Let's Augment Our Vision And Imbibe The Spirit Of Humility And Enlightenment
By
Sumit Paul, New Age Islam
17 May 2022
Cognitive
Dissonance Happens Best In The Context Of Faith When You've A Moral Dilemma Of
An Agnostic Or A Sceptic As To Which Way Is Correct Or Incorrect
Main
Points:
1. Incompatibility
(dissonance) could happen when you do something that goes against a value
that’s important to you.
2. When you go
with a clear conscience and perspicuous
consciousness, you're no longer in the prison of religious conundrums.
3. There are
the Ayats or the astonishing signs of Allah for the people of today.
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A few days
ago, I mentioned a term 'cognitive dissonance' in my article, The Profundity of Arabic Language and Its Encapsulated Wisdom, on the profundity of Arabic tongue. One
'omniscient' bloke understood it partially and wrote a piece, " The Quran
and the Psychology of Human Behaviour." This very piece is a classic
manifestation of the Arabic maxim, " You teach best, what you need to
learn most."
Well,
before I descant upon this subject, I need to enumerate upon the term '
Cognitive Dissonance." Cognitive dissonance describes the discomfort
experienced when two cognitions are incompatible with each other. This
incompatibility (dissonance) could happen when you do something that goes
against a value that’s important to you. Or maybe you learn a new piece of
information that disagrees with a long-standing belief or opinion. Loosely
speaking, it's like 'Cognitive Dilemma' or ' Cognitive Dichotomy.' One must
read American philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel C Dennett's seminal
book, ' Consciousness Explained ' (1991). The author, who has no religion and
whose faith in god is cipher, writes that, " Cognitive Dissonance happens
best in the context of faith when you've a moral dilemma of an agnostic or a sceptic
as to which way is correct or incorrect. But when you go beyond that with
a clear conscience and perspicuous
consciousness, you're no longer in the prison of religious conundrums. Your
perceptions are lucid and you're a free individual and you've a Cognitive
Resonance in your personality. "
Coming back
to the 'polymath' writer's piece on the website of New Age Islam, he has tried
to create a picture as if those who deny god's infallible signs are outright
sinners, who suffer from Split Personality and Cognitive Dissonance. Got to
say, an absolutely imbecile perception! In fact, a (devout) believer's
worldview is blocked by his/her religious view/s. He or she tends to look at
the world from the perspective of his or her religious beliefs. Won't that be a
recipe for ' Cognitive Dissonance'? If the cataract of religiosity or religious
view is not removed, it may worsen into glaucoma and the person will be
completely blind.
Now it's
time to reread what he claimed: " It was beyond anyone’s imagination that
the Universe at one time was squeezed tightly together (to a size less than
that of an atomic sub-particle) before the expansion, or the idea that our
universe is forever expanding, or of the property of Time that it is relative
to the frame of reference of the observer, and, therefore, a cosmic day that
the Quran talks about, is not our 24 hour day, but could be one thousand, fifty
thousand or even hundreds of thousands of years, that the predominant component
of all living beings is water? These are the Ayats or the astonishing signs of
Allah for the people of today. Such Ayats are not to be found in any previous
scriptures. These Ayats not only provide evidence that the Quran is the word of
Allah but that Muhammad (pbuh) was a true prophet and not an impostor plagiarising
the previous Books as alleged by the enemies of Islam."
Alright.
The notion of the Ever-Expanding Universe is in the Quran along with the
relativity of time. But he's suffering from the Dutch philosopher Benedict
Spinoza's ' Error of Scriptural Monomania ' and the classic ' Misplaced
Uniqueness Syndrome.' Moreover, the Quranic Arabic word ' Musi'un ' ( 51:47)
may also mean ' expand, ' though it actually means ' vastness.' Isn't there a
difference between ' expand' and 'vastness'?
While the
former is forever in motion or flux, the latter is static. Remember, a
truckload of Quranic verses are too Mubham ( Arabic for obscure and
unclear). Anyway, let me ask Mr Na-sar, whether he has gone beyond his Islam
and its scriptures? Has he heard of the Upanishads and the Vedant? For his
knowledge, written down between c. 800 - c. 500 BCE for the first six
(Brhadaranyaka to Kena) with later dates for the last seven (Katha to
Mandukya), the predominant 13 Upanishads are considered the “end of the Vedas''
(Vedanta) in that they expand upon, explain, and develop the Vedic concepts
through narrative dialogues and, in so doing, encourage one to engage with said
concepts on a personal, spiritual level.
All primary
Upanishads dwell upon Consciousness (Chetna), Nature of Universe
(Brahmandasya Prakriti), The Relativity of Time (Samay-Saapekshvaad; Danish
Nobel laureate Neils Bohr went on to hint that his coeval Albert Einstein got a
vague idea of Time's Relativity from Upanishads).
All
Upanishads clearly state: Chetnam Brahamand iti vadante ASPHAALAN (The Universe
like Consciousness or vice versa is ever-evolving and expanding). Even
Ashwaghosh (despite being a Buddhist and not believing in esoteric mumbo-jumbo)
wrote in his Buddhacharita (early 2nd Century): AVIRAT Anant Seemaheenasya
Brahmaand Iti Paridhi Nimasya (It's a mixture of Pali and Sanskrit).
Sir Edwin
Arnold translated it into English in his brilliant book, ' The Light of Asia' :
Continuously expanding Universe whose centre is everywhere but circumference
nowhere! Where was Islam in the second century when the spiralling scope of
evolution, human consciousness and the universe were being discussed in the
Eastern or Oriental Consciousness? Chandogya and Taittiriya Upanishads,
imbibing the idea from earlier Upanishads, called Time: Samayheen Samay
Sapeksha (Time is not bound by worldly time).
Not only
that, this 'Daanishmand' writer should also delve into Zoroastrians (poor
people who were driven out of marauding Muslims from Iran a millennium ago) and
their holy books like Avesta and Zend Avesta, written in old Iranian which's
phonetically and semantically very similar to Vedic Sanskrit. In one of Gathas,
you come across: Soyen (Pahlavi or Old Iranian for 'Samay'-Time) sad Virtan
(Time is always relative) and Conain (later Konain in Arabic for Kayenaat) Phir
Aadan (Universe expands).
Moreover,
three earliest Upanishads also discussed the concept of Bahu-Brahmanandam (Brahmand
Ekam Kimva Anekam? ) which is now a possibility as cosmologists are of the
view that there's not ONE (Universe) but MULTIVERSES! Show me the concept of
MULTIVERSE in your book. And can you forget the recurrent refrain in Vedas
(particularly in Rig Veda, predating Islam): Jal Pratyek Jeevanasya
Apariharya Ghatakam (Water is an indispensable component to all lives)?
Here, my point is not casting aspersions on any one book. All are the same.
I've gone beyond that. Readers might be thinking that I'm quoting oriental
books.
So, I'm a
Hindu. Utter garbage! I'm a HUMAN who has studied all faiths but chose to stay
aloof and mind you, that's not my Cognitive Dissonance! Much before the Quran,
same things, even loftier ideas, were discussed, done and discarded as humans
advanced and evolved. But no punishment was decreed as the Megalomaniac Semitic
God, esp. the Allah like the god of Old Testament, frightens his slavish
followers with dire consequences and mindlessly orders the visiting Muhammad
(reference to Shab-e-Meraj, Night of Ascension) to tell the Ummah to offer
Namaz for 50 times a day! Muslims across the world should be eternally thankful
to Moses who persuaded Muhammad to bring it down to five times, sending him to
and fro to Allah. Imagine, had the benevolent Moses not intervened, Muslims
would have been offering Namaz 50 times a day! Only a Megalomaniac Allah can be
so narcissistic.
In short,
your Quran is not the exclusive one in proclaiming the timelessness of time and
the expansion of the Universe. Its Bhooto Na Bhaviyshate is seriously
under scrutiny.
Lastly,
'Can prayers help'? Indeed, they do help those who're lily-livered, god-fearing
and terribly helpless, not those who're EVOLVED, EMANCIPATED and ENLIGHTENED.
Neurologists have come to the conclusion that mentally strong and evolved
humans don't resort to prayers. Yours truly never prayed to any damn god. What
didn't he get in life? To quote my own couplet in Urdu, " Kashmakash-e-Imaano-Kufra
Se Aazaad Hoon Main/Ho Ke Munkir-e-Zaat Bahut Shaad Hoon Main." I needn't translate it into English.
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An
occasional columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul is a researcher in
comparative religions, with special reference to Islam. He has contributed
articles to world's premier publications in several languages including
Persian.
URL: https://newageislam.com/interfaith-dialogue/vision-spirit-humility-enlightenment/d/127025
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