Be obedient to Allah, and love His remembrance, and picture to yourself that you are running away while He is approaching you. He is calling you to His forgiveness and concealing your faults with His kindness while you are fleeing away from Him towards others. Certainly, Great is Allah the powerful who is so generous, and how humble and weak are you and still so bold to commit His disobedience although you live in His protection and undergo changes of life in the expanse of His kindness. He does not refuse you His kindness and does not remove his protection from you. In fact you have not been without his kindness even for a moment whether it be a favor that He conferred upon you or a sin of yours that He has concealed or calamity that he as warded off from you. What is your idea about Him if you had obeyed Him.
By Allah, if this had been the case with two persons equal in power and matching in might (one being inattentive and the other showering favors upon you) then you would have been the first to adjudge yourself to be of bad behaviour and evil deeds. I truthfully say that the world has not deceived you but you have got yourself deceived by it. The world has opened to you the curtains and divulged to you (everything) equally. And in all that it foretold you about the troubles befalling your bodies and the decay in your power it has been too true and faithful in promise, and did not speak like to you or deceive you. There are many who advise you about it but they are blamed, and speak truth about it but they are opposed.
If you understand the world by means of dilapidated houses and forlorn abodes then with your good understanding and far reaching power of drawing lessons you would find it like one who is kind over you and cautions about you. It is a good abode for him who does not like it as an abode and a good place of stay for him who does not regard it a permanent home of stay. Only those who run away from this world today would be regarded virtuous tomorrow.
When the earthquake occurs, the Day of resurrection approaches with all its severities, the people of every worshipping place cling to it, all the devotees cling to the object of their devotion and all the followers cling to their leader. Then on that day even the opening of an eye in the air and the sound of a footstep on the ground would be assigned its due through His Justice and His Equity. ON that day many an argument would prove void and contention for excuses would stand rejected. Therefore you should now adopt for yourself the course with which your excuse may hold good and your plea may be proved. Take from the transient things of this world that which would stay for you (in the next world), provide for your journey, have (your) look on the brightness of deliverance and keep ready the saddles (for setting off)
O' man what has emboldened you to (commit) sins, what has deceived you about your Allah and what has made you satisfied with the destruction of yourself. Is there no cure for your ailment or no awakening from your sleep? Do you not have pity on yourself as you have on others. Generally when you see anyone exposed to the heat of the sun you cover him with shade or if you see anyone afflicted with grief that pains his body you weep out of pity for him.
What has then made you patient over your own disease; what has made you firm in your own afflictions and what has consoled you from weeping over yourself although your life is the most precious of all lives to you, and why does not the fear of aliment that may befall you in the night keep you wakeful although you lie on the way to Allah's Wrath due to your sins? You should cure the disease of languor in your heart by determination and the sleep of neglectfulness in your eyes by wakefulness.
Certainly death would end your enjoyments, mar your pleasures and remove away your objectives. It is an unwanted visitor, and invincible adversary and an unaccounting killer. Its ropes have entrapped you, its evils have surrounded you, its arrow-heads have aimed at you, its way over you is great, its oppression on you is continuos and the chance of its missing you is remote. Very soon you will be overwhelmed with the gloom of its shades, severity of its illness, darkness of its distresses, nonsense utterances of its pangs, the grief of its destruction, the darkness of its encompassment and the unwholesomeness of its taste.
It would seem as if it has come to you all of a sudden, silenced those who were whispering to you, separated your group, destroyed your doings, devastated your houses an alerted your successors to distribute your estate among chief relations, who did not give you any benefit, or the grieved near ones who could not protect (you), or those rejoicers who did not lament (you). Therefore it is upon you to strive, make effort, equip yourself, get ready and provide yourself from the place of provision. This world should not be able to deceive you as it has deceived those before you among the past peoples and bygone periods-those who extracted its milk, benefited from its neglectfulness, passed long time and turned its new things into old (by living long). Their abodes turned into graves and their wealth into inheritable estate. They do not know who came to them (at their graves), do not pay heed to those who weep over them, and do not respond to those who call them. Therefore beware of this world as it is treacherous, deceitful and cheating, gives and takes back, covers with clothes and uncovers. Its pleasure does not last, its hardship does not end and its calamity does not stop.
There are four things which make the heart die: wrong action followed by wrong action, playing around with foolish people, spending a lot of time with women, and sitting with the dead. Then they asked Imam "Ali: " And who are the dead, On commander of the believers?" He replied: " Every slave who follows his desires."
Surely want is a trial, and having a sickness of the body is more difficult to bear than indigence, and having a sickness of the heart ism roe difficult to bear than having a sickness of the body. Surely being very wealthy is a blessing, and having a healthy body is better than being very wealthy, and having the awe of Allah in your heart is better than having a healthy body.
Ask your heart about friendship, for surely it is a witness that cannot be bribed.
The best hearts are those that best remember.
Kindle your heart with courteous behaviour just as you kindle a fire with fuel. Surely hearts have desire, and they turn towards, and they turn away … so approach them by means of what they desire and what they turn towards, for surely if the heart is forced to do something against its will, it goes blind.
Surely hearts grow tired just as bodies grow tired, so seek out the novelties of wisdom for them. If you have any doubts about a person's friendship than ask your heart about it.
Include whatever Allah has made obligaroty on you in your demands. As for His fulfilment of what He has asked you to do. Make your ears hear the call of death before you are called by death. Surely the hearts of the abstemious weep in this world even though they may (apparently) laugh, and their grief increases even though they may appear happy. Their hatred for themselves is much even though they may be envied for the subsistence they are allowed. Remembrance of death has dissappeared from your hearts while false hopes are present in you. So this world has mastered you more than the next world, and the immediate end (of this world) has removed you away from the remote one (of the next life).
You are brethren in the religion of Allah. Dirty natures and bad consciences have separated you. Consequently you do not bear burdens of each other nor advise each other, nor spend on each other, nor love each other. What is your condition? You feel satisfied with what little you have secured from this world while much of the next world of which you have been deprived does not grieve you. The little of this world which you lose, pains you so much so that it becomes apparent in your faces, and in the lack of your endurance over whatever is taken away from you; as though this world is your permanent abode, and as though its wealth would stay with you for good. Nothing prevents anyone among you to disclose to his comrade the shortcomings he is afraid of, except the fear that the comrade would also disclose to him similar defects.
You have decided together on leaving the next world and loving this world. Your religion has become just licking with the tongue. It is like the work of one who has finished his job and secured satisfaction of his master.
I warn you of the world for it is the abode of the unsteady. It is not a house for foraging. It has decorated itself with deception and deceives with its decoration. It is a house which is low before Allah. So He has mixed its lawful with its unlawful, its good with its evil, its life with its death, and its sweetness with its bitterness. Allah has not kept it clear for His lovers, nor has He been niggardly with it towards His foes. Its good is sparing. Its evil is ready at hand. Its collection would dwindle away. Its authority would be snatched away. Its habitation would face desolation. What is the good in a house which falls down like fallen construction or in an age which expires as the provision exhausts, or in time which passes like walking.
