WHY THIS CONTRADICTION?
Man has to use the opportunities available in the present world per God’s creation plan and then become eligible to live amidst eternal joy in Paradise.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) was an English poet. He once remarked, “Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.” It is a matter of everyday experience. Many people love to hear tragic stories. Popular novels are more often than not tragedies rather than comedies. Likewise, very often, those singers become popular who sing sad songs.
Why is this so? Why is it that sad poems or sad stories succeed in striking the chords of people’s hearts?
It is because every person, in practice, lives in a psyche of deprivation or frustration. In such a situation, a happy story seems somehow unreal to them. In contrast to this, a sorrowful tale seems more natural to them.
If you study the issue in greater depth, you will realise that man is a pleasure-seeking being. In the vast universe, man is a remarkable creature. He is the only creature who has an acute sense of pleasure. It is a uniquely human attribute that man can enjoy pleasure. In the vast universe, there are many creatures, but man’s unique ability is the quality of enjoying pleasure in this way.
For man, thinking can be a pleasure, as can seeing, hearing, speaking, eating, drinking, smelling, touching, and even walking barefoot on the grass. However, here there is a strange contradiction. Man has a great capacity to enjoy pleasure, but enjoyment is impossible for man in this world.
Once, I went to Kashmir, where, near Pahalgam, a mountain river flowed down from a stream up in the mountains. Its water was pure. When I reached Pahalgam and saw the clean, clear water, I desired to drink it. So I had a glass of water. It was wonderful—better than any other drink. I drank a second glass, then another, until I had drunk six glasses! Even after the sixth glass, I still wanted to drink but could not. Then, I developed a splitting headache. The pain was so severe that I had to return at once. I got back to Srinagar. I was to have dinner at somebody’s house, and several people had been invited. When I reached the venue, my head hurt so badly that I could not attend the dinner.
The same predicament arises with all other pleasures. Man earns wealth, obtains power, marries according to his choice, builds a grand house, accumulates many luxuries, etc. However, after having achieved all this, he realizes that there is a decisive obstacle in deriving complete and continuous satisfaction from any pleasurable thing. Even if he has all the comforts and luxuries, and material things he desires, he still fails to obtain complete and long-lasting joy and peace.
Man’s desire for material comforts and luxuries is unlimited. However, to use these comforts, he has only a limited capacity. This limitation is always a barrier between man and the objects of pleasure. Even after obtaining everything that he desires, man remains frustrated. Man’s bodily weakness, the decline in vitality with advancing age, sickness, accidents, and eventually death continuously negate his desires. Man obtains objects of pleasure when he desires to use them. However, he soon reaches the limits of his strength and becomes exhausted to the extent of becoming a spent force. Finally, death buries all his desires and dreams.
This contradiction is not a fundamental one. It arises out of a difference in the order of things. It has been decreed that in the pre-death phase of his life, man should obtain only an introduction, in a limited sense, to his desired pleasures and that in the post-death stage of his life, he may fully receive the pleasures that he seeks. This arrangement is not accidental or coincidental. Instead, it is part of nature. It is found in the whole system of nature. In this world, whatever success man earns, he gets in line with this principle. In this world, no success is an exception to this principle. For instance, a farmer must sow and reap only after that; one must plant a sapling in a nursery and obtain its fruits only after that. An ironsmith must first smelt iron, and only then can he produce steel. In other words, in this world, everything must go through different stages. Everything first passes through its initial period and then reaches its climax. There is no exception to this principle of nature.
The same issue holds for man. Man has been given an unlimited sense of enjoyment, but the objects from which he can derive endless pleasure have been kept in the second stage of his life—in the world that comes after death. In the first stage of his life—in the present world—man discovers his ability to pursue pleasure. In the life after death, if he had led a righteous life in this world, he could obtain all the objects of pleasure. That is to say, in the pre-death phase of life in this world, he will experience the desire for pleasure, and in the post-death stage, he can experience the full experience of pleasure in Paradise.
In line with His creation plan, the Creator of the world has given man an initial introduction in this present world to the pleasures one will enjoy in Paradise. In this way, He conveys to man that if he wants to experience pleasure for all eternity and in the most total sense, he should create a strong desire for this and perform such actions as will hold him deserving of Paradise.
What should one do to become deserving of Paradise in the Hereafter? To put it briefly, man should make himself a purified soul. He must purify himself of every negative emotion. He should save himself from becoming a victim of greed, selfishness, jealousy, dishonesty, falsehood, anger, revenge, hate, and other negative feelings. He should develop a lofty, entirely positive character that makes him worthy of living in the neighbourhood of God in Paradise. He must be transformed into an angelic person or a divine personality.
Man’s life is divided into the pre-death and post-death phases. A tiny portion of man’s life is kept for the first phase, while the rest—which carries on for all eternity— is in the post-death phase. If man’s story is seen only in the pre-death phase, it will appear as a meaningless tragedy. However, if a man’s story is seen in the light of the period after death, it will seem meaningful.
In line with this creation plan of God, man stands at a very critical juncture. He has to choose between two alternatives. One option is to use the available opportunities in the present world according to God’s creation plan and then become eligible to live amidst eternal joy in Paradise. The other option is to lead a life of heedlessness in this world and be eternally deprived of pleasure in the next phase of life.
