Where the Two Oceans Meet — The Perfect Balance for Learning and Critical Thinking

We live in a world where brain is best. The mind is glorified as the king of the intellect and as such, those with the best grades, most…

We live in a world where brain is best. The mind is glorified as the king of the intellect and as such, those with the best grades, most qualifications or the highest IQ get the opportunities. Everything today is science-centric, data-driven and logic-leaning.

But it wasn’t always like this.

An important consideration when thinking about knowledge is epistemology — i.e. a branch of philosophy which looks at where knowledge actually comes from.

Is it just the brain alone?

Well, in a word, no.

A huge part of knowledge is intuition, insight and instinct. Whilst the brain works in a way where it processes data and learns from external sources, then retains it, this is the stuff that comes from within you. This is knowledge that comes from the heart and soul. We tend to bash this stuff as it can’t always be explained ‘scientifically’.

As you nurture your spirituality, you get blessed with a deeper understanding of this type of knowledge, known as basirah (wisdom). People who are awakened sometimes refer to this as their inner ‘consciousness’. To take it a step further, in Islam we used to be so in tune with our spirituality, that even dreams of the righteous were considered to be valuable knowledge for us to draw benefit from.

We’re sadly fast losing this ability in our overly-analytical, science driven, secular world. Logic is not bad in of itself of course. But the problem with only relying on external knowledge and discarding the other stuff is that it is short-sighted. Not everything can be analysed using your rational faculties alone.

Random example. Let’s take Red Bull. This was a product borne out of illogical thinking and ignoring data. To enter the soft drinks market, competing against Coca Cola, logically speaking you would make it cheaper, bigger, and tastier than your competitor, right? Nope. It failed every single taste test, people hated the taste in the focus groups, it was much smaller and 3 times more expensive. Yet it’s one of the biggest success stories today.

Central to understanding this, is to understand ‘Majma’ul Bahrain’ (“where the two oceans meet”) — an important part of Surah al Kahf. This is where Musa (as) met with Khidr (as), who was considered ‘the most learned of all men’. In the parable, Khidr showed Musa numerous times that he was looking at things from the wrong perspective — and we learn that we should not rely purely on intellect (or what is apparent), alone.

According to Imam Baydawi’s interpretation, ‘where the two oceans meet’ is symbolic language and refers to the ocean of rational enquiry externally acquired (e.g logic and science) and the ocean of spiritual insight internally received. Only at the counterpoint of these two oceans, do we get wisdom and the ability to think in the correct way to navigate the world, like Khidr.

It is no coincidence why Surah al Kahf is recited to protect against the Dajjal and the dangers of the last age. Dajjal is famously ‘one-eyed’. In an age of deception and fake news, never has it been more important to be informed with the right understanding. We need to become those people who ‘know’ the truth when we see it. We must be those that see with two eyes, those that see the whole picture.

This means removing our dependency on logic, science and tangible data alone. At the same time, we must also not go to the other extreme and dismiss everything that’s worldly. Balance is the key to bringing together the scientific, secular world in conjunction with the spiritual, sacred world.

Only once these two oceans have been harmoniously integrated within the human can we gain true insight beyond the superficial and can begin to understand the world and reality as it really is.

Logic and data is important but can be overrated. Sometimes the best solutions and strategies are borne out of creativity, random and even illogical thinking. We need to nurture our souls more so it gives us more intuition and insight from within. We suppress the gifts we’ve been given by delegating it all to data. Data is just a tool. Use it but don’t let it use you.

In summary, I believe to elevate our thinking, we need to re-establish the important connection between these two oceans of knowledge and to become more holistic in our thought process. We need to remove the barriers and compartments we put on different subjects and allow them all to mix and fuse together into this harmonious, glorious whole.

Only then will we gain the wisdom, so desperately lacking.