Chapter VIII: Self-Examination and Self-Accounting
Hazrat Jainal Abedin used to pray: O God, I seek refuge to Thee from the fact of my open divine services being good to the people and my secret divine services being bad to Thee when I separate myself from the people. I seek refuge to Thee from the fact that I should express my divine service in a good manner when I am with Thee and I should approach you with sin when I become separate from Thee. So the religious man treading the path of God should always search for the pleasure of God. It cannot be attained if he fears any other thing than God and depends upon him. He who fears another and depends on him hopes that his good works should be known to him. He should then know it to be bad on the strength of his wisdom as God's wrath may follow him.
The saint Saqiq Balakhi said: Once I presented a cloth to Hazrat Hasan Basari but he returned it to me. I said to him: O Abu Abdullah, 1 did not hear Hadis from you. Why do you return it?
He said: I know it, but your brother has heard Hadis from me. I feared lest my mind inclines to him more than to others. Once a man came with two purses to Sufiyan. His father was a friend of sufiyan who used to come to him often. He said to him: O Abu Abdullah, this is the money from my father to you. Sufiyan said:
May God shower mere on your father. When he went away, he called his son and said to him: Return this money to,him. When he came to him, he said: My desire is that you should take back your money. The reason is that the saint remembered afterwards that the friendship with his father was for the pleasure of God. So he declined to receive the money. Sufiyan's son complained to his father for not accepting the money to which Sufiyan said: You will enjoy this money with pleasure but I will be questioned for that on th Resurrection Day. So everybody should seek the pleasure of God and show the right path to the people.
The saint Ibrahim-b-Adham said: I learnt Ma'arfat from a Christian named Sam'an. I asked him: How long are you in this
VoI-III Love of power and show 247