The Greatest Jihad:Combat with the Self
Divine Blessings (2)
Now, while you cannot bear to keep a hot stone in your hand for a minute, keep the ire of hell away! Keep these ires from the seminaries and from the clerical community. Keep disputes and strife far from your hearts. Behave well with people, and in company, and be compassionate and kind. Of course, you are not to be nice to sinners with regard to their sins and rebelliousness. Tell him to his face of his ugly deeds and wrongdoing, and prohibit him from it, and keep yourselves from promoting anarchy and from rebellion. Behave well with the servants of God and the righteous. Show respect to the learned with regard to their knowledge, to those on the path of guidance with regard to their virtue, and to the ignorant and unlearned, for they are also the servants of God. Have good behavior; be kind, honest and brotherly. Refine yourselves. You want to refine and guide the community, but how can one who is not able to reform and manage himself guide and manage others? Now there are only a few days let in the month of Sha'ban, so try in these few days to repent and reform yourselves, and enter the blessed month of Ramadan with a healthy soul.
Points regarding the Intimate Devotions [Munajdt] of the Month of Sha'ban Have you said the Munajdt of Sha'ban for God, the Blessed and Supreme, during this month of Sha'ban in which it has been advised to recite this devotion from the irst until the last month? Have you benefited from its loty meanings which teach increased faith and knowledge [ma'rfat] with regard to the station of the Lord? It is reported with regard to this supplication that it is the munajdt of Imam 'AH, peace be with him and his descendants, and that all of the immaculate Imams, peace be with them, called upon Allah by this devotion. Very few supplications and devotions [du 'a wa munajdt] may be found which were recited by all of the Imams ('a) for God. This devotion is truly an introduction to admonish and prepare man to accept the responsibilities of the blessed month of Ramadan, and it is possible that it is also to remind the aware person of the motive for fasting and its valuable fruits.
The immaculate Imams, peace be with them, have explained many things by the tongue of supplication. The tongue of supplication is very different from the other tongues by which those greats explained precepts. They have explained most spiritual, metaphysical, and precisely divine matters, and that which is related to knowledge of Allah by the tongue of supplication. But we recite supplications to the end and unfortunately pay no attention to their meanings, and we fail to understand what they really want to say.
In this munajdt we read: "O my God! Grant that I may be perfectly cut off from all else but You, and enlighten the vision of our hearts by the radiance of vision toward You, until the visions of the heart tear through the curtains of light and attach to the Source of Greatness and our souls come to belong to Your Exalted Sanctity.
Source:” The Greatest Jihad” by imam khomeini
