Malfuzat - Volume VII — Page 63
29 December 1904 63 their pull upon him and attack him to move him away from faith and its fruits. After that comes the period of old age, which itself is so useless and worthless as if the essence has been extracted from something and only its husk remains. So, old age is the husk of human life. At that time, man is of no use to neither the world nor to religion. He spends his time bereft of senses and overcome with weakness. There is no longer that quickness and movement in the faculties that was present in his youth, and his condition becomes even worse than childhood. Although there is playfulness, action, liveliness, and growth in child- hood, these things are not there in old age. Instead of vitality and growth, there is a decline in the faculties, and laziness and indolence develop due to weakness. Although the child may or may not be aware of the Prayer and its status, fruits, and benefits, seeing someone dear to him [engaged in it], a desire to imitate and copy develops, but in old age, he is not capable of that either. 1 Just as a decline develops in the inner senses at this time, the outer senses also decline significantly in old age. Some become blind or deaf or lose the ability to walk and suffer from all kinds of troubles and afflictions. In short, this is also a very worthless period. This shows that there is only one age which is the age between these two; that is, youthfulness when a man can do some work, because at that time, there is vitality and growth in the faculties, and capabilities develop, but this is the time when nafs-e-amm a rah [the self that incites to evil] accompa- nies a person and attacks him in different ways and wants to keep him under its influence. 1. From al-Badr: ‘But in old age, laziness and indolence afflict his condition. He stays put wherever he is left, and stays sitting wherever he sat down’ ( Al-Badr, vol. 4, no. 1. p. 10, dated 1 January 1905).