Lesson from Flowing Water

If out of arrogance, I have done a wrong act that has caused trouble to the other person – would God forgive me or would I be punished for the act? Y ou should seek forgiveness from the person you demonstrated arrogance with. If that person is not available, then pray for him. The principle is that if the person is available, go and seek forgiveness from him, but if he is not available, pray for him. As we continue to have busy work schedules, how do we extract wisdom from our daily experiences? T here is a lesson given in the Quran in Surah An-Nahl. According to it, the honeybee goes into the world of flowers and takes away nectar from it. Similarly, while living in this material world a human being must extract spiritual food from his daily experience and observation. Wherever you may be, in business, job, or shopping centre, you should keep your mind active. In this way it will keep extracting spiritual nectar for your soul. The nectar for the bee is not kept elsewhere, but inside the flower it goes to. In the same way, the nectar for a person is also not kept anywhere special, rather it is in every sphere of life. Should one lead a contented life or a discontented life? T he life of contentment is not possible because what we want cannot be had in this life and no one is an exception to this rule. Bill Gates is the richest person, and Donald Trump is the most powerful man – but both live in discontentment! By nature, the only possibility is to live in discontentment because living in contentment is not possible. We have to find the reason as to why the Creator made the world such that we lead a life of discontentment. The answer I have found is that this is so because our intellectual development process continues non-stop. If we lead a life of contentment, there will be stagnation rather than development. The Prophet said: ‘Seek knowledge even if you have to go as far as China.’ What does ‘knowledge’ here refer to?