Chapter 1 Why Are We on Earth?
The thought of sharing all my good ideas and knowledge with all of you everywhere thrills me to pieces! This is the 1st of the 100 chapters, so it is appropriate that I start at the beginning of everything; hence, the big question is: Why are we here?
We are here because God created the universe, and He made humans special among all his creations. We are His children, and you can appreciate how much He loves us. He could have built a perfect paradise on earth, with all living happily ever after; if that was the end of the story, wouldnt it be boring? That is why God lets the world carry on as it is, giving us freedom and choice. When we eventually discover Him, adore Him, and choose to join Him in heaven, He feels enormous gratification. It is a satisfaction beyond description, much grander than that of owning a faultless world from the start, because His children have come willingly to love him, without being forced to.
Should you or any of your friends doubt the existence of God, just ponder, the vastness and order of the universe. Its expanse is beyond human understanding or imagination. Our Sun, according to scientists, is only one of the countless stars around, many of which are much bigger. The others are so far away that they appear only as cold and dim twinkles in the night. These „suns are so distant that despite the speed light travels, their light takes hundreds of years to reach us! A light-year is the distance travelled by flashing light in a year, or about 9,518,616 million km. Our Milky-Way galaxy alone, is 100,000 light-years across, or 951,861,600,000 million km wide, and yet, that galaxy is only a speck of dust in the whole universe! The universe is that infinite, that endless.
The order in the universe is equally astounding. The planets rotate and revolve around the Sun. The earth gives working days and resting nights, and tilts to provide the seasons. The magnetic poles activate compasses to guide ships and planes. The human brain thinks, plans, calculates, and remembers! The human heart beats about 2,600 million times without resting, and each person contains 100 trillion cells, miraculous right down to the invisible DNA! The tongue tells the chilli from the tomato, while the nose differentiates champagne from coffee. Acorns always grow into trees, not roses, and Poodles never give birth to Pekingeses. God gives us rain from the clouds, timber from the forest, food and medicine from the plants, rice and cotton from the fields, sugar from the canes and salt from the seas. Boys and girls attract each other, fall in love, then get married to produce offspring.
All members of this huge ecological system co-depend on one another. Are all these one big accident, without a God? Let me put it in simpler examples: If I served you a delicious meal would you say no one had cooked it? If you walked along the beach, found a watch and held it to your ear, and it was still ticking away beautifully, would you say nobody had made that watch? Do not doubt the presence of God. If you do, you are unfortunate, and you may find your life in this world and in the next, a little messy and unhappy, because there, something is definitely amiss.
At the onset here, I want you to see clearly and certainly, that you are here for a special reason: To love yourself, to love others, and to love God. You are here to bring success and happiness to yourself and your fellowmen. Someone once said, „The great purpose of life is to make something that will outlast us. It would be very sad, if you lived like a cow or a sheep and just passed away, without beautifying and enriching yourself, society and humanity. So let love and virtues be the focal point and the integral part of your values and your daily life. Let your love for your parents, brothers and sisters be deep and unconditional; then you will greatly enjoy and treasure their company, you will help them more and share the joy of building a wonderful home. If you really love God, you will do good, and do no wrong.
You are a lucky person in your own way and by normal standards, but today you are even luckier, because I am starting this book of 350 pages, and imparting everything to you to ensure your success and happiness. This is easy, with a bright and responsive youngster like you; all you need is to read every line attentively, then digest, understand and memorise them. Please put the good ideas into practice immediately. In the next 99 lessons, I will give you all the good concepts and encouragement to make you happy. Basically, life depends on our self-image, attitude, thoughts, actions, and our acceptance and handling of situations and people. How we overcome frustrations and problems is important. Life is not always a bed of roses, and people who succeed do not have fewer problems than those who fail. The only people without problems are those in the graveyards. Whenever there is setback, it is okay. It is not the problem that matters, it is how we perceive situations and tackle them, that makes the whole difference!
I beg you to read all the chapters carefully. I will do my best to make them meaningful and interesting for you. I cannot expect you to embrace all my words immediately, but I have lived over 40 years, seen 26 countries, met thousands of people, read thousands of books and spent months in seclusion, reflecting on success and happiness. One day, you will say, „Thank you Sir, you were right. Now we have come a long way, you have brought me much strength, goodness, joy and achievement.
Life is precious, and you are! Make the most of life and yourself. Enjoy and progress every minute of your day. Today is the beginning of your great lifetime, lets have words from the great to enlighten you, and to launch you on your fabulous journey:
"He has half the deed done, who has made a beginning." - Horace.
"Give the best to the world and the best will come to you." - Anonymous.
"Man has his future within him, dynamically alive at this present moment." Abraham Maslow.
"You are free to choose, but the choices you make today will determine what you will have, be, and do in the tomorrows of your life." - Z. Ziglar.
"Sow a thought and you reap an act; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny." - R. W. Emerson.
"Life means to have something definite to do - a mission to fulfill - and in the measure in which we avoid setting our life to something, we make it empty. Human life, by its very nature, has to be dedicated to something." - J. O. Gasset.