What Makes One Forget Hereafter
Every belief or habit is formed not instantaneously but over time and through some preliminaries. Extended longings and fancies are among the preliminaries to forgetting the hereafter.
The Arabic word for desire is ‘Amani’ whose original meaning is assessment. Man, in his thoughts, assesses some issues and that is why extended longings and baseless remarks are referred to as Amani.
God, in Verse 14 of Surah Al-Hadid, described extended longings as one of the factors that deceive humans: “They will call out to them, saying: ‘Were we not with you?’ ‘Yes,’ they will reply, ‘but you tempted yourselves, you waited (for problems to befall the believers), and you doubted, and were deluded by your own fancies until the Command of Allah came, and the deluder (satan) deluded you concerning Allah.”
What should be noted is that having desires and longings is not bad in itself but there should be a distinction between ordinary longings and extended longings.
What differentiates between the two is remembering death and spiritual issues.
In ordinary longings, one makes efforts to reach his desires through proper planning and executing the plans but at the same time he does not forget God and spiritual affairs. He knows that God sees whatever he does and so avoids using paths that are illegal or against religious values to reach his desires.
But that is not the case in extended longings where one thinks he will live a long life and concentrates all his efforts on reaching worldly desires through whatever means possible. He does not spend any time in remembering God and death.
The Commander of the Faithful (AS) says to such people that they should avoid being deceived by desires as there were so many people who wished a day in which they could be in abundant blessings and they did not reach it, and they were so many who built palaces but did not have the opportunity to live in those palaces and so many people who collected a lot of wealth but never managed to benefit from it.
The Holy Prophet (PBUH) beautifully explains the relation between extended desires and death. As the Prophet (PBUH) was giving advice to his companions, he drew parallel lines and then a vertical line, asking them what they meant. The companions said they did not know.
The Prophet (PBUH) said the parallel lines are like one’s extended longings (that never end) and the vertical line represents death that cuts off all of those desires.
