Translated from Kashmiri
by: Ameen Fayaz

By the end of the nineteenth century, a new branch of Zoology by the name of Phrenology was very popular (which dealt with the consciousness of organs). The objective of this branch was discussed as something that explores the question of how the different organs of the body have different functions, for example, gallbladder for despoil, liver for love, and heart for hope and fear, etc. However, this branch of Zoology was still in infancy when it was realised that its foundation was wrong and having any further discussion on the same would amount to mere waste of time, the reason being that human consciousness is linked with the nervous system in such a way and human feelings are so intricate and impact the human existence at the same time that we cannot say that one single organ in the body represents all the feelings. In the background of this discussion, a new branch of knowledge in Zoology came into being which surprised all people.
This new branch of Zoology was called Glandology. Before the advent of this new branch, glands in the human body were considered unnecessary parts of the human body. This unrecognised/unliked organ of the body all of a sudden became the object of research/knowledge as nature had assigned to this organ such functions in the human body without which the nervous system could hardly maintain itself. Although research/knowledge on the extraordinary function of glands is still in its infancy, yet the more research/ knowledge on the subject is gained, the more we come to know that this organ is in itself a universe about which knowledge/research would remain incomplete/in-progress for a long time to come. In fact, even it was said about glands that there existed in some gland a small power station which continues to function till the death of a man. The power station releases such currents which keep the nervous system of the human body active/alive, of whose central transformer is the human brain. How does this electric current influence the trillions of brain cells is not known yet. However, it has been assumed that when some day knowledge/research about brain cells evolves/progresses, we might come to know about this station. In this regard, the difficulty that scientists face even today is that before even dissecting one single cell of the brain, they find the other cells going on a strike, thereby causing the research to remain inconclusive. This intricate observation led scientists to one more discipline of knowledge/research called Cytology, wherein research/knowledge production about cells is going on in America and different parts of Europe. The research so far conducted/worked out in this field suggests even though a cell occupies negligible amount of space, yet each cell in the human body in collaboration with other cells creates/presents an altogether new universe. For example, apart from the cells of the brain, rest of the human body is also the composition of cells only, of which some cells continue to be functioning always, some after experiencing degeneration get rejuvenated after sleep, and some experience a total death altogether but produce new cells in their own place automatically.
In fact, after pondering on the system of cells in human body, one is led to this belief with all certainty that a human being continues to live despite many deaths taking place in his/her body and, similarly, continues to die despite being all the time alive. If a cell taken from an organ of the body is tested in a laboratory, particles, molecules and other aspects of the same would at every step of our research allow us to peep into one new world after the other. Even when we seriously consider a branch of Cytology called Cytogenetics, what we conclude is that before chromosomes we are not able to state at any place that we know anything. Above chromosomes are spread genes upon which stands the personality of every human being. Sometimes these genes without any rule or pattern remain concentrated on one chromosome, thereby causing such a revolution in the birth of a child which could be hardly explained by anybody. In other words, when we use a very special microscope to look into organic matter, what we are surprised to find is that sometimes we see the chromosomes and sometimes something called allele.
Any further research in Zoology beyond this point proves doubtful because the world of the nuclear membrane is either yet to be fully explored, or it exposes us to such a world where more than observation it is the mere assumption that works and which we cannot fully well explore/exposit despite the fact that it exists. When we expose/explore Allele, thereby rendering its disorganised and pattern-less dance on chromosomes into something with a pattern and order, no scientist in the world is still able to predict the same. It indicates that despite a lot of progress and advancement in research in biology, the Law of Uncertainty of physics becomes more and more certain when we further probe this question. In this way, biology and physics certainly state that our existence in this world keeps on undergoing changes and not for a second does it remain the same. This is the status of the organic part of human existence. When we seriously consider the inorganic existence of human life, what we realize, on the one hand, is a limited space, and, on the other hand, an unlimited /infinite world of possibilities. If the energy found in an atom and all other factors found in action in the same are named/defined or identified as the microcosm, it would not be an exaggeration. It is because there exists within an atom apart from the material existence a universe of possibilities and many more existences; for example, the neutrons, whose exploration changes the very concept of our time and space, thus leading us to think with reference to the six-or seven-dimensional concept of time and space, thereby confirming the fact that the Sufi consciousness not being satisfied with three-dimensional understanding of time and space moves beyond and looks for a four-dimensional understanding of time and space, like the present-day biologist and physicist who with the help of Quantum Theory conclude with full certainty that for a comprehensive understanding of the universe or a particle, an understanding beyond three-dimensional understanding of time/space is necessary.
If, on the one hand, biology and physics went on exploring infinity in the finite (with reference to cells and atoms), on the other hand there surfaced a new branch of knowledge called Psychoanalysis which teaches man how infinite number of possibilities exist within the unconscious part of the human mind through which a man can very easily trace his/her journey and connection back to Adam/Eve. It is not an ordinary claim on part of psychologists that the personal unconscious of a man goes on collecting/reflecting the impressions/events of the whole collective unconscious of a whole race of people, and sometimes it plays its part in the conscious world of man also. It, in other words, means that human consciousness has in it the whole cosmos below its ego. Man has been trying to understand/explore the same through the archetypes available in the form of faiths, beliefs and other such collective cultural and mythological practices.
German psychologist C J Jung, who seriously thought about the contributions of Sigmund Freud and Adler, asserts that the consciousness that man is highly proud of is not even the tenth part of the collective unconscious. There exists in human sub-conscious, below the ego, first the Personal Unconscious, then the Collective Unconscious, and then those Archetypal Images whose explanation/exploration exhausts the human mind’s understanding of time and space. That, in other words, means that when our consciousness attempts its own understanding, our conscious concepts of time and space fail us.
In short, modern philosophy reached the same destination where modern science had according to its own reasoning/logic made the proclamation of uncertainty. This is such a state of mind where many intellectuals and thinkers do not find any other option but to assert that “There is no Truth but Allah” and where Religious Consciousness and Secular Consciousness are found exclusive to each other. In fact, where the human reason/logic accepts its failure, such an assumption that human reason is of no use or there exists no universe/world before it at such a juncture is an illogical assumption, the reason being the fact that research has found that all the creations having the potential of spiritual existence are accorded time and space according to their own consciousness; and, when consciousness is capable of three-dimensional understanding only, its manifestation/expression remains limited/confined to that domain of human reason/logic only. When the human consciousness becomes capable of moving beyond three-dimensional understanding of the universe, its concept of time/space finds a new direction/expanse and a new universe beyond human reason is revealed to it. Whether it is the world of dreams or the world of revelations, our normal understanding of time/space does not work there. For the understanding and exploration of the nature of space, until and unless we imagine/consider a four-dimensional or more- dimensional understanding of space, our reason/intellect would remain confined within its own confines (microcosm only).
The moment human consciousness finds unbounded horizons and expanses through a four-dimensional (or more) understanding of space, it finds its evolution/rise to the world of intuition. It is through intuition only that human consciousness can/does understand what Rumi calls Love and what Henry Bergson calls Durational Time. It is that very state of human mind where all the times, present, past and future, experience unity and the human ego (self-realisation) is capable of witnessing the macrocosm (aalam e akbar). This is the state where human consciousness, archetypes and the super-ego become so concordant to each other that a human being makes a spontaneous cry like the following:

Duroon e seena ma deegray ain chi bulajbi ast
Ki akheer ki tui ya ki ma dochar khueem

It is on such occasion that the aalam e akbar is revealed to the eyes of man. It is this very gradual development of human consciousness that Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) has brought to light through this ayat (sign) of the Holy Quran: “wa fi anfusikum ma la Talamoon”, which means that you have within your souls such potential/powers which cannot be comprehended/grasped by your knowledge which is based on three-dimensional understanding of space. What I want to infer is that until and unless human consciousness journeys or evolves to the level of intuition, witnessing the macrocosm would remain beyond its reach as Allama Iqbal has beautifully pointed it out:

Har do manzlay rawan har do ameer e karwan
Aql baheela me bar damashiq bard kashan kashan
Isq zi padar award kheem e shash jihat ra
Dast darazi mekunad ta batanab kehkashan

[email protected]

Professor Mohiud Din Hajini