ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Ethics and Spiritual Growth Chapter 5: The Stormy Sea of Life Life is like a restless sea, full of wonders and always in a state of perpetual turmoil caused by the waves of events. No one is secure from the violent waves on the surface of this deep ocean. Pleasure and pain in this world, like positive and negative forces in nature, together perform their function everywhere.

Opposed to joy and delight are grief and sadness and opposed to youth and vitality are old age and weakness. Everyone who is alive must bear the burden of affliction and suffering. Everyone who sets out on this sea is bound to be drenched by its waters and encounter in the course of his life a series of unpleasant and painful events: failure, privation, the death of dear ones and many other afflictions of the kind.

Who is it that has remained unscathed by the arrows of time and secure from the tempests of events? The type of hardships and calamities, it is true, is different in every age, but the universal principle of hardship and suffering is intertwined with man's life in all its stages. Certainly, the means of comfort and welfare have never been so within man's reach in any era of history to the extent they are accessible today.

Similarly, he has never attain the knowledge of nature's complex mysteries that he possesses today and been never so successful in subduing nature's unfriendly elements to the extent of today. In the shadow of science and with the power of technology, the civilised human being has overcome many of his difficulties by employing nature's various forces to his benefit.

However, despite these remarkable advancements in science and its brilliant achievements, and in spite of possessing all the different means essential for a better life, man today not only does not possess the feeling of mental peace and security that are basic for a happy life, he is drifting further away from the goal of a pleasant and wholesome life. From the viewpoint of peace and happiness, the future prospects of this materialistic life of today are not promising.

It cannot be denied that in most advanced societies psychological stress and anxiety have constantly increased in direct proportion to scientific, industrial, and economic progress and with the expansion of civic amenities and affluence.