In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the merciful
This is a letter from a sick old father who has brought his life to an end with a handful of words and concepts, wasted his life in his own shell, and is now looking remorsefully at the past to a young man who has time enough to contemplate on relieving his self from attachment to the world which is a trap spread by the evil Iblis.
My son! Attachment to and detachment from with the world and its ups and downs passes by quickly and we all will be crushed under the wheels of time. From observing and studying the condition of different layers I arrived at the conclusion that the powerful and rich people suffer greater inner and mental pains than other layers and the wishes and dreams they have not been able to realize are very painful and heart-rendering. At the time we are living and the world is in the grips of these two powerful poles, the pain and sufferings afflicting the heads of these countries and the unbe`Arable worries of either of these two poles against the other are not comparable to the pains and troubles of middle class and even poor layers. Their competition is not a practical one but a tragic one breaking their back. It is as if there is a marauding wolf with open mouth and sharp fangs in front of each, waiting to hurt. This pain of competition prevails in all layers ranging from the rich and powerful ones to other classes, but the more one goes up the more the pain and suffering of competition. What brings peace and tranquility to the hearts is detachment from the world and its allurements which is achieved by incessant remembrance of God almighty. Those who seek supremacy in any way possible whether in the sciences, even divine ones, or in power, fame and wealth, they struggle to increase their pain. Those detached from material bounds who have been able to free themselves to some extent from traps of Satan, live in bliss and happiness even in this world.
In those days marking the reign of Rida Khan Pahlavi who had exerted the unendurable pressure on the clerics to change their grab and when the clerics and theological schools were anxious- I beg God not to repeat such days for theology seminaries- I saw a relatively righteous Shaykh near a bakery eating a piece of bread, murmuring:" I was told to remove the turban and I took it off and gave it to another to make two shirt for himself. Now, I am eating my bread and am full now; by night God is great."
My son! If I say I barter away such a state with all worldly positions, you should believe. But such states are far from the likes of me who are entangled in traps of Satan and the evil self.
My son! I am far gone." When the son of Adam grows old two traits undergo rejuvenation in him: greed and cherishing wishes." «1» However, you enjoy the gift of youthfulness and power of will. It is hoped that you can transverse the path of pious people. What I said does not mean that you should withdraw yourself from rendering service to society and live in seclusion and be a burden on people, as this practice is the feature of ignorant virtuous people or hypocritical sheikhs. The life-style of grand prophets (peace be upon them all) and Immaculate Imams (`a) who are the quintessence of mystics treasuring immediate communication with the divine and those delivered from any bonds and chains and those affiliated to the divinely presence have been in rising with full force against arrogant governments and the Pharaohs of the time, suffering pains and making endeavors in implementing justice in the world teach us lessons. If we open our esoteric eyes and ears, this intuition will open our way." One who rises in the morning and fails to attend to the needs of Muslims is not a Muslim." «2»
My son! Neither seclusion of Sufis is the cause of joining the Truth, nor entering the society and forming a government causes detachment from the Truth. The main criterion is intention of our deeds. Many a time a pious man is entrapped by Iblis who keeps man away from Truth and entangle man in polytheism by way of self-conceit, selfishness, egotism and self-admiration and contempt of the people of God, hidden polytheism and the like. Many a time a ruler who is inspired by divine intentions will get to the source of proximity to the Truth such as the prophet David and Solomon (peace be upon them) and above all the prophet of Islam (peace be upon him and his progeny) and his rightful successor `Ali ibn Abitalib (peace be upon him) and the Promised Mahdi (May our souls be sacrificed for him) in time of his universal rule. The criterion for mysticism and failure is intention. The more the intention closer to the light of nature and the more they are remote from veils, even the veil of light, the closer to the source of light to the extent that a word about attachment is also disbelief.
My son, Do not shrink from human responsibility, as serving the Truth finds reality in serving the people. Invasion of Satan in this arena is not less than its foray among the officials. Do not grapple to gain position whether spiritual and material under the excuse of approaching divinely knowledge or serving the people. Attention, to position let alone effort to attain it is from Satan. Listen to the sole admonition of God wholeheartedly, accept it with full force and traverse that line:" One who rises in the morning and fails to attend to the needs of Muslims is not a Muslim." «3»
The criterion at the beginning of the journey is rising for Allah both in personal and social activities. Try to be successful in the first step as it is easier and more successful to do in time of youth. Don't wait until you grow old like your father in that case you will mark either time or retreat. This calls for watchfulness and computation. If inspired by divine intention one gains the kingdom of jinn and men one is a mystic and pious man in the world. If however, the intention is satanic and selfish, whatever one attains, even a rosary, one will be detached from God to that proportion.
My son, Study the holy chapter Hashr in the Qur'an as it contains the treasures of knowledge and education, and it is worth for hhuman beings to contemplate them for a lifetime and with divine help prepare his journey provision. Particularly read the last verses where we read:" O ye who believe! Observe your duty to Allah. And let every soul look to that which it sendeth on before for the morrow. And observe your duty to Allah! Lo! Allah is informed of what ye do." «4» In this literally small and virtually great verse, there are constructive and alerting implications some of which will be touched below:
1- It can be addressed to those who command the first stage of faith such as the faith of the public. In this likelihood, command for observing taqwa is to command for the first stage of it that is the public taqwa, which urges people to avoid raising voice against superficial divinely rules and deal with practices performed by man's organs. As such, the sentence" And let every soul look to that which it sendeth on before for the morrow" cautions us outcome of our deeds, bearing witness that what we act appears in suitable form in the other creation. There are many verses and narrations to support the argument. Contemplation on this verse is sufficient for conscious hearts and in fact awakens the talented hearts. It might even open the way for other stages and higher stations. The verse apparently shows that commanding for taqwa in repeated form aim to underscore its purport although there are other possibilities. Where it says" And observe your duty to Allah! Lo! Allah is informed of what ye do." is a fresh caution reminding that your action will not remain hidden in God's presence, as the entire world is the presence of Truth.
2- The verse might be an address to those who have developed the faith in their hearts. Many a time when one apparently professes faith and the beliefs, but one's heart is unaware of it. One might well know and believe in the five pillars, yet this knowledge and faith might have not penetrated one's heart. Excluding the elites among believers, others might be like this. The sins committed by some believers originate from this mentality. If heart is aware of and believes in the Day of Judgment, committing sins and disobeying is highly unlikely. One whose heart believes that there is no god but Allah will not be inclined to other than the Truth and will not praise others, and is not afraid of other than Him.
My son, At times, I see that you are edgy and upset by unfounded accusations and unfair and false rumors. Firstly, I should say as long as one is alive, moves and you are viewed as one to produce some impact, criticism, accusation, and rumor against you are inevitable. Animosity, expectations and jealousy are to be found in abandance. One who is active, even if not totally for God, one will not be immune from the harm brought by ill-wishers. I knew a pious man of letters behind whom all spoke well but as soon, as be became conspicuous, however insignificant, in terms of worldly positions, he was subjected to accusations, harassment, jealousy and rancor which lasted until the end of his lifetime.
Secondly, you should know that faith in unity of God and unity of the Beloved and unity of the Effective has not reached your heart the way it should, strive to bring unity that is the loftiest of terms from intellect to heart. The pleasure of intellect comes from the decisive logical belief and if this result of the reasoning is not carried to heart by strive and inculcation, its use and impact will be insignificant. Many a time some of those versed in intellectual argument and philosophical reasoning are entrapped by Iblis and he evil self. Those disposed to rationalistic argument walk with a wooden foot. This argumentative and rationalistic step transforms to spiritual and devotional step when it reaches the heart from the horizon of intellect and when hearts comes to believe in what the argument has demonstrated logically.
My son, Strive to rely on God and not to consider any other than Him as active. The general practicing Muslims perform prayer several times a day. Prayer is replete with monotheism and divinely knowledge. They repeat the verse" Thy alone we worship and Thy alone we seek help" in several occasions in a day. They consider worship to be exclusive to God in word and seek help only from Him. However, excluding the believers and chosen servants of God, others bow down before any scientist, powerful and rich people. At times, the homage paid to other than the Beloved for the purpose of attaining the satanic goals is greater than what they render to God. They are negligent of the power of God.
According to the likelihood that the addressee might be those receiving faith in their hearts, commanding them to taqwa (piety) far differs from the first likelihood. This piety is not meant to keep away from indecent practices but from heeding others, from seeking and servitude to other than the Truth, from accommodating other than Him the glorified in one's heart and from relying and trusting other than God. What you see we bad people are afflicted by and what causes you and I to fear rumors and lies and fear of death and riding of nature and putting off the garment is of this type, which we should shun. In this case, by" And let every soul look to that which it sendeth on before for the morrow" is meant heart-related actions which have a form in the celestial world and another form beyond that world. God is omniscient to our thoughts and mind.
This does not mean giving up all activities and living and leave a life of indolence, keeping away from everyone and everything in seclusion. This is against divine tradition and life-style of grand prophets and Immaculate Imams. They made all efforts requisite for divine and human purposes, but not like we blind-hearted people who turn to means independently. In fact they considered everything at this station that is their ordinary stations to be from Him the glorified; they saw seeking assistance from everything to be seeking help from the source of creation. There is one difference between them and others. You, I, and the likes of us are neglectful of God because of heeding the people and seeking help from them. However, men of God seek help from Him. In fact, in its form seeking assistance is something to be done through the means, the events come from Him. However, we don't see the events in this light. Such events, however unpleasant in our eye, are pleasant to them.
My son, For us who are lagging behind the pious people, one point is pleasant and that is something that in my opinion interferes in making man who is determined to develop into a real human being. We should note that the source causing us to feel good from praise and feel uneasy from criticism and rumor is the love of the self that is the biggest trap of the cursed Iblis. We like others to praise us even at the expense of presenting our good deeds and illusory good acts hundreds of times as much as they are or doors of criticism, however right, remain closed to us or is turned into panegyrism. We get depressed by criticism, not because it is not unafair, and we are happy with complaints, not because I deserve them, but because they criticize and compliment my" self". It is the self that rules over us here, there and everywhere. If you want to discover the truth of this matter if an act that is done by you is done exactly and more efficiently by others, particularly by your boon companion, and eulogists begin to praise him is unpleasant for you and above all, if his defects are praised in which case know than Satan and the more evil than him is at work.
My son, how good it is to inculcate the idea that praise of the admirer might lead you to destruction and keep you remote from self-purification. The evil impact of praise in our polluted self is the source of adversities and remaining remote from the sacred presence of God the glorified for those who possess weak self. Perhaps faultfinding and rumor mongering would be useful for curing our self's defects, as it is. It is like painful surgery that causes our health to improve. Those who keep us remote from proximity to the Truth are friends who show enmity to us by their friendship. Those who think by finding fault, insult and spread of rumor show enmity to us are enemies who correct us good by their acts if we are competent; they do friendship to us by their enmity.
If we come to believe this fact and satanic and selfish tricks permit us see the reality as it is, you and I will be so inconvenient at the praise and eulogy of the eulogists that we are today edgy about the enemy's faultfinding and rumor mongering of ill-wishers. We would welcome the fault finding in the same way that we do about the praise of the eulogist and idle talk of the panegyrist. If what was pointed out finds a way into the heart, one will not feel uneasy with unpleasant things and lies and heart will find rest. Feelings of discomfit predominantly stem from selfishness. May God save us from it!
3- Another possibility is that it might have been addressed to the people of faith from among special men of knowledge and those enamored by the position of divinity and lovers of the beautiful beauty who see the creatures as manifestation of the Truth through the eye of heart and inner knowledge, observing the light of God in all visible signs. They have perceived the holy verse" God is the light of the sky and the earth" «5» through intuitive observation and heart journey.
By this possibility, commanding taqwa to this group of the lovers and elites is utterly different from that of others. Taqwa might be observed by observation of multiplicity and visible and hidden intuition and taqwa in the sense of attention to other than Him although in the form of attention to Truth through people." I saw nothing unless prior to it, along with it and after it I saw God." «6» This state is the ordinary position of pure saints of God. Here, there is talk of" shaei". Taqwa might be by observation of" God is the light of the sky and the earth", taqwa by observation of" He is with us" «7» and" I turned to the One who has created the sky and the earth". «8» It might be taqwa from manifestation of beauty of the Truth in perfect man and the like that deal with observation of the truth in people. In this manner, we ordered to observe what we offered for tomorrow carries the same states of the observation of Truth in people and unity in multiplicity that finds expression in its suitable form in the other world.
4- It is likely that it is addressed to those from among the pure saints who have gone beyond the observation of Truth in people and beauty of the unity in present multiplicity and there is no dust of people in the mirror of their observation having been rid of the hidden polytheism at this stage, but who have attached their heart to manifestation of the Names of God and are enamored lovers of the Names and heavenly manifestations have annihilated them from other than God and see nothing by manifestations of the Names. In this likelihood, command to taqwa signifies abstaining from heavenly multiplicity, sustaining and compassionate manifestations and other Names of Allah. It appears that He calls out at them from beginning to the end there is not more than one manifestation and that other items undergo changes because of this one only. When this stage is complete, there will be no witness, observation and thing to watch. It is the stage of annihilation in Him absolutely." He is not except Him."
5- The most comprehensive possibilities is that any word such as" amino"," attaqo"," onzoro"," ma qaddamat" and so on and so forth are taken to bear their absolute meaning and all are stages of those verities and words are title of the subject for unlimited and absolute meaning. If there are other possibilities, they are included in this one and are different stages of it. Therefore, any group of and class of the believers are included in the real meaning and are instances of absolute title. This opens the way for understanding of reports collating (comparing) verses with one group of one person. However, we imagine being exclusive. It is not the case but is the remembrance of instance or instances. The way it was pointed out, from the possibilities way for understanding the holy verse" And be not ye as those who forgot Allah, therefore He caused them to forget their souls. Such are the evil doers" «9» that is followed by the holy verse coming before. According to possibilities of the verses coming before are suitable for the possibilities of different stages and unified truth that is not a place to describe. Nevertheless, I content myself with citing a point. The point is that forgetfulness of Truth triggers forgetfulness of the self, whether forgetfulness is in the sense of oblivion or in the sense of Abandonment. In both senses, there is breaking warning. What necessitates forgetfulness of God almighty is that one should forget one's self. One can say God causes one to forget one 's self. This is applicable to all former stages. In the stage of action, one who forgets God and His presence will be afflicted by forgetfulness of one's self. One will forget his servitude to God and led to forgetfulness from the position of servitude. One who does not know what one is, who one is, what duty one has and what one's destiny is Satan will incarnate in him, taking the place of his self. Satan is the factor responsible for rebellion and if it does not come to its sense and fails to return to God and is thus transferred from this world in this state of rebellion, perhaps he will turn into the Satan rejected by God.
In its other sense, which means Abandonment it, is more painful because if Abandonment of obeying God and Abandonment of the Truth causes the Truth to Abandon him and leave him to oneself and withhold His favors, one will undoubtedly led to wretchedness in this world and the hereafter. In the holy supplications handed down by the Immaculate Imams, we see prayer for leaving our work to our self has been stressed, because they knew the offshoot of this disaster and we are negligent of it.
My son, do not neglect sins however small they might seem to you." See whom you have disobeyed." «10» With such perspective, all sins are big and cardinal. Do not be proud of anything and never forget the almighty God who sustains everything. If His merciful favors are withheld from the beings across the universe for a moment, there will remain no trace of the grand prophets and His intimate angels. The entire universe is His manifestation of compassion. His merciful compassion constantly sustains the order of existence though our words are inadequate to describe this." There is no repetition in God's manifestation." Sometimes, this is interpreted as constipation of grace by way of continuous process. Anyhow, do not forget His presence and do not be proud of His mercy, as you should not be despaired. Do not be proud of the intercession of the intercessors (peace be upon them), as this practice is associated with divinely standards and we are unaware of them. Study of the supplications of the Immaculate Imams (peace be upon them)and their plaintive invocations out of fear of the Truth and His punishment should be on top of your thought and behavior. Carnal passions and the Satan of the carnal soul lead us to pride and to destruction thereby.
My son, Never seek the acquisition of the worldly gains, even though the legitimate ones. Love of the world, even legitimate one, is the foremost mistake «11» because it is a great veil and pushes man to the world of forbidden acts. You are young and with the power of youth God has granted, you can cur the first step towards deviation and do not let other steps to be taken. Every step one takes is followed by other steps and any sin, however small, leads one to bigger sins in a way that cardinal sins would seem insignificant to us. In fact, some persons pride each other for committing some cardinal sins. At times, due to intensity of the darkness and worldly veils, what is forbidden seems to be permitted and what is permitted appears to be forbidden.
I implore God Almighty- Glorified be His Name- to open up the eye of your heart to His beautiful beauty and remove the veils from your eyes and save you of the satanic and human bounds so as not to regret your past like your old father, tie your heart to the truth so as not to fear any happening and do not rely on others to be relieved of secret and open polytheism.
The corollary of this verse up to the end Surah very eloquent matters are treated and I have neither the energy nor the opportunity to deal with them.
O, God! Make Ahmad laudable before you, keep Fati remote from fire, change Hasan for the best and bring Yaser to prosperity. Nurture this family who are attributed to the Household of the Immaculate Imam (peace be upon them) in view of Your special favors and protect them from inward and outward devils and bestow the bliss of the two worlds on them. Let me conclude my advice by articulating the need for serving the relatives, particularly your mother to whom we are indebted. Strive to win her gratification. All praise is due to Allah first and last and greetings to the Messenger of Allah and his pure progeny and curse upon their enemies!
Rouhullah al-Mousawi al-Khomeini
Shawwal 17,1404 AH/ Tir 26,1363 AHS