Chapter IV: Poverty and Renunciation
is not world.' So what is absolutely necessary is included within religion, but there is punishment in the next world for what is not necessary and that is the world. He who looks at the condition of a rich man and the disgrace of earning money and its hoarding and preservation, can know the punishment of wealth in this world. The least misfortune of the rich is that they leave these riches behind for their heirs. In most cases, their riches help them in the commission of sins. Therefore the hoarders in the world have been compared to the worms of silk. These silk worms weave over their bodies first and do not find any way out of them and for that they die and perish owing to their actions. He who is busy with the world is exactly like that. He is confined by his riches, name and fame, family, children, pleasure of his enemies and displeasure of his friends and other things of the world. If he wants to go out of the world, he can't do it and finds himself confined. If any dear thing goes out of his hand, he as it were meets with death. Thereafter the angel of death one day separates him completely from his dear things. He snatches him catching hold of the sinews of his heart but the dear things of the world draw him towards the world. If he dies in such a condition, he becomes like a person whose body is split up by saw. Hazrat Hasan Basri said : I saw 70 soldiers of Bad. They renunciated lawful things more than what you renunciated from unlawful things. In another narration : They enjoyed more happiness in their disasters than what you enjoy in your solvency and sufficient means. If you had seen this, you would have termed them mad. If they had seen your pious men, they would have said : These people have got no connection with religion. If they had seen your sinners, they would have said : They have got no faith in the judgment day. If any lawful thing reached any one of them he did not accept it and said : I fear the destruction of my heart. He who had heart feared the spoiling of his heart. God gave information about those whose hearts have been spoiled by the attachment of the world : They are satisfied with this world's life and are heedless of My orders. God says : Don't obey those who have made their hearts heedless of Us and followed their low desires. God said : Turn away from those who turn away from My remembrance and who don't wish but this world's life.
The run of their wisdom is this.
Once a man said to Jesus Christ : Take me as your companion in your jourey. Jesus Christ said : Gift your wealth
Vol-IV POVERTY AND RENUNCIATION 193
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