The Secret Behind the Pleasure of Sin

🌼🔆🌼Denying Satan His Feast🌼🔆🌼

🔹Weekly Sessions on the Commentary and Interpretation of al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya (Supplication 20)
📅 Date: 1403/11/04 – 22 Rajab 1446
✨ Session: Meshkat-e Noor
🎤 Speaker: Master Ali Saei

📝 Some of the topics discussed in this session:

🌟 A supplication for help against Satan

My God, my Lord, be my ally!
Help me trample Satan’s snout into the dust, leaving him frustrated and cast out.
Let me humble and disgrace him for his insolence, rather than become his prey and embolden him further.
O God, help me!

🛡 How can we become deadly poison to Satan?

How can we become deadly poison to him instead of his honeyed delight?
How can we destroy Satan?
When Satan gains a foothold in our souls, we must turn him to ashes and destroy him.
How can we turn Satan’s hope into despair and leave him disheartened?

🔑 The secret of Satan’s delight in sin

Why are human beings so delectable to Satan?
Why are sinners so sweet to him, and why does sin make their taste buds rejoice?
God forbid, why does disobedience taste sweet to us?

Nothing is baser or more loathsome than disobeying God. So why does sin tempt and entice people?
The answer to this riddle lies in this noble verse:
The end of the verse explains its beginning.

✨ The secret of an open heart and misguidance

Why does God will to open and expand the hearts of some, while willing to lead others astray?
Why do some find it so hard to follow the path of truth, as though they must struggle in agony to ascend to the heavens?

The answer lies in their lack of faith.
They turn their backs on faith, and God constricts their hearts and leads them astray.
Yet this is an opportunity God gives them to return to the straight path and embrace faith.

This is a faith grounded in reason.
Another verse explains this one and reveals the divine wisdom behind it.

🌟 Impurity, the consequence of unbelief

Thus God lays impurity and defilement upon those who do not believe.
Faith in God, faith in the Messenger of God, and faith in the friends of God.
Whoever does not direct the course of their faith toward the wilayah of the Ahl al-Bayt (peace be upon them) faces the punishment of feeding on impurity.

🛡 Why does impurity taste sweet to some?

Why does filth taste sweet to some?
Why does a cockroach relish filth? At what point in its creation did it go astray, that it now embraces impurity?

Animals that feed on filth love it because their very nature lacks the light of faith.
True faith is grounded in reason; it is a faith that kindles God’s light within the human soul.

✨ Faith, a gift from God

No one can come to faith except by God’s leave and permission.
Until God grants permission to believe, no one will attain faith.

Thus impurity and defilement become the fare of those who do not reflect.

🔑 The Relationship Between Faith and Reason

We can measure faith by reason.
One who lacks reason lacks faith.
One who does not accept ʿAlī and his descendants lacks faith.

Here is the key:
When reason departs, one takes pleasure in sin and filth.
When reason leaves a person’s soul, that person falls in love with what is vile and sinful.

Everything in this world, when divorced from reason, is vile by nature.

🍯 The Secret of Honey and Filth

What is the difference between honey and the honey that is eaten?
Some of that honey takes flight and is transformed into something sublime. But some of it becomes trapped in filth and turns into impurity.

Nature comes to our aid:

• If a person’s spiritual dimension is strengthened, the honey within them becomes a heavenly fragrance.
• But if they incline toward their lower self, their being becomes vile.

Which part of the human soul is the devil’s lair?
Where does the devil lie in wait as a hunter?

If we can drive the devil entirely out of our souls, our souls will become sources of beauty.
The human intestine is not meant to expel filth, but to produce nourishment more wholesome and pure than honey.

🌟 The Secret of Reason’s Demise

When reason perishes, a person takes pleasure in impurities.
When reason departs, the devilish palate within a person comes into play.

🌟 Reason and the Guardianship of the Prophet’s Household

Whenever reason departs from something, it is a sign that it has fled the guardianship of the Prophet’s Household.
So long as we remain under their guardianship, reason is firmly established within us.
But if we separate ourselves from the guardianship of the Prophet’s Household, reason departs from us.

What, then, will happen if we sever ourselves from the guardianship of the Messenger and from divine guardianship?
The measure and volume of filth will grow greater and more imposing.
Anything from which reason departs becomes food for the devil.

Faith has no meaning without tawḥīd.
Tawḥīd is the root of all roots.
Through tawḥīd, a person attains pleasures beyond all pleasure;
beyond this summit of pleasure lies the horizon of tawḥīd.

A person of tawḥīd has no taste for the devil.
To the devil’s palate, the person of tawḥīd is bitter and deadly; the devil is destroyed.
The person of tawḥīd can never fall, for they are under the dominion of the One, the All-Conquering.

But the polytheist is the devil’s most delicious food.
The devil and the polytheist feed on one another and become each other’s sustenance.

🌟 Believers: Light and Faith for One Another

Believers, too, feed on one another—but not to diminish each other; rather, to grow.

• They take in one another’s light and faith.
• They draw on one another’s dominion and heavenly realm.
• They come together and multiply, becoming taller, more exalted, and more beautiful.
• They become agents of divine wonders and blessings.

🛡 Guarding Against Shirk and Satanic Temptations

Let us take care not to draw near to shirk.

• Let us take care not to become food for the devil.
• Let us recognise the devil’s and the ego’s beguilements and keep away from them.

How does the devil deceive?
He makes a false path appear so beautiful that a person mistakes it for the path to everlasting life.
Because of this false feeling, a person falls in love with the world and rushes feverishly after wealth, outward beauty, and worldly status.

What can we do to avoid becoming Satan’s companions and brothers?
We must stop keeping company with Satan, refuse to strengthen him, and not become his sustenance.

🌟 The Wasteful: Satan’s Brothers

Indeed, the wasteful are Satan’s brothers.
Satan was—and remains—an unbeliever in his Lord.
The wasteful cast away the most precious jewels:
the Qur’an and the Prophet’s Household.

✨ Squandering the Wilayah of Ali (peace be upon him)

The speaking and silent Qur’an is none other than the Commander of the Faithful, Ali (peace be upon him).
The greatest squandering has been of Ali’s wilayah.
The Master said:
“Do not squander the wilayah of Ali. Do not cast it aside—neither through enmity nor through excess.”

🌟 Take care: Do not become Satan’s companion and helper

Take care not to become Satan’s companion and helper.
When we hold fast to the Qur’an and the Prophet’s Household, we are Satan’s enemies.
But if we sever our attachment to the Qur’an and the Prophet’s Household, we will become Satan’s brothers.

Who are Satan’s brothers?
They are beyond counting.

✨ The true nature of joy lies in meeting God

People will do anything to attain pleasure, yet they do not realize that
all joy, peace and comfort lie in meeting God—

• in the embrace of His mercy,
• in God’s Paradise.

The pleasures people enjoy are mere crumbs from God’s creation, raining down from His heaven.
These crumbs keep people occupied; and if they forget God’s supreme reality, they will fall prey to every affliction.

🌟 Pleasure for the believer

For the believer, there is no rest apart from meeting God.
If someone is a believer, they do not take pleasure in just anything!
Only meeting God brings them peace.

• Even when they taste food, they experience its pleasure through remembering God.
• At every moment, the believer must draw near to meeting God.

How does the believer remember God?

• Before seeing His signs, they should remember the One who gives the sign.
• When they see a sign, they should remember God.
• And after moving beyond the sign, they should strengthen the remembrance of God in their heart.

🕊 An invitation to true comfort

Our Lord calls us to true comfort.
O God, be our helper, so that we may answer Your call.
You are the One who answers prayers.

Who is the believer?

• Someone whose entire attention is fixed on God alone.
• They see no one but God and seek no one but Him.
• They pay no heed to anything apart from God.
• They do not see Satan or perceive satanic waves.

The believer’s sensitivity to satanic vibrations:

• Their vibrations are so high that they have no connection whatsoever with satanic vibrations.
• They see no one but God.
• They are with God alone, and find peace with Him.