Only God Is the Reformer

🌻🔆Only God Is the Reformer🔆🌻
🌼🔆🌼Recognising Faults: A Higher Form of Knowledge🌼🔆🌼

🔹Weekly sessions on the commentary and interpretation of the Ṣaḥīfa Sajjadiyya
📅 Date: 1404/04/26 – 21 Muharram 1447
✨ Session: Meshkat-e Noor
🎤 Speaker: Master Ali Saei
Some of the points discussed in the session:

The Twentieth Supplication of the Ṣaḥīfa Sajjadiyya ✨

اللهم صل علی محمد و آل محمد Passage Five

اللَّهُمَّ صَلِّ عَلَی مُحَمَّدٍ وَ آلِ مُحَمَّدٍ، وَ مَتِّعْنِی بِهُدًی صَالِحٍ لَا أَسْتَبْدِلُ بِهِ، وَ طَرِیقَةِ حَقٍّ لَا أَزِیغُ عَنْهَا، وَ نِیةِ رُشْدٍ لَا أَشُک فِیهَا، وَ عَمِّرْنِی مَا کانَ عُمُرِی بِذْلَةً فِی طَاعَتِک، فَإِذَا کانَ عُمُرِی مَرْتَعاً لِلشَّیطَانِ فَاقْبِضْنِی إِلَیک قَبْلَ أَنْ یسْبِقَ مَقْتُک إِلَی، أَوْ یسْتَحْکمَ غَضَبُک عَلَی.
اللَّهُمَّ لَا تَدَعْ خَصْلَةً تُعَابُ مِنِّی إِلَّا أَصْلَحْتَهَا، وَ لَا عَائِبَةً أُوَنَّبُ بِهَا إِلَّا حَسَّنْتَهَا، وَ لَا أُکرُومَةً فِی نَاقِصَةً إِلَّا أَتْمَمْتَهَا.
اللَّهُمَّ صَلِّ عَلَی مُحَمَّدٍ وَ آلِ مُحَمَّدٍ، وَ أَبْدِلْنِی مِنْ بِغْضَةِ أَهْلِ الشَّنَآنِ الْمَحَبَّةَ، وَ مِنْ حَسَدِ أَهْلِ الْبَغْی الْمَوَدَّةَ، وَ مِنْ ظِنَّةِ أَهْلِ الصَّلَاحِ الثِّقَةَ، وَ مِنْ عَدَاوَةِ الْأَدْنَینَ الْوَلَایةَ، وَ مِنْ عُقُوقِ ذَوِی الْأَرْحَامِ الْمَبَرَّةَ، وَ مِنْ خِذْلَانِ الْأَقْرَبِینَ النُّصْرَةَ، وَ مِنْ حُبِّ الْمُدَارِینَ تَصْحِیحَ الْمِقَةِ، وَ مِنْ رَدِّ الْمُلَابِسِینَ کرَمَ الْعِشْرَةِ، وَ مِنْ مَرَارَةِ خَوْفِ الظَّالِمِینَ حَلَاوَةَ الْأَمَنَةِ.

O God, bless Muhammad and the family of Muhammad 🌹

O God, bless Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, and grant me the benefit of sound guidance, so that I never exchange it for anything else. Guide me along the path of truth, from which I will never stray, and inspire me with the resolve to grow, so that I never doubt it. O God, grant me a life that I may spend and wear away in obedience to You. But when my life becomes pasture for Satan, take my soul back to Yourself before Your anger overtakes me or Your wrath settles upon me. O God, leave no trait within me that is a fault for me without setting it right. Make beautiful the flaw for which I am reproached, and bring to completion every virtue in me that remains imperfect.

Attending to the meanings and connecting with God ✨

After reciting this beautiful supplication, what should we do? The purpose of reciting it is to connect with God in the most beautiful way possible, through the words of Imam Sajjad (AS).

Now the timings have been added to the text.

Reviewing and taking stock of the supplication ✨

I wanted to fly towards my Lord, to set my heart free to turn towards Him. Did the fruit of this supplication take root in my soul? Do I truly intend, with firm resolve, to commune with God? What kind of supplication did I make? I must examine myself and take stock of my own supplication. Did I merely recite the words, or did I truly commune with God? Was I able to fly towards my Lord, or did I only read some words? What was my intention and resolve? After reciting this supplication, my resolve should be to spend my life solely and entirely in the service of my Lord. I have made this supplication and, in effect, entered into a covenant with my Lord. In other words, I have promised my God and pledged to devote my soul to obedience to Him—to let the oil of my soul burn only in His service, and to spend and exhaust myself for God alone.

A covenant and pledge with God 🌟

When I speak of offering my obedience, I mean that I am declaring: “My Lord, I am forever Your servant. My Lord, I want to kindle the lamp of obedience to You, and let it burn for You alone until the end of my life.” My Lord, I have come to declare myself Your servant, so that You may accept my service. I want to become wholly Your servant. I recited this intimate prayer—but was I aware of the covenant I was making? The intimate prayer of Imam Sajjad (AS) is addressed to Allah, the Lord Most High. The Imam teaches me how to design my life: how to shape my years, how to occupy myself with Him alone. Imam Sajjad (AS) teaches me that I must spend myself for Him, busy myself with Him. He is my God; I should have no preoccupation but Him.

The lamp of life, burning for God 🌙

I must become a worthy creation of the Creator, the Best of Creators. The lamp of my life must burn for God alone. May I never become a lamp for Satan; may I never light up Satan’s gathering or give life to the marketplace of sin and disobedience—for then death would be better for me than life. The Imam teaches me when I should long for death: I should ask God for this sacred death, not long for death when I see that I have become Satan’s pastureland. I must become a garden in the world of being and offer all of it in obedience and devotion to God—not become Satan’s pastureland and then long for death.

Shaping life and sacred death 🌱

We must shape both our lives and our deaths. Our death should be the beginning of another life. Are we not followers of Imam Husayn (AS)? How glorious was the life he lived; and after his martyrdom, his life became eternal—in this world and in the world to come. What worlds does it open up? Imam Sajjad (AS) teaches us that our lives should make the marketplace of devotion to God flourish, and that our deaths, too, should be like the Imam’s death. This dying, this death, this passing away shines more brightly than countless lamps of life. We breathe; even after our death, we must continue to breathe in this world, breathing devotion into the life of the material world.

The wheels of devotion to God 🔥

We must set the wheels of devotion to God in motion and make its industries more active. We must become God’s incense and light; our very being must be fragrant with devotion to God, awakening in people a longing for worship and service to Him. Let us burn and give ourselves wholly to our God. Our lives, then, should further the cause of devotion, and our deaths, too, should enrich the marketplace of love and devotion to God. This is the same blessing we seek in this intimate prayer and in Ziyarat Ashura: O God, make my life like the life of Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, and my death like their death.. This life is the highest degree of life in all creation. If we attain this supreme grace, our life will be a Muhammadan life, and our death a Muhammadan death—a death like that of Muhammad and the Family of Muhammad. This is the highest expression of devotion. What more could a person ask, having possessed life, and having a death more alive and more glorious than a thousand lives?

I have recited it—what should I do? 🪞

I have recited it—what should I do? It means I stand before my God, the One who sets things right, and ask Him to set me right. When someone goes to a barber, they must tell the barber how they want their hair cut and their flaws corrected. Have I stood before the mirror of insight to see my own faults? So that, during prayer and intimate supplication, I may sit at my Lord’s dressing table and say: “O barber of my being, my Creator, set me right! These are my faults, and there are many I do not even know. God, You know them—set me right.” Let us lay before Him everything in us that is unbeautiful, and implore Him to make us right. Allah, the Beautiful, is the One who sets us right; He is the All-Knowing Creator, the All-Powerful, the All-Knowing and the All-Wise, the Subtle. I entrust myself to Him, so that He may set me right. My Lord, I read the Sahifa Sajjadiyya in this state of heart—set me right, make me beautiful, make me radiant. Bring me to the same perfect order in which You first formed and created me, and let Your creative majesty continue to unfold. You are the One who is in a new state of glory each day; guide me through the ever-new manifestations of Your glory, so that the majesty of this world may shine with still greater beauty. I, too, will become a beautiful, radiant star in this beautiful and magnificent world of Yours.

Shaping my life and death 🌱

So I must become the architect of my own life and death. Do I have ministries of life and death, where I can set myself right and present myself to my Lord? How firm is my resolve? I must have kindled the lamp of my Lord’s constant, unceasing reform within me. I speak to myself: “God, He is aware of my state. By God, He hears me; by God, He has turned His attention to me. God has placed His reforming lamp within my soul. At every moment, He is working to set me right. That lamp is the lamp of reason; it is God’s messenger, God’s envoy. It answers me. That envoy of God—yes, I too have joined myself to my God and am in communion with Him. He inspires me, too; He prompts me, too. This reason is God’s inward messenger. I have killed it; I have driven it from my soul. But all I need do is turn to my God, and that envoy will once more take its place in my heart.”

Reason and God’s inspirations 🌟

Reason is the messenger of the Real, the messenger of God. This messenger is always with us. God’s inspirations flow unceasingly through the human soul. Reason within us is God’s encompassing, continuous regard for our soul. It is God’s reforming messenger. Reason, then, is our prayer answered. God has answered it and placed reason within us. If we break our covenant, God’s envoy departs. So let us attune our hearts to God’s inspirations. How? All we need do is spend a little time in the company of the Quran and its fragrance. Let the atmosphere of divine inspiration permeate our souls. Then we will turn toward the divine message. If we drive reason from ourselves, Satan will implant his own suggestions in us through his temptations and ensnare us.

Satan’s revelation and his dominion ⚖️

Satan reveals to his followers—that is, to those who have accepted his dominion. So we must be vigilant. Let us guard reason within us like a precious jewel. May it never depart, leaving ignorance to prevail and take root in our souls as our guide. This is an age in which ignorance has gained mastery over the human soul—an age of ignorance’s overwhelming dominance. Ignorance rules in this age and stands against reason. The world today follows ignorance and Satan. The state of the world today is one of moral and human decline. Humanity is making its way through the valley of bestiality; morality is trampled underfoot by immorality. Satanic media, the tongues of ignorance and Satan, have taken hold of people’s souls.

The sustenance of ignorance and its end 🌑

Yet ignorance, too, has its appointed end; it will be extinguished. Ignorance feeds on the ignorant, drawing sustenance from their souls. When a person dies, a worm takes their place. The worm emerged from within; the breath that moved through that person’s soul ceased, and the worm was able to come alive and stir, feeding on its sustenance. When an ignorant person drives reason away, they die and putrefy. Their ignorance and hell descend upon them like worms, devouring and defiling them. That person rots.

Know your worth 🌟

So let us know our worth, take care of ourselves, and say: “God, we are Your servants and attendants. Set us apart for Yourself alone; do not drive us away from You.” When a person forgets the lofty station of serving God, they fall into the snares of ignorance and Satan and forget their own worth. Whoever does not know their own worth will know the worth of nothing else. Whoever forgets themselves will forget the whole world. Whoever tramples their own worth will trample the entire world of being. The words of our master, Amir al-Mu’minin, have far-reaching dimensions; they do not have just one meaning, but thousands. They are a blessed wisdom from which new springs and new meanings continually flow, from this hadith and from all the hadiths of the Imams.

The worth of each person 💎

Each person’s worth lies in what they regard as good and beautiful. Another meaning is that the measure of a person’s worth is what that person considers good. What do they see as goodness, beauty and value? Or, to look at it another way, whoever falls in love with something is worth as much as the beloved they have chosen. If the world is their beloved, then that is the measure of their worth. This is how I understand in its fullest sense the divine cry: “Grant me complete detachment from all but You, O God. Carry me to the heights of freedom, so that I may break away from all that is and reach You.” “انا لله و انا الیه راجعون”. It is the very same words spoken by Imam Husayn (AS): “O God, my wandering among the signs of Your works has led me farther from the journey’s end.” Imam Husayn asks for the very thing sought by our master, the Commander of the Faithful (AS). How beautiful it is when mirror faces mirror, and one beautiful word answers another. I set its image before you: the words of Imam Husayn (AS), shining bright.

Human Worth and Value 🌟

A person’s worth and value lie in their skill and in the work they bring to completion with the utmost care—in what they love, and in the concerns that occupy their mind, heart and hands. So let our work be beautiful: let us keep God’s lamp of rectification alight within our souls, never allowing its radiance to fade, even for a moment. When reason is present in our souls, we become mines of God’s diamonds and jewels. Through reason, a human being becomes a mine of divine jewels. It is enough for reason to become whole within us and its light to reach its fullest brilliance. Then a person becomes, in themselves, a pure mine of God’s jewels.

The Perfection of Reason and the Power of Speech 🧠

When reason reaches perfection, speech grows small and falls short—in other words, it becomes brief. A person without reason pours out a mountain of words. A person endowed with reason, however, says only one thing, yet its worth and weight extend to the horizon, like a mountain of words. The diamond-bright speech of a human being is possible only in the light of reason. Through reason, even a person’s sleep becomes beautiful, better than the wakefulness of the ignorant. Through reason, a person’s intentions become pure jewels.

The Human Soul and Its Perfection 🌱

It is through reason that the human soul reaches perfection and maturity. No one can rid themselves of their base self unless they attain perfection. When a person removes the rule of their lower desires from their heart, they reach perfection; and perfection is a sign that reason is present within them. We must become aware of the flaws in our souls so that we may seek their correction from God, the Reformer. Whoever recognises their own shortcomings sees them as bad, because they perceive their faults within themselves. Recognising one’s shortcomings is itself a sign of human perfection. But to remain unaware of one’s flaws and take pride in them is sheer folly and a sign of a mind devoid of reason.

Reason and Human Shortcomings 💡

A fool does not attain goodness through hardship, and their shortcomings, harm and loss never cease. A fool is bound to deficiency and loss, forever in decline. More foolish still is the one who trades away the Hereafter for this world. The less of this world a person possesses, the greater their perfection may be. Whoever strives tirelessly yet falls short can turn those shortcomings into virtues and make them a source of growth. But the person deprived of worldly blessings through laziness and idleness is the one who has squandered both the world and its blessings. The wise, by contrast, attain the world, transform it into reason, and spend it in the service of worshipping God. Whatever is added to a person’s worldly possessions diminishes their Hereafter. The relationship between this world and the Hereafter comes down to the love of the world prevailing in a person’s heart: it drives love of the Hereafter from within them. Whoever falls in love with this world will find the Hereafter turning away from them. Whichever one we turn towards, we move away from the other. “Whatever diminishes in this world increases in the next.” Whatever is taken from this world is added to the Hereafter. A person should take hold of the world, not become its servant. The world’s bitterness is the sweetness of the Hereafter. The more a base and vile person rises to high rank, the more ordinary and worthless other people seem in their eyes. But when a noble person rises to lofty rank, the people’s honour and dignity appear all the greater to them.

Human Shortcomings and How to Remedy Them 💎

We are discussing shortcomings and flaws, and these reflections are connected to that very subject. These hadith revolve around this beautiful intimate prayer. The most helpless of people is someone who has the power and ability to overcome their shortcomings—who can set right the flaws in their soul—but does not do so. God has given them the ability to mend what is lacking in themselves, yet they keep putting it off until tomorrow and remain indifferent. Such a person is among the most helpless on earth: failing to remedy one’s own shortcomings is itself a greater flaw.

Those Most Worthy of God-Consciousness 🌿

Those most worthy of God-consciousness are the ones who know and recognise the world’s imperfection. The more deeply anyone becomes ensnared by the world, the more their own shortcomings multiply. The more worldly love surges within us, the more our needs, faults and deficiencies grow. The more avidly we grasp at the world, the more flawed we become. So uprooting worldly attachment and greed from the heart is a way of remedying the soul’s shortcomings.

The Worst Choice a Person Can Make 🌀

The worst choice a person can make is to accept their own flaws. A person may be spiritually and ethically deficient, but to be content with that deficiency is the worst choice they can make. Those who fail to notice the flaws in their spirit and heart are self-absorbed. Their faults remain hidden from them: they cannot see their own failings. And when they see the virtues of others, they try to conceal them, because those virtues remind them of their own shortcomings. To keep people from noticing their faults, they deny the merits of others and tear them down, so that they themselves will always remain in the spotlight.

Self-Absorption and Reason 🧠

A person’s self-absorption is a clear sign of their deficiency and a mark of weak judgement. I want this hadith to make me aware of this grave flaw, so that when I ask God to remedy my faults, I ask first of all that He uproot this self-absorption from within me. Take care not to become enamoured of yourself, lest flaw and evil come to dominate your soul. When a person becomes self-absorbed, they are held captive by their ego and their failings.

The Secret of Prayer and Perfection 🌹

A person does not attain perfection unless they leap free of deficiency and leave it behind. We must strive to make that leap; until we have leapt beyond our shortcomings, we cannot reach perfection. And so this is the secret of this prayer—one part of its secret:
اللَّهُمَّ لَا تَدَعْ خَصْلَةً تُعَابُ مِنِّی إِلَّا أَصْلَحْتَهَا، وَ لَا عَائِبَةً أُوَنَّبُ بِهَا إِلَّا حَسَّنْتَهَا، وَ لَا أُکْرُومَةً فِی نَاقِصَةً إِلَّا أَتْمَمْتَهَا.

Taking the Heavens as Our Model 🌌

Let us look to the heavens and take them as our model: a beautiful example that helps us know and understand what to ask of our God. Let us ask Him to make us heavenly, to live in perfect order and discipline, turning and journeying in His love. Let us travel through the world and join the universe in its praise, in a special and beautiful order. Yes, God is the One who created seven heavens, one above another. You will see no contradiction or flaw in God’s creation. Look once more: can you see any crack or imperfection in it?

Striving for Perfection ✨

I have not looked at the heavens in order to ask that I become like them. Look again: at last, after searching, your eyes will fail and give up; they will turn back to you, weary, weak and exhausted. You will find no flaw or ugliness in this created world. We will be humbled; then we will recognise our own faults and shortcomings. What choice did we make wrongly, to fall so far out of order? We must enter into the very order of this wondrous harmony. Let us ask God to make us His candle and His sun as well.