15. WHAT IS YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF LOVE?
Conventionally, love is understood to be a deep emotional attachment and an intense feeling of affection directed to someone. Ambrose Bierce cynically defined love as “Temporary insanity curable by marriage…”. Love strongly affects the person who loves. My favorite quotes in this regard are by: (i) Gabriel Garcia Marquez, “I love you not for who you are, but for who I am when I’m by your side.” And (ii) Lao Tzu, “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” However, love can be passive and purely subjective, which is a rueful shortcoming. A much more meaningful and expressive word is Arabic raḥmah, which is usually translated as mercy. But mercy can be out of pity, whereas raḥmah combines mercy with love and entails action in being kind, gracious, gentle, forgiving, compassionate, and benevolent. Raḥmah is more properly translated as “loving-mercy”. I have distinguished between love and raḥmah as follows: “Love is the spring of goodness and beauty. Al-raḥmah, or ‘loving-mercy’, which is ‘love-in-action’, is what makes the spring gush forth and sprout life along its way.”
Raḥmah is so central a tenet in Islam that the two most consequential Exalted Names of the Divine occur right after the proper name Allāh in the very first verse of the Quran. This verse is also the most often repeated verse in the Quran and in the mandated daily prayers. These two Names are derivations of raḥmah: al-Raḥmān, which signifies intensity and extent of raḥmah, and al-Raḥīm, which signifies its constant repetition. A saying of Prophet Muhammad: “Have raḥmah on whoever is on Earth, you will receive raḥmah from He who is in the Heavens.”
16. IS WORLD PEACE POSSIBLE WITHOUT INDIVIDUAL INNER PEACE? PLEASE ELABORATE ON THE CONCEPT OF PEACE.
I presume that by “world peace” is meant peace between countries. Inner peace is a subjective feeling of mental and emotional calmness and contentment. If inner peace translates to outward peace as well, without a pernicious lust for money, power, influence, control, and manipulation of others, and if this peaceful attitude prevails in different societies, particularly among the decision makers in countries across the globe, then world peace can become a reality.
However, this is too Utopian and unrealistic. God created humans with a propensity for righteousness or wickedness and the free will to chart their own course in this worldly life, for which they would be held accountable and face retribution in the hereafter. At least statistically, there will always be deviant individuals with malicious intent and objectives. Unfortunately, such individuals often have the drive and abilities to gravitate to positions of power and influence and cause great harm to their societies, countries, and the world at large.
17. WHAT, WHERE AND WHO IS GOD TO YOU?
According to the Quran, “There is nothing like Him”, that is, the nature of God is beyond human imagination and comprehension. So, we can only think of God in terms of His manifestations and attributes. (See the article “How Should We Think About God?” on the website https://nassirsabah.com/Presentations/Articles.)
The manifestations of God are all over the universe, which He created and which he guides and sustains through the laws of nature that He ordained by His will and power, as well as by other means of which we are unaware. Nature and its laws are thus manifestations of God. He is, therefore, the most evident reality in Himself and also through whom everything else in the heavens and Earth is known.
In the Islamic tradition, God has 99 main attributes, referred to as “The Most Exalted Names”. God is transcendent, omnipotent, omniscient, not bound by space or time, the real owner of everything in the universe, the willer of all things that are, the doer of whatever He wills, the most compassionate, the ever-merciful, the all-forgiving, the ever-forgiving, the relenting, the responsive, the all-loving, the all-wise, the all-just, and much more. God is maximally perfect in every way. When one contemplates God’s manifestations and attributes, one cannot help but feel deep humility, considering His indescribable greatness, majesty, and glory.
18. WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS?
At its most basic level, consciousness is awareness of the environment and being able to respond to environmental stimuli. As such, consciousness is the substrate of mental activities that one is aware of in the normal state of being, for these mental activities cease when consciousness is lost. But even with partial loss of consciousness, an autonomic feeling such as pain and the response to it can persist. This level of consciousness exists in one form or another in all living organisms.
A higher level of consciousness is self-awareness, which children develop at about 1 to 1.5 years of age. When children of this age look in the mirror, they are aware that they’re seeing their own faces, hands, etc. This “mirror test” of self-awareness has been passed by some animals such as chimpanzees, elephants, dolphins, and magpies.
At a higher level is human consciousness, which makes us aware of the world around us and of ourselves in this world as individuals having our own subjective worldview based on our own opinions, attitudes, and past experiences. We have our own ideas, beliefs, thoughts, opinions, attitudes, desires, and hopes as we plan for the future. We have free will to choose between alternatives based on our motivation and drive, value system, circumstances, past experiences, and judgment. Consciousness influences our feelings: no two people experience physical pain in the same way, nor do they perceive smells and colors in the same way. It is this consciousness that provides the unity of being and continuity in time that defines each human being as a unique individual.
The Quran alludes to a still higher level of consciousness of the immortal self in the hereafter, particularly the selves of those destined for eternal bliss, which is in a form unimaginable by humans.
19. WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE SUBCONSCIOUS AND THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND?
Conventionally, the subconscious holds thoughts, memories, and learned skills that are just outside immediate awareness but can be brought to consciousness by focused attention. On the other hand, the unconscious is the store of deeply repressed fears, traumatic memories, and primitive urges, remaining largely inaccessible to conscious thought, but it can, nevertheless, exert a powerful influence on behavior.
20. WHAT DO YOU DO FEEL IS THE NATURE OF OUR INNATE DESIRE FOR HUMAN CONNECTION AND SPIRITUAL TRUTH?
Conventionally, it is believed that this innate desire is somehow “wired in” into our DNA and is somehow incorporated in the structure and operation of our brains. Another viewpoint that has been largely neglected in mainstream science is that our brains do not operate independently of some “external influences” whose nature is presently unknown.
In this regard, an illustrative analogy of the brain to a television (TV) set is made. A person who is unfamiliar with broadcasting and the generation, propagation, and reception of electromagnetic waves (like someone suddenly resurrected from a past era) would reasonably assume that what is seen on a TV screen is generated in the TV set itself. This view is supported by the fact that any tinkering with the components of the TV set will generally affect the image on the screen or might obliterate it. But in fact, the TV set is just tuning to an outside signal and is merely processing this signal into a form that can be perceived by the viewer. Similarly, brains may not be operating all by themselves but may be tuning to something external and are merely processing or filtering this “something”.
Suggestions as to what this “something” might be are the morphic fields of biologist Rupert Sheldrake and the implicate order of theoretical physicist David Bohm.
21. IS THE AUTHENTIC SELF OR THE TRUE SELF, THE SPIRITUAL SELF?
I believe individuals have only one self, the conscious self that is the essence of being human and which defines every human being as a unique individual. The conscious self, or simply self, is one of three entities that constitute a human, the other two being the body and the spirit, the latter being the essence of life. The word “soul” is ambiguous, as it can mean either the spirit or the self. According to the Quran, the self transcends the physical death of the body; the spirit is from the command of Allāh and is unknown to humans.
The body, self, and spirit have been compared to a car. The material parts of the car are analogous to the human body. The ignited fuel (or the charge in the batteries in the case of an electric car) that “brings the car to life” and makes it move is analogous to the spirit. To be useful, the car must be acted on purposefully – moved forward or backward, turned right or left, accelerated or decelerated, or driven to some destination. The driving agency, which may be a human driver or some form of autonomous or remote control, is analogous to the conscious self.
The self is associated with the mind, whose activity that one is aware of can be considered to have four aspects: cognition, feelings, consciousness, and spirituality. Although distinguishable from one another, these mental activities overlap and interact within the same individual. For example, feelings can interfere with reasoning and judgement, which are part of cognition. Spirituality, as defined in the answer to Question 10 above, is unique to humans. It requires consciousness and cognition and involves feeling, yet it is of a very particular nature, which justifies considering it a distinct mental activity, in that it involves a belief in the existence of the supernatural, as something greater than ourselves and beyond explanation by natural laws, and a sense of connectedness to the supernatural. In addition, spirituality is associated with more sublime feelings that transcend the mundane affairs of everyday life. The fact that many people do have spiritual experiences means that humans can have them. Most people don’t have them simply because they are conditioned to repress their spirituality, consciously or unconsciously, under social, educational, and cultural influences that relegate spirituality to the realm of superstition and label it as naïve, unsophisticated, and unscientific. Nevertheless, in moments of introspection, the “primordial spiritual drive” can surface as a feeling of inner void that cries to be filled by connecting with something outside ourselves in search of meaning and purpose to our existence.
22. HOW DO WE RECOGNIZE WHEN BODY AND MIND ARE ALIGNED WITH OUR TRUE SELF?
Full harmony is realized in the serene self that is at peace with itself and the world. The serene self is transparent, having nothing to hide. It has shed all vestiges of vain and mundane desires, is free from all trepidation and fear of any mortal or any worldly outcome, harbors no ill feelings towards anyone, is compassionate to all, and is preoccupied with benevolent and virtuous acts. It has certainty as to what is right and what is wrong, profound knowledge of what is paramount and worthy and what is not, and perspicacious wisdom concerning the right decisions to make, and courses of action to take, in any given situation. It experiences sublime spirituality, submitting to the will of God and serving Him, content with what it has achieved by His mercy, and has pleased Him with its achievement. The serene self is destined to eternal bliss in the hereafter.
23. ULTIMATELY, WHAT IS FREEDOM TO YOU?
Freedom is emotional freedom and freedom from all fear, anxiety, apprehension, and negative feelings, as well as being in a position to do and say what one believes to be most conducive to serving God to gain His loving-mercy. Freedom is best achieved by reliance on God and deference to His will, as explained in the answer to Question 14 above on emotional freedom.
A most hallowed phrase of the Quran, that is often repeated by pious Muslims in wonderment and invocation of His loving-mercy, is: “There is no god but Allāh”. Apart from its evident meaning that there is but a One and Only God of the universe, the phrase has two other profound meanings that are truly liberating.
The first is that only Allāh should be worshipped, that is, idolized and made the center of our devotion and attention. Nowadays, polytheism prevails in different forms, as many people do in fact worship, in this sense of the word, other gods, such as money, power, and status, their own egos and self-interests, or other worldly and materialistic pursuits.
The second meaning is that in opposing all forms of evil, one should fear only Allāh and not anything or anyone. All pious believers are commanded to oppose evil to the best of their ability, where evil includes all forms of injustice, oppression, exploitation, and corruption.
24. IF LIFE HAD ONE PURPOSE, ONE PURPOSE ONLY, WHAT WOULD THAT BE?
With reference to the answer to Question 11 above on the purpose of the human experience, I believe that the purpose of this worldly life is continual, comprehensive, and fulfilling self-development in the service of God to gain His loving-mercy and attain eternal bliss in the hereafter.
25. WHAT EXPERIENCES YOU WISH EVERYONE TO HAVE BEFORE THEY DIE?
My answer to this question may surprise most people. I wish everyone to experience JOY up to and including the time of death. This is not a personal point of view but is at the core of Islamic piety, as illustrated by the following verses that are attributed to the fourth Caliph and cousin of the Prophet Muhammad:
“Your mother gave birth to you, son of Adam, crying while people around you were laughing with pleasure.
Hence, perform your daily acts to the satisfaction of Allāh, so that when they cry on the day of your death, you will be rejoicing in laughter.”
Evidently, this is a very different view of death from what most people have. A similar attitude to death is expressed by a famous Islamic commander who referred to his army in his address to the kings of Persia as “…people who love death as much as you love life” (See the article “What Death Means to a Pious Muslim” on the website https://nassirsabah.com/Presentations/Articles.)
Death is viewed by a pious Muslim simply as a transition between a worldly life of finite duration that is but a test for humans, and a life of eternal bliss for those who understood the nature of this test and have done well in it. The fate of the physical body is of no concern.
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