To Leave

This is not the story of the British in India alone, however. In fact, it is everyone’s story. In this world, every person has his hopes and desires. He expends all his energies on building a grand palace of his dreams. But just at the time when has finished constructing his dream-palace, the Angel of Death suddenly arrives and whisks him away from the world where he has toiled so hard to build his palace, taking him to what the Hungarian-British writer Arthur Koestler (d. 1983) aptly terms as the ‘Unknown Country’. If this is all that life is, it would be an absurd and painful story. But just as everything in this world is complete only with its pair, this world, too, has a metaphorical counterpart—the Hereafter. If someone lives oblivious of the Hereafter, his life is definitely nothing but a complete tragedy. But for one who avails of the opportunities of this world for the sake of a good future in the Hereafter, his life here on earth is a valuable step towards a new and more successful life after death. Without the Hereafter, a human being’s life is just meaningless passage of time, ending in sorrow. But if you live with an awareness of the reality of the Hereafter, your life can become profoundly meaningful.