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Is ignorance really bliss?

There is a conviction prevalent in society that deep thought is not good. People warn one another saying "don't think so much, you will lose your mind". This is surely nothing but a superstition invented by people who are remote from religion. People should not avoid thinking by thinking negatively or being carried away by exaggerated scruples and misapprehensions.

Most people think that they might be able to evade various responsibilities by avoiding thinking and setting their brain to work on certain issues. By doing so in the world, they succeed in holding themselves aloof from many subjects. One of the greatest ways in which people are deceived, however, is in their supposition that they can escape their responsibilities to their Lord by not thinking. This is the main reason why people do not think about death and life after death. If man thinks that he will die one day and remembers that there is an eternal life after death, he will necessarily have to strive strenuously for his life after death. He, however, deceives himself, supposing that he is saved from such responsibility when he does not think of the existence of the hereafter. This is a great self-deception, and if man does not attain the truth in this world by thinking, he will understand, with death, that there is no escape for him.

The stupor of death will come in truth. (And it is said unto him): "That is what you were trying to evade! The trumpet is blown. That is the day of the threat."

The Holy Qur'an, Chapter 50 , Verses 19-20

The majority of people spend their whole lives in a "rush". When they reach a certain age, they have to work and look after themselves and their families. They call this "the struggle for life" and complain that they have no time for anything as they have to rush around in this struggle. In this so-called "shortage of time", thinking is one of the things for which they cannot spare any time. Therefore, they are swept away wherever the flow of their daily lives takes them. In this way of life, they become insensitive to events taking place around them.

The aim of man, however, should not be to consume time, rushing from one place to another. The main issue is to be able to see the real face of this world and assume a way of living accordingly. No one's sole purpose is earning money, going to work, studying at university or purchasing a house. Surely, man may need to do those things in the course of his life, yet there is a subject that he should always bear in mind while doing them: the purpose of his existence in this world is to be a slave of God, to work for God's pleasure, His mercy and paradise. All works other than this purpose can serve only as a "means" helping man to attain his true purpose. Adopting the means to certain ends as the real purposes is a serious deception with which satan misleads man.

Someone who lives without thinking may easily take these means as his real purpose. We can cite an example from our daily lives. It is undoubtedly a good act for one to work and produce beneficial things for society. A person who believes in God performs such an act eagerly and expects a reward from God both in the world and in the hereafter. If a person, on the other hand, does the same thing without remembering God and only for worldly interests such as status and people's appreciation, he is making a mistake. He has made something, which he should use as a means of earning the pleasure of God, his purpose. And he will regret this when he faces realities in the hereafter. In a verse, God refers to those who indulge in this manner in the life of this world as follows:

Like those before you who had greater strength than you and more wealth and children. They enjoyed their portion; so enjoy your portion as those before you enjoyed theirs. You have plunged into defamation as they plunged into it. The actions of such people come to nothing in this world or the hereafter. They are the lost.

The Holy Qur'an, Chapter 9, Verse 69

Excerpted from Deep Thinking by Harun Yahya