"Indeed, he prospers who purifies it. And indeed he fails who obscures it."
Quran 91:9-10
This brief passage is drawn from the 91st surah, al-Shams, here rendered as "The Sun." The "it" referenced here is, not surprisingly, the soul. In the related commentary from the Study Quran Nasr tells us, "Nonetheless, there is a subtle reciprocity in every step one takes toward God, for as 13:11 proclaims: Truly God alters not what is in a people until they alter what is in themselves. The literal meaning of purify (zakka) is 'to grow,' and according to most the literal meaning of obscure (dassa) is 'to bury.' These verses could thus be translated, 'He prospers who grows it, and he fails who buries it.'" In turn, this also reminds me of the famous line from the Sufi poet Rumi, "Everyone sees the Unseen in proportion to the clarity of their heart, and that depends upon how much has has polished it." (Nasr p. 1489) And this builds upon a hadith from the Prophet: "For everything there is a polish, and the polish for the heart is the remembrance of God." To me this all means that faith is a reflective process, but also an intensely active process. Essentially, you have to work at it. But, can you work at it so hard that the very effort is distracting? In Hinduism followers are warned against distracting passions and desires, and one of them is the desire for enlightenment. In Buddhism you find the term satori, or sudden enlightenment, which means, on one level, that you can work and work at finding enlightenment, but it's also likely to happen quietly and unexpectedly. A friend of mine is on a spiritual quest and all it seems to bring her is unhappiness. Yesterday she spent over an hour yesterday complaining about her religion of choice and asking how one is supposed to know the meaning of life. I think she's running so fast that she can't see the beauty of the quest and the world around her. I think the purity of the soul, or the clarity of the heart, have absolutely nothing to do with the outward trappings of religion, and everything to do with the quiet place inside all of us (maybe Marcus Aurelius's "peace of green fields").
Quran 91:9-10
This brief passage is drawn from the 91st surah, al-Shams, here rendered as "The Sun." The "it" referenced here is, not surprisingly, the soul. In the related commentary from the Study Quran Nasr tells us, "Nonetheless, there is a subtle reciprocity in every step one takes toward God, for as 13:11 proclaims: Truly God alters not what is in a people until they alter what is in themselves. The literal meaning of purify (zakka) is 'to grow,' and according to most the literal meaning of obscure (dassa) is 'to bury.' These verses could thus be translated, 'He prospers who grows it, and he fails who buries it.'" In turn, this also reminds me of the famous line from the Sufi poet Rumi, "Everyone sees the Unseen in proportion to the clarity of their heart, and that depends upon how much has has polished it." (Nasr p. 1489) And this builds upon a hadith from the Prophet: "For everything there is a polish, and the polish for the heart is the remembrance of God." To me this all means that faith is a reflective process, but also an intensely active process. Essentially, you have to work at it. But, can you work at it so hard that the very effort is distracting? In Hinduism followers are warned against distracting passions and desires, and one of them is the desire for enlightenment. In Buddhism you find the term satori, or sudden enlightenment, which means, on one level, that you can work and work at finding enlightenment, but it's also likely to happen quietly and unexpectedly. A friend of mine is on a spiritual quest and all it seems to bring her is unhappiness. Yesterday she spent over an hour yesterday complaining about her religion of choice and asking how one is supposed to know the meaning of life. I think she's running so fast that she can't see the beauty of the quest and the world around her. I think the purity of the soul, or the clarity of the heart, have absolutely nothing to do with the outward trappings of religion, and everything to do with the quiet place inside all of us (maybe Marcus Aurelius's "peace of green fields").
No comments:
Post a Comment