The Act of Doing Good

March 27, 2009, 7:57 am by dc-agape.

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Surāh 108 Al-Kauthar: The Abundance of Good

I was hoping that this surāh was about the abundance of good in the world.  And with the first reading it would seem that was not the case.  In fact, reading just the revelation is full what Atheists call “woo”.  But in this particular set of commentaries M Muhammad Ali does give it a very realist and logical meaning.  This surāh is about obtaining good and what is required to bring “the abundance of Good” to humankind.  Two things are required: the desire to do good, and the willingness to actually follow through with the act of doing good. 

Since this is a spiritual text, the desire to do good “only” comes from prayer.  This prayer then leads to a supernatural being giving humans the desire to do good.  As a gay Atheist I can tell you, without doubt, that prayer is not required nor is a supernatural being required to gain the desire to do good.  Meditation is not even required.  What is required is understanding the “big picture”.  When a person even thinks about lying, stealing, cheating, etc all one needs to do is a rapid calculation of the odds and the consequences.  How likely is the act that will harm someone else going to be linked back to the perpetrator?  What is the consequence of this act to the “victim”?  What consequences are there for the perpetrator?  Even just thinking about these three questions the answer comes immediately, faster than I can write the question, and to most people faster than you can read the questions.  Intellectually we know that an action that will hurt someone else will have consequences.  Intellectually we know that that same action will be traced back to the person who did the action.  Intellectually we also know that we will not be able to remove the nagging little thing called a “conscience” (dictionary.com) from the back of own mind.   But yes, it is true, that many people have “killed” that part of their thought pattern.  But we just need look at many of our religion leaders to realize that “conscience” does not come from a supernatural being.  It comes directly from our own personal experiences.  We know what it feels like to be lied to, we know what it feels like to have something stolen from us, and we know how much our own conscience will nag us.  We also know what the thought of death feels like.  In the end we know that we will regret the harmful act.  It might not be today, or even tomorrow, but our conscience plays a hard ball, its weight only increase with time.  This weight is cumulative.  When it reaches a “critical” weight, for whatever reason, each person must deal with it in their own personal way.  Many turn to religion.  Religion tells us that we are “helpless” without a supernatural beings intervention.  By the time we reach this “critical” weight it certainly feels like we are helpless.  And unfortunately each person’s “critical” weight is different.

Christianity does have something that is right; we must remember what it was like as a child.  As a child each act was overwrought with imagined outcomes.  Many of these outcomes are were so outlandish that we soon discard those as either unlikely or impossible.  Here the Prophet is also correct; we must have a desire to do good.  Many people lose the desire to do good due to the “must have” syndrome.  This syndrome is the need for power, money, attention, other people’s respect, to forget past actions, etc.  This syndrome also becomes overpowering and all consuming.  It leads to workaholics, alcoholics, and many “dastardly deeds”.  But by the time the syndrome is this sever, prayer will not “save” the person and neither will a supernatural being.  An exterior source is required, but it usually comes in the form of personal tragedy “a wake-up call”. 

The second requirement that is needed to have an abundance of good is the willingness to do what it takes to accomplish good.  The Prophet calls this sacrifice.  And it usually is a sacrifice.  One must face the truth, which may be painful personally or to someone important to the individual.  One example of this is the cases where one must admit a shortcoming to a loved one, to co-workers, or to the “boss”.  Another example of this is to either wait or not acquire a special object immediately.  Some people cannot control this “must have” and will steal, lie, and even kill to relieve this syndrome.  Here in the US it is what Arthur (Pop) Momand called “keeping up with the Joneses” (phrases.org).  As long as we use exterior sources of operational metrics (Wikipedia), such as the “Joneses” we will never be able to do good.  Doing good is never the “easy way”, but in the “big picture” the outcome is the best.  Minimizing the suffering of other people is always difficult, because it usually is the opposite of minimizing our own immediate suffering.  As a result the act of doing good is a personal sacrifice.

I always love it (the sense of irony) when reading something as short as this surāh (3 verses – 32 words) ends up leaving something like my post (880 words).

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