Nature Is God’s Revelation

🌼🔆🌼The Greater and Lesser Spring🌼🔆🌼

🔹 Weekly sessions on the commentary and interpretation of al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya (Supplication 6)
📅 Date: 1404/01/21 – 11 Shawwal 1446
✨ Session: Meshkat-e Noor
🎤 Speaker: Master Ali Saei
📝 Some of the points raised in the session:

Our bodies are God’s earth; let us be its cultivators 🌱

We truly must turn the nectar of servitude into the honey of servitude.

Imam Reza (peace be upon him) says:

“This body is like the earth: pure earth…
Your body is like pure land entrusted to your care; you must look after it…”

If you take proper care of this body**,
tending to **its cultivation and irrigation,
giving it neither too much nor too little, but just what it needs…

If you commit yourself to providing this body with water and seed,
this land of being will become a vast field of cultivation.

Its yield will be abundant,
and its crops will grow pure and beautiful.

But if you neglect this body, this good earth…
it will fall into ruin.
You will destroy it.

No grass will grow in this body again.
No virtue will emerge from it.

We must take care of this body…
And if we are responsible for our greater world within,
are we giving it water and knowledge?

---

Water for the body, wisdom for the soul: balance or ruin ⚖️

Do we know that we must continually give it water and seed?

The body needs just enough—not more, not less.
But our soul and heart? We must care for them fully, without limit.

The water and seed of the soul are God’s knowledge and wisdom, His teachings.

No matter how much you pour in,
the heart’s cup will not be filled, for it is God’s sanctuary.

We have forgotten this heart…
We attend to the body.

We give it more water, drown it…
This body rots, by God…

If it gets too much water, too much seed… it will be destroyed.

The body must be watered in due measure.
But the soul must be watered continually.
Drown it… fill it with light…

Let it be immersed…
not merely nourished,
but dissolved, so that it may arrive.

We pay no attention to the water and nourishment our greater world needs.

Every one of our limbs and faculties—our eyes, ears, intellect…
all of them need water and seed.

The faculty of hearing…
The intellect has been forgotten…

We do not know that the intellect’s nourishment is noble character.
It has seventy-five qualities and must be nourished by them.

We have left the intellect without water or seed…
There is no intellect left in us at all… We have reached intellectual death and do not even know it.

---

Fasl al-rabiʿ: the spirit of time, not merely the spring of nature 🌸

Our Spirit of Trust has departed, and we do not know it…
And now we are looking for spring?!

But… Imam Reza (peace be upon him) says:

“Know that spring is the spirit of time… the life of time…”

Without spring, time loses its life… it dies.

We are seeking the Greater Spring,
but what have we done with the Lesser Spring?

Have we proved ourselves worthy?

Are we in tune with spring’s prelude?
Can we reach the heart of spring?

We cannot…

Spring does not die; it renews itself.
Spring returns within spring.

The spring that came brings life to the soul.

It reaches the souls of all beings.
All beings become springlike.

Spring came—that is, it brought with it cosmic knowledge and insight.

It infused the particles’ souls with divine knowledge.
They all partook of it…
The fruits ripened.

Fruits are one response to spring…
their beauty bears witness to spring.

---

The flower withers, but does not die 🌼🕊

What have we done?

That flower ripens…
It takes flight… its spirit departs… but by God, it does not die…

That flower, in all its beauty,
withers in body…

yet continues to live in a greater world…

It keeps growing…

In spring, it blossoms anew…
But in other worlds…

What have we done?
Which spring have we truly experienced?

---

Spring that elevates and ascends: the soul’s continual inner growth 🌸📈

To become springlike in spring…
An ascending, elevating spring must flow through our being.

Spring is ever-growing, mature, and guiding.
It grows…

Whatever it may be, the beauty that displays itself in spring**,
**is growing and mature.

Beauty increases.
Pleasures increase.
As knowledge expands, so do beauty and pleasure.

How much pleasure do I take in this world?
My pleasure is proportionate to my knowledge.
The more I understand**, **the more I enjoy.

My understanding of this world’s beauty
is commensurate with the knowledge I acquire.

But without reason…
I am a ruin.

My senses and understanding are confined to worldly perception,
and even there I will fall short.

---

Reason: beauty’s commander, pleasure’s key ✨🧠

When reason leads me to experience beauty and pleasure,
my pleasure and beauty extend as far as the universe,
and even beyond it.

Why?
Because I will be connected to the very soul of beauty, to the very soul of pleasure…
to the Most Beautiful Names**, to the *Supreme Name*
and to the reality of **beauty and pleasure.

Reason is what assimilates knowledge.
Reason can absorb knowledge and draw nourishment from it.

It works like a beautiful seed.

Without reason, that same beautiful seed
will never become a beautiful flower.
No nectar will emerge from it.

No bee can produce honey without reason.

Reason commands beauty and pleasure.
Without reason, all are deprived.

Reason is God’s first beloved… His first and last beloved.

In this universe,
spring is the spirit of time…

How should we welcome it?
Let us greet spring…

---

Greetings to the springtime of humanity, the wellspring of all springs 💐

The inner reality of this outward spring is that exalted being, our master, the Remnant of God, may my soul be sacrificed for him…

He is:

“ربیع‌الأنام”
“نضرة الأیّام”

He is the springtime of all beauty.
The springtime of knowledge, wisdom and light… He is.

He truly is spring.
He is the wellspring of spring.

Let us greet that true spring…

A greeting that will be returned…

Whoever greets spring sincerely
will receive an answer to their greeting…

In beautiful blossoms, in growth and flourishing,
in nectar and honey, fragrance and beauty.

What does that springtime of humanity do?
What is its answer to our greeting?

If we do not recognize spring, we will mistake winter for spring.

If we do not recognize the light, by God… we will take gloom and darkness
for light.

We will mistake blindness itself for sight…

---

The springtime of noble virtues: a season for reading, a season for sowing 🌿📖

Spring is a season for reading.
A season for reading the Book of God.

Nature is the book of God’s revelation…

Let us read:
with measured recitation, with care for the rules of recitation, attentively,
with reflection, contemplation and deep understanding…

so that our very being becomes beauty… becomes spring itself.

Let us sow noble character within ourselves.

At every moment, we are spring.
With the true spring, we are spring at every instant.

At every instant, the chance to grow is ours.
Let us sow within ourselves as many noble virtues as we can.

Even if we sow all seventy-five virtues…
by God, He will multiply them.

He will carry us beyond that number…

The many virtues God, the Originator of the universe, creates
will fill our being with abundant harvests of virtue.

---

A garden of virtues: God’s smile upon our souls 🌷💖

Let us bring the garden of virtues in our hearts to perfection…

Spring is God’s greeting…
God’s blessings upon His creation…

Blessings upon that spring of God…

Our spring is the flow of life, the surging of existence.

Spring is the tender smile of God’s grace upon all creation.

These spring blossoms** are truly **smiles of God’s love for His creation.

Spring is a beginning within another beginning…

Spring is the start of a new book in God’s creation…
The beginning of change… the beginning of transformation…
The beginning of new manifestations of God…

This infant of existence must grow…
It must come of age, reach the fullness of its years, and realize its perfection.

Spring is the resurrection of the faithful.

Who is there to fear death?

The one who fears death
is the one whose winter ends without a spring to follow…

Spring heralds a life more expansive.
It is the sweet smile of God’s majesty upon His creation in this world of existence…

In one sense, this spring is one of the faces of the believers’ faith.

Spring is the remembrance of the All-Living, the Self-Subsisting.

At every moment, this world is a new world.
Every moment is a tremendous bounty.
An extraordinary opportunity… a new life… a fresh world…

What have we done with the lives that have passed?
Have we learned to experience new worlds?

---

The Sixth Supplication of the Ṣaḥīfa: a time machine to spring 🌤

With his Sixth Supplication, Imam Sajjad, peace be upon him,
makes every day of ours springtime.

If we are granted the grace to recite this supplication with all our heart and soul,
every day will become springtime.

In truth, every day of ours is spring.

Even if the world’s outward face turns wintry,
with this supplication, we turn that winter into spring.

Let us enter this blessed treasury with sincerity of heart…
so that we may be springtime always.

---

Giving thanks for night and day; the creation of night and day ✨🌙

Yes, it is worthy of praise…

I had forgotten that I should thank my God for night and day.

I had forgotten…

How well I perceive night and day,
yet I have not praised my God for this great, ever-repeated blessing.
Imam Sajjad was drawing my attention to this heedlessness…

But I was so deeply asleep in the heart of my heedlessness

that I did not want to wake from it.
Praise be to God for creating night and day…

God created night and day through His might.

If I say “might” means His merciful power and energy…

I still diminish its meaning…
But I have no better way to put it…

Perhaps it is better to say:

God created night and day through His might.
Night and day are God’s creation.

They are not abstract notions, mere constructs of the mind.
We should not imagine them as nothing more than mental concepts;

they are real, objective realities.
Each is a system;

a wondrous creation of God.
Just as our existence

is not merely the movement of electrons and protons…
but a vast, living system.

Movement and order, too, flow through night and day.

Yet night and day are not themselves the flow…

Night and day are systems.

They are independent realities.
Night and day: manifestations of God’s everlasting power ⚡️

---

And they bear witness to God’s eternal power…

He created them through His might;

that is, night and day are repositories of God’s power.
Within night and day, God

has placed His immense power, His might.
Night and day bear witness to God’s power.

By His power, He distinguished one from the other…
Is power the same as ability?

By God, it is something greater…
I do not know what it means…

Power is power.
Translation diminishes its meaning.
God, through His power, distinguished night from day.

He set them apart.
If God’s power were absent:

there would be no night or day,

• no interval between them,
• There was no separation.

They were one…

But God brought separation between them.
Did He cleave a reality in two?
Did He create a space between the two halves?

One became night, the other day…

I do not know…
But the Imam’s words bear witness to this truth:
God has manifested His power through night and day.

So why can I not see it?
Because I do not understand.

I have silenced reason, put it out to pasture…
I have no time to think and reflect.

By God, this night and day are manifestations of God’s power.

I am not saying we should move from the outward to the inward;
let us understand what is right before our eyes,
then turn to the inward meaning of night and day.

God is the cleaver, the separator, the splitter… the distinguisher of night and day.

What has He done?
The very God who said:

“مرج البحرين یلتقیان…”

He set a barrier between them…

What has He done between this night and day?

I do not know… What is night? What is day?

These two are mighty signs of God.

Until I understand, I am the loser…
But what if I do understand? What then!

---

God’s beautiful script: the patterns of night and day ✒️🌓

For each of the two,
night and day, He set a defined limit.
He bounded them,
and gave them a measure that extends.

For each one,
He defined its own geography in space and time.

Bounded, yet extending.

Did He diminish them?
No… He made them beautiful.

This is God’s beautiful script…

One of the divine lines.

God’s words…

inscribed with beauty…

One pattern is night…
the other, day.

This boundedness and extension are the work of God’s beautiful pen.
They are lines that appear within particular limits and bounds.

---

The entry of night into day: the mystery of divine immersion 🔄

Does He make them enter? No… I am not saying He makes them enter.

I say, “He brings them into one another”…

Each of the two,
night and day, He brings into the other.

Night into day…
day into night…
and He brings their Lord into them as well.

Do they simply enter?
No… this bringing into one another is different from “entering.”

This is a mystery.

They sink into one another…
in a particular way…
one of God’s mysteries.

We call it “īlāj.”

They blend so deeply
that it is as though they have become one,
yet they are not one.

---

Īlāj: a nurturing, divine intermingling 💞🌗

By a measure He has decreed for His servants…

it is a kindness from God…

He has placed this īlāj between night and day
so that His kindness may reach His servants.

to nourish them…
to enfold them…
to nurture them…

---

Night and day, in love with each other 💘

He made night and day fall in love with each other.

I don’t know…

Perhaps this interpenetration goes beyond love and affection.

Night and day are in love with each other.

What is the inner secret of night and day?

—

Night: God’s maternal embrace 🌌🕊

He created night for them,
so their weariness might subside,
and they might enjoy its peace and sleep,
so that it might bring them comfort and strength…

and even:
that they might find in it

pure delight and desire.
Night is like a warm, maternal embrace… no, more than maternal…
a singular embrace…

God’s embrace of comfort for His creation.
All benefit from this night.
Not only human beings…

Every particle in existence benefits from night and day:

from their peace, their comfort, their sleep…
I sleep in one way,
other creatures in another…

but all experience the pleasure of sleep.

Plants, animals, even inanimate things have their sleep…
This is what night’s horizon looks like in the earthly realm…
But what of its heavenly and spiritual horizons?

A secret that will one day be seen…
They are held in the embrace of this night…

Night is a source of nourishment.

Creatures must draw strength from within the heart of this night.
And what of us?
How far we have lost our way…
We have lost the night,

we have squandered the day…

Satan and the self have stolen them both from our hearts.
We experience neither night…

nor day…

We have lost both night and day.

Night is the warm embrace of comfort, sleep and strength.
We are held within God’s power,

in the heart of night…

Do we experience it?
At what point in the night does that power envelop us?

Yes, from beginning to end…
but there are moments when a particular peace is infused…

into those who are admitted to its intimacy…
a special strength is infused…
a special delight and desire—not worldly desire…

pure desire, pure delight…

infused into pure hearts…
What happens then? Where do they arrive?
How do they perceive the angelic realm?

And the realm of divine power?
What wonders this night holds,

and how unaware we are…

We are held in the many-layered embrace of this night…

we are sown…

---

amid the sowing of beauty, power, delight, the desire of sleep, and rest…

Day: the revealer of night’s harvest 🌞📜
And He created day for them as a “revealer,”

so that they might seek God’s bounty in it.

• And through it,
• find their sustenance,
• travel and explore the earth,
  in pursuit of some immediate gain in this world,
  or of attaining the Hereafter,

whether paid upfront or deferred…

This day is our revealer.

God has appointed this guide for us.
He opens things up, gives us sight, brings light,
shows us the way, moves us forward… awakens us…

What we did in the night…
the day reaps.

He lays it on the table of our hearts…
and brings it into view.

Have we sown?
Now it is time to harvest.

What went on in the night…
we must learn of by day.

Whatever we have stored up,
we must gather in.

The night’s sowing must be harvested in the light of day.

The night is not for sleep alone…
The night’s true sleep is wakefulness…

In the other world, we really do sleep—that is, we fall into heedlessness…
and sleep carries us into heedlessness…

and in our heedlessness, we sink into still greater heedlessness.

---

Night’s soil, day’s blossom 🌱➡️🌼

Night is like a bed of soil…

in which we sleep…

Day is what lies beyond the soil…
where our blossoms should have opened.

At night, we receive knowledge…

by day, we must become an explosion of light.
We must become an explosion of knowledge…
and let the splendor of servitude to God be seen.

What have we done in the night?
The day must interpret it.

The night must arrive at its inner meaning…
and the day must interpret it.

If we do not interpret
God’s sign,
the sign of His night,
we have burned it…

and its ashes have reached the day…
where a breeze
will scatter them… turn them upside down…

---