notifications_active Weekly Meshkat-e Noor Session: Thursdays at 20:30 at Haj Reza Mosque
Respected teacher, what is the most effective and quickest practice for erasing the effects and pleasures of sin from the soul and a person’s thoughts, and for making the joy and delight of worship and servitude prevail over the pleasure of sin within the soul?
َّهِ الرَّحْمنِ الرَّحيمِ
The most effective way to erase the pleasure of sin and let the joy of worship prevail is to free oneself from attachment to the world and focus on divine knowledge. Through spiritual discipline, the lower self can be transformed into the soul at peace. Whatever a person gives their attention to, the soul comes to perceive clearly and love. Attuning the heart to the Qur’an and the Prophet’s Household is the way to leave behind base pleasures and attain a taste of the heavenly realm.
In the vast geography of the human being, the self’s desires are only a tiny island. Fixating on this small part of our being makes us lose sight of the vastness within us. The self’s desires are like a worm: left to itself, it will remain bound to the dust and captive to worldly sustenance. But if we undertake its cultivation and care, those very desires can become a butterfly of the tranquil soul, …
Whatever the human soul focuses on, it comes to see, hear and love. So if we focus on the world and its ambitions, our understanding will extend no further than worldly pleasure and gratification. We need only free ourselves from our fixation on the world to turn our attention to what lies beyond it and taste the pleasures of the heavenly realm.
In short, if we free ourselves from love of the world, we will escape enslavement to its fleeting and base pleasures.
To put it in more technical terms, our frequency aligns with whatever vibration it resonates with, placing us within its range and breadth. We need only tune the heart’s frequency to higher vibrations to free ourselves from lower ones. To do so, we need only stay connected and cultivate companionship with the sources of higher vibrations: the Qur’an and the Ahl al-Bayt. We should draw on every means at our disposal—from the tools of noble character to the gatherings of the believers!
A fuller discussion, God willing and with His help, in the near future.