Modern man always starts from the idea of his axiomatic innocence: he is not the cause of existence, he did not want the world, he did not create himself, and he is not responsible neither for his predispositions nor for the circumstances that actualise them; he cannot be culpable, which amounts to saying that he has unlimited rights. The consequences of such an attitude are evident: it opens the door to all the vices of human nature and unleashes the downward force of its fall; this is enough to prove it false.Every man who is injured in his elementary rights admits the existence of responsibility and culpability in others; he should therefore admit the possibility of culpability in himself; he should also recognise the existence of culpability as such, and so of guilt towards God. And such culpability incontestably exists, for every man freely does those things the responsibility for which he casts upon Heaven; every man, within the limits of his freedom, does what he reproaches God for having done in the universe. The opposite attitude is to ask pardon of God; the response, if one may put it thus, is that God asks pardon of man: this is salvation.
Spiritual contrition - the moral form of emptiness - has its full justification, not in the moral and relatively superficial idea of remorse, but in the essential nature of things, in our metaphysical knowledge of the universe and in the empirical consciousness of our destitution. God alone possesses Being; He alone is Plenitude; if man asks pardon of God, it is, in the final analysis, an order to conform to normative reality, or simply to truth; it is because man exists without being able to move the sun or create one grain of dust, because he usurps the existence that belongs to Him who creates and who orders the stars, because he desires and accomplishes this usurpation within the limits of his freedom and on the plane of his life.
The fear of God is not in any way a matter of feeling, any more than is the love of God; like love, which is the tendency of our whole being towards transcendent Reality, fear is an attitude of the intelligence and the will: it consists in taking account at every moment of a Reality which infinitely surpasses us, against which we can do nothing, in opposition to which we could not live, and from the teeth of which we cannot escape.
4 comments:
What inspires what you write about?
And where did you get the pictures from? Especially the one for your profile. Nice.
---kaypoh---
Hi "kaypoh",
Nothing specific inspires me. It could be a mundane 5 minutes of being stoned at the office and then suddenly a thought came to mind. Or during my journey home ... or during my accupuncture. Everything and anything inspires me - because all things are like the "apple which the king gave to his slave"
Alhamdulillah bro, now you can finally ventilate and let the world know what goes on in that mind of yours. A lot of people will stand to learn a lot from that :)
You know what, I've been thinking the last few days on this concept of each of us being here in this world for a blink of a second, but most of us not knowing this simple fact. Forget about most, I forget myself in the confusion of workplace. The signs are everywhere, that the nature of our existence and every little happiness, sorrow, enlightenment or dullness is but a momentary flicker. Sometimes I think about the life to come, which is eternal and where there is no concept of then, now and tomorrow, and then I think about now and it all seems so temporary. But live to the fullest we must in this temporary abode, by exerting fully the talents that God has bestowed upon us, and serve Him by letting others know of Him. But it's such a challenge to keep sight of the big picture at all times. That's the greater jihad, I would believe.
And in this momentary journey of life, my dear Hoopoe-friend (or should I say "hood-hood?), it's a joy to come across blogs such as this, full of chimology that actually makes sense. Happy writing.
Hi Brinjalees,
Yes finally, Alhamdulillah.
Perhaps a saying may put things in perspective:
"When you work in this world, imagine that you will live forever. When you do service for the hereafter, imagine that you will die soon thereafter"
That always helps right before I recite my takbir al-ihram during prayers and zap - it puts me immediately in a state of khusyuk.
In our daily work, plough even if a little, for the outcome may not reach in our lifetime, but the seedlings which we plant today, may one day, if God Wills, benefit our children in the future.
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