Maulana Wahiduddin Khan | The Sunday Guardian | April 17, 2016, p. 12

To believe in God is to see the invisible force behind visible objects. It is to see through superficial irrelevancies to the ultimate reality that lies hidden in all things. It is to acknowledge that all things come from God. It is to see God as the Supreme Being that He truly is.

A true believer is never enamoured of the external splendour of worldly things. He is not overawed by material grandeur, for he knows that it, like himself, is the creation of God.

He does not look to other human beings for the fulfillment of his needs, for he knows that they are helpless before their Maker.

So absorbed does he become in God’s glory that he never loses the smallest opportunity to sing hymns of praise to His greatness.

Man has an innate need to have someone or something to look up to and depend upon in life. This is a strong and instinctive urge.

But if, in order to satisfy it, man chooses as the object of his veneration some worldly thing or person other than the Almighty, then he is worshipping something which is false, and debasing himself in the process.

In ancient times, the awe inspired by natural phenomena, such as the sun and the moon permeated every aspect of human life.

In more recent times, however, man has become more materialistic and has chosen to worship wealth and the greatness of other human beings. But if man worships the purely material in life, he is going sadly astray, for the only Being deserving of his obeisance is the Lord God Almighty.

In one’s search for the truth one must always keep oneself well prepared to pass by the whole of creation. It is only through this hard work and turmoil that one is finally able to reach the Creator and Sustainer Himself.