Chapter X: Evils of Self-Deception
One day a man asked Hasan Basari : O Abu Sayeed, does the devil sleep ? He smiled and said : If he slept, we would have taken rest. No believer is safe from him. It is true that there are means to get out of him and to curb his power. The Prophet said : A believer drives out his devil as one of you drives his camel in journey. Hazrat Ibn Masud said : The devil of a believer is lean and thin. It is true that there are many doors open for the devil towards soul, but the door of angels is only one which is mixed up with the other doors. To know the path is very difficult without the rays of soul or deep insight which is covered with God-fear.
Hazrat Abdullah-b-Masud said: The Prophet drew up a line in our front and said : This is God's path. He drew up several lines from the right and left sides of that line and said : These are different paths and in each path the devil calls towards it. Then he recited : This is My straight path. Follow it and don't follow different paths. The Prophet said : There was a hermit among the children of Isrial. Once the devil snared a woman and he generated in the minds of her family members that her cure is in the hands of the hermit. They took the woman to the hermit and wanted him to keep her, but he declined to keep her. Being greatly requested, he kept the woman with him for treatment.
Then the devil came to the hermit and gave him evil advice. The hermit then cohabited with the woman who become pregnant as a Tesult. Now the devil came to the hermit again and said to him :
Kill her, otherwise her family members would come and kill you.
If they ask you, you will say that she has died. Then the hermit killed the woman and buried her. The devil then came to the family members of the woman and told them that the hermit killed her as the woman became pregnant owing to his cohabitation with her. When they came to the hermit for the
36 Soul and its Attributes Vol-III
woman, he said that she had died. Then the devil came to the hermit and said to him : I will save you from them if you obey my command. Prostrate before me twice. When the hermit made prostration before the devil, the devil said : lam now free from you.
DEVIL'S ENTRY INTO SOUL: Know, dear readers, that soul is like a fortress and the devil wishes to enter it and commit havoc. In order to save it from the devil, one must guard the doors of this fort. It is impossible for him to guard them unless he knows the doors which mean his character and conduct.