Jabir narrated: one day, Imam al-Baqir (‘as) went out saying, “O Jabir, by God, I am grieved and my heart is so engaged.” “What grieves you and in what is your heart engaged? May God make me your sacrifice. Is it for the world?” I asked.
He (‘as) answered:
No, Jabir, It is the grief for the care of the world to come. He whose heart is occupied by the pure reality of faith will be far away from the worldly pleasures. The adornment of this world is only playing and fun. The Last Lodge is the true life.
O Jabir, The faithful believer should not incline and feel secure with the adornment of the world. You should know that the seekers of the worldly affairs are people of inadvertence, deception, and ignorance, while the seekers of the life to come are the faithful believers, who work and ab-stain from this world’s pleasures. They are the people of knowledge, jurisprudence, pondering, learning lessons, and test. They never tire of mentioning God.
You should know, Jabir, that the true rich men are the God-fearing people. They are sufficed with the little worldly means. Their burdens are light. They remind you, if you forget, of charity, and help you do it. They postponed their lusts and desires and preferred the acts of obedience to their Lord. They looked for the course of charity and the loyalty to the disciples of God; they loved, pursued, and followed them.
Consider this world as a lodging in which you reside for one hour only and then you will leave, or as a funds that you got in dream and made you happy, but when you woke up it was nothing. I exemplified for you so that you will be intelligent, as you will practice it, if God prospers you. Retain, O Jabir, these matters of the religion and the Lord’s words of wisdom that I am entrusting with you. Offer advice for yourself and look in the standings that God has deposited with you with you in your life. In the same way, you will find your pledge with Him when you will be returned to Him. See if the world is the opposite of what I have described for you, you should shift to the lodging of the blame, today. It happens that one gets what he desires from the worldly affairs, but it becomes the source of misfortune and unhappiness for him. Likewise, it happens that one disliked a matter of the world to come, but when he got it, it was the source of happiness for him.