vognoduut275

Muhammad The Prophet
By Prof. K. S. Ramakrishna Rao
Re-printed from "Islam and Modern age",
Hydrabad, March 1978.
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Prof. K. S. Ramakrishna Rao,
is the Head of the Department of Philosophy,
Government College for Women University of Mysore, India
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Part - X

Regarding the position of man in relation to the Universe, the Quran says: "God
has made subservient to you whatever is on the earth or in universe. You are
destined to rule over the Universe."But in relation to God, the Quran says: "O
man God has bestowed on you excellent faculties and has created life and death
to put you to test in order to see whose actions are good and who has deviated
from the right path." In spite of free will which he enjoys, to some extent,
every man is born under certain circumstances and continues to live under
certain circumstances beyond his control. With regard to this God says,
according to Islam, it is my will to create any man under condition that seem
best to me. cosmic plans finite mortals can not fully comprehend. But I will
certainly test you in prosperity as well in adversity, in health as well as in
sickness, in heights as well as in depths. My ways of testing differ from man
to man, from hour to hour. In adversity do not despair and do resort to
unlawful means. It is but a passing phase. In prosperity do not forget God.
God-gifts are given only as trusts. You are always on trial, every moment on
test. In this sphere of life there is not to reason why, there is but to do and
die. If you live in accordance with God; and if you die, die in the path of
God. You may call it fatalism. but this type of fatalism is a condition of
vigorous increasing effort, keeping you ever on the alert. Do not consider this
temporal life on earth as the end of human existence. There is a life after
death and it is eternal. Life after death is only a connection link, a door
that opens up hidden reality of life. Every action in life however
insignificant, produces a lasting effect. It is correctly recorded somehow.
Some of the ways of God are known to you, but many of his ways are hidden from
you. What is hidden in you and from you in this world will be unrolled and laid
open before you in the next. the virtuous will enjoy the blessing of God which
the eye has not seen, nor has the ear heard, nor has it entered into the hearts
of men to conceive of they will march onward reaching higher and higher stages
of evolution. Those who have wasted opportunity in this life shall under the
inevitable law, which makes every man taste of what he has done, be subjugated
to a course of treatment of the spiritual diseases which they have brought
about with their own hands. Beware, it is terrible ordeal. Bodily pain is
torture, you can bear somehow. Spiritual pain is hell, you will find it almost
unbearable. Fight in this life itself the tendencies of the spirit prone to
evil, tempting to lead you into iniquities ways. Reach the next stage when the
self-accusing sprit in your conscience is awakened and the soul is anxious to
attain moral excellence and revolt against disobedience. This will lead you to
the final stage of the soul at rest, contented with God, finding its happiness
and delight in him alone. The soul no more stumbles. The stage of struggle
passes away. Truth is victorious and falsehood lays down its arms. All
complexes will then be resolved. Your house will not be divided against itself.
Your personality will get integrated round the central core of submission to
the will of God and complete surrender to his divine purpose. All hidden
energies will then be released. The soul then will have peace. God will then
address you: "O thou soul that art at rest, and restest fully contented with
thy Lord return to thy Lord. He pleased with thee and thou pleased with Him; So
enter among My servants and enter into My paradise."This is the final goal for
man; to become, on the, one hand, the master of the universe and on the other,
to see that his soul finds rest in his Lord, that not only his Lord will be
pleased with him but that he is also pleased with his Lord. Contentment,
complete contentment, satisfaction, complete satisfaction, peace, complete
peace. The love of God is his food at this stage and he drinks deep at the
fountain of life. Sorrow and defeat do not overwhelm him and success does not
find him in vain and exulting. The western nations are only trying to become
the master of the Universe. But their souls have not found peace and rest.
Thomas Carlyle, struck by this philosophy of life writes "and then also
Islam-that we must submit to God; that our whole strength lies in resigned
submission to Him, whatsoever he does to us, the thing he sends to us, even if
death and worse than death, shall be good, shall be best; we resign ourselves
to God." The same author continues "If this be Islam, says Goethe, do we not
all live in Islam?" Carlyle himself answers this question of Goethe and says
"Yes, all of us that have any moral life, we all live so. This is yet the
highest wisdom that heaven has revealed to our earth." END