Page 116 - Matter: The Other Name for Illusion

In one verse, God calls attention to those who have refused to accept this
reality throughout history and those who have pretended not to know it:

But the actions of those who disbelieve are like a mirage in the desert.
A thirsty man thinks it is water but when he reaches it, he finds it to be
nothing at all, but he finds God there. He will pay him his account in
full. God is swift at reckoning. (Surat an-Nur: 39)
As we can see in this verse, God compared the deeds of deniers to a
mirage or a phantom. When these people attach themselves to these phantoms
and discover that they cannot expect help from them, they understand that the
phantoms are not real and that God alone is the one absolute reality.
One of the main reasons why people are so afraid of this reality and do not
wish to accept it is that they understand, like the man in the example above,
that everything they own, their respect, their wealth will pass away in one
moment. Here we call your attention to one point: we are not saying here that
"everything a person owns will stay behind after death and do him no good".
We are saying that "everything a person owns is an appearance." When he sees
that what he has striven for throughout his life, has troubled him and made
him sad, and that he has tried to beat down other people in the process, he
realizes that it was all an empty deception. In one verse, the Koran reveals that
heedless people live in deception. The greedy attachment of people to property
is related in a verse as follows:

To mankind the love of worldly appetites is painted in glowing colours:
women and children, and heaped-up mounds of gold and silver, and
horses with fine markings, and livestock and fertile farmland. All that
is merely the enjoyment of the life of this world. The best homecoming
is in the presence of God. (Surah Al 'Imran: 14)

In another verse it is revealed that the life of this world is a game, a waste
of time and a deception:

Know that the life of this world is merely a game and a diversion and
ostentation and a cause of boasting among yourselves and trying to
outdo one another in wealth and children: like the plant-growth after
rain which delights the cultivators, but then it withers and you see it
turning yellow, and then it becomes broken stubble. In the hereafter,
there is terrible punishment but also forgiveness from God and His
good pleasure. The life of this world is nothing but the enjoyment of
delusion. (Surat al-Hadid: 20)

114 MATTER: THE OTHER NAME FOR ILLUSION