In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
O Lord! You are the Pure and I praise Thee. O He Whose ultimate peak of Oneness cannot be reached by the wishes of the `arifin[ gnostics ], and the seekers' thoughts fall short of attaining His Sacred Greatness! Your splendor is too exalted to be penetrated and Your Names too pure to be captured in the imagination by the ever-thinking.
Yours is the Essential Oneness in the status of Collective and Invisible Presence and Yours is the individual unity in the nominal and archetypal manifestations. «1»
You are the Worshipped One while You `worship', and You are the Praised One while You praise. O God! We praise Thee, in your intrinsic languages, in collectivity as well as existence, «2» for Your favors which are reflected in the mirrors of the visible and invisible (worlds). O He Who is manifest while hidden and veiled when visible!
Help us and give us refuge from the evil of the Satan's's temptations- that bandit along the path of humanity and guide of his friends down to the abysses of the somber nature. O God! Guide us to the right path which is the ultimate spirituality and the status where all the Beautiful Names [Asma' al-Husna] assemble. «3»
O God! Extend Your infinite salutations to the beginning and the end of the Light (which is the Prima Materia), and the manifestation, appearance and substance of the Essence of Light; the one which is also the ultimate spirituality as he approached (drew nigh), then gave up all determinations (came down) and moved in grace (it was of the length of two bows), then came close to be an entire curve with two arches of eternal Beingness and the invisible sublime (or even nearer) or even closer than that which is the position of `ama', «4» or rather there is no position there- according to the most authorized views;" The phoenix is not a bird to trap; Lo! Gather up your snare!" «5»
O God! Extend salutations to his progeny who are the doorways of divine manifestation and the revealers of the Divine Light; nay they are themselves" lights upon lights" and he is the root and the branch of the Sacred Olive Tree and the Tree of the Outer Boundary, and He Himself is the substance and the ultimate end of the Comprehensive Existence and the Ultimate Truth. «6»
Special salutations to the one who has taken the Muhammadan guardianship [wilayat al-muhammadiyyah] to its end, accepted (taken possession of) the Ahmadan blessings, will appear with the Divine Portrayal of the Lord just as his forefathers appeared with the servitude to Him since servitude is a truth whose essence is Lordship. He who represents God in the heavens and earth, and leads the apostles of the heaven's entourage, encompasses the uniqueness of God's Names and symbolizes the primordial and eternal manifestations, the long-awaited manifestation of the occulted Hujjah (the 12 th Imam), the essence of his predecessors and ancestors- may our souls be sacrificed for him and may God include us among his companions. O Lord! Curse his enemies who are the bandits along the path of guidance and the misleaders of the nations to damnation and perdition.
Furthermore, man has been distinguished from the other creatures by an ethereal divine essence and a God-given nature [f itrah];" the nature (framed) of Allah, in which He hath created man". «7» And this primordial nature- from one perspective- is the same trust, which is referred to in the venerated book of God:" Lo! We offered the trust unto the heavens and the earth and the hills, but they shrank from bearing it and were afraid of it. And man assumed it." «8» It is the God-given nature which can perceive the Unity of God [tawhid] in the three statuses (in His Essence, Attributes and Acts), or rather, the God-given nature that longs for giving up all determinations and referring all things to Him and doing away with anything excess even in His Names, annihilating everything in Him; whosoever does not attain this position, has abandoned the God-given nature and broken the trust, is ignorant of his human status, and has been cruel to his self and God, Exalted.
And it is obvious to the people of the heart [ahl-e del] among the virtuous sabiqoun [pioneers in faith] that it is impossible to attain such a lofty status unless you undergo spiritual and mental asceticism, and through sincere, noble reflection of the heart, after cleansing your soul of the filth of the natural world- for it is the status" which none toucheth save the purified." «9» And this goal will not be realized unless one sets his will in acquiring divine knowledge and restricts his vision to the Heavenly signs and Names, then he becomes a person of the religious law [insan-e shar`] after being a person of human temper [insan-e bashar ]; nay of nature [insan-e tabi`i].
So, O ye desire-bounded self who have your perpetual abode on earth! Leave the dark bewildering house of" matter" and migrate toward Allah who is the point of collectivity[maqam-e jam`] and toward His messenger who is the symbol of the collective Oneness [mazhar-e ahadiyyat-e jam`] , «10» so that your death will meet you through God Almighty's confirmation and your reward will be taken up by Him. Lo! This is the great salvation and the Paradise of Essential Union [behesht-e liqa'-e dhati] , which is not observed by the eyes and not heard by the ears and not perceived by any human heart.
O self! Be aware that you have emerged from the station of the collectivity of names [maqam-e jami`iyyat-e asma'] and the ultimate spirituality. You are a stranger here, who has no other way but to return home. So endear your home, for this devotion is the sign of faith as the Master of the Jinn and Men [sayyid al-ins wa'l-jinn] (Imam `Ali) has been quoted as saying.
Beware- may God, the Exalted, help you in both worlds- not to spend your efforts in gaining bestial desires as it concerns the beasts of burden, nor to involve in a competition in order to surpass your relatives and fellow beings- even though it is excellence in knowledge and insight- as it behooves the predators, nor to spend your energy on the superficial worldly posts and expend thought and prudence on them as it is the station of Satan. Moreover, do not even give much value to the external form of worships, to the moderate or high character, to vague philosophy or ambiguous concepts, to the rhetoric of the superficial Sufis and mystics and their rhymes, or to the rumbling thunder of `the people of rough cloak' [ahl-e khirqah] and their lightning (which claims to herald showers of wisdom). Take none of them as your guiding star, for these are all double-fold darkening veils, one over the other. Exerting your efforts in them will be death and damnation; following these paths is outright loss, eternal privation and endless darkness.
But your endeavor should be toward God, the Exalted, and His kingdom of heaven with your movements and pauses, thought and mind because you are a traveler toward God and it is not possible to proceed on the feet of the `self'. So, the only way is to travel on God's and the Messenger's feet. Migrating from the home of the self is not possible on its own feet. As long as you fare the way on the feet of your self, you have not left the land of the self and have not started on your journey while you know that you are a stranger on your journey far from home.
This is a recommendation to my own coarse, dark, idle self and an advice to my successful friend, a man of wisdom, with a brilliant insight on the extrinsic and intrinsic branches of learning and a precise insight on the divine knowledge, the wise and scrupulous scholar Aqa Mirza Jawad Hamedani"- may God fulfill his wishes.
I swear I am not a man of knowledge and its seeker, yet I would like to share to him whatever I possessed of the principles of the divine exalted philosophy, and a part of what I had learned from the great scholars- may God make their presence endure- and from the books of the knowledgeable and spiritual scholars- may God be pleased with them. He (thanks to God Almighty) attained the ranks of knowledge and mysticism and practiced the doctrines of the intellect and faith. He (may God keep him safe) is gifted with a fine inner being, a pure heart, a sound nature and fair thought, who has worn the garment of knowledge and truthfulness, and we all trust in God in both worlds.
I strictly counsel him, as we have been counseled by the great scholars of wisdom and knowledge, to be sparing in exposing the secrets of these insights to the incompetent- the deniers and the unworthy and those gone astray from the path of truth and justice- for those short-sighted people have a dull taste and an obscure mind, to whom knowledge and wisdom do not offer anything but ignorance and misguidance, and the true gnostic knowledge does not add save perplexity and loss, as God, the Exalted, has said:" And We reveal of the Qur'an that which is healing and a mercy for the believers though it increases the evil-doers in naught save ruin." «11»
Beware and keep away- O brother in spirit and friend in mind- from these phantoms who put on the pretension of civilization and modernism; they are a herd of stampeding cattle, a pack of fierce wolves and man-like demons who are more misled than beasts and more detestable than the Satan. I swear by the Truth that they are so far from the civilization that if they go to the orient, the civilization will flee to the occident; just as you would run away from a lion, for their harm to humanity is more than cannibals.
And I repeat my request from him as to make mention of me agreeably in the presence of his venerated Lord:" O Lord! Give unto us in the world that which is good and in the hereafter that which is good and guard us from the doom of Fire," «12» and keep us away from the company of the wicked mean people. Accept the intercession of Muhammad and his pure progeny (may God's peace be upon them).
This letter of advice was written by the sinner slave of God, Sayyid Rouhullah, son of Sayyid Mustafa Khomeini (may God bless them both and reward them and the faithful brothers with benevolence) on Saturday morning 3 days before the end of Rabi` al-Mawloud 1354 AH.