An Exercise in Tawhid through Baqiri Insight

🔘 The Eve of the Martyrdom of Imam Muhammad al-Baqir (AS)
📆 Date: 1403/03/24 — 6 Dhu al-Hijjah 1445
📌 Meshkat-e Noor session
👤 Lecture by Master Ali Saei

🗒 Some points raised during the session:
📌 Please note that the hadiths quoted in this text are paraphrased. To study them in full, please refer to the lecture.

🌼 On the eve of the martyrdom of the person most like the Messenger of God (PBUH), the light of existence, the blessed tree of the Meshkat, and the herald of the House of Muhammad.
🌼 The Imam who cleaves open knowledge and leads the community of Muhammad to understanding.
🌼 The radiant light—the most brilliant of lights—the beautiful divine light, the light of the Muhammadan Meshkat.
🌼 Imam Muhammad al-Baqir (AS) is the breeze of divine majesty that breathes life into all existence.
🌼 Through al-Baqir’s insight, we must reach the depths of knowledge.
🌼 Entering the heart of realities—traversing the light—is deep understanding of the heart.
🌼 If I came to know the heart—my own heart—all limits would fall away, and it would become God’s sanctuary, a permanent abode for the remembrance of God.
🌼 (Al-A‘raf, 179) لَهُمْ قُلُوبٌ لَا يَفْقَهُونَ بِهَا وَلَهُمْ أَعْيُنٌ لَا يُبْصِرُونَ بِهَا وَلَهُمْ آذَانٌ لَا يَسْمَعُونَ بِهَا ۚ أُولَٰئِكَ كَالْأَنْعَامِ بَلْ هُمْ أَضَلُّ ۚ أُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الْغَافِلُونَ
🌼 They have hearts with which they do not understand.
🌼 The heart is Muhammad and the House of Muhammad.
🌼 I have not understood through my own Imam, al-Jawad.
🌼 They have eyes with which they do not see.
🌼 Are not the Imams, the Pure Ones, the All-Seeing Eye of God and the heart that comprehends all?
🌼 Why do I not see through my own Imam, al-Baqir, or feel through him?
🌼 Is the Imam not the brain of all existence? If we made use of this brain, what could we accomplish?
🌼 The Light of God has no further vibration or movement; it is complete—just as God’s knowledge and wisdom are complete.
🌼 I have brought my whole being to a standstill and gained no benefit from the tremendous means God has placed at my disposal.
🌼 I have extinguished the sun of al-Baqir within myself!
🌸 Let us test ourselves against the following hadith!
🌼 (Hadith) Imam al-Baqir (AS) says: “Truly, His names are blessed. In the loftiness of His inmost essence, He is peerless and exalted; in the loftiness of His essence, He is transcendent, exalted at the very summit of transcendence. He is alone in His oneness, singular and unique in His unity. He brought this forth among His creatures: He is the One, the Self-Sufficient, the Sovereign, the Most Holy. All things worship Him and hasten toward Him; they set their sights on Him—for He is the goal of all creation. He is beyond what we imagine, beyond what we might ever attain. The Lord encompasses all things in His knowledge.”
🌼 Is the al-Baqir computer within us switched on? Does our being receive his words, or is my soul in doubt?
🌼 Our very being bears witness to His oneness. Is any knowledge needed to understand Him?
🌼 His oneness is firmly rooted and established in the heart of our being. We must strive to bring the reality of that oneness to light within ourselves.
🌼 Our existence is the signature of divine oneness: it needs no explanation and admits no interpretation.
🌼 In His unity, God is the One alone!
🌼 In His oneness, God is uniquely One.
🌼 God has no rival in His unity; He is One in His essence, and His oneness is described only through oneness.
🌼 Only the One can describe the One!
🌼 Can oneness be described? He alone describes Himself. To describe is to posit a likeness or counterpart to the one described, but the One, the Unique, has no likeness or counterpart, nor ever will. If He had one, the One without peer would no longer be without peer!
🌼 How could we find a mirror to reflect the Unique?
🌼 If we knew the Unique, He would no longer be unique, for our knowledge would be a rival to Him! Anything that casts even a shadow would undo His uniqueness!
🌼 Through divine oneness, we are affirmers of oneness!
🌼 Can anyone but God describe God?!
🌼 God praised Himself through His oneness, and the Peerless One accepted praise as the One. In this way, He showed love to His creatures.
🌼 He willed to be known as the One.
🌼 Through His name, we find our way to Him, but we do not reach His essence. Through His name, He guides us toward Himself.
🌼 In oneness, He is One through oneness; among the one, He is unique; in being without peer, He is peerless.
🌼 The Creator must not be compared to His creation!
🌼 We have no recourse but to say «سبحان الله» and «استغفرالله».
🌼 When time did not yet exist, He was. He existed in a mode of being of which there is no knowledge.
🌼 He precedes knowledge; knowledge of Him is knowledge.
🌼 Awareness and knowledge are not one with God.
🌼 Knowledge is knowledge through God, but He is not God through knowledge.
🌼 He has no need of knowledge.
🌼 Through God Himself, we know God beyond all knowing; divine oneness transcends knowledge.
🌼 Knowledge, with regard to what is known, is in no need of what is known.
🌼 He has brought knowing to the level of knowing; He is the one who made knowing what it is.
🌼 Awareness and what lies beyond awareness are with God Himself. For us, it is enough simply to keep our innate nature open, without any effort.
🌼 Knowing has no path to what lies beyond knowing.
🌼 God Himself is the One who praises Himself.