O foolish soul. Is this duty of worship so fruitless and its reward so little that you feel weary? Consider this: If someone offers you money or threatens you, you would work until evening without respite.

First station

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

Consider the following verse:

Surely the prayer is a timed prescription for believers. (4:103)

Once a well-known and socially important old man said to me: “Prayer is okay, but five times a day is too much; it bores and wearies.” A long time after this, my carnal soul told me the same thing. I realized that its laziness had caused it to listen to this satanic idea. Understanding that those words had been spoken in the name of all evil-commanding souls, I told myself: “Since my soul orders evil, and one who does not reform his own soul cannot reform others, I shall begin with my own soul.” I said: “O soul. In response to such ignorant words said in the bed of indolence and the torpor of idleness, I relay five warnings.”

First warning

O wretched soul. Is your life permanent? Are you sure that you will be here next year or even tomorrow? Your weariness comes from your fancy that you will live forever. You complain as though you will remain here forever in eternal enjoyment. If only you understood that your life is short and passes in vain, you would understand that prayer, far from causing boredom or weariness, is rather a fine, agreeable, easy, and gracious act of service; that it is the means to happiness in the real, eternal life; and that it actually arouses vigor and gives pleasure.

Second warning

O gluttonous soul. Every day you eat, drink and breathe. Yet this does not bore you, for these needs recur and so give pleasure when satisfied. Thus the five daily prayers should not bore you, for they attract and conduct the necessary sustenance, water of life, and air to your body’s parts (e.g., your heart, spirit, and inward spiritual faculties).

The food and strength of a heart exposed to endless grief and pain, and inclined to infinite pleasure and ambition, may be obtained by knocking on the One All-Compassionate and Munificent’s door. For a spirit connected with most beings and moving quickly to the other world amid cries of separation, the water of life may be imbibed by turning, through the five daily prayers, toward the Everlasting Beloved’s spring. A conscious inward sense, a luminous spiritual faculty, by nature desires the eternity for which it was created. As an infinitely delicate and subtle mirror to the Eternal Being, it is most needy of “air,” of relief and relaxation, so that it can deal successfully with the distressing, crushing, and suffocating conditions of worldly life. It can “breathe” only through the “window” of prayer.

Third warning

O impatient soul. Why do you think of the hardship of past worship, the difficulties of praying, of troubles and calamities? Why are you distressed? Why do you anticipate the difficulties of future worship and service in prayer, and the pain of future misfortune? Why are you impatient? You resemble a foolish commander who, upon seeing one flank of enemy forces join the right flank and thus reinforce it, sends a significant part of his center forces there. This only weakens his own center. Also, although no enemy forces are attacking the left flank, he sends a large contingent there and tells it to fire, thereby greatly weakens his own center. This encourages the enemy to attack the center and rout the troops.

Moreover, past troubles are now a mercy. Their pain has gone, while their pleasure remains. Hardships have changed into blessings, and trials and toils into rewards. So why should you be weary? Rather, feel a new eagerness and a fresh zeal, and make a serious effort to continue. Why should you worry about the future, which has not yet come? This is as ridiculous as complaining now about future hunger and thirst, of thinking of them now and feeling bored and wearied. Since this is the truth, consider only today when it comes to matters of worship. Say: “I am spending 1 hour out of 24 on pleasant and elevated acts of service, the reward for which is great and whose trouble is little.” Your bitter disappointment will change into a pleasurable endeavor.

O impatient soul. You are charged with three types of perseverance: worship, refraining from sin, and enduring misfortune. Allow yourself to be guided by the truth contained in the third warning, and call: “O Most Persevering One.” Derive strength from these three types of perseverance. Using your God-given power of perseverance in the proper way will suffice for every difficulty and misfortune, so hold on with that power.

Fourth warning

O foolish soul. Is this duty of worship so fruitless and its reward so little that you feel weary? Consider this: If someone offers you money or threatens you, you would work until evening without respite.

Are the five daily prayers in vain? Are they not your weak heart’s “food” in this guest-house of the world, sustenance and light in your grave (a station to eternal life), a document and warrant on the Day of Judgment, and a light and a mount on the Bridge that everyone has to cross? Is their reward so little? If someone promised you an expensive present, you would work for several days. Though he may go back on his word, you would trust him and work without any respite.

Consider the following case. One Who never breaks His promise says that He will reward you with something like Paradise and a gift like eternal happiness. He employs you for a very short time in a most agreeable duty. If you leave that service undone, act in a manner to accuse Him of His promise, or belittle His gift by working reluctantly as if being forced, would you not deserve a severe reprimand and a terrible punishment? While you work without slacking at the most difficult jobs in this world out of your fear of imprisonment, you do not fear an eternal imprisonment like Hell or show any zeal for so light and pleasant an act of service as the prayers. How do you explain this?

Fifth warning

O worldly minded soul. Are your sluggishness in worship and deficiency in the prescribed five daily prayers due to your many worldly preoccupations? Are you pressed for time on account of the struggle for livelihood? Were you created only for this world? Is it reasonable to spend all your time on it?

Your potential makes you superior to all animals. But even a sparrow can do a better job than you when it comes to satisfying your daily needs. Your duty as a human being is to work for the real, everlasting life. You are not an animal! Most worldly concerns are trivial and useless matters from which you derive no benefit. And yet, leaving aside the most essential things, you spend your time acquiring useless information, as if you had thousands of years to live. For example, why do you wonder about Saturn’s rings, or how many chickens there are in the United States? Are you preparing a doctorate in astronomy or in livestock statistics?

If you say: “The essential requirements of earning a livelihood keep me from the prayer and make me tired,” my answer will be as follows: Suppose that you work for a daily wage of a dollar, and someone comes and tells you: “Dig here for 10 minutes, and you’ll find a brilliant emerald worth $100.” If you reply: “No, I won’t come, because the boss will cut my wage by 10 cents, and so I will earn less,” you can see how foolish that argument is. Or, you work in your orchard for your livelihood.

If you abandon the prescribed prayers, all the fruits of your work are limited to a worldly, insignificant, and unproductive livelihood. However, if you pray during your rest periods, your spirit will become lively and your heart will experience ease. You also will discover two mines, both of which are important sources for a productive worldly livelihood and for your provisions for the Hereafter: First, through a sound intention, you will receive a share in the glorifications offered by your orchard’s plants and trees. Second, whatever produce is eaten, by people or animals, will return to you like alms. But this will happen only if you work in the Real Provider’s name and within His permission’s sphere, and consider yourself a distribution official distributing His property among His creatures.

See what a great loss you will experience if you do not pray, what significant wealth you will lose, and how you will be deprived of the two mines that support your efforts with high motives and actions with strong morale. As you age, you will grow weary of gardening and saying: “What’s all this to me? I’m leaving the world anyway, so why bother?” slide into idleness. But those who pray and work for their livelihood say: “I shall try harder to perform the obligatory worship and earn legitimately and honestly so that I may send more light to my grave and procure more provisions for my life in the Hereafter.”

In short: O soul, yesterday has left you and you have no guarantee that you will be alive tomorrow. Your life consists of today. Set at least one hour aside for the mosque or the prayer mat, a savings box and reserve fund for the Hereafter. Set this hour aside for your real future. Each new day is the door to a new world. If you do not pray, your world of that day will go dark and wretched and will testify against you in the World of Symbols, wherein the immaterial, essential forms of beings reside. Each day, everyone has a private world, the nature of which depends on one’s heart and deeds, contained in this world. Just as a magnificent palace reflected in a mirror assumes the mirror’s color and quality, just as an uneven mirror shows the finest things to be coarse, so do you change your own world’s appearance through your heart, mind, deeds, and attitudes. You may cause it either to testify for or against you.

If you pray and turn toward the All-Majestic Maker, your private world will be illuminated suddenly. Prayer resembles a powerful electric light switched on by your intention to pray. It disperses your world’s darkness and shows that the changes and movements in this confused, tumultuous world arise from, and for the purpose of, a wise order and a meaningful arrangement of Divine Power. It disperses over your heart a light from the light-filled verse: God is the Light of the heavens and Earth·(24: 35). And, illuminating your world on that day through its reflection, that light will cause your world to testify for you through its luminosity.

Never say: “My prayers mean almost nothing when compared with the reality of what prayer should be.” Just as the date-palm stone encapsulates and contains the tree itself (the difference is only between the summary and the fully evolved or elaborated form), a great saint’s prayer is fully evolved while that of ordinary people like us (even if we are unaware of it) has a share in that Divine light. Even if you are not conscious of it, there is a mystery in this truth. However, our perception of and illumination by that truth varies according to our degrees.

Just as there are many stages and degrees between a date-palm’s stone and the fully grown tree, praying and benefiting from our prayers are characterized by possibly even more numerous degrees and stages. However, the basis of that luminous truth is present in each degree or stage.

O God. Bestow blessings and peace on him who said: “The prescribed prayers are the pillar of religion,” and on his Family and Companions.