Topics
Who does not know that life is nothing but the past! The
Intellectuals and the thinkers divide time into three parts—the past, the present,
and the future. The past is the time that has gone away, the present is the
time that is present now, and the future is the time that is yet to come. But
when a person possessing consciousness analyses life, he sees nothing but the
past, whether this analysis is [derived from the study of] physical needs, or
from a psychological perspective, or from a religious point of view. When we
mention the birth of a child we say that, 'the child was present somewhere, and
now he has been transferred here into this world—beautiful, healthy, and full
of exquisiteness.' When an adult is mentioned, that also connotes that
'yesterday's child is present today in adult harm.' When we speak of
intelligence, and consciousness and experience, and say that 'this elder's experience
spans across as period of 60 years,' with that too we are implying that 60
years of that elder's life are buried in the past. When the human species
mentions its ancestors, then also it is said that the human conscious has
progressed gradually. There was a time during the Stone Age when man was living
a life of 'self-inflicted confinement. Then a time came when he learnt the use
of fire. Taking another leap, he entered the Iron Age. The civilization of iron
and various metals was declared the Inheritance of humankind. After stepping
into the valley of
Knowledge and consciousness, the pattern of reflection was set
within man. That was named as the [age of] Modern
Civilization, or Scientific Progress. Whether it is the ancient
history of 100 billion years ago or the scientific knowledge of today, it is
all based on documents (record), and this entire record is the past. What is
the past? It is the times [‘zamaana’]
The Holy Prophet (saw) has stated that, 'do not overlook the
times; Allah is the times.' What man calls the present and the future, is
actually a continuous and repeated process of living. In this process of
living, two styles have been determined. Man has named one of these styles as
peace, and he calls the other style conflict, destitution, worry, anxiety, fear
and restlessness. But when we study these two styles and reflect upon them with
a psychological perspective, only one thing emerges: that these two styles
also, are directly related to the past. If the worries of today failed to become
the past, man would lose his senses at the hands of these worries and wool
start to suffer attacks of insanity. If a single condition persist within the
progeny of Adam and Eve, life would freeze. This is because the universe has
been created upon the forms that life is continuous movement. In other words,
movement is the name of life. If movement stops, so will the universe. It is
the daily observations that reveal these styles to us. Coolness with heat, heat
with coolness, illness with health, and health after illness, and the process
of birth and death, [all] are also established on the same formula (equation).
When we say that a particular person has died, we actually mean
to say that a particular person's character, his life, of his voice has become
a documented record. What it means is that the person who has died has gone
into the past. When we mention our ancestors (including everyone from Adam up
to our forefathers), in reality, we are mentioning the past. Today we are
calling our ancestors, the past; in the same way tomorrow our next generation
will refer to us in terms of the past.
The past is our origin, and the past is the entire record of our
life
It from the mind of one hundred year-old man, the past of his
childhood, youth and adulthood deleted,
what would remain elderly man? O those possessing intelligence, reflect upon
this!
Just as the life of a hundred year-old man is a record and past,
in the same way, when this earthen confinement or cage ['the Physical body'] is
overcome by death, the entire life of the earthen body becomes the past. When
we step aside from the philosophical points of view, and reflect upon what is
real, that is, the spiritual knowledge, a door opens deep within us. From this
door enters the light of the Holy Quran in the form of waves descending on our
brain, and these waves give us the following message in words of the Holy
Quran:
"And what do you perceive the
great life to be; and what
do you perceive the lowly life to
be? It is a record."
The knowledge of truth guides us in such a way that, if we want
to get acquainted with ourselves and with our Creator, it becomes incumbent
upon us that we look into our past. Before entering the womb of the mother, the
child was in Norzakh ['realm between physical and spiritual world']. The world
of Barzakh is a reflection of Loh-e-mahfooz ['divine tablet of records'].
Loh-e-mahfooz is a page of Kitaab-ul-mubeen ['the manifest book'].
Kitaab-ul-mubeen is Aalam-e-arvaah ['world of the spirits']. And Aa/am-e-arvaah
is the world that was manifested when Allah the Exalted said kun ['be']. Life
after death, in reality, is the progression towards this world of the spirits.
Those individuals from humankind who strive to see, understand and find this
life are granted such vision and insight, according to the laws of Allah, which
enables them to tier I his world and to understand it.
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%?