Enliven your heart with exhortations and kill it with asceticism...

Enliven your heart with exhortations and kill it with asceticism, strengthen it with certitude and humble it with the remembrance of death, make it see the transience of this life and show it the calamities of the world. 32ـ أحْيِ قَلْبَكَ بِالمَوْعِظَةِ، وأمِتْهُ بِالزَّهادَةِ، وقَوِّهِ بِاليَقينِ، وذَلِّلْهُ بِذِكْرِ المَوْتِ،وَ قَرِّرْهُ بِالفَناءِ، وبَصِّرْهُ فَجائِعَ الدُّنْيا.

Indeed destitution is an affliction, and worse than destitution is sickness of the body, and worse than bodily ailment is the sickness of the heart. 33ـ ألا وإنَّ مِنَ البَلاءِ اَلفاقَةَ، وأشَدُّ مِنَ الفاقَةِ مَرَضُ البَدَنِ، وأشَدُّ مِنْ مَرَضِ البَدَنِ مَرَضُ القَلْبِ. Where are the hearts that have been presented to Allah and have been bound to the obedience of Allah? 34ـ أيْنَ القُلُوبُ الَّتي وُهِبَتْ لِلّهِ وعُوقِدَتْ عَلى طاعَةِ اللّهِ.

The most rancorous heart is the heart of the spiteful. 35ـ أشَدُّ الْقُلُوبِ غِلاًّ قَلْبُ الحَقُودِ. The best of hearts is a heart that has been filled with understanding. 36ـ أفْضَلُ القُلُوبِ قَلْبٌ حُشِيَ بِالفَهْمِ. Verily the heart has an advancing and a retreating, so when it advances then make it bear the [performance of] supererogatory acts, but when it retreats then make it suffice with the obligatory acts. 37ـ إنَّ لِلْقُلُوبِ إقْب