The Pursuit of Happiness
Do we really know what we are looking
for?
Bismi’Llahir-Rahimir-Rahim
As-Salaamu ‘Alaykum wr wb
Whether
you reading this for the first time or you happened to be present at my recent
talk with Talisman Energy on August 9th, I hope you may find this
article useful, both professionally and personally.
What
is happiness?
The
most useful definition—and it's one agreed upon by neuroscientists,
psychiatrists, behavioral economists, positive psychologists, Philosophers as
well as religion—is more like satisfied or content than "happy" in
its strict bursting-with-glee sense. It has depth and deliberation to it. It
encompasses living a meaningful life, utilizing your gifts and your time,
living with thought and purpose.
Most
often happiness is a concept or word that we attach to “things,” things we
desire, things we wish for. This ensures the road to unhappiness.
All
things in the world perish, save His Face, Magnificent and Glorified. Thus says
the Holy Quran.
As
Muslims, we profess to believe that the Vision of God is the summit of human
felicity, because it is so stated in the Law; but with many this is just
lip-service which arouses no emotion in their hearts.
Conventionally,
the pursuit of happiness means no more than the pursuit of wealth and status as
embodied in a mansion, a Lexus, and membership in a country club. All of
these things are wonderful to have, but happiness brought about by things, are
temporary. They do not last. Do they?
I
invite all of you to search inside yourselves and ask do you really know what
you are looking for? It is most important that you differentiate the things you
desire such wealth, health etc, and true, ultimate happiness. So, where do we
go for answers?
The
answers that I have brought with me today, are from the past. A rich history of Islamic Philosophy and Mysticism
(Tasawwuuf) that I have been privileged to study. As a
professor of Islamic jurisprudence in Baghdad 's
Nizamiyyah College, Al-Ghazzali was considered one
of the leading minds of his day. All his life he had aimed to know
'the deep reality of things', and his mental powers had led him to eminence. He
was bestowed with the title of the “Proof of Islam.”
Imam Ghazzali was
asked, “Does money upset the hearts of learned men?”
He answered, "…men whose hearts are changed by money are not learned''
The
Alchemy of Happiness – Al-Kimia al- Sa'āda
Sa'āda (happiness) is a central concept in
Islamic philosophy used to describe the highest aim of human striving.
- Sa'āda is
considered to be part of the "ultimate happiness", namely that
of the hereafter.
- Only when a
human being has liberated his/her soul completely form its corporal
existence, and arrives at what is called "active intellect".
- Al-Ghazali
believed in practical-ethical perfection and that by exercising his
God-given capacity for reason man must be drawn to the spiritual alchemy that
transforms the soul from worldliness to complete devotion to God.
- This alone,
he believed could produce ultimate happiness.
- Ghazālī's
teachings were to help man to live a life in accordance with the sacred
law, and by doing so gain a deeper understanding of its meaning on the day
of Judgement
Kimiā (Alchemy) is an applied and mystical
science that has been studied for centuries.
- In its
essence, Kimiā represents a complete conception of the universe and
relations between earthly beings and the cosmos.
- Religious
philosophers emphasized its importance as a religious discipline.
- Due to its
spiritual dimensions Kimiā is considered the noblest of all occult
sciences (i.e. astrology and various kinds of magic).
- Ghazali was
himself a believer that everything on Earth is a manifestation of God’s
spirit, thus everything belongs to kimiā.
The
first four chapters follow the hadiths, or sayings of Muhammad, in making a
case for the impossibility of true happiness without a close relationship
to God.
It
has for nine centuries remained one of the great inspirational tracts of Islam.
Ghazzali
begins the book by stating the four elements in the metamorphosis that turns an
average person 'from an animal into an angel'. They include:
•
Knowledge of
self
•
Knowledge of
God
•
Knowledge of
the world as it really is
•
Knowledge of
the next world as it really is
I
have included 2 of these chapters here for this discussion.
Knowledge of self
- Ghazzali
draws attention to the simple fact that until we know something about
ourselves we cannot fulfill our potential.
- The key to
knowledge of the self is the heart - not the physical heart but the one
given us by God, which 'has come into this world as a traveler visits a
foreign country.and will presently return to its native land'.
- To lose our
heart in the things and concerns of this world is to forget our real
cosmic origins, whereas knowledge of the heart as given by God provides a
true awareness of who we are as God created us.
Knowledge
of God
- Ghazzali
refers to a line in the Koran: "Does it not occur to man that there
was a time when he was nothing?" Yet he notes that many refuse to
look for the real cause that brought them into creation.
- He likens a
physicist to an ant crawling across a piece of paper which, seeing letters
being written on to it, believes they are the work of a pen alone.
- A person
suffering from depression will be told a different cause for his ailment,
depending on who he sees; the physician and the astrologer will find
different causes. It does not occur to them that God may have given the
man the illness for a reason, and caused the conditions that led to his
dissatisfaction with the normal pleasures with life, in the hope that it
would draw him closer to God. There is always a real cause behind the
apparent ones, and that real cause is God's.
But
the larger message of The Alchemy of Happiness, whether you are
Muslim or not, is that genuine happiness comes from the knowledge that we are
creations of God, and have therefore been made for a purpose. Peace comes from
knowing that we are merely 'travelers in a foreign land', and will before long
return to an eternal paradise.
Such
is the “Alchemy of Happiness" that Al-Ghazzali brewed up for us and served
it in a small teacup, hot, steaming, and refreshing of our souls, if we but
take the cup into our hands and drink deeply.
I
would like to take this opportunity to share with you some lessons from my own
beloved teacher. May Allah be pleased
with him.
- God has
opened a gate in the middle of creation, and this gate of the world
towards God is man.
- This opening
is God’s invitation to look towards Him, to tend towards Him, to persevere
with regard to Him and to return to Him. (ilayhi raji’un)
- And this
enables us to understand why the gate shuts at death when it has been
scorned during life;
- for to be
man (insan) means nothing other than looking by looking beyond (this
world) and to pass through the gate.
- The notion
of Hell becomes perfectly clear when we think how senseless it is—and what
a waste and a suicide—to slip through the human state without being truly
man.
Subhana Rabbika Rabbi’l-izzati ‘amma
yasifuna wa salamun ‘ala’l-mursalin wa’l-hamdu li’Llahi Rabbi’l-alamin.
Was-Salaam and Thank you.
The Alchemy of Happiness by Imam Ghazzali, translated
into English by CLAUD FIELD, [1909]
