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And do not pursue that of which you have no knowledge. Indeed, the hearing, the sight and the heart - about all those will be questioned.
~ Surah Al-Isra, 17:36, The Quran, English translation accessible here.
03 May, 2015
It takes much effort and space to work out the full import of these excerpts. But one thing that can be said is that the immediate implication of trying to adopt them is that one is led to question views that one holds dearly. A questioning of a dearly-held view with a certain regularity leads to seeing limitations of that view. Seeing the limitations of that view, one is led to accomodate other views pertaining to the subject matter of that view. Accomodating other views leads one to ask: not all these views can be true at the same time. So is there a deeper view underlying all these view-points? Asking this question literally leads the mind to move to one plane higher-up from wherein these views appears as trees in the forest.
A mind can penetrate more easily one thing than a multitude of things. As a result, with a shorter set to look at the mind is more easily able to see whether the broader view is universal or contextual, truthful or untruthful, harmful or harmless and finally, significant or not significant. That is, in the ultimate analysis, is it worth one's time to devote more attention than is strictly necessary to a given view? If one is finally able to ascertain the 'real materiality' of a given view then the mind stops being very much interested in it. With loss of interest, the mind does not grasp at such a view. With this, a degree of self-consciousness with reference to that view arises. With arising of this self-consciousness, thoughtfulness with regard to application of that view arises. With this thoughtfulness, the mind is now free with reference to that view.
When this process can work its way through the other views then over a period of time, the mind automatically realizes that it was stressed not because of the inherent content and meaning of the views it held. That is, not because what it thought was necessarily good or bad about a particular view. But because of the way it grasped at certain views. It was this act of grasping which was the cause of stress: that is with ease of grasping, there was ease of breathing, ease of posture, ease of bodily stress and a much freer mind.
The starting point for such a process is: to question one by one every aspect that the mind is filled with today and to answer those questions based directly on one's own experiences and make efforts to accumulate more and more experiences that are necessary to resolve the questions. Without an attitude of questioning, we are all accidental and incidental by-products of our environments. And it should be borne in mind: that higher one's formal education, the more likely one is to be an even more ignorant, incidental and possibly harmful by-product of one's environment, steeped as one will be in the vanity of one's own supposed learning and leanings.
However, by no means do the these excerpts recommend the practice of 'questioning for the sake of questioning'. The questioning has to be purposeful. And the purpose is that: it is worth trying to improve the quality of one's own mind so that it is not a cause of its own stress. That is, it is not a dis-ease unto itself but is very much at ease with itself.
The temper that the these excerpts promote makes sense only with reference to such a purpose. How is a strong sense for such a purpose cultivated? Through a very preliminary sense of knowing what is categorically right and categorically wrong. That is through a sense of universal morality. In turn how is this developed? The answer to that too is within the excerpts quoted.
Ultimately, a process such as the above leads to only the first step: a firm conviction that one's present ways are incorrect and that the path to the correct way exists, can be seen to some extent and that one needs to make strenuous efforts to reach there. A conviction founded on direct contemplation provides a sure and permanent foundation. Conviction of all other kinds will have within itself an element of the unknown and by definition, an element of credulity however it be masked in highly analytical or rhetorical terms.
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