Real World, Imaginary World

A human being takes birth in this present world. He spends his days and nights here. Passing through various experiences, the journey of his life continues apace. Through these experiences, consciously or unconsciously he comes to think that this present world is the real, absolute and ultimate world. In contrast, he thinks that the world of the Hereafter is an imaginary world. On account of this apparent difference between these two worlds, a person thinks only on the basis of this world. In his thinking and in his planning, there is, in actual practice, no place for the eternal Hereafter.

This is a human being’s biggest problem. Because the Hereafter has such enormous consequences for a person, his thinking ought to be Hereafter-oriented, not worldly-oriented. In order to help save a person from going astray in this regard, Nature has arranged for this world to be a world of difficulties. These problems function as a sort of speed-breaker. They exist so that a person should not be deluded into taking this present world as the ultimate world and that, instead, he should build his life on the basis of the Hereafter.

Psychologists say that a unique feature of a human being is that he possesses conceptual thinking. This quality distinguishes a human being from other creatures. This attribute, that is part of the way a person has been created, tells us what is desirable for him—and that is, that he should formulate the purpose of his life through conceptual thinking.

The present world is a world that can be seen by our physical eyes. In contrast, the Hereafter is a world that cannot be at present seen by us. It behoves us to make the world of the Hereafter our destination, rather than this present world. For this, we need to transform our thinking accordingly. We need to conceptually discover the true purpose of life.