The End of Vice and Sin

🌻🔆The Death of Ugliness and Sin🔆🌻
🌼🔆🌼The End of Defect and Imperfection🌼🔆🌼

🔹 Weekly sessions on the commentary and interpretation of al-Ṣaḥīfa al-Sajjādiyya (Supplication 20)
📅 Date: 1403/12/09 – 28 Sha‘ban 1446
✨ Session: Meshkat-e Noor
🎤 Speaker: Master Ali Saei
📝 Some of the topics discussed in the session:

Praying to be freed from flaws and to reform the self 🙏

O God, do not leave me to my own devices, and do not leave my flaw unattended!
Do not abandon me with my flaw or leave me at its mercy!
Lord, O God, take away my flaw and set it right!
O God, let my flaw never seize me and bring me low!
Our Lord, our God!

Asking for the reform of inward failings 🌿

O God, leave no failing in me unattended;
Do not leave untouched the failing that makes me deserving of blame, O God!
Make that failing good!

Seeking perfection in virtues and goodness in character ✨

Leave no flaw for which I may be blamed unless You make it good!
O God, if some noble quality, some praiseworthy trait in my soul, is deficient, do not leave it unattended until You bring it to completion!
O God, our Lord! اللهم لا تدع…

Reforming deficient and blameworthy traits 🛤

O God, do not leave any trait in my soul that is regarded as a flaw unattended; reform it!
Any trait that counts as a flaw in me!
Not every trait befits everyone;
حسناتُ الأبرار، سیّئاتُ المقرّبین!

The extinction of ignorance and the end of the age of sin 🌎

O God, if You leave me weighed down by that flawed trait, my greater world will be flawed!

Humanity in this age stands at the final moments of its earthly life!
The last flaw is about to appear in this world of existence; the ultimate degree of flaw will reveal itself in this world!
For the time has come for flaws to be extinguished!

It is the end of time! Everything will reach its end!
Sin will reach the end of the road, and its time will soon be over, God willing!
The end of flaws is at hand, for the end of ignorance is about to be brought to pass!

When ignorance is brought to an end, every flaw in this world of existence will be erased and destroyed!
Not a trace of it will remain!
When ignorance is gone, flaws too will be destroyed!
All that is ugly, all sin, all transgression and all mischief will be destroyed!

The ignorance that now surrounds us will come to an end!

The nature of ignorance and its effect on the human being ⚫️

Ignorance has a face!
Ignorance has a distinct reality!
This ignorance has an independent identity; it has a meaning of its own!
It is not simply the absence of knowledge; it has its own forces and retinue!

Ignorance is woven into the human soul;
its life belongs solely to the realm of this world!

When ignorance approaches a person, when darkness makes itself manifest,
darkness envelops the human soul!

But when ignorance turns away, the human being is immersed in light and radiance!

In this world, human beings have no choice but to contend with this ignorance;
it moves through the human soul, remains with us, and dwells within us.

Like the movement of a shadow with the sun:
when the sun moves, the shadow too comes into view!
Ignorance is just like that shadow!
As long as there is light, there will be a shadow!

Ignorance swept away by the light of God 🌞

When a person’s light reaches the crown of their head, there will be no darkness left!
It will be swept away in an instant!

When the light of the Quran and the Ahl al-Bayt fills a person’s whole being,
ignorance will have no room left to show itself!

Now is the time of the End Times!
This ignorance is destined to be swept away all at once!

When the sun of God rises,
it will encompass every soul!

Will there be any room left for ignorance?!
When ignorance is destroyed, flaws, too, will be destroyed!

The destruction of flaws at the end of the age of ignorance 🌍

Flaws are destined to be destroyed!

The role of knowledge in eradicating flaws 📖

Before the destruction, the Imam will reveal his innermost essence!
His command will be fulfilled!

If knowledge does not remove flaws from a person’s soul before their passing and death,
they will fail the test of knowledge and ignorance!

For they themselves will have played no part in eradicating their flaws!

By God, the earth will be purified!
It will be cleansed of every flaw, every stain and impurity!

This is a test!

Standing firm in the light against darkness 🌊

A person must face this very ignorance and sin, yet remain untainted!

Can someone immersed in light be tainted by darkness?!
Someone immersed in purity, someone submerged in clear, life-giving water—
would filth dare to seep into their soul?!

The qualities of a person of the End Times 🏛

We are living in the End Times!
The beings of the End Times are like the elders of this world!
They are the ripened fruits of this existence!

Let us not, in this station and this moment of the End Times,
compare ourselves with the earliest people of the past!

Such a comparison would be like comparing an elder with an ignorant child!

Just as a young person or an elder would deserve reproach for imitating a child’s behavior,
if people of the End Times behave like those who came before them,
they will not only be humiliated and disgraced, but will deserve the harshest reproach!

The End Times and the fall of humankind ⏳

This is the age of the End Times!
Humanity’s infancy is over, so why does this person of the End Times act like a nursing infant?!
Indeed, like the young of animals!
Not like human infants!

How far humanity has fallen in this day and age!
It has fallen prey to the worst of flaws!

So let us recite this prayer of Imam Sajjad (AS) with all our hearts:
اللهم لا تدع…

Asking God to set our flaws right 🌿

O God, leave no trait in my soul that counts as a fault, unless You set it right!

Indeed, some traits count as faults; the trait itself is a fault!
Fault is a quality of the trait!

In another passage, this fault is different from the first!
The first fault encompasses the trait itself; but in the next passage, it is a deeply rooted fault!

O God, do not abandon me!
Do not leave my fault unattended!
Do not leave me to my fault!
Do not leave me to my own devices in the face of my fault!
Do not leave me to myself!
Do not leave me to my trait unless You set it right!

A trait that is, in its very essence, a fault!

Moral and intellectual flaws: enemies of human growth ⚖️

This supplication alludes to moral flaws!
A person must consider both their moral flaws and their intellectual ones!

Every virtue of character is among the troops of ignorance!
Those same flawed traits that must be set right!
They must be disciplined!

This is the same as evil set against good!
The same as disbelief set against faith!
The same as denial set against affirmation!
The same as despair set against hope!
The same as oppression set against justice!
The same as anger set against contentment!
The same as ingratitude for blessings set against gratitude for them!

They must be set right, so that a person may walk the path of truth!

Seeking to remedy deeply rooted flaws 🔄

And leave no fault for which I may be reproached, unless You make it good!

“Aʿbah” means the fault itself, or a deeply rooted fault, or encompasses all faults!
Or it is “ʿaybak,” or the budding of a fault!
Or a fault that gives rise to others!
Or the same as a flaw in one’s actions!

Which is it?

Whatever it may be, “aʿbah” is ugly and must be uprooted!

Any fault that makes a person deserving of resentment, harshness, hatred, rebuke, and reproach,
O God, take such a fault away from me!
Do not leave me to it!
Make it good!

A “trait” can be corrected, but a “fault” must be praised! (An error)

The pangs of conscience: the bitterest reproach 🌀

A person’s conscience lashes them and reproaches them!
The bitterest kind of reproach is the reproach of conscience!

People reproach a person!
The angels reproach them!
The very earth, the very air they draw into their lungs, reproaches them—indeed, curses them!
The stars, the galaxies, and everything in the universe reproach them!
Every part of their body reproaches them!

Divine rebuke and Satanic taunting ⚖️

The highest form of reproach is God’s rebuke!
No one can bear it!

But Satan does not reproach!
Instead of reproaching, he taunts!
With his taunts, he blackens a person, torments them, and makes them wretched and humiliated!

Indeed, a person’s faults multiply!
Take care not to leave the “barren tree” unattended!
Whose fruits… (?)

A plea to nurture virtues and goodness 🌱

O God, do not leave that “akrumah” (nobility), that goodness of the soul, incomplete; bring it to perfection!
O God, nurture that “akrumah” Yourself; be its source of growth!

O God! If there is a seedling of goodness within me, if I possess any noble quality, look upon it!
Cultivate it!
Bring it, by Your grace, to become a “goodly tree”!
Make its fruits sweet!

“Noble qualities” are the highest virtues of character!
They are the seedlings of dignity within us!

Our virtues—
✨ love, worship, goodness, faith, affirmation, contentment, and gratitude—
are all “the noble qualities of our souls”!

So the land of human existence should become a garden of beauty and exalted virtues,
and its cultivator should be Allah, Blessed and Exalted!

Gratitude for God’s concealment of our faults 🕊

In another passage, the adornment of the righteous offers this intimate prayer:
“Lord, all praise is Yours for concealing my faults, even though You know them!”
“And for granting me well-being, though You are fully aware!”

Humanity’s efforts to acquire faults and disgrace 🔄

With all our heart and soul, we strove to acquire disgrace and shame!
We wore ourselves out!
We stained our very being with faults!

But, O God, You did not make us known for our faults!
You did not make us famous or recognizable for our shortcomings!
We attached ourselves to ugliness, yet You did not expose us!
You did not disgrace us!

Human beings clothed themselves in ugliness and filth,
putting on garments of shame!
Yet You, my Lord, did not draw their attention to their ugliness!

O God, You made it so that they remained unaware of the ugly garment they had put on!
They plunged themselves into ugliness, disgrace, and humiliation, but You, the One and only God, kept them unaware of this truth!

Praise to God for concealing our faults and sins 🌿

In another passage, the prayer continues:
“O my God, all praise belongs to You alone!
How many disgraces You have concealed!
You showed me kindness, drew a veil over those faults, and did not expose or disgrace me!
And how many sins You have kept hidden—You showed me kindness, covered my faults and my sins, and did not make me known by those sins!”

Humanity between the “best of all orders” and the “ugliest of faults” ⚖️

Indeed, in the “best of all orders,” the human being is beautiful!
On the one hand, humanity belongs to the best of all orders; on the other, it is disgraced by the ugliest of faults!

Yet this human being of the end times…
will become stained with the strangest and most abhorrent faults!
Turning completely away from their innate nature, they will drown in their own ugliness!

Turning away from our innate nature means falling from the best of all orders 🌌

The farther we move from our innate nature, the farther we move from the best of all orders!
To turn away from the best of all orders is to become stained with the ugliest of faults!

The best of all orders is nothing other than divine unity!
The order of divine unity and innate nature is one indivisible reality!

If a person wishes to attain that exalted order, they must keep their innate nature alive!
They must make divine unity govern their whole being!

Divine unity is like salt: it gives everything its flavor!
Without divine unity, even a beautiful form has no taste, no delight!

If the sun above us were to turn away from divine unity, by God, we would be left with the darkest, most lightless sky!
It is divine unity that shines!
It is the person who affirms God’s oneness who is sweet!

By God, a flower and its beauty owe their beauty to divine unity!
Every beautiful being is beautiful because of its divine unity!

Otherwise, it will be nothing but a mirage of beauty!
It will have no taste!
From afar, they will hurry toward it, but when they draw near, they will find it hollow and worthless, and resolve to flee!

The truth of beauty, and fleeing false beauty 🏃‍♂️

No mirage of beauty has ever left a true taste in the human soul!

A “monotheistic couple” is beyond description!
Let us flee the mirage of beauty, the false beauties!
Let us hasten toward tawhid!

Let us embrace whoever bears the jewel of tawhid in their soul!
And flee from anyone who lacks this jewel!
Just as we flee from wild beasts!

Any deviation from the jewel of tawhid will make a person captive to flaws and failings!
One who strays from their innate nature will become entangled in polytheism and doubt!

This failing is utter darkness!
It will make a person deficient in every respect!

The farther we move from understanding and knowledge, the more we have become estranged from our own system of tawhid!

Estrangement from the system of tawhid: darkness of the soul 🌑

Whoever strays from their own system of tawhid will find their joy, understanding and knowledge darkened!
Let us turn all our attention toward the “upright faith”!

This is the only path to salvation!
This is the only way to be freed from every flaw!

Let us cling to God!
May He keep us steadfast in His own upright faith!
May our Lord not leave us to ourselves!
May He Himself preserve us!
May He never leave us, even for a moment, to anything apart from His tawhid!

Falling into the ravine of flaws and depravity ⚠️

When a person falls from their own most excellent order, they will drown in the ravine of flaws!

“The lowest of the low” means a pit of depravity!
A whirlpool of flaws and deficiencies!

Every deviation from one’s innate nature is a deviation from the Creator!
How can a person flee from their Creator after turning their back on their innate nature?!

To turn away from God and remembrance is to drown in darkness, fall to the depths of one’s flaws, become deficient, and plunge from high to low!

If this person has fallen, they must return!
If they have spent years on the path of polytheism and worn themselves out, they must return!

If they have reached the end of their life and nurtured a sapling of polytheism in their soul, they must return!
If they do not return, they themselves, already in the lowest of the low, will cast others into that same pit!

The most excellent order of the human being—and the fall from it 🔄

The most excellent order of human existence is incompatible with the way we look and the state we are in now!
What has this person done to themselves to be afflicted with such pain?!

What is this state that makes them have to cover themselves?!
They should have been able to present themselves, but now they are forced to hide!

They have made their beautiful limbs ugly!
What shape have they taken on?!
How have their insides come to be in this state?!

The inner light of the human being, and their fall into darkness 🌞

Light should burst forth from the human heart!
The human being should have illuminated the face of the sun!
But now they depend on a sun above their head!

They, who should have adorned God’s Throne,
have now disfigured the face of the earth!
Their flaws have disfigured them!

This human being is chastened and flawed!
They have fallen!

But it must return!
It must migrate towards perfection!

This human being, who was placed in the “most excellent order,”
should have soared from it—but has fallen!

How low has it fallen?!
It has become lower than inanimate matter!
A stone could well take pride over it!

What kind of being is this human?!
With its flaws, it has sunk beneath the beasts!

Humanity, lost in the darkness of its flaws 🌫

Through its flaws, humanity has lost itself!
Humanity is lost!

It has lost its beauty!
It has lost its most excellent order!

Where did it leave it behind and abandon it?!
How far has it fallen?!

It has been afflicted with the worst flaw of all: ignorance!
It has left nothing of itself intact!

Humanity has a history stretching back billions of years, yet it has forgotten the years of its own life!
For its primordial nature has been forgotten and sealed away!

In this age, humanity has neither wings to fly nor a mind to think!
Humanity should have expanded to encompass the whole expanse of existence!

Humanity, blind on the field of sin 👁

This human being should have become the eyes of the cosmos!
It should have been the eye of reason for all existence!

But now it relies on all the heavenly bodies to help it move, even slightly, from blindness towards sight!

Indeed, on the field of sin, humanity has lost its way!
The greater world within the human being has vanished without a trace!

What flaw could be greater than this shortcoming?!

Humanity, beastlike, ensnared by lust and the belly 🍖

Humanity has fallen into a flaw that makes it think like an animal!
All it thinks about is its belly and its desires!

What a terrible predicament!

This human being should have been a blessing for earth and sky!
But now it holds out a beggar’s hand in every direction!

Let us not imagine that blessings are limited to water and bread!
Humanity needs blessings of being, life, knowledge, spirit and servitude to God!
It must attain all these blessings!

The way to be delivered from flaws and shortcomings 🤲

What should we do?

We must turn to God’s grace and forgiveness!
We must recite the supplication of Imam Sajjad (AS)!
We must raise our voices; we must pray in intimate communion!

So that our God may set right our flaws and traits, and make them beautiful!

So that every blessing may spring forth and flourish in our souls!
So that the land of our being may be immersed in the beauty, generosity and grace of the Most Exalted Lord!

But the human being has been blinded and does not know it!
Isn’t this blindness a flaw?!
This is the greatest flaw of all!

The horizon of human vision has fallen low!

Have they not looked at the sky—how We built it, adorned it, and left no rift in it?!

Humanity should have looked!
But its sight has been blinded!

By God, I am blind, and I do not know it!

This obliviousness to one’s blindness is the worst of flaws!
A flaw that has engulfed my soul and my understanding!

A Glimpse of the Unseen: A Glimpse of Gnosis 🌍

Have they not beheld the dominion of the heavens and the earth?!
And all that God created from nothing?!

Humanity, then, has had the capacity to take in the whole universe at once!

This noble verse brings me back to myself!

I must pay attention!
I must behold the dominion of the heavens and the earth!
But I am blind, and unaware of it!
My sight has weakened; it has fallen away, and I do not even know it!

The Way Back to Sight and Knowledge 🔄

What should I do?
How can I regain my sight and knowledge?

Have they not travelled through the land, so that they might have hearts with which to reason?!

This is “عرض القرآن”!
I must journey through time, through the Qur’an!

If I can undertake a journey of spiritual wayfaring through the heart of the Qur’an,
I will find my heart, and reason with it!

The eye that was meant to behold the dominion of the heavens and the earth must be opened again!

O God!
Take my hand, take my heart, take my feet!
Guide me along the path of spiritual wayfaring to You!

The Manifestation of Creation’s Final Form: Preparing for the Imam of Our Time (AJ) 🌱

Yes, creation’s final form is destined to appear in this universe!
The seed of humanity must bring its final form to flower and manifest it!

This seed has split open and blossomed!
It must reach the furthest limit of its growth!

How?

That is why people everywhere await the Master, the Greatest Remnant of God (may my soul be sacrificed for him)!
Are we ready to welcome the Imam of Our Time (AJ)?!
Do we know that to truly apprehend him, we must possess a memory with room for the whole universe?!

For the Imam of Our Time (AJ) is the very “Manifest Imam”!

We must bring ourselves into alignment with that Imam!

Are we ready, or have our eyes still not opened?!

We must reach our destination with the Imam of Our Time (AJ)!

He is “بابُ الله”!
We must pass through this gate!
The mysteries lie behind this gate!