Malfuzat - Volume VIII — Page 319
29 December 1905 319 sight, and no thought of praise or condemnation of the peo- ple of the world arises in his mind. When a person reaches this point, he loves annihilation more and holds solitude and isola- tion dear to him. 1 In short, do not be so proud of having abandoned evil. Until you perform virtuous deeds in full, and such virtuous deeds that have nothing of ostentation mixed in with them, one does not reach the destination of God’s nearness. Remember that osten- tation burns virtues like fire burns dry leaves and straw. Verily I tell you that you will not find a better man of God than the man who does good and desires it not to be revealed to anyone. An account is written of a virtuous elder who needed some- thing. He gave a sermon, and during the address, he also said that I have a religious need but do not have money for it. Upon hearing this, a servant of God placed 10,000 rupees before him. The saintly man got up and praised him highly and said that this person would get a great reward. When this person heard these words, he got up, left, returned after a while, and said: ‘Your Holiness! I made a big mistake in giving this money. It is not my money, but my mother’s money, so please return it. ’ The elder returned the money to him, but the people cursed him profusely, claiming it was all [due to] his own ill intent. It appears he got excited after listening to the sermon and gave the money; now, the love of this money has forced him to make this excuse. So he took the money and went away, and people kept saying bad things about him, and that gathering dispersed. After midnight, that same person came to the elder’s house with that money and called out to him. He was asleep, but the person woke him up and put the same 10,000 rupees before him and said that he had not given this money at that time so that he would praise him. 1. Al- H akam, vol. 10, no. 25, p. 3, dated 17 July 1906