Having a Purpose in Life
In 1931, Japan conquered Manchuria in the north eastern area of China, where it established the government of its choice. After that China’s relations with Japan soured. On July 7, 1937 the Marco Polo incident took place in Beijing (Peking). This event awakened suppressed sentiments, which led to a military confrontation between the two countries. This finally culminated in the Second World War. Since that time there had been enmity between Japan and China. Then after a lapse of some years, an agreement was signed between the two countries, according to which Japan was to set up a steel mill in China.
But after the signing of the agreement, the government of China suddenly cancelled it.
However, new opportunities opened up for Japan when the new Prime Minister of China, Deng Xiaoping, put an end to the extremist version of communism and adopted a new open door policy. This allowed Japan to break fresh ground with China, which caused an influx of the Japanese into China again. If you go to China today, you will have to book your air passage three months in advance, for every flight from Japan to China goes full.
China affords great opportunities for business, which Japan wants to avail of to the greatest possible extent. To facilitate commercial interaction, the Japanese lost no time in shutting their minds down to all previous painful memories. As a tourist once put it: Japan decided that it would bear all offensive behaviour unilaterally. The same tourist wrote that during his stay in Tokyo (June 1987), Radio Beijing announced that China would build a museum that would show, through pictures, the injustices and tyranny inflicted upon the Chinese by the Japanese. This Museum was to be inaugurated in 1987 to mark the 50th year of the tragic event of Marco Polo.
When the Japanese were asked to comment on this report, they maintained silence. When they were exhorted to speak out, they said: “You know our Chinese friends have a way of twisting our tails, and appealing to our conscience.” Japan had an aim and that was to promote its business interests. This aim for them was character forming in that it taught them the wisdom of forbearance, the avoidance of talking of things of no importance and speaking only when there was a real need. Having a definite objective caused them to forget past grievances and to bury all complaints and war initiatives unilaterally, so that the path to their achieving their goal might become free of obstacles.
This is a standard piece of psychology, whether the aim be to transact business or carry out any other project. And when any group loses the ability to follow this line, it indicates that they have lost their purpose in life. When there is no clear objective before them, the individuals of such a group lose in character.
At present the greatest weakness of Muslims is that they have no character. You will find that in every field people have lost their character. No solid foundation can be erected upon them. Wherever you try to bring them into play, they turn out to be like a wall of unbaked bricks—unstable.
The main cause of this weakness is that today our people have lost all awareness they ever had of a purpose in life. As a group, they have become aimless. They lack the drive to build the future either in this world or the next. This is their real weakness. If this consciousness could once again be revivified, they would once more be a living people—a people of good character, just as they were in the past. It is of paramount importance to impress upon individuals how vital it is for them to have a sense of purpose in life. For having an objective in life awakens a man’s potential. It turns him into a real man again.
