The Twenty-First Word

The Twenty-First Word

[This Word consists of two stations.]

First Station

First Station

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

For such Prayers are enjoined on believers at stated times.(4:103)

One time, a man great in age, physique, and rank said to me: “The prayers are fine, but to perform them every single day five times is excessive. Since they never end, it becomes wearying.”

A long time after the man said these words, I listened to my soul and I heard it say exactly the same things. I looked at it and saw that with the ear of laziness, it was receiving the same lesson from Satan. Then I understood that those words were as though said in the name of all evil-commanding souls, or else they had been prompted. So I said: “My soul commands to evil and the person who does not reform his own soul cannot reform others. In which case, I shall begin with my own soul.”

I said: O soul! Listen to five warnings in response to those words which you uttered in compounded ignorance, on the couch of idleness, in the slumber of heedlessness.

First Warning

FIRST WARNING

O my wretched soul! Is your life eternal, I wonder? Have you any incontrovertible document to show that you will live to next year, or even to tomorrow? What causes you boredom is that you fancy you shall live for ever. You complain as though you will remain in this world to enjoy yourself for ever. If you had understood that your life is brief and that it is departing fruitlessly, to spend one hour out of the twenty-four on a fine, agreeable, easy, and merciful act of service which is a means of gaining the true happiness of eternal life, surely would not cause you boredom but excite a real eagerness and agreeable pleasure.