The Day of Reckoning

If you know the value of every article of merchandise

but you don’t know the value of your own soul

it will have all been pointless.

You’ve come to know the fortunate

and the inauspicious stars,

but you don’t know whether you yourself

are fortunate or unlucky.

This, this is the essence of all sciences—

that you should know who you will be

when the Day of Reckoning arrives.

Rumi—Mathnavi III 2652-54