THE PURPOSE OF LIFE

Just over two years ago — March 11, 2006 to be precise — while I was on an evening flight back to Delhi from Hyderabad, several members of my CPS (Centre for Peace and Spirituality) team, who were accompanying me, distributed some dawah pamphlets and then engaged in dawah work with the passengers. One of the passengers was Miss Neha Batwara. I had no personal contact with her at that time and after the plane landed in Delhi, she went off to Alwar, her home town. However, just over two weeks later, we received the following letter by e-mail on March 28, from Hyderabad: Respected Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, I am Neha, working in an MNC. There can be nothing better than getting a job in a top MNC just after graduation. But believe me, I am in search of a more purposeful life. That’s why I am writing to you. I met Khalid Ansari and Sadia Khan (CPS members) on a flight to Delhi and could clearly see the difference your guidance had made to their lives. Maulana, I know we have been created by God, and we all have a purpose here to fulfill on earth, which, if carried out, will be more satisfying than getting heaven after death. But the point on which I am ignorant is knowing the purpose for which I have been sent here. I shall be grateful to you for the whole of my life if you can help me in any way. I am currently in Hyderabad. Regards, Neha Batwara, Software Engg, MIEL Hyderabad This letter is not simply a letter from one single individual. It is rather the voice of every soul. It expresses the feelings of every man and woman. Everyone is searching for a purposeful life. It is the call of every person’s nature. But people want to find this purposeful life in the fullest sense before their death in this present stage of life itself. Neither have they any consciousness of the next life after death, nor are they ready to wait for it. The basic question is: Where does man want to achieve this purposeful life? — in the world made by himself, or in the world made by God? Obviously, this purpose has to be achieved in the world made by God, because the world made by himself just doesn’t exist. In such a situation, it is very natural that man should first of all learn what the laws are that govern this world made by God and what Creation Plan its Creator had in mind while creating the world. This is because, without reconciling himself to it, he can never achieve his goal. If you have a car and you want to drive it on the street, first of all you will have to learn what traffic rules are followed in the country in which you find yourself, e.g. whether the traffic keeps to the left or the right. This is a must, for if you start driving on the left in a country in which the law prescribes keeping to the right, you will certainly have a disastrous journey.