A JOURNEY OF SELF-DISCOVERY

By Moin Qazi

An award winning poet, Moin Qazi holds a doctorate and is an independent researcher and
consultant who has spent three decades in microfinance with State Bank of India, India’s
largest bank, where he was involved in microfinance as a grassroots manager and as head of
its microfinance operations in Maharashtra. He belongs to the first batch of managers of
commercial banks who were associated with the launch of India’s microfinance programme.
He writes regularly on development finance and environmental issues. He was a Visiting
Fellow at the University of Manchester specializing in microfinance.
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At every stage in life we sustain losses — but keep growing wiser in the
process. We begin our independent lives only when we emerge from the
womb and lose its protective shell. We can build into the lives of a family,
friends and colleagues by providing nutrients of gratitude and
encouragement, and by investing our time and energy in their aspirations.
If a tree is given minimal nourishment, it will live but it will not grow. But if
nourishment is given over and beyond what is needed for life, the tree will
live, blossom and grow upward, producing fruit. In an individual’s life the
nourishment comes in the form of blessings of fellowmen that are
reciprocated by them in response to our kind gestures. Individuals who
have been successful in life find that personal trials make a person more
sensitive and loving, and strengthen his endurance and character.
It would be wise to mull over the luminous wisdom of M.C. Chagla, the
great Indian jurist. What has life taught Chagla? He writes in his memoirs,
Roses in December:
It (life) has taught me to be kind and compassionate, and to understand and not to
judge; to ‘connect’ in the sense of the famous expression of Foster; to build bridges
across misunderstandings and conflict so that man and man and nation and nation
should not stand apart. It has taught me that the greatest philosophy of life is the
philosophy of non-attachment — not be attached to life, and all that pertains to life,
so that when the end comes the wrench is not too great.
With age comes wisdom, and, in the autumn of one’s life one increasingly realizes that
reason must prevail over emotions. One has to make a few hard choices that may go against
the grain of conscience particularly when the conscience has been shaped by the eternally
held cherished values. People may give lots of advices that positive thinking and big dreams
can help us accomplish great tasks. But finally one has to bow before the altar of destiny and
realize that we have to navigate our ambition within the realms of divine will. Each one of us
has a moral compass that shows us the limit of our talents and abilities. That is a more
authentic guide than the barometer of public advices.

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 The Bhagavad Gita tells us that we must do our duty regardless of the
outcome. If something is worth striving for, the striving is its own reward.
There are only two mistakes in life, the Buddha once said: not going all
the way, and not starting the journey.
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Amongst the finest lines Rudyard Kipling ever wrote are those contained
in his magnificent poem “If”:
If you can dream — and not make dreams your master;
If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same.

In the case of every soul, however troubled, restoration can come only
from within. This is the lesson taught by the great sages, saints and
savants.
Alexander Pope exhorted:
Know thyself; presume not God s to scan
The proper study of mankind is man.
What is the true nature of this self, the soul. Divine grace does not
manifest unless one absolutely resigns oneself to him. Surrender is not an
easy thing. The Bible says: “For whosoever hath, to him shall be given,
and he shall have more abundance; but whosoever hath not, from him
shall be taken away even that he hath.”
Einstein gives a very lucid analysis of the phenomena:
The soul is the self-reflective, truth-discerning, and spirit-perceiving part of man
that forever elevates the human being above the level of the animal world. Self-
consciousness, in and of itself, is not the soul. Moral self-consciousness is true
human self-realisation and constitutes the foundation of the human soul, and the
soul is that part of man that represents the potential survival value of human
experience. Moral choice and spiritual attainment, the ability to know God and the
urge to be like him, are the characteristics of the soul. The soul of man cannot exist
apart from moral thinking and spiritual activity. A stagnant soul is a dying soul. But
the soul of man is distinct from the divine spirit that dwells within the mind. The
divine spirit arrives simultaneously with the first moral activity of the human mind,
and that is the occasion of the birth of the soul.
In his poem In Memoriam the English poet Alfred Tennyson writes:
But what am I?
An infant crying in the night;
An infant crying for the light;
And with no language but a cry.
There is an ancient Chinese legend about a man who dreamt he was a
butterfly. It was the loveliest dream imaginable. He felt himself floating
about through the air, light and free. He felt completely, blissfully happy.
Everything in this dream was beautiful, peaceful and joyous. According to
the legend, when the man awoke from this dream, he was never again
certain whether he was really a man who had dreamt he was a butterfly
or a butterfly who now dreamt he was a man. This story illustrates the
split we feel as human beings. We are uncertain of our identity — are we
body, mind, emotions or spirit? Are we naturally loving, peaceful, happy,
angry, afraid, aggressive or cooperative? All of these things and more
seem to be part of being human, but some get more attention than

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others. It’s hard to ignore a feeling of rage within us and easy to miss the
quiet voice of peacefulness, gentleness and love. But that doesn’t mean
the loving part isn’t there.
Self-awareness is the basic seed of emotional intelligence — which
makes sense when one considers that the Delphic oracle gave the great
advice -“know thyself” -thousands of years ago. Western philosophers and
poets too have exhorted man to know himself to understand the universe.
“Know thyself, presume not God to scan. The proper study of mankind is
man,” exclaimed Alexander Pope. What is the true nature of this self, this
soul, and this atman? The elusive, evanescent and esoteric nature of the
atman is much more mysterious to unravel than the invisible atom, the
fundamental building block of the physical world.
Schumacher’s thesis is that one must develop the neglected art of
learning to know oneself: “The cultivation of self-knowledge has fallen into
virtually total neglect, except, that is, where it is the object of active
suppression. That you cannot love your neighbour unless you love
yourself: that you cannot understand your neighbour unless you
understand yourself: that there can be no knowledge of the ‘invisible
person’ who is your neighbour except on the basis of self-knowledge —
these fundamental truths have been forgotten even by many of the
professionals in the established religions.”
We see all sights from pole to pole
And glance and nod and bustle by,
And never once possess our soul
Before we die.
In the case of every soul, however troubled, restoration can come only
from within. This is the lesson taught by the great Indian sages, from the
nameless ones who lived in the twilight of history to Sri Aurobindo.
Life is a journey. We are passengers in a train called life, and we are
alive in the moment called now. The journey of life is so beautiful that it
needs no destination. On this journey, we have been given a compass.
The compass is the thirst to be fulfilled. The true journey of life begins the
day we begin to seek to quench our thirst. This quest is the most noble
one.
For many centuries, a voice has been calling out: “What you are looking
for is within you. Your truth is within you, your peace is within you, and
your joy is within you.” In our hearts, peace is like a seed waiting to grow,
to blossom. When we allow this seed to blossom inside, then peace is
possible outside. We have to give peace a chance.
If we look around us today, we will find a world that is shattered by war
and terrorism, the effects of which, if not in a direct manner, continue to
influence us. The fundamental question on mind today is: in what way can
peace be achieved in the world to put an end to this suffering?
Some centuries ago, human beings were still conscious enough to pay
heed to the spiritual side of their growth. In India, most people are proud
of being a part of a spiritual legacy, which goes back to beyond Vedic
times. The emergence of industrial and consumerist societies throughout

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the world brought along with it a new wave of thought and ideology: of
wealth and the means for its acquisition.
Today at the pinnacle of the world’s industrial and material glory, we
see that there is no end in sight to In fact, the new society, based on the
ideology of wealth, and an ever-widening gap between the rich and the
poor, is one of the root causes of war and terrorism that are plaguing us.
Then, what is the way to achieve peace of mind in today’s times? It is
necessary for us to find our place in the scheme of things, in this universe.
Buddha said that all life is a transitory phenomenon. He said, “life is like a
flash of lightning.” We have such a short life that it is useless to waste it
fighting each other and dissipating our energies in only acquiring material
possessions.
Wars happen when intolerance reaches epic proportions, when the
reasons for war become greater than the need for the sanctity of peace.
Wars happen when we fail to realise the value of being alive. World
leaders try to bring peace, but it is not an issue of institutions. It is human
beings who start wars. Before a war begins outside, it starts inside.
As the UNESCO preamble proclaims: “Since wars begin in the minds of
men it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace have to be
constructed”. When Buddha was about to die — as a physical body — he
worried that a number of his disciples would cry, and that they would
suffer, because they had not seen his dharma body. They had only seen
his physical body.So he gave this teaching to all his disciples in the hope
that they would somehow come to realise that what is physical is
transient, so there was no need to feel sad over physical losses: “My dear
friends, there is a beautiful island within, that you may take refuge in
every time you suffer. Don’t take refuge in anything, in anyone, except in
the island inside.”He said, “The island within is for you to discover. It’s a
safe place where you feel calm, you are not disturbed, and you feel happy
and protected.”
“Every time we feel we suffer, we feel we are attacked on every side,
we felt that no one loves us, that everyone wants us to suffer, every time
we fail in everything we do, then we have to remember there is a very
fine, beautiful place that we can go home to, and that place, you have to
discover — it is not located in space.”

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