The World We Long For

Those who try to build a Paradise for themselves in this world will find nothing but disappointment awaiting them when they reach the next world. It is tragic that trying to achieve one’s greatest longing in life—Paradise—one is eternally fated to live without it.

To disbelieve in Paradise is to disbelieve in oneself, for Paradise is what everyone longs for more than anything. If, on the other hand, one believes in Paradise but does not strive to attain it, one is like a person who goes to a shop to buy something but is not ready to pay the required price.

Everyone longs for a dream world—a world of everlasting life and total satisfaction, a place immune from the limitations and disadvantages that beset us in this world. It is what man longs for above all else. Everyone in this world is striving to achieve this end, yet no one finds what they desire. People go to great pains to make themselves healthy, but soon they are beset by illness or old age; they accumulate wealth, but it does not endow them with inner peace; they seek power, only to find that power creates more problems for them; they surround themselves with luxuries and comforts, but soon fall prey to boredom and unrest.

All humans are busy building a Paradise for themselves, but death comes, leaving the world with all their longings and desires unfulfilled before they can do so. They then go to a world Hereafter where Paradise is awaiting them. However, the Paradise of the next world will only be inhabited by those who have paid the price for it in this world. Those who fail to do so deprive themselves of what they long for more than anything.

In Paradise, we shall have all that we desire. However, Paradise lies in the next world and will only be inhabited by those who have prepared themselves for it. Those who build a Paradise for themselves in this world will find nothing but disappointment awaiting them when they reach the next world.

Moreover, a severe disappointment will await them, for they will find themselves deprived of what they had been seeking all their lives. How ironic that one’s attempts to fashion in this world what is meant to be fashioned in the next should lead one to lose out on it for all time. How tragic that in man’s efforts to achieve his greatest longing in life—Paradise—he is condemned to live without it!