POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE SPIRITUALITY

of distractions and high thinking saves you from being the victim of negative experiences. Simple living and high thinking are a sine qua non of the spiritual culture. Positive spirituality is mentioned as follows in the Quran: “You are on the sublime character.” (68: 4). Sublime character is that character which is based on high thinking. If you read the Quran, you will find that it lays great emphasis on patience (39: 10), reconciliation (4: 128), forgiveness (42: 40), avoidance (7: 199) and contentment (4: 32). These teachings apparently seem to advocate passivity. But that is not so, for they embody great wisdom. The Quran tries to build that kind of mind which is able to manage all the affairs of life on the basis of spirituality. It is not passivity that is advocated but skill in the proper management of life’s problems. The purpose of this formula—indeed, the Quran’s greatest concern—is to concentrate on high goals and one who wants to achieve high goals has no option but to foster the aforementioned qualities. He has to try to effectively manage all undesirable situations. Otherwise, he will become preoccupied by trivial issues and will fail to continue his journey towards higher goals. In the chapter Al-Shams (The Sun) of the Quran, you will find these verses: “He who purifies it will indeed be successful, and he who corrupts it is sure to fail.” (91: 9-10). These Quranic verses refer to the importance of personality development, laying emphasis not on its physical but on its spiritual aspects. It is no exaggeration to say that this is the main theme of the Quran, personality development being its basic goal. What is purification of the soul? It is to purify your mind of all kinds of bias and negativity. In other words, it is to decondition your conditioning. This is the mind the Quran tries to build. One who fails in this de-conditioning process will become a corrupt or an unwanted personality in the divine scheme of things. Man’s personality is like an onion. An onion has a central core, but this core is covered by many layers. If you want to reach the core, you have to remove all these covers or layers. The same is true of the human being. A human personality is always subject to the process of conditioning, which wraps it up in many layers. The Quran tries to build that kind of mind which is able to manage all the affairs of life on the basis of spirituality. It is not passivity that is advocated but skill in the proper management of life’s problems.