Tariq Ramadan – Disease Podcast #11 Looking at the world
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Hello. Peace be with you.
The notion that I want to address today
is the notion of disease,
illness.
The way we have to deal with it,
the way we are dealing with the notion
in our daily life is quite important, and
especially when we are
facing pandemic
realities in our daily life. We need to
get a better understanding of the meaning of
disease in our life, and the way we
have to deal with it. And the way
also we
are tackling
the very notion of disease from
a moral viewpoint
or from
a materialistic
viewpoint.
The the I think that we have to
start with trying to define in a very
simple way the notion of disease in our
life. When we speak about disease,
the first thing that we are dealing with
is an alteration
of the,
function of the the the right
function of our body. So it has to
do with imbalance
versus harmony.
It has to do also with,
something that is,
altering,
the good functioning of our body. It could
be our body. It could be our
mental health. It could be our psychology.
When something is happening with which is altering,
the the the right functioning
of our
body and our
psyche, we are talking about disease.
So
from there,
there are 2 things that are important when
it comes to imbalance
versus harmony.
The first has to do with symptoms. Very
often, we are dealing with symptoms, and it
could be,
anything which has to do with our body
when, it's, something is broken, when,
we have a flu, or anything
could happen. Sometimes the symptoms are quite heavy,
and sometimes they are not even visible. But
very often, disease has to do with visible
or felt symptoms.
The the 3rd dimension
has to do with suffering, because we are
dealing with disease. We are dealing with suffering.
We are dealing with not feeling good.
Feeling good means that our body is in
harmony. And when there is this imbalance, when
there is this
dysfunction in our body, we feel,
suffering with we feel that something is not
going right.
So this is the very basic definition
of illness
of disease, and we have to deal with
it when it comes to
us as human being. How do we deal
with it? How do we react to it?
And I would just,
highlight
3 main reactions that we have as human
beings when we are dealing with this. The
first one is just to refuse it, of
or to go away,
far from it, and to try to combat
the disease. It means that we are trying
to heal, we are trying to cure,
and we are dealing with a kind of
enemy that we are trying to
to,
combat in our daily life. It could be
with our
medicine, with our drugs.
This is the natural
way to deal with it, and this is
what we are doing with we are human
being.
This is at an
individual and collective
level. This is the way we deal with
it. There is another,
way of dealing with,
the disease and and and and and the
illness in our life, which is also when
it comes to
look at nature, is to project onto nature
our moral understanding
of things.
So because the disease is attacking us, because
the disease is attacking our health,
we project onto the disease
the very notion of bad. This is bad.
This is the
bad dimension of the moral equation,
bad versus good. The good is my health,
and the disease is bad per se, And
I'm combating
what is bad in my life. This projection
into
the natural order is something which is
present in all the spiritual and the religious
traditions. This is what we find. And we
have to be very cautious with this because
we need to get it right in our
life.
There is
something is to moralize
the events that we are facing, and something
else is to,
extract,
moral teachings from events in our life. And
we have to be very cautious,
religions and spiritualities
are helping us
to extract,
to get the more
significance
of things and not to project morality onto
events. And I will be clearer about this
in the second part of this podcast.
Now the 3rd,
attitude,
I would say, is just to,
take a step back and to look at
the
cosmic order, at the, the global order of
nature,
and to understand that,
except God in the Islamic tradition, but also
in all the monotheistic tradition,
God is 1 and everything
else is
created in couples.
So this is what we have in the
Quran.
God is 1, and we
created everything in couples.
So this duality,
this
reality of the 2 is something also which
is essential in the human understanding. We find
it in the yin and yang, in the
Asian tradition, in Confucianism,
in Hinduism, in Buddhism, also in the monotheistic
tradition. That the duality, the internal,
the intrinsic duality of things and nature is
something which is essential in in in our
life.
So it means, for example, that if you
you look at nature and and you consider
the natural order, you you just can,
consider that this is the good.
But we also have to understand that the
natural disorder that could destroy nature and sometimes
destroy
the nature as we see it in harmony,
could be perceived as the bad, the bad
dimension. And in fact, we understand that we
can't
consider things in this way because, in fact,
the natural order
is in need of natural catastrophes.
In fact, if through the natural catastrophes
that we have
this regeneration,
this new life coming, the strength
of the order
is also
nurtured
by the disorder, the natural disorder. I'm not
talking about what we are doing now with
nature, destroying nature. I'm talking about the natural
order that we had and we we still
have, and that we have to consider
that,
natural disorder,
sometimes
are essential. Not not sometimes, are always essential,
always important.
If you
disrespect
nature,
the natural catastrophes
are just telling you, sending us a message,
a human being, that we are not treating
nature well,
and that nature is suffering. So this is
a message not to tell us the natural
catastrophes
are bad, but natural catastrophes are important for
us to understand that
nature and the natural order
needs to be respected.
Now, it's exactly the same when it comes
to
life and death. If you look at,
a lion just
killing,
it's,
it's prey. We need here to understand that
that's nature. You're not projecting onto this the
reality of good and bad. That's life,
And life needs
to eat, needs to have
praise, needs to also go towards
the reality
of life and death. So we will have
victims and we will have
predators and we will have
the reality of the natural order is based
on life and death. So there would be
no understanding of what life means
if we don't get the reality that in
order for some species to be able to
live, they have to kill.
And those who are killed also are killing
others in order to be able to live.
So this is the natural order.
With no morality
here, but the very essence of what,
life is and death is in the global
order.
Look at this, the reality through this angle
and try to get it right when it
comes to health and when it comes to
illness and disease. That's exactly the same that,
illness is coming to us, and we can
consider, oh, it's bad. It's against me. It's
my enemy because it's
disturbing
and altering,
the the the harmony
in my body. Now we need to get
that, that it would be no health if
we do not experience
disease. And disease is helping our body to
find,
the weapons, I would say, to find the
right,
means to face the reality of disease and
to become stronger.
So there is no health without experiencing,
disease, and there is no
health that is becoming
stronger and stronger without the reality of these
diseases that are
attacking us and helping us to survive.
So from this viewpoint, what do we understand,
within the couples that we have here? Order
disorder,
life versus death,
health versus
disease.
Three things are important here. The first is
that,
the one cannot go without the other. So
you can't talk about
order without talking about disorder. You cannot talk
about harmony without considering
disharmony.
So one cannot go without the other.
The second dimension is that you cannot understand
the one if you don't get the other.
So your understanding
of health
needs to be nurture
and apprehended through your understanding of disease. So
this is also something which is very important
for human beings.
Add to this that
not only you can get one without getting
the other,
The one needs the other. So they are
in need,
from one another. That's also something which is
essential in our understanding of the cosmic order
and then
the the the duality within the cosmic order
that one is giving
meaning and strength
to the other.
Having said that, and if we go and
take this step back and get a sense
of this
global order, this natural order, the reality of
harmony and the reality of
what nature
is teaching us and through nature, what God
and what the spiritual
life
is
teaching us through this experience.
We have a question to ask here.
Is nature
talking about morality?
In fact, it's, as I said, completely different
than to project onto nature
moral
teachings and moral projection than to extract,
to draw
out of this natural experience
moral teachings for us human being. What do
we do when we are facing
the reality of nature?
Sometimes we are projecting moral teachings, but in
fact, the process is quite different. What we
do is
our
consciousness
is awaken when we are dealing
with nature. And through this process, our consciousness
is just translating this into words.
So we verbalize
what we are experiencing. And through the process
of being aware,
being conscious,
of what is happening around us, this consciousness
of the reality of the world and the
words that we are putting
onto
this reality,
we then translate this into morality.
So this is what we are used to
do. So
very often, through this experience,
and this experience of natural event, we moralize
the natural events in a way which is
not what in fact, we'll find in the
religious traditions. The religious traditions are not telling
us
nature is moral,
but drew moral teachings from the natural order,
which is completely different. That's completely opposed to
what our nature would do straight away if
we don't consider
the reality of what is happening.
Having said that, and understanding that in fact,
order and disorder,
life and death,
health
and,
disease are not born categories.
They are reality
from which through which, through our experiences
within these two realities, we have to draw,
as I said,
moral
teaching.
Now,
what is important
when we are facing disease, when we are
facing
pandemic
reality as we are facing today, and when
we are facing disease in one society
or
with 1 individual,
it's very important. And we have to be
very cautious
not to project onto
an individual
and onto a society
a sense of guilt.
You are experiencing
this because you are guilty. No. That's not
the way. And we have this in the
Quran also that we have to be very
cautious with moral condemnation
based on what you see.
Don't laugh. Don't laugh at
people. They might be better than you. So
the moral projection of what they appear to
be
because they are experiencing the disease,
that's not something that you can do. In
fact, that's quite the opposite that you have
to do.
As a human being, you have to come
back to your own conscience, to your own
understanding of yourself. And through this
experience, what,
disease is telling you in your life, you
come back to your conscience,
You verbalize
your own life and you try to,
extract to draw,
from this experience some teaching, some lessons for
your own life.
And then this becomes
a reminder,
a reminder. In fact, disease is a reminder,
is as all the signs that you have
within nature telling you, just look at yourself,
come back to yourself, through this
consciousness.
Now that you are awake, not that your
conscience is awake, come back to yourself,
look at the sign, look at this disease,
and try to extract out of this experience
some teachings for your life. So it's a
reminder.
And with the reminder, what you have to
do is to question yourself.
No one on Earth is absolutely
innocent.
No one of us is perfect. You are
dealing in your daily life with some of
your weaknesses, with some of your
forgetfulness
in the way you deal with human beings,
in the way you lack
respect
towards your fellow human beings, towards migrants, towards
poor people come back to you and through
this.
So disease
is calling back, calling you back to the
essential and asking you to consider
your own life and through this, to help
you to go through
a process
of
purification,
spiritual purification.
The reality that you have to deal with
your own self. So
instead of being
a way for you to spread,
judgments
on other is the way to come back
to yourself
through and within a responsible
way of dealing with your own consciousness and
your own way of dealing with what is
happening to you. So it's much more call
for more responsibility
than a call for spreading
guilt around the world.
Because the cosmic order is telling you there
is nothing
bad in disease
and health is not always good.
It's what you do out of them that
is helping you to get the moral teaching
here and to,
be able to
come back to
yourself within the cosmic order in order to
extract from this experience
the moral teachings that are going to help
you to become
a better human being. So
this is where you get the sense that
this cosmic order
based on this contradictions
and the duality
that is intrinsic to
being
in time and history,
in time and space it's important.
The last thing that is in that are
important here, the last things that are important
are the teachings that you need to get
out of this.
Through this experience of disease and illness,
you experience a sense of vulnerability,
meaning here that you you you you should
get it, that you are not stronger
than the natural order, that you are not
stronger than death, that you are not stronger,
even if you are,
experiencing health,
you are vulnerable. And this sense of vulnerability
in spiritual terms mean humility, that you have
to be humble.
And within the whole process, if you look
at the world, you also
should remember. And this is essential in the
way you deal with nature.
You have to
remember to thank,
To thank for what you have, to thank
for who you are, and to thank because
you are able to deal with
this disease in a way which is helping
you to be a better human being. So
the
dysfunction
of your personal intimate
harmony is helping you to struggle
to be a better human being and for
this, for the harmony at the origin and
the harmony that you are trying to get
through your effort and your ongoing effort, you
have to thank
God and you thank nature for that because
this is also something which is essential.
Add to this that
you have
to remember that you are vulnerable. You have
to think. And you also have to struggle
because your life, it's all about this,
knowing that you are intention between the polarity
of the good and the bad, the polarity
of life and death,
of disorder
and order, that health and,
disease are part of your life. This is
where you understand that you have to reform
yourself, that you have to try to be
a better human being, that it's an ongoing
struggle to be a better human being. So
nature is sending you a message,
which is it's all about
struggling,
educating,
reforming
yourself,
and at the same time, to know that
you cannot do it on your own and
to know that you have to thank God
for being able to go through this process.
Don't forget to tell the people you love
that you love them. Life is fragile. Peace
be with you.