The Correct Focus

The Correct Focus

1989 10 October 14 The Correct Focus (346) Focussing one’s attention on one issue to the exclusion of all else is a meaningful preoccupation only if one has chosen the correct goal. The majority of the thinking people of this world–whether leaders or followers – picture to themselves objectives which they deem worthy of attainment, and in terms of the purely material side of our earthly existence, they are not wrong in pursuing such goals.

For example, Karl Marx ignored religion, ethics and philosophy in favour of economics and what he perceived to be a never ending class struggle. Tolstoy related all of his learning and experience to humanitarianism. Freedom fighters in oppressed countries have given up their lives to liberating their homelands from the slavery of colonialism. Socialists, industrialists and politicians become totally engrossed in the distribution of power, the nation’s, wealth and problems of defense and aggression.

But, to the preacher of truth, none of the burning issues of the day are of the slightest relevance. The problems of this life are as unimportant to him as the problems of the next life are to our leaders. The man who are at the helm of affairs, concerned as they are with the ‘here’ and the ‘now’ of our existence, pay scant attention to what life will be in the next world. Our political leaders in particular, make it their business to keep the minds of their followers on political, social and economic dangers, with a view to projecting their own images as great Saviours of the people. Sometimes, instead of stating these problems in secular terms, they have recourse to a great fund of religious terminology, knowing that this will have a greater impact with a broad section of the public. But dressing state ideas up in religious garb does not render them any more true, nor does it turn mundane objectives into what ought to be the true goals of our existence – the quest for truth and the worship of the Almighty. In short, our, attention needs to be focussed not on the issues of this world, but on the Hereafter.