An
Inevitable Awakening
Now Defies
and Defeats Slumber
Carlos
Cardoso Aveline
A map of the Middle East, with
a few surrounding countries
In the
Middle East as around the planet, the fundamental
contradiction in political life has long ceased to be the struggle between
left-wing and right-wing parties.
Apart from electoral schemes and propaganda
techniques, there are scarce differences in contemporary politics between leftist and rightist policies. The concept of “class struggle”, for instance,
which is central to left-right dichotomy, has been rarely used for
decades.
Besides, since Marxism got into a historical
“void” during the last quarter of 20th century, no philosophical view can be
found in most “progressive” grassroots movements. The notable exception to such
a philosophical desert is
environmentalism, which entirely transcends the old “left-right” divide. Deep
ecology is universal. [1]
The fundamental
contradiction, then, of the world today is not between left and right. And
it is not between different religions
or contrasting civilizatory traditions, either.
The internal conflict among Islamic nations and sects
themselves is as bloody as, if not bloodier than, the conflict between the Muslim
culture and the rest of humanity.
Every dogmatic religion is now living a sort of slow implosion. Each year, Catholic churches around the world turn
out to be emptier than previously. Dogmatic sectors of Judaism undergo a vivid ethical
decay, and lose influence. The cultural contrasts within the Jewish world are
too significant to be ignored. No one can say that the Jews stand united against
the Muslims, or - the other way
around - that the Muslims are united against the Jews.
The main divide or central contrast in society in the present moment is one that transcends
short term politics. It did not emerge
last week. It was pointed out by Kahlil Gibran in an article entitled “The New
Frontier” and first published in Arabic language, in 1925. Gibran was no stranger
to Universal ethics: his main work, “The Prophet”, is partly inspired by the
founder of the Baha’i faith, whose view of life has also many points in common
with classical theosophy. [2]
In the article “The New Frontier”, Gibran says:
“There are in the Middle East today two
challenging ideas: old and new. The old ideas will vanish because they are weak
and exhausted. There is in the Middle East an awakening that defies slumber.
This awakening will conquer because the sun is its leader and the dawn is its
army.”
He proceeds:
“There is on the horizon of the Middle
East a new awakening; it is growing and expanding; it is reaching and engulfing
all sensitive, intelligent souls; it is penetrating and gaining the sympathy of
noble hearts.” [3]
The new
frontier is the “invisible border” between a thoughtful open-mindedness and
blind fanaticism.
It is the contrast between a severe love of peace and a “sweet” love of death and war. It is the
subtle abyss between emotional attachment
to the sad aspects of the past, and a willingness
to build a better future.
There are two main pillars, in one of the various
doors to the next step in historical evolution. Intercultural harmony is one of
them. The other pillar is total severity as to terrorism and anti-Semitic
propaganda, which justifies it. Although
the second element is of decisive importance, the present article is not the
occasion to discuss it.
Regarding intercultural harmony, into the
extent that the Jewish-Arab friendship and cooperation gets stronger within
Israel and elsewhere, the propaganda war against the Jews will fade away. Hate,
fear and separativeness result when people do not think of their duties, first.
Peace occurs when people work and build and know that it is better not to lose
time with negative feelings. In his groundbreaking 1925 article, Gibran wrote:
“The Middle East, today, has two masters.
One is deciding, ordering, being obeyed; but he is at the point of death. But
the other one is silent in his conformity to law and order, calmly awaiting
justice; he is a powerful giant who knows his own strength, confident in his
existence and a believer in his destiny.”
Historical time is of course slower than
the timing of an individual. An evolutionary need usually takes several
generations to be attained, even after being clearly formulated. Almost one century after Gibran’s words, most political
parties are still myopic. They see but small isolated events. They don’t grasp the
wider process of life. Because political corporations are addicted to
mediocrity, their decay on ethical and philosophical grounds gets more evident
every day.
The new politics, whose historical need is shown by Gibran and
other humanistic thinkers, must be centered in the individual. Vigilant people abstain
from blindly following ideological-electoral bureaucracies or propaganda
machines. Only pioneers can change the world for the better. In January 1961, John
Kennedy said this famous sentence in his inaugural speech as President of the
United States:
“Ask not what your country can do for you,
but ask what you can do for your country.”
I do not know who wrote Kennedy’s
speech. In any case, the powerful axiom was
taken from Gibran’s article, which says:
“There are today, in the Middle East, two
men: one of the past and one of the future. Which one are you? Come close; let
me look at you and let me be assured by your appearance and conduct if you are
one of those coming into the light or going into the darkness. Come and tell me
who and what are you. Are you a
politician asking what your country can
do for you or a zealous one asking what
you can do for your country? If you are the first, then you are a
parasite; if the second, then you are an oasis in a desert.”
Indeed.
Regarding political leaders, Gibran asked
other questions:
“Are you a governor who denigrates himself
before those who appoint him and denigrates those whom he is to govern, who
never raises a hand unless it is to reach into pockets and who does not take a
step unless it is for greed? Or are you the faithful servant who serves only
the welfare of the people? If you are the first, then you are as a tare in the
threshing floor of the nations; and if the second, then you are a blessing upon
its granaries.”
Questions are often more important than
answers, because they stimulate one to think by oneself. Gibran uses his
Socratic sentences to examine the state of contemporary religions:
“Are you a religious leader, weaving for
your body a gown out of the ignorance of the people, fashioning a crown out of
the simplicity of their hearts and pretending to hate the devil merely to live
upon his income? Or are you a devout and a pious man who sees in the piety of
the individual the foundation for a progressive nation, and who can see through
a profound search in the depth of his own soul a ladder to the eternal soul
that directs the world? If you are the first, then you are a heretic, a
disbeliever in God even if you fast by day and pray by night. If you are the
second, then you are a violet in the garden of truth even though its fragrance
is lost upon the nostrils of humanity or whether its aroma rises into that rare
air where the fragrance of flowers is preserved.”
It is important to perceive and observe
human shortcomings.
However, criticizing mistakes is sometimes
useless, if one does not have a clear vision of a better future. Gibran did
have that vision, and he wrote:
“…The children of tomorrow are the ones
called by life, and they follow it with steady steps and heads high, they are
the dawn of new frontiers, no smoke will veil their eyes and no jingle of
chains will drown out their voices. They are few in number, but the difference
is as between a grain of wheat and a stack of hay.”
He goes on:
“No one knows them but they know each
other. They are like the summits, which can see or hear each other - not like
caves, which cannot hear or see. They are the seed dropped by the hand of God
in the field, breaking through its pod and waving its sapling leaves before the
face of the sun. It shall grow into a mighty tree, its root in the heart of the
earth and its branches high in the sky.”
The poetical use of the word “God” in the lines
above should not mislead us. In this,
too, Gibran is in accordance with the true esoteric philosophy. He knew that mankind
has created the various monotheistic Gods, rather than the opposite. [4]
The man-made character of “personal and
all-powerful Gods” explains Their perfectly human appearance and attitudes.
Realizing the fact that men created monotheistic Gods in their own images is
something of a great philosophical and religious significance.
Its sociological importance is also decisive,
for humanized monotheistic gods have been used during more than a few millennia
as excuses for wars and all kinds of cruelty. Adolf Hitler, for instance, was
never criticized by the Catholic and Lutheran representatives of God, in Germany and other countries, as long as
he had political and military power.
The ineffable G-d is a host of impersonal
deities (Elohim), whose names will not be
pronounced. They are far beyond the monotheistic creations made by men, and
cannot be manipulated or used as instruments of hatred and narrow-mindedness.
Indeed, according to Theosophy, nothing
divine can be fully expressed in words. It can only be hinted at.
Presenting the divine world through human
forms is at best a poetical expression not to be taken literally, and Rabbi Jonathan
Sacks, whose writings are in harmony with the worldview of theosophy, admits:
“All talk of God in the Bible is by way of
metaphor. God, the prophets tell us, is a king, a judge, a shepherd, a husband,
and many other images, each of which captures a fragment of the relationship
between heaven and earth while none expresses all. Undoubtedly, though, the
most powerful and consistent metaphor in the Bible is of God as a father. (…)
Sometimes the prophets, Isaiah especially, speak of God as a mother.”[5]
While the divine world is ineffable, universal
brotherhood constitutes an objective duty and a Law to be obeyed with stern
justice and discernment.
God as a
cultural creation constitutes a limited mirror reflecting the human search for
the divine. In fact, the transcendent nature of sacredness needs a universal mind to be understood. One’s
view must be larger than any particular description in words, and Jonathan
Sacks quotes from Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935):
“The narrow-mindedness that leads one to
see whatever is outside the bounds of one’s own people (…) as ugly and defiled
is a terrible darkness that causes general destruction to the entire edifice of
spiritual good, the light of which every refined soul hopes for.”[6]
Life is wider and deeper than any
explanation about it. The mysteries of birth and death should be enough to
teach us the need to constantly reexamine our thoughts and to question that
which we may think we know.
The afterlife is but one example among
others.
Theosophy, Eastern religions, the Jewish
Kabballah and the works of Kahlil Gibran all teach Reincarnation.[7] The transmigration of souls or
Jewish Gilgul means a periodical
change in one’s body, one’s soul, and one’s horizons.
Life recycles itself in unpredictable
ways, and all beings are brothers of different ages and epochs.
Gibran wrote:
“I love you, my brother, whoever you are -
whether you worship in your church, kneel in your temple, or pray in your
mosque. You and I are all children of one faith, for the divers paths of
religion are fingers of the loving hand of one Supreme Being, a hand extended to
all, offering completeness of spirit to all, eager to receive all.” [8]
The supreme being can be rightfully seen
as the One Law.
While there is no doubt that the Law of
the Universe has always been kind enough to all beings, it will be wise of us
to decide to do our best at all times, and to deserve, before desiring. By promoting interreligious peace and
defeating terror, the Middle East will both deserve and pave the way to a more
real and balanced connection to the divine realm, which is only possible when cultural
diversity is combined with mutual respect.
NOTES:
[1] The philosophy of nature preservation has no
single guide-book to follow; it teaches the inner unity of all life together with the need to respect its outward diversity.
The love of Nature embraces the main religious and mystical traditions,
discarding their outward dogmas and vestments. Although the ecological view of
life is correct, it remains marginal to conventional politics.
[2] On Gibran being influenced by Baha’i, see the article
“Collection of Kahlil Gibran manuscripts
donated to the Library”, published in the “Princeton Weekly Bulletin”,
Princeton University, for June 18, 2007. The Bulletin is available online.
[3] The full article was published in the September
2015 edition of “The Aquarian Theosophist”, pp. 11-14. It was previously included in the volume “A Third Treasury of Kahlil
Gibran”, edited and with an introduction by Andrew Dib Sherfan, The Citadel
Press, Secaucus, New Jersey, USA, 434 pp., copyright 1975, pp. 52-57. The
article “The New Frontier” is has been also published under the title of “The
New Deal”.
[4] “A
Third Treasury of Kahlil Gibran”, edited and with an introduction by Andrew Dib
Sherfan, pp. 97-98.
[5] “To
Heal a Fractured World”, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Schocken Books, New York, 2005,
280 pp., see p. 24.
[6] “To
Heal a Fractured World”, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Schocken Books, New York, 2005,
280 pp., see p. 10.
[7] “A
Third Treasury of Kahlil Gibran”, pp. 397-401.
[8] “A
Third Treasury of Kahlil Gibran”, p. 102.
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The
article “Kahlil Gibran on the Middle East” was first published on 16
April 2016 in our blog at “The Times of Israel”.
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