Just think this over for a few minutes: You are
destined for an extremely long and unbroken
lifespan. Death is by no means the termination
of this life: it is the commencement of a new
era. Death is simply the dividing-point between
the two stages of our life.
Take the farmer’s
planting of a crop as an example. He invests his
capital in it and cultivates it, until such times as
the crop ripens and dries up. Then he harvests
it so that he can use the grain and store it up for
his year’s requirements. Harvest is the end of
one phase in the crop’s development, during
which time planting and cultivation had taken
place. Before the cutting of the crop there had
been only toil and expense, it is afterwards that
he will enjoy the fruits of his efforts.
This is the case with our life also. In this world
we are investing in and cultivating our afterworld
crop. Each one of us owns a field that is either
being cultivated or left barren. We have used a
seed that is either productive or mediocre. After
sowing our crop, we have either attended to it
or neglected it. Either we have cultivated thorns,
or else flowers and fruits have blossomed in
our garden. We have either expended our energies
on the improvement of our crop, or we have
wasted our time in unnecessary and irrelevant
occupations. The period of preparation of this
crop lasts until death. The day of our death is
harvest-day. When our eyes close on this world,
they will open on the afterlife, and there, the
crop that we have been busy cultivating all our
lives will appear before us.
Remember that the person who does the
farming is the one who does the harvesting, and
he will reap only the crop that he has sown.
Likewise in the afterworld, everybody will reap
the harvest he had prepared for himself prior to
his death. Every farmer knows full well that he
will take as much grain to the granary as he has
grown, and that the crop can never be other
than the one he has sowed. Likewise, in the
afterworld, man will be recompensed according
to the nature of his efforts in the world.
Death
is the final announcement of the termination of
the time allotted to him for struggle and
endeavour, and the afterworld is the final place
in which he will be able to experience the results
thereof. After death there will be no further
opportunity to struggle and it must be borne in
mind that the afterlife will never terminate.
What a critical matter this is! If only man could
come to a mature understanding of this before
he died. Becoming aware of the truth only after
death is too late, because his later realization will
be of no avail. There is no time then to consider
the gravity of one’s errors, no time for repentance
and certainly no time for expiations.
Mankind is oblivious of his destiny, while time
is pressing him with the utmost speed towards
the harvesting of his crop. He is busily engaged
in procuring paltry worldly profits, and
considers himself worthily occupied, whereas,
in fact, he is just frittering away his precious
time. He has before him a superb opportunity to
ensure a prosperous future for himself, but
instead, he chooses to occupy himself with
unimportant and trivial things. His Lord is calling
him towards Paradise, a place of endless honour
and bliss, while he, in his ignorance, is immersed
in ephemeral and delusive pleasures. He reckons
that he is saving, but in fact he is squandering.
While constructing his worldly mansion, he is
labouring under the illusion that he is building
for his life: while in fact, he is erecting walls of
sand that will crumble away to nothing.
Man! Realize what you are doing and what
you ought to be doing.
--Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
( Ref - Reality of Life )
