Maulana Wahiduddin Khan | ST Weekly Blog | Feb 26, 2017

ONCE during one of his missionary journeys Billy Graham, the well-known evangelist received a message from an American billionaire who asked to meet him as soon as possible.

On meeting him, the billionaire said: "You see, I am an old man. Life has lost all meaning. I am going to take a fateful leap into the unknown. Young man, can you give me a ray of hope?"

This is not just the story of one billionaire; rather it is the story of all human beings. Man devotes all his time towards this end, till the final hours of his life come and he leaves this world with the feeling of helplessness knowing that he could not achieve what he wanted to.

What is the reason for this? Man is the only creature in this vast universe, who cherishes countless desires in his heart. Is this world of beautiful dreams only there to remain a dream, and never to be realized? Why this contradiction?

Such contradiction does not exist anywhere else in this vast universe. The inanimate world, the plant world and the animal world are completely free from such contradiction. There is a basic difference between man and the rest of the universe. That is, man's life is divided into two stages- the stage of life before death and the stage of life after death. Unlike man, all other things in the universe have no stage beyond this present world. They are meant only to come into existence, and then be obliterated one day forever.

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The truth is that whatever has been destined for man in the second stage of his life, he desires it in the first stage itself. However, this is not possible because of a unique law in nature. Man's life is governed by the principle of action and reward. That is, the performance of actions in the first stage before death; and the receiving of reward commensurate to those actions, in the second stage after death.

This law is the key to understanding human life. According to this law, the world before death is the stage of sowing the seed; and the world after death is the stage of finding its result- lush green trees, laden with flowers and fruits.

What man therefore ought to do, in this first stage of his life is concentrate all his attention on the proper cultivation of the seed, instead of making futile efforts to find the fruits and flowers. Those who do so will find everything they desire in the world to come- all those things that they had failed to find in the world they leave behind.