Maulana Wahiduddin Khan I The Sunday Guardian I April 23, 2023
The news vendor was calling out, “The greatest news of today!” “The greatest news of today!” I thought that the greatest news for the news vendor was that news which was printed on the front page of the newspaper. But the greatest news of today is actually what we see at the universal level.
What is this universal news? This universal news is that the sun which set yesterday has risen again today to give us light and heat, that the supply of oxygen in the air is continuing for us, the rotation of the earth is going on as precisely as it was going on yesterday, springs of fresh water are continuously flowing into the rivers, the air is flowing just as it was flowing yesterday, the earth remains firm and solid, the life support system which was there yesterday is still giving us succour today, all the usual activities of life are going on in our world, and so on.
In the morning, when you see the sun’s rays entering in your room, it is not unusual that you get out of bed and call out aloud—another golden morning! This is true not only for the sunrises, it is rather true for every event of nature, for even those events which appear small are intrinsically as great as other more spectacular events.
Discovering this extraordinary aspect of an ordinary event is, in a sense, the learning of a lesson (15:75) and it is this learning of lessons from the signs of nature that is the biggest source of the realization of God.
Such realization is a living experience. It is another name for continuous discovery. It means finding spiritual food in the material world. There is nothing mysterious about it. Realization of God is the equivalent of intellectual development.