The human being as a vicegerent of God upon the earth was given certain faculties that are not inherent in the lives of other creatures. The human spirit which emanated from the holy presence was filled with knowledge of all things mundane and sacred. It’s this knowledge that makes the human being a potent and worthy deputy and representative of the One who created him. However this is only realised when that knowledge is manifested and lived, for all humans are gifted with this knowledge but few have manifested it and thus living in higher altitudes and frequencies. And these few are the perfect human beings that have awed the majority through the ages and times.
Then we are apt to ask what was so special about these men and the knowledge they manifested that made them beacons and hallmarks of guidance and light for the peoples of all times and places? What made them stand out of the vast created panorama of existence? Was it something everyone can achieve or is it only for an elitist minority? The answer is as simple as the questions themselves but like the wise ones said, you have to ask the right questions to get the right answers.
We all somehow know that something is terribly wrong with the modern approach to life and if you cannot accept the fact that something is wrong, then it’s a fact that the pollution of your heart, mind and soul have reached such a level that it is nearing death and will need a serious ‘detoxing’ by means of reflections upon the revealed text, but we will get back to that later. In the meanwhile, let’s look at modernity and see what went wrong and where, for we can only make proper headways when we identify the problem and then set about solving it.
The human being is conditioned by his society and other surrounding factors that impact on the way he thinks. In times before the rise of audio-visual technology, this conditioning was always restricted more or less to direct contact at the physical level which shaped the worldviews of many people in almost one homogeneous pattern. But with the rise of technology, even the most remote corners of the universe have been affected and lives conditioned largely by people they have never seen or known thanks to the television and the Internet. So, with the rise of these audio-visuals modernity brought with it a crisis – a crisis in meaning.
Looking at the human being and his concerns, you will be convinced that his needs and wants transcend the ordinary pursuits to gratify the flesh, that after achieving even the most coveted materials and things, he is still in agitation and restlessness. He always finds something missing in his life and a void in his soul, which all these material and physical achievements could not fill. Then you find among them, the one who denies that aspect of him, which is constantly calling and wailing out to him. This is the part of him that is concerned with higher ideals and the ethereal. If he goes on and neglects this –which the majority has done – he becomes a tool of his whims and ego, which give rise to more greed and pain leading to accumulated hurt thus causing much mental difficulties. That’s why it shouldn’t be surprising that in our so-called civilasation of abundance and gratification, we grapple with high levels of mental problems and breakdowns leading to many cases of suicides, homicides and so forth.
What was missing and what we keep seeking is nothing but meaning. I know you must be asking yourself: Is it that simple? Well yes. The problem started when we began making everything look so complex. For beauty is the truth and beauty lie in nothing but simplicity. So what’s it about meaning that it can solve all these problems that riddle modernity?
We are born and brought to this world by a divine act to fulfill a covenant that we took time before our time. So we grew up and are fed with different notions of life and key among them is the illusion that life is a constant struggle to achieve the material benefits of the earth. It’s an illusion because the purpose of the human being is to work towards an Adamic restoration in qualities and ways. That is, to reinvent the path of the first man Adam, who was a ‘perfect’ human being, because he was taught all things and was in constant communion with the world of the sacred. So the challenge is to be Adamaic, to reach the fullness of being human through achieving the qualities of the first man that was created.
But how do we achieve this restoration? By asking this question it means you have now started seeing its necessity. You have somehow seen the moral decay and absence of beauty in it all. The prevalence of vice, which is seen as nothing but lifestyle choice is an affirmation of the various eschatological truths. So seeing the meaninglessness of a life dedicated to the pursuit of the lowest aspirations of man, you have come to a point where seeking meaning and living by its mechanics have become a moral and decisive imperative. That’s where the journey to fulfillment starts.
To achieve these Adamaic qualities which are nothing but the perfection of the human being on all levels, from the physical to the spiritual, we have to set about in following the prophetic pattern and to learn in observing both the inward and outward teachings. To purify our outward conduct through the internalisation of the revelation that was sent upon the prophets (peace be upon them all). In essence we have to learn and educate ourselves in order to be Adamaic. We cannot divorce knowledge from our endeavour to become perfect human beings. The project of holiness which is adamant on nothing but human wholeness is instituted upon the foundations of purified knowledge and cultivating upon that. But we must not be mistaken to think that we have to concentrate upon the outward or the inward alone, far from that, we have to instill both qualities. Al Ghazali, the great Islamic scholar of mysticism summarised it beautifully:
”If you are educating yourself, take up only those branches of knowledge which have been required of you according to your present needs, as well as those which pertain to the outward actions such as learning the elements of prayer, purification, and fasting. More important however, is the science which all have neglected, namely, the science of the attributes of the heart, those which are praiseworthy and those which are blameworthy, because people persist in the latter, such as miserliness, hypocrisy, pride and conceit, all of which are destructive, and from which it is obligatory to desist. Performing these outward deeds is like the external application of an ointment to the body when it is stricken with scabies and boils while neglecting to remove the pus by means of a scalpel or a purge. False scholars recommend outward deeds just as fake physicians prescribe external ointments [for virulent internal diseases]. The scholars who seek the hereafter, however, recommend nothing but the purification of the soul and the removal of the elements of evil by destroying their nursery-beds and uprooting them from the heart.”
So the call is to rectify both the exoteric and esoteric. But this cannot be done without recourse to the beautiful path of the prophets that were sent upon us. At the core of the prophetic mission is to recall the human being from heedlessness and ignorance of his origin, which is the divine plane. So reminded and recalled the human being is given the choice to either stay upon the guidance or stray from it. In staying upon the path he is perfected and brought back to the Adamic balance and in choosing to stray from the guidance, he becomes imbalanced and thus radiating a deep seated egoistic lifestyle which is meaningless and nihilistic in all of its ramifications.
However, all of these will only come to serve us to the fullest extent when we reject unequivocally the patterns of modern society in convincing us of the primary nature of the things that should only serve as a vehicle towards the higher aspirations. In a time when materialism and pseudo-liberalism reign supreme, when physical gratification is given the throne, it becomes the duty of every seeker of truth to reject and move far from its implications. We do this by promoting a life of meaning and purpose which is laid upon the fundamental teachings of the core spiritual traditions of all times and places. To do such an act is to break the back of the same system that is wrecking the human being which it falsely claims to uphold.
This is the path to meaning. The path that was meant for the human being to develop his fullness if he is to reach that perfection which is embedded in his nature as a being that is vested with the role of being God’s representative upon the earth to fulfill the covenant which he took at that event when God Most High asked: “Am I not your Lord?” And he replied: “Yes. We testify.” Any other way is nothing but the fulfillment of the ego in her various manifestations borne out of a longing in the modern man to live and die a hedonistic death.
With God lies success.
With Alieu A Bah (Immortal X)
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