Islam: The Principle Of Correct Human Devpt (15)

AS I said in the last article, the diverse nature of religion as we all perceived is a cultural thing and because we cannot rule out the suggestion that cultures may clash may explain why religion is giving us much conflict today. In this respect, people should begin to rise above the parochial nature of religion to help humanity back to what in all sincerity must be the true religion of God of love and harmony. It is time we begin to realise that religion is not what we should be concerned about but the spiritual development. 

  What religion calls spiritual development is what psychology call personality development. It is essentially about the correct methodology of human development. Over and above parochialism, we might just all begin to consider very seriously what Mohammed might mean when He said that the only religion before Allah is Islam. It may strike us that far from Him introducing to us a new organised religion, He was out to introduce all of humanity into the fundamental truth of their being — not about religious ceremonies, rituals and piety but about a common approach by all of us to what religion calls spiritual development; but what behaviour scientists or scientisfic psychology calls personality development. 

  When Mohammed said that Islam is the only religion before God Almighty and that the aspirations and efforts of all the great prophets before Him such as Abraham, Moses, Jeremiah and Jesus were all accommodated in the mechanism of Islam — submission to the will of God, then obviously Judaism and Christianity have been knocked out of the picture. What remains are the naked personalities of the people in these religions. What simply that could mean is located in certain very important questions’ ‘What was the nature of the training and development of these people that made them extra-ordinary in their times?’ ‘What was in their socialization that made it possible for them to see God face-to-face?’ The all-important answer to these questions is that in the process of their training, socialization and development, they discovered the method of submitting to the will of God. They discovered the all-important Islamic principle of honourable, productive and purposeful existence. They never died before they were adopted by God to showcase them to the whole world as the models of those who are given the use of the powers or the genius of God when they have developed effectively into the techniques of submitting to the will of God or to put it in scientific language when they have developed the understanding of the mechanism of the operations of the laws of nature instituted by God. 

  You may clearly understand why Jesus said that ‘if you can believe everything is possible to him that believes. You will also understand what He meant when He said that ‘you should seek first the kingdom of heaven and everything that you need will be added unto you.’ He said man is not getting this experience because he is of little faith. This particular statement reveals a very important statement to mankind in a way that their misconceptions of religious principle do not allow them and that Faith to Jesus is all the important truth that we need in establishing our relationship with God and when He went on in His Lord’s prayer to let us know that it is very important that we know how the will of God must be done on earth as it is in Heaven. 

Ayo-Vaughan, a psychologist, lives in Lagos 

babatund_2@yahoo.com