Ethics and Spirituality

God’s gratitude means His grace and beneficence in creation and His care for His servants, expressed through giving, generosity, encouragement, and reward. A servant’s gratitude means acknowledging God’s blessings and using them in a way that pleases the Lord. God’s gratitude is creative and bestowing; the servant’s is expressive.

Any desire that follows the path of attachment to this world and distracts us from the Hereafter is blameworthy. God should be our true aspiration, and we manage our desires by orienting them toward Him. Worldly desires are nothing but mirages, drawing us toward humiliation and Saqar.

The expression “annihilation in God” is polytheistic, since it treats God as a container and the one who is annihilated as something contained within it and made nonexistent. The Divine Essence is exalted above being a container. Created beings pass away by God’s permission, and only the Face of God remains. This is the station of abiding by God’s permission. Abiding itself is a work of the Ever-Abiding, and is too exalted to be described.

Giving is when someone parts with their surplus wealth, while self-sacrifice is when, despite being in need themselves, they put someone else’s need first and give from what they have. This is among the highest forms of goodness. Knowing when to practise it depends on the heart’s desire to seek God’s pleasure.

God’s being grateful means that He values a believer’s intention and effort in fulfilling their duties, even when their presence of heart is imperfect. A believer’s intention is superior to their action, but they must strive to fulfil that intention to the best of their ability—and God values that effort.

A programme for a forty-day spiritual retreat while remaining with one’s family and engaged in society includes a daily review of one’s deeds, reciting prayers for forgiveness, completing the Qur’an and the Ṣaḥīfa Sajjādiyya, reflecting on the Fifteen Whispered Prayers, performing the night prayer, giving charity each day and night, and caring for those in need.

The acceptance of other deeds depends on the acceptance of prayer, but this does not mean that prayer is the sole condition for accepting one’s worship. Prayer is like the main pillar of the edifice of devotion: without it, other deeds collapse. A complete prayer includes asking for guidance to the straight path and helping God’s servants along the way.

Through prayer, the worshipper comes under God’s boundless mercy, and the angels surround them. To maintain presence of heart, prayer should be offered as an earnest expression of one’s inner state—that is, the heart should accord with the words spoken. Prayer is the highest means of drawing near to God and purifying the soul; its fruit is willing submission to the Beloved’s will and judgment.

Spiritual states of constriction and expansion arise from the quality of the soul’s nourishment through the teachings of the Two Weighty Things. The greater a person’s knowledge, the richer the sources of nourishment for the soul. If we seek knowledge with sincerity and put it into practice, our faculties awaken and the soul’s palate comes alive. As for abandoning acts that cause spiritual constriction, we should await a response from the Imam of Our Time (AJ).

The most effective way to erase the pleasure of sin and let the joy of worship prevail is to free oneself from attachment to the world and focus on divine knowledge. Through spiritual discipline, the lower self can be transformed into the soul at peace. Whatever a person gives their attention to, the soul comes to perceive clearly and love. Attuning the heart to the Qur’an and the Prophet’s Household is the way to leave behind base pleasures and attain a taste of the heavenly realm.

A child’s duty when faced with unreasonable demands from parents is not to obey them in disobedience to the Creator. While maintaining courtesy and respect, a child should refrain from joining their parents in sin and should encourage them to do what is right and discourage what is wrong.

Putting educational justice into practice is extremely challenging. When a school pressures teachers to raise pass rates and students and their families are facing difficult circumstances, teachers must weigh all the relevant considerations and act prudently, without wronging anyone.

To reflect on sin and guard against repeating it, we must revive our innate nature by pondering Quranic verses such as verse 179 of Sūrat al-Aʿrāf and praying that faith be made beloved to us and disbelief and wrongdoing loathsome. If sin feels pleasurable, we should fear that the heart may have been turned upside down, and return to God through repentance and turning back to Him.

Praying at the earliest time is essential to attaining the highest spiritual ranks and brings divine pleasure. The superiority of the beginning of the prayer time over its end is like the superiority of the Hereafter over this world, though this does not apply to the sick or the traveler. The joy of praying at the earliest time carries the fragrance of God’s pleasure, and the most beloved deeds to God are those performed promptly.

Income from employers who do not believe in the principles of religion and insult the sacred personages of the Imams (AS) is ill-omened and tainted, even if all the rules of business have been observed. Quranic verses stress the need to migrate in such circumstances.

A lie told for a good reason is permissible only when the person is knowledgeable and skilled in its use, and knows when to resort to it. If a lie is told to prevent a sin and there is no other way to do so, it is unobjectionable. Otherwise, resorting to it is not recommended.

In passage 27 of the Commander of the Faithful’s (AS) prayer for forgiveness, he refers to various kinds of sin: sins of the tongue, such as misplaced praise; sins of the heart, involving what passes within it; sins of thought and feeling; and sins committed through what one has written by hand. The phrase «أتیته بفعالی» refers to sins committed through one’s actions, which are left unnamed because of their shameful nature. It includes conduct carried out through one’s deeds.

Lying to ward off harm is not right unless it amounts to an explicit disavowal of the other person’s act, and it drains one’s spiritual reserves. It is better to refuse the request outright than to lie, so the other person may recognize the wrongness of what they intend to do. If the car is broken, say so plainly, without implying that you would lend it if it were in working order.

Sleep quality can be improved by caring for both body and soul, following a balanced diet, avoiding unnecessary exertion, keeping a suitable bedtime (about three hours after sunset), adopting the right sleeping position (on the right side, facing the qibla), and calming the mind through supplication and repentance before sleep. Well-regulated sleep rejuvenates the brain and brings order to life, while needless sleeplessness ages the brain.

According to a saying of the Commander of the Faithful, taking on many different and scattered pursuits prevents one’s plans and efforts from bearing fruit. The priority should be to focus on a single line of work, while trusting in God and knowing that He is the Provider. Other work may be taken on only if it does not undermine the first undertaking and if one respects the mind’s limited capacity. Otherwise, one’s mental energy is divided, and all one’s efforts come to nothing.