Mystic Mantra: The quest for the divine

We can see the Divine in each speck of dust, but that doesn’t stop us from wiping it away with a wet sponge. The Divine doesn’t disappear; it’s transformed into the clean surface.
 —Paulo Coelho, The Witch Of Portobello 

When a man reaches the final destination of his life he realizes that the world is a vast limitless horizon that cannot be transcended and releases the truth of the infinity that is beyond his grasp. He is naturally drawn inward  and starts a self audit of his actions, the ones which he took and the others he missed, the weariness and the heartaches of misdoings as also the soothing and healing moments of his positive deeds  in his journey. He mulls over  the dreams and aspirations unfulfilled as also those that got realized. These ponderings give him a chance to peek into himself and discover whether life taught him any lessons or whether the mart of daily economic strife kept him down from higher spiritual peaks and kept him tethered to the quotidian concerns of life..  

It is like a traveler climbing a mountain. The higher he goes, the farther he sees. As a philosopher with faith both in science and in the beauty of God’s creations, Einstein taught us the greatest humility of all: that we are but a speck in an unfathomably large universe. The more we gain insights into its mysterious forces, cosmic and atomic, the more reason we have to be humble. The more we harness the huge power of these forces, the more we realize what a small speck we are on this vast planet. Einstein often invoked God, although his was a rather depersonalized deity. As he himself said, he believed in a “God who reveals himself in the harmony of all that exists.” A search for God’s design, he said, was “the source of all true art and science.” Although this quest may be a path towards attaining humility, it was also what gave meaning and dignity to our lives.

How much greater is the joy and sense of wonder and miracle when our spiritual eyes open to the endless gaze! The meaning we thought we had grasped now broadens. The gates are opened into new worlds. As we progress, newer and again newer worlds swim into our ken. The miracle deepens and almost completely absorbs us. There is no fault in God’s plan of the universe. Its alchemy is simply marvelous, with a unique and amazing harmony. Those who use their faculties well and follow God’s law naturally reap a harvest of exemplary rewards.

All these remind us that modern experiment of living without faith appears to have failed. As Goethe rightly said, “Epochs of faith are epochs of fruitfulness: but epochs of unbelief, however glittering, are barren of all permanent good.”

Dag Hammarskjöld, the former Secretary General of UN, warned against the scourge of pettiness that is devouring man, saying,”It is not sufficient to place yourself daily under God.’ “What really matters ‘,he believed” is to be only under God … the slightest deviation of allegiance opens the door to day-dreaming, petty conversation, petty boasting, and petty malice – all the petty satellites of the death instinct.”

Moin Qazi is a well-known banker, author and Islamic researcher. He can be reached at moinqazi123@gmail.com