Mental Rebirth, a panacea for learned helplessness and societal/individual degeneration.

.... Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves.... 

Q13V11

'For as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he'

Proverbs 23:7

The Prophet SAW dispatched a contingent of the army, Upon their return, he SAW said: ‘Blessed are those who have performed the minor jihad and have yet to perform the major jihad.’ When asked, ‘What is the major jihad?’ the Prophet SAW replied: ‘The jihad of the mind'.

The following story serves to highlight neurological pathways and patterns to learned helplessness in individuals and collective behaviours;

5 monkeys were placed in a cage as part of an experiment. In the middle of the cage was a ladder with bananas on the top rung. Every time a monkey tried to climb the ladder, the experimenter sprayed all of the monkeys with icy water. Eventually, each time a monkey started to climb the ladder, the other ones pulled him off and beat him up so they could avoid the icy spray. Soon, no monkey dared go up the ladder.

The experimenter then substituted one of the monkeys in the cage with a new monkey. The first thing the new monkey did was try to climb the ladder to reach the bananas. After several beatings, the new monkey learned the social norm. He never knew “why” the other monkeys wouldn’t let him go for the bananas because he had never been sprayed with ice water, but he quickly learned that this behaviour would not be tolerated by the other monkeys.

One by one, each of the monkeys in the cage was substituted for a new monkey until none of the original group remained. Every time a new monkey went up the ladder, the rest of the group pulled him off, even those who had never been sprayed with the icy water.

By the end of the experiment, the 5 monkeys in the cage had learned to follow the rule (don’t go for the bananas), without any of them knowing the why. If the monkeys could be asked for their rationale behind not letting their cage mates climb the ladder, their answer would probably be: “I don’t know, that’s just how its always been done.”

This story, whether real or a fable, captures a pervasive theme in our society, we tend to resign to fatalism ascribing events that we can hitherto solve to 'God's will' and even developing layers of justifications and superstitions masquerading as faith for rationalitions. Thus, a Man's mind becomes his prison and their is no bigger prison than that of the mind.

This phenomena has become a yoke in our region, with many enmasse resign to fatalism completely relinquishing the power available to them and the potential in initiative taking.

This manifests in indolence, begging, refusal or failure to cultivate and nurture what God has made available to man in his service and people seeking essentially to reap where nothing was sown by them. This becomes a loop of self fulfilling prophecy of one's ruination.

The foundations of all actions lie with thoughts and nature of thoughts, when that foundation is faulty, unaligned, then external reality will be built on shaky grounds, a glorified 'house of cards', that cannot stand even a little bit of stress. It is only through liberation of the mind of man that bonds of fear, superstition, degradation and poverty will be degraded, the liberation of man from the physical, spiritual and intellectual bonds which have for too long stunted his development. The mind is a battlefield where contending tendencies are in an existential battle, a zero sum game where winner takes all. It is imperative for every individual that the right contender emerges victorious. The primary force that drives everything else is mindset. Once you start to see the world in a particular way, and act consistently according to that knowledge, doors you didn’t even know existed will open for you. 

Our society is passing through a period of great tribulation, crime and social pathologies hitherto unheard of running rampant, lost of trust between individuals and between communities, transcendent brotherhood and a sense of 'ummah' becoming a mirage, the increasing permanence of social stratification, whereby those from the lower class have almost no chance to rise even into the lower middle class, much less aspire to higher echelons of society. 

Man cannot rise above the quality of his thoughts, the best of changes is that which comes from the inside and not imposed from the outside. The quality of one's mind is the quality of his life.

The placebo effect is a wonderful illustration of how fundamental one's thoughts are to his reality, where a hitherto ineffective medication becomes effective simply by power of faith and belief.

Everything that happens internally happens externally, every thought has a physical and a mental side.

Reorienting the patterns of thoughts of our people and showing them they can rise above their current situations as their reality is not unique to them even in history and showing them practical and relatable steps taken will go a long way, in the process creating relatable role models is a sure fire way of initiating change either at the individual or communal level is a way of planting and watering seeds of renaissance in a society either stagnating at best, or heading to ruination.

The quality of one's thoughts are the embedded 'os' (operating system) within which all his actions are dictated, a fountain from which his prosperity flows.

Watch your thoughts, they become words, watch your words, they become actions, watch your actions, they become habits, watch your habits, they become character, watch your character because it becomes your destiny.

It all starts and ends in the mind, you can 'conjure' the reality you wish to manifest.