Page 171 - Quranic Wisdom - New.indd

Quranic Wisdom

The source of that spiritual food is thinking or contemplation.
Moreover, one should develop the habit of not taking things at
face value. The deeper aspect of things must be gone into so
that their inner meaning may be discovered. This requires an
uninterrupted intellectual process.
The individual must keep his mind alive every day and every
night. When he studies a book, when he observes a scene, when
he is confronted by a historical event, he must properly activate
his mental faculties in order to learn some spiritual lesson from
it. He must endeavour to turn his experiences into meaningful
lessons.

Men and animals both have experiences of different kinds
each day and night, but the difference is that animals take them
at face value and are unaware of the need to discover their deeper
meaning.

To keep spirituality alive, spiritual food is at all
times a necessity. The source of that spiritual food is
thinking or contemplation.

But man has the capacity for what is called ‘conceptual
thought’. Man can penetrate to the deeper aspect of things,
and then learn from them hidden lessons. This difference is
very important. Those who fail to take lessons from experience,
be they men or women, are reducing themselves to the level of
animals.
Spirituality is a requirement of man: animals have no such
requirement. Animals can live without spirituality, but man
cannot. Man cannot afford to deprive himself of spirituality.
It is in man’s own interests to keep his mind alive, so that he
may not lose any opportunity to learn spiritual lessons from the
happenings of life.

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