The Fasting of the Soul

📆 Date: 1403,01,16 – 24 Ramadan 1445
📌 Meshkat-e Noor session
👤 Lecture by Master Ali Saei
🗒 Some points discussed during the session:

📽 To watch the full lecture, please visit the link below.
🌼 Before long, Ramadan will be preparing to depart. Will we be the same servants we were before this blessed month? If we allow its effects to become manifest in us, then we will be among those who have reason to envy this month.
🌼 Islam rests on five pillars, one of which is fasting. Have we strengthened this pillar during this month? All these pillars are joined to the central pillar of wilayah; wilayah is the key to the other four.
🌼 How wondrous is the secret of wilayah: once we are connected to it, all the passion and love of the noble ones will also live within us.
🌼 Wilayah must be our model, our company, and our point of departure, so that we may become rubies of the highest kind.
🌼 When our connection to wilayah is established, our fast will be a true fast. The very fabric of our spirit and soul will be shaped by wilayah, and everything other than God will be swept away.
🌼 Wilayah is the perfect and greatest nourishment. If I become connected to it, it will be as though I have been nourished by wilayah in its entirety. Wilayah is what makes our other deeds acceptable.
🌼 The effects of fasting will become manifest in me only when I am under the care of wilayah.
🌼 Let us bind ourselves to wilayah. Through wilayah, our fasts come alive, the structure of our servitude grows firm, and the seed of servanthood blossoms within us.
🌼 Without wilayah, we will neither blossom nor unfold, nor will we grow and expand.
🌼 Obeying the Imam, once we have come to know him, is the key to resolving every problem, the gateway to the inner reality of things, and the path to God’s pleasure.
🌼 If I do not attain knowledge of the Imam, I will become obedient to the tyrant.
🌼 The Rope of God is the Imam. Not a particle of our being is separate from him; when we come to know the Imam, we will understand this bond.
🌼 (Hadith) Fasting is a shield against the Fire. All human beings will pass through the heart of Hell; if we are not equipped with fasting, we will perish.
🌼 True fasting means that every part of our being is fasting.
🌼 This world, too, has its own Hell, and we are in it at every moment. Sin is that very valley of Hell; whoever is equipped with a shield will be protected.
🌼 Fasting must be alive with spirit. A human being is not a lesser world, but the Greater World. Let us not make this lesser body fast while neglecting our Greater World.
🌼 When we protect our being from the lowly pleasures of this world, that is the greatest fast. Will we then be deprived of pleasure? No. Whoever attains higher pleasures will attain the greatest pleasures. If we reach for what is above, we will also have what is below within our grasp.
🌼 If we want the truth of our being to fast, we must guard all our senses. We must bathe both body and soul, so that we may touch the reality of pleasure and the reality of servitude—for none but the pure are permitted to touch the signs of God.
🌼 (Hadith) Fasting of the heart is better than fasting of the tongue, and fasting of the tongue is better than fasting of the stomach. The stomach, the tongue, and the heart must all fast.
🌼 How can we taste the sweetness of faith? How is it that those who love God are so restless in their longing for Him? It is enough for my soul to be patient in worshipping God; then I will dwell in His worship.
🌼 Fasting of the mind from sin and disobedience is better than fasting of the stomach.
🌼 We must manage the nourishment of both body and soul. Let us not turn away from the table of the Qur’an and the Prophet’s Household! What nourishment is not spread upon this table?
🌼 (Hadith) When you find yourself among vile and accursed people, excuse yourself from them by fasting.
🌼 (Hadith) The food of a generous person is medicine, while the food of a miser is pain. Beware of eating the food of a miser.
🌼 (Hadith) Nothing destroys Islam like miserliness.
🌼 Miserliness ultimately leads to associating partners with God.
🌼 (Hadith) The qualities of the followers of Ali, peace be upon him: they are slender and pale, lean as swords honed to a sharp edge. Outwardly, they seem downcast, bearing a particular sorrow. Their lips are dry from standing in prayer, worship, and supplication. Their stomachs are hollow, their complexions yellow, and their faces altered and changed. When night falls, they make the earth their bed and press their foreheads to the soil in humble servitude. Their eyes are tearful; they shed many tears, pray at length, and supplicate often. They read the Book of God frequently. While people rejoice, they are sorrowful.
🌼 Be sure to read the Sermon of the Pious. It is the defining portrait of Imam Ali. Ramadan is the month in which we become followers of Ali.
🌼 (Hadith) The faces of the followers of Imam Ali are pale from keeping vigil at night; their stomachs are hollow from fasting; their lips are dry from supplication; and their faces are covered with the dust of humility.
🌼 (Hadith) The Messenger of God said: “Fasting is a shield against the trials of this world and a veil against the punishment of the Hereafter. So, in your fast, set the intention to restrain your soul from lustful desires, and resolve to cut off the footsteps of Satan. Make your soul like that of a sick person who has no appetite for food or drink and waits at every moment for a cure, hoping to be healed of sin. Purify your inner self of every lie and stain, of backbiting and darkness.”