Chapter IV: Poverty and Renunciation
STATEMENT OF CONDITION: We shall call this condition • renunciation. In other worlds, it is the turning away from a thing in order to get a better thing than it. So he who does not love a thing turns away from that thing and he who loves a thing turns towards that thing and is attached to it. Two things are necessary for renunciation. (1) Firstly, to turn away from a thing and to be attached towards a thing. So the latter is better than the first. He who has renunciated riches and wealth is called one who renunciated the world. He who sells his world in lieu of the next world is called one who renounces the world. He who sells his next world in exchange of this world, is one who renounces the next world. So the meaning of renunciation is to love a dear thing and to advance towards another dear thing which is dearer than the former. He who renounces things other than God, even the highest Paradise and does not love things other than God is Jahed or who renunciated the world. Who turns away from the woildly comfoTts and seeks the comforts of the next world, his position is lower than the former. The meaning of Tauba is to forsake sins and the meaning of renunciation is to leave such lawful things as are the causes of physical pleasure. So to leave the lawful things in the world is called renunciation. To leave things other than God and turn towards God is renunciation. This is the highest stage. Someone addressed Ibnul Mobarak : O one who renunciated the world. He replied : Caliph Omar-bin-Abdul Aziz is the person who renunciated the world, as the world came to him with its fineries but he rejected them. What subjects shall I leave? I have gotnothing.
KNOWLEDGE: The knowledge which is the fruit of condition is this. The thing which is given up in comparison with the thing accepted is worse and it is the fruit of the knowledge of a business man. He knows that what he accepts in lieu of his sold thing is better and for that he is more attached to it. He who has not got this knowledge loses no attachment to the thing sold.
Similarly he who knows that what is near God is everlasting and that the next- world is ever-lasting and better, accepts jewel in
Vol-IV POVERTY AND RENUNCIATION 169
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