Levitating in Leisure
No one is the same person today that he or she was, say 10 years ago. We step up the career ladder, grow in relations, expand in business, transform from kids to adults, become the parents and grow from being seekers to self sufficient beings. The pace of progress may be different depending on how well or how not so well we capitalise the opportunities that life throws at us. Favorable or un-favorable circumstances in life can only get us close to or distant from the goals, nonetheless we can always reach them after a certain length of time, with little patience and endurance. The rich and poor may have to take slightly different courses to success.
The not so fortunate guys coming from downtrodden families have to consume a good part of their lives in making money. They first make money for themselves and then the money makes everything else for them. The rich on the other hand get a ready-to-live life since the day they are on earth. They hardly make any preparations for anything except for the examinations in school and college.
Therefore, though a poor boy and a rich boy may be equally smart and skilled but the latter has an added advantage of having enough resources to live life in a flexible mode. In general, the life affairs of rich people get settled down earlier and better than their poor contemporaries. Quite obviously they are also driven to leisure earlier than others. Leisure can turn us lazy and also throw us into luxury and enjoyment of all sorts.
The well-off guys literally carry out the money-time-exhaust activities to beat the boredom. However quite surprisingly some of them choose to go in search of real treasures of life that they believe they cease to have despite all riches. One of the foremost and classic examples would be that of Gautam Buddha. He was a young prince under 30 years of age who had a mighty kingdom before him with limitless opportunities of this world. But he stepped out silently and unnoticed in the darkness of night in search of truth and enlightenment. Gautum as we know, came from Kapilavastu. One can cherish the shared history of religions from the following lines of Iqbal.
Qaum ne pegham-e-gautum ki zara parwa na kii
Qadr pehchani na apne gauhar-e-yak dana kii
He further goes on to say
Brahman Sarshar hai abb tak mai-e-pindar mein
Shama-e-gautam jal rahi hai mehhfil-e-aghyar mein
Butkada phir baad muddat ke magar roshan huva
Noor-e-Ibrahim se Azar ka ghar roshan huva
The needy and weak people are easily drawn to God but for the rich there is no such calling in life. Thus, according to scriptures, being rich is to face a higher test on the spiritual plane than the poor and when rich people go in search of God, it is no less than a miracle of mind. It is a great sign of a great conscience. In that context, the story of seven sleeping saints is another shared treasure of guidance and wisdom in Islam and Christianity. The seven young and elite men who lived in the 3rd century chose to defy the self styled Gods of tyranny of their times. When the emperor Decius (249-251) arrived in Ephesus which is (modern-day Selçuk, Turkey), he commanded all the citizens to offer sacrifice to the pagan gods.
Torture and death awaited anyone who disobeyed. The seven youth had made the mathematical assumption that God is one without a second. They were denounced by informants, and were summoned to reply to the charges. To avoid persecution, they fled to the cave. They invited huge trouble for themselves only to restore the internal peace. How could it not be incumbent on their gracious Lord to come to their rescue. So HE placed these youth into a miraculous sleep lasting almost three centuries. In the meantime, the persecutions had ceased and as the youth woke up, they found a just social order had restored around them.
They did not have to fear for their faith any more. The verse 40 of chapter 22 of Quran explicitly mentions that, “Had Allah not repelled some people by means of some others, the monasteries, the churches, the synagogues and the mosques where the name of the Lord is recited abundantly would not have been there." HE has His own plans and manifestations.
According to the great thinking minds, like Einstein, there may or may not be a personal God, but there has to be a God of harmony and collective good. This is because, the Universe is gorgeous and in great order. It did not necessarily have to be that way. It could have been ugly, messy and chaotic. But it is not. We can also call it a coincidence but coincidence can be God's way of remaining anonymous, as per Einstein.
The people like Buddha and seven sleeping saints did not seek a personal God because their personal affairs were well in order and could have been more so if they chose to glorify them further. But they had gone out to seek the Lord of heavens.
As far as the pain and sufferings on the earth are concerned, one has to trust the process to see the dust settling down and the turbulence getting streamlined, bearing the fruits of patience in the end, some of them in the form of lessons of wisdom. As John Milton says, waiting faithfully in helpless situations is also an act of service to God. In other words, they also serve who only stand and wait. Another way could be the way of seven sleeping saints who rendered their best services to God by merely laying down and sleeping, hiding and seeking refuge from the world of anarchy and ignorance.
Dr. Qudsia Gani, Head, Department of Physics, GDC Pattan Baramulla
