Signs of Ignoring the Eternal | Is Ignoring the Eternal a Simple Matter?
Can we neglect eternity as the goal, the final destination, and the eternal home?
What consequences follow ignoring the eternal?
The importance of ignoring an issue can usually be measured by the importance of the issue itself; that is, the more important the issue we are faced with, naturally the risk of ignoring it becomes greater. Clearly, ignoring and overlooking the issues of an entire province is not the same as ignoring making the right decisions for a neighborhood! Therefore, ignoring the eternal is not a simple or superficial inattention because by ignoring the conditions on which our eternal life depends, true bliss can never be achieved.
We often interpret ignoring as choosing not to attend to our immediate goals. And the greatest goal we have as humans is to attain similarity to Allah, which is defined in terms of our eternal and immortal life in the hereafter. Now the question is: Can we achieve this goal without considering our ultimate destiny as an eternal being?
Ignoring the eternal means walking the path of life without considering its destination. While in our daily lives, we would never embark on a long journey without knowing the destination. No sound mind accepts that one can travel correctly without knowing the ultimate destination. Just as preparing a dish without knowing its type, or succeeding in an exam without knowing its subject, is impossible, achieving the purpose of creation and a healthy birth to the hereafter is impossible while ignoring the eternal.
Why Do We Keep Ignoring the Eternal?
Most of our mistakes and wrong decisions in life come from a false perspective and the lack of recognition of our true self. Naturally, a person who considers their entire reality and existence to be this material and physical body cannot be expected to imagine their life as something beyond birth to death, nor can be expected to have motivation and efforts aligned with the eternal nature of the hereafter.
So the requirement for considering eternity is, first of all to have a correct and true understanding of ourselves, a view that sees us not as a small and limited being, but as an eternal and immortal one. Obviously, a being with eternal characteristics cannot be limited to the short and passing life of this world because the world lacks the capacity to meet human needs! In fact, the world is merely a womb that prepares us to enter our real home, where our final destination is.
Our neglect begins when we forget that the world is just a womb and instead imagine it as our eternal home and destination. When we consider our assets as belonging solely to this temporary world and its limited conditions, dedicating all our efforts to acquiring worldly perfections, in fact, we lower our status from an eternal being with infinite purpose to a limited, material being with petty and worldly desires; we are just like a fetus who, unaware of the vast, beautiful, and far more equipped life outside, spends all their effort on the womb they will leave in nine months.
The Result of Not Believing in Eternity
Regardless of our personality type or how active we are, most of us prefer a happy, lively, and an active life over a dull, boring, and lifeless one. But this effort and motivation is usually the result of a goal we define for ourselves and see ourselves working toward. Clearly, an athlete preparing for a regional title has very different motivation and effort than one striving for the Olympic medal.
Achieving an Olympic medal requires world-class perseverance and training, and even the smallest negligence can lead to falling short of ideal weight, fitness, and ultimately failing to reach the goal; in other words, in this situation laziness or apathy mean not taking the goal seriously and considering it small, and achieving this goal requires continuous and tireless plan and effort.
Our circumstances in relation to the hereafter follow a similar principle and any laziness or neglect in preparing for the hereafter and eternal life means nothing other than not believing in the eternity of the hereafter.
In fact, just as inactivity and stagnation in the womb hinder a fetus’s development, making them ill-equipped for the world, ignoring the eternal and negligence on the path toward the hereafter, which we are constantly treading, results in lasting damage.
Signs of Ignoring the Eternal
If we truly believe in the great and eternal purpose of eternity, preparation should follow naturally. The question then becomes: how can we tell if we’ve become negligent in our life’s journey and our pursuit of meaningful goals? Below we will discuss some of the signs of negligence that can deprive us from the possibility of a healthy birth to the hereafter:
-If we are ignoring the eternal, we lose the strength to endure the hardships and shortcomings of worldly life. Because we make this world the measure of all our aspirations, we are easily overwhelmed by sorrow and distress
-We lose our priorities in pursuing perfections. With a limited definition of ourselves, ignoring the eternal and immortal life, we end up striving only for the lower aspects of our being.
– A distorted sense of measures leads us to lament unnecessary losses and chase after things that are irrelevant to our eternal life and the hereafter.
Beyond recognizing the signs of negligence, we can also use specific criteria to assess our state. In fact, examining our beloveds is one way to determine if we are ignoring the eternal; that is, when Allah, the Ahl al-Bayt (Peace be upon them), and jihad in the way of God stand at the top of our beloveds and take priority in our choices and relationships, we can hope we are not ignoring the eternal. Moreover, our current state in life also reflects the type of our movement, and by constantly assessing our soul, we can realize whether we are drawing closer each day to the purpose of our creation or not.