Our True Destination

Successful individuals are those who are welcomed when they reach the next world, and the failures are those who reach God as unwelcome guests without having anyone to receive them.

Among the Mina community of Sawai Madhopur, it has become a symbol of prosperity that the marriage procession should arrive by helicopter, even if the distance between the house of the bride and bridegroom is only 10 kilometres. In the old days, there had always been pomp and splendour in terms of dowry and tilak on the occasion of marriages, but now a much more significant step has been taken in the direction of ostentation: helicopters are being hired out by a Mumbai firm for this purpose. A Times of India reporter asked them the reason, and this was the reply: “The bride’s parents expect the ‘Barat’ to reach their village with adequate pomp and show.” (Times of India, May 30, 1985)

In this world, elaborate arrangements are made for the conveyance which is to arrive at a bride’s or bridegroom’s house; if people were to realize that such conveyances were destined ultimately to be taken to the court of the Lord of the Universe, their attitudes would undergo a complete transformation.

No one proceeds on his way to the executioner with pomp and ceremony. No one goes in splendour to a judge’s court where the verdict is to be pronounced against him. However, at the beginning of the journey and all along the way, everyone commits the same folly of not recognizing the final destination.

The successful individuals are those whose conveyances are welcomed when they reach the next world, and the failures are those who reach God as unwelcome guests without having anyone to receive them.