the above question is thus clear. Not all people, with the mentioned attribute can act accordingly. How can a wild, primitive person whose development has been arrested at the stage of infancy and who isunconsciouss
of his or her human nature (let alone for metamorphosed people), have such a mutual feeling?
How could he or she be subjected to the rule of the 'common soul’? The 'common soul' spreads its rule only over those who have already attainedattained
humanity, who have discovered their human nature, who have become fruitful with human temperaments and who can be called organs of one body. These people, in whom can be called values have grown are the faithful because 'faith' stands at the peak of noble human values and dispositions.
The conclusion is thus drawn that what makes a unified “we” out of all people and what breathes a unified soul into them soasto
create moral and human miracles is the 'unity of faith' not the sameness of substance' in creation whichSaadi
expresses in his poetry. WhatSaadi
refers to is an ideal thing; it is not reality. Yet I believe it is not ideal either. How could Moses and Pharaoh be members of one body? How could AbuDharr
sympathize withMuawiyah
? How could Lumumba feel uneasy forTshombe's
suffering?
'What is both real and ideal is the unity of de facto men who have attained humanity and who have become worthy as human beings. For our beloved Prophet (S) referred to the 'believer as being members of one body rather than to 'men' ('the son of Adam’) as a whole whichSaadi
generalizes wrongly in his adoption of the Prophet's (S) saying. The Holy Prophet's (S) saying reads:
Whenever one member is afflicted by pain, others feel sympathy, involving themselves in (agony)aand
sleeplessness.
No doubt that people as such are kind to all human beings and all objects. They show kindness even to metamorphosed people. This is why God calls the Holy Prophet a mercy to all people. These men are kind even to their enemies. Ali (‘a) expressed his feeling towards IbnMuljam
(who assassinated him later), saying:
I like seeing him alive but he seeks to kill me.
The more important thing, however, is 'mutual kindness and sympathy', and this can only be achieved in a community of the 'believers'. It is obvious, of course, that 'total peace' and lack of responsibility towards the actions of the misled and the oppressors are not to be called kindness to all human beings.
On the contrary, real humanity necessitates the most severe responsibilities in such cases. Bertrand Russell, the famous English philosopher and mathematician and Jean-Paul Sartre, the French existentialist philosopher, are two well-known advocates of humanism in our age.
Yet Russelllias
based his moral philosophy on the anticipation of personal interests which contradicts the humanism in which he believes. He considers the basis of morality to be the accumulation of more and better benefits for humanity in the light of moral principles. He does not hold any other philosophy for morality. His humanism is therefore leading to the love of benefit'.
The humanism of Sartre, as a contemporary Persian writer believes, manifests the Western world's anxiety on the verge of its collapse. The writer explains his ideas under the title, The Two Aspects of Nihilism in the Modern West, saying, that enthusiastic bourgeoisie which conquered Bastia and raised the flag of nationalism has nothing today but thoughtlessness upon which to ponder. The young generation in the West is leaning on a futile dependence these days. The West is taking back the exports she has in the course of time imposed on other nations and civilizations. She is receiving social riots, hopelessness, vagrancy, the feeling of disdain, nihilism and so forth.Anihilist
thinks: that which is not for me, let it be no one's and in this way, he moves towards his own annihilation.
But the other reaction is observable in a kind of 'romantic, philanthropic' philosophy in which many aWestem
intellectuals are involved at different levels. Russell, with his simple, pragmatic outlook is one end of this philosophy. The other end is Sartre with his restless, sophisticated philosophical perspectives.
Between these two are the intellectuals of politics and economics like Tibor Mende who endeavor to find a practical way out of their own and others' problems. But Sartre with his gnostic disposition, his freedom of what may make a dependence and his intricate theory which advertises responsibility and obligation, is another phenomenon of Western spirit which, ashamed of by-gone sins, seeks to make up for the past. Sartre, like the Stoics believes in equality, brotherhood and universal rule freedom, righteousness and piety.
He represents the intellectual tendency existingnowaday
" in the West towards relief from the anxiety of collapse by resorting to a 'total humanism'. In fact, in replacing religion by humanism, Sartre tries to ask forgiveness for himself and the whole West fromthe'supreme
' deity of mankind who has taken over the ancient God.
The evident reflection of Sartre's humanism appears at times in his sympathy for the innocence of Israel and in his wailing over the oppression of the Arabs, especially the Palestinian refugees! The world has always witnessed such practical manifestations presented by those Western humanists who have signed the pompous, universal declarations of human rights. This is too obvious to be discussed further.
Social self-consciousness, be it national human or class self-consciousness, is in our age termed intellectual consciousness. An intellectual is the one who possesses one type of the above-mentioned self-consciousness. He feels the class, national or human pain and tries to rescue his particular class, his nation or allman kind
from the suffering of their pains. He tends to transmit hisconsciouness
to them and stimulate them to secure freedom from all social captivities.
7. Mystic Self-Consciousness
This is consciousness of one's self init’s
relation to the Divine Being. This relation, mystics hold, is not like that of the two creatures with the same nature such as the relation of man to other members of the human community. It is the relation of minor to major, fantasy to truth and in mystic’s words, constrainedto
absolute.
The mystic's pain, contrary to that of the intellectual, is not the reflection of outside sufferings in human self-consciousness. It is an internal pain which arises from man's natural need. The intellectual's pain is a social one. Therefore, the first acquires consciousness and it is thisconsciouss
which makes him feel the pain. But as to the mystic, the pain itself is consciousness, because it springs fromwirt
. The mystic's pain resembles that of a sick person, which is the natural call indicating the existence of a need within the body. Rumi says:
The remorse of illness and tears of burn,
When illness befalls, to wakefulness turn.
The more wakeful more agony have to bear,
The more aware with paler face appear.
Know then this principle thou who seek in vain!
That the scent it is caught by sufferers of pain.
The mystic’s and thephilosopher's
are not alike. Both of them bear suffering for truth. However, the philosopher’s aim is to know and recognize the truth whereas the mystic’s destination is reaching, union and disappearance into the Truth. The philosopher's suffering makes a distinction between him and all other products of nature,i.e.
inanimate objects and animals; for the latter are bereft of the painful struggle for knowledge and recognition. The mysticsufferning
; however, consists in the agony of love and attraction. It is that which not only the earthy creatures lack but also angels whose substance is knowledge andselfconsciousness
are devoid of it. Hafiz (1320-1390) reads:
Angels know not love, their ears not hurt,
Take aquarozae
and pour on Adam's earth.
His visage shined, He saw loveless Angels above
Thus
He inflamed Adam in the fires of His Love.
The philosopher's pain manifests the call of a natural need for 'knowing', that de facto man has a longing to know; while the mystic's reveals the call of the natural need for love that man craves to make a flight and to repose not until he might make a contact with the Truth. To the mystic, perfectselfconsciousness
lies solely in 'God-consciousness'. He declares untrue what the philosopher calls 'true self'. This he claims to be the 'soul' a 'determination' the break of which makes man recognizes his true self.
The 'true self' is God.Muhyi
al-Din Ibn al-Arabi (d. 638/1240) in his bookFusus
al-Hikam
(The Seals of Wisdom), chapter onShu'aib
, writes: Philosophers and theologians have delivered many a lecture on the manners of attaining self-knowledge but this is not to be acquired by the means they propose. Whoever shall imagine true what the wise claim to have grasped aboutselfknowledge
, has considered the swelled fat.
One of the inquiries into mystical problems, which were laid down before Shaikh MahmudShabistari
(1267- 1320) and which led to the long mystical poem Gulshan-i
Raz (The Mystic Rose Garden), was about the nature of 'self.
Question:
Who am I? Make me aware of 'self well,
What does it mean, 'within yourself travel'?
Then you inquired about,What
is it 'self?
Make me aware of 'self', who is it 'st!Ir
?
When 'absolute being' is constrained,
They phrase it 'self to be explained.
The fact that 'determinations' disclose,
You call it 'self' in your literal prose,
I and you are the face of being's essence,
For being's lamp, a netted countenance.
He thencriticises
philosophers' sayings about the 'soul', 'self' and self-knowledge and continues:
You claim the word 'self in all it suggests
Indicates the 'soul' that in people rests.
While earthly wisdom still your guide you show,
Your 'self, a part of you, you cannot know,
Go then O master and know yourself well:
To become fat of flesh is not to swell.
My'self
and yours excel body and soul;
For these two are specks of corporal whole.
Nor 'self is uniquely to man confined,
To say 'tis the very soul in him you find.
For once transcend the Universe and leave
The world in yourself, a world to conceive.
Rumi says:
O you who have lost your 'self in debate,
Yourself from others cannot discriminate,
You stop at whichever form you come to,
Saying: I am this, byGod ,
'tis not you.
If you are parted from people a moment,
You’d remain in utmost fear and lament
How are you this? You're that Only One.
ForYou
a re
beauty, in yourself drunken.
You are your own bird, your own snare and prey,
Your own seat of honor, weakness and sway.
If you're Adam's son, sit like him and
seeIn
your own 'self all of his progeny.
Thus, the mystic rejects that the soul is the 'true self'. He asserts that the knowledge of the soul is notselfconsciousness
, for the soul is but a manifestation of the true self. The true self is God. Should man be annihilated in himself and should he ignore all 'determinations' (the soul being utterly disregarded), then he would be like a forlorn drop returning to the sea of vanishing to approach the true self-consciousness. It is only then that man becomes all things and all things man, and thus he becomes aware of the 'true self.
8. Prophetic Self-Consciousness
There is a notable distinction between this kind of consciousness and all others. Prophets are possessed with both divine and earthy kinds of self-consciousness. They tolerate two kinds of suffering; for God and for the people. But this does not lead to a dualistic form their attention is not towards twoqiblahs
, one being God and the other people. They do not set one eye on the 'Truth and the other on the creatures. They do not distribute their affection equally between God and men. The Holy Qur’an affirms:
مَا جَعَلَ اللَّهُ لِرَجُلٍ مِنْ قَلْبَيْنِ فِي جَوْفِهِ
God hath not given a man two hearts within him (so as to locate them in two directions or to make a present of them for two beloveds) (33:4).
Prophets are the heroes of monotheism not of polytheism so far as their ideals, aspirations and sufferings are concerned. They love all the particles of the world only because they are the manifestations of the Divine Names qualities.Saadi
says:
I'm happy with this transient abode;
For God did happiness bestowed
'pon
the world and the created whole,
Which I love; for He loves one and all.
The love of prophets and saints towards the world is on a reflection of their love for God rather than being independent of it. The suffering which they endure for the sake of humanity springs from the agony they bear for the Divine cause-both have the same origin. Their ultimate goals and desires are directed to the lifting of themselves and the people towards the 'End of the Ends' the 'Divine Essene Prophets commence their involvements with the longing for God, which leads them into the proximity of the Divine threshold. This longing serves as the whip of evolutionar
the motive in their 'journey from people to God'.
It does not let them take a rest for a moment until they arrive at what Ali (‘a) calls the peaceful stand. The end of such a journey is the beginning of another journey interpreted as 'journey within the Truth with the Truth'. It is on this second journey that they receive full contentment and achieve anotherkin
of evolution.
The second journey is not the end for the prophets. The do not stop at this stage either. After being filled with perfect truth, traversing the 'Cycle of Being' and recognizing the manners of 'Stations', they are appointed prophets and the set off their third journey which is the 'journey from people to God'. They return to the first position, but not forlorn are concerned. They love all the particles of the world only what they have received. They return to people in the company of God not in His Absence. This journey is the third stage of the prophet's evolution.
Appointment to the Divine mission, which occurs at the end of the second journey, shows the actual initiation ofselfconsciousness
and suffering in regard to the people from the self-consciousness and suffering as regards to God.
Returning to the people marks the beginning of the prophet's fourth journey and his fourth, cycle of evolution. He travels among the people, his mind aflame with the thought of God, in order to revolutionize them, to cause them to ascend towards the endless Divine perfection by means of Canon Law (Sharia),i.e.
truth, justice, human values, andthrouoh
the actualization of man's covert, infinite faculties.
It is obvious therefore; that what to the intellectual is a goal, to the prophet is a station of the 'Stations' wherefrom he guides people, and what the mystic seeks in the prophet's path lies. Iqbal draws this intricate line of difference between mystic and prophetic consciousness, The Holy prophet Muhammad (S) ascended the Heaven, Mi'raj, and returned'.
Abd al-Quddus
ofGangoh
, a great saint of theTanqah
(Sufi Order), has the following words (regarding Mi'raj):
I swear by God, had I reached that spot, I would never have come back to the earth.
Iqbal continues,
It is almost difficult to find a few words like these in the whole Sufi literature which, in a single sentence, reveal so meticulously the psychological difference between mystic and prophetic types of self-consciousness. The mystic would dislike returning to earthy life after having reached the station of reliance and tranquility through the 'unitary experience'.
When he necessarily returns, however, he would not be much to the benefit of the whole of mankind. The prophet's return on the contrary, is accompanied by creativeness and beneficence. He returns and enters the flux of time in order to harness the course of history and, thus, create a new world of ideals.
It is not our concern here to detect the correctness, incorrectness of mystic interpretations. However, it is certain that prophets first suffer for God. It is a God-seeking suffering which makes them ascend higher and higher towards Him. Secondly, they suffer for the people. This suffering differs from that which an intellectual tolerates for the sake of his people.
The intellectual's suffering is no more than a simple human sentiment. It is an impression, a passion and many times, as in Nietzsche's view, a weakness. The prophets' suffering for their people is, on the other hand,likt
their self-consciousness, quite dissimilar from that of the intellectuals. The fire which blazes within the prophets' soul is a different fire.
It is true that a prophet's character is more developed than others in the way of perfection and his soul unites with other’s souls and the whole world to offer them its own privileges. It is true that the prophet suffers from the people's sorrows:
لَقَدْ جَاءَكُمْ رَسُولٌ مِنْ أَنْفُسِكُمْ عَزِيزٌ عَلَيْهِ مَا عَنِتُّمْ حَرِيصٌ عَلَيْكُمْ بِالْمُؤْمِنِينَ رَءُوفٌ رَحِيمٌ
Now hath an Apostle come unto you from among yourselves: your iniquities press heavily upon him. He is careful over you, and towards the faithful, compassionate, merciful. (9:128).
وَمَنْ يُوَلِّهِمْ يَوْمَئِذٍ دُبُرَهُ إِلَّا مُتَحَرِّفًا لِقِتَالٍ أَوْ مُتَحَيِّزًا إِلَىٰ فِئَةٍ فَقَدْ بَاءَ بِغَضَبٍ مِنَ اللَّهِ وَمَأْوَاهُ جَهَنَّمُۖ
وَبِئْسَ الْمَصِيرُ
And haply, if they believe not in this new revelation, thou wilt slay thyself, on their very footsteps, out of vexation (18:6).
It is true as well that the prophet tolerates such pain and distress because of the people's hunger, nakedness, innocence, deprivation, illness and poverty that he avoids sleeping on a full stomach lest a hungry person be found in the farthest reaches of the country.
Ali (‘a) who follows the path of prophets, says,
But be it away from me to be overcome by debauchery so as greediness persuades me to acquire the choicest of victuals, while in Hijaz and Yemen there may be people who have no hope of obtaining a loaf of bread; and who have never satisfied their hunger fully.
Far be it from me to rest with a satiated stomach when there are very many hungry and thirsty people around me. Should I be like unto the one about whom somebody said, does this pain not suffice you to sleep on a full belly when there are hearts around you which crave even for dried goat skin?
However, these are not to be considered a plain sympathy of heart or heart-tenderness of the type which is displayed by kind-hearted people. The prophet appears at the outset of his endeavors as a human being, and searches with human attributes which other men share. When his being is perfectly inflamed by the Divine fire, however, all such attributes take on a Divine hue.
There are striking differences between the people and societies that are directed and shaped by prophets and the people and societies that are guided and constructed by earthy intellectuals. The foremost difference lies in the fact that prophets try to awaken natural human faculties and to enlighten the mysterious instincts and the hidden love of man's existence. Our Prophet Muhammad (S), calls himself a 'reminder' or 'awakener', the one who creates in man a kind or national interests.
Notes
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Author: Ayatullah Murtadha Mutahhari
