If we claim to be up to the challenge now, but cry in agony or play the blame game as soon as we encounter an apparent loss, not only will we not gain anything we seemingly lost, but also we will have become increasingly susceptible to enacting the very thing with which we blamed others.
Muhammad (saw) says:
“Do not criticize; you will not die until you experience what you have criticized.”
So, if we accept this knowledge and want to attain it, then we must be willing to burn in hell in order to get to heaven. For one can only be purified by burning! Just as gold is purified by fire…
“Indeed, Allah has purchased, from the believers, their souls and their properties in return for Paradise...” (Quran 9:111)says the verse…
Note that it says ‘souls’ and ‘properties’!
Let’s evaluate these words in a broad term.
How can we both pursue bodily pleasures, allowing the antichrist of the ego to run his sovereignty at full capacity, and unite with the One? Clearly this is not possible. The Satan (ego) channels our thoughts to all sorts of ‘cul-de-sac’ avenues, making us think there is a way through, but alas, it is a trap of the ego; it is merely an assumption!
History is full of spiritually enlightened figures. Look at their lives. Which one has lived a life without any suffering? Their lives were full of purification and sacrifice!
We can only get as far as we forego from our identities. The amount of sacrifice, made from our ‘selves’, is the degree to which we can attain true reality. So, before the system inevitably and forcibly confiscates our possessions, belongings, loves ones, etc., why not willingly abandon them, first by detaching them from our egos and identities, and by purifying our hearts from material possessions and attachments?
In reality, everyone goes through similar experiences in life; everyone suffers the grief of loss, for example. However, the difference between just anyone, and one who has consciously willed to be awakened, is that the latter knows the wisdom behind it, and hence employs serenity and submission. The latter knows why he is burning and suffering, and chooses to do so with tranquility, while the former intensifies his pain with constant criticism and complaint.
But this isn’t the prerequisite to enter heaven!
To unite with Allah, one must awaken his consciousness!
One may claim: “Just going to heaven is good enough for me” but this has already been determined on the 120th day after conception when we were decreed to be either of the fortunate (said)or the unfortunate (shaqi) ones.
If we were decreed to be fortunate, then all of its necessities will have been sent to us during our lifetime. We would have been endowed with the understanding and the knowledge, the thirst for the quest, the faith and its outward manifestation, finally resulting at the gates of heaven.