According to the medieval scholar and philosopher, Al-Ghazali:
“Knowledge of self is the key to the knowledge of God… Some of thy attributes are those of animals, some of devils and some of angels, and thou hast to find out to which of these attributes are accidental and which essential. Till thou knowest this, thou canst not find out where thy real happiness lies. The occupation of animals is eating, sleeping and fighting; therefore, if thou art an animal, busy thyself in these things. Devils are busy in stirring up mischief, and in guile and deceit; if thou belongest to them, do their work. Angels contemplate the beauty of God, and are entirely free from animal qualities, if thou art of angelic nature, then strive towards thine origin, that thou mayest know and contemplate the Most High, and be delivered from the thraldom of lust and anger.” (from “The Alchemy of Happiness”)
Based on the views in the above paragraph, do you believe that our purpose in life is to:
- Elevate ourselves from the status of an animal/devil to that of an angel?
or
- Attempt to maintain the status of an angel while trying to subdue the lesser attributes?
Re: The Knowledge of Self (according to Al-Ghazali)
I interpret this as do your duty. If you are an animal do what an animal does. If a devil do devils work. If an angel do what angels do.
Gita teaches something similar. Do your Dharma, your duty. And don't worry abt fruits of ur labor.
The Vedas and the Upanishads tell us God is within us. Your Self is Atman. Atman is God. Seek God by looking inward.
All this based on my very limited knowledge.
Re: The Knowledge of Self (according to Al-Ghazali)
It is true that we need to know things about ourselves before anything else because that is the starting point. What do we know when we are born? Absolutely nothing. We are stimulated by our senses to start learning and that learning takes years before we even know anything at all about ourselves.
As we develop with time we start interacting with other things within our own environment and that keeps expanding as we gain more and more knowledge and act on that knowledge. However we eventually come to a stage whereat we run out of our spectrum of learning ie there comes a stage beyond which we cannot go. In other words our brains and senses can only help us go so far. At this stage we still are not sure about our origin, our purpose of being here, how all this world came about and why it came to being or how it works and why it works the way it does?
Unless we have answer to these like questions we can never know ourselves or anything else and we cannot know answers to these questions unless we are provided with answers by some external source. This source has to be aware of all that is going on before our eyes so that it explains it to us for our verification so that we could trust the source about that which it is going to tell us beyond our verification. If a source cannot be trusted for what is verifiable then how can it be trusted for what is not verifiable?
This is where in comes idea of divine revelation. If this idea holds water then we must have some message from our creator and sustainer. If there is any then we must get to it and find out from the message information that we need and that should solve our puzzle and confusion.
As we open our eyes in this world, we are bombarded with claims about message from our creator and sustainer. All we need to do is study these allegedly divine scriptures properly and see if they can satisfy our curiosities or not.
If any does then we have reached our destination information and understanding wise but that is not enough till we do what we are told and fulfil the purpose for which we have been brought about.
The study of universe and scriptures is therefore key to knowing who we are and who our creator and sustainer is. I have explained this in my other posts.
Re: The Knowledge of Self (according to Al-Ghazali)
Both of your views and interpretations are interesting. Personally, I believe that Al-Ghazali's paragraph is telling us to ideally be "good": That personality wise, it is best to have angelic qualities by staying away from negative traits such as always fighting and constantly creating mischief. However, in order to have "peace of mind", we have to review and possibly regulate our behavior, so that when our minds are uncluttered and therefore sharper, it is easier to think clearly and be spiritual.
Re: The Knowledge of Self (according to Al-Ghazali)
After rereading I have to agree with you.