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A
WARNING AND LESSON GIVEN TO
A GROUP OF UNHAPPY YOUNG PEOPLE
One
day a number of bright young
people came to me, seeking an
effective deterrent to guard
themselves against the danger
arising from modern worldly
life, youth, and animalistic
desires. As I had previously
told other young people who
sought help, I also said to
them:
Your
youth will definitely disappear.
If you do not restrict
yourselves within the limits of
the lawful, it will be lost, and
rather than its pleasures, it
will bring you suffering and
calamities in this world, in the
grave, and in the Hereafter. If,
under Islamic discipline, you
use the blessings of youth in
gratitude, chastely and
uprightly, and in worship, it
will in effect remain
perpetually and be the cause of
gaining eternal youth.
As
for life, if it is without
belief, or if belief, because of
rebelliousness, is ineffective,
it will produce pain, sorrow,
and grief far exceeding the
superficial, fleeting enjoyment
and pleasure it brings. As an
intelligent, thinking being, a
human being is (in contrast to
animals) intrinsically connected
to the past and the future, as
well as to the present time.
He/she derives both pain and
pleasure from them. Since
animals do not think, neither
sorrow arising from the past nor
fear and anxiety concerning the
future spoil their present
pleasure. But if a human being
has fallen into misguidance and
heedlessness, sorrow arising
from the past and anxiety about
the future mar his/her
particular pleasure, diluting it
with pain. Especially if it is
an illicit pleasure, then it is
like an altogether poisonous
honey. This means that, with
respect to the enjoyments of
life, a human being is a hundred
times lower than animals. In
fact, for the misguided,
heedless people, their whole
life and existence, their whole
world, consists of the day in
which they find themselves.
According to their misguided
belief, all of time past and all
past worlds have gone to
non-existence. Their intellects,
which connect them to the past
and the future, produce darkness
for them. Accordingly with their
lack of belief, the future is
also non-existent for them. The
separation that become eternal
because of this non-existence
continually darkens their lives.
In
contrast, if they build their
lives upon belief, then through
the light of belief, both the
past and the future will be
illuminated and acquire
existence. Like the present
time, they provide, through
belief, exalted spiritual
pleasures and lights of
existence for their spirit and
heart.
So,
that is how life is. If you
desire the pleasure and
enjoyment of life, animate your
life with belief and adorn it
with religious obligations.
Maintain it by abstaining from
sin. As for the fearsome reality
of death, which is demonstrated
by instances of death every day,
in every place and time, I shall
explain it to you with a parable
in the same way as I explained
it to some other youths.
Suppose
a gallows has been set up here
in front of our eyes. Beside it
is a lottery office, one which
gives tickets for truly high
prizes. We are here ten people,
and willingly or unwillingly,
shall certainly be invited
there. They may call us (since
the appointed time is unknown)
at any moment, and say either:
“Come and mount the gallows
for execution!” or “A prize
ticket worth millions of dollars
has come up for you; come and
collect it!” While we are
waiting for either call, two
people suddenly turn up. One of
them holds in his/her hand and
offers some apparently very
delicious, but in fact
poisonous, sweets, which he/she
wants us to eat. The other is
honest and solemn. He/she enters
behind the other, and says:
“I
have brought you a talisman, a
lesson. If you study it, and if
you do not eat the sweets, you
will be saved from the gallows.
With this talisman, you will
receive your ticket for the
matchless prize. You see with
your own eyes that those who eat
the sweets inevitably mount the
gallows, and furthermore, until
they mount them, they suffer
dreadful stomach pains from the
poison of the sweets. As for
those who receive the ticket for
the large prize, it seems that
they too mount the gallows. But
millions of witnesses testify
that they are not hanged on the
gallows; they use them as a step
to enter the prize arena easily.
So, look from the windows! The
highest officials, the
high-ranking persons concerned
with this business announce with
loud voices: “Just as you see
clearly with your own eyes those
mounting the gallows to be
hanged, so also know with utmost
certainty that those with the
talisman receive the ticket for
the prize.”
As
in the parable, since the
dissolute, religiously forbidden
pleasures of youth, which are
like poisonous sweets, are the
cause of losing belief-and
belief is the ticket to an
eternal treasury and a document
for everlasting happiness-those
who indulge in them are subject
to death, which is like the
gallows, and to the tribulations
of the grave, which is the door
to eternal darkness. The
appointed hour of death is
unknown. Therefore its
executioner, not differentiating
between young and old, may come
at any time to cut off your
head. If you have given up the
religiously forbidden pleasures
(which are like the poisonous
sweets) and acquired the Quranic
talisman (belief and performing
religious obligations), 124,000
Prophets, upon them be peace,
together with innumerable
saints, have proclaimed that you
will get to the treasury of
eternal happiness. They also
have shown the signs and
evidences of it.
In
short: Youth will pass. If it is
wasted in indulgence, it results
in thousands of misfortunes and
pains both in this world and the
next. If you want to understand
how such youths end up in
hospitals with mental and
physical diseases, mainly
because of their abuse, and in
prisons or hostels for the
destitute as a result of their
excesses, and in bars because of
the distress provoked by their
spiritual unease-then, go and
inquire at the hospitals,
prisons, and cemeteries.
For
sure, just as you will hear from
most of the hospitals the moans
and groans of those ill from
dissipation and debauchery
resulting from the appetites of
youth, so also you will hear
from the prisons the regretful
sighs of unhappy wretches
suffering for illicit actions
mostly resulting from the
excesses of their youth. Again,
you will come to know that, as
testified by the saints who can
discern the life of the grave,
and affirmed by exacting
scholars of truth, most of the
torments of the grave-that
Intermediate Realm the doors of
which continuously open and shut
for those who enter it-are the
result of misspent youth.
Also,
ask the old and the sick, who
form the majority of humanity.
Most certainly the great
majority of them will answer you
with grief and regret: “Alas!
We wasted our youth in
frivolity, indeed harmfully. Be
careful! Never do as we did!”
A human being who wastes his/her
life for the sake of the illicit
pleasures of a short period of
youth, subjects himself/herself
to years of grief and sorrow in
this world, torment and harm in
the Intermediate Realm, and a
severe punishment in the
Hereafter.
So,
you unfortunates who are
addicted to the pleasures of
worldly life and, troubled about
your future, struggle to secure
it and your lives! If you want
pleasure, delight, happiness,
and ease in this world, be
content with what is religiously
lawful. That suffices for your
enjoyment. You must have
understood from your experiences
that in each pleasure forbidden
by religion lie a thousand
pains. If the events of the
future-for example, of fifty
years hence-were also shown in
the cinema in the same way that
they now show events of the
past, those who are now leading
a dissipated life would weep
with horror and disgust at the
things with which they entertain
themselves.
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