Chapter VII: Intention, Sincerity and Truth
(1) First charm is to appreciate the benefit of wealth, why it has been created, what is its necessity and why should it be earned — these should be known beforehand along with the fact that wealth beyond necessity should not be kept.
(2) Second charm is to search the mode of earning wealth.
Unlawful earning is to be given up like poison as bribe-taking, begging, stealing etc.
(3) Third charms is proportion of earning wealth. Earning of excess wealth should be avoided. It should be earned only what is necessary. What is necessary of food, cloth and habitation should be earned. There are three stages of each of these three subjects — low, middle and high stages. So long you remain near the low stage and near the necessary limit, you have got right therein. When you cross that limit, you will fall in the lowest.
Hell.
(4) Fifth charm is to keep honest and good motive in earning money, in expenditure and saving. Earning money is necessary to gain easiness in doing divine service. If money is acquired with this intention, it will to injure you. Hazrat Ali said : If one becomes owner of all the things of the world and thereby he wishes to have the pleasure of God, he can be called worldly renunciated man. If one, however, renounces all wealth but does not wish to have the pleasure of God, he cannot be called a worldly renounced man. So in all your actions and movements,
Vol-IH Love of wealth 201
keep yourself confined to the divine service and those things which help it. The actions which are nearest to divine service are .
food and removal of wants which are helps to divine service. If by these action, your object is divine service, they are considered as divine service. So every worldly action if done for getting divine pleasure is divine service. Your dress, your sleep, your eating and drinking are all divine services if done with that object. What you earn beyond what is necessary should be spend for the good of the people when they require it. A certain poet said :
The world is like a serpent that pours poison, But the snake salutes one who knows its charms.
CONDEMNATION OF WEALTH AND PRAISE OF POVERTY
We shall show here that poverty is better than wealth by some illustrations, stories and sayings.