In previous parts of
this article we have seen that human conscious is blessed with a unique quality
of ‘will to develop good or bad intention’ in response to stimuli coming to the
human conscious. It is this unique quality which distinguishes humans from
animals. 'Will to adopt good or bad intention' means human adopts good or bad intention consciously or knowing that it is a good or bad intention respectively. Human’s distinction is not that it has free will; free will is also
bestowed on animals. Human distinction is that it has free will with
responsibility to exercise ‘will to develop good or bad intention’; it is this
responsibility gained by the humans, which distinguishes humans from animals.
Humans exercise ‘will to develop good or bad intention’ in response to stimuli
coming to the human conscious. These stimuli are two types i.e. internal and external.
The internal stimuli include intellect, knowledge, skills, capabilities,
observations, experiences and above all emotions; all these stimuli are what
have become part of human conscious. The external stimuli include all what come
to human conscious from outside but have not yet become a part of human
conscious; these are relating to all social systems a human is subjected to in
his/her life. The external stimuli do not directly cause human’s will develop
good or bad intention’; external stimuli at the first stage become a part of
human conscious and impact human emotions (i.e. internal stimuli); the human
emotions, in turn at the second stage, cause human’s will to develop good or
bad intention. Similarly internal stimuli other than emotions do not directly
cause human’s will develop good or bad intention; such internal stimuli at the
first stage impact human emotions which, in turn at the second stage, cause
human’s will develop good or bad intention.
From the foregoing it
becomes clear that, in response to internal and external stimuli, ultimately
these are human emotions which lead human’s will to adopt a good or bad
intention. But, of course, human emotions (which are themselves internal
stimuli) are directly impacted by other internal stimuli which include
intellect, knowledge, skills, capabilities, observations, and experiences, and
are indirectly impacted by external stimuli through internal stimuli (because all external stimuli
are made part of human conscious as internal stimuli;. In
other words, in order to tame human emotions, external stimuli (which are
relating to social systems) and internal stimuli (which include intellect,
knowledge, skills, capabilities, observations and experiences) need to be
managed. In short, human’s will to develop good or bad intentions may be
trained by managing external and internal stimuli so that human will may be
enabled to adopt good intention in response to such internal and external
stimuli.
In order to manage
these internal and external stimuli, internal and external tools may be
employed so that all internal and external stimuli may be managed so as to
enable human’s will to adopt good intentions. It may be appreciated, because
all internal stimuli except human emotions are originally external stimuli which
are made part of human conscious as internal stimuli, therefore, except
emotions, all internal stimuli (e.g. intellect, knowledge, skills,
capabilities, observations and experiences) may be treated more properly as external
stimuli for the purpose of managing these stimuli. Therefore all stimuli which
are related to social systems including political, economic, administrative,
social and religious set ups, laws, customs, traditions, morals, ethics and
social practices, and which are related to intellect, knowledge, skills,
capabilities, observations and experiences all are to be managed through
external tools. The only stimuli to be managed through internal tools are human
emotions.
The training/ managing
of external stimuli may be done by formatting all these external stimuli in the
manner which may lead human emotions and consequently human’s will to develop
and adopt good intention. In other words all social, political, economic,
administrative and religious systems should be constructed in such a manner,
and imbued with such values, which may tame human emotions in such manner that the
human’s will may adopt good intention. Similarly, all laws, customs,
traditions, ethics and social practices should be formatted in such manner, and
imbued with such values, which may tame human emotions and consequently enable human
will to adopt good intention.
Similarly, internal
stimuli i.e. emotions may be trained/ managed by taming human emotions in such
manner which may lead ‘human will’ to adopt good intention. We have seen
already in the article http://secondriseofislam.blogspot.com/2012/06/racial-traits-and-spiritual-elevation.html#links
that these
human traits/emotions are neither good nor bad in their essence; it is the
human choice of the situations, and kind and magnitude of these traits/emotions
to manifest in those situations, which makes a human deed good or bad. A human
deed based on each kind of traits/emotions (e.g. love or hate, anger or lack of
anger, lust or lack of lust, courage or cowardliness etc) may be either good or
bad, depending upon the situation chosen and the magnitude of trait to display
in such situation. One way of training/taming human emotions is to develop and
enhance love for Allah. For details pls see the article http://secondriseofislam.blogspot.com/2012/02/love-basis-of-human-deeds.html.
Love for Allah may be enhanced through Meditation and Remembrance of Allah. In
this way, internal stimuli i.e. emotions may not only be trained through
internal tools like Remembrance of Allah and Meditation but also through external
tools discussed above. Emotions, in turn, impact human's will to develop good or bad intentions. 'Will to adopt good or bad intention' means human adopts good or bad intention consciously or knowing that it is a good or bad intention respectively.
Human's
'will to develop good or bad intention' may go along or against the emotions.
The real agency to develop good or bad intention is not internal or
external stimuli though these internal and external stimuli do impact
human's 'will to develop good or bad intention'; the real agency to adopt good
or bad intention is human's 'will to develop good or bad intention'. The human’s emotions may dictate good
intention to be developed by the human’s will OR human emotions may dictate bad intention to be developed by the human’s will. But human's will is not compelled to go along what the human emotions dictate (whether emotions dictate good intention or bad intention). If human’s will goes
against the emotions, it is called a state of coercion which seldom plays any role in individual matters, but plays frequent role in collective matters. In collective matters, coercion plays very important role to dictate people to develop good or bad intention. The collective systems/institutions play an important role in dictating people to go for good intention even if emotions dictate for bad intention. In this way devising of socio-politico-economic systems including all laws, customs,
traditions, ethics and social practices, on the one hand, help in taming/training emotions, and, on the other hand, help in forcing people to adopt good intention in social life, even if emotions are not sufficiently tamed/trained to lead human conscious to develop good intention.
We may conclude that
human conscious/ soul is not something metaphysical which cannot be tinkered
with by human beings. We can train our soul/conscious to enable it to develop
and adopt good intentions. We have already seen 'qalb' is actually human mind/brain. The soul is an entity; human conscious/mind is soul's qualities. Soul manifests its qualities through human brain which is tangible entity whereas conscious/mind is intangible like soul is an intangible entity. By tinkering with human brain, we can train our soul/conscious to enable it to develop and adopt good intention (concluded).
