--Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, The Alchemy of Happiness, ch. 4
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Al-Ghazali on the Shame of Hell
"Suppose a certain king had been celebrating his son's marriage. In the evening the young man goes off with some companions and presently returns to the palace (as he thinks) intoxicated. He enters a chamber where a light is burning and lies down, as he supposes, by his bride. In the morning, when soberness returns, he is aghast to find himself in a mortuary of fire-worshipers [by which he means Zoroastrians], his couch a bier, and the form which he mistook for that of his bride the corpse of an old woman beginning to decay. On emerging from the mortuary with his garments all soiled, what is his shame to see his father, the king, approaching a retinue of soldiers! Such is a feeble picture of the shame those will feel in the next world who in this have greedily abandoned themselves to what they thought were delights."
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3 comments:
thank you for your words and prayers. i appreciate it. and i do pray God will be with you when you are in a dark place.
"the corpse of an old woman beginning to decay"...i feel like i am this woman.
Thank you for your prayers, too. This week in particular has been a challenge, but it's been improving.
I don't know what your circumstances are, Erica, but it makes me sad to read that you feel so deadened inside. I am praying that Jesus brings you resurrection, renewal, pure spring water of the Spirit of love splashing you and washing you and making you feel new and young again, enabling you to smile again.
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