Chapter VIII: Self-Examination and Self-Accounting
2. Q baser-self, woe to you ! If you believe that God does not ■ see you and for that you dare to disobey Him, how daring you are ! If you know that God knows of you, how great is your ignorance and how little is your shame. Alas for you. If your brother or your servant tells you what is disliking to you, how great is your wrath upon him. How then can you be safe from the wrath and severe punishment of Allah? Do you think that you can bear His punishment? Never, you cannot. Drive the thought out of your mind. If haughtiness keeps you unmindful of His severe punishment, stand in the scorching sun for an hour or stay in the warmth of the bath-room and place the front of your fingers in fire and see what power your possess If you think that your are unmindful of His service out of sheer hope of His mercy and forgiveness, then why do you not rely on the mercy of God in the affairs of the world? If an enemy attacks you why do you take recourse to counter attack to drive him away and do not sit idle relying on God? Why don't you say- Allah will drive him away ? When any earthly desire bites you and you cannot drive it away
362 THE BOOK OF CONSTRUCTIVE VIRTUES Vol-IV
without money, why then do you strive hard to earn it and adopt various methods to acquire it ? Why don't you rely on God for that ? God will never tell you about His hidden treasures. He will not make the people subservient to you, so that they may take to you your worldly needs. Do you think at that time that God will not show mercy in this world? Your have known that there is no change in God's Laws and that the Lord of this world and the next is one, and that there is nothing for man but what he strives for.
3. O baser-self ! Woe to you, how wonderful is your hypocrisy and false claim. You claim faith by your oral utterance of Kalema, but the sign of hypocrisy is upon you. Have not your Lord said to you — There is no animal in the earth whose sustenance is not upon God — 11 : 6 (Quran)? Has He not said with regard to the affairs of the next world : There is nothing for man but what he strives for", your have taken it true regarding your worldly affairs but you have given it up regarding your affairs of the hereafter. You have proved it false by your actions. You are heedless in searching Him. while He place the affairs of the next world upon your efforts. You have turned your face from that like a proud and self conceited man. It this the sign of your faith ? If the meaning of Iman would have ended only by oral recital of the Kalema, then why will the hypocrites dwell in the lowest depth of Hell?