Transformation in the Mirror of Night and Day

🌻🔆 Springtime of the Soul: From Ramadan to the Blossoming of Being 🔆🌻

🔹 Weekly Sessions on the Commentary and Interpretation of al-Ṣaḥīfa al-Sajjādiyya (Supplication Six)
📅 Date: 1404/01/14 – 4 Shawwal 1446
✨ Session: Meshkat-e Noor
🎤 Speaker: Master Ali Saei
📝 Some of the topics discussed in the session:

Let us become springlike and take on the fragrance of the Qur’an 🌸

The month of Ramadan came so that we, too, might become springlike.
Let us become Qur’anic flowers and flower gardens.
May the fragrance of the Qur’an rise from our hearts, perfuming and bringing life to the world.

Spring came so that we might become spring forever.
May we become spring even amid the springtime of nature.

Just as the Imam of the Age, that ربیعُ الأنام, نَضرةُ الأیّام**,
is spring to all beings, to *spring and all springs; he is spring. He is spring to the realm of creation*; he is spring,
and to *the realm of Divine Omnipotence*, he is spring.
**He is the spring of all springs.

As his followers,
we must take that very spring as our model
and become, ourselves, the fragrance of that spring of all springs.

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The springtime of hearts, the springtime of orphans 🌱

The Imam’s being is light for those who seek light, and spring for those who seek spring.
He is the springtime of orphans.
He is spring for all the destitute.

Yet what a tragedy that this human being, **ungrateful for blessings,
drives away and rejects this **spring of orphans.
This spring of widows, this spring of orphans, is not welcomed…

During this blessed month of Ramadan**,
which is also **the month of our Imam of the Age, human beings must become springlike.
They must be a source of nourishment and delight for all believers.

A human being must become a paradise for the poor and the destitute.

The blessed month came so that, with every passing moment, we might become springlike and rose-scented.
May we become gardens of divine bliss.

The Qur’an taught us this great discipline.
It reminded us to keep vigil at night.

One who stays awake in the heart of night, for communion with God**,in *obedience to God
*,

makes **the heart of night springlike.
The springtime of God’s friends is that very heart of night,
which is cleft open by the one who keeps vigil**,

**turning night into spring and paradise, and making it a garden of bliss.

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This human being was meant to arrive…

O Ancient One, the New Year comes from You ✨
O God, who is ever engaged in a new act…

That Ancient God, who is at every moment in a new state…

How beautiful it is to say at every moment:
“O Ancient God, this is Your new year…”

“I belong to this new year, while You remain the same ancient ruler and king…”
I seek from You the goodness of this year…
O God, I ask You for the goodness of this year,

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and I seek from You the good things held within the life of this year.

A supplication for every day of the year 📿
O God, I seek refuge in You from the evil of this year,

and from the evils held within the heart of this year.
And I ask You for sufficiency…
I ask You to be sufficient for me…

to remove my hardships and my troubles, O ذو الجلال و الإکرام…
How beautiful it would be to recite this supplication every day.

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Or to repeat it as many times as there are days in the year.

O Changer of hearts, Sovereign of the transformation of hearts 🔄

How beautiful it is to repeat “يا ذالجلال و الاکرام” again and again…

To recite “يا مقلب القلوب و الابصار، يا مدبّر اللیل…”
as many times as there are days in the year, with all our heart and soul**—
so that *with every passing moment, we may be transformed for the better*;
**with every moment, may we be renewed, brought forth anew.

And let us remember these beautiful words of our master, the Commander of the Faithful (peace be upon him):

“When the sultan, the king, the ruler changes, time itself changes…”

Until the heart is transformed**،
this **order of body and soul will not be transformed…

My heart must change**
so that **the whole realm of my being may be transformed.

It is time for change.
Whatever I have been…

my transformation is not in my own hands,
but in the hands of my Lord.

He is the “مقلب القلوب، طبیب القلوب، نور القلوب”.
He alone—none but Him.

Let us entrust our hearts, and their burdens, to Him**،
so that **He may bring His sanctuary to life, making it a sanctuary of God.

May our being become a temple of God…

for we know:
He is the One who transforms misdeeds.
He is the artist who turns the worst of wrongs into the finest of good deeds.

Let us offer this prayer…

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A New Year’s prayer, a prayer for transformation 💫

O God, transform our wrongs into good deeds…
and raise our good deeds to higher ranks…
and raise our ranks to lofty chambers**،
to that **exalted station…

and raise our chambers to the highest heights.

O God, this new year has come…
Make this year for us a year of worship and sincere devotion to You**،
so that **no evil, no act of disobedience, may come from us.

O God, ordain that we enter this year with true sincerity,
and that we leave it in sincerity as well.

And appoint over us, from Your own presence, a mighty helper,
so that we never stray even an iota from this sincerity.

O God,
every day is a new day…
a new life…
a new geography and history.

O God,
ordain that the history and geography of every moment of our lives
be devoted to worshipping and serving You…
Let us never stray from Your path and worship in any moment, month, or year of Yours.

When we put on a new garment,
let us do so with prayer, with greetings, with blessings…

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a garment that becomes a temple of God 👕✨

Let us dress ourselves with God’s remembrance, with His verses and His surahs.

Let us intend this and ask God:
“Make this garment I wear a garment of obedience to You…”
so that whenever I wear it,
I commit no sin.

When we dress with this intention,
every thread and every fiber of the garment becomes a remembrance of God.

At every point, God’s angels take their place.
That garment becomes a garment of obedience, devotion, and communion with God…
as though it were a temple of God.

Now, what happens if this person’s very being becomes pure and cleansed…?
It becomes a magnificent uproar!

The human being, who is the greater world,
will turn that greater world within into a magnificent outpouring of devotion to God.

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The true feast belongs to the pure of heart 🌙

The feast belongs to the one whose fast God accepts.
And every day a person does not disobey God is a day of celebration.

Humanity entered a new year**;
it passed through a new year of spirituality.

The first year of existence, the blessed month of Ramadan, **crossed the greatest threshold.

Humanity was meant to become a field for nature**
and **to turn nature into its own field.

Humanity must attain this station:
to sow and cultivate this world, this nature, the whole of creation, within its soul,
and itself, too, to be nurtured, planted, and made to blossom and bloom within that soul,
until it reaches the heights of wonder.

Our duty is
to plant all the noble virtues in our hearts, in every particle of our souls.

In our hearts,
we must make our hearing, our sense of smell, our touch—everything—a ground for the noble virtues.
And we, too, must be planted in the soul of these virtues**
so that **نورٌ علی نور may spread throughout existence…

Just as God
causes day to encroach upon night and night upon day,
merging one into the other,
and bringing about such **transformations!

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Saplings from heaven were planted 🌱

Yes, it was time for saplings to be planted…
The blessed month of Ramadan arrived.

What saplings it brought down from heaven**—
**unknown saplings, brought as gifts…

Those accepted in God’s presence received them,
placed them in their souls,
planted them, and brought their fruits to maturity.

Yes,
we must plant the saplings of God’s verses and remembrances within ourselves,
and be planted within them ourselves**
so that **we may bring their fruits to light.

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A new beginning—or the beginning of heedlessness? 🔁

The old cycle came to an end…
We celebrated its passing…

But…
Did we also grasp the beginning of the new cycle?

Was this ending the end of joy, or the beginning of tribulations?

Were we afraid of coming to life, or afraid of dying?

A person entering a new year**
is like someone who **passes away from this world…
into a new world.

Will we enter it as the dead do?
Or will we be alive, and become more alive still?

And this same person,
when their year is renewed**
**finds their life more fully alive…

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Change: the true test of love 💗

Love is renewed in God’s sight…

If we are the same as before, we have lost.
If we have become better, we have won.
If we have become worse, God forbid, we are accursed.

Love of this world must become transcendent love.

God’s verses must become our eyes.
All these illuminating signs are there to give us sight**;
we should have **attained true vision.

We should have experienced a higher light.
Our ardour should have grown, our courage in serving God increased.

We should have read all of God’s signs and interpreted them…
the Quranic signs, those within us, those across the horizons, and those of the Prophet’s family…

We should have memorised them, interpreted them, and drawn out their inner meanings.

We should have recited them to our Imam of the Age,
chanted them, and come to know his supreme reality…

so that from this means of God’s light**
*we might receive the most radiant light*
*unveil the mysteries*
**and dispel the darkness.

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The Eyes of Truth and the Reckonings of the Soul 👁📜

Every one of God’s signs in this world is a بصائر…
an eye through which to see unseen truths.

Have I attained that lofty station?
Have I profited, or have I gone to ruin?

Has my capital, over all these years,
earned abundant returns?
Or has it been consumed?

Page by page, has the book of my life
blossomed into heavenly beauty?
Or withered and waned, reduced to ashes?

Have I multiplied the jewels of my soul?
Or have I destroyed them?

Does the tree of my soul bear fruit?
Or has it—God forbid—become a wicked tree,
fit only to be firewood?

Can I feel in my soul the trace of God’s pen, the Hand of God?

I knew You were the Sower, planting in my soul…
but through heedlessness, forgetfulness, and sin…
I burned and destroyed everything You planted.

I was God’s garden; I turned God’s garden into hell…

How did I come to change like this?

When will I turn my attention to myself?
When will I take account of myself?
When will I call myself to account?

At the time of death, it will hardly be possible to return…

to open my file and take a look…

If I had not fled from God, who knows what God might have done with me…
I became a fugitive from God; I ran from my God.

From the Creator who brought nonbeing into being…
where have I brought myself?

When the Giver of being was leading me beyond being…
If only I had not fled from God…

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In the heart of the mirage, do not forget the sea 🌊

Everything returns to its origin and root.
It comes to know its lineage and ancestry…

Are we leaves on the tree of the blessed lineage of prophethood?

And has the very truth of our being…

been taken captive?
Captive to truth, or captive to illusion?

Once, we were captives of truth**,
but now **we have become captives of illusion.

Amid the mirage, we have drowned ourselves**,
**and polished it…

We are diving in the mirage,
searching for its jewels.

We have abandoned the water of life, the sea of truth,
and amid this mirage and illusion, we seek the water of pleasure, attention, and everlasting life.

We have drowned, we are dead, and we do not know it…

This human being, for whom the sea was too small**,
must **have the sea plunge within him.

Is he not the noblest of creatures?

If we look with open, discerning eyes at the soul of Baqiyyat Allah al-Aʿẓam, the Qaʾim of the House of Muhammad,
we shall see that

seas sink into his soul,
and the springtime of the realms of Malakut, Jabarut, and Lahut flows within him.

He is the springtime of all springtimes, the Light of all lights, the life of all life.

This beloved of God,
God’s true servant, God’s keepsake, what God has left behind, what remains for God.

He kept himself only for the most solitary one in all existence…
the Witr, the source of God’s truth…

He made himself one, unique, alone, for the world’s most solitary one.

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Extra time at the end of time ⏳

Yes, one day the Trumpet will sound, bringing all things to an end…
We are at the final stretch of the race to serve God…

We are in the extra time of these end times.

The end times have already passed.

This exceptional opportunity we have been given
is meant
to give us a chance, perhaps, to make up for what we have lost…

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The final arena: where claims are put to the test 🕳

We are at the final stage of this great race…

A race in which everyone claims to be God;
everyone claims to be a prophet, an imam…

Virtual spaces are full of false claimants to divinity, prophethood, imamate, and all the rest…

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Virtual media: false messengers 📱

The virtual media of our age are false messengers.

False gods… messengers of the Antichrist…

They have taken nearly all people captive, save a precious few**.

They are the very embodiment of “وسواس الخنّاس”.

Yes, our first choice is also our final choice.

In the end, the final choice is the very same choice we make at the beginning of a new year.

Human beings are in danger of being robbed and destroyed.
We must entrust ourselves to our Lord**,
so that **He may save us from all these evils.

The year came to an end and passed… but we never paid its zakat.

Not the zakat of our wealth…

We did not pay the zakat of our standing.
As for the zakat of beauty, we destroyed it…
We burned up the zakat of our youth.

We burned up our youth itself… nothing of it remains, and we never paid its zakat.

We paid neither the zakat of knowledge, nor of health, nor of our well-being, peace, and comfort…

We paid neither the zakat of our faith nor of the Qur’an and our Ahl al-Bayt.

Nor the zakat of the knowledge our Lord bestowed upon us…

Had we known, His blessings would have increased.
But we fell behind and did not pay.

We did not know that

every limb and faculty of ours has its own zakat…

We should have paid the zakat of our eyes by not looking at those forbidden to us,
by reflecting on the world around us, and by gazing upon God’s signs.

The zakat of the ears…
was to keep them away from what is forbidden.

I did not understand that I should open these ears to knowledge and wisdom…
My soul… I did not pay the zakat of my soul…

I stained it with every kind of lie and deceit.

I failed to make my tongue what it ought to have been: a well-wisher to the believers, a voice that awakens the heedless, a source of remembrance…

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Did I pay the zakat of my limbs? 🤲👣

Did I pay the zakat of my hands?
Through generosity and kindness?
By laying a hand of compassion on the heads of orphans?

Did I put my hands to work in obedience to God?

Did I tire my arms in the service of God?

The zakat of my feet…

Did I walk the path of righteousness and the straight path?
The path of a noble dawn?
The path of strengthening the faith?

Did I pay their due?

I did not understand these words of the truthful one from the family of Muhammad…

The alms due on every moment, every particle ⏳🌌

Zakat is due on every part of my being.
It is incumbent upon each and every part of me to pay its zakat.

A debt is owed by me to Allah, Exalted is He…

Every last particle of my being should have paid its zakat.

Even every place where my hair grows**,
both *my hair*,
and **the roots of my hair…

Indeed, zakat is due on every moment of mine…

If anyone knows how much a moment is**, tell me too.
**Every moment is a thousandth of a moment that is not… smaller still.

A moment is the greater world itself, beyond measure…

A moment is the very embodiment of infinity—something I could not comprehend.

That very moment Allah planted in time…
A moment is not time.
A moment lies within time…
It is reflected in time, but is itself not time.

There is zakat due on every moment, and it should have been paid.

Every moment of mine is a zakat due… I should have paid a world’s worth of zakat.

By reflecting God’s love and servitude, I could have paid the zakat due on my moments.

I would entrust myself to the Creator of my moments, so that He Himself might pay my zakat.

As I said,
I cannot perform its prayer… He Himself must come to my aid, in the way He knows best.

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Zakat beyond the grasp of reason, beyond what the heart can bear 💠

Then Imam al-Sadiq, peace be upon him, says:

“These words I have spoken, these instances of zakat I have mentioned, are only as much as minds can understand, hearts can bear, and souls can put into practice…”

But there are things attained only by God’s sincere and near servants…
They are alluded to only in their presence…

They pay zakat of a kind whose depths few hearts can even begin to fathom…

Those things exist**, and their zakat must be paid.

**For the sincere and those brought near have preserved the greater world within their being, and they pay its zakat.

But this human being
has been left facing his lesser world…
imprisoned in the prison of this world…
knows nothing beyond worldly zakat,
and does not pay even that…
and tells lies.

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The prayer of the sincere: God’s good pleasure, and nothing else 🕊

God’s sincere and near servants
know those things…
and pay their zakat.

This is their watchword…

This is their prayer…

“O God, I seek only Your love and good pleasure…”

“O God, grant me success in those things that You Yourself love and are pleased with…”

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The ever-blossoming garden of Sajjad, peace be upon him 🌷

The sixth supplication of al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya…
Al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya is the Imam’s ever-blossoming garden of the body.

Whoever enters this garden
—the garden of Paradise? No, the garden of God’s good pleasure!

becomes intoxicated with joy…
and leaves the springtime longing for it…

This is the supreme spring of the Ṣaḥīfa…
This is the Ṣaḥīfa al-Sajjādiyya: the eternal book, the sanctuary of love, the mosque of love, the uprising of lovers…
This is that very Rawḍat al-Suʿadā.

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**The mysteries, the codes of Imam Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn (peace be upon him) 🔐

What astonishing mysteries Imam Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn has placed here…

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The secret of night and day: wisdom in their distinction 🌗

By His power, He distinguished night from day…

That is, if God had not made a distinction between night and day, **
we would not have perceived the difference between them.

What we understand of night and day
is only darkness and light, **
yet **night and day are not merely that…

They hold immense mysteries…

Night and day are living creations of God.
God made a distinction **
so that I could **tell them apart.

The little understanding He conveyed to me
was a generous gift of insight.
But I made little use of it…

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Night and day intermingling: an ascent of awareness 🌄

For each of them—night and day—He set a defined, bounded span.
He placed them within particular spatial and temporal realms.

He drew boundaries around them: night and day, His two wondrous creations.

He makes each of the two enter into the other, **
**its companion… and its companion into it.

What does “intermingling” mean?
Does it mean simply to enter?

If it meant only entry, another word would have been used…

One who becomes a confidant
reaches a degree of love where they become intertwined… become one…

When God brings this intimacy about among His servants, **
He makes them **confidants of one another.

They become companions, kindred in spirit… one.

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Night, the home of day; day, the home of night 🏠

God makes night enter into day, and day into night, in such a way…
The more I think about it, the more my mind goes blank.

Does God bring part of the night into the day?
Like someone entering a house…

Day enters the house of night…
Night enters the house of day…

They enter into one another so completely,
that they blend together and become one…
They become companions, alike in colour.

And the new night and day that come into being
are no longer the same night and day as before.

If it is a new day, then it is a new creation.
And I, with that new creation,
will come face to face and journey alongside it…

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The intermingling of grace: a divine planting 🌧

The Most High God has made this intermingling a means of His kindness and generosity…
so that through it He may nurture us… bring us to our destination… feed us… sow us like seedlings.

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Night: a loving, peaceful repose 🌌

A night that brings repose…
like a couple who are a source of peace for one another.

What kind of repose is this?
What mystery is this?
What lies hidden in the heart of these verses, in this sign of the night?

It is a sign of the sanctities of joy.
It brings us peace through:

• its comfort
• its sleep
• its pleasures
• its desires

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Day: seeing eyes, not merely light 🌞👁

And He made the day “sight-giving”…

The day gives us sight…

I do not know what it means for the day to give sight… What does it do?

I thought it meant simply the brightness of day…

But that is not so!

Were it not for the day’s power to give sight,
I would never have reached the illuminations I was meant to attain on the path of servitude.

The day gives sight.
It grants me vision.

This gift of sight is something more than brightness…

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God’s gaze: unceasing, never heedless 👁

God is ever watchful.
He sees every one of our nights and days.

He takes account of the times we spend in obedience.
He examines the places where His commands are observed.
He reviews them…

Not for a moment is He unaware of us.

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The cleaving of dawn: the manifestation of daybreak ✨

What would happen if He did not cleave open the dawns**?
What then?

**Every dawn is the cleaving open wrought by the Lord of the dawns.
Through this cleaving, I come to a sensation that I interpret as “morning”…

But not a morning as I understand it…

By God, that morning is not what I think it is…

Just as a blossom bursts forth from the life within a seed
and grows into a mighty tree…

this dawn, once cleft open,
grows into a tree of dawns.
It reaches up to the sky…

This happens every morning.
Daybreak takes place on earth, and its advent resounds through the heavens.

I have understood neither God’s morning**
nor **God’s daybreak…

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The Cleaver of the Dawns: Artist of Creation 🌅

Were He not to cleave open this dawn,
I would not perceive the daylight and its radiance…

He cleaves it open…

This is the artist behind all existence.

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A new day: God’s witness and agent 📜

There are immense wonders in this great supplication of Imam Sajjad, peace be upon him…
In the twelfth passage, he says:

“And this day is a new event, a fresh phenomenon, an unprecedented occurrence…”

And for us,
it stands ready as a witness.
A keen-eyed witness.

It is an agent of God.
This day, new in its unfolding, stands ready as a witness for us…
It will testify.

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The day’s farewell: with a smile or a curse 🌤☁️

If we have done good**,
**it honors us with a gracious word of praise… and bids us farewell.

If we have done wrong**,
**it parts from us with a curse…

Perhaps it curses us, and we do not hear…

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Morning prayer: A good companion, a beautiful farewell 🤝

“O God, make this day a good companion and friend to us…
and keep us from the harm of its companionship…”

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