Malfuzat - Volume IV — Page 186
186 Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad the very people who believe in the Gospel. As I have said, I leave this discus - sion for another time—when you have completely understood the answer to the questions you have already posed. Those people whose only purpose is to engage in debate, and who have no desire to learn the truth, desire to settle everything in one sitting. I call this religious gambling. Such people are the same as a gambler who seeks to gain the upper hand through sleight of hand and cunning. I have seen from experience that they hide the actual truth and present hypothetical and speculative views. Hence, I consider it most inappropriate for an individual to engage in this religious gambling and for one to act deceptively without any fear of God or shame. This reli - gious gambling takes place when a person is more concerned with worldly triumph and defeat or self-perceived victory and loss, and when a person desires to hear applause and admiration from friends and contemporaries for winning. This gambling is far more harmful than the normal gambling that we observe in the world, because the latter only results in a loss of one’s wealth, whereas the gambling of which I speak results in the ruin of both one’s religious and worldly life; a person loses all of their moral and spiritual faculties which can make a person an inheritor of the highest excellences. The grief that is caused by the loss of this property is everlasting. Hence, one should not allow even the thought of such gambling to cross their mind. If one’s greatest objective is to partake of the light with which the pious are blessed, then know that a person can never attain this light or preserve this wealth until the goodness of their nature moves them to believe that the entire world is dead and worthless in comparison to the importance of speaking the truth, seeking the truth and then accepting the truth, and until one makes a promise with God Almighty to this effect. A person who does not make such a promise with God Almighty is an atheist despite believing in God. Our community ought to remember that just as diseases have criti - cal turning points, this too is a turning point in the world of religious com - munities and world Faiths. This is the final battle with Satan and so he too has marched forth with his entire arsenal and all his weapons of war to fight against the truth. Satan labours with all his force and strength to prevail over the truth but even he himself knows with absolute certainty that all his efforts will prove futile and vain. The time is fast approaching when Satan will be destroyed and the angels will triumph. Although at present Satan is p. 452