When we look at the universe, we see a system and harmony. The Almighty, who has created the universe with order and discipline, has also embedded a sense of organization and the spirit of order within human nature. Humans strive to maintain this innate order in their daily lives. From religious practices to sports, and from reading books to sleep, they regulate their daily activities, taking care of the arrangement of their wardrobe and the cleanliness of their desk. They even take courses, attend seminars, and read books to achieve this goal. But how do we create the same order in our minds, and are we able to do so?
The world around us is complex and changes daily. Our minds organize all this by creating separate “drawers” for each person or situation, recognizing them, comparing them to similar people or situations we already know, and placing them in the appropriate drawer. This simplifies our thoughts. If we had to completely reassess everything each time and didn’t steer ourselves towards what is already known, it would be very exhausting. The drawers we create help in thinking, assisting our minds in understanding the constantly changing world and minimizing the burden of processing information.[1]
The Drawer of Good and Evil
Among the thousands of drawers we create in our minds, the two drawers whose handles we wear out the most are the good and bad drawers. Good and bad are the two drawers we use on “autopilot” to categorize people and situations, where we make wrong and hasty judgments, waiting to be rebuilt.
Our Lord creates opposites intertwined in this world to exhibit the infinite manifestations of His Names. Like ugly and beautiful, hot and cold, big and small. Good and evil are also like this. According to Rumi, good and evil are two concepts that come into existence in human beings and that human beings choose between them, one defined as perfection and the other as deficiency.[2] The simultaneous existence of these two concepts in human beings is a contradiction for human beings, and unless human beings act consciously, they will fill the drawer of good and evil wrongly. When making this distinction, one should act cautiously in order not to cause prejudices. It should not be forgotten that the opposite of good is bad. Just as a person with bad habits can be good, a person who fulfills religious commands can be bad. While people disguised as Muslims inflicted all kinds of suffering on the oppressed, people we call “non-Muslims” embraced hundreds of thousands of victims and migrants. They also took a firm stand against the oppressors. “No! I don’t believe what you say! You are not telling the truth, you are not doing the right thing; you are oppressing, you are wronging someone!”[3] In this respect, we should build our good and bad mind drawers by centering universal human values. This will prevent us from making mistakes and guide us to the truth.
[1] “Schärfemolekül bremst Wachstum von Brustkrebszellen”, news.rub.de/presseinformationen/wissenschaft/2016-12-20-medizin-schaerfemolekuel-bremst-wachstum-von-brustkrebszellen
[2] İsmail Hanoğlu, “İnsan Tabiatı Bağlamında Kimlik ve Kişilik Kavramlarının İrdelenmesi”, Kelam Araştırmaları, 12:2 (2014), pp. 171–180.
[3] M. Fethullah Gülen, “Hizmet, Tiranlar ve Dünya”, Bamteli, 14 Şubat 2021, www.herkul.org/bamteli/hizmet-tiranlar-ve-dunya/
