The Aakhirah is our permanent abode

O Muslims! Your abode is there hereafter (Aakhirah), but you have taken this material world as your abode.  Tell the truth! A person has 2 houses.  One is given to him temporarily and the other is given to him permanently.  When this person goes to check these houses, he finds that both of them need repairing.  Now tell, should he spend money for the permanent house or the temporary one?  Every person will say that money should be spent on the house, which will remain permanently with him.  If someone spends a thousand rupees on the temporary house, that person is foolish.

 

Friends!  This world and the hereafter are 2 houses.  This world is temporary and the hereafter is permanent.  Repairing both of them is necessary.  The wealth of life is enough to repair any one house.  If you spend the wealth of your life in repairing the few-days material world, then you will find the house of your hereafter broken down.  How much remorse will you suffer on that day!

 

Friends! Take courage! Get up! Do something of Deen (religion) also and when you reach the hereafter, you benefit from it.  You don’t stop with merely worrying about the tasks of this world, then why is it that you consider worrying about the hereafter enough?  This shows that there is no true thought or worry about the hereafter.  If it was and something was being done for the hereafter, then its effects would have been visible on their own.

 

One effect of considering the hereafter as (the permanent) abode is that there is no enmity or sorrow.  Even though, it may be that a small quarrel has occurred, but in the hearts there is no enmity.  It is as if a person is waiting to travel by train.  The train has come and at that moment, a scrap has occurred with someone on the platform, then they will try to put the quarrel aside and board the train, or else, the train will go away and they will be left behind.  In the same way, because of the quarrels of this world, the journey of hereafter is not missed.

 

The second effect of taking the hereafter as our abode is that we will not boast of material possessions.  Does anyone boast of the possessions in a resting place for travelers?

 

Some children collect sand and build houses for play.  Then one of them breaks it and the other fights that why did you break my house?  We laugh at their fight that is this any house that they should fight about breaking it.  In the same way, the people of Allah laugh at our quarrels and fights, as everything in this world seems like a toy to them.

 

The third effect of considering the hereafter as our abode is that we would not be lazy in tasks of the hereafter.  We are considering this world as our abode.  That is why we are lazy in the tasks of the hereafter.

 

The fourth effect of considering the hereafter as our abode would be that we would not consider this world as our abode.  Therefore there would be no pride and no boasting.

 

From Fadhaail-e-Ramadhan of Hadhrat Muhaddith-e-Deccan (May Allah shower His mercy on him)