MIRAGE OF MATERIAL PROGRESS
You can lead a truly successful life in this world only if your efforts and the direction you are moving are according to God’s creation plan.
Material ‘failure’ is as meaningless as material ‘success’ in the present world. Examples of this continuously come to the fore in different forms. For instance, some years ago, a young woman put a noose around her neck and committed suicide, even though she had become a very successful model. The following words apply to herself: “Being famous is like living in a bubble that can burst any moment.” In another case, some years ago, an interview with one of India’s ‘biggest’ industrialists was published in a newspaper. Although he was one of India’s ‘richest’ persons, wealth did not give him joy. Despite possessing much material wealth, he was leading an utterly non-peaceful life.
Many other people have money, fame, and power but are not happy. Unfortunately, these things cannot give you lasting happiness.
In their mind, every person has a beautiful image of a joy-filled world—Paradise. So, spending all their energies and time, they try to accumulate as much money as possible to construct this world of their dreams. However, after attaining all the material things they hankered, they realize their failure to find real peace in the ‘paradise’ they have made for themselves.
It is the condition of almost every person. Nearly every man is buried in the beautiful graveyard that he has built. Their desired ideal world is a world of unlimited comforts, and such a world cannot be made in the present limited world. It can be built only in the world that comes after death. This next world is unlimited, as well as eternal.
In this world, if any person wants to build a successful life for himself, the first thing that he ought to know is God’s creation plan. You can lead a truly successful life in this world only if your efforts and the direction you are moving are according to God’s creation plan. If one ignores God’s creation plan, no one can lead a truly successful life.
According to God’s creation plan, the temporary world before death is simply for the sake of an examination. According to this plan, living in an ideal world of ultimate joy is possible only in life after death. Given these fundamental realities, man should try to make himself successful in the examination before death so that in the stage of life that comes after death, he may obtain his desired ideal world—eternal Paradise—as a Divine reward. It is the only principle for a successful life.
