their misfortune and appear before the people as if they are prosperous.
Those who are not aware of their real state tend to regard them as affluent and prosperous, and, since they do not incline towards asking for
favours, to consider them generous, and immaculate in body and clothes.
They also see that they lavish everything God has blessed them with.
upon others. Their acts are guided by the following Command of God:
Render not vain your almsgiving by reproach and injury
21
God has thus shown us that the largesse of those who have given
away for some invidious purpose of their own is evil. Since they have
not been generous because they are governed by a feeling of munificence
or for God's Acceptance, they are not deserving of any recompense.
Pause
A wise person will obtain pleasure only out of such intellectual delights that have the stamp of permanence. A fool is unaware of the real
pleasure afforded by intellectual delights and, therefore, he regards the
splendour of these delights as the end-point of his vision. We see animals
wallowing with joy in the dust upon witnessing the various multicoloured delights disgorged by the earth, and enjoying them. What then,
will happen to man who appreciates the substance of these delights? But
a wise one gains intellectual pleasure from them, and gazes at these
beautiful objects with a penetrating vision and with a perception that instructs him and fills him with a sense of morality. A fool can only get
sensual pleasure out of them and he immerses himself day and night in
wine and intoxication.
But the period of enjoyment by these persons is shortlived. When
these pleasures are at their fag-end, they turn pale and vapid. Their
freshness departs and they become like the dry hay that is blown by
winds hither and thither, reducing them to dust to be washed away by
flood waters. They, therefore, become useless and the hedonist only
cherishes their memories. Cheeks like the rose and pale jasmine, narcissus-like eyes, lips like the anemone and pomegranate, teeth like the
chamomile that glistens after a fresh shower of rain, countenances like
the bowers of the marshmallow and violet:— all are the possessions of a
human being for a transient period; as the days and nights pass, they become hoary with age. They are not like the houris and the winsome
boys of Paradise whose beauty remains ever-fresh under all conditions.
God has created for those who visualise religious piety as the beauty of
Paradise in the depths of the moving oceans and in the waters of the
mountains and the earth, pearls and jewels which do not suffer the onslaught of time. God has said about them:
There cometh forth from both of them the pearls and coral-
