Equality
Inequalities seem to permeate every level of human existence.
Only a little observation and reflection is required to confirm
the seeming omnipresence of inequalities.
Intelligence is not distributed equally across humanity. There
are huge discrepancies between, say, severely challenged
Down's syndrome individuals and the intellectually gifted.
The chasm between the rich and poor appears to have
existed since the beginning of recorded history. In between
these two extremes has been a fluctuating number of
moderately rich and moderately poor people.
Any quality one cares to mention reflects this same inequality
of distribution. Creativity, health, beauty, handsomeness,
spirituality, talent, ambition, leadership, business sense,
athletic ability, power, charisma, status, illness, fame,
honesty, kindness, and so on, are all unequally distributed.
This is true within, as well as across, all racial, ethnic, and
national groups. Moreover, it holds, as well, across history.
The distribution of most, perhaps all, of these qualities
probably could be reflected fairly accurately by a bell-curve.
In other words, there would be relatively few people on the
low and high ends of a scale depicting the degree to which a
person possessed a given quality. As one approached the
median from either end of the scale, the numbers would
gradually increase until they peaked at the median point.
Despite all of this inequality, Sufi masters maintain we are all
equal before God. How does one reconcile the overwhelming
evidence of inequality with the statement of Sufi masters
concerning our equality in relation to God?
According to the practitioners of the Sufi path, we each have
a unique essential or spiritual capacity. This capacity refers
to our potential for reflecting the Names and Attributes of
Divinity. Consequently, no two individuals have the same
reflective properties of spirituality.
Sufi masters indicate every modality of spiritual reflectivity is
precious to God. God cherishes each capacity because each
potential has a uniqueness about it.
Uniqueness does not fit a normal distribution. Indeed, God
has equipped essential human capacity for maximum
distributive dispersal. Nothing is ever repeated.
According to Sufi masters, the Divine will desires for all
uniqueness to be manifested. Every instance of uniqueness
displays, in reflected form, more and more of Divine beauty
and majesty. Every modality of uniqueness brings into
existence a potential for unique reflectivity which has not
been displayed previously and which will not be displayed
again.
No matter how beautiful a given expression of spiritual
reflection may be, there are other potentials for reflection
which have a dimension of uniqueness to them not found in
the first potential. The reverse, of course, is also true.
We each have been brought into existence to bring to
dynamic realization our respective unique capacities for
spiritual reflection of the Divine Names and Attributes. Since
our potentials are unique, different circumstances are
necessary to activate them.
The package of qualities associated with each of us is not
arbitrary, nor is it a matter of the luck of the draw. These
packages of qualities have been assigned to us by God.
The assignment of these qualities is related to our essential
spiritual capacity for reflecting Divine Names and Attributes
in a unique fashion. More specifically, each package of
qualities is uniquely designed to provide the individual to
whom they have been assigned with the sort of experiential
challenges, struggles and possibilities out of which essential
capacity may be brought to mature fruition.
The inequalities inherent in the various quality packages are
necessary so that the different capacities for uniqueness can
develop. However, one must be careful not to misunderstand
what is being said here.
There is often a difference between the quality package
which God assigns to certain individuals and the quality
package which people try to impose on those same
individuals. The quality packages which people try to impose
are shaped by ignorance, bias, injustice, evil and so on.
These human generated quality packages are not, taken in
and of themselves, conducive to the realization of our unique
spiritual capacities. For example, if a government or ruler
wanted to impose hunger, poverty, torture, danger,
homelessness, and various forms of other abuse on a given
group of people, this "quality" package could generate many
problems for individuals trying to realize their essential
spiritual capacity.
At the same time, the attempted imposition of such human
generated quality packages is part of the quality package
which God has assigned to us. The attempted imposition of
the human generated quality packages constitutes obstacles,
challenges and injustice which we are being asked to
struggle with and against.
Consequently, one is not being asked by God to endorse
those processes involving the attempted imposition of human
generated quality packages onto humanity. One is being
asked to resist them but to do so in ways which will help one
to realize one's essential spiritual capacity. Knowing how to
accomplish this is very difficult.
The challenge each of us faces is to engage and embrace the
quality package assigned to us by God in accordance with
the manner in which God intended such packages to be used.
Those packages, when properly understood and utilized,
become the key to finding our way to realization of our
essential spiritual capacity.
Among other things, the quality packages assigned to each of
us by God involve a mixture of trials, tests, struggles,
conflicts, and challenges. Those packages also contain what
ever assets are necessary for the realization of our capacity
for spiritual reflection.
The assets necessary for spiritual realization are not
necessarily money, power, status, education, talent, creativity
and so on. In fact, such qualities, more often than not, can be
obstacles and trials with which one must struggle in order to
overcome their potential for undermining one's quest for
spiritual realization.
On the other hand, low-tech and low-capital qualities such as
kindness, perseverance, simplicity, openness, sincerity, and
so on, may be very important assets to have in one's quality
package. What counts as a potential asset and what counts
as a potential liability will vary from case to case, according
to what is necessary for spiritual realization.
Having something can be just as much a problem as not
having something. Each of these conditions entails its own
brand of difficulty. Each of these conditions contains its own
potential for benefit and development.
We each are being given, by God, an equal opportunity, in
the form of our present lives, to realize our unique, essential,
spiritual capacity. Each of these unique capacities has a
dimension which renders them equally important to God as
far as God's desire for the manifestation of all uniqueness is
concerned.
Each of us has been given a quality package of equal
functional value with respect to what is necessary for the
realization of our essential spiritual capacity. Since the
quality package assigned by God fits essential spiritual
capacity like an appropriate key fits a certain lock, any given
individual's quality package is useless to everyone else. This
is so because that package has the potential for unlocking
only a specific lock in the form of a certain capacity.
Ultimately, no quality is of value unless it can be utilized
advantageously in the quest for the realization of our
spiritual uniqueness. According to Sufi masters, whatever
inequalities exist in the composition of the qualities in the
packages that have been assigned to us by God, such
inequalities need to be seen in the light of the underlying
equalities which they are intended to serve.
Apparent exceptions to the foregoing relationship between
inequality and equality do exist. For example, there are
people (i.e., infants, children and some adolescents) who do
not seem to live long enough to really say they are being
given an equal opportunity to realize their unique spiritual
capacity.
However, for every departure from the relationship between
inequality and equality, there are Divine concessions and
compensations which become operative. Those who have not
had an equal opportunity in the above sense will be subject to
different considerations, none of which will be to the person's
disadvantage.
These exceptions to the rule give expression to their own
mode of uniqueness. As such, they are exceptions which
prove the rule concerning God's desire for all modes of
uniqueness to be manifested.
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