Out beyond ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. I'll meet you there. - Rumi
As an intercontinental wanderer, I have always been looking for Rumi’s field out beyond right and wrong. The landscapes of my deeds are nothing but mountains of wrongs and deserts of rights. A field beyond both would mean more than heavens to me.
In this article I would attempt to find Rumi's field of nirvana once more.
Man tried to set standards of right and wrong throughout history. Masses migrated crossing seas following right. Loved ones were sacrificed to deities. Nations crossed Niles to get to the promised lands abiding by the right. Sometimes migration was spiritual from one phase to the next. In search of the ‘right,’ empires converted from one god to another. Wars were fought and tribes were enslaved in the framework of right and wrong.
The question of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ may be older than human civilization. Divinity repeatedly intervened and revealed holy scriptures. Human societies have been developing ethics and morality based on the concept of ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’
The fact is that one man’s right is the other man’s wrong. Humanity never was able to come up with universal standards of morality. I like Rumi’s effort to take humanity as a plural to an utopia. This imagined place of perfection could be translated into existence with a combined effort.
It’s high time humanity takes a leap forward away from ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ based morality to survival and scientific realities.
I am writing this article in a time when the whole word is facing one problem, one enemy and one challenge. The COVID -19 pandemic respects no borders no seas no skies no distance.
It crosses the mighty wall and swims through the mightier Atlantic. It spreads like sunlight from one corner of the globe to the other, from New York skyscrapers to Mumbai slums, from the Vatican to Mecca, from the heights of the Lama Temple to plains of Golden Gurdwara.
COVID-19 moves unchecked trashing right & wrong alike.
It keeps tarnishing rich and poor, white and black, Asian and European, young and old and good or bad. A micro enemy treats humans as one target objectively locking us down into cocoons. Even in times like these the world is not ready to respond collectively, unitedly and coherently.
Isn’t it time to learn a lesson? Isn’t it time to Unite? Isn’t it time to be one world?
The world needs a field beyond ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. It needs a field of cure. It needs a field of health, a field of tranquility, a field of hope, a field of peace, and it needs a field here on earth more than a star or another sky. No one is going to usher us to that field. We’ve got to get there. Where is that neutral field? Where is that common field?
That field of panacea is within us. It’s in our head. Only five and half inches in size yet carries universes in it. In my opinion, the human mind collectively amounts to be Rumi’s acclaimed “field.” Once we put all of our minds together it gets way larger than entire galaxies and the cosmos.
We only need to change one set, the mindset. We ought to tune our minds to universal melodies, cosmic lyrics and to orchestral star systems.
Today humans can’t survive divides. We need to achieve oneness. We need to attain openness. Out there is the open field beyond ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’
We need to shed rotten ideologies based upon supposition and tabos. We Should develop new morality derived from universal scientific truth.
Let’s reach the field out beyond right and wrong.
Welcome to Rumi’s field.
Ahsan Jamil
Golfer, Author, Poet, Blogger, Entrepreneur, Wanderer.
Email: golfaij@gmail.com
Web: aijgolf.com
Credits:
- Google images