Consciousness is something that Allah has given to not only man; animals have consciousness. And animals have a certain amount of intellect. Some animals have more intellect than others, some have instinct, but if you ever do a study or watch some of these animal documentaries on television, you can see that animals can use tools to a certain extent, and animals can figure out complex situations.
Some of the bird nests that birds build are really quite complicated, and some of the things that other animals do obviously take a thought-out process. When a seagull has a clam it’s smart enough to know to drop it on a rock from high up and that cracks it open.
Man also has intellect, and man’s intellect is more complex and more complicated than animal’s intellect, and he’s able to do a lot more sophisticated things, but that doesn’t necessarily separate it from the animals. Intellect alone is not enough to separate man from animal behavior.
Intellect is tied to the lower-self, and the lower-self is elemental, and man as a whole is elemental. We’re made out of elements that are in conflict with each other and, eventually, will destroy this body that we live in. It dissipates. It dissipates because of the conflict within the elements. Earth, air, fire and water have an animosity towards each other that comes out in destruction.
Now, to go from consciousness, and the use of the intellect, to wisdom is the goal of Sufism. But how does this happen, and when does it happen? Well, one of the things that Sufis are known for is, in public they don’t have a lot of opinions, they don’t judge others, they don’t criticize situations, they mind their own business. And what’s the wisdom in minding your own business?
Part of it comes from the fact that you should never be arrogant about the state of your wisdom, and the state of your knowledge and the state of your knowing, and if you become arrogant about the state of your knowledge, and the state of your knowing, you begin to throw out opinions on everything. And one of the things that you will note about people who have an enormous number of opinions is they have a very high level of arrogance because they know a lot about everything and they’re very enamored with their own points of view…
