"Well, you have kept the fast and learned what it means to go hungry.
Now leave your fire unlit for a day and find out what it is like for
those who have no heat in their homes! Go without shoes some day; tread
barefoot in the snow and ice to find out how it is for those who always
go barefoot through the mud and slush! Leave your windows open one day
and see what it is like to live in a house without them! Go out in the
street without your coat some cold winters day, just to see how it is
for those who have no coats at all! As long as your stomach is full,
you will know nothing about the condition of the starving; as long as
your house is warm, you will not understand the actions of those who
live without heat; as long as your own feet are well shod, as long as
you have thick clothes to wear, you will have no idea of the state of
those who go barefoot and unclad. Satisfy the hungry, so that Paradise
may love you. Clothe the naked, so that you may not be bare on the
coming day of Resurrection, when all the rest are naked. Become aware
of the condition of all those paupers and orphans, for your own wife
may become a pauper and your own children orphans. The wheel of fate
turns. None of us knows what is to be : what great wealth may be doomed
to extinction or how many, now despised, may rise to heights of dignity
and honour."
From the book "Irshad Wisdom of a Sufi Master" page 233, by Sheikh Muzaffer
Ozak Al-Jerrahi.
|
