KUMAYL ibn ZIYAD has related: Amir al-muminin, peace be upon him, caught hold of my hand and took me to the graveyard. when he had passed through the graveyard and left the city behind, he breathed a deep sigh and said:

O' Kumayl these hearts are containers. The bigger, the better. So, preserve what I say to you. People are of three types:

One is the scholar and divine. Then the seeker of knowledge who is also on the way to deliverance. Then (lastly) the common rot who run after every caller and bend in the direction of every wind. They seek no light from the effulgence of knowledge and do not take protection of any reliable support. O' Kumayl, knowledge is better than wealth. Knowledge guards you, while you have to guard the wealth. Wealth decreases by spending while knowledge multiplies by spending and the results of wealth die as wealth decays.

O' Kumayl, knowledge is belief which is acted upon. With it man acquires obedience during his life and good name after his death. Knowledge is the ruler while wealth is ruled upon.

O' Kumayl, those who amass wealth are dead even though they may be living while those endowed with knowledge will remain as long as the world lives. Their bodies are not available but their figures exist in the hearts. Look, here is a heap of knowledge (and Amir al-Muminin pointed to his bosom). I wish I could get someone to bear it. Yes, I did find ; (such a one) but either he was one who could not be relied upon. He would exploit the religion for worldly gains, and by virtue of Allah's favors on him he would domineer over the people and through Allah's pleas he would lord over His devotees. Or he was one who was obedient to the hearers of truth but there was no intelligence in his bosom. At the first appearance of doubt he would entertain misgivings in his heart. So, neither this nor that was good enough. Either the man is eager for pleasures, easily led away by passions, or is covetous for collecting and hoarding wealth. Neither of them has any regard for religion in any matter. The nearest example of these is the loose cattle. This is the way that knowledge dies away with the death of its bearers.

Seeing Imam Ali (AS) and his faithful companion Komeil in the cemetery was not strange. Imam Ali often took his friends to the cemetery to discuss topics regarding religion and theology. Imam Ali believed that the cemetery was an excellent area to discuss things and speak to his friends because, for one, it was farther away from the hustle and bustle of the streets and all the problems that Imam Ali had to face naturally. Second, because when in the presence of nature and the dead, one realizes that they too will one day perish and must pay close attention to every thing that they do in their lives. It helped for people to take their religion much more seriously because they were constantly reminded of what they were looking to in the future. Komeil and Imam Ali often had talks near the cemetery

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The bigger the heart the better.

The person with a bigger heart is more tolerant. They are not as hurt as easily and get along with people more. They are more patient and use their knowledge to overcome problems. The bigger the heart you have, the more knowledge you can store in it.

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