1. This world is a place of preparation where one is given many lessons and passes many tests. Choose less over more. Be satisfied with what you have, even if it is less than what others have. In fact, prefer to have less.
2. This world is not bad--------on the contrary, it is the field of the Hereafter. What you plant here, you will reap there. This world is the way to eternal bliss and so is good--------worthy to be cherished and to be praised.
3. What is bad about this world is when you become blind to truth and totally consumed by your desires, lust, and ambition for it.
4. Do not exchange your spiritual peace and the possibility of eternal bliss for the temporal, decaying goods of this world. No matter how grand and secure they look, they will die when you die.
5. May the Eternal Truth wake you from the slumber of heedlessness. May He make you aware of the origin, to which we will all return and in which we will all remain for the rest of eternity.
6. Do not leave your accounting to the Day of Reckoning. This is the place and the time to do it. See yourself; close your accounts. The only way to salvation is to go into the Beyond clean and clear of debts.
7. Examine your life; weigh your transgressions against your good deeds. Do it while you still have time in this world of numbered breaths, while you can, before you are left alone in that dark hole in the ground.
8. There are three dangers which may keep you from examining yourself, making the accounting of your acts, and being thankful to your Generous Lord:
a. The first of these dangers is unconsciousness, heedlessness.
b. The second is the flood of tastes and desires that gush from your ego, your lower self.
c. The third is bad habits, in fact all habits, which make one like a machine. The one who can protect himself against these three dangers, with Allah's help, will find salvation in both worlds. [Above quotes by Shaykh Muhyuddin Ibn Arabi]
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