Malfuzat – Volume II — Page 275
275 with the love of materialistic things burns down the love of God, and the heart grows dark and becomes distanced from God; and then it becomes prey to all sorts of restlessness. However, if a person has a relationship with God as people have with the things of this world, and if a person loves the blessings of this world out of love for God, this mutual friction burns down the love of all that is besides Allah, and a radiance and light is filled in its place. At such a time, the will of God becomes their will, and their will becomes the object of God’s will. When one reaches this stage, the love of God assumes the place of life itself for such a person. Just as there are necessities which help to sustain life, all that is needed to sustain the sort of person I have just mentioned is God and nothing but God. In other words, one could say that the joy and comfort of such a person lies in God alone. Then, even if such an individual is given grief or pain by the people of the world, the fact is that in this grief and pain as well, the individual in question derives a divine pleasure with satisfaction and comfort, which is not enjoyed by even the most care-free person in the eyes of a worldly individual. Any state between man and God which is contrary to what I have just described is a hell. In other words, a life that is spent without God Almighty is also a hell. Then, we also learn from the Hadith that a fever also is from the heat of hell. The various sorts of disease and misfortune that afflict man are also a sample of hell and this is so that people can witness to an extent the world of the hereafter, so that this may serve as proof of the underlying reality in the concept of divine reward and punishment, and to refute the absurd concept of atonement. Just take the example of leprosy, where the limbs begin to decompose and emit a liquid substance. A person loses their voice. This itself is a hell, but then the people grow averse as well and stay away from such a person. Even the most loving of wives, sons and parents turn their backs on such a person. Then, some people turn blind and deaf, while some fall prey to various other ailments. People develop stones and some develop tumours in their stomach. In short, all of these afflictions befall man because he lives his life distanced from God, and acts insolently and rudely in God’s presence, and because he gives no regard to the instructions of Allah Almighty—in this state, a hell is born. I now return to my actual subject. God Almighty states: ‘We have created many men and Jinn whose end shall be hell. ’ Then God states that they themselves have created this hell, even though, in reality, they are called to paradise. A pure-heart- ed individual listens with a sense of purity, but a person of impure thoughts acts