Mastering the Will Beyond Sorcery

🌻🔆🔆🌻
🌼🔆🌼The Devil’s Confiscation🌼🔆🌼
🔹Weekly Sessions on the Commentary and Interpretation of the Ṣaḥīfa Sajjadiyya: Supplication 20

📅 Date: 1404/11/16 – 16 Sha‘ban 1447
✨ Session: Meshkat-e Noor
🎤 Speaker: Master Ali Saei
📝 Some of the topics discussed in the session:
Reflection: the spirit’s divine nourishment and the path to greatness

Reflection means nourishing oneself with divine gifts. It is the kindling of the inner self, the illumination within, and the thoughtful planning of human action—that is, fulfilling the highest duties. When a person is taken captive by “desires” (base longings) and “ornaments” (deceptive attractions), their head hangs low and they sink into bondage. But when they occupy themselves with remembering God’s greatness, they lift their gaze towards it and grow in stature. The more a person attends to God’s greatness, the more their own being rises in greatness: they grow taller, they grow greater.

Through their own greatness, human beings lend greatness to all existence. When a human being reaches perfection, they bring the world of existence, too, to perfection. This human being, who is meant to be the blossom of creation, draws the flowers’ gaze. That is, the delicacy and freshness that flowers spread throughout existence are surpassed by the refinement and freshness of the perfected human being, whose beauty draws all the beauties of creation towards them. A human being should become a beautiful voice in creation, remembering the greatness of the Lord. They should commune with their Beloved in such a way as to stir all existence to joy and longing. Through the ardour of communion with God, they should become the beating heart of existence, bringing it freshness and adding to its beauty with the pulse, rhythm and melody of God’s remembrance.

Imam Sajjad (AS): the imam of alchemists, the master who transforms impurity into purity

Indeed, this human being must become the heart of the world’s communion with God—at once a moth, a flower, a bird, a sea, a sky and a star. They must shine, bubble up and roar, making the melodies of God’s name resound throughout existence in all their beauty.

Imam Sajjad (AS) is the imam of alchemists. Through the language of intimate prayer, Imam Sajjad (AS) teaches us the most subtle mysteries of creation. He has placed that exalted wisdom within these melodies and supplications. What extraordinary supplications these Sajjadi supplications are: they possess a magnificent spirit and bestow an exalted life on the human being. In just a few passages, the Imam stirs such ardour and longing within us that he turns crisis into a golden opportunity, fire into a garden, and sewage into pure, clear water. It is Imam Sajjad (AS) who teaches us the secret of extracting gold and diamonds from foul-smelling earth. He teaches us how to be like clean, fertile soil, transforming carrion and abominations into noble virtues.

Imam Sajjad (AS) teaches us the secret of escaping impurity, and how to transform impurity into purity. He teaches us that every illness must be treated. The Devil and the carnal self are the very disease that dominates our souls and our world; they must be tended to, and this disease must be turned into a cure. What is my share, as a human being who wears the crown of God’s honour? Have I succeeded in carrying out my mission to cleanse existence? Have I managed to wash away the Devil’s and the self’s impurities, and to heal the world’s ailing soul from the harm these satanic impurities have caused? Or have I left the fire of the Devil and the self to burn unchecked—scorching my own soul and setting the world ablaze? We must not leave impurity unattended, or illness untreated, or fire to consume both the world and the soul.

The purpose of the Devil’s existence: a training partner in the arena of servitude

Imam Sajjad (AS) teaches us the ways of cleansing and healing the soul and the world. He shows us how to strike a decisive blow against the Devil’s soul. The Devil targets our “rou‘” (the centre of perception and will), and we must target his entire being and destroy his whole polluted soul. Imam Sajjad teaches us not to remain on the defensive against the Devil, but to go on the offensive and make him despair of his own devilry—to make him regret it, so thoroughly that he longs for death and asks God to bring that “appointed day” near. Indeed, our conduct, actions and reactions towards the self and the Devil must be ordered according to the Sajjadi way.

Satan is one of the means by which we are tested on the path of servitude to God. Why did God create Satan? Surely, He did not create him so that he might work evil. Yet when Satan did rebel, our All-Knowing, All-Wise God turned that rebellion to the benefit of all creation and made it part of the trial on the path of servitude to Him. So Satan and his minions are not merely nuisances. They were not created to make people lose heart and abase themselves; rather, Satan is an adversary to be overcome in the struggle to serve God. He has been placed on this path so that people can put their devotion to the Most High to the test. Satan is a weight we must lift, clear from our path, trample underfoot and break the back of, proving ourselves worthy of the field of service to God.

If we imagine for a moment that Satan did not exist, one of the tests on the path of servitude to God would be missing, and another would have to take its place. Without Satan, how would the champions of devotion to God be recognised? Would the school of servitude to God in this world not be incomplete? Yes: a champion can only emerge in the arena of competition. We must therefore turn the crisis of Satan’s mischief into a golden opportunity for growth and devotion to God. Satan denies himself sleep in order to lull us to sleep; he stays awake so that we may dream ourselves awake. Yet it is we who have made wakefulness forbidden to ourselves. We ought to awaken even wakefulness itself, bringing forth a new light from the heart of illumination. A truly human being turns an enemy into an asset: he makes Satan’s mischief a resource to spend in the service of God, and turns it to his own advantage. These are among the mysteries Imam Sajjad (AS) teaches us.

Tools and equipment for the battle: knowing the enemy and the believer’s weapons

Satan is always lying in wait. He spreads his traps, makes his lures more colourful, his chains more golden, and lays more enticing baits along our path to whet the appetite of our lower selves. He wears masks, whispers beguiling suggestions that make ugliness seem beautiful, and takes on the face of a friend or beloved. If we fail to recognise our adversary and thwart his schemes, we have already lost.

Satan is beneath the dignity of the human being; he is not even fit to be our servant, let alone someone we should choose as our master. We should be Satan’s master: discipline him and even spur him towards repentance and God. Satan was cast out for refusing to bow before Adam—what sort of human being, then, bows to Satan and worships him? It means dragging ourselves from the heights of honour down into the depths of disgrace and darkness.

So what should we do? We must arm ourselves with every kind of weapon, so that we can discipline Satan and make him regret his ways. Let us equip ourselves with God’s power, zeal for God, and the Word of God, so that we may bring this wretch at God’s threshold even lower. «وَأَعِدُّوا لَهُمْ مَا اسْتَطَعْتُمْ مِنْ قُوَّةٍ وَمِنْ رِبَاطِ الْخَيْلِ تُرْهِبُونَ بِهِ عَدُوَّ اللَّهِ وَعَدُوَّكُمْ…» (Prepare against them whatever force you can muster, and well-trained horses, to strike fear into the hearts of the enemies of God and your enemies.) So I must arm myself ever more fully, inwardly and outwardly, with all manner of mighty weapons against our satanic enemies, both human and jinn.

When I read a verse from among God’s verses, I must go beyond its wording and grasp its spirit. I must equip myself with its spirit and allusions, its subtleties and truths, so that I may prevail ever more decisively over the accursed enemy. Any laxity or compromise on this front will bring us irreparable loss. So let us remain with God, that we may prevail over His enemy. Let us keep the sweet remembrance of God and awareness of His greatness burning in our hearts, so that no enemy can gain a foothold within us. It is in moments of heedlessness that Satan’s many-pronged arrow pierces the «روع»—the heart, the very core of the human soul.

The final battle: taking «روع» captive and diminishing desire

Did I not make a covenant with you, O children of Adam, that you would not worship Satan, for he is your manifest enemy? The sinner is, in truth, worshipping Satan—whether the satan among the jinn or the satan within the self. This human self is more satanic than that Satan. The greatest enemy is the human being’s own caprice.

Satan is cunning. If he can gain control of a person’s *ruʿ*—their inner self—there is no need to breach the mighty fortress of their humanity. He need only find an opening, slip inside through it, and pour his poison into their *ruʿ*. Then that person falls wholly under Satan’s sway. If Satan’s arrow poisons the *ruʿ*—the human faculty of perception, the center of a person’s decisions, information and actions—the person becomes Satan’s captive, and their will comes under his control. This stage, when a person’s will is taken over, is worse than being bewitched. Bewitchment can be treated, but a will taken captive is hard to heal.

Once a person’s *ruʿ* has fallen under Satan’s control, they have nothing left to lose. Everything they possess will serve Satan. Satan will keep watch over them, making sure they do not squander this asset, and will put them to work, little by little, in his every corruption, using them to fulfil all his ambitions.

Where does this takeover begin? With *tamannī*—wishful desire. *Tamannī* is an opening, a particular kind of window. It is the craving and worldly yearning born of delusion: false hopes steeped in ignorance. It is a poisoned appetite cultivated by ignorance and Satan. A person’s appetite is no longer celestial; they know no pleasure beyond earthly delights and seek pleasure in corruption. Their appetite becomes animalistic: the human parts of the brain fall silent while the animal parts spring into action. Their appetite for what lies beyond the cosmos subsides, while their worldly cravings blaze. Their appetite becomes parasitic, cockroach-like, rat-like, and draws them towards the sewers. Their desires grow petty and base.

The Sajjadi approach: A prayer for turning Satanic whisperings into remembrance of the All-Merciful

(Time: 10:28 p.m.)

Imam al-Sajjad (AS) teaches us how to resist this devastating assault. He shows us how to take the negative, destructive energy of Satan and turn it to our advantage, transforming it into a force that brings us closer to God:

«اللَّهُمَّ اجْعَلْ مَا یلْقِی الشَّیطَانُ فِی رُوعِی مِنَ التَّمَنِّی وَ التَّظَنِّی وَ الْحَسَدِ ذِکراً لِعَظَمَتِک، وَ تَفَکراً فِی قُدْرَتِک، وَ تَدْبِیراً عَلَی عَدُوِّک…»

Translation:

“O God, turn what Satan casts into my soul (*ruʿ*): vain desires (*tamannī*), ill thoughts (*taẓannī*), and envy, into the following:

• 
  remembering Your greatness,
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  reflecting on Your power,
• 
  and devising a plan against Your enemy (Satan)…”

This is Imam al-Sajjad’s (AS) art of the goldsmith: turning poison into antidote, threat into opportunity, and Satan’s power into a springboard towards divine majesty.