Badges mark quoted or attributed material (Qur'an, hadith, another author, an opposing view). Unbadged passages are Maulana Wahiduddin Khan's own words.
DISCOVER, BY THINKING
It is a fact that all of our activities are governed by our minds. We first think, then act. If we think right, our actions are right. If we do not think right, our actions will not be right. Simple.
Right thinking leads to making the right beginnings, and the right beginnings lead to the right results. When an apple falls from a tree, it always falls straight down. This has been so since the beginning of time. But people took this falling-down for granted. They probably felt that there was nothing to it to think about. What was happening was what should be happening. No one thought to question why.
Sir Isaac Newton, like the story goes, was probably the first person to think about this phenomenon. Why did the apple fall to the ground? Why did it fall down? Why not up? Unusual thoughts, but they helped Newton arrive at the conclusion that the Earth exerted a force on the apple. He proceeded to discover the laws of gravity.
In a similar way, for millennia, people believed that the earth was flat. This theory appeared to be true as far as anyone could see. Therefore, it was held to be established fact. Standing on the coast, if you watch the horizon for ships, you will first see the masts of any ship. As the ship comes closer, the mast rises up until the entire ship is visible. The ship seems to have risen from below the horizon. Think about this phenomenon.
If the earth was flat, the entire ship would have appeared in the distance. The entire ship would have been visible as a speck on the horizon that became clearer as the ship came closer. But only the masts of the ships were visible at first. The earth is obviously not flat, as we can see for ourselves.
The truth is that all discoveries are made solely by thinking. They are not things that you stumble upon. Think, and you will discover the answers to everything.