DEATH: A DEMOLISHER OF DESIRES
Live Life Better
Every human being is bound to taste death. (THE QURAN 3: 185)
THE Quran reminds us that our deaths have been decided by God. We are brought to life by God’s decision. Likewise, death, too, happens because God wills it so.
Unlike what many people believe, death is not an accident. Rather, it is a test. If we think of death as an accident, it leads us to be miserable. On the other hand, if we accept death as a reality, we can be fired with a new determination. Accepting the above concept of death will create a mindset wherein a person will take life seriously resulting in motivating him to live a God oriented life. It will prevent him from misusing God given freedom.
Everyone who is born into this world has been born in order to go through an examination. For each of us, a certain period of time has been decreed for this examination. Once this period of time is over, the angel of death appears to take our souls and convey us to the world of the Hereafter.
We need to be realistic—to face the reality as it is—on the question of death. We must accept death as an undeniable fact. We need to take death as a means to learn appropriate lessons, not as something to regret or mourn about.
We need to accept death as an undeniable fact. We must take death as a means to learn appropriate lessons, not as something to regret or mourn about.
Along with acceptance one should also remember death often as it demolishes all desires. Just as the one who accepts the reality of death, will become exceedingly serious, the one who remembers death often will become very conscious of the accountability for each and every deed he does in this world. He will be extra careful to spend his time, talent and energy for doing good in this world and refrain from going towards what gives him pleasure. He will train himself to be a paradisiacal personality. The Prophet of Islam said, “Remember death often because it demolishes all desires.” (Sunan Ibn Majah).
Death is a sort of personal earthquake. Just as people have no control over an earthquake, they have no control over death, a unilateral attack that everyone must face, some day or the other. Death comes whenever it decides to, and man simply has to accept it, whether he likes it or not.
But none of us know when our last moment in this world will arrive. This realization is enough to make every worldly pleasure unattractive for every person. Wealth, political power, fame etc, everything comes to be seen as utterly meaningless.
This matter is not limited just to conventional material pleasures, but is wider than this. For instance, people’s minds are such that if they develop differences with somebody, they derive great pleasure in doing their character assassination. Disfiguring their image becomes their favourite pastime. They begin to think that talking bad about them is a good thing, even though what they say is baseless.
If people were to live in awareness of death, they would have abstained from such negative talk because they would know that as soon as death arrives, all this talk would become baseless and there would be no one to listen to it. One’s unpleasant experience with others might cause one to engage in negative activities. But the thought of death keeps in check these negativities in a person, as he realizes that his life in this world is only temporary.
Being ever conscious of death, will actually make us live better. We will value everything we possess today in terms of time and resources and make use of it to the best of our abilities. The constant thought that one day all this will be taken away from us, will be a great motivator for putting it to the best use today.
If someone provokes you,
defuse the issue through
unilateral avoidance.