Eight Lessons in 27 years

As I am slowly moving towards the end of a journey (you may probably learn in next post - what's this journey), I would like to list down the important lessons that I learnt(learning) in my life through various incidents, experiences, sources, art, literature, philosophies, mysticism, psychology, science, abstractness, falsehood, deception, grief, hunger, illness, patriotism, rebellion, wealth, temptations, pride, arrogance, envy, ignorance, power, fear, culture, language, parents and my extended human, animal and plant families .. here's an attempt to paint them with images and quotes for you to reflect and agree or disagree ..
 
1. On Existence (On Ego & Soul)

“I can't believe, I'm simply not existing because it doesn't seem true, and I would just be lying to myself.“

"My soul is my guide, for my soul is of that abode

I will not speak of the earthly, I am of the unknown."

"I did not come here on my own accord, nor will I thus leave. 

He who brought me here, shall return me to my very own."

"The sun itself is proof the sun exists!

Seek your proofs, but don't turn your face from it."
 
"Do not ask, Where is God?
Rather ask, Where am I?"

"All day I think about it, then at night I say it. Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing? I have no idea. My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that, and I intend to end up there."

"I am naught, He is all; there is no being but God's."

2. On Knowledge (On Intuition & Intellect)

“Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave”

"Given that true reality (haqiqat) is obscured by forms and appearances, as we have seen, an epistemological question is inevitable: how reliable are intellect and logic as a means of discovering and knowing the real? Can we humans reach certainty about our knowledge and our beliefs? "
 
"Knowledge that is acquired
is not like this.
Those who have it worry if
audiences like it or not.
It's a bait for popularity.
Disputational knowing wants customers.
It has no soul.

The only real customer is God.
Chew quietly
your sweet sugarcane God-Love, and stay
playfully childish.”

"Come, seek, for search is the foundation of fortune:
every success depends upon focusing the heart.Everything you possess of skill, and wealth and handicraft,
wasn't it first merely a thought and a quest?"

3. On Mistakes (On Lessons & Wisdom)

"Mistakes are a part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it's a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from."

"Mistakes are the portals of discovery."

“Come follow me and you will find the way.
Your mistakes can also lead you to the Truth.
When you ask, the answer will be given.”

"The most useful piece of learning for the uses of life is to unlearn what is untrue - so, the most important lessons lay not in what I needed to learn, but in what I first needed to unlearn."

"Who are the learned? Those who practice what they know."

4. On Evil (On Choice & Consequences)

"We stopped checking for monsters under our bed and we realized they were inside of us?"

"The lion who breaks the enemy's ranks
is a minor hero
compared to the lion who overcomes himself."

"Thou does not know evil till thou knowst good: (only) from (one) contrary is it possible to discern (the other) contrary, 0 youth!"

"All evil qualities—oppression, hatred, envy, greed, mercilessness, pride—when they are within yourself, they bring no pain. When you see them in another, then you shy away and feel the pain."

"God turns you from one feeling to another and teaches by means of opposites, so that you will have two wings to fly, not one."

“…whoever rejects evil and believes in God hath grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold, that never breaks. "


5. On Love (On Need & Greed)

"One should not confuse true love with the feeling felt for members of the opposite sex. Such love, although sometimes transformed into true love, is deficient, temporary, and has no inherent value unless he desireth for his neighbour that which he desireth for himself."

"And if a person were given all of the world and what is in it, it
would not fill this emptiness(greed)."

"You know what love is?
It is all kindness, generosity.
Disharmony prevails when
You confuse lust with love, while
The distance between the two
Is endless."

"The lover’s ailment is different from all ailments; Love is the astrolabe of God’s mysteries."


6. On Struggle (On Purpose & Goals) 

"The angel is saved by knowledge, The beast by brute ignorance;
Midway between and struggling Such a predicament is man's!"

“Verily never will God change the condition of a people until they change what is within themselves.”

"The intelligent desire self-control;
children want candy."

"Speak truth, even in the face of a tyrant."

"The most excellent Jihad is that for the conquest of self."


7. On Freedom (On Oppression & Responsibility)

"Knowing your enemy is winning half the battle"

"It doesn't mean that I advocate violence, but at the same time, I am not against using violence in self-defense. I don't call it violence when it's self-defense, I call it intelligence."

"Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change."

"The undisciplined person doesn’t wrong himself alone–
but sets fire to the whole world."

"Either way, change will come. It could be bloody, or it could be beautiful. It depends on us."

"Lawless are they that make their wills their law."

"If you do not feel ashamed of anything, then you can do whatever your desires want."


8. On Submission (On Liberation & Peace)

"The worldly comforts are not for me. I am like a traveler, who takes a rest under a tree in the shade and then goes on his way."

"Let God be the ruler over your hearts, not the duniya (world)"
 
"Do you want to enter paradise?
To walk the path of Truth
You need the grace of God.
We all face death in the end.
But on the way, be careful
Never to hurt a human heart!"

"People who attach their identity & happiness to things of the material, who are happy when their relationship is going good, or when their work is going good, or when their financial status is good, they will be among the losers. A submitter's happiness is attached to Divine. And the Divine is eternal, That is why a submitter always says 'I seek refuge in God' to whatever good or bad things that happen to them"

"Forgiveness is a creative act, a true gift, that changes us from prisoners of the past to liberated people at peace with our memories"

"True devotion is for itself:
not to desire heaven nor to fear hell."




~ "All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of all the worlds."

Progress - darn it !

It has to start with admitting that there is something wrong with our system. A system that discourages progressive thinking is definitely a system that pulls a society backwards if not at status quo.
One may argue on the word "progressive". Allow me to clarify my definition of "progressive", and for *starters*, it should not be solely about materialistic gains. Materialistic gains would be but a mere bonus, provided it be gained righteously. I meant progressiveness in a form of humanity. Simply put, 'It is not about what a man makes for himself, but what he makes out of himself'.

Serving humanity may require a stronghold in Science, Mathematics, Philosophy, Economy for example of course armed with good morals that even atheists can recognize, one's religion is secondary for that.

Those people who just do the complaining stuff, must learn not to just be contented with just getting by but need to strive for betterment towards contributing something good to humanity as a whole. Imagine what impact the person who came up with the Tuberculosis drug has on humanity, or on telecommunications such as the artificial intelligence which resulted in well, Blogger, Facebook or Twitter partly!!
You and I are able to communicate, share and exchange ideas like what we are doing now. Isn't the Search Engines such as Google a blessing for human knowledge???!! It blows my mind to think that we can Google anything, anywhere, anytime and now it's in the palm of our hands!!

And who are the people who came up with all this? Who are the people who had the liberty and freedom of the minds that enabled them to become more creative to come up with these inventions? Are they the people who are bothered about trivial matters that will dampen their likeliness to succeed in whatever they strive for?

Free your minds. Until and only until we realize that our minds belong to the authorities/countries with their own personal agendas, and until we strive to free them, we shall forever get stuck in this brain refuge. A Matrix, prepared for us since childhood in the forms of racism, nationalism, sexism, and all other -isms that tries to put one human to be superior to another, as many in 1940s Germany would shout, "Hail Hitler !".


~ "Newton gave a physical law that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, on a lighter note - if one were to apply this law to philosophy, what would this law do for every good-action performed by man"

Those useless stuff

Most of the individuals on this planet are no more different than a 'sheep', and to describe such an individual using jargon 'sheeple' would be the right word and I was one such.
More & more people are programmed to be in a way ready to 'serve' another rather than to 'lead' for a change.

Almost all the parents brainwash their children to get into the likes of Technical Sciences - Medical, Engineering, Operations & Finances.
What is the difference if you are going to be a worker in the end, by a reductionist approach: you as an individual are programmed as wanting to serve someone or something in the end. This is not education, this is bull-crap, brainwashing and running behind 'Money & Societal-Pressure' instead of 'Pure Potential'.

I deeply believe anything remotely termed education has to deal with thought, deep reflection, thinking and intellectual pursuit and the subjects that fit this category are Sociology, History, Political Science, etc.

And we know what the parents are going to say, pretty much in lines of: "What are you wasting your time for?", "why are you thinking about economics", "What kind of job are you gonna get", "What are you gonna do with sociology", "What are you gonna do with psychology, anthropology or history" and the Ad-hominem word "Useless stuff !"
These are the sciences & knowledge that are broadly called 'humanities', these are the sciences that are actually the foundations of any society. The people in these fields frame how the society functions.

The most critical are those subjects that makes one think and to understand the questions: "who we are", and "what does it mean to be a human-being".
In our days the wall street starts with Adam Smith, an economist, and the once huge Soviet-empire it starts with the thinker Karl Marx, a sociologist.

Wake-Up! The world is in dire need of better 'humans' than 'soul-less techies' & 'gear-wheels in the machine'.



~ Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the danger of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of "crackpot" than the stigma of conformity.

We Live In A Crazy Age!

An age, where our scientific prowess has far exceeded the spiritual one. The result is, we now inhabit a world which has an abundance of guided missiles and misguided men, men who believe in out-rightly denying and condemning the legitimacy of others perspective simply because it disagrees with theirs. As Omar Bradley once lamented: 'Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.' A world where many without proper awareness of the real situation wield power; a world where people insist on attempting to blame the victims for their own predicament.

Only when this situation is rectified can we begin to work towards a true and lasting peace. In such a scenario, all voices of reason and rationale deserves to be heard for they are our only choice for living in a truly civilized, secure and sane society. The riots that simmer in the minds of the people, can sometimes be prevented by responsible and honest information and dialogue, but eventually the onus lies on the unbiased governments and humane law enforcement agencies.


- Thanks Guided-ones

~ Power breeds Corruption