When you are looking for a job with status and a high position which will earn you the praise of the world, directors of companies will interview you for jobs which befit the certificates you have acquired: birth certificates, religious certificates, school certificates, certificates of learning—all kinds of certificates. Then they will all call out to you, “Come to my store.” “No, come to my shop.” “No, come to my company! I will give you a job as an engineer.” Many people will offer you jobs according to the certificates you have, and you will be able to acquire status, praise, merit, titles, and money.
You may have to sign a contract agreeing to work for one, five, or ten years. When the contract expires, you may move to another company and then another, receiving better and better positions according to your credentials, and each time binding yourself to an agreement.
If you take all you have studied, all the certificates you have obtained—prayer certificates, religious and racial certificates, doctrine certificates, school certificates, meditation and miracle certificates, philosophy certificates, and doctor-of-this-and-that certificates—to the supermarket of the world, you will be given a job appropriate to them. If you wear the right sort of dress, hat, robe, insignia, or medal, you will obtain the right position. But when all this is over, you will go to the cemetery. You will even get a certificate for that, too. These are the certificates the world gives you for your worldly study and learning; but after all this, you do not know exactly what awaits you or what wages you will receive for what you did here, in this world.
However, there is another realm. In that place certificates are unnecessary. An entire kingdom is in your hands. Your job is to rule the kingdom in the right way, avoiding what is wrong and doing what is right in the right way. If you can do that, the rightful leader, the One who gave you the kingdom, will also give you whatever you need at any particular moment. He will talk to you when you need to talk. He will have an intimate connection with you. You will not lack wealth. There, you can rule the kingdom in comfort. But here in the world man takes so many certificates; like a chameleon changing color, he changes his makeup and dress to suit the occasion, acting out an impermanent drama in an impermanent world to build a victory which will end up in the cemetery. All his titles and glory are the advertisements which are leading him to hell. Only things that cannot otherwise be sold need advertising; valuable things, such as gold, need no advertisement. God’s treasure needs no advertisement.
Realize this. God has given you the kingdom of hell and the kingdom of heaven. If you discard hell and rule God’s kingdom of heaven properly, His kingdom will become your kingdom, and you will lack nothing.
M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
