Exterior and Interior

"God has said, "I do not look at the exterior, I am regarding the interior."
A certain man came home from Iraq, clad in a tattered cloak: his friends inquired concerning his separation from them.
"Yes" he replied, "there was the sorrow of separation, but the journey was very blessed and fortunate for me.
For the Caliph gave me ten robes of honor, may a hundred praises and laudations ever accompany him."
He was reciting expressions of gratitude and praise till he carried gratitude beyond bound and limit.
Then they said to him, "Your wretched clothes bear witness to your mendacity.
You are naked, bare-headed, consumed with afflictions: you have either stolen these expressions of gratitude, or learned them by rote."
He replied, " I gave them away, what he bestowed..I received all the presents from the prince,and distributed them among the orphans and the poor."
Then they said to him, " Where are the signs of love and charity and being pleased with God, if what you said has passed is true?
Where are the signs of self-sacrifice, O sour one? The smell of false and empty words is coming from you: be silent!"
Charity, for God's sake, has a hundred signs within the heart: the good deed has a hundred tokens.
A sowing of pure seeds in God's earth, and then no income? That is impossible."

Rumi (Vol.4 1738-1759)

Commentary: What we do, and who we are is visible and communicated; much more than we might think, or want.