THE REALITY OF SACRIFICE

possible only through sacrifi ce. The Creator of this world has made the world in such a way that no success is possible without sacrifi ce. If you think that you can achieve great success simply by mouthing a few slogans or doing some superfi cial activities, without making any sacrifi ces, you are simply fooling yourself. It just cannot happen in this God-created world. How, then, can God be pleased with someone if he or she doesn’t want to make any sort of sacrifi ce? When God has established a principle — that success is possible only if one undergoes sacrifi ce — it is as if God has also made it known to us the way to fi nd Him, is through sacrifi ce. Sacrifi ce — the condition for getting anything in this world — is also the condition for fi nding God. If we want to please God, we will have to sacrifi ce ourselves for Him. God bestows His all on those who give Him their all. Without sacrifi ce, one cannot get anything in this system that God has made. Sacrificing an animal is a symbolic expression of Man’s determination to sacrifice his all, even his life, for the sake of higher, divine, purposes. The principle for success in this world is the same as that in the life after death. Life after death is much more valuable than life in this world. That is why the sacrifi ce that is required for success in the life after death is much greater than what is required for success in this world. According to Islam, our life is divided into two parts. One, extremely small part is our existence in the world in which we presently live. The infi nitely bigger part, which lasts forever, is the life that we will face after death. Success in the life after death, like success in the present world, is dependent entirely on sacrifi ce. The world of heaven is like a colony of excellent, selected people who, while on earth, excelled in terms of belief and actions. Those who do not measure up to this standard in this world will be pushed into the fi res of hell. What does it mean to become a good human being? It means to begin to live on the divine plane, to cultivate divine attributes within oneself. For this, we have to fi ght with the evil inclinations inside us. We have to work throughout our lives to keep away from negative infl uences. This is a path of continuous sacrifi ce. Only those who have cultivated the courage for this sort of sacrifi ce will fi nd a place in God’s heavenly realm. For this, one needs to cleanse one’s mind of all false ideas and beliefs. We must engage in this ‘intellectual operation’, no matter what