Sweeping across the countries and trampling the man madeborders Corona virus is now gaining access into the fear centers of human mindas well. Calamity can come from anywhere; it can pop up from the bowels ofearth, descend from heavens as divine wrath or can be synthesized in a demoniclab. God knows from where this biological puzzle has sprouted among humans andlike a cursed mist it has spread around the globe and blurred the boundarybetween life and death.
Much has been said about this deadly virus and I shallrefrain from weaving any negative opinion against it for I am perceiving thiscalamity from a different facet. A philosophy it is to me besides a virus, forit has rendered all the nuclear assets and arrogance of mankind to dust, and forcedhumanity to rethink the norms of civilization. Whatever people found dear andindispensable to life is now banished into the lands of forbidden, and stilllife goes on. A lot of all that was excess is finding its way towards the exitand life is beckoned towards less and less. Had civilization lost herself inthe lands of superfluous and meaningless objects that actually weaned us fromhumanity? Had mankind dumped itself into the lowest of the low and laa(negation) is all that is needed from us to save ourselves? Is coronaquestioning our cultures and norms? Is this a divine jolt to wake up thehumanity from the slumber of ignorance and arrogance? All of it and much moreneed a patient thought and contemplation. Since this invisible RNA particle hasforced the crown of creation to retire into seclusion and think what wrong hashappened to us and the world. Let us make full use of this solitude and notindulge ourselves in futile activities.
History is full of such incidents where solitude has reaped great ideas and heroic acts. One such case is of the celebrated writer Henry David Thoreau. Between 1845 and 1847 Thoreau lived in a cabin he had built himself near walden pond. He moved in on July 4, 1845 – his own personal independence day. Often men asked him about his lonesomeness in the cabin to which he replied “what sort of space is that which separates a man from his fellows and makes him solitary? I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another. What do we want most to dwell near to?” Why he did keep himself aloof in woods? Why he stripped his life down to the barest of essentials and veiled himself from civilization? He did so to realize that divinity was present in nature and human soul. He abandoned all that was superfluous and dud and lived simple and blissful moments in that cabin. He deprived joy to his body to strengthen his soul. Prophet Muhammad (SAW) in the cave of Hira, Prophet Younis (AS) inside the body of a whale and the men of cave, all found mercy of Almighty in Solitude. Sometimes it is necessary to shun all that keeps you away from realizing your true self and solitude is the key to do it. We have assimilated so much of cacophony and clutter into our beings that we are in dire need of realizing what we actually need and what not. Solitude can be dangerous as well for if one can’t control his thought process, mind can wreak havoc on the body. Therefore, to gain benefit from solitude, a controlled thought process is a pre-requisite. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “man is what he thinks all day long.” Whatever thoughts, beliefs, opinions and theories we carve into our subconscious mind; it becomes a part of our personality and manifests through our being. Humans absorb too much into their beings like a sponge that wells up into our minds without realizing that it is becoming a part of us. Our sub conscious mind is a fertile land and ideas are seeds, whatever we sow shall become a tree. And the best part is that our conscious mind is the gardener and whatever we consciously think shall manifest in our body through the subconscious. So we must be very careful with our thoughts for they are the surest form of our identity and yes, more valid than our material bodies, as bodies return to dust but ideas find place in hearts and souls.
What is more valuable to us, the walls of a vessel or itsemptiness? Man too is essentially a hollow being and he must empty himself fromall that is dead and that plague his soul. The vices of lower self that stingthe soul and plague the humanity in a broader sense are but a veil between manand his vice-regent station. As MaulanaAttar said that lower self (nafs) can be bridled through silence, fast andsolitude. Realize what the essence is and what is superfluous. Realizing the laaof laa ilaa haa ilal laa (no god but God) is the beginning of spiritual journeyand spiritual awakening is nothing but arriving at this nothingness of beingthrough negation (laa) and then realizing ilalal laa, say sufis. Our silencesand solitude must be meaningful.