Secrets And Mysteries: Introductory Note By Dr Allama Iqbal
Allama Iqbal on Creativity, Khudi and Free will – Secrets and Mysteries: Introductory Note by Dr Allama Iqbal
The moral and religious ideal of man is not self-negation but self-affirmation, and he attains to this ideal by becoming more and more individual, more and more unique.
The Prophet said, ‘Takhallaqu bi-akhlaq Allah,’ ‘Create in yourselves the attributes of Allah.’
Thus man becomes unique by becoming more and more like the most unique Individual.
What then is life? It is individual: its highest form, so far, is the ego (khudi) in which the individual becomes a self-contained exclusive centre.
Physically as well as spiritually man is a self-contained centre, but he is not yet a complete individual. The greater his distance from God, the less his individuality. He who comes nearest to God is the completest person.
Not that he is finally absorbed in God. On the contrary, he absorbs God into himself. The ego attains to freedom by the removal of all observations in its way. It is partly free, partly determined The true person not only absorbs the world of matter by mastering it; he absorbs God Himself into his ego by assimilating Divine attributes *.
Life is a forward assimilative movement. It removes all obstructions in its march by assimilating them. Its essence is the continual creation of desires and ideals, and for the purpose of its preservation and expansion it has invented or developed out of itself certain instruments, e.g., senses, intellect, etc., which help it to assimilate obstructions. The greatest obstacle in the way of life is matter, Nature; yet Nature is not evil, since it enables the inner powers of life to unfold themselves.
The ego and continuation of personality , and reaches fuller freedom by approaching the Individual, who is most free—God. In one word, life is an endeavour for freedom
* Maulana Rumi has very beautifully expressed this idea. The Prophet, when a little boy, was once lost in the desert. His nurse Halima was almost beside herself with grief but while roaming the desert in search of the boy she heard a voice saying:
‘Do not grieve he will not be lost to thee [Allah];
No, the whole world will be lost in him.’
The true individual cannot be lost in the world; it is the world that is lost in him. I go a step further and say, prefixing a new half-verse to a hemistich of
Rumi:
In his will that which God wills becomes lost;
‘How shall a man believe this saying?’”
According to the saying of the Prophet, ‘The true Faith is between predestination and free-will.’
