Decisive Day

The Bangalore edition of The Indian Express (9th September 1983) carried a report titled ‘Glitter is not Gold’. It was about a certain Ms. Sybil D’Silva, a resident of Bangalore.

One day, a 35 year old woman came to Ms. D’Silva’s house. She was carrying a six month old baby. She told Ms. D’Silva that her husband was very ill and that they needed five thousand rupees immediately for his treatment. She took out a gold chain from her pocket and said, ‘I am not begging from you. I want to sell this gold chain. It is very precious to me, but my husband’s health is even more precious. In the market, this chain’s value wouldn’t be less than ten thousand rupees. But because I am desperate, I will give it to you for five thousand.’

Ms. D’Silva declined to take the chain, but the woman kept on repeating her tale of woe. Finally, she won Ms. D’Silva over. Ms. D’Silva gave the woman five thousand rupees and took the chain.

The next day, Ms. D’Silva went to a market in Bangalore and showed the chain to a goldsmith. The goldsmith tested the chain for the purity of the gold. And then the chain’s reality emerged. It wasn’t gold at all, but brass!

This is exactly what is going to happen in the Hereafter, too. In this world, everyone is engrossed in doing various things. Everyone thinks his work is ‘gold’. But something is truly gold only when a goldsmith gauges it and certifies it to be so. Likewise, in the Hereafter, God will gauge everyone’s actions. If someone’s actions are tested and proved to be ‘gold’, he will get an appropriate reward for them. And if someone else’s actions are tested and proved to be ‘brass’, not gold, he will deserve appropriate punishment.

In this world, people cling to some things and refuse to give them up. But on the Day of Judgment, they will pine to be parted from the consequences of this clinging, but that will not be possible at all. What they took great pride in while in this world will prove to be a cause for their downfall in the next.