I woke up in the morning, seeing beautiful scenery presented before me, the air so fresh blowing, the weather so invigorating, providing perfect time and ambience to reflect beyond what is perceived.
I brought my daughter to see, to feel and to capture the moment, as it is not something permanent, something which is rapidly passing, but could only be experienced with alertness of senses so that passing of time can feel long, for the innate character of time which is relative.
It is very interesting to see, an innocent, not knowing, fresh white silk, baby presented with such a vast, perfect design of nature, what could potentially go into her mind? Birds, ocean, sky, mountains, plants, could all of these mean anything to her? The response I observed was a moment of staring at something new and unseen before, inquisitive in character and then her attention shifted to other things around, back to playing!
Such is the beginning of us all. We started from not knowing and things were thought to us by bimodal means, internal and external. Internal is the development of our neuronal networks in the different areas of the brains and sensory modalities as well as spiritual connection which is related to our heart while external is the world that is presented to us to induce and stimulate our internal faculties. The interesting bit is that the development of internal faculties is very dependent on stimulation from the external, the world. Similarly, the development and advancement in this world and the way we develop and maintain our lives would also be dependent and influenced by the extent to which our internal faculties develop.
In Denver's Development Milestone, we learn how a baby develops through the milestones. From crying, smelling and hearing to recognition of familiarity through senses, movement of gross motors, transferring objects passing the middle line, rolling over, crawling, kneeling, standing, walking and so on. All these are measured physical development as a manifestation of neuronal development. A busy process of new synapses formation and synaptic pruning occurred every seconds with several growth spurts throughout the course.
One of the capabilities which is very important and serve as the door to knowing, perceiving, and our dynamic worldview is observation and synthesis of our sensory perceptions. The other capability which is also crucial is an inquisitive mind. The sensory development allows the unknown to be seen, felt, heard, touched, tasted, smelled. The problem is that the sensations we perceive may be interpreted or non-interpreted in so many ways. Hence, there is a gap between sensory modalities, the information we get and what it really means. The development of internal faculties, stimulation from external environment leave within the human being a gap in perceiving what the design around really means.
Such has left human being rooms to interpret the world as they experience it, to test from observation and confirm from reproducible results from experiments. Regular patterns recognised and known as laws/principles and we understand, there are certain things which are principles and they are universal. There are certain things which are theories and hypotheses that may or may not produce the same results when tested again and again. The body of knowledge develops through this process and transferred from generation to generation.
Such interactions between the bimodal means created varieties and it is meant to be so by Allah SWT. It is very clearly mentioned in the Al-Quran that He created human being in different tribes so they can learn on each other. Different geographical context, different thought processes, deriving different knowledge, culture, arts ,etc.It comes back to the concept of unknown: something we have not seen ourselves but seen by others might mean to us differently compared with people who have the knowledge that has been tested across generations.
The design of internal faculties and external environment also leave human being with multiple beliefs and religions and this is also intended by Allah as He mentioned that if He so willed, He could make all of human being believers.
From Islamic perspective, we understand while there are these varieties, there is a thing while it is left to human faculties and the Book of Nature for us to read, the two gifts will never be able to answer it and for which reason Messengers are sent from generation to generation. The very question of the purpose of life, who we are, is something that only the Creator, Allah SWT can lead us so that this journey of interactions between the two gifts will all fall into place. When this occurs, the other layer of knowledge is then opened, to see beyond what is seen, to read beyond what is readable, to understand beyond what is heard rooted in the right angle from which we project our journey of life.
I looked back at my daughter, knowing that she has already started her journey, with interaction between internal faculties and the Book of the World, with knowledge and education will she learn more and more of what she saw today, adding meaning to her life. What would be important is to teach her the Book of Signs( Al-Quran) so that interaction occurs between the Book of Signs and Book of the World so life is projected from the right angle.
It is verily true that Allah SWT teaches human being things they don't know, and the way to learn from this knowledge hidden in this Book of World is to start with His name to open another perspective, to see beyond what is seen, understand beyond what is presented, verily there must be a Creator who is beautiful and loves what is beautiful, for which reason this beauty is presented to us so that beauty is also implemented and applied in our life.
-Reflection from Coromandel, NZ-11.00 am, 2nd March 2015
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