O God! if I worship Thee in fear of Hell, burn me in Hell; and if I worship Thee in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise; but if I worship Thee for Thine own sake, withhold not thine everlasting beauty.
Interpretation
True worship should be motivated by a desire for the divine and not by fear or reward.
Rabia Basri's quote expresses the idea that genuine devotion to God should come from a pure longing for His presence and beauty, rather than from self-serving motives such as fear of punishment or desire for reward. It challenges followers to examine the authenticity of their worship and emphasizes the importance of worship grounded in love and appreciation of the divine nature.
In practice
In a discussion about the nature of faith during a spiritual retreat.
Your prayers are your light; _x000D_ _x000D_ Your devotion is your strength;_x000D_ _x000D_ Sleep is the enemy of both. _x000D_ _x000D_ Your life is the only opportunity that life can give you._x000D_ _x000D_ If you ignore it, if you waste it,_x000D_ _x000D_ You will only turn to dust.
O Beloved of Hearts, I beseech only You. Have pity this day on those who turn to You. My Hope, my Rest, my Delight, this heart can love none other but You.
True devotion is for itself: not to desire heaven nor to fear hell.
Great doubt will eventually lead to great awakening.
How many gifts and graces You have given me! How many favors You have fed me from your hand! I look for your love in all directions, then suddenly its blessing burns in me.
Your hope in my heart is the rarest treasure _x000D_ _x000D_ Your Name on my tongue is the sweetest word_x000D_ _x000D_ My choicest hours_x000D_ _x000D_ Are the hours I spend with You -_x000D_ _x000D_ O God, I can't live in this world_x000D_ _x000D_ Without remembering You
Civil government cannot let any group ride roughshod over others simply because their consciences tell them to do so.
To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise, without being wise: for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For anything that men can tell, death may be the greatest good that can happen to them: but they fear it as if they knew quite well that it was the greatest of evils. And what is this but that shameful ignorance of thinking that we know what we do not know?
If a person survives an ordinary span of sixty years or more, there is every chance that his or her life as a shapely story has ended and all that remains to be experienced is epilogue. Life is not over, but the story is.
The genius of any slave system is found in the dynamics which isolate slaves from each other, obscure the reality of a common condition, and make united rebellion against the oppressor inconceivable.
If facts, logic, and scientific procedures are all just arbitrarily "socially constructed" notions, then all that is left is consensus--more specifically peer consensus, the kind of consensus that matters to adolescents or to many among the intelligentsia.
Little fish risking everything for a piece of godhood...and not knowing heaven from hell, even when they find it.
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