A Ticket to Paradise

The price of Paradise in the Hereafter is that the person acknowledges God’s greatness, lives with modesty and develops a purified personality (20:76) in this world itself.

On one of my journeys to the western world, I met a Muslim of about 50 years of age, who said, “I want a ticket to Paradise. Tell me what this ticket to Paradise is?”

The fact is that there is no such window where a ticket to Paradise may be bought. It is not a question of a ticket to paradise. It is a question of having a divine personality. Ineffable Paradise will be given to those who have developed this divine personality. Entry into Paradise will not be on the basis of a ticket. The price of Paradise is man’s own existence. Only by paying the price of his existence can one gain entry into the world of Paradise.

The condition for admission to Paradise is that the person should reach there with a purified personality (20:76). This means that he is such a person in whom the purified spirit dwells, whose heart and mind are free of impurities and who has grown a garden of divinity within himself. The present world is such that, on the one side there is mud and on the other side there is clean water. A man may pollute himself in mud or bathe in clean water and purify himself. Those who pollute themselves will be thrown into hell in the Hereafter, while those who purify themselves will dwell in the eternal bliss of Paradise.

Acknowledgement of God’s greatness is to purify our personality and to do the reverse is to pollute our personality. Similarly an opportunity comes in which a man gives evidence of high morality while the other person gives proof of a base moral character. An opportunity arises for a man to give another person his due, while another person denies the right of others. An opportunity arises for a man to follow the path of modesty, while another person follows the path of arrogance or rebellion. In each case, the first person is the one who purifies his personality and such persons will definitely find a place in the refined world of Paradise. On the contrary, the second person is the one who pollutes his personality and, as such, Hell will be the abode of such people.