17th Century, Rene Descartes, a philosopher and mathematician outlined a clear distinction between one's mechanical body with it's thinking mind or what she called as the soul. The rise of many thinkers and philosophers in that particular century has given birth to the modern day psychology studies. Different from today's studies, psychology back then focuses on the difference between the body and mind - the study of the unconscious mind VS psychical reality, insanity VS genius, emotions, insights, intelligence, archetypes and the list goes on and on.
So when people defined the physical body, mind and soul - what they can actually conclude was only what they experienced and observed. Studies over studies, experiences over experience - lead to man made conclusions. Our logical mind will interpret repeating events as facts in which represent the limitation of our mind to provide semantics and understanding towards life's experiences. So why think when our mind has limitations?
Like explorers in the deep ocean, thinkers should understand their limitations and prepare accordingly. Prepare your oxygen tanks based on how deep you want to go. Prepare your suit based on the pressure that you will encounter. Prepare your equipments based on your objective. But even with all that, you will always need to stop, and get back to the surface. Ocean explorers need to have the abilities and capabilities to rise back to the surface, or they will risk dying in the waters - as their preparations and equipments loses their functionality over time. Everything has it's limit. Including our minds. The only difference is most divers will have their oxygen's level indicator as guidance, whereas most thinkers does not equip themselves with an 'indicator' to remind them. 'Hey, this is your mind's limit. You should stop now and re-think again'. And in result - make them 'drowned' in their own self-conclusion. Thinkers are not wanderers. Thinkers are explorers.
The search for God
For me, the minute that we can think straight, our mind genuinely look for the one thing that are above others - God. Who is He? Where is He? Is He Jesus? Is He the Sun? Is He A Mythical-like creature sitting on a pedestal? Is He up there in the space? Or down in the Ocean? The questions about God inflicted many events in our human history; the born of nations, cultural shift, war, life, death. It's in the very basic of human's natural instinct - to look for a greater power that started everything. People started looking - without thinking. They looked up at the skies and kneel down to a giant burning star. They looked at the stars and praised to each one of them as individual gods. They claimed the life of a person - and made him a god. Different concept of god has been put into placed - Oneness, Theism, Deism, Pantheism, Dystheism, and many more. Many also have concluded and acknowledged the concept of Atheism - a belief that rejected the concept of god.
The divinity of God in One Surah
Here I am, trying to talk about God in one page of blog - when God himself explained to us about this in a surah with only 4 verses. The beautiful Surah Al-Ikhlas from the noble Al-Quran. Read, understand and think. Be the judge of your belief:
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
One. The Eternal, Supreme Power - incomparable.
Thinkers - Rise Now.
I remember seeing the 'RISE' posters for the movie The Dark Night Rises (Batman). They inflicted a feeling of enthusiasm to wake up and challenge the problems (in the movie context, rise to fight Bane and the daughter of Ra's Al-Ghul). Maybe something have inflicted the mind of many today - to rise and questions their belief. People read, people think and make their own conclusions. That's how the mind works - in a shallow level. What these people lacks are the understanding of the conscious and unconsciousness. Many people think that they make decisions on their right mind - but what they don't realise that most of the time, their decisions are based on their unconsciousness. For example; we want to questions our religion by defining it as 'belief'. 'Belief' is what most people will used to describe their religion - unaware that the word is weak and can directly be challenged. A stronger, unbiased conclusion can be made if we define religion in a context of a stronger word, for example, by using the word 'faith'. Unconsciously, the term 'faith' is more complex to define and the process to diminish the religion is longer. Do take note that these are just examples, a metaphorical situation to explain how most of the time, perceptions and conclusions are made based on unbiased definition that we used - in this case when we define religion.
RISE now, but start with the right mind. Start thinking but don't jump into conclusions. Start slow and finish strong. For anyone out there that would like to start to question their belief, do consider below steps of preparation - Insyaallah your mind will be at peace to start questioning.
- Start with YOUR OWN FAITH. Not others. Master and define your religion first before starting to venture to other religions
- Understand the concept of divinity
- Explore what are the relations between God and time, space & matter
- Ask the right questions to the right people
- Your mind has it's limit. Know that. Seek guidance from the right people
So? You think you have the 'Thinker' spirit? Rise now.
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