The path of success
We are asked to pray to be guided to the straight path. But how to know what is the right path? All the disputes of philosophies and creeds and all the clashes of ideologies are concerned with the definition of the right path. Let us analyse the concept a little closer. A path is that which leads to the destination; it is a means to the attainment of an end. Human life is realm of ends. At first sight it appears that human beings have innumerable ends and countless means for the attainment of those ends. But most of these ends are only derivatives from a few intrinsic values which are sought because of their self-evident goodness.
Plato formed the conception of a Supreme Good which should embody all the intrinsic values. Man is a finite being having the potentialities of infinity and therefore nothing partial, limited or fragmentary can give him complete satisfaction. The concept of the Right Path is a correlative of the idea of the Right End. We should have some idea of the object of life before we begin to look for the path or paths which would lead to it. The word life is used in two different meanings. We are material and animal structures subjects to the laws of self-preservation of these aspects.
Human like animals strives to maintain his organism. He wants food and protection from those elements that endangers his physical existence. If humans were merely a physical organism, the object of his life would be merely to maintain it in health and strength and the path that would lead to it would be the path of physical fitness. But that would not distinguish him from other animals. The distinguishing feature of the human is that he possesses a conscious, rational mind. The object of this life therefore, must be the development of his rationality and personality. If this rationality were only biological instrument in the struggle for physical existence it would give him no great advantage over other animals, because they accomplish by instinct in a more direct and more successful manner what he is able to do with only in a halting and clumsy way. The marvels of animal instincts are not even intelligible to human reason. The object and reason therefore could not be only an additional helping the maintenance of our biological existence.
Reason develops a life of its own which transcends our own physical needs. As Christ said: “although bread is necessary, ‘we do not live by bread alone”. The life of the spirit begins where the life of the body ends; we start to be humans when we have fulfilled our spiritual needs. As long as we are engaged in the satisfaction of our bodily needs only, we are classed with the animals and usually sink below them in the success achieved. As the Quran says of those who ignore the life of the spirit “They are as cattle, nay they are in worse error” 7:179 The two aspects of life can be harmonised by the subornation of the lower to the higher, not by annihilation of the lower. All great religions recognise this meaning of life. As Christ said: “He who pursues life in its physical aspect only, shall lose life in the higher aspect and he who is prepared to lose the lower life, shall attain the higher life.”
When the Quran contrasts higher with the lower life it usually uses the term life here and the life hereafter. But hereafter is not a temporal or spatial concept; it is a judgement values. The hereafter penetrates the life lived here and now, and the life here is a preparation for that. Islam believes in the survival of the human ego in time as well, but the higher and lower, here and the hereafter are determined by the type of life that is lived. The life of mere physical demands and animal urges has to be transcended in everyday living. When we pray to be rightly guided on the right path, it must the road towards the realisation of supra-physical values.
By looking at the lives of Men we can know the true meaning of success or failure. We revere only those who have succeeded in the higher sense. Example is the most effective teacher, therefore we are asked to fix our minds on the mode of life of those who have been blessed. Following in their footsteps we shall be following the right path for which we pray. Man wants to be blessed but he does not know where true blessedness lies. As Rumi says, everyone hankers after gold but there are a few who can distinguish gold from tinsel. All that glitters is not gold; so all that lures us, promising blessedness, does not fulfil the promise. After having pursued false clues we realize at the end that we have deviated from the goal of happiness, harmony and well-being.
