‘Right Here, Right Now’

The Prophet Muhammad is reported to have said: “Remember death much because it demolishes all desires.” (Sunan Ibn Majah 4258). This means that thinking about death destroys world-oriented thinking and engenders Hereafter-oriented thinking. If a person repeatedly remembers death, he will become someone who desires the Hereafter, not this world.

In the above hadith the Arabic word lazzat is used. It stands for all those things that makes something the focus of one’s attention. If you repeatedly remember that you will not live in this world forever and that you will die sooner or later, it will change your focus of attention. You will now consider the world that comes after death to be more important than this world, where we live only for a temporary period.

This realization can create a revolution in our thinking. It can completely transform our behaviour, our moral standards and our dealings with others. It can demolish all our base desires.

Many people are completely heedless of death. They hanker after worldly goods and sense-pleasures. ‘Right here, right now’ is their slogan. But if they develop a living consciousness of death, they would never utter such words.