LESSON OF THE DAY 1210

Ayahs of the Day:

Haven't We made the earth a gathering place for the living and the dead, putting towering mountains on it, and giving you sweet water to drink? Woe to the scoffers that day -- "Rush off to what you used to deny -- rush off into a triple shadow that gives no shade and is of no avail against the blaze, for its shoots spark like castles, like a herd of yellow camels." Woe to the scoffers that day! [77: 25 to 34]

Hadith of the Day:

What destroys the human being is arrogance, following lusts and the desires of the ego, and miserliness. [Bazzaz]

Wise Quote of the Day:

Do not sit idle, for indeed death is seeking you. [Hasan al-Basri]

Guidance of the Day:

You must renounce the world, for renunciation is the forerunner of felicity, the manifestation of Providence, and the sign of sanctity. Just as loving the world is the origin of all sins, so also is hating it the origin of all obedience and excellence. It is enough to make you renounce the world to know that in numerous passages in His Book God has called it the Comfort of Illusion, and as being but a distraction and a play to which no intelligent person should pay any attention and to which only ignorant fools are attracted.

Know that to renounce the world is an immediate felicity, and that only those whose breasts God has opened up by the drawing of the lights of gnosis and certainty are capable of it. The Prophet has said, may blessings and peace be upon him: 'Renouncing the world relieves the heart and the body, while desire for the world increases worry and sorrow. ' And: 'Renounce the world, and God will love you.' And: 'When the light enters the heart it opens up and is enlarged -- the sign of which is to shun the abode of illusion and attend to the abode of immortality.' [Al-Haddad, The Book of Assistance]

Food for Thought:

Diseases can be our spiritual flat tires -- disruptions in our lives that seem to be disasters at the same time, but end by redirecting our lives in a meaningful way. There is in the worst of fortune the best of chances for a happy change. Let us not be needlessly bitter: certain failures are sometimes fruitful.