At the Same Level
On March 31, 1981, newspapers across the world had the same bold headlines: ‘Murderous Assault on American President!’ A young man had fired six bullets at the then President of America, Mr. Ronald Reagan. One bullet hit his lungs. Mr. Reagan was rushed to the hospital. He was in a bad shape, having lost much blood. But owing to the timely medical help that he received, he survived.
Before becoming the American President, Mr. Reagan had been a film actor. He proved unable to obtain much of a position in the film world. After this, he entered politics, and in 1980, he was elected as the American President. When he was recovering in hospital, he said to the doctors and nurses:
If I’d got this much attention in Hollywood, I would never have left!
(The Hindustan Times, April 1, 1981)
The person who had shot at Ronald Reagan was a man called John Hinckley. He had fallen in love with a young film actress named Jodie Foster. He would send her letters, but she did not pay him any attention. Finally, a day before he attacked Mr. Reagan, he wrote a letter to her, saying:
Now you’ll know who l am.
(The Hindustan Times, April 2, 1981)
By firing those bullets at Ronald Reagan, John Hinckley, whom virtually no one then knew, suddenly shot into headlines of all the newspapers of the world. All the television and radio stations were abuzz with talk about him. With the press of the trigger of a gun, he had acquired that ‘fame’ that innumerable people spend their entire lives working for and yet fail to attain.
If someone appears to be a criminal and somebody else seems to be innocent but both hanker after fame, it means that both exist on the same plane. The law of this world deals with people according to their external conditions. But the Hereafter is the plane where people will be dealt with on the basis of their true, inner personality. Someone presents himself to be a great champion of religion simply in order to gain name and fame. Someone else becomes a leader for precisely the same purpose. The consequences that both will face will be the same in God’s eyes.
