The Greatest Jihad:Combat with the Self
The First Step in Refinement (3)
If you have any interest in, relation with and affection for, the world, try to cut it. This world, with all its supericial splendor and glitter is too insignificant to be worthy of love, especially for one who has divested himself of such supericialities of life. What do you have of this world that your heart should be attached to it? You have naught but the mosque, the prayer niche, the seminary, the corner of a room. Is it proper for you to compete for the mosque and the prayer niche?
Should this be a cause of disagreement among you, to corrupt the society? Suppose that, like the worldly people, you had a comfortable sumptuous life, and that, God forbid, you spent your life on feasting and drinking. Ater your life is over, you would see that your life had passed like a pleasant dream, but the requital and liability for it will be with you always. What values does this fleeting and apparently sweet life have (assuming that it is very sweet) in comparison to endless chastisement? The chastisement of worldly people is sometimes endless. The worldly people, who imagine that they have acquired the world and beneit from its advantages and boons, are remiss and mistaken. Everyone sees the world from the window of his own environment and situation, and imagines that the world is exactly that which he has. The physical world is broader than that which man imagines he has acquired, discovered and through which, he roams. It has been narrated about this world with all its means and ways that: "He has never looked kindly upon it."43 So, how must the other world be upon which God, the Blessed and Exalted, has looked kindly? What is the source of greatness to which man is called and what is it like? Man is too low to comprehend the source of greatness.
If you purify your intentions, rectify your deeds, expel love of self and position from your hearts, a high station will be prepared for you. The whole world and what exists will be prepared for you. The whole world and what exists in it along with its superficial aspects is not worth even a cent by comparison to the station prepared for the righteous servants of God. Try to achieve this loty station. If you are able, try to make something of yourselves and improve yourselves so that you may pay no heed even to this loty station. Do not worship God in order to reach this station but rather call upon Him and prostrate yourselves with your heads upon the earth before Him because He is worthy of worship and the Almighty.44 In that case you will have torn through curtains of light and have attained the source of greatness. Can you obtain such a position with these deeds and actions which you perform? Can this be reached by the path you tread? Is it easy to be saved from divine chastisement and to escape the terrible torment and the ire of hell? Do you imagine that the weeping of the Pure Imams and the cries of Imam Sajjad ('a) were a teaching, and that they wanted to instruct others about how to cry? With all this spirituality and the loty position they hold, they wept for fear of God! They understood how dificult and dangerous it is to advance along the way before them. They were aware of the difficulties, hardships and problems of crossing the sirdt, which has this world at one end and the next world at the other and which passes through hell. They were aware of the world of the grave, of the barzakh, and of the resurrection, and of their terrible torments, and hence they were never content and always took refuge in God from the intense chastisement of the other world.
Source:” The Greatest Jihad” by imam khomeini
