THE WORD OF GOD — From The Scriptures

Those who believe and do good works shall have the gardens of Paradise for their abode. They shall forever dwell in the Gardens of Paradise, desiring no change. (18: 107-108) To lead a life of faith and piety in this world is to give proof of tremendous sacrifice. It amounts to renouncing an apparent and visible heaven for the sake of a hidden, invisible heaven. This also means succeeding in the most difficult of tests, i.e. when man recognises the Truth on the strength of abstract arguments and then he turns his life in that direction, though there is no pressure on him to do so. Those who exhibit such awareness (of truth) and perform such actions truly deserve to be admitted to gardens of eternal comfort and pleasure. Tell them, ‘If the ocean became ink for writing the words of my Lord, surely the ocean would be exhausted before the words of my Lord came to an end — even if We were to add another ocean to it.’ (18: 109) Those who do not accept God’s message are in fact denying the most established of all established facts. It is so established that pens made from all the trees would not be sufficient to write God’s words and the ocean turned into ink would become exhausted. But, what a pity that, in spite of all this, man fails to recognise the truth and does not mould his life in accordance with it. Say, ‘I am only a human being like yourselves. It is revealed to me that your God is One God. So let him who hopes to meet his Lord do good deeds and let him associate no one else in the worship of his Lord.’ (18: 110) The prophet is neither God nor angel. He is a human being just like any other human being. His only distinguishing feature is that he receives God’s revelation through invisible means. In other words, a prophet is an individual who, outwardly, is a human being but who inwardly is a representative of God. Because of this only those can recognize a prophet who can recognize his merit. Arriving at the Truth is possible only for one who can recognise reality in its essence, i.e. who is capable of recognising a ‘prophet’ at the level of a ‘human being.’ o