Without an Identity Card

Once, a boy from a village came to the city. Walking down a street, he passed by a school building. It so happened that the school was celebrating a function that day. The schoolboys had formed a queue outside a window. The village boy went closer to see what the matter was. He noticed that the students were being given sweets. And so, he also joined the queue. As the queue moved ahead, he advanced, too, dreaming of the sweets that he thought he would soon be eating, like the other boys.

Soon, the boy reached the head of the queue. With great joy, he stretched his hand towards the window. Just then, he heard a voice from behind the window say, ‘Your identity card?’

The boy had no such card. And so, he was asked to go away. It then struck him that the sweets were being given to only those boys who had spent a whole year as students in the school, and not to just any passerby.

Something like this is going to happen in the Hereafter. The Day of Judgment will be the day of divine decision. On that day, everyone will be gathered together. Rewards will be distributed, but those who receive them will be the ones who, prior to the arrival of that day, had made themselves eligible for such a reward. These will be those who appear there with their ‘identity card’.

That day is bound to come when one can see the most beautiful scene one can ever witness of the Lord; when a head can experience the greatest possible respect, of prostrating before the Lord. But all this will be only for those who, before the advent of that day, had proved themselves eligible for the Lord’s favour. For everyone else, their having neglected the task of proving themselves eligible for this while in the present world will become a barrier between them and God. In the Hereafter, too, they will not see God. On that day, when others will be rewarded, they will receive nothing but eternal regret.