REWARD AND PUNISHMENT

If a person with no aptitude for music and songs happens to go to a place where exhilarating parties are given and people dance and sing, music is played in high notes, he would eventually start developing a taste for music and songs. He will gradually learn the manners to behave in such parties. If a person lives in a place where gambling, liquors and other vices are going on, no matter how pious he is, ultimately he will also get affected. One proverb tells, 'company makes a man', the other says, 'sickness is catching'.

All the people inhabiting this world belong to one or the other type of thinking approach and because of this thinking approach, the character of a person, a family, a tribe, a caste or a group is determined. We have the exemplary character of prophets on one hand and on the other there were people who not only opposed prophets but even slew them. History has reserved its pages for those whose generosity and munificence is legendary and there we find the stories of those, as well, whose misery is unparalleled. The consummate example of misery, niggardliness and stinginess is Qarun. As long as the world will last the people of that typical character will last and similarly to counter balance them the people of generosity and munificence will also remain there. And, there are people with prophetic character in this world.

When the character of a prophet is examined closely we do not find anything save goodness, virtuousness and righteousness. - It means the main constituents of their character and personality are gentleness and kindness. Two types of characters can be determined. One, when a person involving in demoniac activities and getting closer to evilness himself becomes a devil. The other, when one, by getting closer to God, epitomizes kindness and mercy and enjoys representation in the Kingdom of God. Every approach of thinking which takes a person away from God is the demoniac approach. And, every approach that causes a person to get closer and nearer to God is the Prophetic approach of thinking.

When we analyze the demoniac and prophetic approaches, it is observed that one who strives to adopt the Elohistic Attributes is bestowed with the prophetic qualities of character and personality. The qualities of prophets are the Attributes of God, or to say, prophets epitomize the Elohistic Attributes. When someone travels in prophetic life he, in fact1 treads in those Attributes of God which are the Personal Attributes of God and when a person deters from the prophetic qualities, he loses his way and goes astray on those dark paths which are full of gravity and density. The most prominent feature of the demoniac approach is that a person remains grieved and frightened. The grief and fear which obstructs life at every step. Days and nights are spent in fear of one thing or the other. Sometimes he grieves for wasteful spending of life and on others he fears that how and from where the economic needs and requirements will be fulfilled. Sometimes diseases of various types keeps on troubling him and at times he finds himself trapped under the crushing burden of problems and finds himself so helpless that the way out seems to be non-existing. Death; the ultimate reality from which no one has ever and can never escape, appears to be the most frightful thing and its fear keeps on haunting him. One great blemish and hazardous trait of the demoniac and evil approaches is that a person remains sightless and blind in reasoning and insight.

In prophetic approach man remains immune from grief’s and fears therefore he is also protected from the sense of insecurity. Since death is an inevitable reality he prepares himself to greet it open mindedly and when he becomes ready to die, death becomes the most beatifying phenomenon for him. It comes to his knowledge that death is not a horrible thing and expiry is not so awesome, as it has been made to appear, rather it is a process according to which one transfers to another realm which in every aspect is better than this gloomy world of ours. He would enjoy life in hereafter fulfilling every urge and desire just as it is done in this phenomenal world. He not only enjoys life in hereafter but satisfies all the requirements of body and soul in a much better way than it is carried out in this temporary life. And, it is not in his conjectures or work of his imaginations but he actually observes the delightful life, which he is to live after this life which is marked with confinements, constraints and restrictions.

People of one thinking approach can easily be identified and distinguished from the people of other approaches and styles. A person who is living his life under the influence of an evil and demoniac style will deter to enter the circles of people with prophetic approach a

nd, a person having a prophetic life style will not mix up with people of dissimilar approaches.

One of the major flaws and defects of the demoniac approach is that every action of a person is interest-oriented, his every deed is based upon one or the other expectation and hope for some material and worldly gain, that is, he wants his every action should be rewarded materially. Whereas, mysticism declares that by associating any interest with an action or deed we render it deficient and defective which is liable to yield undesirable results in the end.