Written transcript of the lecture
The Meshkat-e Noor teachings series🌼Secrets of Growth in the Sahifa Sajjadiyya🌼
🌼The Hidden Mysteries of Divine Love🌼
🌼Sufficiency and Trust in God🌼
🌼Pride and Divine Majesty🌼
🌸🔆🌿 “The Remarkable Map of Supplication 20 of the Sahifa Sajjadiyya” “The Geography of Noble Virtues”
🔅🌹 An abridged account, with supplementary reflections, from the “Meshkat-e Noor Gathering” “The Remarkable Map of Supplication 20 of the Sahifa Sajjadiyya” “The Geography of Noble Virtues” “ ” 1402.02.14 Ali Saei (Abdullah Meshkat 110.141(903)) 🌹🔅
🌹🔅☘️ بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمنِ الرَّحيمِ ☘️🔅🌹
☘️🔅 In Supplication 20 of the Sahifa Sajjadiyya, Imam Sajjad (peace be upon him) lays bare the vital arteries of noble virtue. He has charted the land of noble virtues with precise and beautiful landmarks, and painted the geography of their world.
☘️🔅 Supplication 20 of the Sahifa Sajjadiyya calls for a diver devoted to the pursuit of noble virtues; without diving in, the jewels of the supplication remain hidden.
☘️🔅 To leave the Sajjadi vessel is to leave the sea of love and beauty.
☘️🔅 The journey and wayfaring toward God are possible only aboard the vessels of the Ahl al-Bayt (peace be upon them).
☘️🔅 Without faith, no virtue has any sweetness; faith is the crown of ethics.
☘️🔅 A person without religion who possesses good character does not exist, for ethics is the soul of religion.
☘️🔅 Nor does a religious person devoid of ethics exist, for religion emptied of ethics is religion emptied of its very essence.
☘️🔅 Religion without ethics is irreligion.
☘️🔅 When the tree of faith grows, every part of it grows too—from conviction and intention to action!
☘️🔅 The soil of the human soul gains its worth from the tree of faith, with its branches, leaves, blossoms, fruit, fragrance and nectar.
☘️🔅 Faith must grow and flourish. As it does, the fragrance of conviction becomes more enchanting, intentions shine with greater purity, and the fruits of action ripen in its shade.
☘️🔅 Seek God’s sufficiency; ask the Creator Himself for answers to life’s questions.
☘️🔅 Worship is a special bond between the servant and the One worshipped.
☘️🔅 The means of worship are distinct from worship itself. Practices such as prayer, fasting, almsgiving, pilgrimage and jihad are means by which one reaches worship.
☘️🔅 The worship of the free is likewise a means to free worship, not worship in its purest form.
☘️🔅 A flower is a letter from God. To stop at the flower’s waystation is a mistake; we must set out and find our destination.
☘️🔅 It is a mistake to stop at pleasures and beauty; we must set out. Even after finding the address, it is wrong to stop there. We must follow the directions and journey toward the One we worship.
☘️🔅 God’s signs are letters from God to His servants.
☘️🔅 If, through a sign, we forget the One who sent it, we lose sight of our purpose.
☘️🔅 Reverence for the sign is obligatory, but reverence for the One who sent it is all the more so.
☘️🔅 Only after attaining the perfections of faith do wealth and abundant provision become means needed on the road of servitude.
☘️🔅 May a person of faith never be in the service of anything other than faith; absent some overriding necessity or wise purpose, that would be sheer injustice.
☘️🔅 A believer should be honored in their time; before a believer, all others are lowly and insignificant.
☘️🔅 Pride at the summit of faith is destructive and most dangerous.
☘️🔅 To vaunt oneself is to turn attention toward oneself, display oneself, and turn away from God.
🌸🔆 The Secret of Rising
☘️🔅 The lower the self descends, the higher a person rises; their power grows, their roots deepen, and their capacity to ascend expands.
☘️🔅 “Right guidance, the path of truth, and the intention to grow” mean the Imam Mahdi, peace be upon him. We must equip ourselves with these in order to taste the sweetness of servitude to God.
☘️🔅 The Imam Mahdi is the embodiment and personification of guidance, the path of truth, and the intention to grow.
☘️🔅 The Imam of our Time, peace be upon him, is the key to divine knowledge and the secret of obedience to God. In truth, he is the very embodiment of worship.
☘️🔅 A human being without knowledge is like an animal, while a scholar who does not act upon his knowledge is lower than an animal.
☘️🔅 Among the dimensions of human responsibility are intellectual, reflective, practical, and propagative duties.
☘️🔅 An ignorant scholar is a scholar without sound reason.
☘️🔅 Ignorance is the killer of the scholar who lacks sound reason.
☘️🔅 A scholar who does not act upon his knowledge is deprived of the sweetness of God’s love and companionship.
☘️🔅 Creation is either without any cause, or it takes place through the Names, the Word, knowledge, light, and causes.
🌸🔆Universal Love
☘️🔅 “I loved” is like “I created”: it means that I brought love into manifestation. Love is universal, extending across the worlds; its manifestation precedes many other aspects. “I taught” means bringing knowledge into manifestation—making knowledge appear. “I brought into being” means bringing existence into manifestation. He Himself is beyond love, knowledge, and existence.
☘️🔅 The place of knowledge at the beginning of creation is a great mystery. In that realm, every creature is immersed in absolute knowing—pure knowledge, perhaps with no need to know. The need for knowledge arose after separation and the creation of veils. The quest to attain perception and experience marks the beginning of creation; it is the striving of every created being.
☘️🔅 The hadith attributed to a sacred hadith, «اَحبَبتُ اَن اُعرَف», will give rise to problems in matters of belief unless it is interpreted and illuminated.
☘️🔅 «كنت كنزاً مخفيّاً أحببت أن اعرف، فخلقت الخلق ليعرفون». وفي رواية: «ليعبدون». وفي اخرى: «كي أعرف».
☘️🔅 كنت كنزا مخفيّا لم أعرف فأحببت أن أعرف.
☘️🔅 God with God, God with Himself, God’s love, God’s love for Himself, God in love with Himself—is He who loves Himself also the beloved? The unity of lover and beloved? How can love’s place in the being of the lover and the beloved be understood?
☘️🔅 For God to fall in love is to bring love into being, since the Divine Essence is self-sufficient, free of every need and change. Love cannot bring about a change in the Essence of God, for change is incompatible with the unity of the Real Essence.
☘️🔅 Love is a covering, a veil; it is a kind of creation. Love is a kind of sign, perhaps something beyond a sign.
☘️🔅 Knowledge of God is a world called gnosis. Gnosis is one of the Names, or perhaps one of the Words—or, better, we might say that gnosis is the attribute of knowing. Gnosis stands alongside name, attribute, likeness, knowledge, and so on.
☘️🔅 Gnosis is a vast and wondrous system, a special apparatus. “May I be known” means creating an apparatus of knowing—in other words, a veil made of gnosis.
🔅🌹 فَالنَّاظِرُ بِالْقَلْبِ الْعَامِلُ بِالْبَصَرِ يَكُونُ مُبْتَدَأُ عَمَلِهِ أَنْ يَعْلَمَ أَ عَمَلُهُ عَلَيْهِ أَمْ لَهُ فَإِنْ كَانَ لَهُ مَضَى فِيهِ وَ إِنْ كَانَ عَلَيْهِ وَقَفَ عَنْهُ فَإِنَّ الْعَامِلَ بِغَيْرِ عِلْمٍ كَالسَّائِرِ عَلَى غَيْرِ طَرِيقٍ فَلَا يَزِيدُهُ بُعْدُهُ عَنِ الطَّرِيقِ الْوَاضِحِ إِلَّا بُعْداً مِنْ حَاجَتِهِ وَ الْعَامِلُ بِالْعِلْمِ كَالسَّائِرِ عَلَى الطَّرِيقِ الْوَاضِحِ فَلْيَنْظُرْ نَاظِرٌ أَ سَائِرٌ هُوَ أَمْ رَاجِعٌ وَ اعْلَمْ أَنَّ لِكُلِ ظَاهِرٍ بَاطِناً عَلَى مِثَالِهِ فَمَا طَابَ ظَاهِرُهُ طَابَ بَاطِنُهُ وَ مَا خَبُثَ ظَاهِرُهُ خَبُثَ بَاطِنُهُ وَ قَدْ قَالَ الرَّسُولُ الصَّادِقُ ص إِنَّ اللَّهَ يُحِبُّ الْعَبْدَ وَ يُبْغِضُ عَمَلَهُ وَ يُحِبُّ الْعَمَلَ وَ يُبْغِضُ بَدَنَهُ وَ اعْلَمْ أَنَّ لِكُلِّ عَمَلٍ نَبَاتاً وَ كُلُّ نَبَاتٍ لَا غِنَى بِهِ عَنِ الْمَاءِ وَ الْمِيَاهُ مُخْتَلِفَةٌ فَمَا طَابَ سَقْيُهُ طَابَ غَرْسُهُ وَ حَلَتْ ثَمَرَتُهُ وَ مَا خَبُثَ سَقْيُهُ خَبُثَ غَرْسُهُ وَ أَمَرَّتْ ثَمَرَتُه[1]
🔅🌹 وَ قَالَ إِنْ كُنْتُمْ تُحِبُّونَ اللَّهَ فَاتَّبِعُونِي يُحْبِبْكُمُ اللَّهُ وَ يَغْفِرْ لَكُمْ ذُنُوبَكُمْ وَ اللَّهُ غَفُورٌ رَحِيمٌ أَتَى رَجُلٌ إِلَى رَسُولِ اللَّهِ ص فَقَالَ يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ إِنِّي أُحِبُّ الصَّوَّامِينَ وَ لَا أَصُومُ وَ أُحِبُّ الْمُصَلِّينَ وَ لَا أُصَلِّي وَ أُحِبُّ الْمُتَصَدِّقِينَ وَ لَا أَتَصَدَّقُ [أَصَّدَّقُ] فَقَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ ص أَنْتَ مَعَ مَنْ أَحْبَبْتَ وَ لَكَ مَا اكْتَسَبْتَ أَ مَا تَرْضَوْنَ أَنْ لَوْ كَانَتْ فَزْعَةٌ مِنَ السَّمَاءِ فَزِعَ كُلُّ قَوْمٍ إِلَى مَأْمَنِهِمْ وَ فَزِعْنَا إِلَى رَسُولِ اللَّهِ ص وَ فَزِعْتُمْ إِلَيْنَا[2]
🌼 Ali Saei (Abdullah Meshkat) 110.141 (903) 🌼
🌸🔆🌿 “Pretending to Disbelieve” “The Mystery of Divine Pride”
🔅🌹 Synopsis with Supplement, “Meshkat-e Noor Gathering” “Pretending to Disbelieve in the End Times” “The Mystery of Misguidance” “The Mystery of Ugliness in Existence” “The Mystery of Divine Pride” 1402.02.21 Ali Saei (Abdullah Meshkat 110.141 (903)) 🌹🔅
🌹🔅☘️ بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمنِ الرَّحيمِ ☘️🔅🌹
(7) اللَّهُمَّ صَلِّ عَلَى مُحَمَّدٍ وَ آلِ مُحَمَّدٍ، وَ أَبْدِلْنِي مِنْ بِغْضَةِ أَهْلِ الشَّنَآنِ الْمَحَبَّةَ، وَ مِنْ حَسَدِ أَهْلِ الْبَغْيِ الْمَوَدَّةَ، وَ مِنْ ظِنَّةِ أَهْلِ الصَّلَاحِ الثِّقَةَ، وَ مِنْ عَدَاوَةِ الْأَدْنَيْنَ الْوَلَايَةَ، وَ مِنْ عُقُوقِ ذَوِي الْأَرْحَامِ الْمَبَرَّةَ، وَ مِنْ خِذْلَانِ الْأَقْرَبِينَ النُّصْرَةَ، وَ مِنْ حُبِّ الْمُدَارِينَ تَصْحِيحَ الْمِقَةِ، وَ مِنْ رَدِّ الْمُلَابِسِينَ كَرَمَ الْعِشْرَةِ، وَ مِنْ مَرَارَةِ خَوْفِ الظَّالِمِينَ حَلَاوَةَ الْأَمَنَةِ.
O God, transform the resentment I bear toward those who are hostile into love. Transform me into love itself.
🌹🔅☘️ The Oppression of the Shi‘a in the End Times
☘️🔅 The present age resembles the period after the Messenger of God, peace and blessings be upon him and his family, passed away!
☘️🔅 Believers conceal their faith,
☘️🔅 Disbelievers are more beloved than believers,
☘️🔅 Believers whose faith is weak pretend to disbelieve so they will not incur people’s wrath!
☘️🔅 Believers face all manner of unfounded accusations!
☘️🔅 Every political, social, and economic calamity is blamed on the believers!
🔅🌹 ثُمَّ لَمْ نَزَلْ أَهْلَ الْبَيْتِ مُنْذُ قُبِضَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ ص نُذَلُّ وَ نُقْصَى وَ نُحْرَمُ [وَ نُقْتَلُ وَ نُطْرَدُ] وَ نَخَافُ عَلَى دِمَائِنَا وَ كُلُّ مَنْ يُحِبُّنَا وَ وَجَدَ الْكَاذِبُونَ لِكَذِبِهِمْ مَوْضِعاً يَتَقَرَّبُونَ بِهِ إِلَى أَوْلِيَائِهِمْ وَ قُضَاتِهِمْ وَ عُمَّالِهِمْ فِي كُلِّ بَلْدَةٍ يُحَدِّثُونَ عَدُوَّنَا عَنْ وُلَاتِهِمُ الْمَاضِينَ بِالْأَحَادِيثِ الْكَاذِبَةِ الْبَاطِلَةِ وَ يَرْوُونَ عَنَّا مَا لَمْ نَقُلْ تَهْجِيناً مِنْهُمْ لَنَا وَ كَذِباً مِنْهُمْ عَلَيْنَا وَ تَقَرُّباً إِلَى وُلَاتِهِمْ وَ قُضَاتِهِمْ بِالزُّورِ وَ الْكَذِبِ
وَ كَانَ عِظَمُ ذَلِكَ وَ كَثْرَتُهُ فِي زَمَنِ مُعَاوِيَةَ بَعْدَ مَوْتِ الْحَسَنِ ع فَقُتِلَتِ الشِّيعَةُ فِي كُلِّ بَلْدَةٍ وَ قُطِعَتْ أَيْدِيهِمْ وَ أَرْجُلُهُمْ وَ صُلِبُوا عَلَى التُّهَمَةِ وَ الظِّنَّةِ مِنْ ذِكْرِ حُبِّنَا وَ الِانْقِطَاعِ إِلَيْنَا ثُمَّ لَمْ يَزَلِ الْبَلَاءُ يَشْتَدُّ وَ يَزْدَادُ إِلَى زَمَانِ ابْنِ زِيَادٍ بَعْدَ قَتْلِ الْحُسَيْنِع ثُمَّ جَاءَ الْحَجَّاجُ فَقَتَلَهُمْ بِكُلِّ قِتْلَةٍ وَ بِكُلِّ ظِنَّةٍ وَ بِكُلِّ تُهَمَةٍ حَتَّى إِنَّ الرَّجُلَ لَيُقَالُ لَهُ زِنْدِيقٌ أَوْ مَجُوسِيٌّ كَانَ ذَلِكَ أَحَبَّ إِلَيْهِ مِنْ أَنْ يُشَارَ إِلَيْهِ أَنَّهُ مِنْ شِيعَةِ الْحُسَيْنِ صَلَوَاتُ اللَّهِ عَلَيْهِ[3]
🔅🌹 We, the People of the House, have continued to be humiliated, exiled, and deprived ever since the Prophet, may God bless him and his family, passed away. We are killed and cast out, and we fear for our own blood and for the lives of all who love us.
In contrast, the liars have found a ground for their lies by which they seek closeness to the rulers, judges and officials in every city. Against our enemies, they relate false and invalid hadiths about our past guardians. And they narrate words we never said, so as to make us look bad and fabricate lies against us, and by means of false and lying words they seek closeness to their leaders and judges.
The peak of this matter and its abundance was in the time of Mu’awiya after the death of Imam Hasan (peace be upon him), when the Shi’a were killed in every city and their hands and feet were cut off, and they were seized upon with every accusation and suspicion regarding love of us and attachment to us.
This affliction continued to intensify and increase until the time of Ibn Ziyad after the martyrdom of Imam Husayn (peace be upon him).
Then came Hajjaj, and he put the Shi’a to death by every kind of killing and on every suspicion and accusation, to the point that if someone were called “unbeliever” or “fire-worshipper,” it was dearer to him than to be called “a Shi’a of Husayn, may God’s blessings be upon him.”
🌹🌱🔅 Is the criterion of faith morality, or is morality the criterion of faith?
☘️🔅 Faith is the sovereign of morality; where there is no faith, there will be no morality either. Faith is the teacher and trainer of all the noble and lofty traits of character! Good character is a part of the world of noble traits, not the whole of it!
☘️🔅 No ill-tempered person is a true believer; the true believer is the best-tempered of people.
☘️🔅 So whoever has faith is certainly of good character, for faith stands at the head of the noble traits of character.
☘️🔅 One who is of good character but has no faith is in reality a non-believer in whom there are signs of faith; he is on a smooth path toward true faith!
☘️🔅 Let us not take the signs of faith to be the same as faith itself; the road and the destination are not one, even though the destination cannot be reached except by the road.
☘️🔅 Good character has various instances and degrees: personal, social and familial morality, good character toward superiors, subordinates, and so on.
🌹🌱🔅 Divine sufficiency and the meaning of tawakkul?
☘️🔅 From intention to action, man needs God one hundred percent. Man’s limited knowledge and power must be multiplied by divine sufficiency so that he may attain his lofty aim. This is, in truth, a simple definition of trust in God: performing one’s personal duties to the extent of one’s capacity and ability, and joining that to the everlasting power of God—though even in performing his own limited duties, man is in need of the Exalted Lord.
🌹🌱🔅 The secret of immediacy and the meaning of God’s being the taker of souls.
☘️🔅 The taker of the sacred soul of His Holiness the Master of Martyrs (peace be upon him) and the martyrs of Karbala is God!
☘️🔅 Although in the mediation of the angels in taking the soul, the Creator is near and stands between the angels who take and the one from whom it is taken—that is, the cause, in order to make causes, needs the permission of the Maker of causes, and the Maker of causes always stands between the cause and the caused.
☘️🔅 Now the soul’s state in immediate taking is the experience of pure divine will; the station of experiencing immediacy is a passage beyond knowledge and light and pleasure and beauty.
☘️🔅 The things seen are but the display of light, but the Creator is beyond light, beyond knowledge, beyond every conception; to grasp immediacy we have no grasp at all! For its station is beyond grasp!
☘️🔅 He is the One who makes the sense sensitive and the sensed object sensed! And He is beyond sense; the relation with the Creator is a relation beyond sense!
☘️🔅 The relation of the first veil and the first creation with God is a relation above relations and beyond relation, for it is always from one side, and that too from His side!
☘️🔅 The individuation of pure beauty and pure pleasure goes back to the greatest veil, to the greatest names, and the pure relation of pleasure and pure beauty with the Creator is a relation beyond beauty and pleasure, for the Creator is beyond beauty and pleasure.
🌹🌱🔅 If we consider the divine attributes to be identical with the divine essence!
☘️🔅 If we consider the divine attributes to be identical with the essence, then attributing any divine attributes to other than God—even to the prophets and the friends of God—is pure unbelief, for attributing the attributes of the essence would be identical with attributing the essence of the Truth to a created being, and would amount to identifying the essence of the creature with the essence of the Truth—we seek refuge in God the Exalted.
🌹🌱🔅 The attribute of the All-Proud: how can we understand divine majesty if attributes are denied of the Divine Essence?
☘️🔅 Pride acquires meaning through comparison. Yet no created being can be compared with the incomparable Divine Essence. In terms of existence, all beings have no scope before the Divine Essence but that of zero! Thus, the attribute of divine majesty serves as a reminder to creatures never to compare or measure any created being against God.
☘️🔅 In one respect, we can regard divine majesty as a negative, transcendent attribute, since every flaw, smallness, lowliness, and incapacity is denied of the Divine Essence.
☘️🔅 A human being can ascribe greatness to himself in only one way: by bearing in mind that «الله» is his Lord. No «pride or greatness» can be compared with what this entails. This attribute and its ascription apply to every created being, for «الله واحد کبیر متعال» has unity and oneness, sovereignty and dominion, and all-encompassing power! Among God’s creatures, whoever can manifest this self-evident truth within himself truly becomes «عبد المتکبر».
☘️🔅 If the object and direction of pride are not made clear, it becomes a source of trouble.
☘️🔅 Since we have «الله» as our God, surely no greater majesty, splendor, or grandeur can be found!
☘️🔅 So with God we are proud; with Him we are great, beautiful, majestic—and with Him …
☘️🔅 إِلَهِی کَفَی بِی عِزّاً أَنْ أَکُونَ لَکَ عَبْداً وَ کَفَی بِی فَخْراً أَنْ تَکُونَ لِی رَبّاً إِلَهِی أَنْتَ لِی کَمَا أُحِبُّ فَوَفِّقْنِی لِمَا تُحِبُّ
🌹🌱🔅 A servant’s playful boast to God!
🔅🌹For example:
☘️🔅 O God, in my little hut I possess something that You do not have even in Your Throne: I have One like You, while You have no one like Yourself.
☘️🔅 O God, in this poor little house of mine I possess something that You do not have in Your heavenly Throne: I have a God like You, but You have no God like Yourself.
☘️🔅 O God, in my beggar’s hut I possess something that You do not have in Your majestic Throne: I have One like You, while You have no one like Yourself.
☘️🔅 O You who have no equal, God: You have a servant like us, and that servant has a God like You!
🔅🌹A subtle point: Possession and having are no distinction for God! God with God, God with Himself; the strangeness of God turning to Himself, God’s desire, what does it mean for God to desire? Surely, God’s desire is not a turning back to Himself. In thought, «concepts, reason, and imagining» collapse when we try to conceive of God.
🌹🌱🔅The mystery of leading astray
☘️🔅 A servant of God can be a misleader only if he knows how to mislead and someone has taught him! Had Satan not been taught how to lead people astray, he could not have done so! No one would be led astray unless permission to mislead had been granted; and permission to mislead would not be granted to anyone who had not fallen into wickedness.
🌹🌱🔅The mystery of ugliness in existence
☘️🔅 Any work of art in which ugliness is depicted to perfection is pure beauty. The world of existence is the Creator’s masterpiece: the ugliness of the servants’ deeds is depicted alongside their beautiful deeds.
☘️🔅 Seen from above, everything is beautiful, even when ugliness is on display.
🌼 Ali Sa‘i (Abdullah Mishkat) 110.141(903) 🌼
[1] Nahj al-Balagha (ed. al-Subhi al-Salih), p. 216, vol. 1, Hijrat—Qom, first edition, 1414 AH.
[2] Tafsir Furat al-Kufi, p. 430 Institute of Printing and Publishing, Ministry of Islamic Guidance—Tehran, first edition, 1410 AH.
[3] The Book of Sulaym ibn Qays al-Hilali, vol. 2, p. 632
