What is Closeness to God?
Few people in this world have been able to find God in such a manner that it results in the thrilling experience that is called remembrance of God. False religiosity is touted about everywhere with much fanfare. But real piety is so rare as to be almost just a mere possibility.
Today, people talk much about God and religion, but there is hardly anyone who has found God in such a way that the awesomeness of the experience has shaken him to very roots, causing his hair to stand on end. Where is the person who, when he reads the Quran, cries out, ‘O God! Your beneficence is so amazing! You have arranged for my guidance, otherwise I would have continued to flounder in darkness!’ Where is the person who, when he learns about the practice of the Prophet, is struck with bewilderment at how God arranged for establishing the spotless model of the Prophet for us to follow and preserved it in history? Where is the person who, when he places his head on the earth in prostration, feels that God, in His mercy, has taken it in His protective arms? Where is the person who, when the eats something, experiences a wave of intense gratitude overwhelm his very being, being awestruck at the glory of God who has made such arrangements for our sustenance? Where is the person who, when he takes a sip of water, sheds tears and cries out, ‘O God! If you do not quench my thirst, I shall remain thirsty! If you do not give me water, I will not be able to get it from anywhere!’
People assume they are very close to God, but they are actually far from Him. They take the name of God, but there’s no divine sweetness in their words. They claim to have found God, but in reality this is far from being the case. They create a big show in the name of God, but all this is simply useless. They imagine that God’s Heaven is reserved for them, but no heavenly breeze brushes past them.
What piety and devotion to God is it if your proclaimed religiousness does not stir a thrill in your heart and mind, in your very being? What absurd heaven do you think has been reserved especially for you, whose admission ticket you think you carry around in your pocket while your behaviour shows no sign of you being a heavenly being? How strange are the denizens of your heaven who think that Paradise has been granted to them as their eternal inheritance, while all their interests and concerns are about this temporary world alone!
