Esra NEWS Agency: On the anniversary of Imam Khomeini's departure, we are reread the words of Grand Ayatollah Javadi Amoli at the conference of "Ethical and Mystical Thoughts of Imam Khomeini (PBUH)"; In that conference, His Eminence gave a speech as the opening speaker and gave extensive details about the mysticism of Imam Khomeini. the summary of which is as follows:

"Imam had talents that find in other mystics less. Of course, other mystics also had characteristics that Imam had not get the chance to show them. Each of the mystics is a manifestation of a name from the names of Allah. What others have done is that they have written extensive books on this subject, the Imam did not have the opportunity to do this, but he embraced the writings of others and brought the knowledge to eye and ear and life. This is the ultimate effort of others.

The difference between morality and mysticism

"Ethics" means that a person should try to become a good person, to become an ascetic, to become worthy of paradise, to become just, to become pious, and through understanding all the moral virtues that are mentioned in the books of ethics and practicing them, he will finally become a pious person in every sense. But in "Irfan", a man (who passed all these moral standard), such a person is just on the first step. He doesn't want to become a good person. he has become a good person. He wants to see heaven. It is like the heaven and the earth! That is one thing and this is another. If someone collects all the virtues and reaches the highest levels of piety and justice and excels in all virtues, he is a student in mysticism. Irfan does not mean that one should work hard to become a good person, Irfan has to do with "intuition".

In mysticism, there is no fear of hell or longing for heaven and longing to meet Allah; These are discussed in ethics. Arif wants to say: Yes, I also have many reasons to see hell. I want to see heaven; I want to understand Allah's meeting. The great one who said: "it is the real genius to see the fire itself/ not to say the smoke is the sign of fire"

It means someone who works in moral virtues, chats, talks; Because he argues that according to the reason of wisdom, according to the reason of justice, according to certain proofs, according to the appearance of hadiths, according to this intellectual proof, according to this narrative proof, there is hell, and there is also heaven. It chats; Because he says: You can tell from this smoke that there is fire: Smoke is the sign of fire. The real talent is to see the fire.

It is like this about the origin. it is like this about resurrection, it is like this about revelation and prophethood. All the words that are in the moral books are at the level of reasoning and concepts and arguments; either intellectual, or narrative, and the like. "ethics" is part of partial sciences and is a subset of philosophy. Morality is about refining the soul. The principle that the soul exists, or the soul is non-material, etc. is explained by philosophy, then it is given to ethics to discuss the complications and conditions of reason and soul.

The one who writes about the ethics takes the subject and many of its principles from philosophy. Because this science is partial and not general. It is a subcategory of philosophy. It is under it and is indebted to philosophy in studying the subject and many basic principles. After it has been proved in philosophy that the soul exists and is single and has scientific and practical purposes, then it is discussed in the science of ethics what is the "virtue of the soul" and what is the way to study it? And what is its vice, what is the way to cure it? Therefore, ethics is a subset of philosophy, and philosophy is a subset of mysticism. Its subject is a divided identity. the subject of this is an existence with conditioned to "be Not" from natural, mathematical, logical, and moral, which casts a shadow on philosophy.

Just as mysticism is divided into two parts: "theoretical mysticism" and "practical mysticism", ethics is also divided into two parts: theoretical ethics, which are theoretical works in the field of ethics; Like Ghazali's "Ahya al-Uloom" and Faiz Kashani's "Mohjah al-Bayza" and Akhlaq-e Seiru Sulook By Akhlaqi.

Therefore, ethics is a subset of philosophy; But mysticism is above philosophy, and in the course of moral behavior and mysticism, one tries to become a good person, to be worthy for heaven, one tries not to go to hell, and one tries to see hell from here. Those who, according to the "Cermony of the pious" of Hazrat Amir (pbuh): «هُم و الجنّه کمن قد رءآها»(it is like they are already seeing the heaven) when they obtain the condition of piety, they will only reach the position of " کانَ",(like they are)  not the position of "ان",(truly seeing)  but the position of "کان" is the position of "Ehsan". The position of "Ehsan" is: «عبدالله کانک تراه فان لم تکن تراه فانه یراک». (The servent of Allah be like you are seeing Allah, because if you do not see him he sees you) This is the position of "کان"; It is as if a person sees the fire of hell, it is as if he sees heaven, and it is as if he is blessed to meet God; But the position of Mystic is the position of "It is"; Just as Hazrat Amir said: «ما کنتُ اعبدُ ربّاً لم ارَه»"I donot worship a Lord, that I cannot see" and that is why he is the goal of the mystics, which requires complete witness. Therefore, the border of ethics is completely low, and philosophy is in the middle, and the border of mysticism is at the top. There is theoretical Ethics, above that is theoretical philosophy, and on top of that, theoretical mysticism. Theoretical mysticism is low and practical mysticism is above all.

The way to reach the mysticism

The second point is that the main way for a person to be able to reach the position of mysticism and see, is to overcome these characteristics; It means to go beyond physical characteristics. We each have a true dream, or have heard from others. In a true dream, a person does not hear or see anything with this physical eye or physical ear. He puts these aside and travels with other eyes and ears. Arif(mystic) willingly puts them aside and has the ability to create a dream-like state for himself. The "sleep-like" state is that a person is awake, but even though he is awake, he sees things that others do not see, and if he closes his eyes, he still sees them.

Sayyidna al-Ustad, the late Allameh Tabataba'i, used to say: These situations that happened to the blessed existence of Sayyed al-Shohad (a.s.) were often the state of dream-like, not in a sleep. Not that the blessed existence of Seyyed al-Shohad slept and dreamed that this caravan was going and death followed them, then he said the "Istirja"! This is not the case, but it was the same state of dream like that Ali ibn al-Hussein (a.s.) said later: "Why do you recited "Istirja". Aren't we following the truth?" it was also like that in the evening of Tasua, or it was like that in the morning of Ashura; For example, he saw that the blessed existance of the Prophet (PBUH) said: You will be with us tomorrow night. Most of these were dream-like states, not that he was asleep and had a dream.

A mystic is someone who can dominate the body with voluntary death. When this happens, it has experienced a natural death. When a natural death was experienced for him, then that long speech of the late Bu Ali in the 9^th chapter of the book "Al-Isharat" is well clarified: "Arif is "Hash" and "bash" and brave, how he cannot be without fear of death?" Our teacher, the late Mr. Shaarani, used to say: "The words of the late Ibn Sina, are similar to Hadithes, they are narrations; Especially the 9^th and 10^th chapter of "Isharat". Later, it turned out that this is the words of the late Khawaja Nasir in the first part of "Manteqyat of Asharat". He said: "Ibn Sina has expressions, he has jewels, he has idioms, and his texts are like gems, like gems that are similar to hadiths." This is the words of Khwaja Nasir in describing the expressions of the late Bu Ali. He says in "Maqamat al-Arifin" references about Arif and said, «هشٌ بشٌ بسّام و هو شجاع و کیف لا؟ و هو بمعزل عن تقیه الموت.»Arif has no fear of death.

Voluntary death experience

One of the significant characteristics of Imam (PBUH) was that he was not afraid of death; Because he had experienced voluntary death. When he has experienced voluntary death, when there is no fear of death, a person does not lack anything and the rest of the issues are solved for him. Therefore, they said about their exile after the 15^th of Khordad incident, "They (the agent of Intelligent) service were afraid, I wasn't afraid." Also, in the event of the 25^th of Shawwal, when the agents of the Pahlavi regime injured some students and martyred some, and many were afraid and said: "It is time for taqiyyah" and became silent, the Imam's announcement on the day after that in which he addressed the regime, he said: "You have done worst that the Mongols!" when somone does not afraid of death has such effects. the one who is not afraid of natural death if he has experienced something higher than that which is voluntary death. When a person kills his lusts, he is not moved by the desires, he is not moved by lust, he is not moved by needs, he is moved by a "Wilayah". he is not afraid of death. When he was not afraid of death, he would act like Imam. In doing the duty, what stopped and would stop others, is the fear of death.

In the midst of Imam uprising, I went to one of the Maraji who was also one of my professors. I saw that they have opened "Bihar" by the late Allameh Majlesi and are studying the discussion of taqiyyah. Although he might have talked about jihad, struggle and sacrifice, he spoke of jihad and had the thought of "Taqiyyah" in his mind. But the Imam talked about Jihad, thought about Jihad, and his heart was beating for Jihad. He had this character. This is the real art. Seeing the fire is an allegory that "Mowlana" said. It is not a determination; "The genius artist sees the visible death", "it is the real genius to see the fire itself/ not to say the smoke is the sign of fire"

In a part of Islamic teachings, the Imam was not a part of the believers of the unseen, he was a part of the "believers of the martyrs". We are usually among the believers of the occult; That is, we believe in hell, we believe in heaven, and we believe in the divine coming of all of us; But all this is faith in the unseen for us. Since we have not seen hell, they told us: "There is a hell", we said: Amenna and Salamanna; "There is a paradise", we said: we believe it and we believe it. Our faith is faith in the unseen and this is the weakest stage of faith, God forbid, if a person falls from this stage, he is no longer a believer.

The true example of believing in what he sees

That the Qur'an said: «یؤمنون بالغیب» " they believe in the unseen", this is the minimum level of Faith, not the standard for perfection; this means don't exceed this minimum. Otherwise, the one who said: «لو کشف الغطاء ما ازددت یقینا» he believes in what he sees; his faith is not built on unseen. He is with heaven; he sees hell closely; Because he himself is "the one that gives heaven and Hell". the Imam was at the stages that he believed in what he saw. Therefore, he was not afraid of death. Often, we speak wisely, and work delusionally. Now, if a dead person is placed in a dark room and someone is told: "Sleep with him at night", he makes a good intellectual argument, in that context. he may write an article that the dead is dead and he cannot do nothing. The one who makes the argument, sees that? Yes! but if you say: now sleep at the room of the body, he will be afraid.

This delusional acting and wise speaking is common among many of us. But the Imam acted wisely, and the intellect that given to him by the Holy essence, Allah. By the power of the divine intellect he acted, not like us who speak with reason, but act and follow our illusions. Because he was apart from Taqiyyah Al-muwt(fear of death). he had no fear. When he is not afraid, he has "Sharh Sadr"(open heart); Because a person who is afraid becomes sad. Sadness is called in Arabic "Gham" which is with the same rood of "Ghamam" which means dark cloud. It is like a dark cloud that covers the heart and does not allow the sun of thoughts to illuminate the space of the mind. A sad person lives under the cloud of sadness; Therefore, he is not lightened by the sun of intellect, mysticism and etc. then he would not have the open heart. Because it does not shine on him, therefore he is trembling in his thoughts.

The Imam was not like that, he was transparent, he did this with the open heart. The bless existences of Musa (pbuh) and Harun (pbuh) who asked for the open heart: «رب اشرح لی صدری و یسرّ لی امری» was to act bravely. Because the Imam also had open heart, he believed that this is the right path, and he believed that he is doing this for the pleasure of Allah, and he believed that there is no failure in the work that Allah undertakes, therefore, he was not afraid of death, he was not afraid of the things that leads to death, nor he was not afraid of the thing after death.

There are things that causes of death; If such an accident occurs, it will lead to death. Some things are accessories and after death accidents. if a person dies, some accident will happen afterward. A person who is not afraid of death is not afraid of the causes before death, nor of the consequences after death. These are his significant characteristic. In battel, the one would succeed that has the upper hand in scientific discussions, otherwise, just fighting in practice without being skilled in knowledge will succeed. His hand was full in narrated sciences. He was knowledgeable in science. He was undoubtedly a Mujtahid. He was a famous and Usoli jurist, and he had everything others had, and he gave fatwas with his expertise in these knowledges.

Being a fighter came from not afraid of death. This cannot be achieved through lessons and discussion. This is the art that is not in books and inscriptions. most of us, even though we have read in the literary rhythm of poetry, but we are not poets. Poetry is art. Also, calligraphers more or less taught us that if you want to write this letter, for example, the way is to hold a pen and write is that; But most of us are not calligraphers. It is art. Many professors told us the verses of Jihad, the narrative of Jihad, the virtue of Jihad, and we know the verse «فضّل الله المجاهدین علی القاعدین», but most of us did not stand up and fight. The art for being a hero is something else. There were a lot of mystics who taught mystical books, but they were not away from the fear of death; They were experts in theoretical mysticism, they may have written many books, but not everyone has the art "it is the real genius to see the fire itself/ not to say the smoke is the sign of fire"

Source: speech of Grand Ayatollah Javadi Amoli at the opening of the conference "Ethical and Mystical Thoughts of Imam Khomeini (PBUH)" 1382

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