THE REALITY OF SACRIFICE
Symbolising A Higher Offering
SACRIFICE is about giving up all that you have, and, in return, receiving that which you do not have. Sacrifice teaches us that if we want to acquire something, we first need to have the courage to give up what we have. If we want to truly live, we should first be ready to face death. Sacrifice is not a soulless ritual. Rather, it is a living reality that is intertwined with life in the same way as the laws of Nature are inextricably linked with the entire cosmos.
Sacrifice is not the end, but, rather, the beginning of true action. Sometimes, a seemingly small thing turns into something of great significance. What may appear small may actually symbolize something of enormous importance. So is it with sacrifice on the day of Eid ul-Azha. On the face of it, the sacrifice involves offering an ordinary animal in the name of God. But it actually is a symbol of something really big, rather than an occasional, spiritless and meaningless custom. By sacrificing an animal on this day, we symbolize our determination to sacrifice everything, including even our lives, for a higher purpose.
Here is an example of how an apparently small act can indicate something very big. This is about an incident that happened in November 1962, when the aggression of a neighbouring country had caused grave danger to India. The whole country was stunned. At this time, about 25,000 young men in Ahmedabad got together, determined to do something to protect the country, even if they had to sacrifice their lives. After deciding this, each of them contributed one paisa. In this way, they collected a sum of 25,000 paisas, and presented this money to the then Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. While giving this money, they said that they were actually giving themselves to him.
On the face of it, each of these youths gave just a single paisa to the Prime Minister, a sum which ordinarily didn’t have much value. But their single paisa was actually of enormous value because it symbolized a human being who was offering himself. Thus, the 25,000 paisas that they donated was a symbolic expression of the 25,000 lives that they had determined to off er for the country.
In the same way, sacrificing an animal is a symbolic expression of Man’s determination to sacrifice his all, even his life, for the sake of higher, divine, purposes.
God has made this world in such a way that he who eff aces himself alone is crowned with success. The sacrifice of an animal on the day of Eid ul-Azha is an annual event that reminds us of this divine law. It is not something that has no connection with the mainstream of life. Sacrifice is, in fact, a universal law.
This can be clarified with the help of an analogy. If you keep a seed in a cold storage, it will remain as a seed. But if you plant it in the ground, then something really astounding happens. In a while, the seed transforms into a tree. The tree adds colour to its surroundings and brings joy to the beholder, besides proving to be useful in many other ways. It produces a great many seeds, which, in turn, soon turn into trees. And so on.
What is the reason for the difference of the fate of the seed that lies in the cold storage and the one that is planted in the earth? It lies in this thing called sacrifice. The seed that is planted in the soil sacrifices, as it were, itself. It effaces itself. This is how it is transformed into a sturdy tree. In contrast, the seed that lies in the cold storage doesn’t make any such sacrifice of itself. And that is why it remains of no use or importance.
A seed becomes a tree only when it eff aces itself. The tree produces a beautiful flower. When the flower eff aces its beautiful self, it is transformed into a fruit. In turn, the fruit agrees to eff ace itself — and then it is eaten by human beings and becomes part of their blood and flesh.
In this world, the root to success for everything is one and the same: sacrifice. Whether it be in the fi eld of knowledge, commerce, politics, social welfare or ethics and morality — in every sphere, success is possible only through sacrifice. The Creator of this world has made the world in such a way that no success is possible without sacrifice.
If you think that you can achieve great success simply by mouthing a few slogans or doing some superficial activities, without making any sacrifices, you are simply fooling yourself. It just cannot happen in this God-created world. How, then, can God be pleased with someone if he or she doesn’t want to make any sort of sacrifice? When God has established a principle — that success is possible only if one undergoes sacrifice — it is as if God has also made it known to us the way to find Him, is through sacrifice. Sacrifice — the condition for getting anything in this world — is also the condition for finding God. If we want to please God, we will have to sacrifice ourselves for Him. God bestows His all on those who give Him their all. Without sacrifice, one cannot get anything in this system that God has made.
The principle for success in this world is the same as that in the life after death. Life after death is much more valuable than life in this world. That is why the sacrifice that is required for success in the life after death is much greater than what is required for success in this world. According to Islam, our life is divided into two parts. One, extremely small part is our existence in the world in which we presently live. The infinitely bigger part, which lasts forever, is the life that we will face after death. Success in the life after death, like success in the present world, is dependent entirely on sacrifice. The world of heaven is like a colony of excellent, selected people who, while on earth, excelled in terms of belief and actions. Those who do not measure up to this standard in this world will be pushed into the fi res of hell.
What does it mean to become a good human being? It means to begin to live on the divine plane, to cultivate divine attributes within oneself. For this, we have to fight with the evil inclinations inside us. We have to work throughout our lives to keep away from negative influences. This is a path of continuous sacrifice. Only those who have cultivated the courage for this sort of sacrifice will find a place in God’s heavenly realm. For this, one needs to cleanse one’s mind of all false ideas and beliefs. We must engage in this ‘intellectual operation’, no matter what the cost, even if it demands that we have to slaughter some of our deeply-cherished beliefs. This requires that we mould our character on the basis of the Truth, even if this means sacrificing our worldly interests. We must bow our heads before the Truth, even if this means having to lose our so-called superiority. We must make love and commitment to the Truth the manifesto of our lives, even if this means that we have no status or position in this world.
In every age, certain practises become popular, certain social bonds become deeply cemented, and certain beliefs become deeply cherished. One gets used to these things and strongly believes that they are right, true and proper. And so, when one is faced with the call of the Truth, it is often the case that one instinctively takes it as a threat to one’s interests. We might construe this call of the Truth as a challenge to our social relations, and as a negation of our beliefs that we cling to in the hope of a blissful future. Because of this, to accept the call of the Truth entails great sacrifice. It is tantamount to offering one’s very life at the sacrificial altar of the Truth.
But it is this sacrifice that makes human beings beloved in the eyes of God. It is this sacrifice that leads to the opening of the doors of eternal bliss in heaven. The only price of heaven is the sacrifice of one’s self. Without this sacrifice, no one can gain entry into God’s paradise.
Greatest Sacrifice
It is a fact that acknowledgment of truth is worship, nay; it is the greatest form of worship. It is an act for which man has to make the greatest sacrifice.
What makes it such a great sacrifice is that it involves the setting aside of one’s prestige.
