Maulana Wahiduddin Khan | ST Blog | June 15, 2020
According to the Creation Plan of God, human beings are placed in situations where they face hardships from time to time, at every moment throughout their lives, as part of their test. Difficulty and sadness are integral parts of the creation plan of the Creator. No man has the power to extricate himself from this life of trial and tribulation. This arrangement is to remind man of the fact that the present world has not been made as a place of luxury and comfort, but rather as a period of trial and as such will help determine whether he is eligible for eternal life in Paradise.
In spite of tremendous development in the present world, adverse conditions are still in evidence. But people, owing to their lack of awareness of God’s creation plan, continue to react negatively to situations and by giving such a response, prove themselves—in the eyes of God—to be failures in the examination He has set for them.
It is situations such as these that are the tests for man. Giving negative responses to negative situations leads to failing the test. On the contrary, giving positive responses to such situations leads to passing the test. In short, a soul of Paradise is one who has opted for the way of forgiveness in moments of anger; who has converted sentiments of jealousy into those of well-wishing, who has converted negativity into positivity, who has converted hatred into love, who has diffused tensions, instead of causing them to mount: above all, who has converted material loss into non-material gain, by opting for the course of introspection, when beset by complaints and grievances.
Stress is another major problem faced by people everywhere. There is only one practical solution to this problem and that is to adopt the correct attitude to stress—that of managing stress instead of trying to eliminate or react negatively to it. In this way we will pass our test.
Seen in the light of the creation plan, the root of all human problems is that the unenlightened want to make their Paradise in this world prior to death, whereas under the natural laws, the situation here on earth makes this impossible. As per God’s creation plan, man must discover His Creator in the world while He is unseen and submit to Him. According to God’s creation plan, man must discover God in this world while He is unseen. Then he must be content in this limited world before death, so that he may be sure that in the eternal world after death he has Paradise in store for him. The right and proper thing for man to do is therefore to acknowledge His Creator and accept this law of creation and plan his life accordingly.
Successful is the one who has realized the eternal world of Paradise in this temporary world, who has discovered in the failures of the present world, the secret to eternal success in the next eternal world.