We live by three
inter-dependent things:- knowledge which depends on perception, values which
inform our motives and by action which requires ability. These are, or ought to
be, coordinated and harmonized by a centre of integration called a soul or an
“I”. The three do not have opposites. Falsehood is the absence of Truth.
Disability is the absence of ability or Power. Evil is the absence of Good. But
there are many degrees between the fullness and the absence.
A distinction is
made between various degrees of knowledge depending on the amount, analysis,
association, systematization, synthesis, evaluation and application of the data
of experience, illusions, hallucinations and delusions. All data has to be
interpreted by analysis, association with other data and within a framework of
a system. But it also has to be evaluated. That is, the function of things with
respect to the system to which they belong has to be understood and also to
human beings who seek the knowledge and are part of the greater system to which
all things belong. Human motives and values cannot be left out of consideration
because these determine what is sought and selected and how it is interpreted
and organized, and their actions that elicit the reactions, which become data.
The application of knowledge not only determines what is sought but itself
provides knowledge. There is a difference between philosophical, theoretical
and practical knowledge. The first is quite abstract and remote. The third is
useful and like all real things has a function in the cosmic evolutionary
scheme. The second lies between the first and second. Islam requires knowledge
that has practical application and does lead to practice. It, therefore,
involves all three faculties for perception, motive and action.
Illusions refer
to misinterpretation of things owing to insufficient data – they lie halfway
between truth and falsehood. Hallucinations refer to images in the mind which
are mistaken for external things. Delusions refer to systems of ideas that are
false because they do not refer to any real system and do not, therefore, have
a useful or beneficial result but do harm. That is, they create disability directly
or indirectly by preventing beneficial perceptions, motives or actions.
Religion used to
co-ordinate all thought, motive and action. But human activity has produced so
much data that it has outstripped human ability to deal with it. Life has
disintegrated into many separate departments and specialties. The sense of
unity is lost and so is the ability to co-ordinate. Religion is being abandoned
in modern days because it has been more effectively substituted in many ways by
the progress in Science, Technology, Political, Industrial and Civil
organizations, Legal Systems, Social and welfare services, Psychiatrists and by
Advisors and Counsellors of various kinds in the Media of Communications. There
is also much more to distract, entertain and occupy the mind than formerly. The
shrinking of the earth because of the development of transport, communications
and trade has made people inter-dependent. Not only are there now many
different religions competing for attention, but there is also a great
profusion of different ideas. But one of the greatest threats to Religion comes
from the advances in psychological research. There is no proof of God or the
after life and Religion is regarded as based on Delusions or even
hallucinations. All the reported religious experiences can be reproduced in
laboratories by electrical stimulation or chemical means.
But proof
depends on how things are interpreted and understood, on attitude, on opening
one’s inner eye, insight, consciousness, looking in the right direction and the
willingness to search and accept. It depends on motives and the actions taken
to seek and understand, and on the power of perception and understanding.
Alternatively one needs to study and understand what is being said. This takes
time.
Islam defines
Allah as the ultimate and fundamental self-existing Reality from which all
other things derive, including matter, energy, order, life and consciousness.
If He does not exist then nothing else does. Islam is “surrender to Allah” and
therefore, implies objective behaviour in thought, motive and action. Because
Allah is One, it also implies the seeking of Unity and Integration. As His
spirit is within us giving us consciousness, conscience and will, it makes us
Vicegerents. Islam, therefore, requires Self-realization on our part and gives
us Cosmic Responsibilities. A Prophet or Messenger is regarded as one who has a
higher consciousness and is, therefore, in greater contact with Reality. Islam
is, therefore, the very opposite of Delusion. Indeed, delusion, in the Quran,
is regarded as the normal state of ordinary man owing to the mental attachments
he forms to sense experiences, addictions and obsessions, fantasies and
rationalizations based on desires, likes and dislikes, and the faulty or
partial processing of data obtained through selective perception and partial
knowledge.
The Science of
Psychology has made sufficient progress even in the West to inform us that
there are all kinds of causes for refusing to see, understand and accept
things. There are rationalizations, fantasies, distortions, excuse making,
justifying ones own perversities, desires or weaknesses and so on. This applies
also to beliefs and this must be guarded against. To argue for or against
something on rational or logical grounds therefore seems like shallow naiveté.
The mind is selective in the data it admits and it organizes this according to
its desires, fantasies or prejudices. Rationalization means exactly this that
reason is used to reach the conclusions which are convenient for the person and
will serve his ego, comfort him or can be used for whatever his purposes might
be.
Critics,
however, tell us that psychological studies have shown that it is far easier
and common to "see" things that aren't there: Fantasies,
hallucinations, phobias, desires, longings, delusions, hypnosis, visions, and
patterns. Religious visions, as well as the so called "supernatural"
phenomena and many other similar conditions are easily and naturally explained
by such common mental disorders, by "short-circuits" or
"background noise". Religious experience and understanding comes
under conditions when the mental faculties are greatly reduced by repetitive
chanting, dancing, praying and other similar acts of worship, when one is in a
trance-like state and highly suggestible. This is also why such religious
rituals as repetitive praying, dancing, singing, preferably in a group which
produce external positive feedback, are so strongly supported by religions.
However, a little
knowledge about Psychology is insufficient as a basis for a correct Judgement,
but it may be convenient. Religious techniques, like knives or other
instruments, can be used for bad ends, but can also be used for good ends.
These techniques are not essentially different from those used in training for
anything else including the sciences, politics, business, industry, the
military etc. Hypnosis can make people see what is not there but also not see
what is there. Hypnosis is a widespread phenomenon. The educational system,
advertisements and propaganda, the media of communication, all institutions,
indeed the whole of culture produces hypnosis. But there is a difference in
aim. In religion the inner state of integration, stability, expansion of
consciousness, conscience and control, the actualization of potentialities is
more important. In secular systems the emphasis is in external application
usually for the purpose of increasing the wealth, power or prestige, usually of
the few, which of course ends when these individuals die; or for the sake of
social order and security or the physical welfare of people.
However, it is
true that religions have been high jacked throughout history by the ignorant
and stupid power seekers, fanatics, and hypocrites who wish to control and
regiment people for the formers own advantages. On the other hand, even the
knowledgeable and sincere when they get involved in worldly matters and crowd
hysterics, unless they are also wary and very able, will get corrupted by it or
will be forced to use the same methods. That is why spiritual or psychological
progress can only be very slow, requiring constant efforts to overcome the
lower, primitive animal nature.
But the critics
of religion are usually those who have never actually practiced any of its
techniques or understood them, but are more likely to be motivated by the wish
to find excuses to escape from a difficult discipline.
If a situation,
practice or technique causes abnormality, then this could either be
sub-normality or super-normality or simply a difference from the norm at the
same level. A state of disease is one that causes distress, debility,
non-adjustment or mal-adaptation to Reality. This is to be avoided. But the
norm produces mediocrity and stagnation. The progress of mankind depends on
those who depart from the norm. Evolution means that the few super-normal
multiply and become a separate group and may even replace the former norm.
It is not
possible to dismiss something as untrue or useless merely because it is in the
mind. (a) All the sciences are mental constructs. Who has seen the Theory of
Relativity with his senses? (b) Human beings create a number of things which
were originally only in their minds – novels, pieces of art, machinery and
instruments, houses, gardens, cities, farms, roads, telecommunication networks.
(c) There are deep psychological events which are common to groups of people, communities
or all humanity or even all animals and living things connected with the
evolutionary history. (d) Inner experiences may refer to the events at the
organic, nervous, cellular, chemical, atomic, electronic, and electromagnetic
or sub-quantum levels. The interpretation of these experiences may, of course
vary according to the conceptual systems used. (e) There are all kinds of
influences passing between people of which we are not normally aware, but these
are processed at the sub-conscious and unconscious levels and affect behaviour
and communication. (f) When you see an object, say the computer before you, the
light coming from it and the pressure because of touch etc., causes electrical
and chemical processes in the brain which results in certain images. Are these
hallucinations? (g) There are certainly different levels of consciousness from
coma, deep sleep, light sleep, reverie, hypnosis, waking consciousness,
concentrated consciousness, self-consciousness, objective consciousness, and we
may speak about Cosmic or Universal consciousness, at least as a theoretical
possibility.
The critic may
say that the difference between what is real or a hallucination can be verified
through experiments and observations. A hallucination is something that has no
objective basis.
But the question
is: How do you judge whether something is objective or not. You cannot perceive
anything that is not an affect on your consciousness.
If a person P1
sees an object O1, he has experience E1(O1) and names it N1, then if some other
person P2 uses that name then he supposes that he is referring to the same
object O1. But for P2 it refers to an experience E2(O1). The fact is that the
name (as heard or read), is also an experience. The words or names have
different connotations or meanings for them according to their different
experiences. For P1 it is E1(N1) and for P2 it is E2(N1). We must distinguish
between the name or word N, and its meaning, M. The Meaning of N1 for P1 is M1
and for P2 it is M2. M1 is different from M2.
Apart from this,
raw experiences are useless. They have to be processed by association,
analysis, abstraction of common elements and synthesis.
Obviously, the
decision whether something is real or not depends on the reinforcements created
by confirmation by (a) the repetition of the same experience, (b) corroboration
from other people (c) the self-consistency of the system in which the
experience forms multiple links.
If P1 sees
something, which P2 does not, then either (a) P2 is not looking where P2 is or
(b) P2 lacks the capacity to see, or (c) P1 has misinterpreted what he sees.
If a person sees
something which contradicts his own system of experiences or ideas then he will
himself doubt it, and this doubt will cause him to investigate further, to try
to confirm, amend or reject the experience, thereby restoring the
self-consistency of the system of experience. He will look again and again or
ask others. But there may be a set of people who agree with P1 and another who
agree with P2. In that case it can be concluded that there are two different
sets of people with different capacities for perception.
An ape might
suppose that the only thing real is that which it understands, while the whole
of human sciences and culture are so much delusions and hallucinations. One can
excuse the ape because it is less conscious than man. In a sense, of course,
the ape is right (Human beings have many delusions and fantasies and create Art
based on these), but this can only be discerned by a higher level human than
those who accept these as realities.
But it is
probably futile explaining further - people believe what they wish and
according to their capacities, even if they have to create barriers and censors
to form many different separate "complexes" of ideas each of which is
separate from the others. Therefore, though consistency is required within a
complex, there is no need for an overall self-consistency. Contradictory views
can then be entertained.
When scientists,
say in a nuclear physics laboratory, make experiments then these experiments
and their interpretation depends on the fact that they all have had the same
training, use the same concepts and do the same things in the same environment
and that is why when they agree this agreement is taken by them as truth.
It is not the
raw data but the interpretation which has importance.
The case with
people having religious experiences is the same. They do have the same
conceptual system, do the same things in the same kind of places or situations
and have the same kind of experiences. There is something held in common in all
religions, but the framework of reference or conceptual system in which they
interpret these experience do vary.
Facts, data, by
themselves are useless. It has to be evaluated, interpreted and organized. Indeed,
human beings create facts not only by inventing machines and instruments and by
organizing, but also by inventing concepts and systems. The theories of
Relativity and Evolution etc., are not objects given to the senses, but are
things apprehended by the intellect.
Although
millions of people have lived in the same world and, being human, have
something in common and their environments also have something in common, the
fact still remains that knowledge makes progress. The world as seen today by
science was not seen that way in the past, and there may well have been
different ways and even more sophisticated ways of seeing and interpreting the
world in the past.
We are,
therefore, concerned not only with increasing the amount and variety of the
data of experience, but also with its quality, interrelationship, function,
value and application, mainly with how things are understood and how they
facilitate adjustment to Reality.