How Does a Lack of Understanding of the Importance of Balance Affect our Lives?
Perhaps one of the most basic mathematical concepts we understand in childhood is the concept of balance. Although as a child we are not able to provide a precise explanation of the importance of balance, we easily react to its loss; for example, we do not like to be hugged in an unsuitable manner, or we never decide to stand up or walk when we lose our balance. As we grow older and broaden our perspective, we realize that the importance of balance is not just confined to running, walking, or childlike plays.
If we want to give a precise definition of balance, we should emphasize that balance does not mean the uniformity of conditions or establishing comprehensive equality between all the components of a set; rather, it means avoiding excess and neglect and paying attention to the merits and needs of every component of a set; for example, balance does not mean that our brains and hands should receive blood equally, but when each part of our bodies is nourished according to its needs and conditions, balance is achieved.
The concept of balance influences our entire lives, but we become aware of its importance when we lose it; for instance, when we have excess and neglect in our financial affairs, when we are overly involved in family and friendship relationships and have no time for the most important aspect of our lives, or when we immerse ourselves in our studies and work, and completely overlook our true self and our family’s needs. Certainly, if we lose our balance in any of social, economic, familial, etc., spheres, we will not live a good life. We should keep it in mind that the loss of balance stems from the fact that we do not think, behave, make choices and decisions properly, and this results in imbalance in our souls.
The Necessity of Maintaining Balance
Perhaps the best way to understand the necessity and importance of balance is to imagine an imbalanced society or family; for instance, overindulgent parenting can raise children’s expectations, fostering arrogance, spoiling them, and leading to rudeness. On the other hand, some parents do not pay enough attention to the needs of their children and raise weak, humiliated, and emotionally fragile children. Similarly, the government that severely restricts and controls its society and do not let people thrive, or the government that plunges the society into cultural decay and destroys humanity and dignity by giving boundless freedom to people, are examples of the loss of balance due to excess and neglect.
Let us extend the scenario to an unbalanced world. Imagine a world in which there is no proportion between birth and death rates or where men outnumber women. Animals or insects reproduce disproportionately, and there is not any ecological cycle to control their reproduction. The sun constantly evaporates ocean water, and there is not any water cycle to return water back to oceans. Body’s glands secrete hormones randomly and put our lives at risk, etc.; it is obvious that there is a little chance to live under such conditions.
In reality, God has created the world as a perfect and balanced system and the human as the center of creation, so the human has a duty to maintain balance in all his existential dimensions and aspects of life to achieve bliss in both this world and the hereafter. But what does human balance mean? where and how should it be established? We quickly sense our physical imbalance in the form of pain, discomfort, fatigue, or lack of coordination in our body parts, yet the reality is that the the imbalance of soul is more perilous. Not only does it deprive us of joy and peace of mind in our worldly lives, but also it causes hardships, suffering, and punishment in our infinite lives.
Only Balance Leads Us to Our Destination
Among faculties governing our bodies, the supra-rational faculty holds particular importance and is considered the criterion for our humanity. In other words, we are called humans when we bring our existential dimensions under the control of our supra-rational faculty according to their status, and also when our existential dimensions are at the service of our supra-rational faculty. When we speak of human balance, we mean balancing our human or supra-rational dimension, so that we can acquire a sound heart and eventually be born healthy into the hereafter.
When our human dimension is at the service of other faculties, we will never become balanced persons, like a CEO of a company who is a puppet at the hands of his employees, and as an indecisive person, he cannot make good decisions and run a successful business. However, if our other faculties are at the service and under the control of the supra-rational faculty, this faculty takes control of our lives and regulates our decisions, relationships, thoughts, and behaviors and puts us on the right path. Constant happiness, vitality, and inner peace are the products of the superiority of the supra-rational faculty over other faculties; on the other hand, excess and neglect in setting limits to the lower dimensions of our being, or the lack of control of the supra-rational dimension over other dimensions makes us lose our balance and deviate from the path toward the purpose of our creation. The more we deviate from this path and lose our balance, the more our human dimension will be on the verge of collapse.
We realize the importance of balance when we understand how it affects many areas of life. The wrong prioritization of our existential dimensions leads to losing balance, and as a result, we face its negative consequences. In fact, all the problems that trap us in our lower existential dimensions stem from the loss of balance in our human dimension; for example, when we lack the ability to deeply connect with our True and infinite Beloved, i.e. Allah, we try to compensate for our desire for infinity through our fascination with the world. So due to compulsive shopping we may face financial problems in our inanimate dimension, or in the animal dimension, we may indulge in various types of lust harming ourselves and breaking social norms. In the vegetative dimension, we may trap ourselves in the pursuit of physical or dietary variety, causing harm to our friendships and our family’s economy. Nevertheless, all our problems in the lower dimensions of our being originate from disregarding the importance of balance in our existential dimensions, and they manifest themselves in various aspects of our lives. These problems appear when our supra-rational faculty is not strong enough to take control of other dimensions. As soon as we get our priorities right and pay attention to each existential dimension as it deserves, these problems will be resolved.
In this lesson, we delved into the essence of balance and discussed how understanding the importance of balance can profoundly impact our lives. We stated that excess and neglect in paying attention to our existential dimensions leads us to lose our balance in the human dimension. We learned that an imbalanced soul not only loses infinity but also suffers the effects of the loss of balance by having various problems in life. We mentioned that understanding the importance of balance in the human dimension is essential for us to reach our destination and enjoy worldly and spiritual happiness.
Do you believe that there is balance in the system of creation? As a human, how much importance do you place on balancing your soul?