Experiencing Higher Realms through Books

I too have felt that when you read and reflect on certain books, especially of religious, philosophical and metaphysical nature and even about science, astronomy or social sciences, you feel yourself to be in a different world. The mind seems to have escaped from the worldly surroundings and transferred into a much more beautiful and pure world... Its an amazing feeling that is a fruit of piety, personally speaking. For if i'm not in a good spiritual state, my heart would block the soul from "passing out"

Summation of Modern Man's Efforts

Source

i think to a significant extent (with all research and critiques in my head) the sum-total of modern man's efforts seems to be all about satisfying his "polymorphous perversity," i.e., total pursuit of pleasure; where suppression of it occurs only as a mean to get to something more pleasurable. More sophisticated form is egoism. The real disappointing part is his instance on being called civilized, whereas as per their own modern prophets this is the animal part, the most stupid part of human being, the id. God knows best...

Umer Toor.

Some reflections on Social Sciences in Pakistan

(This post is only in regard to Pakistan.)

Social sciences (SS) include as you know from pure philosophy, literature to techno-economics. I've not given any time trying to understand what differentiates it from physical sciences, after all psychology today take great pains to present itself as scientific, i can't pass a judgement over it having no working knowledge of it even.

The concern of this post is not to reflect on the definition of it, of which all of us considerable intuitive understanding. The concern is concerning the lack of concern about it in Pakistan. And given the fact that nobody reads this blog (except few special nobles), i face a dead end: i've to talk to myself. Talk to Pakistan's faux-liberal-elitists in academia and newspapers and they'd lament over Pakistanis not getting themselves trained in Western social sciences. Its not that concern i'm concerned about here, rather what Dr Asad Zaman, primarily a math-stats-economist from Ivy Leagues, argued in his paper Improving Social Sciences in Pakistan that in a post-positivist world Muslims have a great opportunity to offer world a perspective in nearly all major SS fields from economics to education. The reason for this is that we've not committed and invested in building SS based on rationalism and logical positivism, and that our religious tradition is still intact which is the fountain of all sciences concerning humanity, man, society, law and afterlife.

i just reiterated his position without adding anything to it, simply because this viewpoint is least heard in academic circles, and certainly doesn't resonate well with those trained in Western thought who cannot see anything beyond it. The second-hand commitment to falsehood of slaves can be more enduring than those of the leaders. This is exactly why Muslims have to be at the fore-fronts of all supposedly "secular/profane" fields of knowledge. (It's only the perspective and the methodology perhaps that makes it profane. For more clarification i should read S Hossein Nasr's Need for a Sacred Sciences, and chapter, "Profane and Sacred Science," in ReneGguenon's Crisis of the Modern World, download PDF)

On low perceptions about SS in Pakistan. Those who don't see anything more worthy than fruits of modern technology deny the importance of less or non-productive fields of knowledge like philosophy, literature, etc. They do not know that they themselves are the very product of some world-view and a combination (perhaps) of various SS ideas, ideologies, etc., of which they've no khabar (news). This is not to deny what Hamza Yusuf said that these modern universities are teaching many programs that are just fluff and cut from the cheapest cloth. This is a misery too. Nonetheless, one should not comment on something one has not understood, let alone mastered. I cannot express how often times i've been shook by power of SS world-view or even, an idea or a set of  ideas that shape and carve whole societies in a given direction, when adaptation of a different world-view or set of ideas could have driven them somewhere else. Where are you going? We must invoke this Qur'anic verse every time we do something, or even think.

And as for the greatest myth that hard social sciences (as opposed to some time-pass programs, if any) require less exertion and utilization of brain cells and hardship of soul: it's just plain wrong! Give them a 100 page scholarly book and see how they sweat...

What i need to be doing is to articulate in laymen terms the importance of major fields of SS of which i've little acquaintance...

And Allah knows best.

Punjabi Winter

(Lahore Canal. Source.)

This year, winter has invaded plains of Punjab like a real guerrilla force: conserving during the day, letting sun reign whilst at its cyclical twilight; and, attacking with fury at night, knocking out anyone who dares takes his head out of burdensome blankets. But now, just today, it unleashed its true colors. It destroyed its own mist, and washed all tinges of prejudice, confusion and murkiness from the face of the city through constant raining complemented with winds that makes the purification process much more intense and rigorous.

On a routine day. Weather is romantic and at the same time less troubling at afternoon. While the greenery hasn't left the corridors of trees, the breeze magnifies their beauty, whispering people to come out and enjoy the few gardens and parks Lahorites and others are blessed with.

It seems that the winter sends open invitation to everyone to come and walk with it, as if to warm it and reduce its own harshness, as if to hug it... inviting people to let loose their consumption of tea and coffee; again, to relish in the warm glory of preceding summer, teaching us continuity and the importance of complementing with the 'other'...

Throughout the year, i anticipate the lonely walks i'll walk during the cold of the day and at the night, with few around... It is a kind of spiritual retreat after so much meddling with humans in summer nights...

How advanced Eastern way of Life is

In Pakistan, by grace of Allah, population of villages is still much greater than of cities, although with much less basic necessities, health-care being top priority. This or few other deficiencies don't have to be part and parcel of villages at all. Nonetheless, overall village life and even of semi-Urbanite, non-cosmopolitan city-dwellers in Pakistan is liberating.

People like me, younger age with cell phones and internet, are becoming slaves of technology day by day, but we're still much more advanced in our human relations, in living a meaningful life devoid of avoidance & superficiality, and in being at ease with nature. Something Westerners - those who're baby-sit by TV and other visual and auditory devices - are very backward at. This is the point Nicholas Taleb makes, "The difference between technology and slavery is that slaves are fully aware that they are not free." In the end, it's all about freedom to be Archetypal, Primordial Human Being, true to our nature forged in the image of God.

The realization of this backwardness is not limited to outward observers - i.e., Asians or Africans or those few in West who still adore nature and its rawness. First, the movie Mr Lorax debunked the sterility of anti-nature and artificial living style of Western capitalism. Now, a high school in America is doing something about it: taking students on a 3 month term in a country-side region with no cell-phones, no Facebook and little internet. Please watch the video to feel how precious and advanced Eastern way of life really is.

(I blog at: Umer Toor Blog 2.)