Saturday, April 10, 2010

Purpose in life - my musing

It is often asked by individuals "What is my purpose in life?". Usually this question is asked in the context of career, family, work, etc related contexts. Quran clearly and directly answers,
 "I created jinn and mankind only to worship Me" 51:56. 


Maulana Rumi discusses this age old question,  in Fi hi m fi hi. He provides the example of a King who asks his servant to carry out a very specific task. The servant instead does many things, some very remarkable ones, but fails to do just that one thing that the King had asked him to execute. Thus, he returns a failure to the King. 


However, it must be kept in mind that worship means the sum of all our lives. Every act that we carried out must have been with the intention of pleasing God. And thus it is said in the Quran, 
"Say: surely my prayer and my sacrifice and my life and my death are all for Allah, the Lord of the worlds" 6:162

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