HISTORY OF WITHOUTS

HISTORY OF WITHOUTS Barriers to Spirituality T HE proponents of the theory of evolution believe that the history of life on earth goes back millions of years. But historical records however indicate that the age of man on earth dates back hardly to 25,000 years. Looked at from the historical point of view, we find a great difference between the material and intellectual aspects of human life. That is, man has made tremendous progress in the material aspect of his life. However, even after tens of thousands of years man’s knowledge has failed to match the material progress. Man’s dream of material progress has largely been realized, but no worthwhile advances have been made in his intellectual and spiritual life. This issue has been dealt with by Dr. Alexis Carrel, in his book, Man, the Unknown, published in 1935. The truth is that a guideline is essential for progress. So far as the material or physical world is concerned, it contains a guideline within itself. This guideline, or the law of nature, can be discovered by experiment and the desired journey of progress can be continued. For instance, in the field of transport, in ancient times man use to travel on horses and camels. Then he made wheel carts; and later, he built ships, bicycles, motorcars, aircraft and rockets. For the making of all these vehicles, the guideline or laws of nature which were required, existed in the very materials used for this manufacture. But man, still remains an unknown entity. For instance, man is constantly conditioned from birth, by society. This conditioning becomes an obstacle to man's forming objective opinions. But this truth that man’s mind becomes conditioned was ascertained as late as the first quarter of the 20th century and that too only to a limited extent. Much on this subject still remained undiscovered. For instance, the fact that the conditioned mind could be ‘deconditioned’ and brought back to its natural state was unknown. The Quran being a book of God, its actual role is to provide trustworthy guidelines for man. This human need is alluded to in the Quran in the following verse: Man is constantly conditioned from birth by society. This conditioning becomes an obstacle to forming objective opinions.