You are what the IMPACT of KNOWLEDGE has on you.

Does information impact you?

What do you think the CRITERIA for having an IMPACT of Knowledge on you?
In what condition knowledge affects you?
Can information change your mind and action?
Very unlikely.

Unless you have an aptitude of learning,
Unless you are hungry for knowledge,
Unless you have an urge to go for the best,
Unless you want to purify yourself,
Unless you have a plain mind to distinguish between right and wrong,
Unless you have a strong heart to hate the false and love for the truth.

Otherwise, you will find excuses only to indulge in your desires
Otherwise, you will choose to debate to depend your laziness, ignorance, your blocked mind and your EGO, out of ARROGANCE.

Does knowledge has its demand?

You respect the one who has the knowledge, you don’t have the same respect for the one who doesn’t have knowledge. Why?

If you receive a life-support training today, would you choose to remain unresponsive in an emergency event when your knowledge could save a life? But if you do, what would be your status? Worthless? And what people will regard you in such cases? A hateful menace of the society. When you do not act on knowledge it affects not only you but everyone around you. When knowledge doesn’t benefit you, you call that a worthless knowledge!

A child who learned today 2+2 makes 4, would he ever write otherwise? If he does what would you call him? Stupid? Worthless?

How do you measure yourself?

What is your intellect? Measured by how you understand info. Your intellect is defined or graded by your ability to understand info and then your excellence is measured by how you can turn info into beneficial knowledge.

And you might think this is the level enough for you to achieve, the level of excellence, you make the mark. But no! Your success depends on how that knowledge impacts you, meaning, how you act on that knowledge for yourself. And without impact, your knowledge values zero.

Know, what earns you DIGNITY

What makes you dignified and different from others is how knowledge impacts you or how you react on info.
– How’s that?

There are many ways to understand yourself according to your reaction to info you receive, read, watch or listen. For Example, If you are a person of low temperament, less patience, less forbearance, less intellect, less experienced, less courageous, you will act one way and if you are opposite in those characteristics, you will act the other way.
– That’s right.

But that mostly defines your personal character which is not what actually I meant here.
– So, what is it?

There is some info which has the same impact on both of these types of people who are in the opposite in those characteristics.
– What type of info is that?

There are many but let me put one example to understand. If you see a person smoking, can you define his personal characteristics from it such as, how much intellect he has, what temperament he got, how patient he is or how courageous he is?
– Except for Sherlock Homes, no! Two persons may be opposite in those characteristics but they both do smoke.

Ha ha ha, that’s really interesting, isn’t it?
– Yes, it seems so. Never thought it this way. I will try to observe this from now on.

So what makes the difference between two people who smoke and who doesn’t? Or can you define a character that the presence or absence of which makes one smoke or refrain from it? Let’s put the characteristics and see if any of these characters makes a person a possible candidate for smoking:

Stupid or Intelligent
Patient or Impatient
Clever or Simple
Courageous or Fearful
Extrovert or Introvert
Timid or Cheerful
Healthy or Sick
Rich or Poor
Highly Educated or Illiterate

Can you tell from any of these characteristics that it is a character of a smoker?
– Not really.

So, tell me how do you differentiate between the two, the one who smokes and the one doesn’t?
– I think self-control.

Exactly! Specifically, it is the ability to control the DESIRE. This is the only thing that distinguishes between these two types of people. That certainly has a big IMPACT on one’s life, define his personality and differentiate him from others.

You are what INFOrmation has an IMPACT on you.

Let me clear this with a crystal example, it happens in the countryside often. You see animals crossing a highway where vehicles move very fast with huge sounding impact on the surrounding. Did you see a few animals run away and a few such as, buffalo, cow walks as usual? They look at the object of noise but that does not make them move little faster, they continue at the same pace as they had before they heard the sound, right?
– Yes, I saw that.

What do you draw from that? The info, which, for them is, a huge running object with huge sound is about to pound on them, they heard the noise of it coming, they saw the huge object coming towards them but it doesn’t impact them. Why? Is it because they couldn’t realize the meaning of it? or because they have the experience that finally this won’t hit them? Or are they lazy to move their butt away from the path of possible danger?

– I think firstly laziness, these cattle are always like that and probably they also use experience. They are always around those noisy objects but others do not have that experience so they run away.

But you know, had they have little concern about themselves they would have moved away from any harm, true?
– That’s right.

So, why don’t they do it? They don’t know when a vehicle might fail to pull the brake, so even if they might have the experience, you can logically say that it is mainly their laziness that has to blame, true?
– Yes, I think so. That’s why they are cattle.

Now, do you find any resemblance of this with a fellow smoker we are talking about? Why doesn’t info impact on them?
– Lazy to control their desire. Their desires overcome their apprehension of future danger. The danger which has no doubt, which has been scientifically proven, the danger that is practically happening around them, the danger of which are presented as an image before their eyes, but nothing works on them, they live in the present and ignore the future danger because “it’s not happening right now!”

Let’s put an example and you knew these types of people around you always, those who follow their desire so much so that you might find or describe them as “worst than cattle”. You came to know a healthy eating or a healthy sleeping habit like taking dinner at least 2 hours before you go to bed. You heard the information, you heard the impact on this on your body and the severe consequence on your health for the habit of immediately going to bed after a late dinner and but you didn’t change your habit, you didn’t go for any action to implement that goodness in your life. It became so hard for you. Why? Just laziness, following your desire. Laziness doesn’t let you do a little pushing to change a few little things around your lifestyle. Therefore, what do you think you resemble with? Sorry to conclude but it is simply the cattle!

Therefore, isn’t this is how they earn the characteristics of cattle? In fact, you find people not dutiful to their responsibilities, to their parents or to their creator, simply because they cannot control their desire, they cannot pull themselves up from the level of the cattle, they cannot act to the dignity being human.

Why knowledge doesn’t impact you?

But there are other important reasons. When knowledge is enforced on you, you didn’t seek for it, how would you take action about it? When knowledge is passed by you, you didn’t look for it, how would you expect to take action on it?

On the other hand, when you seek knowledge then you would be surprised to see how that impacts you, you can notice the difference.

Then again another factor is why you seek knowledge for? To better yourself? An urge to be better? To go for the best?

And then who is the one that denies to be better? What makes one reject the best?
Is that you, when best presented but arrogance make you live happily with the lowest?
Is that you, when the right course is presented but you like to live with the wrong course?
Is that you, when truth manifested like the daylight but you deny to leave the darkness of evident falsehood?

And if you are a Muslim, and you have one of those characters, then know that Allah, the most Exalted said in the Quran 8:20-22, 7:179 that you become the worst of all the living creatures. He created you as the best of all the creations but when knowledge doesn’t impact you, your status becomes the “lower than cattle” to Him.

What’s the benefit you get by reading this?

You know people. You know the criminals.
Many wrongdoing people (say, a speeding driver) get alerted by only the hearing of the siren of a police car.
For many, they still continue until they see a police car is around
For many, while passing through a police station
For many, they keep doing it even when the police are so close and they stop only when they get caught by the police.

So, who was the wisest wrongdoing person? The siren-alerted person.
And who the worst of the wrongdoing person? The one who cannot correct himself until he is caught, humiliated, disgraced by the police. But it is not the police, it is he himself who is responsible for his own destruction. Police warned him before they caught him.

Therefore, you decide what’s your impact level.

The day you see Jahannam, the Hell? (Quran 79:36)
The day you bite your flesh?
The day you cry out when your book will be given to your left hand? (Quran 84:10-11)
The day when you wish to be dust? (Quran 78:40)
The day you will remorse, “Had I just sent a little bit more for this day!” (Quran 89:24)
So, better you decide!
May Allah save you and me from being those worst people!
Ameen.