Many people fail to realize that in this life they are on a serious mission, that they have only a short time to make the most critical choice in their lives: choose their everlasting destiny. Instead of paying close attention to that choice, they spend their precious lives playing with a few toys, without knowing that a marvelous race is running all around them and they are out of it. They are so busy, so rushed, they do not take time to measure their enormous losses, to notice how fast they are losing ground.
Some people instinctively know that they need to be in a race. They recognize that there is a grand purpose in their lives—a purpose that can guide them and move them forward to their divine destiny. But they do not know where to look. They often get clues from the people around them. They notice the masses and masses of people who are constantly running and rushing without getting anywhere, without reaching a destination. They assume that all those people must know something that they do not know. So they join the race with everyone else, a race for making more, saving more, and spending more! But after running for some time, they discover what they instinctively knew: that the "pot of gold" always stays one step ahead of them; that they are running in a circle, and keep ending up where they started.
Sometimes they dream of leaving the circle, only to find that it does not let them. They feel like a passenger in a plane, fastened by a seatbelt high in the sky. So they stay in the race and keep running until they cannot run anymore. Then what do they find at the end of their journey, at the end of the race? Sickness, symptoms and signs of senility.
They find themselves near the end of their journey without ever reaching any destination. Then they begin to think about their past, about their unfulfilled dreams, about the value of all the toys that they have collected. If they are sensitive, they may suddenly wake up as from a dream. They may realize that they have been running for no purpose, that the toys they have collected were worthless, and that they have wasted the most precious gift given to them: their freedom to choose their destiny. They discover that after all the running, they are still at the starting point of the race, where they were sixty or seventy years ago. They learn that they have labored without reaching any enduring purpose, and now they are exhausted and defeated! What a tragedy! They were born in ignorance, they lived in ignorance, and now they must die in ignorance.
Now they begin the second stage of their journey. They suddenly behold a “new dawn” from a new horizon. They see that “the veil” of secrecy is lifted. They begin to view everything in the light of a new knowledge—a light they have never seen before.
“The dawn” is the moment of their departure from this life to the next. At that moment they will realize what they have missed, and they will begin to mourn their colossal and irretrievable losses. They will know that death was not the end of their journey, but a sign post along the way. They will recognize that the “circular race” was worthless. It looked real, but it was only a mirage. It did not help them get anywhere. They will discover that all the toys they gathered were as worthy as the castles children make with the sands of the sea. They will understand that the real race was for God and toward God, not to accumulate gold. They will discover that death—the point of departure from this life—did not end the race, that the race will and must continue for all eternity. They will know that during their earthly lives they made no progress toward their goal. They will see a long journey ahead of them, and will wonder how they can ever reach their far-away destination.
“But if the race will continue,” one may ask, “why worry about it here? Why not wait for death, and then begin the race?” Consider this analogy. Suppose you are traveling, to a destination 100 million light years away, and you only have ten days to reach it. But as a gesture of kindness, you are given a spacecraft that can travel ten million light years a day. You have a choice to use this spacecraft or ignore it. Everyday that you fail to use it, you fail to travel a distance of ten million light years. The critical point is this: whatever distance you fail to travel here, you will have to walk in the hereafter. Once you leave the earth, never again will that spacecraft be offered to you.
Imagine the magnitude of your anger, despair, and sense of loss, when you learn the consequences of your failure to have taken advantage of the incredible opportunity you were given: to travel even faster than the speed of light.
This analogy clearly demonstrates the critical significance and purpose of our earthly lives. Here we have the freedom to become the most noble or the most evil human beings; the most saintly or the most sinister. What we make of ourselves determines our distance from our divine destination. If we fail to be in the race for God and for goodness in this life, at death we will discover that we are still at “ground zero.”
Imagine your sense of frustration and desperation when you realize that you could have covered that astronomical distance—100 million light years—within the span of your earthly life. Now instead of sixty or seventy years you have “eternity” ahead of you. It will take you countless ages and eons to cover what you could have covered in just a few years. Now you find yourself so far away from your destination, that you do not even want to think about it. Imagine your sense of utter loss when you realize that because of just a little negligence, you lost the most glorious gift that Heaven may bestow upon humans: the freedom to choose your divine destiny. Imagine your sense of anger when you compare your position with those who took full advantage of the opportunities given them during those first critical years on this earth.
Yes, those “astronomical days” is the time we spend here. They are the span of our earthly lives. That span is short and often painful. It passes away as swiftly as the wind. If we waste it, our losses are astronomical. It will take countless ages and eons to regain them. The spacecraft we are offered—our freedom to choose our divine destiny—is precious beyond anyone's imagination. But we only have it for a short while. If we fail to take advantage of it here, then we have to walk all the way to our destination for ages and ages to come. Faced with that possibility, would any reasonable person take a chance?
How amazing, how incredible! The enormity of the losses that can come from a little negligence! Who is willing to face that loss?
In terms of distance, all the choices that we make here measure only an inch—that is how much they will ultimately count. What about our destiny? That choice can only be measured in light years. That is the magnitude of its colossal significance. In human language, there is no word to describe it. Human imagination is powerless to conceive it. Every other choice has limited consequence, except this one. The consequences of this choice endure for all eternity. What more needs to be said?
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