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Man
does not know his status in the universe. Rather he does not
dare to know it. He avoids knowing of his own greatness.
His real splendor is too big. He
cowers before his grandeur. He shrinks from the very thought of his expense.
He feels comfortable within his limits i.e. the limits of his sense perception.
Even when the scope of sense-perception expand to limits to which an individual
is not accustomed it becomes awesome. Let an enormously vast stretch of land
bust upon an unfamiliar eye. Let a person ascend a high minaret for the first
time in his life. Let there be a blast causing a loud sound. Let a person experiences
some unusual smell. In short, whatever a person is not used to and for him is
not familiar, creates fear. It makes him shrink, shiver and crouch. Yet it is
the same tow-legged animal who through training and determination surmounts the
Mt. Everest. He flies to the moon and alighting on it establishes dialogue with
friends and adviser on the earth.
Man’s capabilities unfold to him by and by and that also with determined
effort on his part to this effect. But man’s knowledge, as such, deals
the material world. It is attained with the help of sense-perception. It is the
outer world being dealt with by the outer weapons of man. His sense-perception
is his outer world. His inner world remains hidden form him. Man’s outer
capabilities have been progressing and hence accordingly have been discovering
and conquering the outer world steadily. Man, no doubt, works wonder in the field
of material world. And whatever he performs, he tries to proclaim, propagate
and institutionalize. All material progress which in other words, is the advancement
of scientific knowledge, is in reality the extension and enhancement of man’s
faculties of sense-perception. All inventions and discoveries are performance
of sense-perception. Not only that, they all turn to a sort of “foreign
aid” to man’s senses and enlarge his possibilities by opening up
new vistas before him.
Man’s
inner senses are much more acute and far reaching then outer
ones. His potentialities remain
unrealized. Those
who know themselves and hence try to become what they should
are a rarity. Hardly one in a millions. It is a pity. Every animal
reaches its ceiling because he lives instinctively. Animal have
no choice hence no animal can commit a sin. Every animal has
been vested with the nature of specie to which it belongs. No
animal can other then itself. A jackal can not be anything other
then a jackal. A tiger is a tiger. A lamb is a lamb. This shows
that every animal is dependable entity. Hypocrisy is beyond the
capacity of animals. They are true to their respective natures.
But what about a kind called mankind? Mankind has been equipped
with faculty of choice. A human being is responsible for his
deliberate actions. Therefore, he is accountable to God for what
he does. To attain to his true self, he has to work hard. He
has to out-grow animality. He has to rise above his material
surroundings in the sense that he has to live not according to
the animal instinct, he, rather has to bridle the fairy horses
of his desires, emotions and ambitions. He has to conquer his
material self. He has to be the captain of his fate and master
of his soul. But this he would not do. He will try to gain knowledge
of the world. He will calculate. He will criticize. He will analyze.
He will do every thing imaginable. But he will not seriously
try to probe his own person. He persistently and deliberately
will remain far aloof from himself. He is too big for himself
to comprehend. A human being may be a fighter, a student, a scientist,
a physician, an explorer and astronaut and what not. He may be
anything but he will not dare survey his own self, and will never
get to know what he potentially is and to what spiritual heights
he can rise. His inner world is much more expansive than outer
one. Says Iqbal and pathetically so:
Translation
of lyric
“You behold the world but you do not behold your own
self. How long will you remain sitting (wrapped in ignorance.)”?
“You should enlighten the night which divine in light in you. You and the
hand of Moses but hidden it the sleeve.”
“You
should set your foot out of the boundaries of the circling
world. You are older than it, you are grater
than it.”
Jacques Maritain states:
“In
flesh and bone of man there exists a soul which is a spirit
and which has greater value than the
whole physical
universe. Dependent, though he may be upon the slightest accidents
of matter, the human person exists by virtue of the existence
of his soul, which dominates time and death. It is the spirit
which is root of personality.”
Person
is concrete, tangible, and hence “Sensible”.
Personality is abstract, intangible, hence for a scientist it
is “non-sense”. Person is matter. Personality is
value. Values stand out of the ken of science. Person is body.
Personality is spirit bestowed on our own body by soul. Person
is one. Personality should also be one. But we observe, generally
more than one personalities possessed by one person. This shows
that the great majority of human beings do not possess one integrated “self”.
Self has to be one. Self means one entity. If there are “selves” on
one person then he is a person without self – without unity,
without inner and outer truth becoming one. Such a person has “spilt
personality” – he remains unrealized as a human being.
Oneness beings to take shape when soul begins to overwhelm a
person’s existence. If the case is otherwise then the result
also is otherwise. And the tragedy is that human beings try and
go on trying to know what is out there. They seldom try to know
what is within them. But the question is, does man really know
even the outer world? Every mystery which is solved points to
a multitude of mysterious. Therefore, a being who partakes of
both the microcosm and macrocosm is his own greatest mystery
as long as he does not dare to comprehend his reality. Lincoln
Barnett States:
“He
(man) does not understand the vast veiled universe into which
he has been cast for the reason
that he does not understand
himself. He comprehends but little organic processes and even
less of his unique capacity to perceive the world about him to
reason and to dream. Least of all does he understand is his noblest
and most mysterious faculty; the ability to transcend himself
and perceive himself in the act of perception.”
The ability to transcend himself enables man to perceive himself
in the act of perception i.e. he can sit in judgment on his own
self. He can be critic of his own critical sense. This means
he possesses that something also which he got from above. It
is a particle of divine light. It is a particle of something
definitely unearthly. This shows man is neither soul nor body.
Man is above both because he possesses them.
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