The Celever King | Parallel Truth to Death

There was a country long time ago where the people would change a king every year. The person who would become the king had to agree to a contract that he would be sent to an island after his one year of being a king.

One king finished his term and it was time for him to go to the island and live there. The people dressed him up in expensive clothes and put him on an elephant and took him around the cities to say goodbye to all the people. This was the moment of sadness for all the kings who ruled for one year. After saying farewell, the people took the king with a boat to the remote island and left him there.

On their way back, they discovered a ship that had sunk just recently. They saw a young man who survived by holding on to a floating piece of wood. As they needed a new king, they picked up the young man and took him to their country. They requested him to be a king for a year. First he refused but later he agreed to be a king. People told him about all the rules and regulations and that how he will be sent to an island after one year.

After three (3) days of being a king, he asked the ministers if they could show him the island where all the other kings were sent. They agreed and took him to the island. The island was covered with thick jungles and sounds of vicious animals were heard coming out of them. The king went little bit inside to check. Soon he discovered the dead bodies of all the past kings. He understood that as soon as they were left in the island, the animals came and killed them.

The king went back to the country and collected 100 strong workers. He took them to the island and instructed them to clean the jungle, remove all the deadly animals and cut down all the excess trees. He would visit the island every month to see how the work was progressing. In the first month, all the animals were removed and many trees were cut down. In the second month, the whole island was cleaned out. The king then told the workers to plant gardens in various parts of the island. He also took with himself useful animals like chickens, ducks, birds, goats, cows etc. In the third month, he ordered the workers to build big houses and docking stations for ships. Over the months, the island turned into a beautiful place.

The young king would wear simple clothes and spend very little from his earnings as a king. He sent all the earnings to the island for storage. When nine (9) months passed like this, the king called the ministers and told them:

“I know that I have to go the island after one year, but I would like to go there right now.” But the ministers didn’t agree to this and said that he has to wait for another three (3) months to complete the year.

Three months passed and now it was a full year. The people dressed up the young king and put him on an elephant to take him around the country to say goodbye to others. However, this king is unusually happy to leave the kingdom.

People asked him, “All the other kings would cry at this moment and why are you laughing?”

He replied, “Don’t you know what the wise people say? They say that when you came to this world as a baby, you were crying and everyone was smiling. Live such a life that when you are dying, you will be smiling and everyone around you will be crying. I have lived that life. While all the other kings were lost into the luxuries of the kingdom, I always thought about the future and planned for it. I turned the deadly island into a beautiful abode for me where I can stay peacefully.”

 The moral lesson from this story is about how we should live our life. The life of this world is to prepare for the life hereafter. In this life, we shouldn’t get lost into the deceiving and attractive things of this world and forget about what is to come in the afterlife. Rather, even if we are kings, we should live a simple life like our beloved Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and save all our enjoyments for the hereafter. May Almighty God make it easy for us. Amin

References:
Death: a beautiful gift for a believer

"Judgement"

Through frequent conversation with a man whose vision is so deep, I was able to write his story... a very astounding journey of life. Let's again try to take a glimpse so as to taste such sweet sensations of human's spirituality:

Chapter III Judgement
“Calling all the leaders all over the world… this man is to be judged” was the sound I heard ringing in pain almost to explode my brain. It was a great fearful day and everybody was present and all were watching to secrets recesses of my previous deeds. It was extremely shameful and made me perspire extremely for apparently to everyone I was a good pious Muslim of excellent deeds, silent nature but in secrecy shameful deeds have been committed which were then exposed by this Great Judge whose words silenced everyone.

The judgment pronounced to me was hypocrisy. And according to the great judge there were no Saddam Hussein whom I thought to be a hypocrite, no Iran nor Iraq which falsely concerned me (because in those days the Persian Gulf war was at its height) but were only nature telling me that something has been wrong in my inner world. The world appeared to be outside is actually my heart, my mind or I. I should have centered and busied myself with my personal affairs as the world, which appeared to be in chaos, people to be unreligious and groups to be in war were actually me to be so. It was actually my inner world which was in trouble. I was in great mistakes judging and disdaining others because those impulses against other were already messages that I was actually what I thought others to be. It was not Saddam Hussein to be neither hypocrite nor my friends to be untrustworthy, others to be irreligious but it was I. In truth, they were delivering signs, or they themselves were signs or ayat which I did not understand. The truth has always been communicating through every phenomenon I encounter, which was supposed to rectify every thought. The world that I thought real was actually not but illusive dream or my mere fantastic imagination. I was just fooled by my own judgment affected by the influence of dogmatic formal religion.

The fantastic world has always remained beautiful had I maintained my ignorance, cheerful disposition to everyone. Without any thought of pretensions, everything should have never become unbeautiful to me. But continuous shining of brilliance and effulgence was hidden from my sight because I have corrupted my being. Worldly problems and difficulties were only result of this self-corruption. No prayer, nor fasting nor any act of religiosity can compensate for evil thinking of the ignorant world around me. It was a great mistake and my regrets were now useless. How I wish to be back again and rectify the mistakes?

I was thrown up and down the hell and turn into a seven-headed dragon but the shouts and dances of people of paradise were never unheard by me. As everyone was happy, only I shall suffer to eternity.

To my parents giving me care, I was in high fever and in great delirium. The doctor diagnosed, it was Malaria.

But it was never a Divine joke. My uncle, an Imam, expert in looking at signs of the dying, observed my nose to be more aquiline, a sign that I was actually dying.

There were times when my 7 days were personified to be 7 arms of a turtle and 3 to 4 were chainlike pulled to close. There were only few remaining. The living and the dead were already watching and waiting for the arrow to be thrown directly at the center of my being by the best archer.

What was very painful and regretful was when I saw the prophet, his headdress only visible, was breathlessly reading a prayer of seven opening verses of the qur-an, heard by all creatures who was even then in great fear, for the prophet was angry ready to evacuate the Kaaba, with all his descendants for I was such a transgressor to a holy precinct. I saw a young Imam Husain, his headdress burned by the fire of hell due to his task of saving some people from the hellfire.
Those who were living were aboard a big white vessel which was up to that moment embarking every being for safety, likened to the Noah’s ark. My present wife, who was then a young lady of many suitors, was in the cabin, with her baby boy crying. I was outside the big vessel, which was traveling in space of eternity.

If I were a motorcycle, in those times, I run short of gas. My tank was dried and empty. But true are prayers and soothing hands of love ones. I saw bluish radiation coming from the right hand of my cousin, Lahu, who was offering me everything he knew if only to gain me back. The light that spread out into my entire body seems to give me some sort of hope.

But if prayers are such strong which can even bring a dying man back to vitality, like Isa (Jesus) Almaseih, it was my Dad’s prayer asking God, Please never allow my son to die ahead of me, let me do it first. And talking to me; “Son, do not die now. Marry a woman of your wish if you only live. Giving you formal education is not obligatory but marriage.”

I never heard any words from them for my senses were far away from my body. Not until I felt somebody panting her breath was catching and running after me. If she was faster than rocket I was faster than light. I only came into a halt when to my dismay, the one who was following me, panting and catching her breath was my poor mother. Out of mercy to a suffering mother I stop, and my senses came to their attention. They gave me a green cool sprite. Thanks, I was still living.

Like the soothing hands of Jesus, their prayers and wishes were seemingly answered that at dawn I felt descending from high heaven to attend my wedding day. My senses synchronize with the dawn, when it appeared bright so was me as if, I have just awakened from a sound sleep or have returned from a long adventurous travel. Vitality was full because the smell of marriage and a woman is reachable. The world became new to me like the first morning of Adam.

My mother and Dad then asked me whom shall I marry. I enumerated and selected from among nine whom to share this second chance and while thinking over the nice beautiful thought of marriage a vision came to appear.

...to be continued...