"From God To Satan"

 

          Many, many years ago, in a certain country, there was a young and famous painter. He decided to create a truly great portrait, a lively portrait full of the joy of God, a portrait of a man whose eyes radiated eternal peace. And so, he set out to find someone whose face reflected that eternal, ethereal light.

          The artist roamed from village to village, from jungle to jungle, in search of his subject, and at long last he came across a shepherd with shining eyes, with a face and features that held the promise of some celestial home. One look was enough to convince him that God was present in this young man.

          The artist painted a portrait of the young shepherd. Millions of copies of the portrait were made and it sold far and wide. People felt great gratitude, just being able to hang the picture on their walls.

          After a spell of some twenty years, when the artist had grown old, he decided to paint another portrait. His experience had shown him that life is not all goodness, that Satan also exists in man. The idea of painting a picture of Satan persisted; were he to fulfill the project, then the two pictures would complement each other, would show the complete man. He had already done a painting of godliness; now he wanted to portray evil incarnate.

          He sought a man who was not a man but Satan. He went to gambling dens, to bars and to madhouses. This subject had to be full of hell’s fire; his face had to show all that is evil, ugly and sadistic.

          After a long search, the artist finally met a prisoner in a jail. The man had committed seven murders and had been sentenced to be hanged in a few days. Hell was evident in the man’s eyes; they spouted hate. His face was the ugliest one could possibly hope to find. The artist began to paint him.

          When he had completed the portrait he brought out his earlier picture and set it by the side of the new painting for contrast. It was difficult to assess which was better from an artistic point of view; both were marvelous. He stood, staring at both of them. And then he heard a sob. He turned and saw the chained prisoner, crying. The artist was bewildered. He asked, ”My friend, why are you crying? Do these pictures disturb you?”

          The prisoner said, ”I have been trying to hide something from you all this time, but today I am lost. You obviously do not know that the first picture is also of me. Both portraits are of me. I am the same shepherd you met twenty years ago in the hills. I cry for my downfall in the last twenty years. I have fallen from heaven to hell, from God to Satan.”

          I do not know how true this story is, but one thing is for certain: each man’s life has two converse sides; two portraits of everyone are possible. In every man both God and Satan exist; in every man there is the possibility of heaven, and the possibility of hell. A bouquet of beautiful roses can grow in man; a heap of mud can also pile up in him. Every man swings between these two extremes.

          Man can attain to either of these extremes, but most people are inclined towards the infernal. Those fortunate few who aspire to the eternal, who let godliness grow in them, are rare. Can we succeed in making our lives temples of God? Can we also become like the portrait that had the glimpse of God in it?

          How can man become the reflection of God? How is it possible to make man’s life heaven, to make it fragrant, beautiful, harmonious? How is it possible for man to know that which is deathless? How is it possible for man to enter the temple of God?

          In this context, the facts of life indicate that all our progress, so far, has been in the opposite direction. In childhood we are in heaven, but as we grow older, by and by we land in hell. The world of childhood is full of innocence and purity, but we gradually begin traveling a road paved with lies and treachery and by the time we are mature we are old – not only physically but also spiritually. Not only does the body become weak and infirm, but the soul falls into a ruinous state as well. But we simply accept this; we simply let the matter finish there. But we also finish ourselves.

          Religion is fatalistic about this question, about this downfall, about this journey from heaven to hell. But this journey ought to be reversed. This journey should be a rewarding one – from sorrow to joy, from darkness to light, from mortality to immortality. Man’s inner urge is to reach the deathless from the deathbound; this is the thirst of man’s innermost soul. The soul’s only search is to reach from the darkness to the light. The basic drive of our primal energy is to reach from untruth to truth.

          But for that voyage, man needs to conserve his energy; he needs to allow his energy to grow. To scale truth, to reach to the soul, man must strive to become a reservoir of limitless strength; only then can he reach to the eternal. Heaven is not for the weak.

          The truth of life is not for those who dissipate their energy, who allow themselves to become feeble and frail. Those who squander life’s energies, who become  insipid and impotent within, cannot undertake this expedition. It requires great energy to scale the heights.

          Conservation of energy is a prime requisite of religion. But we are a weak, sick generation, and through this loss of energy we are progressively sinking to weaker and weaker levels. Our vitality is being drained away and all that is left inside is a honeycomb of dry cells; nothing is left but a terrible emptiness. Our lives are one sad continuous story of loss; our lives are not productive at all.