IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE COMPASSIONATE, THE MERCIFUL (21 – 22)
.
.
O People!
Serve your Lord,
Who created you
and those before you,
so that you may be conscientious;
who has made the earth a couch for you,
and the heaven a roof,
and who sends water down from the skies,
and who brings forth from it
fruits for your sustenance.
So do not suppose anything to be like God,
When you know.
.
COMMENTARY: This verse can be interpreted in two different ways — one constructive and the other, destructive. A social personality will interpret this verse in a way that it improves conditions in the society. But the antisocial personality will interpret this verse in a way that it suppresses the society. Both interpretations will be discussed here.
The social personality will interpret this verse from the viewpoint that is explained under Qur’an: The Opening. Thus,“Serve your Lord” would mean that one must allow the eternal Laws to express themselves fully through one’s being. This means that the self or ego must be put into servitude.
Self, ego, or identity is essentially the weighted average of all physical and mental forces and energies associated with beingness. This impression of self is continually changing. Self is impermanent. These forces and energies are sustained by the eternal laws that also underlie the existence of the earth and the sky, the phenomenon of rain, growth of food, and man’s means of survival. One must, therefore, put ‘self’ aside and simply understand and follow the eternal Laws unconditionally. One is conscientious and ethical as a result.
Unfortunately, the antisocial personality would interpret this verse quite differently. He would misinterpret “God” as a “superior being” to whom everyone should bow down to in servitude. He would put the eternal Laws in the background and use people’s trust in God for his own purposes. This can be quite destructive as one is told to blindly follow the interpretation of the eternal Laws as provided by the anti-social personality.
NOTE: The actions of anti-social personality always undermine an individual’s ability to think for oneself. In fact, in any environment where one is watched and not allowed to think for oneself, there is always an anti-social personality at work to ensure its own survival at the cost of other’s.
Such suppression was accomplished in the past by monopolizing knowledge and keeping people ignorant. Fortunately, in today’s Information Age, it is becoming increasingly possible to access knowledge and compare it with other knowledge. We have started to see some fundamental changes for the better.
[NOTE: I am not blogging about Islam. I am blogging about knowledge in the tradition of JNANA YOGA (the yoga of knowledge). My interest is to interpret Qur’an from the viewpoint of knowledge that is useful to mankind. I shall be interpreting this knowledge as consistent with my view of God as unknowable.If there is any historical, religious or cultural inconsistency in this material, I shall point it out as such. ~ Vinaire]
QUR’AN: THE COW
IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE COMPASSIONATE, THE MERCIFUL (2 – 20)
.
This book, without doubt
has guidance in it for the conscientious;
those who believe in the unseen,
and steadily practice prayer,
and give of what We have provided them,
.
COMMENTARY: This book (Qur’an) consists of the guidance that would bring prosperity to individuals, families, and societies and even to the mankind. Those who are conscientious and think of the survival of everybody and not just their own self, would, no doubt, instinctively follow this guidance.
These laws and principles are quite abstract and they are not very obvious at first glance. However, those who are conscientious would apply them anyway for the good of all. With diligent study and steady practice, they would in time come to appreciate what is in this book.
Giving is always holier than receiving. Those who are conscientious would share their prosperity and help others improve their condition.
NOTE: God is unknowable. There is no person out there providing us with material prosperity, and handing down this guidance. Actually, these are intuitions arrived at by keen observation.
Prayer is not a mere supplication for relief. Prayer is practicing the principles of Qur’an correctly. Prayer consists of giving rather than receiving.
.
.
and those who believe
what has been sent down to you
and what was sent down before you,
and are certain of the Hereafter.
They follow guidance from their Lord,
and they are the happy ones.
.
COMMENTARY: Those who are conscientious can see the consistency of the truths (laws and principles) revealed in Qur’an with those revealed earlier in the Torah and the Gospel. They know that it is the consequences of their own actions that determine the future. Such people humbly follow the guidance given in Qur’an, and thus achieve success and happiness in their lives.
NOTE: The use of the word “Lord” is poetic. It is not to be taken literally. God is unknowable. Man controls his own destiny. He is his own lord.
Qur’an is describing the characteristics of a SOCIAL PERSONALITY. The social personality naturally operates on the basis of the greatest good for all. The social personality wants to survive and wants others to survive, whereas the ANTISOCIAL PERSONALITY (as described in the subsequent verses) really and covertly wants others to succumb.
.
.
As for the ungrateful who refuse,
it is the same to them
whether you warn them or not;
they do not believe.
God has sealed their hearts
and their hearings,
and covered their eyes;
for them there is a great torment.
.
COMMENTARY:There are some who are ungrateful even when they are helped. Such people do not care for this guidance even when it is explained to them how indispensable it is for survival. Such people really have no feelings in their heart for others. They do not want to hear about doing anything good to others. They do not want to see any good being done to others. For such people there is a great torment.
NOTE: Qur’an is describing here the characteristics of an ANTISOCIAL PERSONALITY. The antisocial personality really and covertly wants others to succumb.
.
.
And among humankind
are those who say
they believe in God and the Last Day
but they do not believe.
They try to deceive God
and those who believe,
but they do not deceive anyone
except themselves,
although they do not know it.
.
COMMENTARY: Unfortunately, such people do exist among humankind. They say that they believe in the welfare of all, and that, like anybody, they too are responsible for their actions, but they don’t really mean it. Such people thinkthat they would survive better if others don’t do so well. So they only pretend to help without really helping. But they don’t deceive anyone except themselves, and they do not even know it.
.
.
There is a sickness in their hearts,
and God has made them sicker;
and theirs is a painful torment,
because they were in fact lying.
And when they are told not to make trouble on earth,
they say they are only doing good.
Is it not that they are in fact
the troublemakers,
without even knowing it?
.
COMMENTARY: Such people are actually sick to their core. They lie and they are tormented by the thought of being found out. Thus, they become sicker. Such people only make trouble even when they say that they have only the best of intentions. Their actions always lead to trouble but they can’t see it.
.
.
And when it is said to them,
“Believe as the people believe,”
they say, “Shall we believe
as imbeciles believe?”
No, it is they,
they who are the imbeciles,
though they do not know.
And when they encounter
those who believe,
they say, “We believe.”
But when they are alone
with their obsessions,
they say,
“We are in fact with you;
we were only joking.”
COMMENTARY: Such people look down upon those who want people to do better. They consider any helpful attitude to be foolishness. But it is they who are fools without knowing it. Such people do not express their contempt openly. Outwardly, they pretend to agree with the idea of everyone working for the common good, but when they are with their own kind they mock the idea of working for anybody’s welfare.
.
.
God will make a joke of them,
amplifying their outrages
as they wander astray.
They are the ones
who have bartered
guidance for error:
thus their trade does not profit
and they are not guided.
.
COMMENTARY: The irony is that such people do not do well but actually suffer greatly in their ignorance. They shun any guidance and go their own stubborn way. Thus, being trapped in their own lies, they are not guided by good sense.
NOTE: This is a sad commentary on the duplicity of human nature. It is not easy to make such people see the error of their ways. Such people have put themselves beyond the pale by despising those who can help them. It is indeed a daunting and frustrating task to handle the blindness of such people.
.
.
What they are like is one who lit a fire,
and when it illumined everything around,
God took their light
and left them in darkness,
unseeing.
Deaf, dumb, and blind,
they will not get back.
Or like a rain cloud from the sky,
in it darkness, thunder,
and lightning.
They put their fingers in their ears
against the peal
in fear of death:
yet God surrounds the ungrateful.
.
COMMENTARY: It is as if everyone around them can see but they can’t see even when a situation is as plain as daylight. They have become deaf, dumb and blind due to their own considerations. There is little chance of them recovering from their condition. Enlightenment comes from courageously facing the stark realities of life however frightening and dangerous they might appear to be. However, such people are so terrified that they keep on running away. Yet they have the potential within them to face the truth if they want to.
.
.
The lightning nearly
takes away their vision.
Every time it sheds light for them,
they walk in it;
and when it grows dark upon them,
they stand still.
And if God willed,
God could remove
their hearing and seeing:
for God has power over all things.
.
COMMENTARY: When such people are forced to face the truth they do so but with little sense of responsibility. And as soon as they are left to themselves, they become deaf, dumb and blind to truth again. But it is just that they have chosen to be so. There is nobody else to blame. But if they want they can recover from this condition.
True religious freedom is to have the God of your own choice, and be able to change God, or even create One, as necessary.
The beauty of being a Hindu lies in your freedom to be who you want to be. Nobody can tell you what to do, or what not to do. There is no central authority, no single leader of the faith. No one can pass an order to excommunicate you, or like in some countries, pass a decree that orders your death by stoning for walking with a strange man.
We don’t appreciate our freedom because we can’t feel the plight of others who aren’t free. Many religions have a central authority with awesome power over the individual. They have a clear chain of command, from the lowliest local priest to the highest central leader. Hinduism somehow escaped from such central authority, and the Hindu has miraculously managed to hold on to his freedom through the ages. How did this happen?
Vedanta is the answer. When the writers of Vedanta emerged, around 1500 BC, they faced an organised religion of orthodox Hinduism. This was the post Vedic age, where ritualism was practiced, and the masses had no choice but to follow. It was a coercive atmosphere.
The writers of Vedanta rebelled against this authority and moved away from society into forests. This was how the ‘Aranyakas’ were written, literally meaning ‘writings from the forest’. These later paved the way for the Upanishads, and Vedanta eventually caught the imagination of the masses. It emerged triumphant, bearing with it the clear voice of personal freedom.
This democracy of religious thought, so intrinsic to Vedantic intelligence, sank into the mindset of every Indian. Most couldn’t fathom the deep wisdom it contained, but this much was very clear. They understood that faith was an expression of personal freedom, and one could believe at will. That’s why Hinduism saw an explosion of Gods. There was a God for every need and every creed. If you wanted to build your muscles, you worshiped a God with fabulous muscles. If you wanted to pursue education, there was a Goddess of Learning. If it was wealth you were looking for, then you looked up to the Goddess of wealth — with gold coins coming out of her hands. If you wanted to live happily as a family, you worshiped Gods who specially blessed families. When you grew old and faced oncoming death, you spent time in contemplating a God whose business it was to dissolve everything — from an individual to the entire Universe.
Everywhere, divinity appeared in the manner and form you wanted it to appear, and when its use was over, you quietly discarded that form of divinity and looked at new forms of the divine that was currently of use to you. ‘Yad Bhavam, tad Bhavati’… what you choose to believe becomes your personal truth, and freedom to believe is always more important than belief itself.
Behind all this — was the silent Vedantic wisdom that Gods are but figments of human imagination. As the Kena Upanishads says, “Brahma ha devebhyo vijigye…” — All Gods are mere subjects of the Self. It implies that it is far better that God serves Man than Men serve God. Because Men never really serve God — they only obey the dictates of a religious head who speaks for that God, who can turn them into slaves in God’s name.
Hindus have therefore never tried to convert anyone. Never waged war in the name of religion. The average Hindu happily makes Gods serve him as per his needs. He discards Gods when he has no use for them. And new Gods emerge all the time — in response to market needs. In this tumult, no central authority could survive. No single prophet could emerge and hold sway, no chain of command could be established.
Vedanta had injected an organised chaos into Hinduism, and that’s the way it has been from the last thirty five centuries. Vedanta is also responsible, by default, for sustaining democracy. When the British left India, it was assumed that the nation would soon break up. Nothing of that kind has happened. The pundits of doom forgot that the Indian had been used to religious freedom from thousands of years. When he got political freedom, he grabbed it naturally. After all, when you can discard Gods why can’t you discard leaders? Leaders like Gods are completely expendable to the Indian mindset. They are tolerated as long as they serve the people, and are replaced when needs change. It’s the triumph of people over their leaders, and in this tumult, no dictator can ever take over and rule us. Strange how the thoughts of a few men living in forests, thirty five centuries ago, can echo inside the heart of every Indian. That’s a tribute to the resurgent power of India, and the fearlessness of its free thinking people.
The Fourth Noble Truth is the way leading to the Cessation of Dukkha. It looks for happiness neither through the pleasures of the senses, nor through self-mortification in different forms of asceticism, but through a middle path known as The Eight-Fold Path to Nirvana. This Middle Path ‘gives vision and knowledge, and it leads to Calm, Insight, Enlightenment, Nirvāna’.
The eight categories or divisions of the Path are to be developed more or less simultaneously, as far as possible according to the capacity of each individual. These categories may be grouped into the three essentials of (a) Wisdom, (b) Ethical Conduct, and (c) Mental Discipline.
The wisdom of this path rests not on knowledge, accumulated memory, or intellectual grasping of a subject; but on seeing things in their true nature, without name and label. This penetration is possible only when the mind is free from all impurities and is fully developed through meditation. The impurities exist in the form of selfish desire, ill-will, hatred and violence in all spheres of life whether individual, social, or political.
The Buddha gave his teaching ‘for the good of the many, for the happiness of the many, out of compassion for the world’. Buddhist ethical and moral conduct aims at promoting a happy and harmonious life both for the individual and for society. This forms the indispensable foundation for all higher spiritual attainments. Thus, the ethical conduct on this path is built on the vast conception of universal love and compassion for all living beings. Here compassion represents love, charity, kindness, tolerance and such noble qualities. Such compassion then guides one’s speech, actions and livelihood.
Mental discipline has to do with developing wholesome states of mind already present in a person and bringing them to perfection. This starts with right mindfulness (attentiveness). One practices concentration on breathing, and experiences all forms of feelings and sensations, whether pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. One diligently attends to the movements of the mind, and examines all ideas, thoughts, conceptions and things, for their nature, how they appear and disappear, how they are developed, how they are suppressed, and destroyed, and so on. The right concentration, ultimately, leads to pure equanimity and awareness.
From the above account one may see that this path is a way of life to be followed, practiced and developed by each individual. It is self-discipline in body, word and mind, self-development and self-purification. It has nothing to do with belief, prayer, worship or ceremony. In that sense, it has nothing which may popularly be called ‘religious’. It is a Path leading to the realization of Ultimate Reality, to complete freedom, happiness and peace through moral, spiritual and intellectual perfection.
The path to Nirvana is neither through the pleasures of the senses, nor through self-mortification in different forms of asceticism. The path to Nirvana is through the following actions.
(A) Wisdom
1. Right Understanding (seeing a thing in its true nature, without name and label)
(a) Thoughts of selfless renunciation or detachment
(b) Thoughts of love
(c) Thoughts of non-violence
.
(B) Ethical Conduct
3. Right Speech
(a) Abstain from telling lies
(b) Abstain from backbiting and slander and talk that may bring about hatred, enmity, disunity, and disharmony among individuals or groups of people.
(c) Abstain from harsh, rude, impolite, malicious and abusive language.
(d) Abstain from idle, useless and foolish babble and gossip.
(e) Do not speak carelessly: speech should be at the right time and place.
(f) If one cannot say something useful, one should keep ‘noble silence’.
4. Right Action
(a) Abstain from destroying life, from stealing, from dishonest dealings, and from illegitimate sexual intercourse.
(b) Always aim at promoting moral, honorable and peaceful product.
(c) Help others to lead a peaceful and honorable life in the right way.
5. Right Livelihood
(a) Abstain from making living through a profession that brings harm to others, such as
Trading in arms and lethal weapons,
Intoxicating drinks,
Poisons,
Killing animals,
Cheating, etc.
(b) Live by a profession which is honorable, blameless and innocent of harm to others.
.
(C) Mental Discipline
6. Right Effort (energetic will)
(a) To prevent evil and unwholesome states of mind from arising
(b) To get rid of such evil and unwholesome states that have already arisen within a man
(c) To produce, to cause to arise, good and wholesome states of mind not yet arisen
(d) To develop and bring to perfection the good and wholesome states of mind already present in a man.
7. Right Mindfulness (to be diligently aware, mindful and attentive with regard to)
(a) The activities of the body.
Be clearly aware of breathing
Whether it is deep or shallow
Of how it appears and disappears within the body
(b) Sensations or feelings.
Be clearly aware of all forms of feelings and sensations
Whether pleasant, unpleasant and neutral
Of how they appear and disappear within oneself
(c) The activities of the mind
Whether one’s mind is lustful or not, given to hatred or not, deluded or not, distracted or concentrated, etc.
All movements of mind, how they arise and disappear.
(d) Ideas, thoughts, conceptions and things
One should know their nature
How they appear and disappear
How they are developed
How they are suppressed, and destroyed, and so on
8. Right Concentration
(a) First Stage
Passionate desires and certain unwholesome thoughts like sensuous lust, ill-will, languor, worry, restlessness, and skeptical doubt are discarded
Feelings of joy and happiness are maintained, along with certain mental activities.
(b) Second Stage
All intellectual activities are suppressed
Tranquility and ‘one-pointedness’ of mind is developed
The feelings of joy and happiness are still retained.
(c) Third Stage
The feeling of joy, which is an active sensation, also disappears
The disposition of happiness still remains
Mindful equanimity remains
(d) Fourth Stage
All sensations, even of happiness and unhappiness, of joy and sorrow, disappear
Only pure equanimity and awareness remains
This path needs to be explained in different ways in different words to different people, according to the stage of their development and their capacity to understand and follow it. These eight categories or divisions of the Path are to be developed more or less simultaneously, as far as possible according to the capacity of each individual.
