October 11, 2012

The power of good intention


In Maldives nowadays, we seldom have the space or hear voices for moderation. We are all so divided as a community. We find no TV programs or social forums by independently thinking people; sadly airtime is for political voices. Where have all these middle-of-the-path people gone? It’s the party political voices that seem to occupy all the social space -- office, family and the third-place time is all occupied by divided voices. So much so that, the moment a political party attempts now, even in sincerity, to advocate the goodness of a loving society, there is no trust to mindfully listen. No one seems to trust the other person - even within the same party!

How can we reduce this selfishness and bring in some love? Our NGOs, our middle of the path hopes for advocating social upliftment, are also money seeking entities. Actually, NGOs must be built on service to society, not with the objective of seeking a livelihood. Noble intentions are what drive the NGO cause and make them successful. There has to be something that we attempt to give to society. Not always seek to take. This positive mental alignment has a great bearing on what makes a good life happen -- that makes the universe tick and make what you wish for happen. We have heard of the law of attraction. It says that the universe cooperates with us to give us what we intend. Sadly this works for bad intentions also. That is why we have sad things happening to us as families, communities and as nations. Perhaps the confluence of negative thoughts, avarice, greed, hate and resentment magnify our national intention and manifest as the chaos we witness daily.

The only way out of this is to generate enough good intentions that can neutralize this wave of negative emotions that have pervaded our midst. How do we do this? The simple answer is that we need to build our relationships based on love and sharing rather than on fear, envy, and competition, and that can happen only if we can lose our ego. That intention must be like a skin that sticks to us. Have ourselves be constantly reminded of our role of goodness to our society and seek to see ourselves in others. But to get to this level of sublime thinking, we must make that categorical decision to move out of the chaos, and experience dedicated moments of silence, aloneness and prayer. We have to use our five moments in the day to get on that mat and think of our Creator and implore of Him to strengthen the conviction of this intention.

Then, when many individual sincere (Ihsaantheri) intentions coalesce into a mass movement of spiritual awakening, things will begin to improve. In a nation that is 100 percent Muslim and our Constitution based on the noble edicts of Islamic jurisprudence, there cannot be any holding back if only we take that step of steadfast intention. That power to ask is within us. May Allah bless us all and lift us out of this torrid dream of selfishness and help us build a loving society for our coming generations!  

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The people has shaped their own infrastructure (backyard) of their own society in such a way so vulnerable and hazardous that it itself started to bombard its contents from all directions which make it's people unbearable to cope and are at lose. They do not observe even for a while to the divine existence even though they wrap them selves like if they believe. The nation has become a materialist and dependent of a consumer society that its people and are killing each other slowly-silently.

Asit Nema said...

I appreciate your poignant views on the prevailing chaos. Perhaps the underlying factors are what fuel the unrestrained desire, anger, greed, attachment, arrogance and avarice. There is a chemistry behind it and also a separate chemistry to get rid of these human tendencies. Just like there is metallurgy of converting a lump of soil in to 24 carat gold, so similarly there is a science of making an individual into humane, loving, caring person. An individual has to go through that metallurgy before being considered equivalent to 24 carat material among the two legged species ! It can not be achieved just by the mode of reading and hearing of noble thoughts. Further, the burgeoning onslaught of electronic content from plethora of channels is also contributing to the increasing chaos in the human psyche.