I greet you on the eve of the New Year. The year that is coming to an end had many
ugly scars on its face. Let us hope and pray that the new year will be free from such
ugly burns and sores.
This is the last lecture of the year. Let us pray in all solemnity that the new year
may bring in its wake happiness and joy.
People want shelter. They want safety and security, which are the requisites of
better living. Better living depends to a great degree on moral and spiritual
development.
So long as a person is burning himself in the fire which he has himself kindled, he
cannot enjoy the bliss of peace and tranquillity.
The fire of malice, envy, and hatred, once it engulfs a person, does not allow him to
fulfill the legitimate demands of better living.
Regionalism and casteism pose a threat to the harmonious working of society.
Communalism and racism divide mankind. Fanaticism is alien to toleration. It is the
negation of social justice.
Let people come close to each other. Let there be mutual understanding and good
will.
Everybody is capable of giving something to others. Let them then at least give a
smile, signifying their greetings and their good wishes.
Why should people hate instead of loving. The strife and differences between
people professing different religions and creeds, and belonging to different races and
regions, land people in misery and abject living.
Hatred may be due to rancour or malice or both. Rancour and malice lead to hatred.
Hatred, in some cases, may be due to a superiority complex. It may also be due in
some cases to jealousy and envy.
Grave social inequality leads to class struggle, resulting in hatred. Mutual strife and
hatred may also be due to poverty. It may also be due to lack of equal opportunities.
Sometimes communal and and caste differences are exploited leading to mutual
hatred, violence, and riots.
Feudal attitudes and illiteracy divide people on a scale and in a way that makes
people begin to hate, resulting in the fragmentation of society.
Political parties pursue their own ideology, which may isolate and divide people.
Sometimes their ill-conceived policy leads to mutual strife and and mutual hatred.
Sometimes it so happens that a tense situation is not properly controlled. The
unscrupulous manipulation of the situation casts grave doubts on the sincerity of
those dealing with the situation.
Fanaticism and orthodoxy survive as an age old division.
Casteism, communalism, racism and regionalism lead to disunity in diversity.
What is urgently required is that we revive and change our attitude towards the day
to day problems challenging our society. Unity is an imperative necessity for the
survival, progress and prosperity for any multi-religious, multiracial and
multi-lingual country.
A judicious political management is called for. Social management to tackle the
emerging problems is required.
Compromise and conciliation are signs of mature wisdom and of mutual
understanding, mutual trust, and mutual good will.
Instead of hating, it is better to ignore the person who is the target of one's hate.
Do not punish yourself by being engaged in hating. Never speak of a person whom
you don't like.
Hatred is meanness of heart.
Hatred is active dislike.
Envy is passive dislike.
Malice robs our mind of peace.
Hatred makes us uneasy.
Envy leads to hate.
Malice shouts and hatred shows signs of restlessness.
Hatred is a vice which afflicts narrow souls.
Hatred is a slow poison.
It is not the mark of a gentleman to hate anyone, whomsoever he may be. Vices
must be disliked, but the person should not be hated on that account. Instead of
hating the person, the injustice should be disapproved of.
Intolerance, cruelty, oppression, pride, vanity, the show of force, extravagance,
ostentation, show, and vices like drinking, gambling, and the use of intoxicating
drugs should be condemned.
As opposed to hatred love is a cementing force. It unites people. The spirit of love
should be cultivated. Love like spiritual attainments should be developed. Love
demands that we should pray for all irrespective of caste affiliation, colour,
community, race, region and religion.
Love is a fellowship - in prosperity and adversity. Love points out what is good
beautiful and sublime.
In order to love try to understand the people. It is good to believe the best.
Human dignity demands due respect and veneration.
Instead of hating, we must try to understand people. We must pay due attention to
the problems of people. We must study their view point. We should try to know
their background. We should try to find out whether a person is under some
pressure, or whether he is under fear and is afraid of expressing himself.
Let us also try to find out factors in the environment which may have moulded their
outlook. The study of the person's home background may reveal their past. Their
parentage may disclose their family traditions, likes and dislikes.
In order to love a person we should not judge them, but we should be sympathetic to
that person, sharing his joys and sorrows and trying to solve his problems and
difficulties by giving him advice, suggestion and spiritual, moral and financial help
if need be.
Personal interest in the life of someone creates love. Helping a person to achieve
what they want to achieve, creates mutual love. A word of hope and encouragement
sometimes serves as a ray of sunshine in the life of that person. who is depressed
and despondent.
As we need love, affection, and attention, likewise we should give love to others.
We should not be self centered, egoistic, and selfish, but altruistic, helping and
loving.
People do not like to be criticised. Then why criticise them? Whatever you wish for
yourself, give the same to others. Give something to others if you can. Do not try to
get but also try to give. If you get then give. if you give then you get. There is a
reciprocal law operating.
To make fun of people is to hurt their sentiments. It alienates people. A joke need
not be enjoyed at the expense of others.
To take a superior attitude is to assume superiority complex. It hinders the overflow
of love.
Do not belittle the importance of others.
Sarcastic remarks lead to disunity.
Joking, laughing and making fun of people leads to confrontation instead of
cooperation.
Negative criticism leads nowhere. Constructive criticism based on love yields
positive results.
Sometimes it so happens that success in life without love makes a person lose the
balance of their mind. They become critical, arrogant and proud.
Love has inherent power. When a person comes to realise love in his heart, his
whole life pattern is changed. He is not the same man again. What is required is a
personal revolution. Inner revolution changes a man to the extent that nothing else
can. There should be a complete revolution in our daily life, and in our approach to
life and its problems. Our worship, our prayer and our thanksgiving should evoke
the sentiment of love.
Connotation should be replaced by devotion. Our devotion and our submission
should make us self disciplined.
Spiritual honesty is the need of the hour. An unceasing war should be declared on
spiritual self deception.
Any semblance of unreality, confusion and frustration should be totally effaced and
erased. Let us then declare war on spiritual poverty.*
Let us avoid self deception. Let us shun self conceit. Let us make no compromise
with arrogance.
If you do not like a man, do not hate him. Instead of hating him the best way is to
have nothing to do with him.
If you cannot forgive then at least forget. Forget the injustice done to you. But
remember the favour conferred on you.
Man has a complex nature. he exhibits different moods at different times. He loves,
he hates and he has his own likes and dislikes.
Man is given reason but sometimes he is guided and led by impulse and emotions,
resulting in ignoble actions.
Love constitutes the greatest pleasure of life.
if you love someone purely, warmly, sincerely, and diligently and with all your heart
then your love will expand and you will begin to love all irrespective of their caste
or colour.
What we love determines our life's parameters. We are thus shaped moulded and
fashioned.
Why believe in love at first sight? Let us believe in taking a second look.
If you are in search of happiness, then live well and love all.
Love is gift and true love is a gift of abiding value.
Love does not argue. It gives in abundance. love is total abandonment. it is neither
self possessed or prudent.
recently I had a very bad cough. I could not hide it from others. Likewise love
cannot remain hidden. Love is like a perfume. the smell of the perfume cannot be
hidden. The same applies to the smell of love.
Love leads to the purification of the heart.
Hated makes the heart unrefined.
Love makes a person noble, daring and courageous.
love makes a distant object appear nearer and larger.
The technique of love is seeing through a telescope.
Hatred magnifies objects revealing details invisible to the naked eye. Its way of
seeing is through a microscope.
Envy looks through the eye glass.
The heart of one who has love within is a paradise on earth.
Let us rise above the petty squabbles, ignoble feuds, and quarrels. Let us take a
wide view of the world at large. Let us build brick by brick a society that is free
from confrontation and hatred. Its guiding spirit is humanism, altruism and empathy.
We cannot survive if we live to hate and disown love.
Regional forces, communal passions, and class and caste distinctions lead to social
discontent, caused by the lopsided development of personality.
In order to save the world from impending catastrophe, it is urgently required that
people should rise above invidious distinctions of caste, creed, and colour and work
like a team to save and serve the depressed, the despondent, and the down-trodden.
The issue of social justice should be taken up. An unequivocal stand should be
taken for the good of all.
The love wave should serve as a channel or medium to start the process of uniting
people, as has been done by the mystics and Sufis. According to them bad thought
is worse than bad action.
Some necessary institutional changes should be made in the structure of society:-
this calls for harmony, catholicity, righteousness, respect for the dignity of man and
tolerance for his belief and faith.
The universal heritage of the inherent oneness of all should receive due recognition
and sober people should should work to make the ideal a reality. It should figure
prominently in any political agenda or in any social and economic planning.
Pride and prejudice are the negation of humanism.
Love is a great mystery and a great necessity. It is mysterious universal and
inevitable.
Love taken in a wide sense is the crowning grace of humanity.
Dr Zahurul Hassan Sharib
Sharib House, Jhalra, Ajmer.
Dec 1990.
Published on the Zahuri Sufi Website, October 8th 2003.
All copyrights reserved.
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