Manifesto of Islam - 5

The Evolution of Self Continues after the Death of the Physical Body

That is why a believer's love continues to advance even after his death. Since it is the self that has created the body and not the body that has created the self, the self does not die with the death of the body. As such it carries into the next life the fundamental characteristic of its being which is the sole urge of its nature, i.e. its urge for Beauty. This urge impels it even there to seek Beauty and to enrich itself more and more with its light. The believers will pray in their next life for the perfection of the light of their self-consciousness and for the removal of those obstacles in the way of their evolution which were created by the slips and errors of their earthly life and the effects of which they were unable to shake off before death. "(Our Lord) make perfect for us our light, and grant us forgiveness; surely Thou art possessor of power over all things" (lxvi.8). But a believer who has had the chance to evolve his love to the highest possible stage in this life and to maintain it at that stage till his death has no obstacles in the way of his love, in the next life. Since he was able to conquer all his obstacles and have a smooth way for his love in this life, he has nothing to combat and no battles to win or lose in the Hereafter. The standard of love or the stage of self-consciousness that he was able to achieve in his earthly life enables him to advance towards Beauty automatically and continuously. 

Guided by the light of his self-consciousness which illumines the path in front of him, he acquires a new glimpse of Beauty every moment without effort or struggle. "Their light gleaming before them" (Ivii. 12). "They have their reward and their light" (Ivii. 19). "Their light will gleam before them" (Ixvi.8). "Our Lord make perfect for us our light and grant us forgiveness" (Ixvi.8). This means that neither fear nor grief torments him any longer. A person fears when he thinks that he may not get what he wants and he is afflicted with grief when he thinks that he has actually failed to get what he wanted. The human self, we know, has only one desire and that is the desire for Beauty. Therefore, with this desire having a smooth and continuous satisfaction, an individual who has a highly evolved self-consciousness can face neither of these two situations in the next life. "That they have no fear, nor shall they grieve" (iii.170). It is this fact upon which depends the bliss of Paradise in all its varieties and aspects.

The Next Life of a Sinner

As long as the human self has not reached the goal ordained for it by the urge of its nature, that is the Divine Self, it must continue to press forward in the direction of that goal, no matter how often it slips and how great the obstacles it has to encounter. If the self is not able to atone for the errors of its earthly life (which constitute its unfortunate movements in a direction opposite to that of its destination) by means of Taubah before death, it has to atone for them in the next life. The reason is that unless it has shed the disabilities which cling to it on account of these errors, i.e. unless it has returned to the point from where it slipped, it cannot go forward on the path of its evolution. It is thus forced by its nature to re-live its wrong actions of the earthly life and to carry on a dreadful struggle against the obstacles created by them in order to conquer them finally and completely and to resume the path of its own progress. The struggle is painful and difficult in proportion to the gravity of the errors and to the harm they have done to the self's progress in love. It is this fact on which depend the tortures of Hell in all their forms and varieties.

The Pleasures of Heaven and the Tortures of Hell are not Mere Metaphors

Every individual will make his Hell and heaven of the next world by his mental states (corresponding to and crystallised by his actions of this life) which remain preserved in his unconscious mind in this life and which he carries with himself into the next world. As he will re-live these mental states in order to avail of them or to get ride of them according as they are helpful or harmful to his progress, he will represent them by persons and objects which, in view of his experience of this life, will be best fitted to represent them and these persons and objects will be as real and tangible as any that we see in this physical world. If his, actions are in agreement with the urge of the Universe and the urge of his own nature, that is, if his actions are right, he will represent them by persons and objects which are pleasant and agreeable to him in the same proportion, e.g. gardens, sweet and refreshing drinks, loving and beautiful companions, delicious fruits, shades and verdure, etc. 

The ever-increasing joy and gratitude induced by the ever-increasing pleasantness and beauty of his surroundings will be in proportion to his ever-increasing realisation of the Beauty of the Creator. Thus both his love and his Paradise will be progressing simultaneously towards an ever greater and greater perfection. If on the other hand his actions are opposed to the urge of the Universe and the urge of his own nature, in other words, if his actions are wrong, he will represent them by persons and objects which are unpleasant and disagreeable to him in the same proportion, e.g. fire, hot and filthy drinking water, obnoxious food, cruel and ugly companions, snakes, scorpions, thorny trees, etc. from which he will repel with the whole of his being. He will try to get rid of them but will be unable to do so and will instead enter into a prolonged and hopeless struggle with them. Thus neither Heaven nor Hell is a mere mental state of the individual who enters it. It is an internal mental state that takes the shape of an external objects place where he lives a happy or miserable life as dispensed by his actions. A Believer's Progress in Hell in Facilitated by his Good Deeds of the Earthly life However, the standard of love that a human self is able to achieve and the actions that it is able to perform in the service of the Right Ideal during its earthly life come to its help in this struggle and enable it to overcome its obstacles and start on the road of its endless evolution again. These actions serve it as a light which enable it to see its way in the darkness of its misdeeds. "Surely good deeds take away evil deeds" (xi. 114).

The Misfortune of a Person who Loves a Wrong Ideal

But the self that ignores the teachings of the prophets and is thus forced to satisfy its urge of love by means of wrong ideals finds itself face to face with a huge catastrophe. If it has the misfortune to be loving and serving a wrong ideal at the time of death it has an extremely remote chance of coming back to the road of evolution again. "Those who reject Our messages and turn away from them haughtily, the doors of heaven will not be opened for them, nor will they enter the Garden until the camel pass through the eye of the needle. And thus do We reward the guilty" (vii. 40). "And whosoever associates aught with Allah, it is as if he had fallen from on high" (xxii. 31). "Surely Allah forgives not that a partner should be set up with Him, and forgives all besides that to whom He pleases" (iv. 48). Its frightful struggle with its obstacles has no redeeming aspect and no end within sight. It is utterly unable to see its way towards its destination and remains groping for it indefinitely, surrounded by the utter darkness of its misdeeds. This is because it was groping in the darkness of utter ignorance and wickedness in this life too. "And whoever is blind in this (world) he will be blind in the Hereafter, and further away from the path" (xvii. 72). All its actions, even those which it considered to be good and virtuous, philanthropic and humanistic, inspired by kindness and generosity to other's do not avail it in the least in this struggle. On the other hand they become further impediments to it in the way of its progress, since they had all emerged in the service of a wrong ideal, had strengthened the forces opposed to the Right Ideal and to the cause of evolution and had, therefore, led him in this life farther away from his own true destination. "So their deeds are vain. Nor shall We set up a balance for them on the Day of Resurrection" (xviii. 105). "And those who disbelieve, their deeds are as a mirage in a desert, which the thirsty man deems to be water" (xxiv. 39). "The parable of those who disbelieve in their Lord: Their deeds are as ashes on which the wind blows hard on a stormy day. They have no power over aught they have earned" (xiv. 18). "Say: Shall We inform you who are the greatest losers in respect of deeds"? "Those whose effort goes astray in this world's life and they think that they are making good manufactures" (xviii. 103-104).

Heaven and Hell Begin in this Life

This explanation of the fundamental cause of the joys of Paradise and the tortures of Hell implies that the Paradise of the believer and the Hell of the non-believer or the sinner begin in this world. As the believer acquires a foretaste of the joys of Paradise in this life, so a non-believer feels a shadow of the tortures of Hell in this world. But as the celestial joys of a believer never become perfect in this world on account of his constant fear of doing something which may be contrary to the urge of his nature and on account of his constant struggle with the force of evil in himself and in others, so the excruciating fears and anxieties of a non-believer never appear in their real form in this life on account of his easy morals in which he constantly seeks an escape from them. That is why the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: This world is a prison for the true believer and a Heaven for the non-believer. 

The Evidence of the Psychoanalysts to show that Every human Action is Recorded Faithfully and Permanently in the Unconscious Mind In modern times the investigations of the psychoanalysts have established beyond all doubt that every action of an individual leaves a mark on the self and the mental state or attitude corresponding to it remains preserved in his unconscious mid faithfully and permanently without being altered with the passage of time in the least. In fact, they tell us that the unconscious mind of man lives and acts independently of the laws of space and time and there is nothing in it which can be compared to negation, because contradictory mental states exit side by side in it safely and securely "without neutralising each other or drawing apart. This view is verified by the fact that some of the most insignificant, long forgotten events of our life, even those about which we did not bother in the least in our waking life, are recalled by us automatically n our dreams and form the woof and warp of dreams symbolism. It is also supported by the fact that the hypnotist can revive the memory of any event in the life of his subject while he or she is in a state of hypnotic trance by minas of suitable questions. 

Writes Freud: "In the id (unconscious) there is nothing corresponding to the idea of time, no recognition of the passage of time (a thing which awaits adequate attention in philosophic thought) no alteration of mental processes by the passage of time". "It is constantly being borne in upon me that we have made far too little use of our theory of the indubitable fact that the repressed remains unaltered by the passage of time. This seems to offer us the possibility of an approach to some really profound truths. But I myself have made no further progress here". The unconscious mind of a human individual is, therefore, a trustworthy record of all his actions which he carries with himself all the time and which is being written with perfect accuracy every moment of his life whether he may like it or not. The Quran alludes to this constantly evolving record of the human actions in the following works: "And surely there are keepers over you, honourable recorders; they know what you do "(Ixxxii. 10-12).

Some Really Profound Truths Guessed by Freud

The unconscious human mind is the human self in its entirety since what we understand as the conscious mind is only a part of the unconscious mind. The fact that the unconscious human mind functions independently of the laws of space and time and that the record of human actions maintained by it remains unaltered by the passage of time, although the atoms that constitute the brain and the entire physical form of the human being are constantly changing, could not be without a significance in Nature, as Freud has rightly guessed. The Quran explains the significance of this fact by telling us that 
(a) The human self can live independently of the physical body which alone is subject to the laws of space and time. It is immortal. 
(b) The actions of the self have a bearing on the nature and the joys and sorrows of its life hereafter. 
(c) The self will re-live them with their good or bad consequences for it in the process of its evolutions in the next life. The Quran says: "On the day when Allah will raise them all together, then inform them of what they did. Allah records it, while they forget it. And Allah is Witness over all things" (Iviii.6). "Do you think that We have crated you in vain, and that you will not be returned to Us"? (xxiii. 115). "And they find what they did confronting them. And thy Lord wrongs not anyone" (xviii. 49). 

In the next life the record of an individual's actions maintained by him unconsciously in this life will be unrolled before him so that he may see them and take their consequences whatever they may be. "And We have made every man's actions to cling to his neck and We shall bring forth to him on the Day of Resurrection a book which he will find wide open" (xvii. 13). He will be enough to reckon his own deeds on that day. "Read thy book. Thy own soul is sufficient as a reckoner against thee this day" (xvii. 14). As he will read through this record he will be astonished to find that not a single deed of his life, good or bad, great or small, is omitted by it and he will exclaim: "O woe to us what a book is this It leaves out neither a small thing nor a great one, but numbers them (all)" (xviii.49). He will be required for every deed good or bad, however insignificant it may be. "So he who does an atom's weight of good will see it. And he who does an atom's weight of evil will see it" (cxix. 7-8). 

Our Next Life has a Crude Resemblance to the World of Dreams Our next life has a crude and imperfect resemblance to the world we crate in our dreams. Although the self of an individual who is asleep has nothing to do with his physical body which rests calmly on a bed for the time being, yet it has at its disposal a body which lives, acts, knows, feels, thinks and experiences all sorts of pain and pleasure in an outside world full of all varieties of persons and objects. The self lives without the use of its physical body in dreams as well as after death. That is why the Quran compares sleep to death. "Allah takes their souls at the time of their death, and those that die not, during their sleep "(xxxix. 423). While our dreams depict our future, our life hereafter depicts our past. The events of our life which remain enfolded in our conscious are unfolded in our next life as the events recorded and preserved in a film are unrolled over a screen later on.

The Highest Stage of the Evolution of Self during Earthly Life

As the love of a believer grows by action and contemplation, the joy attending his love grows in the same proportion. Finally, there comes a stage when at a certain moment during his hours of contemplation he feels as if he has no control over himself and is being pulled irresistibly to the Beauty that he was seeking as a needle draws automatically to a magnet when it is sufficiently close to it, in spite of the contrary pull of gravitation. This experience is accompanied by the deepest, the most ecstatic and the most exhilarating joy known to man. At this stage his self is so deeply absorbed in the realisation of the Creator's Beauty that he feels as if he is having a direct vision of him. So great is his attraction for the Divine Being at this stage that he finds it difficult to return to the ordinary level of consciousness but his passionate desire to serve and please the Creator by his actions with a view to improving the human world, which was the cardinal factor in his love all along, brings him back to it, and he comes back to it a different man. Although this experience is temporary, it has the tendency to recur frequently during period of contemplation. It has the following result for his future. 

(1) He is perfectly happy, perfectly calm and contented. He feels as if he has found out and acquired personal realisation of the meaning of his own life and the meaning of the Universe. "Those who believe and whose hearts find rest in the remembrance of Allah. Now surely in Allah's remembrance do hearts find rest" (xiii. 28). "Those who say: Our Lord is Allah, they continue in the right way, the angles descend upon them, saying: Fear not, nor be grieved" (xli.30). 
(2) He is perfectly self-controlled and self-disciplined. It is no longer possible for him to fall a victim to slips and errors . His self-knowledge is at the highest possible stage of its development. 
(3) Having no fear and no doubts to fetter his activity, he becomes a dynamic personality infused with a burning desire to change the world in accordance with his own wishes and the wished of his Creator. And he brings to this task a strong and noble character, a highly evolved and unified personality and a very superior knowledge of the distinction between rights and wrong_ gifts brought to him by his spiritual experience at the highest stage of his self-consciousness. 
(4) He is all the more careful to abide by the vigorous discipline that has raised him to such a high level of self-knowledge and made available to him all the blessings that go with it in order to maintain and preserve this level till the ends of his earthly life. 
(5) As the purpose of the Creator is merged in his purpose, so the will of the Creator too is merged in his will. The result is that whatever he wills consistently with the common purpose of the Creator and his own comes to pass.

The Direct Vision of the Creator_ (Ihsan)

It is possible to have a direct vision of the Creator? This question will be better answered if we study the process by which it becomes possible for us to see the material objects around us. The rays of light coming from an external object fall upon the retina and converge behind it to form an image of the object. The sensation of the image is conveyed by the optical nerve to the brain from which our consciousness derives an idea of the object. The final agency that completes the act of vision is, therefore, our self and the real nature of the act of vision is no more than the formation of an idea by the self. The idea consists of a set of qualities of shade and shape, the sum total of which, supplemented by a few more qualities not actually conveyed by the rays of light but attributed to the object by our imagination, is taken for the object. What we see is not the material object but its idea consisting of a congeries of these qualities. The brain, the optical nerve and light are simply the instruments which provide our consciousness with the knowledge of the qualities of this idea. 

When consciousness has once acquired this knowledge of self regarding the qualities of the object, the clearer will be our unaided vision of it. When continued moral action and contemplation have raised the love of a believer to a very high stage of evolution and his knowledge of the qualities of the Creator has become very clear, it so happens that in moments of contemplation he becomes deeply absorbed in the love of these qualities till they dominate his consciousness completely. In this state the believer sees his Creator exactly as he would see any object of this world. The experience is ineffable and cannot be described fully to those who have not had it. The believer's stage of evolution in which he has a vision of Reality is known as Ihsan and is alluded to by the Quran in the following words: "Surely Allah loves the doers of good" (ii. 195). The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) defined Ihsan as follows: Doing good means worshipping Allah as if you see Him. The greater and deeper is the love of a believer, the clearer is his vision of Reality and the deeper is his joy resulting from it. The Israelites demanded of Moses that they may be allowed to have a direct vision of the Creator so that they may enter his faith. This was no more than an excuse to disbelieve and disobey because belief and obedience are the first requisites for a direct vision of the Creator. Hence they were chastised for this unreasonable demand.  

Manifesto of Islam - 4

Moral Behavior--the Expression of Beauty in External Action

The External action impelled by the Right Ideal consists in the expression of the qualities of Beauty in one's treatment of one's own self and of others. It is commonly known as Moral Action. The Right Ideal, like every other ideal, has a moral law of its own which determines strictly the nature and the quality of every action of the individual. Since this law is derived from the qualities of Beauty, the action of an individual who follows it accords with expresses and incarnates these qualities. The man who loves an ideal is urged to express and thereby to satisfy his love in all possible ways. The man who loves the Right Ideal, therefore, expresses it not only by contemplating Beauty but also by acting Beauty, that is by displaying it in all his daily actions. "Say: My prayer and my sacrifice and my life and my death are surely for Allah, the Lord of the worlds. No associate has He. And his am I commanded, and I am the first of those who submit" (vi. 163-164).

The Love of Beauty and Moral Action are Inseparable

If he does not do so, it means he has not yet acquired any love or any realist ion of the Beauty of the Creator and His qualities. For it is impossible that a person should feel attracted to the qualities of Beauty like justice, Truth, Goodness and Love, etc., but should resort to injustice instead of justice, cruelty and enmity instead of love, and falsehood instead of truth when it comes to expressing his loves and hates or likes and dislikes in actual deeds. If he is a sincere lover, he does his utmost to act in accordance with these qualities in spite of internal and external obstructions. When he does so he gets a clearer and fuller realisation of their beauty and evolves his love to a higher level and rises to a higher stage of self-knowledge. For love gains in power and intensity by expression and becomes weak by neglect. 

A man who acts rightly once finds it easier to act rightly again. If a man who has the habit of being cruel makes one successful effort to be kind, the next such effort becomes easier for him and the next still easier, on account of the growth of his love. A wrong action has the contrary effect. A man who deviates from the right path and acts wrongly once on account of his insufficient realisation of Beauty finds it still more difficult to come forward to the right path. His realisation of Beauty undergoes further deterioration. Thus the evolution of our self-knowledge or love depends upon the moral quality of our action. A man who has realisation of Beauty and expresses it by means of contemplation in the form of Zikr and Fikr, but does not express it in all his daily actions, can never rise to higher and higher levels of self-knowledge. On the contrary, his love is bound to degenerate because he more than unmakes by his deeds what he makes by his meditations. He is like a person who walks for two hours in the morning in the direction of his goal but walks the whole day in just the opposite direction. Such a person can never reach his destination but must continue to recede ever farther and farther from it.

How Moral Action becomes Gradually Easier and Easier

Perfect, faultless and absolute obedience to the moral law of the Right Ideal is not possible in the beginning of love when love is necessarily weak. It is possible only at the highest stage of the evolution of self. Before this stage is reached the lover falls a victim to slips and errors frequently in spite of his efforts. But when, owing to his regular habits of prayers and continuous contemplation of Beauty for some time by means of Zikr and Fikr, he is able to add to his love a little, his added love gives him a greater control over himself and makes it easier for him to act morally. Thus his action becomes nobler and purer, safer from slips and errors and more in accordance with the qualities of Beauty. Such action, therefore, evolves and strengthens his realisation of Beauty all the more and raises him to a still higher level of self-knowledge. When, equipped with this realisation of Beauty, he returns to him habits of Zikr and Fikr, he finds that he can indulge in them with a much greater concentration of mind and can derive from them much more pleasure than what was possible for him before. Such contemplation of Beauty, therefore, evolves his love and consequently facilitates his moral action all the more. In this way moral action and contemplation go hand in hand assisting each other to raise him to higher and higher levels of self-consciousness till he attains to the highest possible stage of the evolution of his love. This will indicate that, if love is allowed to have its own way and if its demands of action and endeavour are satisfied continuously after it has once emerged, it goes on adding to itself until it has achieved the maximum of its intensity and power. "And Allah increases in guidance those who go aright" (xix. 76). "And those who strive hard for Us, We shall certainly guide them in Our ways" (xxix. 69). "Surely they were youths who believed in their Lord and We increased them in guidance" (xviii.13).

The Nature of a Sin

(a) Its Causes. A slip or an error on the part of a believer occurs when for a while his urge for Beauty finds expression in a wrong idea not consistent with the Right ideal. This happens when a wrong idea attracts him away from his ideal and diverts his love into a wrong channel. The result is a wrong action calculated to serve and strengthen the love of this wrong idea at the expense of that of the Right ideal. That is why a man who commits one sin is prone to commit another. The Nature of a Wrong Idea. A wrong idea consists of a belief that a particular action, although not consistent with the Right Ideal, will yield a particular relief or pleasure. The believer knows that this action is contrary to the requirements of Beauty and that his love demands that he must hate the idea along with the pleasure attending it. yet, if his love is not strong enough, if it has not sufficiently developed, he begins to prefer the idea and the pleasure associated with it to the demands of his love and the pleasure associated with it to the demands of his love and thus for the time being the whole of his love which is really meant for his ideal is diverted entirely towards this idea. In other words, for the moment he ceases to be a believer or a lover of the True Ideal. The result is a wrong action. (b) Its Effects on the Self. When the wrong action caused by a wrong idea has run its course and its pleasure has ended, the believer is free to love his ideal again. But now he finds that his love for the ideal has decreased and the love of the ideal that had led him astray and of other connected ideas has increased in the same proportion. A wrong action strengthens the love of the wrong idea that is the cause of it and weakens the love of the Right ideal to the same extent on account of the operation of an inexorable law of our nature. Similarly, a right action strengthens the love of the Right ideal and weakens the love of wrong ideas. Every action. However insignificant it may appear to be, is, therefore, important and works either to the disadvantage or advantage of the individual.

The Way to Avoid a Sin

A wrong idea grips first of all the imagination of the individual and later on takes control of his faculties of action. From the moment it enters the mind it begins to steal more and more of the love of self-meant for the Right Ideal till it becomes strong enough to crate the relevant action. This means that a wrong action can be stopped easily when it is at the earlier part of its thought-stage. Evil doing is the result of a prolonged evil thinking. Before every wicked deed there is a wicked thought which has been loved and liked for a considerable time owing to an error. If the thought is not resisted and expelled from the mind immediately and totally, the deed is bound to follow. Hence a true believer is alerted as soon as his imagination begins to go astray. Fearing lest he should stoop t an action that is contrary to the urge of his nature and lose the love of his Creator he makes an immediate effort to expel the evil idea from his mind and succeeds in his effort. "Those who guard against evil when a thought from the devil visits them, they become mindful, and they begin to see" (vii. 201). As a reward for desisting from an evil desire in this way he evolves his love and consequently enjoys a blissful life here as well as in the Hereafter. As long as a man has the slightest attachment for a wrong idea in a remote corner of his heart, whether he acts according to that idea or not, he is not a true believer or a true lover at all. As a tradition of the Prophet puts it " not a grain of faith remains with him". Sin is the movement of the self in a direction opposite to that in which the self wants to move by its nature, opposite to that of its progress or evolution. It alters the condition of the self and becomes its permanent disability which retard its progress as long as it is not got rid of.

The Way to get rid of the Evil Effects of a Sin.

The Process of Self-Purification. The way to get rid of the evil effects of a sin is to go back to the mental state or the emotional attitude that preceded and caused the wrong action, to study it, to analyze it and thereby to realise that what he loved and liked was really ugly and detestable and further to make sure that this present realisation of the repetition of that emotional attitude and the resulting action in future. For this purpose he has to return to the contemplation of Beauty and to indulge in it long enough and with a sufficient concentration of mind to recover his realisation of Beauty that was lost at the time he made his wrong moral judgment which preceded the wrong action. As soon as he regains this realisation of Beauty, his love if free to advance on the path of evolution again. This process though which the self of the believer has to pas in order to purify itself of its sin in known as taubah or returning. Returning or taubah as a mental effort has four constituents: (!) The admission of the error, i.e. the realisation that what he loved was really ugly. This is accompanied by an acute sense of loss and an irresistible feeling of repentance. "And others have acknowledged their faults, _they mixed a good deed with another that was evil" (ix, 102). (2) A sincere and confident resolve not to repeat the error either in his thought or action. "O you who believe, turn to Allah with sincere repentance" (Ixvi.8). (3) The effort to regain by contemplation the contact with Reality or the love of Beauty and the consequent moral attitude that was lost. "Then whoever believes and acts aright, they shall have no fear, nor shall they grieve " (vi.48). (4) The revival of a full belief in the Creator's qualities of Beauty implying the realisation that the real sustainer and evolver of his self is not he himself but his Creator and the evolutionary movement of his self, if he regains it, will be the result of His approval and pleasure which means, first of all, His forgiveness. "And whoever does evil or wrongs his soul, then asks forgiveness of Allah, will find Allah Forgiving, Merciful" (iv. 110). All these psychological requirements are completely satisfied when he says from the core of his heart and repeats till he experiences their full significance, the words: "Our Lord, we have wronged ourselves; and if Thou forgive us not, and have mercy on us, we shall certainly be of the losers" (vii. 23). or the words: "There is no Lord but Thou, all Beauty belongs to Thee Surely I am of those who have wronged (themselves)" (xxi. 87). Complete purification of the self is not possible unless it breaks away completely from all desires which are foreign to its nature and feels the full force of the desire for Beauty which is the real urge of its being. "And break away (from everything) and submit to Him" (lxxiii.8). Nothing short of a sincere repentance and a sense of utter loss, capable of bringing tears profusely to the eyes accompanied by a persistent effort to re-establish the lost contact with Reality and to re-acquire the abandoned belief by means of contemplation, can enable the self to shed the desires which are not its own, The best time for such an ablution of tears is the last part of night when conditions of quiet and seclusion are particularly favorable for concentration and inner effort. "O thou covering thyself up rise to pray by night except a little , half of it, or lesson it a little, or add to it, and recite the Quran in a leisurely manner" (lxxiii. 1-4).

Midnight Prayers

That is why the Prophet said: "The midnight prayers of a man are the best of all his prayers".

The Magnitude of a Sin

Errors are great or small according as they affect the self's love more or less adversely. A persistent error even if it is insignificant is highly injurious to the self's evolution.

The Stage when a Sin becomes Impossible

As love evolves, errors become less and less in number and magnitude till at last they disappear entirely. At this stage the Right Love dominates the consciousness of the believer completely. His struggle against wrong ideas ceases entirely and he finds that, while it is very easy for him to act morally, it is very difficult for him to act otherwise. Thus the diversion of a believer's love to wrong ideas is always due to an inadequate knowledge or love of Beauty.

The Sources of Wrong Ideas

The wrong ideas conflicting with the Right Ideal have their source either in the power of habits or in the power of instincts.

(a) Habits.

As long as a person loves wrong ideal his entire practical life is dominated by it. Consequently he develops a set of habits of thought and action which, in due course of time, become firmly established and continue to serve that ideal and support and maintain its love by a force of their own. These habits cling to him in spite of him and continue to influence his thought and action even after he has acquired a realisation of the Beauty of the right ideal and pledged himself to love and serve it. They can be eradicated not by counteracting them directly but by fostering new habits consistent with the Right Ideal. As these new right habits develop they take the place of the old wrong habits which die our gradually by disuse. This explains why Islam lays stress on regularity and punctuality in prayers and devotions. "Prayer indeed has been enjoined on the believer at fixed times" ( iv.103). The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: "The best of the moral deeds are those which are performed regularly." When the believer has developed a set of right habits which dot and intersperse the whole of his practical life, he finds that their automatic action not only leads to a forced reservation of a portion of his time for devotion to the Right ideal but also serves as a continuous reminder to him to stick to the moral code of his ideal all the time. As wrong habits support and maintain a wrong love, so right habits support and maintain the right love. That action, when repeated, become automatic, is a favour of Nature on account of which a person's conscious choice and deliberately controlled attention become increasingly available for moral judgments and moral actions which he needs for the proper direction of that part of his life which is not yet controlled by his habits. Until a person's consciousness is cleared entirely of wrong habits and dominated completely by right habits, his love cannot be said to have developed up to the highest extent.

(b) Instincts.

Wrong ideas which have their source in the instincts (like feeding, sex, pugnacity, self-assertion, etc.) are extraordinarily powerful because the instincts, which have for their object the preservation of the live of the individual and t he race, have a biological compulsion and their satisfaction is attended by a particular kind of pleasure. In the absence of the love of the Right Ideal we often become so enamored of the pleasure derived from the satisfaction of our instinctive desires that we ascribe all the beauty and excellence that we seek to this pleasure. The result is that these desires become our sole ideal and the whole of our love meant for the Right Ideal begins to flow towards them. In such a case we give them an exaggerated importance and satisfy them not for the sake of, and up to the limits prescribed by, their object and nature, i.e. for the maintenance of life and race but for the sake of the pleasure that they give us. In such a case we are living not even on the animal plane of life but very much below that plane, because an animal never seeks to satisfy his instinctive desires beyond the limit prescribed by their biological necessity. That is why such people are mentioned by the Quran as follows: "They are cattle; nay they are more astray" (vii.179). Their ideal consists of their own lower desires. "Hast thou seen him who takes his low desire for his god" (xxv. 43).

A Task of Major Importance for a Believer_Struggle with Himself

A task of major important which confronts a believer in the earlier stages of the development of his self-consciousness is to fight against the compulsion and the temptation of these desires with a view to keeping them within their own limits and not to permit them to encroach upon the love of the Right ideal so that the latter has an unobstructed course of evolution. He has not only to keep the instinctive desires within their own bounds but also to acquire the power to curb and crush them up to any extent (even up to the extent of sacrificing his life) for the sake of his love, whenever necessary. This latter exigency arises for a believer when he is faced with a difficulty and feels the temptation to overcome it by resorting to activities which are contrary to the requirements of his ideal or when he ahs to participate willingly in a righteous war in which he is required to go without food and drink and to suffer several other hardships and even to sacrifice his life.

The Importance of Fasting (Saum)

The task of fighting against the compulsion and temptation of the instinctive desires is difficult but the believer's untiring efforts make it easy for him. He slips very often but recovers each time and rises to march forward towards his goal with added vigor. Islam provides him with an opportunity to train himself for this inner struggle by enjoining upon him to fast continuously for one month_ during the particular moth of Ramazan_ every year. He is required to fast every day during this month so that he may learn to check and control his instinctive desires and even to crush them totally for the sake of his love. The more he opposes these desires for the sake of his ideal by fasting, the greater is his realisation of the Beauty of his ideal. The reason is that he can oppose these desires only with the help of the power of his love which, therefore, increases in force and intensity in proportion to the success of his effort to oppose them. The training that he acquires in this way stands him in good stead when a conflict between himself, i.e. his love, and the compulsion of his instincts is afoot. It enables him to defeat the instinctive desires and to win a victory for his love which makes its next victory easier and the next still easier till his love, feeding itself constantly on Beauty through his contemplation and moral action, becomes strong enough to make all slips and errors impossible for him. At this stage it is easier for him to obey his ideal even at the risk of his life than to obey his instincts. At this stage his quest for Beauty is safe from the interference of his lower desires and he enjoys a peace of mind which is the good fortune of only those who enter Paradise. "So no one knows what refreshment of the eyes is hidden for them as a reward for what they did" (xxxii. 17). "And as for him who fears to stand before his Lord and restrains himself from low desires, the Garden is surely the abode" (lxxix. 40). 

Professor James defined moral action as action in the line of the "greatest" resistance. But there is a stage in the evolution of self when moral action becomes action in the line of the "least" resistance. It is only at the time of action that love is tested and it is by passing the tests of action that it becomes real and actual and can rise to higher and higher levels of strength and purity. The effort to act morally, resisting one's instinctive inclinations and desires, is really an effort to acquire a still greater realisation of the beauty of the Right Ideal.

A Believer Turns a Misfortune into a Blessing

Patience in the face of difficulties also affords the believer a precious training to control his instinctive desires for the sake of his ideal. "And seek assistance through patience and prayer, and this is hard except for the humble ones" (ii.450). Such a patience coupled with devotions and prayers to the Creator enables the individual not only to pass safely a critical period in the evolution of his self when he is most likely to slip but also to raise himself to a far higher stage of self-consciousness. The Quran states this fact is the following words: "And We shall certainly try you with something of fear and hunger and loss of property and lives and fruits. And give good new to the patient, who, when a misfortune befalls them, say: "Surely we are Allah's and to Him we shall return" (ii. 155-156).

The Way to Maintain Mental Health

If wrong ideas are not combated successfully it is a grave danger not only to the evolution of an individual's love but also to him mental health. The root cause of a nervous disease (worry, hysteria, obsession, phobia, or madness) is the conflict of some ideas or ideals with the patient's ideal. When a believer feels attracted to a wrong idea and acts in accordance with the requirements of this idea rather than with those of his ideal, there is a slip or an error. As already stated, the full realisation of the error comes to the individual only when the desire has spent its force and when the process of its satisfaction has run its course to the end. When this happens, the love of the Right Ideal return to him although it is now wounded and violated. This situation is attended by a very distressing mental condition which is known as a conflict or a dissociation of the mind. Taubah or returning is the only cure for a mental conflict and its effects. If, however, a person has already succeeded in raising himself to the highest possible stage of his self-consciousness, he cannot suffer from a mental conflict.

The Evolution of Love or Self – Knowledge has no End

Men's capacity for love varies. When other things are equal it is always in proportion to their intelligence. Highly intelligent people have a strong urge for Beauty and are capable of loving very deeply and passionately. A believer should develop his love as much as his own natural capacity for love can allow it develop. So long as he is not able to act perfectly in accordance with the requirements of the Right Ideal, he must be sure that there is some wrong ideal lurking in his mind and mis-appropriating a portion of his natural capacity for love, meant really for the Right Ideal, and the there is yet need for him to act and struggle for the purification of his love. But even when his love has reached the highest possible stage of its development in this life, it cannot be said that he has acquired a full realisation of the Beauty of the Creator. The Beauty of the Creator that we are forced by our nature to seek and love has no limit and it is not possible for anybody to attain to its complete realisation. The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: We have not known you as we should know you.