By Professor Tariq Ramadan THE SELF AND THE WORLD Each of us has her/his story, his tears, his injuries, his failures; each of us has her/his hopes, illusions, fantasies and quests. And each of us tries, over the days, weeks and years to find her/his way, sometimes torn apart, sometimes reconciled, sometimes courageous, sometimes discouraged. Our self needs us, and needs our conscience, our forgiveness, our energy. We must take care of our wounds, our hopes, our contradictions as well as our illusions. We must take care of ourselves. The world needs us, in the same way. In the light of the sufferings of the past, wars, colonization, slavery, extermination (American Indians, Jews, Gypsies, etc.)... up until the horrors of our present time in Rwanda, Srebrenica, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Egypt, Central Africa, Burma, Palestine ... the list is long of those conflicts and our indignities. We must take care of our collective destiny and resist our excesses, too. As the spiritual and mystical experience teaches us, it is sometimes by getting out of the self that we solve some of our intimate contradictions. It is by being the intimate friend of the oppressed beings, that we are able to overcome the tensions, tears and suffering of our being. The self needs the self, and the world needs us. For believers, this dual way is the requirement of faith; as it is the requirement of conscience for all Men standing, anyway.
Posted on: Wed, 16 Jul 2014 17:17:52 +0000
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