English book · Man and God

Your Actions Should Have A Spiritual Dimension

English book, p. 51

By Maulana Wahiduddin Khan

Your Actions Should Have A Spiritual Dimension being, drawing you to higher levels of truth. This achievement is the true criterion for gauging the success or worth of any action. Only that action is worthy if it creates this state in you, that offers you this gift. An action that does not provide you this is like pouring water in a bucket full of holes. What is of importance is not what you are doing, but, rather, what is happening to you as a result of doing something. If you have many activities that keep you ‘busy’, then your being ‘busy’ is simply ‘idle business’ and nothing more. It is like the air existing, but without oxygen; like the water existing, but without the capacity to quench thirst; like food existing, but being unable to provide energy to the one who eats it; like the sun existing, but not giving its light to others. Such existence is the worst sort of non-existence actually. If your actions do not become ‘spiritual’ food for you, diet for your spiritual nourishment, they are not actions at all. Rather, they are various forms of inaction, or something even more meaningless. If you pour water on a stone, it appears to get wet. But the stone does not know the thrill and wetness of water. It has not experienced that aspect of water. On the other hand, when a thirsty man drinks water, it rejuvenates him completely. He enjoys an inner experience of the very reality of water. This example indicates what people routinely do, on the one hand, and what they should do, on the other. In the name of religion, people often simply perform a set of actions in a perfunctory, ritualistic and formal manner. They utter words, but these do not turn into their heartbeat. They do some physical actions that involve their limbs, but these do not touch their souls. All that they do in their ‘busy-ness’ does not vibrate in their hearts and minds. In order to be meaningful, our actions must become spiritual experiences for us. They should repeatedly provide our inner being with spiritual nourishment. Our physical actions must stir an upheaval in our non-physical selves. Only

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