If you are an idealist like me your wingspan may be a little shorter than the requirement for the heights you want to fly . I tell myself and the others like me, either you have to adopt to live within the limits, become a realist and stop dreaming. Or break all the sense of belonging related boundaries and personally evolve to step into the new paradigm. In order to achieve the wings span to fly higher according to your God given potential, you have to individually evolve. In a nutshell what I am saying is that if you don’t put the efforts into life, you just can’t evolve. This is as simple as it gets, nothing is meant to be for humanity other than evolution. We all individually and collectively have a journey to reach our potential. Are you up to it, or are you too bogged down by the overwhelming politics of your sense of belonging to your groups? Let me show you your personal potential. Always remember you are not a drop in the ocean as your religions have you believed, you are an ocean in a drop. You just have to dig in to expand your wings to fly. Just look at us, we fly in the space where no winged bird can fly, we dig deeper than any creatures with claws, we even swim in the depth of the ocean without the gulls. Where did the boundaries come from? Just look at the politics and you will find all the reasons you need.
If you feel you are an example of the person who sits on a chair at the table with a plate full of food in front of you but with your arms crossed and a desire to get the food from the plate into your hungry stomach. Without putting efforts of using your hands you will have to become a realist and fast, otherwise you are going to starve. You may believe that God will feed you. Just look at it this way God, has done Godly job by providing you a body with the all the perks and abilities to boot. You are blessed with a brain to think and reason which you will use to make choices.
It is plain and simple, in order to eat one has to use personal efforts, it is just the nature of the beast. You just can’t be putting God in a difficult position, where God is to be blamed for not help you. If God doesn’t show up, you lose your faith, not a good situation for God. If you don’t put in your efforts, God can easily say I have given everything to you but you didn’t use any of your tools.
Believing, yet not putting personal efforts into life is not for human beings. If everyone becomes a monk, what happens to humanity? Who will seek to evolve in all areas including science and technology? Since God has blessed us all with an able body, brain and the individual being inside who is capable of doing Godly things themselves. If you as a being and you don’t use your brain and body, it is like not appreciating God’s blessings. Back in Pakistan there was a term called kufraan-e- naimat which fits just right for this topic. I actually thought about that as title for this blog but since I wanted to talk about the evolution and responsibility I chose “The Wing Span Of The Humanity”.
Muslims in Pakistan have a lot of respect for a visionary intellectual and a revolutionary poet who gave the idea of Pakistan, Doctor Alaama Iqbal. When I read his material I feel inspired but my interpretation may differ from general population. When he says the following:
“Khudi ko kar bulan itna kay her taqdeer say pehlay Khudaa banday say khud pucha btaa tary raza kya hey”.
The translation is : “ Bring your ego so high that before God writes your fate, God comes down to you to ask what is your will”.
Another place Alama Iqbal states that and I quote: “ Why are you falling on a piece of grain like a sparrow” “Keep your flight so high that you can become an eagle”. Similar message to inspire the human individual to take charge to imagine, dream and put more efforts to fly higher. Remember that all the progress of humanity had come from the individuals whom imagined that there is more to be regardless of their knowledge of being mortal. We don’t only live for ourselves that is the reason why I call humanity as a coral reef, it has lot of colors yet functions and survives the same way.
Our individual life may be is a personal project for the individual but the connection with the humanity and God is undeniable as well. I use humanity and God together because I believe we are connected spiritually with God and physically with humanity so living with either one exclusively is an incomplete mortal life. Both sides are legitimate part of the human individual so ignoring one can have consequences like emotional, mental and physical health. An unfulfilled and discontent life is not a good especially if you are a mortal being.
When I read Alama Iqbal’s poetry, I don’t see the boundaries for the individual, I see everything to the contrary of popular beliefs. All I see is that he is encouraging the individual not be bound to limitations of any kind. Not to be inferior to any one or any entity. That means he is saying that we all should take charge to fly higher not only individually but collectively as humanity. I find that it strange that some people strongly believe in the religious boundaries and follow those strict boundaries yet like Alama Iqbal’s messages as well. Anyone straying from the rules of the religion can be called infidel and shunned, but when it comes to the politics of the sense of belonging things can become confusing.
It is always how one can politically choose interpretations of the knowledge as we understand it. The difference is not in the knowledge, it is in the interpretation of the individual or even as a groups so the story of our conflicts in religious beliefs even sects of religions begins.
Anyway my interpretation is that a poet stands against the limitations of the individual which I whole heartedly believe in. God needs individual’s reciprocation not to help God but to help humanity to evolve.
My logic is, if I feel that God is doing everything for me, I should in appreciation be bowing down and be subservient and meaningless without any self- esteem. What does it do to me personally? That means that if I don’t take responsibility for my actions then I don’t need to excel and evolve because things are done by God and everything is as it meant to be. All I have to do as my duty is to pray and fast, otherwise I am a sinner and I should always ask for forgiveness so I can go to heaven after I die. Personally, I feel it clips the wings of not only the ordinary individual, it also makes the whole humanity stop the evolutionary processes. They are robbed of self-esteem so they can be controlled by the governing authorities in their living years. They even want us all to live with the greed of heaven and fear of hell. When a group of people itself believes that, not to fly to their potential heights they can fly. Potentially it has the potential to keep all humanity behind with their clipped wings. Where did this wing clipping come from? It sure did not come from God! Just look at the human body’s abilities to heal itself, grow bigger muscles, adopt to changes not only climate as well as surviving on less or more food.We get a stronger immune system from certain infections and on and on we are discovering something new daily.
If you still don’t believe that God has not done his Godly job, politically your wings have been clipped so learn to regrow them and evolve. It is not only your personal responsibility, it is a collective responsibility as well. Religions and politics of the sense of belonging has been holding you back with the carrot of Heaven or Hell. It even goes so far as to say you are going to burn in hell if you don’t listen to them or be subservient to their rules.
The ball is in your personal court. If you want to live a smaller life, do so, but remember it is your personal choice and it is not coming from God. It is from the politically tainted religions. Spiritually, you are directly connected to God which you should logically be able to solve all your self-esteem related issues.
Humanity is like a mother, father, community, nation or God, and an individual is like a child. As we grow up and are able to fly solo, our role in society changes to a care giver instead of a care receiver.
Parents or humanity as a whole should have strategies to raise their children to fly solo. They will learn to survive and help others to keep that natural balance of evolution. If everyone is in life for themselves or believe in dog eat dog business like politics they are destined to self destruct. From individual to the community level, humanity can’t or does not work without a spirituality related compassion.
If you look at child being raised with a business point of view, how much does it cost? You can’t see or feel your personal emotional needs being fulfilled if you raise your child using this method. A human individual is not just an intellectual entity, nor its a bundle of emotions exclusively. We are intertwined in such a way that we have to respect and create balance in both sides of the equation. We are the one who judge if we know God’s blessings being good and we are the one who suffers from the bad. If human beings are not there the judgment is not there, thus good and bad does not exist.
If you choose one, you choose extreme and remember extreme always brings consequences. From personal sufferings to our politics related religious wars or bad relationships with our loved ones and everything in between. Remember as a mortal we just can’t afford to live a miserable and unfulfilled life. We should at least try as an individual to become moderate in our choices because of our mortality. A life fully lived in extreme can’t be fulfilling so we need to learn something from our mortal nature. In extreme we usually cross the lines to commit spiritual crimes against each other and being a spiritual entity with the memory this leaves scars on our soul. It is essential to leave room for evolution by not to being extremists. It can teach us to live a life without regrets so the departure is easier. When time comes you don’t want to go because you want to deal with your regrets but you do not have any time left.
A religious individual can believe blindly that every thing is a God’s will. As a spiritual being I believe in that as well but with my logical explanation to me personally.
First of all a belief system starts where our logical explanations fail us. Secondly we are an evolving entity so all human knowledge is subject to change with time that is related evolution. Becoming an extremist and fanatic or not believing in anything at all is the same thing. It may not make any sense to an atheist but if I can’t do anything without the oxygen which I have no control over. Logically that makes all my actions that I have been doing doing in my living years my responsibility. Sure I have my free will as well as a personal sense of justice and I am responsible for all of my actions but that should be to reciprocate in appreciation of all my blessings and to follow spiritual laws for the rest of my living years.
If I want to fly higher than what my wing span allows me to and then I should work hard to evolve and grow my wing span according to the requirements of the heights I want to fly. Evolution takes a study approach to adopt to the next level with the continuous pursuit. Since every human individual is equipped with all the tools, we can help the whole humanity to evolve, one individual at a time. If a controlling authority does not allow its individuals to pursue evolution, it is against the well being of humanity, period. Whether its coming from an authoritarian kingdom, dictatorship, religion, socialism, communism or even democracy, it is related with politics to keep the individual weak and vulnerable so they can be controlled.
At least as an individual we have to understand that if we don’t try to use our wit and physical abilities to progress, then we are making a choice. If we believe what we are told that God is going to do it for us individually we are not puling our share. This means that we are playing a role in clipping the wings of humanity. This does not mean I don’t believe in God. What I believe is that God had already done the Godly job by blessing me with a brain, a body and everything it requires, from oxygen to a healthy functioning body and everything in between. Now its up to me to forge ahead, excel and evolve. If I don’t, I am committing a spiritual crime calls kufraan-e- naimat.
If I choose to belong to a community and I choose to follow their traditions and customs which keep me from learning to use the God given blessings, they are standing in the way of evolution. They are not only limiting me to grow my wing span they are limiting the humanity I belong to.
When I look at the sufferings of humanity it tells me that we need to get the humanity working together so it can get its potential wing span. Today’s reality is that we just can’t live in a walled community. From global warming to our weapons of mass destruction, to internet related technologies and even space stations, they all point towards the evolved problems so they need evolved solutions. They can’t be dealt by one community living behind walls, it is like a big bird burring its head in the sand. Logically I just can’t see how man made walls can save a community from global warming related weather extreme or even from the weapons of mass destruction. We have to come out of our pigeon holes and help each other to solve today’s problems. My point is why people have to leave their loved ones and their countries to go to far lands, if you eradicate the reasons it can not only help in solving problems it helps humanity to grow its wing span to evolve according to our new problems. Before global warming related migration happens we need to understand that we individually need to grow the most needed compassion which human beings have been blessed from before birth, yet it has been suppressed by the politics of our sense of belonging to our groups.
Humanity should think like an organism, like a human body. If you hurt your foot, you take care of it, otherwise it can disturb the whole body with the pain and suffering, or worse if it is infected the damage can spread to cause permanent damage. With limping to imperfection of the body’s health you can’t just cut your foot off and say I would live in comfort without my foot. Humanity needs to survive, so before cutting the foot off, we need to try everything possible in our powers to survive with our feet intact.
If poverty and drought stricken areas can’t be helped, then infection is going to spread. It is not people, it is the poverty, hunger and insecurity, stupid! Just look around, we are making oil pipelines but we can’t provide water to the areas where people can’t survive without water. We can go to space but we can’t sit and join together to solve our problems, yet we still insist on building walls.
Humanity is not only limping, it is also infected with the politics of our sense of belonging to our groups. We are being taught that we should not care if people die of starvation! This is the time to remember that we are not only physically functioning bodies, we are spiritual creatures as well. We come ripped with compassion for others from before we were born. If we don’t nurture our nature, we individually suffer in our living years. We may suffer from depression to post traumatic stress as well as other mental health issues. We may have an unfulfilled and unhappy life which can be closely related to our not nurturing our spiritual side. Our group politics can create suffering to other human beings is largely to blame. We could try to understand the stress issues a war veteran coping and is suffering through. Religious leaders preach compassion, yet, could not keep themselves from the politics of sense of belonging. Imagine being a spirituality preacher deciding to create suffering to the opposing groups, even to the innocents. Look into the history books, not into the holy books, to see the atrocities committed by our religions.
If anybody holds back evolution, whether for religious, political or business purposes, they are working against the destiny of humanity. There is an individual destiny, there is group or national destiny,as well as religious destiny and then there is humanity’s destiny. Take a look back and see the evolution in all areas of humanity. Don’t forget dynasties of the past, we have a grave yard of them as well. Regardless of the powers, things change according to the time and we have to change according to the needs of humanity so we can survive in all kind of circumstances.
Standing in the way of humanity’s destiny is a spiritual crime. The one I said in Pakistani language, ” Kufraan-e- naimat”, means when you don’t use your knowledge to use God given blessings from within or around you. Whether you are an individual, a group, a nation, a religion or even humanity as a whole, if you don’t come up with the solutions of your problems regardless of the resources you are not flying with your full potential. Always remember, it is all related with our politics which not only clips our wings collectively it makes us all spiritually bankrupt.
If you are living in any area where you can’t get out or are suffering and not doing anything about it you, need to learn about your responsibilities as an individual. If you are standing in the way of suffering people or causing sufferings you are committing spiritual crimes. If you are protecting your belonging groups, remember a spade is a spade so call it as it is. Doing things for your group is political and doing things to help humanity is spiritual. As an individual you must be the judge and use your personal sense of justice you received fro God since birth, use it!