Saturday, January 1, 2011

Why Reflect?

We have been asked by the divine to think, to question and to ponder. A famous verse from the Koran to support this assertion is:

And it is He Who spread out the earth, and placed therein firm mountains and rivers and of every kind of fruits He made Zawjain Ithnaeen (two in pairs - or it may also mean: of two sorts, e.g. male and female, black and white, sweet and sour, small and big, etc.) He brings the night as a cover over the day.
Verily, in these things, there are Ayat (proofs, evidences, lessons, signs, etc.) for people who reflect. (Quran 13:3)

Reflect is the word that distinguishes between those who enjoy questioning and those whose minds are exempt from the noble task of thinking. Moreover, the reward of gaining the true understanding of the reality of the Creator is reserved for the former class of people.

And the noteworthy quote from the Albert Einstein that the Princeton University had long kept as their undergraduate admissions' essay question hides a similar meaning in its profoundness:

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.

These words of wisdom are not only the moral of Einstein's lifetime experiences but they also serve as a hint towards the goal of our life, the purpose of our existence. Perhaps I can seek assistance of an example here to illuminate my point.

This world has long been seen as the hunting ground for leadership. Imagine, two kingdoms with conflicting ideology and with comparable power. The two monarchs would find against one another only to pulverize the weaker or the unluckier one, and to gain absolute power. But what then, the king must ask himself, was this the goal of his existence. The competitor is dead, banished from the power and existence, ostracized from the public, demeaned in front of the crowd, and forgotten by the historians. There must be a greater meaning to this life, shouldn't there be, then to gain acknowledgement of his omnipotence? What about enlightening oneself spiritually, elevating the lifestyle and the intellectual status of humanity, realizing the marvels of this universe, acknowledging the greatness of its creator, and exploring the mode and the purpose of its creation.

After the power struggle has been surmounted, the winner would soon come to this realization that to succeed intellectually is the mission of ones' life. From this, I extract that the goal of my life is to study and to relate. With studying comes the openness of mind which in turn, induces logic in one's decision-making process and enhances the ability to reason the meaning of the happenings around us and to get in the habit of asking the most fundamental question, "Why?"

As the Larry King puts it in his latest televised episode of Larry King Live that his most frequently asked question over the 25 years life span of his most successful talk show was "Why?" because in its very nature, it begs a person to think before answering!

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